by Janet Harris
The Pebble
By Janet Harris Copyright 29/09/99
My wife Amanda and I lounged in deckchairs on the shingle bar of the beach, watching the activity of the crowds on the sand below. We were sun bathing to even-up our tans because the weather had been very patchy on our holiday and the sun had only seemed to shine when we were inland until today. I had on a cool long-sleeved shirt with the front unbuttoned because I had burnt my arms on the cliff-top walk yesterday, but apart from that were just in our swimsuits.
Reaching down at my side, I kept picking up pebbles and examining them. There were a great variety of colours and patterns and quite a few fossils. Where we sat today there seemed to be a lot of pebbles with holes in. A few had a hole right through and I was looking for a hole big enough to poke my finger through.
I had covered the surface of the whole area, which I could reach, so I started to dig down, but I found that only two pebbles deep they were wet and slimy. Nonetheless, I started to feel over these wet stones for holes. Suddenly I came across one that was bone dry down there; indeed it seemed warmer than the sun- baked stones on the top. At first I assumed that I had caused this by turning it under in my search, but then I felt the largest hole yet in its side, so I pulled it to the surface and picked it up.
The hole did go right through and should take my largest finger, if not a thumb. There was something very odd about its warmth, though, and it was with trepidation that I poked my right forefinger into the hole. To my surprise, my finger seemed to hit a bottom to the hole. I turned the pebble around and looked into the other side of the hole. There was the tip of my finger, looking as if it should indeed come through. It was not pushed against a glass barrier, which is how it felt. I poked my other forefinger in to touch it.
The contact of fingertips felt, to my fingers, quite normal, there was no glass there, but a strange wave of feeling, not at all unpleasant, spread rapidly over my whole body. I was perplexed. I withdrew one finger and touched them again. The wave occurred again, this time with much less intensity, and I began to ascribe it to imagination.
"Tom" called Amanda, "what are you doing?"
I turned to my right, towards her, and held out the stone. "Look. Can you fit your finger through there?" She poked her finger into the stone but, just like mine, it wouldn't go through. I put my finger in from my side to see if I would feel direct contact with her finger, too.
As our fingertips touched, the strangest thing happened. There was no blinding flash, no electric shock, nor anything more than a little tingle, but now I was looking to my left, with my arm stretched out to a man who looked oddly familiar, but there had been no deckchair to my left before. Realization dawned on me that this man was the one I was used to seeing in the mirror, but the other way around. He looked down at himself in horror, putting one hand on his chest and the other between his legs.
I looked down at myself too, but I did not need to feel myself to confirm what I saw. I had already felt the bikini top on my chest and its straps over my shoulders, so I knew that I had become Amanda just as she had become Tom. I turned my head round to the right, feeling the weight of long hair on my scalp, in the vain hope that Amanda was still over there, but the next deckchair was several yards away, occupied by a fat man.
"Tom!" came a strangled cry from my left, "What on earth, ahem", startled by his new deep voice, "has happened to us?"
"This is impossible!" I replied, startled by my new high voice, "that stone felt peculiar when I first touched it, but I don't believe in magic like this!"
The new Tom sat up and self-consciously buttoned up his shirt, being unused to exposing his chest. "This is quite exciting, isn't it?" he asked.
I gazed down at my new smooth curves. I loved Amanda's body and now I was inside it. Yes, it was me in her head, looking out from her eyes, because I could only remember being Tom before. I liked what I saw, except for my obvious castration, of course. I sat up and ran my hands through my hair, feeling my breasts move as I raised my arms. Yes, MY breasts. My hair felt lovely but would be quite a bother to look after if I had to keep it.
"We'd better touch through that pebble again to see if we can change back," I said, "I can't live your life. We'd both fail in our jobs."
The new Tom stood up and took a few unsteady steps on the shingle. "But this dream won't last forever. We might only have one chance at this." He put the stone down on his chair and put my, sorry his, rucksack and towel on top of it. "Come on, Amanda, let's go for a swim like this."
I shuddered as he called me by name. This dream? I pinched my wrist, finding Amanda's bangle there and surprised that I seemed so used to wearing it. The pinch hurt and I was still wide-awake as Amanda, so I pinched my breast through my bikini top. I knew they were real, but was still surprised how sensitive my new breasts were. For the first time I was feeling them from the inside. I looked around the crowded beach and felt both scared and excited about facing the world as a woman. I realized that he was suggesting a swim because the sea was the nearest private place to explore inside his swimsuit and I found myself blushing to think that I looked forward to doing the same.
"OK, Thomas," I said with a grin, "but remember you'll have to take your shirt off."
Now it was Tom's turn to blush. I watched him trying to look casual as he took off the shirt, but his gaze was fixed on his hairy flat chest and diminutive nipples. Suppose this was permanent! I was supposed to be attracted by the male features I was now watching. I was, a little, and it would get better, but the man I was watching used to be me so it seemed wrong to admire him and my eyes always avoided his face.
I stood up and followed Tom towards the sea, expecting to find walking rather awkward with my new centre of gravity, but it felt like I was completely used to it. I knew that the old Amanda had looked just great in her bikini, so I kept telling myself not to feel so self-conscious, crossing the crowded beach. The sea was really quite cold, but we walked bravely into the waves until the troughs were above our waists. I was surprised to find, when my bikini pants got wet, that I was not nearly so sensitive to the cold down there as I used to be, but when the peaks soaked my top, my nipples stung and ached.
Tom came up close and whispered, "It certainly goes very small when it's cold, doesn't it?" and giggled in a girly way.
I remembered what we were there for, having been distracted by the cold waves on my nipples, and thrust a hand down inside my bikini pants. My sex mound felt familiar, of course, to my hand, but the feelings from within as my fingers explored my nether lips were simply amazing.
"Well, this equipment feels lovely," I whispered, "how do you like yours?"
"Not the best place to find out, is it?" he replied. "No. It's bloody cold on these nipples, too. If we first make sure we can change back into ourselves, we could swap bodies again later in the hotel." He splashed me playfully, but I didn't want the bother of having to dry all that hair, so I waded back out onto the beach and he followed.
Walking up the beach was much worse than coming down, because I was facing all the staring men. When I was Tom, I was proud to see men admiring Amanda's body, so I told myself I should still be proud now it was me they were mentally undressing, but it was still hard to avoid their eyes. The new Tom, my husband, I suppose, must have noticed my discomfort.
"Now you see what it's like", he said, "to have everyone staring at you." I picked up the stone from his deckchair, poked my finger in and held it out to him. "No, hang on," he complained, "this might only work once for us. Let's go straight back to the hotel first."
"If you think I'm getting into your clothes too, you've got another think coming!" I exclaimed, "I'm not standing here arguing, anyway." I nearly used his towel, but thought better of it, passed it to him and rubbed myself down with hers, well mine, and sat back down in her deckchair.
"OK" he said, "let's find out, shall we?" and he walked around to my side.
I held out the stone with my finger in it and he poked his in. There was Amanda sitting below me and I was Tom again. The change was so quick and gentle that I could take it standing up without even staggering.
"Now we can get dressed and go back to the hotel", I said in my old voice.
"That was absolutely amazing!" cried Amanda. "I can't wait to do it again. Let's see if it'll work now for a second time."
She was holding the stone out to me, but I backed away, knowing that her playful nature could get me into trouble. I started to get dressed and reluctantly she followed suit, pulling her cotton dress over her head and doing up her sandals.
As we walked off the beach, I could see that her bikini top had not had time to dry in the weak sun and her dress was clinging to it, showing it through. My swimsuit was also damp in my jeans, but it didn't show like that. I felt an odd twinge of embarrassed excitement to remember that I had been inside that bikini, filling it completely, when it got wet. I found I missed having those sweet- feeling breasts on my chest already but the thought made my restored cock swell in my jeans and I tried to convince myself that I had come off better in the reverse exchange.
Amanda noticed my gaze fixed on her bosom and gave me a hard stare. As we reached the pavement of the busy street leading to the hotel, she took my hand in what seemed like a friendly gesture, but suddenly she held my finger and thrust it into the stone, which she was carrying in the other hand. Now I was holding the stone in one hand and a finger in the other. My arms were now bare because I was wearing the sleeveless dress over a damp bikini-top.
"Hey" I squealed in a high voice, "not here! It's too public!"
"Well you should keep your lecherous thoughts to yourself, or else let me enjoy them!"
I tried to push his finger back into the stone, but he was stronger than me now and managed to pry the stone away from me and put it in his jeans pocket. I had never worn a dress before, at least not in public, unless you count University Rag Day. The hem was flapping around my thighs in the wind and I felt very exposed and vulnerable. I looked around, expecting people to be amazed at my transformation, but of course they could see no change when our souls swapped bodies and our little squabble over the stone had seemed perfectly normal.
"Please let's change back," I begged him, "until we're in private."
"No, I think you need to learn what its like." He opened the door into the hotel for me with mocking gallantry and took the lead in asking Reception for our key.
We shared the lift with a middle-aged couple and the man made no secret of looking me up and down. I found myself watching his groin and was rather surprised to be flattered by a growing bulge there. I wondered how much of Tom I had left in me, because my thoughts were all so female.
When we got into our room, he said, "You get in the shower first, my dear. It'll be great to try sex like this, won't it?" I was staggered by his boldness. Amanda had, I suppose, always been a bit more adventurous than me. As a man, he seemed positively dangerous.
"Hang on!" I cried, "Give me a chance to get used to this first. As I said, it has to be temporary."
"I don't see why we can't enjoy it as long as we like," he said, "you seem to like the attention you get as a girl and I certainly like getting the respect men get." I blushed, realizing that he had been watching my reactions to men admiring me.
I locked myself in the bathroom and got undressed. The little dress had an elasticized waist, which I had to stretch over my bosom to get it off. Then I pulled down the little pants and gazed for the first time at my brown pubic bush. Of course I had seen it before, but now it was mine.
I squeezed my breasts one by one out of the bikini top and took my arms out of the straps. There was only a small mirror over the basin in which I could see Amanda's familiar face, but it was odd being able to make it smile from inside.
I looked down at my smooth, soft body and cupped my breasts in my slender hands. As I said, I loved Amanda's body and it was lovely to be inside it, moving it around as I liked. I watched and felt my big nipples growing as I enjoyed thinking about it. It was quite different from how they had felt when they were cold. It was almost like having two penises on my chest. I told myself there would be plenty of time for that and turned on the shower.
My long dark brown hair felt a bit greasy so I decided to shampoo it. It was as hard work as I had expected and I began to think about cutting it again, if we got stuck like this in each other's bodies or even on a future body-swap. Amanda had resisted my suggestions that she wear it shorter, I suppose because it gave her some sort of security and she had always worn it long as a little girl. If I went out and got a neat pageboy cut on a future body-swap, there was nothing she could do but live with it afterwards, I thought.
On the other hand, knowing Amanda, or rather the new Tom, as I did, he would be bound to seek revenge. He had no beard or moustache to cut off but he could get a tattoo. That would hurt him much more than a haircut would hurt me, I thought with a giggle.
There was plenty of spare lather from my hair to wash the rest of my body and I really enjoyed working it over my breasts and into my pussy. This time I found my clitoris and started working it up to a frenzy. As waves of pleasure washed over me, I became sure that I had the better part of this bargain. I was glad that he was so keen to stay male - this could be fantastic!
He knocked on the door and called "Come on, Amanda, when is it my turn?"
I must have blushed deep red because I wondered if he meant his turn for a shower or to get inside my pussy. Had he heard me moaning? I got out and quickly rubbed my body and hair with towels, wrapping one around my hair like a turban and one around my body under my arms because I had forgotten to bring a robe into the bathroom.
I unlocked the door to find him waiting in my, no his, dressing gown, trying to conceal a ball of tissues in his hand. He just hurried past me to flush the ball down the toilet and I could easily guess what was in it. He too had wasted no time in experimenting with his body and I found myself hoping that he liked it.
When he was safely in the shower, I took off the towel and put on my long white toweling robe, overlapping the front the wrong, man's way at first, then remembering to change it around. I got out the hair dryer, sat on the bed and started drying that mass of hair now attached to my scalp.
The idea of staying in this body was becoming increasingly attractive, but I returned to the problem of our jobs. Amanda taught biology to 12-15 year-olds. I hadn't even taken biology in senior school and I'd have to learn all those pupils' names. How could I face the staff-room when I only knew some of them slightly as Amanda's husband? Also, the new Tom could never learn all the factors I used from experience to make important decisions in my job as QC manager in a toy factory. He could probably get away with it socially more easily than I could, but no, we could only swap bodies for short periods. That was disappointing.
When Tom came out of the bathroom he sat down next to me and put his arm round my shoulders. "Don't get me wrong," he said, as soon as I switched off the hair dryer, "but I now find the idea of screwing the girl that was me a bit repulsive. Do you feel the same?"
"Oh yes" I said with some relief "let's take our time. After all, we've relieved ourselves separately now, eh?" I giggled and he looked embarrassed that I had spotted his secret package.
"You were right about our jobs, too" he said, "we can only do this occasionally. Let's hope it keeps working."
"Well, I'm in no hurry to change back now," I said, "I really like being female. Do you like being male?"
He gulped, being surprised by my forthright approach and I think he had been looking forward to getting his old body back sooner. "Oh yes, you take over having all the periods and babies, sure!"
"I thought you said we'd do this only occasionally?" I asked in horror, suddenly remembering the womb at the top of that hot vagina of mine and all it entailed.
"Yes, OK," he chuckled "Shall I take you out to dinner as Amanda, though, before we change back?"
"Yes, thank you, darling!" I said and kissed him quickly on the lips.
He took delight in getting me dressed. I was not nearly so interested in what he wore. He chose a smart blouse and skirt for me, saying he regretted not having packed a certain dress he would have liked me to wear. It was weird getting into the underwear and tights, though I loved the way they felt on me. He got out flat shoes for me to wear because he thought I wouldn't manage heels, but I assured him that I seemed to be already used to everything and I was right. I strutted up and down in the skirt and heels as if I'd always worn them. I needed a lot of help with the make-up, though. It was weird fitting earrings through the holes in my lobes, too. He wanted me to wear my hair loose, as Amanda almost always did, but I insisted on tying it back and fortunately the jeweled clip was packed.
I helped him do up his tie and we set off to find a nice restaurant. I smiled as I watched his nervousness in taking the lead. He had to ask the headwaiter if he had a secluded table for two, order the wine and taste it.
I felt a bit self-conscious in my blouse and skirt, but it was much better than a bikini or a wet cotton dress. I realized after we had sat down that one of the new feelings in my body was a full bladder.
"I'm going to have to go and powder my nose" I said with a twinkle and tottered off on my heels to find the Ladies'. There I had more new experiences. I had to wait in line for a stall and listen to some astoundingly candid girl-talk about men, though luckily no one spoke to me. Then I had to sit to pee, of course, after lifting up my skirt and pulling down my tights and knickers.
I had time to think, as I viewed other men in the restaurant with female eyes, that I was in no way attracted to my dinner-date, as I ought to be. Sure I had loved him as my wife and I wanted him to enjoy taking me out to dinner as his wife, but that would be impossible if we were both looking at our old selves across the table. The thought made me worry about the future of our marriage if we could not, or chose not to, change back.
As soon as I sat back down, I broached the subject. "Look, Tom, I'm sorry to put a dampener on this evening, but I really don't think any romance is going to work out because we can't get turned on by our old selves."
"No, I see what you mean," he said, in her old understanding way, "but let's enjoy what we can of it, eh?" He put a hand on my nylon-clad knee under the table, knowing what an effect it would have, plucking the hem of my skirt with his fingers and said quietly, "We'll change back as soon as we get back in our room. Do you know what the big bonus from all this is? We are learning exactly what each other wants."
I was really glad of that positive attitude. I had been having all sorts of negative thoughts such as, if we got stuck like this, we would have to turn to others for sex and I did not want to be unfaithful to Tom, even less the old Amanda. I was worried what would happen when the novelty wore off and the biggest novelty I craved was full sex as a woman.
Reluctantly, I pushed his hand away and concentrated on my soup, which tasted slightly of lipstick. For the rest of the meal we just seemed to make small talk, avoiding the subject of the magic pebble. As we waited to pay the bill, we found that neither of us wanted to go clubbing or anything else. In fact we had become slightly bored with the situation and Tom even said he wished we had brought the pebble with us. When it came to signing a credit-card slip, he shot me a guilty glance. I guessed that it must have felt like forgery.
We went straight back to the hotel for an early night. Almost as soon as we were in our room, Tom dug out the stone from its hiding-place and we thrust our fingers into it. Changing gender again was almost as weird as removing clothes we had not put on, but we leapt into bed together, being really glad to cuddle our normal spouses
Later, after watching a little TV, we had one of our best sessions of sex ever, certainly for being in a strange bed. Amanda was right; we knew better exactly what to do to each other.
I woke before her in the morning and lay there, wondering again how I could have such female orgasms as Amanda had enjoyed last night. It crossed my mind that I could put her finger in the stone while she was asleep and sneak off for another prolonged shower or even wake the new Tom with a blowjob, a thought that shocked me. But then I realized that I would become the sleeping woman and she the awakened man. No, she was right, we must take things very slowly.
When she did wake up, she agreed immediately with my resolve to put the pebble away and not touch it until next weekend. This was Sunday, the last day of our holiday and we spent it happily in our own bodies, walking more of the beautiful cliff path.
During the following week back at work I could not keep the pebble out of my mind and Amanda said she felt the same. I kept seeing the ladies at work in a different light and imagining swapping bodies with them.
We thought we were holding out well against its attractions on Wednesday evening, until Amanda suddenly had a strange idea. She had her cat Mr. Tibbs on her lap purring loudly when she announced "I'd like to try the pebble swap with Tibbsy here. I know we resolved to wait until Friday, but this is different, more of a zoological experiment. Could you get it out, please?" I was startled by this and opened my mouth to discourage her, but curiosity "caught the cat" so to speak and I complied.
When I came back with it she said, "Tom, would you mind swapping with me first? For two reasons: one, I want to see if Tibbs can tell the difference in me when we're swapped and two, I don't want him to have to cope with a gender change as well as species."
"OK," I said, holding out the pebble with my finger already in it, "here goes!".
Her finger pointed into the stone and, with the now familiar seamless transition, it was my finger pointing, I could feel the cat on my lap, a bra on my chest and long hair on my head. I stroked the cat and he responded well. His purring continued unbroken. Being a ginger-Siamese cross, he was a very one- person cat, Amanda's, so it was clear he had no idea that it was me inside her.
"Well that answers one question," Said the new Tom, "now let's see if he'll let me handle him." He picked Tibbs up off my lap and experienced the cold hostility usually reserved for me. I was wearing jeans for the first time as a female. He must have noticed me gazing at my empty groin, where the zip curved smoothly under, because he put his hand between his legs and grinned, "Don't worry, I'm taking good care of them."
I cupped my breasts in my hands through my jumper and replied "And I'm taking good care of these too!"
He grabbed one of Tibbs' paws and poked it towards the stone, but the cat began to growl and struggle, so he put him down on the floor.
"Hey just a minute," I cautioned, "Suppose he goes berserk in your body? You're much stronger than me now."
"OK then, tie me down to this chair first. Use the tape from the kitchen drawer. You'd better fix my hand open like this so you can force the finger into the stone, if necessary." He spread his legs so that his shins were adjacent to the front legs of the chair and stretched his arms down alongside the back legs. I crouched down with the tape, having to flick my hair out of the way, and wound the tape round and round each chair-leg and limb in turn.
As I crouched at the feet of "my husband", I could not help feeling a little subservient and getting guiltily turned-on by it. On the other hand, I was tying him up, so perhaps the idea of being a dominatrix was arousing me, too? Anyway, I hid my feelings and got on with the job.
Then I fetched Tibbs, who was very compliant with me. I pushed one of his paws into the stone and then brought it up under Tom's pointing finger.
"It's not reaching me," he said, "You'll have to split his paw and get one of his fingers in." The cat was remarkably patient with me as I maneuvered his paw against the hole. "That's be...nnnngg...oowweee!" yelled Tom, or rather Tibbs in his body, which started to struggle violently at its bonds.
I was terrified as the chair rocked about. His head nodded and shook as he looked around the room with a blank expression, being unaware that he could have turned his eyes instead. His gaze fixed on the cat and he grimaced with something like a growl. Meanwhile the cat came and rubbed up against me, purring loudly.
"Look, if either of you can understand me, nod your head." I said, but the man in the chair just kept staring blankly at the cat and working out how to snarl, while the cat stared up at me wide-eyed, with no sign of a nod. I found my old body quite disturbing, since it was acting like a seriously mentally handicapped person.
Suddenly the cat was playing with the pebble where I had left it on the floor, bowling it up to the chair-leg where the extended finger waited and trying to poke its own paw in. I got the message of course and took hold of the pebble and the finger. Surprisingly, the struggling man calmed down as soon as I touched him, so I stroked his arm too. Tibbs was obviously jealous of what he thought was a strange cat getting my, Amanda's, attention.
I got the paw and finger together in the stone quite easily this time as they were both cooperating. The cat suddenly bounded away across the room and Tom said "Poor Tibbs! He's so confused. Please untie me quickly so I can go and comfort him."
As I unwrapped all the tape, I asked, "Well, what was it like, then?"
"Really weird, but it was lovely having all that fur. I had no language at all though. I couldn't even think in words. What were you saying to me?"
"I asked either of you to nod if you could understand me."
"Oh, I see. I couldn't make head nor tail of it, so to speak, with my head or my tail! I wish you'd tried some words that Tibbs knows. Did he try to use this voice?"
"Not sensibly. He made a pretty good job of growling at you, though."
"Oh yes, I was able to work out his jealousy of me. Come on, let's swap us back so that I can comfort him." He was free now so he picked up the pebble and we poked in our fingers.
Amanda went straight over to Tibbs, who had run around the room, looking for the strange cat, then sat down puzzled, to wash himself. I watched Amanda pick him up and he was noticeably less friendly to her, the rivalry still rankled.
"You poor thing", she crooned, "you thought I'd replaced you, didn't you? I learned an awful lot from that, Tom. He can see colours, despite what they say, but you have to look straight at everything. The smelling ability is fantastic, though. I've got to tell you something embarrassing now. When I, as Tibbs, rubbed against you, as Amanda, I got a hard-on! My female pheromones must be near enough to a cat's to work on him. I mean I didn't know he was actually in love with me until now. Do you mind, Tom?"
"Not as long as you don't make cross-species experiments a habit," I joked.
"No fear!" she replied, "They can't be valid experiments anyway. Zoology doesn't allow magic pebbles as laboratory equipment. A shame really, because it was an amazing experience. I could feel through every hair on my body and smell every nuance of human emotion in your sweat. I didn't mind having no words. I seemed to be able to think very quickly, too. Did you notice Tibbs checked the window was shut after we changed back, in case the rival cat had gone that way?"
"Yes, I thought that was clever of him too, but it's interesting that he believes his eyes that there was another cat in here with no evidence from his nose."
"Ah well, evidence is what it's all about. Whoever would believe what we have just done and seen? Yet we both saw your body going berserk in that chair, you through my eyes and me through Tibbs's, but could we ever convince someone of that, who hadn't touched the pebble?"
I had a secret I couldn't discuss with Amanda just yet. I had already booked her in with a hairdresser, one in the next town that I was sure she hadn't used before, for 11am Saturday. I intended to be in her body then and her new hairstyle might be the sort of evidence she meant.
Friday came around eventually and we were both excited with the plan to spend the whole weekend as each other. Amanda came home from work after me, having an after-school club to run, so I was cooking our meal. She wanted to swap bodies as soon as she came in, but I objected that I was in the middle of cooking. She pointed out that I could easily continue in her body, so I complied and found myself in her long woolen skirt and loose silk blouse.
As I had to keep flicking or swinging all that hair out of my way, I couldn't stop thinking about my secret plan for tomorrow. The new Tom fixed our drinks while I completed my cooking. As he passed behind me in the kitchen, he pinched my bum.
"Oi! What happened to all those feminist ideals?", I asked, having just been transformed from a cooking "new man" to a dutiful wife about to serve food to her husband.
The meal was much more relaxed than the last body-swapped one in the restaurant. I found that I quite liked being Tom's wife. I found out how secure it felt if he was attentive and caring and he was obviously trying to apply his memories of being Amanda in that way. My repulsion at the idea of fancying my own old body was receding rapidly.
While he did the washing-up afterwards, I settled in front of the TV and began to discover a female perspective to the programs. When my husband came and sat beside me, I was already enjoying a warm arousal from watching men on the screen and thinking of how nice this body I now occupied felt.
I was grateful to him for enjoying his maleness too. I found it a bit puzzling; actually, that he preferred the male role. Amanda had never been a tomboy. I hoped the novelty would not wear off for him. I was also puzzled by him being less averse to fancying his old body. Perhaps that was because women have more narcissism than men. He had been very sympathetic to my reservations about body- swapped sex, so now that I wanted it, I had to make the advances.
I started by snuggling up to him and putting an arm round his shoulders as we watched TV together. He smiled, but was still very cautious in his response. He could not believe that I was now so ready to touch him, after having avoided contact during all previous body-swaps.
The plan was to take it easy, going out separately tomorrow, together on Sunday and maybe being ready for sex on Sunday night. Perhaps he was right to keep to the plan, but I couldn't help feeling a little frustrated.
I had a leisurely bath before going to bed in which I masturbated again. The female orgasms were very good, but I wanted to try proper sex and was determined to get it Saturday rather than Sunday.
Waking up as Amanda in the morning was another new experience. I had been more of a morning person and this seemed to stay with Tom's body. He woke me with breakfast in bed, as I always had, and it was nice to be looked after.
I could see he had already shaved. "You missed a bit under your ear," I teased him, "you have to pull the lobe up to get there." That was a chore of which I was glad to be relieved, I thought, stroking my smooth, soft, chin, but when I got up I had to wash my long hair thoroughly, to save time at the hairdressers.
I decided to wear a mini-skirt but I avoided the white one, which had been my favourite on Amanda because I didn't want to be too eye-catching. I told him I would go clothes shopping in another town, to avoid any chance meetings with friends I ought to know. He would do the weekly food shopping as she usually did.
I had to learn the controls of Amanda's car before I could drive to the hairdressers that I had booked in secret, by that time it was 11:05 so I was shown straight to a chair. As soon as I had explained what I wanted and was wrapped in a gown, the scissors were scrunching into the masses of hair just below my left ear.
A pit formed in my stomach at the enormity of my deception. This was irreversible. I could see great long locks of that familiar hair falling to the floor out of the corner of my eye and my head felt suddenly lighter as the scissors worked around to my right ear. I tipped my head to one side and watched the mirror spellbound as the new ends swung out from my cheek, high above my shoulders. I closed my eyes as all the front hair was combed forward over my face, reaching my mouth but not my chin. The scissors scrunched across just above my eyebrows and when I opened my eyes, there in the mirror was a completely new Amanda with her fringe and bob.
As it was finished off with much brushing, combing and snipping, I gazed in amazement at my reflection. Would he be angry? Probably not!
On Monday, Amanda would have to face her colleagues and pupils with her new hairstyle and I was sure they would like it too. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now.
I decided that more make-up would suit my new look so I looked for a beauty salon, which would do a professional job. I could not find one in this strange town so I made for the cosmetics shelves of a supermarket and restocked my handbag with some brighter colours. Then I found a burger-bar to get my lunch, with a quiet Ladies' toilet and applied my new mascara, eye shadow and lip-gloss there.
I now had less time for the planned clothes shopping but I was able to find a couple of items I wanted. Tom had suggested that I buy a few things, which I had wanted Amanda to wear before. I had been pleased at his generosity and suspected that he had found male tastes, which had surprised him. Now I was embarrassed to buy anything too alluring, but chose a smart blouse of a style I had admired, but Amanda had never worn before and had the labels cut off to wear it home. I also bought a sexy basque with suspenders and some stockings. The skirt I was wearing was too short for them, but I decided to change and wear it tonight for my seduction attempt.
When I arrived back home, I sat in the car for a few minutes touching up my brush-on lip-gloss before I plucked up the courage to show myself to Tom.
He was just dumb struck. "It's really very smart" were the first words he could stammer. "You're certainly different enough for me to fancy now."
"Oh, I'm so glad" I said honestly and kissed him on the cheek. He ran his hand round the new edge of my hair in amazement and kissed me back on the lips. "I can't wait till tomorrow night", I whispered in his ear, "I want you now."
"Well, let's have dinner first," he replied, "I'll cook, as I've planned it."
So I went off and changed into the basque and stockings, feeling constantly warm between my legs and knowing that it was penetration, which I craved. I put on an evening dress of Amanda's, which was not my favourite but the one she liked best. It was soft and comfortable, coming down to my knees to cover my stocking- tops but leaving my cleavage clearly visible from its scoop neck. I had to get used to seeing that out of the corner of my eye. If I bowed my head to look at it, the new ends of my hair swung forward by my cheeks and I knew I must be looking pretty good.
As I sought out a suitable necklace, I came across some nail varnish. Amanda very rarely painted her nails and had not for over a year now, but I thought it would suit my new look. It looked so good when I had finished that I took my stockings off again and did my toes too. This took so long that I was surprised that Tom did not call me.
When I hurried down to find him, realizing only afterwards that I seemed so used to the heels I had put on that I had not given them a thought on the stairs, he was putting the finishing touches to a romantic table-for-two.
"Oh, I thought you were going to wear something new that you'd bought today" he said.
"Ah but I am!" I replied, and I found my eyes dropping to his crotch to watch the growing bulge there as the penny dropped.
Over the meal, he told me how his shopping trip had gone. "I saw six people I knew", he said, "but only three of them knew me as your husband. They sent their best wishes to you, because I told them you were unwell, which was a bit funny because they meant it for me. I didn't know Diana Goodland fancied me. Did you?"
"She enjoys talking to me, but I wouldn't have said she fancied me, no. Oh my god, you didn't lead her on, did you?"
"Well, I couldn't resist a bit of a flirt. It was so funny because I know her so well and she thought I would never tell my wife! We didn't kiss or anything, didn't even arrange to meet again. Don't worry. It was just really interesting to flirt with her as a male. Oh and Joan Martin's husband wants to borrow your (I mean my) jigsaw. He's coming round for it later. You don't know him very well, do you?"
"Round here? With us swapped over? Oh no!" I gasped.
"It'll be alright. I'm the one he'll talk to. You can be very unwell upstairs, if you like, but you look lovely. I never dressed up like that to stay in, did I?"
I offered to do the washing up, but Tom insisted it would damage my nails so I just helped him tidy up. I hoped Amanda would not take to dressing up to stay in, as he had put it, in future, if it meant her getting out of all the chores.
When we sat down for coffee, I was getting more and more relaxed in my new role. When the doorbell went, I got up to answer it, to Tom's surprise. I recognized Mr. Martin, who introduced himself as Joe and did not comment on my new haircut, which I took to mean that he had not known Amanda any more than he knew Tom, who took him to his den to get the jigsaw. When they had not returned in five minutes, I put the kettle on for some more coffee, thinking that if Tom could play at male bonding, I could play at flirting when they did reappear.
"Do you take sugar, Joe?" I asked when they finally surfaced. He eyed the three cups and fresh pot I had put out and hesitated.
"Well, I ought to be getting back, really." I gestured him towards the sofa and, not too reluctantly, he sat down. The coffee pot was in front of the other half of the sofa so, of course, I sat down next to him. Tom was visibly shaken and I was delighted that my revenge was working on him.
As I poured out the cups in my role as hostess, I could see Joe looking at the way the skirt of my navy velour dress lay across my nylon-clad thighs. My bangles jangled together as I poured out the cups and the new ends at the sides of my hair often swung into view. I had never felt so self-conscious as a man and I was surprised that I was enjoying it now because a man was admiring me.
I made bright conversation with Joe and when I passed him his cup I made sure that our hands touched. Tom was almost squirming with embarrassment and I knew he was worried about dealing with Joe when he was Amanda again. He fidgeted and got up twice, for different reasons, or rather excuses, so that Joe felt he had to go as soon as he finished his coffee.
As soon as he had shut the front door after Joe, Tom said "I suppose that was to get me back for Diana, eh?"
"Yes," I replied, "and for spending so long in MY den. What did you find to talk about in there?"
"Well I was surprised how much I actually knew about your tools and stuff. I wonder if your memories are really here in this brain too?"
"Yes, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm sort of getting deeper into you the longer I stay in your body." I mused, "I can still only remember being male before yesterday, apart from last weekend of course, but it feels more and more normal to be female and perhaps soon the memories of growing up as a girl will sort of come back to me."
"If they do, you could go and teach at the high school and I could go and test toys, eh?"
I was shocked that he was still keen on a permanent swap. There was much about being female that I found very pleasant, to my surprise when I was back to normal, but I didn't like it enough to want to stay in Amanda's body for the rest of my life. Tom must be thinking of those periods and babies, I thought, and they seemed a serious problem to me too.
On the other hand, I had looked forward with pleasure to suckling babies when I had played with my big nipples in the bath last night. If necessary, I wouldn't really mind staying female for life, but I did want to get back to my old life and job after the weekend. I must put him off staying male, I thought.
"I think you should wet-shave before we go to bed, darling," I said, "You can work out how to do it, can't you? I'll clear up the coffee things and everything down here."
It didn't take me very long to put the house to bed, so I switched on the TV and settled down in the lounge, thinking it right that he should come looking for me. Tibbs sauntered over and jumped up on my lap. I found it odd to be accepted by him as Amanda and I couldn't forget Wednesday's discovery that my pheromones gave him a hard-on. Hence I had been avoiding contact with him, but now there was no one else to keep me company so I let him settle on me. He soon started purring loudly and began flexing his claws against my legs. This threatened to ladder my stockings, so I lifted him up, moved towards the centre of the couch and put him down beside me, with plenty of room the other side for Tom, crossing my legs to make my lap inhospitable.
Before very long, Tom appeared, with a very smooth chin, a bit red in places but no plasters or even bits of tissue, so I congratulated him on his success. He sat beside me with his arm round my shoulders.
I turned towards him and let him kiss me. This one was nice and slow and passionate. I was amazed how right it seemed to be kissing a man. I could feel my nipples and my fanny responding to my feelings, but the pleasure was spread much more over my whole body than I had been used to as a man. Tom had his hand on my knee and he slid it up my skirt as we kissed. When he found a suspender clip and the top of my stocking he seemed almost shocked.
"Oh yes. I'd forgotten you said you were wearing your purchases!" he exclaimed.
I put my hand inside his thigh, too, and gently touched his cock as it strained to burst out of his jeans. As we kissed again, he slid his hand onto my fanny and we exchanged little squeezes. This was too much for Tibbs, as always, so he sauntered off to the kitchen with the utmost disdain. There was more room on the sofa now but, tempting as it was to strip off and do it right there, we pulled ourselves apart and I took his hand to lead him upstairs.
On reaching the bedroom, I turned my back and he unzipped my dress. As dramatically as possible, I pulled it off over my head, slung it into a corner and leapt onto the bed, affecting a sex-kitten pose in my pink basque and stockings. One of my nipples escaped from the top of the basque in my leap and, instead of pushing it back in, I popped out the other one to match, enjoying the look on my husband's face.
As he struggled out of his shirt and jeans, I slipped off my panties, which I had remembered, on the second attempt after painting my toenails, to wear outside my suspenders. I was not surprised that they had stuck to my pubic hair. I had been feeling randy, or should I say horny, as a woman, all day long, since having my haircut. I knew my vagina would be very moist before I touched it and sure enough, my fingers slipped easily inside.
I gasped with both pleasure and anguish because Tom had not fully undressed yet and I was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as female premature ejaculation. I could not believe how desperately and urgently I wanted to be filled up by his enormous cock. I had thought that I would need lengthy fore play before I felt as ready as this. As soon as he climbed onto the bed, I grabbed his cock and tried to pull it towards my throbbing fanny, but he kept his legs away from mine at an angle as he lay down, bringing his mouth down on one of my eager nipples. I almost screamed as he sucked it into the roof of his mouth. I had not imagined that such pleasure could exist up there on my chest.
I was working his cock with my right hand, gently to keep his orgasm off until I could get him inside me, and I ran my left hand through his short hair, kissing the top of his head.
He ran one hand round my neck, where I think he could still not believe that all my hair ended so suddenly, and the other down my belly. When he combed my sticky pubic bush with his fingers, finding my clitoris and wiggling it with his middle finger, I could hear myself moaning as if in the distance.
I spread my legs wide, it just seemed so instinctively right to do so, and guided his cock at long last, it seemed, into my eager vagina. I remember thinking, how on earth did the Victorians single out men as having insatiable and uncontrollable desire, justifying their brothels, when, as a woman, I could be so overwhelmed with desire that I was totally out of control?
I could not help myself, even if I had wanted to, arching my back and thrusting my pelvis against his. Knowing exactly what I needed, he squeezed his hand down between us and wiggled my clit again. Much as I wanted him to cum first, I could not hold off my first tremendous orgasm, very soon after he first entered me. My mind was soaring in ecstasy as he returned to sucking my tits and a second wave greater than the first seemed to totally engulf my being.
This was so much better than masturbating and my previous female experience now seemed rather lame. The ecstasy was just rising for a third time when I felt him pulsing and squirting inside me. That third peak of mine was therefore reduced in comparison, but I felt such achievement at his orgasm that it was truly satisfying. At last my aching desire was almost quenched.
We made love several times that night and the rest of it is a bit of a blur, now. I do remember him saying, quite suddenly, "You did take your pill, this morning, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course, I know where you keep them. Hey, hang on a minute, what's the worry? If I did conceive while we were swapped, it would be interesting to be both mother and father to it."
He seemed unconvinced, still worried, and mumbled something about the child's security. We intended to start a family quite soon in any case.
He woke me for breakfast in bed again on Sunday. It was no surprise to wake up as Amanda this time. The first thing I felt was a sore vagina. In the shower, I found that soaping it out helped a lot. As expected, my new hairstyle was much easier to wash and dry, but the brush hurt my forehead as I straightened my fringe.
We dressed in jeans and boots for a hill-walk, as we had planned and, since it was a bit chilly for late summer, I wore a blue crew-necked jumper over a white polo shirt, with its collar turned out. I had always thought this looked smart and rather cute on Amanda. I was pleased with the effect, especially as my hair now stopped short of the collar. When I sat at the mirror to apply my lip-gloss, however, Tom was disapproving.
"Come on, Amanda, we're only going for a hike." he chided me.
Of course I had to ride in Tom's car as a passenger. As we approached the car, I thought that this ought to hurt my pride, but I could find no such emotion. It all seemed so right to be driven out by my husband. On this third day as a woman, I was fitting into the role so easily it frightened me.
I liked the way the wind blew my hair as we climbed our hill. After a long silence, Tom suddenly turned to me and said "Thirty-seven degrees!"
"What!?" I exclaimed, being unable to make any sense of it, "this hill's only ten degrees at the most."
"No, the minimum leg-movement on the toy ponies. My job, the details are coming to me out of my memory".
Suddenly I began to realize what he was doing. He really wanted to go to work as Tom and send me out to teach as Amanda. Why was he so keen to stay a man? I was certain I didn't want to stay a woman for more than the odd weekend. I too had been finding memories of Amanda's coming to me, but I did not welcome them, they terrified me.
"Look, Tom," I said, "I like being female temporarily, but I really don't want to stay in this body for the rest of my life. Let's just keep it to weekends as we agreed. I want that body back tomorrow morning, at the latest."
"Well, OK, I suppose it would be really hard to get away with it at work. Can't we swap some evenings as well? What about Wednesdays?"
"As long as you don't go experimenting with the cat again, yes, maybe, but I found last weekend affected me too much for comfort during the week, so I don't want to promise anything regular."
I thought he accepted this, but when we reached the top of the ridge, pulled off our rucksacks and sat on a rock for a drink, he produced the pebble from his rucksack. I had thought that it was still where I had put it away in a drawer at home.
For the last few hundred yards to the top, I had really felt a member of the weaker sex. Tom had had to take my hand and pull me up some of the rocky bits. I loved his care and support, but missed the strength of my old male body.
I thought he was going to offer to swap back now but instead he threatened to throw the little stone down the gravel cliff on the other side. I don't remember ever feeling so frightened in my life. My only way back to my old familiar body was through that little hole. Down on the steep scene below, it would disappear amidst millions of stones. I started up to snatch it from his hand, but realized that I stood no chance against his strength and in any case would need his cooperation to do the swap.
I begged him not to be so reckless. "Please let's discuss this carefully. We could really regret anything we do with that stone. Remember, it was you who was concerned about conception last night."
"Yes, you've got a point there. I'll tell you what, let's swap now for just a few minutes and I'll see if I still feel the same while I'm female again."
He held out the stone to me with his finger in it and I eagerly pushed in mine, knowing I would then have control of it. I was now looking at Amanda in her pretty white collar and new hairstyle. The first thing she did was to shake and toss her head, then put her hand up to feel it.
"Wow, this feels very different, doesn't it?" she exclaimed, "I think I'm going to like it, though."
I was surprised to find how unfamiliar my old body seemed after only a day and a half out of it. I was alarmed that it felt more normal now to be Amanda. I put the stone away in my rucksack and we agreed to stay in our old bodies until we stopped for lunch.
As we pressed on, along the ridge, I found it hard to forget that I was wearing clothes I had neither chosen nor put on and that there was more of my anatomy in my jeans and less in my jumper than on the climb up. I made myself revel in my male strength and now helped Amanda over the difficult climbs.
When we sat down for lunch, instead of offering the stone to her with my finger in it, I passed it to her first, knowing that would give me control of it afterwards. She didn't notice this, or at least didn't comment and, as soon as I was her, I popped the pebble into my rucksack.
I had to admit it was very nice being female, but I definitely wanted a means of escape. I still didn't understand why the new Tom was so keen on staying male for life. There must be something better about it, perhaps, or was it just the greener grass over the fence, as it was for me?
In any case, he made no more wild threats to lose the stone, perhaps because I was so vehemently against a permanent swap. We ate our sandwiches in good spirits. I found I liked avocado, as Amanda always had, even though I had detested it as Tom.
The climb down to the car was easier, of course, so I needed no help from my husband. We had planned to dress up and eat out that night, but we were both too tired. We picked up a take-away on the way home and had an early night. We found that we were too tired for any sex, as well, falling asleep in each other's arms.
If there had been time before Tom had to go to work, I would have had my third breakfast in bed, but before I could eat what was on the tray, I had to get the stone out of my bedside drawer and swap back into him.
I could still taste the breakfast he had eaten, but I drove to work smiling to think that I had not eaten anything myself, nor had to shave or get dressed. Amanda would be eating her second breakfast and have to go to work in a new hairstyle she had not chosen herself.
When she came home, I was pleased to see that she was wearing the new blouse I had bought on Saturday. She said everyone was delighted with her haircut and gave me a big kiss of thanks.
On Wednesday, I found her briefcase in the house when I came home and smiled to think that she was so keen for the planned swap. There was no answer when I called her, though, so I thought she must have gone out again. I got on with cooking our meal and suddenly she appeared in the kitchen with her hair all curly, wearing a frilly cotton dress.
I was speechless at her transformation and before I could collect my thoughts, she grabbed my hand and pulled it towards the pebble in her other hand. Since I had agreed to swap today anyway, I put out my finger and found myself in the frilly frock. At once I could feel the tight firmness of the basque supporting my breasts under the deceptively loose dress. When I put my hand on my thigh to confirm that the lump I could feel was a suspender clip, I found that I was wearing copious petticoats too. I put my other hand up to my hair, which was not swinging around as I had got used to at the weekend, but a mass of loose curls standing out from my head.
"This isn't a perm, is it?" I asked.
"What if it is?"
"Well I did like it straight and swinging. I mean on you too, when you are Amanda."
He stepped back from me and looked me up and down. "You're too different to be called Amanda, now. Let's use your middle name, Penelope. No, just Penny, I think. How do you like your new image and name, eh, Penny?"
"It makes me feel really cheap" I retorted, feeling hurt that he had dressed me up to make fun of me.
"Well you do look a bit of a tart in those," he said staring at my feet.
I pushed my billowing skirts out of the way to find that I was wearing fishnet stockings and five-inch bright red heels. As I moved around, finishing off my cooking, I felt a cool draught up my skirt and also discovered that I was not wearing any panties. I had to admit that I felt quite excited by this new image, as well as used and exploited. Wearing the basque again was bringing back hot memories of Saturday night. The thought of Amanda actually getting dressed up like this also turned me on, even though it had been for me to wear it.
As soon as I could leave the dinner to cook on its own, I minced over to the armchair where he had sat down to read a newspaper, put my arms round his neck from behind and kissed the top of his head. I could not help myself living out the sluttish role I had been given. I moved around to his front and unzipped his flies. Gently he pushed my curly head into his lap. Although that great throbbing pole had been mine less than half an hour before, I felt no repulsion at all on taking it into my mouth. It seemed so right that I, Penny, should be submissively giving him head like this. I did not have to look in a mirror to know that I was neither Tom nor Amanda now, but Penny the slut and I found it very exciting to be this completely new person. As I worked hard with my tongue, he put a hand firmly onto one of my breasts and began to massage it. I fumbled with the buttons on the front of my dress to let his hand inside.
"It's no good. They're false buttons," he told me, "there's only a zip at the back."
I was desperate to feel him directly against my body, which was already tingling all over. I took my mouth reluctantly off his dick and gathered up my petticoats to sit astride his lap and get him urgently inside me.
"Where did you get this awful frock?" I asked.
"Oh, I just borrowed it from someone at work. It's not awful, Penny. You look really pretty in it." To my surprise and terrible frustration, he pushed me away before I could sit right down on him. "Now, now, Penny," he said, condescendingly, while trying to force his unsatisfied penis back into his trousers, "don't get too excited, yet. We haven't had our dinner yet, remember."
I couldn't believe that he could be so cruel. I began to understand his motives for dressing me up and calling me Penny. I had apparently carried my male appetite for sex over into Amanda's body at the weekend and he wanted to both teach me a lesson and exploit my libido for his own pleasure.
I went up to the bathroom to wash my hands and had a good look in the mirror. I did not look as different from Amanda as I felt. The big rounded, lace-edged collar of the dress, the short puffed sleeves and the mass of curly hair made my face look rounder, but it was still Amanda's. My forehead was as bare as before I had my hair cut because the fringe was curled up tightly at the hairline. The fishnets and heels contrasted with the prudery of the frock, but betrayed my aching desires.
Stiffly, I served up our dinner and we sat down to eat it in silence. I felt growing resentment at the way he was treating me, yet I was still getting turned on by the novelty of my persona. Ordinary eating now seemed erotic to me and so did watching Tom eat.
When we had finished desert, staring into each other's eyes, he readily agreed to delay washing-up and we made haste for the sofa. I turned my back for him to unzip my dress and he started to do so, and then changed his mind.
"No, keep it on. Just bend over the arm of the sofa now."
I gasped as he cupped both my tingling breasts in his hands, popping them easily out of the basque, and gently pushed me over the arm with his chest. Then he put one hand down, lifted the back of my skirts and unzipped his flies. I had to suppress a horror of being taken from behind and was relieved when his fingers explored my vagina, not my anus.
Neither of us was surprised that I was very wet and ready; I had been worried that it might trickle down my leg during dinner. I felt very naughty; not wearing any knickers and that had excited me even more.
Suddenly, probably less than a minute since we left the table, I could feel his hot, smooth helmet against my ecstatic fanny lips. Eagerly, I reached down under my tummy, took his dick in my hand and guided it in. Now I understood why Amanda liked to do it this way. The feelings as my vagina was entered the other way around, pushing it upwards and forwards, were simply amazing.
My feet were already off the floor and my legs wide apart, so now I bent my knees to wrap them around him and, kicking off my shoes, I hooked my toes together behind him, helping to pull more of him into me. While I only needed one arm to hold up my shoulders from the seat of the sofa, I kept the other down under my tummy and tickled my clitoris with my middle finger.
He put both hands back on my breasts, through the dress, massaging them vigorously. I was so overwhelmed by my rising orgasm that I ignored any thoughts about giving him one too and I think I screamed rather loudly as I came.
"Yes!" he cried, "that's how Penny likes it, isn't it?"
I could not disagree. He kept up the rhythmic pumping right through my tremendous orgasm and the pleasure did not fall off very far before I could feel another one coming.
However, he seemed to be getting nowhere for himself and soon withdrew and asked me to turn around. Panting with urgency to reach my second peak, I stood up and complied, lifting the front of my skirts for him. I was more aware now than ever that I was facing the man that used to be me, both of us fully clothed, in the bright lights of our lounge and yet it felt so right and I was so eager to be fucked by him that I threw myself into the knee-trembler without thinking it at all bizarre.
He leant back from me as he entered from the front, but reached for my tits and resumed the massage. We were both frustrated by the presence of the dress, he in feeling my breasts, even though they were now outside the basque and me in reaching my clitoris again past all those layers of petticoat, so I was relieved when he put an arm round behind me and undid the zip. I crossed my arms and pulled the dress up and over my head, without him having to withdraw from me, followed by the petticoat, though its waist elastic was hard to stretch over my breasts and hurt my aroused nipples.
Tom bent his head down and took one of those glorious new appendages to my chest into his mouth and began to suck it. My ecstasy simply soared to new heights and again I wrapped my fishnet-clad legs around him to pull him deeper into me. Just as I came for the second time and as I could feel him stiffen and pulse in his own orgasm, his legs came off the floor and we fell together over the arm into the seat of the settee. We both giggled and then indulged in a long, passionate kiss. During this, he ran his fingers through my curls, pulling them out from my head and letting them spring back.
When he came up for air, he said "Don't worry, it's not a perm. I don't want to go to school like that tomorrow. I only set it on heated rollers and it should straighten with the heated comb I bought today too. Would you like to swap back while I go through all that?"
"No, I don't mind straightening it for you, as long as you shave and eat breakfast for me again."
"OK, fine. Actually, it was rather nice eating two breakfasts on Monday without putting on any weight!"
So, while he set about the washing-up, I went off to wash and set my hair. As my now very sore tits bounced over the top of the basque on the way upstairs, I wondered if I really wanted to stay female any longer but I decided I did, as long as it was not as Penny the slut.
So the first thing I did was to put back on the bra that Amanda had discarded when she came home from work. What a comfortable relief it was! Then I wriggled out of the basque and stockings and put on panties, short socks and a nice pair of jeans before leaning over the bath to wash my hair. The curls soon got looser as I shampooed them and looser still with the conditioner. I wrapped my head in a towel like a turban and went to get a top to wear. I didn't want Tom dictating what I wore any more. I chose a chequered cotton shirt and rolled up the sleeves.
I had to work out how to light and regulate the little gas-powered styling brush then I undid my turban and began combing out my hair. Tom came in when I was almost finished.
He looked surprised to see me dressed, but said "Hey, that's nice! Back to your old self again, eh, Amanda?"
"Well, I'll have to wash it again in a minute, I think, but it should be alright for YOUR old self, tomorrow, after that."
He offered to help me brush it out, but I told him I wanted to do it alone and he went downstairs again. The truth was, I didn't want him around when I took my blouse off again. Casting off the dress, basque and fishnets, it had felt good to leave Penny's oversexed persona behind. I found that I wanted to enjoy being Amanda without constantly living and breathing sex.
When I'd washed it and pulled the gas styling brush through it for a second time, my hair fell nice and straight again, from the top of my head to its neat, straight edges. Penny's face had been made up rather heavily, so I washed it all off and applied just a subtle touch of colour.
I found I had quite different tastes now, in what I wanted Amanda to wear. I found a necklace and matching earrings to add a feminine touch to the cowboy shirt. I thought of putting a skirt on, but I had really enjoyed spending last Sunday in jeans, so I kept to my earlier choice. I did take off the socks again and put on knee-high stockings so that my feet looked nice in low court shoes under the jeans, then I went down and found Tom back at the dining table, doing Amanda's marking work from school.
He looked me up and down and smiled, but only said "I've got quite a bit more to do, so why don't you go and watch TV ?"
I found myself disappointed that I could not get his attention, but I went off quietly, got us some coffee and took mine through to the lounge. I found a drama set in the eighteenth century to watch and found it fascinating to identify with the female characters and admire the men, especially in military regalia.
I found myself wishing to live a full social life as a woman. I had enjoyed going out shopping on my own last Saturday, for all the nervous terror it had caused, and I had enjoyed flirting with Joe too.
When Tom had finished his work and came to get me to go to bed, he said "You know, we could teach each other enough about our jobs to try swapping all week, sometime."
I surprised myself by reacting positively to this. I actually agreed that if I felt ready by Sunday night, after spending the whole weekend briefing each other, I would go out and teach biology on Monday. The next time we swapped, on Friday evening, it would be for nine days, but I insisted I wanted my old male body back after that. I did not tell him that Tom had an interesting course booked for the week after that, away in another city, and that this was my only reason at present for the nine-day restriction.
I did not tell him that I had begun to want a permanent swap. I did not tell him that another motive for the restriction was jealousy: I did not want the new Tom, with his sexuality so heightened by the novelty of his body, going off for a week in a hotel. With that all agreed, we went to bed feeling really affectionate towards each other in our new roles, but, for once, not at all randy.
He kissed me gently when he put out the light, putting a hand on my breast, but was not too disappointed when I gently took it off again. We said our goodnights with a couple more quick kisses and turned over to sleep.
Next morning, for the third time, I drove to work as a man, but shaved, dressed and breakfasted before I had woken.
On Friday, after being unable to stop thinking about the pebble all day at work, I came home to find Amanda's car in the drive first again. I smiled to think how keen she was, too, about swapping and wondered if she had another surprise for me like on Wednesday.
Instead, I found her in tears, holding the stone with her finger right through it. She was too upset to tell me anything, but I could see for myself that the pebble's magic must have expired because it had been impossible to get right through the hole before and it had lost all of its mysterious warmth.
We tried touching fingertips as near the centre as possible; we tried warming it in the oven; we tried washing and drying it and warming it between Amanda's breasts, but nothing would restore its unique power. There was no one we could turn to for help. Who would believe our story?
As we had discussed before, there was no real "evidence" that anything at all magical had happened. Be we know and treasure the memories of those two weekends and two Wednesdays. We enjoy the benefit they have brought of much more intimate knowledge of each other. After all, why did Amanda change her hairstyle at that time? Why did Joe think he could flirt with her next time they met? Why does Amanda now occasionally set her hair in curlers, wear sexy, mock-prudish clothes and become "Penny the slut" for a while?
We know that the cold lifeless stone we keep carefully wrapped up in cotton-wool in our bottom drawer has given us some amazing gifts and we take it out every Friday to see if it might have recovered its powers.
The End
Date: Sat, 19 May 2007 22:41:00 +0100 (BST)
From: Janet Harris
Subject: The Pebble
If you remember, I found a magic pebble which enabled my wife Amanda and I to swap bodies when our souls passed through the hole in it.
We used it to be each other for several glorious weekends until its power just faded away. We tried all sorts of things to revive it and then gave up and put it away.
About six months later, we were making love when Amanda suddenly had a fresh idea. She was on top and, after penetration, as we often did in memory of the pebble experience, she put her knees back over mine, easing my legs apart so that I could pretend to be the female part of a "missionary" coupling with my knees high and wide, while she did all the pelvic thrusting. She dangled her breasts over my chest so that her ripe nipples tickled my diminutive male ones and I could pretend that they were aroused like hers. Of course the pretence was a hopeless shadow of the excitement we had found in the stark reality of the pebble's magic.
"Hey, d'you know what?" Amanda suddenly cried. "Maybe the pebble needs to be charged with sexual energy. I mean, I don't think we could make love through it..." "You're telling me!" I retorted, "or at least you could be the man to get stuck in it, if you like!"
She leapt out of bed, leaving me quite unsatisfied, and dived to the bottom drawer to get out the pebble.
"Perhaps we could kiss, or at least touch tongues through there," she suggested as she brought it back to me. After several attempts to overcome our giggles, we did manage to roll and point our tongues enough to feel each other's tip through the hole, but nothing happened. Amanda rolled onto her back and placed the pebble on her belly.
"Let's try just having it near when we cum," she suggested. I eagerly climbed onto her and resumed our earlier position, in reverse. I found the presence of the cold stone pressing into my belly very exciting as a reminder of my experiences as Amanda, so I came far too quickly.
"No," she complained with pronounced disappointment. "I think we'll have to cum together for it to work." As soon as I could, we tried again, but this time Amanda was moaning and thrashing about before I was anywhere near climax, so we put it away again for another night.
The very next evening, as soon as Amanda mentioned an early night, we grinned at each other, knowing that the pebble was high in both our priorities and we couldn't wait till after supper to go to bed.
"Let's do the pretend position this time," she suggested, "and maybe it'll become real."
This time I put the stone on my belly before she straddled me and lowered her eager cunt onto my erection. Then we squeezed it between our bellies as we manoeuvred into the reverse missionary, by which time her breathing was becoming tense and irregular. She started fucking me hard and fast so that my excitement grew too. Suddenly we were both gasping and moaning with intense pleasure, but through it there came a new sensation from our bellies which rapidly emerged as the pain of burning. We both grabbed at the stone to remove it, from opposite sides, so that for a moment we struggled against each other as it burned us more, but I prevailed and slung it away from us across the bed.
Amanda climbed off me and walked around the bed to examine it. She licked her finger before touching it as if testing a hot iron but it didn't hiss so she stroked it carefully.
"Ah, we've definitely recharged it" she said, "but its not too hot now. Come on."
She poked her finger into the hole and so did I from the other side. Suddenly, without any flash or shock or even a drumroll, I was standing by the bed looking down at the new Tom.
He grabbed his now flaccid cock saying, "Hello, Mr Willy, it's good to have you back!"
This made me feel the loss of it, so I cupped my new breasts in my hands. I had forgotten already that I would feel the pressure on my sensitive tits more than the weight in my hands, so I grinned back at him in delight.
"Come back here, Amanda," he demanded, "now that we don't have to pretend any more."
I was passing my thumbs gently over my huge nipples, and they felt too sore for more sex, as did my throbbing, drooling fanny.
"No,", I decided, "I want a shower now, then I'm going to dress up and you're taking me out to dinner."
"Aw shucks! Just let me wash Mr. Willy in the basin first, then."
I was also glad to be back in a lovely female body, but I found it a bit annoying to have to keep sweeping my hair off my face. The bobbed style I had chosen had been grown out so that the remains of the fringe were chin-length and the back was just below my shoulders. I would have to hold it aside with grips. I avoided getting it wet in the shower, then chose the green velvet minidress I had worn on my first evening as Amanda.
I found Tom putting on the green shirt and yellow tie which Amanda had bought him recently and which he (I) hadn't liked to wear. On the pretext that it would clash with my dress, I insisted, just as Amanda would, that he wear an open-neck shirt under a jumper of my choosing. It was now midwinter, of course, and I knew my nylon-clad legs would be bitterly cold outside, but I would wear my long fur-edged coat and it would be worth it to show them off.
I had fixed my hair, put on a nice necklace and was fitting my ear-rings when the doorbell rang. Tom was back in the bathroom brushing his teeth so I went down to answer it. As I minced across the hall in my heels towards our front door, I told myself that I was only the normal Amanda to anyone else. I swung open the door to find myself facing my, or rather Tom's parents!
Through my shocked daze, I remembered that they'd said they might just drop in tonight on their way back from seeing Granny. With a further shock, I realised that she was no longer my Granny, but Tom's, and this really brought home to me that not a drop of my blood was related to the couple in front of me. I had to accept that I was their daughter-in-law now, not their son.
I asked them in for a cup of tea and thankfully they noticed that I was dressed up to go out. Although they came in, they declined my offer and would not sit down. I noticed that my Dad, or rather father-in-law, could not keep his eyes of my legs, which made me very self-conscious of the awfully high hem of my dress, but I was surprised to find myself quite pleased at this.
When Tom came down to see who our visitors were, a look of absolute horror flashed over his face, and I hoped I had not been so obvious outside. He hugged them both and I was glad to see that they accepted him, though worried that his sidelong glances at me over their shoulders might give him away. I looked forward to meeting my own parents. It would be interesting to be a daughter. When they'd gone, Tom asked me if I'd felt jealous because he was now their son, but I said no. It all seemed so natural being just their daughter-in-law.
Driving to the restaurant and being shown to our table, we found that our reversed roles came back to us easily from our experiences in the summer. We found that we both wanted to try a longer swap, for which we would have to learn each other's jobs. This was Wednesday night, so we decided to swap back just for work on Thursday and Friday, then spend the weekend in thorough briefings for a full-time exchange next week. Tom started quizzing me about his workmates and methods during the meal until I got a little annoyed, so he changed the subject to something further ahead - starting a family.
"Hey now, hang on a minute!", I cried. "If you want to stay like this just so that you don't have to go through childbirth, you've got another think coming! You weren't so keen on children when you were in this skin."
"Well that's because it would interrupt my teaching career."
"But it's my career now. If you want me to take a break, you'll have to get a better job to keep me in the manner to which I intend to become accustomed."
As soon as I had said that, I wondered why I had. I mean, I had almost offered to bear our children! I found myself quite excited at the prospect. My nipples even began to tingle at the thought of breast-feeding. Also, I had caught myself assuming that we would change over for ever after work on Friday and actually wanting to do that. I shuddered to think how easily I could slip into my new role as Amanda. I wanted to consider it again while I was male, tomorrow.
"If we do keep doing this, and it's a big IF", I said, "I think we ought to take turns during pregnancy and, of course, labour. That'd be good, wouldn't it?"
"So you do want kids soon!" he exclaimed.
"Maybe, just maybe", I replied. "So I'm not coming off the pill for a week or two yet."
"Oh, that reminds me,", he said. "You're due on around the end of next week, but you shouldn't hit the PMT until at least Tuesday, so you can get settled in at work first."
That really brought home to me the reality of womanhood, but it didn't upset me. Now that I was wholly and entirely Amanda, it seemed perfectly natural to have periods. I realised that in two short hours I had quite forgotten about the novelty of having a bra round my chest and the hem of my dress around my nylon-clad thighs. I was able to think ahead about teaching and having babies and look my husband in the eye as I talked to him.
When we got home, I still fended off his approaches for sex. I really didn't feel at all randy. I wanted to relish other aspects of the change, and in any case, I had taken over a fully satiated body. I had a good soak in the bath, where I played a little with my body but didn't really get anywhere, then snuggled into bed alone in my best satin nightie while Tom had his bath. He woke me in the morning bringing a tray of breakfast with the pebble on it.
As soon as we put our fingers into it, I was standing up, fully dressed, shaved and breakfasted as Tom. I kissed my restored wife goodbye and drove to work. I had viewed my female workmates in a different light since my experiences as a female myself in the summer. Now it was different again and I felt like I was working my notice to finish at the end of the week. I noted many things carefully in my desk diary for the use of the new Tom next week and began studying my relationships with my workmates for his benefit. Actually, that bit was quite fascinating, I had never been so objective before. I knew Amanda would be doing the same thing for me at her school.
I got home before Amanda and found myself keen to return to that female body as soon as possible. I got out the stone and as soon as I heard her key in the door I went and met her with it. She seemed surprised at my eagerness, but grinned and stuck out her finger. Immediately I was facing into the house, feeling a bra around my chest again, under my blouse, a long skirt around my legs and hair down my cheeks onto my shoulders. I was surprised how heavy was her (sorry, my) briefcase.
The new Tom took it from me and explained that it was full of my students' work assignments, which he would help me to mark this evening. That would be the best way of learning their names and how they each worked. He ordered pizzas so that we wouldn't have to cook tonight. I was amazed that I loved him to be masterful.
I settled down at my desk for a hard evening's work with Tom at my elbow showing me how to mark the books while teaching me the rudiments of biology. When the pizzas arrived, I felt I deserved a change, so I told him to get out his desk-diary, and I went over the notes I had made in it with him.
It was clear to us both that his task was much less than mine, so after less than an hour briefing him, we returned to my marking. There were books from most of the students of two of the five classes I would be teaching, all over 30 pupils each, so there were a lot of names to memorize.
When the marking was done, I had to get out my timetable and he explained which periods I had to teach and who I would meet in the staff-room at various times. Of course, until he told me anything, I had no memories of my teaching work, but I had Amanda's brain and it worked in predictable ways on the information I was receiving, so that I was finishing his sentences. As Tom, I had always been terrible at remembering names, but now I could reel off the lists I had learned with ease. After I passed a difficult quiz with flying colours, he said:
"You know, Friday would be a much easier day to start on than Monday. Do you think you could cope tomorrow?"
Now I felt I ought to be shocked. I had been expecting another day at the factory as Tom, but I didn't really mind giving that up. I felt quite well prepared by the thorough briefing, and he was right. Friday would be much easier than Monday because I had only two teaching periods to give.
"Yes, OK" I found myself saying. "Actually I can't wait to get my teeth into my new job."
So, I committed myself to stay female for the foreseeable future. By now it was quite late. We agreed we were both too tired for sex tonight, too, so after quick showers we collapsed into bed and fell easily asleep.
When Tom woke me with my breakfast, the pebble was conspicuous by its absence from the tray. He kissed me fondly goodbye, but it wasn't till I heard his car going off down the road that I began to panic. I wanted to ring the school secretary and call off sick, but I made myself get my teaching clothes on. They seemed awfully plain, almost frumpy to me now, as they had to me before, as Tom. I planned to wear shorter skirts and brighter colours in future, but then I thought maybe it was wise to dress down in front of the pubescent youths in my classes.
Arriving at school, I found the first gap in my briefing: where to park. The staff car park was less than half full because I was early, not wanting to be late on "my" first day. I guessed that everyone had their favourite slot, like at Tom's factory, and I didn't want to upset someone. The slot where my car had been on Tom's most recent visit was taken. I chose one at random, only to find "Deputy Head" painted on the wall in front, so I had to back out and use another. It worried me that briefing-gaps like this might plague me all day. The forecourt was crowded with pupils of all ages, some of whom greeted me with "Hello Miss!" or "Good Morning, Mrs Harris," but I managed to keep smiling and to breeze into the staffroom as if nothing was amiss.
I wasn't teaching until the third period, so I collected my mail from my pigeon-hole and sat down at one of the desks. I felt a little guilty opening everything addressed to Mrs A. P. Harris, filling in forms and making decisions, but hell, I was me now, Amanda, and I would live my own life. I felt I could improve it, too, even though I knew that I had been the less organised as Tom. I started making notes of questions to ask him, starting with "parking place."
After most of the teachers had left to take first-period classes, a woman with long dark hair who I guessed might be one of my best friends, Carol, offered to make everyone tea. Luckily, before I had to respond, someone else addressed her as Carol, confirming my guess, so I turned and smiled at her and asked to be included. When she had brewed the tea and served everyone else, she brought hers and mine over to my desk and drew up a chair.
"Hey, Amanda, have you heard the latest on Derek? He's moved into his new mistress's flat, now!"
I found I really enjoyed gossiping with Carol. I had been briefed sufficiently on the current scandals. It was new to me to have a close girlfriend with no sexual complications and I really liked that, too. She was wearing bright, sexy clothes and make-up, so I thought: "Why shouldn't I?"
Far too soon it was time to do some real teaching. The corridors bore little resemblance to the sketchy plans I had been shown and I was terrified of getting lost, but I barely managed to find the important landmarks on the way to my first class.
I arrived to find the previous teacher winding up his lesson, and when he spotted me lurking outside, he picked up his books and came out, giving me a lustful stare which quite unsettled me. I wished Tom had warned me about him. However, I managed to regain my composure in time to face my first class of 13-year-olds. It wasn't nearly so bad as I had expected. They were well behaved and responded to me quite well. I got away with basic gaps in my knowledge by pretending to look up much more complex issues. I won't go into detail; I don't remember many. It's a bit of a blur to me now anyway.
The second period I taught was after lunch. They were 15-year-olds and some of the boys tried flirting with me, but I found new reserves of composure to see them off. They were involved in a project which required only general guidance from me, so this time I never needed to bluff any biological knowledge. After that I had to mark some of their work in the staffroom because I could not go home until after a meeting with the deputy head about timetables.
I thought I would be home before Tom and was planning what to cook for him as I drove home. But he met me just inside the front door with a huge hug.
"How did it go, my little teacher?" he asked.
"Well, you were right, of course. My new job is much tougher than yours," I replied.
"But do you still want to stay like this for ever?" he asked. "Because I do."
"I'll think about that after you've given me one of those famous female orgasms!"
And so he rushed me upstairs to the bed, where we tore off each other's clothes. Now I was delighted how easy it was to bonk on my back with my knees high and wide and with real aroused nipples atop real big tits. My arousal was fast and intense, so I had no trouble keeping up with him and very soon we came beautifully together. He kept calling me his "little teacher," as I had when Amanda first qualified, and I loved it, not finding it in the least patronizing.
"Thanks for dropping me in the deep end like that," I said. "I might have chickened out on Monday."
So there you have it: how I became Amanda for the rest of my life, apart from the odd escapade with our pebble. There was a time when Tom almost spoiled everything by trying to share the experience outside our marriage, even though I had warned him that there never was a wife-swap that didn't end in tears. But that's another story....
The Pebble, Part Three by Janet Harris 2014
Hi. My name is Amanda Harris. My sister-in-law Janet edits and publishes these stories for me. I wasn't born as Amanda, I used to be Janet's big brother Tom until, as you may have read already, my soul went through the hole in a pebble I found on a beach into this lovely body. Tom's soul came out of this body, so now the new Tom is my husband and I love him loads. After a few short trial swaps and months when the pebble wouldn't work, we decided to swap bodies permanently because we both loved it this way round and found it suited our personalities well.
It was in my second week of teaching that I suddenly got a stabbing stomach-ache one afternoon. It wasn't until the second or third wave of pain, walking around the lab checking my students' bisections, that it suddenly occurred to me: "Period!". As coolly as I could, I put a lab assistant into temporary charge of the class and hurried down the corridors to the "Female Staff" room. I peeled off my knickers with trepidation, but they were perfectly clean. I had a pee and fitted a pad from my handbag. I had a tampon too but Tom had promised to tutor me on that so I decided it could wait till I got home.
On the way back to the lab I wondered why he hadn't said anything lately about this. Well, he had warned me when we started the long-term swap that it would happen around the end of this week, but then had forgotten all about it, the lucky swine. It suddenly occurred to me that we'd had a couple of rows this week and I had been a bit bitchy with people at school too. Perhaps he knew I would have been even more riled if he had blamed my attitude on PMS. He was right, but now I was angry that I hadn't known and maybe (or maybe not) been able to control my short temper.
I was a bit distracted for the rest of that afternoon lab session. I felt relieved that the dreaded event had arrived and that I now knew what had been bugging me the last few days. I could understand why Tom, my dear husband, had not reminded me and I decided to forgive him. I also began to feel rather proud of being a fertile woman, now that I was becoming so aware of my new womb. The pain was coming from an area completely new to me, when I thought about it. My breasts were beginning to ache a bit too, by the time I got home. I rushed upstairs to check my pad, but it was still dry.
Tom was in the kitchen, starting to cook our meal, as it was his turn tonight. When I got downstairs again, I snuggled up to him and kissed the back of his neck.
"Hello, darling," he said, "feeling better today?"
I felt myself getting annoyed again that he had guessed why I had rushed upstairs, knowing exactly what was happening to me, yet had kept it to himself all week.
"Well, you might have mentioned it before!" I retorted. Then, "OK, I forgive you, you knew it would annoy me."
I even began to feel sorry for him, having to live with a tetchy, irrational woman for one week in four, as I had.
"I'll need that tampon lesson after dinner, please, though nothing's appeared on my pad yet."
"It probably won't till tomorrow morning," he said gently, "when did the cramps start?"
"About half past two... but, ooh, I think I'd better go and check again now." I had suddenly felt more moist "down there" than usual as I still nestled into his back while he cooked.
"Ah yes," he grinned, "it does depend if you're aroused or not."
"You stay here. I want to manage on my own," I said, backing off from his attempted kiss, slightly annoyed that he was so smug about being attractive to me. "It's embarrassing because you're not my mother, you're my husband. It's also embarrassing having my first period when I'm twenty-six!"
This time, when I pulled down my knickers, safely locked in the bathroom, there was a big red patch on the pad. I suppose I should have been frightened or disgusted but I found myself simply overjoyed. This absolute proof of my womb and my femininity was wonderful. I started humming a tune to myself as I got the packet of sealable plastic bags out of what was now my part of the bathroom cabinet and the packet of tampons that was next to it. I was happy partly because my week of tension was over and partly because here was my full badge of womanhood. I was also a bit proud that my sexy cuddle with Tom had brought on my flow so soon after the cramps. I guessed that it would make inserting the tampon quite a bit easier, too. I was right. After peeling the pad off my knickers and popping it into a bag, I stood with one foot on the toilet seat, positioned a tampon tube at exactly the angle Tom's cock had been and thrust it easily into place.
Staring at the piece of string now dangling between my legs, I smiled to think that it would be a signal to Tom that he was not going there tonight, as it had been to me, so many times. Still humming the tune, "I am strong, I am woman!" I fitted a new pad to my knickers and pulled them up, but then I caught a foul whiff from my fingers so I pulled them down again and rubbed some scented talc into my pubes. I felt really pleased that I had worked out what to do without Tom's help.
I sauntered back to the kitchen and tried to share my triumph with Tom but he was cynically dismissive, which hurt. I suddenly realised that he was disappointed that I was not pregnant. What a cheek, I thought, to expect me to start carrying his babies so soon, even though we had been trying for some time. In fact this was my (or rather our) third natural period since I (or rather she) had come off the pill. Now that, I was frightened of.
Since getting settled into the routine of teaching, getting pregnant had hardly crossed my mind. There was one time, when a few of us in the staff-room were discussing our plans for the next school year in September, that I had started to silently calculate when my maternity leave would be most convenient. I had shuddered to think I could deal with it so easily. I really did look forward to motherhood, especially when I played with my tits, but the process of getting there I did not look forward to so much. Still, it had to come sometime and the most convenient time for the school year would mean having only two or three more periods. I did want to have those periods, though, so I resolved to have a headache or two around my ovulation times. If Tom was in more of a hurry, he could whistle!
I think it was the next evening that my Mum rang. We had met Tom's parents soon after our permanent swap and it had been a weird experience to be only their daughter-in-law instead of their son. Mine lived much further away and we had not seen them for months. I had been really looking forward to being their daughter, but was quite taken aback when I answered the phone. Luckily, she didn't seem to notice and started chatting away cheerily, too cheerily, I suddenly thought.
"What's wrong, Mum?" I asked, marvelling at my own feminine intuition.
"Oh! Gosh! Well, I suppose I can't hide it from you. I'm worried about your Dad. He's had more angina, even after the doctor changed his pills," she admitted and it all poured out. "He hasn't had a heart attack or anything, it's just that it's far too often that he winces. Yes, I know, men are such hypochondriacs, with wimpy pain thresholds, but I can't help worrying that his heart won't last for much longer."
"Oh, come on, Mum, he's not even sixty yet. Didn't his granddad live to a hundred?"
"Well yes, but I can't help worrying. I do miss being able to talk to you about it."
"But you can - you are now, on the phone," I countered, sensing her manoeuvre for a visit, but then remembered that I really wanted to see them now, anyway, "but it would be much better if I could come and see you at half-term."
My mind was racing ahead over Tom's holiday allowance and I knew he wouldn't be able to come along. It occurred to me that it was really his right to go and visit them. We could change over temporarily so that he could go alone as Amanda, but how could I cope back at my old job for a week after so long away? No, I must go, because we had resolved not to revert except in dire emergencies and this didn't seem to rate as one of those. The visit would be great for me, in that I could get to enjoy being their daughter on my own, but Tom would not be there to consult if I got stuck trying to "remember" something he hadn't briefed me about. Also, I hadn't yet been away from him for more than a few hours to experience living as an independent woman.
"That'd be great!" she cried, then added "Can't Tom come too?" with much less enthusiasm. That hurt a bit, having recently been Tom myself, but I made myself ignore it and confirmed,
"No, he hasn't enough leave allowance left."
"Well I'll start getting your old room ready straight away. When's half term? Is it two weeks?"
"No, three next Friday"
"Oh dear, that's ages. Still, it's something to look forward to. I can't wait to be able to chat to you for hours again. Can you stay all week?"
"No, I'll have lesson planning to do, I'd better come home on the Wednesday."
My mind was running rapidly over the many implications of my rash decision. Tom might not like the idea at all. Also my next period would be approaching around about then and affect what should be a pleasant new relationship as a daughter. Well, he could go, as Amanda, if he really wanted to. He had popped out to a shop when my Mum rang. As soon as he came back in I broke the news about my Dad and gingerly told him I'd committed myself to the half-term visit.
"Oh course you must go", he said, "it's almost certainly not a dire emergency to qualify for use of the pebble, is it?"
"No, but if it does turn out to be serious, you're the one to go and see him, surely?"
"No," he said firmly, "We'd both go and I could cope just as well as his son-in-law."
I was a little taken aback that he could be so callous about deceiving his, no, mine, no, our parents, even at the hour of their death, so to speak. I had felt guilty at the meal we had shared with his parents, which used to be mine, knowing his past so much better than he did. Still, I had only had to whisper something in his ear once and kick him under the table once, so there had not really been a problem. This time, however, he would not be there to whisper in my ear if I was caught out not "remembering" something which should have been obvious to me.
"Well, I'll need lots of briefings," I said, "This time I've got to convince my Mum, not just my fellow-teachers, that I'm Amanda."
"OK" he replied, grinning, "I suppose you'll have to learn every little secret of my, er, your childhood, now."
So, the evenings of those three weeks and most of the weekends were spent in intensive study of my past as Amanda. I took notes, in a more orderly form than I used to as Tom, I noticed, and kept referring back to them to enquire after more detail. There were not as many surprises as I expected. I found it rather sweet discovering my childhood dreams and fantasies as a little girl and my relationships with my parents and my older brother. Thus most of this otherwise hard work was most enjoyable, until I found myself increasingly annoyed and exasperated with Tom.
I suppose we had got on so well before because we were so different, but now I had brought bits of Tom's personality over into Amanda and he had taken bits of Amanda's personality into Tom, so that we both ended up as a rather similar mixture. Hence, I realised, we were now rubbing each other up the wrong way because we were now so similar and it was my own inadequacies, in Tom, that were exasperating me, despite being so much happier after my period. I found myself now much more interested in personalities and relationships, the interest which came with being a woman, while Tom seemed to ignore the subject. He seemed to get annoyed with me much less for that reason. Still, I only really lost my temper once during these briefings.
It was during these weeks too that we began to socialise more. At first it was hard to pluck up the courage to accept invitations and to make them. I needed a bit of persuading to go out to our local pub in the first couple of weeks and it was only twice I succumbed, but I soon got used to being a lady in the crowd and began to enjoy it. One reason it was fun was because we now knew each others friends so well. Tom got invited to a house-warming party by a workmate, a female workmate who had a long term female partner and that made me feel a bit uncomfortable about going with him, but he reminded me that "I" had met them both at an office party long ago and no way were either of them predatory. I got a little drunk at that party (Tom was driving home) and it was great fun.
I was getting on better and better with Carol, the teaching colleague who had been "my" best friend before. When I mentioned this to Tom, he reminded me that we owed Bill and Carol a meal, so I invited them over. This was another social challenge, being a good hostess. I decided to wear one of the denim miniskirts I'd just bought, although it was winter, with tights. I wished I had some high boots to go with the mini, but I wore flat sandals and a polo-neck top. I have to admit this was because I knew Carol never wore skirts, or hadn't for a couple of years since the moment a head we used to have, who insisted on them for female teachers and ties for the men, left. "I" had stayed in long skirts at school after that and usually wore jeans at home but now I really liked wearing shorter skirts and I wanted to share my delight in them with Carol.
When they arrived, Carol in smart pink slacks, I saw her do a double-take at my knees, even more than Bill did. As soon as she got me alone in the kitchen, she said "I do like that skirt on you, Amanda, but why?"
"Well, I think a skirt makes a statement and it's the sort of statement I feel like making, now." It was the nearest I could get to sharing my excitement at simply being female with her.
"Yes, I think I could make that statement too," she said slowly.
"Well actually I bought two, today, would you like the other one? It's not as short as this one." I offered.
"Oh, yes please! I haven't worn a skirt for two years but, why not, eh?"
So, leaving the dinner on the warming-tray, we rushed upstairs. As she pulled off her slacks, I tossed a pair of tights and the other skirt on the bed. I watched her pulling up the tights, remembering how such a sight would have excited me as Tom. Now that sort of excitement had disappeared, as completely as those awful wrinkly things that used to dangle between my legs had disappeared. Now it was exciting in a quite different way. We were girls together now and clothes were exciting for their own sake. When she'd put on the skirt she sat on the side of the bed to put her shoes back on.
"My goodness, you have to keep your knees tight together now, don't you?" she exclaimed.
"Yes, but its nice feeling neat and prim, isn't it?" I replied.
She stood in front of the full-length mirror and planted her feet apart, stretching the hem around her shapely thighs. It was clear of her knees because she was a bit taller than me. I had decided to take that skirt back because it came right down to my knees, so she was welcome to it. I much preferred the shorter one.
"Does that make a statement for you?" I asked.
"Oh yes, it shouts 'tough!' because it's denim but it shouts 'woman!' too. I really like that." she announced.
There was no time to spare; I was in the middle of preparing dinner. We hurried downstairs in our matching skirts to find the men in the hallway admiring Tom's trophies. Their jaws both fell open at the sight of us. Our excitement at Carol's transformation made the dinner party great fun. I felt really pleased with myself because I'd had such a strong influence on her, though in school I felt she was the more dominant personality. I was also pleased to find that transformation itself still excited me just as it had when I was Tom and I enjoyed watching his excitement as he stared at Carol's long-hidden legs, She seemed very excited herself, too. She kept moving around trying different poses as we sat in the lounge for drinks after dinner, more like teenager in her first miniskirt than a woman of almost thirty, returning to them.
When our guests took their leave, they got out of the front door before Bill reminded her to take her slacks. She gasped, put her hands on her nylon-clad knees and said "Oh goodness Amanda, I almost forgot. I'll give you these back tomorrow!"
"No, you mustn't!" I commanded, "they're a present. I'll just pop up and get your trousers." When I got back, she was carefully folding her long nylon-clad legs into their car, knees neatly together.
As soon as they'd gone, Tom asked "How on earth did you manage to do that? She's a new woman, isn't she?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd get on so well with Bill. You used not to like him much didn't you?"
"No, I don't think so," he said, "Oh, you mean as Amanda. Well that makes no difference now. Anyway, we must stop referring to our other pasts. My past has to be just as Tom and yours as Amanda, specially as you're going to stay at your Mum's soon."
So we changed our way of discussing the past. I had always been female, it seemed. Well, as my body, of course I had. I had to learn and accept that I grew up as a girl and, thinking of myself as just a body, that wasn't too difficult. He had already been briefing me as "You did this" and "You did that". I just had to break the habit of thinking that I grew up as a boy. No, that was him, not me. I had been thinking of "I" as Amanda for so long now that I couldn't have grown up as a boy, could I? I was definitely in the female half of the human race now and certainly saw everything from that viewpoint.
It was also in that first half-term that Marvin and Yolande moved into the flat above ours. We met them by helping to lift their huge sofa (too big for the lift) up the stairs. They both had sunny Caribbean natures which were a breath of fresh air after the previous stuffy old occupants. Despite their strong Jamaican accents, It turned out that they'd both been born in London and that her parents were from Tobago, not Jamaica, like his. After the sofa-humping we took them into our kitchen for drinks and we immediately became good friends. I was a bit embarrassed by Marvin's constant flirtation but truly honoured when Yolande insisted I try on some of her clothes.
It was great to have this opportunity to make some new friends, rather than those "inherited" from our former selves. Yolande and I started hugging each other whenever we met. I admired the bright colours she wore and envied the way her chocolate skin showed them off. It was my compliment on that which prompted her to ask me to help her unpack while "the boys" went out to Tom's "local". We had a terrific time, partly because I took up a new bottle of wine with me, to follow the one the four of us had just finished. When we'd polished off mine, she produced another. That's why it's a bit hard to remember.
She certainly had some fantastic clothes in her wardrobe. When I think about it now, I'm surprised that I had become so interested in clothes for their own sake already. I tried on one of her brilliantly bright and colourful tops but when I got to the mirror I was disappointed that it made my pale flesh look rather plain. Also, though Yolande was not really over-weight, she had rather more to cover than me, so the loose hanging folds she favoured seemed too loose on me. I was quickly learning many things about ladies' clothing that hadn't occurred to me before.
She insisted that I try on her favourite leather trousers and again they turned out to be obviously too big for me so I had to be very careful not to offend her and pretend that they were just great. When it came to skirts, however, I found I really loved a fringed cowgirl-style leather mini. She insisted I borrow it to impress Tom and threw me a pair of fish-net tights. Then she produced a ludicrously high pair of glitter-covered heels but they fitted me perfectly. Of course I don't remember it much, but I think we must have woken the whole block with screeches of laughter at my attempts to get downstairs in those heels after all that wine.
Tom was indeed impressed by my sexy new legs but he and Marvin had unwisely followed grape with grain. Brewer's droop was the least of our problems as we staggered and giggled to bed. We had to keep waking each other up at every stage in the process. One thing I do remember is waking up sometime in the night to find him still on top of the bed in his clothes. I got up to undress him, after taking the pee I needed urgently. At least he'd taken his shoes off and undone his flies zip, so I only had to pull his jeans down from the ankles, then I pulled off his boxers too.
I was not surprised that I found his weak and shrivelled cock very funny. I was glad I didn't own it any more. I touched it gingerly and then stroked it but there was no response at all except that he opened one eye and whispered "I don't think that'll work tonight." I couldn't help giggling, so I apologised by kissing him on the forehead and assuring him that it didn't matter. I really did feel a lot of sympathy for his predicament, knowing so well what it meant to him. I was amazed how soon I had got completely outside of such male emotions, seeing them entirely from a female viewpoint.
I should have been really looking forward to the half-term break because I was finding my job really hard work but I was really nervous about meeting and actually staying with my parents on my own. I booked rail tickets because my little car didn't cruise the motorways as well as Tom's and because I felt I would have no chance to turn back in fright. Of course Tom took me to the station and waved me off. Suddenly I felt very vulnerable and looked nervously around my neighbours in the carriage, wondering who I could trust. This was quite different from going away from Tom to work at school, where I more or less knew everybody.
I got out a novel to read, pleased that my long hair fell down either side of my face and I gladly hid behind it. I would have had it bobbed again, like I did when we first swapped bodies, were it not for this visit to my Mum. I knew she would be disappointed that I'd cut it in the summer, but "I" had been growing it back ever since and now it lightly swept my shoulders. As I reflected that I was speeding away from the pebble at a hundred miles an hour, I felt totally trapped and condemned to womanhood, though usually I relished this idea. I was about to be a daughter in my blouse and skirt and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
I spotted my Mum on the platform ahead and the train came to a stop before I got there. It took a second glance to recognise her because she'd had her long grey hair cut quite short, only half covering her ears. I was suddenly relieved that she couldn't possibly object now to my having cut mine short. When I'd brushed the crumbs off my skirt, gathered up my bags and squeezed through the throng, who all seemed to be big smelly males, to the door, I started forward to meet her. As soon as I was clasped in her big friendly embrace, I felt an absolute fraud. Sure, I knew that I was completely her Amanda in my body, but my mind wasn't all Amanda and it hurt to deceive her.
Still, as we got into her car and she grinned across at me in delight, I felt glad to have a female friend even closer than Yolande that I could confide in, except, of course, for my one huge secret. We chatted brightly, like I hadn't been away at all. Suddenly I found myself wondering at my real love for my Mum. I had quite liked her as a mother-in-law, but now a new warmth towards her as my real, well physically real, mother, took over. Of course I couldn't really remember any of our past together, but that didn't seem to matter at all. She quizzed me about my work and I bubbled happily away, occasionally catching myself making it all sound too new to me, as it really was, but I don't think she noticed.
"You haven't asked about Tom." I pointed out, after a while.
"Oh, him! Well, how is Tom, then?"
"Being an excellent husband and a fond son-in-law, if only you'd admit it."
"Yes, of course I do. Please don't take offence, but don't you find him a tad exasperating at times?"
"Oh Mummy, you know I love him and yes, he can annoy me, but I won't hear you putting him down. He's very well, thank you."
I regretted bringing down the mood of conversation like that but I couldn't help defending Tom, not just because I had an additional secret interest now, but because "I" always had.
Now, I decided, it was time to talk about my Dad. Mum was glad to change the subject too and gave a lengthy report on his last visit to the doctor. Reading between the lines, the prognosis was not nearly so gloomy as she had implied on the phone, in fact he was more or less normal for his age. I did not at all feel cheated into visiting them, though, because I really wanted to get to know him as his daughter and I was genuinely relieved that he was so much better. He would get home from work in about an hour, she said.
As we came in sight of the house, I was amazed to really feel that I was coming home. I had expected to have to force feelings of pleasure and security here but instead they just flowed over me naturally. How differently I had viewed this house as Tom! I got out and opened the garage door, Mum drove in and I shut the door behind us to go through into the kitchen. I got my suitcase out of the boot, but before leaving the garage, I wandered into Dad's workshop and found myself breathing in the smells and fondly caressing his vice, instead of nosing around for new tools, as Tom would have done.
I hesitated in the kitchen, expecting Mum to show or send me to my room, but then realised that I must just go on up to "my" old room, now the smaller guest room, though Tom and I had always used the larger. I swung my suitcase onto the single bed, unpacked my delicate blouses and hung them up in the wardrobe, which was half full of Mum's stuff. Only the top drawer was empty, but that was enough for my bras, knickers and tights. When we had first used the pebble, I had felt like I was just borrowing Amanda's body and although I wore bras without a thought, they were hers. Now here was I filling a drawer with "my bras, knickers and tights" and that phrase was excitingly real.
When I'd unpacked completely, I sat on the bed for a minute to take in the ambience of the room, as if trying to remember what it had been like to grow up there. I imagined myself sitting on that same bed in school uniform, crisp white blouse and tie, worried about my Biology homework, instead of my teaching plan for the next half-term. Or younger still, with a flat chest. It wasn't difficult, though the room had been redecorated and my boy-band posters were long gone. I had been Miss Amanda Barrow then. Now having a maiden name was a novelty and I revelled in it. In this house I was definitely part of the Barrow family, not the Harris family.
I soon remembered that my Mum needed some help in the kitchen so I took my wash-bag to the bathroom, had a quick pee and washed the travel-dust out of my face. I then needed to re-apply my make-up, of course. I was still messing around with it when I heard Mum's urgent shout: "Amanda!". I wondered if Dad had got home early, but I couldn't see his car from the bathroom window. Perhaps he'd already put it in the garage, so I hurried downstairs.
"Is Dad home already?"
"No, of course not! Is that the only reason you'd come downstairs? I told you I'd need some help in here, young lady!"
"Ooh sorry, I spent too long washing and doing my make-up." I was probably more chastened than my old self would have been and a little surprised at my mother's jealousy of my relationship with my father, which I now realised I had exacerbated by doing my make up, ostensibly for him. My old self would have defended her adulthood but I was too charmed by the notion of being a naughty little girl.
I had to pay close attention to what Mum asked me to do, because she assumed I knew this kitchen and her ways intimately. I had been well briefed, but I had to play an awful lot by ear and take every opportunity to scan the other contents of a cupboard whenever I found something. There were a few little gaffs but Mum didn't seem to notice. I loved this opportunity to work with her and it felt so right, with us both in skirts.
Suddenly there was the sound of a car entering the garage. Mum grinned at me. I couldn't believe how excited I felt that my Dad was about to walk through the door. When he did, I just rushed to hug him. At last I was, for a precious moment, one hundred percent Amanda. Once or twice, in the past, I had wondered at the close, almost magical, relationship between fathers and daughters. Now it just poured over me in waves. My deep affection for this older man was not one tiny bit sexual, indeed the contrast with my feelings for Tom struck me straight away.
When we broke off the long, close hug, he held both my hands at arm's length and looked me up and down.
"Wow", he said, "You're not allowed to keep looking better and better while we deteriorate into old age."
"Speak for yourself!" snapped my Mum, almost angrily.
My whole head felt boiling hot with blushes. Tom had tried to understand my deep love of my father and he got along with Daddy pretty well, but now I knew he had no idea of how I really felt about my dear old Dad. I was feeling intensely proud that he found me pretty; Tom had always admired this body that I was moving around from the inside now, but he had never really understood my feelings.
When we sat down to the meal I had helped my Mum prepare, the fear of getting "caught out" by something I couldn't remember came back. I realised that I only had a vague idea of how to behave as Amanda with my parents. Of course, Mum spotted my discomfort and began to suspect that I had some news that I wasn't telling them. Of course it was the elephant in the room to me and I struggled not to betray it.
When the meal was over, I helped Daddy do the washing-up. Mum just couldn't bear to leave us alone together and hovered around the kitchen.
"Guess where you and I are going tomorrow..." she teased me, "to Jackson's!".
I made myself grin while I thought 'Where the hell is Jackson's?' then luckily remembered, from "my" old diaries, not Tom's briefings, "Jackson's Stables" and Pergoman, "my" favourite horse. OMG, how could I pretend I knew how to ride?
"But, Mum," I pleaded, "I'm totally out of practice! I haven't ridden for years. I didn't know you'd started again. Isn't it awfully expensive?"
So, the next morning, I found myself feeling, a little painfully, every detail of the unfamiliar anatomy between my legs as I bounced in Pergoman's saddle at a brisk trot around the riding-school's sandy floor. He had remembered me immediately by scent, which I found really touching, as he gently nuzzled my head with his. He was going very grey around his mouth, as Mum pointed out and, as he trotted, I wished he wasn't still so active. I was concentrating on keeping a straight back, as I had been briefed by Tom, during my good-night phone call. He had calmed my worries about riding, though he had annoyed me by being so amused about it. Now, as I realised that my sore bottom was what had amused him, I was even more annoyed.
When our one hour's session was over, Mum sent me to sit in her car while she paid, so I phoned Tom and told him it had gone well, lying that it didn't hurt a bit and laying it on thick about Pergoman remembering me. Actually, I had enjoyed riding a lot.
"Oh, I have to confess," I suddenly blurted, "I slipped up with Mum this morning, calling Pergoman a stallion, when I should have known he was a gelding! Luckily, Mum just thought my memory had gone peculiar. Of course I hadn't looked at his balls. I do with men, now, but horses? ugh!"
Since becoming Amanda, I had worn skirts and dresses much more than I (the old Amanda) ever did. This was mainly because I was delighted to be female and felt a certain pride in it, a pride I had just felt increased by the bouncing of my boobs in my bra as I trotted on Pergoman, combined with an unavoidable awareness of the shape of my crotch. Of course I wore jeans to go riding and I had felt quite sufficiently feminine in them, so I would have liked to go on wearing them all day but now they smelt horsey. I remembered me moaning, last time we'd visited my parents, that Mum had no tumble-dryer, so now I regretted packing only one pair. When we got home (that word came naturally now) I showered and put on my favourite denim mini. I had hesitated to pack it because Tom had briefed me that Mum still disapproved of me wearing short skirts. She did stare hard at my knees but said nothing.
After lunch, where Mum, to my surprise, suddenly started encouraging me and Daddy to have a good chat, even leaving the room at every opportunity, then we all went shopping. Daddy drove us to the nearest city and sitting in the back with the hem of my skirt less than half-way to my nylon-clad knees, I revelled in being their little girl again. First stop was for Daddy to get some new shirts for work. I was flattered to be included as fashion consultant for this and I found myself liking the "Naval" style collars with their widely splayed edges which were just coming into fashion again. Tom had resisted the old Amanda trying to get him into these and here was I getting Daddy into them and buying three for Tom, who could hardly resist now, I thought with a smirk, having actually been the instigator before.
Then it was jeans for Mum and I eagerly joined her in trying on various pairs. I bought two for me too in the end. I liked one pair so much, grey with embroidery on the outsides of the shins, that I had the salesperson cut off the labels so I that could keep them on. Mum was noticeably more comfortable now that my legs were hidden, which made me wonder if it was another strange jealousy. Anyway, I didn't mind because I felt more comfortable too. As we wandered around a big mall looking for the best coffee, I felt confidently feminine and shapely in my new jeans. I really enjoyed replacing my older clothes because it was me, the new me, who was choosing them, this time.
Although my parents' choice of TV programs hardly matched my own, I found the evenings spent in just their company very pleasant and relaxing. The elephant in the room had shrunk on that second evening to a little virtual stuffed toy behind the sofa and by the third evening it had totally disappeared for most of the time. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that these were my own parents because I really was Amanda. They both had to go to work on Monday morning, my Mum to her part-time charity job, so I got out my lesson-plans and sat on the patio in the unusually warm autumn sunshine doing my own work at a leisurely pace.
My reverie was rudely interrupted by the ringtone of my mobile and I was a little annoyed to see "Tom" on the front before I answered it. We had had a long goodnight chat at midnight, so what did he want now? He must be at work.
"Hello, is anything wrong?"
"No, except that I'm missing you."
"Well, I'll be back on Wednesday at six. You'll be meeting me, won't you?"
"Well... That's what I have to tell you. Of all days, it's Wednesday they want me to work late."
"Oh you poor thing! It doesn't happen very often, you know."
"Of course I know; the old Amanda used to have to wait for up for me. I haven't said yes yet. Do you mind getting home on your own?"
"Well you must say yes and of course I don't mind, as long as you don't expect me to cook for you too!"
"Oh, no, I'll get a canteen lunch so's we can just have bread in the evening. I'm sure your Mum will want to cook your lunch."
That made me realise that he still knew my Mum a lot better than I did and I think I succeeded in hiding my resentment in the rest of the call, which was quite short, as he had to get back to work. I was annoyed that I had been reminded of my inner identity by Tom, but more with myself for letting such annoyance affect our relationship. After all, he must be trying just as hard to forget his origins here, in this house. I couldn't concentrate on my work after that call because it also reminded me of the need to watch my moods in that week before my second period and and that in turn reminded me of my planned pregnancy. They were the last thoughts I needed, sat alone on that patio, a hundred miles from the pebble.
Mum came back for her lunch-break, which she had assured me was quite easy, though not her normal practice. I was really glad of her company. She was concerned that I was working too hard and suggested that I go swimming in the afternoon. Now I had always been a keen swimmer, a champion at school, and faster than Tom over short distances, though we had not raced since swapping souls. I would enjoy beating him again, so needed some practice. I had found my holiday bikini in my suitcase when packing and left it there in case something like this came up but now I really wished I'd brought a one-piece.
Just as I was wondering where I could buy a more suitable swimming costume, Mum was offering me a lift to the pool so I only needed a bus back. I just had to be brave in my bikini. After all, I had worn it before, exactly when I first switched souls with Tom. When I came out of the changing cubicle, however, I felt very self conscious, especially handing my clothes basket in to a male attendant. I had tied my hair back but it was only just long enough to form a tiny pony-tail and I felt it looked silly.
As I approached the pool, I worried that I might have to re-learn my strokes. I had looked forward to a racing dive start but there was a big sign banning jumping and diving so I had to climb self-consciously down the steps. I was soon doing an easy crawl and was really pleased how this body was performing. There was a big clock at the wall at one end. My first two lengths took over two minutes but I started performing creditable somersault turns and the next two were over ten seconds better. I couldn't wait to see Tom's face when I beat him, even with his newly stronger body, in a sport like this. I raced the first six lengths too much so needed a brief rest before doing ten more. I was amazed how my smooth body glided through the water. My tits might have been a hindrance but I suppose their buoyancy was a boon.
I was fairly bushed after my sixteen lengths but could feel my heartbeat recovering as I walked towards the changing room, so I was really proud of my fitness. While revelling in the hot shower, I decided to go running tomorrow. I could not beat Tom at that but should enjoy it. My confidence as an independent woman was at a new high when I emerged from the sports centre, striding along in my jeans and denim jacket, but when I was boarding the bus, paying my fare from my handbag, I felt very alone and vulnerable again. I shouldn't have sat near the front because I spent the whole journey worrying if I'd dried and brushed my hair well enough now everyone behind could see. I hadn't packed any jogging clothes either, so I got off the bus in the town centre and found a sports shop. I bought a nice new one piece swimsuit there too. I planned to return the pool on Wednesday morning and improve my times further.
Daddy was home first and it was lovely chatting to him while I had him to myself. He was as pleased as I expected with my swimming times but then of course I got told off again when Mum got home, for doing nothing towards tea. Such domesticity was ideal for my continuing acclimatisation. Life at my childhood home was warm and comforting. Most of the time I could forget my transformation and just be myself, as a woman. I did go jogging on Tuesday morning, almost getting lost in what should have been a familiar neighbourhood, after going to Mum's workplace with her to borrow her car. This was because I was invited to visit Aunt Julie in the next town for lunch. I was glad my Gran had died before the swap, she would have been hard to convince that I was really me, but my aunt was a breeze and I really enjoyed the lunch. Of course I had to go and pick up Mum from work and Daddy was already home when we got back.
Wednesday morning I had to say goodbye to both my parents because Mum had an important meeting so couldn't couldn't take me to the station as she'd hoped. I gave Daddy a huge sad hug before he got into his car. Mum didn't want to spoil her make-up. I took the bus back to the pool and wore my new one-piece. It was more relaxing but actually I missed the admiring stares of my first visit. I did improve my times again. After fixing myself some lunch, I packed my bag and took the bus to the station. This time I was not at all shy. I had washed and dried my hair carefully at the pool and spent some time on my make-up before leaving my parents' house because I wanted to be attractive on the train this time.
I almost missed my stop because I was so engrossed in conversation with a lovely couple I had met. I have to admit I was terribly attracted to the man I sat opposite to and started flirting with him. Then I was not a little disappointed when who should come back from the buffet with coffees than his wife! Going to get my own coffee was very useful to cover my embarrassment. However, she was very nice too and we all discussed today's news with enthusiasm. I realised it was my stop when I saw Yolande on the platform, rather than the station name-boards. I had been planning to get a taxi because it took two infrequent buses to get home, so I was really pleased that she had taken over from Tom. I gave her the usual enthusiastic hug but she seemed strangely hesitant.
In her car, too, she seemed a bit uncertain of the controls and oddly different in some way. I asked "Is anything wrong, Yolande?". She pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine.
"I have a confession to make," she said, "I'm not really Yolande, I'm Tom and I showed the pebble to Marvin and Yolande."
How dare he! I was speechless at first. A huge sense of betrayal washed over me, completely ruining my day. Yolande had been a very special friend because she hadn't known my past. I was furious that he could do this to me, indeed to us. What had he been up to while swapped with Yolande or Marvin? That thought was even worse. I had an urge to hit him but realised that it was Yolande's body that I would be bruising.
"How could you do this?" I yelled, then I burst into tears. "Why didn't you talk to me before doing that?" I sobbed, "It must have been Sunday because you were plotting this when you rang me from work on Monday and lied about meetings."
The feelings of betrayal were deep and overwhelming. My friendship with Yolande was apparently ruined by her new knowledge that the woman she had met had contained a man's soul. That almost seemed more important than the potential end of our marriage now that Tom could not be trusted. I hated him. He had ruined our happy swapping. I thought that no way would I let him keep his new strong body now. "Have you got the pebble here? " l demanded, after roughly rejecting a comforting hand. "Well get it out, then." The new Yolande shrugged and pulled the doughnut-like stone out of her jeans pocket. I stuck my finger into the hole and she did the same. Suddenly, with no flash or drum-roll or any other indication that anything unusual had occurred, I was seeing dark brown arms, coming from my own shoulders, holding the pebble and there was the tearful Amanda, make-up smeared down her face, beside me. l put the pebble back into my jeans pocket, this time on the side away from Amanda, in case she tried to grab it. My thighs now seemed enormous, to say nothing of my boobs.
"Now this isn't some fun experiment," I said, startled by my strong West Indian accent, "As soon as we get home I'm getting Tom's body back and that's how we're staying, because you've ruined everything." The original Amanda just resumed the sobbing I had begun. Her now sensible female brain was absorbing the enormity of her mistake as a man. "I might destroy the pebble now, to say nothing of our marriage." I went on, "How am I supposed to believe you weren't unfaithful to us while swapping outside the marriage?"
"There was no sex, honestly!" sobbed Amanda.
I re-started what was now my car, reflecting that I, Yolande, was now fully insured to drive it. I drove home in silence, Amanda quietly sobbing beside me. I had left the hormones of anger and hurt in Amanda's body but I remembered my determination to reverse our swap then destroy the pebble. However, that now seemed a little extreme to my calm Yolande brain. Amanda went into her flat to repair her face while I went on up to what was now mine. The new Tom opened the door with Marvin standing behind him. I was surprised to be so much more attracted to Marvin, but then he was my husband now. I soon overcame my lust and turned to Tom with the pebble held out.
With obvious relief, he poked out his finger and I instantly found myself in my original body looking down at Yolande. I took the pebble from her shaking hand. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, "That is really bad voodoo, like I said."
"Look, Yolande," I said in my new deep voice, "I'm really really sorry for all that the other Tom did this week. He never told me what he was doing. I've put her back into her original body now. I was your friend Amanda but I realise that she has ruined that." Leaving no time for reply, I backed out and went downstairs, doubting that they would ever speak to us again.
On the stairs I found I really missed Amanda's body. My flat chest was a shock and I really didn't want a crutch full of wrinkly equipment. I felt awkward and clumsy in this taller body, even though I'd grown up in it. I really missed the sweet softness between my legs and resented Amanda possessing that and the potential of better orgasms. For some odd reason she preferred my male body, but withholding it would punish me too. I suppose it was again the leaving behind of hormonal emotions which hastened my return to rationality. By the time I reached Amanda, I was feeling sorry for her, having been so stupid as a man.
As I came into our bedroom, Amanda was just emerging from the bathroom, her face washed but still red-eyed. I inwardly chuckled that she had just had to pee sitting down for the first time in six weeks. I knew she needed it from my journey. I was surprised to find that her body, in the top and skirt I had put on after swimming, was starting to give me a hard-on, so soon after lusting after Marvin. I wanted to wear that body, really, not screw it. From the look on her face, she was thinking the same and, since I had told her this was permanent, was resigning herself to it.
"I am so, so sorry! " pleaded Amanda, "I certainly should have discussed it with you."
"Yes, you should. It's going to take a long time for me to forgive you, but I'd like that body back now, please." Willingly she held out a finger for the pebble, still in my hand. I frowned at the thought that the new Tom would have hold of it, so first passed it to her and then pointed my chubby male finger into it. Now I was wearing my skirt again, one I had bought myself, looking up at the man who had ruined my day.
"You see, there's no point in punishing you in a way that punishes me too", I explained. "I may not forgive you for a long time but I still love you as my husband. Now you were going to cook me a nice welcome home dinner, weren't you? I only had a snack lunch because Mum really did have special meetings at work, unlike you!". Men! I thought, you can never trust them!
I sat down at my dressing table and stared at my nylon-clad knees in relief before repairing my make-up. Tom had shaken my new security as a woman since visiting my parents but I was not going to let that defeat me. However, the hurt of betrayal was worse than anything I had ever felt as a man, as indeed childbirth would be. Was it worth it? Yes! I began humming "I am strong, I am woman" again. That suddenly became terribly relevant just then because, as I stood up, the first cramps of my second period hit me.
I began to wonder if PMS had affected my attitude to Tom's behaviour. Maybe it had but I remembered that I had felt just as betrayed when I was away from it in first Yolande's and then Tom's bodies. Anyway, the tension would be gone now the cramps had come. I delayed going to the kitchen because I still wanted to punish Tom, though actually I couldn't wait to get back to bed with him after almost a week without it. I had toned down my make-up so as not to arouse him and I almost changed into jeans but now it occurred to me that the "restricted privileges" would hurt him more if he was turned on. Again, it was a question of how to punish him without punishing me.
I found he was trying to be romantic with candles etc., so I deliberately took a tray into the lounge to eat without conversation, catching up on my missed but recorded soap episodes. He tried grovelling but I took no notice. Some bits of the soaps made me feel rather sexy, however much I tried to suppress it. I have to admit that it was me who moved up to him on the couch, after he returned from washing up, for a bit of a smooch, something I'd missed so much at my Mum's.
It was also me who led him by the hand to the bedroom, having considered that tonight was probably the last chance before that prohibitive string dangled once more between my legs. After so recently being Tom, it was a bit weird to accept his penis inside me, but it seemed so very normal to do so. I kept telling him that I hadn't forgiven him, but that didn't sound right at all, especially when I started moaning in ecstasy.
In the morning he brought me my breakfast in bed and I managed a smile, though I told him he had a lot more to do. I tried to go back to sleep for a lazy half-term lie-in, at last, but I couldn't stop feeling sorry for myself about the loss of my friend Yolande. I knew my colleague Carol had gone to Berlin all week with her husband, so I couldn't ring her. My other friends were not teachers so they would be at work. I got up and watched some awful daytime TV before deciding to try some "retail therapy" and take myself out somewhere nice for lunch.
At first I couldn't be bothered to get dressed. I felt so depressed now that my life as a woman had been so damaged by Tom. Then, when I decided to be strong and go out for lunch, I wanted to dress as sexily as possible. I had found in my knicker-drawer the fishnet stockings of my Penelope outfit. I had never put then on before myself, only found myself wearing them. Now they seemed appropriate, if only in revenge for Tom's betrayal. I drew the line at Penny's awful gingham dress. No one else would understand that anyway. I discovered that all my favourite mini-skirts would show my suspenders and I didn't want to go that far either, so I had to wear an old flared blue skirt of knee length which made it hard to find a matching top.
Just as I was almost ready, there was a knocking at the door. I thought it must be the postman because he was often buzzed into the block by someone else. When I opened the door to Yolande I was amazed and overwhelmed. "Look," she said, "I'm still your friend, whatever body you were born in!"
"But how do you know who I really am now?"
"Well, I saw Tom going to work and also I don't think he'd be as pleased to see me!"
As she gave me a huge hug, I said "No, you're right there. It'll be a long time before I forgive him."
Despite her accepting nature, I was still deeply embarrassed that she now knew all about Tom and me swapping souls. I was even more annoyed with Tom for so upsetting my security as a woman. I was beginning to feel, as I now set out for lunch with Yolande, instead of on my own, more like a man who'd had the operation. The fishnets didn't help to reduce that illusion. "Bloody good operation!" I chuckled to myself as another cramp hit me. Although Yolande did not comment on them, I was embarrassed enough by the fishnets to change out of them at the first opportunity and the tights I bought instead gave me the opportunity to buy some super mini-skirts and a dress too. I hadn't shopped with another woman before, oh except my Mum of course, and it was great fun; so was lunch.
When Tom got home from work, he was so full of guilt and sorrow that I almost felt sorry for him. I had to remind myself that I was the victim of his betrayal and that last night's sex did not mean forgiveness at all. I told him that too. He did pull out all the stops to cook us a lovely meal. When we got to bed, I watched his face with some glee to see his disappointment when he finally noticed the string dangling between my legs.
I will always remember those first six weeks as Amanda, with all their ups and downs. Within the next two weeks I must have completely forgiven Tom because I forgot all about ovulation headaches. Hence those first two periods were my last for ten months and it is my third which is sharply reminding me to get this written while I still have time in my maternity leave and Mum's finally gone home after ""helping"".
Yes, at this point I'd better introduce Billy Harris, our beautiful baby boy, whom I bore all by myself. Oh, I don't mean Tom didn't help, he held my hand right through the nine-hour labour, bless him! I mean I refused to share the pain by using the pebble, as we had planned, though I don't remember him offering all that frequently. We had re-charged it and tested it in my eighth month and the test was very brief because being pregnant was a huge shock for Tom and he only waited to feel one kick before he was begging to get his balls back. Now he's a very proud Daddy and quite adept at changing nappies. We have discussed leaving Billy the pebble in our wills. By the time you read this he may have used it. I often wonder if he will prefer to become female like his Mummy did.