The Other Side of Me – Part 8
by Limbo’s Mistress

I lay there in the soaked sheets, panting and trying to get my voluntary muscles back into some semblance of working order. As I did, I fought against acknowledging the situation, the moment, I’d landed in when I flipped back over to the other side. No, negative, no way, not going to happen. However, my rebellious thoughts were as beholden to my desires as a bird is to the ground.

I had leapt back into Charlene while she was having sex with Danny Morris.

Not just having sex, either. Raw, animal, taking it from behind carnal lust. And to top it all off, I’d returned just as her climax arrived. Bad for me, yes. But even worse for her. Call it coitus interruptus. I balled my hands into fists and hoped her abrupt return to my body before finding release meant she had a killer case of blue balls.

It would serve her right.

Danny placed his hand on my bare shoulder, thumb stroking the sensitive flesh.

“That was incredible,” he said, sounding about as out of breath as I felt. Gah! I felt like I needed to get away and shower. With lava.

I shifted on the bed, moving my shoulder out of his touch. “I have to go,” I announced, sliding up into a sitting position. As if on instinct, I held the dark silk sheets against me, preventing him from seeing anything more risqué than my bare back. When I rose, I pulled the rest of the sheet around to cover my naked ass as I searched the room for my clothes.

The garments were in a pile near the door. Discarded, as if Charlene had entered with a singular purpose and had been determined to relieve herself of anything that might get in the way of that goal as quickly as humanly possible. My bra dangled from the banker’s lamp sitting on Danny’s desk.

“Seriously?” he said in a tone of utter disbelief as he stood up. In all his naked glory.

Hello! Dong on the loose!

A wave of disgust rolled through me as I realized his dick was still wrapped in a wet-slick condom. The tip bulging with his … secretions. Gah! Make that a double lava shower.

“Seriously,” I retorted, being down to grab my skirt and top. “I’ve got … stuff to do.”

Panties. Panties. Where the ever-loving fuck were my panties?

Danny walked over and put his fingers around my upper arm. Not exactly holding me tightly, but enough to broadcast his desire to delay my departure.

“You got stuff to do?” He snorted and shook his head. “First, you act like you’re all upset about what you and I are doing behind Josie’s back. Then you burst in here, unannounced, and practically jump me like some animal in heat.”

I looked down at the hand on my bicep, then glared up at him.

“I did not jump you like some … animal.” Of course, that might be exactly what happened. I didn’t have the slightest clue about Charlene’s sexual escapades. I’d assumed that since she and Jackson had never done the deed, she might actually still be a virgin.

Danny snorted again and pointed at the desk. An open textbook sat in the middle of it in front of a small laptop. My wayward thong sat squarely in the middle of the book.

“You came in here like a horny whirlwind, stripped down to your birthday suit, and told me that you ‘needed my dick immediately’. That’s a direct quote by the way. I tried to get you to slow down and talk to me. Because, frankly, you were scaring me a little.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to imagine Danny Morris trying to talk a girl out of having sex with him. It was like a heroin junkie throwing out Grade-A smack.

“You tried to get me to slow down, huh?” I gestured at my sheet-covered body then glared my hardest at him. “How’d that work out?”

He released me and held up both hands, apparently concerned by whatever he saw in my eyes.

“Hey, don’t blame me. I don’t know any guys alive who would pump the brakes once a hot chick started giving them head.”

“Started giving …” My stomach churned and a felt a bit of vomit creep up into my upper throat for a second before sliding back down. It left a truly disgusting taste in my mouth. A taste that immediately erased the other strange taste that had been there.

Gah! Now I was going to gargle with the damned lava!

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Danny asked. “I knew you were batshit crazy when we were in high school. I just didn’t realize that you still were.”

I stared at him for the length of several heartbeats, then marched over to grab my underwear from their resting place.

“You’re right,” I snapped, shaking the lacy thing at him. “I’m fucking crazy. Why don’t you do yourself a favor and forget all about me? Leave me and my crazy, hypersexual self alone?”

I turned around and looked at the closed bedroom door. From what I could tell, I was in a house. Probably the Frat house of whatever misogynistic organization would have Danny Morris as a card-carrying member. The last thing I wanted to do was perform the Walk of Shame wrapped up in those nasty sheets.

I sighed and looked back at Danny, reminding myself to not look at his latex-covered member. “Turn around.”

“Why?”

I bared my teeth at him. “Because I need to get dressed and I don’t want you ogling my naked body while I’m doing it.”

“Ogling your naked …” He threw his hands in the air. “You really are a fucking basket case, Charlie.”

However, he did as I asked, turning his back to me, and planting his hands on his hips.

I dropped the sheet and stepped into the panties so fast it was practically magic. Then I pulled on the skirt and strapped myself into the bra. The sweater was inside out, so I had to turn it around right before slipping it over my head. The hose got shoved into the purse sitting on the recliner in the corner of the large room. Once I had my boots on, I turned back to Charlene’s covert paramour.

“Done,” I said.

Danny turned back around. Before I could avert my eyes, I confirmed that the physical evidence of our tryst had been removed. He was still completely naked, though.

“Now that you’ve gotten dressed, can we talk like adults?”

I shook my head. “No, we can’t. This…” I pointed at the disheveled bed. “…was a big mistake. One I’m not ever going to repeat again.”

Of course, those were pretty bold words I might not be able to back up. If I jumped back home again, I didn’t think Charlene would follow through on them in the least.

He shook his head, then narrowed his eyes at me.

“You want to be done with me? Fine. But let me tell you this, Charlie. If you confess what we’ve been doing to Josie, I will make sure she knows that you were the one who came onto me. That this little affair was your idea.”

The sad part was, he had a point. From what I’d been able to piece together, between the lines, was that Charlene had initiated the relationship. She’d probably done the same at that mysterious Homecoming event. Regardless, the years of dislike I had for Danny Morris shone through. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a withering look.

“Maybe she’ll believe that. Maybe she won’t. But it’s a safe bet that, afterwards, she won’t have anything to do with either of us.”

“We’ll see,” he said, pointing at the door. “Take your psycho ass out of here.”

I pondered kicking him in the balls for a second, then decided to simply leave. The door opened onto a plush carpeted hallway that dead-ended to the left, but revealed a staircase to the right. I headed in that direction, descended to the main floor, and stepped out into the twilight evening. Turning around, I looked up at the Greek letters attached to the front of the two-story Colonial: Sigma Chi.

Luckily, I recognized where on campus I was, and began to make my way toward the small lot down the street. As expected, Charlene’s Jeep was parked, slightly crooked, in one of the fraternity’s guest spots. I climbed in, tossed my purse on the seat, and started the engine.

Before pulling out, though, I put on the overhead light and looked at myself in the visor’s mirror. My makeup was practically gone, obviously the victim of the bout of bedroom gymnastics. My hair was still damp in places, and looked to be a complete wreck. In short, I was a really hot mess who needed to go home, take a dozen showers, then get in bed and pretend the day hadn’t happened.

Home! The thought yanked me upright in the seat. I shoved my hand into my purse, pulling out my phone. The digital display informed me that it was almost six-thirty. I had told Charlene’s dad I would be home long before now.

I dropped the Jeep into Drive and sped off, trying to get home as quickly as I could without breaking any major traffic laws. Unfortunately, there was a patch of roadwork taking place on Elm Street, which narrowed the two-lane road down to a single file line of cars the crept agonizingly slow. By the time I pulled to a stop in the driveway, it was ten after seven.

The silver Mercedes parked in the driveway informed me that, not only was I late, Charlene’s dad had beaten me home. I killed the engine and climbed out of the Jeep, walking slowly up the pathway to the front door like a condemned prisoner being delivered to the execution chamber.

When I stepped inside, I heard voices coming from the kitchen. I dropped my backpack and purse near the stairs and went to face the music.

The two of them were at the table, chopsticks in hand. The platter of sushi and sashimi between them was almost half-gone, telling me that Mr. Miller had gotten off work earlier than his original estimate. A lot earlier, it seemed.

Katie noticed me in the doorway first. She swallowed the morsel in her mouth and gave me a weirdly confused look.

“Hey, Charlie,” she said. The expression in her eyes made me think she was trying to ascertain if she was addressing Boy-Charlie or Girl-Charlie.

“Hey, Katie-Kat,” I said, quickly winking at her. “How was your day?”

Dad set his chopsticks down and turned in his seat to look at me. There was zero anger in his gaze. What there was, however, was a freaking crapload of disappointment. Which I completely understood. I’d promised him I would come right home after cheer practice and keep an eye on Charlene’s little sister. A promise that had gone unfulfilled.

In my defense, though, when I made that promise, I hadn’t planned on an accidental visit to my dimension of origin.

“Hello, Charlene,” he said, using my full name. Which, if things across the multiverse were constant, meant that he was really unhappy with me. “Welcome home.”

I froze as I tried to come up with some explanation that would seem believable. Because the truth totally was not. I grasped at the first thing that came into my mind.

“I’m sorry I’m late. Josie was all upset today and I was trying to console her. The time just got away with me.”

“What had her so upset?”

Think, Charlie. Think!

“She thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her.”

He nodded, still giving me the skeptical eye. “Isn’t she seeing that Morris boy?”

I nearly did a double-take. I was fairly certain my own father had no clue who the hell Danny Morris was. Biting down on my lower lip, I nodded.

“Yeah. She is. So, uh, I went to his place to talk to him. You know, make sure he wasn’t. Cheating on her, I mean.”

Holy shit, I sounded like I’d just lost about fifty IQ points. If Dad didn’t call me out for such a blatant lie, I would be totally shocked.

Instead, he turned back to the meal.

“I see,” he said in a non-committal tone as he gestured at the platter with his utensils. “Well, sit down and eat. Sounds like you’ve had quite the afternoon.”

I joined the two of them at the table, where Katie resumed the story she had been telling Dad when I walked in. Something about how some guy in her biology class had actually fainted while preparing to dissect a frog. I really didn’t pay as much attention to it as I could have. My mind was too busy spinning around other questions.

Why had I popped back and forth between universes? Especially when the machine responsible for the first trip was still in pieces in Jackson’s lab? What did my Jackson mean when he said I was being “irresponsible”? It was clear he had been talking to Charlene at the time. What was she doing that he disagreed with?

“Charlene.” Dad’s voice cut through my mental woolgathering.

I blinked, nearly dropping the slice of tuna pinched between the thin wooden rods in my hand. “Huh?”

Katie giggled and winked at me as I turned my attention away from her.

Dad sighed. “I asked if you would be willing to take Katie to the mall tomorrow?”

I glanced over at the younger girl, who seemed about ready to break out into uncontrollable laughter. Then I looked back at him. “Why?”

A tinge of annoyance crossed his face. Then he ran his hand through his hair before answering.

“Because, she says she needs to shop for a dress for the Winter Dance taking place in a couple of weeks. I offered to go, mostly to make sure my credit card doesn’t catch fire. However, she seems to really want you to take her. I guess to help her pick out a good one.”

I felt my mouth drop open, and glanced back at Katie. Now I understood what had tickled her so much. She was looking forward to dragging Charles through the rigors of a Female Shopping Adventure. I was positive her request for my company was less due to my fashion sense and more for her own perverted entertainment.

“Please, Charlie?” The manipulative teen said, batting her eyes pleadingly at me. Personally, I thought she was laying it on a bit thick. However, the trick seemed to work perfectly on the clueless man sitting next to me.

“Would you?” he asked. It came out as a question, but I could tell it was more than that.

After a few seconds, I shrugged my shoulders. “Fine. We’ll go after practice.”

Her mischievous smile widened. “Awesome! You, Big Sis, are the coolest girl around.

There was a bit of extra emphasis on the word “girl”.

However, the sprite wasn’t quite done weaving her web just yet. She turned to look at her father. “Daddy, do you think I could get an Uber to pick me up from school and take me to the university? That way I can hang out and watch Charlie practice before we go shopping.”

I nearly choked on my sashimi.

“I, uh, don’t think that’s necessary,” I said after I managed to stop coughing and wash the lump of seafood down with a sip of water. “I’ll just swing by and pick you up.”

Katie had obviously planned for such an offer.

“But the Galleria is only a couple of blocks from campus. Doesn’t make much sense for you to drive in rush-hour traffic all the way back over here to pick me up, drive all the way past school to the mall, then drive back home.” She nodded at her own infallible logic. “It just makes better sense. Plus, an Uber will only cost five bucks.”

“Good point,” he said, practically ending any argument from me.

When dinner was over, Katie and I cleaned up the kitchen while Dad went to take a shower. As soon as he was out of earshot, she walked up to me and gave me the serious stink eye.

“What?” I asked as I loaded our glasses into the dishwasher. “I agreed to take you shopping. Or, more accurately, agreed to let you take me shopping.”

“I thought you wanted to blend in as Charlene,” she said, anger prevalent in her soft voice. “What’s the use of trying to help you if you’re just going to do whatever you want?”

I wiped my hands on a dishtowel. “What are you talking about?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Duh! You ditched Charlene’s cheer practice.”

“What?”

“Don’t deny it,” she said, her voice momentarily rising to a louder pitch. Then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure we were still alone before turning back to me. “I saw your car over at Jackson’s this afternoon when you should have been at practice. Then you took off from his place like a shooting star around 4:30. I kept expecting you to come back before Dad got home.” She sighed in annoyance. “What’s the matter? Found out being a girl was too tough, so you went over to Egghead’s place to try and get him to send you home? Then, when he couldn’t, you went some place to pout and cry?”

I stared speechless at her tempestuous tirade. No wonder she’d been so keen to inject herself into my day tomorrow. She wanted to make sure I was living up to my half of the deal.

Reaching out, I grabbed her arm and dragged her closer to me. I bent down a little, looking right into her eyes.

“The Charlie you saw this afternoon? That wasn’t me. That was Charlene. The real Charlene.” I made sure not to blink or avert my eyes. “I don’t know why, or how, but for a little while, she and I were back where we belonged. I only returned to this body about an hour ago.”

“When did that happen?” Her demeanor shifted instantly from one of fury to morbid inquisitiveness.

“While I was walking to practice. Right outside the sports complex, actually.”

She nodded, then glanced up at the clock.

“That would have been, what, almost three? Which would explain why she skipped it to go see Jackson.” Her brow crinkled in confusion. “Then, where did she go after that? Where was she when you returned?”

I bit down on my lip, trying to decide if I should just make something up or tell her the truth. After a couple of really long heartbeats, I chose the truth.

“At Danny Morris’ frat house.”

Her confused look intensified. “What was she doing there?”

I sighed, feeling a warmth creep onto my cheeks. “Uh, Danny?”

Now it was her turn to look shocked beyond words. “So, you … uh …” She held up her hands. One had the middle finger extended straight, the other made an O with the thumb and pointer. She put one inside the other, still staring at me.

The heat in my face became a bonfire, and the memory of the instant I resumed control of Charlene’s body made my dinner contemplate an involuntary return. Swallowing hard, I nodded.

“Oh Em Gee,” she said, covering her mouth with both hands. “How … how was it?”

I sighed, unable to meet those inquiring eyes. “I came in at the end of it. Like, right at the big moment.”

The cackle that followed would have done an evil villain proud. Despite her best attempts to quell it with her hands, her giggling threatened to rival her laughing spell from the previous evening.

“I didn’t find it funny at all,” I said, glaring at her.

She waved her hands, clenching her jaw to stifle her chuckles.

“No,” she said, taking a breath, tittering a bit, then continuing. “I’m picturing Charlie, getting ready to pop, then poof! She’s back in your body.” Another short burst of giggles. “I bet she was so pissed.”

I was unable to prevent myself from smiling a bit. Especially since I’d already considered the same thing.

Then her humor evaporated as the larger issue of what I’d confessed occurred to her.

“Wait! So, Charlie is cheating on Jackson with Josie’s boyfriend?”

I nodded. “Looks like. From what I can tell, it’s been an under-the-table thing for a bit now.”

“That bitch,” she snarled. “You would think after senior year, she would have more class than to boff a friend’s boyfriend.”

“She did the same thing last year?” I asked.

Katie shook her head. “No. She was the one in the dark. The guy she dated before Jackson was a total hottie pretty boy. Charlie fell really hard for him, even though I know for a fact some of his pals tried to warn her he was kind of a player. Right before Homecoming, she swung by his place to surprise him. What she found was two of her fellow squad mates and Jason enjoying a little ménage a trois.”

I arched a brow. “Jason … Reynolds?”

She blinked, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s the dirtbag. I keep forgetting that you probably know all the people she went to school with. Anyways, a couple of weeks after that was when her and Jackson started going out.” She shook her head, balling her hands into fists. “To think she’s doing that …”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Well, I think I managed to kill any future rendezvous with Danny. He thinks she’s a schizophrenic nut.”

Katie chuckled softly. “Well, I guess she might be. With the way you two keep taking over each other’s bodies.”

I nodded. “Speaking of, I should probably go over to Jackson’s and see if he has any idea what is going on. I mean, mine didn’t have any clue. Perhaps hers is a bit more on the uptake.”

She nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll finish up here. Just try to get home before too late. Morning exercise comes early.”

I groaned. “Don’t remind me.” I reached out and gave the smaller girl a hug, then stepped back. “You’re a good sister. No matter which dimension I’m in.”

She laughed and struck a pose. “I’m pretty sure every version of me is awesome.”

I walked out of the kitchen toward the front door. When I put my hand on the knob, Katie called out to me.

“Chuck? Are you going to tell him?”

When I turned to look at her, she inclined her head in the direction of the house across the street.

“About what his girlfriend has been doing behind his back?”

She nodded.

“I should. I would want to know if I were in his shoes.”

“But you’re not?”

I shrugged. “I’m sort of afraid that he might get so mad he decides not to repair the machine. That he might prefer her cheating ass to stay over there.”

She gave me a skeptical frown. “Would your Jackson do that? I mean if you guys were a couple? Or would he be mature enough to make things right regardless of personal feelings?”

I thought about it for a second. While I couldn’t say with utter and complete certainty what Other Jackson would or wouldn’t do, I knew my Jackson would shove his emotions aside and work to get the dimensional window operating again. It was just the kind of guy he was.

I gave her a slight smile. “Let’s hope that this Jackson has the same dedication to fixing his mistakes as mine. I’ll be back soon.”

Heading outside, I discovered that the sun had drifted below the horizon, turning the sky into a mixture of deep orange and purple. The oncoming night threatened to be a cold one, and already the chilly breeze fluttering the hem of my skirt sent gooseflesh rising along my bare legs.

I wished I’d bothered to change, but I had the feeling that going back inside now would result in me postponing what I had to do. So, I crossed my arms over me to conserve body heat, and minced across the street. It wasn’t until I reached the porch that I realized I did it without stumbling in the slightest.

When had I become accustomed to the heels? Just now? During the day at school?

I didn’t care for the subtle inference the knowledge brought with it. Pushing those worries aside, since I only wanted to deal with one disaster at a time, I reached up and pressed the lighted button beside the door.

A few seconds later, Jackson appeared. He looked at me strangely. As if actually surprised to see me standing on his porch. Then, apparently noticing that I seemed to be uncomfortably cold, opened the door and ushered me inside.

“Come back to yell at me some more?” he asked as we descended the stairs to the lab.

“Yell at you?” I asked, moving past him into the room. With all the equipment constantly running, the lab was always ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Another shudder, this one born of my form reacting to the wonderful heat, ran through me. “Why would I yell at you?”

Jackson closed the lab door and turned around. His mouth opened, but hung there for a second before snapping closed. His eyes slid up and down my body, but the gaze was completely devoid of any sexuality. It was a scientific examination. When his eyes came back up to mine, he arched a brow.

“Charles?”

I nodded. “In the flesh. In her flesh actually. Again.”

“You two swapped back. I mean, you swapped back to your proper bodies earlier today, and now you’ve swapped back. Yes?”

“Correct,” I said. I strolled over to couch and sat down, smoothing the back of the skirt beneath my butt. “Why?”

He wagged his finger at me, then rushed over to the whiteboard. The front of it was covered with mathematical symbols and equations that made my head throb just trying to decipher what they were supposed to be calculating.

“So, the initial … leap, to borrow the phrase, occurred when the two of you touched the dimensional window at the same place, at the same time, while having about thirty joules of dark energy flowing through you.” He picked up a red marker and drew a circle around one of the longer formulas. “It was the exact amount needed to push each of your consciousnesses across the barrier and into the other’s body.”

I nodded, ignoring the math for the practical. Being trapped in my current feminine form was all the empirical evidence I needed.

“However, it didn’t just cause you two to ‘leap’ into the other. It bound your consciousnesses on the subatomic level.” He then circled an even longer, more complex equation. “Quantum entangling them.”

I threw my hands in the air. “What the hell does that mean? Is it the reason instead of cheer practice here this afternoon, I ended up helping my mom make lasagna?”

He stared at me, blinking a few times. Then shook his head, a blush forming on his face.

“Sorry,” he said. “The memory of your mom’s cooking just hit me all of a sudden.” Then he nodded, drawing two more circles around the second formula. “Yes, I think so. When you … Charlene showed up this afternoon and informed me that she was back, I told her it was impossible. That without the power of the window and identical conditions to the initial incident, she couldn’t have come across the dimensional barrier.”

“Yeah, my Jackson tried to tell me the same thing. I sort of blew him off to go home and see my mom.”

“I completely understand. Charlene was less … pleased. To be honest. I think she had already made peace with being stuck over there for a while and didn’t handle suddenly popping back without warning.”

“Is it going to happen again?” I asked, pointing at the whiteboard.

His mouth curled down into a deep frown as he nodded. “Most likely.”

“So, I can expect that, a couple of times a day, I’m going to leap back into my male self and return to this. At least until you find a way to get me back permanently?”

The frown grew more morose. “Not exactly.” He sighed. “You went back last night, right? Just for a second or two?”

I thought about the incident in the kitchen.

“I was in the kitchen. I grabbed some sodas for Katie and me from the fridge, then turned around to see my mom standing in front of me. Plain as day. I’d thought it was a hallucination. My mind playing tricks on me as it tried to wrap itself around the fact that she was gone over here. Then I blinked and she was gone.”

“A leap.” He grabbed the top of the board and pulled, spinning it along its horizontal axis. The other side was also filled with equations I couldn’t easily follow. “It occurred around an hour and a half after the swap. Lasting for only a second or two. The one today took place approximately nineteen hours after the first. That one lasted for about three hours.” He tapped on the board. “The entanglement isn’t following a discernible pattern. At least, not one I can follow yet.”

“So you’ve got no idea how often this is going to happen? Or how long it will last?”

“Sorry, Chuck. I don’t. I don’t have enough data to predict it.”

I tilted my head, staring at him. I’d been friends with the other universe’s version long enough to know when there was more to the story than what he was saying.

“What aren’t you telling me, Jackson? I can hear the bad news in your voice.”

He sighed. Quantum entanglement is supposed to be limited to a single pair of particles. However, since no one really knows what constitutes consciousness, it’s possible that everything that makes up who we are is contained in a single electron.”

“Everything we are, in a single sub-atomic particle?”

He nodded. “The whole multiverse was once a super-dense singularity. It contained the entirety of everything that’s ever been, or will be. Not that hard of a stretch to think that same principle could be applied to a person.”

“Okay. So, what else is this entanglement doing? Other than keeping Charlene and I from our rightful bodies?”

“When two particles are entangled, they share a similar quantum state. What affects one, instantly affects the other. Spins, charges, and polarities. All can be influenced from one to another. Measure the charge on one, you alter the spin on the other. And vice-versa.”

“In Charlie-English if you don’t mind. I’ve already got a headache.”

He put his hands together behind his back and drew in a deep breath before answering.

“Information is flowing between your two consciousness. Well, information isn’t really the right word. It’s not like you know what she’s doing in your body when you’re over here. Or what she’s doing in her own when you’re back in yours.”

“You’d be surprised,” I mumbled.

He ignored me and continued. “But the quantum states, the ones I mentioned and dozens of others are sliding back and forth along the cross-dimensional connection you two share.” He pulled his hands back out and pointed at me. “Remember when I mentioned that you were standing like Charlene? And had adopted some of her more unconscious mannerisms?”

I nodded, my nausea from finding myself getting reamed by Danny starting to return.

“I thought it was just some type of residue. Something that might fade in time. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The longer you two are where you are now, the more those … quirks … are going to get passed along. Not actual memories, mind you. But other, more primal, personality characteristics. Emotions and other things.”

I jumped to my feet, tugging down the hem of the sweater.

“Hold up! Are you telling me that the longer I’m over here as Charlene the more … girly I’m going to become?”

“Basically.” He pointed at me again. “Your gait, your stance, your actions. Heck, Chuck, even the inflections in your speech patterns. All of it is more her than you. It’s going to continue, as well. That much I’m certain. The only question is, will it slow down, speed up, or remain constant?”

I could barely hear him over the pounding of my heartbeat. I wasn’t just living in Charlene. I was becoming Charlene. Taking on her aspects. I felt uncontrollable tears start to form in my vision. I blinked several times, fighting against their release.

“Then you have to get me back, and her back, as soon as possible.”

“I’m trying, Charles. I can’t make the parts manufacturer fabricate the necessary pieces any faster. Their extremely complicated and delicate. However, even if I could promise to get you back home the second they arrived, it might be too late.”

“Too late?”

“Once you and Charlene re-enact the situation that started this, you will both be back in your own bodies, de-entangled. But you’ll still possess whatever alterations to your consciousness that have already occurred. It will become a permanent part of who you are.”

I dropped back down to the sofa, feeling my world slip out from under me. I really didn’t know which would have been worse. The news Jackson had just shared, or if he’d just told me that I was never going to go home.

I put my head in my hands, feeling the battle to not cry moving in the wrong direction. A moment later, I felt him settle down next to me, his hand lightly stroking my back.

“I’m really sorry, Charlie. I really am.”

I nodded, sniffling. I wiped at the first drop that slid down my cheek and lamented that this horrible day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Which, of course, was when the lab door busted open and Michelle stepped into the room. Her eyes, slightly puffy and full of rage, locked onto me.

“You fucking slut,” she shouted. “How the hell could you do that to Josie?”