If you're browsing here, you're familiar with all the body-swap story mechanisms, and then what's interesting is how people deal with the result. This has a familiar theme if you've read 'Sometimes Justice Just Works', but I was pleased with the variation and where it went, and finally decided to let it out into the world anyway.

She turned abruptly when someone behind her called out, "Melanie."

"Oh... Hi. Didn't expect to see you here. It's not really your kind of place, is it?"

"Yeah, well... I knew you'd be here."

In truth, he did look out of place here, where there were more motorcycles parked outside than cars. He wore a light blue business suit and a power tie. His graying hair, such as remained, was cropped close. The steel-rimmed glasses framed his pale blue eyes, making them dominate his cleanshaven face for a distinguished look.

She, on the other hand, was dressed in riding gear: black harness hoots, black leather chaps over black denims, and a black Harley-Davidson tee shirt under a faded blue denim cutaway vest which was woman-tailored, as it must be in order to close over her considerable chest.

He stared at her for a few moments more than it took to complete a survey of her clothing, then sighed. "I miss you. I want us back the way it was."

"Well... I'm flattered. Really. But... I don't think it can work, know what I mean?"

"Why not? We have a lot in common."

"Not in a way I'd want anybody to know about, not now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I heard how you managed the company after I left... Tell me, what management school teaches 'terminal nose-dive' as a market tactic?"

"That wasn't my fault!"

"Yes it was. You drove off all the really good technical people and replaced them with drones, you outsourced tech-support when our service crew quality was a marketing asset and our premium-response plan was a net profit center, and you confused the market with vaporware like it was Osborne-revisited. I'm real impressed."

"You're just jealous that I took it public."

"No, I'm disappointed that you destroyed it all in three and a half years. Chapter Seven means you burned a lot of investors. That's not the sort of thing you want on your resume."

"Well, you weren't going to do any better."

"Actually, I was. When I left, we were just achieving profitability on a slow growth course that was self-sustainable without bringing in venture capital, just angel investors, so we didn't need an IPO. Doing it that way, I kept control of the company... You didn't."

"You think you were in control. You didn't know what you were doing... You technical types always think you can just pick it up as another programming language. Being CEO isn't like that!"

"I made it my business to learn, and delegated what I had to to make it work. Why do you think I brought in Bernie to head up Engineering? I'm a technical type, agreed, but I never micromanaged my CTO like you did. I'm not surprised he left; I'm surprised he stayed as long as he did. He probably cursed your name as he left for suckering him into it in the first place."

"Your name."

"It's not my name now, you saw to that."

"It can be..."

"After all this, you want to trade back? I never wanted to trade this long in the first place, remember?"

"Then you should be glad to get your body back."

"No. No, I'm not. See, this--"

She pulled her vest fully open now, flaunting the unbound breasts swinging free under the tee shirt. Now the Harley logo could be seen to share space with another corporate logo, one associated with NASDAQ and positive earnings projections fulfilled, along with "MC" in a bold typeface.

"--isn't what I grew up with... but it's workable. The kind of people who respected me then, for the right reasons, still respect me now."

"You used to enjoy being up at the cutting edge."

"Who says I'm not? I'm designing things I couldn't before. Even when I was there, nobody could see past getting the NDA's signed at the door, so we had to go it alone, and it hurt us. If you want to network, you have to network -- trust relationships with peers isn't just about network protocols, it's about consortium-building and making things work together well in a heterogenous world too, even if it takes patent-pools and putting driver details out for open-source. They see that where I am now. I can dream it, and then build it, and know that we can market it, and it will work right wherever it's installed."

"I didn't know you were designing there."

"Then you never looked below the C-levels when you did competitive analysis, if you ever did any. I competed with my old designs and won."

"So it was your fault we crashed! I can sue you--"

"No you can't. As far as the world knows, I worked for you as an executive assistant, a glorified secretary, and never signed a non-compete the whole time I was there. You probably can't even prove trade secrets even if you expose yourself, because I refined everything."

"And you don't think you'll have trouble if your past gets out?"

"No, I've been over everything either of us signed under this name with Legal. I've got no exposure to worry about."

"I meant, who you used to be."

"Nah, nobody in the business will believe you, and the guy I'm with won't have a problem with it; he helped me get my position."

"He will, if I tell him how you used to be a man when I was your glorified secretary."

"Tell you what -- I'll save you the trouble. Hey, Josh! Get over here!"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I want you to meet somebody. Kevin, this is Josh, our CTO; he does a better job at it than I ever did, so I don't have to. Josh, this is Kevin. You know, the one I told you about."

"The one who...?"

"Yep."

"Well, I can see the same kind of brains... but I like your looks a lot better now."

She grinned. "So do I." She turned to face Kevin. "See? Why should I want all that back after what you've done to it?"

"So that's it. You're giving it all up."

"No, you still don't get it, and I don't think you ever will, so I'm telling you, not for your sake, but for my sake.

"I'm not giving anything up. This isn't what I asked for, but I've made something of it, and made it mine in the process. From what you're telling me... Well, hell, if you had done the same thing you wouldn't be here. Not for what you're asking me."

Josh was giving Kevin a hard look over her shoulder. Now he said, "Hey, babe, I don't want to waste any more of our time here. How 'bout you grab our jackets and helmets?"

She let a little half-smile show and nodded agreement. "You want me to warm up the bikes?"

"Nah, I'll only be a second."

She kissed him on the cheek, then strode purposefully away to the cloakroom. Josh smiled for a moment, watching her, and then his smile evaporated; he turned and loomed over Kevin.

"I suppose I oughta thank you for pushing Melanie my way like that... But I also suppose I should kick your fucking ass for doing that to somebody in the first place... Stealing a life..."

Now he leaned in. His growl was low and threatening.

"So, I'll tell you what. I'll give you thirty seconds before I start swinging. Starting now."

Kevin immediately got up, hands raised before him. "You can't do this--!"

"I'm doin' it. Twenty-eight, twenty-seven..."

"That's my body--"

"No it ain't. That is. Twenty-four, twenty-three..."

"I'll be back--"

"Your funeral. Twenty-one, twenty..."

Kevin was out the front at fourteen, walking at a pace just a little too fast to be dignified. At three, a subcompact out in the parking lot threw gravel. At one, it was out of the lot and headed towards the first hairpin curve of the winding road that led down the mountain and back out to the coast.

Now Josh went over to where Melanie stood, staring out the window, with their leather jackets over one arm and two full-face helmets slid up under them. He put his hand on her shoulder. She started, then put her free hand on top of his, and they both stood there staring down at where the distant subcompact occasionally appeared as it negotiated the mountainside turns, always heading down.

"Second thoughts...?"

She turned with a relieved laugh to look up at him then. "No! I've got what I want: a life I can live on my own terms. Then I got a partner who's willing to do the same, who's got enough in common with me to make a partnership work. No, no second thoughts at all." She turned back to watching the distant car and shook her head. "No, I was just trying to fathom the kind of mind..."

He gently but firmly pulled her around, embraced her and nuzzled her ear; she smiled and leaned in and let him do it. Softly, confidently, he murmured, "Some things aren't meant to be understood too clearly... Just avoided. That was one of them."

She frowned. "But..."

"He brought us together in a way, didn't he? That was his one good deed for this life."

"He didn't mean it to be good."

"That's my point."