Buyer’s Remorse Chapters 1 - 2 by Maeryn Lamonte Copyright © 2023 Imagine you met someone who said he could make your fondest dream come true. All he needed was your consent and a list of things you wanted in your dream life. With that he would look for someone who wanted your life and who met your own criteria and he would arrange for you to swap. Only one thing. The more requirements you make and the more specific the requirements, the less likely he would be able to find a match. What would you limit your wishes to, and what might be the consequences?

-oOo-

Chapter 1

“Phwagh, look at the jugs on that!”

I followed Stuart’s gaze until my eyes found the focus of his attention – not that I was likely to miss it. Everyone else in our group of friends had already done much the same thing and were busily adding their own juvenile remarks.

I suppressed a sigh. There are times when I wonder if I belong to the same species as them. I mean I’m looking at the same thing, but my response is nothing like theirs. Nor do I have the least desire to regress into the hormone haze of puberty.

Alright, so she did have an impressive pair of mammaries – sufficient to provide shelter to any passing dwarf – but what was it about those two well rounded breasts that elicited the sort of deep trousered groans currently surrounding me? The full extent of my own response was to wonder what the hell she thought she was wearing?

To start at the point – or perhaps that should be points – of interest that had so captivated my friends. They were large. Not unnaturally so, but about as big as nature was inclined to give. They would have stood out had she tried to hide them under a tent, and yet here she was barely concealing them with a bright yellow crop top that might have made a serviceable bra had it provided any support, and possibly covered a little more skin. The breasts themselves were on display, not only via a very deep and generous cleavage, but also peeking out from underneath.

I mean I don’t consider myself to be a prude, but it was borderline indecent.

Heading downward past the naked waist and pierced navel – I have never understood why anyone would willingly poke holes in themselves, especially in such a sensitive part of the body – the next piece of what might be classed as clothing was a pleated, white ultra-mini skirt that showed a hint of lacy white underwear almost every time she moved.

Beneath that extended a pair of very long legs perched on two of the most ridiculous spiked heels I have ever seen. White patent leather, and fully six inches long, holding her feet almost vertical from the toes back.

Above the neck – not that anyone but me was paying attention to that part of her anatomy – she had an Amy Winehouse rats nest of hair, only bleached blond, over a heavy-handed plasterwork of makeup.

Vacant eyes and a disdainful sneer more or less completed the look, although the open-mouthed gum chewing did help drag her apparent IQ down a few points into the negative.

I mean for heaven’s sake; she had the most gorgeous summer complexion! The last thing she should have been wearing was that mixture of strong yellows and bright whites, although I suppose it could be argued that there was so little of either that it really didn’t make that much difference.

The overall effect was Essex slapper trying to look trashy and succeeding – and while all my mates were gawping at her with eyes on stalks and tongues lolling, all I could think was how much more I could have done with that body. Life wasn’t fair and I felt sick to the stomach, not so much at the sight of this walking wet dream, but at my overwhelming desire to be her instead of… well me.

So, there you have it. Not so much a different species as a different part of it perhaps?

I didn’t ask to be like this. In many ways it would have been easier to go through life in the same fizz of testosterone that seemed to engulf most of my mates, but unlike them, my first thought on seeing a pretty girl, like the one before us now, was not how much I'd like to get inside her pants. Well, no... er actually yes, well okay, maybe that was my first thought, but not in the same way as my mates. More sort of get into her skin first. Shit no, that didn’t come out right either. I mean what I longed for was to actually be the girl, not – in my mates’ vernacular – do her, if that makes any sense.

It’s a lonely burden, like Atlas shouldering the weight of the world, I have no-one I can talk to about it. In a society where men are supposed to be men, the option of finding a friend with whom I could pour out my feelings just doesn’t exist. It’s not as if I can choose to be otherwise either, any more than any one of us can choose who we’ll fall in love with or what career we’ll enjoy the most. It’s just something that’s built into me.

I mean, sure I could choose to ignore these feelings, in the same way I could choose to do a job I hate or marry someone without caring for her in any way. It is in fact what I’ve been doing all my life. Simply committing to an existence of self-denial and sacrifice doesn’t mean the feelings go away though. If anything, they get worse, and they’re always there, waiting to settle onto your shoulders every morning when you wake.

You wouldn’t think I had much to complain about, looking at me. Six foot one in my socks and carrying around fourteen stone – that’s two hundred pounds – only a very small amount of which wobbled around my middle, made me a halfway decent specimen of blokedom. I couldn’t really complain about what looked back out of the mirror when I brushed my teeth either. Most of my friends seemed to have something that made them self-conscious, like Stuart with his bulbous nose, Pete with his squiffy eyes, Randy with his eczema. All in all, I had a pretty good set of chromosomes, apart from the unwanted Y.

So I should have been happy with what I had, shouldn't I? I mean half my mates would probably have performed any of a number of rash acts of radical self-harm to possess what I had, so what did I have to complain about, really?

I remember a time once I was out walking in the country, and I saw a horse in a field – a stallion if what he had hanging between his hind legs was anything to go by. He was a gorgeous animal, beautifully proportioned, at least to my untrained eye, and skittish. I remember a flight of geese passing over his field, honking as they went. His head went up and he chased after them as fast as his legs could carry him, and it was impressively fast. Even so he couldn’t keep up, and he ran out of field after just a few seconds, so had to give up the chase. I found myself wondering if he could ever be completely satisfied living as a racehorse if all he ever dreamed of was flying.

For me, the dream was not of wings, but of breasts and soft smooth skin, of a pretty face and long luxuriant hair, of the gentle, encouraging friendships so many women seemed to share, rather than the course, jocular exchanges that passed between my friends and me. I wanted to be noticed and appreciated for a beauty I knew I would never have. Rather than be the one constantly chasing after the prize, I longed to be the prize, to be chased after. I wanted the choice to wear pretty clothes — and by that I didn't mean the obscene, minimalist approach chosen by my friends’ current focus of interest. Her clothes, or near complete absence of same, made a grotesque mockery of her quite evident natural charms, and my heart ached over the manner in which she wasted them. I longed to be her, or someone like her, and I carried the burden of my obsession around with me like a dark cloud.

“I need some air,” I announced to anyone who was listening, which was probably no-one, given that all my mates were busy trying hard to hide their tenting trousers under the pub's small tables. I stood and headed for the exit.

---

Outside, the air was cool and smelt of recent rain. The road glistened, reflecting garish neon signs in the puddles. Occasional traffic broke the late-night silence, shushing past with the gentle susurration of tyres on wet tarmac. Away from the noise of the pub and the company inside, I felt the aching weight on my chest ease a little, and I took a deep cleansing breath.

“I could probably help, you know?”

The voice came from the dark shadows of a nearby alley. The tip of a cigarette flared as its owner drew in a deep lungful of smoke.

“I’m sorry?”

It’s a British thing, I think, although the Canadians seem to have it too. A congenital need to apologise at any and every possible opportunity – like when someone says something out of the blue that makes no sense, as in this instance.

The owner of the voice stepped into the light, flicking the burnt out remains of his cigarette carelessly into the street. He had on a deep maroon suit and matching trilby, under which he wore a smile that would not have been out of place on a shark.

“You look like someone in need of something,” he said. “I like to think of myself as someone able to provide somethings. Maybe I have a something that would appeal to you.”

“I doubt it,” I said, suspecting his wares to be drugs or some other illegal short-term fix. “Thanks all the same.”

Another congenital defect: the need to thank someone even when they probably – most likely – don’t deserve it. I turned to head back into the pub – too soon, but still the easiest escape route from this encounter.

“Let me show you.”

---

In an instant, the peace of the empty night vanished, and I was bombarded with a sudden onslaught of sensations. The loud conversation and harsh lights of the pub's interior struck me an almost physical blow. My feet and my back ached, I felt cold and strangely different, and I couldn't understand why I had the taste of stale chewing gum in my mouth.

“You alright babe?”

There was a young man standing next to me, about an inch shorter than me. He reached out a hand to steady me and I felt it touch bare skin in the small of my back.

Now, I'm used to looking down at other people, but it dawned on me that the only reason I was doing so with this guy was because I was just about standing on tiptoes. I swayed a little and felt the strength of his hand steadying me. The attention brought an odd mixture of revulsion and delight. Delight at receiving the attention, revulsion at receiving it from him.

I looked down at myself, feeling an unnatural weight pull my head over more than expected. A few errant strands of hair escaped their imprisonment and fell into view. Bottle blond and back-combed.

Beyond them, I found myself looking down into my own very ample cleavage, held in check – if only barely – by a skimpy, bright yellow top. Past the hilly terrain, in the middle distance, was a broad pair of hips and a decidedly bulge free crotch, barely concealed by a white skirt that might have made a passable ribbon, and extending beyond that were a pair of smooth legs that stretched on towards infinity. At their far end, I found the ridiculous pair of shoes that were responsible for my aching feet, just as the impressive pair of breasts hanging off my chest were most likely the cause of my backache.

Being aware of just how precariously I was perched caused me to lose my footing again. This time my companion's strong arm encircled my waist and held me firmly to him.

“Babe?” There was a note of concern in his voice.

“Nah, I'm alright, innit.” My own voice had an unpleasant nasal quality, and it seemed to be possessed of a certain degree of its original hostess’s nature as the words and accent formed effortlessly in my mouth. “I'm just sor’ of... Well, I dunno really, but nah, I’m fine.”

I eased out of his grasp, which it seemed he was now using as an excuse to have a grope, and became very much aware of how many of my assets were on show and how much of an audience I had acquired. I needed a drink, and not the cloyingly sweet fruit concoction I held in my hand. I started looking around for escape.

---

I was back outside, wearing my own body and staring at the man in the red suit.

“What the hell was that?”

“It's like I said,” there was a smug, self-satisfied tone to his words, “I can provide the sort of something you're looking for.”

“You can turn me into her?”

“Well no, not her, not permanently.”

I stared at him and twitched an eyebrow In irritation. He was being deliberately obtuse, and I didn’t see why I should pander to his ego by asking the questions he knew damn well were forming in my mind. After a long pause he shrugged and continued.

“I can’t force change on anyone. The only thing I can offer is a mutually beneficial exchange between consenting parties. She wanted a break from the noise and the music and the boring git she'd come with, but only for a minute. You wanted to be her. So, for just that minute you both got what you wanted, and I got my demonstration.

“While you were in there, she was out here in your body. I managed to reassure her that things would return to normal in a minute or two, and that she should relax and enjoy her time away from the crowd inside. things changed back when you wanted to get out of there, and here you are. I trust you enjoyed your short excursion into what might be?”

“Apart from it being too short, but you already know don't you, so why bother asking?”

“Because asking's an important part. I ask you in order to remind you of what you want, to encourage you to ask me...”

“But you already said you couldn’t make me into her?”

“I know. Like I said, I can only make mutually agreed exchanges, and she's happy as she is, at least for the most part. There are, however, other women out there who would be more than happy to swap with you.”

“Permanently?”

“Absolutely.”

“So what's the catch?”

“Why should there be a ‘catch?’”

“I mean what do you get out of it? How come I step out of a pub for a breath of fresh air and just happen to meet a stranger who, it seems, has both the capacity and willingness to make my impossible dream come true?”

“Because this is the sort of place people come when they're trying to escape their unsatisfying lives, if only for a few brief seconds. Let's face it, all your friends are inside the pub enjoying the view, aren't they? I wait outside places like this because sooner or later people like you come along. And I help them out because,” he shrugged, “well, because that's what I do. It's my reason for being, and doing it validates my existence.”

“It seems too good to be true.”

“Oh, it's not quite that good. Let's just say that it's good enough to be true.”

I still wasn't convinced. “Could you give me another demonstration?”

“I could, but I won't. You know it happened – that for just a few brief seconds you got to walk, or stumble in your case, in the shoes of that young girl. You know I can change reality for you. What you need is to think about how you want that reality changed, and then ask me.”

“And you'll do it?”

“If I can.”

“What do you mean ‘if’?”

He sighed, and I must admit I didn't blame him; I was being a bit dense. “I have in my mind a whole list of people I’ve encountered who want a change from their lives and becoming you would give some of them what they’re looking for. You tell me what you want and that narrows down the list a bit. If I can find anyone who fits your criteria and who wants to be like you, then I arrange the exchange. Be warned though, the more specific you are, the less likely it is I'll be able to help.

“There's no point, for instance, in asking to be Jodie Kidd or Claudia Schiffer, because they, like the young lady in the pub, are quite happy being themselves.”

“Well, all I want – all I've ever wanted – is to be a woman, like I was just now, only maybe not quite so er...”

“Just say it. Political correctness only confuses the matter.”

“Alright, I wouldn't want to be any less intelligent than I am now. And no older either.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. You take your mind with you.”

“I didn’t seem to in there.”

“It takes a while to adapt. The body has its own... inertia, shall we say.”

“What about age?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to steal many years from either of you. Maybe two or three because it’s impossible to find a perfect match, but no more. Besides, a decade or more and neither of you would adapt well to the difference in culture. You’ve seen Freaky Friday, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but that’s just a story.”

“I suppose that’s a way of looking at it. Well, if that’s all, I can definitely work within your parameters.”

“Close to home too. This country at least.” It occurred to me there were parts of the world where life as a woman was pretty harsh.

“Still doable.”

“Not... I wouldn’t want to be unattractive.”

“Narrowing the possibilities now, but I can still think of one or two who might fit into that category.”

Something inside nagged at me to be cautious, but I was either still fighting to regain normal brain function after being stuck inside the limited capacity of the girl's mind, or I was just off balance from the strange turn the evening had taken. I let it slide.

“Alright then. When do I get to change? Can you do it now?”

“It'll take me a while to settle on the right match. Besides which, the transition is usually less of a trauma if it happens while you’re sleeping. Go home and go to bed as normal, when you wake up in the morning, things will be different.”

“That's it? No contract to sign in blood, or anything of that sort?”

“I have your agreement. It's enough. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have things I should be doing.” And with that he crossed the street and disappeared down the alley.

I made my way back into the pub, not absolutely sure of what had happened, and re-joined my friends. The girl in the skimpy clothing gave me a few odd looks, until her boyfriend noticed and made some comment which stopped her, but other than that there was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary had happened at all. As far as I knew, I could have been hallucinating.

We stayed until closing time, most of my mates putting enough booze away to become embarrassingly loud. I, as usual, drank just enough to give myself a pleasant buzz, and tried to distance myself from them a little as we headed off home in the early hours.

Back in my flat, I went through the usual rituals of getting ready for bed. On a Friday night such as this, they included drinking as much water as I could stomach – even slightly hungover is a dreadful waste of a Saturday, in my opinion – brushing my teeth, and changing for bed. For this last, I have a few night dresses hidden away at the back of my wardrobe. I look ridiculous in them – gorilla in a dress sort of ridiculous – but they allow me to take the edge off my burden.

I held out a plain, short, red satin chemise with spaghetti straps, and considered it for a moment. With my friends losing themselves in their drunken revelry, I had gone down the familiar route of regret and self-pity. I could well do with the silky feel of the material against my skin tonight, but what if the guy in the red suit had been real? As the evening had progressed, I had managed to persuade myself that he had been just a figment of my imagination, and the memories of standing in the middle of the bar in a skimpy crop top and pelmet – well it was hardly a skirt, was it? – were nothing more than half-drunken wishful thinking. But what if it had all actually happened?

I put the nightdress away. If I did wake up in my own body in the morning, all I would have lost was a night's hopeless fantasy, which I could easily make up by wearing something else from my stash of clothes during the morning. If I were to wake up in some woman's skin, and she in mine, her shock and confusion of suddenly being a man would be doubled by finding herself wearing a nightdress. I couldn't know what kind of an encounter she'd had with Mr Red or how long ago, but I felt it only fair to make her transition as easy as possible. I found a pen and sat down to write a letter to my body's potential new resident, and after much sucking of the aforementioned, I began.

“To the new resident,

“There’s every likelihood that when I wake up tomorrow morning, nothing will have changed. I’ll still be me, still in this bed, still dreaming of being someone else. I’ll find this letter on my bedside table and I’ll feel a bit of an ass for having believed things could be different. However, on the minute off chance that this is for real, here's a short explanation of what happened.”

I went on to describe my conversation with the man in the maroon suit and the deal we had struck.

“I'm going to assume you had a similar encounter with him at some time, so this is it – the life you wanted instead of your own, just as yours is hopefully going to be mine. I have no commitments for the weekend, apart from laundry and housework (sorry) so you can do as you like for the next two days without raising any eyebrows. I don't know what you might want to do with your life after that, but you have a job at Clarks and Spencer, proof reading manuals for electrical goods. It's not hard work as long as you're reasonably proficient with the English language, and it pays a living wage. Bank details are in the port-a-file at the back of the wardrobe, not that I have a lot in the way of savings, and there's a red Peugeot 207 parked in the street outside with my name on the documents (also in the port-a-file).

“You'll find a box full of women's clothing at the back of the wardrobe, which I hope will go some way to explaining why I want your life rather than my own. Other than that, there isn't a great deal to show for thirty-two years of existence, I’m afraid? I hope you make better use of the rest of my life than I would have.

“I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I imagine we'll remember who we were, so maybe I'll look you up sometime. Maybe you'll do the same for me. In any case, I hope the change is all we want it to be, for both our sakes.

“Yours sincerely...”

Somehow writing the letter made me feel a lot better. It was an act of faith, which in its own way helped to strengthen my belief in what was supposed to happen that night. I folded the paper, wrote “To the new me” on the reverse side and placed it on the bedside table where it would hopefully be the first thing she (he? I?) would see on waking.

It didn't take long to fall asleep that night, my head filling with dreams and imaginings of who I might be when I woke up.

Chapter 2

It was still dark when I awoke. I was lying on my side, and things felt different. I squeezed my thighs together, sensing the absence of something that had been a part of me for over three decades. He had done it! The man in the maroon suit had actually done what he said he would!

I reached down with questing fingers – already sensing with some delight that they were smaller and slimmer than those I was used to – to explore between my legs.

That's when I began to notice the other things.

First, and most prominent, was the mass of soft flesh around my middle. Certainly, no slim and attractive hourglass figure here.

Second, and perhaps this should have been the first thing I noticed, was the discovery of two hard metal bands around the fourth finger of my left hand.

I was married?

A cold chill went through me. Why would the person with whom I had swapped lives want out of hers if she was happily married? And if she wasn't happily married, where did that leave me? I became aware of a gentle, rumbling snore in the bed next to me.

A part of my anatomy chose that moment to start clamouring for attention. As a man, I'd been able to hold back the early morning flood, but my newly acquired plumbing evidently wasn't built to the same specs.

I swung my legs out of bed and sat up as gently as I could, careful not to rouse the sleeping figure behind me, and discovered yet another difference to my situation. My feet didn’t quite reach the floor.

It wasn’t something I thought I was going to mind though. Being tall had its advantages – more imposing, easier to intimidate when necessary, can leap tall buildings etc. Well maybe not the last one, but at least can reach high shelves with ease. No longer an option now, but there was a definite link between small and cute, and my major issue with gorilla in a dress syndrome had come from being so much taller than most women.

Now if only I hadn’t traded gorilla in a dress for teapot syndrome.

You know what I mean, don’t you? I’m a little teapot, short and stout...?

I eased off the bed and found a pair of fluffy slippers on the floor beneath my feet. There was a small amount of light in the room from the figures on the glowing red display of a radio alarm on the bedside table beside me. I struggled to focus on them for a moment before noticing the blurry shape of a pair of glasses nearby.

Everything swam into focus the moment I put them on. Now that was definitely going to take some getting used to. All my life I’d taken my twenty-twenty vision for granted, and now I didn't have it anymore.

I stood up to explore in the darkness. I found a dressing gown hanging from a hook on the door near my side of the bed and slipped it on, lessening the early morning chill of the room. My body’s urgent need became more pressing, so I made my way as rapidly as I dared toward the other doorway, which stood ajar with a glimpse of porcelain visible in the gloom.

It turned out to be a small en-suite shower and loo and, with some relief, I closed the door behind me, turned on the light and sat to pee, as was my usual habit in any case. I didn’t notice the seat was up, and I jumped as my now substantial rear end made contact with the cold, sticky porcelain. I nearly had an accident before I managed to rearrange things and sit back down.

Directionality. Yet another thing I had taken for granted. Point and shoot, I discovered, was another luxury sacrificed in this trade. Even sitting down as I was, it felt like the toilet was barely up to the job of containing the wide dispersal delivery system I now possessed.

I wiped myself dry and took a moment to explore what I had down there. I'd had opportunities to investigate similar territory on former girlfriends, so it wasn't entirely unfamiliar, however the sensation of feeling my fingers probing around and inside myself was very new.

I didn't take it very far. I'd like to think that I wouldn't have done so anyway, but I didn't much feel like it right now. For one thing, I was very much aware of how much of me was in contact with the toilet seat, and the discovery that I now possessed a rear end that was significantly larger than the one I had bequeathed to my fellow body swapper, left me with a dreadful sinking feeling. For another, I noticed a few red spots in my somewhat substantial underwear.

Once more previous experience with girlfriends left me with some idea as to what to expect next. It seemed that my maiden voyage into womanhood – if that was a term I could in any way own as a married woman – was going to start with one of its less pleasant aspects.

Now where would I keep my supplies if I lived here? What was I saying? I did live here now! Nothing obvious lying around, but then that's not the sort of thing you leave in plain sight, is it? The bathroom cabinet seemed the best bet. I reached out to open the mirrored doors, but the sight of my reflection caused me to falter.

The face that looked out at me most definitely was not my own. Well, yet again, I suppose strictly speaking it was now, but it wasn't the one I had been born with. I wasn't ugly by any means, I mean no unsightly hair on the upper lip, no hairy moles growing on the chin, none of the squiffy eyes or over-sized nose I was talking about earlier or anything like that, but I wasn't exactly what I would call beautiful either.

My skin was smooth and soft, so chalk one up in the lovely complexion column, but my face itself was round and plump, the sort belonging to the friend of the girl you always wanted to get off with. A small nose and narrow but full mouth seemed almost out of place in the middle of it all, and my eyes, behind large, pink framed glasses, were a pretty hazel colour. My hair was shoulder length, a rather nondescript dark brown, and possessed of a natural wave. The overall effect reminded me somewhat of a baby owl, albeit grown to rather large proportions.

I decided to explore further and stripped off my night dress, which was nothing much to write home about in itself. White cotton with a high, lace embroidered collar, short sleeves and an otherwise rather unflattering lack of shape that fell to a hem just above my knees.

There was no mirror in the bathroom larger than the door of the cabinet, so I had to be satisfied with a direct self-examination. Breasts – ample and perhaps a little droopy, or was I being overly critical? Thighs – large and doughy, rippled with cellulite. Hips – broad and attached to a well, and I mean very well, padded behind. Waist – soft, flabby folds of flesh that went out where they should have gone in, and with strange shiny marks. I'd not seen such things before, but I'd read in women's magazines – on the odd occasions that I'd had access and I'd thought nobody was watching – of stretch marks, and these looked a lot like the descriptions I remembered.

Which meant...

If my blood had run cold before, it froze in my veins now. What the hell did I know about being a mother? Wasn't it bad enough that I had been landed with a husband not of my choosing but that I should have a child – or possibly children – by him too? Well at least it went some way towards explaining the less than flattering figure I’d inherited. Some women did tend to balloon a bit after giving birth, didn't they? Water retention or some such.

Time to discover just how much of a trade down I had made here. I slipped my night dress and dressing gown back on, flushed the toilet and washed my hands. Turning the light out, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, now lessening with dawn peaking around the edges of the curtains, and crossed the bedroom to the other door. I tried not to look too closely at the figure still sleeping soundly in the bed but couldn't help noticing the sheer size of him.

Of course everything seemed that little bit bigger, like some creepy fairground attraction of a normal looking room built to slightly larger scale, but that didn’t account for all of the bulk filling the other half – or more nearly two thirds – of the bed.

The room’s other door opened onto a small landing at the top of a flight of stairs with a second door opposite. I opened it and peered in to find a sort of bomb-blast of toys and dirty clothes strewn across the room. A bunk bed and wardrobe unit obscured the far wall and both beds were filled. The occupants were in full hibernation mode, buried deep in their duvets, but the nature of the toys seemed to indicate boys, and the approximate sizes of the clothes had me guessing ages six or seven and eleven or twelve.

That meant, if I was actually the same age or younger than my former self, that I had married very young. I found myself imagining a moment’s indiscretion behind the bike sheds at school, with inadequate protection. Maybe I was second guessing the situation, but of the friends I knew who had been teenage brides, most had endured a rough passage.

I gently closed the door and crept downstairs. To the left, under the boys' room, was a small living room, overfilled with a large three-piece suite facing a fireplace with a cheap coal-effect electric fire in the hearth and an incongruously large flat screen TV hanging on the wall.

The right door took me to a small dining room which, from the further Toyland debris, seemed to double as a play area. There was a door in the corner leading to a cupboard under the stairs. It was sufficiently ajar to show a jumble of Hoover, ironing board and a washing basket piled high with clothes waiting to be ironed. Beyond the dining room was a narrow kitchen, dirty dishes and pans piled in the sink and covering most available surfaces, and beyond that a sort of bathroom, crammed not only with bath, sink and toilet, but a washing machine, more piles of washing and a drying rack standing in the bath.

I put the kettle on and searched the cupboards for teabags and mugs, all within reach, but there were shelves I’d only have access to with the aid of a chair or maybe the small, lightweight, two step stepladder leaning against the wall in the space that separated the bathroom from the kitchen.

It was becoming steadily more evident to me why the woman whose life I had now exchanged for my own had wanted out of hers. It was also becoming increasingly more evident which of us had made the better deal. I’d imagined switching with someone who had the same sort of gender dysphoria as myself, not someone who regretted the situation her poor life choices had led her to.

The house was an old two up two down terrace with an extension off the back – generally the sort of cheap property favoured by low income single people or young couples as a starter home, but evidently it was as much as we could afford even a decade or more into our marriage. It wasn't even centrally heated or double glazed, which spoke even more loudly of our limited means, just as the large television spoke of misplaced priorities.

The mug of tea brought welcome warmth to my hands, and I sat at the old and scarred dining room table fighting a growing sense of despair. The strengthening dawn light did nothing to cheer me, bringing with it little more than the promise of an encounter with a family I neither knew nor particularly wanted to.

---

I gulped down a mouthful of tea and grimaced at the discovery that enough time had passed for it to go stone cold. I stood with the intention of consigning my mug to the pile of dirty crockery awaiting what I could only assume would be my later attention. An uncomfortable sticky feeling in my nether regions reminded me that I had left essential business untended, so I put the mug back down on the table and headed upstairs to resume my search for sanitary products.

My initial hunch turned out to be right, and I found a recently opened box, along with a lot of other stuff, in the bathroom cabinet. I treated myself to a quick shower, noting a heightened sensitivity to my skin, more so in some areas than others. Any pleasure I might have taken in the new discovery, however, was overshadowed by everything else I had found out since waking. I was fat and, if not ugly, then not particularly attractive either. I was married to some giant of a man, temperament unknown. I had children.

My hair felt a little greasy and in need of a wash, but I wasn't sure that I would have time to deal with it along with all the other things that I was going to have to face that day. No, better to save the search for the hair dryer for a quieter moment.

Everything was too sensitive for me to rub dry as I usually did, so I resorted to patting the towel against my damp skin and followed that with a liberal dose of scented talcum powder. That at least raised my spirits a little. I never much cared for male smellies, and the thought of being able to explore all those floral perfumes without risk of reproach helped to offset, at least in some small part, the disappointments of my new life.

A quick self-taught crash course in the use of a tampon soon had me feeling a little safer down below, and I slipped my nightie back over my head while I sorted out a few things. First, I rinsed out the unhappily large pair of knickers I had worn to bed and added them to what I hoped was a washing hamper. Second, I found a brush and set about putting a little order and style into my hair. Third, having investigated the array of lotions and potions hidden in the cabinet, I tried rubbing a few of them into my face and hands. I couldn't be sure if my complexion was natural or artificial, but anything I could do to keep it as good as it was had to be a bonus. I had few enough other assets at my disposal.

Halfway through my regime, a figure loomed in the doorway. He stood well over six feet and possessed the sort of physique that could have been used to model that troll in the first Harry Potter film. He wore pyjama bottoms and a string vest which did little to cover an impressive beer gut, and dark hair sprouting from the most unlikely places. As he passed, a builders cleavage peaked out of the top of his pyjamas, doing little to improve the already fairly disastrous first impression.

“I don't know why you fucking bother,” he grumbled in a low, gravelly voice as he pushed his way past, scratching at a stubbly chin as he went. “All those bottles of crap cost money you know, and for what? It's like gift wrapping a turd.”

The words stung enough to bring hot tears to my eyes. Even if I didn't know this man, even if he didn't mean anything to me, to have my first interaction with another person as a woman on that level cut deeply. He lifted the toilet seat and released a pungent and casually aimed stream of gold.

“That's a bit rich, coming from you,” I replied, choosing anger over despair.

“What did you say?”

“Well, you're not exactly in a position to speak are you, Mr Universe?”

It was something the old six foot plus me would have expected to get away with. Not so much the new dumpy and diminutive me. I don’t know if my new physiology made me more sensitive to details, but the almost purple colour that rose to his face and the rage in his eyes as he turned to face me tripped off a release of hormones in me that robbed all the fight out of me.

“I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that you fat, fucking cow. Now go do something useful like make me a cup of tea.”

He flushed the toilet and barged past towards the bedroom, leaving me quivering with the sudden wave of fear that had crashed down over me. The part of me that had started noticing details noted, with some resignation, the toilet seat still up and fresh splashes of urine on the porcelain.

“Now woman!”

The yell made me jump into action. Dropping the pot of cream I had been using into the sink, I hurried out and downstairs, knickerless and totally humiliated.

---

“You took your bloody time.”

Two minutes! It had taken me two minutes, and most of that waiting for the cheap and pathetic excuse for a kettle to boil. It had given me time to hunt out everything I needed from the unfamiliar kitchen meaning alongside his mug of tea was a bowl of sugar, a jug with extra milk and a teaspoon. I fumed, but my first encounter had taught me not to risk taunting him into yet another display of rage.

“What the fuck!” He spat the tea back out into the mug and glowered at me. “Are you trying to fucking poison me woman? Where's the fucking sugar?”

“It's in the bowl, where did you expect it to be?”

“In the fucking mug you stupid cunt.” He stabbed at the sugar bowl with the spoon and started shovelling white crystals into his mug.

“I didn't want to presume,” I said, hating the pathetic whine that had crept into my voice.

“Three fucking sugars.” He told me, dropping the last of them into his mug and giving it a thorough stir. “It's been three fucking sugars for the past twelve years, so what made you think it was going to change today?” It seemed he didn't want an answer, or maybe he decided there was something better I should be doing. On my way back up the stairs I’d heard sounds of squabbling coming from the boy's room and they were getting gradually louder. He dismissed me with a jerk of his head. “Why don't you fuck off and give me some space. Sort out those fucking brats of yours.”

My kids? That was a joke, but not one I was in a position to share just now. “Do you mind if I get dressed first?” I managed with an even mixture of sarcasm and whinge.

“Yes I fucking do!” came the reply. “You go and shut those fucking kids up now unless you want to see me get really angry.”

More hormones cowed me into submission. I hated having to give into the slug, but right then I couldn’t see an alternative. I hurried out, still feeling unpleasantly exposed beneath my nightdress.

I stuck my head through the door of the boys’ room in time to catch the evil expression on the older one’s face as he held some toy out of the reach of his young brother.

“Mummy, Steven won't let me have my Optimus Prime.” The younger of the boys ran to me and buried his face in my dressing gown. Then, probably because he didn't get the instant response from me he was anticipating, he started to cry, albeit in a somewhat less than convincing manner.

“Steven,” I sighed, “give him back his toy.”

“Why? It wasn't as if he was playing with it or anything.”

“Neither were you by the looks of it.”

“Mum!”

“Steven, Do as I say, and do it right now.” I said sharply. I'd love to say my lack of patience came entirely from my dislike of bullies, but that would have been hypocrisy right then. Shit flows downstream, and I was almost certainly visiting some of the frustration I had been so unsuccessful at throwing back at the arsehole in the other room on someone I knew couldn't fight back.

“You always take his side!” Steven shouted, throwing the toy down hard enough for bits to fall off. “You never listen to me! I hate you!” He barged past us and ran downstairs, while the younger one wailed even louder – with genuine misery this time, given that some of the bits that had fallen off his toy weren’t meant to – and clung to me even more tightly.

I crouched down and pulled him into a hug. It was the strangest thing; I didn't know this child, but somehow, I felt an empathic connection towards him. Could it be I now had a maternal instinct hard-wired into this body, or was it just that my transformation had freed up a part of me that I had repressed all my life?

“It's alright sweetheart,” I crooned into his ear, rocking back and forth, “everything's going to be alright.”

I don't know who I was trying to comfort more, him or me. Something in his misery drew out the feelings that had been building under the surface since I’d woken up, and I could feel silent tears leaking out through the cracks in my self-control.

I held on to him until he had quieted a little. By then I had regained my own composure and had even done a little creative thinking. One of my former girlfriends had children about this age, and I had won many brownie points with her by thinking my way into their heads and coming up with solutions to their little crises.

“You know,” I murmured into his ear, “Otpimus Prime is a robot, and a pretty clever one at that.”

He went quiet, listening.

“The thing about robots is that they can be fixed if you have the right tools, and I'll bet a robot like Optimus Prime would know just what tools he needs to fix himself. I think that if we leave him for a while, and it may take a few days, I'll bet that when we come back to him, he'll be all mended. What do you think?”

He looked into my eyes, probing. On the surface was distrust at being handled. He would be old enough to question the existence of Father Christmas — especially with an older brother like Steven to help him — and he knew full well that his toy was just that. Underneath it though, a glimmer of hope shone just bright enough to banish the gloom of his despair.

“What say we go and get some breakfast?”

He nodded and allowed me to lead him downstairs where we found Steven moping in the dining room.

“Breakfast?” I asked cheerfully.

He shrugged, which I took for a yes, and set about clearing the table and putting out the various essentials for a good Saturday breakfast. I suggested they could help out, but Steven was too far into his sulk, and his brother – I was going to have to come up with some way of learning his name before long – just sat at the table and looked up at me expectantly.

My cooking skills didn't go much beyond toast, so I didn't promise anything else. Boxes of cereal, bowls, spoons and a carton of milk started them off, and I dropped some slices of bread in the toaster, then ducked into the bathroom where I had spotted a pair of knickers hanging – like a spinnaker on a still day – on the drying rack. They were only a little damp, and I felt a lot more comfortable with them on.

I made myself a fresh cup of tea and chewed on a slice of dry toast – not wanting to make my evident weight problem any worse – while I sat watching the kids and wondering just what I’d let myself in for.