My name is Alex. I was twenty-five years old and working on my doctorate in aerospace technology. While on campus, I met an exceptional young woman, Janice, who was also working on her doctorate. But she couldn’t tell me much about what she and her colleagues were intensely researching. All that I could gather was that it had to do with matters esoteric and mysterious. Janice’s charmingly good looks hid well her dizzying intellect. I felt that I was out of her league, and yet she took a keen interest in me, my work, and my life. I can’t deny that I was drawn to her intellectually, socially, and sexually, but I tried to hide my male-to-female attraction. We dated for about a month and then she inexplicably took me to see her project.

Janice took me to the science building. It was a massive three-story building. It was much larger than the aerospace and aeronautics building that I worked in. We had just come from a concert at the musical hall; we had enjoyed Beethoven’s fifth and ninth symphonies. Janice was dressed in a lovely black formal gown. She took me to the third floor and to one of the metaphysics labs. Inside were two sarcophagi-shaped vessels that were reclined at about 80 degrees. Dozens of cables and tubes were connected to each of the vessels. Janice said, “Alex, please step into the left-hand vessel and lay your head on the cushion.” I said, “What’s the purpose of this?” She replied, “You are going to read my mind.” I said, “You’ve got to be joking.”

Janice had a solemn look on her face. “You’re not joking.” She said, “I’m absolutely serious, Alex.” I got into the sarcophagus that she had indicated. She was at a control panel, making some adjustments to the settings. Then she climbed into the other vessel and laid her head back. She said, “It will only be about 30 seconds and the device will begin. You may black out temporarily, but you’ll regain consciousness, and then I want you to tell me what you feel and think.” Two bands drew across my arms and chest and across my knees. “Why am I being restrained?” She laughed and said, “You’ll see, Alex, you’ll see.” All of a sudden I could hear the machine whirring and humming. My vision blurred and then I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I said, “Janice, I’m …” I stopped speaking. My voice was different. My voice was feminine. I moved my head and felt curls on the sides of my face. I suddenly realized that my eyelashes were thick. I looked down at myself and saw the tops of two breasts. I was in a black formal dress. “Janice,” I screamed, “What have you done to me?” A man’s voice said, “Calm down, Janice, you’re okay. I’m Alex now. The device is not a mind reading machine, but rather a mind and soul swapping device. Your mind and soul are now in what used to be my body. But it is your body now.” He chuckled. Then he got out of his sarcophagus and came to stand in front of me. “My dear Janice, you had better get used to being a woman. You are a woman.”

I recoiled in horror. “Janice … Alex, why have you done this to me? How can this device possibly do this? When are you going to give my body back to me?” Alex said, “Janice, Janice, you are full of questions, aren’t you. I have done this because I’ve always wanted to be a man. I could not possibly explain to your simple mind how this device works. It took our team of scientists and meta physicists decades to develop this device; in fact, I am a third-generation team member. As to giving your body back, it is your body no longer, and I am never swapping places with you again. Get used to the body you are in.” I started crying. “Oh, Janice, you’re going to ruin your mascara. Stop crying.” I said through my tears, “I hate you! I hate you!”

Alex went to the clutch purse that he had laid down on a counter and withdrew a small revolver. He pointed it at me. “I am going to release you now, but don’t resort to any violence. You are to stay calm. I am going to take over your previous life. I’m smart enough to take up where you left off. I may have to plead a mild case of amnesia, with respect to the names of my family, friends, and colleagues, but I’ve gained enough knowledge of your life these past four weeks that it should be fairly smooth sailing. You on the other hand, don’t know enough about me. You didn’t ask nearly enough questions. Life for you is going to start as a complete amnesiac. You’re going to have to go to the police and ask them to help you find out who you are.”

Alex released me and I got to my feet, a bit wobbly on the high heels I was wearing. “I’m going to the police and bringing them here.” He said, “Janice, no one will believe you. Even my colleagues will think you’ve lost your mind. The entire team is too dedicated for one of us to do something like this. They will never believe that I betrayed them and the project. We wanted to do a beta test first, with people swapping places for a few hours to perform diagnostic tests. The project was not considered far enough along to do what I have just done. It was always considered as a test to be done between two willing subjects of the same gender. It never entered anyone’s mind to swap genders.” I said, “Surely someone will believe my story, surely.”

Well, Alex took me outside the building and left me standing on the street corner. It was somewhere around midnight. I took the phone out of my clutch purse and started looking up phone numbers. I recognized Samantha as someone that Janice had mentioned as a good friend. I dialed her number. “Hello, Janice, why are you calling me this late?” I said, “Samantha, Alex and I had an argument, and he left me on the street corner in front of the science building. Can you come pick me up?” Samantha said, “I can’t believe he would do that to you. I’ll be there in about ten to fifteen minutes.” When she picked me up, I said to her, “Samantha, you’re going to find this hard to believe, but I am Alex inside Janice’s body.” She laughed at me.

“Samantha, I am not joking. Janice and her colleagues developed a mind and soul transfer machine. She told me that she wanted to be a man. She tricked me by telling me that the device was going to help me read her mind. I swear it’s the truth.” She gave me a quick glance. “You look serious, and I’ve never seen the kind of desperate expression that’s on your face.” “Yes, I am very desperate.” “How do I know that you’re really Alex? There is no way for you to convince me.” “I know there is not any way to prove it to you, but tell me, why would I be acting this way if I was really Janice?” She replied, “I don’t know. It does seem very strange behavior for you.” I said, “You’re damn right! How am I going to get out of this horrible mess?”

Samantha gave me some of her pajamas when we got to her place. She could tell that I was too upset to spend the night by myself. When I took the formal gown off, I stood and looked at myself in the full-length mirror. I was definitely in a woman’s body. I took the bra and panties off and stood looking some more. I brought my hands up to my breasts and felt them, hefted them. They had to be at least a size E; they were so generous. I reached down to feel my vagina. I gently opened the lips with two fingers. I felt the moistness inside. I figured that I was 5’-4” tall, remembering that Janice had come up to my mouth. I put the pajamas on and slipped into bed. I lay on my side, my breasts together, my curls profuse. I hugged myself and cried.

In the morning, I got up and had coffee and a bagel with Samantha. We talked for several minutes and then she said, “I can stay home from work today and help you back to the science building. I’ll even go in with you to talk to Janice’s colleagues. I’ll swear to them that you are a totally different person, and that as Janice’s best friend, I know that you are someone else inside her body.” “I’ll go take a shower and then we can go to the university.” When I went into the bathroom, I saw that my mascara had smeared. I went pee and then dabbed myself with some toilet paper. It was so strange to go without using my hands. I showered and my body felt so foreign to me, but I lathered and washed my hair. I cried as I considered the meeting.

Samantha let me wear some of her panties. I put on my bra, fumbling with it until I figured it out. She had laid out some pants and a blouse. The blouse was a tad bit tight, but okay. I told Samantha of my fears of meeting with Janice’s colleagues. She said, “Everything is going to be alright, you’ll see.” We drove to the science building, parked, and made our way up to the third floor. I had to peer through several lab doors until I found the correct place. I spoke to the oldest man in the lab. He gathered together the entire team, a total of eleven people, six men and five women. They listened to my story and to Samantha as well. They expressed their doubts, but the women especially noted the difference in my vocabulary and expressions.

Finally, the team leader, the man I had spoken to first, said, “If you are Alex and not Janice, there is nothing that we can do to help you. We are pretty sure that we cannot change you back into yourself, because Alex or Janice will not willingly do it, if what you say is true about his or her wanting to be a man. We do not force anyone to undergo the procedure. He or she would also be reticent to admit that he or she had done this, just because there would be significant fines and dismissal from the research group for violating his or her oath and contractual agreement. Besides, a court of law would not believe our capability to make a gender swap. We also don’t know if a person can go through a swap more than once. We’re hesitant to try.” I cried.

Samantha and I went out to lunch after the meeting. She had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup, while I had a Reuben sandwich. “Samantha, thank you for trying to help me. I really appreciate it.” “You’re welcome, Janice, or I mean Alex.” “Oh, you might as well call me Janice. It looks like that’s who I’m going to be from here on out.” She said, “I just wish there was something that we could do to get back at Alex.” I nodded my agreement. “But we don’t know how to turn him into a pig or something nasty.” I said, “Yeah, I think a pig or a snake would be really suitable, leaving him to wallow in the mud or slither on his belly in the dust.” Do you know any witches that could cast a spell on him?” “No, I don’t know any witches, Janice.”

Then Samantha said, “You wouldn’t know this, but Janice and I were lesbian lovers.” I said, “No, I had no idea. How was it that she dated me, or did she force herself to do so, because of what she wanted?” “No, she was bisexual. Say, would you want to be my lover, Janice?” I said, “Sure, why not? I’m still a man inside and am drawn to you anyway.” She replied, “Oh, Janice, that is so funny. But maybe being a woman on the outside, you will begin to feel like a woman on the inside. I’m not sure how that might work.” I said, “You’re going to need to show me how to move like a woman and talk like a woman. You also need to show me how to put on a bra properly, and how to apply my makeup.” She nodded and said, “I’d be glad to, Janice.”

That night, as I lay in bed, I thought more about Alex. Suddenly, the thought came to me that Alex maybe was someone like me, who had been tricked into using the machine. But surely that was not possible, because how would he or she have known how to collaborate with the rest of the team? I then began to wonder how the initial team, the first generation, had gotten the idea for such a machine, or how they had figured out how to transfer the mind and the soul of a person into another person, and even how to do the swap of two persons. I then thought about being a woman the rest of my life. Maybe I would start to think differently, to think like a woman. I thought, I think I would like that. With that thought, I fell asleep.

It was the next night, after Samantha had gotten home from work, and we had had dinner, that we went into her bedroom and made love to each other. First, we undressed each other. Then we embraced and hugged each other for several minutes. Then we French kissed. Samantha then showed me how to use jelly to gently rub her clitoris, and, after fifteen minutes or so, to bring her to climax, to an orgasm. Then she helped me to reach climax as well. Afterward, we just lay in bed, looking into each other’s eyes, and drinking in the wonderful relationship that we had begun. For Samantha, it was similar to loving the original Janice, but she could identify subtle differences. We stroked each other’s cheeks and smiled.

I looked for a good job in the aerospace industry. That was what I knew most about. Yeah, I didn’t have my doctorate, but I knew enough about aeronautics that I could be conversant with a prospective employer. I knew that it would be hard without proof of my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but not impossible. I finally found a job with a big company, as I demonstrated my knowledge in conversation with my interviewer. It meant having to relocate, but Samantha was willing to do that for me. Together we made enough to do some fun things together, like taking a cruise and going on European tours. We even went to China, Japan, and Thailand. What I enjoyed was not only the scenery, but also the amazing food.

On a trip to Norway, I met this amazing guy, Joshua, or Josh. I was amazed at myself that I would be drawn to a man. I thought, “I am thinking and feeling more like a woman. I think this guy is handsome and manly. He’s my kind of man.” We weren’t able to see each other very much, due to the brevity of the cruise, but we agreed to stay in touch with each other back in the states. I asked Samantha if she was threatened or offended by my having such a relationship. She smiled and said that she was fine with it. Josh and I kept tryst with each other and met in places like LA, Chicago, and New York. I let him penetrate me, sometimes as much as three times in a night, bringing me to an orgasm each time. I liked his sucking on my nipples.

I became so accustomed to being a woman, that I almost forgot what it was like to be a man. Samantha helped me to expand my circle of friends, both male and female. But there was no doubt in my mind, being with other women was the most enjoyable. Even in mixed company, I would gravitate towards the women. We talked about anything and everything. We laughed and cried together. So, what if my mascara smeared? I am now in my early thirties, and I am already thinking about how to grow old gracefully. I know that I will not always have a youthful appearance, but I would always feel clean, whole, and complete. I didn’t miss my old self at all. Womanhood was something to cherish and celebrate. I would always be Janice.