Copyright © 2014 Maeryn Lamonte - All Rights Reserved.

Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go and eat worms. Seven comments and four pms. On the other hand, I had some pretty amazing ones on some of my older stories, and one or two on previous chapters of Lifeswap, so this posting is a little soner than it might have been…

Anyway, for those of you who’re new to Lifeswap, chapter one can be found here. For the rest of you, the story so far:-

A year has passed since this all began. Jerry Goodman (a banker) and Laura Townsend (an antiques dealer) have had their consciousnesses switched by an acquaintance, Tony Ward (another antiques dealer, but a toe-rag who stole the magic bowl which makes this possible from Laura because he broke his own).

The fallout from the switch includes Jerry’s wife, Portia, suing for divorce, meaning that he has to sign all his wealth, shares and properties over to Laura (which is of course him anyway) in order to stop her getting her hands on it. This results in the bank shareholders calling for Jerry’s resignation, which he gives readily enough, leaving its future in the hands of three investors he trusts.

The divorce goes through uncontested thanks to Jerry and Laura finding evidence of Portia’s unfaithfulness, and Tony’s attempts to have Laura (in Jerry’s body) arrested for theft and assault come to nothing when it becomes obvious that he was being economical with the truth.

Laura and Jerry are unable to change back because of damage done to the magic bowl, but they seem content to carry on living each other’s lives. They move into Jerry’s house (now in Laura’s name, although remember Jerry is now Laura) together and set up as antiques dealers. They quickly became successful enough to put Tony out of business, and he subsequently returns to petty crime and is arrested.

Tony’s henchmen, also transformed in the initial incident, end up working for Laura and Jerry, and prove to be quite trustworthy, given the chance. They offer to look after the shop so Jerry and Laura can enjoy their first year’s anniversary.

Laura (as Jerry) takes Jerry (as Laura) out into the country to a remote village and a cottage where Doris Maxwell, the owner of the last working bowl, lives. Laura, using the pragmatism that comes with Jerry’s brain, has decided that they need to change back to give Jerry a chance to make an informed decision as to whether he wants to remain female. Chapter three ends with them both putting their keys in the bowl and retrieving one another’s.
 
 
Dramatis Personae
Jerry Goodman – A banker, but one of the good ones. Now residing in Laura Townsend’s body.
Portia Goodman – Harpy. Unhappily married to Jerry.
Laura Townsend – Another antiques dealer, but more honest than Tony. Former owner of the bow used to switch minds into other bodies. Now in Jerry Goodman’s body.
Tony Ward – An antiques dealer and all round dodgy character.
Mary Ward - Wife to Tony Ward - not much of a part so far
Mike, Peter and Randy – Tony’s cronies. Now switched into each other’s bodies.
Paul Burrows – A lawyer who doesn't mind being woken up in the middle of the night. Sympathetic to men, like Jerry, who are facing a messy divorce.
Dorothy Maxwell – Elderly lady and owner of the last known magic bowl.

-oOo-
The transformation was just as disturbing and disorienting as before, but being ready for it meant I weathered it a bit better. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I was decidedly off balance by the time I was done. I looked down into my hand – Jerry’s hand – and found the Maserati keys sitting in my palm.

“So how does this work then?” I asked holding the keys up. My voice sounded strange. It took a moment with my discombobulated brain to realise that for almost a year, this voice, this body, had been Laura’s. Now she was back to being herself, and I was me again.

“I don’t know,” Laura said, looking down at her dress with something approaching disappointment. The smile she offered me contained more courage than genuine happiness.

“The makers of the bowl believed that possessions, being actual things, belong to the body rather than the mind, or soul if you prefer,” the old lady said. “The mind was thought to be a visitor and so couldn’t own anything more than its experiences in life. As such, the magic returns the thing you pick out of the bowl to the body that owns it along with your mind during the transfer.”

My befuddled brain had forgotten whose house we were in, and that she was here.

“Please keep the bowl safe until we come back to you,” I said to her, and she nodded.

We took our leave, shaking her hand and thanking her for her for hospitality. I guided Laura out of the house, feeling unusually off balance out of my heels. The trousers and shirt were comfortable enough, and smart, but they felt course and ungainly after my summer dress. I felt ugly, and I missed the weight of the hair on my head. I felt wrong.

I opened the car door for her and she smiled at me as she slipped into the passenger seat.

We drove home in silence for the most part, during which time I learned a new appreciation for why she had bought the Maserati. It was a fun car to drive, but the speed, excellent handling, throaty roar and general feel of going fast with the top down did little enough to lift my mood. I smiled bravely a couple of times for Laura’s sake, and she smiled back.

I hated that she’d done this. I already missed being Laura and, odd as it may sound, I felt like a stranger in my own body. Everything felt wrong, and all I could think of was how much more contented I’d been as a woman. Time of the month notwithstanding, I found more pleasure in everything feminine. It was like I fit better into a female lifestyle, which was strange as I’d never been that aware of it before the whole business with Tony and his bowl.

I wondered to what great a lengths Laura must have gone to find this latest artefact. It gave me a way to break through the silence that had hung over us since our most recent transformation.

“So how did you find her?” I asked, rubbing my throat reflexively; I wasn’t used to my voice sounding so coarse. At least she’d worn an open necked shirt. I wasn’t sure I could have gone back to suit and tie, not after a year of showing off my cleavage.

“That wasn’t so hard in the end,” she said. “Any decent antiques dealer knows most of the good stuff is out in the country, and most of us have a few people on payroll knocking on doors and asking if there’s anything the home owners might be interested in selling. In lean times like these, you’d be surprised how many people are keen to make a few quid.

“I simply told my guys to ask around after a bowl like the ones we have on display in the shop – gave them a photograph to work from and everything. It took most of this past year before they finally knocked on Mrs Maxwell’s door. She didn’t have anything she wanted to part with, but they showed her the photograph and left her one of our cards. She was on the phone to me a day later.”

“So you’ve been looking for another bowl all the time we’ve been like this?”

“I thought it was important that we do this; that you have an opportunity to choose with an open and right mind.”

“Why? Weren’t you happy the way we were? Or have you wanted your body back all along?”

I hadn’t meant my words to sound so angry. I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d lost my temper. My parents had disciplined me to control my moods from an early age – more for their benefit than mine I think – and it had stuck with me through all of my life. Even Portia, who had severely tested my patience at times, never succeeded in riling me to the extent that I couldn’t maintain control.

Things changed after I became Laura though. There’d been enough times over the last year when I’d had cause to be angry, but it had felt different. Frustration led to words, which led to tears and relief. No underlying turmoil, no bubbling caldera threatening to erupt given half a chance.

It seemed a year without testosterone had robbed me of my capacity to keep my emotions in check, and in speaking my mind at that moment, I hadn’t particularly tried to hold anything back. It was disturbing as I could feel the threat of more violent outbursts close to the surface.

I glanced across at Laura, and caught sight of a tear running down the side of her nose. I wondered if she was having as much difficulty coping with her reintroduction to oestrogen.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not adjusting too well this time.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“I wonder why that should be. We didn’t have this much trouble last time.”

“Adrenaline? We were both pretty amped up last time.”

“Or maybe it was because we were better off the other way round. I mean you don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself much.”

She ducked her head, hiding behind her hair as I had so often done this last year. It was an answer of sorts.

“So why don’t we turn around right now?”

“One week remember. We can’t change back yet. If we try we’ll be stuck like this for longer.”

“Whose stupid rule is that?”

“I don’t know. It’s built into the magic though. I think it’s because it takes time to adjust whenever you go through a change, and one week is considered enough to allow you to adapt to your new status.”

“I don’t need a week to tell me this is wrong.”

She turned away, refusing to answer me, and probably trying to hide more tears. I didn’t try saying anything else for the rest of the journey.

-oOo-

The remainder of our anniversary was a bust. I’d originally planned to cook us a meal in the evening, but I didn’t feel like it by the time we arrive back home. Instead I poured myself a generous malt and downed half of it in one heroic gulp. Actually it was an act of bloody stupidity, designed more to annoy Laura than to help me cope. On rediscovering how little I liked the taste, I left the rest of the tumbler on the coffee table, without using a coaster. Again it was something that would have upset me as Laura, but now I found I didn’t care.

Laura put together a couple of light salads, and we sat in silence for a while stirring them about with our forks, before giving up on the day and heading for bed. She spent a while in the bathroom and when she came out it was evident that she’d put some effort into getting ready for bed. She was wearing her slinky, short, red nightdress and had brushed her hair into a lustrous shine. She looked amazing, but all I could think of was how much more I wanted to be her than with her. I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth so didn’t comment.

She slid into bed beside me and snuggled up under my arm, her head resting lightly on my chest. I owed her an apology for the way I’d behaved this afternoon, I knew I did. I knew she was doing this all for the right reasons, and more out of concern for me than because she wanted to change back, but having the insight didn’t seem to make it any easier for me to comment.

I turned out the light and held her close. It was all I could manage.

After a while I felt a dampness on my chest which seemed to go some way to dissolving my anger. She didn’t deserve to suffer for this. She hadn’t done anything wrong; just something hard, and probably as hard for her as for me.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, stroking her hair.

“Why? It’s me that screwed up.”

“You didn’t screw up. You did something necessary, even though you didn’t want to, even though you knew I didn’t want to. It took more guts than I had, or have, to do it, and you don’t deserve for me to treat you like this.”

She snuggled in closer. “Do you mean that?”

“I still love you,” I was unsure if I could respond to her question with anything approaching conviction, but this much I did know for certain. Regardless of which of us was who, I couldn’t imagine loving anyone else.

Her fingers traced patterns on my chest for a while, then started to explore further south.

“Do you mind if we don’t tonight?” I asked when it became obvious where she was heading.

She stopped and rested her hand flat on my chest. We lay like that for a long while until her breathing slowed and steadied, then I focused on the rhythm of my own breathing until eventually I joined her in sleep.

-oOo-

I woke the following morning to find the bed beside me empty. It was an odd feeling as I had grown used to waking first and sneaking off for some early morning alone time. Now I was back to struggling for consciousness. It wasn’t exactly a girl-boy thing, but it was still a difference between our bodies that made me wish for my old one back.

Shit, that was weird. I had my old body back. This was the one I’d worn for over thirty years before I’d met Laura, and yet it didn’t feel like mine anymore. So weird.

The door eased open and Laura padded in dressed as she had been the previous night in the same short slinky nightdress and carrying two mugs. I felt an involuntary response from under the bedclothes – familiar and yet oddly alien.

“Morning sleepy head,” she said settling back onto the bed and offering me one of the mugs.

“Morning,” I murbled. “How long have you been up?”

“Up, ten minutes. Awake, a couple of hours. I forgot how little I used to sleep.”

“Yeah, I kind of like my early mornings. I usually sit in the conservatory and watch the sun come up.”

“I spent mine watching you sleep. It was a bit strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sort of right and wrong at the same time. Right to be lying beside you. Wrong not to be you.”

I sipped at the coffee and felt dormant neurons fire reluctantly into life.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"Business as usual I guess."

"Only we switch around." I couldn't keep the disappointment out of my voice. It didn't matter as she ignored me anyway.

"Which means you get to make breakfast while I spend a ridiculous amount of time in the bathroom." She flashed me a cheerful smile.

"I don't remember you complaining about the results."

"I was joking, love." Suddenly conciliatory. Wary of my mood.

"I know." I just about managed a smile. "What do you fancy?"

"A bagel would be nice."

"You'll only eat half of it."

“Then make sure you put my full ration of butter on that half.” She disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.

There wasn’t much to get ready. Couple of plates, couple of knives, couple of glasses of orange juice. Bagel sliced and waiting in the toaster, butter on standby. Responding more to habit than to hunger, I’d decided to limit myself to the other half of Laura’s breakfast.

She didn’t keep me waiting long. I’m not sure if she was trying to make a point, but ten minutes after I headed down to the kitchen, I heard her footsteps on the stairs. I pushed the toaster down and turned to greet her, raising an eyebrow at her choice of faded jeans and sweatshirt.

We’d moved Laura’s grunge stuff, as I called it, across some months back when she – or I – had come to live in the house full time and we’d sold her place. I only really wore it for cleaning, or gardening, or other dirty jobs.

“What?” she asked. “You know I don’t like dresses.”

The toaster popped and I turned my attention to the job of adding sufficient juicy, fatty goodness while the bagel was still hot enough to melt it.

“Nice to have the choice,” I mumbled, trying to keep it quiet enough to be unintelligible.

“I wouldn’t mind if you wore a dress,” she said.

I should have figured she’d hear me. I mean they’d been my ears for most of the past year.

“I think our customers might have a thing or two to say about it.” I handed over her half of bagel and bit into my own.

“Yeah, maybe not in the shop, but you could still do it around here if you wanted.”

She was quite a bit smaller than me, but she did have one or two dresses that might be stretchy enough. I tried to imagine myself wearing one of them, and the image was not great.

“We’ll see. I need to get ready.” I took my half bagel and OJ upstairs, leaving her to finish eating on her own. I wasn’t trying to be unkind, but we did need to get going. Besides the sight of her wolfing down her food wasn’t doing much for my appetite.

Ten minutes later I was showered and dressed and sitting in front of a mirror feeling I ought to be doing something. My hair was neatly combed – all of thirty seconds’ work – which left nothing much. I’d forgotten to shave, but it didn’t look too bad and if Laura couldn’t be bothered, I certainly wasn’t going to make an effort.

Besides it was Sunday. We had an auction to attend that morning, but we wouldn’t bother opening the shop till the afternoon, and if things went as usual, we probably wouldn’t see many customers.

-oOo-

The auction ended up being a waste of time. I mean don’t get me wrong, there were some nice pieces there, but for a year we’d been relying – successfully I might add – on my good taste combined with the girlish instincts I’d acquired from the swap to identify things that would sell, and Laura’s knowledge of antiques, combined with her masculine pragmatism allowing us to set sensible prices on the pieces we bid for. Obviously we didn’t get everything we wanted, but what was most important was that we didn’t pay too much for anything, or bid on anything we couldn’t then sell.

Switched around, our instincts were all messed up. I felt nothing of the usual passion and excitement that accompanied a good find, and Laura ended up misjudging quite a few prices. After a couple of narrow escapes early on, we contented ourselves with watching for a while, then gave up all together.

After lunch, I drove us back to the shop. It had clouded over a little since the previous day, and was turning cold with a threat of rain, so I put the roof up. That was one down side to convertibles. They were great with the top down, but as soon as you put the lid on they started feeling more than a little claustrophobic, so we couldn’t even enjoy the drive.

With the shop open, there wasn’t much to do but wait. Sunday trade was always slow. Not many people came into the city on the Sabbath. Not many people seemed to go to church either, so they might as well have come shopping, but then some habits die hard. Mike, Pete and Randy had held the fort the previous day, besides, they usually took Sundays off anyway, so we couldn’t even tell them the good news about the bowl.

I wasn’t in my most conversational mood, and things were getting awkward between us, so Laura headed into the back to unpack and price some new stock that had come in. For my part, I busied myself checking over the labels on everything we had on display.

I’d decided to try out a new technique for pricing. Being an antiques shop, there was always a tendency for customers to want to negotiate a bit. Laura was pretty good at valuing things, and we usually priced them with enough of a mark up to allow for the haggle factor, and to give us a reasonable profit. In order to let the hired help know how much of a reduction in price we were prepared to accept, I’d started marking the labels in the corners. We’d allow a fiver discount for each tick in the top right and an extra quid for each one in the bottom right. It wasn’t fool proof, but it seemed to work, as we hadn’t undersold anything in the couple of weeks since I’d started the idea.

I was an hour and a half into a systematic survey of everything we had on display, making sure the labels were correctly marked, when the doorbell jangled and I turned to greet the first – and probably only– customer of the day.

“Hello Laura. How are you enjoying being a man?”

“Hello Tony. When did they let you out?”

“I had a parole review a couple of days ago. I wasn’t expecting much, but they evidently thought I wasn’t a risk to myself or society as a whole, so here I am.”

“You should have let us know. We’d have been glad to come down and tell them what you’re like. What do you want anyway?”

“Is that any way to speak to an old friend?”

“Friends don’t steal from friends, Tony, nor do they mess up friends’ lives.”

“Yeah, sorry about how that worked out.” He sounded anything but. “I could say something similar to you too. You know Mary left me?”

“And how is that our fault?”

“You put me out of business.”

“Which, if you’d been competitive instead of greedy, wouldn’t have happened.”

“You got me arrested.”

“We had nothing to do with that. You started fencing stolen goods and got yourself arrested.”

“I wouldn’t have had to resort to that if you hadn’t put me out of business.” His mood had been darkening with each exchange. He was fairly glowering at me now.

“See my previous answer.” I wouldn’t be drawn on the matter, and responded to him with an emotionless calm, which was probably more infuriating than if I had raised my voice to him. “I have to ask, did she leave you because you lost all your money, or because you turned back into a criminal?”

He refused to answer, but stared daggers at me. When he next spoke, it was with a poorly imposed calm.

“How is Jerry these days? Weird how he ended up being such a girly girl.”

Laura chose that moment to walk through from the back, carrying a couple of vases. She stopped dead on seeing Tony.

“What the fuck do you want?”

His eyebrows rose briefly, but her appearance seemed to return to him some measure of self-control.

“Hello Jerry. I don’t remember you having such a foul mouth.”

“Knowing you’s enough to make a nun swear. Now like I said, what the fuck do you want?”

“Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to see me.” A flicker of a smile played around the corners of his mouth. This was the kind of reaction he’d been looking for, and he was beginning to enjoy himself once more.

“We’re not.” Laura put the vases down on the counter and crossed her arms. “Now state your business or fuck off. Actually, why don’t you just fuck off? We don’t care what you want, and we don’t want anything to do with you.”

“What if I could tell you where you could find another bowl?”

I couldn’t help glancing across at Laura. She kept her eyes locked on his, a tiny snarl playing on her pretty face.

“Not funny, Tony. If there was another bowl out there, we’d have found it by now. Now fuck the hell off before I call the police. I’m sure your parole won’t last long if I complain about your harassing us.”

“What would you tell them?” Tony’s smile was all shark. “That I turned you into each other? You’d end up in the loony bin before they put me back in prison.”

“It doesn’t have to be the truth, dickhead.” Laura’s snarl grew. If sharks had natural predators…

“Fine, I’ll go. It was worth it just to see the expressions on your faces though. Would you let Mike, Pete and Randal know that I asked after them?”

“What makes you think they’d be any happier to see you than us?”

“Just tell them, okay?” He backed out of the shop, self-satisfied little smile still firmly in place.

We waited till he was completely out of sight before reacting.

“How could he know?” I asked.

“He can’t; he was just fishing.”

“Yes, but why?”

“To get a rise out of us? I don’t know. I hate that I reacted to him like that. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.”

There wasn’t much else to say on the matter, so we let it drop. Laura asked me to bring through a few of the heavier new items from the back and the day returned to something approaching normal for a Sunday. Tony’s visit had left an added sourness to my mood though, and I couldn’t shake a nagging sense of unease over the whole thing. With the weather turning nasty, there weren’t any shoppers about, so we gave up early and headed back for a quiet evening in, and an early night.

-oOo-

We opened early the next day again, Pete Mike and Randy still being owed some time off for covering the shop on Saturday. They turned up just after lunch, and we passed on Tony’s message, eliciting the predicted unhappy responses. Then we told them about the bowl. We’d wanted to see it and check it out for ourselves before we got their hopes up, but we’d found a way to give them their original lives back.

We’d expected them to be happy, but there followed an uneasy exchange of glances between them.

“We should leave you to discuss this,” I said standing and taking Laura’s hand.

“No, it’s okay.” Randy was the usual spokesman for the three. “It’s just that… well I guess we’ve all moved on with our lives. We’re grateful and everything, but I think we all have more to lose switching back now.”

This was unexpected, but then again when I thought of Laura and myself.

“I think we’re a bit surprised that you’ve changed back,” Mike chipped in. “I mean I know it must have been a bit weird with changing sex and all, but you guys were so great together.”

“What makes you think we’re not still great together?” Laura asked.

“No reason. It’s just that you seemed so right the other way round.”

“And we don’t this way?”

“I don’t know. But you don’t mess with a good thing. In a lot of ways our changing round was a good thing. We’ve all gained more than we’ve lost, but you guys…”

Laura looked up at me over her shoulder, but I was busy trying to figure out why that nagging feeling had grown suddenly worse.

-oOo-

Laura and I took the afternoon off, as much at the other three’s insistence than anything else. We wandered through the shopping precinct where I pointed out a few dresses I thought would look good on her. She didn’t seem that enthusiastic.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “The first night I met you, you looked amazing in that red dress.”

“Yeah, I was trying to blend in. I mean jeans and a sweatshirt at that party? I wouldn’t have made it through the door. And it wasn’t even mine.”

“But you had a few skirts and dresses in your wardrobe.”

“Again so I could look the part. Some of the auction houses are a bit stuffy about dress code.”

“And that red nightdress?”

“That was a present from a former boyfriend. More for his pleasure than mine, I think.”

I dropped the subject and we spent the afternoon drifting though pawn brokers and charity shops. There wasn’t a lot worth having, but we did pick one or two little things. Towards the end of the afternoon we found a coffee shop where Laura gave me her order and left me in the short queue while she headed down the road a short distance. She returned ten minutes later with a secretive smile and a pink striped bag.

As the day had worn on, I’d found myself adapting back into male life. I couldn’t say that I was overjoyed about the change any more than I had been the previous day, but I was considerably less unhappy. I was still with Laura, and on the inside she was still the person I’d fallen in love with. Her mannerisms were subtly different in her own body, but I could still see her in there. I focused on that and my feelings for her, and somehow life wasn’t so bad.

We picked up a takeaway from a Thai restaurant on the way home. I’d been happy to cook as Laura, but for some reason was less so now, and Laura was no queen of the kitchen, whichever body she was wearing. We’d sort it out before long. Actually, I hoped we wouldn’t have to, that the week would end and we could go back to being ourselves.

Again here I was thinking backwards. This was the body I’d been born in, but somehow I knew I belonged in Laura’s. At least I felt I knew that. How could I belong in someone else’s body?

The meal was welcome. Laura pouted a bit that she didn’t have enough appetite to eat much of it, but I made good use of Jerry’s metabolism and my small breakfast and lunch to indulge myself. I didn’t overeat, and there was still quite a bit left for the freezer when we’d finished. I was comfortably replete by the time I put my knife and fork to rest.

It was early, but Laura smiled muzzily at me over her half-finished glass of wine. I’d put three away myself and was enjoying the mild buzz they’d brought me. She took my hand, retrieved the pink bag from the hall where we’d dumped our few spoils from the afternoon, and led me upstairs.

She bit her lip nervously and reached into the bag.

“Give this a chance, okay? It was thinking about that guy who bought me the red nightie that gave me the idea. This is for you.”

She pulled a small package out of the bag and handed it to me.

Her sense of anticipation was infectious, sending shivers down my spine as I opened the box and pulled out a…

Well there wasn’t that much of it. All gauzy, flimsy material. It was a plus size, which meant it was for me rather than her, but it wasn’t going to cover a lot of me. I looked up into her hopeful expression.

“I have one too.” She retrieved a similar, but slightly smaller package from her bag of tricks. “You change in the bathroom. I don’t want to see you until you’re ready.”

It was the strangest feeling. On one level it felt wrong, but then I’d spent most of a year wearing dresses, so what was the big deal? I was kind of used to following Laura’s lead as well, so despite feeling a little uncomfortable about it all, I did as she suggested.

I looked ridiculous. Our bathroom didn’t have the largest of mirrors, but I could see enough to know that Jerry’s light musculature looked uncharacteristically, overwhelmingly male against the frills and the pink lace. The outfit included a pair of sheer knickers, which seriously could not even begin to contain my bulge, and a baby doll nightie in the same translucent material, which fell to just low enough to cover most of my embarrassment. Feeling more than a little self-conscious, I re-joined Laura in the bedroom.

To give her credit, she didn’t laugh. Her smile when it came was welcoming rather than ridiculing. She pulled the sheets back to reveal herself, similarly attired, and my bulge grew subtly, almost painfully larger.

She pulled me down onto the bed and rolled me onto my back, then proceeded to do things to me that I never would have suspected were possible. One thing about wearing someone else’s body for a year, you learn where all the right places are, and Laura had intimate knowledge of mine. By the time we’d removed our knickers and she’d climbed on top of me, I was so bursting with need that I was barely inside her before I reached my climax.

She lay beside me for a while, no words needed, no words wanted. She stroked my chest through the delicate fabric of my night dress and waited till there were signs of life once more between my legs. The second time was better than the first, and lasted long enough for her to enjoy. The third time, I took over and showed her what I had learnt of her body, which meant that by the time we were done, we were both utterly spent.

We lay there in the aftermath, listening to each other’s heavy breathing. A thought occurred to me.

“You did take your pill this morning, didn’t you?”

“Oh fuck.”

-oOo-

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. We hadn’t talked about children since the last scare. I get the impression Laura thought I’d been freaked out by the idea of giving birth and so was giving me time to come to terms with it all. For my part, I’d wanted her to show some signs of being ready to talk about it.

As we lay there, I found I rather liked the idea of being a parent, just that I really wanted to be the mum, despite all that entailed. Being pregnant wasn’t an issue, which one of us ended up being was. I told her as much.

“You’re welcome to it,” she said to me. “I mean don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a kid, but I never fancied the idea of squeezing one out.”

“Do you think there’ll be any issue about using the bowl if you are pregnant?”

“Shit, I never thought of that. I’ll call her tomorrow and ask.”

“What if she says yes?”

“We face that if we come to it. Fuck I’m beginning to wish I’d never started this.”

It was a great opportunity for I told you so, but I’d just about reached the point of understanding and agreeing with her reasoning for doing it in the first place. As Laura I was easily led by emotions, and the inertia of my feelings had carried me through the first day after being transformed back into Jerry. Now I found I was thinking about things with a clearer head.

“It’ll be alright love.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but it’s not time to worry yet.”

I pulled her into a closer embrace and we lay together in silence, lost in our own thoughts until sleep finally took over.

The following morning we weren’t given much freedom to worry about what my little squigglies were doing inside her. The phone rang while Laura was showering with the news that the shop had been broken into during the night, and that we were needed as soon as possible. Needless to say, we cut short our normal morning routine and climbed into the car with slices of toast half eaten.

There wasn’t much to show for the burglary. A window had been forced at the back and a few things disturbed in the office, but otherwise nothing seemed to be missing. The shop floor was pretty much as we’d left it the previous day, with only two items gone from where I’d left them. A quick check of the receipt book showed them both as having been sold. The store room, cluttered as it was, was more of a challenge, but eventually we came to the conclusion that nothing was missing there either. That left us with the office which, while it showed clear signs of having been disturbed, also seemed more or less intact. The police guys checked the computer keyboard for prints, but drew a blank; the same with the rest of the room.

An inspector asked if we had any idea who might have done this thing, and what they might have been after, and without a moment’s hesitation, both Laura and I gave Tony’s name, describing our relationship with the man and what he’d done to us in the past. It didn’t explain what he was after, but since nothing had been taken, we could only speculate on that in any case.

The nagging unease I’d had since Tony’s visit the previous day finally coalesced into coherent thought. It took a few minutes before I could talk to Laura without a policeman earwigging in, but eventually we were left alone together in the office.

“Did you keep the old woman’s contact details in here?” I asked her.

“What? Yes, er yeah, on the computer.”

“Would Tony have been able to get into it?”

“I don’t know. The others know the password as well as us, but I don’t think any of them would have told Tony.”

“Is there any way we can check what files have been accessed?”

“I don’t know. If there is I don’t know it.”

“You need to call the old woman right now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I think the reason Tony broke into this place was to get that information, and he’s a crafty enough bugger that he’ll have managed it.”

“We don’t even know it was Tony.”

“He turns up yesterday, and today we have a break in? Nothing was taken, and just what criminal would do that? We have some nice stuff here.”

“Okay, alright, but how would Tony know there was another bowl. We told him there wasn’t one.”

“But Mike, Pete and Randy knew there was something different about us, that we’d changed. Tony could have spotted the same thing.”

“Shit.” She logged onto the computer and opened a text document with a name and number in it, then punched the number in on the phone, twitching impatiently, waiting for an answer.

“Nothing.” She slammed the phone down after about the twentieth ring. “We have to go to her.”

“It’ll take us hours. What about the police?”

“She won’t thank us for involving them.”

“She’ll thank us less if Tony’s caught up with her and we don’t do something quickly.”

I yanked the door open and called the inspector over.

It took two minutes and he was on his phone, arranging for cars to be sent to the old woman’s house.

He turned back to me, slipping his phone back into his pocket, exchanging it for a notebook and pencil.

“Old habit,” he said indicating the offending articles, “from my beat days. So to recap, you think that this Tony West might be heading for the home of one Doris Maxwell because…”

“She phoned us last week. She has a rare antique piece that has been of particular interest to both Mr West and ourselves for some considerable time.”

“And the piece in question?”

“An ancient bowl,” Laura chipped in, unhappy to be a part of this, but it was her area of expertise. “Prehistoric as far as we know, made from petrified oak and lacquered with a substance as yet unidentified. We have a couple that are damaged.” She pointed at the items in their display cabinet. We’d moved them to the office after we tired of telling people they weren’t for sale. “Miss Maxwell showed us one in pristine condition when we visited her a few days ago.”

“And Mr West is interested in this item?”

“Highly.”

“So why didn’t he take those?”

“They’re not worth much in this condition.” She opened the cabinet and showed how one was broken in two, and indicating the large chip missing from the other.

“Just how valuable is this bowl of Miss Maxwell’s? I’m trying to ascertain how great a length you think Mr West might go to obtain it.”

“It’s more or less unique,” Laura said. “From what we know, only a half dozen were made, and hers may be the last that hasn’t been damaged.”

“So quite valuable then?”

“You have no idea.”

“Your interest in the item?”

“We were hoping to buy it, but Miss Maxwell was unwilling to sell. We kept her contact details in case she changed her mind or…”

“Or?”

“It’s a little shameful to own up to, inspector. Antiques is a waiting game at some levels. A large number of valuable antiques are owned by elderly people, and a great many can be bought through estate sales. Sometimes if you come across an item of particular interest which the person is unwilling to sell then and there, you sit back and keep an eye on the obituaries.”

The inspector’s face turned a little frosty, for which I can’t blame him. I’d taken some adjusting to that part of the business, but you become hardened to such things. It felt a little like we were vultures hanging around waiting for some poor animal to die of whatever ailed it, even if you could argue that we were potentially providing a service by offering a source of additional income to the bereaved at a time when they were facing funeral expenses and the like.

A nerve-grating default ringtone sounded from the inspector’s pocket and he fished out his mobile and stuck it to the side of his head.

“Peters.” He announced.

There followed one of those equally annoying one-sided conversations, with grunts and one word responses from the inspector’s side. After a couple of minutes he hung up and returned the phone to his pocket.

“It seems you may have been correct. They found the old lady unconscious and bleeding in her living room, front door smashed in. Another half hour and she might well have bled out, so your information is appreciated.”

“Is she going to be alright?” Laura voicing both our concerns.

“They don’t know as yet. The paramedics are with her and she’s stable for the moment. Weak though. They’re taking her in for observation for a few days.”

“Which hospital? We’d like to visit.”

“I’m not sure they’ll let you. It’ll be family only while she’s in.”

“We’d like to try; at least to send flowers.”

Inspector Peters gave us a long-suffering look and pulled his phone out again. A short call later and he was able to tell us it was the main city hospital here in the city. It was over the other side of the metropolis, about an hour’s drive away, but that was only a minor inconvenience.

“What about Tony West?” I asked.

“We’re looking for him. We have his address and other details from his record. If he left any fingerprints, we can check them against his last arrest sheet, but he or whoever, wore gloves to break in here. Chances are he’d have done the same there as well. When we do catch up with him, evidence will likely be no more than circumstantial, unless the old lady can identify him.”

Which left him free and clear, and probably with the last working bowl in his possession. We couldn’t risk that. A year ago he’d planned on raiding my bank, robbing thousands of innocent people of their life savings and leaving me to take the blame for him. He was a nastier piece of work now, so there was no knowing what he’d get up to. Not to mention we needed that bowl ourselves.

We couldn’t hurry the police though. They took their sweet time – doing their due diligence I suppose – examining the crime scene which was our place of business, and questioning everyone who might be able to shed even the faintest glimmer on what else might have happened.

They left around lunchtime. As soon as they were gone, we called an impromptu staff meeting, and asked if any of the other three had met Tony the previous day. Mike shamefacedly owned up to having done so. He lifted his shirt to show us some unpleasant bruising about his kidneys.

“He asked for my help, for old time’s sake. He wanted a key to the place and the computer password. He wasn’t too happy when I said no. He always was bigger and tougher, and nastier, than any of us, which was why we ended up doing what he said back then.

“He knows how to hurt someone without letting it show. I’m sorry, but he’d have just kept at it until I caved. I told him I didn’t have the key, but I did tell him the password. He said he’d really fuck me over if I said anything to anyone about it, so I kept schtum.

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay Mike,” I said. “You should probably get those seen to. Pete can you take him to A&E?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Mike protested.

“I don’t want to take any chances Mike. You could have internal bleeding, and I’d hate this to get any more serious than it already is.” I looked at Pete who nodded and led his friend away.

“Randy, can you look after the shop this afternoon? We need to follow up on a few things.”

He nodded and Laura and I headed for the car.

-oOo-

“Are you family?” The nurse behind the counter had barely even looked up at me.

“I’m the nearest thing she has.”

“I’m sorry. If you’re not family, you can’t see her.”

“What if she has no family?”

“Then she doesn’t have any visitors.”

Ah, the bureaucratic mind; inflexible, irrational, infuriating.

“Can you at least see that she receives these flowers?”

“I can’t make any promises.” She didn’t even look up to acknowledge the gift.

“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.” I needn’t have bothered; bureaucrats are immune to irony.

It had taken over an hour to drive here and to find somewhere to park. At Laura’s suggestion, I’d approached main reception on my own, so that if I didn’t succeed in getting past with honesty, then at least they wouldn’t be so likely to question my partner trying to get by on guile.

Our second attempt relied in part on the flowers getting to their recipient, so it was with some relief when the guardian of the gate called over to a passing porter a few moments later and pointed at the card and flowers. The minion shrugged and picked up the offending articles, heading for the lift.

Laura took her cue and followed him, reaching the lift just as the doors opened. As with most hospitals, there were a number of visitors roaming around, so all she needed was a confident look and the appearance that she knew where she was going, and she blended in with the rest of the scenery.

A couple of minutes later, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Laura gave me a floor number and a ward name and I put the phone away before anyone complained about my using it inside the hospital. I waited till Nurse Battleaxe’s attention was diverted, and marched up and into the lifts myself.

I found Laura standing by the lift doors. She pointed to a nurse’s station and we headed over to it.

“Er, hi,” she began, doing the nervous and slightly upset relative act quite convincingly. “I’m, er I’m Laura Townsend, here to visit my aunt? Well great aunt really. Mrs Doris Maxwell? Yes, this is my partner.”

The nurse was busy, so checked a list and pointed us towards a room, assuming that we wouldn’t have been able to get this far if we hadn’t been able to prove our credentials.

Inside the room we found our flowers on display in a plastic water jug – at least someone had made an effort to arrange them – and a rather shrunken Mrs Maxwell in a hospital gown with a bandage around her head. Her eyes were closed, so Laura sat quietly beside her while I gazed out the window. We desperately wanted to talk to the old woman, but she looked so frail, and it would have been wrong to disturb her rest.

I must have cast a shadow over her face, because I heard a gentle murmur and turned in time to see her eyes flicker open. She stared uncomprehending at me for a moment, then turned to Laura and recognition dawned.

“Hello dear,” she said to Laura with a weak smile. “Now you see why I wanted to keep the thing hidden.”

“Yes we do,” Laura said, taking the old woman’s hand. “We’re so sorry for what happened to you.”

“No more sorry than am I. I tried to keep him from finding it, but he had some rather unpleasant means of persuasion, and no qualms about using them. Well hidden as the bowl was, I believe he would have found it eventually in any case, so I decided it would be better to tell him and survive. As it was he very nearly didn’t give me even that option.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“Yes, and I’ve already given a description to the police. They showed me a picture of a man; you know the sort they take when they arrest someone?”

“Tony West?”

“That’s what they said his name was, yes. But they won’t catch him.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t know about the bowl, do they? They’ll almost certainly catch up with someone who looks like him, but he’ll be someone else by then.”

“Shit.” Laura was running through her day’s quota of expletives.

“Hardly very lady-like, dear, but then as I recall, you’re not the lady here are you?”

“Is there anything you can tell us that might help us find him?”

“I wish I could say there was, but no. This is just the thing I was afraid would happen, and now that it has I don’t think there’s anything you or I can do to stop it. What’s more is I won’t be able to help you or your friends change back.”

Laura and I glanced at each other. It was a blow, but it was something we’d been preparing ourselves for since hearing of Tony’s attack on Mrs Maxwell. In the end we still had each other, even if we couldn’t be each other. We’d get by.

“That’s not really important now.” Laura spoke for both of us. “Our friends seem happy as they are, and… well, I suppose we’ll survive. We’re worried about how many lives Tony will ruin unless someone can stop him though. I mean it’s our fault he found you…”

“Are you prepared to be involved in resolving this matter then? How far are you prepared to go?”

“As far as we need to,” I said placing a hand on Laura’s shoulder and sensing her nod of agreement more than seeing it. “What did you have in mind?”

“Nothing I’d care to mention. Magic is rare in this age, and weak, except for where it has been locked into artefacts like the bowls. There may be enough to influence matters though. You’d best leave me be for now, but would you tell one of the nurses on your way out that I’d like to have use of a phone?”

We did as she asked, and soon enough found ourselves outside the hospital again.

-oOo-

It was nearly six o’clock by the time we made it back home. Randy would have closed the shop and everyone would be home and relaxing. We’d discussed options, and felt that the best possible next step would be to ask Tony’s former friends if they knew of any people or places where he was likely to hide, or any possible targets that he might have considered besides me a year or so ago. Time was of the essence as he was a wanted man and would be looking to change his appearance as quickly as possible. With the bowl he had a perfect disguise, but knowing Tony, he’d want to trade up, even if all he needed was to escape the police.

Back at the house, we phoned each of the three and asked if they could put their minds to the problem, and to phone us as soon as they had any ideas. For want of keeping my hands busy, I headed for the kitchen and started peeling potatoes and slicing vegetables. It took about fifteen minutes to sear a couple of steaks and boil up the spuds and veg. It wasn’t the most imaginative of meals, but we were a little preoccupied.

We headed for bed early, our minds swimming in the turmoil of our individual thoughts. We didn’t say much, nor did we do more than climb into bed and into one another’s embrace. Sleep came eventually. Sooner for me than for Laura, but then that came with the body and, I suppose, the brain I was inhabiting.

I woke to an empty bed, the space beside me cold enough to suggest Laura had been up for some hours. I climbed out of my side, scratching sleepily at my behind as I headed for the bathroom. It was early still, as the pre-dawn glow through the frosted glass of the bathroom window attested. Having done my business, I washed my hands and splashed cold water in my face, before heading downstairs to find Laura.

“What the fuck!”

-oOo-