The Graduate, Vamped and Revamped: 3 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux
 

Although Leslie didn’t succeed in getting Ben’s pants off, and though she didn’t resort to stripping naked and declaring her availability, their half-hour makeout session was enough to kick off their affair.

Leslie had already devised a simple set of rendezvous signals: She brought Ben upstairs to a little box room, and directed his attention to a window with a direct line of sight to Ben’s bedroom window. “If I hang something red in this window, it means I’m ready and waiting. If I hang something black, on the other hand, it means you can’t come over and you absolutely shouldn’t call me. In fact, it would be best if you don’t call me at all unless it’s some kind of emergency. In that case you should use your house phone, so it looks like your mother’s calling me.”

“What if there’s nothing in the window?” Ben asked. “What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she answered.

 

---

 

When Ben was a child, he’d pretend to be a commando, and drag himself, belly in the dirt, by elbows and knees the length of the lower garden. He discovered that he could make his way from the house to the river without being visible to his parents from any window in the house. He didn’t even need to crawl; he could stand erect the entire time. All he had to do was keep outside the line of bushes at the yard’s border. He resurrected this stealth technique so he could sneak to and from Leslie’s house.

The method was not entirely perfect, though: there were two spots where he stood exposed, out in the open: One was while he left his house and crossed the deck, near the pool. The other was while he crossed the bridge over the little creek. He was a bit paranoid at those two points, glancing over his shoulder, hoping to not see his father or mother. He hurried, yet tried to seem nonchalant at the same time.

From the other direction, there was no cover whatsoever: From the time he left his house, to the moment he arrived at the Leslie’s back door, he was completely visible from any back-facing window in the Crusoe’s house. Not that it mattered, of course. Leslie’s red or black flags guaranteed that Ben never worried about detection from that direction.

Ben didn’t know it, but Leslie followed his antics closely, and found them highly amusing. It was pretty comical, the way he gently closed the french door and tiptoed across the pool deck, his head jerking to look over his shoulder. It was such a staccato, unbalanced gait, Leslie was surprised Ben had never tripped over his feet and fallen, a mass of elbows and knees. Then, he’d walk on cat’s feet down the alley outside the hedge, as if the slightest sound would give him way. At the end came the mad dash across the bridge to her door.

Once she locked the door so she could watch him squirm, but when she finally let him inside, he was so nervous and shaken, it took away from their lovemaking, and she felt guilty over the distress she’d caused him.

Once she came with him, along the secret path, back to his house. They were tempted by the idea of making love in his bedroom. Leslie also had the secret aim of making love in the Haddock’s living room, on the couch where Chad had so opened cavorted with Justine. They got as far as the foot of the stairs, when Mrs Haddock’s car pulled into the driveway. Leslie and Ben shot out of there, and took the hidden path back to her house, electrified and giggling all the way.

Ben, of course, believed that his parents were completely in the dark about his amorous liaison with their attractive neighbor. To tell the truth, Ben’s own father had long nourished fantasies of sneaking over the the little bridge for a tryst with Leslie, but he was responsible enough to keep his fantasies to himself. Mr Haddock's fantasies were nothing more than that: fantasies. Ben was correct in thinking that his actual movements from his house to hers were unobserved, however, his parents had plenty of other material to work with.

For one thing, Ben had come home from college apathetic, nearly anhedonic. His discipline and drive seemed to have evaporated once he received his degree. Left to himself, he would have lay in the pool all day, his mind empty. Ben had confessed to his parents that he had no vision of his own future; he had no plans beyond today. They were quite upset when he called his entire schooling, from kindergarten to his bachelor’s degree, an enormous waste of time and money.

When asked what he would rather have done, Ben replied, “Nothing.”

Then, two days after his graduation party, his parents couldn’t help but notice a change. Ben still had no drive for further study, or even for any kind of job, but he was suddenly cheery, helpful, and positive. They were pleased to see Ben’s grumpy, contrary demeanor gone, and waited hopefully for his optimism to evolve into a desire to get on with his life.

After a week of the new Ben, his parents were sitting at breakfast, remarking on the boy’s absence. He’s getting some, his father told himself. Aloud, Ben’s mother said, “Ben must have a girlfriend.” After a pensive pause, she added, “I hope it’s not that awful Justine person.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Mr Haddock replied, and was surprised to find himself aroused simply by the mention of the girl’s name.

After another week passed, Ben continued to be cheerful, but seemed no nearer to taking hold of his life and considering his own future. It was during that week that his parents noticed that while Ben was absent, his car was not.

When they asked Ben to explain this remarkable fact, he told them that he was using Uber to get around. “That way I don’t have to worry if I have a drink or two,” he said, thinking that his ready lie made him sound responsible.

The next morning at breakfast, Ben was once again absent, and his mother commented that she had never seen an Uber anywhere near their house.

Mr Haddock, mouth full of food, offered the opinion that “We should let the boy sow some wild oats.”

Mrs Haddock flattened that thought without delay. “How thick are you? I can’t believe you don’t see it! It's literally right in front of your nose!”

“See what?”

“Ben is sleeping with Leslie Crusoe.”

“Really?” Mr Haddock, nearly choking on his food. When he recovered, he asked, “Is this just your intuition talking, or what?”

Mrs Haddock gave him a look of disdain, and explained, “I came home from shopping one afternoon, and the door to the deck was open. Ben wasn’t here, and I smelled her perfume. I closed the door, and it hung in the air for a while.”

“Her perfume? Are you sure you couldn’t have imagined it? Could it have been something else?”

“No. Leslie wears Bright Crystal — she’s the only woman I know who does. It’s quite distinctive.”

Mr Haddock fell quiet. He stood up and looked out the kitchen window. “Hell!” he softly exclaimed.

“I can’t blame her,” she admitted, “with that awful husband of hers. But with Ben? Our Ben? She can’t. They can’t.”

Mr Haddock ran his hand through his hair. “This is a mess. A real mess. What the hell are we going to do?”

Mrs Haddock had a plan ready: “I think it’s time Ben took a little trip. He can visit his grandparents. Get away from here for a bit.”

“Which grandparents? Your folks or mine?”

“Both,” she replied decisively. “Let’s buy the tickets right now, and tell him it’s a gift.”

 

---

 

When Ben told Leslie the news, he was surprised and a little disappointed that she took it so well. In fact, Leslie said, “That’s a good thing.”

“How is that a good thing?”

“I have a lot of things to do… legal things. Arrangements.”

“Remember, you’re not a lawyer,” he quipped, but she ignored his joke.

“Viv Errisson is helping me work things out, and there have been times when I was with you when I should have been with her, working.” She paused, then confided, “Keep this to yourself, Ben: there’s a lot of paperwork and accounting involved in a divorce. Also, the whole question of where and how to live afterward… none of this is easy. Viv is helping me work out a plan for my life, going forward.”

“You’re really getting divorced?”

“You say that like you’re surprised, Ben. I told you the first time we were together, and I’ve mentioned it several times since then. I tell you all the time how badly he treats me; how he neglects me; how he doesn’t respect me…”

“Yes, but—” Ben dove right into a awkward, tactless admission “—I thought you were just complaining. I didn’t think you were really going to do it”

“Just complaining?” she repeated. “Are you saying that you didn’t take anything I said seriously? What did you think? That I just like to whine?”

“I don’t know!” He struggled with himself for a moment, then asked, “Does Chad want it too?”

“Want what? The divorce? Of course not! He doesn’t know!”

“What do you mean, he doesn’t know? How can you divorce him, if he doesn’t agree?”

“That’s the thing, Ben: divorce isn’t an agreement. It’s the opposite of an agreement. It’s unilateral. It’s something that one person does to the other. And I’m the one doing it. I have to get out. That’s the only cure for the way things are.

“Believe me, Ben. Chad is an asshole. I know you think all that crap about his ‘sharing’ me, about gangbangs and all that pornographic stuff he wants me to do — you think it’s all exciting and fun, but if you were a woman, it would frighten you to death.”

Ben shrugged helplessly. She scoffed, irritated, and said (as she so often did), “Ben, you are SO lucky that you’re young and cute.”

 

---

 

Ben found that the week he spent away passed more quickly than he expected. Leslie told him not to call, so he didn’t. She also told him never to send emails, texts, or letters. “I don’t want to get caught,” she explained. “If you create any proof that I’ve been unfaithful, Chad will use against me in the divorce.” For the same reason, she refused to let him take her picture, whether clothed or naked. So, without any of the physical trappings of sentiment, he left to visit his grandparents. All four of them. It was more fun than he expected.

Each day of the trip, he got a call from Bagger. “I’m going nuts, man! All this wedding stuff! It’s insane!” He’d unload his frustrations with all the “girly details” involved in getting married. “Fittings, man, fittings! ONE fitting ought to be enough, am I right?” and “Cake tastings! Can you believe there even IS such a thing? I mean, you pick your cake, right? I mean, at some point you have to quit overthinking every fucking detail, you know?”

To his surprise, Jenny called him on the second day — and every day thereafter. “Ben, I heard Bagger talking to you, and I want you to understand that everything is not as OUT OF CONTROL as he wants you to think!”

At first, his mother’s parents were irritated and offended by the incessant, endless calls — until Ben hit upon the expedient of putting his friends on speakerphone and himself on mute. Then, Ben asked Bagger and Jenny if they minded his grandparents being on the call. To his surprise, both Bagger and Jenny enthusiastically agreed. This arrangement (which was repeated at his father’s parents’ house) allowed Ben to tune out, drink coffee and eat sandwiches, while it gave Bagger and Jenny a sounding board for their conflicts and a vent for their frustrations.

To Ben’s immense surprise, Bagger and Jenny continued to call his grands every day, right up to the wedding.

So, that was a nice thing. Ben’s parents were tickled to hear about it, but Ben’s mother was a little offended at being left out. “Maybe we could do a conference call,” she suggested, but no one embraced the idea.

In Leslie’s absence, Ben did a lot of thinking. Not about his own life and future, as his parents had hoped, but about Leslie’s. Was she getting divorced so she could marry him? If so, a little heads-up would be nice!

On the other hand, the fact that she was getting divorced put another of Ben’s questions to rest: Leslie spent so much describing Chad’s bad behavior and misdeeds, that Ben had come to wonder whether she was trying to get Ben to kill Chad.

Was that such a crazy question? Ben had seen the movie To Die For, where Nicole Kidman’s character did exactly that. And the film was based on a true story — which means that things like that happen!

Of course, Ben never asked Leslie if she had murder in mind. He was relieved to see he was mistaken. He would never have done such a thing, in any case.

 

---

 

While Ben was away, Leslie had done a thing. It could have been a small thing — in fact, it should have been a small thing, a thing that no one would have ever known, if Chad hadn’t ruined it. Even so, the thing remained Leslie’s secret, even if everyone knew.

Ben’s first clue that something had changed came on the morning of his first day back. He’d showered and dressed. He’d eaten breakfast. Then he went up to his room to unpack. Every thirty seconds, he checked Leslie’s window for the red signal. Each time he looked, there was nothing. He was itching to see her, but he knew better than to visit or call without knowing the coast was clear.

After several hours of fruitless waiting, he went downstairs for a snack. His father wasn’t home, and his mother was sunning on the deck by the poolside. While she tanned, she talked on the phone. Ben could hear her without any difficulty, and when he heard Leslie’s name, he took it as an implicit license to eavesdrop.

“What I want to know is: WHAT DID LESLIE DO? What did she do?”

Ben’s chest tightened. Could his parents know? Maybe his father would understand, but his mother… she would disapprove for sure. Ben wished for a way to listen to the other side of his mother’s conversation, but there was none. He could only patiently endure the silences.

“Whatever she did, she did it Sunday. Margaret saw Leslie on Saturday, up close and personal, and she’s sure she saw the same old Leslie. *I* saw her Monday morning, and she looks twenty years younger. She looks the way she did when we were all in high school. Yes. Yes, I know.”

Silence.

“That’s what I’m saying! If she’s found the fountain of youth, I want in. Do you know, her hair is even longer. Yes, I’m pretty sure! What? Extensions? Oh, I hadn’t thought. Could be. But her face, her arms, her hands…. her neck! She’s gone back in time.”

Silence. Then his mother laughed.

“If that’s what you get when you sell your soul, then I’m in! I’m in! I’d love to drop twenty years, and have everything just jump back up to where it used to be. Yes! I’m sure. Oh, I know.”

A prolonged silence followed, punctuated by his mother’s “I know!” and the like. Ben returned upstairs without his snack. Once he knew that his mother wasn’t talking about his affair with Leslie, he lost all interest. Sure, his mother was talking about Leslie, but it was nothing of consequence. As far as Ben was concerned it was just girl talk. No, it was worse than that: it was old-lady talk: the kind of nonsense old women spent their days obsessing over.

Ben fell asleep for a half hour, tired from his trip. When he awoke and shook the sleep from his head, he looked out the window, just as the red flag appeared. From the shape, it looked like a pair of red panties. Ben leaped to his feet, and heard his mother call from below: “Ben, I’m making sandwiches. Do you want one?”

“Yes!” he called back. He was hungry, and he knew he wouldn’t be eating at Leslie’s house. Also, there was no way he could leave if his mother was in the kitchen or the pool area.

He found his mother in the kitchen, standing by the counter in a beach robe. She pushed a plate toward him: a triple-decker club sandwich, potato chips, and pickle spears. A thick napkin lay conveniently nearby, and she had poured him a large glass of soda.

She smiled sweetly, but with the air of the spider inviting the fly.

As Ben munched hungrily, not bothering to sit down, his mother asked questions about his trip: none of them requiring more than a yes or no. This in itself was unusual: when it came to other people and what they said and did, his mother tended to grill him mercilessly for details, going back over things, turning over the same earth multiple times. Instead, this time she seemed quite happy with a nod or a shake of his head.

When he’d gotten halfway through the massive sandwich, she asked him, apparently out of the blue, as if it just occurred to her in that moment: “Ben… if you happen to run into Leslie Crusoe, could you ask her if she’s doing something new?”

“What do you mean?” Ben asked, purposefully obtuse.

“Has she been to a spa? Found some new beauty treatment or product? See if you can find out her secret.”

“But why would I run into Mrs Crusoe?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” his mother said. “Maybe I’m being silly. But if you do run into her, then ask her. Can you do that?”

“Okay,” he shrugged.

“And, Ben — don’t say that I asked you. Just pretend you noticed something different about her, like she’s somehow younger… prettier… You know.”

Ben shoved some more sandwich into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to respond. His mother trailed a hand across the back of his shoulders as she left the room, saying, “Well, enjoy your sandwich! I’m going to take a shower now.”

He listened to her feet ascend the stairs. After some movement, he heard her shower start. As soon as she began to sing, he dropped his unfinished sandwich on the plate and ran out the door. Today, he didn’t bother with his “security precautions”: instead, he ran down the middle of the lower garden, and clomped across the little bridge. As soon as he stepped into her kitchen, Leslie leapt into his arms, and they kissed. He spun slowly as their tongues caressed each other, and at last he (somewhat awkwardly) perched her on the end of her kitchen island and stepped back so he could look at her.

“Oh, my God!” he cried. “You look incredible!”

And she did! Leslie blushed prettily, and he took in the changes: not that her face was wrinkled before, but now it was smoother, fresher, and had the plumpness of youth. “Is your hair longer?” he asked. He reached out to touch the wave of hair. “It’s a thousand times softer!” Her lips were fuller. Her eyes had more shine.

“Wait until you see the rest of me,” she purred.

Ben carried her upstairs and dropped her on the bed. “Undress me,” she commanded, and so he did. She made him do it slowly. Maddeningly slowly. It forced him to look at her, to study her well. Everything about her was new and improved: her legs were sleeker. Spots and tiny scars he remembered were gone. Her ass was tighter and higher, like a young girl’s. And her breasts were full, round globes floating on her chest. Her nipples actually pointed up, in a perky arc! “How?” he breathed, enchanted. She didn’t answer, she only lay there, naked, glorious, smiling.

“You know what’s crazy?” he told her. “You look younger than me!”

Leslie laughed, a sexy, throaty laugh, and said, “I am younger than you now.” He ignored her remark as pure badinage.

Leslie was pleased, blushing, glowing. Her body was warm, soft, supple as Ben oohed and aahed and ran his hands over every part of her. He was too overcome with surprise and admiration to put his mother’s questions to Leslie.

And then, Ben ruined everything.

After a much longer session of foreplay and exploration than they’d ever enjoyed in the past, Ben climbed atop her in the quite traditional, but thoroughly enjoyable, missionary position, and as he began to push his way inside her, he exclaimed, “Dear God! Your pussy! What did you do? It’s so tight! It’s amazing!” At that, her face flashed with anger, and she pushed him away. She squirmed her hips away from his, putting some distance between his cock and her vagina. “Get off! Get off of me! Stop! Pull away, Ben, it’s not happening!”

“What?” he asked bewildered. “What did I do?”

“You never know, do you?” she exclaimed.

“No, I don’t,” he rather stupidly replied.

“All this oohing and aahing and everything!” she fumed. “Was I really that awful before?”

“No, it’s just that you’re—”

“I’m what? My pussy is tight? What was it before? Loose and floppy? Did you get lost in there before?”

“No, that’s not it! It was great before, but now… It’s just like, suddenly you’re all different! It’s like you’re twenty years younger!”

“I am twenty years younger,” she repeated.

“There! You said it yourself! What are you talking about? Why did you say that? Why are you so pissed off?”

Her indignation still showed in the redness of her high cheekbones, but her anger had already begun to cool. She sat there, naked, her legs bent under her, a vision of soft, sexy beauty — but incredibly enough, the vision was that of a twenty-year-old girl, not a forty-year-old woman.

“Look,” she said, “I’m sorry. I *am* a little angry with you, but I’m really angry with Chad. Do you know that he came here earlier — he took the time before he left on his trip — but the only reason he came here was because that stupid whore Justine wanted to ask me some questions, and didn’t dare. So he came and asked on her behalf. Can you believe that?”

Ben shook his head. “What did she want to know?”

Leslie gave Ben a look — that irritated you’re lucky you’re cute look. “Justine wanted to know if I had any work done — plastic surgery — or if I had some kind of makeover, or found a new workout or spa, or something.”

“And did you?”

Leslie gave Ben a look of fire.

“What is the big deal? You look amazing!” Ben protested. “I don’t understand the problem.”

“There are any number of problems,” Leslie replied. “In the first place, it’s none of her fucking business. In the second place, Chad is a complete and utter asshole with no heart and zero empathy if he thinks he can waltz in here and say TO MY FACE things his lover said.

“AND what makes it worse is that Chad — even when he was standing right in front of me, didn’t see. He didn’t notice any of it. The only thing he said on his own was to ask me if I had done something to my hair. I told him, ‘Yes, it’s longer’ and he called me a smartass.”

Ben very nearly asked what she’d done with her hair, but had enough sense to bite his tongue.

“And THEN,” Leslie continued, angrily rounding on the conclusion, “That dickhead said to me, ‘Well, if you’re suddenly so hot and all, I should start pimping you out’ and he slapped my ass.”

“What did you do?” Ben asked. He had a quick vision of Mr and Mrs Crusoe dressed in the stereotypical pimp-and-prostitute outfits. His cock abruptly stiffened. She noticed, and her lips tightened.

“Sorry,” Ben said. He held her for a while, expecting her to cry, but she didn’t. She let him hold her, but she didn’t soften and melt in his arms. She was hard and unyielding, radiating fury. He could almost feel her thinking, and knew it was best to keep his mouth shut. But he couldn’t help himself.

“So… what did you do?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“I told you,” she replied. “Magic.”

Ben's face flashed confusion. She hadn't used that word — not that it mattered. “There’s no such thing.”

“Then what did I do?” she challenged. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Look. My friend Viv Errisson gave me a medallion. It can transform whoever wears it, so I used it to make myself younger.”

“How?”

“It takes too long to explain,” she said. “It’s easier if you see it happen.”

“And when you transform, are you stuck that way?”

“You can’t change for twelve hours, and you need the medallion to change again.”

He mulled this over in his mind. “Could you change me into someone else?”

“Sure.”

“Even an animal?”

“I suppose. Maybe. Honestly, I’d be afraid to.”

He thought for a while, then confessed, “If this is real, I want to try it.”

“Okay,” she said. “Now is good. Chad’s gone on a trip. You can hide out here until it’s time to change again.”

Then they discussed the options: after Leslie explained that they needed an article of someone’s clothing to trigger the transformation, Ben said, disappointed, “So, my choices are one of my parents, or Chad — and that’s it. I don’t want to be any of them.”

“Or me,” Leslie said. “You could be me.”

“Umm,” Ben hesitated. “Could we do this another time? I’d really like some more options.”

“I don’t know,” Leslie confessed. “The reason she lent it to me, and the reason I worked through my divorce papers, is that I am going to get away from here. I’m going to use the medallion to turn into someone else, and leave this shithole of a town. It's not as though I have a lot of time.”

Ben received the news in silence.

“Listen, Ben: why don’t we switch places, just for tonight? You can see what it’s like to have a woman’s body. You won’t get the full experience of being out in the world, seeing how men and other women treat you, but you can play for a night.”

“Play with myself?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, you’d really be playing with me,” she replied, grinning impishly.

Ben stripped and sat in a chair. Leslie opened a little briefcase. She removed from it a white minidress, which she set on the bed. Then she drew a medallion from the case. It hung from a gold chain. She draped the chain over Ben’s head and lowered it until the medallion rested on his naked chest. Then she picked up the minidress. “This is a dress that I haven’t worn since I graduated from high school,” she explained. “It’s what I used to make myself young.” After firmly pressing the dress against the medallion, she wove the dress through the necklace itself so that it hung over the front of the medallion, while the back of it kept contact with Ben’s skin.

“I don’t feel anything,” Ben told her. “Am I supposed to feel something?”

“Be patient,” she told him, and glanced at the clock. He reached up to touch the medallion, and she scolded him. “Just sit still, Ben!” She turned the chair to face a full-length mirror, and over the course of the next half hour, Ben watched himself slowly morph, bit by bit, into the younger version of Leslie Crusoe. “Although you’d be Leslie Genesen, back then,” she informed him.

Once the half hour was over, and the transformation was complete, Leslie took the dress off the medallion and returned it to the case.

“My God, we’re twins now!” Ben exclaimed.

“And you know what?” Leslie crowed, “You'll be happy to know: your pussy is tight!”

“Oh… yeah,” Ben said, suddenly realizing what body he was wearing, and blushing.

“Now it’s my turn,” Leslie said, draping the medallion around her own neck, and pressing Ben’s shirt against it. Then she did the same trick of wrapping it through the necklace, so the shirt touched the front of the medallion while the back rested on her naked breasts.

In a half hour’s time, the transformation was complete. She returned the medallion and the dress to her briefcase and closed it. Then she dressed in Ben’s clothes and gave the new Leslie a resounding slap on the ass.

“Ow!” Ben cried. “That hurt!”

“Oh, did it?” she asked, feigning innocence. “I thought women found that sexy. Didn’t it turn you on? Would you like me to give you a nice spanking before I go home?”

“Home?” he repeated stupidly. “But no — I don’t want a spanking.”

“But everyone knows that women like that, don’t they?” she challenged, using same words he’d used. “Wouldn’t that turn you on?”

He stopped and considered. “I don’t know. Maybe. We could try.”

She stopped. She never considered that — if the shoe was ever on the other foot — he might actually want it. “Look,” she said, “see what you can do with this tonight,” and she fetched a white dildo from her underwear drawer. She tossed it to Ben, who caught it and held on to it.

“Oh!” Ben said in surprise. “But what do I do if someone calls or visits? What do I say?”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “No one will call or visit. Chad is on an airplane now, and won’t be back for almost a week. You don’t need to answer the phone or the door. But if you do, please put some clothes on, and don’t let anyone see the dildo.”

She (Ben-as-Leslie) was still naked, and in no hurry to dress.

“Okay,” he (Leslie-as-Ben) said. “I’m going to get going.” He looked at Ben’s phone, sitting on the side table, and picked it up. “I guess if I’m going to be you, I’m going to need your phone. What’s your code? To unlock the phone?”

“Hey!” she protested. “What are you — How can — How are you going to be me? What will you say? How will you know what to do? You should leave that phone. What if somebody calls me?”

“No, Leslie,” Ben corrected. “What if somebody calls ME? I’m Ben. If they call this phone, they’ll call me.”

“You don’t know how to be me,” she insisted.

“Oh, girl!” he laughed. “Let’s pretend someone just asked me a question — any question.” The new Ben looked off in the distance and scratched his cheek. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he looked off in the opposite direction. Then he shrugged and said, “I dunno.” He laughed and said, “That’s Ben to a T.”

“No,” the new Leslie protested. “That’s not me!”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I won’t embarrass you. Don’t embarrass me, either, okay? Otherwise, I’ll leave you that way.”

His eyes widened in horror. “Leslie! You wouldn’t! You couldn’t! Don’t! Please!”

“No, not ‘Leslie’ — Ben.”

“What?”

“You’re Leslie now. I’m Ben. Don’t call me Leslie, Leslie. Call me Ben. Anyway, would it really be so bad, if you were stuck being me?” he laughed. “But don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that. No matter what you believe women really want, you would hate being married to Chad. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy — not even that whore Justine. There’s no way I’d do that to you. Scouts’ honor: tomorrow morning I’ll be here after breakfast, and we’ll switch back. Okay?” He grabbed her hand, the one holding the dildo, and waggled it, laughing. “Have fun. Take a bubble bath, drink champagne. Touch yourself all over. Whatever you do, enjoy it, and don’t feel guilty. Okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” she replied, in an uncertain tone. “You, too.”

“Just one thing,” he said, holding the briefcase in one hand, and his phone in the other. “You forgot to tell me: What’s the code for your phone?”