Morning Surprise

By Janet Harris 2003

It's hard to remember how surprised I was to wake up female.

I woke calmly and naturally and wasn't sure whether I expected my alarm clock or whether it was a weekend morning, so I looked for the time. Where I expected to see my green digital clock, there was a red reading of 09:17, so it must be the weekend. That was reassuring, but the red digits were not, so I woke up some more and looked around. I was certainly in a strange bedroom and that startled me. I found I was in a single bed instead of alongside my wife and there was something unfamiliar about the arm with which I had cleared the sheet and then some long hair from my face. As I propped myself up on an elbow to look around I realised what had happened. The hair fell back across my face and real breasts were pulling down on my chest.

A moment of joy as I remembered that this was what I had always fantasized about was tempered by worry that it was unplanned and unexpected. This reality was much clearer than any dream, yet I could not remember anything from the day before which would have caused such a magical transformation. I had met no wizard or genie, had made no wishes on any sort of artefact, had not even read any Fictionmania stories for several days. I pinched my arm, the usual test for dreaming, and it hurt.

"Anyway," I thought, "I might as well enjoy it."

I felt my breasts with my other hand. When I touched most parts of my body, today as well as yesterday, the primary sensation was of how it felt on my fingers. Now the primary sensation was of how my fingers felt on my breasts. Fascination at this kept me occupied for several minutes and I pushed the bedclothes further back to watch my nipples erecting as I fondled them. Then I remembered where else to look for changes and I gingerly felt down my belly towards my groin.

I was surprised to find that I was still wearing just underpants in bed but knew immediately they were not the same pair by the narrowness of the waist elastic and their silky texture. I put my hand further down, outside them, and confirmed the expected void where my manhood had been last night, then pressed my hand gently against my new vagina. Again, there was much more feeling from it than from my hand.

"This feels really good," I thought "but who the hell am I?"

I struggled out of the bed, which was made up quite differently to the one I had fallen asleep in, putting my slender little feet on the floor. There was a vanity with a large mirror but I had to walk a little before I could see myself. Now my whole body felt really different as my tits swung about. The girl in the mirror looked very young, maybe teenage, but otherwise pretty much what I expected and a total stranger.

"God! How old am I now?" I asked myself, "It must be on some document somewhere here."

There was a handbag on the end of the vanity, in it a wallet and in that a driving licence. There was a little photo of the girl in the mirror, the name "Jennifer Atkins" and a date of birth, which made me just 23, less than half my age yesterday - wow - it was good to be young again! I stretched and arched backwards when I read that. Then I began to worry again why this had happened. Why was that name a complete surprise?

"Hello Jennifer!" I said aloud to the mirror, startled by the high pitch of my voice.

"Hello Miss Atkins." I added, but then wondered if I might be Mrs Atkins.

I looked back at the driving licence - there was no slot for "Maiden Name" so it gave no idea. I rooted through the wallet and the rest of the handbag for further clues. The sanitary equipment startled me with the realisation that there would be a real fertile womb at the top of that very real vagina I now proudly carried between my legs.

In a drawer, I found a file full of documents including this girl's birth certificate, in the name Atkins, which was a relief. But I was "this girl" now and this was "my" birth certificate, though I could remember nothing of her (my) life up till this morning. Instead I remembered having a normal day yesterday as the man I was then. I began to wonder what had happened to my wife; would she wake up to find me gone or was I in some sort of time-loop now? Perhaps poor Jennifer was trying to make sense of my old life. Would she have been fantasizing such a swap? Unlikely, I thought.

A letter then caught my eye among the documents. It was from the manager of the "Sweet Dreams Restaurant" (new to me) to Miss Atkins, dated the day before yesterday, congratulating her on being successful in her application for the job of waitress. I gulped. This was one of my fantasies but the detail was frightening. The letter went on to say I should report for work at 17:45 this evening, wearing the uniform of white long-sleeved blouse with plain shirt collar and black knee-length skirt. I should be wearing shoes in which I could walk ten miles but not trainers. Well, at least I was starting a new job and would not be expected to know anybody. I wondered if I had suitable clothes already. If not, there was plenty of time before work to buy some. That would be fun - I was really going to enjoy clothes-shopping now I was a woman.

The girl's (my) clothes from yesterday were slung over the back of a chair with the bra on top. I felt I really needed it after rooting around my drawers with my tits swinging about. I knew how to put it on from watching my wife and soon I felt much more comfortable and secure. The top was a mauve T-shirt with a big neck and half-length sleeves. I pulled it on, flicked my hair out of it and looked down shyly at my cleavage, but not too much showed. There were light brown tights and a denim mini-skirt, but I thought I'd better change the knickers I'd slept in. I found plenty of various colours in a drawer and chose some very satiny maroon ones. I loved the way they fitted snugly onto my smooth round crutch. Perhaps I should have showered, but I couldn't wait to get out and about. Checking the tights for ladders I rolled them luxuriously up my smooth-shaven legs and over the knickers.

Thinking about how awkward this would make having a pee made me realise that I needed one now, so I looked around for my bathroom. There was only one door in the room and it was locked from my side so I put on the little denim mini-skirt before venturing out. I also pulled aside the curtain and peeked out of the window. I was shocked to see how high I was on the third floor, looking out into a dingy city yard between other four-storey blocks instead of the country garden, which had been outside my window last night. I thought the corridor outside might be dirty too, so I put on the pink trainers, which were under the chair.

My heart was in my mouth as I turned the key and then the knob and peeked out into a corridor which was surprisingly light, overdue decoration but quite clean. I had no idea what the other occupants were like, so I moved the key to the outside and relocked my door. I was annoyed to find no pocket in my skirt, so I popped it into my bra - it was ever so cold! I went left first, but there were only more bedrooms and a fire-escape that way. Going back, I found a door with the sign of a figure in a skirt on it only just past my room. The Gents was further on.

As I entered the Ladies to use it for the first time in my remembered life, I found a woman at the basins in a dressing-gown washing her face.

"Hi Jenny" she called cheerily.

"Hi..." I responded, thinking that I would have to listen out carefully for names I was supposed to know.

Locking myself in a stall, I was relieved that I appeared normal to other people but frightened that this dream seemed so very real. Lifting my skirt and pulling down my tights and knickers together I sat and began to pee. Part of me was delighted that it felt so normal and right to be female and part was terrified by the normality of it. Wiping afterwards was a new chore and I remembered my Mum telling my sisters "backwards only" to avoid carrying diseases between those various female holes, which were too close together.

The other girl was gone when I came out, but I thought I should be washing my face too; I should have brought my wash-bag and a towel. There were liquid soap dispensers on the wall however and paper towels so I did wash my face as well as my hands. There were two shower cubicles and a bath, too, I noticed. The Ladies was also well overdue redecoration. I mused that my new poverty, living in this block of bed- sits with a shared bathroom on only a waitress's salary, would take some getting used to. Was this permanent? If so, I would be much more ambitious than the old Jenny, I decided.

Back in my room, I felt a little hungry. There was a kitchen-corner with a kettle and a little hotplate-grill. There was no fridge, but I'd noticed a carton of milk on the outside window-sill earlier so I fetched it in and got myself a bowl of cornflakes. I put the kettle on for coffee too, but found I had only teabags; that would do. Suddenly there was a clunk from the corner of the room, the kettle fell silent and my clock-radio went out.

"Oh no, coin-slot electricity!" I groaned. I dug some coins from the bottom of my handbag and two of them got my tea back on the boil.

Passing the mirror, I thought my hair looked a bit wild, so I sat down and began brushing it through. This was an awkward, painful chore, but I loved having such long straight mid-brown locks. The job letter said I would have to keep it all off my collar so, when it was all brushed, I practised pulling it back and winding it into a bun. I knew that my fantasies of old had required me to get it suddenly cut short but now I wanted to enjoy wearing it long and down for as long as possible. That thought brought me back to the question "How long am I going to be Jenny?" - I had no idea and there was no clue anywhere. Would I wake up tomorrow back in my old life? Would that ever happen?

In any case I had my first evening of being a real waitress looming ahead. The prospect would have excited me as a man but already I was just expecting hard work. I opened my wardrobe and looked for white blouses. There was only a white hooded fleece and some white t-shirts on a shelf. I had no black skirts. At least I already had some black lace-up shoes that looked as if I could walk the specified ten miles in them. I would not have to wear a new pair in. OK, so did I have enough money for these clothes? In my wallet were only fifteen pounds cash and a credit-card. There must be statements for that somewhere so I went back to the documents drawer.

The state of my finances was alarming. I owed over three hundred on the credit card, I had a overdraft of forty in my current account and apparently no savings. I really needed this job. I looked back in the bank statements and saw I'd been paid only eighty pounds weekly by a supermarket I must have worked for and left three weeks ago. The rent seemed to be sixty pounds per week, so how on earth did I live? Then I noticed that the limit on the card was two thousand and there had been payments of over three hundred a month from some other job. What was it and did I still have it? The interest I was paying seemed crippling. I felt it wasn't fair to be dropped into this life without any knowledge. I was a woman with amnesia, really, a very poor woman too, so I sat on the bed and wept.

I struggled with my new emotions. I was angry because I had told myself that I could do with a man's clear planning mind to get over my difficulties. How could I be so patronising to my new feminine self, which I should be enjoying? I certainly had a woman's brain and feelings now, but only male experiences. Well, I would use them to live better. I still remembered all about cars, computers and business management, so surely I wouldn't have to be just a waitress for long. It would be hard, maybe fraudulent, to convince an employer of my experience but it was true that I had it. Anyway, I had to start the job I knew I had tonight, so I'd better go out and get further into debt.

I checked myself out in the mirror. My hair was nice now but I needed at least a touch of make-up. I found a pinky mauve lipstick in a drawer to match my top, which didn't stand out too much. There was pink nail varnish too but I didn't know what I'd be allowed at work so I didn't try it. I brushed on a tiny bit of eye-shadow but didn't dare try mascara - I had no idea how do it properly anyway. I put on the rather worn cream-coloured quilted jacket hung on the back of my door and I was ready to face the world, I hoped.

I picked up my wallet to put it in my jacket pocket, then thought I ought to wear my handbag. I suddenly felt vulnerable to having it snatched so I took my jacket off again, lengthened the bag's shoulder- strap and slung it across my chest before putting the jacket back on. I considered changing into the black shoes so they would match clothes I tried on, but decided they were too formal for my jacket and miniskirt so kept to the trainers. Locking my door behind me again, I headed off down the corridor to my right. I found the stairs half-way down, behind a fire door.

Suddenly, on the stairs, my legs felt freezing. Putting the tights on in my room had warmed them up surprisingly but now I wished I had worn jeans. I had thought that too cowardly and wanted to be proud of my slim, shapely legs and wear my skirt as a badge of femininity. Well, I was proud and found myself disappointed that the first men I passed hardly gave me a glance. Oddly, I noticed, women tended to stare for longer, perhaps because they knew it was more acceptable for them to do so, but it made me wonder all the time if I'd dressed correctly.

I knew where I was in the city from the address on my driving licence, which matched the name of the bedsit block I'd just left. I knew where the nearest shopping centre was, about four miles away, but I was used to driving and now I didn't have a car. At least I could find no keys in my room and only documents referring to a cheap car I'd sold two years ago. After walking a few hundred yards, I was getting used to the cold on my legs but feeling more and more self-conscious. I did enjoy the feeling of my long hair blowing in the breeze, the hem of my skirt around my thighs and the bra straps on my shoulders but even though I kept telling myself I looked perfectly normal, indeed quite attractive, I still felt scared and vulnerable.

In a large department store I headed straight for the ladies' clothing and scanned the blouses for a plain white one. While it was exciting to be here as a woman buying clothes for myself, I felt my poverty acutely as I passed some wonderful clothes. Eventually I found an acceptable classic blouse in white but was unsure of my size. I wished I'd read the labels in my wardrobe. I took an 8 and a 10 to try on, sought out a plain knee-length black skirt (just as rare) and took an 8 and a 12 (there was no 10) of those too. There was quite a queue for the changing rooms on this busy Saturday but there was a girl my age to chat to. She was also buying formal clothes for a new office job, but obviously had wider choice and much more money than I did.

Undressing in front of the mirror and putting on my new smart clothes aroused me a little sexually and that surprised me. I had been getting comfortable in my new persona and now I was finding male lust entering my female mind again. I told myself it was just remembered fantasies and to concentrate on the job in hand. That made me giggle as my hand had just brushed my nipple. I was surprised that, just as I had as a man, I was finding the stiff formal clothes very sexy, both on myself and the image in the mirror. Doing up left-facing buttons over my breasts was an exciting new experience. The size 8 blouse fitted by bust beautifully because it had tailored darts in the sides, but the size 8 skirt was too tight, while the size 12 almost fell off me. I would need a second shop, but that excited me now, while I would have been bored yesterday. Also there was only one of the nice blouses in size 8 and I wanted at least two.

The second shop was less expensive. They had a suitable skirt in size 10 and lots of size 8 blouses, but not tailored like my first one, so I found them too tight round my bust. I bought the skirt and one size 10 blouse. I would revisit the first shop in a few days to get another of those lovely tailored blouses. I was enjoying myself shopping, but would have preferred to be able to choose colourful clothes. I spotted a long evening dress in maroon and grey, which I really couldn't resist, except for the price tag, which would have doubled today's bill, but I tried it on just to dream. I was entranced by the graceful girl in the mirror, finding it hard to believe it was really me, even when I looked down into my exposed cleavage. I regretted not taking some glitzy shoes into the changing-room too.

I had been looking at the men I passed on the way to the shops with a new interest, which I hardly had to encourage. I now understood why girls called some young men "eye candy" and found I was strangely attracted to some older men too. Now, in my borrowed ball gown, I imagined myself waltzing with the middle-aged store manager I had just seen outside, looking down to check out the bulge in his trousers. As I stepped softly around the little room I felt a warm romantic glow, not particularly between my legs, though when I did wonder what was happening there, my little fanny seemed to be almost throbbing. I looked forward to a good wank when I got back to my flat but kept my hands well clear of it now because there was only a curtain between me and the public.

After a quick dream around a third shop it was lunch time. It had to be a dream because just the two blouses and a skirt had put almost another hundred onto my credit-card debt. So did lunch, as such, have to be a dream because I had to conserve my scarce cash. However, I treated myself to a coffee with a bun and a chocolate bar. I sat on a high stool in the window of the coffee bar. I still had to make myself show off my legs like that. I knew it was right to feel a bit shy and I didn't want to be a total exhibitionist. I soon found myself interested in men passing outside, wondering which of them I could fancy. The chocolate was a new experience too; my taste for it seemed much enhanced and I loved it.

Before I'd finished, a handsome young man came and sat on the next stool and I found myself returning his smile. I also found myself flattered that he chose to sit on the only stool on my left instead of between me and another young lady on my right.

"Is the cappuccino any good here?" he asked, to open a conversation.

"I don't know, I've only tried the latte," I replied.

I was very nervous and didn't know if I could trust him, but I was pleased that he was a stranger and I would not be in the embarrassing situation of not knowing what had passed between us before. I had passed a man in the corridor outside my bed-sit and been thankful that we had seemed to be only on nodding terms.

I found myself sweeping hair back from my face in an almost seductive manner. I was surprised that I could so easily fancy a man when I had been one only yesterday. I was also revelling in being young and attractive. This life might be really good, I thought, despite being so poor.

"It's very busy today, isn't it?" I tried as a fresh opener.

I was chatting him up already and I'd been a single girl for less than a day! I enjoyed watching him look me over, knowing from recent experience the exact effect on him that the bulging shape of my chest and the hem of my rough denim miniskirt against my soft nylon-clad thighs were having.

I found myself looking at the bulges in men's trousers with not a jot of envy, just a new keen interest in them. I wasn't really imagining myself being penetrated, either, just enjoying men for their differences from me. When the conversation in the coffee bar petered out a second time, I had to suppress a little anger at being so rejected, but was laughing at myself for being so optimistic, chatting up the first man to speak to me. In chagrin, I climbed off my stool, picked up my bags and set off home without looking back.

Luckily, there was a bus at the next stop going my way. Climbing aboard in my miniskirt and paying the driver out of my handbag with hair falling beside my face - it all fitted together so naturally, yet was all so new to me! I looked shyly along the bus, which was only half- full, so I wouldn't have to sit next to anyone. Only the women were looking at me and again I found myself disappointed. I had to remind myself that I was just an ordinary young woman. I sat near the front, by a window, with my shopping on the empty seat beside me.

As I peeked into the big paper bag to admire the bright whiteness of my new blouses, my hair got annoyingly in my way. I remembered being fascinated by young women on buses putting up their hair, perhaps because it was required by work or a stern relative at their destination. Now it was only 2pm so it was not necessary for me to wear mine up for another four hours but I wanted to do it anyway.

I had already noticed a frilly black elastic in my handbag, so I put it around my left wrist then grabbed and pulled all my hair back and up until I held it all in my left hand. I pulled the elastic over my fist and then pulled the loop of hair through, forming a high pony-tail - more fashionable than a low one these days. I would need a second elastic to make a bun for work because the end of my pony-tail hung well below my collar. When I looked around to see if I had excited any men, I loved the way it swung.

Again, only the women were watching me. An elderly lady immediately behind gave me a very approving smile. I returned it, but was annoyed that my action only pleased old ladies. Perhaps a man had been watching, I reassured myself, but had not wanted to meet my eyes when I looked around. When I took another look into my bag of new clothes, my new ponytail swung against my ear. I was delighted by the way it tickled me.

When I re-entered my bedsit-block I noticed a rack of numbered pigeon- holes. I located mine and extracted three letters. Two looked official, like bills, and one with a scrawled address, which I immediately tore open. I needed to know my relationships at once - did I have a boyfriend? The letter was a rambling five pages, starting "My dearest Jenny". I flipped quickly to the end to find "Your ever loving Mummy" and was relieved.

Being someone's daughter was a novelty indeed, but as I ploughed through the chit-chat on my way up the stairs, I found references to David which puzzled me until he was explained as "your little brother David" who was at Technical College. Being someone's sister was a novelty too and suddenly I felt it was a big brother I needed at the moment, though it was wonderful to have living parents for a change, but then today I was a completely different person, with different parents.

When I got inside my room, I sat down on the bed and finished the letter. There was no mention of my father, or even of any man in my mother's life. I would have to explore that carefully. As I was only 23 he ought to be around, so were they separated or divorced? Suddenly I spotted a little sticker on the back of the envelope saying "Mr & Mrs G H Atkins" and their address, at least a hundred miles away. Was he Geoffrey or George? Daughters were supposed to have special relationships with their Dads.

I couldn't wait to go "home" and visit these unknown parents. I looked around my shabby little flat, which ought really to be my home and once again dissolved into tears. At times, striding through town in my miniskirt, I had felt quite confident and strong, but now I felt almost hopelessly weak. As I struggled to pull myself together, I made myself remember how much I had wanted to be female and young. I would cheer myself up by trying on different clothes I might possess.

The first new garment I discovered in my drawers was a leotard. I thought it was my swimsuit until I found the sleeves. I had already stared at a book on Yoga with a nimble young lady on the front with her ankle behind her neck. Could I do that now? Quickly I stripped off my top, bra, trainers and skirt, leaving on my tights, and struggled into the tight but stretchy leotard. I was really pleased with what I saw in the mirror. I squatted down and pulled my ankle over into a full lotus with no pain at all, but when I tried getting my leg behind my head, I couldn't quite get it there. I could do full splits, though, and was really proud of the smooth curves of my very female crutch. I did a few sit-ups to tone my stomach-muscles too.

Although I felt much fitter than yesterday, I was soon out of breath and wiping sweat off my forehead. My hair felt greasy now, especially because I'd kept it up in its high ponytail during my exercises. I couldn't try on any more clothes until I'd showered. Remembering my intention to masturbate, I decided on a bath instead. I checked out the contents of my big wash-bag - it seemed to have everything I would need. I took a plastic beaker to pour water over my hair because I'd noticed that there was no shower-head in the bath. I found a large soft towel, though it was well-worn and stained with hair-dye, and put on my long pink towelling robe.

I was disappointed that the corridor was empty, surprised to find that I actually wanted to be seen so much. Mid-afternoon was a good time for hot water, however, and I ran a deep luxurious bubble-bath. Stripping off my leotard, tights and knickers, I climbed in and sat down, parting my legs to start rubbing my crutch. I tried to see what I was doing but found most of my fanny out-of-sight beneath me. There was no mirror in my wash bag. A little rhythmic motion brought a delightful pleasure, which soon jaded when I couldn't imagine what to fantasize. I thought about the man I had started to chat-up in the coffee-bar. Had he been more responsive that might have worked.

I knew that it would take much longer to cum than I was used to, but I was not prepared for the strange detachment I seem to feel from the process. Wanking as a woman was very nice, don't get me wrong, but it seemed a more mechanical process, much to my surprise. True, success was still dependant on my frame of mind, but I just couldn't seem to lose myself in a fantasy as I had before, and that didn't seem to affect the level of pleasure as much. I put my feet up on the sides of the bath, as if in the stirrups of a gynaecological examination. It crossed my mind that, if I had had real experiences of those, I would have found the position sexually off-putting, but of course I had not.

As my arousal slowly increased, my nipples tingled and swelled. Playing with them with my other hand was almost doubling the pleasure. I also found the lips on my face tingling and wished I had someone to kiss. These widespread sensations were really delightful, especially in their gradual increase, so that I was not sure when orgasm began. It just seemed to go on and on, with all parts of me, sides, legs, back, shoulders, tingling and longing to be held in their turn. I had been stifling moans for some time, glad that no one else needed the Ladies, when my fanny suddenly got sore and the feelings gently subsided.

So, that was a female orgasm! It was pretty good, but would probably be a lot better in a bed with a good partner. At least I hadn't made a mess in the bath, as I would've only yesterday. I giggled to think of the lady on the TV show who confessed that she'd thought the globs her son left on the side of the bath were conditioner, at first. It occurred to me, with my feet still up on the sides of the bath, that I could get pregnant now from one of those globs and I shuddered with fear, though I knew the chance was extremely remote. I had just got four fingers into my vagina, but a baby's head was another matter!

It was now time to wash my hair, so I stopped day-dreaming, put my legs back under the water and released my pony-tail. I bent forward over my now sore tits and poured beaker-fulls of water over my copious locks, then rubbed in shampoo.

It was such a big job now, all that hair. I had been so pleased with having it flowing over my shoulders in the wind as I walked to town. Tonight it would have to be wound up into a tight, high bun for my job. I knew I should get it cut, but I really didn't want to, now.

It all depended on how long I had to live as Jenny. So far there had been no indication at all whether or not my transformation was permanent. I wasn't sure why I wished that it was. I had a deep desire to settle down into my life as Jenny, which conflicted with guilt that I was abandoning the family and friends of my old life, but then did I have any choice? I had certainly not been offered any opportunities to go back.

If this was a one-day experience, then it ought to include a drastic haircut, according to my fantasies as a man, but now I wasn't a man and was very fond of my long straight hair and would really miss it, even though I'd only had it less than six hours. When I'd dried it with a towel in the bathroom and back in my room with my cheap electric drier, I fixed it back into the high ponytail, which I relished by tossing it around.

I got out my new best working blouse and now it looked a bit crumpled. I had almost an hour before I'd have to start off to walk to Sweet Dreams, so I dug out a polo-necked jumper and a pair of jeans instead, to wear while I got it ironed. I'd seen a guy coming up from the basement with a pile of ironing and my own iron was packed away in a box, so there must be irons for use down there. It was a delight to zip up the jeans over my smooth round crotch; I was surprised how feminine I still felt out of a skirt.

As I bounced down the public stairway in trainers, tight jeans, lumpy jumper and ponytail, I felt really happy. I knew I looked the typical young woman and it was delightful to be young and pretty. I was disappointed that I passed no one who might have admired my figure before I found my way to the washing and ironing room, which I had to myself. I filled one of the three steam-irons with water and switched it on.

Ironing a crisp white blouse reminded me of another of my old male fantasies, being a schoolgirl boarder. It didn't arouse me now because I wasn't male. I wasn't wearing another white blouse with a tie, either. The blouse did signify tonight's disciplined hard work, but not nights in a dormitory. I had no idea whether the other Jenny had ever gone to boarding school. Probably not, judging by the CV I had found; my school had been named by the area it was in.

I had started referring in my mind to the person who had occupied this body only yesterday as "the other Jenny" because I was wholly and undeniably Jenny now. I had only been addressed by name once, in the bathroom straight after I got up, but that was enough to confirm it for me. I would not now hesitate to look around if someone called "Jenny!" from behind me. Already the name I had owned yesterday seemed a distant memory and in any case impossible in my present body.

On my way back upstairs, someone did call me from behind. It was a good-looking bloke but sadly he didn't seem to expect more than my smile and "Hi!" before going on his way. My disappointment alarmed me. I knew I shouldn't be "forward" until I was more used to my new body; I could get myself into trouble. On the other hand it was nice to feel normal desires, at least they were perfectly normal today.

Back in my humble bed-sit, I still had plenty of time, so I didn't get changed right away but turned on the radio, found a music channel and tried dancing. I didn't have a telly; it seemed from the documents that I'd recently sold it. As with the yoga earlier, I was delighted how my supple body could flex and bend. I enjoyed feeling sexy, knowing that my movements would turn on any guy, but wishing that I had a boyfriend to share it with.

Putting on my uniform for work was nice, especially buttoning up my cuffs, which added an air of formality. With my hair pulled severely into its high bun, I put on my cream jacket again and set out on foot. This time I felt less attractive, so less vulnerable, but then I remembered how strict uniforms used to turn me on. How many men were like that? Were they the most dangerous? They shouldn't be if they kept their fantasies as fantasies and only wrote them down for Fictionmania, I thought.

Sweet Dreams was a fairly big restaurant. I knew I should use the back door so I found my way around the back through narrow alleys. A guy was arriving at the same time, dressed smartly as a waiter. "Hi, are you the new waitress?" "Yes, I'm Jenny" "Hello, I'm Harry". He was shaking my hand rather limply and I immediately wondered if he was gay - just my luck! He was wearing a rather effeminate bow-tie too. He opened the door for me to let me in. A narrow corridor led to a small staff rest-room, but before we could go in a big man in a suit came out of another door.

"Hello Jenny, you're early - that's a good start."

He must be the manager or the owner; I wished I remembered the other Jenny's interview. He was holding something out to me that turned out to be an apron, pale blue with white puffy clouds on it. I placed it over the front of my skirt and tied the straps at the back, then felt in its pocket. There was a notebook, a pen and something small and soft. Just then, another waitress appeared, already in her apron and, to my horror, wearing the same bow-tie as Harry, pale blue with white fluffy clouds, just like the one in my hand.

I did not need to be told to go to the mirror in the Ladies, button up my collar and fit the bow-tie under it. This was a big surprise, though it probably would not have been if I could have remembered the interview. I had been admiring my smart but relaxed image in my open- necked blouse. Now I felt constricted, disciplined, almost subservient; it was a real blow to my ego. I hurried back into the rest-room to find myself one of three identically dressed waitresses and there was Harry, his apron over trousers. The manager introduced me to the other two girls, Marie and Loren, then launched into a pep-talk that put me under great pressure to pick up the rudiments of the job before the end of the evening so that the others wouldn't have to carry me.

Loren was to be my mentor and I would mainly help her with eight of the twenty tables. Tomorrow lunch it would be five tables each as usual. Territories were not to be rigid and if help was needed anywhere it should be freely given. This was a very busy, fully booked Saturday night. We now had ten minutes to lay the tables before the first guests arrived. Loren took me into the kitchen to fetch the cutlery. There were six staff in there, four men and two women.

I certainly knew how to lay tables, though I had never laid so many places so quickly, but I needed tuition in folding the napkins into bishops' mitres. I did feel excited, watching my little hands working away in their crisp white sleeves, feeling my collar held tight around my neck by the elastic strap of the bow-tie and always aware of my bra- straps on my shoulders, but not the same sort of excitement I had felt about such experiences when I had only fantasized them. My excitement was genuinely in the novelty of this new job and my determination to do well at it.

The guests arrived and the tables filled up quickly. I helped by just handing out menus at first. I watched Loren carefully as she took orders and I was allowed to take for the fifth table to be seated. It wasn't too hard to keep a sweet smile on my face as I listened carefully, notebook in hand. I was desperate to make no mistakes. The work was hard by being fast and continuous, until the first wave of guests were all engrossed in their main courses. Then I found Loren and Harry sat at the table in the kitchen, so I got myself a glass of water and joined them.

Loren got up and went back out, saying that the Manager insisted on at least two waiters being out at all times. Harry turned to me and chatted quite flirtatiously. I was obviously wrong about him being gay; after all, we all had to wear the awful bow-ties. I was quite warming to him when three of the kitchen staff joined us at the table and we had to be sociable.

The chef, always in his tall hat, seemed to tell the manager what to do more often than vice-versa and this was explained by his referring to him as "The Floor Manager". One of the two sous-chefs was a woman, young like me, with her frizzy hair chopped off well above her shoulders, wearing the identical white tunic and trousers as the others, but I was pleased to note that hers buttoned to the left. One of the three kitchen-hands was a woman too, in her fifties. While the men, young but neither of them at all attractive, wore long white aprons over black t-shirts and jeans, she wore hers over a gingham dress and kept her rubber gloves on even to drink tea with us.

Rest-breaks at the kitchen table were infrequent and brief. I was soon footsore and longing to sit down as I rushed from table to table and to the kitchen. There seemed to be no time at all to use the little rest- room, we only met at the kitchen table. Suddenly, about ten o'clock, the Manager said I could take my meal-break of twenty minutes. Anne, the sous-chef, served me a nice plateful and ate hers at the same time. It was really nice to talk to a woman as a fellow-woman. She told me how hard it was for women to succeed as chefs. As a waitress I obviously ranked beneath her, but she could chat to me and not to the kitchen-hands.

When I kept putting up a hand to feel my bun, Anne asked it it was uncomfortable. I said it was a little and that it was ruining my hair. She suggested I get a shorter haircut like hers, but I said I loved wearing a ponytail. She took me to the Ladies and told me to let down my ponytail. Then she produced a big pair of scissors and chopped it off above my collar. I tossed it about in delight. Now I felt less constrained by my uniform. I was deeply pleased when Harry noticed the change and complimented me on it.

It was sometime after my meal that I had a terrible shock. I was carrying two dinners out to one of my tables when I glanced over at some new guests being seated by Marie at one of hers. I almost dropped the dishes when I recognised them as my wife and my old self. I turned straight back to the kitchen and put the plates down, shaking all over. Harry was immediately at my side to comfort me. We often have to serve people we know, he said. These weren't even at one of my tables, so I bravely picked up the dinners again and set off.

I couldn't help myself from staring as soon as I was out on the floor, but straight away I knew I'd been mistaken. The couple were facing me now and there seemed hardly any resemblance except in the woman's hairstyle to my former wife.

I even passed closer on the way back to make sure. What on earth had made me do that?

At each rest, I listened carefully for relationships. I worried, when Harry gave me so much attention, that Marie or Loren or Anne might be involved with him and resent it. Anne referred to a husband, Loren to a boyfriend and Marie treated Harry with cold disdain, so I felt easy chatting him up. At one point he laid a hand on my arm to emphasize a point and I enjoyed that touch so much it embarrassed me. He asked how I was getting home and expressed concern for my safety. He would have escorted me but lived much nearer in the opposite direction so asked Marie to give me a lift, to which she gladly agreed.

I kissed Harry quickly on the cheek in thanks for fixing up my lift. The action came quite naturally to me but I had an ulterior motive - I was always wondering if today was unique and I didn't want to go to bed without even having kissed a man. I felt a little forward doing it but he smiled calmly at me in return and I wished desperately to be able to get to know him for longer, maybe to get a date with him.

It was past midnight when the last guests left and I, as junior, cleared and wiped their table. Marie was waiting for me open-necked, so I pulled off my tie and left it in my apron pocket hung up in the rest- room. As soon as we got into her car, she released her bun, looking at me to do the same, which I thought a bit strange. Shaking out copious auburn locks over her shoulders she asked why I didn't let mine out too and I explained how I loved wearing a high ponytail. She smiled and ran her fingers through my ponytail then suddenly reached around and stroked the far side of my neck.

"Oh no!" I recoiled, almost screaming.

"Oh, I'm sorry, terribly sorry." she stammered, "I just wondered if you were up for it. Please don't take offence. My fault. I should have realised - you and Harry. I'm sorry. Please let me still take you home."

I felt so silly, getting Harry and Marie the wrong way around when it came to being gay. I also couldn't help being flattered by Marie's pass at me. I wished a man had done that today.

"Okay." I said sheepishly.

I managed to chat nicely with Marie during the short drive, as if nothing had happened, but I was terribly confused by my inner feelings.

She dropped me off outside my block, watching me find the outer-door key in my handbag and let myself in before she drove off. I was touched by her concern and by now free of embarrassment, so had no trouble turning my thoughts to Harry instead. When I got into my room I flopped down on the bed and closed my eyes, not to sleep but to recall Harry's lovely smile after I kissed him. Actually my bladder was bursting and I had to go straight out again for a sit-down pee in the cold, empty Ladies across the corridor.

I was terribly tired, but I dreaded falling asleep in case this was my only day as Jenny. I wanted to make the most of the time I had left. I needed to get to bed because my feet and knees were aching, so were my arms from all the carrying, but I wanted to have a good wank there rather than sleep straight away. When searching through my clothes earlier, I had found a frilly short nightdress, which I had dismissed, but now it appealed to me. Quickly I stripped off my now irksome uniform and pulled the gossamer-light garment over my head. Reluctantly I released my ponytail and shook out my shorter hair. Now it only just reached my shoulders, but it still framed my face and I could still hide sexily behind it. I admired my new, completely different image in the mirror; I found myself perfectly at ease with being ultra-feminine.

After cleaning my teeth at my kitchenette sink, noting that I only had one silver filling now, I climbed into bed. I puffed up the pillows against the head-board and sat up, mainly to stop myself falling asleep. I caressed my loose boobs through the thin nightie and was delighted by the effect it had on my nipples and on my fanny. I stoked myself down there too but, perhaps because I was very tired now, it didn't seem to get as good as it had in the bath. I couldn't stop worrying that I'd wake up back in my old life and I really didn't want that now.

My new life as Jenny was hardly a bed of roses, but then there were only a few little thorns, I thought. It was lovely to be young again, to be fancied and to fancy men, which was now perfectly normal. It would be hard clearing my debts, but tonight's twelve-pound share of the tips was encouraging. I had earned over thirty pounds which I'd get next Friday as well. I would be thinking of money on a much smaller scale now. I had made some nice friends at work. Even Marie was still a friend and Harry might ask me out if I was lucky. I had yet to experience PMS and the thought of pregnancy filled me with dread, but I felt sure I could handle them when they came.

I marvelled again at the magical transformation, which had happened to me last night. I had no idea who or what had caused it. It crossed my mind, with a shudder, that I might have been just Jenny all along and that some bump on the head had made me not only forget everything but also gain a delusion that I used to be a man. I even checked all over my scalp for bruises; there were none. There seemed no answer to the puzzle - I had no messages at all from whoever or whatever had transformed me.

I woke with a start, still sitting up in my nightie with the main lights still on and, checking the clock, only twenty minutes had elapsed. My initial joy and relief that I was still female (yes, I checked down there) changed to concern that it wasn't a full night's sleep when another transformation could easily happen. Rather reluctantly, I got up and switched off the lights and then flattened my pillows to lie down. If all was well, I needed my sleep before I had to serve dozens of Sunday Lunches tomorrow.

I reflected on my surprise this morning and wondered if I would have a similar experience tomorrow morning. I decided the bigger surprise would be to return to my old life. I would have to find out carefully if any time had elapsed in that world while I was away and, if so, what had happened during Saturday. It seemed more likely that the change was permanent, especially if it was caused by my reading Fictionmania. The only other possibility was that the "other Jenny" had forced a swap, but if that were true, she would surely have brought her new wife along to Sweet Dreams to mock me, as I had suspected when I mis-recognised that couple.

I must have fallen asleep during those reflections. Was I surprised by a return or even some other transformation on Sunday morning? You, dear reader, will just have to guess!

Another Morning Surprise, or two...

by Janet Harris 2007

As you'll remember, I fell asleep after a long day as Jenny,

not knowing if I would wake up again as her or as someone else, since that is what had happened the night before. Well, the next thing I knew, I was staring at the green digits of the alarm clock I had owned as a man, feeling rather disappointed. My first thoughts were “What a vivid dream!” but then I began to reflect on all that had happened to me the day before. No, it was far too long to be a dream; after all, I had pinched myself as Jenny and it had hurt, just as too much rubbing of my clitoris in the bath had hurt. It had been a whole long, often lonely and even boring, day; so today must be Sunday.

Where had my other, male, self been all yesterday? What would Jenny be doing today? How would the other Jenny cope at Sweet Dreams if this had been a body-swap and she hadn't worked Saturday night? I rolled over and stared at the back of my sleeping wife's head. Would she be able to tell me what had happened? I really couldn't ask her, in case she had no idea that I'd been gone; I had better find out for myself. I needed a piss now anyway, so I climbed carefully out of bed and tiptoed into the bathroom. How nice not to have to get dressed and cross a public corridor, but how mundane! The seat was down so without thinking I turned around to sit but when I pulled down my underpants and my dick sprung out, I thought “Silly me, I can stand again now, but obviously I was Jenny long enough to form habits!”.

After pissing standing up, I reached inside my underpants and felt all around my balls. It was pleasant but I felt really disappointed to find that old equipment there. Only yesterday I had been proudly carrying the name Jenifer, a fine pair of breasts and a lovely smooth and sensitive pair of lips between my legs. I withdrew my hand and stared at its squat, wrinkly back. Yesterday I had had such smooth, slender hands; now I was back in my forties. Now I only had fond memories of bouncing around, aged twenty-three, in tights, miniskirt and pony-tail.

Instead of going back to bed, although it was only just after seven, I wandered around the house looking for clues as to what my male body might have done in my absence yesterday. I couldn't find anything that had changed since Friday night. In the hall, my umbrella was opened to dry, just as I had left it after I popped out to the convenience store on Friday night. Well, perhaps it had rained here on Saturday night, too, even though it had been fine and dry in Jenny's town. Suddenly I was startled by a clattering of the letter-box. It was only the paper-boy, I realized, relieved, but then I remembered that we didn't have a Sunday paper delivered, only Saturday's. Gingerly I picked it up and read the date — it was Saturday's newspaper.

Suddenly I was back to thinking my earlier Saturday as Jenny had all been a dream. How could it be so long? There were all sorts of details which I remembered very clearly and which I couldn't imagine my mind inventing. I felt I needed some proof that I had really been through this Saturday before. Then I remembered the news I had heard on my (Jenny's) radio between the music I had danced to in the afternoon. There had been a train crash in Holland. Surely it wouldn't happen again this afternoon? That would be spooky, but I had an awful feeling that it would.

What about the Sweet Dreams restaurant? Did it exist? I had only passed through Jenny's city a couple of times as a man and I would have thought I'd remember if I'd seen it then. I went into the study and turned on my computer. As soon as the clock appeared in the corner, I clicked on it to get the calender. The fact that Saturday was highlighted, not Sunday, was proof enough of the real day. I brought up a business directory and asked for restaurants in Jenny's city. The search seemed to take an age but there it was, “Sweet Dreams” and it had its own website. Within seconds I was staring aghast at a page decorated with, yes, you guessed it, fluffy white clouds on a pale blue background. I found my self reaching to my throat to feel my bow-tie.

So, I suppose I had been in some sort of time-warp and was living the same Saturday twice. I wished I had noted some football scores, horse racing results or better still the lottery numbers as Jenny. Then I remembered that I hadn't been interested in any of that sort of thing as a young woman; well, maybe the lottery, I could have done with that! Anyway, I couldn't be sure of this theory until the train crash happened, I thought with a shudder. I would love to ring up the Dutch Railways to warn them but I would only be taken as a mad hoaxer, however much it might make me feel better. I checked out all the headlines in the news websites and there was no sign of it as yet.

Suddenly my wife was behind me, none too happy that I had not prepared her breakfast but just started surfing the web in my underpants. I told her truthfully that I had had weird vivid dreams with premonitions and was checking those out on the web, without, of course, mentioning my female experiences. It didn't do much to abate her wrath so I hurried to dress and get breakfast.

During that day, it was hard to keep my mind from wandering back over what seemed to be the previous day. Almost everything I remembered about it gave me a hard-on, though I remembered that I hadn't been turned on by those things when I was actually living as Jenny. My wife soon noticed my distraction, though I tried my best to hide it and I had to create a diversion with the premonition. I decided not to tell her about the train crash but to write it on a piece of paper and give it to her in a sealed envelope. She was fascinated by this dramatic procedure and that made it easier for me to check every news bulletin.

At four o'clock it was announced. We were sitting in a supermarket car park listening to the news before going in to do our shopping. I told her to look in the envelope and she got it out of her handbag and ripped it open, reading it aghast. Then she got angry, not with me but with the same frustration I had felt that there was no way that we could have warned the victims. “This is a horrible gift you've just received” she said “or have you had it before?” “No, last night was the first time I've ever dreamed vividly that I was hearing the radio news on the following day.” Luckily, she didn't pry too deeply into what else had occurred in my dream. I lied that I remembered nothing more.

Now I was sure that I had entered a time-loop last night, not a parallel universe because Jenny's city and restaurant really existed, I couldn't wait to see if it happened again tonight. I had felt so young and full of fun as Jenny and now I had to get used to being middle-aged again. I racked my brain for any trigger of this phenomenon, anything magical I might have touched, as so often happens in this kind of story, but could remember nothing relevant.

I wanted further scientific experiments to verify what was happening. I decided to see if I could communicate with Jenny on one of these parallel, repeated days. It would be really weird to talk to her on the phone, for instance. Today, however, that was impracticable, she would be hard to reach, even at Sweet Dreams this evening and would be terribly shocked since she didn't know yet that she was going to live Saturday all over again, as a man. I could post a letter to her flat but suppose “the other Jenny” came back on Sunday for good — how could I word it so she wouldn't get too curious and try to contact me? No, I would have to wait until I became Jenny again, if that happened, and I fervently hoped that it would.

It was hard to get to sleep that night, of course. Unlike the previous night, or rather what seemed like the previous night but was also Saturday, I couldn't wait to get to sleep and see if I could be Jenny again when I awoke. My wife and I made love but it wasn't very good; she thought it was because we were both upset about my “premonition” but I couldn't help comparing it with my glorious orgasm in the bath as Jenny. I had hoped my new experiences would make me a better lover, knowing better how to touch my wife, but the mental strain of my secret outweighed that effect by far. After she fell asleep, which was usually after me, I lay there worrying about the other Jenny and how much she knew about last night's weird events and how she was involved.

Suddenly I was waking up in a silky smooth nightdress and was delighted that I had returned. I opened my eyes with a big grin and took in the now familiar features of my poverty-ridden bed-sit. It felt like it was Monday because I'd just lived a whole day as Dave since I had worked my first Saturday night at Sweet Dreams, but there was the uniform I'd cast off last night, so it must be Sunday. I writhed my smooth young body around in my single bed joyously, cupping my breasts in my hands and then confirming the female shape of my groin with its sensitive lips.

I also knew that it was Sunday from the very fact that I was wearing the nightie. I had found it tucked away at the bottom of a drawer, worn only rarely, so the other Jenny always slept in just her knickers and had not returned since. I checked the red digits of my clock-radio and found I had over two hours before I had to set off back to work, serving Sunday Lunches. First, I needed a pee, so I climbed out of bed and put on my pink toweling robe, remembering carefully to lay the right side over the left, and the woolly slippers I had found tucked away at the back of my wardrobe. This time I had a pocket to put my key in when I'd re-locked my door.

As I sat and let the pee trickle through my pubic hair, I felt annoyed that I'd had to go back to being male for a day. Last time I was Jenny I had made myself ready to spend the rest of my life female. Now I was living some kind of double existence. Yesterday had made me more aware of my relationship with my wife and I was now a bit shocked to find myself thinking of her as “Dave's wife” - Laura was my wife, for God's sake! I had already caught myself yesterday referring to myself in the third person as Dave. But then I was Jenny now, through and through.

Back in my room, as I poured my cornflakes and milk from the windowsill, almost empty so I had to mix in some water, I remembered my determination, as Dave, to make contact. I would go to a phone box, I decided, and memorize the number and the time so that Dave could ring it at exactly that time when I re-lived Sunday as him. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to do this now that I was Jenny, though,. I sort of didn't want to encourage another return to male existence, but then I did miss Laura, my wife. By the time I'd finished my meager breakfast, I'd decided to write to Dave, instead.

I found a pad of writing paper and some envelopes in the documents drawer but I had to hunt around to find a stamp in my handbag. Many letter-boxes have a Sunday collection which ought to reach him on Monday morning. Surely he could get through another day without his precious phone call? More and more I was thinking of Dave as a completely different person. I sucked the pen for a moment before beginning:-

Dear Dave,
When you read this you'll already know exactly what's in it, so there's no point in my saying anything, eh?
Love
Jenny
XX

I found myself adding the kisses automatically, as a girl should, but they suddenly struck me as incestuous. Well, a girl could send kisses to her brother, couldn't she? In this case “father” was a more likely relationship given our ages, but sharing a soul made us closer than that. I got angry again then that my soul couldn't just transfer once and for all, and then terribly guilty at leaving Laura behind and I burst into tears.

When I'd pulled myself together, I sealed the letter in the envelope and addressed it to Dave's work address — I couldn't risk Laura opening it. I stared at the envelope for a long time before putting the stamp on it. My handwriting looked very much like Dave's, but somehow slightly different. Was I mad, writing letters to myself? It wasn't as bad as talking to myself on the phone but the popular conception of schizophrenia sprang to mind. After all, only Laura and I knew about the weird re-occurrence of the train crash so that would hardly count as proof of reality.

How long would I have to go on living each day twice? In a way it was enjoyable, having the best of both worlds, but Laura's horror at my premonition made me wary of it. When I first arrived in this Jenny's body, twenty four years younger than Dave's, I thought I might get twenty four years extra lifetime. Now it looked like I'd be getting most of that doubled, by living every day twice. The prospect was not very nice, however. I feared it would get very confusing. I really wanted to settle into one life or the other, preferably the present one, as Jenny.

Then I remembered the lottery numbers Dave wanted me to collect. I found I was more superstitious as Jenny and I didn't think we'd be “allowed” to make that work. Anyway, as he was the one to live each day second, he'd collect the winnings and it was me that badly needed some money. I reckoned Dave could get away with giving me about two thousand without Laura finding out. He could just transfer it to my account. I hadn't fixed the stamp yet, so I ripped the envelope open and added my bank sort-code and account-number to the bottom of my letter. Then I sealed it up again in a new envelope and stuck on the stamp.

Now there was less than an hour before I had to be at Sweet Dreams and the Sunday buses ran only half-hourly, so I had no time to reflect any more on my weird situation. I hurried across the corridor again for a quick shower. I longed for another wank, but dare not miss my bus. I did enjoy soaping my tits with excess shampoo from my hair, though. Back in my room, I wound my still damp hair in my towel like a turban while I got dressed. This time I had to wear one of my less smart blouses and I determined to wash my best one when I came home and then buy more like it as soon as possible.

I got out a new pair of tights, then caught my nail in them as I stretched them up my leg, making a huge ladder. I swore in a most unladylike manner for several minutes because I only had one other new pair. At least one leg was still good and I remembered my wife wearing two pairs, each with a laddered leg cut off, when we had had less money. Perhaps I should wear stockings; my uniform skirts were easily long enough to hide the suspenders. I would have to buy some because there were none in the flat, though I had seen a garter-belt in the back of a drawer. For today I wore a washed pair of tights that had been hanging over a string across the kitchen corner. They were thicker and darker brown than the new pairs but I would be warmer waiting for my bus.

My hair would not get dry as quickly as I needed it to. Luckily, since Anne had shortened it for me last night, my ponytail could hang loose, so it didn't matter that it was still a bit damp. A hair-dryer was added to my mental shopping-list for the arrival of funds from Dave. It was raining outside and apparently I didn't own an umbrella. I fished the hood of my anorak out of its collar before rushing out and down the stairs with only one minute to go before my bus was due. I ran through the rain, clutching my hood tight and wondering how wet my skirt was getting.

There was no sign of the bus when I got round the corner onto the main road. I checked my little narrow watch which said there was a still minute to go. I longed to shelter in the little bus-stop but I could see a letter-box across the street, so I kept running, dodging the traffic, to post my letter to my alter-ego. The bus was slowing for the stop when I started back, so I dashed across, frightened but reveling in my youth and fitness. A car hooted at me and I shocked myself by my reaction: I raised my middle finger at it in the “swivel” gesture! It had come to me spontaneously, out of habit as Jenny, but Dave would never have done that. Breathlessly I paid my fare to the driver, grinning to myself, pleased that I was such a feisty lass.

As I sat down I swept my skirt under my bottom in the habit I already hardly noticed, but I did notice that it was quite dry there. I felt the front of it and it was a little damp, because I had been running into the rain. I pulled off my hood and found my pony-tail was still damp and limp too, so I fished my little hairbrush out of my handbag and worked on reviving it. Suddenly I was aware that half the crowded bus behind me were watching. At least I had checked that the seat immediately behind me was empty, so no one would get splashed, but now I suddenly felt new again to being an attractive young woman and embarrassed that my Jenny persona was prepared to be so exhibitionist.

I kept brushing, however, trying not to blush with my new awareness of my raised arms pulling on my breasts and my bra showing through the front of my plain white shirt now I had unzipped my coat. It should be all so natural for a young woman like me but, when I got a bit embarrassed, I reverted to a transformed man again. I stared at the black skirt stretched across my lap and the brown-nylon-clad knees protruding from it, almost with disbelief. I soon put the brush away, then adjusted the lie of my open blouse collar under my coat, remembering that I would soon be wearing that irksome bow-tie again.

I was really looking forward to meeting my new workmates again even though it meant such hard work waiting at table. After all I had no one else in this life to talk to. I found myself thinking most about Harry and, every time I did, I felt a warmth in my groin which made me blush. I told myself that this was perfectly natural, not that I felt any revulsion at all, now that I was totally female, to being attracted to a man. I also told myself it was silly to get obsessed with the very first man who had talked to me, but I couldn't stop visualizing his ready smile and the firm set of his jaw.

As the bus approached my destination, I was looking carefully at every man walking in the street, imagining if I could fancy them and trying to stop thinking of Harry, when suddenly I spotted him, striding along under an umbrella. All thoughts of moderation fled as I confirmed that the admirably pointed chin was his, though it was obvious from the pale blue bow-tie he was wearing. I rang the bell to stop the bus at the next stop, instead of outside Sweet Dreams and hurried to join my fancy-man under his umbrella, which he was already holding out to shelter me. I was so glad that this meant huddling against his side. It was all I could do to resist slipping an arm around his waist, but I was sure that would be too forward.

“Hi, Jenny, I hope you've had a good rest?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks”, I grinned, “I 'm still a bit stiff, though. It's hard work, isn't it?”
“You'll get used to it. Are your shoes comfortable? Oh good, that's the most important bit to get right.” He was so nice and considerate! I felt I was deceiving him a bit about my rest. There was no way I could tell him that I had lived Saturday all over again as Dave since I had seen him last night. I wished I could just forget about all that and enjoy flirting with him but, as I said, every little embarrassment brought me back to being just a transformed man.

Soon I was at the mirror in the Ladies, loosing and re-tying my pony-tail, then fitting my bow-tie from the pocket in my apron. I felt more confident applying make-up today and enjoyed getting my lips really red. Loren came in when I was doing my eyes. “Is this too much mascara?” I asked her. “No, not for your eyes,” she said, “it adds depth.” I was hurt by that. Was she a rival for Harry's attentions, even though she kept mentioning her boyfriend at home? I was new to such bitchiness. I had to work closely with Loren as she was my mentor so I suppressed my resentment. Perhaps she meant nothing by it, anyway.

I looked out for Ann, the sous-chef, to talk to, as soon as I went in the kitchen, but she wasn't there and when I asked Mary, the older kitchen-hand, I found that Ann never worked Sundays. I was still fighting an urge to stick next to Harry and flirt with him the whole time. I kept telling myself to ease off with him. In my mind, however, I turned that around to playing hard-to-get. I was also making the excuse to myself that this might again be my last day as Jenny and I should really try to get (at least) a date with him while I could.

I wished I felt as smart and sexy in my uniform as I had yesterday, but today's blouse was not tailored to emphasize my curves and I felt a little frumpy in it. Maybe I could have got away with wearing my best blouse again, with plenty of deodorant. Anyway I would make sure to get it washed and ironed as soon as I got home this afternoon and then buy more like it as soon as possible. I still seemed to get lots of admiring looks and smiles from my male customers, though.

Sunday lunches were very busy, since they all started together around one o'clock. I still had to follow my mentor, Loren, around and do her more menial tasks. She didn't really exploit me, though, and this time was friendlier to me than Marie, who was obviously still hurt by my rejection of her advances last night. Loren explained that, with all the meals being simultaneous, it was harder to arrange our own meal-breaks. I had covered her tables for her on my own last night and would do the same today, so she could not take her break with me. She asked me if I wanted to take my break with Harry and I must have blushed, because she started teasing me about him. She had already arranged to eat with Marie, so I had no choice.

When I sat down to lunch opposite Harry, I was assailed by a maelstrom of emotions and had to fight to keep my composure. I told myself that he wasn't very attractive, that there were plenty of fish in the sea and that he may not be at all available anyway, but it was no use. I just couldn't take my eyes off him. I kept imagining his hands caressing me and remembering his friendly smile when I'd snuggled up to him under his umbrella.

“Do you have to come very far on that bus?” he started by asking me.
“No, just from Westgates. I suppose I should walk, really, but I'll try that in the Summer.”
“Well, I've got an old banger and I drive sometimes if it's sleeting or I'm just lazy. I only live round the corner from where you found me this morning.” He paused. “Are you working this evening?”
“Yes”, I replied, fighting to stop my delight at his interest from showing.
“Well why don't I give you a lift home and pick you up later? It'll give you much more time.”
“Oo! That's really kind of you, Harry, but I can't let you put yourself out that much.”
“It's no trouble, really. I go to Westgates Library most Sunday afternoons, you see.”

I was really struggling now to hide my emotions. I was overjoyed that I had almost got the “date” I wanted already, but worried that I might spoil it by being too eager. I was also plagued by other negative thoughts. Loren had called Harry “a bit of a bookworm” and this was being confirmed out of his own mouth. I was disappointed that he was suggesting spending a possible afternoon together in a library. I was beginning to feel a little scared of my vulnerability, too. Bookworms weren't necessarily safer than other predatory males, indeed their weirdness made them dangerous. I was startled by my own naiivity in not seeing Harry as at all bookish, until now, and worried that this naiivity could get me into trouble.

“Well, OK, yes please,” I replied, “but you don't go to the library in this uniform, do you?”
“No, we'll need to go to my flat first. But, oh, I see, if you don't want to come in you could keep out of the rain in my car while I change.”
Wasn't he wonderfully considerate? I was so thrilled I just couldn't stop grinning at him and felt a bit foolish to be so eager. I felt really warm and close to him across the table. It was helped by the way we were both dressed almost identically, at least above the waist. I started to fantasise that this was a romantic dinner-date in a candlelit restaurant and I wished I was wearing a low-cut little black dress to emphasise my cleavage instead of this shapeless white blouse with a stiff shirt collar.

My reveries were interrupted by Loren coming in for her meal-break and I had to gulp down the last of my lasagne in a most unladylike manner so that I could rush out to replace her on the floor. I felt I was almost walking on air, I was so dreamily thrilled with my forthcoming “date” with Harry. I was able to concentrate on the job, though, and found I was really getting the hang of waitressing. After all, it wasn't rocket science. Clearing up after the last customers seemed to take forever but it wasn't really too long before I was snuggling up to Harry again, under his umbrella on our way back down the street.

His flat seemed to be in an even poorer block than mine. I wondered if I wouldn't be in more danger sitting in his car in the gloomy basement car-park than with him upstairs, but I decided my honour required me to risk it and I locked the doors as soon as he had gone. It was dark and shadowy, the walls and pillars covered with graffiti so I was suddenly filled with the dread of rape. Where was the feisty lass now, I asked myself, and made myself sit up straight and look confident. The radio wouldn't work without his key so I had to amuse myself with my imagination, which I failed to divert from the prospects of a relationship with Harry. I must have been very lost in those thoughts because I jumped hard when he knocked on the window.

I'm not sure what I had expected him to be wearing but I was disappointed that he'd only changed his shirt and that it was a very conservative checked one, like a farmer might wear. Still, the collar was wide open and there was an enticing glimpse of chest hair. As he settled into the driver's seat I got a strong whiff of after-shave and found myself flattered that he had bothered. He seemed more embarrassed than usual as he fumbled to start up the car and I realised I was simply beaming at him. That embarrassed me too so I remembered that I had only just become a girl and stared out of my side window, wishing that I could forget that I had ever been Dave so that I could gain confidence as Jenny.

The drive from his flats to mine only took about 15 minutes, through the empty Sunday streets, but it seemed like the longest car ride of my life. Of course it was only the second car ride of my life as Jenny and I wished I was less concious of the seat-belt pressing between my sensitive breasts and that both of us could relax enough to chat casually, instead of the stilted, embarrassed conversation that took place. I could hardly believe that I was almost swooning over such a bookish man. It was no good telling myself to be sensible; I was stricken!

Having to suppress huge waves of raw, raunchy female lust was the last thing I had expected. I found myself wanting desperately to fling my arms round his neck and plunge my tongue down his throat, then to have the moist void between my legs filled by his huge throbbing dick. I tried to rationalise my thoughts, blaming it on the frightened wait in the dark car-park or on pheromones in his after-shave but I realised that I'd been just steadily drawn to him ever since I found out that he wasn't gay.

Of course the stronger my attraction to him, the more embarrassment and the more I became aware of my male past. But fancying Harry did not seem at all wrong. Dave wasn't gay and neither was I as Jenny. When I looked down at myself, over my bulging chest to my nylon-covered knees poking out of my skirt, it all seemed so consistent with my lust for Harry. Anyway, when I thought about my male alter-ego, I began to fear that this second day as Jenny could be my last and I'd better get on with it, if I wanted real female sex; we would certainly be too tired after this evening's shift.

Hence, as he was looking for a place to park in my street, I took a deep breath and boldly asked if he was in a hurry to get to the library or would he like to come up for “a coffee”, not really trying to sound seductive but finding it oh, so easy to flutter my lashes at him. He hesitated a little, but hardly at all, and I revelled in a sort of victory of conquest. I really wanted to lean up to him for a kiss but was too afraid of blowing my chances.

As I led him up to my humble lodgings, I resisted the urge to take his hand and pull him along. No, that would be too obvious — I wasn't that sort of girl — and I could blow it all by being too pushy. I tried to stride confidently beside him but inwardly I was quaking with fear, partly about my own ability to cope with my completely new approach to sex and partly about the possibility of him turning me down. That would be a dreadful result if this was my last day as Jenny.

The first thing I saw when I'd unlocked my door was the empty milk carton (at least I'd made my bed). I hoped desperately that he liked black coffee like me. The wicked thought of bypassing coffee altogether flashed through my mind but, no, that would be too naughty and could easily misfire. I put the kettle on and asked “White or black?” “Black with one sugar” he replied, to my great relief. He wandered over to the window and glanced at my awful view, then returned and sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring the scruffy armchair in the darkest corner, perhaps because I'd left my documents file on it, and the one wooden chair tucked under the table.

My heart was in my mouth, wondering if his sitting on the bed was a hint. I lined up the mugs with coffee and sugar in them, almost pulled out the wooden chair to sit opposite him, but took my fear in hand and sat next to him on the bed. Somehow, I had to achieve a gentle seduction without betraying the awful truth, that I was on a mission to get laid!

When he turned to me to speak, I noticed his hand shaking slightly and realised he was probably just as nervous as I was. I found myself blushing, averting my eyes and bowing my head. Looking down there, I found myself proud of the growing lump in his trousers. I wished I wasn't still dressed in my waitress uniform. I reached up and released my pony-tail and felt a little sexier with hair flowing onto, if not over, my shoulders. It was nice to hide behind, too.

Suddenly his hand was on my knee and my heart was in my mouth. It took no encouragement from him or me for me to lean towards him and press my lips onto his. The resulting sensation was fantastic. My lips seemed hot-wired to my nipples and on to my vagina. During the kiss, he was sliding his hand up under my skirt and, to my surprise, I part resented it and part welcomed it. When his other hand moved to my tits, I found myself thinking “The bastard is just pawing me!” but I realised that, only yesterday, that was exactly what I would have done myself. I had to admit that he was being gentle and it was quite pleasant.

Still holding the kiss, with my hand behind his head, I wriggled my other hand to my chest and began unbuttoning by blouse. I was actually trying to help him fondle by boobs and couldn't wait to get my bra off and see what it would be like to have his hand on my naked tits. I broke off the kiss to reach one arm over my shoulder and the other behind my waist to undo my bra at the back, keeping my unbuttoned crisp white blouse on my shoulders. Then I lifted the front of the bra so my tits popped out from underneath and went back to kissing his mouth. As his fingers found my now rigid nipples I found myself making muffled yelps of delight.

I had not expected to feel so unstoppably randy. I heard the kettle boil and deliberately ignored it, thrusting my tongue into his mouth as soon as he withdrew his from mine. I had not noticed his other hand advancing into my crutch until his fingers were right over my clit, probing to find it. “This is it!” I thought, in a sort of triumph, “I've got him now!” Of course he had got me, too, but that was a minor detail. Reluctantly, I broke off the kiss again and stood up to switch off the kettle and undress, starting by unbuttoning my stiff cuffs and slipping right out of my blouse and bra while grinning right into his eyes.

Without a word, he removed his shirt and started undoing his trousers, so I found the zip of my skirt and let it drop around my ankles. I wished I had stockings and suspenders to wear but I only had these rather thick tights, so I pulled them down and right off with my shoes and with my knickers still inside, standing in front of him completely naked. He was still struggling with his shoe-laces so, caution suddenly raising its ugly head, I dived for the condoms in my bedside drawer.

His surprised and curious expression when he saw what I had in my hand brought me to my senses. I could still put him off by being too forward, I realised. “Better safe than sorry!” I mumbled, ripping open the packet then a capsule. With the rolled-up ring in my delicate fingers, I approached his glorious erection. I suddenly realised that I'd never put one onto another man. No, he wasn't “another” man, because I wasn't a man and this was perfectly normal. His cock felt nice and warm, actually.

The size of it worried me, though. The word “virgin” sprung into my mind. Surely not! Although this was mentally my first time as a woman, I'd got two fingers up inside me in the bath yesterday and I was twenty-three, for goodness sake. My earlier triumph was beginning to fade a little. I was excited and hot between my legs but very scared, too. I was getting my maybe one-off experience of sex as a woman and there was no going back now. This had all happened so quickly. I was also worrying that we couldn't easily work together after such a hurried one-night-stand, if that was what it was, mid-afternoon.

I knew I needed to stop worrying and just get on with it so I kissed him deeply again, still holding his cock and crouching down to sit astride his lap. I guessed I wasn't really ready for penetration yet, however warm, wet and yearning I felt “down there”, so I stayed out at the end of his lap while I firmly pulled and pushed his big rubber-clad shaft. He broke off the kiss and surprised me by sucking my left nipple. Huge electric currents seemed to flow from it all over my body and I writhed around in ecstasy, throwing back my head and almost screaming.

This was getting almost as good as my bath-tub experience already. I began to worry about cumming too soon now, Could women have Premature Ejaculation? Hardly; we can always have another orgasm straight away. As he moved his gentle lips over to my lonely right nipple, I rose up and lowered myself onto his cock, guiding it in with my hand. I suppose there was a little pain as he first entered me but it was completely drowned out by pleasure. It felt so right, what I was doing.

It had flashed through my mind as I lowered myself that I was trusting him a lot to actually have him inside me. Thank goodness we were “this way up” and I was in control of lowering myself onto him. Once half of him was in, though, I just couldn't get enough of him and sat down hard before jerking up and down again, delighting in the pulling of the rubber on my inner lips. I badly needed to get him further up me, or perhaps I just craved contact between our pelvic bones, so I swung each knee in turn up onto the bed behind him, so that my body could be even closer to his, without pulling him off the bed.

As I held onto his shoulders and leaned back, there was a sudden improvement as his cock pressed inside the front of my vagina. Part of me was thinking “This is fantastic — I've got a real man's penis right up me on my second day as a woman!” and part of me was thinking “I've dragged this poor bookish man I hardly know up to my room and jumped on him!”. I couldn't stop worrying whether this would spoil our relationship at work, in fact I heartily wished I could stop thinking so much and just enjoy it.

The multitude of pleasant feelings from my new body was almost overwhelming. I just leaned back at arms length from his shoulders and basked in the glory, but he started bouncing on the bed to get pumping again. I suddenly realised how selfish I was being so I pulled forward again, kissed him quickly on the mouth and whispered “Come on, let's lie down!” while swivelling slowly to the right. He followed around until I was lying diagonally across the bed and he was standing over me, with my legs wrapped around him and my feet hooked together.

I could hardly bear to let him go, but he gently pulled half out of me and plunged back in, the rubber pulling on my sensitive nether lips, sending me into spasms of ecstasy. Again he sucked one of my nipples into his mouth and again my erogenous zones seemed to be all electrically wired together. Now he was above me on the bed, supported on his hands and knees, while I was in the classic spread-legs position on my back. “This is it!” my mind screamed and suddenly he stopped pumping and I could feel the little spasms of his cock as he came.

Part of me was pleased and proud to have achieved his orgasm, but part of me was raring to go for more of mine. Thinking back to my wank in the bath yesterday for comparison, I realised that I'd surpassed that experience today by far, so contented myself to lie still beside him for a couple of minutes, gazing into each other's eyes. Suddenly I felt more lively, though, and asked cheekily: “Well, was that better than your library books?” “There's no comparison!” he replied, kissing me on the forehead.

He seemed much more confident and familiar with this routine than I had expected from his bookishness. Still feeling very cheeky, I asked. “You've done this before, haven't you?” “Well, actually, no. Not so soon after meeting someone,” he replied coolly, seeming to me honest and slightly disapproving. “Neither have I, but I really liked you straight away” I disclaimed, before kissing him passionately.

Behind his head I could see my digital alarm clock, the one that had twice welcomed me to womanhood. Coolly I started calculating time to shower and change and then for him to change round at his place, too. Breaking off the kiss, I said “We'd better move,” I said, “We've got to be back at work in less than an hour now.”

Having explained where the Gents bathroom was, down the corridor, I put on my robe, watching him decide to leave his condom on under his underpants and trousers. I found a spare bar of soap and a spare towel which I hoped was clean. He caught them deftly when I chucked them over to him, then I grabbed my wash-bag and towel and slipped outside.

The shower felt glorious over my sensitised body. I quickly reached another orgasm while I soaped out my sticky fanny, almost falling over as I staggered with its intensity. “I really am a whole woman, now!” I told myself, but I couldn't stop worrying about working with Harry after today's escapade. Part of me was saying “I might not be back after today — that's why I screwed him” but most of me thought “I need a boyfriend — I hope I haven't blown it with Harry. I mean, suppose he tells everybody that I'm a slut?” Well, he had seemed to accept my excuse that I really liked him.

As I started to dry myself, I suddenly realised that I hadn't given him a key to get back into my room. Still dripping, I wrapped up in my robe and rushed back across the corridor. Luckily, he was only just approaching. Now I was embarrassed that I hadn't finished drying myself. Might he guess why I was so long in the shower? He seemed happy enough, though, and not embarrassed at all to chat with me, unlike before, as I grabbed my last clean white blouse and all my other clothes before returning to the Ladies to dress in private.

I was surprised to find Harry more talkative than before on the drive back towards work. I soon realised that we were both more relaxed, having so thoroughly relieved our sexual tension. We seemed to suddenly know each other so much better, though we had a long way to go in establishing a relationship. As far back as I could remember, in my previous life, I had never started a relationship is such an extraordinarily rapid way. I was glad that I had been in control, or had I? I was worried by my strong libido as a woman. Had it led me astray? Only the next few days working with my new boyfriend would tell.

To be continued...

Overnight Change - part 2 by Janet Harris 2014

As you will remember, I used to be Peter, but woke up one Sunday morning, quite unexpectedly, as Frances. The body-swapper visited me later in Peter's body and said I had until Friday to swap back, if I really wanted to. I wasn't at all sure, staying up late worrying about Monday at work in a completely strange job and wondering if another overnight change would occur anyway.

I was rather pleased to find myself in my baby-doll nightie when I was rudely awakened by my raucous alarm, which I had set earlier to get ready for work. I chose my crispest white blouse and a pin-striped skirt-suit, but put them aside to eat my breakfast in case I spilt anything. I brushed out my hair in my nightie for the same reason. I didn't like having to keep it off my face with grips, so I suddenly had an idea. If I cut my own fringe, or bangs as they call it in America, the big change in my appearance might help to hide the bigger change, namely my soul-swap.

I brushed all my hair downwards in all directions from the very top of my head, including over my face, then picked up my scissors and cut straight across just above my eyebrows. I stared at my new image, aghast at the enormity of that brief action and the heap of long hair left on my dresser. "You'll swallow a fly!" I told myself, echoing the body-swapper and at last shut my mouth.

I almost put on a suspender-belt and stockings, as the old Frances had apparently done on special, extra smart, days, but I chickened out and put on tights like yesterday but a brand new very sheer pair I had found, then I picked out my smartest bra. I had the blouse and skirt on with more than half an hour to go before my usual departure time which I had worked out from my texting history. I put on only moderate make-up because my new hairstyle was striking enough and I only wanted to be smart for work, not sexy. My smartest shoes had two-inch heels, less than I had worn yesterday but I loved the sound of them clicking.

That half hour flew by and too soon I had to put my laptop in my briefcase and hurry out to my lovely company car. I passed a neighbour on the stairs, who did a double-take before crying "Hi Frances! Love it!". "Hi, thanks!" I replied, wishing I knew her name. I had practised the drive to work on my laptop last night with Street-view, so it was easy. I hadn't been able to find a plan of the offices though and was very worried about finding mine without looking like an idiot.

I intended to stride straight past the reception desk but one of my close colleagues I recognised from office party photos was chatting to the receptionist and they stopped me to ask about my hair. "Where did you get it done?" "I did it myself, this morning, actually." I replied, being honest in case someone knew how it was yesterday. They were very shocked and I was really glad of the delay because there was a plan of each floor on the wall. I spotted my "Commercial Buildings" department on the third floor. Although the individual offices were shown, there was no clue which might be mine.

I was joined in the lift by two men, one of them greeted me by name. He only raised his eyebrows at my dramatic haircut. Luckily there were names on the office doors. I spotted some mail in pigeon holes at the far end which gave me the excuse to pass all the doors, trying to disguise my reading of all the nameplates. I spotted mine about two thirds of the way down but by then my two assistants, Mark and Annette, again easily recognised from my office party photos, were standing by the mail boxes and had caught sight of me, both gaping at my new fringe.

It was a lot easier than I had expected to pick up all I needed to know in that first day at my new job as Frances. I found myself able to quite enjoy the work and the challenge of learning it quickly. I was also enjoying the novelty of working in a skirt and heels and swinging my hair around. I won't go into too much detail. Mid morning I spotted Tom, who headed a different department, passing my door but he didn't look in until on his way back, when he did the now usual double-take at my hair.

"Wow, that's different!" he exclaimed, coming in. "Could you shut the door, please," I replied, "I need to talk to you. You see, I'm not the body-swapper any more." "I was just thinking that," he said, "so who has she moved on to?" "Well, I think of him as male, because he's a middle-aged man called Peter, that I used to be, now." "So, he, or she, or it must change gender every time, then. The old Tom ran off as a schoolgirl, you know." "Yes, I did know, from your, I mean my, diary. It was very useful, but there's loads I want to ask you."

"I can't imagine why you wanted to be female," he said, "I have absolutely no desire to go back to all that." I felt a bit insulted. "But I love it!" I exclaimed. "I have absolutely no desire to go back, either, but I feel awful leaving my wife with the body-swapper." "Wow! You were married! That's different. Why did you choose to swap if you can't really?" I replied: "Did you get a choice? I didn't. I just woke up as Frances yesterday morning with no warning at all. I am enjoying it, though. I'd always secretly wanted to be female. Being young as well is a terrific bonus. How did he, sorry it, do it to you?"

"It was completely different for me. It told me that it wasn't really Tom while we were making love. Awful really. Of course I (or you) freaked out. When it offered the swap, I at first accepted to get revenge, but I realised I had always secretly wanted to be male, so I'm happy now, too. I still felt hurt by its deception, though." "Ah, so that's why you dumped me!" "Well, yes, but now can't we be friends again?"

Part of me wanted to hug and kiss him right there, because there was certainly chemistry from the old Frances' relationship, but although he obviously knew this body very intimately, we were really strangers. I had discovered that chemistry yesterday, gazing at photos of him, so I was surprised to be the sensible one to cool it off, but then I was already exasperated by how fickle men could be.

"Well, yes," I replied, "but we are really strangers, aren't we? There's a lot I need to know from you but that's it." "Well I have to admit that I've been spoiling your reputation lately and you might find it hard to make new boyfriends." His presumption really hurt. "You mean inside this company? Well, I'm much more interested in elsewhere and it may surprise you to hear that last night I danced with and kissed a man and we exchanged numbers." "Gosh! You're a fast worker, aren't you? I suppose I'd better just be like a brother to you then?" "Oh, yes, please! That'll be lovely." He had to go then. One of my assistants was waiting to come in anyway.

As soon as possible, I used a trip to the Ladies (still a novelty) to ring Dave, the guy I'd met last night. "Can we meet up for lunch?" I asked, aware of being too pushy but unable to stop myself. He was very positive, however. We found out we worked only a block apart and decided on a cafe half way between. On the way I was worried about being overdressed but he turned up in a suit and tie so I was well pleased. We had a quick kiss before sitting down and gazing into each other's eyes. "Take it easy, girl," I told myself, "you know even less about him than Tom."

But after lunch we had a longer kiss in an alley and had chosen a cinema for that evening. Part of me still wanted to go back to being Peter but all of even that part wanted sex before that happened. It was less complicated with someone outside my work anyway. I had a terrific bounce in my step as I walked back to work. I wanted to see Tom in the afternoon, mainly to gloat over my early success with Dave, but there was no excuse to visit his department nor did he happen to visit mine.

By the time I got home, I felt very overdressed in my suit and couldn't wait to get out of it. At first I wanted to wear the same dress as when I had met Dave last night, but I knew that really wasn't an option so delved again into my wardrobe. I found a three-tier ra-ra skirt in three colours that I really liked and a black, partly see-through top. They really gave out the fun-loving-gal image I wanted. Of course I had to change my white work bra for a black one. I was so pleased with how I looked in it that I posed for ages in front of the mirror imagining a beach bikini. This was beyond my wildest dreams as a man, in its stark reality.

Dave had not offered to buy me dinner, so I heated up one of the microwave dishes from my fridge and ate it still in my bra, in case I messed my lovely black top. The cinema seemed a bit childish as a choice of date but it had been Dave's idea. It was an easy walk away. Striding along in my colourful skirt, I got my first wolf-whistle and I loved it!

Dave was standing grinning at me outside the cinema. I was glad to see him glance at my legs. I insisted on paying for my ticket and he backed down a bit grumpily. I let him buy the popcorn and drinks, though. I found myself resenting the arm of my seat. I would have liked to snuggle up to him, instead of just holding hands.

There were two instances in the film of women jumping into bed with strangers and I'm afraid it rather put me off. I decided Dave could wait at least another day before getting into mine. The truth is, I was getting cold feet. The idea of a real person's real penis actually thrusting into my newly shaped, newly sensitive groin was getting rather scary, despite feeling that I needed it badly and, logically, that it was perfectly right for me as a woman. So, we had coffee after the movie in a restaurant, with no suggestion of going to either flat but firm commitments to lunch and dinner together tomorrow.

I woke on my third morning as a woman, completely at ease with myself. I chose a trouser-suit this time, my dark brown one, with a pale green blouse. It had a classic shirt collar, which I turned outside my jacket like yesterday. This time I was looking forward to work, feeling that I was beginning to get my teeth into it. I couldn't wait to meet Dave again, at lunch and dinner. I even caught myself fantasising about living with him or even marrying him. Well, a girl could dream, couldn't she? But every time I thought about my future, my career as an underwriter, I felt guilty about leaving Peter's wife with that body-switching witch, or whatever he/she was. OMG, I was thinking of Susan as "his wife", now! She seemed so distant.

Lunch with Dave was delightful, probably because I was so much more relaxed today. I found out much more about him, realising that I had done too much of the talking when nervous. He was more relaxed too and we only giggled when we passed the alley I'd dragged him into yesterday. Instead we just had a quick peck as we parted. Tom popped into my office to see me in the afternoon. "The gossip is that you're totally besotted with this new fellah of yours" he began. I was really annoyed that my colleagues and assistants would tell him, of all people, my confidences. But then maybe betrayal was something I would have to get used to as a woman. When I'd calmed down and considered, it wasn't Tom's fault, he was just being a concerned brother. "Don't get in too deep," he warned, "I still think you should go back to that wife of yours." "Why? Do you want this body back? You can be my brother, but please don't try to be my conscience."

Later, though, I knew he was right. Although I was thoroughly enjoying being Frances, I just couldn't forget my former life and the body-swapper's offer for me to return to it before Friday. I couldn't help feeling guilty about leaving Susan, Peter's wife, with that mischievous elf, or whatever it was, and then, maybe worse, with whatever woman it could find who wanted to be Peter. There didn't seem to be any way of removing that guilt without returning by Friday. I really wanted to enjoy my dinner date and to get laid afterwards, if at all possible. I spent ages choosing a dress and putting on make-up. My thinking was that if I could seduce Dave tonight, I could be back with Susan, mission accomplished, unbeknown to her, of course, on Wednesday morning. I only wished I could forget her meanwhile and just be Frances.

By now, Dave and I had exchanged addresses as well as phone numbers and he pushed my flat buzzer at exactly seven, as agreed. "Coming down!" I called, not wanting to let him up, thinking that too forward. I quickly finished tidying, though, because I had every intention of bringing him up after dinner. I was biting my lip as I hurried down the stairs in my heels. This was the date when I got laid! He was looking me up and down through the glass door with raised eyebrows and that made me blush.

Now the best laid schemes of mice and men, as the Scottish poet said, oft may go awry. As a man, I had fondly imagined that women's sexual plans were much more likely to succeed than men's, the latter being more often ready. How wrong I was! Although Dave was a perfect gentleman throughout, he sort of sidestepped every approach I dared to make. I began to wonder if I was betraying my background. It was certainly only my mental background because my body and its hormones felt very feminine indeed just then. He walked apart from me on the way to the restaurant so as soon as we started back I moved up and put my arm round his waist. He responded with an arm round my shoulders but I sensed a little reluctance, probably because he wasn't "spooning" with me.

What had I done wrong? True, our conversation had dried up a couple of times at dinner but I wrongly imagined that would make little difference to my seduction techniques. He met my eyes often enough and I employed every tilt of my head to be more attractive. Maybe I overdid it? Yes, with hindsight, I certainly did. I was feeling as randy and ready as I had ever felt as a man but it was obviously not mutual. When I thought back over the three days I'd known him, I realised that I had made all the moves. What was wrong with me? Was I ugly?

When he'd seen me to my flats, I gave him a quick peck on the cheek before thanking him for the meal and wishing him goodbye with a finality I hoped he would oppose. He didn't. My first reaction was guilt that I hadn't fought harder to pay my half. I almost tried again then, but my next reaction, anger, kicked in before I could. I kept it to myself, though, and silently unlocked the door and went inside alone. I even waved to him through the glass. I ran up the stairs and flung myself onto my bed in floods of tears. Rejection as a woman is many times worse than as a man, I can report from bitter experience. After crying myself out, I realised that I was ruining my dress on the bed so hung it up. I had chosen that dress partly because it was knee length, so I could wear those stockings I had chickened out of on Monday morning. Now my suspenders were exposed, male memories of their effect re-aroused me. I lay back on the bed, on my back this time, with my legs high and wide and asked "Who needs men?" out loud.

After rubbing my crotch for a while, I needed to get up and remove my bra and knickers. Then I remembered the vibrator I'd also found on Monday morning. I had re-hidden it then with blushes, now I really hoped I had plenty of batteries. I did. Full penetration was weird but quite satisfying, though my orgasms were not nearly as good as in Sunday's shower, probably because I was angry and frustrated. I was more angry with the body-swapper for putting me in this situation than with Dave for rejecting me. I mean, I loved being Frances but couldn't forget my responsibility to Susan.

Hence I spent another night agonising over whether to text Peter. Part of me felt "as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" when it came to Susan's reaction to my spending extra days as Frances. I could still wake up as Peter tomorrow morning, it I sent the text, but I really wanted to make love as a woman, not just wank. I had two more full days to achieve it. Susan might never know. On the other hand, every day Susan spent with the false Peter, she was more likely to discover the truth. Even if she never knew, I thought, I would always feel guilty.

Did I send the text?
To be continued...

The Pebble
by Janet Harris

The Pebble
By Janet Harris Copyright 29/09/99

My wife Amanda and I lounged in deckchairs on the shingle bar of the beach, watching the activity of the crowds on the sand below. We were sun bathing to even-up our tans because the weather had been very patchy on our holiday and the sun had only seemed to shine when we were inland until today. I had on a cool long-sleeved shirt with the front unbuttoned because I had burnt my arms on the cliff-top walk yesterday, but apart from that were just in our swimsuits.

Reaching down at my side, I kept picking up pebbles and examining them. There were a great variety of colours and patterns and quite a few fossils. Where we sat today there seemed to be a lot of pebbles with holes in. A few had a hole right through and I was looking for a hole big enough to poke my finger through.

I had covered the surface of the whole area, which I could reach, so I started to dig down, but I found that only two pebbles deep they were wet and slimy. Nonetheless, I started to feel over these wet stones for holes. Suddenly I came across one that was bone dry down there; indeed it seemed warmer than the sun- baked stones on the top. At first I assumed that I had caused this by turning it under in my search, but then I felt the largest hole yet in its side, so I pulled it to the surface and picked it up.

The hole did go right through and should take my largest finger, if not a thumb. There was something very odd about its warmth, though, and it was with trepidation that I poked my right forefinger into the hole. To my surprise, my finger seemed to hit a bottom to the hole. I turned the pebble around and looked into the other side of the hole. There was the tip of my finger, looking as if it should indeed come through. It was not pushed against a glass barrier, which is how it felt. I poked my other forefinger in to touch it.

The contact of fingertips felt, to my fingers, quite normal, there was no glass there, but a strange wave of feeling, not at all unpleasant, spread rapidly over my whole body. I was perplexed. I withdrew one finger and touched them again. The wave occurred again, this time with much less intensity, and I began to ascribe it to imagination.

"Tom" called Amanda, "what are you doing?"

I turned to my right, towards her, and held out the stone. "Look. Can you fit your finger through there?" She poked her finger into the stone but, just like mine, it wouldn't go through. I put my finger in from my side to see if I would feel direct contact with her finger, too.

As our fingertips touched, the strangest thing happened. There was no blinding flash, no electric shock, nor anything more than a little tingle, but now I was looking to my left, with my arm stretched out to a man who looked oddly familiar, but there had been no deckchair to my left before. Realization dawned on me that this man was the one I was used to seeing in the mirror, but the other way around. He looked down at himself in horror, putting one hand on his chest and the other between his legs.

I looked down at myself too, but I did not need to feel myself to confirm what I saw. I had already felt the bikini top on my chest and its straps over my shoulders, so I knew that I had become Amanda just as she had become Tom. I turned my head round to the right, feeling the weight of long hair on my scalp, in the vain hope that Amanda was still over there, but the next deckchair was several yards away, occupied by a fat man.

"Tom!" came a strangled cry from my left, "What on earth, ahem", startled by his new deep voice, "has happened to us?"

"This is impossible!" I replied, startled by my new high voice, "that stone felt peculiar when I first touched it, but I don't believe in magic like this!"

The new Tom sat up and self-consciously buttoned up his shirt, being unused to exposing his chest. "This is quite exciting, isn't it?" he asked.

I gazed down at my new smooth curves. I loved Amanda's body and now I was inside it. Yes, it was me in her head, looking out from her eyes, because I could only remember being Tom before. I liked what I saw, except for my obvious castration, of course. I sat up and ran my hands through my hair, feeling my breasts move as I raised my arms. Yes, MY breasts. My hair felt lovely but would be quite a bother to look after if I had to keep it.

"We'd better touch through that pebble again to see if we can change back," I said, "I can't live your life. We'd both fail in our jobs."

The new Tom stood up and took a few unsteady steps on the shingle. "But this dream won't last forever. We might only have one chance at this." He put the stone down on his chair and put my, sorry his, rucksack and towel on top of it. "Come on, Amanda, let's go for a swim like this."

I shuddered as he called me by name. This dream? I pinched my wrist, finding Amanda's bangle there and surprised that I seemed so used to wearing it. The pinch hurt and I was still wide-awake as Amanda, so I pinched my breast through my bikini top. I knew they were real, but was still surprised how sensitive my new breasts were. For the first time I was feeling them from the inside. I looked around the crowded beach and felt both scared and excited about facing the world as a woman. I realized that he was suggesting a swim because the sea was the nearest private place to explore inside his swimsuit and I found myself blushing to think that I looked forward to doing the same.

"OK, Thomas," I said with a grin, "but remember you'll have to take your shirt off."

Now it was Tom's turn to blush. I watched him trying to look casual as he took off the shirt, but his gaze was fixed on his hairy flat chest and diminutive nipples. Suppose this was permanent! I was supposed to be attracted by the male features I was now watching. I was, a little, and it would get better, but the man I was watching used to be me so it seemed wrong to admire him and my eyes always avoided his face.

I stood up and followed Tom towards the sea, expecting to find walking rather awkward with my new centre of gravity, but it felt like I was completely used to it. I knew that the old Amanda had looked just great in her bikini, so I kept telling myself not to feel so self-conscious, crossing the crowded beach. The sea was really quite cold, but we walked bravely into the waves until the troughs were above our waists. I was surprised to find, when my bikini pants got wet, that I was not nearly so sensitive to the cold down there as I used to be, but when the peaks soaked my top, my nipples stung and ached.

Tom came up close and whispered, "It certainly goes very small when it's cold, doesn't it?" and giggled in a girly way.

I remembered what we were there for, having been distracted by the cold waves on my nipples, and thrust a hand down inside my bikini pants. My sex mound felt familiar, of course, to my hand, but the feelings from within as my fingers explored my nether lips were simply amazing.

"Well, this equipment feels lovely," I whispered, "how do you like yours?"

"Not the best place to find out, is it?" he replied. "No. It's bloody cold on these nipples, too. If we first make sure we can change back into ourselves, we could swap bodies again later in the hotel." He splashed me playfully, but I didn't want the bother of having to dry all that hair, so I waded back out onto the beach and he followed.

Walking up the beach was much worse than coming down, because I was facing all the staring men. When I was Tom, I was proud to see men admiring Amanda's body, so I told myself I should still be proud now it was me they were mentally undressing, but it was still hard to avoid their eyes. The new Tom, my husband, I suppose, must have noticed my discomfort.

"Now you see what it's like", he said, "to have everyone staring at you." I picked up the stone from his deckchair, poked my finger in and held it out to him. "No, hang on," he complained, "this might only work once for us. Let's go straight back to the hotel first."

"If you think I'm getting into your clothes too, you've got another think coming!" I exclaimed, "I'm not standing here arguing, anyway." I nearly used his towel, but thought better of it, passed it to him and rubbed myself down with hers, well mine, and sat back down in her deckchair.

"OK" he said, "let's find out, shall we?" and he walked around to my side.

I held out the stone with my finger in it and he poked his in. There was Amanda sitting below me and I was Tom again. The change was so quick and gentle that I could take it standing up without even staggering.

"Now we can get dressed and go back to the hotel", I said in my old voice.

"That was absolutely amazing!" cried Amanda. "I can't wait to do it again. Let's see if it'll work now for a second time."

She was holding the stone out to me, but I backed away, knowing that her playful nature could get me into trouble. I started to get dressed and reluctantly she followed suit, pulling her cotton dress over her head and doing up her sandals.

As we walked off the beach, I could see that her bikini top had not had time to dry in the weak sun and her dress was clinging to it, showing it through. My swimsuit was also damp in my jeans, but it didn't show like that. I felt an odd twinge of embarrassed excitement to remember that I had been inside that bikini, filling it completely, when it got wet. I found I missed having those sweet- feeling breasts on my chest already but the thought made my restored cock swell in my jeans and I tried to convince myself that I had come off better in the reverse exchange.

Amanda noticed my gaze fixed on her bosom and gave me a hard stare. As we reached the pavement of the busy street leading to the hotel, she took my hand in what seemed like a friendly gesture, but suddenly she held my finger and thrust it into the stone, which she was carrying in the other hand. Now I was holding the stone in one hand and a finger in the other. My arms were now bare because I was wearing the sleeveless dress over a damp bikini-top.

"Hey" I squealed in a high voice, "not here! It's too public!"

"Well you should keep your lecherous thoughts to yourself, or else let me enjoy them!"

I tried to push his finger back into the stone, but he was stronger than me now and managed to pry the stone away from me and put it in his jeans pocket. I had never worn a dress before, at least not in public, unless you count University Rag Day. The hem was flapping around my thighs in the wind and I felt very exposed and vulnerable. I looked around, expecting people to be amazed at my transformation, but of course they could see no change when our souls swapped bodies and our little squabble over the stone had seemed perfectly normal.

"Please let's change back," I begged him, "until we're in private."

"No, I think you need to learn what its like." He opened the door into the hotel for me with mocking gallantry and took the lead in asking Reception for our key.

We shared the lift with a middle-aged couple and the man made no secret of looking me up and down. I found myself watching his groin and was rather surprised to be flattered by a growing bulge there. I wondered how much of Tom I had left in me, because my thoughts were all so female.

When we got into our room, he said, "You get in the shower first, my dear. It'll be great to try sex like this, won't it?" I was staggered by his boldness. Amanda had, I suppose, always been a bit more adventurous than me. As a man, he seemed positively dangerous.

"Hang on!" I cried, "Give me a chance to get used to this first. As I said, it has to be temporary."

"I don't see why we can't enjoy it as long as we like," he said, "you seem to like the attention you get as a girl and I certainly like getting the respect men get." I blushed, realizing that he had been watching my reactions to men admiring me.

I locked myself in the bathroom and got undressed. The little dress had an elasticized waist, which I had to stretch over my bosom to get it off. Then I pulled down the little pants and gazed for the first time at my brown pubic bush. Of course I had seen it before, but now it was mine.

I squeezed my breasts one by one out of the bikini top and took my arms out of the straps. There was only a small mirror over the basin in which I could see Amanda's familiar face, but it was odd being able to make it smile from inside.

I looked down at my smooth, soft body and cupped my breasts in my slender hands. As I said, I loved Amanda's body and it was lovely to be inside it, moving it around as I liked. I watched and felt my big nipples growing as I enjoyed thinking about it. It was quite different from how they had felt when they were cold. It was almost like having two penises on my chest. I told myself there would be plenty of time for that and turned on the shower.

My long dark brown hair felt a bit greasy so I decided to shampoo it. It was as hard work as I had expected and I began to think about cutting it again, if we got stuck like this in each other's bodies or even on a future body-swap. Amanda had resisted my suggestions that she wear it shorter, I suppose because it gave her some sort of security and she had always worn it long as a little girl. If I went out and got a neat pageboy cut on a future body-swap, there was nothing she could do but live with it afterwards, I thought.

On the other hand, knowing Amanda, or rather the new Tom, as I did, he would be bound to seek revenge. He had no beard or moustache to cut off but he could get a tattoo. That would hurt him much more than a haircut would hurt me, I thought with a giggle.

There was plenty of spare lather from my hair to wash the rest of my body and I really enjoyed working it over my breasts and into my pussy. This time I found my clitoris and started working it up to a frenzy. As waves of pleasure washed over me, I became sure that I had the better part of this bargain. I was glad that he was so keen to stay male - this could be fantastic!

He knocked on the door and called "Come on, Amanda, when is it my turn?"

I must have blushed deep red because I wondered if he meant his turn for a shower or to get inside my pussy. Had he heard me moaning? I got out and quickly rubbed my body and hair with towels, wrapping one around my hair like a turban and one around my body under my arms because I had forgotten to bring a robe into the bathroom.

I unlocked the door to find him waiting in my, no his, dressing gown, trying to conceal a ball of tissues in his hand. He just hurried past me to flush the ball down the toilet and I could easily guess what was in it. He too had wasted no time in experimenting with his body and I found myself hoping that he liked it.

When he was safely in the shower, I took off the towel and put on my long white toweling robe, overlapping the front the wrong, man's way at first, then remembering to change it around. I got out the hair dryer, sat on the bed and started drying that mass of hair now attached to my scalp.

The idea of staying in this body was becoming increasingly attractive, but I returned to the problem of our jobs. Amanda taught biology to 12-15 year-olds. I hadn't even taken biology in senior school and I'd have to learn all those pupils' names. How could I face the staff-room when I only knew some of them slightly as Amanda's husband? Also, the new Tom could never learn all the factors I used from experience to make important decisions in my job as QC manager in a toy factory. He could probably get away with it socially more easily than I could, but no, we could only swap bodies for short periods. That was disappointing.

When Tom came out of the bathroom he sat down next to me and put his arm round my shoulders. "Don't get me wrong," he said, as soon as I switched off the hair dryer, "but I now find the idea of screwing the girl that was me a bit repulsive. Do you feel the same?"

"Oh yes" I said with some relief "let's take our time. After all, we've relieved ourselves separately now, eh?" I giggled and he looked embarrassed that I had spotted his secret package.

"You were right about our jobs, too" he said, "we can only do this occasionally. Let's hope it keeps working."

"Well, I'm in no hurry to change back now," I said, "I really like being female. Do you like being male?"

He gulped, being surprised by my forthright approach and I think he had been looking forward to getting his old body back sooner. "Oh yes, you take over having all the periods and babies, sure!"

"I thought you said we'd do this only occasionally?" I asked in horror, suddenly remembering the womb at the top of that hot vagina of mine and all it entailed.

"Yes, OK," he chuckled "Shall I take you out to dinner as Amanda, though, before we change back?"

"Yes, thank you, darling!" I said and kissed him quickly on the lips.

He took delight in getting me dressed. I was not nearly so interested in what he wore. He chose a smart blouse and skirt for me, saying he regretted not having packed a certain dress he would have liked me to wear. It was weird getting into the underwear and tights, though I loved the way they felt on me. He got out flat shoes for me to wear because he thought I wouldn't manage heels, but I assured him that I seemed to be already used to everything and I was right. I strutted up and down in the skirt and heels as if I'd always worn them. I needed a lot of help with the make-up, though. It was weird fitting earrings through the holes in my lobes, too. He wanted me to wear my hair loose, as Amanda almost always did, but I insisted on tying it back and fortunately the jeweled clip was packed.

I helped him do up his tie and we set off to find a nice restaurant. I smiled as I watched his nervousness in taking the lead. He had to ask the headwaiter if he had a secluded table for two, order the wine and taste it.

I felt a bit self-conscious in my blouse and skirt, but it was much better than a bikini or a wet cotton dress. I realized after we had sat down that one of the new feelings in my body was a full bladder.

"I'm going to have to go and powder my nose" I said with a twinkle and tottered off on my heels to find the Ladies'. There I had more new experiences. I had to wait in line for a stall and listen to some astoundingly candid girl-talk about men, though luckily no one spoke to me. Then I had to sit to pee, of course, after lifting up my skirt and pulling down my tights and knickers.

I had time to think, as I viewed other men in the restaurant with female eyes, that I was in no way attracted to my dinner-date, as I ought to be. Sure I had loved him as my wife and I wanted him to enjoy taking me out to dinner as his wife, but that would be impossible if we were both looking at our old selves across the table. The thought made me worry about the future of our marriage if we could not, or chose not to, change back.

As soon as I sat back down, I broached the subject. "Look, Tom, I'm sorry to put a dampener on this evening, but I really don't think any romance is going to work out because we can't get turned on by our old selves."

"No, I see what you mean," he said, in her old understanding way, "but let's enjoy what we can of it, eh?" He put a hand on my nylon-clad knee under the table, knowing what an effect it would have, plucking the hem of my skirt with his fingers and said quietly, "We'll change back as soon as we get back in our room. Do you know what the big bonus from all this is? We are learning exactly what each other wants."

I was really glad of that positive attitude. I had been having all sorts of negative thoughts such as, if we got stuck like this, we would have to turn to others for sex and I did not want to be unfaithful to Tom, even less the old Amanda. I was worried what would happen when the novelty wore off and the biggest novelty I craved was full sex as a woman.

Reluctantly, I pushed his hand away and concentrated on my soup, which tasted slightly of lipstick. For the rest of the meal we just seemed to make small talk, avoiding the subject of the magic pebble. As we waited to pay the bill, we found that neither of us wanted to go clubbing or anything else. In fact we had become slightly bored with the situation and Tom even said he wished we had brought the pebble with us. When it came to signing a credit-card slip, he shot me a guilty glance. I guessed that it must have felt like forgery.

We went straight back to the hotel for an early night. Almost as soon as we were in our room, Tom dug out the stone from its hiding-place and we thrust our fingers into it. Changing gender again was almost as weird as removing clothes we had not put on, but we leapt into bed together, being really glad to cuddle our normal spouses

Later, after watching a little TV, we had one of our best sessions of sex ever, certainly for being in a strange bed. Amanda was right; we knew better exactly what to do to each other.

I woke before her in the morning and lay there, wondering again how I could have such female orgasms as Amanda had enjoyed last night. It crossed my mind that I could put her finger in the stone while she was asleep and sneak off for another prolonged shower or even wake the new Tom with a blowjob, a thought that shocked me. But then I realized that I would become the sleeping woman and she the awakened man. No, she was right, we must take things very slowly.

When she did wake up, she agreed immediately with my resolve to put the pebble away and not touch it until next weekend. This was Sunday, the last day of our holiday and we spent it happily in our own bodies, walking more of the beautiful cliff path.

During the following week back at work I could not keep the pebble out of my mind and Amanda said she felt the same. I kept seeing the ladies at work in a different light and imagining swapping bodies with them.

We thought we were holding out well against its attractions on Wednesday evening, until Amanda suddenly had a strange idea. She had her cat Mr. Tibbs on her lap purring loudly when she announced "I'd like to try the pebble swap with Tibbsy here. I know we resolved to wait until Friday, but this is different, more of a zoological experiment. Could you get it out, please?" I was startled by this and opened my mouth to discourage her, but curiosity "caught the cat" so to speak and I complied.

When I came back with it she said, "Tom, would you mind swapping with me first? For two reasons: one, I want to see if Tibbs can tell the difference in me when we're swapped and two, I don't want him to have to cope with a gender change as well as species."

"OK," I said, holding out the pebble with my finger already in it, "here goes!".

Her finger pointed into the stone and, with the now familiar seamless transition, it was my finger pointing, I could feel the cat on my lap, a bra on my chest and long hair on my head. I stroked the cat and he responded well. His purring continued unbroken. Being a ginger-Siamese cross, he was a very one- person cat, Amanda's, so it was clear he had no idea that it was me inside her.

"Well that answers one question," Said the new Tom, "now let's see if he'll let me handle him." He picked Tibbs up off my lap and experienced the cold hostility usually reserved for me. I was wearing jeans for the first time as a female. He must have noticed me gazing at my empty groin, where the zip curved smoothly under, because he put his hand between his legs and grinned, "Don't worry, I'm taking good care of them."

I cupped my breasts in my hands through my jumper and replied "And I'm taking good care of these too!"

He grabbed one of Tibbs' paws and poked it towards the stone, but the cat began to growl and struggle, so he put him down on the floor.

"Hey just a minute," I cautioned, "Suppose he goes berserk in your body? You're much stronger than me now."

"OK then, tie me down to this chair first. Use the tape from the kitchen drawer. You'd better fix my hand open like this so you can force the finger into the stone, if necessary." He spread his legs so that his shins were adjacent to the front legs of the chair and stretched his arms down alongside the back legs. I crouched down with the tape, having to flick my hair out of the way, and wound the tape round and round each chair-leg and limb in turn.

As I crouched at the feet of "my husband", I could not help feeling a little subservient and getting guiltily turned-on by it. On the other hand, I was tying him up, so perhaps the idea of being a dominatrix was arousing me, too? Anyway, I hid my feelings and got on with the job.

Then I fetched Tibbs, who was very compliant with me. I pushed one of his paws into the stone and then brought it up under Tom's pointing finger.

"It's not reaching me," he said, "You'll have to split his paw and get one of his fingers in." The cat was remarkably patient with me as I maneuvered his paw against the hole. "That's be...nnnngg...oowweee!" yelled Tom, or rather Tibbs in his body, which started to struggle violently at its bonds.

I was terrified as the chair rocked about. His head nodded and shook as he looked around the room with a blank expression, being unaware that he could have turned his eyes instead. His gaze fixed on the cat and he grimaced with something like a growl. Meanwhile the cat came and rubbed up against me, purring loudly.

"Look, if either of you can understand me, nod your head." I said, but the man in the chair just kept staring blankly at the cat and working out how to snarl, while the cat stared up at me wide-eyed, with no sign of a nod. I found my old body quite disturbing, since it was acting like a seriously mentally handicapped person.

Suddenly the cat was playing with the pebble where I had left it on the floor, bowling it up to the chair-leg where the extended finger waited and trying to poke its own paw in. I got the message of course and took hold of the pebble and the finger. Surprisingly, the struggling man calmed down as soon as I touched him, so I stroked his arm too. Tibbs was obviously jealous of what he thought was a strange cat getting my, Amanda's, attention.

I got the paw and finger together in the stone quite easily this time as they were both cooperating. The cat suddenly bounded away across the room and Tom said "Poor Tibbs! He's so confused. Please untie me quickly so I can go and comfort him."

As I unwrapped all the tape, I asked, "Well, what was it like, then?"

"Really weird, but it was lovely having all that fur. I had no language at all though. I couldn't even think in words. What were you saying to me?"

"I asked either of you to nod if you could understand me."

"Oh, I see. I couldn't make head nor tail of it, so to speak, with my head or my tail! I wish you'd tried some words that Tibbs knows. Did he try to use this voice?"

"Not sensibly. He made a pretty good job of growling at you, though."

"Oh yes, I was able to work out his jealousy of me. Come on, let's swap us back so that I can comfort him." He was free now so he picked up the pebble and we poked in our fingers.

Amanda went straight over to Tibbs, who had run around the room, looking for the strange cat, then sat down puzzled, to wash himself. I watched Amanda pick him up and he was noticeably less friendly to her, the rivalry still rankled.

"You poor thing", she crooned, "you thought I'd replaced you, didn't you? I learned an awful lot from that, Tom. He can see colours, despite what they say, but you have to look straight at everything. The smelling ability is fantastic, though. I've got to tell you something embarrassing now. When I, as Tibbs, rubbed against you, as Amanda, I got a hard-on! My female pheromones must be near enough to a cat's to work on him. I mean I didn't know he was actually in love with me until now. Do you mind, Tom?"

"Not as long as you don't make cross-species experiments a habit," I joked.

"No fear!" she replied, "They can't be valid experiments anyway. Zoology doesn't allow magic pebbles as laboratory equipment. A shame really, because it was an amazing experience. I could feel through every hair on my body and smell every nuance of human emotion in your sweat. I didn't mind having no words. I seemed to be able to think very quickly, too. Did you notice Tibbs checked the window was shut after we changed back, in case the rival cat had gone that way?"

"Yes, I thought that was clever of him too, but it's interesting that he believes his eyes that there was another cat in here with no evidence from his nose."

"Ah well, evidence is what it's all about. Whoever would believe what we have just done and seen? Yet we both saw your body going berserk in that chair, you through my eyes and me through Tibbs's, but could we ever convince someone of that, who hadn't touched the pebble?"

I had a secret I couldn't discuss with Amanda just yet. I had already booked her in with a hairdresser, one in the next town that I was sure she hadn't used before, for 11am Saturday. I intended to be in her body then and her new hairstyle might be the sort of evidence she meant.

Friday came around eventually and we were both excited with the plan to spend the whole weekend as each other. Amanda came home from work after me, having an after-school club to run, so I was cooking our meal. She wanted to swap bodies as soon as she came in, but I objected that I was in the middle of cooking. She pointed out that I could easily continue in her body, so I complied and found myself in her long woolen skirt and loose silk blouse.

As I had to keep flicking or swinging all that hair out of my way, I couldn't stop thinking about my secret plan for tomorrow. The new Tom fixed our drinks while I completed my cooking. As he passed behind me in the kitchen, he pinched my bum.

"Oi! What happened to all those feminist ideals?", I asked, having just been transformed from a cooking "new man" to a dutiful wife about to serve food to her husband.

The meal was much more relaxed than the last body-swapped one in the restaurant. I found that I quite liked being Tom's wife. I found out how secure it felt if he was attentive and caring and he was obviously trying to apply his memories of being Amanda in that way. My repulsion at the idea of fancying my own old body was receding rapidly.

While he did the washing-up afterwards, I settled in front of the TV and began to discover a female perspective to the programs. When my husband came and sat beside me, I was already enjoying a warm arousal from watching men on the screen and thinking of how nice this body I now occupied felt.

I was grateful to him for enjoying his maleness too. I found it a bit puzzling; actually, that he preferred the male role. Amanda had never been a tomboy. I hoped the novelty would not wear off for him. I was also puzzled by him being less averse to fancying his old body. Perhaps that was because women have more narcissism than men. He had been very sympathetic to my reservations about body- swapped sex, so now that I wanted it, I had to make the advances.

I started by snuggling up to him and putting an arm round his shoulders as we watched TV together. He smiled, but was still very cautious in his response. He could not believe that I was now so ready to touch him, after having avoided contact during all previous body-swaps.

The plan was to take it easy, going out separately tomorrow, together on Sunday and maybe being ready for sex on Sunday night. Perhaps he was right to keep to the plan, but I couldn't help feeling a little frustrated.

I had a leisurely bath before going to bed in which I masturbated again. The female orgasms were very good, but I wanted to try proper sex and was determined to get it Saturday rather than Sunday.

Waking up as Amanda in the morning was another new experience. I had been more of a morning person and this seemed to stay with Tom's body. He woke me with breakfast in bed, as I always had, and it was nice to be looked after.

I could see he had already shaved. "You missed a bit under your ear," I teased him, "you have to pull the lobe up to get there." That was a chore of which I was glad to be relieved, I thought, stroking my smooth, soft, chin, but when I got up I had to wash my long hair thoroughly, to save time at the hairdressers.

I decided to wear a mini-skirt but I avoided the white one, which had been my favourite on Amanda because I didn't want to be too eye-catching. I told him I would go clothes shopping in another town, to avoid any chance meetings with friends I ought to know. He would do the weekly food shopping as she usually did.

I had to learn the controls of Amanda's car before I could drive to the hairdressers that I had booked in secret, by that time it was 11:05 so I was shown straight to a chair. As soon as I had explained what I wanted and was wrapped in a gown, the scissors were scrunching into the masses of hair just below my left ear.

A pit formed in my stomach at the enormity of my deception. This was irreversible. I could see great long locks of that familiar hair falling to the floor out of the corner of my eye and my head felt suddenly lighter as the scissors worked around to my right ear. I tipped my head to one side and watched the mirror spellbound as the new ends swung out from my cheek, high above my shoulders. I closed my eyes as all the front hair was combed forward over my face, reaching my mouth but not my chin. The scissors scrunched across just above my eyebrows and when I opened my eyes, there in the mirror was a completely new Amanda with her fringe and bob.

As it was finished off with much brushing, combing and snipping, I gazed in amazement at my reflection. Would he be angry? Probably not!

On Monday, Amanda would have to face her colleagues and pupils with her new hairstyle and I was sure they would like it too. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now.

I decided that more make-up would suit my new look so I looked for a beauty salon, which would do a professional job. I could not find one in this strange town so I made for the cosmetics shelves of a supermarket and restocked my handbag with some brighter colours. Then I found a burger-bar to get my lunch, with a quiet Ladies' toilet and applied my new mascara, eye shadow and lip-gloss there.

I now had less time for the planned clothes shopping but I was able to find a couple of items I wanted. Tom had suggested that I buy a few things, which I had wanted Amanda to wear before. I had been pleased at his generosity and suspected that he had found male tastes, which had surprised him. Now I was embarrassed to buy anything too alluring, but chose a smart blouse of a style I had admired, but Amanda had never worn before and had the labels cut off to wear it home. I also bought a sexy basque with suspenders and some stockings. The skirt I was wearing was too short for them, but I decided to change and wear it tonight for my seduction attempt.

When I arrived back home, I sat in the car for a few minutes touching up my brush-on lip-gloss before I plucked up the courage to show myself to Tom.

He was just dumb struck. "It's really very smart" were the first words he could stammer. "You're certainly different enough for me to fancy now."

"Oh, I'm so glad" I said honestly and kissed him on the cheek. He ran his hand round the new edge of my hair in amazement and kissed me back on the lips. "I can't wait till tomorrow night", I whispered in his ear, "I want you now."

"Well, let's have dinner first," he replied, "I'll cook, as I've planned it."

So I went off and changed into the basque and stockings, feeling constantly warm between my legs and knowing that it was penetration, which I craved. I put on an evening dress of Amanda's, which was not my favourite but the one she liked best. It was soft and comfortable, coming down to my knees to cover my stocking- tops but leaving my cleavage clearly visible from its scoop neck. I had to get used to seeing that out of the corner of my eye. If I bowed my head to look at it, the new ends of my hair swung forward by my cheeks and I knew I must be looking pretty good.

As I sought out a suitable necklace, I came across some nail varnish. Amanda very rarely painted her nails and had not for over a year now, but I thought it would suit my new look. It looked so good when I had finished that I took my stockings off again and did my toes too. This took so long that I was surprised that Tom did not call me.

When I hurried down to find him, realizing only afterwards that I seemed so used to the heels I had put on that I had not given them a thought on the stairs, he was putting the finishing touches to a romantic table-for-two.

"Oh, I thought you were going to wear something new that you'd bought today" he said.

"Ah but I am!" I replied, and I found my eyes dropping to his crotch to watch the growing bulge there as the penny dropped.

Over the meal, he told me how his shopping trip had gone. "I saw six people I knew", he said, "but only three of them knew me as your husband. They sent their best wishes to you, because I told them you were unwell, which was a bit funny because they meant it for me. I didn't know Diana Goodland fancied me. Did you?"

"She enjoys talking to me, but I wouldn't have said she fancied me, no. Oh my god, you didn't lead her on, did you?"

"Well, I couldn't resist a bit of a flirt. It was so funny because I know her so well and she thought I would never tell my wife! We didn't kiss or anything, didn't even arrange to meet again. Don't worry. It was just really interesting to flirt with her as a male. Oh and Joan Martin's husband wants to borrow your (I mean my) jigsaw. He's coming round for it later. You don't know him very well, do you?"

"Round here? With us swapped over? Oh no!" I gasped.

"It'll be alright. I'm the one he'll talk to. You can be very unwell upstairs, if you like, but you look lovely. I never dressed up like that to stay in, did I?"

I offered to do the washing up, but Tom insisted it would damage my nails so I just helped him tidy up. I hoped Amanda would not take to dressing up to stay in, as he had put it, in future, if it meant her getting out of all the chores.

When we sat down for coffee, I was getting more and more relaxed in my new role. When the doorbell went, I got up to answer it, to Tom's surprise. I recognized Mr. Martin, who introduced himself as Joe and did not comment on my new haircut, which I took to mean that he had not known Amanda any more than he knew Tom, who took him to his den to get the jigsaw. When they had not returned in five minutes, I put the kettle on for some more coffee, thinking that if Tom could play at male bonding, I could play at flirting when they did reappear.

"Do you take sugar, Joe?" I asked when they finally surfaced. He eyed the three cups and fresh pot I had put out and hesitated.

"Well, I ought to be getting back, really." I gestured him towards the sofa and, not too reluctantly, he sat down. The coffee pot was in front of the other half of the sofa so, of course, I sat down next to him. Tom was visibly shaken and I was delighted that my revenge was working on him.

As I poured out the cups in my role as hostess, I could see Joe looking at the way the skirt of my navy velour dress lay across my nylon-clad thighs. My bangles jangled together as I poured out the cups and the new ends at the sides of my hair often swung into view. I had never felt so self-conscious as a man and I was surprised that I was enjoying it now because a man was admiring me.

I made bright conversation with Joe and when I passed him his cup I made sure that our hands touched. Tom was almost squirming with embarrassment and I knew he was worried about dealing with Joe when he was Amanda again. He fidgeted and got up twice, for different reasons, or rather excuses, so that Joe felt he had to go as soon as he finished his coffee.

As soon as he had shut the front door after Joe, Tom said "I suppose that was to get me back for Diana, eh?"

"Yes," I replied, "and for spending so long in MY den. What did you find to talk about in there?"

"Well I was surprised how much I actually knew about your tools and stuff. I wonder if your memories are really here in this brain too?"

"Yes, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm sort of getting deeper into you the longer I stay in your body." I mused, "I can still only remember being male before yesterday, apart from last weekend of course, but it feels more and more normal to be female and perhaps soon the memories of growing up as a girl will sort of come back to me."

"If they do, you could go and teach at the high school and I could go and test toys, eh?"

I was shocked that he was still keen on a permanent swap. There was much about being female that I found very pleasant, to my surprise when I was back to normal, but I didn't like it enough to want to stay in Amanda's body for the rest of my life. Tom must be thinking of those periods and babies, I thought, and they seemed a serious problem to me too.

On the other hand, I had looked forward with pleasure to suckling babies when I had played with my big nipples in the bath last night. If necessary, I wouldn't really mind staying female for life, but I did want to get back to my old life and job after the weekend. I must put him off staying male, I thought.

"I think you should wet-shave before we go to bed, darling," I said, "You can work out how to do it, can't you? I'll clear up the coffee things and everything down here."

It didn't take me very long to put the house to bed, so I switched on the TV and settled down in the lounge, thinking it right that he should come looking for me. Tibbs sauntered over and jumped up on my lap. I found it odd to be accepted by him as Amanda and I couldn't forget Wednesday's discovery that my pheromones gave him a hard-on. Hence I had been avoiding contact with him, but now there was no one else to keep me company so I let him settle on me. He soon started purring loudly and began flexing his claws against my legs. This threatened to ladder my stockings, so I lifted him up, moved towards the centre of the couch and put him down beside me, with plenty of room the other side for Tom, crossing my legs to make my lap inhospitable.

Before very long, Tom appeared, with a very smooth chin, a bit red in places but no plasters or even bits of tissue, so I congratulated him on his success. He sat beside me with his arm round my shoulders.

I turned towards him and let him kiss me. This one was nice and slow and passionate. I was amazed how right it seemed to be kissing a man. I could feel my nipples and my fanny responding to my feelings, but the pleasure was spread much more over my whole body than I had been used to as a man. Tom had his hand on my knee and he slid it up my skirt as we kissed. When he found a suspender clip and the top of my stocking he seemed almost shocked.

"Oh yes. I'd forgotten you said you were wearing your purchases!" he exclaimed.

I put my hand inside his thigh, too, and gently touched his cock as it strained to burst out of his jeans. As we kissed again, he slid his hand onto my fanny and we exchanged little squeezes. This was too much for Tibbs, as always, so he sauntered off to the kitchen with the utmost disdain. There was more room on the sofa now but, tempting as it was to strip off and do it right there, we pulled ourselves apart and I took his hand to lead him upstairs.

On reaching the bedroom, I turned my back and he unzipped my dress. As dramatically as possible, I pulled it off over my head, slung it into a corner and leapt onto the bed, affecting a sex-kitten pose in my pink basque and stockings. One of my nipples escaped from the top of the basque in my leap and, instead of pushing it back in, I popped out the other one to match, enjoying the look on my husband's face.

As he struggled out of his shirt and jeans, I slipped off my panties, which I had remembered, on the second attempt after painting my toenails, to wear outside my suspenders. I was not surprised that they had stuck to my pubic hair. I had been feeling randy, or should I say horny, as a woman, all day long, since having my haircut. I knew my vagina would be very moist before I touched it and sure enough, my fingers slipped easily inside.

I gasped with both pleasure and anguish because Tom had not fully undressed yet and I was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as female premature ejaculation. I could not believe how desperately and urgently I wanted to be filled up by his enormous cock. I had thought that I would need lengthy fore play before I felt as ready as this. As soon as he climbed onto the bed, I grabbed his cock and tried to pull it towards my throbbing fanny, but he kept his legs away from mine at an angle as he lay down, bringing his mouth down on one of my eager nipples. I almost screamed as he sucked it into the roof of his mouth. I had not imagined that such pleasure could exist up there on my chest.

I was working his cock with my right hand, gently to keep his orgasm off until I could get him inside me, and I ran my left hand through his short hair, kissing the top of his head.

He ran one hand round my neck, where I think he could still not believe that all my hair ended so suddenly, and the other down my belly. When he combed my sticky pubic bush with his fingers, finding my clitoris and wiggling it with his middle finger, I could hear myself moaning as if in the distance.

I spread my legs wide, it just seemed so instinctively right to do so, and guided his cock at long last, it seemed, into my eager vagina. I remember thinking, how on earth did the Victorians single out men as having insatiable and uncontrollable desire, justifying their brothels, when, as a woman, I could be so overwhelmed with desire that I was totally out of control?

I could not help myself, even if I had wanted to, arching my back and thrusting my pelvis against his. Knowing exactly what I needed, he squeezed his hand down between us and wiggled my clit again. Much as I wanted him to cum first, I could not hold off my first tremendous orgasm, very soon after he first entered me. My mind was soaring in ecstasy as he returned to sucking my tits and a second wave greater than the first seemed to totally engulf my being.

This was so much better than masturbating and my previous female experience now seemed rather lame. The ecstasy was just rising for a third time when I felt him pulsing and squirting inside me. That third peak of mine was therefore reduced in comparison, but I felt such achievement at his orgasm that it was truly satisfying. At last my aching desire was almost quenched.

We made love several times that night and the rest of it is a bit of a blur, now. I do remember him saying, quite suddenly, "You did take your pill, this morning, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course, I know where you keep them. Hey, hang on a minute, what's the worry? If I did conceive while we were swapped, it would be interesting to be both mother and father to it."

He seemed unconvinced, still worried, and mumbled something about the child's security. We intended to start a family quite soon in any case.

He woke me for breakfast in bed again on Sunday. It was no surprise to wake up as Amanda this time. The first thing I felt was a sore vagina. In the shower, I found that soaping it out helped a lot. As expected, my new hairstyle was much easier to wash and dry, but the brush hurt my forehead as I straightened my fringe.

We dressed in jeans and boots for a hill-walk, as we had planned and, since it was a bit chilly for late summer, I wore a blue crew-necked jumper over a white polo shirt, with its collar turned out. I had always thought this looked smart and rather cute on Amanda. I was pleased with the effect, especially as my hair now stopped short of the collar. When I sat at the mirror to apply my lip-gloss, however, Tom was disapproving.

"Come on, Amanda, we're only going for a hike." he chided me.

Of course I had to ride in Tom's car as a passenger. As we approached the car, I thought that this ought to hurt my pride, but I could find no such emotion. It all seemed so right to be driven out by my husband. On this third day as a woman, I was fitting into the role so easily it frightened me.

I liked the way the wind blew my hair as we climbed our hill. After a long silence, Tom suddenly turned to me and said "Thirty-seven degrees!"

"What!?" I exclaimed, being unable to make any sense of it, "this hill's only ten degrees at the most."

"No, the minimum leg-movement on the toy ponies. My job, the details are coming to me out of my memory".

Suddenly I began to realize what he was doing. He really wanted to go to work as Tom and send me out to teach as Amanda. Why was he so keen to stay a man? I was certain I didn't want to stay a woman for more than the odd weekend. I too had been finding memories of Amanda's coming to me, but I did not welcome them, they terrified me.

"Look, Tom," I said, "I like being female temporarily, but I really don't want to stay in this body for the rest of my life. Let's just keep it to weekends as we agreed. I want that body back tomorrow morning, at the latest."

"Well, OK, I suppose it would be really hard to get away with it at work. Can't we swap some evenings as well? What about Wednesdays?"

"As long as you don't go experimenting with the cat again, yes, maybe, but I found last weekend affected me too much for comfort during the week, so I don't want to promise anything regular."

I thought he accepted this, but when we reached the top of the ridge, pulled off our rucksacks and sat on a rock for a drink, he produced the pebble from his rucksack. I had thought that it was still where I had put it away in a drawer at home.

For the last few hundred yards to the top, I had really felt a member of the weaker sex. Tom had had to take my hand and pull me up some of the rocky bits. I loved his care and support, but missed the strength of my old male body.

I thought he was going to offer to swap back now but instead he threatened to throw the little stone down the gravel cliff on the other side. I don't remember ever feeling so frightened in my life. My only way back to my old familiar body was through that little hole. Down on the steep scene below, it would disappear amidst millions of stones. I started up to snatch it from his hand, but realized that I stood no chance against his strength and in any case would need his cooperation to do the swap.

I begged him not to be so reckless. "Please let's discuss this carefully. We could really regret anything we do with that stone. Remember, it was you who was concerned about conception last night."

"Yes, you've got a point there. I'll tell you what, let's swap now for just a few minutes and I'll see if I still feel the same while I'm female again."

He held out the stone to me with his finger in it and I eagerly pushed in mine, knowing I would then have control of it. I was now looking at Amanda in her pretty white collar and new hairstyle. The first thing she did was to shake and toss her head, then put her hand up to feel it.

"Wow, this feels very different, doesn't it?" she exclaimed, "I think I'm going to like it, though."

I was surprised to find how unfamiliar my old body seemed after only a day and a half out of it. I was alarmed that it felt more normal now to be Amanda. I put the stone away in my rucksack and we agreed to stay in our old bodies until we stopped for lunch.

As we pressed on, along the ridge, I found it hard to forget that I was wearing clothes I had neither chosen nor put on and that there was more of my anatomy in my jeans and less in my jumper than on the climb up. I made myself revel in my male strength and now helped Amanda over the difficult climbs.

When we sat down for lunch, instead of offering the stone to her with my finger in it, I passed it to her first, knowing that would give me control of it afterwards. She didn't notice this, or at least didn't comment and, as soon as I was her, I popped the pebble into my rucksack.

I had to admit it was very nice being female, but I definitely wanted a means of escape. I still didn't understand why the new Tom was so keen on staying male for life. There must be something better about it, perhaps, or was it just the greener grass over the fence, as it was for me?

In any case, he made no more wild threats to lose the stone, perhaps because I was so vehemently against a permanent swap. We ate our sandwiches in good spirits. I found I liked avocado, as Amanda always had, even though I had detested it as Tom.

The climb down to the car was easier, of course, so I needed no help from my husband. We had planned to dress up and eat out that night, but we were both too tired. We picked up a take-away on the way home and had an early night. We found that we were too tired for any sex, as well, falling asleep in each other's arms.

If there had been time before Tom had to go to work, I would have had my third breakfast in bed, but before I could eat what was on the tray, I had to get the stone out of my bedside drawer and swap back into him.

I could still taste the breakfast he had eaten, but I drove to work smiling to think that I had not eaten anything myself, nor had to shave or get dressed. Amanda would be eating her second breakfast and have to go to work in a new hairstyle she had not chosen herself.

When she came home, I was pleased to see that she was wearing the new blouse I had bought on Saturday. She said everyone was delighted with her haircut and gave me a big kiss of thanks.

On Wednesday, I found her briefcase in the house when I came home and smiled to think that she was so keen for the planned swap. There was no answer when I called her, though, so I thought she must have gone out again. I got on with cooking our meal and suddenly she appeared in the kitchen with her hair all curly, wearing a frilly cotton dress.

I was speechless at her transformation and before I could collect my thoughts, she grabbed my hand and pulled it towards the pebble in her other hand. Since I had agreed to swap today anyway, I put out my finger and found myself in the frilly frock. At once I could feel the tight firmness of the basque supporting my breasts under the deceptively loose dress. When I put my hand on my thigh to confirm that the lump I could feel was a suspender clip, I found that I was wearing copious petticoats too. I put my other hand up to my hair, which was not swinging around as I had got used to at the weekend, but a mass of loose curls standing out from my head.

"This isn't a perm, is it?" I asked.

"What if it is?"

"Well I did like it straight and swinging. I mean on you too, when you are Amanda."

He stepped back from me and looked me up and down. "You're too different to be called Amanda, now. Let's use your middle name, Penelope. No, just Penny, I think. How do you like your new image and name, eh, Penny?"

"It makes me feel really cheap" I retorted, feeling hurt that he had dressed me up to make fun of me.

"Well you do look a bit of a tart in those," he said staring at my feet.

I pushed my billowing skirts out of the way to find that I was wearing fishnet stockings and five-inch bright red heels. As I moved around, finishing off my cooking, I felt a cool draught up my skirt and also discovered that I was not wearing any panties. I had to admit that I felt quite excited by this new image, as well as used and exploited. Wearing the basque again was bringing back hot memories of Saturday night. The thought of Amanda actually getting dressed up like this also turned me on, even though it had been for me to wear it.

As soon as I could leave the dinner to cook on its own, I minced over to the armchair where he had sat down to read a newspaper, put my arms round his neck from behind and kissed the top of his head. I could not help myself living out the sluttish role I had been given. I moved around to his front and unzipped his flies. Gently he pushed my curly head into his lap. Although that great throbbing pole had been mine less than half an hour before, I felt no repulsion at all on taking it into my mouth. It seemed so right that I, Penny, should be submissively giving him head like this. I did not have to look in a mirror to know that I was neither Tom nor Amanda now, but Penny the slut and I found it very exciting to be this completely new person. As I worked hard with my tongue, he put a hand firmly onto one of my breasts and began to massage it. I fumbled with the buttons on the front of my dress to let his hand inside.

"It's no good. They're false buttons," he told me, "there's only a zip at the back."

I was desperate to feel him directly against my body, which was already tingling all over. I took my mouth reluctantly off his dick and gathered up my petticoats to sit astride his lap and get him urgently inside me.

"Where did you get this awful frock?" I asked.

"Oh, I just borrowed it from someone at work. It's not awful, Penny. You look really pretty in it." To my surprise and terrible frustration, he pushed me away before I could sit right down on him. "Now, now, Penny," he said, condescendingly, while trying to force his unsatisfied penis back into his trousers, "don't get too excited, yet. We haven't had our dinner yet, remember."

I couldn't believe that he could be so cruel. I began to understand his motives for dressing me up and calling me Penny. I had apparently carried my male appetite for sex over into Amanda's body at the weekend and he wanted to both teach me a lesson and exploit my libido for his own pleasure.

I went up to the bathroom to wash my hands and had a good look in the mirror. I did not look as different from Amanda as I felt. The big rounded, lace-edged collar of the dress, the short puffed sleeves and the mass of curly hair made my face look rounder, but it was still Amanda's. My forehead was as bare as before I had my hair cut because the fringe was curled up tightly at the hairline. The fishnets and heels contrasted with the prudery of the frock, but betrayed my aching desires.

Stiffly, I served up our dinner and we sat down to eat it in silence. I felt growing resentment at the way he was treating me, yet I was still getting turned on by the novelty of my persona. Ordinary eating now seemed erotic to me and so did watching Tom eat.

When we had finished desert, staring into each other's eyes, he readily agreed to delay washing-up and we made haste for the sofa. I turned my back for him to unzip my dress and he started to do so, and then changed his mind.

"No, keep it on. Just bend over the arm of the sofa now."

I gasped as he cupped both my tingling breasts in his hands, popping them easily out of the basque, and gently pushed me over the arm with his chest. Then he put one hand down, lifted the back of my skirts and unzipped his flies. I had to suppress a horror of being taken from behind and was relieved when his fingers explored my vagina, not my anus.

Neither of us was surprised that I was very wet and ready; I had been worried that it might trickle down my leg during dinner. I felt very naughty; not wearing any knickers and that had excited me even more.

Suddenly, probably less than a minute since we left the table, I could feel his hot, smooth helmet against my ecstatic fanny lips. Eagerly, I reached down under my tummy, took his dick in my hand and guided it in. Now I understood why Amanda liked to do it this way. The feelings as my vagina was entered the other way around, pushing it upwards and forwards, were simply amazing.

My feet were already off the floor and my legs wide apart, so now I bent my knees to wrap them around him and, kicking off my shoes, I hooked my toes together behind him, helping to pull more of him into me. While I only needed one arm to hold up my shoulders from the seat of the sofa, I kept the other down under my tummy and tickled my clitoris with my middle finger.

He put both hands back on my breasts, through the dress, massaging them vigorously. I was so overwhelmed by my rising orgasm that I ignored any thoughts about giving him one too and I think I screamed rather loudly as I came.

"Yes!" he cried, "that's how Penny likes it, isn't it?"

I could not disagree. He kept up the rhythmic pumping right through my tremendous orgasm and the pleasure did not fall off very far before I could feel another one coming.

However, he seemed to be getting nowhere for himself and soon withdrew and asked me to turn around. Panting with urgency to reach my second peak, I stood up and complied, lifting the front of my skirts for him. I was more aware now than ever that I was facing the man that used to be me, both of us fully clothed, in the bright lights of our lounge and yet it felt so right and I was so eager to be fucked by him that I threw myself into the knee-trembler without thinking it at all bizarre.

He leant back from me as he entered from the front, but reached for my tits and resumed the massage. We were both frustrated by the presence of the dress, he in feeling my breasts, even though they were now outside the basque and me in reaching my clitoris again past all those layers of petticoat, so I was relieved when he put an arm round behind me and undid the zip. I crossed my arms and pulled the dress up and over my head, without him having to withdraw from me, followed by the petticoat, though its waist elastic was hard to stretch over my breasts and hurt my aroused nipples.

Tom bent his head down and took one of those glorious new appendages to my chest into his mouth and began to suck it. My ecstasy simply soared to new heights and again I wrapped my fishnet-clad legs around him to pull him deeper into me. Just as I came for the second time and as I could feel him stiffen and pulse in his own orgasm, his legs came off the floor and we fell together over the arm into the seat of the settee. We both giggled and then indulged in a long, passionate kiss. During this, he ran his fingers through my curls, pulling them out from my head and letting them spring back.

When he came up for air, he said "Don't worry, it's not a perm. I don't want to go to school like that tomorrow. I only set it on heated rollers and it should straighten with the heated comb I bought today too. Would you like to swap back while I go through all that?"

"No, I don't mind straightening it for you, as long as you shave and eat breakfast for me again."

"OK, fine. Actually, it was rather nice eating two breakfasts on Monday without putting on any weight!"

So, while he set about the washing-up, I went off to wash and set my hair. As my now very sore tits bounced over the top of the basque on the way upstairs, I wondered if I really wanted to stay female any longer but I decided I did, as long as it was not as Penny the slut.

So the first thing I did was to put back on the bra that Amanda had discarded when she came home from work. What a comfortable relief it was! Then I wriggled out of the basque and stockings and put on panties, short socks and a nice pair of jeans before leaning over the bath to wash my hair. The curls soon got looser as I shampooed them and looser still with the conditioner. I wrapped my head in a towel like a turban and went to get a top to wear. I didn't want Tom dictating what I wore any more. I chose a chequered cotton shirt and rolled up the sleeves.

I had to work out how to light and regulate the little gas-powered styling brush then I undid my turban and began combing out my hair. Tom came in when I was almost finished.

He looked surprised to see me dressed, but said "Hey, that's nice! Back to your old self again, eh, Amanda?"

"Well, I'll have to wash it again in a minute, I think, but it should be alright for YOUR old self, tomorrow, after that."

He offered to help me brush it out, but I told him I wanted to do it alone and he went downstairs again. The truth was, I didn't want him around when I took my blouse off again. Casting off the dress, basque and fishnets, it had felt good to leave Penny's oversexed persona behind. I found that I wanted to enjoy being Amanda without constantly living and breathing sex.

When I'd washed it and pulled the gas styling brush through it for a second time, my hair fell nice and straight again, from the top of my head to its neat, straight edges. Penny's face had been made up rather heavily, so I washed it all off and applied just a subtle touch of colour.

I found I had quite different tastes now, in what I wanted Amanda to wear. I found a necklace and matching earrings to add a feminine touch to the cowboy shirt. I thought of putting a skirt on, but I had really enjoyed spending last Sunday in jeans, so I kept to my earlier choice. I did take off the socks again and put on knee-high stockings so that my feet looked nice in low court shoes under the jeans, then I went down and found Tom back at the dining table, doing Amanda's marking work from school.

He looked me up and down and smiled, but only said "I've got quite a bit more to do, so why don't you go and watch TV ?"

I found myself disappointed that I could not get his attention, but I went off quietly, got us some coffee and took mine through to the lounge. I found a drama set in the eighteenth century to watch and found it fascinating to identify with the female characters and admire the men, especially in military regalia.

I found myself wishing to live a full social life as a woman. I had enjoyed going out shopping on my own last Saturday, for all the nervous terror it had caused, and I had enjoyed flirting with Joe too.

When Tom had finished his work and came to get me to go to bed, he said "You know, we could teach each other enough about our jobs to try swapping all week, sometime."

I surprised myself by reacting positively to this. I actually agreed that if I felt ready by Sunday night, after spending the whole weekend briefing each other, I would go out and teach biology on Monday. The next time we swapped, on Friday evening, it would be for nine days, but I insisted I wanted my old male body back after that. I did not tell him that Tom had an interesting course booked for the week after that, away in another city, and that this was my only reason at present for the nine-day restriction.

I did not tell him that I had begun to want a permanent swap. I did not tell him that another motive for the restriction was jealousy: I did not want the new Tom, with his sexuality so heightened by the novelty of his body, going off for a week in a hotel. With that all agreed, we went to bed feeling really affectionate towards each other in our new roles, but, for once, not at all randy.

He kissed me gently when he put out the light, putting a hand on my breast, but was not too disappointed when I gently took it off again. We said our goodnights with a couple more quick kisses and turned over to sleep.

Next morning, for the third time, I drove to work as a man, but shaved, dressed and breakfasted before I had woken.

On Friday, after being unable to stop thinking about the pebble all day at work, I came home to find Amanda's car in the drive first again. I smiled to think how keen she was, too, about swapping and wondered if she had another surprise for me like on Wednesday.

Instead, I found her in tears, holding the stone with her finger right through it. She was too upset to tell me anything, but I could see for myself that the pebble's magic must have expired because it had been impossible to get right through the hole before and it had lost all of its mysterious warmth.

We tried touching fingertips as near the centre as possible; we tried warming it in the oven; we tried washing and drying it and warming it between Amanda's breasts, but nothing would restore its unique power. There was no one we could turn to for help. Who would believe our story?

As we had discussed before, there was no real "evidence" that anything at all magical had happened. Be we know and treasure the memories of those two weekends and two Wednesdays. We enjoy the benefit they have brought of much more intimate knowledge of each other. After all, why did Amanda change her hairstyle at that time? Why did Joe think he could flirt with her next time they met? Why does Amanda now occasionally set her hair in curlers, wear sexy, mock-prudish clothes and become "Penny the slut" for a while?

We know that the cold lifeless stone we keep carefully wrapped up in cotton-wool in our bottom drawer has given us some amazing gifts and we take it out every Friday to see if it might have recovered its powers.

The End

Date: Sat, 19 May 2007 22:41:00 +0100 (BST)
From: Janet Harris
Subject: The Pebble

The Pebble - a Sequel
By Janet Harris 2001

If you remember, I found a magic pebble which enabled my wife Amanda and I to swap bodies when our souls passed through the hole in it.

We used it to be each other for several glorious weekends until its power just faded away. We tried all sorts of things to revive it and then gave up and put it away.

About six months later, we were making love when Amanda suddenly had a fresh idea. She was on top and, after penetration, as we often did in memory of the pebble experience, she put her knees back over mine, easing my legs apart so that I could pretend to be the female part of a "missionary" coupling with my knees high and wide, while she did all the pelvic thrusting. She dangled her breasts over my chest so that her ripe nipples tickled my diminutive male ones and I could pretend that they were aroused like hers. Of course the pretence was a hopeless shadow of the excitement we had found in the stark reality of the pebble's magic.

"Hey, d'you know what?" Amanda suddenly cried. "Maybe the pebble needs to be charged with sexual energy. I mean, I don't think we could make love through it..." "You're telling me!" I retorted, "or at least you could be the man to get stuck in it, if you like!"

She leapt out of bed, leaving me quite unsatisfied, and dived to the bottom drawer to get out the pebble.

"Perhaps we could kiss, or at least touch tongues through there," she suggested as she brought it back to me. After several attempts to overcome our giggles, we did manage to roll and point our tongues enough to feel each other's tip through the hole, but nothing happened. Amanda rolled onto her back and placed the pebble on her belly.

"Let's try just having it near when we cum," she suggested. I eagerly climbed onto her and resumed our earlier position, in reverse. I found the presence of the cold stone pressing into my belly very exciting as a reminder of my experiences as Amanda, so I came far too quickly.

"No," she complained with pronounced disappointment. "I think we'll have to cum together for it to work." As soon as I could, we tried again, but this time Amanda was moaning and thrashing about before I was anywhere near climax, so we put it away again for another night.

The very next evening, as soon as Amanda mentioned an early night, we grinned at each other, knowing that the pebble was high in both our priorities and we couldn't wait till after supper to go to bed.

"Let's do the pretend position this time," she suggested, "and maybe it'll become real."

This time I put the stone on my belly before she straddled me and lowered her eager cunt onto my erection. Then we squeezed it between our bellies as we manoeuvred into the reverse missionary, by which time her breathing was becoming tense and irregular. She started fucking me hard and fast so that my excitement grew too. Suddenly we were both gasping and moaning with intense pleasure, but through it there came a new sensation from our bellies which rapidly emerged as the pain of burning. We both grabbed at the stone to remove it, from opposite sides, so that for a moment we struggled against each other as it burned us more, but I prevailed and slung it away from us across the bed.

Amanda climbed off me and walked around the bed to examine it. She licked her finger before touching it as if testing a hot iron but it didn't hiss so she stroked it carefully.

"Ah, we've definitely recharged it" she said, "but its not too hot now. Come on."

She poked her finger into the hole and so did I from the other side. Suddenly, without any flash or shock or even a drumroll, I was standing by the bed looking down at the new Tom.

He grabbed his now flaccid cock saying, "Hello, Mr Willy, it's good to have you back!"

This made me feel the loss of it, so I cupped my new breasts in my hands. I had forgotten already that I would feel the pressure on my sensitive tits more than the weight in my hands, so I grinned back at him in delight.

"Come back here, Amanda," he demanded, "now that we don't have to pretend any more."

I was passing my thumbs gently over my huge nipples, and they felt too sore for more sex, as did my throbbing, drooling fanny.

"No,", I decided, "I want a shower now, then I'm going to dress up and you're taking me out to dinner."

"Aw shucks! Just let me wash Mr. Willy in the basin first, then."

I was also glad to be back in a lovely female body, but I found it a bit annoying to have to keep sweeping my hair off my face. The bobbed style I had chosen had been grown out so that the remains of the fringe were chin-length and the back was just below my shoulders. I would have to hold it aside with grips. I avoided getting it wet in the shower, then chose the green velvet minidress I had worn on my first evening as Amanda.

I found Tom putting on the green shirt and yellow tie which Amanda had bought him recently and which he (I) hadn't liked to wear. On the pretext that it would clash with my dress, I insisted, just as Amanda would, that he wear an open-neck shirt under a jumper of my choosing. It was now midwinter, of course, and I knew my nylon-clad legs would be bitterly cold outside, but I would wear my long fur-edged coat and it would be worth it to show them off.

I had fixed my hair, put on a nice necklace and was fitting my ear-rings when the doorbell rang. Tom was back in the bathroom brushing his teeth so I went down to answer it. As I minced across the hall in my heels towards our front door, I told myself that I was only the normal Amanda to anyone else. I swung open the door to find myself facing my, or rather Tom's parents!

Through my shocked daze, I remembered that they'd said they might just drop in tonight on their way back from seeing Granny. With a further shock, I realised that she was no longer my Granny, but Tom's, and this really brought home to me that not a drop of my blood was related to the couple in front of me. I had to accept that I was their daughter-in-law now, not their son.

I asked them in for a cup of tea and thankfully they noticed that I was dressed up to go out. Although they came in, they declined my offer and would not sit down. I noticed that my Dad, or rather father-in-law, could not keep his eyes of my legs, which made me very self-conscious of the awfully high hem of my dress, but I was surprised to find myself quite pleased at this.

When Tom came down to see who our visitors were, a look of absolute horror flashed over his face, and I hoped I had not been so obvious outside. He hugged them both and I was glad to see that they accepted him, though worried that his sidelong glances at me over their shoulders might give him away. I looked forward to meeting my own parents. It would be interesting to be a daughter. When they'd gone, Tom asked me if I'd felt jealous because he was now their son, but I said no. It all seemed so natural being just their daughter-in-law.

Driving to the restaurant and being shown to our table, we found that our reversed roles came back to us easily from our experiences in the summer. We found that we both wanted to try a longer swap, for which we would have to learn each other's jobs. This was Wednesday night, so we decided to swap back just for work on Thursday and Friday, then spend the weekend in thorough briefings for a full-time exchange next week. Tom started quizzing me about his workmates and methods during the meal until I got a little annoyed, so he changed the subject to something further ahead - starting a family.

"Hey now, hang on a minute!", I cried. "If you want to stay like this just so that you don't have to go through childbirth, you've got another think coming! You weren't so keen on children when you were in this skin."

"Well that's because it would interrupt my teaching career."

"But it's my career now. If you want me to take a break, you'll have to get a better job to keep me in the manner to which I intend to become accustomed."

As soon as I had said that, I wondered why I had. I mean, I had almost offered to bear our children! I found myself quite excited at the prospect. My nipples even began to tingle at the thought of breast-feeding. Also, I had caught myself assuming that we would change over for ever after work on Friday and actually wanting to do that. I shuddered to think how easily I could slip into my new role as Amanda. I wanted to consider it again while I was male, tomorrow.

"If we do keep doing this, and it's a big IF", I said, "I think we ought to take turns during pregnancy and, of course, labour. That'd be good, wouldn't it?"

"So you do want kids soon!" he exclaimed.

"Maybe, just maybe", I replied. "So I'm not coming off the pill for a week or two yet."

"Oh, that reminds me,", he said. "You're due on around the end of next week, but you shouldn't hit the PMT until at least Tuesday, so you can get settled in at work first."

That really brought home to me the reality of womanhood, but it didn't upset me. Now that I was wholly and entirely Amanda, it seemed perfectly natural to have periods. I realised that in two short hours I had quite forgotten about the novelty of having a bra round my chest and the hem of my dress around my nylon-clad thighs. I was able to think ahead about teaching and having babies and look my husband in the eye as I talked to him.

When we got home, I still fended off his approaches for sex. I really didn't feel at all randy. I wanted to relish other aspects of the change, and in any case, I had taken over a fully satiated body. I had a good soak in the bath, where I played a little with my body but didn't really get anywhere, then snuggled into bed alone in my best satin nightie while Tom had his bath. He woke me in the morning bringing a tray of breakfast with the pebble on it.

As soon as we put our fingers into it, I was standing up, fully dressed, shaved and breakfasted as Tom. I kissed my restored wife goodbye and drove to work. I had viewed my female workmates in a different light since my experiences as a female myself in the summer. Now it was different again and I felt like I was working my notice to finish at the end of the week. I noted many things carefully in my desk diary for the use of the new Tom next week and began studying my relationships with my workmates for his benefit. Actually, that bit was quite fascinating, I had never been so objective before. I knew Amanda would be doing the same thing for me at her school.

I got home before Amanda and found myself keen to return to that female body as soon as possible. I got out the stone and as soon as I heard her key in the door I went and met her with it. She seemed surprised at my eagerness, but grinned and stuck out her finger. Immediately I was facing into the house, feeling a bra around my chest again, under my blouse, a long skirt around my legs and hair down my cheeks onto my shoulders. I was surprised how heavy was her (sorry, my) briefcase.

The new Tom took it from me and explained that it was full of my students' work assignments, which he would help me to mark this evening. That would be the best way of learning their names and how they each worked. He ordered pizzas so that we wouldn't have to cook tonight. I was amazed that I loved him to be masterful.

I settled down at my desk for a hard evening's work with Tom at my elbow showing me how to mark the books while teaching me the rudiments of biology. When the pizzas arrived, I felt I deserved a change, so I told him to get out his desk-diary, and I went over the notes I had made in it with him.

It was clear to us both that his task was much less than mine, so after less than an hour briefing him, we returned to my marking. There were books from most of the students of two of the five classes I would be teaching, all over 30 pupils each, so there were a lot of names to memorize.

When the marking was done, I had to get out my timetable and he explained which periods I had to teach and who I would meet in the staff-room at various times. Of course, until he told me anything, I had no memories of my teaching work, but I had Amanda's brain and it worked in predictable ways on the information I was receiving, so that I was finishing his sentences. As Tom, I had always been terrible at remembering names, but now I could reel off the lists I had learned with ease. After I passed a difficult quiz with flying colours, he said:

"You know, Friday would be a much easier day to start on than Monday. Do you think you could cope tomorrow?"

Now I felt I ought to be shocked. I had been expecting another day at the factory as Tom, but I didn't really mind giving that up. I felt quite well prepared by the thorough briefing, and he was right. Friday would be much easier than Monday because I had only two teaching periods to give.

"Yes, OK" I found myself saying. "Actually I can't wait to get my teeth into my new job."

So, I committed myself to stay female for the foreseeable future. By now it was quite late. We agreed we were both too tired for sex tonight, too, so after quick showers we collapsed into bed and fell easily asleep.

When Tom woke me with my breakfast, the pebble was conspicuous by its absence from the tray. He kissed me fondly goodbye, but it wasn't till I heard his car going off down the road that I began to panic. I wanted to ring the school secretary and call off sick, but I made myself get my teaching clothes on. They seemed awfully plain, almost frumpy to me now, as they had to me before, as Tom. I planned to wear shorter skirts and brighter colours in future, but then I thought maybe it was wise to dress down in front of the pubescent youths in my classes.

Arriving at school, I found the first gap in my briefing: where to park. The staff car park was less than half full because I was early, not wanting to be late on "my" first day. I guessed that everyone had their favourite slot, like at Tom's factory, and I didn't want to upset someone. The slot where my car had been on Tom's most recent visit was taken. I chose one at random, only to find "Deputy Head" painted on the wall in front, so I had to back out and use another. It worried me that briefing-gaps like this might plague me all day. The forecourt was crowded with pupils of all ages, some of whom greeted me with "Hello Miss!" or "Good Morning, Mrs Harris," but I managed to keep smiling and to breeze into the staffroom as if nothing was amiss.

I wasn't teaching until the third period, so I collected my mail from my pigeon-hole and sat down at one of the desks. I felt a little guilty opening everything addressed to Mrs A. P. Harris, filling in forms and making decisions, but hell, I was me now, Amanda, and I would live my own life. I felt I could improve it, too, even though I knew that I had been the less organised as Tom. I started making notes of questions to ask him, starting with "parking place."

After most of the teachers had left to take first-period classes, a woman with long dark hair who I guessed might be one of my best friends, Carol, offered to make everyone tea. Luckily, before I had to respond, someone else addressed her as Carol, confirming my guess, so I turned and smiled at her and asked to be included. When she had brewed the tea and served everyone else, she brought hers and mine over to my desk and drew up a chair.

"Hey, Amanda, have you heard the latest on Derek? He's moved into his new mistress's flat, now!"

I found I really enjoyed gossiping with Carol. I had been briefed sufficiently on the current scandals. It was new to me to have a close girlfriend with no sexual complications and I really liked that, too. She was wearing bright, sexy clothes and make-up, so I thought: "Why shouldn't I?"

Far too soon it was time to do some real teaching. The corridors bore little resemblance to the sketchy plans I had been shown and I was terrified of getting lost, but I barely managed to find the important landmarks on the way to my first class.

I arrived to find the previous teacher winding up his lesson, and when he spotted me lurking outside, he picked up his books and came out, giving me a lustful stare which quite unsettled me. I wished Tom had warned me about him. However, I managed to regain my composure in time to face my first class of 13-year-olds. It wasn't nearly so bad as I had expected. They were well behaved and responded to me quite well. I got away with basic gaps in my knowledge by pretending to look up much more complex issues. I won't go into detail; I don't remember many. It's a bit of a blur to me now anyway.

The second period I taught was after lunch. They were 15-year-olds and some of the boys tried flirting with me, but I found new reserves of composure to see them off. They were involved in a project which required only general guidance from me, so this time I never needed to bluff any biological knowledge. After that I had to mark some of their work in the staffroom because I could not go home until after a meeting with the deputy head about timetables.

I thought I would be home before Tom and was planning what to cook for him as I drove home. But he met me just inside the front door with a huge hug.

"How did it go, my little teacher?" he asked.

"Well, you were right, of course. My new job is much tougher than yours," I replied.

"But do you still want to stay like this for ever?" he asked. "Because I do."

"I'll think about that after you've given me one of those famous female orgasms!"

And so he rushed me upstairs to the bed, where we tore off each other's clothes. Now I was delighted how easy it was to bonk on my back with my knees high and wide and with real aroused nipples atop real big tits. My arousal was fast and intense, so I had no trouble keeping up with him and very soon we came beautifully together. He kept calling me his "little teacher," as I had when Amanda first qualified, and I loved it, not finding it in the least patronizing.

"Thanks for dropping me in the deep end like that," I said. "I might have chickened out on Monday."

So there you have it: how I became Amanda for the rest of my life, apart from the odd escapade with our pebble. There was a time when Tom almost spoiled everything by trying to share the experience outside our marriage, even though I had warned him that there never was a wife-swap that didn't end in tears. But that's another story....

The Pebble, Part Three by Janet Harris 2014

Hi. My name is Amanda Harris. My sister-in-law Janet edits and publishes these stories for me. I wasn't born as Amanda, I used to be Janet's big brother Tom until, as you may have read already, my soul went through the hole in a pebble I found on a beach into this lovely body. Tom's soul came out of this body, so now the new Tom is my husband and I love him loads. After a few short trial swaps and months when the pebble wouldn't work, we decided to swap bodies permanently because we both loved it this way round and found it suited our personalities well.

It was in my second week of teaching that I suddenly got a stabbing stomach-ache one afternoon. It wasn't until the second or third wave of pain, walking around the lab checking my students' bisections, that it suddenly occurred to me: "Period!". As coolly as I could, I put a lab assistant into temporary charge of the class and hurried down the corridors to the "Female Staff" room. I peeled off my knickers with trepidation, but they were perfectly clean. I had a pee and fitted a pad from my handbag. I had a tampon too but Tom had promised to tutor me on that so I decided it could wait till I got home.

On the way back to the lab I wondered why he hadn't said anything lately about this. Well, he had warned me when we started the long-term swap that it would happen around the end of this week, but then had forgotten all about it, the lucky swine. It suddenly occurred to me that we'd had a couple of rows this week and I had been a bit bitchy with people at school too. Perhaps he knew I would have been even more riled if he had blamed my attitude on PMS. He was right, but now I was angry that I hadn't known and maybe (or maybe not) been able to control my short temper.

I was a bit distracted for the rest of that afternoon lab session. I felt relieved that the dreaded event had arrived and that I now knew what had been bugging me the last few days. I could understand why Tom, my dear husband, had not reminded me and I decided to forgive him. I also began to feel rather proud of being a fertile woman, now that I was becoming so aware of my new womb. The pain was coming from an area completely new to me, when I thought about it. My breasts were beginning to ache a bit too, by the time I got home. I rushed upstairs to check my pad, but it was still dry.

Tom was in the kitchen, starting to cook our meal, as it was his turn tonight. When I got downstairs again, I snuggled up to him and kissed the back of his neck.
"Hello, darling," he said, "feeling better today?"
I felt myself getting annoyed again that he had guessed why I had rushed upstairs, knowing exactly what was happening to me, yet had kept it to himself all week.
"Well, you might have mentioned it before!" I retorted. Then, "OK, I forgive you, you knew it would annoy me."
I even began to feel sorry for him, having to live with a tetchy, irrational woman for one week in four, as I had.
"I'll need that tampon lesson after dinner, please, though nothing's appeared on my pad yet."
"It probably won't till tomorrow morning," he said gently, "when did the cramps start?"
"About half past two... but, ooh, I think I'd better go and check again now." I had suddenly felt more moist "down there" than usual as I still nestled into his back while he cooked.
"Ah yes," he grinned, "it does depend if you're aroused or not."
"You stay here. I want to manage on my own," I said, backing off from his attempted kiss, slightly annoyed that he was so smug about being attractive to me. "It's embarrassing because you're not my mother, you're my husband. It's also embarrassing having my first period when I'm twenty-six!"

This time, when I pulled down my knickers, safely locked in the bathroom, there was a big red patch on the pad. I suppose I should have been frightened or disgusted but I found myself simply overjoyed. This absolute proof of my womb and my femininity was wonderful. I started humming a tune to myself as I got the packet of sealable plastic bags out of what was now my part of the bathroom cabinet and the packet of tampons that was next to it. I was happy partly because my week of tension was over and partly because here was my full badge of womanhood. I was also a bit proud that my sexy cuddle with Tom had brought on my flow so soon after the cramps. I guessed that it would make inserting the tampon quite a bit easier, too. I was right. After peeling the pad off my knickers and popping it into a bag, I stood with one foot on the toilet seat, positioned a tampon tube at exactly the angle Tom's cock had been and thrust it easily into place.

Staring at the piece of string now dangling between my legs, I smiled to think that it would be a signal to Tom that he was not going there tonight, as it had been to me, so many times. Still humming the tune, "I am strong, I am woman!" I fitted a new pad to my knickers and pulled them up, but then I caught a foul whiff from my fingers so I pulled them down again and rubbed some scented talc into my pubes. I felt really pleased that I had worked out what to do without Tom's help.

I sauntered back to the kitchen and tried to share my triumph with Tom but he was cynically dismissive, which hurt. I suddenly realised that he was disappointed that I was not pregnant. What a cheek, I thought, to expect me to start carrying his babies so soon, even though we had been trying for some time. In fact this was my (or rather our) third natural period since I (or rather she) had come off the pill. Now that, I was frightened of.

Since getting settled into the routine of teaching, getting pregnant had hardly crossed my mind. There was one time, when a few of us in the staff-room were discussing our plans for the next school year in September, that I had started to silently calculate when my maternity leave would be most convenient. I had shuddered to think I could deal with it so easily. I really did look forward to motherhood, especially when I played with my tits, but the process of getting there I did not look forward to so much. Still, it had to come sometime and the most convenient time for the school year would mean having only two or three more periods. I did want to have those periods, though, so I resolved to have a headache or two around my ovulation times. If Tom was in more of a hurry, he could whistle!

I think it was the next evening that my Mum rang. We had met Tom's parents soon after our permanent swap and it had been a weird experience to be only their daughter-in-law instead of their son. Mine lived much further away and we had not seen them for months. I had been really looking forward to being their daughter, but was quite taken aback when I answered the phone. Luckily, she didn't seem to notice and started chatting away cheerily, too cheerily, I suddenly thought.
"What's wrong, Mum?" I asked, marvelling at my own feminine intuition.
"Oh! Gosh! Well, I suppose I can't hide it from you. I'm worried about your Dad. He's had more angina, even after the doctor changed his pills," she admitted and it all poured out. "He hasn't had a heart attack or anything, it's just that it's far too often that he winces. Yes, I know, men are such hypochondriacs, with wimpy pain thresholds, but I can't help worrying that his heart won't last for much longer."
"Oh, come on, Mum, he's not even sixty yet. Didn't his granddad live to a hundred?"
"Well yes, but I can't help worrying. I do miss being able to talk to you about it."
"But you can - you are now, on the phone," I countered, sensing her manoeuvre for a visit, but then remembered that I really wanted to see them now, anyway, "but it would be much better if I could come and see you at half-term."

My mind was racing ahead over Tom's holiday allowance and I knew he wouldn't be able to come along. It occurred to me that it was really his right to go and visit them. We could change over temporarily so that he could go alone as Amanda, but how could I cope back at my old job for a week after so long away? No, I must go, because we had resolved not to revert except in dire emergencies and this didn't seem to rate as one of those. The visit would be great for me, in that I could get to enjoy being their daughter on my own, but Tom would not be there to consult if I got stuck trying to "remember" something he hadn't briefed me about. Also, I hadn't yet been away from him for more than a few hours to experience living as an independent woman.

"That'd be great!" she cried, then added "Can't Tom come too?" with much less enthusiasm. That hurt a bit, having recently been Tom myself, but I made myself ignore it and confirmed,
"No, he hasn't enough leave allowance left."
"Well I'll start getting your old room ready straight away. When's half term? Is it two weeks?"
"No, three next Friday"
"Oh dear, that's ages. Still, it's something to look forward to. I can't wait to be able to chat to you for hours again. Can you stay all week?"
"No, I'll have lesson planning to do, I'd better come home on the Wednesday."

My mind was running rapidly over the many implications of my rash decision. Tom might not like the idea at all. Also my next period would be approaching around about then and affect what should be a pleasant new relationship as a daughter. Well, he could go, as Amanda, if he really wanted to. He had popped out to a shop when my Mum rang. As soon as he came back in I broke the news about my Dad and gingerly told him I'd committed myself to the half-term visit.
"Oh course you must go", he said, "it's almost certainly not a dire emergency to qualify for use of the pebble, is it?"
"No, but if it does turn out to be serious, you're the one to go and see him, surely?"
"No," he said firmly, "We'd both go and I could cope just as well as his son-in-law."

I was a little taken aback that he could be so callous about deceiving his, no, mine, no, our parents, even at the hour of their death, so to speak. I had felt guilty at the meal we had shared with his parents, which used to be mine, knowing his past so much better than he did. Still, I had only had to whisper something in his ear once and kick him under the table once, so there had not really been a problem. This time, however, he would not be there to whisper in my ear if I was caught out not "remembering" something which should have been obvious to me.
"Well, I'll need lots of briefings," I said, "This time I've got to convince my Mum, not just my fellow-teachers, that I'm Amanda."
"OK" he replied, grinning, "I suppose you'll have to learn every little secret of my, er, your childhood, now."

So, the evenings of those three weeks and most of the weekends were spent in intensive study of my past as Amanda. I took notes, in a more orderly form than I used to as Tom, I noticed, and kept referring back to them to enquire after more detail. There were not as many surprises as I expected. I found it rather sweet discovering my childhood dreams and fantasies as a little girl and my relationships with my parents and my older brother. Thus most of this otherwise hard work was most enjoyable, until I found myself increasingly annoyed and exasperated with Tom.

I suppose we had got on so well before because we were so different, but now I had brought bits of Tom's personality over into Amanda and he had taken bits of Amanda's personality into Tom, so that we both ended up as a rather similar mixture. Hence, I realised, we were now rubbing each other up the wrong way because we were now so similar and it was my own inadequacies, in Tom, that were exasperating me, despite being so much happier after my period. I found myself now much more interested in personalities and relationships, the interest which came with being a woman, while Tom seemed to ignore the subject. He seemed to get annoyed with me much less for that reason. Still, I only really lost my temper once during these briefings.

It was during these weeks too that we began to socialise more. At first it was hard to pluck up the courage to accept invitations and to make them. I needed a bit of persuading to go out to our local pub in the first couple of weeks and it was only twice I succumbed, but I soon got used to being a lady in the crowd and began to enjoy it. One reason it was fun was because we now knew each others friends so well. Tom got invited to a house-warming party by a workmate, a female workmate who had a long term female partner and that made me feel a bit uncomfortable about going with him, but he reminded me that "I" had met them both at an office party long ago and no way were either of them predatory. I got a little drunk at that party (Tom was driving home) and it was great fun.

I was getting on better and better with Carol, the teaching colleague who had been "my" best friend before. When I mentioned this to Tom, he reminded me that we owed Bill and Carol a meal, so I invited them over. This was another social challenge, being a good hostess. I decided to wear one of the denim miniskirts I'd just bought, although it was winter, with tights. I wished I had some high boots to go with the mini, but I wore flat sandals and a polo-neck top. I have to admit this was because I knew Carol never wore skirts, or hadn't for a couple of years since the moment a head we used to have, who insisted on them for female teachers and ties for the men, left. "I" had stayed in long skirts at school after that and usually wore jeans at home but now I really liked wearing shorter skirts and I wanted to share my delight in them with Carol.

When they arrived, Carol in smart pink slacks, I saw her do a double-take at my knees, even more than Bill did. As soon as she got me alone in the kitchen, she said "I do like that skirt on you, Amanda, but why?"
"Well, I think a skirt makes a statement and it's the sort of statement I feel like making, now." It was the nearest I could get to sharing my excitement at simply being female with her.
"Yes, I think I could make that statement too," she said slowly.
"Well actually I bought two, today, would you like the other one? It's not as short as this one." I offered.
"Oh, yes please! I haven't worn a skirt for two years but, why not, eh?"

So, leaving the dinner on the warming-tray, we rushed upstairs. As she pulled off her slacks, I tossed a pair of tights and the other skirt on the bed. I watched her pulling up the tights, remembering how such a sight would have excited me as Tom. Now that sort of excitement had disappeared, as completely as those awful wrinkly things that used to dangle between my legs had disappeared. Now it was exciting in a quite different way. We were girls together now and clothes were exciting for their own sake. When she'd put on the skirt she sat on the side of the bed to put her shoes back on.

"My goodness, you have to keep your knees tight together now, don't you?" she exclaimed.
"Yes, but its nice feeling neat and prim, isn't it?" I replied.
She stood in front of the full-length mirror and planted her feet apart, stretching the hem around her shapely thighs. It was clear of her knees because she was a bit taller than me. I had decided to take that skirt back because it came right down to my knees, so she was welcome to it. I much preferred the shorter one.
"Does that make a statement for you?" I asked.
"Oh yes, it shouts 'tough!' because it's denim but it shouts 'woman!' too. I really like that." she announced.

There was no time to spare; I was in the middle of preparing dinner. We hurried downstairs in our matching skirts to find the men in the hallway admiring Tom's trophies. Their jaws both fell open at the sight of us. Our excitement at Carol's transformation made the dinner party great fun. I felt really pleased with myself because I'd had such a strong influence on her, though in school I felt she was the more dominant personality. I was also pleased to find that transformation itself still excited me just as it had when I was Tom and I enjoyed watching his excitement as he stared at Carol's long-hidden legs, She seemed very excited herself, too. She kept moving around trying different poses as we sat in the lounge for drinks after dinner, more like teenager in her first miniskirt than a woman of almost thirty, returning to them.

When our guests took their leave, they got out of the front door before Bill reminded her to take her slacks. She gasped, put her hands on her nylon-clad knees and said "Oh goodness Amanda, I almost forgot. I'll give you these back tomorrow!"
"No, you mustn't!" I commanded, "they're a present. I'll just pop up and get your trousers." When I got back, she was carefully folding her long nylon-clad legs into their car, knees neatly together.
As soon as they'd gone, Tom asked "How on earth did you manage to do that? She's a new woman, isn't she?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd get on so well with Bill. You used not to like him much didn't you?"
"No, I don't think so," he said, "Oh, you mean as Amanda. Well that makes no difference now. Anyway, we must stop referring to our other pasts. My past has to be just as Tom and yours as Amanda, specially as you're going to stay at your Mum's soon."

So we changed our way of discussing the past. I had always been female, it seemed. Well, as my body, of course I had. I had to learn and accept that I grew up as a girl and, thinking of myself as just a body, that wasn't too difficult. He had already been briefing me as "You did this" and "You did that". I just had to break the habit of thinking that I grew up as a boy. No, that was him, not me. I had been thinking of "I" as Amanda for so long now that I couldn't have grown up as a boy, could I? I was definitely in the female half of the human race now and certainly saw everything from that viewpoint.

It was also in that first half-term that Marvin and Yolande moved into the flat above ours. We met them by helping to lift their huge sofa (too big for the lift) up the stairs. They both had sunny Caribbean natures which were a breath of fresh air after the previous stuffy old occupants. Despite their strong Jamaican accents, It turned out that they'd both been born in London and that her parents were from Tobago, not Jamaica, like his. After the sofa-humping we took them into our kitchen for drinks and we immediately became good friends. I was a bit embarrassed by Marvin's constant flirtation but truly honoured when Yolande insisted I try on some of her clothes.

It was great to have this opportunity to make some new friends, rather than those "inherited" from our former selves. Yolande and I started hugging each other whenever we met. I admired the bright colours she wore and envied the way her chocolate skin showed them off. It was my compliment on that which prompted her to ask me to help her unpack while "the boys" went out to Tom's "local". We had a terrific time, partly because I took up a new bottle of wine with me, to follow the one the four of us had just finished. When we'd polished off mine, she produced another. That's why it's a bit hard to remember.

She certainly had some fantastic clothes in her wardrobe. When I think about it now, I'm surprised that I had become so interested in clothes for their own sake already. I tried on one of her brilliantly bright and colourful tops but when I got to the mirror I was disappointed that it made my pale flesh look rather plain. Also, though Yolande was not really over-weight, she had rather more to cover than me, so the loose hanging folds she favoured seemed too loose on me. I was quickly learning many things about ladies' clothing that hadn't occurred to me before.

She insisted that I try on her favourite leather trousers and again they turned out to be obviously too big for me so I had to be very careful not to offend her and pretend that they were just great. When it came to skirts, however, I found I really loved a fringed cowgirl-style leather mini. She insisted I borrow it to impress Tom and threw me a pair of fish-net tights. Then she produced a ludicrously high pair of glitter-covered heels but they fitted me perfectly. Of course I don't remember it much, but I think we must have woken the whole block with screeches of laughter at my attempts to get downstairs in those heels after all that wine.

Tom was indeed impressed by my sexy new legs but he and Marvin had unwisely followed grape with grain. Brewer's droop was the least of our problems as we staggered and giggled to bed. We had to keep waking each other up at every stage in the process. One thing I do remember is waking up sometime in the night to find him still on top of the bed in his clothes. I got up to undress him, after taking the pee I needed urgently. At least he'd taken his shoes off and undone his flies zip, so I only had to pull his jeans down from the ankles, then I pulled off his boxers too.

I was not surprised that I found his weak and shrivelled cock very funny. I was glad I didn't own it any more. I touched it gingerly and then stroked it but there was no response at all except that he opened one eye and whispered "I don't think that'll work tonight." I couldn't help giggling, so I apologised by kissing him on the forehead and assuring him that it didn't matter. I really did feel a lot of sympathy for his predicament, knowing so well what it meant to him. I was amazed how soon I had got completely outside of such male emotions, seeing them entirely from a female viewpoint.

I should have been really looking forward to the half-term break because I was finding my job really hard work but I was really nervous about meeting and actually staying with my parents on my own. I booked rail tickets because my little car didn't cruise the motorways as well as Tom's and because I felt I would have no chance to turn back in fright. Of course Tom took me to the station and waved me off. Suddenly I felt very vulnerable and looked nervously around my neighbours in the carriage, wondering who I could trust. This was quite different from going away from Tom to work at school, where I more or less knew everybody.

I got out a novel to read, pleased that my long hair fell down either side of my face and I gladly hid behind it. I would have had it bobbed again, like I did when we first swapped bodies, were it not for this visit to my Mum. I knew she would be disappointed that I'd cut it in the summer, but "I" had been growing it back ever since and now it lightly swept my shoulders. As I reflected that I was speeding away from the pebble at a hundred miles an hour, I felt totally trapped and condemned to womanhood, though usually I relished this idea. I was about to be a daughter in my blouse and skirt and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I spotted my Mum on the platform ahead and the train came to a stop before I got there. It took a second glance to recognise her because she'd had her long grey hair cut quite short, only half covering her ears. I was suddenly relieved that she couldn't possibly object now to my having cut mine short. When I'd brushed the crumbs off my skirt, gathered up my bags and squeezed through the throng, who all seemed to be big smelly males, to the door, I started forward to meet her. As soon as I was clasped in her big friendly embrace, I felt an absolute fraud. Sure, I knew that I was completely her Amanda in my body, but my mind wasn't all Amanda and it hurt to deceive her.

Still, as we got into her car and she grinned across at me in delight, I felt glad to have a female friend even closer than Yolande that I could confide in, except, of course, for my one huge secret. We chatted brightly, like I hadn't been away at all. Suddenly I found myself wondering at my real love for my Mum. I had quite liked her as a mother-in-law, but now a new warmth towards her as my real, well physically real, mother, took over. Of course I couldn't really remember any of our past together, but that didn't seem to matter at all. She quizzed me about my work and I bubbled happily away, occasionally catching myself making it all sound too new to me, as it really was, but I don't think she noticed.

"You haven't asked about Tom." I pointed out, after a while.
"Oh, him! Well, how is Tom, then?"
"Being an excellent husband and a fond son-in-law, if only you'd admit it."
"Yes, of course I do. Please don't take offence, but don't you find him a tad exasperating at times?"
"Oh Mummy, you know I love him and yes, he can annoy me, but I won't hear you putting him down. He's very well, thank you."
I regretted bringing down the mood of conversation like that but I couldn't help defending Tom, not just because I had an additional secret interest now, but because "I" always had.

Now, I decided, it was time to talk about my Dad. Mum was glad to change the subject too and gave a lengthy report on his last visit to the doctor. Reading between the lines, the prognosis was not nearly so gloomy as she had implied on the phone, in fact he was more or less normal for his age. I did not at all feel cheated into visiting them, though, because I really wanted to get to know him as his daughter and I was genuinely relieved that he was so much better. He would get home from work in about an hour, she said.

As we came in sight of the house, I was amazed to really feel that I was coming home. I had expected to have to force feelings of pleasure and security here but instead they just flowed over me naturally. How differently I had viewed this house as Tom! I got out and opened the garage door, Mum drove in and I shut the door behind us to go through into the kitchen. I got my suitcase out of the boot, but before leaving the garage, I wandered into Dad's workshop and found myself breathing in the smells and fondly caressing his vice, instead of nosing around for new tools, as Tom would have done.

I hesitated in the kitchen, expecting Mum to show or send me to my room, but then realised that I must just go on up to "my" old room, now the smaller guest room, though Tom and I had always used the larger. I swung my suitcase onto the single bed, unpacked my delicate blouses and hung them up in the wardrobe, which was half full of Mum's stuff. Only the top drawer was empty, but that was enough for my bras, knickers and tights. When we had first used the pebble, I had felt like I was just borrowing Amanda's body and although I wore bras without a thought, they were hers. Now here was I filling a drawer with "my bras, knickers and tights" and that phrase was excitingly real.

When I'd unpacked completely, I sat on the bed for a minute to take in the ambience of the room, as if trying to remember what it had been like to grow up there. I imagined myself sitting on that same bed in school uniform, crisp white blouse and tie, worried about my Biology homework, instead of my teaching plan for the next half-term. Or younger still, with a flat chest. It wasn't difficult, though the room had been redecorated and my boy-band posters were long gone. I had been Miss Amanda Barrow then. Now having a maiden name was a novelty and I revelled in it. In this house I was definitely part of the Barrow family, not the Harris family.

I soon remembered that my Mum needed some help in the kitchen so I took my wash-bag to the bathroom, had a quick pee and washed the travel-dust out of my face. I then needed to re-apply my make-up, of course. I was still messing around with it when I heard Mum's urgent shout: "Amanda!". I wondered if Dad had got home early, but I couldn't see his car from the bathroom window. Perhaps he'd already put it in the garage, so I hurried downstairs.
"Is Dad home already?"
"No, of course not! Is that the only reason you'd come downstairs? I told you I'd need some help in here, young lady!"
"Ooh sorry, I spent too long washing and doing my make-up." I was probably more chastened than my old self would have been and a little surprised at my mother's jealousy of my relationship with my father, which I now realised I had exacerbated by doing my make up, ostensibly for him. My old self would have defended her adulthood but I was too charmed by the notion of being a naughty little girl.

I had to pay close attention to what Mum asked me to do, because she assumed I knew this kitchen and her ways intimately. I had been well briefed, but I had to play an awful lot by ear and take every opportunity to scan the other contents of a cupboard whenever I found something. There were a few little gaffs but Mum didn't seem to notice. I loved this opportunity to work with her and it felt so right, with us both in skirts.

Suddenly there was the sound of a car entering the garage. Mum grinned at me. I couldn't believe how excited I felt that my Dad was about to walk through the door. When he did, I just rushed to hug him. At last I was, for a precious moment, one hundred percent Amanda. Once or twice, in the past, I had wondered at the close, almost magical, relationship between fathers and daughters. Now it just poured over me in waves. My deep affection for this older man was not one tiny bit sexual, indeed the contrast with my feelings for Tom struck me straight away.

When we broke off the long, close hug, he held both my hands at arm's length and looked me up and down.
"Wow", he said, "You're not allowed to keep looking better and better while we deteriorate into old age."
"Speak for yourself!" snapped my Mum, almost angrily.
My whole head felt boiling hot with blushes. Tom had tried to understand my deep love of my father and he got along with Daddy pretty well, but now I knew he had no idea of how I really felt about my dear old Dad. I was feeling intensely proud that he found me pretty; Tom had always admired this body that I was moving around from the inside now, but he had never really understood my feelings.

When we sat down to the meal I had helped my Mum prepare, the fear of getting "caught out" by something I couldn't remember came back. I realised that I only had a vague idea of how to behave as Amanda with my parents. Of course, Mum spotted my discomfort and began to suspect that I had some news that I wasn't telling them. Of course it was the elephant in the room to me and I struggled not to betray it.

When the meal was over, I helped Daddy do the washing-up. Mum just couldn't bear to leave us alone together and hovered around the kitchen.
"Guess where you and I are going tomorrow..." she teased me, "to Jackson's!".
I made myself grin while I thought 'Where the hell is Jackson's?' then luckily remembered, from "my" old diaries, not Tom's briefings, "Jackson's Stables" and Pergoman, "my" favourite horse. OMG, how could I pretend I knew how to ride?
"But, Mum," I pleaded, "I'm totally out of practice! I haven't ridden for years. I didn't know you'd started again. Isn't it awfully expensive?"

So, the next morning, I found myself feeling, a little painfully, every detail of the unfamiliar anatomy between my legs as I bounced in Pergoman's saddle at a brisk trot around the riding-school's sandy floor. He had remembered me immediately by scent, which I found really touching, as he gently nuzzled my head with his. He was going very grey around his mouth, as Mum pointed out and, as he trotted, I wished he wasn't still so active. I was concentrating on keeping a straight back, as I had been briefed by Tom, during my good-night phone call. He had calmed my worries about riding, though he had annoyed me by being so amused about it. Now, as I realised that my sore bottom was what had amused him, I was even more annoyed.

When our one hour's session was over, Mum sent me to sit in her car while she paid, so I phoned Tom and told him it had gone well, lying that it didn't hurt a bit and laying it on thick about Pergoman remembering me. Actually, I had enjoyed riding a lot.
"Oh, I have to confess," I suddenly blurted, "I slipped up with Mum this morning, calling Pergoman a stallion, when I should have known he was a gelding! Luckily, Mum just thought my memory had gone peculiar. Of course I hadn't looked at his balls. I do with men, now, but horses? ugh!"

Since becoming Amanda, I had worn skirts and dresses much more than I (the old Amanda) ever did. This was mainly because I was delighted to be female and felt a certain pride in it, a pride I had just felt increased by the bouncing of my boobs in my bra as I trotted on Pergoman, combined with an unavoidable awareness of the shape of my crotch. Of course I wore jeans to go riding and I had felt quite sufficiently feminine in them, so I would have liked to go on wearing them all day but now they smelt horsey. I remembered me moaning, last time we'd visited my parents, that Mum had no tumble-dryer, so now I regretted packing only one pair. When we got home (that word came naturally now) I showered and put on my favourite denim mini. I had hesitated to pack it because Tom had briefed me that Mum still disapproved of me wearing short skirts. She did stare hard at my knees but said nothing.

After lunch, where Mum, to my surprise, suddenly started encouraging me and Daddy to have a good chat, even leaving the room at every opportunity, then we all went shopping. Daddy drove us to the nearest city and sitting in the back with the hem of my skirt less than half-way to my nylon-clad knees, I revelled in being their little girl again. First stop was for Daddy to get some new shirts for work. I was flattered to be included as fashion consultant for this and I found myself liking the "Naval" style collars with their widely splayed edges which were just coming into fashion again. Tom had resisted the old Amanda trying to get him into these and here was I getting Daddy into them and buying three for Tom, who could hardly resist now, I thought with a smirk, having actually been the instigator before.

Then it was jeans for Mum and I eagerly joined her in trying on various pairs. I bought two for me too in the end. I liked one pair so much, grey with embroidery on the outsides of the shins, that I had the salesperson cut off the labels so I that could keep them on. Mum was noticeably more comfortable now that my legs were hidden, which made me wonder if it was another strange jealousy. Anyway, I didn't mind because I felt more comfortable too. As we wandered around a big mall looking for the best coffee, I felt confidently feminine and shapely in my new jeans. I really enjoyed replacing my older clothes because it was me, the new me, who was choosing them, this time.

Although my parents' choice of TV programs hardly matched my own, I found the evenings spent in just their company very pleasant and relaxing. The elephant in the room had shrunk on that second evening to a little virtual stuffed toy behind the sofa and by the third evening it had totally disappeared for most of the time. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that these were my own parents because I really was Amanda. They both had to go to work on Monday morning, my Mum to her part-time charity job, so I got out my lesson-plans and sat on the patio in the unusually warm autumn sunshine doing my own work at a leisurely pace.

My reverie was rudely interrupted by the ringtone of my mobile and I was a little annoyed to see "Tom" on the front before I answered it. We had had a long goodnight chat at midnight, so what did he want now? He must be at work.
"Hello, is anything wrong?"
"No, except that I'm missing you."
"Well, I'll be back on Wednesday at six. You'll be meeting me, won't you?"
"Well... That's what I have to tell you. Of all days, it's Wednesday they want me to work late."
"Oh you poor thing! It doesn't happen very often, you know."
"Of course I know; the old Amanda used to have to wait for up for me. I haven't said yes yet. Do you mind getting home on your own?"
"Well you must say yes and of course I don't mind, as long as you don't expect me to cook for you too!"
"Oh, no, I'll get a canteen lunch so's we can just have bread in the evening. I'm sure your Mum will want to cook your lunch."

That made me realise that he still knew my Mum a lot better than I did and I think I succeeded in hiding my resentment in the rest of the call, which was quite short, as he had to get back to work. I was annoyed that I had been reminded of my inner identity by Tom, but more with myself for letting such annoyance affect our relationship. After all, he must be trying just as hard to forget his origins here, in this house. I couldn't concentrate on my work after that call because it also reminded me of the need to watch my moods in that week before my second period and and that in turn reminded me of my planned pregnancy. They were the last thoughts I needed, sat alone on that patio, a hundred miles from the pebble.

Mum came back for her lunch-break, which she had assured me was quite easy, though not her normal practice. I was really glad of her company. She was concerned that I was working too hard and suggested that I go swimming in the afternoon. Now I had always been a keen swimmer, a champion at school, and faster than Tom over short distances, though we had not raced since swapping souls. I would enjoy beating him again, so needed some practice. I had found my holiday bikini in my suitcase when packing and left it there in case something like this came up but now I really wished I'd brought a one-piece.

Just as I was wondering where I could buy a more suitable swimming costume, Mum was offering me a lift to the pool so I only needed a bus back. I just had to be brave in my bikini. After all, I had worn it before, exactly when I first switched souls with Tom. When I came out of the changing cubicle, however, I felt very self conscious, especially handing my clothes basket in to a male attendant. I had tied my hair back but it was only just long enough to form a tiny pony-tail and I felt it looked silly.

As I approached the pool, I worried that I might have to re-learn my strokes. I had looked forward to a racing dive start but there was a big sign banning jumping and diving so I had to climb self-consciously down the steps. I was soon doing an easy crawl and was really pleased how this body was performing. There was a big clock at the wall at one end. My first two lengths took over two minutes but I started performing creditable somersault turns and the next two were over ten seconds better. I couldn't wait to see Tom's face when I beat him, even with his newly stronger body, in a sport like this. I raced the first six lengths too much so needed a brief rest before doing ten more. I was amazed how my smooth body glided through the water. My tits might have been a hindrance but I suppose their buoyancy was a boon.

I was fairly bushed after my sixteen lengths but could feel my heartbeat recovering as I walked towards the changing room, so I was really proud of my fitness. While revelling in the hot shower, I decided to go running tomorrow. I could not beat Tom at that but should enjoy it. My confidence as an independent woman was at a new high when I emerged from the sports centre, striding along in my jeans and denim jacket, but when I was boarding the bus, paying my fare from my handbag, I felt very alone and vulnerable again. I shouldn't have sat near the front because I spent the whole journey worrying if I'd dried and brushed my hair well enough now everyone behind could see. I hadn't packed any jogging clothes either, so I got off the bus in the town centre and found a sports shop. I bought a nice new one piece swimsuit there too. I planned to return the pool on Wednesday morning and improve my times further.

Daddy was home first and it was lovely chatting to him while I had him to myself. He was as pleased as I expected with my swimming times but then of course I got told off again when Mum got home, for doing nothing towards tea. Such domesticity was ideal for my continuing acclimatisation. Life at my childhood home was warm and comforting. Most of the time I could forget my transformation and just be myself, as a woman. I did go jogging on Tuesday morning, almost getting lost in what should have been a familiar neighbourhood, after going to Mum's workplace with her to borrow her car. This was because I was invited to visit Aunt Julie in the next town for lunch. I was glad my Gran had died before the swap, she would have been hard to convince that I was really me, but my aunt was a breeze and I really enjoyed the lunch. Of course I had to go and pick up Mum from work and Daddy was already home when we got back.

Wednesday morning I had to say goodbye to both my parents because Mum had an important meeting so couldn't couldn't take me to the station as she'd hoped. I gave Daddy a huge sad hug before he got into his car. Mum didn't want to spoil her make-up. I took the bus back to the pool and wore my new one-piece. It was more relaxing but actually I missed the admiring stares of my first visit. I did improve my times again. After fixing myself some lunch, I packed my bag and took the bus to the station. This time I was not at all shy. I had washed and dried my hair carefully at the pool and spent some time on my make-up before leaving my parents' house because I wanted to be attractive on the train this time.

I almost missed my stop because I was so engrossed in conversation with a lovely couple I had met. I have to admit I was terribly attracted to the man I sat opposite to and started flirting with him. Then I was not a little disappointed when who should come back from the buffet with coffees than his wife! Going to get my own coffee was very useful to cover my embarrassment. However, she was very nice too and we all discussed today's news with enthusiasm. I realised it was my stop when I saw Yolande on the platform, rather than the station name-boards. I had been planning to get a taxi because it took two infrequent buses to get home, so I was really pleased that she had taken over from Tom. I gave her the usual enthusiastic hug but she seemed strangely hesitant.

In her car, too, she seemed a bit uncertain of the controls and oddly different in some way. I asked "Is anything wrong, Yolande?". She pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine.
"I have a confession to make," she said, "I'm not really Yolande, I'm Tom and I showed the pebble to Marvin and Yolande."
How dare he! I was speechless at first. A huge sense of betrayal washed over me, completely ruining my day. Yolande had been a very special friend because she hadn't known my past. I was furious that he could do this to me, indeed to us. What had he been up to while swapped with Yolande or Marvin? That thought was even worse. I had an urge to hit him but realised that it was Yolande's body that I would be bruising.
"How could you do this?" I yelled, then I burst into tears. "Why didn't you talk to me before doing that?" I sobbed, "It must have been Sunday because you were plotting this when you rang me from work on Monday and lied about meetings."

The feelings of betrayal were deep and overwhelming. My friendship with Yolande was apparently ruined by her new knowledge that the woman she had met had contained a man's soul. That almost seemed more important than the potential end of our marriage now that Tom could not be trusted. I hated him. He had ruined our happy swapping. I thought that no way would I let him keep his new strong body now. "Have you got the pebble here? " l demanded, after roughly rejecting a comforting hand. "Well get it out, then." The new Yolande shrugged and pulled the doughnut-like stone out of her jeans pocket. I stuck my finger into the hole and she did the same. Suddenly, with no flash or drum-roll or any other indication that anything unusual had occurred, I was seeing dark brown arms, coming from my own shoulders, holding the pebble and there was the tearful Amanda, make-up smeared down her face, beside me. l put the pebble back into my jeans pocket, this time on the side away from Amanda, in case she tried to grab it. My thighs now seemed enormous, to say nothing of my boobs.

"Now this isn't some fun experiment," I said, startled by my strong West Indian accent, "As soon as we get home I'm getting Tom's body back and that's how we're staying, because you've ruined everything." The original Amanda just resumed the sobbing I had begun. Her now sensible female brain was absorbing the enormity of her mistake as a man. "I might destroy the pebble now, to say nothing of our marriage." I went on, "How am I supposed to believe you weren't unfaithful to us while swapping outside the marriage?"
"There was no sex, honestly!" sobbed Amanda.

I re-started what was now my car, reflecting that I, Yolande, was now fully insured to drive it. I drove home in silence, Amanda quietly sobbing beside me. I had left the hormones of anger and hurt in Amanda's body but I remembered my determination to reverse our swap then destroy the pebble. However, that now seemed a little extreme to my calm Yolande brain. Amanda went into her flat to repair her face while I went on up to what was now mine. The new Tom opened the door with Marvin standing behind him. I was surprised to be so much more attracted to Marvin, but then he was my husband now. I soon overcame my lust and turned to Tom with the pebble held out.

With obvious relief, he poked out his finger and I instantly found myself in my original body looking down at Yolande. I took the pebble from her shaking hand. "Thank you!" she exclaimed, "That is really bad voodoo, like I said."
"Look, Yolande," I said in my new deep voice, "I'm really really sorry for all that the other Tom did this week. He never told me what he was doing. I've put her back into her original body now. I was your friend Amanda but I realise that she has ruined that." Leaving no time for reply, I backed out and went downstairs, doubting that they would ever speak to us again.

On the stairs I found I really missed Amanda's body. My flat chest was a shock and I really didn't want a crutch full of wrinkly equipment. I felt awkward and clumsy in this taller body, even though I'd grown up in it. I really missed the sweet softness between my legs and resented Amanda possessing that and the potential of better orgasms. For some odd reason she preferred my male body, but withholding it would punish me too. I suppose it was again the leaving behind of hormonal emotions which hastened my return to rationality. By the time I reached Amanda, I was feeling sorry for her, having been so stupid as a man.

As I came into our bedroom, Amanda was just emerging from the bathroom, her face washed but still red-eyed. I inwardly chuckled that she had just had to pee sitting down for the first time in six weeks. I knew she needed it from my journey. I was surprised to find that her body, in the top and skirt I had put on after swimming, was starting to give me a hard-on, so soon after lusting after Marvin. I wanted to wear that body, really, not screw it. From the look on her face, she was thinking the same and, since I had told her this was permanent, was resigning herself to it.

"I am so, so sorry! " pleaded Amanda, "I certainly should have discussed it with you."
"Yes, you should. It's going to take a long time for me to forgive you, but I'd like that body back now, please." Willingly she held out a finger for the pebble, still in my hand. I frowned at the thought that the new Tom would have hold of it, so first passed it to her and then pointed my chubby male finger into it. Now I was wearing my skirt again, one I had bought myself, looking up at the man who had ruined my day.

"You see, there's no point in punishing you in a way that punishes me too", I explained. "I may not forgive you for a long time but I still love you as my husband. Now you were going to cook me a nice welcome home dinner, weren't you? I only had a snack lunch because Mum really did have special meetings at work, unlike you!". Men! I thought, you can never trust them!

I sat down at my dressing table and stared at my nylon-clad knees in relief before repairing my make-up. Tom had shaken my new security as a woman since visiting my parents but I was not going to let that defeat me. However, the hurt of betrayal was worse than anything I had ever felt as a man, as indeed childbirth would be. Was it worth it? Yes! I began humming "I am strong, I am woman" again. That suddenly became terribly relevant just then because, as I stood up, the first cramps of my second period hit me.

I began to wonder if PMS had affected my attitude to Tom's behaviour. Maybe it had but I remembered that I had felt just as betrayed when I was away from it in first Yolande's and then Tom's bodies. Anyway, the tension would be gone now the cramps had come. I delayed going to the kitchen because I still wanted to punish Tom, though actually I couldn't wait to get back to bed with him after almost a week without it. I had toned down my make-up so as not to arouse him and I almost changed into jeans but now it occurred to me that the "restricted privileges" would hurt him more if he was turned on. Again, it was a question of how to punish him without punishing me.

I found he was trying to be romantic with candles etc., so I deliberately took a tray into the lounge to eat without conversation, catching up on my missed but recorded soap episodes. He tried grovelling but I took no notice. Some bits of the soaps made me feel rather sexy, however much I tried to suppress it. I have to admit that it was me who moved up to him on the couch, after he returned from washing up, for a bit of a smooch, something I'd missed so much at my Mum's.

It was also me who led him by the hand to the bedroom, having considered that tonight was probably the last chance before that prohibitive string dangled once more between my legs. After so recently being Tom, it was a bit weird to accept his penis inside me, but it seemed so very normal to do so. I kept telling him that I hadn't forgiven him, but that didn't sound right at all, especially when I started moaning in ecstasy.

In the morning he brought me my breakfast in bed and I managed a smile, though I told him he had a lot more to do. I tried to go back to sleep for a lazy half-term lie-in, at last, but I couldn't stop feeling sorry for myself about the loss of my friend Yolande. I knew my colleague Carol had gone to Berlin all week with her husband, so I couldn't ring her. My other friends were not teachers so they would be at work. I got up and watched some awful daytime TV before deciding to try some "retail therapy" and take myself out somewhere nice for lunch.

At first I couldn't be bothered to get dressed. I felt so depressed now that my life as a woman had been so damaged by Tom. Then, when I decided to be strong and go out for lunch, I wanted to dress as sexily as possible. I had found in my knicker-drawer the fishnet stockings of my Penelope outfit. I had never put then on before myself, only found myself wearing them. Now they seemed appropriate, if only in revenge for Tom's betrayal. I drew the line at Penny's awful gingham dress. No one else would understand that anyway. I discovered that all my favourite mini-skirts would show my suspenders and I didn't want to go that far either, so I had to wear an old flared blue skirt of knee length which made it hard to find a matching top.

Just as I was almost ready, there was a knocking at the door. I thought it must be the postman because he was often buzzed into the block by someone else. When I opened the door to Yolande I was amazed and overwhelmed. "Look," she said, "I'm still your friend, whatever body you were born in!"
"But how do you know who I really am now?"
"Well, I saw Tom going to work and also I don't think he'd be as pleased to see me!"
As she gave me a huge hug, I said "No, you're right there. It'll be a long time before I forgive him."

Despite her accepting nature, I was still deeply embarrassed that she now knew all about Tom and me swapping souls. I was even more annoyed with Tom for so upsetting my security as a woman. I was beginning to feel, as I now set out for lunch with Yolande, instead of on my own, more like a man who'd had the operation. The fishnets didn't help to reduce that illusion. "Bloody good operation!" I chuckled to myself as another cramp hit me. Although Yolande did not comment on them, I was embarrassed enough by the fishnets to change out of them at the first opportunity and the tights I bought instead gave me the opportunity to buy some super mini-skirts and a dress too. I hadn't shopped with another woman before, oh except my Mum of course, and it was great fun; so was lunch.

When Tom got home from work, he was so full of guilt and sorrow that I almost felt sorry for him. I had to remind myself that I was the victim of his betrayal and that last night's sex did not mean forgiveness at all. I told him that too. He did pull out all the stops to cook us a lovely meal. When we got to bed, I watched his face with some glee to see his disappointment when he finally noticed the string dangling between my legs.

I will always remember those first six weeks as Amanda, with all their ups and downs. Within the next two weeks I must have completely forgiven Tom because I forgot all about ovulation headaches. Hence those first two periods were my last for ten months and it is my third which is sharply reminding me to get this written while I still have time in my maternity leave and Mum's finally gone home after ""helping"".

Yes, at this point I'd better introduce Billy Harris, our beautiful baby boy, whom I bore all by myself. Oh, I don't mean Tom didn't help, he held my hand right through the nine-hour labour, bless him! I mean I refused to share the pain by using the pebble, as we had planned, though I don't remember him offering all that frequently. We had re-charged it and tested it in my eighth month and the test was very brief because being pregnant was a huge shock for Tom and he only waited to feel one kick before he was begging to get his balls back. Now he's a very proud Daddy and quite adept at changing nappies. We have discussed leaving Billy the pebble in our wills. By the time you read this he may have used it. I often wonder if he will prefer to become female like his Mummy did.