He wants my body, but only for an hour. 

“C’mon, Kath, it’ll be fun. Spice things up.” 

My instant reaction is no, but he gives me that crooked smile, and I soften. 

We’re standing outside “The Love Exchange.” Part of me thinks we must’ve stumbled upon it by accident, and another part of me thinks Richard led us here, with this moment in mind. It reeks of tackiness with its flashing blue neon lights. I’ve heard enough about this place on social media and in the news to be wary.

“Don’t you want to know what it’s like… you know, to be me?” Richard continues.

Do I? I’m not sure I do. I’m happy enough being me. 

“And it’s just for an hour,” he adds. 

An hour. What harm could be done in an hour? Perhaps it would be safe. I feel Richard’s hand inside mine, a little squeeze. Is that for encouragement or reassurance? 

“It’ll be amazing,” he whispers. 

I’m not sure it will, but the look in his eyes is almost feverish. He wants this. He wants it bad. “Just an hour?” I ask. 

“Yeah, honey. Just an hour. Whadya say?” 

The flashing neon lights turn red, casting Richard in an almost obscene glow of want. 

“Okay.” I’ve always liked to please. 

-

Richard pays the man behind the counter and we’re ushered into a seedy room. I suppose it’s been painted yellow to make it look cheery, but it has the appearance of stomach bile.    

“You done this before?” asks the man who took our money.

“No,” I answer. 

“Yes,” says Richard. I give him a sharp look. “With an ex,” he adds sheepishly. 

“Well, it’s pretty straightforward,” continues the man. “Just lie on the bed, place the head units on, flick the switch and BAM! It’s done.”

The way he said BAM makes me jump. “And it’s safe?” I ask. 

“Yeah. Quite safe.”

“But, the reports…”

“Don’t believe what you read. We haven’t been shut down yet, have we? Plenty of satisfied customers.” 

“And to get back… to our bodies?”

“Same thing. Head units back on. Flip the switch and—”

“BAM,” I say, getting to the word before he does. 

He gives a yellowed smile, much like the room. “That’s it. Easy-peesy. Hundreds have been through.” 

“See, Kath? Perfectly fine,” adds Richard. “And it’ll be just for an hour. C’mon, it’ll be fun.” He has that look again. The want. 

“Okay,” I say, for the second time today, my voice a little smaller. 

The man leaves us. There’s a digital timer on the wall helpfully counting down our minutes. We’ve already used two. I sit down on the bed and take off my shoes. There’s a smell about this place that goes with the colour of the walls. 

“Which ex did you do this with?” I ask, casually. 

“Oh… Sandy, I think.” 

“You think?”

“I mean, Sandy. Yeah, it was Sandy. But, there’s no one I’d rather do this with than you. I love you, you know?” 

I don’t know. But the words he gives out like candy make me feel better. He grabs my hand. “I just want to know, really know, what it’s like to be you. To be a woman, like you.” 

“You want to be a woman?”

“Nah. When you say it like that, it sounds weird. I want to be inside you, your body. No one else. And hey, you get to experience my body.”

“For an hour?”

“Well, for fifty-three minutes by the looks of things,” he says looking at the timer.

 Richard straps the little head unit on me and then does his own. We lie back on the bed. He’s holding my hand, and I’m looking at the corner of the yellow room where a little spider has made its home. It’s a strange place to lay a web, there are no windows here, so it would be hard to catch prey. Still, a moth might be drawn in by the lights, or ants might find a way. I wonder how long it’s been there with no one to clean or dust. Just waiting for something to eat. I’m thinking all these thoughts when I feel the BAM!

My body jolts. I close my eyes, and when I next open them I’m Richard.  

His eyes are not as good as mine. The yellow sick of the walls looks almost muted through his pupils, and I can’t see the spider. 

“Richard,” I say, but my voice is unfamiliar. Rough and deep. 

“Yeah, baby!” shouts Richard from beside me, with my voice. It’s unsettling to hear it being used in that way. Words I’d never say. “Damn, your eyes are good, Kath. You see all this?” 

“I’ve always had good eyesight.”

“It’s trippy.” 

“Your eyes aren’t great.” 

“Yeah, well not as good as yours.” 

“I love you,” he repeats again, this time in my voice. 

“I love you, too,” I think, but I keep that thought to myself. “What do we do now?” 

The look of want is all over my face.

“Kath, as if you didn’t know.” 

-

It feels funny to be kissing myself through Richard’s lips. His body is so easy to navigate. His responses are easily triggered. Arousal is instant. 

My breath on me. 

My hands on me.

My lips on me. 

I pull away for a second to look at me. My eyes with Richard hiding behind them.

Am I making love to myself? The thought is disorientating. 

“Everything okay, love?” he asks, his breath, my breath, coming hot and heavy. 

“Yes. No. I just…”

“It takes a while to get used to. Just relax. Feel the sensations.” 

I try to do what he says as the minutes tick by. 

-

When it’s over, he’s smiling. Lying back in my body, stroking my body. He gives me one of his crooked smiles, using my lips. 

“That was great, wasn’t it?” 

Was it?  I’m still not sure.

I stand from the bed awkwardly. Richard’s limbs are older than mine, and they don’t move as freely. I recover Richard’s clothes from the floor and get dressed. 

“You know, it feels great to be you, Kath. Better than Sandy.” He says it like he’s paying me a compliment, but the reminder that he’s done this with someone else stings. “We should do it again sometime.” It’s said as an afterthought, but it lingers in the air between us. The word: again. 

“I’m not sure, Richard. I like being me.”

“I like being you too, Kath. It’s a nice body you got going here. Seems selfish not to share. Next time, maybe I could bring someone else, we could–”

The words: next time. 

I stop listening and look at the clock, less than five minutes remaining. Then we can go back to being who we were. And who were we?

“Do we put the head units back on?”

“Yeah. Same process as before, but we’ve still got some time left. We could fool around a bit more.”

“No. Let’s go back.” Although I feel we’ll never go back to who we were.  

I pick up our head units from where we abandoned them on the floor. We lie down on the bed and put them on.

“Thanks for doing this, babe.”

And then he flicks the switch. 

-

My eyes flicker open. I’m back. But I don’t feel like me anymore. 

Richard’s talking. It’s just noise. About next time. About what we could do differently. About things he’d like to do with my body. Next time he’ll bring a video camera, a friend. It’ll be great, he says. 

There’s another voice. Inside me. Confused. A scratch inside my brain. I cast my eyes to the corner where the spider used to be, but it’s gone. Richard’s taking off his headset, and I see the spider, what’s left of it, squashed on the inside of his headset. 

But I know it’s alive. In me. Part of me.

Richard’s still making noise. It hurts my head. 

“I’m starved, Kath. Should we grab a bite to eat?” 

Hungry. Yes.

“Okay,” I say for the final time today. I look at Richard with new appreciation, no hesitation.  “I know… just what I feel like.”

Richard’s crooked smile breaks. I lick my lips in anticipation. The want. 

This time I like to please… myself.