Suetekh

Archaeologist Sir Thomas White was overwhelmed when they discovered the tomb of princess lastra.

He ignored the warnings written in the plaster of the burial chamber doors.

He broke the Royal seals and entered.

He immediately felt something grab hold of him.

He felt like he was falling.

He thought it would never end.

But to his relief it did.

He found himself standing in a tomb which was brightly lit by flaming torches.

He felt completely strange.

He could not quite put his finger on it until he look down.

He was now regretting ignoring the cartouche on the burial chamber door.

Which if he had took time to translate it would have warned him that if any man that was not a eunuch entered her chamber would be cursed to serve the god Suetekh as one of his handmaiden to the end of time.

The Price of Envy

Sarah thought life had dealt her an unfair hand. Born into a penniless family, she worked her way through college, spending evenings and weekends serving customers at a diner. Every month, she struggled to cover the rent on her cramped, one-room apartment. Then there was Daniel. He barely bothered to study, yet his wealthy parents paid for everything: tuition, a comfortable apartment, a car, and whatever else he wanted. Sarah watched him drift through college without worrying about a single bill. Her resentment grew until she could scarcely look at him. Why should he have everything? Why should I have nothing? One afternoon, as Daniel casually complained that his parents had bought him the wrong car, something inside her snapped. For a moment, the room tilted. Sarah felt herself being pulled forward, followed by a dizzying sensation of falling. Then she was looking at her own face. Daniel stood opposite her in Sarah’s body, staring down at his unfamiliar clothes and trembling hands. “What have you done?” he whispered. Sarah glanced at Daniel’s expensive watch, now fastened around her wrist. Somehow, she knew exactly what had happened—and that it was permanent. “I’ve taken my turn,” she said. Daniel shook his head. “Change us back.” “I can’t.” “Then I’ll tell someone. My parents—” “And what will you tell them?” Sarah asked. “That the girl from the diner stole your body?” He stared at her, searching her face for any sign that she was joking. “There’s no point fighting it,” she continued. “There’s no way to undo it. You might as well get used to your new life.” She placed her apartment keys and phone in his hand. “You’re nineteen. You live alone. Your rent is due next Friday, and you’ve got a shift at the diner tonight. If you want to stay in college, you’ll have to keep working.” Then she walked away in his body. That evening, Daniel sat on the edge of Sarah’s narrow bed.

A pile of textbooks occupied the little table beside the kitchenette. Beneath them lay an overdue electricity bill. Her phone buzzed. Can you come in an hour early? We’re short-staffed. Daniel read the message twice, then looked at the diner uniform hanging on the door. He wanted to call home. He wanted someone to come and collect him, sort everything out, and tell him it would be all right. Instead, he put on the uniform. Outside, Sarah drove his car toward the home that had always welcomed him. Daniel locked the apartment door and checked the few coins in his pocket, wondering whether he could afford the bus.

SOMEONE ELSE BEHIND HER EYES

Anthony could not help noticing that something about his girlfriend had changed.

At first, the differences were small. She stopped watching the soap operas she had followed faithfully for years. Her strict diet disappeared, and she no longer spent an hour getting ready before going out.

“You look fine,” she would say, taking his hand. “Come on. Let’s enjoy ourselves.”

She laughed more easily now. She listened when he spoke. Even their intimate moments had changed; she seemed more confident, more adventurous, and far more interested in what made him happy.

Anthony enjoyed it.

That was what made his growing suspicion so uncomfortable.

One evening, while she was out, he looked through her phone. He felt ashamed of himself until he found an email referring to a possession ritual.

Then he found the replies.

By the time she came home, he was sitting at the kitchen table with her phone in front of him.

“How long?” he asked.

She stopped in the doorway.

“What do you mean?”

“How long have you been in her body?”

For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then she pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

“Six weeks.”

Anthony had braced for denials, excuses, maybe an argument. The calm admission left him struggling for words.

“So you’re a man?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been pretending to be her all this time?”

The person wearing his girlfriend’s face lowered their eyes.

“Yes.”

Anthony pushed the phone across the table.

“Were you really going to empty our accounts?”

“That was the plan. Take the money and disappear before you realised anything was wrong.”

“What changed?”

“You.”

Anthony gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Don’t.”

“I know how it sounds.” The familiar hands tightened around one another. “But being in her body wasn’t what I expected. There were feelings here. Memories. When you came home, I felt glad to see you before I even understood why.”

Anthony stared across the table.

“At first, I thought it was just her love for you,” the man continued. “Then I started looking forward to our evenings together. I wanted to hear about your day. I wanted to make you laugh. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about leaving.”

“And where is she?”

“She’s still here. I can feel her sometimes.”

“That isn’t much of an answer.”

“No,” came the quiet reply. “It isn’t.”

Anthony stood and walked to the window. Outside, a neighbour was putting out the bins. Someone further down the street was calling a cat indoors. Everything looked painfully ordinary.

Behind him sat a stranger with the face of the woman he loved.

Yet the last six weeks had been the happiest they had shared in a long time.

He hated how much that mattered.

They talked late into the night. Anthony asked questions, returned to earlier answers, and sometimes simply sat in silence. The confession did not erase the deception. Nor did it erase the affection he had begun to feel for this unfamiliar person.

Eventually, he returned to the table.

“I need time,” he said.

“I understand.”

“A couple of weeks. Then we talk again and decide whether this is really what we both want.”

Hope flickered across his girlfriend’s face.

“You’d let me stay?”

“For now.”

Anthony reached across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the other hand met his.

Later, he led his unexpected companion toward the bedroom, both moving cautiously now, with the secret finally spoken aloud.

As they passed the hallway mirror, Anthony glanced at their reflection.

For an instant, he thought he saw fear in her eyes.

Then she smiled at him, and he looked away.

A little bit too much.

“Doctor, I only came in for a circumcision—and I woke up like this!” Mr Williams sat upright in the hospital bed, staring at the unfamiliar woman reflected in the bedside mirror. The doctor glanced down at his clipboard. “Yes, Mr Williams. There was a slight complication during the procedure. We had to transplant your brain into somebody else’s body.” “A slight complication?” Williams pointed at his reflection. “You’ve put me in a woman!” “The transplant itself was a complete success.” “What happened to my original body?” The doctor stopped turning the pages. “I’d like to focus on your recovery.” Williams stared at him, then slowly pulled the blanket up to his chin. “I want to speak to whoever’s in charge.” “Of course.” The doctor reached for the curtain. “Your wife’s already speaking to them.” “My wife knows?” The curtain opened. “Oh, she knows,” his wife said. “I’ve spent twenty minutes trying to find out why they’ve charged us for the circumcision.”

Now madam?

“Now, madam, this is one of our most popular models. Six intensity settings,” said the shopkeeper, flashing a smile that made Anthony wish he had ordered online. Anthony studied the bewildering display of adult toys. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Adjusting to life as a woman had brought plenty of surprises. He hadn’t expected one of them to involve a salesman explaining rechargeable batteries with such enthusiasm. “Looking for anything in particular?” the man asked. “Yes,” Anthony replied. “A moment to think.”

Tony and William

 

Tony and William had never appreciated their girlfriends. They took their work for granted, dismissed their complaints and expected them to look perfect whenever they went out together. Now they were learning what that felt like. Their girlfriends had swapped bodies with them—and refused to swap back. Overnight, the two men had become overworked, underpaid secretaries. Their days disappeared beneath ringing telephones, crowded diaries and urgent tasks handed to them just as they were preparing to leave. At first, Tony thought the work would be easy. By Wednesday, he was eating lunch at his desk while his manager complained about a meeting Tony hadn’t even arranged. William fared little better. When he finally protested about his workload, his boss smiled and told him not to get so emotional.

The evenings offered little relief. Their new boyfriends—the women now comfortably occupying Tony and William’s former bodies—expected them to be dressed and ready whenever they decided on a night out. One Friday, Tony came home with aching feet and found a message waiting. Dinner at eight. Wear the blue dress. He called immediately. “I’ve had an awful day. Can we stay in?” “You can’t be that tired. You’ve been sitting at a desk.” Tony went quiet. He remembered saying those exact words. Across town, William stood in front of a mirror while his former girlfriend inspected his outfit. “Are you really wearing that?” William looked down at the clothes he had spent twenty minutes choosing. “What’s wrong with it?” “Nothing. I just thought you’d make an effort.” He felt his face grow hot. Once, he would have insisted that a remark like that was harmless. Later, as they waited outside the restaurant, Tony noticed William tugging unhappily at his dress. “You too?” he asked. William nodded. For once, neither of them had a joke. When their boyfriends arrived, Tony stayed put. “Before we go in,” he said, “we need to talk.” “About what?” William stepped beside him. “About all the times you tried to tell us something—and we wouldn’t listen.”

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

Rachel had not seen her former body since the night she stole Martin’s.

Seven months later, curiosity finally brought her back to the club.

Martin spotted her from across the room. Seeing his old face beneath that familiar, expensive haircut still gave him a strange jolt.

He picked up his tray and walked over to her table.

“What can I get you?”

Rachel hesitated. She had rehearsed several opening lines on the way over. None seemed appropriate now.

“You seem to be doing well.”

“It was hard at first,” Martin replied. “Going from executive meetings to waiting tables and performing on a stage took some getting used to.”

“I can imagine.”

“Can you?”

Rachel looked down at the table.

“Your job wasn’t what I expected either,” she admitted. “I thought you sat behind a desk telling everyone else what to do.”

Martin laughed.

“Then you met the regional director.”

“And the clients. And those dreadful quarterly reviews.” She loosened her tie. “I’ve started dreaming about spreadsheets.”

“That sounds familiar.”

For a moment, they smiled at each other.

Then Martin noticed his manager watching from the bar.

“You’d better order something before I get into trouble.”

“A cold beer, please.”

He returned a minute later with the bottle. Rachel watched him set it down, struck by how comfortable he seemed. She remembered how exhausted she was in this place, always counting the hours until she could leave.

“Do you actually like it here?” she asked.

“Most nights. Some customers are a pain, and my feet hurt by closing time. But I’ve made friends. I’m getting good at the work.”

He paused.

“And when I go home, nobody phones me about a collapsing account.”

Rachel turned the bottle slowly between her hands.

“I came to ask you something.”

Martin’s smile faded.

“I found a way to reverse it,” she said. “A reliable way. If you want your body back, we can arrange it.”

He glanced towards the bar, then pulled out the empty chair.

“Why now?”

“Because I should have given you a choice.”

“Yes,” he said. “You should.”

Rachel nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

Martin sat quietly for a moment. He could still remember waking up frightened, making frantic calls nobody believed, staring at a face that belonged to someone else.

“I was furious with you,” he said. “For a long time.”

“I know.”

“No. You weren’t here for that part.”

She accepted the rebuke without answering.

“But things have changed,” he continued. “I’ve built a life here. I have people I care about. Plans.”

“So you wouldn’t swap back?”

Martin looked at the suit he'd worn every week, at the watch he had bought to celebrate a promotion he could barely remember enjoying.

“No,” he said at last. “I wouldn’t.”

Rachel let out a breath.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. But don’t mistake that for saying you had the right to do it.”

“I won’t.”

From the bar, his manager called his name. Martin stood and collected his tray.

Rachel reached for her wallet.

“Will I be seeing you again?” he asked.

“Would you mind?”

He considered her for a moment.

“You can come back. Just remember I’m working.”

Rachel smiled faintly.

“And leave a decent tip?”

“Now you’re learning.”

In the 1950's.

original story

I had always had a thing for the 1950's.

The car's the music & the fashions.

I was a traveling salesman from the mid-west of America.

I spent a lot of my time on the road alone.

Whilst on my way to Cleveland I was getting mighty tired and my Ford Taurus needed gas.

So I pulled over at the next gas station which luckily for me had a motel attached.

I went in and asked for a room.

The old man behind the desk said to me he only had one room left & that was the honeymoon suite.

I was exhausted from a day on the road so I just took it. 

The old man smiled and said well it will be on your own head.

I was too tired to wonder what he meant by that.

I got into the room stripped off my clothes and jumped into bed.

I had the most intense and vivid sexual dream.

The year was 1952 I was a young bride & my name was Susan.

I got married to Henry Caldwell a travelling hoover salesman.

When I woke up in the morning and the first ray of sunlight shot through the curtains and landed on me I could tell I was not alone anymore in my bed.

That's when the man lying next to me said hey honey you want to sort out my morning wood?

Something inside of me said yes.

I did not know how I knew it but this was my life and this was how I was supposed to be.

I did what a young bride would on her honeymoon and took care of my husband's every whim.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do and the more I got into it the less of a man I was & felt more like the woman I was becoming.

After the first initial shock of waking up as a woman and the carnal lust and pleasure that came with it I felt myself settling down into my new life.

I left the hotel with my new husband and notice the sign guaranteeing that one night in there honeymoon suite you would wake up a new person.

How I traveled back in time & how I became a woman I don't know but I would not give it up for my old life back.

Looking back at that picture taken 20 years ago when I first became Mrs Caldwell that was the happiest point in my life.