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PART 1
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And then there was that morning that John woke up as someone else.
Sixty five years old, and a body that was failing here and there, and – let’s face it – everywhere. His hearing, his eyes, the left shoulder, the knees. He could hardly pee anymore, for chrissakes, except in sorry dribs and drabs, an old man. And even though he still had sexual thoughts of women every day, multiple times a day, he could not remember the last time his penis actually got hard. Only in his dreams.
He would often think that if life was truly a virtual reality, then he should be able to will himself a new body, just by focusing on it long and hard enough. How cool it would be to just morph into a new young body. He also would sometimes imagine that the fundamental cognitive difference between a mouse and a human was just that humans had more control over their environment, maybe if even just by degree. But if that were so, he then reasoned, then maybe the difference between being human and the next cognitive leap was another degree of difference, which would be controlling one’s aging process. Maybe that’s the next step.
He tried again and again to focus on getting himself younger, but it never seemed to work, that is, until that night. He remembered going to sleep, and then dreaming that he was in the bathroom and having the largest bowell movements of his life, and continually flushing the toilet, and then followed by the deepest darkest dreaming of his life. As if months had gone by. Was it all a dream?
And then there was the morning, and he immediately knew something had changed. Even lying in bed, he felt somehow lighter. His hands moved over his body. Breasts? Quickly down to between his legs. Where were his balls? He jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, and fell down in the hallway. His legs didn’t work the same, but Damn he was strong. He looked in the mirror to an unrecognizable face. A pretty face. Who was this person? Obviously a young woman, but no hair on her head. Pretty, and much shorter in stature and thinner than the man he was.
Was this still a dream then? He shook and then slapped himself upside his head. Shook it again. Looked back in the mirror. Still there. The young woman was still there. Well this will be interesting he thought until I wake up. But he was suddenly cold on the bathroom floor, so he quickly went back into his bedroom to put on some clothes, only to find his first challenge.
What to wear. All of his clothes were too big for him. All his shoes and sneakers. As a guy, he had spent his life dressing casual in jeans and tshirts. Hmmm. He ended up deciding on an old sweater, and a pair of sweats, rolled up at the ankles and tied tightly around his suddenly thin waist with a belt. Socks went on sort of ok, but he had nothing in the way of footwear. Ok, maybe he could get by with the flip flops he had under the bed from years ago.
He tried speaking. “Hello?”. “My name is John?”. Not his voice really. Higher and thinner.
He then thought about sex as he usually did, so he did that for a bit and enjoyed it. Better in a way. Instead of the build up and blind explosion, more of a absorption, as if becoming one with the world. Kind of fun.
Ok, enough of that. He thought that, as long as he wasn’t waking up yet, that he would go back to his life as he had come to know it. Breakfast of Peanut butter on a banana. Well, half a banana worked. Some milk. Then as he was eating, he thought about walking down to the coffee shop to see his friends, and suddenly realized that that was off the table, as they would not know who he was. In fact, if they came to his house, they would see a young woman and wonder what happened to John? How could he explain that? Ok. This situation is little more complicated than he originally thought.
So nix on the coffee shop for now. Instead, maybe he should drive into the city and get some clothes that fit. At least in a town full of strangers, they would be more accomodating to a woman dressed in baggy men’s clothes.
Money, oh Jesus. His credit cards will still work, as would his bank cards, as long as he was not challenged. He just does not look like a “John” anymore. Hopefully nobody will ask for Id. His Id, Shit. He looked at his driver’s license and recognized the face on it as his. That’s not how I look now. Maybe if I just drive slow, no one will stop me and I can drive to the city and back.
Get in the car. Push the seat way up. Make sure he can still reach the gas and brakes. Adjust the mirrors. He looked in the rear view mirror at himself. He/she really was pretty. At least he had that going for himself.
The drive to the city was fairly uneventful, but nothing was open yet, so he found a starbucks and went inside for a coffee. Baseball hat on to cover his bald head. I guess the way I look, he thought, people will just think that I am a dyke.
He got his coffee, and sat down to read his phone, but whenever he looked up he saw that a guy a couple of tables over was staring at him. He tried staring back, but then the guy said “How you doing honey?” Not the response he wanted, so he didn’t answer and just looked down at his phone again, and made sure not to look up again until the man left, but then when he looked up again, he saw that the man was just hanging around outside the starbucks. This is not good he thought. Fuck.
But then after awhile the man gave up and walked away. He looked around the coffee shop some more and found other men looking at him. Jesus, is this the way it is? He went back to reading his phone, drank his coffee, and didn’t look up again, and before leaving the Starbucks and going back to his car, making sure that there were no men lurking outside. Then drove and waited in his car in the parking lot of a department store until he was sure it was open. He was kind of freaking out about the men in the coffee shop looking at him like he was a menu item.
Is looking down the only option now?
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/swemvd/johnjulia_until_he_wakes_up