Chapter Four

I slept for perhaps two hours.

Donald kept his promise and did not touch me, but his restraint did little to make the bed feel less occupied. Every time he shifted, the mattress tilted beneath his weight. When he turned onto his back, he snored softly. When he rolled towards me, I edged closer to the side until half of Helen’s body seemed to be suspended over the floor.

I spent most of the night staring into the darkness.

The black nightdress had twisted around my thighs. Helen’s breasts pulled sideways whenever I moved, their unsupported weight impossible to ignore. Several times I became aware of Donald’s warmth behind me and had to remind myself that nothing was happening.

He was asleep beside his wife.

I was the only person in the room who understood that she was no longer there.

Shortly after six, Donald’s alarm sounded.

I pretended to be asleep while he dressed. It spared me conversation, though not the kiss he placed carefully against my hair before leaving the bedroom.

“Rest if you need to,” he whispered. “Doctor Green at half ten.”

The front door closed twenty minutes later.

I remained in bed until I was certain he had gone.

Then I became aware of another problem.

I needed the toilet.

The pressure had been present for some time. I had gone to bed aware of it and chosen not to think about what dealing with it would involve.

By morning, I could no longer postpone it.

I lay there for another minute, staring at the ceiling.

This could not be real.

The thought had followed me through the night, returning whenever the room became quiet enough. The body, the husband beside me, Helen’s letter—none of it could belong to an actual morning.

Yet the pressure in my bladder was real enough.

I got out of bed and went into the bathroom.

Helen stared back at me from the mirror. Tangled blonde hair. Smeared makeup. The black nightdress hanging from her body.

I looked away.

The toilet stood beside the bath.

Until yesterday, using one had required no thought at all. Stand, unzip, aim. An ordinary action completed several times a day without ever becoming an event.

Now even that had changed.

I lifted the nightdress and sat.

The cold seat against Helen’s thighs made me tense.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

I waited, trying not to think about the unfamiliar absence between my legs. The more attention I gave the process, the more stubbornly the body seemed to resist.

Eventually I closed my eyes.

I felt unfamiliar muscles relax somewhere low inside me, and the stream began.

The sound was softer than I expected. Broader. Wrong only because it was unfamiliar.

I stared at the bathroom door while it continued.

There was no great revelation in it. No new horror.

Only the quiet, miserable fact that this was how the body worked.

This was how I would use the toilet now.

I felt anger then, but it had nowhere to go. There was nobody to argue with and nothing I could refuse. Helen had made the decision already. Her body would continue requiring things from me regardless of whether I accepted it.

When the stream stopped, I reached down automatically and then froze.

My hand had moved towards something that was no longer there.

I let it fall to my side.

The toilet paper hung beside me.

I tore off several sheets and looked up towards the ceiling.

I was not ready to look between Helen’s legs again. I had seen enough the previous night. I could not bring myself to lower my eyes and examine the body beneath the bright bathroom light.

Still looking away, I reached down and dabbed cautiously.

The sensation felt strange and uncomfortably intimate. I tried not to identify exactly what I was touching.

I dabbed once more, dropped the paper into the toilet and pulled the nightdress down as soon as I stood.

For a moment, I remained there with one hand resting against the sink.

It was such a small thing.

That almost made it worse.

The world had not ended. The body had simply completed another ordinary function, as though it had always belonged to me.

I flushed, washed my hands and avoided the mirror.

This could not be real.

But downstairs, Helen’s cigarettes were waiting beside the coffee.

The routine was familiar even though the kitchen was not. Kettle. Mug. Spoon. Something simple enough to belong to no particular body.

The first sip triggered the craving so violently that I nearly dropped the cup.

I had spent the night deciding that I would stop smoking.

The conclusion had seemed obvious. Helen’s addiction was not mine. I had never smoked before yesterday, and I refused to spend a year continuing one of the habits that had helped age and soften the body she had forced on me.

Coffee destroyed that resolve within seconds.

The bitterness hit my tongue, and Helen’s body responded with immediate expectation. My mouth watered. A pressure gathered behind my ribs. My fingers began searching the counter before I had consciously decided what they were looking for.

The packet lay beside the ashtray.

I stared at it.

Then I lit one.

The first drag still tasted foul, but I no longer inhaled like an idiot. Helen’s hand brought the cigarette to my lips at the correct angle, and some combination of instinct and yesterday’s failure taught me to draw more gently.

The nicotine spread through me.

Relief followed.

I resented how quickly it worked.

By the time I finished the coffee, I had smoked two cigarettes.

The third came while I was preparing to dress.

I began in the bathroom.

The previous evening’s makeup had survived the night badly. Mascara had collected beneath Helen’s eyes, and the bright lipstick had spread faintly beyond the edges of her mouth. I looked less like a woman who had just woken and more like one who had returned from a party she was too old to attend.

A packet of cleansing wipes sat beside the sink.

I pulled one free and began rubbing at Helen’s face.

The makeup came away in streaks. Beige foundation. Black mascara. Red lipstick. It stained the white cloth until it resembled something used to clean paint from a surface.

The face left behind looked considerably older.

Without foundation, Helen’s skin was uneven and slightly red around the cheeks and nose. Fine lines ran beneath her eyes. Deeper ones bracketed her mouth. There were faint shadows along the lower lids that no amount of sleep that night could have caused.

The difference unsettled me.

Until then, I had assumed Helen simply wore too much makeup because she enjoyed attention. Now I understood that the cosmetics were doing structural work. They did not make her young, but they helped preserve the argument.

Without them, she looked every one of her forty-nine years.

Perhaps more.

The makeup bag remained open beside the sink.

I examined its contents without touching them.

There were bottles, powders and pencils whose purposes I could only partly guess. Several different brushes appeared to be identical despite presumably existing for separate reasons. I recognised mascara and lipstick, but everything else seemed to require knowledge I did not have.

The thought of attempting it was intimidating.

A badly made-up face would attract more attention than a bare one. I would rather look old than ridiculous.

I closed the bag.

Helen’s fingernails were painted a glossy red. They were longer than I would ever have considered practical, extending well beyond the ends of her fingers and clicking against every hard surface I touched.

Only when I stepped away from the sink did I notice that her toenails matched.

Each one had been carefully painted the same bright red.

The detail irritated me more than it should have.

Even her feet had been decorated.

The colour made them look deliberately feminine in a way I could not ignore, particularly when I looked down and saw them positioned beneath the hem of the black nightdress as though they belonged there.

I returned to the bedroom and began searching Helen’s drawers.

The top drawer contained underwear.

I had expected something plain.

Instead, it was filled with lace, small bows and bright colours. Black, red, pink, cream. Even the supposedly practical pairs seemed determined to advertise that they were women’s underwear.

I searched beneath them for something less elaborate.

There was nothing I would have considered neutral.

Eventually I selected a black pair with the least lace and held them at arm’s length. They looked enormous compared with anything Mandy wore, shaped to accommodate Helen’s hips and soft stomach rather than sit low across a flat waist.

I stepped into them reluctantly.

The fabric slid up Helen’s thighs and settled high around her waist, covering more of her stomach than I expected. The lace pressed lightly against my skin, and the cut enclosed the unfamiliar space between my legs with uncomfortable precision.

I avoided looking down.

They fitted perfectly.

That was the part I hated.

There was no struggle or uncertainty. The garment had been made for this body, and the body accepted it as though I had worn it a hundred times.

The bra came next.

I found several hanging from hooks inside the wardrobe door. All were heavily structured, with wide cups and underwires sewn beneath them. The label inside the least decorative one read 36F.

I stared at it.

F.

The letter seemed excessive even while I stood in front of the mirror looking at the breasts it was intended to contain.

Without support, they hung heavily against Helen’s chest. Lifting them into the cups required both hands. Their weight settled into the bra with an unpleasant sense of finality.

The underwire pressed firmly beneath them.

I pulled the straps over my shoulders and reached behind my back for the clasp.

My fingers found nothing.

I twisted one arm farther, then the other. The red nails scraped against my skin and caught in the fabric. Every time I located one side of the fastening, the other slipped away.

After several attempts, my shoulder began to ache.

I fastened it at the front instead, then rotated the entire bra around my body until the cups returned to the correct position.

The manoeuvre dragged the underwire across my skin.

I adjusted the breasts again, pulling each fully into its cup in the way I vaguely remembered seeing Mandy do.

The thought of her made me stop.

Mandy getting dressed had always seemed effortless. I had watched her fasten bras, adjust straps and pull on fitted clothes without once considering the knowledge involved.

Helen’s wardrobe contained almost nothing I would have chosen voluntarily. Floral dresses. Tight skirts. Bright blouses. Tops cut low enough to display the breasts she appeared to consider her best remaining feature.

I refused to wear a skirt.

That left jeans.

I took the first pair that looked large enough and pulled them on.

They were embarrassingly tight.

The denim clung to Helen’s thighs and had to be worked over the broadest part of her hips before the waistband reached her waist. I had never thought about the construction of women’s jeans before. Mandy wore them constantly, but I had noticed the shape they gave her rather than where they fastened.

These closed higher than mine had.

Or were supposed to.

I held Helen’s stomach in and fought the button through its hole, the long red nails slipping against the metal several times before I managed it. Once fastened, the waistband cut into her soft middle and pushed the flesh above it into a visible ridge.

A muffin top.

The jeans gripped my legs, hips and backside while my stomach spilled over the waist. They seemed designed to emphasise every part of Helen I would have preferred to hide.

I straightened and realised I was slightly out of breath.

Not exhausted. Just breathing harder than pulling on a pair of trousers had any right to make me. A faint dampness had gathered beneath Helen’s breasts, and my face felt warm from the effort.

Her body was badly out of shape.

Yesterday I could have run several miles before breakfast. This morning, getting dressed had been enough to make me sweat.

I considered taking the jeans off.

The thought of struggling into another pair made the decision for me.

They would have to do.

The pink tunic was the least objectionable top I could find.

It was loose around the stomach, though not loose enough to hide the ridge above the jeans completely. The neckline plunged deeply between the bra cups, displaying more cleavage than I would have chosen under any circumstances.

I tried pulling it higher.

The fabric simply fell back into place.

Every top in the wardrobe seemed designed around the same principle: if Helen could not look young, she could at least make people look at her breasts.

There were almost no proper flat shoes.

A pair of slippers sat beneath the bed, but I could hardly wear those to a doctor’s appointment. The lowest outdoor shoes I found were sandals with block heels of perhaps two inches.

I slid Helen’s feet into them.

The red toenails remained fully visible.

Fingernails, toenails, cleavage and heels.

Even dressed as casually as her wardrobe allowed, there was no escaping the woman Helen had constructed.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

The bare face appeared older than the clothes seemed willing to admit. Dyed blonde hair framed tired skin while the pink tunic displayed the upper curves of breasts held unnaturally high by the underwired bra. The jeans gripped my thighs and hips, cutting into the soft middle above them.

I looked like Helen.

That should have been obvious.

It still felt like failure.

Downstairs, I looked automatically for car keys.

There weren’t any.

Donald’s keys hung from a hook beside the front door, but nothing else suggested Helen owned a car. Her purse contained bank cards, loyalty cards and a travel pass, but no driving licence.

Apparently, she had never learned.

The discovery irritated me almost as much as the clothes. I had been driving since I was seventeen. Another ordinary independence had vanished with my body. Even if Donald’s car had been outside, I could hardly risk using it without a licence or any idea whether Helen had ever sat behind the wheel.

A folded note waited on the hall table in Donald’s handwriting.

Doctor Green — 10:30

Ashcroft Road Surgery

Get the 47 from the stop by the post office. It’s the fourth stop after the high street.

Love you. D x

He had even drawn a line beneath the bus number.

Donald clearly knew Helen well enough to expect that she might forget the address, the route or both.

I slipped the note into her handbag.

So that was another thing Helen had never managed to do.

No career.

No fitness.

No driving licence.

Apparently, it was the bus for me today.

At nine forty-five, I left the house.

It was early July, warm enough that the air already carried the promise of a hot afternoon. The sandals at least made seasonal sense, even if nothing else about them did.

The front door closed behind me.

For the first time since the swap, I was alone outside.

I attempted to walk towards the bus stop at my normal pace.

That lasted three steps.

I was accustomed to moving quickly and directly. Head up. Shoulders back. Long strides that made people either keep pace or move aside. Even when I was not in a hurry, I walked as though I had somewhere important to be.

Helen’s sandals made that impossible.

The heels were only two inches high, but they changed the angle of her feet enough that my usual stride felt unstable. Each time I placed one foot too far ahead, my ankle threatened to roll sideways.

I shortened my steps.

The adjustment felt ridiculous.

Instead of driving forward with long, purposeful strides, I had to place each foot more carefully, keeping my weight centred before committing to the next step. Helen’s hips moved more than mine had, partly because of their width and partly because the heels forced a different rhythm onto the body.

The sandals announced every step.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop.

The sound followed me along the pavement, unnaturally loud in the quiet street. Red toenails flashed through the open fronts whenever I looked down to check my footing.

The pink tunic shifted across my chest as I walked. The handbag slid repeatedly from my shoulder. The tight jeans restricted my stride further, their waistband pressing into Helen’s stomach whenever I tried to move too quickly.

I forced myself to slow down.

Smaller steps.

Careful placement.

Clip.

Clop.

There was no trace of the purposeful young man who had walked down this same street the previous afternoon. To anyone watching, I was simply a middle-aged woman picking her way towards the bus stop in heels she should probably have known better than to wear.

Every approaching pedestrian seemed like a threat.

I expected someone to stare too long. To notice that I walked incorrectly. To see a man’s uncertainty behind the bare face and dyed blonde hair.

Nobody did.

A delivery driver glanced at me and then returned to searching for a house number.

A woman pushing a buggy smiled politely.

An elderly man stepped aside to let me pass.

They saw Helen.

A middle-aged woman making her way to an appointment on a warm July morning.

The invisibility should have reassured me.

Instead, it made the situation feel more permanent.

The bus stop came into view at the end of the road.

So did the bus.

The number 47 glowed above the windscreen as it approached the junction.

For a second, instinct took over.

I ran.

Or tried to.

I pushed forward with the same urgency I would once have used to catch a closing train, lengthening my stride and expecting the body beneath me to respond.

It didn’t.

The first few steps were clumsy. The heels struck the pavement at awkward angles while the tight jeans restricted the movement of Helen’s thighs. Her breasts bounced painfully inside the bra, and the handbag slipped from my shoulder and swung against my side.

I tried to move faster.

One sandal landed badly.

My ankle folded sideways, and I lurched towards a garden wall with both hands outstretched. The long red nails scraped against the brick as I caught myself.

For one terrifying moment, I thought I was going down.

I stopped.

The bus continued towards the stop.

I stood beside the wall, breathing hard and feeling ridiculous.

I had barely run twenty yards.

My heart was already racing. Heat spread across Helen’s bare face, and the underwire rubbed damply beneath her breasts. One heel had twisted slightly around her foot, while several strands of blonde hair clung to my forehead.

I could not run in this body.

Not dressed like this.

Possibly not at all.

The realisation hit with disproportionate force.

Yesterday, running had been the thing I did when the rest of my life became difficult. I could have covered miles without thinking. I trusted my legs, my lungs and the simple obedience of a body trained to move when I demanded it.

Now I had nearly fallen over chasing a bus.

A pressure gathered behind my eyes.

Not again.

I tightened my grip on the handbag and tried to force the emotion back down. There were people at the stop. A man reading his phone. A woman with a shopping trolley. Anyone could look over and see a middle-aged woman on the verge of tears because she had almost missed a bus.

It was absurd.

That did not stop the tears from threatening.

My throat tightened. My vision blurred at the edges.

I became furious with Helen’s body for turning humiliation into grief before I had even decided how I felt about it.

The bus slowed.

The driver had seen me.

I straightened, wiped quickly beneath one eye before anything could escape and walked the remaining distance with as much dignity as the sandals allowed.

Smaller steps.

Careful placement.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop.

The doors opened just as I reached them.

I climbed aboard, breathless and pretending I hadn’t run at all.

Helen’s purse contained a travel card, but finding it while the driver waited required searching through receipts, tissues, lipstick and several loyalty cards.

The woman behind me sighed.

Heat rose further into my face.

“Sorry.”

Helen’s voice made the apology sound older and more timid than I intended.

I found the card and tapped it against the reader.

The bus lurched before I had reached a seat.

My balance failed immediately.

I grabbed a pole with one hand while the handbag swung forward and Helen’s chest moved heavily beneath the tunic. A teenage boy looked up briefly, then returned to his phone.

Not mockery.

Not suspicion.

Barely recognition.

I sat near the middle.

The journey lasted twenty minutes.

It felt longer.

I remained conscious of every part of Helen’s body. The width of my hips against the seat. The pressure of the underwire. The waistband cutting into my stomach. The glossy red nails resting against the handbag.

Across the aisle, two young women in gym clothes discussed a class they had just finished.

Both were perhaps Mandy’s age.

Slim.

Strong.

One wore leggings and a cropped jacket that revealed a flat strip of stomach.

I looked away before either of them noticed me staring.

Yesterday I had belonged among people like that. Not literally among the women, but within the same category of youth, fitness and possibility. My body had carried proof that I trained.

Now I looked like someone who had given up years earlier and still dressed for attention.

The thought hardened my anger.

Helen was somewhere inside my body, probably admiring it in every reflective surface she passed.

She could run without becoming breathless.

She could lift weights.

She could pull on a pair of jeans without needing to recover.

She could eat a meal without feeling her stomach press against the waistband.

She had stolen the result and left me with the excuses.

The surgery occupied the ground floor of a converted house.

I arrived twelve minutes early.

The receptionist looked up and smiled.

“Morning, Helen.”

I hesitated before returning the greeting.

She knew me.

Or rather, she knew the face.

I gave Helen’s name and date of birth when asked. Saying the year aloud felt obscene. The receptionist did not react. She confirmed my address and told me to take a seat.

The waiting room contained six other patients and a television displaying health advice without sound.

I sat beneath a poster about bowel screening.

A pregnant woman opposite me rested both hands on her stomach. Beside her, an elderly man coughed repeatedly into a handkerchief.

Nobody looked at me for more than a second.

The absence of scrutiny became almost disappointing. I had prepared myself to be exposed. Instead, the world accepted the deception more easily than I did.

A door opened.

“Helen?”

Doctor Green was younger than I expected.

Mid-thirties, perhaps. Dark hair, shirtsleeves rolled neatly to the forearms and a face arranged into the careful warmth doctors used when they knew a patient well enough to anticipate resistance.

He smiled when I approached.

No kiss.

No embrace.

Just a hand briefly against my upper arm as he guided me inside.

“Come through.”

His familiarity was professional, but it still unsettled me.

The consultation room contained a desk, two chairs and an examination couch hidden partly behind a curtain. A box of tissues sat within easy reach of the patient’s seat.

I noticed that immediately.

Doctor Green sat opposite me and opened Helen’s records.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Fine.”

The lie came too quickly.

He looked at me over the top of the monitor.

“That isn’t what Donald says.”

I lowered my eyes.

Doctor Green explained that Donald had telephoned early that morning. He was worried. Four times in the past month he had come home to find Helen crying, and the previous evening she had been almost impossible to console.

Almost.

Donald had left out the nightdress and the medication.

I was grateful for that.

“I’ve just been emotional,” I said.

The female voice sounded unconvincing even to me.

“Any idea what’s bringing it on?”

There were several possible answers.

My body had been stolen.

My girlfriend no longer knew where I was.

I had aged twenty-one years in an afternoon.

I was sitting in front of a doctor who believed I was someone else.

I folded Helen’s hands in my lap.

“I can’t explain it.”

Doctor Green waited.

The silence felt deliberate. An invitation to fill it.

“You have to believe me,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“That sounds very final.”

“It is.”

He leaned back slightly.

“Do you feel unsafe?”

The question frightened me.

“No.”

“Any thoughts about harming yourself?”

“No.”

That answer, at least, was honest.

I wanted my life back.

I had no intention of destroying the only body currently available to me, however much I despised it.

Doctor Green nodded and made a note.

He asked about sleep, appetite, alcohol and smoking. I answered cautiously, relying where possible on what I had learned from Donald and the house.

Sleep had been poor.

Appetite inconsistent.

Wine most evenings, though I did not know how much.

Smoking had resumed after nearly two years without it.

Doctor Green’s expression tightened slightly at that.

“Helen, we’ve discussed this.”

The mild reprimand irritated me.

I had smoked three cigarettes because the body in front of him had been trained to demand them.

I was still the person being judged for it.

“I know.”

He asked about hot flushes.

I stared at him.

“Feeling suddenly overheated,” he clarified. “Especially at night.”

I thought about the previous evening, but panic and embarrassment made every temperature difficult to interpret.

“Maybe.”

“Night sweats?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was your last period?”

The question caught me completely unprepared.

For a moment, I assumed I had misheard him.

“My what?”

Doctor Green paused.

“Your last period.”

The word seemed to alter the air between us.

I had understood in theory that Helen’s body was female.

The mirror had confirmed the anatomy.

Using the toilet that morning had forced me to confront how differently that anatomy functioned.

That did not mean I had considered its history.

“I don’t remember.”

It was the safest truthful answer available.

Doctor Green turned towards the screen.

According to Helen’s records, her periods had stopped roughly sixteen months earlier. She had already reported a full year without bleeding at her previous appointment.

“So they’re finished?” I asked.

“Almost certainly. You’re postmenopausal now. If you do have any bleeding, I’d want you to contact the surgery, but it would no longer be treated as an ordinary period.”

Postmenopausal.

The word sounded less like a diagnosis than a verdict.

Doctor Green explained that lower hormone levels after menopause could contribute to hot flushes, disrupted sleep, anxiety, low mood and difficulty concentrating. The symptoms did not necessarily end when the periods did. For some women, they became more noticeable afterwards.

The symptoms varied.

There was no precise schedule.

I gripped the edge of the chair.

“So this could continue for years?”

“It can,” he said. “But you don’t simply have to endure it.”

He explained that treatment depended on which symptoms troubled me most and whether there were any reasons hormone therapy might be unsuitable. Helen’s records already contained most of the relevant history. He checked her blood pressure, asked again about migraines and family history, then reviewed the risks and benefits with me.

Hormone replacement therapy could help with several symptoms.

It would not transform everything overnight. It might take several weeks before I noticed much difference, and the dose might need adjusting.

He suggested starting a continuous daily tablet and reviewing it after a few months.

Counselling would not be an admission of failure either. If the low mood remained persistent or severe, they could discuss that separately, though he did not want to prescribe an antidepressant simply because Donald had telephoned.

That part reassured me slightly.

At least he was not going to medicate me solely on another man’s account of my emotions.

“Do you know what’s happened to me?” I asked.

The question escaped before I could stop it.

Doctor Green’s expression softened.

“I think you’re going through a significant change.”

Hope rose despite reason.

“How?”

He seemed surprised by my urgency.

“Helen, we’ve spoken about this before.”

My fingers tightened around the chair.

“Tell me.”

He turned the monitor slightly, though the words displayed there meant nothing to me.

“Postmenopause.”

The hope vanished.

Of course.

He knew what had happened to Helen.

Not what had happened to me.

I laughed once.

A small, broken sound.

Doctor Green leaned forward.

I looked down at the body beneath the pink tunic.

Yesterday morning I had been a fit twenty-eight-year-old man with a promotion, a two-year sabbatical and a girlfriend whose body I had known almost as well as my own.

Now I was a forty-nine-year-old housewife with nicotine cravings, hot flushes waiting somewhere ahead of me and a doctor explaining that the effects of menopause might continue destabilising me for years.

The injustice of it became too large to contain.

Tears filled my eyes.

I hated them immediately.

“No,” I whispered.

Doctor Green reached for the tissue box.

That small movement broke whatever control remained.

I folded forward, elbows against my knees, and began to cry.

Again.

The sobs came from deep inside Helen’s chest, shaking the heavy breasts beneath the tunic and forcing air out of me in uneven bursts. I pressed a tissue against my mouth, furious at the body for exposing me.

Doctor Green moved his chair closer but did not touch me.

“There’s no need to be ashamed.”

I wanted to tell him that shame was not the problem.

I wanted to tell him that I had not gradually approached this stage of life. I had been thrown into it.

Instead, I cried while he waited.

When the worst of it passed, he gave me water and went through the prescription once more. One tablet every morning. The treatment was continuous rather than cyclical. I should not expect an immediate transformation, and I was to contact the surgery if the symptoms worsened or if I experienced any unexpected bleeding.

I nodded because refusing would worry Donald.

Doctor Green printed information about postmenopause and hormone therapy. He sent the prescription electronically to Helen’s usual pharmacy and asked me to keep a record of hot flushes, sleep problems and changes in mood until the review.

A symptom diary.

Another task inherited from Helen.

Before I left, he asked again whether I was safe.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll call if things become worse?”

I gave him the answer he needed.

Outside the surgery, I stood beside the bins and lit another cigarette.

The paper leaflet trembled in one hand while the other held the lighter.

Postmenopause.

Hot flushes.

Hormone therapy.

The vocabulary belonged to a life I had never imagined entering.

I inhaled and felt Helen’s body relax.

Then I looked at the cigarette with disgust.

It was my fourth of the day.

I had been awake for less than five hours.

The bus approached in the distance.

I folded the leaflet and placed it inside Helen’s handbag, beside her lipstick, travel card and Donald’s note.

One year, I reminded myself.

I only had to survive one year.

The thought no longer sounded remotely reassuring.

Chapter Five

The walk back from the bus stop was worse than the journey there.

By then the afternoon had become properly warm. Heat shimmered above the pavement, and the air beneath Helen’s clothes felt trapped and stale. The waistband of the jeans cut into her stomach whenever I bent or shortened my stride. Sweat had gathered beneath the bra and along the centre of my back, making the pink tunic cling to me in damp patches.

The sandals had become instruments of punishment.

They were not especially high. Two inches, perhaps. Mandy owned heels twice their height and could cross half of London in them without appearing to notice. Yet after the bus journey, the doctor’s appointment and my failed attempt at running, the balls of Helen’s feet throbbed with every step.

One strap had begun rubbing against the side of my little toe. Something sharp and tender was developing at the back of my left heel.

I tried to walk quickly anyway.

The attempt lasted perhaps ten yards.

The jeans restricted Helen’s thighs, while the sandals demanded that I place each foot carefully before shifting my weight. Whenever I tried to lengthen my stride, the heel wobbled beneath me and sent a jolt of alarm through the body.

Clip.

Clop.

Clip.

Clop.

I tottered along the pavement in short, resentful steps, the handbag sliding down my shoulder every few yards. Each time I stopped to drag it back into place, I became conscious of something else.

The soft stomach pressing against the waistband.

The breasts pulling against the bra straps.

The tunic sticking beneath my arms.

A young man passed me from behind.

He was not running. He was not even walking particularly quickly. He simply moved with the ordinary, careless efficiency I had possessed until the previous evening.

Long stride. Straight back. Arms swinging freely.

He disappeared ahead without once having to think about his shoes, his balance or the movement of his own body.

For a moment, I hated him.

Not personally.

Only for possessing something so basic and not knowing it could be taken.

By the time Helen’s house came into view, I was breathing harder than the distance justified. Loose strands of blonde hair had stuck to the back of my neck. The underwire rubbed beneath my breasts, and every step sent another pulse of pain through my feet.

I fumbled with the keys at the front door.

The long red nails clicked against the metal while I tried the wrong key twice. When the lock finally turned, I pushed inside and closed the door behind me with my back.

Silence.

No Donald.

No doctor.

Nobody watching.

I dropped the handbag onto the hall table and kicked off the sandals.

One struck the wall. The other landed upside down beneath the radiator.

I did not care.

The relief was immediate, although my feet continued to throb against the cool floorboards. Red grooves marked the skin where the straps had pressed. I curled Helen’s toes and felt the beginning of a blister pull tight against one heel.

Half a mile.

I had walked perhaps half a mile in total.

Mandy could spend an entire evening in heels without complaining. Helen apparently owned several pairs and wore them often enough for Donald to regard them as normal.

I had lasted one morning.

Then the bra became unbearable.

Its straps had dug into my shoulders for hours. The band felt welded around my ribs, and the underwire seemed to have fused itself to the sweaty skin beneath my breasts.

I reached behind me.

My fingers found the clasp more quickly than they had that morning, though the nails still made the movement clumsy. I missed once, swore, then hooked a nail beneath the fastening and pulled.

The clasp released.

The band slackened.

Relief moved through my chest so suddenly that I exhaled aloud.

I dragged one strap down beneath the tunic, then the other, working the bra free through the sleeve. The cups scraped over damp skin before the whole thing came loose in my hands.

Helen’s breasts dropped into their natural weight beneath the top.

They felt heavier without support. They settled lower against the body and moved when I shifted, but the pressure around my ribs was gone. No straps cutting into my shoulders. No wire pressing beneath them. Nothing forcing them upwards.

I stood in the hallway holding the bra and understood, for the first time, why women removed them as soon as they came home.

The fact that I understood anything about it irritated me.

I threw the bra over the handbag and went upstairs.

The thought of showering occurred to me as soon as I smelled the sweat on Helen’s skin.

I felt grimy everywhere the clothes had pressed against me. Beneath the breasts. Around the waistband. Along the back of my neck. The July heat had worked itself into every fold of fabric.

A shower was the obvious answer.

It would also require getting completely naked again.

Looking.

Washing.

Handling parts of Helen’s body I had so far managed to acknowledge only in fragments.

I could not do it.

Not yet.

I unbuttoned the jeans instead.

The waistband sprang apart as soon as the button cleared its hole. I lowered the zip and pushed the denim down over Helen’s hips, peeling it from her thighs before stepping free.

A deep red line remained around her waist.

I rubbed it absently, then stopped when I realised I was stroking the soft flesh of Helen’s stomach.

The tunic followed.

For a moment, I stood in the black high-waisted underwear, breasts unsupported, skin damp from the journey.

I avoided the mirror.

The lower drawers contained several sets of pyjamas.

None were remotely neutral.

There were silky camisoles edged with lace, glossy floral button-ups, a red satin set with black piping and two nightdresses that seemed more suited to seduction than sleep.

The least objectionable pair was made from soft pink cotton.

They had frills around the collar.

Frills around the cuffs.

Tiny embroidered flowers covered the breast pocket.

I held them up in disbelief.

Even Helen’s nightwear appeared determined to announce that it belonged to a woman.

Still, it was loose.

That was enough.

I pulled on the bottoms first. The elastic settled around Helen’s waist without cutting into it. The top hung over her chest and stomach, although the soft fabric did little to conceal the movement of the unsupported breasts beneath it.

No underwire.

No tight denim.

No plunging neckline.

It was, humiliatingly, the most comfortable thing I had worn since waking.

I looked down at myself.

Pink cotton. Frills. Little white flowers.

The body beneath it was still unmistakably female. The trousers rested around broad hips. The breasts remained obvious beneath the thin top. Nothing about the pyjamas made me look less like Helen.

They merely stopped the body from hurting.

I sat heavily on the edge of the bed.

My feet ached. My skin felt sticky. Doctor Green’s leaflet remained folded inside the handbag downstairs, waiting to explain the gradual deterioration of a body I had inherited without warning.

I knew I should wash.

Instead, I lay back against the pillows and closed my eyes.

Five minutes.

Then I would get up.

Then I would decide what came next.

The doorbell rang before the five minutes had passed.

I remained still.

Whoever stood outside could assume the house was empty.

The bell rang again, followed by three brisk knocks against the front door.

The person on the other side had no intention of leaving.

I sat up. Helen’s breasts shifted beneath the pyjama top, and I folded my arms across them before realising how defensive the gesture looked.

The knocking continued.

“Alright.”

Helen’s voice carried down the stairs.

Hearing it still made something recoil inside me.

I went down barefoot.

Through the frosted glass beside the door, I could see the shape of a woman standing close enough that she was almost leaning against it.

I opened the door only partway.

She looked roughly Helen’s age, perhaps a little younger, with dark hair arranged in a layered bob and fixed so firmly with hairspray that the summer breeze did not disturb it. Her makeup was immaculate and unapologetic: dark eyeliner, carefully drawn brows, frosted pink lipstick and bronzer that sharpened her cheekbones.

Large silver hoops hung from her ears.

A leopard-print scarf was tied around the handle of an oversized black handbag.

She looked me over without attempting discretion.

Her gaze passed from Helen’s bare face to the tangled blonde hair, then down over the frilled pink pyjamas and bare feet.

The expression that appeared was one of fascinated horror.

“Bloody hell.”

I gripped the edge of the door and asked whether I could help her.

One eyebrow rose.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

She tried to step inside. I kept the door where it was and told her I was not feeling well.

This interested her more than it deterred her.

She looked past me into the hall, then back at my face. Amusement remained in her expression, but something more attentive had appeared beneath it.

When I admitted that I did not know who she was, her smile widened.

That, more than anything else, seemed to confirm whatever she had come to discover.

She placed one hand against the door and pushed.

I could have resisted. Helen’s body was not strong, but neither was the woman outside. Any struggle on the doorstep, however, risked attracting neighbours.

I stepped back.

She entered as though the house belonged partly to her.

Her handbag landed on the hall table beside Helen’s discarded bra. She looked at the bra, then at me.

“No bra either.”

“It was uncomfortable.”

“They generally are.”

She hung the leopard-print scarf over the banister with practised familiarity and walked into the sitting room.

I followed, increasingly conscious that she knew the house better than I did.

She opened the patio door, found the ashtray beside Helen’s chair and lit a cigarette. Then she lowered herself into the armchair and crossed one leg over the other.

Smoke drifted towards the garden.

I remained standing in front of her in Helen’s pink pyjamas.

She took her time examining me.

The bare face. The unbrushed hair. The frilled collar and cuffs. The unsupported weight beneath the thin cotton top.

Her expression moved slowly from disbelief to delight.

“Bloody hell,” she said again.

I demanded her name.

“Tracy.”

It meant nothing to me.

She waited long enough to confirm that before explaining that she was Helen’s oldest friend.

Something tightened inside me.

Tracy noticed. Her smile widened, as though my reaction had completed a test.

She told me it had worked.

I asked what she meant.

She only smoked and watched me.

The amusement in her face made it clear that she knew far more than she intended to offer freely. When I asked where Helen was, Tracy said she had no idea. When I asked how to contact her, she said I could not.

The answers came without apology or elaboration. She seemed to consider my desperation understandable but slightly tiresome.

Eventually, she mentioned that Helen had sent her a letter.

I asked to see it.

“It’s in my handbag,” she said, nodding towards the hall. “Go and get it if you want to read it.”

I found the cream envelope inside and returned with it. Tracy remained in the armchair, smoking while I unfolded the page.

> **Tracy,**
>
> **I’ve done it. The swap worked.**
>
> **Someone else is in my body. They did not agree to it, so they will be frightened, angry and difficult when you meet them.**
>
> **I have given them clear terms.**
>
> **For one year, they must preserve the life I have left behind. Donald must not discover the truth. They must not expose what has happened, abandon my home, destroy my marriage or leave me with nothing to return to.**
>
> **If they keep those conditions, I will come back after exactly one year and reverse the swap.**
>
> **If they tell anyone, deliberately ruin my life or make it impossible for me to return, I will disappear and keep the body I have taken. They will remain as me permanently.**
>
> **They already know this. They may threaten to ignore the arrangement, but they understand what is at stake.**
>
> **Please help them learn my routines and stop them doing anything foolish. Make sure my life remains intact.**
>
> **I cannot be contacted before the year is over.**
>
> **Trust me.**
>
> **Helen**

I read the opening twice.

*They did not agree to it.*

Helen had admitted it plainly.

She had not hidden the coercion or tried to imply that I had volunteered. She had informed Tracy that someone unwilling would be trapped inside her body, then assigned her the task of keeping that person compliant.

I looked up.

“You knew.”

Tracy lifted the cigarette to her lips.

She knew what Helen had written. That was all.

The distinction meant nothing.

She had arrived expecting to meet someone whose body had been stolen. That knowledge did not trouble her nearly enough.

When I accused her of helping Helen, she shrugged.

In Tracy’s view, the thing had already been done. Helen was gone. I was here. Outrage would not reverse anything.

She seemed less disturbed by the theft itself than curious about what sort of person Helen had selected.

I crushed the edge of the paper in my fist.

Helen had stolen my body.

She had threatened to keep it permanently.

Tracy acknowledged both facts with the weary patience of someone listening to a complaint she had already anticipated.

Her lack of concern was almost more insulting than disbelief would have been.

She cared about Helen, she explained. She had known her since they were sixteen. That did not mean she approved of everything Helen did. It merely meant she had stopped expecting better judgement from her.

As for Donald, Tracy did not appear concerned about him at all.

She regarded him as an old bore.

He talked about golf, engineering, traffic and the cost of petrol. He watched the same programmes every week and repeated stories whose endings everyone already knew. Tracy had spent years watching Helen’s eyes glaze over while he described changes to the golf-club membership fees.

She could hardly blame Helen for wanting a year away from him.

The casualness left me speechless.

“She stole a person’s body because her husband is boring.”

Tracy smiled around the cigarette.

She had not said it was a good reason.

She did not appear to think reasons mattered much now.

Helen had done it. The year had begun. Tracy’s task, as she understood it, was to make sure I did not panic and destroy the arrangement before Helen returned.

She gestured towards the letter in my hand.

“If you fuck up her life, love, you’ll be stuck as you are forever.”

Her smile broadened.

“And I’m guessing you don’t want that now, do you?”

I did not answer.

I did not need to.

The smugness in her expression made it clear that she knew the answer.

Whatever anger I felt towards Helen, it could not be allowed to become action. Every part of her life I damaged would reduce the likelihood of recovering mine.

Tracy did not need to threaten me.

She only had to remind me what Helen had already taken.

She asked my name.

“Daniel.”

At first, she assumed she had misheard.

“Danielle?”

“Daniel.”

The cigarette paused halfway to her mouth.

Tracy stared at me.

Her eyes travelled slowly over Helen’s body before returning to my face.

“A man?”

“I was yesterday.”

For the first time since arriving, she had no immediate response.

Until then, she had evidently imagined a younger woman. Someone foolish, desperate or easily manipulated. Helen’s letter had supplied no age, sex or explanation of whose body she had taken.

Tracy asked how old I was.

“Twenty-eight.”

The silence lasted perhaps a second.

Then she burst out laughing.

She did not attempt to hide it. Her head fell back against the chair, and the sound carried through the open patio door into the garden.

“Oh, Helen.”

She crushed the cigarette into the ashtray before she dropped it.

One hand covered her mouth, but the laughter continued through her fingers.

The cruelty of it did not escape her.

That appeared to be what made it so funny.

Helen had not merely taken youth. She had taken it from a twenty-eight-year-old man and left him behind in her own body, her house and her marriage.

A man in his prime.

Those were Tracy’s words.

She looked at the pink pyjamas again and laughed harder.

The frills around the cuffs suddenly seemed to fascinate her. So did the floral pocket and the outline of Helen’s unsupported breasts beneath the cotton.

I told her to stop.

She tried.

Then she looked at me again and failed.

It was so much worse than she had imagined, she said.

For me, I reminded her.

Obviously for me.

Another laugh escaped before she managed to compose herself.

Helen, she said, never did anything by halves.

There was admiration mixed into it.

That infuriated me more than the laughter alone.

I told her to get out.

She remained in the chair.

When I stepped closer and repeated myself, something in my posture appeared to amuse her. She looked up at me for a moment before understanding arrived.

“Oh,” she said. “You really are a man.”

The renewed delight in her voice made me want to drag her from the chair.

She looked me over with theatrical consideration, taking in Helen’s soft arms, rounded middle and the loose pink pyjamas hanging from her body.

“I’m not sure you’ve got quite the build for throwing me out anymore, love.”

My hands clenched.

Even if I could remove her, she continued, doing so would be remarkably stupid. She was the only person who knew what had happened and was willing to help me.

The state in which I had answered the door proved how badly I needed that help.

I was barefoot, bare-faced and sweating in the middle of the afternoon. Helen’s hair was tangled around my shoulders. Her breasts hung unsupported beneath a pink top edged with frills. Her discarded bra remained on the hall table, and I still had no idea how to make myself look like the woman Donald expected to find when he returned home.

Tracy pointed all of this out with visible enjoyment.

Given that I had been a man until the previous day, she doubted I knew how to style Helen’s hair, apply makeup or choose clothes that fitted her properly. I probably did not know which products went where, which bras were comfortable, what Helen normally wore around the house or how she made herself presentable before Donald came home.

I wanted to dismiss her.

The morning had already demonstrated that she was right.

I had struggled into the bra, chosen jeans that nearly cut me in half, almost fallen while trying to run in heels and arrived home wet with sweat after walking a distance I would once have covered without noticing.

Tracy knew Helen’s habits.

She knew her clothes, her marriage and the thousand small routines that made one person recognisable to another.

I could throw her out and preserve what remained of my pride.

Then I would still be alone in Helen’s house when Donald returned.

“You need me,” she said.

Her grin made the admission impossible.

I looked away.

Tracy allowed the silence to settle before reaching for her cigarette packet. She shook one loose and held it towards me.

“Stop being a moody cow and have a fag.”

I looked at her.

“Don’t call me that.”

She continued holding out the cigarette.

“I don’t want one.”

The denial felt true for less than a second.

My mouth had already begun to water. Pressure gathered behind Helen’s ribs, sharp enough to make me conscious of every breath. My fingers twitched at my sides.

Tracy noticed.

Her eyebrows lifted.

“Well, somebody does.”

“That isn’t me.”

“No,” she said. “It’s Helen.”

She held the cigarette a little closer.

I should have refused it.

Instead, I snatched it from her fingers.

Tracy’s grin widened, but she said nothing. She leaned forward with the lighter and sheltered the flame in one hand while I brought the cigarette to Helen’s lips.

I inhaled.

Relief travelled through the body almost immediately.

The pressure behind my ribs loosened. My shoulders lowered. The anger remained, but it no longer occupied every available part of me.

I hated the effect more than I hated the taste.

Tracy watched with open fascination.

She was no longer studying the pyjamas or the body itself. Her attention had settled on the small movements: the way Helen’s fingers positioned the cigarette between the long red nails, the angle at which I held it away from my face, the ease with which the smoke entered lungs I had possessed for less than a day.

I had not decided how to hold it.

The body had.

Tracy leaned forward in the armchair.

“You didn’t smoke before, did you?”

There was no laughter in her voice now. She had already worked it out.

“No.”

“And you didn’t want that one.”

“No.”

“But she did.”

I looked at the cigarette resting naturally between Helen’s fingers.

“Yes.”

The answer seemed to settle something for her.

Helen’s memories had gone with Helen. Her habits had not. The craving had remained in the lungs, the nerves, perhaps somewhere deeper than either of us understood. My mind rejected the cigarette while the body recognised it, demanded it and rewarded me for obeying.

Tracy lit one for herself, though she barely looked at it.

“So you’ve inherited the addiction.”

“I’ve inherited all of her.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

Her curiosity had overtaken her amusement. She wanted to know what else might have remained behind. Reflexes. Tastes. Physical preferences. Whether the body might reach for familiar objects before I understood why. Whether it might respond to people Helen had known, even if I felt nothing for them.

I had answers to almost none of it.

That only interested her more.

To Tracy, the spell was no longer merely something outrageous Helen had done. It was real and sitting opposite her in frilled pink pyjamas, smoking with another woman’s practised hands.

Chapter Six

Tracy had decided that I needed a shower.

She announced it from the edge of the bed, where she had made herself comfortable with one leg crossed over the other and a cigarette angled towards the open window. Her handbag rested beside her. An empty drinking glass had been commandeered as an ashtray.

I stood near the wardrobe in Helen’s pink pyjamas, still sticky from the journey home and increasingly conscious of the sweat trapped beneath the soft cotton.

I knew she was right.

That did not make being ordered about in another woman’s bedroom any easier to tolerate.

“Right,” she said. “Shower.”

“I know.”

“Good. We’re making progress.”

The smile accompanying the words made it clear that she considered my ability to recognise basic hygiene a significant achievement.

She took my compliance for granted and led me into the bathroom. Several bottles stood around the bath, none of them arranged in any order I could understand.

Tracy lined them up and explained their purposes. Shampoo at the roots. Conditioner through the lengths and ends. Exfoliating lotion before shaving. Gel for my legs and beneath my arms.

Helen shaved every few days during summer.

I told Tracy that I understood how showers worked.

“You didn’t know which one was shampoo.”

“I would have worked it out.”

“Eventually.”

She was already grinning.

She pointed towards the razor and advised me not to press too hard, particularly around the knees. I had shaved my face for years, but apparently that experience did not qualify me to handle a woman’s legs without supervision.

Her final instruction was delivered with even greater casualness.

“Leave the bush alone.”

I stared at her.

She shrugged.

“Donald likes it.”

For several seconds, I could not decide which part of the statement I objected to most: that Donald had a preference, that Helen had discussed it with Tracy, or that preserving it had somehow become my responsibility.

Apparently Helen told her everything.

“Everything?”

“Unfortunately.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. She had clearly been waiting to see how I would react.

I made it clear that I had no intention of maintaining the body according to Donald’s sexual tastes. Tracy remained unmoved. I could think of it however I liked, but Donald would notice if his wife suddenly altered something she had left unchanged for years.

The purpose of the arrangement was to preserve Helen’s life.

“And keep Donald happy,” she added.

My expression betrayed me.

Tracy laughed immediately, the sound loud and delighted in the small bathroom.

“Not that happy. Calm down.”

The fact that I had visibly misunderstood her only amused her more. She was still giggling as she returned to the bedroom, leaving the products arranged around the bath.

“You can shut the door if you’re precious,” she called. “Try not to wash your hair with body lotion.”

I closed it firmly.

Then I locked it.

Her laughter carried faintly through the wood.

For several seconds, I remained with my back against the door.

Privacy should have made the task easier. Instead, the silence left me alone with everything Tracy had said.

The body required maintenance. Not abstractly, but in ways that demanded I touch, inspect and care for it. Refusing would not make any of it less real. It would only leave me dirty, uncomfortable and more likely to expose myself to anyone who knew Helen well enough to notice.

I removed the pyjamas and left them badly folded on the toilet lid. The underwear followed.

I stepped into the bath without looking down.

The water was cold at first. Once it warmed, I allowed it to strike my shoulders and run down my back.

My hair grew heavy almost immediately. Wet strands flattened against my neck and clung to my skin. Water travelled over my breasts and gathered beneath them before running across my stomach.

I reached for the exfoliating lotion.

At least I remembered the order.

Fine grains moved beneath my palms as I worked the cream across my arms and legs. I concentrated on the action rather than the flesh beneath my hands.

Skin.

Hair.

Soap.

Nothing more.

That distinction became harder to maintain when I raised one foot against the side of the bath and spread shaving gel across my shin.

White foam covered the skin and stopped above five glossy red toenails.

I stared at them.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I had been a fit twenty-eight-year-old man discussing mortgages and children with Mandy. I had spent years building strength, monitoring my weight and treating my body as something disciplined and reliable.

Now I was standing in another woman’s bath preparing to shave my legs while her best friend smoked in the next room and reminded me not to alter the parts her husband preferred.

I placed the razor against my ankle and drew it upwards.

A clean strip appeared through the foam.

The movement was easier than expected, although the long nails made my grip less secure. I rinsed the blades and repeated the stroke, gradually clearing the shin.

The leg beneath my hand felt nothing like the one I remembered.

There was less muscle around the calf. My old body had felt dense and deliberate, shaped by repetition and effort. This flesh yielded slightly beneath my fingers when I turned my ankle.

Once the foam was gone, I passed my palm over the skin.

Smooth.

The result looked natural.

Expected.

The red toenails completed it.

The second leg went faster. My wrist found a rhythm that felt disturbingly automatic. I could not tell whether I was learning quickly or whether some physical memory had remained behind in the body.

The backs of my calves were difficult. So were the knees. Reaching them required bending and twisting in ways that compressed my stomach against my thighs and made my unsupported breasts hang heavily from my chest.

One brushed against my forearm.

I straightened too quickly and struck my shoulder against the shower fitting.

Tracy’s laughter came through the door almost immediately.

“You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Her reply was something about the grace of the trained athlete. I could hear her laughing at her own joke after she had finished speaking.

I ignored her.

My underarms came next. Raising one arm shifted my breast on that side and exposed the warm skin beneath it. I pulled the skin taut and moved the razor carefully.

Everything about the body required upkeep.

My hair needed washing, conditioning, drying and styling.

My skin needed shaving and moisturising.

My nails had been shaped and painted.

My breasts required support, while the skin beneath them needed to be kept clean and dry.

Even the hair I had been told not to remove existed within a set of expectations that belonged to somebody else.

Donald likes it.

I pulled the razor too sharply and felt it catch.

I stopped.

Any cut would remain on the body I had to occupy.

That was the trap hidden inside every act of resentment. I could neglect Helen’s body. I could damage it deliberately. I could refuse to care for it as a way of denying what had happened.

I would be the one who suffered first.

I completed the other side more carefully and reached for the shower gel.

My shoulders and arms were simple enough.

My chest was not.

The weight of my breasts drew them downwards, creating warm folds beneath them that the water did not reach properly. I lifted the first with my forearm and washed underneath.

The flesh settled heavily against my arm.

The contact was practical, necessary and still intolerably intimate.

I repeated the process on the other side, then washed my stomach, hips and thighs.

Eventually, there was nowhere left to avoid.

I kept my eyes fixed on the tiles and washed between my legs by touch.

The anatomy remained something I could acknowledge only through function.

Skin that needed cleaning.

A body that would become sore or unwell if I refused to care for it.

Nothing else.

I rinsed the soap away quickly.

The shampoo came last.

I worked it into the roots with the pads of my fingers so the nails would not scratch my scalp. Foam gathered beneath my hands, carrying a sweet artificial scent into the steam.

The sensation was unexpectedly pleasant.

Warm water. Fingertips moving over my scalp. The weight of the hair shifting as the shampoo loosened it.

For several seconds, I forgot to resent the body.

Then I saw the red nails disappearing into the blonde foam and remembered whose hair I was washing.

I rinsed it thoroughly and worked conditioner through the lengths and ends. The hair became smoother almost immediately, sliding between my fingers in heavy wet sections.

When I turned off the water, the bathroom became abruptly quiet.

I dried myself quickly and avoided the mirror.

The largest towel covered my breasts and reached almost to my knees. A second went around my hair. Only when both were secure did I unlock the door.

Tracy remained on the bed, finishing her cigarette while looking at something on her phone.

She glanced up.

“Well done.”

“I managed a shower.”

“I’m very proud.”

The mock solemnity lasted only a second before she smiled.

I reached for the pyjamas.

Tracy stopped me before I could collect them. In her view, the pink cotton belonged to bedtime, illness and private collapse. Donald would not expect to come home and find Helen dressed for bed in the middle of the afternoon.

“You need to look like her,” she said. “Not like she’s recovering from food poisoning.”

“I’m not dressing for Donald.”

“You’re dressing so he doesn’t realise his wife has been replaced by a miserable young man.”

She laughed at the description as she crossed to the wardrobe.

Dresses. Blouses. Cardigans. Skirts. Trousers. Floral prints. Bright colours. Rows of shoes beneath them.

The collection seemed even more oppressive when Tracy treated it as a set of choices rather than storage.

She eventually selected a muted green blouse patterned with small cream flowers. It looked like something a secretary might wear.

“Helen was a secretary,” Tracy said when I mentioned it.

“Of course she was.”

“She hasn’t been one for years. Perhaps the clothes never recovered.”

She snorted at her own observation and held the blouse against my towel-covered body as if checking the colour.

A dark knee-length skirt followed. I asked for trousers, but Tracy dismissed the idea because the skirt matched the blouse. The fact that I did not care whether they matched only confirmed her opinion of my abilities.

Then she opened the underwear drawers.

I tightened the towel around myself.

“You can leave now.”

“I’m choosing your underwear.”

“I can choose underwear.”

“You chose black lace for a doctor’s appointment.”

“They were the first pair I found.”

“Exactly.”

She gave a delighted little laugh, as though I had walked directly into a trap she had prepared.

She removed a pale cream pair, high-waisted and edged with a narrow strip of lace. They were less elaborate than the black ones from that morning, although still unmistakably feminine.

The bra she selected looked more substantial as well. Wider straps. Fuller cups. A band that appeared capable of supporting the weight without trying to cut me in half.

I told her I had no intention of wearing another bra.

She glanced at the towel, then at me.

The movement beneath it had already answered the question.

“This one’s comfortable,” she said. “Proper support.”

“How do you know?”

“Helen complains about her bras almost as often as she complains about Donald.”

She handed me both garments, still smiling.

I told her to turn around.

Tracy reminded me that she had seen Helen naked hundreds of times.

“I haven’t.”

The answer quieted her briefly.

Then she turned her back, although the amusement remained visible in the line of her shoulders.

I removed the towel and stepped into the underwear.

The clean fabric settled high around my waist and hips. It felt close and enclosing against the freshly washed skin, intimate enough to make me conscious of every part it covered.

The bra was more difficult.

I fastened it around the front, turned the band and tried to work my arms through the straps. One twisted. The other caught beneath the towel around my hair.

The towel began sliding over my eyes.

I caught it with one hand, lost the strap with the other and swore.

Tracy gave me perhaps ten seconds before asking whether I was all right. Her voice had already begun to shake with suppressed laughter.

I assured her I was.

The towel slipped further.

She turned despite my refusal.

I stood before her in the high-waisted underwear, the bra hanging crookedly around my ribs and the towel collapsed over half my face.

Her lips pressed together.

Her eyes widened.

“Don’t.”

That was enough.

She doubled over laughing while I tried to straighten the strap without exposing more of myself than I already had.

“I said don’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

She plainly was not. She had one hand pressed against her stomach and was laughing too hard to speak properly.

Eventually, she approached and told me to hold still. Her hands moved against my body with complete practicality. She untwisted the strap, adjusted the band and settled my breasts correctly into the cups.

I hated how easily she did it.

The bra lifted them and drew them closer together. My waist appeared slightly narrower by comparison, though my stomach still curved softly beneath the band.

Tracy stepped back and looked me over, still recovering from her laughter.

“Much better.”

I reached for the blouse, but she stopped me and pointed towards the mirror.

I refused to look.

That amused her almost as much as the failed bra. From her perspective, my reluctance was simple shyness. I was standing in underwear, avoiding the mirror because I did not want to see what was attached to me.

The truth felt more complicated.

Tracy knew Helen’s body. To her, it was familiar and ordinary. A collection of small complaints accumulated over decades.

To me, every feature represented absence.

The breasts where my flat chest should have been.

The softness where muscle had been.

The width of my hips and thighs.

The smoothness of my newly shaved legs.

Tracy followed my gaze and remarked that it must be different from what I was accustomed to.

“I was fit,” I said.

Her eyebrows rose with exaggerated interest.

“Oh, were you?”

“I trained five or six times a week.”

Tracy considered my body with theatrical seriousness. Her attention moved over my stomach, the broader hips and the soft thighs, where faint cellulite showed beneath the light.

Then she looked at my breasts held inside the bra.

“Fascinating.”

I reached for the blouse, but she was already laughing.

She claimed to be appreciating the contrast between my old muscles and what she called Helen’s little collection: the soft belly, the cellulite and the slightly sagging breasts.

“They are not that saggy.”

The defence escaped before I could stop it.

Tracy’s expression transformed.

“Oh, that’s lovely.”

She began laughing again, delighted enough that she had to sit briefly on the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You’re defending them already.”

“I’m not.”

“They’re your tits now, love. You’re allowed.”

“They are not mine.”

“They’re attached to you.”

“That does not make them mine.”

“Try leaving the room without them.”

That set her off again.

I pulled the blouse over my head rather than answer.

The fabric caught briefly against the bra before settling around my body. The neckline covered most of my chest, and the small floral pattern disguised some of the softness at my waist.

The skirt was worse.

I stepped into it and pulled it over my hips. Once fastened, it sat at my waist and fell to my knees. Tracy tugged it straight before I could stop her and smoothed the blouse into place.

The outfit coordinated.

I disliked that I could recognise it.

The muted green worked with the dark skirt. The cream flowers matched the cardigan. It was not glamorous or theatrical. It was simply the sort of outfit an ordinary middle-aged woman might wear at home while still expecting to be seen.

That made it convincing.

“Donald likes that colour,” Tracy said.

I told her again that I did not care.

She pointed out, through another grin, that I would have to respond normally when he complimented it rather than glaring at him as though he were personally responsible for the situation.

Then she picked up the hairdryer and directed me towards the dressing table.

The mirror was too large.

I sat because refusing would only prolong the scene.

The figure in the reflection wore recognisably female clothing, but the wet hair and bare face left the image incomplete. My dyed blonde hair hung flat around my cheeks and neck, darker at the roots and dampening the shoulders of the blouse.

Tracy removed the towel and complained that I had made it frizzy. She applied a small amount of product to the ends and divided the hair with a brush.

The dryer began roaring beside my head.

She worked confidently, drawing sections over a round brush and directing the hot air along them. She lifted the crown, curled the ends beneath my jaw and swept the fringe across my forehead.

I watched because there was nowhere else to look.

Until then, I had avoided examining Helen’s face properly. I had registered it only in fragments.

Female.

Older.

Not mine.

Now the mirror offered nowhere to retreat.

The face was not ugly.

That almost made it worse.

It was an ordinary, unmistakably feminine face approaching fifty. My cheeks were still full, though the flesh no longer sat as firmly as it should have. There was a little fat beneath my chin and along either side of my jaw, softening the boundary between my face and neck.

It was not a dramatic double chin. Nobody passing me in the street would have stared at it.

That did nothing to lessen the dismay of discovering it attached to me.

I turned my head slightly.

The softness moved with it.

There were lines as well. Fine creases spread from the outer corners of my eyes, becoming clearer whenever I narrowed them. A deeper vertical groove sat between my brows and refused to disappear completely even when I relaxed my face.

I leaned towards the mirror before realising what I was doing.

The eyebrows above the groove were extraordinarily thin. They had been plucked into high, narrow arches that made me look permanently sceptical. Or surprised. Perhaps both.

The face moved when I moved.

That remained the most disturbing part.

When I frowned, Helen frowned. The groove between my brows deepened. When I tightened my mouth, lighter creases appeared around it. My thoughts moved inside features that communicated an age, sex and life entirely separate from my own.

Tracy switched off the dryer.

The sudden quiet made me aware that she had caught me staring.

“First proper look?”

“I’ve seen it before.”

“You’ve had little peeks. This is the first time you’ve had a proper inspection.”

She leaned around the chair and examined my reflection with the bright interest of someone evaluating an item she already owned.

Her smile widened when she noticed where I was looking.

“Crow’s feet.”

“What?”

“The little lines beside your eyes.”

I looked at them again.

“They’re called that?”

“Because they look like a bird’s foot.”

Tracy demonstrated by spreading three fingers beside her own eye, then laughed at the expression that crossed my face.

“And that,” she continued, gesturing towards the groove between my eyebrows, “is a frown line.”

“It doesn’t go away.”

“No. Helen’s earned that one.”

“How?”

“Twenty-five years of dealing with Donald.”

She laughed at her own answer, then leaned closer to inspect the sides of my jaw.

“And you’ve got the beginning of jowls.”

I turned to look at her.

“Jowls?”

“The soft bits here.”

She indicated the flesh on either side of my jaw without touching it.

“Where your face starts heading south.”

I looked back at the mirror.

The word made the softness seem worse. I turned my face one way and then the other, trying to decide how visible it was.

Tracy watched me with open amusement.

“Oh, love. Ladies our age are very insecure about these things.”

“Our age?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“Not in that mirror.”

She laughed, delighted by the reminder, then rested one hand lightly on the back of my chair.

“But don’t worry. You look incredible for your age.”

Her smile made the compliment sound worse than an insult.

“For nearly fifty,” she added.

“I know what you meant.”

“Do you? Because you look upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

I was staring at the softened jawline again.

Tracy’s amusement deepened.

“You could always beg Donald to pay for a bit of Botox.”

“Botox wouldn’t fix my jaw.”

“Listen to you. Ten minutes in front of a mirror and you’re already researching procedures.”

“I’m not researching anything.”

“A little Botox for the frown line, something for the crow’s feet, perhaps a lift when things get desperate.”

She tilted her head, assessing the reflection.

“We could have you looking closer to forty.”

“Closer?”

The word delighted her.

Tracy laughed so loudly that she had to lower the hairdryer.

“Sorry. Perhaps forty-two.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“You keep saying that as though your face agrees.”

She switched the dryer on again, still chuckling.

As the blonde layers took shape, the face changed.

The styling did not make me younger. It made the age coherent.

Volume at the crown balanced my cheeks. The layered ends disguised some of the softness along my jaw. The fringe partly covered the frown line and drew attention away from the fine creases around my eyes.

It was the haircut I privately associated with irritable middle-aged women demanding to speak to managers.

A Karen haircut.

I kept that observation to myself.

Tracy would have enjoyed it too much.

She curled the final section beneath my jaw and switched off the dryer. Then she stood behind me, admiring her work in the mirror with far more satisfaction than I felt.

“There,” she said. “Took years off you.”

“How many?”

“Two or three.”

She began laughing before I could answer.

When she had recovered, she adjusted one section near my cheek and tilted her head.

“Your girlfriend pretty?”

The question came without warning.

I looked at her through the mirror.

My reaction gave her the answer before I did.

“Oh,” she said, smiling. “You do have one.”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“I’m not telling you.”

Tracy laughed at the speed of my refusal.

“Are you going to tell her what happened?”

The question tightened something in my stomach.

Mandy opening her door.

Mandy finding Helen standing outside.

This face claiming to be mine.

The lines around the eyes. The softened jaw. The thin brows. The styled blonde layers curling beneath my chin.

My silence answered for me.

“She wouldn’t believe me.”

“You could tell her something only you know.”

“In this body?”

I saw the embarrassment appear on Helen’s face before I felt it.

Tracy saw it too.

Her smile widened slowly as she understood.

“Oh, that’s not the real problem.”

“You don’t know what the problem is.”

“You don’t want her seeing you like this.”

“That isn’t it.”

“Course it is.”

She leaned against the dressing table, enjoying herself again.

“Yesterday you were her handsome young boyfriend. Today you’d turn up looking like somebody’s mum after a wash and set.”

She began laughing before she had even finished the sentence.

I told her to shut up.

“What would you say?” she continued. “‘Hello, darling. Don’t mind the crow’s feet. It’s still me underneath’?”

“She would think I was insane.”

“She might.”

Tracy looked at my reflection, the laughter settling into a smaller, knowing smile.

“Or she might believe every word and still see Helen.”

That quietened me.

The mockery remained in the curve of her mouth, but the observation beneath it was real.

Mandy might believe me.

She might recognise the way I spoke, the things I remembered and the private details no stranger could know.

And still, whenever she looked at me, she would see an older woman with dyed blonde hair, a soft jaw and fine lines around her eyes.

She would see Helen first.

I looked at the face in the mirror.

Nothing in it belonged to Mandy’s boyfriend.

Tracy let the silence remain for a few seconds before opening the makeup bag.

“Right,” she said, still faintly amused. “Let’s see if we can get you down to forty-five.”

Foundation. Concealer. Powder. Blusher. Eye pencil. Mascara. Lipstick. Brushes in several shapes.

I picked one up and asked what it did.

She took it from me because I was holding it like a screwdriver.

Tracy explained the process while arranging everything across the dressing table. Moisturiser first. Foundation blended towards the jaw. Concealer beneath the eyes. Powder across the centre of the face. Blusher. Definition around the brows and eyes. Mascara. Lipstick.

I had assumed makeup was simply placed on the face.

Instead, every product had a location, an order and an amount that apparently separated an ordinary result from disaster.

Tracy dotted foundation across my forehead, cheeks and chin, then blended it with a sponge.

I flinched at the repeated tapping.

“You went to the gym four times a week and you’re frightened of a makeup sponge?”

“I’m not frightened.”

“Course not.”

She laughed beneath her breath and continued.

The foundation softened the unevenness of my skin. Concealer reduced the shadows beneath my eyes. Powder dulled the shine across my forehead and nose.

The lines did not disappear. They became less obvious, the face around them more even.

Each step made Helen more deliberate.

More complete.

Tracy added colour to my cheeks and worked around my eyes. The pencil near them made me tense. She laughed when I warned her not to blind me and reminded me that she had been doing this since before I was born.

When she finished the mascara, she sat back.

The woman in the mirror looked alert now.

Polished.

My hair framed my face correctly. The narrow brows had become sharp arches. Colour in my cheeks made my skin appear healthier.

It was still an older face.

Still feminine.

Still mine only because it moved when I did.

Tracy selected a muted rose lipstick.

I objected. I was staying in the house.

Helen wore lipstick in the house.

“For Donald?”

“For herself.”

That surprised me enough for Tracy to notice.

“Not everything women do is for a man, Daniel.”

“You’ve spent the last hour telling me what Donald likes.”

“Because Donald is the person most likely to realise something is wrong.”

She smiled again and lifted the lipstick towards my mouth.

A few moments later, the finished face looked back at me.

Tracy caught me staring.

“Did you ever think about it?”

“Think about what?”

“Being a woman.”

I had not.

Not once.

Not as a fantasy. Not from curiosity. Not to wear pretty clothes or understand what breasts felt like.

Tracy remained sceptical. Men were curious creatures.

“I wasn’t.”

She looked at the reflection she had created, and the familiar spark of mischief appeared in her eyes.

“Well. You know now.”

“Shut up.”

The words came more sharply than I intended.

Something shifted inside me.

Heat rushed into my face. Pressure formed behind my eyes so quickly that I barely understood what was happening.

It was a stupid remark.

Nothing more.

Yet the humiliation expanded, gathering every indignity of the day into itself.

The strange face in the mirror.

The styled hair.

The skirt.

The bra.

Mandy.

The thought of Donald returning home and seeing his wife.

My throat tightened.

I blinked hard.

A tear escaped anyway.

It travelled through the makeup and down my cheek.

Tracy’s first concern was the foundation she had just applied.

“Oh, don’t cry. I’ve only just done your face.”

Her irritation was undercut by the remnants of laughter in her voice.

I wiped at the tear. She caught my wrist before I could smear the makeup further and dabbed beneath my eye with a tissue.

Another tear gathered.

Her amusement faded into curiosity.

“Were you always this volatile?”

“No.”

My voice broke on the word, worsening the humiliation.

“I didn’t cry like this.”

Tracy nodded as though I had confirmed another suspicion.

“That’ll be the menopause, love.”

“I’m not menopausal.”

“This body is.”

“Postmenopausal,” I corrected.

“Same miserable neighbourhood.”

A smile returned as she repaired the makeup.

The feelings did not seem entirely mine. Or perhaps they were mine, magnified by exhaustion, nicotine withdrawal and hormones I had never experienced before.

Tracy watched with renewed fascination.

“So that came with the body too.”

I said nothing.

She was already adding it to the cigarette cravings and the movements my hands remembered without me.

Another thing inherited without permission.

Once Tracy had repaired the damage beneath my eye, she leaned back and inspected her work.

The woman in the mirror looked composed again.

Nothing remained of the brief collapse except a faint tightness around my eyes and the humiliation of knowing Tracy had witnessed it. The foundation was smooth. The lipstick was intact. My hair curved neatly around the softened line of my jaw.

“There,” she said. “No one would know you’d been having a little cry.”

“I was not having a little cry.”

“Course not.”

Her smile showed exactly how much she believed me.

She returned the makeup to its bag, then opened a smaller jewellery box on the dressing table. The contents flashed beneath the light: gold chains, costume rings, bracelets and earrings in several sizes.

Tracy selected a pair of broad gold hoops.

“No.”

“You haven’t even seen them on.”

“I’ve seen enough.”

“They’re lovely.”

“They’re enormous.”

“They’re medium.”

She held one beside my face and examined the reflection, smiling as though the decision had already been made.

“They suit Helen.”

“I don’t care what suits Helen.”

“You should. You’ve got to wear her face.”

That observation amused her enough to produce another laugh.

I touched my earlobe and discovered the piercing properly for the first time. There had been too many larger changes to notice two small holes.

Tracy stared at me.

“You only just realised your ears are pierced?”

“I had other concerns.”

That delighted her. She laughed while removing the backs from the earrings, shaking her head at the apparent absurdity of a man discovering his own pierced ears several hours after waking in a woman’s body.

My nails made the small fastenings nearly impossible to manage. After watching me struggle for a few seconds, Tracy lost patience and took over.

“Hold still.”

She stood behind me and guided the first post through my ear. The sensation was minor—a brief pressure followed by the unfamiliar weight of the hoop settling against the side of my neck.

The second followed.

I turned my head slightly.

The hoops moved with me, brushing the styled ends of my hair and catching the light whenever I shifted.

They made the face look more finished.

More deliberately feminine.

Tracy beamed at the result.

“Perfect.”

“They look ridiculous.”

“They look lovely.”

“On a woman.”

She met my eyes in the mirror.

“I’ve got some difficult news for you.”

Her laughter followed me as I stood.

She selected a pair of heeled sandals from beneath the wardrobe. They were cream, with broad straps and heels lower than the pair I had worn to the doctor.

They were still heels.

“No.”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m not wearing those.”

“You can’t spend the entire year in slippers.”

“I can wear flat shoes.”

“You can sometimes wear flat shoes.”

She placed the sandals in front of me.

“These go with the outfit.”

“I am going downstairs.”

“Exactly. Nice safe practice.”

I looked at the narrow heels, then at Tracy.

She was openly enjoying herself again.

“Donald likes them, doesn’t he?”

Tracy’s grin widened.

“Very much.”

“Of course he does.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and slipped my feet into the sandals. The red toenails appeared beneath the cream straps, bright and conspicuous. Fastening the buckles required leaning forwards until my stomach pressed against my thighs and my breasts crowded together inside the bra.

Tracy watched the entire process with bright amusement.

“Very elegant.”

“I’m trying to reach the buckle.”

“I know. It’s adorable.”

I ignored her and finished the second shoe.

The moment I stood, my balance shifted forwards.

My ankles tightened. My calves engaged. The heels altered the angle of my hips and forced my weight onto the front of my feet.

I remained still for several seconds, waiting for the body to settle.

Tracy looked me over from the earrings to the sandals.

Her grin became almost affectionate.

“There she is.”

The words produced the same cold sensation they had before.

I looked at the mirror once more.

The woman reflected there was complete now.

Styled blonde hair. Thin arched eyebrows. Makeup. Floral blouse. Dark skirt. Gold hoops. Red nails. Cream heels.

There was no obvious sign that the person inside her had spent most of his adult life as a man.

That was what frightened me.

Tracy picked up her handbag and headed towards the door.

“Come on. Coffee.”

I took a step after her.

The heel caught in the carpet.

My ankle turned, my body lurched sideways and I grabbed the wardrobe before I could fall.

Tracy spun around at the sound.

For one second, she merely stared.

Then she burst out laughing.

“Oh, Daniel.”

“I’m fine.”

“You looked like a newborn giraffe.”

“I said I’m fine.”

She leaned against the doorway, laughing openly while I recovered my balance.

The earrings swung against my neck. My breasts shifted inside the bra. The skirt tightened across my thighs as I straightened.

Every part of the outfit seemed determined to announce itself whenever I moved.

“I’m changing them.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I cannot walk in these.”

“You can. You’re simply doing it very badly.”

She stepped into the hallway and waited, still smiling.

“Shorter steps. Don’t stamp.”

“I’m not stamping.”

“You’re walking as though you’re trying to drive the heels through the floor.”

I tried again.

The second step was more controlled. The third sent my hips shifting in a way that felt exaggerated, although Tracy assured me that it was merely what happened when a woman walked in heels.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“You’ve got a year.”

The reminder removed whatever small satisfaction I had taken from reaching the doorway.

The stairs were worse.

I gripped the banister with one hand and placed each foot carefully, conscious that catching a heel could send me tumbling to the bottom. Tracy descended ahead of me, then turned on the lower landing to watch.

The anticipation on her face was insulting.

“Stop staring.”

“I’m making sure you don’t break Helen’s neck.”

“You’re waiting for me to fall.”

“That as well.”

She laughed when I approached the final few steps, my movements stiff and cautious.

My breasts moved inside the bra with every descent. The hoops brushed my neck. The skirt limited the distance between my knees.

Nothing about walking was thoughtless anymore.

When I finally reached the hall, Tracy applauded.

“Beautiful.”

“I hate you.”

“You barely know me.”

“I know enough.”

She was still laughing when she led me into the kitchen.

The room felt more familiar than the bedroom, though only because I had already sat there once that morning. I lowered myself carefully into a chair, smoothing the skirt beneath me by instinct.

The movement stopped me.

I looked down at my hand.

I had gathered the skirt before sitting without consciously deciding to do it.

Another small physical habit.

Another action the body understood before I did.

Tracy noticed my expression but said nothing. Her amusement softened into interest as she filled the kettle and placed two mugs on the counter.

Then the craving arrived.

It began as a faint restlessness behind my ribs. A dry dissatisfaction in my throat. My fingers moved against the tabletop, unable to settle.

I knew what it was before I admitted it.

That knowledge made it worse.

Tracy opened her handbag and removed the cigarette packet.

My attention followed it immediately.

She saw.

A slow smile spread across her face.

“You want one.”

“No.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

My body contradicted me. My eyes remained fixed on the packet while the restlessness sharpened into an urge.

Tracy shook one cigarette loose and held it between two fingers.

I hated her for knowing.

I hated Helen for leaving the need behind.

Most of all, I hated the relief I felt when Tracy offered it to me.

My hand moved before I had properly agreed.

She laughed softly as I took it.

“That is extraordinary.”

“It’s an addiction.”

“I know what it is.”

She lit her own cigarette first, drew on it and then leaned across the table with the lighter.

I brought mine to my lips.

The hoops shifted as I bent towards the flame.

The first breath of smoke entered awkwardly. I coughed once, though not as badly as I had earlier. The second drag came more naturally.

Nicotine spread through me with appalling speed.

The agitation beneath my ribs loosened. My shoulders relaxed. The tension in my hands faded until the cigarette rested calmly between two glossy red nails.

I resented every second of the relief.

Tracy watched the change happen.

She had forgotten the kettle. She sat opposite me with her own cigarette raised, staring with an expression of pure fascination.

“What?”

She shook her head slowly.

“I really, really enjoy this.”

“Enjoy what?”

“The concept.”

She gestured towards me with the cigarette.

“You’re twenty-eight.”

“I’m aware.”

“Straight. Girlfriend. Fit. Good job. Right in your prime.”

Each fact made her smile wider.

“And now look at you.”

I did not.

Tracy laughed and indicated the entire assembled image: the styled blonde hair, the hoop earrings, the floral blouse, the skirt, the heels beneath the table and the cigarette held neatly between my painted fingers.

“You’re sitting in Helen’s kitchen having a ciggy as a middle-aged woman.”

“I know where I am.”

“It’s delicious.”

The pleasure in her voice was unmistakable.

“You shouldn’t enjoy this as much as you do.”

“I probably shouldn’t.”

She took another drag, still studying me.

“But I do.”

I looked at the cigarette in my hand.

A faint rose-coloured mark had appeared around the filter.

Even the way I held it looked feminine—or perhaps merely like Helen. My wrist bent away from the body. My fingers remained loose and practised. Smoke left my mouth in a controlled stream.

None of it felt learned.

Tracy watched me notice.

“That’s my favourite part.”

“What is?”

“You don’t even smoke like a man.”

“I don’t smoke at all.”

“You do now.”

“I’m addicted because she was.”

“Exactly.”

Her eyes shone.

“Your mind hates it. Your body thinks this is the most natural thing in the world.”

I wanted to argue.

Instead, I drew on the cigarette again.

The nicotine soothed something deep and physical. The remaining tightness beneath my ribs dissolved. Even the pressure of the shoes against my feet seemed less important.

I despised how effective it was.

Tracy leaned back, smiling through the smoke.

“Poor Daniel. All young and handsome yesterday.”

She laughed quietly.

“Now you’re sat here in your hoops, desperate for your afternoon fag.”

“I was not desperate.”

“You practically took my hand off.”

“I did not.”

“You were staring at the packet like it contained the cure.”

I looked towards the kettle rather than answer.

It had boiled and clicked itself off while Tracy was studying me.

She stood to make the coffee, still chuckling. I remained at the table, conscious of the unfamiliar weight of the earrings against my neck and the cigarette shortening between my fingers.

By the time I crushed it into the ashtray, the craving had disappeared.

In its place was a heavy, artificial calm that seemed to have settled throughout my body.

Tracy put a mug in front of me, then looked at my mouth.

“Lipstick.”

“What about it?”

“You’ve smoked half of it off.”

She retrieved the tube from her handbag and placed it beside my coffee.

I stared at it.

“You’re joking.”

“You’ve got it all over the filter.”

“I’m not putting lipstick on every time I smoke.”

“Helen does.”

“That cannot be necessary.”

“Neither are the hoops. You’re still wearing them.”

She smiled and held out a compact mirror.

“Go on. Retouch.”

I uncapped the lipstick and looked into the small mirror. The colour had faded at the centre of my mouth and collected slightly at the edges.

Tracy watched with open delight as I tried to repair it.

“Stay inside the lines.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

The lipstick dragged less evenly in my hand than it had in hers. I pressed my lips together, smearing the colour further than intended.

Tracy laughed.

“Oh, give it here.”

“I can manage.”

“You look like you applied it in a moving car.”

She took the tube, corrected the edges with her little finger and handed the mirror back.

“There. Presentable again.”

I placed the lipstick on the table.

Tracy opened the cigarette packet.

“No.”

She paused.

“What?”

“I’ve just had one.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you taking out another?”

“Because I want another.”

She shook one loose for herself, then held the packet towards me.

I looked away.

The craving had gone. I did not need it.

That should have made refusing easy.

Tracy continued holding the packet out.

“What are you doing?”

“Offering.”

“I don’t want one.”

“That’s a shame.”

Her smile broadened.

“I want to watch you smoke again.”

I stared at her.

“You are deranged.”

“Probably.”

She laughed and tapped one cigarette partly free.

“It’s just such a lovely image.”

“I am not smoking for your entertainment.”

“No. You’re smoking because Helen’s body enjoys it.”

She tilted the packet.

“And I happen to find that very entertaining.”

I should have refused.

Instead, I looked at the cigarette.

The body remembered the relief. A faint anticipatory warmth stirred behind my ribs—not the earlier desperation, but the promise of calm.

Tracy saw the hesitation.

Her eyes brightened.

“Oh, you do want it.”

“I don’t.”

“Take it, then tell me again.”

My fingers closed around the cigarette.

Tracy laughed triumphantly and lit it for me.

The second one was easier.

There was no cough. No awkward first breath. I inhaled and felt the smoke enter my lungs as if the body had been expecting it.

Tracy stared.

“God, that’s good.”

“It is a cigarette.”

“No. It’s you.”

She sat opposite me and watched every movement: the way I held it, the lipstick mark appearing on the fresh filter, the small turn of my wrist as I tapped ash away.

I had never felt so observed.

“You’re enjoying this more than I am.”

“Considerably.”

I drank some coffee between drags.

Tracy continued staring until the attention became unbearable.

“What now?”

“The heels.”

I looked beneath the table.

“What about them?”

“You need practice.”

“I managed the stairs.”

“Barely.”

“I didn’t fall.”

“You nearly introduced your face to the wardrobe.”

She smiled, then gestured around the kitchen.

“Get up. Have a little walk.”

“No.”

“You’ve got plenty of space.”

“I am not tottering around the kitchen so you can laugh at me.”

“That is exactly what you’re going to do.”

She was already laughing at the word *tottering*.

I remained seated.

Tracy took a slow drag from her cigarette, her eyes fixed on me.

“Donald will expect you in heels.”

“He cannot expect me to wear heels all the time.”

“He does.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Helen was hardly ever out of them.”

I thought of the wardrobe upstairs. The rows of shoes beneath the hanging clothes. Pumps, sandals and boots in different colours, almost all of them raised at the heel.

There had been a few flats, but not many.

Tracy saw the realisation.

“You should’ve guessed from the wardrobe.”

“I assumed she liked shoes.”

“She does.”

Tracy’s smile turned knowing.

“But it’s Donald’s thing.”

“What is?”

“A woman in heels.”

She said it as though the preference were harmless and faintly amusing.

“He likes the legs. The posture. The little click when she walks into a room.”

I looked down at the cream sandals fastened around my feet.

“I don’t care what he likes.”

“You’re going to have to pretend you do.”

She pointed towards the open stretch of floor beside the table.

“Up.”

I remained where I was.

Tracy’s gaze dropped to the cigarette in my hand.

“You can keep smoking.”

That was not an incentive.

At least, it should not have been.

I stood reluctantly.

The heels shifted my weight forwards at once. My ankles tightened as I found my balance. The cigarette remained between my fingers, forcing me to manage it alongside the skirt, the shoes and the unfamiliar distribution of my body.

Tracy watched with undisguised pleasure.

“Off you go.”

I took several cautious steps across the kitchen.

My stride was too long at first. One heel struck the floor heavily, producing a hard knock rather than the neat click Tracy apparently expected.

She winced theatrically.

“Not like you’re marching into Poland.”

“I am walking.”

“You’re attacking the floor.”

She told me to shorten my steps and place one foot more directly ahead of the other.

I tried.

The alteration changed the movement of my hips. The skirt shifted around my thighs. My breasts moved inside the bra, while the hoops brushed the ends of my hair with each careful step.

Tracy laughed softly.

“There. Much more natural.”

“It doesn’t feel natural.”

“It will.”

“I’m not doing this every day.”

“Donald will notice if Helen suddenly abandons heels after twenty-five years.”

“He can ask why.”

“And what will you tell him?”

“That my feet hurt.”

“They always hurt. She wears them anyway.”

That sounded exactly like something Helen might have complained about to Tracy.

I reached the counter and turned carefully, frightened that pivoting too quickly would twist my ankle.

Tracy pointed with her cigarette.

“Again.”

“No.”

“You need to practise turning.”

“I have turned.”

“You rotated like a fridge being moved through a doorway.”

She dissolved into laughter, one hand covering her mouth while the cigarette remained raised in the other.

I hated her.

I hated the heels.

I hated the earrings brushing my neck and the lipstick on my cigarette and the way the nicotine softened the anger before I could properly feel it.

I crossed the kitchen again.

This time the steps were quieter.

Tracy’s amusement did not lessen.

She watched me approach with the fascinated satisfaction of someone seeing an unlikely experiment produce exactly the result she wanted.

“A straight man,” she said, almost dreamily. “Twenty-eight years old. Girlfriend waiting for him somewhere.”

I stopped.

“Don’t.”

“In his prime.”

Her smile widened.

“And here he comes, tottering through the kitchen in heels and hoop earrings, smoking Helen’s cigarettes.”

She shook her head, savouring the image.

“Delicious.”

I took another drag despite myself.

The smoke entered easily.

The calm returned.

Tracy saw that too.

Her laughter followed me all the way back to the table.