Chapter 1

The whole thing started at a store.

It would probably be neater if I could say it was some old, dusty store with strange potions in dark glass jars and wrinkled, dried monkey's paws in old locked cases. But it wasn't.

It was just a department store. You know, the kind of place where the perfume counter is at the center of the world and you can buy everything from lawn mowers to dinnerware.

On the day it first happened, I was after a suit. Normally, I grab all my clothes off the rack. You know: large shirt, 32 waist pants. Okay, so the last couple of pairs were 34 waist. The point is, I don't try anything on. Except I had a nephew that was graduating college the next weekend, and I didn't have a suit that was fit to be worn in public. A suit you have to try on.

The dressing area was one of those high security sites. They had a guy on a desk outside. You told him how many items you wanted to try on, he handed you a tag with that number on it. God knows what happens to you if you don't produce the right number of garments on the way out. I took my suit, took my tag, and went down the narrow hall to an open door at the end of the row. Room 6. I was thankful that they at least put real doors on the room. I hate those places where all there is to stop the public show is a little curtain.

I was down to my pants and T-shirt when I noticed something odd. The wall behind me was gone. I could have sworn that when I came in the little cubicle had four walls, but now it only three. One wall with a mirror, a door, a back wall with little shelf and a hook to hang the clothes, and that was it. Where the wall opposite the mirror should have been, there was only a dark opening.

I mean dark. Dark like in midnight inside a cave without a match to your name dark.

The smart thing to do right there was try on the suit and leave. But this big dark opening, right there in the middle of a store. It was just too weird. Leaving my shirt, shoes and the unpurchased suit behind, I turned and took a step into the darkness.

It was strange inside the tunnel. It was like there was this fog in there, fog so thick that I could barely see the dressing room I had just stepped out of. I took a couple of steps. The floor was cold and slick under my socks. I took a couple of more steps. It was completely dark now. Even though I knew I couldn't be ten feet away from the well-lighted dressing room, not the barest flicker of light made it down the hall.

All right. So even if curiosity dragged you into that hall, this would be the time that anyone but the stupid would turn back. Right?

Color me stupid.

I kept going. And going, and going. I swear that corridor was as long as the whole store. Longer. Finally, when I had walked so far that even I was about to give up and turn around, I started to see a grey glow ahead. A couple more steps and it was brighter.

A couple of more, and I could see that it was another dressing room ahead. I edged forward slowly. The room looked identical. So much so that I began to wonder if I had somehow gotten turned around in the tunnel and gone back to where I had started.

But when I took another step forward, that strange fog parted. As it parted, I felt a strange, swimming sensation. It made me dizzy enough that I had to close my eyes for a second to keep from loosing my lunch. When I opened them, I could see right away that this was not my dressing room.

On the little wooden bench attached to the back wall, there was a black leather purse. From the little hook above it hung a dark blue dress with pearl buttons.

And standing in the room was a woman dressed only in a beige colored slip. She was staring right at me.

"I... I'm sorry," I stuttered. I was so shocked that my voice was no more than a squeak.

Quickly I spun around and plunged back into the darkness, running all the way until I reached my own dressing room. Once I was there, I shoved on my shoes, through on my shirt, and charged out of there. I remembered to grab the suit, but I never did try it on. I figured it was more important that I get out of there without being arrested than it was that I make it to my nephew's graduation.

It wasn't until I drove home and locked the door on my own apartment that I began to feel safe. No one was chasing me. No police were going to haul me in for sneaking into the women's dressing area.

Once I realized that, I started to think about the woman.

She had been attractive. Not burn-your-eyes-out beautiful, but, yeah, attractive enough that I would have stopped to look when she crossed the room. She had chestnut brown hair, slightly curly, and cut just a touch above the shoulders. She had good skin. Nice legs. And good arms. So sue me, I like women's arms. Smooth, rounded, but still slender. A very underrated feature. From what I could see through the slip, she had a good figure. I put her age at about thirty, the same as mine.

The more I thought about the woman, the more I remembered something strange. She had seemed familiar. I couldn't tell you where I had seen her before, but I definitely knew this woman.

I telecommute. Sure, it's the wave of the future and all that, but it sure cuts into the social circle. Fact was, I didn't have ten friends in the whole city, and this woman wasn't one of them. But I couldn't shake the idea that I knew her from somewhere.

I also couldn't shake the idea that she had said something to me.

When I had stammered out my squeaky apology, she had said something in return. I saw her lips move. (Did I mention she had great lips?) The problem was, I had no idea what it was she said.

For the next two days, I obsessed about this woman. Every time I went for gas, I checked to see if she was the one inside the little booth. In the grocery store I was checking out the other shoppers. I even did a pass through the department store, hoping it might be one of her regular stops.

I'm not sure what I intended to do if I found her. I wasn't going to run up and say "Hi, I'm the guy that came into your dressing room." Still, I had to see her.

Finally I latched on the strangest plan possible. Three days after I had first stumbled off into the darkness, I was back getting a tag from the guy at the dressing area entrance.

Fortunately, Room 6 was open. I went inside, hung up the two pairs of pants that I had no intention of trying on, and edged into the darkness.

I had my shoes on this time, but it didn't make any difference in the tunnel. I couldn't hear any sound it all. Not even my breathing.

Finally that grayness appeared at the end of the tunnel. I strained to see ahead, but I saw no sign of the woman in the dressing room. As far as I could tell, the room was empty. I took another step anyway, and again I felt that overwhelming dizziness.

When it cleared, she was there.

Like me she was dressed this time, wearing jeans and a teal sweater crossed by a stripe of not quite white. She looked at me with an expression that was somewhere between surprise and embarrassment.

"Hi," I said. Then I cleared my throat. "Hi," I tried again. Both times my voice was ridiculously high. I put out my hands, trying to show her that I meant no harm. "Look I'm not sure why I'm here. I just..." My inane voice trailed away. The woman was mocking me. She was mimicking my every move, moving her lips to my words.

Something tickled at my cheek. I raised my hand to clear it, and a number of things became clear all at once.

The thing tickling my cheek was hair. The woman in the dressing room was not mimicking me. There was no woman in the dressing room. Wait, scratch that. There was no _other_ woman in the dressing room. What there was in the dressing room was a mirror.

I was the woman.

I stumbled forward a step, pressing my hands up against the glass. The face that I had been obsessing about for the last three days was right there in the mirror. I had plenty of chance to study it now at close range. And from the inside.

Slowly I pushed myself away from the glass. Then I raised my hand and traced the curve of my face with one extended finger. The woman in the mirror did the same, her slender finger moving along the smooth skin. The look on her face was pure astonishment.

"It's me," I said. The voice was still high, but I expected it this time. I licked my lips. Seeing that small pink tongue extend and brush against the red lips was almost shocking. This was no mask. I was this woman inside and out.

For a moment I wondered if the strangeness was limited to the mirror. But when I looked down, I knew the truth. What I saw was a teal sweater. It was pushed out too far by my breasts to see any further.

I had breasts. No little green apples, either. Large breasts. Not big enough to earn me a headlining role at a strip club, but big. I cupped the right breast in my hand and felt the weight of it.

"This can't be real," I said. I heard the words come back to me in that soft, throaty voice. A woman's voice.

I wanted to run. I wanted to turn around and run screaming down that black tunnel to my own room. But for a moment I was frozen.

What if the tunnel was gone? What if I got back to the other dressing room, but I was still like this. Still a woman.

A faint scent came to my nose. Perfume. A perfume whose name I didn't know, but whose smell I liked. I was going crazy and it smelled like perfume.

I reached up and put my hands in the brown hair. It was soft. My ears were decorated with tiny pearl earrings.

Suddenly I was trembling all over. I turned and went stumbling into the darkness. I think I screamed, but if I did that strange fog and that strange tunnel swallowed up the scream as neatly as they did the sound of my running feet.

In a few moments I was back where I has started, and the face that looked at me from the mirror was a male face, the same face I had shaved that morning. Except that now it looked really, really scared. I sat on the tiny bench, waiting for my breath to come back to normal. Finally I grabbed the two pairs of pants, marched out of the room, ran out of the store, drove straight to my house, and dived into a large bottle of bourbon.

I had never thought about anything like this. I mean, sure I had wondered what it felt like for women, but didn't every guy? I never fantasized about it. I never tried on my mother's clothes. I never had a homosexual desire in my life -- cross my heart and help to die.

It was too weird. I stood in front of the bedroom mirror, running my finger along my cheek and feeling the comforting traces of stubble. It was over. No way was I going to take this thing any further.

But when they opened for business the next morning, I was there.

I barely glanced at the guy with his little tags. I can't even remember what it was I grabbed as an excuse to go into the dressing rooms. It must have been something. All I remember is closing the door to the dressing room and plunging down the hallway.

A couple of minutes later I was wearing a green dress and a body that stretched it in all the right places. For awhile all I could do was stand there and look at my reflection in the mirror. Then I saw that the little black purse was on the bench again. Feeling strange with every movement, I bent, picked up the purse and looked inside. There was a lipstick, some crumbled tissue, loose change, old coupons, a matchbook, and a wadded up dollar bill. In short, it was the kind of purse I'd probably keep if I was a woman.

I gave a short laugh, which came out as a light, girlish giggle. After all, I was a woman.

At the bottom of the purse I found a small black wallet. Inside was a checkbook, some credit cards, and what I was really looking for -- a driver's license.

Jean Adams. It said.

A chill came over me. That was my name. I mean my name before I came through the tunnel, except that I spelled mine "Gene." Then I saw the birthday. It was the same as mine. Hair: brown. Eyes: green. That was all familiar. The Height: 5' 4" and Weight: 116 were certainly different. And of course there was that big Sex: F to remind me of the obvious. But still, there was too much on the license that looked the same. And it was while I was looking at the goofy, stunned driver's license photo the truth came through.

The woman was me. I don't just mean that I was currently living in her body. I mean that I was willing to bet that there was no Gene Adams born 12 Oct 65 at Teaneck. Instead there was a Jean Adams. My parents had had a baby that night, but the blankets had been pink.

I dropped the ID back into the purse and dropped the purse back on the shelf. If I went outside the dressing room, I would be in the world of Jean Adams, attractive female. What would that world be like? Was she dating some guy? Was it serious? I quickly scanned my smooth, slender fingers and found them free of rings. Thank God.

I wasn't ready to be Jean Adams. Whatever waited outside the dressing room door, it was going to have to wait. In the meantime, since I was already in a dressing room...

There was a row of cloth-wrapped buttons along the front of the dress. My fingers trembled as I opened them, but at last the dress was open to my waist. I pulled the dress down from my shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

There was no slip this time. Instead there was a bra with lace edges surrounding a smooth cup. Pantyhose covered my legs and extended up to a taut brown band around my belly. I was gorgeous. I had underestimated the body that lay under that slip. My waist was small, my hips belled out in a curve. Through the pantyhose I could see pale green panties and the rise of a nice round derriere. The bra hooked in the front. I reached up and pulled open the clasp.

My heavy breasts swung free of the cups. They were very pale, soft, with surprisingly red-brown nipples that pointed slightly upward. As I watched, the nipples drew tight, rising up until each of them looked a good deal like a small strawberry ready to be plucked. A tingling ran over me.

I reached up and brushed a finger across the right nipple. The sensation was so sharp that I fell back with a moan. Hair fell down in my face, and I shook my head to clear it.

In the mirror was a beautiful, almost naked woman with a face that was mine, only softer, prettier. Was this really the difference that one little chromosome could make? I looked again at the taut stomach and smooth long legs. How could such a little thing make such a difference? My fingers began to creep toward the smooth place between my legs.

Either I was taking too long in the dressing room, or my experiments were making too much noise, because there was suddenly a tap at the door.

"Are you all right in there?" called a woman's voice.

"Yes," I said quickly. I hoped my voice really sounded like Jean's and not Gene's.

As fast as I could, I tugged the bra together and managed get my breasts lodged inside the cups. Then I pulled up the dress and buttoned the buttons. I looked at my image in the mirror, a little rumpled, but presentable. I had to make a decision: out the door, or into the tunnel. There was no real choice. Whoever Jean Adams was, her life would have to wait for another day.

Back in my own dressing room, I grabbed for the clothes I had brought in and was about to leave when I spotted something. My shirttail was out. I wasn't positive, but I thought it had been tucked in when I went into the tunnel. Not only that, but my billfold had been in my pocket, now it was lying on the bench.

It could have been that the changes I made to Jean's things caused changes in my world, but another explanation came to mind. What if while I was in Jean's body, exploring her things, Jean had been here, doing the same with my body.

It was something that bore a little thinking about. I left the dressing room and went home.

Chapter 2

It was hard for me to think about anything else but the dressing room, the tunnel, and the different life that waited on the other side. But the next day was a work day. Actually, the previous two days had been work days too, but as long as I got the project in before deadline, my boss didn't care about the hours. One of the big advantages of working at home.

The project in this case was some package art for a new word processor. Not exactly stuff that was going to get me a spot in the Louvre. I mean, there's only so much you can do with little pictures of computer screens and a few flying letters. I screwed around with the composition for awhile, nudging things a bit, tweaking up the color fades in the background. I increased the font size just a touch. Added a bit of metallic sheen to the edges of the simulated screens. It took me till almost midnight before I was happy with the whole composition. By the time I hit the button and sent the final color separations speeding over the modem to the main office, the department store was long since closed. There would be no trips to dressing Room 6 today.

I sat in the living room and watched some old movies flicker across around the television. Maybe I should stay away from that place. Jean Adams seemed to be doing all right without me. If her world was a real place, and not just a little cube in the middle of nothing, then did I really have a right to go screw with it? And if I was right about Jean taking control of my life, was that something I was ready for?

I thought about it through two old films, a rerun of a sitcom, and half a dozen beers. When I went to bed, it was so late that the sky outside my apartment window was already getting grey with the first light of dawn. Late as it was, I didn't fall asleep fast. I was thinking of Jean. Was she lying there awake in her world? Or was she sound asleep, curled up in a satin gown, warm and soft under the sheets.

I reached up and ran my hand across my bare, flat chest. There was a sensation, sure, but nothing like what I'd felt back there in that booth. I didn't think I wanted to be a woman. I liked women. I liked to look at them, and liked to sleep with them. But I couldn't fool myself that I didn't want to sample more of Jean's life. Could I stand to go back? Could I stand it if I didn't?

By the time sleep finally came I had made my decision. I would go to the dressing room and see if Jean Adams really existed. I would step out of the dressing room on her end, see if there was a real world outside the door, maybe stroll around the store a little. Then I would come back. An experiment. Easy phases. Small goals. Once this test was out of the way, I would decide what to do next time. With that out of my way, I fell asleep.

With a solid four hours of sleep under my belt and a moderate hangover buzzing in my skull, I made it to the store not ten minutes after they opened. This time I made sure to pick a half dozen items -- the maximum allowed in the dressing room at one time. I didn't know if my actions had any effect on what happened at the other end of the tunnel, but I wanted to have an excuse for spending plenty of time in the dressing room.

Once inside, I plunged into the tunnel and walked quickly through the deafening fog. The queasiness hit me at the other end, as always, and when it cleared I was looking at Jean in the mirror.

This time I was wearing crisp black denim jeans, very snug, and a soft cotton top. I would have called it a polo shirt on a man, but I had no idea what women called such things. It was pale green. Green seemed to be Jean's favorite color.

My hair looked a little different than it had the last time. It was maybe an inch shorter. It seemed straighter too, and it was definitely more red. It seemed that Jean had made a trip to the salon in the last couple of days.

I couldn't resist raising my hands and feeling the soft weight of my breasts. From there my hands slipped down moving into the gentle curve at my waist and going back to slid over my ample, round rear. Under the polo short I could feel the nipples of my breasts begin to tighten. There were four dresses on the back wall of the dressing room. If I wanted to, I could strip down and explore this body for a least a few minutes. With jeans on, there were probably no hose underneath. I could get these pants off and get a good gander and what went on inside them.

Then I stopped myself. Easy stages. One step at a time. Right. Take a deep breath and get on with it.

I was here to test the water outside the dressing room. The mission for the day, so to speak. Exploring the great unknown interior of my panties would have to wait.

Voices went by in the hall outside, and I heard a woman laugh. I laid a slim hand on the door knob. Could I really go out there? What if all the women screamed and called for a cop? What if everyone laughed at me for dressing up in women's clothing? I took a look in the mirror. I was a woman. These were the clothes that fit. No one was going to scream.

I started to turn the knob when I remembered to get the dresses. I turned around to take them down from the hook, and when I did I saw the black purse sitting on the shelf. And sitting on top of the purse was a small yellow envelope. And on the envelope was a single handwritten word:

Gene

My heart skipped a beat. Jean Adams was real. Not only was she real, but while I had been going through her purse, she must have been flipping through my billfold. She knew my name, just as I knew hers. Not only was I living her life, she was living mine.

I picked up the envelope and found a small note inside. The handwriting was neater than my own, with a little more roundness to the loops. A woman's handwriting.

My car is in lane 5, two slots up on the left.
There's some cash in the purse if you want to
buy anything. Don't use the credit cards,
they're pretty well maxed. I left another note
for you at home. I'll be back first thing in
the morning.
Jean.

Note at home. First thing in the morning.

I read it again. I'll be back first thing in the morning. Jean was planning on staying in my body overnight!

I spun around, ready to race back down the tunnel, and got a shock so big it nearly made my heart stop. The tunnel was gone. In its place was a plasterboard wall with dingy off white paint and a smear of grey where some old poster had been removed. I ran my small hands over the pebbly surface of the board. It was solid. There was no hidden door, no secret opening. It was just a wall in a dressing room. A woman's dressing room.

My heart raced on for a few seconds, beating so hard I could literally feel it making my breasts jiggle. What was wrong? Was I stuck this way forever?

Then it came to me. Jean must have left the dressing room. That was the simple solution. Up till now, Jean's actions must have mirrored my actions. She had always been here when I had been here, and the tunnel linking our two worlds allowed us to pass each other invisibly in the darkness. But if Jean had opened the door and strolled out into my life, then there was nowhere for me to go back to. So, there was no tunnel.

"Jean?" I whispered to the blank wall. "Are you in there? I felt ridiculous. I was ridiculous.

The note said she would return in the morning. Until then, I would have to do the best I could. So much for easy phases and small steps. I was in for 24 hours of being Jean Adams whether I liked it or not.

I put the note Jean had written away in the purse and carefully arranged the strap over my arm. Then I picked up the dresses from the hook, checked in the mirror to make sure I was wearing the right face, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the booth.

Just going to the end of the little hall told me right off that I was not the man I used to be. The heavy breasts moved with every step. Not a big movement. I wasn't about to slap myself in the face or anything, but there was a definite rise, fall, bounce as I walked up the hall. There was a difference in my hips, too, a looseness that made me feel like I was walking on sponges. Several times I had to look down at the floor to reassure myself that I was not really sinking into some kind of rubbery quicksand.

After what seemed like a long trip, I reached the end of the hall and handed off the ticket reading "4 garments" to the girl who waited there. It made me nervous. Despite the reassurance of the mirror, I still expected her to shout "What are you doing here?"

The girl who took the ticket was a lot more attractive than the guy who waited back in menswear. Too young for me, but really quite cute. As I handed over the ticket, she looked up at me and smiled. "Find anything you like?" she asked.

"Uh, no," I said. "Not really." I had to remind myself that her smile didn't mean anything. She wasn't coming on to a man: this was just between us girls.

She looked me up and down. "I think I know a dress that would great on you. Want me to get it?"

"Not right now, thanks." I smiled back, hoping my face didn't look as silly as I felt. "I have to run." I stepped out of the dressing area and into the store.

It was another world.

When you're five eleven, you see over all the shelves and racks of clothes. The layout of the store seems clear. When you're five four, those same shelves seem like the walls of some huge maze. Barriers of sweaters. Barricades of underwear.

I stumbled around the women's section, hoping to spot some rack that was a probable source for the dresses. Finally I gave up and put them all on a shelf in the middle of a pile of some half price swimwear. Then I struggled on, making my way through deepest darkest spaces in search of an exit.

When I found the central aisle of the store, I was as relieved as if I had hacked my way through the bush. That is, until I started trying to walk along with the crowd. People were big. I had shrunk more than half a foot, and lost better than sixty pounds. All around me wandered this crowd of giants. Guys six feet or better where huge. Even most of the women were quite a bit bigger than me. I felt like I was going to be crushed at any second.

Reaching the cosmetic counters at the middle of the store relieved me of most of the towering men, but afflicted me with a pair of perfume girls. They seemed to have made it their mission in life to spritz me with everything in sight. Behind the counter, a woman offered me a makeover. In a dozen mirrors, I caught sight of a cute, but frightened looking woman. It took some time to realize it was me. I made for the door as fast as I could manage.

Outside I drew in a deep breath of spring air. The street looked the same as it did back in my world, and the weather seemed the same, too. There were no tailfins on the cars and no three moons in the air. If there were differences between Jean's world and mine, they were subtle.

Following Jean's instructions, I located her car. It was a good thing she had given me the instructions. We were not parked in the same place, and we didn't own the same model. Besides, the cars in the parking lot were big enough that I now had trouble seeing over them.

When I opened the door to her little compact car -- green, of course -- my first inclination was to shove the seat back. It had been moved up so far that only someone really small would fit. Someone like... me. I tossed Jean's purse into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

My breasts were almost in the way of steering, but if I pulled the seat back further, I had trouble seeing over the dash. And then there was the shoulder strap, which seemed designed to cut between my breasts at the most painful angle. Someone needed to tell Detroit that women drove cars too.

I looked down at my tiny feet in their tiny white sneakers. The controls all seemed to be in place. The car looked normal. I put the key into the ignition and started the car.

Driving was something of a relief. Inside the car, I was back to being the same size as everyone else. I could still cut lanes and run yellow lights with the best of them. The department store was walking distance from my apartment. It would only take me five minutes to get home and...

I pulled over to the side of the road so fast that three cars honked at me. I was five minutes from _my_ home, not Jean's. Quickly I dug into the purse and pulled out her driver's license. 4314 Basilton. Not my address, but I knew where Basilton was. I steered the car back into traffic, praying that Jean hadn't moved since her license was renewed.

Apparently she had stayed put, because my key fit the lock at 4314. It was a house, not an apartment. It was not a particularly fancy house. This was an old neighborhood, turn of the century rowhouses. Eventually the rehab trend would probably come to the area and these old stone and brick boxes would be worth a fortune. For now they were cheap. And old.

Jean had done a good job with the inside, though. There was fresh paint on the old walls, and a scattering of new furniture in the front room. On the table beside the door was another envelope.

I shut the door and put down my, that is, Jean's purse. Then I picked up the envelope, went over to the couch, and sat down. I was grateful to be out of the mass of people. Adapting to a new body was definitely something that called for a little time in private. I opened the envelope and unfolded the note.