Chapter 1

I don't visit the mall much. Being poor ain't much fun. It's not because we don't work, but dad makes just barely enough to feed seven mouths. Mom died giving birth to my youngest sister and that was sort of the end of childhood for me. Laundry, ironing, cleaning, feeding the baby, cooking, shopping and working for dad, who's a damn good electrician. I also do some work for a plumber, one of dad's pals.

Stealing time away for myself was hard, but not impossible. My girlfriend understood and my sister Trina was a great deal of help. My three brothers were good guys, but pretty much useless around the house. I always joke with Trina that men were only good for lifting heavy objects and complaining. Then I start complaining.

Of course, I didn't always steal that time for me — this time around I was shopping for a birthday gift for Mindy. Shopping for a girl, looking for that little special something that would put a sparkle in her eye, was damnably difficult, especially on a limited budget. I was looking for jewelry and looking very hard for something that would show how much I loved her. It is commonly understood that girls liked trinkets, God knows why. We hooked up just six months ago, but it sure felt like forever.

It was sort of weird, visiting the mall, like going to a foreign country. There were plenty of people from school, most of them running around in packs or trios, shopping bags in hand, gossiping and laughing as they ate ice cream or sipped from cans or smoothies. When they caught sight of me, they stared before turning their eyes away. Oh, my clothes weren't all that bad, good enough pair of jeans and t-shirt — my brothers got all the hand-me-downs. It's just that I was a foreigner, like an Englishman in New York. It didn't sting — I was used to it.

Marina, known informally as Marina Beach, was a town of extremes. With wonderful weather and somewhat famous beaches, it was popular place with the wealthy and retirees. There were really two sorts of people in town, the rich and those who worked for them. The thin veneer of middle class that was supposedly the heart of America was just barely there.

I don't want to make it seem like all those rich folk were bigots and bastards and looked down on us poor folk, or that I thought that way. Not that there weren't that sort, but most of the guys I knew were pretty damned decent. I didn't have much contact with the uptown girls — and yes, Marina Beach was informally divided into uptown and downtown, lots of laughs — but those I worked with in school were nice enough.

Actual shopping, looking around for something I wanted rather than needed, was so rare that I took my time, looking around just about everywhere. In a corner used book shop I found something Mindy would like and ended up buying four books. My girlfriend likes philosophy and logic and was earnestly gearing up for State, saving up tuition for a degree in philosophy. I didn't understand why she'd pick something so impractical and esoteric, but arguing with a would-be philosopher is quite futile. Sometimes she drives me nuts, picking a position and convincing me that she had a point, then turning around and confusing the shit out of me. It was her version of teasing, I think, because it always led to heavy petting, at the very least. A few times it led to something more, but finding a place and some free time was almost impossible. Schedule conflict is the shits.

I finally settled on a sapphire heart pendant (not that it was really sapphire) on a silver chain, a bit cliché, but you can't really go wrong buying a girlfriend heart-shaped objects. Hopefully. They had a nice little sale going and I actually got a fifteen dollar gift cert. The shop sure seemed to be gearing up for the holidays a bit early.

Looking for anything that costs that little was something of a problem, but I finally settled on a pair of friendship rings, with those cute clasping hands motto. Adding twenty bucks to the certificate was almost physically painful, but I did it anyway, and on a whim, put them on. My right hand was very friendly with my left hand. Never mind what else.

Almost broke, but pretty happy with myself, looking forward to Mindy's reaction, I put on a burst of speed towards the exit. After almost running over a little old lady, so short I almost didn't see her, I slowed down. With a glare from her companion, a presumably Mexican woman who looked like her caretaker, I helped her carry the paper bags to her car, collecting a gracious "Thank you, young man," before running right back to the mall, seeking the nearest bathroom. The public restroom was actually cleaner than the one back home, perhaps not surprisingly.

A little browsing in the supermarket had me shaking my head at the prices. We got our foodstuffs more cheaply wholesale, buying for a month at a time. You could actually get better food and some nice stuff through the churches, but after mom died, dad wouldn't have anything to do with them.

My seventeenth birthday was coming up in four months and for the first time in four years I might actually get some gifts. I was fantasizing about what Mindy might give me, which I suppose is why I really ran into someone. Or it might have been the fact that she was cutting a corner. All I really caught was a mane of black hair, before she bodyslammed me and bounced. It didn't really hurt — I was used to worse roughhousing at home and I was much bigger and heavier, and not to brag, but pretty damn strong. From real work, not that asshole moving chunks of lead around in air-conditioned surroundings.

I recognized her just in time to stop from offering her a hand up. Valerie Cornell was most definitely not one of the nicer, or even remotely nice, uptown girls. She looked really good and her parents were really rich, which would have ordinarily put her at the top of the world, our little high school world. And it did, for a couple of years, until her boyfriend, the captain of our football team, dumped her and made it known that she was a complete and utter bitch, and frozen to boot. Her racist, gay-bashing, condescending attitude and general bitchiness were sufficiently infamous that she just couldn't get anyone else to date her. Even her fellow cheerleaders weren't too sympathetic, seeing as some of them were not entirely whitebread or wealthy, so her social standing plummeted and her social circuit constricted sharply. Which only served to make her more vicious to her lessers.

"Sorry about that," I apologized, stifling a smile at her comical attempts to untangle herself from the dozen shopping bags she was carrying. Of course, there was also the matter of the short skirt she was wearing and the admittedly magnificent pair of bare legs. She was awfully pale, almost white, but her skin lacked any blemishes or marks, which did a lot to enhance her beauty.

Of course, she wasn't very beautiful with her face red and contorted in fury. Her eyes, a remarkably deep shade of blue, flashed with anger as she untangled herself and stood, shooting me a look of utter contempt. "Brian Jenkins you fucking bastard piece of shit!" she said in a single breath and kicked me. In the balls. With her sharp pointy heels. My surprise at her actually knowing my name kept me from reacting.

Nothing had ever hurt so much. I knew that I folded and fell, but the fires of agony didn't leave room for much of anything. The only thought I had was a distinct, burning wish to have her feel that pain. Then everything went blank for a sharp moment.

I shook my head awake and opened my eyes slowly, breathing sharply in as something hit my back and neck. I reached back and caught it, and it felt like hair — my hair. I pulled on it, and it hurt. It really was my hair, somehow. Which was impossible. We cut our own hair at home and since we weren't exactly professional hairdressers, let alone stylists, we mostly just cut it short.

I rose to my knees, mouth dropping open in horror at the sight of my pale arm and red painted nails. There were shopping bags strewn on the floor beside me. I raised my gaze with mounting dread and saw the face that usually looked back in the one cracked mirror we had in the bathroom, contorted in agony.

I'm not exactly proud of it, but I must have blanked into shock. The first thing I thought of, when I managed to blink again, who knows how much time later, when he, no — me, stopped whimpering in pain and started to climb to my feet, was kicking me in the balls again. This exchange of bodies and minds was utterly impossible, of course, but maybe that would reverse it? Then I noticed another impossible thing. Valerie didn't normally wear rings. I had two rings on when she kicked me. Now each of us was wearing a friendship ring in the place ordinarily reserved for wedding rings. The thought of being intimately connected to her made me sick to the stomach. I scrambled to my feet and immediately stumbled, catching my balance on the wall. The surprise drove the nausea down. Heels! I was wearing pointy-tipped, heeled shoes. How the hell do women manage to walk in heels?

"You... ," my own body growled at me, thick fingers curling. I could almost sense the bitch's intent — she wanted to choke me. The pit of my stomach dropped and then I laughed, a short sharp bark. I was suddenly afraid of ... me? Which actually made perfect sense, as I could wring my new neck in a sec.

"Kill me and you'll never get your body back," I said hurriedly, biting my lower lip hard at the sound of this girly voice.

"You stole my body, you fucking piece of shit," Valerie growled at me. From this side, I was pretty damn intimidating, a head taller than me.

"Don't be a complete moron, you stupid bitch. I have no fucking idea what happened, anymore than you do. We need to deal, not blame. Do you want to spend the rest of however long you live in jail? In that body?" I stretched my lips in an unpleasant smile. "What I want to do," I balanced awkwardly on my feet and leaned towards me, "is kick you in the balls. Do you think that would reverse things right back?"

She retreated sharply, shielding my balls with my hands. Fuck, those were her hands, no, his hands. My teeth ground together in frustration.

"No, bitch, I don't think so. That fucking hurt!" He hissed at me.

"Yeah, I know. And you fucking deserve it, a thousand times over," I hissed right back.

There was movement to the side, mall security was coming up.

"We need to exchange information," I whispered at her. No, him. "I can't go back home like this and neither can you. Unless you have a better idea, we're going to have to switch," my stomach sank at the idea. The fluffheaded girl didn't have the least motivation to take care of my siblings, nor could she do my work. She'd have to learn — but would she? Could she, even? Was this permanent?

I sighed and fell back against the cold wall, feeling tears trickling down my cheeks. Wonderful. I'm stuck in the body of the white witch from hell, my family would never believe this ... Mindy! With her philosophic bent, I could probably convince her I was me. Hell, if I started to hang around with me, and if she — no, he — treated her like Valerie had everyone else in the past, well, minus one girlfriend, I thought bitterly.

I heard him trying to get mall security to leave us alone, using his feminine wiles. What a stupid bitch. Blinking the tears away, I managed to totter forward and cut him off with a sharp wave of my hand.

"We're sorry to have disturbed the shoppers," I apologized to the guard, "We just had an accident. We'll pick our things and leave. Now," I nudged him with the point of my shoe. "Or maybe after I buy a pair of shoes, Pete," I smiled at Pete Calvin, nametag not optional, "These shoes are just killing my feet. Ready, Brian?" I only just stopped from grimacing at having to use my name for her benefit. This really sucked.

"Are you sure?" Pete looked from his face to mine. "He doesn't look too friendly."

"If he wants to sleep in a bed tonight instead of a dumpster, he'll listen to me. He took a bump on the head — must have shaken loose whatever little intellect he had. It'll settle down. Thick skull, you know," I used that smile again. It's a very powerful weapon on the face of a beautiful girl. I should know.

"Yes, alright," he surrendered.

"Be a dear and pick up my things. And get me to the closest shoe store before I break your neck," I shot him a significant look.

"Whatever you say, dear," he twisted the last word sarcastically and began to pick up the shopping bags.

Wordlessly, he led us to a designer store for women's shoes. The display showed severe heeldom. I'd have run away screaming, were I capable of running.

"Two pairs of shoes," he whispered and gave me two of the bags, "I'll pick you a pair of flats and we'll exchange them." Suddenly more reasonable, he gave me my shoe and clothes sizes. I noted absently that I was the proud owner of a pair of 34C breasts. They didn't jiggle all that much, but they certainly did make themselves felt, even with serious bra support. I was also walking differently, as I noticed after dropping the heels and walking barefoot on the soft carpet. My center of balance wasn't in the same place, my legs were a bit longer in proportion, my ass fat, there were those tits, and everything looked bigger — because I was considerably smaller. He was a hunk at six feet three, whereas I was now five six or so. I did go so far as to give him his sizes back, before accepting the shoes he brought me and hurriedly exchanging them at the counter. My hands were shaking when I realized that the shoes cost almost three hundred dollars. Working four afternoons a week at the minimum, I very rarely brought in more than a thousand dollars a month. For the two pairs of heels she'd bought, I got three pairs of flats back, two in black and one lavender. I almost objected to that last on account of it being a girly color before I remembered that I was buying for a girl. Me. At least I managed not to give the idiot an excuse to laugh at me.

I let him carry the bags for me. That part wasn't in the least bit difficult. "Let's sit at the food court," I started before he cut me off.

"Forget it. You have a credit card and I'm hungry. Get us a private booth at Masato's. I'll order for you," he shot me a supercilious look. He wasn't going to feel all that superior when he got back to my home, I thought with a sinking feeling. He was definitely going to make trouble.

Masato's, I quickly learned, served Asian cuisine, mostly Japanese. 'Brian' ordered us a large plate of sushi and other raw treats, and showed me how to eat it with surprising patience. I couldn't use chopsticks, so I had to use my hands. Obviously, skills did not transfer, nor did muscle memory, as he was an absolute wonder with the sticks after the first few stumbling attempts. Clumsily or not, we finished bolting the weird stuff down almost simultaneously and just sat there staring at each other. It was actually pretty good, though the green stuff, wasabi, was dreadfully hot.

"I'll start," I looked at him with determination. "As we're stuck as each other — if we start claiming otherwise, we'll spend the rest of our lives as guinea pigs, if we manage to avoid the insane asylum — we need to learn how to live as each other. Agreed?"

There was a sour look on his face, but it was pretty obvious that he couldn't really argue. "I'm going to need money," he said quietly and determinedly.

"I figured as much," I said calmly. "You'll have to tell me how I can get you money. I was working hard four-five afternoons every week as an apprentice electrician and plumber. You'll never be able to do that. I'll never be able to do whatever it is you do. The only thing I can figure will work is claiming we hit our heads, partial amnesia. Would your parents swallow that?"

"They'll never notice, not after I school you," he said bitterly. "My little slut of a sister probably would, but shouldn't care too much."

"Friends?" I asked gently.

"Nah, they don't spend too much time with me, not lately. How am I going to justify spending time with me? With you?" he shook his head violently.

"My girlfriend will have to know. My sister, Trina, too, in all probability. We'll have to see. As for why you're spending time with me, let's say you're blackmailing me for money. That'll justify my paying you."

"Right, and put me in jail. No thanks, bastard. Bitch. Whatever."

"I need to help you to help my family, moron. I only look like you did, I don't behave that way," I regretted those words as soon as they came out. "Stop, I'm sorry. We can't afford to fight and we fucking have to trust each other. With every fucking thing in our world, got it? If someone raped you, I need to know. I need to know all your passwords, all your secrets. They're mine now," I pressed my nails so hard against the table top, one of them broke.

"Oooow, fuck! That hurt. Why in hell do girls walk around with ten foot long nails, anyway? Help, please."

He got a cotton ball out of my purse and wrapped it around my finger. "When we're done here, we'll go to the salon and get rid of your nails. Cut your hair shorter, too. You'll never be able to take care of them," he looked at me appraisingly. I wanted to bristle at that casual assumption, but I couldn't. He was absolutely right.

"What else do you do that I will not be able to?"

"Well, you're going to have to get used to heels. Take it slowly, start with the low ones. You're going to have to quit the cheerleading squad, it's not something you can learn in a day or a weekend. Probably not something you want anyway," he raised a brow in question and I nodded sharply.

"Other than that, nothing. Oh, you might have some trouble academically. I can help you with that, but only so far. I've got the second highest point grade average in school," he said factually. My mouth dropped in astonishment. He laughed at me.

"You're not blond, if you put in the time, which I did, you should be able to stay in the first ten. You'll have to start thinking of college."

"I did. I was heading to State, electrical engineering."

"Think Ivy League. Think business management and international law. Possibly start with accounting and economics. You're going to inherit tens of millions of dollars, you'll need to know the basics." I gaped at him.

"Seriously, I've got a trust fund with twenty five million, I get about eight grand a month, depending on how well the fund managers are doing. Never less than six grand, once I got eighteen thousand. I want half of it."

"You'll have to work for it. Of the monthly payment, you'll get more. You now have three brothers and two sisters you're taking care of, and only Trina is any help. That's your next older sister, she's fifteen and a bit. Your seventeenth birthday," I added, "is exactly four months from today. Damn, we need to write all this shit down. Ideas?"

"I'll get your girlfriend and Trina and meet you here tomorrow morning. We'll go over to my ... your new home and have a conference. Good enough? That way we just have to survive this night. Now, give me the layout of my new dump and tell me about my wonderful new sisters and brothers. Keep it short."

I did. I also told him about dad, my habits, what few things I had and how I handled them, my financial situation, my schoolwork, clothes, shoes (just the pair he was wearing), everything from where to find the toothbrush to the fact that he wasn't going to shower today. He was definitely not happy to learn that he was sharing a room with three brothers and sleeping in a bunk bed. With clothes storage and two writing desks, there wasn't much room left. I didn't mention the problem with masturbation, a twice-minimum daily activity for former-me. This didn't seem like a good time to get into intimate details.

"You won't get Trina to come with you, she's busy at home. Do I have pen and paper?" He rooted around in my purse and produced. "This is Mindy's number. We'll stop and get you a mobile. You might be able to play past my brothers — they're not the brightest sort and they don't seem to care overmuch. Very much in their own world. You won't be able to fool Trina or Mindy, my girlfriend, not a chance. And you won't be able to do the work, electric or plumbing. What jobs can you pick up? You're going to need an explanation for the money."

"Tutoring: math, sciences, lit, history, whatever," he answered. "Picking up clients might be difficult, but I'll keep them," he sounded certain. I wasn't going to argue.

"Ahem, we'll need to exchange information about classes. How do I quit cheerleading, anyway?"

"We'll discuss that tomorrow. You told me where you keep your school stuff, I'll bring it over. I'll talk to Mindy..."

"Oh, shit," I struck my head with a fist, "tomorrow's her birthday. I was buying her, well, you have it. A heart pendant. And the rings, the rings. I put both on, you only have one — I have the other."

"You're talking about magic rings? Are you serious?" He looked at me skeptically.

"Are you suddenly doubting the existence of magic? Am I doubting that?" I asked, using her patented sarcastic tone.

"Point," he raised a hand in surrender.

"Anything else you need to know?"

"Well, I think we're going to need to be an official couple, at least for a while. There's no other way we'll be able to get time together. Let's see," he began to tick points off, "school we'll discuss tomorrow. If you were serious about engineering, you should be able to survive my schedule, and I'll help you with the upcoming projects and tests. Money, I'll show you everything tomorrow on my computer. I'll take one of my two laptops, use the regional network or leech off someone. Order a fast connection. I'm going to have to handle your investments until you get on your feet. I've got a portfolio worth almost a million. People I know, I'll make you a list with details, all my passwords, etc. My problems will be practical. I've never done that everyday cooking-cleaning shit. That's what servants are for," he frowned at me. "What?"

"Servants," I hissed, "wonderful. Okay, a few things you missed. Fitness is important. If I stop cheerleading and you stop working physically, we need to do something to keep in shape. I suggest you try out for football — think of it as an opportunity to let all that aggressiveness out. For me?"

"Aikido. A girl should know how to defend herself. I have a feeling you'll need it and it's good for flexibility and fitness. I used to do gymnastics, but with those tits it's not real practical. I'll show you where and how to sign up. As for football, well, that sounds interesting. I'll think about it."

"Don't forget, you're a working girl — I mean, guy — now. Much of your time will be spoken for. Ayleen is four years old, she can't be left without supervision. The boys are also going to need help, everything from homework to food. The money will help, you can spend some on take away and new clothes, but you'll have to learn how to do laundry, clean and cook. Have to. Like I'm going to have to learn a lot of things, from walking in fucking heels to using the right fork. Now, what about signatures? Here's mine, show me yours."

We quickly learned how to forge each others — well, our own — signatures, then learned to roughly copy each other's handwriting, keeping the original samples for practice. We went through my purse and she explained things. He explained things. "Makeup, we'll need a class for that. For now, don't use any, you'll just mess it up. Maybe Mindy will be willing to help you. Credit cards, I only use one. The phone is not just a phone, it's a full minicomputer. Here, the keyboard jumps out. I'll show the manual, but these are the functions I usually use. Here are the favorites, list of passwords — encrypted. The code for the pdf is ui9Vefr0. I had a little trick installed, it has a GPS function, you can locate it if it's stolen. Here are maps, email, chat, music, my online pages, skype, incoming business information, spreadsheets."

To say that I was overwhelmed would be something of an understatement. "Instead of buying you a mobile, let's get you a copy of this and transfer all the data. It'll be a while before I can really use it, let alone the business functions."