For Me - Pt 10

Anna didn’t sleep. She was too hyped up, too excited, too eager to continue to explore ‘her’ new wardrobe, her new life—or it would be, as soon as she could get Lauren to leave.

They hadn’t had time to talk about what might happen after Joseph was asleep, although she guessed Lauren had said “leave”. That didn’t seem right though, not to the face that Anna saw in the mirror. This was her place, right? She didn’t have to leave, right?

After an hour of exploration throughout the wardrobe area, trying on different outfits, seeing what worked on Lauren’s body and what didn’t, at least to Anna’s eyes, she was somewhat bored. On the screen the night-time cameras were recording Lauren and Joseph’s sleep in grainy ‘ghost vision’ straight from a haunted house reality show. They were spread apart on the bed, Joseph slumped face down, Lauren almost fetal, curled up with a sheet over her. She looked peaceful. It was annoying.

Tempting as it was to go and wake Lauren up directly, Anna knew it was risky as hell. If Joseph woke up and saw her, even as herself, she’d have a lot of explaining to do and she didn’t feel like she could count on Lauren to back her up completely. Some of the way? Maybe. All the way? Unlikely. Rich girls didn’t deal with consequences.

Instead of strolling into their bedroom then, Anna texted, which she’d been asked to do. The first text wasn’t responded to, and a quick glance showed that Lauren was still asleep. Anna texted again, and again, and one more time, thinking that if this one didn’t do it she’d have to march in there.

Or, leave. Neither prospect was appealing.

Then Lauren moved, shifted, came to life. She reached for her phone and a moment later, replied to one of Anna’s “Wake up” texts.

Awake. Where are you?

Where you left me.

I said to leave!!

Why don’t we just switch now?

Anna knew she was pushing it, pushing Lauren, but then she’d set out those table stakes when she’d faked a blackmail scheme. “C’mon, c’mon,” she muttered, eyes flicking between the security screen and her phone.

On the camera feed, Lauren slowly got out of bed, making sure not to wake Joseph.

Anna smiled. This was the first step.

////

Lauren closed the door behind her before she turned to hiss at Anna, still using a low voice despite the multiple walls between them and Joseph.

“I said you should leave when we were asleep!”

“You also said to text you,” Anna said, smiling.

“I meant when you were home, god—isn’t that obvious?!”

Lauren seemed to see Anna for the first time. Or rather, see her double for the first time.

Anna had ditched the lingerie and the come-hither stares and was now dressed sensibly for bed; a set of Lauren’s pajamas, hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. She’d even removed some of the makeup on the mask.

“What are you doing?” Lauren said, looking Anna up and down.

“Going to sleep?” Anna suggested.

Lauren began to shake her head. “No, you have to be joking, you can’t just get into bed with Joseph, I mean—”

Anna put Lauren’s hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “Listen. This is what we talked about, right? This is the chance. We can switch. It’ll be easy. He’ll wake up and I’ll be there. You’ll be there.” She looked deep into Lauren’s eyes. “Remember, it’s only for a few days, right? We agreed. Until the wedding dress fitting.”

Lauren looked confused, lost even, and standing in front of her virtual duplicate didn’t help. Anna felt like she was receptive to her plan, but had one more trick up her sleeve.

“I got things ready for you,” she said, leading Lauren gently by the hand towards the changing area.

There, on the same chair Anna had sat in and brought herself to climax, was a small pile of clothing. Anna’s clothing, the same clothes she had arrived in.

There was another chair, however, next to the first. There was a wholly different outfit. The supple, pliant flesh of Anna’s body, with her face draped on top, hair splayed.

“Don’t you want to become me again?” Anna said, voice nearly a whisper. “Don’t you want to experience that feeling?”

Lauren stood still for a moment, staring at Anna’s reproduced form—and then nodded.

As if she was a lady-in-waiting, her only job to prepare her mistress for the day, Anna moved behind Lauren and gently pulled the robe she wore from her body. Lauren didn’t resist, her body reflected in the mirrors around them.

Anna picked up the suit, her own body in floppy, flat silicone, and handed it over to Lauren. She found a chair, sat down, and began to transform herself.

As she slipped her first leg into the suit’s neck hole, Lauren started to talk to Anna about minor, trivial things. The details of her life. As Anna watched her best friend slide her leg upwards, then repeat the process with the other leg, Lauren continued to list off details for her. The PIN on her phone, if she needed it. The main password for her password manager. The name of her ‘life manager’, as she called her—Robert, or Robbie—and what Joseph liked to have for breakfast, both on a weekday and weekend.

Lauren stood, pulling new legs over her own, yanking and tugging, smoothing them out as if she was putting on an expensive pair of leggings. As she came to the crotch area, Anna stood ready to help her if needed, but she didn’t need to worry. Lauren was already fitting the suit in all the right places, sighing quietly as she did.

As she proceeded to pull the suit up around her midriff and torso, she talked about other trivialities in her life with Joseph: the shows they were currently watching together, the last thing they argued about (and how they made up), his next trip abroad, the people he would have been with on the last trip. Anna tried her best to take mental notes as best she could.

“Do you want me to tell you all of my stuff?” she asked, as Lauren slid her arm inside the neck of the Anna suit. “Frankly I don’t think I’ll have as much to talk about as you have. My life’s pretty simple.”

“Sure, yeah,” Lauren said. That prompted Anna to start speaking about her own life, starting with her own phone details and the same details about Ramon as Lauren had detailed about Joseph. It was interesting to see the contrast; how Joseph liked a single hard-boiled egg and coffee for his breakfast most days, whereas Ramon would eat “whatever was in the fridge” or just get something when he was gone for the day. The most important thing was his coffee, which was pre-made by Anna most evenings so Ramon could leave with cold brew in his travel cup.

As Lauren pushed one hand deep into the suit’s extremity, holding it up, moving the fingers, Anna wrapped things up. She knew anything else that Lauren really needed to know they could communicate by text.

She looked at Lauren closely. Her friend seemed entranced by her new appendages, the new fingers and nails she was looking at. “It’s amazing,” she said softly. “Just amazing.”

Anna stepped forward and inspected the new body Lauren now wore, being the world’s foremost expert on what Anna Webster should look like, skin outwards. She had Lauren turn in place, smoothing out the odd crease in the suit, pressing down on various points to make sure there were no air pockets. Finally she had Lauren turn back to face her. She picked up a wig cap she’d brought and handed it over.

“Ready to finish up?” Anna asked, hearing Lauren’s voice in her own ears. Soon it would be solo in this room.

“Just about,” Lauren replied as she tugged the wig cap into place, her own hair loosely bundled on her head. As she finished, Anna picked up the mask of her own face, a loose, misshapen copy of her own features. She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing Lauren handling the mask, and felt excitement well up in her once more. “Ready,” Lauren said.

Anna handed over the mask of her face and stood back, wanting to see Lauren transform. Before, she’d been a voice on the phone, unable to see this moment, a moment she’d planned and prepared for.

“Do it,” she whispered.

Lauren gave her a knowing glance, flipped the mask of Anna’s face over and spread it out with her hands, then moved it up and over, drawing it down. Anna watched through Lauren’s eyes as her face, wobbling, unformed, slowly slid over Lauren’s own, concealing her friend from view.

“Oh god,” Lauren said, her voice muffled and distorted as Anna’s lips moved into place over her own. Lauren, or perhaps the half-Lauren, half-Anna person that was being born before Anna’s eyes, opened her mouth, allowing the copy of Anna’s lips to snap into place over her own. She pushed the mask down on her throat, clearly knowing what she wanted. Her eyes remained closed as she spoke, enunciating her first words. “How do I sound now?”

Anna smiled Lauren’s smile. “Perfect. You sound perfect.”

She did. Lauren smiled Anna’s smile as she opened her eyes and looked at her friend. “Do you really think this is going to work?”

The new Lauren smiled back. “I think it will. As long as we want it to. Do you want it to?”

The new Anna tilted her head slightly, unsure, but then nodded. “Yes. I do. For a few days, at least.”

“That’s the spirit,” the new Lauren said. She gave her disguised friend a hug, as if she was transferring some last piece of her old self into the new. “You’re Anna now.”

“I am Anna,” the new Anna said. “That must mean you’re Lauren.”

Lauren nodded. “I am.” She blinked, as if she’d just snapped out of a trance. “What am I doing up right now? Joseph is going to wonder where I am.”

Anna grinned. “That’s true. I have to get myself home, too.” She looked at the pile of clothes Lauren had left out for her. “That’s all mine, right?”

Lauren nodded. “Take your time, of course. There’s no rush.”

Anna picked up her underwear and slipped it on. “You don’t have to worry about me. I know my way out.”

“But what kind of a host would I be if I left you alone?” Lauren smiled, watching as her friend began to re-dress. There was something slightly taboo about this situation that really did something for her, but she wasn’t going to admit it right then.

Instead she stood to one side as Anna gradually re-assembled herself, adding her jeans, her top, the leather jacket and even, finally, the collar. As Anna put that around her throat, she looked over at Lauren, her stare making it obvious what she was thinking.

Lauren stepped closer to her and whispered. “Don’t forget your contacts. Or your teeth.”

Anna nodded. “Seriously, you can leave me.” She turned slightly to face Lauren. “You’ll text me tomorrow, right? Well, later today I guess. It’s late.”

Lauren nodded. “Of course. And don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

With that, Lauren left Anna behind, slipping through the hallways of her home to return to her fiancé in bed. Behind the mask of Lauren’s face, the real Anna could barely believe this was happening. At last.

She slipped between the sheets of her friend’s bed, Joseph barely reacting as she did so. The pajamas she wore didn’t match what Lauren had been sleeping in, but she knew she could cover that. A little lie. A small deception.

It wouldn’t be the first or last time, she thought.

Settling herself in for the night, she told herself one more time “I am Lauren Hudson” as she drifted off to sleep.

Meanwhile, the new Anna let herself out the front door, stepping into a whole new life, a whole new existence. “I’ll be back,” she whispered as she closed the door behind her, ceding everything to the stranger dressed as her in her bed.

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