ROSEBUD-2

2004-12-09T23:18:00.000-08:00

Rachael turned the card over and over between her fingers, like a prelude to some magic trick. If she took all the money the man was offering then she would be able to finish paying off both the flat and the proxy controller. It was more money that she had ever been offered for a single job before. She told herself it would be stupid to turn it down. The sooner all the debts were covered, the sooner she could get back to saving for her retirement. Her looks weren't going to last forever, and short of writing an autobiography, she wasn't sure what else she knew what else she could do.
That was it then. She tried to put her misgivings aside. After all, it was only one job. How bad could it be?

ROSEBUD

2004-12-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

The man looked around the room, his hands linked behind his back, his expression blank. He looked like a banker, Rachael decided, balding and shapeless. There was a slight trace of a Scots accent when he spoke, but it sounded like he had been in England for some time. He was probably in his early fifties and he was dressed expensively, if not too fashionably. Money can't always buy taste, Rachael thought.
The bland looking ones were always worst. Rachael's theory was that the more normal someone tried to appear, the more frightening they were on the inside. This one certainly looked like he'd make her earn her fee.
The man bent his knees and squatted in front of a shelf that held a number of interconnected grey, plastic boxes. Rachael found herself admiring the strength of the stitching in the seat of the man's trousers. Why did so many of her customers have to be fat? She worked hard to keep herself in shape. The feeling of wearing a flabby body repulsed her.
"So this is the machine that exchanges our minds?" the man asked.
"Not exactly. I take it this is your first time with a proxy."
The man nodded without looking around. Rachael had given this talk enough times for it to become a chore. She didn't like some of the kinky stuff that usually happened afterwards, but it was still better than boredom. "It simply redirects our sensory and motor impulses. They get read from each of us and routed through the controller here straight into the other person's brain. It seems like we're each other, in control of the other's body and feeling everything they feel, but we're still really ourselves."
"Oh." The man sounded disappointed.
"You wouldn't know it, though. For the time it's running you might as well be me. You won't be disappointed, trust me. No one ever is."
"So what do I have to do?"
"Not a lot." She opened up the little mahogany box she used to store the pickups. "I'll help you put these on. Don't worry - you'll hardly notice them. Your mind will probably be on other things." She gave an approximation of a saucy grin. "Once that's sorted we'll run a few tests and then if everything checks out we'll do whatever you have in mind."
"Fine. What are the restrictions on what we can do?"
Unconsciously, Rachael bit her lip. Her bad feeling about the man worsened. "Well, my basic ground rules are no other people, no animals, no drugs, no watersports and the like, and no serious S & M."
The corner of the man's mouth twitched slightly. "And what do you call 'serious'?"
Shit, she thought. Definitely bad things coming. "Nothing that draws blood. I don't mind spanking, either giving or receiving, but I won't have you leaving any bruises. My body is my livelihood."
"Hmmm..." The man looked uncomfortable. "If I were to ask you to do some things to me, while I was you that is, that might involve bruising, could we come to some arrangement? I could pay for your time while you recuperated."
Rachael tried to smile, but her lips didn't seem to want to respond. "I'm not sure that you could afford to do that. My time is rather expensive."
"That's no problem," the man said, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a smart card. "I think you'll find I can pay for quite a lot of your time."
And, to Rachael's dismay, he could.

wistler

ROSEBUD-2

ROSEBUD