Anyone that knows my work knows that I love Morpheus' Role Exchanger stories.
For the uninitiated, the stories feature a blue glowy alien entity thing that just loves to swap traits of different humans to see how they react. For example, a prude and a dominatrix switch sexual morals, a teenager and a fortysomething can swap ages and of course there's the old favourite sex swapping. I love personality and mental changes and this really pushes my buttons.
I recently found a fourth Role Exchanger story so I thought I would share a couple of extracts that really tickled my fancy. This latest story is set in an office block.
Disclaimer: I did not write this story. It is the copyright property of Morpheus and can be found in its entirety here: The Role Exchanger 4. If the writer sees this and would like it removed, please contact me.
Here's the first change:
Jenna stepped out of the office building for her mid-morning break,pausing to glance at her watch while calculating how long it would take to get to the coffee shop and back. She only had a limited amount of time for this after all.
At the same time, Jenna wondered if she could get some bagels for her office as well. Since she was the new girl who'd joined them straight out of college a couple months ago, it wouldn't hurt to butter up her coworkers a bit more with free food. So far the tactic had worked wonders when it came to making friends here.
For a brief moment, Jenna paused to glance back at the office building she'd just come out of. It was pretty large at five stories tall, the top two of which were occupied by the company she worked for. The rest of the space was leased by about a dozen other tenants, most of which Jenna knew little about except for their names. After a few seconds, Jenna continued towards the parking lot where her car awaited, walking past the smoking area as she did so.Unsurprisingly there were several people out there on their smoke breaks including her own coworker Diane.
Diane was about ten years older than Jenna and a mother of two. She'd also been something of a mentor to Jenna since she'd started working here. At the moment, Diane was talking to one of the other smokers with an unlit cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. She was about to light up when she noticed Jenna walking past. "Hey Jenna," Diane called to her. "Come on over here for a moment." Jenna scowled inside but it didn't actually reach her lips. She thought smoking was a filthy habit and absolutely hated the smell of the smoke so was not at all happy about going over to where the air was thick with it. However she didn't want to offend Diane so forced a smile and went over.
"Have you started on the Sherman project yet?" Diane asked Jenna who shook her head no. "I just wanted to give you a heads up. Sherman is very particular and has a few quirks..."
"Not yet," Jenna responded with a polite smile. "I was about to start that one when I got back from break."
Just then, Jenna caught a flicker of some blue glow from the corner of her eye. She quickly turned to look for the source but didn't see anything there. Diane appeared to have noticed it as well since she was looking in the same direction.
Jenna shook her head and then turned her attention back to the topic at hand. She'd barely started talking about the Sherman project when she found herself staring at the cigarette in Diane's hand and wanting one. Jenna had never wanted a cigarette before in her life, but for some reason, she wanted one now didn't really feel bothered by this. "Can I bum one of those off you?" Jenna asked, feeling only a little self-conscious.
Diane gave Jenna a look of surprise, but wordlessly held out her pack of cigarettes. Jenna took one of the cigarettes out and then casually lit it and took a drag. It went down easily and didn't taste nearly as bad as she'd expected. She blew the smoke out to the side, feeling oddly comforted. In fact, this didn't feel at all strange or nasty to her.It felt almost like a comfortable old habit. She took another drag,barely noticing that Diane was wincing and backing away slightly or that she was dropping her own cigarette to the ground with a look of disgust.
"I need to get going," Jenna told Diane. "I still have to go get my coffee. We can talk about the project more when I get back." With that Jenna turned and continued the walk to her car, taking another drag of her cigarette and musing that this wasn't nearly as bad as she'd always thought. In fact she found smoking to be rather pleasant and calming. She could easily see doing this more often. By the time she reached her car, she decided that she'd need to make a quick stop at the store so she could buy her own pack.
Now, this strikes a chord with me because smoking is something that I have never taken up. Nobody in my close family really smokes and I was put off it at an early age. I nearly tried it in college but I was put off mainly because I was afraid I would look like an idiot, having never physically taken a drag before. So for smoking to become like a comfortable old habit to someone who is slightly anti it is quite a delicious idea.
I feel much like Jenna in this scenario and I love that she also gains some of Diane's confidence.
I'm not that anti smoking but I don't like a lot of it around me. A lot of my friends smoked in college and I would often go outside with them mainly to talk and avoid being left in the classroom all alone. Plus there was also a girl I really liked who smoked, unsurprisingly.
Back with another extract soon.
