Charley was home late the next day. He dumped his bag on the floor of his hall and walked into the kitchen for a beer. Half way through drinking it he was suddenly transported. From the light and comfort – relative comfort anyway – of his kitchen he was suddenly transported to a dark alley where he was being very roughly held from behind by someone as a man, with bad breath, to his front ripped open his blouse.
The dislocation was, in itself, shocking as was the experience even if it lasted but seconds and Charley found himself back in his kitchen with his half-finished can of beer lying in a pool of beer on the floor. Charley would not have described himself as a man of action, but the adrenaline was up, and he did not pause a second but was running for the front door, was out of it without closing it behind him and racing up the street as fast as he could go. He knew what was happening, knew Jackie was in trouble and knew exactly where. He had recognised the alley.
Two short streets and a turn and Charley was hammering up that alley towards a moving bundle of dark in the very dark and moonless alley. The 'bastards' had Jackie on the ground and Charley was on them almost before they realised he was coming for them. It is not generally a wise man who takes on two other men without being sure he is stronger than both put together or otherwise has some advantage and knows they do not possess such a thing as a knife. Charley knew none of these things and, fairly observed, his was a very brave action. Certainly, it put the fear of God into the two men and so it should have done. They were surprised by the ferocity, unnerved by Charley's fists and adopted flight not fight and ran, one tripping over his falling trousers as he ran which could have been funny – only was not.
"You all right?"
Jackie was not at her best. Shock, incoherency and visibly shaking as Charley put his arm around her and took her home. He had been 'just in time.'
In a very British way he made her a nice cup of tea and called the police. Of course, explaining to the two policewomen quite how he came to be in the alleyway at just the right time was not easy, trying to explain why he had shot out of his house and ran all that way was very difficult.
"I had a hunch... a... I have a bit of a sixth sense."
"You know Jackie?"
"Well, a bit. We mixed up our bags once and sometimes see each other... err... at the swimming pool." None of it was terribly convincing or plausible but there was no suggestion that Charley was in some way the attacker, not the rescuer. Jackie was more than clear on that point.
Some good, then, had come about from their strange swopping of bodies. By contrast, it was downright dangerous, by contrast, three days later when driving for work Charley found himself driving in a completely different direction in a completely different car with completely different hands on the steering wheel and foot on the accelerator. He did not slam his feet (her feet) down on the brake and clutch to bring the car to a sudden halt, which would probably have resulted in a shunt with the cars behind: rather he had the presence of mind to continue driving as if suddenly finding himself driving a different car and going somewhere different was perfectly normal.
The latter – going somewhere different to that expected, at least had certainly happened more than once before and, probably, has to most people. He had set off in his car quite a few times meaning to go to one destination and only realised quite a way down the road that he was driving in quite the opposite direction and taking his normal journey to work, his brain on 'auto-pilot' and just doing what he normally did without thinking. Annoying and necessitating a turn-around of the car. The present circumstance, though, was rather more extreme: he had been driving to work but was now driving a different car in quite a different direction despite having started out in the right direction originally!
It would have been stupid to drive Jackie to his work and, instead, drove her car to her place of work. He knew where it was. He hoped Jackie was faring as well as he was. Momentarily he wondered what would happen if she had panicked, crashed his car and killed himself. Would he find himself trapped in Jackie's body forever? A man truly in a woman's body. Would he go for a sex change operation? How would he cope with her job, how would he explain that he had suddenly lost all memory of how to do that, what about her boyfriend – would it be best not to break up immediately – what if... It was all too morbid and he liked his own body. Would hate seeing his grieving parents, sister and friends as he stood at the graveside in a black dress.
Stop, stop, stop! Too morbid. But Charley was certainly worried lest Jackie had had an accident, perhaps damaging his car or his body.
Charley drove close to Jackie's work and parked, a very neat piece of parallel parking in a tight space. He was good at that. He turned off the engine and found himself just turning into his own office car park managing, instinctively, to brake before he hit the barrier. As far as he could judge all was well with him and the car.
That evening the telephone rang. It was Jackie. "Look, we have to talk," she said, she did not say about what. It was obvious. They should really have met and talked before. They met in a little café not far from either of their houses, two rather concerned people.
"Charley, what do we do about it? Interesting, more than weird, I grant you but dangerous. The car yesterday, I almost drove into the back of a lorry. Should we see a doctor?"
"Medical science isn't going to understand, is it? Who would believe us? I suppose it was that stupid banging of heads on the train. I'm so sorry."
"It was an accident. We both got up together. I was not thinking. If only it was at will: not random. But how would we both agree and why would we? I'm embarrassed enough thinking what you've done, what you've seen. Yet, yet, without it you would not have come to my rescue. I am so grateful for that."
"What do you think sets it off?" Charley had his own thoughts but wanted them confirmed.
Jackie looked down at her coffee, "Um, sex seems to cause it. Not always but I think there's a bit of a pattern. Not completely but something of a trigger, certainly if we are both... um... doing something."
"You in bed with..."
"Kieran."
"... Kieran, and me having a..." he shrugged his shoulders. Jackie knew what he did, what most men did at varying and variable times; had set him off a couple of times, after all. She had wanked him: not as she was now but – as him. "... having a wank."
Jackie smiled. "No significant other, at present?"