Possession

"Hi there. Mind if I have a seat?"

I was sitting in the cafeteria reading The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. I don't know if you know it. It starts out great, like a detective story, and you have every expectation that Sergeant Cuff will solve the crime. It changes viewpoint characters to become a hilarious commentary on religious busy-bodies. The man could write!

Then it kind of peters out. But I was still in the good part, and thinking it was the best thing I'd read so far in my Victorian Literature class, so I didn't really want to be interrupted. I looked up reluctantly to see a good-looking girl about my own age - another student, obviously. She was dressed kinda slutty, I thought, not to judge - tight white T-shirt, short shorts, tennis shoes. Nothing wrong with it, but I'd never wear anything like that. Too many people would stare. The sweater

I

wore was designed to disguise my over-sized breasts. She had a tray in her hand with two slices of limp pizza and a large soda of some sort.

"No, go right ahead." I glanced around, wondering if the place had gotten that full while I'd been absorbed in my book, but there were plenty of empty seats.

"Thanks! Good book, huh? Or at least it starts out well. He had a good idea going, but it took thirty years before Doyle really ran with it. Until then people had to make do with Gaboriau. Who wasn't bad, but..." Her voice trailed off.

"Gaboriau?" I took it he wasn't that great, either.

"French."

Sure, I guessed that.

"Detective novels," she added. "About a Monsieur LeCoq. The name provoked some giggles on the other side of the channel."

"I bet. Literature major?" I asked, thinking it odd she said on the other side of the channel, instead of the other side of the ocean. Surely we Americans had a few giggles ourselves, and she didn't have a British accent. Iowa, I guessed, or within one state of it. Accents are a hobby of mine. I hadn't seen her in any of my classes, but I always liked people I could talk books with.

"Oh, no, Computer Science, actually. Thought it would be kind of like trade school, but it's remarkably theoretical. Ah well."

"Ah," I said. I sucked at conversation sometimes. If I had time to write my dialog, I'd be fine, but in real time, I sometimes didn't know what to say. "I'm Vivienne."

"Greer," she told me. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

I didn't say that she just did, because I'm not

that

bad at conversation. "Sure, go ahead. If it's too personal I won't answer it."

"It's more hypothetical."

"Sure, go for it."

"But I have a personal one, too. Do you like girls?"

Was she coming on to me? Had I missed a clue somewhere? "I don't think so. I think I'm straight."

"You think."

"I think," I confirmed.

"Well, anyway, that's not the question. The question is, what would you do for immortality?"

I thought for a moment, and then said, "It depends on what kind of immortality, I guess."

"The good kind," she said with a grin. "You stay young and pretty. Your boobs don't ever sag. You don't get sick, and you bounce back from injury, even fatal injury. Your big worry is how to explain not aging, but you have plenty of time to work out a system, and even a friend or two to help you change identities now and then to keep 'em guessing. Technically, I shouldn't say immortality, because you can't survive being at the center of a nuclear explosion, or the sun going red giant, so you might be limited to a few billion years, unless you can get off this big blue marble by then."

"You've given this scenario a lot of thought."

"Yes."

I shrugged. What did I have that anyone would want? "Well, I'd do a lot of things, I guess. As long as they were ethical. Maybe a few things that pushed the line. If I was certain I'd get the immortality, I guess. I wouldn't do anything just because someone offered it."

"You'd be suspicious."

"Darn straight."

"Darn," she repeated. "That's cute. Would you say some naughty words for it?"

"Sure. Words are just words."

"They are, aren't they? Okay, I should probably be more specific. Suppose, in exchange for living a few billion years, barring a direct nuclear strike, you had to let someone else use your body, say... one day a week."

We'd moved from the very general to the oddly specific. "One day a week," I repeated.

"Yeah."

I thought about it. I ate one of my last four French fries, but they'd gone limp. "We're not talking immortal soul here, we're just talking I get to be myself for six days out of seven, and then someone else, well, possesses me, basically, one day in seven?"

"Yeah. For a few billion years. You get a few billion years to live, but there's like a tax. You have to give up 14.2856 percent, well rounded off. One day in seven."

"That seems fair."

"It does, doesn't it? Would you do it?"

"A random day, so I would never know?"

"No, you'd get to pick a specific day. It wouldn't change, after that."

"Then, sure, I guess I would. One day in seven. I mean, I'm not a math major for a reason, but I can see that works out way better than dying in sixty."

"I bet you'd live to ninety, but yeah. I think it's a good deal. What day would you choose?"

Again, I stared at her. I started to wonder if she was a bit crazy. Or maybe she was just fucking with me. Maybe, when she asked if liked girls, she was just trying to throw me off stride for some reason. But I decided to keep playing along. "I'm thinking Thursday, so I could skip my 17

th

century class. God, that guy drones on and on. And calls us all 'Mr. such and such' and 'Miss so and so' and keeps saying 'Contraries, when placed together, shine the more.'"

"Sounds like a hoot. But it can't be Thursdays. Thursdays are taken."

I stared at her. "Thursdays are taken?"

"Yes. Today is a Thursday. Mondays are out, too."

"Right."

I thought for a moment. I had 17

th

on Tuesdays, too, so that was the obvious choice. I was aware I was giving her silly scenario too much thought, but what the heck. "Saturday." Forgetting the state of my fries, I ate another one. Yuck.

"Saturday, really?" She grinned like she'd received a Christmas present or something.

"Saturday. I mean, I wouldn't want it to get in the way of school, not really. Or work, later on."

She glanced at my fries, and then glanced at me. "You're an English major, aren't you?" she asked.

"What does an English Major say to a Computer Science Major after they both graduate?"

"Do you want fries with that? I've heard it. I'm going on for my Ph. D."

"Well, if you're immortal you'll have plenty of time for that."

"Right."

"Saturday, then. Every Saturday, in exchange for immortality. Shall we shake on it?"

She'd ceased to amuse me, and if that got rid of her, I didn't mind. I reached out to take her offered hand, and we shook. "We have a deal," she said. "Want to seal it with a kiss?"

"Don't push your luck," I told her. I stood up. "I've got class," I lied. "Nice talking to you." That was a lie, too.

I walked out, thinking the library was a better place to read quietly than the cafeteria, anyway.

I forgot all about it, of course. I slogged through 17

th

century Lit, and then enjoyed Latin and Shakespeare on Friday. I wrote a rough draft of my paper on The Merchant of Venice, which I'd go over again on Saturday or Sunday before submitting it on Monday. That left me time to myself, which I spent reading a steamy romance. I put it aside around eleven, and closed my eyes imagining myself in the arms of a strong French lover named Pierre. My fantasies were rather tame, I'm afraid, full of semi-clothed cuddling and not much else, and I was soon comfortably asleep.

I woke up like any other Saturday, my eyes fluttering open, wishing I had better curtains that shut out the light coming from across the quad. At least as a senior I had a room to myself, although next year they were talking about making seniors live off campus entirely. Well, by that time I'd be a grad student. My timing was good.

I stretched, and then found myself flinging the covers off. I wasn't sure why I'd done that. Was I too warm, or something? I wasn't a fast waker-upper, not on the weekends. I thought about reaching over to pull the covers back on, planning to roll over, face away from the window, and get another hour or two of sleep.

Instead, I turned and put my legs on the floor, got up, and stretched again.

Then I grabbed my boobs through my flannel PJs and gave them a few squeezes.

"These are amazing," I said. "Firmer than I thought they'd be."

I almost ripped my buttons, getting the PJs off. I pulled down my pants, too. Goose bumps broke out on my skin, and I was cold. What the fuck? I should be getting back into bed. Instead I was groping my breasts again. "Oh yeah," I said. "Let's get a look at what we've got to work with, shall we? There's got to be a mirror around somewhere, doesn't there?"

There wasn't. When I needed a mirror, I used my cell phone. There wasn't an en suite bathroom; we shared one and it was down the hall.

That was when I remembered the cafeteria conversation.

"Greer?" I tried to say, but I didn't have any control of my lips.

But the person in charge of my lips heard me. "I'm not Greer. Not when it's not Thursday, anyway. Today I'm Vivi."

"But that's me." I thought at her. I didn't call myself that, but my parents did.

"Exactly."

She wasn't neat about pawing through my stuff, so I told her about not having a mirror, and what I did instead.

"Okay," she said. "What's your cell phone password?"

That sounded like a very bad idea. "There's a mirror down the hall," I thought at her.

"You know, this will all go better for both of us if we realize we're on the same team. Team Vivi. Or Vivienne. I can't decide. Both pretty names."

"There's a mirror down the hall," I said.

"Okay," she replied, and opened the door.

"You can't do that, you're naked."

She didn't close the door, but she paused before entering the hallway. "So I am. Might be better to give me your cell phone password, don't you think? We're going to be sharing this body for a long time. Billions of years is a long time to go without trusting someone."

"You're bluffing," I thought, hopefully.

She walked out into the hall.

It was not a co-ed dorm, at least. There weren't any boys around, and in fact the hall was empty. She looked around, and chose to walk to the left. The bathrooms were the other way, and I didn't want her wandering too far. "Other way," I told her.

She pivoted. "I'm not in a hurry," she said, and gave my boobs another grope. "Really, these are fantastic."

"They are too big."

"Oh, darling, they are definitely not too big. I knew you had something underneath that sweater of yours, but you've exceeded my expectations." She really wasn't in a hurry, because she was taking her time and swinging her hips. My hips. It was as if she was practicing walking in my body, which made sense, although the walk she was practicing was hardly designed for efficiency.

A door opened down the way, right in front of us. Oh fuck. My body just kept on doing her sexy walk down the corridor, straight toward trouble.

Marcie walked out in the hall, wearing an oversized sweatshirt and panties. We weren't formal in the halls, but no one walked around naked, either.

"Vivienne?" Marcie asked, staring.

The weirdest thing was, I was getting a kind of thrill from it, even though it terrified me. The terror won, though. "I'll give you my password," I told Vivi.

"Ooops," Vivi said. "I forgot my clothes!" She pivoted again, and this time it was like a dance move. Then she walked back toward my dorm, hips swiveling. Marcie had to be staring at Vivi's sexy walk. At my ass. Which wasn't like having a man staring, Marcie was probably just shocked. A man staring at me would be -

Mortifying.

Arousing.

Finally, Vivi made it back to my room. She let the door swing closed and picked my cell phone off the nightstand. "We gave her a thrill, didn't we? I bet she's questioning her sexuality now. Unless she was already gay. What's your password?"

I gave it to her. She tapped it in. "I love modern tech. Not that I'm all that old, really, but things change so fast. Remember our conversation?"

"Yeah."

"I read Monsieur LeCoq in French, a year after it came out. I thought it was going to be one of those naughty French books, but no, it was a detective novel." All the while, she was pressing buttons, pulling up the camera. She looked at herself, myself. "God, we are sexy, aren't we?"

I didn't think of myself as sexy. I thought of myself as big.

"Sure, big, but in all the right places," she said. "Not like little Greer. We are tall and busty, Vivienne, that's what we are. And these hips!" She turned, and angled the camera. "That caboose! Bombshell, that's what we are. A blonde bombshell. S. A. to spare! We, are an

it

girl. What a chassis! Truly pin-up material."

The flash on the camera went off. She had just taken a picture of my ass. Then she held it in front of me and took another, full frontal.

"Not the best, are they? Have to have a professional take some, some time. You don't have any glamour shots, do you, Vivienne?"

"No."

"We absolutely have to do something about that. Maybe not today. Today might be kind of full. We've got a lot to do before seven."

"What's at seven?"

"I suppose we need to get dressed," Vivi said. "Seems a shame to hide this glory in fabric, but at least we don't have to have corsets and petticoats, eh? Let's see what you've got."

In looking for the mirror, she'd pulled out enough drawers to know her way around. She selected some black panties and a red bra. I'd brought the bra on a whim, thinking if I ever had a hot date I'd wear it, because it was all lacy and such.

"You have nothing but granny panties," Vivi told me.

"What?" I protested. "Those are black and everything."

"Yes, they are black, but they are still granny panties. Nice bra, though. Shame you don't have matching panties."

"Well, no one is going to see them, anyway."

I felt myself raise my eyebrows. It was a weird sensation.

She found my snuggest jeans, and a button down blouse, and added those to her ensemble, finishing it off by donning my best flats. "We need to get you some new clothes, Vivienne. You're hiding your light under a bushel."

"Saves me some unwanted attention."

"But is it unwanted?" Vivi asked.

I decided the question was rhetorical, and didn't answer. She tossed my wallet in my purse and then hefted it over her shoulder.

"You, um, forgot a few buttons."

"No, darling," Vivi said. "I didn't. And now we're going to have to be quiet for a bit, because if I spend the rest of the day talking to myself, people are going to wonder."

As if people weren't going to wonder when she walked around with her blouse unbuttoned so far that you could see the red lace bra. But she was already out the door and striding down the hall.

Jo was coming back from the bathroom, her hair wet and a towel wrapped around her, carrying a bag with her jammies in it. I could see her eyes track me, or track my chest, anyway.

"Forgot some buttons, Vivienne," she said.

"Didn't forget," Vivi said cheerily as she walked by.

"Careful out there, you could cause a traffic accident," Jo said to my back. Vivi had the whole hip thing going again.

"Just one?" Vivi asked.

It was going to be a long day.

And then it hit me. It was going to be a long life. A very long life. If Vivi had actually taken over my body, that meant the deal was real. I was immortal.

Think of all the books I could read!

Vivi took the elevator down and then walked out onto the quad. It was early for most students, but there were always a few who, acclimatized by eight o'clock classes, were unable to shake the habits on the weekends.

I felt like every eye was on me as Vivi walked across the quad. More specifically, my over-sized breasts. Guys' heads, especially, tracked every move and bounce. I thought one guy was going to twist his head right off, like Meryl Streep in that movie.

It was so embarrassing.

And I loved it.

Obviously, none of those guys thought they were too big.

"Having fun?" Vivi whispered.

I didn't want to admit it, so I didn't think back at her. She shrugged and kept walking.

At 9:33 we caught the bus for the mall. She grinned at the bus driver, an old black man, and leaned over more than necessary as she swiped my credit card to pay for the trip. She scanned the place. There were plenty of empty seats. She found a hipster with a thin beard and asked, "Is this seat taken?"

"Um, no," he told my breasts, while moving over.

She sat down and put her hand on the spot where a rip in his jeans exposed some thigh.

"What are you doing?" I yelled the thought at her.

"These buses are so cold," she said. "I like to sit next to someone for warmth." Was she talking to me, or the hipster.

"Yeah," he said. "Smart."

"Wanna make out?"

"Sure."

They turned toward each other and started kissing. His hand slipped into my blouse and grabbed a handful of boob. Gently, Vivi moved his hand.

"Don't want to get arrested," she told him.

Okay, so she had some boundaries. Meanwhile, I was feeling his tongue in my mouth, and it was kind of a neat sensation. Wet, and intense.

The mall wasn't far, though, so pretty soon Vivi was getting up. "My stop. Was nice meeting you."

"Can I get your number?"

"It's not really mine to give," Vivi said, and walked out of the bus. I had absolutely no doubt that his gaze was on her ass the whole way, with that walk of hers. He was probably puzzling over her comment, too.

"Sorry," she said, when we were clear of people for a moment. "I didn't know whether you'd want him to have your number or not. I figured you could speak up if you did."

"I didn't know myself," I told her.

"Well, if you think a guy is hot, let me know. I can totally help you pull him, if you want, and once you've got his number, you can fuck him on one of your six days."

"I."

"You?" She picked my phone out of my purse and held it up to her ear as we approached some people. "Here, this way they think I'm talking on my phone rather than thinking I'm not playing with a full deck."

"I've never fucked a guy."

"You're a virgin?" Phone or no, people turned to look. And of course, they got distracted by her chest. My chest. Dressed like that, they had to be sure that whatever guy she was talking to on the phone was not staying a virgin for long.

"Well, yes. And keep your voice down."

"Sorry. You startled me, that's all. We'll fix that."

"Maybe it doesn't need to be fixed."

"Darling Vivienne," she said, "I've been at this for a couple hundred years, now, and trust me, your V-card is not something you want to be hanging on to. You don't have to worry about STIs, because you can't get sick. Are you on the pill?"

"Yeah, actually. It helps with acne."

"Your skin is amazing."

"It wasn't, before."

"Well, good, it's working. And side benefit, you can't get pregnant. If you can't get pregnant and you can't get sick, there is no reason not to be getting dick on a regular basis."

She walked into a store I never went in. The mannequins in the window were wearing tight little dresses with strategic cutouts, the kind that looked good, if slutty, on smaller girls. She found a rack with little coral numbers.

"What's your size?"

I told her, a little embarrassed.

"Like Marilyn Monroe."

"Sizes were smaller back then."

"Whatever." She pulled out one of the dresses. "Let's go try this on."

"I can't wear that. I'm too big."

"It's your size."

"But -"

"Come on, let's see how it looks."

So we went to a changing room and tried it on.