When the doorbell had chimed, Nancy Johnson had been delighted. She was eager for someone to break up the monotony of her day. Recent events had caused her online business to waste away to nothing, so she had no job. For so long her only hobby had been keeping something between her legs, but that had waned when their uninvited guest had packed up and moved to be closer to her son and daughter. And now it seemed like she was trying to rediscover herself. She needed something, a job, a project, she didn't know what. But right now, she needed to answer the door.
When she did, a raven haired beauty with a tight, white button shirt and slacks greeted her. She wore glasses and didn't wait for an invitation as she waltzed right into the house carrying her phone and a black attaché case and headed for the dining room. She knew the way having been there once before.
"Won't you come in?" Nancy called after the woman. She watched Connie Kendrick's hips sway and admired her figure. Nancy would love to have that woman's gait. She would even more love to be Connie's age again.
"Hm, oh, sorry," Connie said in half hearted response while she looked at her phone. "Just looking over some recent test results of a few experiments I've put your children on."
Nancy nodded as she joined Connie, who had already taken a seat, in the dining room. "Are Derek and Aubrey behaving themselves?"
Connie chuckled at this. "When I can keep them on task, they can. Even with keeping them apart their libidos are still high and they have to sate them at least once a day. I don't know how all of you managed a week in one house."
"It didn't go well," Nancy reminded her.
"I know. Sorry. Look, I'll get right down to it. We've discovered some new information. That, coupled with the testing and equipment I've gathered, I feel I'm ready to run a new kind of experiment, but I'll need your help."
Nancy's face registered mild shock. "I've told you everything I know, on more than one occasion. You've had me fill out all that family history and write out my whole life story, even drilling me for rather...intimate details, which have become quite sordid due to recent events."
Connie smirked at this. "The more information we had on you and your family, the better. When this all started, I needed all the facts I could get because this was uncharted territory. And now, thanks to some digging, I think I know what ties this all together, and why it makes you my only known candidate for the next stage of experimentation."
Connie pulled out a folded piece of paper from her case. She unfolded it and placed it in front of Nancy, who looked at it curiously. She saw what appeared to be a family tree, with a name at the top that split and flowed down, creating more and more names as it did so. She didn't recognize any until she got close to the bottom. In the right center was her grandmother's maiden name. Below that, she saw her own name, Nancy Johnson, and underneath that, the names of her two children, Derek and Aubrey.
Before Nancy could ask, another piece of paper was unfolded before her, this one much larger, and with many more names on it. Connie began to explain, "The first piece of paper is your family tree. It took some doing to track all that down, records being what they are, but we are almost one hundred percent sure of its accuracy. The other paper is Nevyn's sexual conquests, both the person he slept with, and the person he was possessing during the act.
Nancy's eyes bulged at this. "There...there are so many names here."
"Yes," Connie agreed. "He's been a busy boy. And I'm sure there are more, these are just the ones he can remember up till now. For months I've told him this was his only job, to remember as many people as he could that he's been in and fucked over the last two centuries. I speculate we have maybe ten percent of the actual number. In that respect, we lucked out, because look at this name right here." Connie pointed to one near the top of Nevyn's list. "Recognize it?"
Nancy felt like she did but didn't know where. She felt she had seen it recently. Then it dawned on her. She had seen it at the top of the other list, the one that was her family tree. "I don't...what does this mean?"
"It means the genetic requirement for hopping out of your body has been passed down by the one man who started it all. What do you say? Want to help me out?"
"I...what?" Even though she knew what Connie was saying, Nancy couldn't find the words.
"I mean, we can pay you. I won't lie, this will be a little dangerous, but it will go a long way in understanding the foreign element that is grafted onto your family's DNA."
"Will it help my son?" Nancy asked.
Connie slowly nodded. "I'm sure of it. If I can replicate it in you, I'm sure I'll be able to soon for Derek."
"Then that's all I need to know. Will it take long?"
"I don't think so. All the equipment should be ready in a few days. I also need to bring Nevyn in and let him know about all this. I'm actually looking forward to that. He's been pestering me for news and I think this will hit him like a ton of bricks."
Nancy's eyes lit up at this. "I would like to be there for that?"
Connie gave her a bemused look. "I don't have a problem with that. Thursday night and we'll do it Friday morning, and then we'll see if you have what it takes to hop out of that body."
"How long will I need to be there?" Nancy asked. She wasn't sure why though. She really had no responsibilities other than to be there for her husband, Richard. She wondered if she should tell him about this. If it was dangerous, maybe he didn't need to know.
"Well, if it works, I'd like you there a lot more. But there will be breaks in between. This first time, let's just say two weeks. Will you and your husband be okay with that?"
"Yes, but...here's my one request. We don't tell Richard about any of this yet. I don't want him to worry about me."
Connie shook her head at this. It was never good when a married couple kept secrets from one another. She couldn't judge though, because her own marriage was hanging by a thread these days and would now be defined as an open marriage. Still, she would have said anything to get Nancy to agree to this, so the only words out of her mouth were, "Whatever you say."
That meeting had been three days ago, and now Nancy Johnson was sitting across from Nevyn and trying not to laugh maliciously in his direction. She did allow a smirk, however, as she took in Nevyn's obvious discomfort. For as many awkward and embarrassing moments that he had put her through, it was nice to see him struggle to grasp how his past actions had put him in this predicament. He had sown the seeds, literally and figuratively, that had brought him to this point. He had created this problem by possessing her great, great, great, great grandfather, and now a part of Nevyn, the part that passed down the mysterious body hopping genetic code, was in her and her children.
Nevyn had not know this when he invaded Nancy's body, but regardless, she would never forgive him for taking up residence inside her for months and pretending to be her. Nevyn had been mother to her kids and lover to her husband. He had made her body do so many sordid things, and with people like her daughter's best friend, Bekka. Thankfully he had erased all memory of it in her mind. But she did remember how he had tormented her after moving on from her body. Stuck in the body of her son, Nevyn had pushed the lust that was a residual effect of his possessing her. But now he looked broken. She liked him that way. She hoped she would get a chance to push him down that dark path the way he had pushed her. But she also hoped that he wouldn't be in her son's body if she ever got the chance.
Nancy's thoughts of revenge temporarily halted as Nevyn gave a detailed account of the events that led up to the birth of Patrick Briar. Nevyn had swapped in and out of Patrick's parents, Ned and Bethany, during the first two years of their marriage. It was apparent that through one or both of them, Nevyn had passed on the mysterious element that made body hopping possible. Nancy couldn't help but wonder if he had passed on any other genetic traits in the process. Were they connected in more ways than just a dormant ability to possess other human beings? And then she had a terrifying thought. Had it been passed on before? Nevyn had no doubt been intimate with thousands of people throughout his lifetime. Were there others out there with the same genetic anomaly? Nancy's thoughts drifted to what that could mean. There was still so much to learn, and she was glad she now got to be a part of it.
The moment Connie had asked her to be a test subject to temporarily leave her body, a thrill had run through her. Nancy was in her mid forties and was experiencing a bit of a mid life crises. She seemed to see new wrinkles every day in the mirror and was regularly dying her hair. Richard, her husband, didn't have any complaints about her body, or the fact that her boobs seemed to sag a little more each year, but Connie had just given her a chance to feel young again. Connie promised it would only be temporary and for research purposes only. Nancy was glad they could contain it and not have to use anyone outside their circle of people who knew the truth. The last thing she wanted was to use someone like Nevyn had used her.
