A husband and wife take turns in each other's bodies as part of a new therapy treatment to mend their relationship in Switch Therapy, available on Body Swap Stories, Smashwords or Amazon.
Christian and Allison's marriage is on the rocks, so they agree to undergo a new type of therapy that takes place over three days:
On day one, Allison's mind is implanted into her husband's body as a passenger, both of them privy to each other's thoughts but only Christian has control.
On day two they switch, and it's Christian's turn to be in his wife's body as she goes through her day.
On day three they swap bodies entirely, each of them alone in the other's body.
The therapy aims to truly help them understand each other, with the additional bonus of being able to experience all the physical pleasure of being the opposite gender.
“I feel like nothing I do is good enough for her,” I said, sitting back on the therapist’s couch and crossing my arms.
My wife, Allison, sat next to me. I could tell she wanted to say something but she held her tongue. Rachel, our therapist, sat across from us, her legs crossed, a notepad resting on her lap.
“Say it to her,” Rachel gently encouraged me.
I sighed, feeling stupid as I turned to Allison and repeated my comment. “I feel like nothing I do is good enough for you.”
“What does that mean, Christian?” Our therapist prodded.
“It means what it means. Like, you have some sort of—”
“Don’t couch it as an accusation. Remember, we’re using ‘I feel’ statements,” Rachel said.
I suppressed another sigh. “I feel…like I’m being held to a secret standard and I only find out the rules when I’ve done something wrong.”
“Ok, Christian, give an example,” Rachel said.
Allison kept her hands clasped in her lap, though I could tell by the way she was pinching the webbing between her thumb and forefinger that she wanted to say something. She flicked her head to toss her long, black hair out of her eyes and waited for me to speak. We’d been married for a little over three years now and it was funny how much we were just now learning about each other. The therapy had been her idea after we’d had another argument over something stupid. I was “slow” in taking out the garbage and we both exploded at each other. It didn’t quite get to smashing dishes but I slept on the couch.
This was our fourth session with Rachel and I didn’t know if we were getting anywhere. To be honest, I didn’t really trust therapy. It felt kind of wishy-washy and a little embarrassing to try to put into words what I felt.
“Like, when we were out with Tom and Cathy and I told Tom how much our trip to Hawaii cost, you got mad at me on the way home because you didn’t think we were supposed to talk about money like that.”
“It sounded like you were bragging,” Allison said. “Tom and Cathy don’t have a lot of money and it might make them feel bad to hear how much we’ve been spending.”
“I wasn’t bragging!” I insisted. “It was a statement of fact.”
“Okay. Allison. Christian.” Rachel interrupted, “Let’s take a step back.”
“Good, because this isn’t working,” Allison said, crossing her arms beneath her ample breasts.
Strands of black hair brushed across her face and she impatiently tucked them behind an ear with a long red fingernail. She drove me fucking nuts sometimes. Another therapy session ending in a near-argument. I had no idea what happened over the last several months and I just wanted to get back to where we were before.
I’d met Allison at a friend’s party and was instantly smitten. She was gorgeous, with striking blue eyes beneath her black fringe. Her dark rimmed glasses gave her a kind of hot teacher vibe. And her figure…Jesus…breasts like two ripe melons, hips that perfectly fit my hands, the ass of a goddess. I thought for sure she’d go for my buddy, Keith, but no, she was interested in me. We had a long honeymoon phase even before our wedding, where we barely spent a night apart and fucked like rabbits every chance we got.
Allison used to grab my ass and coo over my arms whenever I got back from the gym. She used to let things go. She used to be less judgmental. Did she change or did I?
Rachel chewed on her pen for a second and looked at the two of us. “You know,” she said after a beat, “There is something else we could try. It’s a little…experimental but early results have been quite promising.”
“If it doesn’t involve sitting here and talking about my feelings I’m all for it,” I said in a manner that was joking-but-not-really.
I got a quarter smile out of Allison at that.
“It’s called switch therapy,” Rachel said, sitting back and clasping her hands at the knee. “It’s a three day process. We put a little chip into each of you. It’s a day surgery. Takes five minutes. And then we’re able to make it so you share a mind for a day.”
She explained that we’d go one at a time. One of us would essentially be transferred into the other one’s body so that we could experience everything they did. We’d be able to hear each other’s thoughts but the transferee would be a passenger, unable to control the body they were in. The next day, the other person would play passenger. On the third day we would switch bodies completely, being in each other’s bodies alone.
It sounded crazy and impossible and my first thought was ‘absolutely not’. On the other hand: a therapy that could fix everything in three days and not involve sitting on this couch talking feelings? Maybe it was worth it.
Over the next couple of days Allison and I talked it over. I was still hesitant to have Allison in my head, hearing my every thought, even the intrusive ones I couldn’t control. Allison kept pestering me for an answer, assuming my thoughtfulness was avoidance until I finally blew up one night over dinner.
“Fine,” I said, slamming my fork down. “We’ll do it if it will make you shut up.”
I instantly regretted it but I was just so angry I couldn’t control myself. Once I got like this the only thing I could do to calm down was to go take a walk by myself but she just wouldn’t leave me alone. I slept on the couch again that night. We made plans for the next weekend, each of us taking the Friday off work to give us three days in a row. We were supposed to live lives as normal as possible, but going into work as each other was a step too far. We did, though, make plans to go out with friends on various days. Rachel thought it would help for us to see what the other person was like when they were with friends.
I didn’t think too much about it that week. Avoidance is kind of my specialty. But Friday morning I was a little nervous as we sat in the back of the Uber to the clinic. I think we both were nervous. Allison kept worrying the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, and neither of us spoke much. Allison kept looking at me as we drove, perhaps wondering what was going on in my head. Well, she’d find out soon enough.
We filled out the forms and met with Rachel for a quick debrief.
“Now even being in someone’s mind doesn’t mean that everything they think is what they believe. Sometimes we think things and don’t act on them. Sometimes thoughts just pop into our heads. What matters is what we do with them. This treatment will help you each understand how the other thinks every day.”
Then we were taken back, one at a time, to the small operating room where they put in the chip and fired it up to test it. Allison would go into my head first. She put on her hospital gown and the nurses hooked her up to various machines. She would essentially be in a coma for a day, her mind inside mine.
“Last chance to back out,” I said as she swept her long black hair behind her and lay down.
She reached out and squeezed my hand. “I think this will be good for us.”
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