The Conclusion

Black

I found myself suddenly doing finger guns to a guy in a $2000 suit who was holding up an iPhone.

"Are you still in there?" he called to me.

I whipped my hands down immediately and scowled at him.

Black

I was standing on one foot, making a peace sign like a Japanese school girl. A big guy chuckled as he was handed the helmet.

Black

I stared down at my own cleavage. The grin on my face faded quickly as I reasserted control. My boobs felt a little sore, like I'd been squeezing them.

Black

I was holding my skirt up, flashing a group of young guys and girls in suits. A stern-looking woman among them was scowling at me. Whatever you're angry at, it wasn't me, lady!

Black

Eeek! I found myself embracing Sarah, our lips pressed together. I jumped back with a yelp, while Sarah did the same. She wiped her mouth and gave me a funny look.

"This isn't as much fun from this side!"

"Tell me about- "

Black

I was facing the ground in a deep bow. The shoe's Sarah had put me in were completely gone, my bare feet with black-painted nails standing on the dusty stage. I straightened up.

"And that's all folks! You'll have to wait for your commercial units to be delivered before you get to try that again!"

The business guy gave the audience a wave and smiled down at me condescendingly.

"I'd tell our volunteer to take a bow, but John here already took one for her!"

A young nerdy guy handed the helmet over to an assistant as he left the side of the stage, blushing. I wonder what else he did when he was in my body?

I took stock of myself. My feet were a bit cold, my boobs a little sore, but nothing too bad. A wiggled my fingers in front of my face, breaking my body back in. It felt a little odd, like putting a shoe back on after somebody else wore it for a little while. Almost as if it was getting used to me controlling it again.

I noticed the nail polish on my fingers was scratched off pretty badly, and some of my nails had been bitten. Goddamn it. Whatever damn nerd had made me bite my own bloody finger nails…

"Goodnight everybody!"

Business guy walked off stage and waved for me to follow. I looked over at Sarah, but she just shrugged, so we walked off stage together, hoots and wolf-whistles following us into the wings.

"When are they going to get these chips off us?" I asked Sarah.

She shrugged again and gave her arms a shake.

"It better be soon! I feel like my body is a fucking costume for these people-"

"Sarah!"

Sarah cut herself off as Mr Smith rushed towards us from somewhere deep backstage.

"I'm sorry sweetheart, I didn't know Jerry was going to take it that far." he glared at the Business Guy as he strutted past on his way to the green room. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine." muttered Sarah. Her dad quickly removed the chip from her neck, then came over to do the same to me.

"What happens next?" I asked. "Are we good?"

"Fortunately that event wasn't recorded, so yes, you're good."

I felt a light pop as the chip let go off my neck, accompanied by a weird tickling sensation in my brain.

"As for what's next…" Mr Smith trailed away, his eyes staring at where Business Guy had left.

"The world is never going to be the same."

____________________

I left Miss Brixton's class with a sneaky smile playing on my face. Sarah had been bugging me about what was going on with Jess alllll throughout the lesson, right up until Miss Brixton had put her on mute.

I had a lot of fun asking her teasing questions in the second half of that class. She could only scowl at me from behind her frozen lips.

The Body Rentals devices had become ubiquitous over the last six months. Basically everybody had access to one now, whether through one of the rental businesses, or privately. Society was still catching up, to be honest, but Sarah tended to wear her personal chip everywhere -- hence why Miss Brixton could use it to stop her from speaking.

Why did she want to have it on all the time, you ask? Well, these things had become extremely useful. I wear mine most days as well. Since it connects directly into your central nervous system, you can use it to "turn down" your own sense of pain, or hunger, or discomfort, or whatever you want!

Heck, I'd even sneakily numbed my muscles before gym class once or twice before. Not numbed numbed, mind you, just reduced the sensations by about 60-70%, so I could still feel stuff, just not very powerfully. I'd made sure that was a one-way reduction, of course, so I could still move! I couldn't do that everyday without getting the reputation for being clumsy, though, because it is much harder to act coordinated when your leg's half-numb.

That's one of the issues with the Body Rentals chips -- the A.I. is pretty dumb. If you weren't directly controlled by another person (via a helmet) you could only do basic things. It couldn't do the workout for you, just modulate the signals your body or brain was already generating. I wandered onward to my locker.

"Hey Sis" a young girl with flowing blonde hair said as I walked past.

"Ben, you little rat, are you going to go back into your own body anytime today?"

"Not if I can help it." the girl said with a shifty grin, as she turned and skipped away.

I watched her go with a bit of a frown. Ben had broken his leg last week -- in an accident he swears wasn't his fault -- and is at home recovering. Apparently he'd convinced his new girlfriend to let him take control for a while. I wondered if he'd learnt his lesson from what happened after he controlled me for the first time?

That all shook out without too much trouble, surprisingly. Once the technology became common knowledge, it was pretty obvious when I was and wasn't in control of myself. The company worked hard to sweep any wrongdoing under the rug, basically, and had actually compensated us all with our own devices in exchange for us agreeing that nothing bad had been caused by their technology.

At least I'd gotten even with Ben. We've settled back into something of an uneasy truce, though I hope his new girlfriend knows what she's gotten herself into by handing over the keys like that.

Stacy, meanwhile, turned out to be super into it. She tried to hide it, but I swear there's been three or four times now where I've noticed her acting a bit funny at the dinner table, only to find out later she'd let one of her friends in to try and pretend to be her.

Usually they do alright at acting normal. Most often they just act like an exaggerated version of her, emphasising her particular ticks the way a bad actor would when impersonating someone. Once we had a whole conversation where she spoke with an Indian accent, but she refused to admit to me later that it was obviously her friend Nidra!

The most embarrassing one was the time I came home to find her running around on all fours like a dog. She sniffed my shoes and stuck her tongue out, then rolled over on her back as if asking for tummy scratches. I'd just stared at her, so she scampered outside to chase birds instead. About twenty minutes later she shuffled back in, covered in dirt, and pretended like nothing had happened. I don't know who it was that made her act like that because I can't imagine they managed to fit the helmet onto a real dog (would that even work?).

Anyway, I got to my locker and began to get my books for the next class, but I'd barely been there a minute when I felt a light shove on my shoulder. It was Amy, a petite girl from my geography class.

"Hey Elle, sure you don't want to join us this Friday? Big money in it!"

"Nooooo thanks, Amy, it's a bit much for me."

"Come on, Elle! You're going to miss the boat unless you get in quick!"

I shrugged, so she continued.

"There's so few young people with chips that prices are through the roof right now -- we'd be lucky to get paid half as much for this next year."

Amy had been trying to convince me to sign up to this app that let you rent out time in your body to people on the internet. You could set the times you were available, and your minimum rate, and then whoever had the highest bid would get to take you for a drive, so to speak.

"You'd be lucky to get anything next year." I said to her "I bet they shut it down."

"They wouldn't!" Amy said, annoyed. "It's so liberating, Elle! How else is someone like me going to make $1000 a week?"

I could think of a few other ways, but I held my tongue.

"Now, the Friday night group wants us to find a fifth body for them, or they'll pull their bid, so think about it!"

She patted me on the cheek in a way that was much too personal and rejoined her friends. I sighed and grabbed my things. Next class was gym, which I hated. Sarah often got Christy or Lucas to take over for her in gym class, but I wasn't game for that sort of thing, and numbing my legs only helped so much.

It actually wasn't too hard to find somebody else to fill in for you at our school. We were kind of like ground zero for Body Rentals devices. There was a thriving black market of people offering to exercise for you, take tests, give speeches, and anything else you can think of. There were even people who paid people to take over and ask their crush out!

I knew this because it has actually happened to me. There was this geeky kid, Sam, who I sometimes to chat to in the library. I actually don't mind him as a person -- he was quiet, shy, awkward... non-threatening, you know? But definitely not somebody I would have my eye on in that way. Anyway, one day he comes in to our usual spot with a cocky grin and a swagger.

"Hey babe." he said to me, leaning on the table. "What's a pretty girl like you doing without a date on Friday night?"

He gave a cheeky smile which must have looked good on whatever jock Sam had paid to control him, but which fell flat coming from Sam's goofy face.

I told him I was busy, but the guy kept pressing until I packed up my things and left. Sam avoided me for a week after that, before confessing he had a crush on me in his own awkward way. He was shocked when he found out I already knew he'd hired somebody to ask me out for him, the poor, oblivious, kid.

At least the guy he'd paid hadn't done anything too bad in his body. Nobody ever admits to being controlled, but I've definitely seen guys suddenly begin walking with a feminine gait right before a big exam, and I caught Erika basically fondling herself throughout the entire math midterm before getting an A+ (bringing her semester average to a C!).

I paused outside the gym and rubbed the chip at the back of my neck. Maybe I could find somebody I trusted to do it for me? What's the worst that could happen? Mmmmm.

I sighed and hefted my bag. It's a weird world with these devices everywhere. What will they think of next?

[Other stories at outfoxstories.com]