She knew my name before I said a word, which was unfair, because I’d been standing there naked and shivering for at least ten seconds.
I grabbed for the towel on instinct, then stopped.
She noticed that too.
“You don’t need it,” she said, glancing at the door like she’d already mapped the house in her head. “I’ve seen you like this before.”
I laughed, because that was easier than asking how.
“I thought you’d never get out.” She went on, looking me over, unimpressed.
“Honestly,” she added, a tendril of humour curling in her voice. “What did you do to get that dirty?”
“I can get you something,” I said. “Clothes. A towel. You can’t just—”
She sighed. Not dramatic. Tired. She smelled faintly of salt and something older, like low tide caught in a drain.
“You always do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Fill the space,” she replied. “Like if you keep talking, nothing bad can happen.”
I bristled. “You don’t know anything about me.”
That made her laugh. A short sound, surprised, like she hadn’t expected me to say that.
“I know how long you stand in front of the mirror before you shave,” she said. “I know which parts of yourself you don’t look at. I know how you move when you think you’re alone.”
My mouth went dry.
“You don’t remember,” she went on, almost kindly. “That’s the point.”
“Remember what?”
She shifted on the tiles, tail scraping softly. It was the first time she’d looked genuinely uncomfortable, like she’d been waiting for this part to be over.
“You’re not usually awake when I borrow you. This is meant to be easier.”
I stared at her. “Awake for what?”
She hesitated. Just long enough to decide whether it mattered.
“For the handover.”
A cold stroke traced down my spine. “Handover?”
Her gaze flicked to the mirror, then back to me. Not checking her reflection. Checking mine.
“You’ve been useful,” she said. “Predictable. You don’t drink much. You don’t hit anyone. You don’t attract attention.” A pause. “And you don’t ask questions.”
“I… think I’d remember something like this,” My voice stuttered.
She smiled at that. Not unkindly. Not convinced.
“You never do.”
The room felt suddenly too small. “So what — what, you just come and go? Wear me like a — like a —”
“Don’t make it sound silly,” she snapped, irritation flaring at last. “I have work to do.”
“What kind of work?”
She considered me, properly now. Head tilted. Assessing.
“The kind that requires men to feel safe,” she paused. “The kind that doesn’t work if the face doing the smiling looks wrong.”
I took a step back. The mirror fogged slightly, though the shower had been off for minutes.
“And this time?” I asked.
Her expression tightened.
“This time,” she said, “you took too long.”
It happened all at once. One moment she was sitting on the floor of my bathroom, the next she began to rise up, somehow.
Her skin darkened, slick and gleaming, and for a half-second my brain reached for something familiar. Human. Naked.
Then her shoulders hitched the wrong way.
The angle of her spine corrected itself. Her hands – my hands – flexed testing joints they already knew.
The left thumb bent the wrong way first. The way mine always did.
She looked up at me from my own face.
“That’s better,” she said. “I won’t need to put it back this time.”
She ran a hand through my hair.
“I was tired of borrowing it.”
When she let go of my hair, something went slack inside me. Not pain. Not fear. Just a sudden absence of tension, like a limb falling asleep.
The mirror cleared.
She stood easily in my body, weight balanced, expression familiar in a way I had never quite managed myself. She tested my shoulders once, rolled my neck. Satisfied.
I tried to look down at my hands and couldn’t find them.
“Don’t worry,” she said, already turning away. “You won’t miss it.”
The door closed.
Salt crept into the room after her, fine and dry, settling in my throat, my eyes. I could feel it drawing the damp out of me, grain by grain, patient as a tide pulling back.
I stayed where I was, waiting for my reflection to come back.
Aftertaste / tonal companion:
Dirty Creature — Split Enz
Eee! Creepy!
This was excellent, Wendy. My kind of horror. 🤗
I've always loved the way you write dialogues, and the violation here is so intimate and unsettling. Really well done!