Empathin

By Melody Mounier

Jack ran his fingers over the small bandage at the base of his neck. He found the edge and peeled it back.

“See anything?” he asked.

“It’s healed perfectly,” Evelyn answered, and Jack felt her finger press gently against his skin, feeling for scar tissue. “There’s not even a bump anymore.”

“Your turn,” he said, turning to face her. Evelyn smiled up hesitantly, then turned away, lifting her silky blonde hair to expose the nape of her neck. Jack peeled off the small circular bandage, exposing pale, smooth, unmarred skin.

“It’s like it never happened,” he said thoughtfully.

Evelyn let her hair down and turned back to face Jack. “The injectable implant was more expensive, I know, but I like that it leaves no trace. I think it was worth it. This is private, between us,” she said, pressing her palms against his chest as she drew closer, gazing up at him. “No one needs to know that we’ve chosen to share ourselves this way. To see through each other’s eyes.”

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Empathin implants seem like an innocent way to explore fantasies. But in the case of Jack and Evelyn, they get much more than they bargained for...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melody Mounier
• Release date: Nov 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370107698

Melody Mounier

Hi!I’ve been around for awhile and writing, mostly under the pseudonym of “Alyssa S.”, starting at Fictionmania around 2000. I wrote a few stories there – Nano and Slaves of Acteon.Then I got in to game creation, and wrote Coldbrook Manor (written in something or other) and Sophie’s Eyes (written in Adrift).A few years ago I returned to fiction writing and started posting Virt as a sort of serial, a chapter a month, on my blog. I finally decided to pack some of these stories up and post them for free here. And here we are. Do let me know what you think.

Book preview

Empathin

By Melody Mounier

Chapter 1

Jack ran his fingers over the small bandage at the base of his neck. He found the edge and peeled it back.

See anything? he asked.

It’s healed perfectly, Evelyn answered, and Jack felt her finger press gently against his skin, feeling for scar tissue. There’s not even a bump anymore.

Your turn, he said, turning to face her. Evelyn smiled up hesitantly, then turned away, lifting her silky blonde hair to expose the nape of her neck. Jack peeled off the small circular bandage, exposing pale, smooth, unmarred skin.

It’s like it never happened, he said thoughtfully.

Evelyn let her hair down and turned back to face Jack. The injectable implant was more expensive, I know, but I like that it leaves no trace. I think it was worth it. This is private, between us, she said, pressing her palms against his chest as she drew closer, gazing up at him. No one needs to know that we’ve chosen to share ourselves this way. To see through each other’s eyes.

No second thoughts? Jack asked, wrapping his arms around her.

She shook her head. I’m nervous, but no, I don’t have any regrets. We’ve talked this through, and I’m absolutely willing to give this a try. She laughed. Second thoughts are kind of beside the point anyway; we both have Empathin implants now, it would be a waste not to try them.

You have the implant keys, Evelyn, Jack said. You can back out any time you like, turn them off, kick me out of your sensorium.

Evelyn smiled. I appreciate that. Are you ready to turn them on?

They decided to sit in the dining room for the initialization sequence. Evelyn had the instructions spread out before her and was reading the initialization steps off. Evelyn was a programmer by trade and Jack usually left this kind of thing to her. He sipped his coffee between steps as he followed her spoken instructions.

Step three: focus on the virtual schematic and insert your partner’s key into the acceptance sphere.

Floating in the space just before Jack’s eyes was a milky white sphere, a figment of his imagination spun to life by the implant. A virtual key floated alongside the sphere, rotating on its long axis. He imagined the key sliding into the sphere and just like that, the key obeyed his visualization, lifting upward and slipping into its opaque surface.

IMPLANTS PAIRED. The sphere winked out. YOU HAVE GIVEN PRIMARY SENSORY CONTROL TO IMPLANTEE EVELYN BRIGHTMAN. PLEASE CONFIRM BY THINKING YES.

Jack gave his affirmation mentally, and the words faded away.

Jack began to feel, at the edges of himself, physical sensations ghosted over his own. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Evelyn curling her fingers over the sheet of instructions, and he distantly felt paper under his own fingers.

Evelyn smiled, and Jack felt the corners of my mouth turn upward in response.

Here, she said, I can tamp down the connection to nil, like this. She didn’t do anything that Jack could see, but he felt the connection drop completely. Feel anything? she asked.

No, just myself.

Okay. So this is pretty configurable, Jack. I can set this so that what we feel is a merged blend of our bodily sensations, but we’re still primarily seated in our own bodies. That’s what most people use it for.

Jack nodded. Empathin implants were becoming more common as a sex enhancer, because if you can literally feel your partner’s arousal levels there’s a feedback loop that starts to build, and it’s supposed to be pretty intense. But not what you want to use it for.

Or you, Jack. I’ve been curious, but you’ve wanted something like this since you were a kid. Don’t play like this is mainly for me. You dream of being female. This is the safest way to try it; I don’t want you doing Empathin pairing with escorts. If you’re going to body swap it’s going to be with me, in a safe environment, with a body you know, and where I know your own body is in good hands - mine.

Jack smiled. They’d talked this through at length before getting the implants. I love you, Evelyn.

And I love you, Jack. I’ve thought of how I want to prepare for this, so here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to wait down here, while I get ready. You can do whatever you want but keep your clothes on, please. Evelyn rose. She bent down and kissed Jack hungrily. This is actually kind of a turn on. See you soon!

Jack busied himself in the kitchen for awhile. He heard the shower turn on upstairs. Some time later the water turned off, and there was the soft sound of her padding around barefoot. He resisted the urge to go check out what she was up to.

A good half hour had passed, and Jack was beginning to wonder what was up. He was in the living room, sprawled on the couch, reading on his tablet and occasionally cocking his ear for the sound of Evelyn moving about.

Then he felt a warning tingle all across his skin. It was a very brief precursor, because unlike the first time when they had merged their senses, Jack was quite suddenly someone different.

Chapter 2: Eve

He was on his elbows and knees, his blonde hair hanging around his face, obscuring his vision. Evelyn had put a mirror on the floor with a typed note, so the first thing Jack saw was Evelyn’s face staring back up at him, looking as surprised as he felt.

He breathed in deeply, his heart racing with the suddenness of the change, and felt Evelyn’s breasts sway heavily under his ribcage. There was a thick scent of perfume in the air that he couldn’t place. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, and picked up the note. He read.

"I’m going to call you Eve, dear, because for the next two days that’s who you’re going to be. Not Evelyn - that’s who I am, my life in that body. Eve. Eve is my body with the mind of Jack inside, but Eve isn’t allowed to call herself anything but the name I’ve just given her. I want you calling yourself that in your own mind, dear.

"This is true not just in the bedroom but everywhere. We have the whole weekend and my plan is that we will spend it more or less as each other. I’m going to go by the name John. I reserve the option to back out if it gets really awkward - the sex or anything else - but I want to set a baseline so you know what to expect.

"We both know this experiment is primarily for us to explore your