Out on the street you have no trouble finding a cab. Three of them practically have a fight trying to pick you up when Kara stands on the corner and raises her hand.
You love being beautiful.
You give the lucky driver of the first cab an address on Greene Street and settle back in the seat, savoring the sensations bubbling through you. Even after all these years, it's still a thrill to switch bodies, especially to a newer one. Still a thrill to sway it through a hotel lobby or bar and draw hungry stares from all the men— all the straight ones—and even a few women. You won't balk at matching Kara up with another woman if the opportunity presents itself, but it's more difficult to arrange. Men are so much easier to acquire, even in pairs.
You prefer to wear a woman. Their bodies are so much more versatile, and they are capable of so much more pleasure than a male. In your vast experience playing either sex you've concluded that there is really no comparison. A woman's body is a vastly superior sexual instrument. The problem is, as always, finding a sufficiently accomplished musician.
You've been borrowing bodies for, what?, nearly forty-five years now. Ever since you were about six years old. Not with your present degree of expertise and subtlety, of course. You had to learn by trial and error. There were no teachers in this art.
You remember how it started. It was just about the time the family was preparing to flee the old country. Everything was in turmoil, emotions running high, conflicting, confused. That was when you began experiencing flashes of those emotions. Not from within, but from without. Others' emotions. You would follow those emotions and find yourself looking through the eyes of your sister, Marta, or one of your brothers, seeing what they saw, feeling what they felt, actually inside them.
But you couldn't maintain the contact. Not in those days. And the other minds would rebel, push you away. They wouldn't know it was you, that it was anybody. They just knew that something was wrong and subconsciously reacted against you. But you kept on trying, probing. You had to. And by trial and error you discovered that you achieved your best results during the night when they were asleep. You could enter them then without resistance. And as long as they stayed asleep, you could make their arms and legs move. Eventually you learned to keep them asleep and unaware. That done, you could get them up and walk around in their bodies.
But instinctively you knew right from the start that yours was an ability that had to be kept secret. You could do something that other people could not— although you suspected your sister Marta had some undiscovered capability like yours. So maybe it was genetic. You'd caught hints in the family history that there may have been others with a power like yours, but nothing definite. And those records are long gone now.
But what does it matter, really? It is a fool's game to root about for causes. The why and how is irrelevant. You power exists, you know how to use it, you love using it. Where it comes from simply doesn't matter.
Whatever the cause—accident or heredity—you knew your ability would cause fear in other people, so you kept it a secret for much of your childhood.
With adolescence, you became bolder and perfected your technique.
On Green Street, you pay the cabby and go into the Nite Owl Boutique to pick out some sexy clothes. The owner's eyes light up at the sight of Kara's familiar face—she thinks she's still dealing with Kelly. Dollar signs flash in her eyes and she comes over immediately to help.
As you browse through the racks of low-cut tops and high-cut skirts, and undergarments with unconventional but strategic openings, you think about how far you've come. From listening in on emotions to taking absolute control over—all but owing—this fabulous body.
Life is good.
And going into psychiatry proved to be a stroke of genius, even if you do say so yourself. It gives you access to people with emotional problems, a majority of whom are women, since women as a rule are far more apt to admit to emotional problems and seek help for them. A certain percentage of those women, purely as a result of the law of averages, are young and attractive. You've skewed the curve in your favor by letting it get around that you treat nurses on a courtesy basis. When you find a young attractive woman who fits your criteria of suggestibility, you edge her down a circuitous path that will convince her that she might have a multiple personality disorder. When she allows you to hypnotize her, you establish contact, entering her mind and making a little nest for yourself there. It's akin to leaving a marker. After that, you can find her whenever she's in range—like reaching out in the dark and finding a familiar object—and take her over whenever she's sleeping. You make her body do a few rude things during the night, thus confirming the multiple personality diagnosis beyond all doubt. After that she's yours whenever you want her, as soon as she goes to sleep.
The sleep part is important. Once you've worn a body a few times in sleep, you're capable of taking over whenever you wish. But if you do so while the individual is alert and conscious, the victim knows she's been taken over. She might even recognize you. That would never do. So you only take over patients who have been convinced they have a multiple personality disorder, and only when they are asleep.
It's a delicate juggling act, really. You must keep them frightened and off-balance enough so they stay in therapy, but not so frightened and distraught that they become discouraged or disillusioned with you and go somewhere else. With the right amount of hope and a sufficient number of setbacks, you can keep them dangling indefinitely.
And when you tire of them… you cure them.
Some of them cure themselves by moving away. Your range is limited. You can reach as far as Hartford and the Catskills and a ways west of Philadelphia. And even when they are that far, there is no sensation of transit—one instant you're in your own body, the next instant you're in another's. But at the extremes of your range the bond is so tenuous, the strain of maintaining contact so enormous, that there is nothing to be gained by the effort. Except in Kara's case. During the weekend after she returned to her farm it exhausted you to make her body do a few simple things, such as writing on the mirror and the like, but it was worth the effort. It brought her back to New York.
You've never failed. Your arrangement has worked perfectly for years and there is no reason it cannot go on for as long as you live. No matter how old your brain and your own body become, you can always have a young body to occupy.
You carry your packages from the Nite Owl and find a cab to take you to the Helmsley Palace on Madison and 50th. You rent a room there—registering as Janine Wade—paying in advance in cash. Then you stop at the pharmacy to pick up some make-up and essentials. Half an hour later you walk Kara's provocatively dressed body down to the bar. In no time you have a Stetson-hatted Texan in tow. He's big, he's horny, and this is his last night in town. He's perfect.
▼
2:45 A.M.
You lay alone on the bed in Kara's body, vaguely frustrated. The Texan was all right, but after the Hindu last night he was something of a letdown. You can see that you're going to have to go back to picking up doubles again. You've shied away from that sort of thing since the fiasco at the Plaza two weeks ago, but you don't see that you have much choice if you're going to make these little jaunts worthwhile.
You get up, wash off the make-up, use the Massengill vinegar douche you picked Hp earlier, and put the new clothing back in the Nite Owl bags. You've decided to store them in a locker at Grand Central. That way they'll be convenient to midtown and you won't have to waste so much valuable time going down to SoHo.