Sophie's Choice

I knew it wasn’t right. I was supposed to be the protective big brother after all. But sitting at the dinner table across from my sister –I knew I wanted to become her. To inhabit her body. To be a girl. The urge had reached an almost unbearable level ever since she hit puberty.

I would see her reflection in the microwave door as she reheated leftovers, the ghostly superimposition of her face over my own, and I would imagine myself sliding beneath her skin, rewiring the muscles and tendons to fit.

When dinner ended, my sister stood up, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. I watched her walk away, the curve of her spine, the gentle knock of her knees, and thought, this is what I want: to move like that, to be seen like that, to feel the air on bare wrists and not have to pretend.

Then it happened. Suddenly, I was the one in the doorway, looking through her eyes.

I gasped then spun around to face the dining table.

I was –or at least my body was– sitting there, staring up at me with an expression of pure terror.

The chairs scraped the floor as I reeled back, pulse thumping in my throat like an engine. My—her—hands went up, covering the mouth because that was all the body knew to do in crisis.

My father, still gnawing at the last of his pork chop, looked up, then snapped a glance between the two of us, his face taking on the slack-jawed uncertainty of a man who’d just realized he was double-booked for dinner with the same family.

“Everything okay?”

My old body nodded, sharp and mechanical. From where I stood, new nerves fired, unfamiliar muscles tensed. Perfume—cheap, citrusy—caught in my nasal passages, and my hair brushed against my cheek. Actual hair, not the buzzed fuzz I’d scraped against pillowcases for years. I reached up. My fingers, slender and pale, grazed the outline of my sister’s jaw.

“Are you okay?” my father said again, his voice thinning out as he stood, “Sophie?”

I realized that this was indeed a dream come true –but also a nightmare.

“Are you okay, Sophie?” my father pressed.

“I—uh—” My, no, her—my—voice cracked, a little too high and thin, “I’m OK.”

That’s when the rest of the body’s messages began to register: the sharp pinch of the bra seam against ribs. My hands –her hands– shook.

I needed to go …somewhere. Anywhere—just away from my own shell of a body.

I made a bee-line towards the bathroom at the end of the hall. I moved—legs too long, hips swinging, weight shifting in strange new places. But I stopped in front of the door to Sophie’s room. My heart leapt.

I glanced back down the hallway towards the murmurs in the kitchen. Sophie, likely in my body, was starting to get up to leave the table, as well.

Could I? Should I?

I quickly slipped into her room before she could see me.

I closed the door and stood, heart racing. I patted my face for confirmation, traced my lips with a trembling finger.

Her desk was a riot of gel pens, cheap plastic jewelry, and the open shell of her laptop. Her mirror, dappled with fingerprints and stuck-on rhinestones, beckoned. I staggered to it, hands splayed out on its ledge, and stared.

It was her face, my face; our mother’s chin, our father’s long, pale lashes. I tucked the hair behind my ear, watching my own gestures snake through this foreign body.

I could hear my—her—my father out in the hallway, talking to my old body. From inside this shell, I couldn’t tell what was being said.

I drew in a breath—Sophie’s breath, deep and clean, clipped by a faint floral aftertaste—and waited for the door to rattle, for my own broad-shouldered body to appear and demand an explanation.

I started to hyperventilate. This was what I’d always wanted. A dream come true.

“Oh my God. I’m Sophie …I’m Sophie.”

My words sounded different. My lips barely knew how to shape their vowels, but they were hers. The faint tremor, the exact tightness, the way my tongue tripped the ‘ph’ in Sophie—it was all real. I tried a smile in the mirror. It wobbled, crooked at first, then righted itself with a force of habit that wasn’t mine. Her—no, my own now—fingers fluttered over my chin. Even the bone felt lighter.

I wanted to cry, or laugh, or scream, but none of those responses obeyed me. Instead I just stared into the mirror, trying to compute this impossible new physics. Sophie’s hair, always so limp and ordinary from the outside, felt like a living helmet on my skull, staticky and ticklish.

The initial shock began to wear off, and I felt my excitement building.

I pressed closer to the mirror and stuck out her tongue. I ran both hands back through the hair, parted it, cocked my head, and tried out Sophie’s most withering glare.

I flexed her right hand, then both, turning them palm-up, marveling at the tiny, bitten nails, the faint blue rivers of veins. A smile crept up, a real one, but I stifled it, worrying for a moment that I might break the illusion if I seemed too happy. I rocked forward on the balls of Sophie’s feet, staring at the line from knee to ankle, the way her calves canted slightly inwards.

I turned sideways and looked at the shelf of Sophie’s butt. There it was: all the mass and curve. I reached back and cupped it, at first in scientific awe, expecting the touch to be numb or ghostly, but no—there was real feedback, nerves flaring with sensation. I squeezed, and for a split second the naughtiness of it—the fact that I was groping his own sister—almost sent me reeling with guilt.

Almost.

I looked up, grinning crookedly, and then, emboldened by what I’d already done, ran a hand up the side of Sophie’s ribcage and over her chest. I paused before cupping both hands over Sophie’s breasts—my breasts—and gave a gentle squeeze, then let them go, watching them rise and settle in the mirror.

So this is how it feels.

I stopped for a moment to listen, but the murmurs continued from the kitchen.

“I mean, I am Sophie now. It’s my body, right?”