Far from home, I was at a convenience store grabbing a couple cheap snacks. I was struck by a woman in the aisles, buying a handful of crap food, muttering about her awful kids. I caught myself staring at her.
She didn't look like my mom, not really, but she was definitely a mom. Her fat butt filled up her jeans, her neck was flabby, her face miserable, not old or young, just tired. Her breasts and belly were big and sagged, weighing her down. Being a mom was a bad deal for her, clearly, and so much of it was the awful body she had to live in.
She caught me staring. "Yeah? You want to say something, kid?" I remembered how I must've looked to her, a healthy tall teenage boy. I realized if she got to live in my body it would be the happiest day of her life. Strong, youthful, with her whole life ahead of her, getting to play with her penis any time she wanted. Instead, she was forced to live in that mom body.
"I was just wondering, what's it like to be in your body? I mean, being a middle-aged woman, having those body parts, wearing those clothes..."
"What are you, a pervert? It's fucking hell if you want to know. Bad back, saggy flabby tits, awful fat body, clothes don't fit, plus knowing that I'm already old and yet I'm still getting older. Older and fatter, forever. It never gets better, only worse. And I'll never have what you boys have. At best I got to be a girl once, and even that sucked."
This woman seemed eager to talk about her situation. I don't know why, but the fact that I'd been so close to the same cruel fate and escaped it made me absolutely fascinated. I wanted to hear more from her about how bad things could've been for me. I wanted to keep her talking. I wanted to really picture the experience I could've had from someone who had lived it for years and had no way out.