It was easily the most uncomfortable bus ride that Jen could remember, and it wasn’t even over.
It wasn’t the bumps and the potholes from the poorly maintained roads, that was normal, although it didn’t help matters. It wasn’t her friend Susan sitting beside her, that was again, perfectly normal. Superficially, nothing was any different from a perfectly normal, perfectly uneventful bus ride.
Superficially that was true. And as Jen stared, fixedly on the seat in front of her, feeling exhausted by the effort, the only thoughts that persisted in her mind were a stubborn insistence that everything was normal and that this was in-fact a perfectly uneventful bus ride… and an irresistible, carnal sense that things weren’t normal at all.
As the bus rounded a corner, it rocked and heaved. Every single passenger swayed slightly with the movement. Jen swayed more than normal, bumping shoulder into shoulder with Susan with more force than one might have expected.
Part of Jen wanted to apologize, push away slightly, do what she might normally do… but she remained silent, and unwilling to spare any thought for what was around her.
I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina.
The thought pulsed hot and heavily through her, pounding uncomfortably as if she were driving a stake into frozen ground.
The bus bumped over another, larger pot-hole, and Jen rocked against Susan again. A guilty blush spread over her this time. Still, she said nothing. She felt hot, and uncomfortable in ways that would have been unimaginable to her even earlier that very morning. Her panties and skirt were constricting, and somehow felt suffocating. Worse was her sense of the rest of her body. Everything above her hips felt too tall, too ungainly. Her spine was too long, her arms were dangling and awkwardly placed above her, and her head was poking out so high in the air with all of her senses and her brain cloistered inside of it. It felt vulnerable, exposed. But it also felt awkward; as though she were holding it up on a two foot long stick and trying to balance all of it above her.
Everything felt deeply, deeply wrong… yet nothing was. Her blood ran cold and she wished that she could focus on something, anything else.
“Hey Jen.”, Susan bumped her shoulder back, this time deliberately. The effect was more substantial than it should have been as Jen felt her awkward, ungainly upper body threaten to topple over. Frantically, she leaned the other way, smacking into the window with more force than she would have intended any other time.
“Is everything… Okay?”, Susan asked, a little more concern creeping into her voice. After a moment, Jen thought to unlock her eyes from the seat before them and slid her vision sideways. Susan was staring at her, her face slightly tensed with obvious worry.
“Uh…”, Jen began, feeling awkwardly as if she were blowing air up a tube as she summoned up her voice. “I’m… sorry, I’m fine.”
Jen cringed as Susan’s eyes narrowed into a doubtful glare. And yet that gave Jen another dizzying sense of unease - Susan was staring at her face. Logically, Jen knew that was right, it was normal, it was polite, there was nothing that should have been strange about it. Yet Jen’s instincts were telling her that Susan wasn’t looking at her but a part of her.
“Are you sure…?”, Susan said, shifting awkwardly in her seat. “You’re not saying anything and your face is…”, Susan frowned briefly and then her expression drooped away. A neutral pout, parted lips, eyes glassy and unfocused. Not a single muscle was tensed, and it looked like whatever was in control of it all was miles away…
Jen realized that she must have looked exactly like that. She was so focused on… it… that her face was an afterthought. Jen cringed, and breathed in heavily, a slight heaving of anxiety tinging into it. She concentrated on her face and tried to force the muscles to move how she remembered them - but it was paradoxically difficult. Emotion was meant to be easy, even if it was fake it was natural to be able to smile or frown or or… anything. But it was instead as though she had been handed a stringed puppet, and as much as she might have known how it was supposed to move…
I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina. Jen screamed internally, as her doubts swirled and intensified.
She was just… tired. Or… or something. Kyle’s freaky, creepy, gross little call had obviously triggered some kind of… weird trauma that she was struggling to process. Sooner or later, she would get it or get over it or whatever and things would be normal.
Jen inhaled deeply, tried to calm herself, and organized her face into something that felt like a polite smile. She focused on Susan, “Better?”
“No!”, Susan recoiled slightly, her face falling back into a frown, “That’s… worse…”
Jen swallowed. A pulse of deep, chilling discomfort passed through her. She let her face relax again. “Sorry I… I had a weird morning.”
“Weird how?”, Susan asked, quirking up an eyebrow.
Jen sat in silence for a moment, feeling the uncomfortable bus seat beneath her. Maybe sharing would make things better… Susan could reassure her that everything was all in her head, right? That creep Kyle got under her skin, she could admit it. He had gotten her back, but this… this wasn’t real.
“Kyle Perkins called me this morning.”
“…Pervert Perkins?”, Susan said, reflexively looking disgusted. “Ew.”, then after a moment, “Why?”
Jen took a moment to think. This was all so fucked up and she had no idea of how to even begin to explain it without giving off the wrong impression… but then Susan’s eyes widened and she shrieked, then her voice dropped down into a terrified whisper as she leaned in.
“Wait… was he like… breathing hard down the line and stuff?”, it was obvious that every slasher horror that Susan had ever seen was echoing across her mind’s eye at that moment. “Did he say anything super creepy?”
Jen shook her hips quickly, shuffling in her seat. She felt Susan’s gaze intently, her expectations uninterrupted but slightly confused. It was then that the blonde remembered that she was meant to shake her head.
“No, no, no! Nothing like that.”, Jen said, spinning her head back and forth in an exaggerated arc. “Ew…”, she almost wished he had though… at least it would have been easier to explain. “He… um… Okay, you know… Transform or Dare?”
Susan stared at Jen’s face more intently. After a second, recognition flashed through her eyes at the local urban legend. “What, you mean the… legend?”, she pulled back slightly and rose her hands up, shaking them and her head, “Oooh, don’t get cursed! That stupid story?”, her confused mocking scowl said everything there was to say about Susan’s opinion about it all. Then it seemed to click in her head as she looked back at Jen and cracked a knowing, playful grin. “Wait… did he try to curse you?”
Jen didn’t share the sense of amusement. She nodded, remembering to move her head, and feeling as though she managed to do it much more naturally this time. “Well, yeah.”, Jen wanted to continue talking, to explain exactly what had happened, but she still didn’t know how, and even if she had, Susan didn’t leave any opportunity.
“He’s such a fucking loser. I can’t believe he thinks it’s real.”, Susan looked as though she was about to start laughing, but she definitely looked as though Christmas had come early. “Oh my god, wait, what did he say? Is this why you’ve been acting weird? Do you think it’s real? Oh my god, he must have said something gross, right? Right? Ew, oh my god, Jen what was it?”
“What? No.”, Jen said, screwing up her face and pulling her hips tight in response. The curse wasn’t real. It simply wasn’t. “It was just… weird… and creepy.”
“Creepy and gross at the same thing Jen. So, what was it? It must’ve been about the way you look, right? No offense.”, Susan said, glanced around briefly, then dropped her voice slightly, “What did you pick?”
Jen blinked, “Huh?”
“When he asked, what did you pick? You picked Dare, right?”, Susan said, continuing to probe for details.
Jen cringed. “Well yeah, obviously I said dare.”
“Dare. Yeah. Okay. I guess at least you didn’t have to listen to him telling you about whatever creepy fantasies he had for your body, right?”, Susan said in response. She shivered, then frowned violently, “Ugh. I don’t think I could stomach listening to some freak talk about my boobs growing or something… freaky like growing a third arm or something. I get why you’re sick, ew”, then she paused, Susan looked back at Jen, straight at her, and wore a perfect sense of confused curiosity, “But… you picked dare, right? So what’d he say? You remember right?”
Jen cringed harder, this was, in fact, not helping her feel better… but she had also arrived at the moment of truth. Now she actually had to say what happened, so Susan could make fun of her for letting that little creep get under her skin and imagining all of this… She still hadn’t figured out exactly how to explain what he said, but… a thought occurred to her.
Jen rose her arms up, bringing her hands about parallel to her head. She swallowed, and then she she pulled her index and middle fingers down at the same time on both hands. It was oddly more difficult than it should have been to coordinate.
Of course she remembered. It had been seared into her memory. At first because of how offensive it was to hear, but then because of the sense of creeping horror that had been accompanying her this entire bus ride. The entire thing was firmly cemented into her brain, word for word…
So, she quoted it, “Most people associate their identity most closely with their head, seeing the rest of their body as a kind of vehicle for it… but this will no longer be the case for you. From now on you will most closely associate your sense of self with your…”
Jen frowned, swallowing awkwardly, well, even more awkwardly. She glanced back and forth, and she felt another flush of embarrassment. Susan stared at her, metaphorically but not literally on the edge of her seat.
Jen leaned in, preparing to drop her voice to a whisper, and the next thing she said was…