Looking back at Max was a beautiful young woman with long yellow hair. She had a red bikini and had slightly tanned skin. Her green eyes seemed to be looking into Max's as though he was looking at himself!
"What the heck is going on?"
Max blinked his eyes and looked back at the mirror. The same woman was still there.
This time however, Max felt a tingling all around his body before he felt a breeze. He blinked again and found himself looking into the same reflection. However, now, surrounding the mirror were the tiles of a change room or shower. Max couldn’t be sure which.
"Wait a minute," Max said.
Max gasped when he heard a woman's voice. Yet, the voice sounded familiar. He wondered where he'd heard it before. Looking around, Max saw that he was in the shower of a change room; a woman's change room!
"Oh oh," Max said, still hearing that familiar female voice.
His first thought was escape! If someone saw him, someone would arrest him for being in here.
Another young woman, this one a red head in a black bikini approached Max.
"Everything okay? You were looking at yourself for a awfully long time!"
Max blinked his eyes. Why wasn’t this person complaining? Was this a unisex change room? Had he suffered a memory lapse and rather then some force teleporting him here, he'd made his way here under his own power?
"Hey Max, you there?" the young woman asked.
Max's head spun and he had a terrible headache. As strange as it was, both sensations vanished after only a few seconds. What was wrong with him? Was he suffering a stroke or some other serious problem causing loss of memory?
Then however, a wave of clarity came over Max. This was Clara Sutherland, how could he forget that? Of course he was in a girls' change, he *was* a girl after all!
"Yes Clara. Sorry, I zoned out there. I was thinking of something I read in the paper this morning. You go on ahead, I'll be out there in a minute," Max said.
"All right. You're sure you're all right?" Clara asked.
Max nodded. "I'm fine, don't worry."
When Clara left, Max went back to the mirror and looked into it. She saw a reflection that while it wasn’t something she expected, it still surprised her.
Max's mind reeled. He knew this place. It felt just as familiar as his home. In fact, he was starting to remember a whole new life yet at the same time; he didn't seem to be forgetting his old life.
It was as though he had played through a long video game. First, he'd play as one class of character, making certain decisions. Then he'd play as another class but making different decisions (with NPCs responding to him in ways that were similar yet different). He needed to look down at his body to confirm who he was now. Yes, he had a female body. Yet, it was as familiar to him as his male body had been just minutes ago.
Max or more so Maxine as she now was, felt two things. She wanted to know how she’d managed to jump from one character to another (so to speak) and she wanted to know how to get back. Max didn’t feel a desire to explore her body, she knew what it felt like to touch or for her (or someone else if she was lucky) to touch it. Max however wondered if these memories were real. They felt strong enough that she couldn’t tell.
What Max did remember was that Tuesday mornings at 10am, it seemed time was a little ahead here; she went swimming with her friend Clara. After that, they’d go out to lunch and then to their afternoon classes at the local college. In fact, she remembered just what they were studying as naturally as though she’d always been Maxine.
With little other options now, Max decided to head out into the pool to go for a swim.