Her Eyes Read online

  Her Eyes

  by J. R. Kruze

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  I.

  II.

  III.

  IV.

  V.

  VI.

  VII.

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  I.

  I LOOKED INTO HER EYES and my soul was gone.

  Like I never existed in my own body. Or more like I had a different one, now.

  I could feel her arms, her legs, the silky smoothness of where she shaved and where she didn't. Medium height, brown hair, blue eyes - I knew these from looking at her from the outside. But from the inside out, your eyes didn't have color, your hair only showed in a mirror or when you grew it long enough to pull out in front where you could see it. And you hardly felt hair growing where it shouldn't unless you felt it for yourself.

  I put my new hands around and over my new body to feel the textures, the curves. Alabaster white skin, like I'd never been out in the sun. A smooth rump, going up past dimples into a curved indent above the spine. Ribs, just below the skin, as my lungs expanded and contracted by their efforts.

  And higher, to cup my own new breasts.

  "Hey, watch it!" A voice came in, the hands dropped, arms straightened, fists clenched.

  "Buddy, we're in this together, for now, so keep it clean." That voice was obviously in command.

  "Who are you? What am I doing here?" I asked.

  "I'm Rosa. This is my body and you are a visitor." The voice named Rosa was tough, but as smooth as her hips that I could still feel through our knuckles.

  "But what am I doing here?" I repeated.

  "You're a volunteer. Simple. You asked to be here." Rosa replied.

  "No. You're kidding. This is slavery, this is..." My own voice halted.

  Rosa turned to look at my own body. All 6 foot, 4 inches of it. Sandy hair, broad shoulders, tanned dark by the sun. Except those parts that never saw daylight. I was naked as the day I was born. And had a blank look on my face until I didn't. Then I winked back at me, with a wry smile. That "me" then turned and walked over to the chair where I'd left my clothes. Denim pants, chambray shirt, scuffed leather boots, and a frayed and faded blue ball cap with a seed company logo on it.

  Then that me, all dressed up, walked over to the cheap "solid" door to this two-bit flea dump of a hotel room. Unlocked the chain, turned the dull stainless-steel door knob, opened it. Just before I went out, I picked up a small knapsack. Two steps and I was gone. At least thoughtful enough to shut the door behind.

  I was trapped in someone else's body in a room that wasn't also borrowed. Probably paid by the hour. But how long I would be in this body was another question. My ride that I came with had just left for parts unknown.

  "Relax." Rosa said, trying to comfort me. "we're in this together. Quit worrying so much. It gives you wrinkles around your eyes and your forehead that you can't get out."

  Our eyes closed. That was better. Calming after a fact.

  "That's right, settle down. It's always a shock at first, but you'll do fine. Let's get to know each other a bit before we have to leave." Rosa's calm approach slowed our heartbeat and our breathing became more regular.

  "Now, do you want the 50-cent tour or do you want to just see where this rabbit hole goes?" Rosa felt honestly interested, concerned for my well-being.

  "Thanks. The main question I should ask, is 'How?'" I was calm now, curious.

  "I don't know the science to this, but you volunteered to try it all out. All I know is that it works. You're here, I'm here, and for the next few hours, we'll have to get along inside my skin and bones. Probably more important is your Why." Rosa felt as curious as I was.

  "Why? I don't know why. It's like I just woke up here. Where's my memories? What just happened?" I could feel our back tense and those fists uncurl into straight fingers spread out as far as they could.

  "Shh. Be quiet for a bit. Getting excited won't help. There are simple answers. Let's have a drink." Rosa again was calming me on purpose.

  Our body walked over to the Formica wood-grained chest of drawers with the large mirror on the wall above it. I could see exactly how petite she seemed, but I knew this body was trained and toned. The six-pack abs were relaxed now, but there was hardly an ounce of fat anywhere. Scanning up, I noticed the breasts were young, firm. Shoulders were broad, which again meant athletics. Hair was brown with light, natural tints. So we saw some sun occasionally. The eyes were a piercing blue. With the irises wide in this dim light, I could almost fall into them again...

  Our eyelids shut, firmly. "You don't want to go there. That's why we avoid mirrors. Some have been found in front of mirrors and take a long time coming back. If they ever do. The first thing we are told is to only look into real eyes." Rosa was giving me tips to survival.

  She continued, calmly. "Now relax again. You got us all excited. It takes some getting used to. If you want, we can lay back down and pleasure yourself to get that out of our system. It's quite exciting to share all that with someone. You can't get closer than this." A smile crossed our face, wistful. Our hands found a long-toothed hair brush on the dresser top, then we turned away from the mirror and opened our eyes again, if only to keep our balance.

  Meanwhile, Rosa took our hands and arms to brush our long hair out, starting with the tips and then longer strokes until she could get to the scalp. The sensation of the brush on scalp and hair was unique and soothing. Our body relaxed noticeably.

  "Yeah, you guys just crop it short and use a comb. You miss 90% of the fun of having a mane like this."

  Gradually, she could smoothly brush from top to bottom with no hitches. The hair was brushed silky smooth again. And it felt great.

  We sat down on the bed, sideways to the mirror and laid the brush down on the crumpled sheets and coverlet. We crossed our legs. Rosa squeezed them a little, sending new sensations to appreciate.

  "That's another thing you guys can't do. It would be simply uncomfortable. But when you see a gal sitting by herself and bouncing one leg over the other, you have to wonder what's behind that smile." And we smiled at this, a joke we were both sharing.

  "How long is this going to last?" I asked.

  "Not long. Could be hours, could be days." Rosa said.

  "Days?!?"

  "Oh, come on, we've been over this. Just calm down. Your body is being taken care of quite well." Rosa replied.

  "What am 'I' doing and where did 'I' just go?" I asked.

  "You don't need to know right now. Just know that you are getting paid to do a job that only you can do. I can't get in there. So you're just doing your regular job as far as anyone else knows. So relax." Rosa raised one hand to look at our nails.

  "Well, I guess I'll just have to wait it out." I said.

  "Yeah, I can tell when you're up to something, so don't even try it. There's no lying in here. Our long-term memories are shut off for now so neither of use can try anything. Also, we don't have any money in here, and our clothes are gone." Rosa replied.

  We looked around the room, avoiding the mirror, and verified that the room was completely bare. It had no closed, only a faux-leather orange stool to hold a missing suitcase, below a chrome plated shelf with hooks below it. The bathroom door was missing as well as any curtain for the shower. The mirrored door on the
bathroom cabinet was open, exposing bare shelves.

  I started to ask, "I supposed that knapsack..."

  "...was our clothes and ID." Rosa finished.

  "Nice." I said.

  "So, what do you want to talk about?" Rosa asked.

  "How are we going to talk about anything if we can't remember anything?" I asked in turn.

  "Just being polite. Otherwise, we can just curl up and sleep it off. Your body should be back pretty soon." She said.

  "Should we lock the door?" I asked.

  "He took care of that on the way out. If we put the chain up, it just complicates things." She answered.

  "How do you know what you know, if your own long-term memories are gone?" I asked.

  "Not gone, just unavailable. I get to keep enough to calm you down so 'we' don't do something stupid with this body. At least until you get back with whatever you were sent to get." Rosa said.

  "Oh, so if things go wrong, we're stuck here. No ID and no clothes and can't be lie-detector on stuff we don't know." I said.

  "That's right. You're catching on. Worse comes to worse, we become a ward of the State and get a new ID and a new life. Together." She said.

  "And meanwhile, I just have to keep calm. Just let the whole deal go down. Roll with it." I said.

  "You got it. But that worry you just let fly - you noticed I'm in good shape. There's a lot of training with that if anybody gets funny ideas about how helpless I am. All that memory is stored in muscles, which kicks in if it's needed. Just like you can't hold your breath to die. Autonomic reflexes kick in." Rosa explained. "And all this I'm saying is just about all I know right now."

  We laid back on the bed, felt the dishevelled coverlet and sheet make wrinkles below us. There was one bulb in the light fixture, behind the cheap orange-yellow diffuser that was held on by a single screw-knob at slight tilt.

  I raised one of our legs to ease the tension in our back. The stiff mattress was a little too hard to be comfortable. Probably easier to clean that way. I looked over to find a pillow and pulled it under my head. All easier to explore the seams in the off-white and water-stained ceiling tiles.

  "It is always this boring?" I finally asked.

  "Couldn't say much. I seem to know that I've been in worse scenes, but those are vague ideas. I'm pretty much sure I don't want to probe too much, as that would be risky." Rosa said.

  "You have a point there." I said.

  We could feel the central air pumping the air in and out. It had a mild scent of Lysol or some cleaner they used in the filters. A steady temperature in the high 70's probably. So the coverlet would be enough to keep someone warm.

  "So neither of us know anything."

  "Right."

  "We don't remember anything."

  "Correct."

  "All we got is what we have, which is nothing."

  "You got it."

  "And other than unlocking that door and run screaming down the hallway for help, which would just get us locked away, we really can only lay here and wait."

  "Yup. Sleep or pleasure ourselves, or both." Rosa was blunt.

  So we did. And when we woke up, we did some more. What's morals anyway? Two people having sex in one body isn't really covered anywhere. But I couldn't recall any of my morals or church training, anyway...

  II.

  I AWOKE TO BEING CRUSHED by a body on top of me, lips against mine, and the feel of a grizzled face giving me whisker burn.

  My arms were pinned above my head, and that body was between my legs. I could feel his cold metal belt buckle against my lower stomach. His jacket was rough, with seams pushing through my skin. I couldn't move.

  So I relaxed.

  When my body pulled my face away from ours, I opened our eyes to look into mine and got a shock. Rosa was looking back at me through my own eyes.

  "Hey there, cutie." That was my voice, but Rosa's words.

  "Well, handsome, now what? If you don't know what comes next, and I don't...?" Rosa's voice, my words.

  "All I know is that mirror trick again. Look deep into my eyes. Kinda dumb saying, but that's how it works." Both my sets of eyes focused on each other, irises wide.

  The world spun. Almost like a merry-g0-round when you unfocus and let the world just spin around you.

  Then it stopped.

  I was back on top of Rosa, looking back at her, and was pinning her arms down, my weight on top of her so she couldn't move. Home again.

  "If you don't mind, you're making it hard to breathe." Rosa was talking from her own body now.

  "Oh, sorry." I pushed up off her, to sit on the end of the bed, and then realized that could have been a mistake.

  Rosa said, "No, there are some moves I could have done that would have left you with some serious hurt."

  "Wait, you can read my mind?" I asked.

  "It will pass in a moment. You'll still get some thoughts of me from time to time, but just remember them as a good one-night stand, and they'll pass." Rosa rose and shook her long mane back into place.

  "A kinky one, to boot." I rubbed the back of my neck. "Wait. I still don't remember anything."

  Rosa had gotten the knapsack open and fished out her underwear. "You will. Best thing is to wait here for a bit. You won't know where you are, and sometimes people can get a bit sick to their stomach when the memories return. I'm queasy myself right now. But it will pass.

  "What if someone comes?" I asked.

  "Just tell them you don't remember anything, like you just blacked out." Rosa shouldered into her western blouse and snapped the front from the bottom up. Then she turned to leg into her black jeans, tugging them up to get her thighs into their tight legs. Pulling her stomach in to button and zip them.

  All this I saw from the back, which was still an admirable view. Yes, I was starting to feel like myself again. I glanced at the mirror and then twisted my head away.

  She saw that reflection and turned to face me, one hand on her hip.

  "You don't have to worry about that now. Only I do." Rosa reassured me.

  Rosa then fished out some slip-on pumps and put them on over bare feet. Finally, she zipped up the backpack and slung it over a shoulder.

  Again, she swung her hair away. I remembered that image also from a bar as a hazy recollection.

  Rosa came over, leaned down, took my chin in her hand and kissed me lightly. "Thanks John. That was a night we won't remember."

  "So John's my name?" I asked.

  "No, 'John' is everyone's name. I don't have my memories back, either, but I know I've got what I need in this knapsack. Directions and tickets, everything I need. Or at least I hope."

  She kissed me once again. "Wish I could stay, but it would only get us both in trouble. Take care of yourself. Stay a while and leave when you feel like it. The room is yours until later this morning."

  Then she swept out the door like the wind.

  I looked at my watch. It was just before midnight.

  That queasy feeling came in, so I laid back and closed my eyes.

  Nothing else to do right now.

  III.

  THE SUN WAS TURNING the curtains the color of the ceiling light, showing details to the room I'd rather not know.

  I sat up on the bed, and rubbed my face with my hands, then pushed them through my hair. Looking over to the mirror, I got up to check out what I looked like. Same 20-something I'd been before I had this dream. Or at least I think I was.

  Still couldn't remember anything.

  I pulled out my wallet. A few twenties, but no ID's. No pictures of anyone. Great.

  Some change in my jeans pocket, a comb. I pulled that out and looked at it. Rosa was right. At least I remembered that part of it. A combed head doesn't feel like a brushed one. But the rest of what we did that night was fading. Now I could remember little of her. And still had the taste of the mixed drinks in my mouth from the night before.

  Hungry.

  I got up, picked up my ball cap off the dresser. The rest
of the room was empty. Coverlet and sheets mussed. Put everything back in my pockets and moved to the door.

  Hellava one-night stand. Don't even know her name, now. All a blur.

  I walked out and left the door open for the maid. Headed down the concrete walk, with one hand on the smooth metal railing. Brown paint was flaking or worn off in most places. Like the yellow paint on the wall's concrete blocks. Typical two story strip mall motel. Don't know how I got here, but knew I was hungry. Felt the grit in my eyes like I'd been up most of the night, even though I'd just woken up.

  Down to the asphalt parking, sticking to the cracked concrete sidewalk. Pulled my ball cap down against the rising sun. It was too bright in the East, and was starting to reflect off the windows of modernist buildings on the opposite side of the street. Four lane traffic with parking on both sides.

  It was warm and getting warmer. I wouldn't need this jacket much longer today.

  I kept to the sidewalk and avoided the larger cracks. Up ahead was a McDonald's. That would be safe. Eating-wise. There were all sorts of food places around, but I wanted something familiar.

  That was the point. Find some familiar things. Maybe then I could get my memory back. Hell, I didn't even know what city I was in. Figured it must be L.A. from the trees and all the asphalt. Everything fake. Growing palm trees must be easier on the maintenance or something. But they sure are ugly.

  I got a couple of dollar-menu items, several in fact. They'd fill me up until I could get a real meal somewhere. And those few twenties would have to last until I got somewhere.

  I took the plastic tray with the white-sacked food items over to an empty window seat. The plastic feel of the benches and table top was cool and clean. That was another advantage to McDonald's, or any good name brand. They were always cleaning. I wolfed down the tiny burgers with all the white-bread buns. The cola was too cold to do more than sip at first. Fries topped everything off. Like everything there, all generic. No memory of where it had come from, like me.

  Drink finally finished, I rose with the tray, put the cup with all the wrappings in the trash can on my way out. Tray wound up on top, just like the sign asked. I turned and palmed the door open.