Unlikely "wife-swap" causes more healing than hurt

An appropriate Valentine's Day swap may have been the medicine that Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Frickman's relationship needed.

It was a gruelling day at the office for Lew, 32, who had to contend with a lengthy commute after a record-setting snowfall. He had hoped only to spend the evening on the couch with his wife and nod off in peace. She, however, had other plans.

"I've been unfaithful to my wife," confesses Lew, "But I admitted that to her long ago and we separated. It was our first Valentine's Day back together and we had no idea how we were going to spend it, relaxed or formal.

"I came home in my untucked shirt and loose tie and just wanted to collapse. And then she comes out of the kitchen with the lights low, dressed like a temptress or something."

With a playfulness, Lew recounts how they moved to the bedroom without even having dinner, split a bottle of red wine, and "Got down to some serious business."

It was in the midst of this business that the swap occurred.

Says Lew, "I hadn't even heard of them, it was just tabloid nonsense that the papers weren't even reporting yet, so why should I pay attention? So my wife and I are having sex, and I can feel it, you know, I'm about to come when all of a sudden, it's like nothing I've ever experienced. And I don't mean to sound, you know, experienced but i thought I'd seen and felt it all." Lew laughs.

The room was dimly lit, and Lew's eyes were clenched shut by this point, but at the moment of climax, Lew Frickman was swapped, into the body of his own wife.

"I've been to support groups," she sighs, "There are a few men who have gotten this treatment, and they mostly hate it. I guess they didn't have the fortune of coming into it the same way I did."

Lew and her now-husband, Donna, lay beside each other in bed, out of breath, unsure of what had happened. "Did you feel that?" Lew recalls Donna asking in a softened baritone. "All I could tell her... him, was, it was wonderful."

Donna, 30, was a housewife whose experience had been in the advertising industry. Lew is a PR representative for a publishing house. Once she realized what had happened, the notion of simply claiming the other's life was floated, but rejected.

"We wanted to ease into this, once we started to learn more about what was going on," Donna explains, "I can't be Lew Frickman, but whoever I am now, I like. And I like her very much."

There is a very warm look between the two of them as they sit together, hands clasped, Lew in a necklace and white turtleneck, Donna in a plain green shirt and blazer. Lew took a leave of absence for a week before finally explaining the situation with her boss.

David Worth, the publisher for whom Lew works, said that "The adjustment was fine, it was like having a new employee who knew everything and everybody. I've seen an improvement in Lew's attitude, like a weight has been lifted off his [her] shoulders."

Having already become a woman in private, Lew said it was not hard to adjust to that role in the professional world. "I'm still who I am, and sometimes I'm very difficult with my husband. But out in the world, I want to feel like a woman. It's so odd to say, but I don't want any part of this to feel unnatural. The change has been sweeping for me."

Donna loves the change in dynamic between him and his wife. "Maybe my husband and I didn't have to swap bodies for this to happen, but something did have to change. He wasn't going to change, so something, I guess, forced it on him."

Meanwhile, he is looking for work in his previous field. "I have a unique perspective on things that is a skill I plan to bring to any new job I have. Hopefully, I will get one soon. We're planning to make an addition to our little mixed-up family soon."

Donna and Lew have a standing apointment at the soon-to-be established International Centre for Swap Treatment, here they plan to hammer out the legality of their identities.