Donald Terry, 27, of Greenwich, CT, was heartbroken this past weekend to have to put his wedding plans on hold indefinitely. He had planned to wed his longtime fiancee, Marlene Darrick, 24, but is now completely unable to due to an untimely swap.
As final preparations were being made - Darrick was already in her dress for the cereminy later that afternoon - the bride felt dizzy and tried to sit down, only to regain her vision, a middle-pew view of the altar, in the seat occupied by Terry's own cousin, Frances Terry, 31.
Donald and Marlene are now legally unable to wed, as Ms. Darrick is biologically Donald's cousin.
"It's damn frustrating," complains Donald, "To look at the woman I love and in fact be seeing my cousin."
Donald hopes that the swap may soon someday be undone, as he is eager to resume life as normal.
"Plus," he quipped, "We couldn't get the deposit back on the Reception Hall."
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Friday, June 8, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
High school records unusual amount of swaps
Because of the relative rarity of swaps, most public institutions have not bothered to educate its faculties or, in the case of schools, student bodies, about the matter. Many students at Algonquin Memorial High School in upstate New York had unanswered questions and unassuaged fears when the first swap occurred among their ranks. What they didn't know was that it wouldn't be the last.
Bret Turnbull and Harvey Kidman were not very close. Both 15, Turnbull was known to be a tormentor of smaller students like Kidman. On a February day, Kidman was forced to hide underneath the track bleachers while Turnbull sought to terrorize him. though Turnbull had been reprimanded for his behavior on various occasions, it was no deterrent. It was a classic case of bully and victim, until the swap.
When, during a fourth period lunch session, Turnbull found himself sitting across from a chess board, he knew something was amiss. To his own personal shock, he had been swapped into the body of his favourite victim, whom he had nicknamed "Worm."
"I hate this," said a mournful Kidman, sitting in the shoes of a much larger but more physically agressive body. "I don't believe this was the only way the bullying could have stopped. He probably would have stopped picking on me if I'd turned into someone else. Anyone else. now I have to live with his face."
Kidman has reportedly been quite depressed since the incident, and has sought counselling, something he wouldn't even do when he was the target of Turnbull's scorn. Turnbull, for his part, seems to have settled down, but has been demoted to a benchwarmer on the school's baseball team, on which he was once a starting pitcher. It should be noted that, if one more serious incident had been reported between him and Kidman, he would have been removed from the team altogether.
The two were used as an example, sitting beside one another on the auditorium stage in front of all of their peers, to present an information package provided by the Bureau for International Swap Affairs. As the principal went over the details, that it could happen to anyone and was in fact happing all around the world, one student had his mind on other things.
Paul Derrien, 17, had one thing on his mind that day, like most days, and that was Kayla Aronson, 16. A grade below him, she had captured his imagination when they met briefly in the library. She was, however, dating another boy in his grade, Mike Hadley. That was to change one mid-March afternoon.
"It was actually the Friday before March Break," explains Derrien. "I was in math, I had just written a test when I felt like I was falling asleep. And that's not unusual I guess because I was pretty bored. And the first thing I sense is, like, the smell of sweat, and I get really warm. I hear all these voices around me echoing and footsteps running. It was like I had sleep-walked down to the gym."
It took a moment for Paul to realize what had happened. The girl had to catch her breath, bolting breathlessly from the gymnasium to the principal's office, where she was met by a famiiar face.
"She looked at me," Kayla recalls, "And I think she almost broke down in tears. And I almost did too."
"To suddenly be confronted, in this public place, with what has happened to you, it's a lot to take on," she recalls. "And at that time, you don't even grasp exactly how your life has changed. No, it takes a few days of walking around in someone els'es shoes before it starts to set in... this is different, and scary, but I can do it."
Kayla and Paul (now commonly referred to by students as "Kyle and Paula" despite the BISA's preference for not changing names,) were seen often in public together afterward. They say that at first, it was mostly for support, because not everyone has the advantage of being in close proximity to their body's prior owner.
"There were other advantages," Paul explains, "Because Mike [Hadley] wouldn't leave me alone for almost a month after the swap. and being seen with Kay in my old body, that gave people the idea that we were, you know, together."
In reality, Paula explains that was never the intention. "The last thing any teenage boy wants to see in the mirror is a pair of breasts, and the last thing he needs is to be gawked at or even hit on by guys incessantly. We were there for each other."
"And be for long," Kayla adds, "I thought, Paul makes a pretty nice girl. And I stopped looking at her as some guy in my old body, but as one of my closest friends."
It was, however, a shock to their friends when Kayla and Paul first kissed in the cafeteria.
"Paul used to have this wicked jumpshot," explains friend Dale Karlov, "We played basketball a lot. And now he's a girl, kissing boys. we haven't, um, talked a lot since."
"At first, I thought it was gross," says Melissa Kelown, a classmate of Kayla's, "But things change."
The change she describes echoes her own. Kelown was sitting at home reading on her bed one night when she felt feint and decided to lie back.
"And when I woke up, it was like the worst dream ever."
While Kelown did not have to address the same type of change Kayla and Paul did, the swap she found herself in was in a more serious situation.
"I was due after the end of the semester," explains Darla Montgomery, 29, a physics teacher at Algonquin Memorial. "[My fiancé] Bryan and I were very busy buying baby things and planning our finances. He'd already gone to bed and I was still awake, and then it happened."
Kelowna, in a body almost 6 months pregnant, now must face the unwilling duty of acting as a surrogate mother to her teacher.
"I feel so bad that she has to live with this," laments Mongomery, "Being pregnant isn't something you can just live with and get on with your life. It affects everything around you, especially at this late stage."
Kelowna, optiistic, says that she is grateful for the amount of leeway she has been given with her studies. "I don't think this is, like, an ordinary teen pregnancy," she jokes, adding "And when this is over, whatever body I'm in, I don't think I'll be having sex for a very long time."
Officials are concerned this matter could touch off perhaps the first-ever 'maternity' suit for the courts to argue over, but Kelowna is not looking to make herself the child's mother.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm doing all the work and hopefully I get something in return, but I don't want to, like, keep their baby hostage or anything. They're totally the parents. I'm just, like filling in."
Bertrand Mosses, the vice principal of Algonquin Memorial High School, has observed that three separate swaps have occurred, all concerning members of the faculty and student body.
"I don't like it, and it seems very odd," he scratches his head as he says, "It's as though somebody's targetting my people and I don't like it at all. The swaps seem totally random but this sort of thing doesn't happen when it's random."
No one can say for sure when, where or why a swap will occur, but Mosses is keeping a close eye on his school until the answers are divined.
Bret Turnbull and Harvey Kidman were not very close. Both 15, Turnbull was known to be a tormentor of smaller students like Kidman. On a February day, Kidman was forced to hide underneath the track bleachers while Turnbull sought to terrorize him. though Turnbull had been reprimanded for his behavior on various occasions, it was no deterrent. It was a classic case of bully and victim, until the swap.
When, during a fourth period lunch session, Turnbull found himself sitting across from a chess board, he knew something was amiss. To his own personal shock, he had been swapped into the body of his favourite victim, whom he had nicknamed "Worm."
"I hate this," said a mournful Kidman, sitting in the shoes of a much larger but more physically agressive body. "I don't believe this was the only way the bullying could have stopped. He probably would have stopped picking on me if I'd turned into someone else. Anyone else. now I have to live with his face."
Kidman has reportedly been quite depressed since the incident, and has sought counselling, something he wouldn't even do when he was the target of Turnbull's scorn. Turnbull, for his part, seems to have settled down, but has been demoted to a benchwarmer on the school's baseball team, on which he was once a starting pitcher. It should be noted that, if one more serious incident had been reported between him and Kidman, he would have been removed from the team altogether.
The two were used as an example, sitting beside one another on the auditorium stage in front of all of their peers, to present an information package provided by the Bureau for International Swap Affairs. As the principal went over the details, that it could happen to anyone and was in fact happing all around the world, one student had his mind on other things.
Paul Derrien, 17, had one thing on his mind that day, like most days, and that was Kayla Aronson, 16. A grade below him, she had captured his imagination when they met briefly in the library. She was, however, dating another boy in his grade, Mike Hadley. That was to change one mid-March afternoon.
"It was actually the Friday before March Break," explains Derrien. "I was in math, I had just written a test when I felt like I was falling asleep. And that's not unusual I guess because I was pretty bored. And the first thing I sense is, like, the smell of sweat, and I get really warm. I hear all these voices around me echoing and footsteps running. It was like I had sleep-walked down to the gym."
It took a moment for Paul to realize what had happened. The girl had to catch her breath, bolting breathlessly from the gymnasium to the principal's office, where she was met by a famiiar face.
"She looked at me," Kayla recalls, "And I think she almost broke down in tears. And I almost did too."
"To suddenly be confronted, in this public place, with what has happened to you, it's a lot to take on," she recalls. "And at that time, you don't even grasp exactly how your life has changed. No, it takes a few days of walking around in someone els'es shoes before it starts to set in... this is different, and scary, but I can do it."
Kayla and Paul (now commonly referred to by students as "Kyle and Paula" despite the BISA's preference for not changing names,) were seen often in public together afterward. They say that at first, it was mostly for support, because not everyone has the advantage of being in close proximity to their body's prior owner.
"There were other advantages," Paul explains, "Because Mike [Hadley] wouldn't leave me alone for almost a month after the swap. and being seen with Kay in my old body, that gave people the idea that we were, you know, together."
In reality, Paula explains that was never the intention. "The last thing any teenage boy wants to see in the mirror is a pair of breasts, and the last thing he needs is to be gawked at or even hit on by guys incessantly. We were there for each other."
"And be for long," Kayla adds, "I thought, Paul makes a pretty nice girl. And I stopped looking at her as some guy in my old body, but as one of my closest friends."
It was, however, a shock to their friends when Kayla and Paul first kissed in the cafeteria.
"Paul used to have this wicked jumpshot," explains friend Dale Karlov, "We played basketball a lot. And now he's a girl, kissing boys. we haven't, um, talked a lot since."
"At first, I thought it was gross," says Melissa Kelown, a classmate of Kayla's, "But things change."
The change she describes echoes her own. Kelown was sitting at home reading on her bed one night when she felt feint and decided to lie back.
"And when I woke up, it was like the worst dream ever."
While Kelown did not have to address the same type of change Kayla and Paul did, the swap she found herself in was in a more serious situation.
"I was due after the end of the semester," explains Darla Montgomery, 29, a physics teacher at Algonquin Memorial. "[My fiancé] Bryan and I were very busy buying baby things and planning our finances. He'd already gone to bed and I was still awake, and then it happened."
Kelowna, in a body almost 6 months pregnant, now must face the unwilling duty of acting as a surrogate mother to her teacher.
"I feel so bad that she has to live with this," laments Mongomery, "Being pregnant isn't something you can just live with and get on with your life. It affects everything around you, especially at this late stage."
Kelowna, optiistic, says that she is grateful for the amount of leeway she has been given with her studies. "I don't think this is, like, an ordinary teen pregnancy," she jokes, adding "And when this is over, whatever body I'm in, I don't think I'll be having sex for a very long time."
Officials are concerned this matter could touch off perhaps the first-ever 'maternity' suit for the courts to argue over, but Kelowna is not looking to make herself the child's mother.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm doing all the work and hopefully I get something in return, but I don't want to, like, keep their baby hostage or anything. They're totally the parents. I'm just, like filling in."
Bertrand Mosses, the vice principal of Algonquin Memorial High School, has observed that three separate swaps have occurred, all concerning members of the faculty and student body.
"I don't like it, and it seems very odd," he scratches his head as he says, "It's as though somebody's targetting my people and I don't like it at all. The swaps seem totally random but this sort of thing doesn't happen when it's random."
No one can say for sure when, where or why a swap will occur, but Mosses is keeping a close eye on his school until the answers are divined.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Vancouver teen ponders future in wake of swap
On a lazy Saturday afternoon, all Brian Keller, 16, really wanted to do was to relax in his room and play video games. Unfortunately, the mysterious force behind swaps had other plans as Brian found himself transported away from the world of Super Mario, and into a supermarket, where he was suddenly pushing a cart full of groceries.
Victoria Worth, a 36-year-old single mother, found herself dressed in Brian's grungy System of a Down t-shirt clutching his Nintendo controller.
"I didn't understand it, and then I remembered... the first news report of a swap had just aired the week before and everyone was talking about it," remembers Victoria.
"I didn't know where I was or what I was doing," says Brian, "I was holding onto the cart and my hands weren't my own. I couldn't breathe. Something was wrong. It was like I was having a panic attack."
Supermarket patrons saw the brown-haired mother of one fall to her knees and begin rifling through her purse. as she sorted through her things, her cellphone started to ring.
"Well what would you do?" Brian asked rhetorically, "I answered it."
The phone call was from Victoria, now many thousands of miles from her body in St. Paul, MN, calling from Brian's room. "Who is this?" the now-teenager asked.
"It's... Brian," she replied, uttering her first syllables in a new voice.
"Brian, have you heard of swapping?" he asked. Brian hadn't. "Well I think that's what's happened to us."
Brian says, "When Vick explained it to me, my first thought is, 'This isn't fair!' I'm only a kid, I've got my life ahead of me. She's got a 13-year-old daughter, and a career. Then I took a little liberty with whatever alcohol Vick had lying around, followed by, oh, maybe six hours of vomitting."
As they made their arrangements to return to their normal identities, Victoria muses, "She gets my silk blouses, leather shirts and lace panties, and I have to wear ugly loose jeans, old faded t-shirts, and grungy boxer shorts. Who really comes comes out on top here?"
Over the long-distance call, Worth directed the boy in his former body home, and directed her on what to pack. More than somewhat overwhelmed at the situation, Keller followed the suggestions of the voice on the line, packing up every article of clothing from the woman's dresser, and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.
Says Keller, "I remember picking up a pair of panties and thinking... it's not the boxers I'll miss, it's what I kept in them."
Brian also recalls the moment something very startling happened. "I remember nearly dropping the phone and saying... 'A girl just walked in.'"
The girl in question was Worth's daughter Sabrina, 15, and who had some very serious questions about what was going on.
"I ended up having to stay until finally Vick got home," Brian says, "It was awkward, but at least she wasn't married or anything."
"We still keep contact, I talked her through her first period, just like I did my daughter," Victoria says with an impish teenage smile, "Sabrina didn't take the swap so well, she doesn't think I'm her mom anymore."
While Brian got a very scholarly lecture on her biology, she had less enlightened advice to offer when Victoria came to face his own physiology.
"He calls me up," laughs Brian, "And says, 'I'm at the office, and I just saw the receptionist straighten her leggings and your thing - my thing won't go down!' When I finally stopped laughing, I told him he's got too choices. Take care of it, or don't."
"Once I accepted I'm not who I used to be, I began to fall quite willingly into the role," Victoria muses cheerfully, "I'm definitely hormonal, and I'm definitely out there. Looking. Sabrina can't bring her little friends over, I made her promise!"
While Victoria has assumed the role of teenage boy, Brian's new body is giving her mixed signals.
"Nothing seems more revolting to me now than the idea of sex," she says, "I'm sick of looking at a naked woman in the mirror, and I hate the idea of some clumsy, hairy, sweaty guy putting his hands on me. And I think dad's happy about that."
Since Brian's mother left six years ago, the young man has been cared for by his father, Theo, who says "[Brian's] whole persona hasn't changed much. He used to squrim a lot, and he still does that, always tugging at those blouses, trying to stay loose. I don't think [she] is very comfortable dressed like that. But it's so funny to see [her] get carried away at a Canucks game."
He adds, "It's also very uncomfortable watching your teenage son sort bras. I'm really not prepared for this."
When Theo asked what she intended to do in the body of a 36-year-old mother, Brian was evasive.
"I want to keep going to school," she mused, "But I guess I'm kind of old now, so how much time do I really have? If I'm a woman now, do I want children? Do I want a career? Things are different now. I just want to be me. [The swap] has made things so much more complicated."
Untilt he swaps become reversible, young Victoria continues to work in St. Paul as a data processor, and provide for his daughter. In Vancouver, there's a grown woman in a Rolling Stones t-shirt sitting in the back of History class, trying to keep to herself.
Victoria Worth, a 36-year-old single mother, found herself dressed in Brian's grungy System of a Down t-shirt clutching his Nintendo controller.
"I didn't understand it, and then I remembered... the first news report of a swap had just aired the week before and everyone was talking about it," remembers Victoria.
"I didn't know where I was or what I was doing," says Brian, "I was holding onto the cart and my hands weren't my own. I couldn't breathe. Something was wrong. It was like I was having a panic attack."
Supermarket patrons saw the brown-haired mother of one fall to her knees and begin rifling through her purse. as she sorted through her things, her cellphone started to ring.
"Well what would you do?" Brian asked rhetorically, "I answered it."
The phone call was from Victoria, now many thousands of miles from her body in St. Paul, MN, calling from Brian's room. "Who is this?" the now-teenager asked.
"It's... Brian," she replied, uttering her first syllables in a new voice.
"Brian, have you heard of swapping?" he asked. Brian hadn't. "Well I think that's what's happened to us."
Brian says, "When Vick explained it to me, my first thought is, 'This isn't fair!' I'm only a kid, I've got my life ahead of me. She's got a 13-year-old daughter, and a career. Then I took a little liberty with whatever alcohol Vick had lying around, followed by, oh, maybe six hours of vomitting."
As they made their arrangements to return to their normal identities, Victoria muses, "She gets my silk blouses, leather shirts and lace panties, and I have to wear ugly loose jeans, old faded t-shirts, and grungy boxer shorts. Who really comes comes out on top here?"
Over the long-distance call, Worth directed the boy in his former body home, and directed her on what to pack. More than somewhat overwhelmed at the situation, Keller followed the suggestions of the voice on the line, packing up every article of clothing from the woman's dresser, and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.
Says Keller, "I remember picking up a pair of panties and thinking... it's not the boxers I'll miss, it's what I kept in them."
Brian also recalls the moment something very startling happened. "I remember nearly dropping the phone and saying... 'A girl just walked in.'"
The girl in question was Worth's daughter Sabrina, 15, and who had some very serious questions about what was going on.
"I ended up having to stay until finally Vick got home," Brian says, "It was awkward, but at least she wasn't married or anything."
"We still keep contact, I talked her through her first period, just like I did my daughter," Victoria says with an impish teenage smile, "Sabrina didn't take the swap so well, she doesn't think I'm her mom anymore."
While Brian got a very scholarly lecture on her biology, she had less enlightened advice to offer when Victoria came to face his own physiology.
"He calls me up," laughs Brian, "And says, 'I'm at the office, and I just saw the receptionist straighten her leggings and your thing - my thing won't go down!' When I finally stopped laughing, I told him he's got too choices. Take care of it, or don't."
"Once I accepted I'm not who I used to be, I began to fall quite willingly into the role," Victoria muses cheerfully, "I'm definitely hormonal, and I'm definitely out there. Looking. Sabrina can't bring her little friends over, I made her promise!"
While Victoria has assumed the role of teenage boy, Brian's new body is giving her mixed signals.
"Nothing seems more revolting to me now than the idea of sex," she says, "I'm sick of looking at a naked woman in the mirror, and I hate the idea of some clumsy, hairy, sweaty guy putting his hands on me. And I think dad's happy about that."
Since Brian's mother left six years ago, the young man has been cared for by his father, Theo, who says "[Brian's] whole persona hasn't changed much. He used to squrim a lot, and he still does that, always tugging at those blouses, trying to stay loose. I don't think [she] is very comfortable dressed like that. But it's so funny to see [her] get carried away at a Canucks game."
He adds, "It's also very uncomfortable watching your teenage son sort bras. I'm really not prepared for this."
When Theo asked what she intended to do in the body of a 36-year-old mother, Brian was evasive.
"I want to keep going to school," she mused, "But I guess I'm kind of old now, so how much time do I really have? If I'm a woman now, do I want children? Do I want a career? Things are different now. I just want to be me. [The swap] has made things so much more complicated."
Untilt he swaps become reversible, young Victoria continues to work in St. Paul as a data processor, and provide for his daughter. In Vancouver, there's a grown woman in a Rolling Stones t-shirt sitting in the back of History class, trying to keep to herself.
Friday, March 9, 2007
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)