Clara answers the call

Clara picked up the phone, still naked, and answered. Chloe’s voice burst through the speaker, loud and panicked. It was Clara’s own natural masculine voice. For a moment, Clara couldn’t bring herself to respond. She had spent years practising how to speak more femininely, learning to control her pitch, soften her delivery, and make her voice feel like her own. Hearing that old voice again was like being confronted with a part of herself she had worked so hard to leave behind. “Clara! What the fuck is going on?! I’m in your body!” Chloe exclaimed, trying to get Clara’s attention. “I know,” she replied quietly. “I’m in yours.”

The panic on the other end continued. The wedding, of course, was making everything worse. Chloe was supposed to marry Mark the following day, and the thought of appearing before him in Clara’s body had sent her spiralling. Clara could hear her sister struggling to think past the immediate shock, jumping from one disastrous possibility to another. Clara glanced at the mirror beside her bed. The short hair, the familiar face, the soft curves of Chloe’s body. Everything reminded her that she was looking at someone else’s life from the inside. It was an odd sensation, being so physically different while still feeling like herself. She wondered whether Chloe was experiencing the same disconnect, or whether the shock of inhabiting a transgender body was making it even harder for her to process.

Then Chloe brought up the part she seemed most frightened to say aloud. Chloe was worried about what Mark would think, whether he would recognise her, and whether he could still go through with the wedding. Clara understood the fear behind those questions, but hearing her body described as an obstacle to her sister’s marriage left her with a complicated feeling she couldn’t quite put into words. It was her body, after all, even if Chloe was currently inside it. The voice coming through the phone was a reminder of how much effort she had put into becoming comfortable with herself. For a moment, Clara considered trying to reassure Chloe. She could tell her that Mark loved her, that they would find a way to explain everything, that the swap might be reversible. But none of those things were promises she could honestly make. And frankly, there is a lingering thought in Clara’s mind that she doesn’t want to swap back, and that she deserved to be in a body that felt right to her.

Pushing the thought aside, Clara knows that they needed to meet. Mark would eventually have to know. With the wedding only a day away, there was little point pretending they could solve everything without involving him. “Let’s meet at Mark’s place,” Clara finally suggested. “He needs to know what happened.” Chloe hesitated, clearly unhappy with the idea, but she eventually agreed. Neither sister seemed to have a better plan.