My old crush for my new girlfriend

I paced back and forth, nerves sparking through my whole body. I couldn’t believe I’d let her talk me into this. I was near the study labs, a part of campus frequented by science and medical students, with resources to help the more practical experiments they might have to do for their courses. It wasn’t really an area I ever normally had to frequent.

And it’s not like I’m here for any “normal” reason either…!

I shuddered a little involuntarily as I considered the reaction a normal person might have if they knew why I was here. Disgusted horror, a sense of uncomfortable, sickened danger. Me cast in all the light of an awful stalker.

I would have thought the same too. Unable to even believe that person was me. But it was, now. A light queasy sensation passed through me as I considered how my moral compass had shifted in such a short time. How, even if I’d been good, it was still becoming so normal for me.

The idea of wearing another person…

I couldn’t tell if it was just the skinwalker side of me growing, or if the almost endless pleasures I’d experienced inside other people’s skins alone was enough to make any human crave more.

Jessica, Grace, Jenny…

I suppose it wasn’t a lot, thinking about what could have been.

Yes, yes. I’m good. There could be skinwalkers out there who’ve worn tens of people, or maybe even hundreds! I’ve only worn three. Not bad, considering I’ve been a skinwalker for a month.

A month…?

My feeble attempts at justifying myself seemed to take something of a nosedive as I considered that a month or so wasn’t really a long time, and stealing the lives and identities of three young women over that time was something of a big deal.

And… only women?

This was another aspect of this I’d mainly avoided dwelling on. When given a power to be anyone, it seemed I’d exclusively became members of the fairer sex.

Why… why is that…?

I had to admit, it had been fun. Each one of the girls I’d worn offered very different appeals. Jessica was every inch the sexy bad bitch, a girl with an attitude but the body to back it up. I’d felt so confident and powerful as her, drinking in all the attention as I reveled in having the confidence to disrespect whoever I liked.

Grace offered the opposite, the chance to be the quiet, innocent good girl. There was something so forbidden, so extra perverse, so shameless about my masculine body becoming fully covered by the unassuming flesh of the shy beauty. Being so sweet, and so utterly feminine, the dream girl of any shy girl fan with a body that oozed unrealized sex appeal.

Finally, Jenny had been the “cool girl”, her memories of Marrakesh and Krakow showing her well traveled street cred, while slipping myself inside her bubbly, extroverted personality made me feel like a million bucks. Being her was a much more positive kind of confidence than the domineering way Jessica carried herself, and I had to admit, sometimes I really got a peculiar urge to just sneak out and find some way back inside Jenny…

“Alex…?”

“Hmm?”

Oh shit.

I’d gotten so distracted by my mental ramblings I’d totally lost track of my surroundings, and now it was coming back to bite me hard. Standing right in front of me was the very reason I’d come here in the first place, the girl I’d been avoiding like the plague ever since I’d fled her room in horror at the very beginning of this all.

My eyes almost stayed glued on her converse, heart-rate spiking up as I tried to get a hold of myself. I tugged them up, trying to meet her eyes, taking them along her perfectly proportioned legs highlighted in black leggings to the grey hoodie with our university’s old fashioned logo emblazoned proudly. Even in such a casual outfit, she looked gorgeous.

“Oh, Lisa…!”

“I thought that was you.”

She smiled politely, and even that was enough for my heart to feel a strange pressure. Her lips shone with a nude gloss, brown mascara subtly drawing attention to her chocolate eyes flecked with gold, all of it the perfect compliment to the light tan of her skin. Subtle make-up she did more because she thought it was fun, because she liked style. Everyone knew she didn’t need it, she’d look amazing in anything honestly. Everyone but her, lacking the arrogance to ever get big-headed about her looks.

“It’s uh, been a while, huh…?”

Well, even the perfect princess wasn’t immune from awkwardness it seemed. We had ended things on a super weird place.

Not that it was really my fault, how was I to know where we stood after “Lisa” turned out to just be the vessel for some horrible monster to inflict a curse on me! Although, it’s not like I can exactly explain that either…

“Yeah, ahaha…”

“So, I heard you’d started seeing another girl. Grace Miura…”

For a brief moment, Lisa looked just a little sad, before her expression shifted. It was as though all personal feelings of sorrow were swept under the rug, a ****, more mature type of gratitude cleansing them gently.

“… I’m really happy you could find your happiness.”

Lisa…

Seeing her like this, I couldn’t help but be a little stunned. The elegance she carried, the sense of class that imbued her words, it really was special. I found myself smiling too as I met her eyes with my own nerves dissolved.

“You really deserve your reputation.”

“Mmmm?”

She raised her eyebrow, curious, but it seemed I wouldn’t get much time to elaborate.

“Liiisaaa! Where are you?”

“Maybe she’s been captured by some monster, on this, the night of all Hallows Eve!”

Ghostly booing and spooky sounds broke down into laughter Emmy and Ashley grew closer, approaching from around the corner.

“If only they knew how accurate that was.”

“Huh, what? Ack-!!”

Lisa gagged a little as my spines penetrated her neck, an awful guilty expression consuming my features as I whispered.

“I’m sorry!”

Her own look of shocked discomfort quickly reverted to one of euphoric bliss, that strange, malaise infused happiness the skinwalker serum provided as the smallest parting comfort before turning it's victims into wearable skinsuits.

Just behind me was a disabled toilet, one I slipped into and bolted the door shut just in time as I heard the two happy young women round the corner.

“That’s weird, I could have sworn she went this way.”

“Do you think she’s playing hide and seek with us?”

“What, like we’re all little kids again?”

“She can be surprisingly immature…”

The laughter of the two girls moved across the breadth of the door, echoing into the quiet as they vanished around the corner of the corridor's far side. Now it seemed the silence was unbearable, the building being mainly empty, far too many of the students excitedly rushing home to finish their costumes or get ready for the evening’s festivities.

“Thank goodness you’re such a hard worker, huh Lisa?”

My hand trembled a little as it reached out, the pull tab of the light filling the small toilet with dingy fluorescent light. Even in those most unforgiving rays, the woman whose soft vessel filled my hands was gorgeous. The woman I’d ran away from at the very beginning of all of this, the one I’d refused to wear.

Now she was in my hands, her skin practically calling out for me. I had a new girlfriend, a new love, and my feelings for Lisa seemed shallow in comparison. But a crush that powerful still had an effect. And holding her warm skinsuit, breathing in the scent of her skin, so intimate, knowing I was just a thin layer of clothes and flesh away from becoming her, it was all getting to be too much.

Why did you choose Lisa, Grace…?