The Trap

I walked through the corridor of the apartment, feeling the breeze catch under my skirt as I let my hips move. Maybe it was the twisted situation, but even walking felt sexy in Grace’s skin. Cooling it on the strut, I suppressed the eroticism my love of her body was lending while I slipped into the unassuming walk normally performed by Grace.

It had to be convincing if I was going to pull this off. In my mind, I let Grace’s personality coat over mine completely, nearly losing myself in her as I felt little things like the way her brows sat in her expressions, and the way she fidgeted a little with her fingers when she felt anxious, take over.

I could feel her emotions flowing around my head too, now that I’d put them on center stage. Pity and sadness were what I felt for her, along with a deep desire to help her. She hated how shy she was. She hated feeling awkward and socially anxious. She was a natural introvert, but her inner world was full, and rich and beautiful, with an active imagination and genuine love for her family and the few friends she’d left behind before moving to college.

Her meager confidence had been completely crushed by Jessica, a cruel bully who she had to live with, and so had no escape from. That feeling of the place she had to live in being unsafe, and so having no refuge to recuperate or build a life from, had just ratcheted up her anxiety even higher.

Grace didn’t deserve any of this. I shook off my sad feelings for her and reminded myself of my mission…

I walked into the kitchen, settling down at the table and pulling out Grace’s study materials. Grace was studying Literature and history at college, and looking at her notes I could see they’d been extensively annotated and marked, with helpful sections highlighted and a certain well organized clarity that showed both how seriously she took her education, and how passionate she was about the subject matter.

Currently, it seemed she was doing some kind of project about medieval myths and different fantasy creatures. It was probably more something to do with the cultural context of the myths, or maybe about the writing styles of the authors, but I couldn’t help but be interested in it. It was certainly a lot more captivating than the business courses Jessica had been doing, which it was clear she was only in because it would look good on her CV.

As it was early in the semester, she hadn’t gotten very far yet, but I idly wondered if I might find some reference to skinwalkers somewhere deeper in the texts she was studying. I figured the least I could do was get some learning done for her, since I was borrowing her skin and everything.

I settled into a rhythm of scanning her study books, taking notes and subtly enjoying writing in Grace’s cute and clear handwriting; an enjoyable, smaller part of being her which I hadn’t immediately thought of, but served as a reminder of how immersive the skinwalker power really was. Her wide, well rounded letters were a far cry from my own fast, spidery looking scribbles too, so it was nice actually having presentable writing for once.

I eased into her studies, getting carried away learning about the myth of a small gnome who bested a foul wyvern somewhere in Poland, getting captivated by how strange yet entertaining the story was. I was so lost in her studies, that I didn’t realize how much time had passed, only noticing something was going on when I heard the kitchen door open…