I Am Jennifer Jackson

I wake up.

Before I am able to open my eyes, I can hear the sounds of running water and dishes clinking. They drift from another room, riding invisible blue waves of jazz on a radio: piano chords, a sultry saxophone solo. Somebody’s singing, but I can’t tell if it’s in the song or the voice of someone close by.

A distant siren, a truck clattering as it hits a bump or a pothole. I’m in a city, then? I hear birds chirping a morning song and two human voices speaking about warm weather.

Feeling rises in my body; it’s warm and slowly builds from somewhere deep, moving up until it reaches my skin. It spreads across what feels like an immense landscape, tingling like pleasant chills from a welcome touch.

The shape of me becomes a thing I can sense: first my hands and feet, then my arms and legs, my chest and back and neck.

My body.

I spread my fingers and practice clenching my fists. I bend my knees, pulling my legs up, and turn my head from side to side in slow motion. Now I can feel my ears, cheeks, and lips.

When I can sense what I’m touching, my fingertips are on my thighs. My thighs. They’re soft and…womanly.

Stay calm. Be patient. Don’t get your hopes up, I tell myself.

I move my right hand slowly up to my stomach: soft again, smooth. Then I walk my hand down between my legs.

Every hour of torture, every dollar spent, every sacrifice I have ever made. The risks, the loneliness, the fear.

It was all worth it.

Female.

All the parts are here. Blood migrates, and I can feel it more closely now. I have touched one before, but not on my own body. This is mine, this is part of me, this is real. I’m a She with She parts. I am a Her. I am a Woman.

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I open my eyes.

There’s a vent on the ceiling and a fan. A television hangs asleep on the wall in front of me. Below it is a large wooden chest, an antique maybe—or made to look like it. It reminds me of old movies about long journeys on creaky ships. People like me were just tossed overboard back then. Or worse.

To my right is a door, open to a hallway; to my left is a dresser with a large mirror attached. A bottle of perfume, some lipstick, and a small glass vase sit atop the dresser.

The blanket that covers me is creamy white, light, and airy. The bed is big, probably a queen. There’s a bedside table on my left with a small lamp, a half-full glass of water, a book, and a cell phone.

I need to see my face. I throw the covers off, and there I am in all my naked perfection. I tell myself not to wake up, just in case I’m dreaming again. But this does not feel like a dream—I can smell things. Someone is cooking bacon.

Who is it in there?

I swing my legs over the bed and rest my feet on the carpeted floor. Slender toes, lime green nail polish. Not a color I would choose, but I can fix that. I flex them, wiggle them. Hello, toes.

I’m a bit wobbly when I push myself to standing. Weak, unstable. I sit back down for a moment and then try again—one step, then another. I watch my feet, stepping carefully. I reach the dresser and look up.

And there I am.

I must be in my twenties. I’m young but not a child. My nose is smallish, a bit round at the tip, and my chin juts forward a little like it wants to move toward the world and lead me somewhere. My hair is long, down to my shoulders, thick and wavy. There must be three shades of brown, all dancing together, happy as this heart that beats in me. I suddenly realize how hard my heart is beating in my new chest.

My chestnut eyes look at me with reverence and awe: I’m gorgeous, if I do say so myself. Is that me in there? Come here, come closer. I take another step and put a hand on my cheek. I run my fingers through my hair and then pull it into a ponytail, holding it for a moment. I always imagined the hairstyles I’d do: the haphazard bun, the side pony, a soft half-pin with a plastic barrette. Cascading tendrils. I want cascading tendrils.

This moment—this one, right now—is the greatest moment of my life.

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“Oh my God, you’re awake,” a voice says behind me. I almost jump back out of my skin at the sound of it.

I turn, not yet connected enough to my naked body to be embarrassed. A man stands in the doorway, mouth agape. He’s tall and scruffy with cute stubble and moppy black hair.

“Baby,” he says, moving toward me. “You’re back.”

The man approaches me, and I try to take a step back but bump into the dresser.

“What’s wrong? Are you—how are you feeling?”

Nothing comes out of my mouth.

“I can’t believe it, Jen. I can’t believe it.”

The man gets to me and wraps his arms around me, hugging me into his chest. He buries his face in my neck, and I can feel his emotion seeping out of his pores.

Jen. Okay, my name is Jen. Jennifer, probably. And he is…my boyfriend? My husband? I look at my hand—no ring. I’m very naked, and he’s comfortable with this and thinks I’m comfortable with this: boyfriend.

This man smells like a man and he’s touching me and I am a woman.

He pulls back and puts his hands around my head, neck, and ears. He does that love-hold thing they do on TV. And then he kisses me.

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I was warned, of course, that there would be no way of knowing what body I would enter, what life I would suddenly inhabit. Sex they could choose, age they could approximate, location was accurate within five hundred miles. There was a ninety percent chance I would retain my memories, and they would save my old body for one week in case I wanted to bury it.

They called it a procedure, always opting for medical language when possible. The health of the host body was also a crapshoot; the host had to be comatose for the transfer to have a chance. Entering an unspecific, comatose body was a leap into more than just the unknown—only the most desperate ever jumped.

I was desperate. My old body rejected hormone therapy, despite multiple attempts from multiple doctors. After so many failed tries, my system was a deteriorating mess. And I was still stuck in a man’s body, foreign and wrong. Black market transfer technology was my only chance.

Being a woman has always been the only option. Living any other way wasn’t living for me; it was a slow and painful death. So, I can look past the moral quandary of the whole endeavor. Stealing someone else’s body is—well, it’s why the procedure is illegal.

But living in a coma can’t be much of a life either. Maybe I’m doing someone a favor. Maybe I’m doing two people a favor.

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“They let me take you home from the hospital for three nights,” he says, tears in his eyes. “They thought it might help.”

I nod, doing my best to look like I know him, like I love him. I don’t know what it feels like to make those facial expressions—in any body.

“A nurse comes three times a day to feed you and, well, you know. But I convinced them to take the machines out of the room today. To make it feel normal for you. Just for a few hours. I had a feeling.”

This makes more sense. I expected a hospital.

“Jen, baby, how are you feeling? What do you need?”

I need a brief history of Jen’s entire life.

“Um,” I stammer, feeling my vocal cords for the first time. “I, I need a minute.” My voice is the voice of a woman.

“Are you hungry? I’ll get you some food.”

He starts to walk toward the door and turns back.

“Maybe it was the smell of the bacon,” he says, smiling. “That always used to wake you up.” He leaves the room.

I turn back to the mirror and pull open the top right dresser drawer: lingerie meant for my female body. I reach for a red pair and feel something hard beneath the pile. I move the panties aside, digging for the object, and pull out a small, black Moleskine notebook. Well, at least she has good taste in notebooks. Or, I mean, at least I do. We do. And if it’s a diary, I might learn something about Jen. I need to learn quickly.

I pull the elastic band and open it.

It reads: Property of Jennifer Jackson. If you’re not me, set it down, now.

Sorry, Jennifer. I am you, now.

I flip to a random page in the middle:

...if my father won’t help, won’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do. Ben can take care of me when I can’t take care of myself. But I feel awful. My boyfriend shouldn’t have to take this on.

Ben. Ben is my boyfriend. For now, anyway. I can figure out if I like him later.

“Here, babe.”

Ben walks in with a plate of bacon in one hand and an envelope in the other. There’s nothing else on the plate, just bacon. I take it and set it on the dresser.

“Thank you,” I say, picking up a piece and taking a bite. I turn back to him and try a smile.

He smiles back, his face lighting up, then frowns and hands me the envelope.

“So, your father left this for you. He—well, he stopped by. I know it’s weird. I didn’t know what to do.”

Ben looks nervous, worried he did something wrong.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“Okay, okay, good. I just, well, anyway. He didn’t really say much, just to give this to you if you woke up. Or—call him if you didn’t.”

I look down at the envelope in my hand. I suppose this would have been emotional for Jen. But for me, it just...is. How long until I connect to Jen’s life? Is that even possible?

I look up and see a fuzzy, maroon robe hanging on a hook by the side of the bed. I walk to it and put it on, covering my new body for the first time. I sit down on the bed, and Ben sits beside me. I can feel his tension. He puts his hand on my thigh and I suddenly want to forget the envelope. But I open it anyway.

Inside is a check. There’s no note, just a check made out to Jennifer Jackson for twenty thousand dollars.

I am Jennifer Jackson.

Sort of.

“Oh my god,” Ben says.

“Wow,” I manage. But the check doesn’t make me feel anything. My eyes drift down to Ben’s hand on my leg. My female leg.

I stand up and walk back to the dresser, gazing into the mirror. Everything I’ve ever wanted stares back at me, smiling.

“Are you gonna keep it?” he asks me.

I pull my hair into a ponytail and turn my face to see my profile.

“I am.”