Eddie adjusted his silk tie nervously as he sat across from Suzie in her lavish apartment-the one he'd been paying for since last spring. The afternoon light caught the crystal chandelier he'd bought her for her birthday, scattering rainbows across the walls.

"I'm sorry, Suzie," he said, unable to meet her eyes. "Margaret found the credit card statements. It's over. I can't see you anymore."

Suzie's perfectly manicured fingers tightened around her wine glass. A year. A year of playing the adoring girlfriend, laughing at his jokes, pretending his thinning hair and expanding waistline didn't matter. And now this.

"Just like that?" she asked, her voice dangerously calm.

Eddie shrugged, already reaching for his coat. "Look, you're gorgeous. You won't have any trouble finding a new Sugar Daddy to take care of you. Someone younger, richer even. You'll land on your feet."

Something flickered in Suzie's green eyes-something ancient and cold.

"If you think it's that easy," she said softly, "why don't you try it?"

Eddie laughed. "What's that supposed to-"

The room spun. Colors bled together. Eddie felt himself dissolving, reforming, shifting in ways that defied physics and reason. When the world solidified again, he was staring at... himself.

His own body sat across from him, wearing his expensive suit, his Rolex, his smug expression-but now twisted into a satisfied smile that looked utterly foreign on his face.

"What-" Eddie's voice came out wrong. Higher. Musical. He looked down and saw slender hands, painted nails, a body wrapped in a designer dress that suddenly felt like a prison. "What did you do to me?"

"I gave you a chance to prove how easy it is," Suzie said from his body, standing and smoothing down his-her-jacket. "Find yourself a new benefactor, Eddie. A married man, just like you were. Someone to pay the rent, the credit cards, the dance classes. Someone to support my dream of becoming a professional dancer." She picked up his car keys. "Once you do, we'll swap back."

"A married man? You can't be serious!"

Suzie's smile-his smile-was cold. "Oh, I'm completely serious. That's what I had, that's what you need to replace. Those are the rules." She examined his fingernails casually. "Shouldn't be hard, right? You're gorgeous, after all."

"You can't do this!" Eddie stumbled to his feet, struggling with the unfamiliar center of gravity, the heels he suddenly wore. "This is insane! How is this even possible?"

Suzie paused at the door, looking back at him with his own brown eyes. "My grandmother was Romanian. Let's just say she taught me a few things they don't cover in finishing school." She smiled. "Good luck, Eddie. You're going to need it."

Five Weeks Later

The dance studio mirrors were unforgiving.

Eddie stood at the barre, catching his breath between combinations, trying not to stare at the reflection that still made his mind reel. Suzie's blonde hair was pulled back in a high ponytail that swished against his shoulders with every movement. The short-sleeved lilac leotard clung to curves he'd once admired from the outside, now impossibly, horrifyingly his. The black fishnet tights covering his legs caught the studio lights, emphasizing every line of the dancer's body he was slowly, painfully learning to command.

His feet ached. His calves burned. But he kept coming to class because Suzie had made it clear-whoever replaced Eddie had to support her dancing career. He had to prove he was serious about it.

"Relevé, hold... and plié. Beautiful extension, Suzie!" the instructor called out.

Suzie. Eddie flinched internally every time he heard the name, but he'd learned to respond to it. He'd learned a lot of things these past five weeks.

He'd learned that rent didn't pay itself.

The waitressing job at Marino's Italian Bistro covered the basics-barely. Eddie spent his evenings in a black skirt and white blouse, carrying plates of chicken parmesan and glasses of Chianti to tables full of people who looked right through him. His feet screamed after every shift. The tips were decent when he smiled enough, laughed at customers' jokes, pretended their flirtations were flattering rather than exhausting.

This is what she did for me, he thought bitterly, executing a shaky chassé across the floor. Smiled. Laughed. Pretended.

"And pirouette-spot your turn, Suzie!"

Eddie spun, caught his reflection whirling past-lilac and black and blonde-and nearly lost his balance. The fishnet tights whispered against his legs as he recovered, arms floating into position through muscle memory he was only beginning to develop.

Five weeks of living in this body. Five weeks of learning its rhythms, its needs, its strange vulnerabilities. Five weeks of understanding, with growing horror, exactly what he'd been so casually asking Suzie to go find.

A married man.

His phone was in his dance bag across the room, but he could feel it like a weight around his neck. There was a message waiting on it. A message from Richard.

Richard Thornton. Fifty-four years old. Married for twenty-six years. Three kids in college. CFO of a medical supply company. Looking for "discreet companionship" with someone who "understood the situation."

Eddie had found him on a website he'd never known existed before-a whole hidden world of married men seeking arrangements, and women willing to provide them. He'd spent hours crafting his profile, learning the language, understanding what these men wanted to hear.

And Richard had bitten.

Dinner tonight. 8pm. Chez Laurent. Wear something elegant. I can't wait to meet you in person, beautiful.

The music swelled for the next combination, and Eddie moved through it mechanically, his body flowing through positions while his mind churned with dread.

I don't want to do this.

The thought was so sharp, so desperate, that he nearly stopped dancing.

I just want to go back. I want to wake up in my own body, go home to Margaret, sit in my leather chair, and forget any of this ever happened.

He thought about Suzie-living his life now, sleeping in his bed, eating breakfast with his wife. She'd somehow convinced Margaret that "Eddie" had ended the affair and was recommitted to their marriage. She was playing the role of devoted husband with an ease that made Eddie sick with jealousy.

Why can't she just swap us back? Why does it have to be this way?

But he knew why. He'd called her last week, begging, and she'd listened to every desperate word in his own calm voice.

"You said it was easy, Eddie. You said I'd have no trouble. So prove it. Find a married man who'll take care of me-really take care of me. Pay the rent. The classes. Support my dream. The way you were supposed to." A pause. "Until then, enjoy being gorgeous."

The line had gone dead.

"Beautiful work today, everyone! See you Thursday!"

The class applauded the instructor, and Eddie stood frozen at the barre, his chest heaving beneath the lilac leotard, his ponytail damp with sweat against his neck. Around him, other dancers chatted and gathered their things. Normal women with normal lives who had no idea that the blonde in the fishnet tights was screaming inside.

He walked to his bag on trembling legs and pulled out his phone.

The message from Richard glowed on the screen.