In the summer of 1957, the park near the edge of town was quiet in the late afternoon. Elm trees cast long shadows across the benches, and the air smelled of cut grass and distant charcoal from backyard grills. John Avery sat on a wooden bench beside Phyllis Wilder, the wife of his best friend Timothy. He had asked her to meet him here because something in her voice on the telephone had sounded strained.

Phyllis wore a pale yellow day dress with a full skirt and white gloves folded neatly in her lap. She kept her eyes on the path ahead of them.

“I can’t stay,” she said quietly. “Not like this.”

John turned toward her. “Phyllis, listen to me. Timothy gives you everything a woman could want. A house with every modern convenience-automatic washer, dryer, electric range, the whole works. Closets full of dresses in every color. Shoes by the score. Jewelry worth more than most people see in a lifetime. You host the best tea parties and church functions in the neighborhood. He’s handsome, successful, steady. What else could a woman want?”

She looked at him then, and the polite mask slipped. “I feel restricted. Every day I have to look a certain way. Pretty. Soft. Available. I can’t go out and build something of my own. I can’t earn my own money or be known for anything except being Mrs. Timothy Wilder. The dresses, the parties, the perfect house-it’s a cage. A beautiful cage, but still a cage.”

John started to answer, but the words never left his mouth.

Something moved through the air between them-an invisible pressure, a sudden dislocation of identity and memory. Neither of them saw the Role Swapper. They only felt the world rearrange itself around the conversation they had just been having.

When the moment passed, John Avery was no longer John Avery.

He sat on the same bench, but the body that now contained his mind wore a teal-blue short-sleeved dress of mid-century cut: notched collar, button-up bodice, chest flap pockets, and a full, pleated skirt that brushed his knees. A double-strand pearl necklace rested against his throat. A gold band gleamed on the ring finger of his left hand. Beneath the dress, a very tight bra, a firm corset, a girdle, and control pantyhose compressed and reshaped him into soft, rounded curves. The undergarments were relentless; they allowed almost no give. His hips flared under the girdle. His chest was lifted and rounded. Even sitting, he felt the constant, intimate pressure of the foundation garments.

He did not question the clothing. He knew, with the sudden certainty of someone who had always known, that he was Mrs. Timothy Wilder.