“Would you still love me if I was a worm?”

Lee rolled over in bed to find himself nose to nose with Tania, his girlfriend of almost a year.

Tania looked back at him without a hint of guile in her expression.

Lee sighed and closed his eyes. He had been expecting this question. Dreading it, even. By all accounts, the only “right” way to answer was basically to lie.

“What?” He said, buying time.

Tania averted her eyes in feigned nonchalance.

“I dunno, I just feel like if I was born as a worm, you wouldn’t like me.”

Lee spent some time carefully assembling a truthful answer.

“Tania, if you had been born as a worm, it would have been very difficult for you to use the equipment at the gym where we met. Furthermore, I would suggest that we would have struggled to bake together, sing together, go drinking together and… well, all the other ways we enjoy each other’s company together, and that would certainly put a strain on the relationship.”

Tania had turned back to look at him as he spoke, though it was impossible to tell from her expression if he was making a strong case or not.

“On the other hand,” he continued, trying for humour. “I’ve seen plenty of worms while gardening and while I’m sure they’re all just as charming, intelligent and thoughtful as you are, I can promise you that I’m not about to run away with any of them.”

Tania looked at him for a little longer before rolling away onto her back and staring at the ceiling.

While Lee had been expecting to be memed at some point during their relationship, he had not been expecting such an apparently serious response.

“What if,” Tania eventually said. “You woke up tomorrow and found me turned into a worm?”

Lee found himself wondering how long this would continue, coming up with the best answer he could on short notice.

“I would endeavour to avoid rolling on top of you.”

More silence, more staring at the ceiling.

“What if…” Tania trailed off with much less certainty this time. “What if I told you…”

Lee waited dutifully. Tania was clearly working her way towards asking a difficult question, and he was happy to give her all the time she needed to pick her route.

“What if I told you that deep down inside, I am a worm.”

Lee sighed.

“That’s not a healthy way to think of yourself, Tania.”

“I mean it.”

Tania sat up, crawled over to Lee and straddled him where he lay. Under any other circumstances the sight of his girlfriend pinning him down at the waist would have been a very welcome sight, but her expression made it clear that sexy times weren’t on the agenda at that moment.

“What if none of this was really me, and on the inside I was actually just a worm?”

Lee looked up as the mid-morning sun created a halo effect around Tania’s hair.

“You’re very well-spoken for a worm.”

Tania said nothing.

Lee said the only thing he could think of. “Earthworm or tapeworm?”

Tania actually seemed to think about that for a moment.

“Sea cucumber,” she said eventually.

“Hot,” Lee said automatically.

Tania frowned, falling forwards and pressing her face into Lee’s chest.

“I’m being serious,” she said in a muffled voice.

“So you want to know if I’d love you if you were a sea cucumber?”

“No, a worm!”

“A worm that looks like a sea cucumber?”

“Yes!”

Lee lay in baffled silence. Either the meme had evolved beyond what he’d been able to keep up with, or Tania was going for some very strange improv.

“Sure,” he said helplessly.

Tania pushed herself up to face him.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“No, really, really promise me.”

“I really really promise.”

Lee felt like that would have been a great time to end the bit, but Tania still looked like something was on her mind.

“Tania,” Lee said, with a hint of admonition. “We’ve been going out for a pretty long time, and I have no idea what you’re trying to get at, but I like to think… I want you to know you can trust me enough to just say it.”

This seemed to bolster Tania’s resolve, and she straightened herself up, pulling Lee with her so that he was in a sitting position on the bed as she knelt over his waist.

“Lee,” she said. “Babe. I love you, and I’m about to show you something, but you have to promise you won’t freak out.”

A vague sense of nebulous dread filled Lee, but only in the same way he would have felt if anyone asked him not to freak out because they were about to show him something. Tania had been nothing but perfect the entire time they had been together, and he was determined to accept her regardless of whatever bizarre flaw she was about to reveal to him.

“I promise I won’t freak out.”

Tania took one of his hands and guided it beneath her shirt, pressing it against the naked skin just below her panties.

“Lee. I really am a worm. I… I control this body, but the real me is in here.”

“Wh-” was as far as Lee got before he felt something twitch beneath Tania’s skin.

He didn’t pull his hand away. He didn’t scream. He didn’t freak out. He just looked up, and saw the desperately anxious expression on his girlfriend’s face.

“That’s me,” Tania said again. “In this body. I’m… I’m inside her. Controlling her.”

With horrified fascination, Lee pressed his hand firmly against Tania’s skin, causing the thing inside her to spasm as she gasped. This time he did try to pull his hand back hurriedly, but Tania’s grip held him in place.

“Don’t,” she pleaded. “It’s okay. I was just surprised. It doesn’t hurt.”

Lee’s head was flooded with questions, the most prominent being “Have you been spying on my search history.” Tania probably couldn’t see it from her vantage point, but the moment he had felt the first spasm, he had sprung to a painfully hard erection in his briefs.

Instead he asked, “How long?”

Tania seemed to have been expecting that one. “The day we met,” she said with a wistful smile. “I was… someone else before then. But I needed to change bodies, and I found this one.”

Lee nodded.

“Who is she?”

“She’s Tania. I took her name when I took her body. Young. Athletic. Just moved out to chase a career in acting. I guess she got what she wanted, in a way.”

“And she’s still in there?”

“She’s in here, but she doesn’t know that I am. She thinks all of this is perfectly normal, and when I leave, I’ll erase any memories that would make her think it isn’t.”

“And why are you telling me this now?”

Tania hesitated. “Because… because it’s time for me to switch to a new body soon. And I don’t… I don’t want to lose you. If I left, I could make it so that Tania would still think of you as her boyfriend and you would still be happy together… but she’s not your girlfriend. I am. I’m the one who really loves you, and when I think about leaving you behind…”

Tania trailed off.

“I want to see you,” Lee said.

Tania let go of his hand in shock, though he only used his freedom to stroke her belly gently.

“You what?”

“I want to see you,” Lee repeated. “The real you. Can you do that?”

A look of fear and consternation clouded Tania’s face.

“Why would you want that?”

Lee silently took hold of her hand and guided it down to his tented briefs. Then it was his turn to hold her hand in place.

The look of shock she gave him was almost comical.

“What… you…?”

“I’ve always considered myself very fortunate for having met you,” Lee said with a wry smile. “And I can confidently say that you are very, VERY fortunate to have met me.”

Tania swallowed, reclaiming her hand and stripping off what little she was wearing.

Lee lay back and enjoyed the view, heart racing with anticipation.

Tania bit her lip hesitantly, but at Lee’s encouraging nod closed her eyes with an expression of concentration.

Lee watched, mesmerised as he saw the faintest contours of a shape moving down Tania’s abdomen, bulging out her pubic mound before spreading her pussy lips apart.

One inch. Two inches. Three inches. A mottled green appendage very much like a sea cucumber slowly extended itself from Tania’s snatch, curling itself forwards like the spout of a teapot.

With a gasp of held breath, Tania opened her eyes and looked down, her expression of fear softening when she saw Lee’s look of amused fascination. At a silent gesture, she raised herself up again so that the head of her true body was level with Lee’s face.

Lee looked up at Tania’s human half. “Can you… see? With this part of you, I mean.”

Tania nodded silently.

“Then close your eyes,” Lee instructed, and Tania obeyed.

Lee took his time inspecting Tania’s true form, looking at it from every angle he could manage as it turned to follow him like an eyestalk.

On a whim, he gave it a gentle peck on the tip and relished the sound of Tania’s gasp above him.

“So,” he said, reaching out to stroke the worm as the girl above him whimpered. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?”

He hesitated for just a moment before taking as much as he could fit of the worm into his mouth, eliciting an anguished moan from Tania’s human mouth. Her hips sagged as her legs gave way, and Lee needed to hold her up by the ass to stop the worm from falling out of his mouth.

The worm itself was shivering, and it began to twitch violently as Lee began to gently suck on it.

It didn’t taste terrible. In fact it tasted like Tania. He’d noticed the first time he went down on her that she had a unique flavour and in the back of his mind, he marked that particular mystery off as solved.

Tania was hunched over, her hands on his head and shoulders for support as she writhed and moaned.

A warm sensation on Lee’s crotch made him look down to see rivulets of moisture crawling down the worm’s length to drip onto him from where it looped back up. Lee removed the worm from his mouth and waited for Tania to recover her composure.

When her breathing had become less ragged, he ventured, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’ve had an awful lot of sex since we started dating. It’s been one of my favourite parts of our relationship. You wouldn’t… happen to feed on semen, would you?”

Tania lifted herself back far enough to see the look on Lee’s face, then wordlessly lowered her hips to straddle his thighs.

Unbuttoning his now slimy briefs, Lee let his cock spring free and watched with bated breath as Tania’s worm hesitantly moved towards the head of his penis.

The two rubbed against each other, again causing Tania to whimper, but while Lee had been expecting the tip to open up like a mouth, it instead continued to slide against his penis in a bizarre parody of frotting.

While Lee was happy to enjoy this foreplay, he eventually became conscious of Tania’s increasingly frustrated moans as she rocked her hips back and forth.

Moving on a hunch, Lee gently took hold of Tania’s worm head and, tip-to-tip, firmly pulled it down onto his cock. There was the slightest resistance at first, and suddenly the head opened up like a fleshlight, sliding down Lee’s entire length to the base.

Tania’s body convulsed as she moaned, her human half responding to the instinct to grind against a partner that was two feet further away than usual. She remained helpless, overwhelmed by pleasure as Lee began to delicately pump her true body up and down his shaft.

Sex between Lee and Tania would usually last a fairly long time. Tania would get annoyed at how difficult it was to get Lee to cum and he would deliberately pace himself to tease her. Now he knew the real reason she would get upset, and with the evidence of her true identity suckling on his cock, he couldn’t have held himself back even if he had wanted to.

Lee came explosively into Tania’s true mouth, watching the worm visibly pump his seed along its length and into Tania’s human half. Just thinking about what the end buried inside her might look like kept him in the throes of orgasm long after he had been sucked dry.

Losing his grip on the worm, he felt his cock slide out with a slurp, and both Tania and Lee collapsed backwards, still embracing from the thighs down.

Lee watched through a haze of satisfaction as the worm slowly contracted back into Tania’s pussy, shrinking in time with her heartbeat.

“So,” he panted once he had gotten some of his breath back. “I hope that answers your question.”

Tania didn’t even have the energy to raise her head to look at him, instead addressing her response to the ceiling.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I have a lot of questions I want to ask.”

Lee nodded, not that Tania could see it. He’d managed to snitch on himself pretty handily, but of all the people to discover his fetish, it could not have happened under more fortuitous circumstances.

“After a shower,” he said.

“After a shower,” Tania agreed.

***

They showered together, spending much of the time kissing, canoodling and just generally enjoying the sensation of each other’s skin. Lee lacked the energy to get hard again so soon after such a mind-blowing session, but that didn’t stop him from relishing the feeling of Tania pressed against him, or her true body pressed between their human forms when he coaxed it out of her.

There were about two feet of it that she could comfortably allow outside her human form, though she told him that at least another foot was rooted deep within her body, past her cervix and into her womb.

Lee held a hand against her stomach as she retreated inside herself again, feeling its length coiling and shrinking as the blood it had syphoned was returned to its host.

How often did she need to feed? Only once a month, but more often was better.

What gender was her true body? All worms were hermaphrodites, but could only bond to female human hosts.

Did she give birth to live babies or eggs? Eggs.

Did she carry all of the memories from her previous bodies? Yes.

How many bodies had she “owned” in the past? Sixteen.

“So you’re Sixteen years old?” Lee asked incredulously as he towelled himself dry.

“No, I was in my original host for several years after hatching,” Tania said. “The oldest human host I’ve taken was forty-two years old, and I have all of her memories, too. I’ve got about four-hundred and fifty years of aggregate experience I’ve absorbed throughout my life.”

“And what happens if you don’t find a new host?”

Tania paused, her own towel half-wrapped around her torso. She looked like she didn’t want to say, but just as Lee was about to drop the matter, she told him.

“If we don’t switch bodies after twelve months, we permanently fuse to our hosts. We’re still us, but it effectively means killing the human we’re currently bonded to and stealing their lives. It happens to all of us eventually - sometimes we find a body that just feels right, sometimes we just get tired of switching, sometimes we just don’t get the chance to before it’s too late. And when the human we’re permanently fused with dies, so do we.”

There was a lot more that Lee wanted to ask, but Tania clearly had more to say.

“This body has been good to me. To us. And I’d love to spend the rest of our lives together like this. But she’s a good girl, and I don’t think she deserves to have her life completely stolen just so that we can be together.”

“That’s why you asked. If I’d said I wouldn’t love you as a worm…”

Tania shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I would have stayed with you… I probably would have. But I’m glad I don’t have t-.” Tania caught herself, realising that she’d assumed she would have Lee’s support without actually asking him.

“You don’t want me to stay in this body, do you?”

Lee held his hand up placatingly. “I said I’d love you no matter what - even if you were just a worm, though I don’t think you could survive for long without a host, so let’s try to avoid that.”

Relief washed over Tania’s face. Lee felt like it would have been possible to convince her to stay in Tania’s body forever, but the misery that would have caused her would not have been worth it.

“Besides,” Lee said carefully, well aware that he was once again exposing himself. “I’m curious what you look like. All of you. You know - outside of a host.”

Tania’s eyes narrowed, her own moral quandaries forgotten for the moment.

“You were horny,” she said in an accusatory tone. “The second you realised I wasn’t joking, you were rock hard, weren’t you?”

Lee shrugged helplessly. There wasn’t much point in lying.

“Why?” Tania demanded.

Lee sighed. How to explain this without coming across as a degenerate.

“Tania,” he said defeatedly. “I’ve always found the idea that we - that is, the human we - are just lumps of neurons piloting husks of flesh around very compelling. And building off from that, I’ve spent my whole life thinking - no, dreaming of… borrowing someone else’s experiences. Living with their body. It’s hot. It’s super hot. And there’s a lot of stories out there of it happening in all sorts of ways, and one of those ways just so happens to be some kind of creature that is able to enter a human host, take control of it and take on that host’s identity as its own. So when you told me that you were really a worm, and that Tania is the host whose life you’d taken control of…”

Wordlessly, Lee did the “mind blown” hand gesture.

Tania blushed, her hands falling to cradle herself in her womb. “You think I’m… attractive?”

Lee sighed, striding up to Tania and taking hold of one hand.

“Can you feel that?” he asked as he used a finger to trace little circles in her palm.

Tania nodded.

“How about this?” Lee said, running the same finger up and down her inner arm.

Tania hooded again.

Releasing her hand, Lee stepped behind her and tugged her towel down to the floor. Before she could protest, he reached around her chest and began to gently caress her nipples.

Tania squeaked, her nipples hardening in seconds.

“You can feel that, can’t you?”

Tania nodded.

“But those aren’t your sensations, are they? These aren’t your nipples, or your breasts. These aren’t your arms or legs. Your eyes, your lips, even the pussy and womb you’re curled up in right now are just borrowed. You’re borrowing the real Tania’s body, you’re feeling her pleasure as though it’s your own, you’ve been using her face and voice to seduce me for almost a year now. There’s a Tania-shaped space in the world, and when you squirmed your way into her and took control, you filled that space as well.”

He dropped his hands and stepped away and Tania began to shakily breathe again.

“I don’t know how many of your kind are out there, but I’m overwhelmed with jealousy that you get to experience the lives of so many others. Frankly, I’m devastated that you can only have women as your hosts, because if I could, I’d let you share my body in a heartbeat.”

Tania’s mouth slowly opened in an O of surprise.

“You don’t mean that,” She said in disbelief.

Lee shrugged. “Is your host in pain? Is she in distress?”

Tania shook her head.

“Then why not? We’d get to be together in a way that no other couple in the world could possibly experience. I’d feel very privileged to have you sharing my life.”

Tania covered her mouth with one hand, but could do little about the tears forming in her eyes. With no words that could adequately express her feelings, she wrapped her arms around Lee and kissed him deeply.

“I love you,” she gasped when she came up for air.

“I love you too,” Lee said, glad that they’d both been able to reveal their secrets without judgement.

The same thought seemed to occur to Tania, as she began to laugh chokingly in relief.

To avoid any possible awkwardness, Lee changed the subject.

“How long before you need a new body?”

“About two weeks,” Tania said, rubbing the last tears from her eyes. “I was wondering if you had anyone you thought would be a good host for me.”

Lee paused, suddenly presented with a puzzle.

“What’s the process of transferral like?”
“Only a few minutes, then a few hours to fully take control. We’ve got a venomous stinger that can immobilise potential hosts while we switch bodies, but that means finding someone who won’t be missed for half a day and somewhere safe where we won’t be discovered while we’re still vulnerable.”

Lee closed his eyes and he ran through the people he knew. Most of the women he considered attractive were already in committed relationships, or at least not explicitly interested in him, and it felt dishonest to have them puppeteered into his arms just to serve Tania’s desires.

“How susceptible are you to your host’s personality?”

“Physically? My taste will change with my host, so don’t pick a smoker unless you don’t mind the smell. Emotionally? I’ll be in full control.”

“So even if you transferred to someone who hates me, that wouldn’t be a problem?”

“Hates you?” Tania said, loading two questions into one.

“An ex,” Lee explained. “Lasted about two years, but enough was never enough. Anything I had needed to be hers, even if she didn’t actually want it.”

“Charming,” Tania said wryly. “Attractive?”

“Very,” Lee said. “Too many mutuals stayed friends with her, so I see the selfies in my feed still.”

“Sounds perfect. A new body for me and payback for you. How do you want to do this?”

Lee permitted himself a humourless grin.

“Oh, I know exactly how to make this work.”

***

Getting into the party was the easy bit. Rebecca Northeast was always keen to boost her attendance figures, took delight in public acts of magnanimity to old enemies and was eager to meet Lee’s new girlfriend.

Tania goggled at the massive beachside party pad that was Rebecca’s residence.

“Was she this rich when you were dating?” She asked in disbelief.

“Would you believe it, I basically bankrupted myself helping her buy this one,” Lee said with a sour expression. “Not that it meant anything once she got bored of me.”

Tania was horrified. “This one?”

“Yeah, she’s got a couple up and down the coast. Bit of a red flag, in hindsight.”

“You think?”

They flashed their IDs at the bouncers and were struck by a wall of noise when the doors opened.

“How will we find her?” Tania shouted over the din.

“We won’t have to!” Lee shouted back, guiding her to a table laden with finger food.

“You’re just going to stand here and eat?” Tania said as Lee began hunting for snacks.

“Remember the play: Coming here was your idea, I’m miserable and no fun to be around.”

“Lee!” it was all but screamed from halfway across the dancefloor.

Lee turned to see his ex sashay towards them out of the crowd, almost immediately passing by to stand between him and Tania.

“I can’t believe you came, it’s been so long! And you must be Tania, oh my God, you’re so gorgeous, I might actually be jealous!”

Lee focused on playing the part of deadbeat buzzkill while Tania and Rebecca traded compliments. It was with a thrill of irony that he watched Rebecca obviously and openly positioning herself between the two, pretending that she couldn’t hear him any time he ventured to speak.

“Lee,” said Tania, approaching him with Rebecca in tow. “Becky says she’s going to show me her room - apparently she’s got the most amazing collection of…”

Lee turned to his ex as Tania spoke, not having to fake his look of contempt at her exultant expression.

“Sure, babe - have fun.” He said flatly. “Don’t forget, we need to be home soon.”

Tania’s look of puppy-dog disappointment could have been printed on a novelty calendar. “Oh, but I’m having such a good time! You never want to go to parties like this!”

Rebecca slid into the conversation like a knife between two ribs. “Don’t worry, Tania. I’ve got a bunch of spare rooms - you can crash here and Lee can come pick you up whenever.”

“Really? That would be amazing! Lee, would that be okay?”

Lee rolled his eyes. “I’ll head home in ten. Call me when you want to come home.”

Lee watched Rebecca throw him a derisive look over her shoulder as she guided Tania away through the crowd, and Lee mused that not once did she think stealing his girlfriend away had maybe been a little too easy.

Well, she was used to getting what she wanted without effort, so that tracked.

Five minutes later, he got a photo message of a familiar room with the text, “She’s ready.”

Lee found Tania sitting on the enormous bed, Rebecca’s immobile body lying next to her. On closer inspection, Lee could see Rebecca’s eyes moving between him and Tania, though the rest of her face was frozen in place.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Tania asked, stepping out of her panties.

“Bit late to back out now,” said Lee. “But we’ll be fine. This is exactly the hour people expect Becky to pick her bed-warmer for the night - they won’t be bothering us until tomorrow.”

A very faint and high pitched whine came from Rebecca’s throat.

“It’s true,” Lee said apologetically. “We can basically set our watches to it.”

Lee and Tania worked together to strip Rebecca’s body. She didn’t need to be naked, but Lee wanted to humiliate her as much as he could in the time that they had.

Tania knelt between Rebecca’s parted legs, readying herself for the transferral.

“Get ready to catch this body,” she said to Lee. “Once I’m out, she’s going to tip over.”

Lee took her gently by the shoulders and they shared one last kiss as lovers in their respective bodies.

“See you soon,” Lee whispered with a smile.

“Be right back,” Tania said before closing her eyes and furrowing her brow.

Lee watched in rapt fascination as once again, the skin of Tania’s stomach subtly shifted around a growing protrusion. From her prone position, Rebecca also saw it, though the only thing she could do was cry out silently.

With an audible slipperiness, Tania’s true body crawled out of her pussy, angling downwards as it quested towards Rebecca’s exposed snatch.

Despite her tiny moans of horror, Rebecca’s body barely twitched as the worm brushed against her outer lips. Lee watched as inch after agonisingly slow inch pushed itself into its new host.

“Lee,” Tania gasped, and Lee held her tightly just as her body began to shudder violently, her eyes opening to show only the whites. A wet slurp drew his eyes to the bed, where the now separated worm’s tail thrashed against Rebecca’s thighs.

Lee stared at the anemone-like mass of blood-red tendrils flexing and gripping, bunching together as they reached the entrance of Rebecca’s vagina before disappearing.

Lee laid the human Tania’s body out carefully before turning back to Rebecca, holding his hand against her stomach as he felt the worm inside her pushing itself through her cervix and coiling into her womb. He imagined it wriggling into position so that its head was once again facing downwards, its mouth ready for its next meal and the tendrils on its tail burrowing themselves into her uterine walls to drink deeply of her blood.

Rebecca’s body suddenly spasmed below the waist. Tania had gone through the full process of transferal with him - this indicated that she had successfully integrated with Rebecca’s body and was extending nerves into the base of Rebecca’s spine - nerves that would override Rebecca’s own control of her body, crawling up her back until reaching directly into her brain.

It was also the signal for Lee to step in. The integration process could take hours and was extremely energy intensive, but Tania could work faster if she was fed.

“It’s not as bad as you probably think it is,” he said conversationally as he removed his pants. “I mean, it might seem pretty bad right now, but in a year’s time you’ll hardly know the difference.”

Rebecca’s pussy was still slick from Tania’s entry, and Lee slid in without resistance. Sex with an unwilling partner who could only stare back at him in mute horror would have ordinarily ruined the atmosphere, but the knowledge his victim was becoming host to a creature that loved him dearly flipped the mood for him completely.

Lee focused on the mental image of Tania’s tail flicking back and forth, pictured her neural roots wrapping themselves around the base of Rebecca’s spine and came within seconds. Not the earth-shattering orgasm they had shared earlier, but enough to give Tania the nutrients she needed for accelerated growth.

It was already having an effect, as Lee realised that Rebecca’s body was already clumsily raising its hips towards him. Lee looked up to see her eyes widened again in horror.

The benefit of a quickfire orgasm was the short refractory period, and Lee busied himself repositioning the human Tania’s body for better comfort when she regained consciousness.

Grabbing a drink from the mini fridge, Lee took a contemplative sip as he watched Rebecca’s body sluggishly twitching to life from the waist outwards.

“You know, people are absolutely going to notice the personality change,” he said, as much to himself as to his ex. “But I wonder how many of them will complain. Half of the people here don’t even like you, they’re just here for the free drinks.”

Rebecca said nothing, her eyes darting frantically around the room as though some means of escape would magically present itself.

Finishing his drink, Lee’s returning arousal spiked when he saw Rebecca’s legs opening themselves to welcome his return. Again, Rebecca did not find this particular party trick amusing and again, Lee couldn’t help deriving a sadistic twist of enjoyment from her horror.

He needed to build up a rhythm this time, concentrating on the tactile sensation of penetrating his ex-girlfriend’s possessed snatch to maintain vigour. Five minutes later and with his breath becoming ragged, Lee climaxed inside Rebecca and opened his eyes to observe the effects.

She had already been flexing her stomach beneath him, and he was gratified to hear her breathing deepen as Tania took over her lungs. The deeper breaths allowed Rebecca greater volume, but all she could manage was a long, hoarse croak as she lost control of such a vital function.

Her heart would be next, Lee thought. Or maybe it had already happened. He should have kept his ear to her chest. Oh well.

A faint moan made him jump, but his sudden alarm faded when he realised that it was Tania waking up. He slid onto the bed beside her, cradling her as she tried to sit up.

“Easy does it,” he said reassuringly. “You’ve had an interesting day.”

“Lee?” Tania asked blearily.

Lee hesitated. She wasn’t supposed to remember his name. Tania’s plan had been to erase him from her memory, replacing himself with the vague memory of breaking up amicably with someone and wanting to move back in with her parents while she found her feet.

“...Yes?” Lee said cautiously.

“Oh,” said Tania. “Hey.”

And that seemed to be about it.

Lee’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what was going on. Had worm Tania forgotten to alter human Tania’s memory? Had she failed? Or - and Lee found this equal parts arousing and terrifying - had worm Tania somehow traded places with human Tania? And it was now human Tania in worm Tania’s body nestled in Rebecca’s uterus?

He looked back to human Tania to find that she was now asleep instead of unconscious, and decided it was best to leave her like that for the moment.

Rolling over to where Rebecca lay, he pressed his ear against her stomach and tapped lightly where worm Tania should be coiled up.

Rebecca’s lower body twitched, and he felt the worm inside her roil around.

They should have come up with a way to communicate. Shit.

Lee was still trying to think of a solution when he saw Rebecca’s stomach shift and saw the telltale sign of a mass pushing its way out of her body. The mottled worm rose out from between her thighs and turned towards him before waving in a beckoning motion.

Nothing for it, he supposed.

Without the energy to bring himself to erection, Lee knelt between Rebecca’s spread legs. The worm head regarded him for a moment before dipping down to his flaccid penis and began to gently roll itself back and forth across his crotch. It took a while, but the tender ministrations slowly brought Lee to full attention, though he only remained so through an effort of will.

Taking the worm in one hand, he popped its mouth open with his thumb, causing Rebecca’s body to moan beneath him. Looking down, he saw that she had regained some control of her facial muscles, and was staring in revulsion at the thing that was sticking out of her crotch.

She groaned again when he pushed himself into the worm’s mouth, crawling forward and laying on top of her in a faux missionary position while the worm between them suckled gently on his dick.

“You can feel her, can’t you?” he whispered in her ear. “She’s transmitting her senses into you, and you can feel me inside her, and her inside you.”

With no control over her breathing, and only marginal control of her voice, Rebecca groaned.

“Don’t worry,” Lee said, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. “I’ve known her for a while. She’s nice. We’ll take good care of you.”

Haltingly, shudderingly, Rebecca’s arms raised themselves around Lee. He lay like that for a while, enjoying the warmth of what to any outsider might have looked like two lovers cuddling. The orgasm that the worm coaxed out of him was a strange one: More a trickle than a squirt, but he nonetheless felt his body give what little of his semen remained. He felt the worm swallowing every last drop beneath him.

Rebecca’s breathing suddenly sped up to shallow gasps, her arms holding him tight as her eyes began to dart around in panic. This was the final stretch, and Lee pictured the worm’s tentacles crawling up the last few inches of Rebecca’s neck to burrow into the base of her brain. As Lee imagined it, Rebecca’s whole body arched backwards, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and her voice coming out in a series of choking croaks.

Ten seconds later, it was over, and Rebecca lay in Lee’s arms, her eyes closed and her breathing restful as though she were simply asleep.

Before he could muster the courage to say anything, Rebecca opened her eyes, and on seeing Lee’s face, broke into an exhausted smile.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back,” said Lee, planting a kiss on her lips.

They spent the rest of the night together on the bed, both exhausted from their respective ordeals. The new Rebecca took some time enumerating her body’s assets, and both of them agreed that the vast majority of them could be offloaded without any drama. Her dramatic change in personality would need some explaining, and a story about mending old relationships and turning over a new leaf was concocted.

The old Tania woke up, and Lee was relieved to find that she no longer recognised him as anyone but a forgettable friend whose house she had been crashing at for almost a year. Lee gave her the keys to the house and she caught a rideshare home to sleep off whatever had knocked her out in the first place.

“She’ll be fine,” the new Rebecca said, watching her leave wistfully. “I’ll miss being her. It’s going to take some time getting used to another new name. It always does.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Lee said. “I don’t think of you as Rebecca. I’m sure you’re going to make improvements to her life, and you’re wearing her body, but now that I know the truth, I think you deserve your own name. Something that you can hold onto from body to body.”

Rebecca blushed. “You… you mean…?”

“I am absolutely ready to spend the rest of my life with you,” Lee said firmly. “No matter which body you’re bound to, so I really think there’s a name you should have that’s yours, no matter what. Just between us.”

Rebecca started mutely at the door her former body had left through, then turned back to Lee.

“I… could you keep calling me Tania? Just between us?”

Lee kissed Tania on the forehead.

“Tania it is. Happy Birthday.”