Aisha sat impatiently in the bland, sterile room. Not literally sterile, but the spartan lack of decor and drab colouring made her feel like she was waiting in an unfurnished hospital ward. Admittedly, this was hardly surprising - she’d signed up to join some kind of mysterious medical experiment at uni after all - but it wouldn’t kill them to put in a pot plant or something.

The door opened, and Aisha gratefully rose from the sole chair in the room, only to sink back down in disappointment when she was told they would be ready for her soon. Not soon enough, she thought to herself.

Her leg bounced restlessly, and she began to question whether it had been worth signing up at all. Fifty bucks was fifty bucks, but if she wound up waiting here for hours she may as well have just worked a shift at some shitty little fast food place for all the good it would do her.

She shivered. This wasn’t a good attitude to have. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply and steadied herself. How did the saying go?

“Patience is a virtue: Possess it if you can. Very rare in women and never in a man.”

Her grandmother had taught her that. A bit mean, but she grew up in mean times. Instead of getting frustrated, Aisha decided to challenge herself to see how long she could stay perfectly still. Like a Buddhist meditation kind of thing. Just sit still, stare straight ahead and focus on her breathing.

She was so focused that she almost jumped when the door opened again.

Someone in scrubs poked their head in and asked how she was feeling.

“Fine,” she lied, though admittedly the attempted meditation had seemed to be working for a moment.

Scrubs seemed to have something on their mind, but said simply that she would be called up shortly.

Aisha shivered again, the impatience returning. No! She was doing really well just a moment ago - hell, maybe she’d discovered a knack for inner peace. She focused on her breathing again, holding as perfectly still as possible. It wasn’t quite like dozing off or relaxing, she just found herself focusing on a specific state of being, sorta thing.

The door opened again to reveal the same person as before with someone else in a lab coat behind them.

“Still fine,” she said when they asked if everything was alright. Why did they keep checking up on her? They should just hurry up with whatever they were doing so she could have her turn, get paid and go home.

The technicians turned away, but not before she caught a fragment of a sentence.

“Nothing. Try turning up the signal strength-”

A tingle ran up Aisha’s back. What if she wasn’t just in a waiting room? Her eyes darted up to the corner of the room, where she spotted a black dot in the otherwise pure white ceiling. A camera? Ah, that would make sense: This was the test! They’d been testing her this whole time, but hadn’t said anything because they didn’t want any kind of placebo effect!

But what were they testing? Inaudible sound tech? Some kind of brain waves? That second one would make sense - she’d never been able to focus on being restful like this before, so if they were developing some kind of mind soothing ray or something that could be really cool.

Intent on testing the benefits of the technology, Aisha focused all of her senses on entering the same kind of trance state, shutting out as much of the physical world as possible to explore her inner mind of whatever people did when they meditated.

It must have worked very well, because she was shocked into wakefulness by the sudden scream of an alarm.

Standing up, she began to leave the room, but hesitated. Was it a drill? Was it part of the test?

In answer to her question, a nurse burst into the room, ordering her to leave immediately. The hallway was a mass of fearful people - not blind panic like you might see in the movies, but still a lot of scared people all going in the same direction.

She followed the crowd as it was directed into a mustering area, where she milled about aimlessly with the others. Should she stay? Whatever the test was, it was clearly over, but she felt like she should maybe debrief with someone before just disappearing. She couldn’t see anyone she recognised, and she doubted if anyone important would be bothered with a single test volunteer for a student’s research paper.

A nearby pair of double doors burst open, and a team of paramedics wheeled out a stretcher between them. There was a body on the stretcher, fully clothed in scrubs with some kind of breathing apparatus on his face. Aisha felt her gaze fixated on him as he was trundled from the faculty exit to a waiting ambulance, which took off with its sirens wailing.

She felt goosebumps rise on her skin, as though she’d stepped on her own grave. Fifty bucks was definitely not worth hanging around for, so she decided to leave instead.

She began walking away in a random direction - it didn’t matter where, she just wanted to be away from the place - before stopping and rummaging randomly through her purse. She didn’t feel like she was looking for something specific, just trying to keep her hands busy to distract herself, but she eventually grasped her keys and pulled them out.

That’s right - she’d driven to uni that day. Where had she parked? Her mind was all over the place.

Another rummage through her purse found a ticket stub from the nearby shopping mall. Yes, that’s right - she always parked there. Obviously. Gosh, whether it was the anxiety or whatever they were testing on her, it had really done a number on her immediate memory.

She hurried back to the mall, walking awkwardly and stumbling several times in her short heels. Everything felt wrong, and she spent several minutes lost in the carpark randomly pressing her key fob to see which car lit up.

By the time she dragged herself into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind her, she was a mess: Her heart was beating rapidly, she was out of breath and her ankles were agony.

That last one at least was easy to do something about: Aisha pulled off her heels and threw them onto the passenger seat. It didn’t matter that they had been a birthday present from her best friend - right now they just weren’t important. Getting home was important. Getting home and getting her mind right.

She fumbled for a keyhole in the side of the steering wheel, peering around when she found none and furrowed her brow. Grunting, she looked around the other side to see a tiny glowing start button. Of course - her car had never used the key for the ignition. Where the hell had that idea come from? Her hand groped for a parking brake that wasn’t there, forcing her to look down and toggle the little switch that disabled it. She went to crane her neck around behind her, only to be reminded that the car’s rear view camera gave her a much better view.

Carefully, as though she expected the car to suddenly lunge off without her, Aisha backed her car out of its parking bay and paused suddenly.

She grabbed her purse again, flicking through her cards. She had the parking ticket already, but she needed… aha! Her driver’s licence. She’d need this in case she was pulled over on the way home, and it would be a good idea to keep it handy. She found herself inspecting it for a while, as though searching it for inconsistencies. So long in fact, that someone waiting for her spot honked at her to move out of the way.

“Sorry!” she whispered to herself, moving back into the spot.

The other driver shook their head in frustration and drove off.

Aisha fumbled for her phone, unlocking it with her fingerprint and staring blankly at her icons before speaking.

“Okay Google?” she said, hesitantly.

Her phone made a “bah-bing” noise, and Aisha sighed in relief. At least this was working.

“Take me… home.”

Again, she held her breath as her phone processed the request.

“Okay, setting your route for home.”

Relief washed through Aisha. She knew her way back, obviously, but it paid to let Google pick the route in case there were any roadworks or accidents on the way. It also meant that she wouldn’t be in danger of taking a wrong turn out of absent-mindedness, though she did find herself in the wrong lane a few times.

Parking was a bit of a struggle, but she managed it eventually and took the elevator up to her floor.

The whole way up she found herself transfixed by her own blurry reflection on the steel wall. There was something odd about her appearance, something that she couldn’t quite pick. Her makeup and hair were ruined, sure but it was more than that. There was something about her eyes, or about her own expression. Had she ever looked at herself like this before? It was like seeing a stranger in the mirror.

The elevator dinged, and she got out, managing to go down the wrong hallway twice before finally finding her apartment door. Even her keys seemed unfamiliar - a process that she could usually do while drunk in pitch darkness (and had done so a couple of times) she now fumbled, trying roughly half the keys on her chain before finally hearing the lock click.

Aisha stumbled into the foyer limp with relief, closing and locking the door behind her.

A sense of unease stole over her and she stood perfectly still, listening for the smallest sound.

“Hello?” She said, as loudly as she dared. She lived alone, and the door had been locked, so if there were any trespassers, maybe announcing herself wasn’t the best idea, but she’d done it now.

Putting her handbag down, she carefully made her way through the entire apartment, room by room, door by door. She checked everywhere - even the spaces where no human could possibly fit - before returning to the kitchen and opening up the fridge.

Some food! That should help her get her head straight.

Aisha opened a jar of olives and sniffed. Not really a meal, but maybe a couple as a snack to start with? She pensively put one in her mouth.

She chewed thoughtfully, an expression of surprise on her face. She loved olives, but it was nice to know that these ones… hadn’t gone bad? Since yesterday, when she had bought them? 

She picked a few other items at random.

Pickles? Tasty.

Leafy greens? Fine.

She sniffed the deep, rich aroma of some leftover vegan lasagne before heating it up in the microwave. She chewed thoughtfully as she sifted through the contents of her cupboard. It was funny how much stuff kind of just built up over time that you completely forgot about. She spent some time reading the instructions or ingredients on boxes at random, just for the hell of it.

Carrying the half-empty plate, she sat down at her computer and turned it on, staring blankly at the empty password field.

She knew her password. She absolutely knew her password. By muscle memory if nothing else. Why couldn’t she remember her password? What the fuck had they done to her? Clicking for other login options, Aisha was relieved to see that she had enabled facial recognition and signed in, changing her password to something that she wouldn’t forget this time.

B-r-@-n-d-N-3-w-B-0-d-y

Perfect. Aisha had no idea where the phrase came from, but it felt right somehow.

She quickly opened up her socials and began scrolling through the feeds of local news pages. She didn’t really know what she was looking for until she found it:

Police have confirmed that a death has occurred at the medical faculty of Mahkra University shortly after a fire broke out early this afternoon. 35 year old Shane Wallace was testing a prototype medical device when it malfunctioned, setting the room alight. He was taken out of the building in an unconscious state, but staff at the Royal Southern Hospital were unable to revive him.

“I was already dead,” Aisha said with a wry grin.

Wait, what? Had she said that? Aisha felt like the words had come from somewhere else, but didn’t have time to dwell on the strangeness of the moment, choosing instead to go to the bathroom and splash cold water on her face and try to pull her mind together.

There it was again: That look on her face. It was a kind of… intensity in her eyes that she’d never seen on herself before. Was it a side effect of the test that they’d done on her? Given how badly it has messed with her mind, then almost definitely.

Aisha turned her head from side to side, examining herself carefully for any physical sign of injury. She moved closer to the mirror, going over every feature on her face. She even opened her mouth, pulling her lips to one side and then the other to inspect her teeth. Not that she expected anything to be wrong there, but it didn’t hurt to check.

She squished her cheeks in. She stuck her tongue out. She pulled down her eyelids and laughed. The silliness helped to dispel some of the anxiety, and she began to feel more like herself at last.

She stood up straight again, still staring at her reflection, still with that strange look in her eye.

She bit her lip. She looked cute when she bit her lip. She looked pensive, vulnerable, even.

“Can you hear me?” She said to her reflection.

Nobody replied, but she stared as though willing her other self to respond.

“If you’re still in there, say something,” she said.

She relaxed her mouth, letting all of the tension leave her jaw, her lips barely parted.

Her reflection stared back in silence.

“Blub blub blub blub blub,” she said, and grinned. It felt good to talk, even if it was just nonsense.

“This body’s name,” she began slowly. “Is Aisha Knight.”

She felt a thrill run through her body. That was weird, but it felt good.

“My name,” she said, enunciating every syllable as though savouring a rare fruit. “Is Aisha Knight.”

A tingle crept up the back of her neck, and Aisha felt her nipples harden under her shirt.

Hurriedly, Aisha unbuttoned her shirt, tossing it aside before struggling briefly with her bra. With her breasts freed, she turned back to herself, drinking in the sight of her naked upper half.

It was with a bizarre sense of wonder that she cupped her own breasts in both hands, holding them as though she’d never seen them before in her life.

“I’m touching your tits, Aisha,” she said to herself. “They’re my tits now. All of you belongs to me now.”

With every word she felt herself getting hotter, and she shivered as she brought her fingers up to do little circles around her nipples.

“Oh, that feels magical,” she purred. “And such good luck that I got a body as nice as yours.”

The words were just coming out of her, like some kind of script that had snuck its way into her brain.

That was it! The test she had signed up for! Those perverted little shits must have implanted some kind of twisted fetish into her! And now she was ogling herself and feeling herself up like some horny teenager!

She watched herself pull down both skirt and panties together, stepping forward wearing nothing but her socks and standing with legs apart, her pussy barely visible in her reflection.

She wanted to be mad. She wanted to be angry. But never in her life had she found herself as hot as she did now, and the burning hunger for her own body made her feel alive in ways she had never dreamed of before.

Swaying her hips from side to side, she delicately drew her fingers from her knees along her inner thighs until finally brushing against the lips of her vulva. The sensation was unlike anything she’d felt during any of her masturbation sessions in the past - her body reacted as though her own hands belonged to a stranger.

Ah! There it was again! The sensation of having someone else looking at her through her eyes; a feeling that should have brought on a sense of fear and horror but now instead filled her with lust.

They’d done something to her brain. That’s why she fell so deeply into those meditative trances. God knows what would have happened if the fire alarm hadn’t gone off - they might have continued playing with her mind all afternoon. She might have wound up a vegetable if they had gone on for too long, or a mindless slave.

The sound of her own voice cooing in delight made her realise that absent of her own thoughts, her body had begun playing with itself in earnest. Aisha was in no condition to stop her own hands, sliding along the length of her pussy, slick with her juices.

It wasn’t her fault! She couldn’t help herself! Her body had developed a mind of its own, and all she could do was give in to its desires while being buffeted by the tides of ecstasy.

She felt her knees tremble and almost give way, causing her to lurch forwards and catch herself on the basin. She couldn’t do this standing anymore - she turned around and stumbled towards her bed, rolling onto her back with her head propped up on the pillows.

Lying back, she admired the view of her own body, starting from the soft mounds of her breasts to the valley of her sex framed by her legs on either side.

She had a dildo, but it seemed all too far away now that she had gotten comfortable. Instead leaned back, closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of running a single digit up and down the lips of her sex, her body squirming when it brushed against her clit.

It was a simple thing, but she felt her mind sinking into the same meditative state as she had in the test room. Only instead of focusing on her breathing, she now found her entire sense of being reduced to her pussy lips as they were stroked by a stranger’s hand again and again and again.

She didn’t make the conscious decision to penetrate herself, but when a single finger slid its way into her, she felt as though her very soul was being invaded. It felt incredible to let her own body have its way with her, and she wondered briefly if the nerds running the tests had experienced this themselves before implanting it in others.

Her body cried out, a rapturous smile lighting up her face. Her fingers quickened their pace, finding a rhythm and range that stroked just the right spot inside her. She felt the pressure rising inside her, and for a brief moment considered prolonging the pleasure, but her fingers had other ideas; bringing her to a violent and vocal climax.

A sudden banging on her bedroom wall snapped her out of her euphoria, and she curled up on herself in sudden panic.

Oh shit! She’d completely forgotten how thin the walls were here! The neighbours must have heard everything!

Despite her embarrassment, she grinned, a remnant wisp of arousal still creeping through her.

“Oopsie,” she said to herself. “I guess I’ll have to be quiet if I don’t want to draw attention.”

Again, the echo of a thrill passed through her, as though simply acting as if she was possessed or mind controlled was enough to arouse her.

Well, it was, wasn’t it?

She carefully considered her options as she slid off the bed, tip-toeing guiltily back into the bathroom. The responsible part of her wanted to go straight back to the faculty and demand that they reverse whatever they had done to her, or else threaten to tell the police what they were up to and get them all arrested for… well, whatever. The irresponsible part of her…

She found herself staring back into the mirror again, still flushed with the fading climax and faintly buzzing for another round.

She turned on the shower, taking several attempts to get the balance of hot and cold water correct - something she’d mastered long ago but yet one more thing that she’d somehow forgotten how to do.

Stepping into the steaming deluge, she tilted the shower head so that she could feel the spray against each part of her body, starting at the legs and working slowly upwards. 

It was incredible. Something she’d done a million times before without a second thought had become a delightfully sensual experience: She could almost make out every individual droplet of water hitting her skin and lighting her up. She gasped when the water hit her chest, and she remained frozen in place, mesmerised by the sensation for what felt like hours before finally raising it to her face, letting the hot water run into and flow out of her open mouth.

It even tasted better.

She washed her body with excruciating slowness, examining every part of herself as though discovering it for the first time. Well, “washed” only really applied to the first ten minutes or so: Once every part of her had been lathered and rinsed, she took the opportunity to give her tits a thorough massage, testing how rough she could be without hurting herself before letting her hands wander downwards.

She kept her voice down, letting the running water drown out her occasional moan or exclamation. It was mind-blowing how much better playing with herself felt, and she began to wonder what sex might feel like when the water suddenly ran cold, shocking every ounce of arousal out of her.

She hurriedly shut off the water, cursing as she towelled herself dry. She’d been so lost in herself that she’d completely forgotten about the limit on hot water - probably for the best, as she might have stayed in there all afternoon otherwise.

Now thoroughly sober, Aisha picked up her phone and flopped back onto bed, still damp but not caring in the slightest. She scrolled through the contents of her phone with one hand - photos, videos, texts - while casually stroking herself with the other, bringing her body steadily back up to an ambient state of excitement.

A new message popped up from one of her uni friends with a link.

---Weren’t you just there?---

It was another article about the fire and death at the university. For some reason, Aisha found herself scrolling up through several days worth of her chat history before replying.

---Yeah, just got home. Was halfway through the test when the fire started.---

Well, they never said that to her explicitly but given how messed up her head was, they’d definitely tried to do SOMETHING to her.

---omg, what were they testing on you?---

---nfi tbh. They never said but my head is all fucked up and I can’t remember shit atm.---

---wtf!?!? What are you gonna do? You should tell the cops.---

Aisha thought about it for a moment.

---Maybe. I can’t prove anything atm. Hopefully if I go back they can reverse it or something.---

---They fucking better or imma slap a mfker.---

---lol. Gonna destress for a bit and see if I can sleep it off.  ttyl---

---kk baiiiiii---

Tossing the phone to one side, Aisha stood up and strode over to her bedroom mirror, still naked and still casually stroking with one hand.

That look was still there. She’d always taken for granted that her face was just her face, but it had settled into an expression that made it seem almost alien. Like another personality was wearing her like a mask. She liked the idea.

“I’m pretty sure you can hear me,” she said conversationally to herself. “Even if you don’t know it’s me saying this.”

It felt nice to play along with the idea of being controlled.

“But I figure you should know that this is my body now,” she continued. “The moment I saw you come in, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in your skin.”

Or better yet - that she was the one that had taken control of this body from someone else!

“I actually didn’t know if overloading the machine would work, but I knew there was a chance, and here we are.”

So what if the nerds had been pervs about it - she didn’t have to go back and nobody ever needed to know.

“So now you belong to me. All of you. And you get to come along for the ride, never knowing you’ve lost control.”

Aisha felt another climax rising and kept her eyes locked on the mirror so that she could watch herself as she came

“And nobody else needs to know either,” she said to herself with a grin, sliding her fingers back inside her pussy at a steadily increasing pace.

“It’ll be our little secret.”