I carried my own body downstairs, taking advantage of my male muscles. It was crazy -- I could actually lift things! I flexed one of Ben’s arms, almost self-consciously. He wasn’t particularly buff, and I didn’t feel too different when I was just walking around and not doing anything -- but when I picked up my own body it was just… easier? Not fair!   Sarah steadied the trolley while I gently lay my body inside, pushing my legs up against my chest and making sure my head wasn’t bumping against anything. It was weird to push myself around from the outside. I still couldn’t feel anything from that body of course, but it would ache later if I left it in a bad position.    I chucked a blanket over the body and we set off down the road towards Sarah’s house. Anybody looking at us from the outside would just see my brother and Sarah casually pushing a blanket-covered trolley down the road. Nothing suspicious going on here.   A few people gave us funny looks as we walked along, but nobody said anything. I was just asking Sarah what the plan with her Dad was when I saw something that stopped me in my tracks.    Ryan Reneval. He was leaving a dingy looking house, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He saw me and I felt my chest tighten, but he just ducked his head and scowled.   I glanced down. Oh right. Ben’s body.   “I’ll catch up with you later.” I whispered to Sarah.   She glanced over at Ryan.    “Oooooooh, riiiight. Okidoke.”   Sarah hurried away with the trolley, throwing glances over her shoulder. Ben’s body? The biggest bully on campus? Both of them deserving of some payback? If I could get Sarah too this would be a trifecta.   I raised my head up high and strutted right up to Ryan. From inside Ben’s face, I grinned at him.   “Hey sexy.”   Ryan just grunted. Oookay , that wasn’t the instant fight I expected.   “Ummm... “   Well, at least the awkwardness would be all on Ben. I shrugged.   “I was just coming over to make out, buttercup.”   “Suck my dick.”   “That’s the idea.”   Then we just stood awkwardly for a moment. Maybe Ryan wasn’t quite as aggressive as I thought? Or had getting overpowered by Sarah (while in my body!) really affected him? This wasn’t going to plan at all .   “Some chick stole the helmet. I don’t have it.” mumbled Ryan.   “Oh… right…” I said. I racked my brain. How had Ryan gotten it from Ben originally, anyway? Had he stolen it? Had Ben let him have it?   “It’s okay though, I don’t want my money back.”   “Money?” Huh?   He looked at me funny. “The twenty I gave you for a turn? Fuck you’re retarded sometimes.”   Twenty dollars for a turn . In my body ?! I felt my blood begin to boil.   “Who-- who else gave-me-money .” That last bit came out as a growl, sounding strangely deep and threatening now that I had Ben’s voice.   “Uh, Jimmy, Matt, Parker, Mel…”   He saw my face and trailed off.   “I can ask around a bit if you like-”   I swung one of Ben’s fists at Ryan’s face, barely connecting as Ryan reacted.   “What the fuck dude I-”   I swung again, and this time hit him on the shoulder. My wrist bent back at a weird angle as the blow glanced off.   Ryan grunted and his nostrils flared, then he swung back a punch of his own…   And I disconnected.   I found myself laying on the floor at Sarah’s place. She’d clearly heaved me out of the trolley herself and dumped me unceremoniously onto the floor inside. The bruises over my back and legs showed she hadn’t done a very good job.   “Well?” Sarah said. “Where’s Ben?”   “I just left him having a - uh - bit of a chat with Ryan.” I said, smirking darkly.   “What? We need the receiver back! My Dad’s going to kill me if we don’t have it in time for his presentation!”   “Ah well, you know.” I said hesitantly, “Maybe, um, you could walk him over here? I’m pooped.”   Sarah huffed and I passed her the helmet. I wonder if she would notice I’d changed the pain settings?   Well, she’d know in a moment anyhow. Hah .   Sarah set herself down on the floor and shoved the helmet onto her head. A moment later, her body went completely limp.   Was it kind of mean to trick her into using Ben’s beaten and battered body? Yes. But did she deserve it? Yes .   Damn, everybody has acted really awfully to each other since this helmet arrived. Sarah, Ben, Ryan, Jess, Me .    Great power and all that, I guess.   I walked over to Sarah’s prone body and gave it a nudge with my foot. She didn’t respond. I imagine she’d turn off the pain pretty quickly when she realised the situation. I wonder if I could pass it off as an innocent blunder?   A few minutes later Ben’s body appeared at the door -- black eye, bloody nose, the works. Inside, Sarah scowled at me. “You could have warned me you got him into a fight!”   “Me? No-- I didn’t know he’d be hurt?”   “ Really .” Sarah said flatly.    “Honest!” I said, trying not to smirk.   Luckily she didn’t get a chance to press me any further, because just then Sarah’s Dad burst through the front door. He was a fat, nerdy man who looked like a high school geek who never quite grew up. Right now he was sweaty and frazzled.   “I couldn’t find it at the office, did you manage to find it in the garage--” Mr Smith cut off when he saw Ben’s battered body standing in his living room. He glanced at Sarah on the floor, and then over at me.   “Riiiight.” he said. “I have a lot of questions and not a lot of time. I’ll be asking about this later, Sarah .”   He directed that last word straight at Ben’s body, which shuffled in an awkward, feminine way.   “Sorry daddy.”   “Take the chip off that boy and get into the car. I’ll need your help for this presentation.”   Sarah made Ben’s body nod, and then sat down on the floor. A moment later and her own body woke up. She scowled at me.   Ben meanwhile just slumped to the floor, apparently unconscious. Had Sarah leaped into a body that was knocked out and zombie-walked it back?   Sarah walked over to Ben’s body with the helmet, and was about to put it onto Ben’s head when Mr Smith stopped her. “What are you doing?”   “Isn’t this how you get the chip off?”   “What! No! That’s-- no, that’s not how you get the chip off.”   He reached down and did something at the back of Ben’s neck, then straightened up holding the chip.   “That’s how you get the chip off.” “I didn’t see that.” Sarah said. Mr Smith ignored her.   “Putting the helmet on somebody who’s wearing the chip, that’s… damn end users! You would have overclocked the feedback mechanism and triggered a safety shutdown. You’re not supposed to wear them both at the same time -- why would anybody do that!? ”   “I thought that’s how it worked.” Sarah mumbled, head down. “It was Elle’s idea.”   Ben began to groan on the ground and slowly sat up. Mr Smith glanced at him.   “You’re Sarah’s brother, right?”    “U-huh”   “Well, you can either go home and forget you saw this technology, or deal with six months of interviews and lawyers when my boss finds out some teenagers were playing with his top secret invention.”   Ben grunted and shuffled out the door. Mr Smith let out a small smile.   “They never choose the lawyers.”   “Right, Sarah, Elle.” He looked right at me. “I bet neither of you are totally innocent here. We have five hundred investors waiting for a presentation that’s now running forty minutes late. There is a way you can partially make it up to me, since you clearly have no problem playing with prototype brain-interfaces.”   I glanced at Sarah. When he put it like that it did sound much more dangerous. She shrugged and followed him out the front door. I tagged along behind, and soon we were in Mr Smith’s Bentley, speeding down the highway to the convention centre.   “This prototype was due to be unveiled today.” Mr Smith explained to me, glancing in the rear view mirror. “I brought it home for final troubleshooting last week when it went missing.”   He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Sarah. “Somehow.”   “Today is a make or break day for the company. We were going to demonstrate the unit publicly for the first time on monkeys.”   I glanced at Sarah in the seat next to me. Monkeys?   “But since you guys have already proven it’s safe for use on humans, I figure, what the hell? The audience has been waiting almost an hour overtime. Let’s really give them a show.”   He glanced back at us.    “Which one of you wants to wear the helmet?” I snuck a glance past the curtains and into the crowd.   Eep.   That was a mistake.   I scuttled backwards and took a few deep breaths. I hated being on stage. How did I end up being the one that had to make a fool of myself out there?   “Beeecause” Sarah had said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If you wear the chip you don’t actually have to do anything. I’ll be the one moving your body around. You can be totally asleep if you want.”   She’d dobbed me in for this job as soon as her dad had asked. I glared over to where she was standing across on the other side of the stage. She smiled and gave me the thumbs up. Bitch.   A moment later the lights went up, and Mr Smith walked out onto the stage holding the Body Rentals helmet and chip. His boss, some oily business guy I didn’t know, smiled charmingly at the audience as he gestured towards Mr Smith and the device.   “The future is here!” said Business Guy, channelling some used car salesman energy.   “This technology will allow you - yes, you - to experience the world as another person. Hike the Himalayas as a sherpa, play basketball as a 7ft tall athlete, explore France from behind the eyes of a school girl. The world is waiting!”   The business guy threw his arms up in the air and a spotlight appeared on Sarah’s dad and the device. Mr Smith held the helmet up.   “Wear this helmet, and your body goes into an induced slumber. A deep sleep, not a coma. It cuts off the signals that your brain sends to your body and sends them…”   Sarah’s dad held up the chip.   “...to this receiver, mounted discreetly on the neck of your mount. Your brain controls all of their movements, seamlessly, as if they were your own. At the same time, all of the signals from their body are sent wirelessly back to your brain! You feel everything they feel, see everything they see, experience their world.”   He gestured to the other side and another spotlight appeared, illuminating an empty area of the stage.   “Our volunteer here will now be fitted with the receiver. Soon, she will just be a passenger, her body belonging to somebody else!”   Somebody gave me a little push out onto the stage. Oh crap! I’d missed my cue! I scrambled out to stand under the empty spotlight as Mr Smith walked over.    “Sloppy, Elle” he whispered as he affixed the receiver back onto the back of my neck. I cringed as the cold metal once again touched my skin.    “I’m right back where I started,” I thought, “Getting pushed into letting Sarah control me. Haven’t I learnt anything?”   The oily guy didn’t even look at me as he continued his spiel. I watched as he suddenly gestured the other way, and Sarah skipped out onto stage, grinning. I’m going to kill her if she embarrasses me.   Sarah got herself comfy in a chair and then lowered the helmet over her head. She winked at me as it came into place.   “Now!” said the business guy “The music!”   The what now?   The lights everywhere else on the stage dimmed, and I was left alone in a halo of light. Some cheap pop song began playing.   I shuffled backwards a little bit. Nobody had told me I was supposed to dance?   “As you can see,” came Business Guy’s voice, “Our volunteer has no natural dancing ability at all.”   Hey!   “But when we connect her body to our controller… behold!”   The lights flashed dramatically. I tried to glance over at Sarah… but it didn’t work! I would have gasped if I could. I had once again lost control of my body.   I felt my back straighten, and my chin jutted into the air as I grinned at the crowd. Then Sarah threw my hands out to the side and began swaying my hips in a kind of salsa.   I could feel the eyes of a hundred rich investors studying me as my body wiggled back and forth. I tried to shy away, but no matter how hard I concentrated, my legs wouldn’t obey me. I could even feel my thigh muscles squeezing and releasing under Sarah’s control as she made me shake my hips and dance back and forth.   It felt so damn weird!   Like before, I wasn’t numb. I could feel every time my foot stooped the ground, and every twist of my wrists. I just couldn’t do anything about it! Obviously I had been left aware, which I suppose was a small blessing. Even if I couldn’t control my body, at least I could yell at her after if she made me do anything too embarrassing.   My chest jiggled from side to side as Sarah completed a turn and a bow. Then she made me stand back up, give a little wave, and then I stopped moving.   “Give it up for the Body Rentals team!”   The audience clapped and cheered. I lowered my waving hand, blushing. Sarah was sitting up and smiling now, giving the audience a wave and a bow in her own body.    “That wasn’t so bad” I thought. “She threw my boobs around a bit much, but nothing excessive.” I adjusted my dress back into position and waited for Mr Smith to come take the device off me. Where was he?   I gave a weak shrug to Sarah as Business Guy quieted the crowd again.   “Now, what if you wanted privacy when inside your mount's body? What if you are taking her to a confidential business meeting? Or meeting up with a friend for an evening on the town? Or if you just prefer having your own personal time?”   I gulped. I didn’t like where this was going.   “For an extra fee, we can put the mount’s mind completely to sleep. She will be completely unaware of what you do in her body, giving you the freedom of privacy!”   Business Guy threw his hands into the air again. “Here we go!”   The lights in the room flashed again, and I felt a little bit of a jolt run through me.   I blinked. The crowd was cheering! Even louder than before! Wha---?   I glanced down and found my outfit had changed. Before I had been wearing a nice modest evening gown, but now I found myself dressed like a cheerleader with a short skirt and a lot of cleavage.   “As you can see, the mount has no idea what her body did while she was being controlled!”   I blushed and tried to pull my top up, but that just showed off more of my midriff. My body felt a little bit tired, like I’d been exercising.   “Isn’t that something.” the oily businessman said. I glanced over to Sarah, who had taken off the helmet now. She giggled and gave me a thumbs up. I scowled back. Whatever she made me do, it was giving her a lot of pleasure that I didn’t know.   I glanced around for Mr Smith, but he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I saw this lady in a black turtleneck walk over to Sarah and whisper something in her ear. Sarah frowned and turned to look at the lady.    “Now, we have a very special treat for you this evening.” said the business guy, ignoring what was happening behind him. “For anybody who puts a deposit for a pre-order tonight, we’re offering 30 second rides inside either of our volunteers!”   The spotlight came back up on me, and another on Sarah, whose mouth was wide open in shock. The lady next to her pressed something into the back of Sarah’s neck, and then took the helmet away.    Sarah looked at me with wide eyes. “Not fair!” she mouthed to me. I looked out at the crowd beyond, which was hollering and cheering, several men already waving cheques in the air.   What had I gotten myself into? ____________   Black   I found myself suddenly doing finger guns to a guy in a $2000 suit who was holding up an iPhone.   “Are you still in there?” he called to me.   I whipped my hands down immediately and scowled at him.    Black   I was standing on one foot, making a peace sign like a Japanese school girl. A big guy chuckled as he was handed the helmet.   Black   I stared down at my own cleavage. The grin on my face faded quickly as I reasserted control. My boobs felt a little sore, like I’d been squeezing them.   Black   I was holding my skirt up, flashing a group of young guys and girls in suits. A stern-looking woman among them was scowling at me. Whatever you're angry at, it wasn’t me, lady!   Black   Eeek! I found myself embracing Sarah, our lips pressed together. I jumped back with a yelp, while Sarah did the same. She wiped her mouth and gave me a funny look.    “This isn’t as much fun from this side!”   “Tell me about- “   Black   I was facing the ground in a deep bow. The shoe’s Sarah had put me in were completely gone, my bare feet with black-painted nails standing on the dusty stage. I straightened up.   “And that’s all folks! You’ll have to wait for your commercial units to be delivered before you get to try that again!”   The business guy gave the audience a wave and smiled down at me condescendingly.   “I’d tell our volunteer to take a bow, but John here already took one for her!”   A young nerdy guy handed the helmet over to an assistant as he left the side of the stage, blushing. I wonder what else he did when he was in my body?   I took stock of myself. My feet were a bit cold, my boobs a little sore, but nothing too bad. A wiggled my fingers in front of my face, breaking my body back in. It felt a little odd, like putting a shoe back on after somebody else wore it for a little while. Almost as if it was getting used to me controlling it again.   I noticed the nail polish on my fingers was scratched off pretty badly, and some of my nails had been bitten. Goddamn it. Whatever damn nerd had made me bite my own bloody finger nails…   “Goodnight everybody!”   Business guy walked off stage and waved for me to follow. I looked over at Sarah, but she just shrugged, so we walked off stage together, hoots and wolf-whistles following us into the wings.   “When are they going to get these chips off us?” I asked Sarah.   She shrugged again and gave her arms a shake.   “It better be soon! I feel like my body is a fucking costume for these people-”   “Sarah!”   Sarah cut herself off as Mr Smith rushed towards us from somewhere deep backstage.   “I’m sorry sweetheart, I didn’t know Jerry was going to take it that far.” he glared at the Business Guy as he strutted past on his way to the green room. “Are you okay?”   “Fine, fine.” muttered Sarah. Her dad quickly removed the chip from her neck, then came over to do the same to me.   “What happens next?” I asked. “Are we good?”   “Fortunately that event wasn’t recorded, so yes, you’re good.”   I felt a light pop as the chip let go off my neck, accompanied by a weird tickling sensation in my brain.    “As for what’s next…” Mr Smith trailed away, his eyes staring at where Business Guy had left.    “The world is never going to be the same.”   ____________________   I left Miss Brixton’s class with a sneaky smile playing on my face. Sarah had been bugging me about what was going on with Jess alllll throughout the lesson, right up until Miss Brixton had put her on mute.    I had a lot of fun asking her teasing questions in the second half of that class. She could only scowl at me from behind her frozen lips.   The Body Rentals devices had become ubiquitous over the last six months. Basically everybody had access to one now, whether through one of the rental businesses, or privately. Society was still catching up, to be honest, but Sarah tended to wear her personal chip everywhere -- hence why Miss Brixton could use it to stop her from speaking.   Why did she want to have it on all the time, you ask? Well, these things had become extremely useful. I wear mine most days as well. Since it connects directly into your central nervous system, you can use it to “turn down” your own sense of pain, or hunger, or discomfort, or whatever you want!    Heck, I’d even sneakily numbed my muscles before gym class once or twice before. Not numbed numbed, mind you, just reduced the sensations by about 60-70%, so I could still feel stuff, just not very powerfully. I’d made sure that was a one-way reduction, of course, so I could still move! I couldn’t do that everyday without getting the reputation for being clumsy, though, because it is much harder to act coordinated when your leg’s half-numb.   That’s one of the issues with the Body Rentals chips -- the A.I. is pretty dumb. If you weren’t directly controlled by another person (via a helmet) you could only do basic things. It couldn’t do the workout for you, just modulate the signals your body or brain was already generating. I wandered onward to my locker.   “Hey Sis” a young girl with flowing blonde hair said as I walked past.   “Ben, you little rat, are you going to go back into your own body anytime today?”   “Not if I can help it.” the girl said with a shifty grin, as she turned and skipped away.   I watched her go with a bit of a frown. Ben had broken his leg last week -- in an accident he swears wasn’t his fault -- and is at home recovering. Apparently he’d convinced his new girlfriend to let him take control for a while. I wondered if he’d learnt his lesson from what happened after he controlled me for the first time?   That all shook out without too much trouble, surprisingly. Once the technology became common knowledge, it was pretty obvious when I was and wasn’t in control of myself. The company worked hard to sweep any wrongdoing under the rug, basically, and had actually compensated us all with our own devices in exchange for us agreeing that nothing bad had been caused by their technology.   At least I’d gotten even with Ben. We’ve settled back into something of an uneasy truce, though I hope his new girlfriend knows what she’s gotten herself into by handing over the keys like that.   Stacy, meanwhile, turned out to be super into it. She tried to hide it, but I swear there’s been three or four times now where I’ve noticed her acting a bit funny at the dinner table, only to find out later she’d let one of her friends in to try and pretend to be her.   Usually they do alright at acting normal. Most often they just act like an exaggerated version of her, emphasising her particular ticks the way a bad actor would when impersonating someone. Once we had a whole conversation where she spoke with an Indian accent, but she refused to admit to me later that it was obviously her friend Nidra!   The most embarrassing one was the time I came home to find her running around on all fours like a dog. She sniffed my shoes and stuck her tongue out, then rolled over on her back as if asking for tummy scratches. I’d just stared at her, so she scampered outside to chase birds instead. About twenty minutes later she shuffled back in, covered in dirt, and pretended like nothing had happened. I don’t know who it was that made her act like that because I can’t imagine they managed to fit the helmet onto a real dog (would that even work?).   Anyway, I got to my locker and began to get my books for the next class, but I’d barely been there a minute when I felt a light shove on my shoulder. It was Amy, a petite girl from my geography class.   “Hey Elle, sure you don’t want to join us this Friday? Big money in it!”   “Nooooo thanks, Amy, it's a bit much for me.”   “Come on, Elle! You’re going to miss the boat unless you get in quick!”   I shrugged, so she continued.   “There’s so few young people with chips that prices are through the roof right now -- we’d be lucky to get paid half as much for this next year.”   Amy had been trying to convince me to sign up to this app that let you rent out time in your body to people on the internet. You could set the times you were available, and your minimum rate, and then whoever had the highest bid would get to take you for a drive, so to speak.    “You’d be lucky to get anything next year.” I said to her “I bet they shut it down.”   “They wouldn’t!” Amy said, annoyed. “It’s so liberating, Elle! How else is someone like me going to make $1000 a week?”   I could think of a few other ways, but I held my tongue.   “Now, the Friday night group wants us to find a fifth body for them, or they’ll pull their bid, so think about it!”   She patted me on the cheek in a way that was much too personal and rejoined her friends. I sighed and grabbed my things. Next class was gym, which I hated. Sarah often got Christy or Lucas to take over for her in gym class, but I wasn’t game for that sort of thing, and numbing my legs only helped so much.    It actually wasn’t too hard to find somebody else to fill in for you at our school. We were kind of like ground zero for Body Rentals devices. There was a thriving black market of people offering to exercise for you, take tests, give speeches, and anything else you can think of. There were even people who paid people to take over and ask their crush out!   I knew this because it has actually happened to me. There was this geeky kid, Sam, who I sometimes to chat to in the library. I actually don’t mind him as a person -- he was quiet, shy, awkward... non-threatening, you know? But definitely not somebody I would have my eye on in that way. Anyway, one day he comes in to our usual spot with a cocky grin and a swagger.   “Hey babe.” he said to me, leaning on the table. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing without a date on Friday night?”   He gave a cheeky smile which must have looked good on whatever jock Sam had paid to control him, but which fell flat coming from Sam’s goofy face.   I told him I was busy, but the guy kept pressing until I packed up my things and left. Sam avoided me for a week after that, before confessing he had a crush on me in his own awkward way. He was shocked when he found out I already knew he’d hired somebody to ask me out for him, the poor, oblivious, kid.   At least the guy he’d paid hadn’t done anything too bad in his body. Nobody ever admits to being controlled, but I’ve definitely seen guys suddenly begin walking with a feminine gait right before a big exam, and I caught Erika basically fondling herself throughout the entire math midterm before getting an A+ (bringing her semester average to a C!).   I paused outside the gym and rubbed the chip at the back of my neck. Maybe I could find somebody I trusted to do it for me? What’s the worst that could happen? Mmmmm .   I sighed and hefted my bag. It’s a weird world with these devices everywhere. What will they think of next?   _______   Read the next series in Body Rentals here !   Prev: Body Rentals - Elle Gets Controlled Part 4 (Chap 13, 14, 15)