The Empathery
Hannah Baumgardt
It began when Losi came home from school with a body from the Empathery.
Carol stood in the kitchen making lasagna. The garage door slammed, and she wiped a strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. She listened to her children kicking off their shoes, then their hissing whispers. Carol straightened from her cooking, leaning the heels of her palms against the counter’s edge.
“You two had better not be planning anything,” she warned.
The whispers quieted. Someone called, “Hi Mom.”
“Losi?” Carol leaned over the counter to peer down the empty hall leading from the family room to the garage. The voice didn’t sound like Losi – too low, too nasal – but the rhythm of the words was the same. Carol waited for her two teenagers to waltz around the corner, but the hall remained empty.
“It’s me, Mom.” Losi’s strange voice drifted over the walls. “I got an assignment at school today.”
It was probably a cold. Something had been going around school lately and Losi must have caught it. Carol returned to layering noodles and sauce in the glass dish. “This had better not be a complaint, missy. Homework is a requisite part of education.”
“We know, Mom,” Cole droned, and Carol closed her eyes and shook her head.
Losi said, “My English class was talking about empathy.”
Carol’s hands went limp over the lasagna. Dread swept from the tips of her ears, through her chest, and settled like a crouching tiger in her stomach. She had to swallow twice before she called, “Losi, if we’re going to have a conversation, I want to see your face. When you talk to someone, you look them in the eye.”
They were familiar words, something her husband told the kids every time he lectured them. Carol clung to the phrase, drawing composure from it. She listened to the shuffle of feet down the carpeted hall.
Losi stepped into the family room. Blonde hair coiled in a braid over her shoulder and down her chest, where her hands fiddled with its end. Blue eyes flitted about the kitchen, wide and worried. A wine-spill birthmark splashed her jaw and leaked onto her neck. The dread began to lash its tail, and Carol leaned her hip against the counter and folded her arms over her chest to contain it. This was not Losi. Losi had Dave’s dark hair and Carol’s green-brown eyes. But as she waited for Carol to say something, the girl’s foot tipped onto its toe and rocked back and forth - one of Losi’s nervous habits since childhood.
“Losi!” Carol snapped, pleased that the ring of authority hadn’t fled her voice.
“It was a school assignment, Mom,” the girl said in Losi’s words, though not her voice.
Cole edged into the family room beside his sister. Carol felt her insides go limp with relief to see his familiar whip-thin form topped by hair swept with too much gel. He was two years younger than his sister, but had already passed her in height. The blonde in the family room stood even with him. Some detached part of Carol wondered if that pleased Losi.
“Your teachers should know better,” the more present part of her said. “It’s a fad – technological trash. Worse than plastic surgery – and you know my rules about that.” She let Losi wither under her disapproval for a few seconds. “How long do you keep it for?”
“Just two days, Mom.” The girl’s foot rocked back and forth, twisting at the knee.
“Just two days.” The tiger in Carol’s stomach paced circles. She flung down the towel she’d used to wipe her hands and returned to the lasagna.
***
Carol passed those two days in an unease she could barely explain to herself, much less express to Losi. She grew tense and fractious, anticipating a relief that never came. Losi got her body back from the Empathery on the third day, certainly. But that night, Cole came home as a pudgy redhead. He tried to sneak up the stairs, but Carol heard him knock into the kitchen’s side table, no longer familiar with where his body ended. Her porcelain vase shattered on the tiles and a strange voice began cursing.
Carol set her knitting down on the bedcovers and came to stand in the doorway between her bedroom and the family room. She watched her unfamiliar child sweep the shards into the dustpan. Her throat burned, though whether with tears or anger she could not tell. She felt as if she were watching a thief break into her home, but instead of jewelry or electronics, he stole her children’s bodies, removing any sign of familiarity.
“Cole?”
He covered his face with an arm. The motion tugged up his shirt, revealing a sliver of pale, fat waist. “Mom--”
“Is this for class?” she demanded.
“Gym.”
“Gym? Gym! What use does Mr. Cobb have for the Empathery?” Kids had enough insecurity in their own body without dealing with a second.
The boy dumped her vase into the trash. “It’s supposed to make us want to exercise more. It’s stupid!” His face had flushed bright, matching the tomato of his shirt. “I hate it!”
Sharp satisfaction needled Carol’s chest. “Good. Maybe you’ll learn empathy.” She had meant the words to be an ironic reference to Cole’s arguments over the past two days, but they came out flat. Before he could read anything into them, she added, “Two days?”
Cole nodded, not meeting her eye.
***
On the fifth day, her husband’s coworker Khyl came home for dinner.
“Well, hello, Khyl!” Carol said, her eyes darting about the family room to make sure nothing was too embarrassingly out of order. “Dave invited you to supper? I’ve got--”
“Honey, it’s me,” Khyl said. He crossed the family room into the kitchen, sweeping her into a hug.
“Khyl!” She struggled against his embrace.
The man stepped back. “Carol, I’m sorry. It’s Dave, it’s me.” He gestured up and down the stocky body.
“Dave?” Her voice sounded accusatory, though she hadn’t meant it to be.
“It’s a team-building exercise for work.” Kyhl-Dave shrugged. “The boss is friends with the empath, so it’s probably more of an advertisement. But I’m certainly not complaining.” He flexed, biceps pressing against his plaid work shirt. Then he leaned in, grinning. “And tonight, you won’t be either.”
He wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously – the expression she most loved on Dave’s face, the sort of humor she had fallen in love with him for. On Khyl, it nauseated her. She pushed him away. “Khy- Dave. Honey.” She turned her back and breathed. The man stood behind her, an unfamiliar shadow. After a moment, she heard him retreat. Dave always knew when enough was enough, but the new weight of him made the floorboards creak an unknown tune.
Carol slept with a strange man that night. They lay on opposite sides of the bed. Before today, this had been one of Carol’s favorite moments, with Dave all to herself, his arm over her side, their fingers entwined. Tonight she lay on her back with arms folded over her chest. Something about that muscled body beside her made Carol feel old. Dave had taken the hint, and the small space between them filled with their silent alertness.
In the darkness, Carol asked the question that had been eating her all evening.
“Dave? Does someone have your body?”
He stirred beside her, air whistling through his nose as he breathed. “Well, yes. It’s an exchange.”
She had suspected, but horror still rose to choke her. Had the children also exchanged? What had her family’s bodies done without them? “Khyl has it. You-your body?”
A rough hand settled on her forearm, the same gentle touch, but so different from Dave’s hand. She flinched away and the hand withdrew.
“Is that a problem, Carol?”
Carol said nothing. She tilted her head to stare at the green glow of the bedside clock. Eleven. She wondered what time Kyhl and Elaine went to bed. Elaine was so young, thin and beautiful.
In sudden spite, Carol said, “Kiss me, Dave.”
He hesitated a moment. She didn’t move as he leaned toward her but tilted her head to meet his lips. They were fuller than Dave’s, and the fringe of beard tickled her jaw. His hand moved to cup her cheek. The fingers were shorter, and didn’t tickle at her ear as Dave’s would have.
The kiss didn’t last long. Dave drew back, his breath warm against her chin as he tried to find her eyes in the darkness. The covers rustled as he rolled back to his side of the bed.
Carol pressed a finger against her lips, feeling her heartbeat. Her want to somehow hurt Elaine washed away in a rush of shame and regret. She hadn’t kissed another man in years. Tears slipped from her eyes as she blinked, trickling past her ear and onto the pillow. Was she unfaithful for wanting to? Lustful for taking pleasure in those soft lips?
As if sensing her pain, Dave said, “Carol, it’s just a body. It doesn’t matter.” His voice sleeked into sarcasm. “After all, you fell in love with me solely for my irresistible charm and wit.” She could hear Dave’s smile under Khyl’s voice.
Carol licked her lips to cool them, wiping her cheeks. That was true enough, wasn’t it? She would love him no matter what body he had. He didn’t doubt that, did he? But it was hours before she slept, and when she did, she dreamt of Dave and Elaine.
***
By Saturday, everyone was back in their correct bodies. The return didn’t provide the relief Carol had anticipated, however.
“I thought it was okay. I learned a lot,” Losi said over dinner. She had braided her dark hair in a thick plait over her shoulder and was twitching its end. Losi had never worn her hair like that before; the blonde had.
“I hated it.” Cole smudged mashed potatoes over his plate. He’d penned himself in his room for most of his two days and tried faking a cold to get out of school.
“You just got cheated. Next time, you can pick out a better body.”
“Next time?” Carol demanded.
Losi glanced at her. “Well, I mean, if we ever do it again.” Seeing Carol’s expression, she added, “It wasn’t so bad, Mom. You should try it.”
Carol opened her mouth to snap something she would probably regret, but Dave laid a hand on her forearm and squeezed gently. He moved his hand down to hers, entwining their fingers. “Don’t worry, Carol. It’s not as bad as you think. It’s important to understand where others are coming from and this is a better way than any I’ve heard of. We all learned good lessons.”
He raised his eyebrows at Losi and Cole. Losi nodded with innocent eyes. Cole shrugged and grumbled, stabbing at his broccoli.
Carol resisted the urge to demand what lesson her husband had learned. That he liked those muscles? That he would start working out now? That his wife was a prude? Instead she snapped, “The empath is an immoral, commercialized fraud. He doesn’t want to teach anyone empathy. He just wants to get rich.” Dave rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, fine-boned and long. She took a breath, calming herself. “There’s no empathy – it’s just a body. Your mind doesn’t change.” Her voice sounded so firm, so sure.
“Even if it is only bodies, I still think it’s cool. And teaches you a lot,” Losi added. “Maybe I’d choose a boy, next time.” A teasing smile quirked her mouth. “I bet I’d learn even more.”
Dave barked a laugh.
Carol pushed back from the table, sweeping into the kitchen to start the dishes.
***
Despite Carol’s best efforts and sternest looks, the conversation continued in snippets and references for the next two weeks. She asked Dave to drop it, thinking he could have some self-control if the kids didn’t. He never brought the Empathery up to her face after that, but the experience hung behind his eyes, in the silence that fell when she entered the room.
The first week, Carol was angry and annoyed. Losi and Cole she could understand. They were young – children, really. But Dave? She had spent more than half her life with him. Now she couldn’t see him without thinking of that unfamiliar body breathing beside her in the bed. Was Elaine thinking of Dave? Carol’s own, beautiful Dave?
The second week, she realized Dave’s experience with the Empathery had changed his life. He would talk about it for years, though never to her. It would haunt his dreams and become the stuff of daytime fantasies. He would look at her with eyes doubtful, curious. Would he prefer her as another? Would she prefer him as another? Those two days would lie forever twitching between them, unacknowledged, unforgotten. A slowly rotting corpse with half-recognized features.
So when Dave suggested the family spend a weekend at Cedar Lake, Carol told him to take the kids. She could use some time alone to finish the blanket she was knitting for their newest nephew.
She waited a full four hours after the Subaru pulled out of the driveway before starting the sedan and heading into town. The drive only took five minutes, but it felt like fifteen and Carol nearly turned back three times. In the parking lot, she braced herself against the seat with hands pressed to the wheel. She stared at the flowing blue letters on the brick building. The Empathery. She took a breath, then unbuckled and exited the car in one motion, as if jumping into icy water.
A string of bells chimed against the glass. Carol stood on the mat as the door swung shut behind her. The room was small and bare, its white walls pocked by frames. Most displayed reviews or newspaper articles, though the two largest, hung behind the while marble counter along the left wall, bore the golden seals of diplomas.
“Hello! What can I do for you?”
A man slid from a door behind the counter and came to fold his hands over the marble. He was bald but for a few wisps combed over the top of his head and his nose was large enough that the rest of his face seemed to shrink from it. He noticed her examination and smiled. His upper lip was thinner than the bottom, though both shone fleshy pink. Carol didn’t return the smile.
“May I presume you are here about a body change?” the empath asked.
His crisp manner made Carol chill. She stepped up to the counter, mirroring his demeanor. She was vaguely pleased to find that if she straightened, she stood a good deal taller than the empath. “Yes.”
“Wonderful. And would you be wanting a fitting or simply an exchange?”
Carol’s eyes flickered away and back to the empath. “I’m not familiar with those terms.”
“Certainly.” The man smoothed the lapels of his white lab coat. “During an exchange, you pick out a body that has been left by another. You might recognize the person. If anyone else purchases an exchange today, they would then be able to choose your body.”
Carol struggled to maintain her neutral expression.
“A fitting is more private. I have a number of donated bodies available for my clients. You can choose from a selection of over twenty, and I will keep your body here until you are finished.”
He smiled. Carol wanted to spit in one of his smug, glassy eyes.
“How much does each cost?”
“Five hundred for an exchange, one grand for a fitting.”
Her face slackened. “One grand.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a new and growing business. Once the technology is more widely available, cost will go down, of course. But right now, there are only two places in the world offering my services, and you’re in one of them. Believe me, the price will be worth it when you tell your grandchildren you were among the first to use an Empathery!”
So much money. Of course, neither the kids nor Dave would have had to pay that. They probably got a considerable discount, even a free trial. They were walking advertisements. She forced herself not to think of Losi and Cole in an exchange. What had their bodies done beyond their control, beyond Carol’s discipline?
She almost left then. A fitting was beyond her means and the thought of someone masquerading in her body made her feel ill. But she saw herself standing with Dave, a rotting corpse vaguely reminiscent of Khyl lodged between them, straining any contact, any conversation. She would not lose Dave so easily. Carol put one hand in her purse, counting by feeling her roll of cash. Her credit card would have covered it, but she refused to put the charge on a bill for Dave to see.
Carol stared at the empath and his sticky smile, hating him for what he had done to Dave, what he was making her do. She spread her cash across the marble. “I’ll take an exchange, then.”
*
Carol examined the strange woman in her closet’s full-length mirror. She was at least ten years younger than Carol, with legs smooth to the point of glossiness. Carol had rubbed those legs together during the ride home, amazed at the taut slip of skin over skin, backed by toned muscle beneath. Carol lifted onto her toes before the mirror, regretting she had never invested in heels. A pair of calves like that needed to be shown off.
She scowled suddenly, dropping back to the carpet. Vanity hadn’t plagued her since she’d turned forty. Carol glared at the woman in the mirror, but couldn’t maintain the expression. She twisted up an eyebrow, then frowned, then bared her teeth. Each movement felt so familiar, all her muscles sliding into line, but on that strange face. Was this what her expressions looked like to Dave? Was her glare really that severe? Or did it just look worse on this woman’s makeup-glamoured face? Carol raked amber hair back from the forehead, looking for any trace of familiarity on the strange visage. Nothing.
Panic spiraled through her chest, tightening around her lungs. She felt the horror of a hundred spiders creeping over her frozen body. She wanted to run from the mirror, peel her skin off like latex and find herself beneath, throw herself to the ground and thrash and roll. Instead, she laughed an unfamiliar laugh, high and manic, and stared at the strange blue eyes wild with her entrapment.
Her five hundred dollars gave her a day to enjoy the new body, as the empath had phrased it. Carol barely lasted that long. Her breath ran short the whole time, her head dizzy with panting. She didn’t leave the house. She pulled the curtains, ashamed of anyone seeing her. This was the worst sort of delusion. She could fool herself with past beauty by wearing old dresses – the one she had worn at her sister’s wedding, another for Cole’s baptism – but in this body is was all too easy to believe she was something she was not. And through it, realize what time had really made of her. No, not her. Only her body. Only the body.
She didn’t sleep. She sat in the family room, knitting with fingers suddenly clumsy, rubbing her perfect calves together. The only thing which kept her from crawling back to the Empathery was the possibility that her body wouldn’t be returned yet, and she would die of panic on the sterile white tile of the reception room.
She thought of Dave, reminding herself why she was enduring this torture. But her mind kept asking if he would prefer this body. If he came home now and found her sitting there, would he be happier to see her attempt to understand him and fix the rift between them or to see the beautiful new body? The thought drove her mad and she shivered at the feel of another woman’s tears sliding down her cheeks. She flinched at each sound, dreading the slam of the garage door. He wouldn’t be back for another day, she reminded herself - he would never find her like this. She would never have to know what emotions crossed his face as he saw her. Why couldn’t she stop seeing them, then? Desire, a sudden wry regret of realizing this was only for a day.
So Carol wept, and knit, her fingers dropping stitches, and cursed herself for her doubts and the empath for his temptations and Dave for desires she had perhaps only imagined in him.
***
Carol was parked in the Empathery’s lot an hour before it opened, but she made herself wait five full minutes after the empath flipped his sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’ She refused to go to him sniveling, begging for her own body. Only after she had collected as much of her scattered mind as she could did she snap the car door shut and march inside.
“Ah, Mrs. Olerson. You’re here to return the body?”
“Yes.” Each breath reminded her of the terrible, beautiful form she wore.
“Your body was returned last night just before closing. If you’ll follow me to the exchange room, we can get you settled back in.” The man gave her a sappy smile and moved out from behind the counter.
Carol followed him through the door to the backroom. The space was plush and dim, with red wallpaper and carpet that seemed Victorian in its luxury and romance.
“I – it - was used then?” She hated herself for asking, but panic squeezed the words from her.
“Of course, Mrs. Olerson. It’s unusual for any of my bodies to go unrented.”
But it had been returned last night. She could have come back for it. Why returned so early? Had the renter lost their nerve? Or was her body not satisfactory? She pressed her lips together and said nothing as the empath turned on a heel to face her and made a floppy gesture intended to be dramatic. Her body sat on a velvet chair in one of many glass tubes lining the wall. The eyes were closed, hands folded on the lap. The chest rose and fell in mechanical rhythm. The cheeks seemed to glow a youthful pink Carol hadn’t seen on herself in years. In the room’s dim light, the body looked alive and peaceful, not needing Carol and her worry and scowls to drag it down.
The empath took her arm and guided her to the chair in the center of the room. She shivered under the lidded glares of all the slowly breathing bodies in their glass tubes.
“I’ll have you sit here. Just so, very good.”
He lowered the chair’s visor, making her only one more breathing, sightless figure. She felt him attaching the little suctions and wires all over the body – palms, wrists, the balls of the feet, the perfect calves, as well as places under her clothes. This body blushed more easily than her own, and Carol felt the flush spreading down her neck. She was glad of the visor hiding her face.
“Very good. I’m going to hook you up to your body and you’ll be back home in a flash. Just relax, now.”
Carol breathed deep. She pictured Dave’s grin, imaged sharing her experience with him, his arms around her as he realized the sacrifice she’d made. The space between them closed, knit together with love and understanding. Gone was the half-seen figure, decaying, unacknowledged.
“Ready?” came the empath’s voice. “Three, two, one.”
***
Carol waited at the dining table. Dave and the kids would be home any minute now. She rubbed her calves together. They felt deflated, limp muscles sliding in wrinkled sleeves of skin. She forced herself to stop.
The garage door slammed open and the bustle of voices and feet tumbled down the hall.
“I did not!” Cole said. “It was a perfect dive. It would’ve won a competition.”
“In your dreams,” Losi said. “I bet your stomach’s still red from all the belly-flops you did.”
Dave’s laugh rolled through the air to her. Carol pressed her palms against the table, sitting straight. Her husband came into the family room, smiling wide as he saw her waiting. “Home, honey!”
Carol stood and went to him. She smiled, but the expression felt forced. Was this how she always smiled? How could she not remember?
Dave bent to kiss her. She hesitated the barest moment before pressing her lips to his. Something about the kiss felt different. She stepped back, uneasy. What had changed? She almost laughed at the question. What had changed? She had lived a day in the body of a diva. Her own form had frolicked for hours untended by her mind, her morality. Dave had become Khyl and she had slept with him. Dave’s body had slept with Kyhl’s slip of a wife.
Carol opened her mouth to tell him what she had done for him, to close the space between them, but couldn’t find the words. She felt her mouth hanging half-open, her eyes darting between Dave’s. His expression grew concerned.
“Carol, did something happen while I was gone?”
She knew what he was asking, even if he hadn’t fully realized it yet. Why had she stayed home? Why had her smile for him changed? What had she been doing while he was away?
“No, nothing,” she said. It was the perfect truth to his deeper question. She had done nothing to hurt him. But her strained answer only deepened his confusion. She could see it, like a bruise around his eyes.
“Dave, nothing. I only rented a body from the Empathery.”
The bruise cleared. “You did? Carol, that’s wonderful! I wish I would have been here. Maybe we could have enjoyed ourselves.” He bounced his eyebrows, goading her for a response.
She knew what to do, and a week or even a day ago it would have come naturally. Now she had to prompt herself to laugh and shove him away. She pushed harder than necessary, and the terrible space opened between them, waiting to be filled, grasping for a form.
He didn’t mean what he said. He was joking, that was what Dave did. She had fallen in love with him for that. But what had he fallen in love with her for? Carol rubbed her calves together, wondering, doubting. The space hung before her and she could see the figure laying there, blocking her way to Dave, blocking her truly seeing him. The figure’s face was indistinct. It was Khyl, then a blonde with a wine-spill birthmark, then a round-cheeked redhead, then herself – no – only the body she had worn, only the body. But how could she know who was beneath? How could she see through the flesh, the rotting, shifting flesh? Could you separate them, the body and the mind? Could you know what made up the one you loved?
She was still floundering for words when he leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Hey, I want to hear all about it when I finish unpacking the car, right?”
Carol watched him turn down the hall. Perhaps they would talk, and perhaps the space between them would fade. But she would never un-see that indistinct form, flickering, morphing, never stop wondering if Dave could see it too.
Hannah is a student at the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota majoring in English Creative Writing and minoring in Theology and Book Arts. She enjoys all things artistic, including reading, writing, sculpting, and playing the clarinet. You can find her work in the literary arts magazine ANGLES and Bridge: The Bluffton Literary Journal.