Part Swap - The Party - Mia

“Ah, Mia, if you wouldn’t mind volunteering?”

I started from my stupor. All the party goers turned to look at me expectantly. I could see Jessica Thomas smirking at me from the corner. She knew I hadn’t been listening, the bitch.

I smiled sweetly and strutted into the space Sam Smegly had cleared. He was a run-of-the-mill creeper - short and kind of chubby, bad fingernails, greasy hair. He grinned at me from behind about a hundred pimples as I deliberately stopped a few metres away from him.

“Now,” he said, gushing “I’m going to turn the device on-”

He flicked a switch and a blazing blue light appeared from the table in front of him. I glanced down and saw what looked like a kind of saw, but instead of a blade there was a flickering blue hologram thing. Smegly let out an excited noise and picked it up.

“Yes, excellent. And um, now I’m going to…” he hesitated for a moment, then turned to me. “Mia, hold your hands out in front of you.”

I scowled at him but with everybody staring at us I didn’t feel like I had much choice. I held my perfectly maintained hands out in front of me.

“Yes, good, good, um, this is going to feel a bit strange.” Smegly chuckled slightly and positioned the blue band saw thing above my arms.

“What-” I started to say when he slammed the fucking thing down through my wrists.

I shrieked and jumped back. Somebody in the crowd screamed! What the fuck, Smegly, I could have really gotten hurt! I reached up to tuck my hair back into place and froze. I couldn’t seem to grab my hair... I… something was very wrong.

I looked down at my hands and shrieked again. They were gone! My wrists just ended in fucking stumps, with nothing but a dim blue glow on the end of my wrists where my hands should have been! Jesus Christ!

“It’s okay! It’s okay! Don’t worry!” Smegly was shouting. I ignored him, my breath coming in short and fast. This maniac had cut my hands off.

“Don’t panic! It’s okay! You can still feel them, right? You can still feel your hands?”

What? That didn’t-- actually… I could still feel my hands. The sheer surprise of it pulled me up short. What the hell? I flexed one and felt it rub against something. A moment later I jumped about a foot in the air when I felt something grab it!

“The device uses Jacksonion nanobots to cut through biomatter and form a remote connection between the body and the… that is to say, you’re fine! Your hands are right here!” Smegly stood up from where he’d been fiddling on the floor and waved something at me. My hands! Those were my hands he was holding! And I could feel it too - his sweaty fingers wrapped around mine. Eww.

I reached out to snatch them back but missed. Fuck. Not having hands on the end of your wrists suuuucks.

“Put them back on you creep!” I shouted at him.

“I will, I will!” he said, “Just a moment, there’s more to show first.”

The crowd was still watching, stunned. Several people had moved to help, but they now stood frozen, not really sure what to make of what was happening.

“I’ll do it too, see.” Smegly called to me, and to the crowd. He put my hands down on the table - which was kind of cold-- then slammed his wrists through the device as well. I watched with my mouth open as his hands dropped to the floor and wriggled around. He held his stumps up in the air. He was getting really excited now.

“Now this is the really cool bit! Watch, watch!”

Grinning stupidly, Smegly placed his bare wrists on the table and lined them up with the bottoms of my hands. Then, in one smooth motion, he touched his arm stumps to my detached hands and I felt them just… disappear.

I mean, they were still there on the table, I could still see them. But all the sensation from my hands just cut off. It was like, beyond numb. I tried to flex my fingers, but nothing happened. I couldn’t feel them, I couldn’t move them, it’s like they were just gone. Really cut off.

Smegly straightened up and raised his arms in the air again. 

“And VOILA!”

I gasped. At the end of his arms were my hands. My small, delicate, perfectly manicured dainty little hands were on the end of fat-fucking-Smegly’s wrists! What the ever-loving fuck!

I watched in horror as he wiggled my fingers, showing them off to the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to leave this device here for the rest of this evening’s, ah, fun. You’re welcome to experiment with it!”

The tension broke, and the crowd erupted into chatter. I could see Jessica laughing at me meanly from across the room as I stood there alone with my useless stumps. Smegly was trying to say more to the crowd, but nobody was listening anymore.

“Just remember to be careful! There’s no way to get it back if you misplace a finger or something!”

He was swamped by a gaggle of equally oily geeks who fawned over him like he was royalty. He showed off my hands to them, twisting them this way and that and wiggling my fingers. The idiot was going to ruin my nail polish -- not to mention how creepy it was, to see his friends touching and prodding and admiring my hands without me!

“EXCUSE ME!” I yelled at them. “Smegly, I don’t think you’ve finished here yet!”

Smegly waved his friends off and walked over to me, grinning. “Oh yeah, yep, yeah. Um. Firstly you should seriously be more impressed, Mia! This is a seriously amazing technology we’re experimenting with here.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the technology, Smegly. I want my damn hands back.”

I raised my useless stumps in front of him. Smegly grabbed my arm -- with my own bloody fingers -- and felt around the blue haze lightly glowing on my wrist.

“Wow, look at that. It’s like the nanobots have constructed a perfect seal around the…”

He caught sight of my glare and hesitated.

“Look Mia, let’s just stay like this for a little bit. It’s an experiment, isn’t it? We should, um, you know. Try it out? I appreciate it a lot!”

He turned to go. The audacity of this guy! I looked around for backup, but nobody was watching. Not that they’d help me if anybody did see.

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“Well, um, my hands are still sitting on the table?”

He scratched himself with my beautiful long nails and disappeared into the crowd before I could yell at him again. I thumped him on the back, but I jolt of pain went through my arm stump -- it clearly wasn’t built for hitting. 

Smegly ignored me. Oh, so you want me to wear you hands, then, do you? I’ll show him not to mess with me. I wonder how he’d feel about getting his hands back shaved? Or his nails painted? Or fuck it, a tattoo? Those hands wouldn’t be the same when he got them back, oh no. 

I grinned wickedly and stormed over to the table where Smegly’s hands and the saw sat, pushing my way through the group that had congregated around it. Some girl had already picked up the saw and was lining it up with her friend's neck carefully.

Smegly’s big gross hands were sitting by themselves on the table -- clearly nobody was too interested in them. I braced myself, pushing down my disgust. 

“And after I’m done destroying these ugly mitts, I’m going to use them to punch him right in the face.” 

The image of Smegly getting attacked by his own fists brought a smirk to my face, helping me steel myself as I lined up my wrists and pushed. Sensation returned instantly. My hands felt big and clumsy -- almost like I was wearing gloves -- but I could feel and move them okay. 

“You’re gonna regret this, Smegly.”

______

Nearby, a girl shrieked as she lifted her own head up off her shoulders, struggling to keep her body upright as she controlled it with her head in her hands. She blushed as she thought about the possibilities of being headless. “Oh my god.” she thought “I’ve got to find a room alone.”