Synopsis: When Martin enters Gypsy Rosa Lyn’s caravan, parked in a South London pedestrian precinct, he little realises that she is anything other than a sham. After all, there’s no such thing as magic, is there? But when he gives up smoking, loses weight and starts exercising, is it really his will-power alone? One can only say, beware gypsies bearing potions.

Author’s Note: There’s no explicit sex in this story, although there are several references to sex and there are a few words commonly used in English society which some readers may find offensive. I have given this story a Magical Transformation flag even though, as I explain in the story, I don’t believe that is what it is.

Gypsy Magic
by Lin Dale

“Come in and sit down,” Gypsy Rosa Lyn said, gesticulating towards the seat opposite her in her small caravan, her long red fingernails flashing like talons.

“Thank you,” I said, opening the lower half of the split door into her gypsy caravan and stepping inside. At least, it looked like a gypsy caravan with a bow roof, and shafts for a horse to pull it pushed up on either side of the wooden entrance steps. Just like her phoney-sounding name, I suspected it was a sham, constructed by one of those specialist caravan companies.

“Pull the doors to, after you,” she added.

As I did so, the inside descended into darkness, lit only by flickering oil lamps – although I guessed they were actually LED imitations.

“I’m Martin Walker,” I said as I sat down opposite her at the small coffee table. “Your niece, Sharon Talbot suggested I come to you. I need to give up smoking.”

“Sharon sent you?” she said, sitting back in her seat and staring at me more carefully.

Now my eyes were getting used to the darkness, I could see she was an attractive woman, probably in her forties, with large breasts pushing forward towards me, her blouse tied at the front in best gypsy style revealing her bare tummy which, whilst it wasn’t flat, was certainly not saggy either. There was no bra beneath her blouse and I could see the protruding outline of her nipples.

She had a striking, square-shaped face with a long nose. Black hair was cut in a fringe at the front but had been tied at the back, exposing her earrings, long dangly ones with what looked like huge pearls on the end which joggled around with every movement of her head.

“Sharon said you’d probably give me a special rate,” I said.

She looked me carefully in the face as she said, “She said that, did she? A special rate.” She emphasised the special.

I shrugged. “That’s what she said but it’s no problem if you don’t want to. I realise that you have a living to earn.”

“And you want to give up smoking?”

I nodded. “I’ve tried many times over the last few years but after a few weeks, I always restart.”

“Cup of tea?” I nodded my assent, wondering why she hadn’t offered a coffee. Not that it mattered, as I always drank tea. As she stood up and moved to a little kitchen shelf at the side, she asked, “How old are you?”

The question surprised me. In honesty, I wasn’t expecting that my visit today would result in my giving up; no, it was merely to keep Sharon, my girlfriend off my back. I thought all this talk about her gypsy aunt was all mumbo-jumbo, that she’d give me some potion which I’d tell Sharon that I’d taken, even if I did pour it down the sink. Don’t get me wrong, I seriously wanted to give up but I had no hopes that her sham of an aunt would help.

“I’m twenty-four,” I replied.

“You’re quite overweight as well,” she observed, placing two mugs of tea on the table and then sitting down opposite me, an activity which gave a delightful view of her cleavage. “We’d have to do something about that.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about my weight,” I snapped. She was clearly pushing her breasts in front of me to distract me, whilst talking up the price of her potion.

“And you obviously don’t exercise at all.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. “Sharon said you could help me give up smoking and that’s all I’m interested in.”

“Sit down,” she said.

In spite of my intentions, I sat down.

“If you’re going to get the special rate, we need to look at you holistically. Don’t worry about the cost. If my treatment doesn’t work, you get a full refund. Tell me, how much would you save by giving up smoking? How many do you smoke a day?”

“About ten a day,” I admitted.

“Which means it’s probably closer to twenty,” she said. Damn her, she was bang on. “Let’s say ten pounds a pack, so that’s about three thousand pounds a year. Even if I charged you half of that, you’d still be in monetary profit at the end of the year, never mind the improvement to your health.

She was right, of course, except that I knew there was no way her magic potions would do anything for me.

“So you don’t believe in magic,” she said; a statement rather than a question, as if she’d read my mind.

“No,” I said.

“And you’re not religious, so I can’t talk about your belief in a supernatural God.”

OK, so she’d made a good guess about my religious beliefs, but then atheism was the norm, nowadays with almost everyone I knew. But in spite of my cynicism, I was beginning to like her. I certainly liked the way her boobs joggled with her every movement, along with the joggling earrings, which I found highly erotic.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I left university with a first class combined sciences degree,” I said, “But I couldn’t find any suitable job. Whilst waiting for the perfect job, I worked at a supermarket and then got promoted to manager. I manage the local store, and Sharon works for me on one of the checkouts.”

“Well, if you don’t believe in magic, what about hypnotism?”

The change of track took me by surprise and I had to think for a minute. “I always suspect that the subject is consenting in everything they’re told to do; that the hypnotist is really just a smooth talker. There certainly seems a consensus to say hypnotism can’t force you to do something you don’t want to do. Which is my problem. I want to continue smoking, even though I know it damages my health.”

“As does being overweight and not taking any exercise.”

I gave a complicit shrug, saying, “Are you saying that your potions really don’t work. They’re just coloured water?”

“No, I didn’t say that.” She emphasised the ‘say’. “But I do guarantee results. People come back to me, time and time again, because they know that Gypsy Rosa Lyn produces results.

“I get women who want a love potion for their husband,” she continued. “They say their husbands are no longer interested in them. Very often, it’s because the husband is playing away from home. Prevent that and the husband is soon back on board with his wife.”

“So how do you stop him playing away,” I asked.

“Magic,” she said with a smile. “I’ll charge you a special rate of one-hundred and fifty pounds. You can pay for it on your credit card and I’ll give you a written guarantee with it. If I don’t stop you smoking, reduce your weight and get you fitter, then you come back and see me and I’ll refund your money. And if you’ve paid on your credit card, they’ll refund it if I try to shirk out. How does that sound?”

She’d convinced me – not that it was all going to work, but that I’d get my money back when it didn’t. It certainly helped that I had Sharon who could bend her aunt’s ear if she tried to rat on the deal. I paid her the money with my credit card, she gave me a phial of brown liquid, telling me to take it at midnight on the first full moon – which was in two days’ time.

Two days later, I even went through a ritual with Sharon on the stroke of midnight, mainly so she could see I wasn’t cheating when it all went pear-shaped.

The next day, I’d forgotten all about the whole thing until I subconsciously poured out Sharon’s bran flakes into a bowl and started to eat them for breakfast. Only then did I realise I hadn’t yet had a smoke; nor did I feel I needed one. Definitely weird.

***

“Hi Rosa,” I said.

She smiled at me, assessing me. “Hello, Martin. You’re looking much healthier. Come inside and tell me all about it.”

As I had done two months previously, I pulled open the lower half of the split door, stepped inside and closed the doors behind me.”

She was looking even more attractive than she had before, with her jet-black hair cascading over her shoulders and down the front of her blouse, emphasising the curve of her breasts. Her large pearl earrings still erotically joggled about, pushing through her hair. But it was the smile on her face which said she knew exactly why I was really there, rather than the trumped-up excuse I was about to give.

“I came to tell you how well I’ve done over the last two months.”

“I can see,” she said. “Was it difficult?”

“Not when I put my mind to it. Sharon worked out a low carb diet for us both and we’re eating healthier and losing weight together. I joined a gym and work out three times a week and I haven’t touched a cigarette since I started. The thing is…”

“You never took my potion,” she said with a grin.

That took the wind out of my sails. “How did you know?”

She grinned some more. “You poured my potion away and filled the phial with cold tea, which is ironic since that’s what was in there to start with.”

“Then you admit it,” I exclaimed. “You’re admitting your potion is cold tea, so you are a sham.” Then why was she grinning so much?

“I’m certainly no such thing,” she said. “I admit that since most of my clients expect a potion, I give them a placebo - in your case, cold tea. But you cannot deny that my cure has worked.”

“What cure?” I asked, feeling deflated.

“Call it magic,” she said, adding, “Oh, I forgot. You don’t believe in magic, do you?”

I slowly shook my head, less certain than I had been before.

“Well, why don’t we say that magic is simply science undiscovered by the mainstream. Does that sound better?”

Actually, it did. Put like that, it sounded perfectly reasonable. After all, many inventions would seem like magic to those who weren’t in the know. “Then what is the science you claim is undiscovered by the main stream?”

“That’s for me to know and you to ponder. I’ll give you one clue: quantum consciousness.

“Don’t worry,” she added as she watched my puzzled face. “It will probably become clearer as we get to know each other. After all, that’s the real reason why you came in today, isn’t it? To get to know me.” She emphasised the ‘know’.

She’d taken me totally off-guard, for that was exactly the reason why I was there. OK, she was some twenty years older than me, but over the last two months I’d been increasingly fantasising about her. It had got to the stage where, when I was having sex with Sharon, I had to imagine it was really her aunt in bed with me in order to get a hard-on. I mean, how crazy is that? Sharon is a gorgeous young woman, two years younger than me, with a body to die for. She’s fantastic in bed and, prior to meeting Rosa, I’d been wondering whether we might become a more permanent couple. Now. I can’t get an erection unless I think of her aunt.

“I do enjoy talking to you,” I cautiously admitted.

“But you want to do more than talk with me, don’t you?” The look on her face told me that she was interested.

“Yes,” I said. “I would like to get to know you – in all senses of the word.”

“OK. But I’d better warn you, I would want a little fun with it. I’m not into Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma’am.”

“What kind of fun were you thinking of?” A little fun sounded all right but I certainly wasn’t into S&M and stuff like that.

“I’m not into S&M,” she said, shaking her head as though replying to my unspoken question. Once more, it was as though she could read my mind. “But I do like surprising my partners with a little adventurous fun. If that repels you, then we’d better say our farewells.”

I didn’t have to even think. “That sounds good to me.”

“Isn’t it strange,” she said, “how cocks seem to have a mind of their own.”

As she finished speaking, my prick, which had been quite shrivelled until then, sprang into life with a vengeance. It got seriously hard, but was badly screwed up amongst my underpants and was extremely painful. I had no choice. I hurriedly undid my belt and my trouser fastening and then pulled them and my underpants down to my knees. My cock, released from its imprisonment, lurched upwards, looking like I had never seen it before. Bigger than normal, harder than normal and visibly throbbing; it looked totally obscene.

“Now that,” Rosa said, reaching towards it, “is what I call a decent boner.”

***

I woke up some time later. It was still light but dusk was obviously approaching. There was no sign of Rosa in that limited space. The bed had hinged down from the wall, and the open door of the tiny toilet revealed it was empty so she must have gone out. I shrugged. Soon or later, I’d have to use that toilet but for the moment I was content to wallow in my post-coital bliss.

I heard a text message come through on a phone, and when I turned my head to look, saw Rosa’s pink phone with part of the message on the screen: You’ll need the password. It’s my name. But the message had been sent from a number I recognised – mine! Damn! A glance around confirmed that my phone was missing. Borrowing my phone was a bit below the belt.

Another message from my phone number came through: Let’s meet at your house. You’ll need to get the car and tow the caravan home.

I wasn’t happy about that. Firstly, I had a flat not a house; secondly, it was a bit of an imposition to expect me to take over all her chores after one session of carnal lust; admittedly, a truly excellent session of carnal lust, but that was it. Still, I guessed that if I wanted a repeat session, I was going to have to get out of bed and do as she asked.

That’s when the world turned upside down. As I started to sit up, the undulations in the quilt over my chest moved upwards with me, and then popped out revealing large breasts; the very breasts I had been sucking earlier that evening.

I went to grab the edge of the quilt to reveal all, only my hand was much smaller than normal, with red talons in place of my stubby fingernails.

***

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

I had leapt out of bed and it had taken only a couple of seconds to realise that Rosa and I had switched bodies – a totally impossible event. Even though I didn’t believe in it, I was forced to conclude that magic did exist. Or what had Rosa said about quantum something or other? Right at that moment, I didn’t care. The only thing I was interested in was getting my own body back and consequently I had to find where I – or it – was.

What had that text message said? I picked up her – now my – phone and immediately hit the request for a passcode. It’s my name, the first message had said. I assumed it would be six letters so I typed in Rosaly. It unlocked. I found the text she had sent and reread it. Let’s meet at your house. You’ll need to get the car and tow the caravan home. ‘My house’ suddenly made a lot more sense than it had a few minutes ago.

Was this the ‘little adventurous fun’ that she had talked about? I had to hope so. I had to believe that Rosa wasn’t something from a bad Hammer movie and, rather than simply borrowing my body, she was stealing it.

First, I had to get dressed. There were no complicated garments with Rosa’s clothes – simply a blouse tied at the front, and her voluminous skirt. Earlier, it had taken her about ten seconds to go from fully dressed to naked except for her long lace-up boots, which she had kept on throughout our copulation and which I was still wearing. It didn’t take much longer to get dressed. I found a long coat in the tiny wardrobe along with a cloth handbag with the usual miscellany found in a woman’s handbag, including keys and a purse with cash and cards.

I pulled the strap over my shoulder, opened the stable doors of the van, locked the door behind me and descended the steps to the ground. Then, without thinking, I folded the steps upwards and secured them, revealing a towing bracket, with ball, beneath.

I’d started walking at a brisk pace before I even started to wonder where I was going. Where was my car parked? Clearly, some part of the old Rosa’s brain was still with me and working for I found it unerringly led me to the third floor of a multi-story car park to where a smart SUV stood which my keys unlocked. Without thinking, I went across to the pay machine, fed in the ticket from my purse and used my credit card to pay. My pin, incidentally, was 4986, which that hidden part of my brain revealed without difficulty.

I drove out of the car park and navigated without even thinking about it back to the pedestrian plaza where Rosa rented the parking space for the caravan for the day. With one of my keys, I unlocked the folding bollard restricting access to the plaza and reversed up to the van with skill. I’ve never towed a caravan before, but I had no difficulty in hitching it up to the SUV. Then I drove off.

I’d imagined I’d have to use the Drive Home feature on the satnav to find my house but I knew the way – or at least, my brain did. We don’t normally have to think about how to get home, we just do it. Now, I was doing exactly that without having a clue where I was driving, and it felt really strange.

I discovered that I lived in one of those south London factory conversions, the advantage being that the ground floor which had been turned into a garage, was tall enough for my gypsy caravan. I reversed it into its parking bay without problem – and anyone who’s tried to reverse a caravan for the first time knows it’s very much an acquired skill.

The apartment itself was quite spectacular, roomy, with a flashy kitchen and a splendid view of the Thames meandering towards the sea. I’d been expecting that Rosa – that is, my old body – would already be there but she – that is, my old body – was not. At this point, I realised I was going to have to begin to recognise that I was no longer Martin; at the same time, I couldn’t really start calling myself Rosa. So I settled on Lyn for myself and Marty for the name of my body temporarily occupied by Rosa’s mind.

I tried calling Marty on the mobile.

“Hi, Aunt,” Sharon said. “Did you call for a chat?”

It felt really weird, my girlfriend answering a call on my phone and calling me Aunt. “Is Marty there?” I asked. “I need to speak with him about his treatment.”

“He’s sleeping at the moment, Aunt. Not to put too fine a point on it, he came back a while ago feeling more randy than I have ever known him. He gave me a tremendous seeing to, the best he’s ever done. I expect he’ll wake up soon. He told me he has to go out tonight to see one of his mates. Again, that’s totally unlike him. Still, after what he’s given me this afternoon, I can hardly moan. Well, actually, I did quite a lot of that this afternoon.”

“I really don’t want to know,” I told her. “Get him to call me when he wakes up.” I put the phone down, not really knowing how to end a call with my niece.

So, I made an omelette whilst I was waiting for him to call. Then I ate my omelette and had a glass of rather nice wine that I found in the fridge, and waited some more. And some more and some more and some more. I tried calling his number several times, but each time, the bastard cut me off.

***

“Where the hell have you been?” It was two o’clock the following afternoon. I was going crazy, wondering if I was ever going to see my body ever again. But how can one go to the police and say that someone has stolen your body. They’d be taking me to the funny farm.

Marty innocently blinked. “I’m here, aren’t I? I deliberately didn’t say when I’d arrive as I wanted to have a little fun with my new body.”

“I thought you had a little fun with my girlfriend,” I shouted at him. Strange, I never shout when I get angry but now, I was bellowing at the top of my voice.

“No,” Marty said. “I had a little fun with my girlfriend, and that was only the first. I went to a club, last night, and met a gaggle of three girls. Told them I knew exactly how to satisfy a woman, and I did for all three of them.”

“Three women!” I was speechless. I’d only had three women in my life, and he’d had three together in one evening.

“Well, that was last night. I met a couple of women on their way to church this morning, and gave them exactly what they needed.”

“Marty,” I said. “This is…

“It’s fantastic being a man,” Marty interrupted. “Anyway, I’ve had my little bit of fun and I’ve come back now, as I promised, ready for us to transform back to our own bodies.”

Few, I thought. At least he’s going to do that. For a minute, I reckoned he’d find some excuse to delay it.

“Unless,” he said.

“Unless what?” I suspiciously asked.

“Well, it occurs to me that you probably haven’t really experienced being a woman.”

“Of course, I’ve experienced it,” I gasped. “I’ve been one for almost twenty-four hours.”

“I was using the carnal meaning of the word,” he said. “I mean that you haven’t had sex with anyone as a female.”

“You mean with a man?” I asked. “Of course, I haven’t.”

“Well, I really can’t let you return to manhood without experiencing sex as a woman,” Marty said.

“You mean with you?” I went to start listing objections, but suddenly I couldn’t think of any. After all, it was really me I’d be having sex with, and we’d done exactly the same the previous afternoon.

He reached forward and put his hand on my breast, and suddenly my heart was beating like it would explode.

***

“It may be a cliche,” Marty said some time later, “but how was it for you?”

I smiled at him, trying to disguise my true feelings. “Sex is always good,” I said.

“So, was that good sex?” he asked, “or was that mind-blowingly the best sex you’ve ever had in your entire life?

“And before you answer,” he continued, “let me remind you of the way you kept screaming ‘This is one never-ending, fucking incredible orgasm’.”

I tried to give him a thin smile but my body let me down because I realised, I was giving him a huge smirk as I said, “It was the best sex I’ve ever had. I just didn’t realise that women enjoyed it so much more than men.”

“They usually don’t,” Marty said, “because it depends on how good the male is. And I’m not trying to be unkind, but when you and I had sex yesterday, it was not overwhelming. In fact, that’s when I decided that I could do a lot better than you in bringing joy to the female. It may have been against my rules, but I really couldn’t resist borrowing your body for a while, and I think I did a pretty good job.”

I should have been offended by his comments but I’d already come to the same conclusion. Whilst Martin could stick his cock into a woman and occasionally satisfy her, Marty knew how to bring a woman to orgasm and keep her there for what seemed like eternity. And it was mind-blowingly beautiful.

“Have you worked out how I transformed our two minds into each other’s bodies?” he asked.

I paused a little before replying. “Not completely,” I told him. “I looked up quantum consciousness in Wikipedia and I’d agree that it’s something that mainstream science shuns. Then I started to think about quantum entanglement, which I obviously covered in my degree, and even after spending several hours thinking about it, I can’t say that I’m much the wiser.

“But what I know,” I continued, “is that when two quantum bits are entangled, they precisely mirror each other, even if they’re some considerable distance apart. But it’s then a huge jump to consider that two minds could be quantum entangled so they behave as one. How could it be done, practically? And even if it could be done, what has happened to us is not just about behaving as one, but completely swapping over.”

“That’s very good,” Marty said. “You’re having exactly the same thoughts that Rosa Lyn did when she was in her first year of university." (I’d already explained my system of using Marty and Lyn when we were in each other’s bodies and Marty had nodded his approval.)

“But Rosa Lyn had the resources of the university at her disposal,” Marty continued, “and it took her years to fully understand and resolve the problems. You see, she quickly worked out that the main problem of quantum…”

“Without giving me the full lecture,” I said, “can you summarise how it works and how we’re going to revert.”

Marty grinned. “Fair enough. It took Rosa Lyn years to design and then grow the crystals to facilitate the entanglement. Those are not large cultured pearls hanging from your earrings but a crystal that she named after herself: Rosalynium.”

“Rosalynium?”

He nodded. “Rosa Lyn calculated the exact size they needed to be and then grew them to within a tolerance of one micron. In other words, it’s those earrings which gave Rosa Lyn her so-called magic powers, and they work for the body you’re in now, not the body I’m in. That means that you should be able to read my mind just as Rosa Lyn was able to read Martin’s and anyone else she chose. Consequently, it’s you who will have to return us to our own bodies.”

“Me? But how do I do that?”

“Marty smiled. “I can instruct you on the process, but in the meantime, do you fancy another round of sex?”

“It was a stupid question.

***

It was turned five pm before we got around to Marty explaining exactly how I was to transform our minds back into our own bodies.

“The first thing,” he told me, “is for you to communicate with the Rosalynium crystals.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“You probably noticed when you visited me how the crystals seemed to bob about all the time. That was not due, as you probably assumed, to the physical movements of my head. It was actually due to the crystals being influenced by massive quantum entanglement between the billions of microtubules in my brain and molecules in the crystals. So, I want you to close your eyes and relax, and simply think about those two large crystals, hanging from your ears.”

I did, and nothing seemed to happen. Martin gave some further advice – and some further advice, and so on and so on. Still, I seemed to have no communication with my earrings.

“I can’t understand this,” Marty said, after we’d been trying for an hour to do the same thing. “As soon as I had the crystals grown to the precise size dictated by the size and shape of my head, I found I could communicate within seconds of trying them on. Let’s continue some more.”

We did, still with no effect.

“Unless…” he suddenly said, and then stopped.

“Unless what?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Clearly, it’s not nothing,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Well, it’s just that… Well, a few years ago, I became pregnant. I miscarried a few months later, but… Well, during that time when I was pregnant and for a few months afterwards, I couldn’t communicate with the Rosalynium crystals, just like now. The pregnancy obviously produced a massive change in my hormones, which affected the entanglement process.”

“But if Rosa Lyn was pregnant,” I said, “she wouldn’t have been able to interchange with Martin yesterday after they had sex in the caravan.”

“Yes,” he said. “Except that, immediately after they had sex, yesterday, and Martin ejaculated inside Rosa Lyn, she put Martin into a deep sleep and transformed into his body. So it’s possible – not very likely, I know – but possible that the transformation happened immediately before Rosa Lyn’s body realised fertilisation had occurred.”

“But Martin used a condom,” I said, “as you did just now.”

Marty took a deep breath and then said, “When I pulled out of you in the caravan, I realized the condom had burst. I think they must have been pretty cheap condoms, or perhaps very old. Anyway, before I had sex with anyone else, I bought a pack of a dozen new condoms. Only…”

“Only what?” I gasped, thinking I knew what he was going to say.

“Only by the time I got back here, I’d used the whole dozen up and I only had yours left, so I popped one of those on and…”

“And?”

“And it had burst when I pulled out. The same happened that last time we had sex, too.”

“So you’ve made me pregnant!” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Well, to be strictly accurate, you’ve made me pregnant, but you’re going to have to take care of my body for the next nine months… Or so.”

I felt like crying. Hang on, I never cried.

“Marty, tell me this is not true,” I sobbed. And what did you mean, nine months – or so?”

He shrugged. “Well after the miscarriage, it took about three months for me to get back to normal. After a childbirth…” another shrug… “who knows. There’s breastfeeding, for example.”

I opened my mouth to say I wanted an abortion but I couldn’t say those horrible words. In a sense, I was both mother and father of this foetus, which was in my tummy and even as we spoke, turning into a human being.

“Shit!” was all I could muster in the end.

***

“We obviously need to talk about arrangements for the future,” Marty said, “but we urgently need to consider how we manage our affairs from tomorrow morning.”

“You need to go to manage my supermarket,” I said.

“Yes,” Marty said, “and I think that I’ll be able to blag my way through the next few days until I get a better feel for it. I’m afraid I need to explain that there was rather more to my Gypsy Rosa Lyn role than simply selling magic potions. I suppose you could more correctly call it commercial espionage.”

“What?” I said.

“The pedestrian area where I parked my caravan,” Marty said, “was directly opposite a large firm of accountants who audited the books of many large businesses.”

“Ye-es,” I said, wondering where this was going.

“With Rosa Lyn’s particular skills, it was easy for her to leap into the minds of any one of the staff entering the building. It gave excellent access to the accounts which companies were just about to declare.”

“Shit!” I said.

“I never sold that information,” Marty said. “But I did use it to purchase or sell shares at opportune moments. Never anything too large to draw attention. I’ve built up quite a substantial portfolio. I’m certain it will provide adequate income for you over the next nine months and for our child beyond that.”

Our child beyond that. The significance of that statement hit me and dominated my thoughts. Suddenly, the most important thing in my life was not that someone had, at best, borrowed my body and left me with a twenty-year older substitute. No, it was that I was now both father and mother of a tiny foetus growing inside my new body. My prime role now - no, my only role now was to care for my future child. A great happiness filled my soul and I smiled from ear to ear.

Who knew what the future would bring, but for me, the only task was to protect and nurture my child? This was my meaning of life.