This is about the first 2000 words of a Sci-Fi Erotica story I’ve begun, titled “Shards”…  What do you think of the setup?  Should I continue?

September 10th, 2015. It was our 8th wedding anniversary. Nancy and I were spending it the way we had every year since getting married, doing the 13 mile loop hike around Mt. Diablo in the morning, before our anniversary dinner in downtown Walnut Creek. This was the same hike where we had first met, as part of a larger group in college.

It was likely going to be our last anniversary hike. We had decided, now that we were 30, that it was time to start our family, after several years focusing on our programming careers. Hopefully, Nancy would be several months pregnant by the next anniversary. We’d already been trying for two months.

We ate our lunch at the summit and were stopped at the top of Eagle Peak when we spotted a bright light to the east.

“What is that?” Nancy asked.

“Looks like a meteor, but it’s got to be huge to be seen in daylight,” I answered. The light got brighter and larger, clearly a fireball. I kept expecting it to explode as a bolide. Instead, the light dimmed as the meteor slowed and friction against the atmosphere reduced, until a dimly glowing rock could be seen getting closer and closer but veering to our left.

It looked like it was going to crash a couple miles to the northwest – thankfully still part of the park with no major structures to damage – when it suddenly changed course, heading straight for us. “What the fuck? Meteors don’t steer,” were the last words I managed to say before the object crashed into the earth fifty yards in front of us and seemed to explode on impact. Hundreds of shards flew towards us, giving me only enough time to grab Nancy and put my body between her and the meteor. A torrent of pain as I was impaled and I lost consciousness.

~~~~~

My next conscious thought was the steady beeping of a heart-rate monitor. I guessed I was in a hospital, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

‘At least I survived,’ I thought.

“Dan?” asked a weird voice, both in my head and ears. Eyes opened, not from my intention, and I saw around the hospital room. “Dan, where are you?”

‘I… I think I’m inside you, sweetheart,’ I answered. ‘I know it makes no sense, but I’m seeing what you see, hearing what you hear.’

“How is that possible?” she asked.

I answered, ‘I don’t know. How is it possible we even survived that meteor crash? If that was even what it was? Meteors don’t change direction like that and, if they explode, it’s usually high in the atmosphere. Those fragments flew at us so fast, they should have torn right through us. Did they look crystalline to you?’

Nancy switched to thinking silently. ‘I barely got a glimpse, but they looked like icicles, except they were pinkish.’

I thought, ‘Pink icicles from a meteor that changed course to land right in front of us, spraying us with debris and causing my consciousness to transfer into your body? I’m not even feeling any pain, are you? Are you alright, physically?’

I felt Nancy begin moving her hands along her body, before she gasped. ‘Ohmigod, Dan, this isn’t my body. It’s yours. Somehow, I’m in control of your body, with both of us inside it.’ She held up my hands so I could see them.

Just then a nurse came in and said, “Oh, you’re awake, Mr. Davis. How are you feeling? I’m Nurse Simpkins. You’re at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek.” The nurse began checking various readings on the monitor, entering them into a tablet.

Nancy thought, ‘Where’s my body?’ but asked, “How’s… my wife?” as I finally recognized my own voice underneath hers in my sensorium.

“She’s in stable condition. She woke up about an hour ago, but seems a bit more disoriented,” the nurse answered.

I thought, ‘How can your body be awake, if your consciousness is in my body?’

‘Shhhh, Dan,’ Nancy thought back at me. ‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly illogical explanation.’

Nurse Simpkins said, “We’re looking to get you a double room, so you can be together. Right now, she’s four rooms down the hall. Although, with the way the two of you are recovering, you might be discharged first.”

“Do you know how we got here?” Nancy asked. “We were hiking…”

“That’s the curious thing”, Nurse Simpkins said. “Some other hikers on the same trail reported that a large meteorite hit near you and sprayed you with debris that they swear pierced you from head to toe, knocking you back twenty feet. They were certain you were dead, given the impact and how shredded and bloody your clothing was when they reached you. But you were breathing, so they called 911 and you were Medevac’d to our Trauma Center. After you got to their, the nurses and docs downstairs couldn’t actually find a scratch on you underneath those bloody rags. Almost everything you were carrying was wrecked, but you were fine. No trace of whatever meteor debris is supposed to have hit you, either. You were admitted because you hadn’t regained consciousness. It’s been two days.”

‘So much for our anniversary dinner,’ I thought, trying to make light of a situation that was getting more terrifying every second.

“Have our families been notified?” Nancy asked.

“We don’t have phone numbers for them,” the nurse answered. “Your cell phones were both shattered and you only have each other listed as emergency contacts in our computers. We were able to contact your employers, so they know you’re here, at least. Actually, we could only read Nancy’s driver’s license. Yours looked like swiss cheese, Mr. Davis, your wallet pierced in a dozen places, even though your buttock was as undamaged as the rest of you. Your primary care doctor came in and confirmed your identity.”

“When can I see Nancy?” Nancy asked.

“Dr. Mitchell needs to run a neurological exam, to try to explain your unconsciousness, then we can see about getting the two of you together. You might even be able to go home tonight or first thing tomorrow, if everything checks out. I’ll go tell the doctor you’re awake. He’ll need to be the one to order the IV line removed.”

As soon as Nurse Simpkins left the room, Nancy thought, ‘What the fuck is going on? I’m scared, Dan. And you know I don’t scare easily.’

I thought, ‘I can speculate, but I’m not sure how much good that will do.’

‘Anything, honey,’ Nancy responded.

‘Well, one possibility is that I’m actually dreaming.’ Nancy’s pinch of my thigh answered that. ‘Ouch! You wanted me to speculate.’

‘Okay, sorry. I needed to make sure it wasn’t me dreaming, either. Carry on.’

I thought, ‘Okay, next theory. We both know that was no ordinary meteor. What if it wasn’t a meteor at all, but something else entirely, something capable of copying your consciousness into my body. That would explain why your body is awake, too.’

‘Copied, or displaced?’ Nancy’s voice in my head asked.

“Displaced,” said Nancy’s voice from her body, in a wheelchair that she was wheeling into the room. She turned around, closed the door and wheeled herself closer to the bed.

“Displaced, by what?” Nancy-me asked.

“This throat cannot reproduce my true name, so I guess you can call me Cathy.” Catherine was Nancy’s middle name. Her parents always seemed bemused by the idea that Nancy’s initials, N.C., sounded a lot like her first name.

“What are you, Cathy?”, Nancy asked.

“You would consider me an alien, from a world you can call Teclewt, about 97,000 light years away, if I understand the length of your year correctly. My species evolved with four legs and two arms with six-fingered hands. You would probably think we were a cross between a lion and a centaur. I’m still a bit unstable right now on just two legs, which is why I’m using the wheelchair.”

“Okay. So, why are you here, taking over my body?” Nancy asked.

Cathy answered, “Our planet had been hit by a large asteroid and our ecosystem was collapsing from all the dust in the atmosphere, so our scientists came up with a plan to preserve us, at least partially. We had developed a technology that allowed the storage of our personality and memories in a crystal matrix, where the crystals needed to be injected into a new host body to initiate over again. Our leaders used a lottery to choose between volunteers to have ourselves crystallized, the crystals encased in a carbon-shielded space-craft, then scattered in every direction in space at half of light speed.”

“So, you’ve been traveling for nearly 200,000 of our years?” Nancy asked.

Cathy replied, “Yes, most of that time, I was dormant, not even actively thinking or dreaming. A computer monitored the outside. If it encountered a signal of intelligence, what you would call radio or television signals, the pod was programmed to alter course, decelerate and enter the atmosphere, where the carbon shell would ablate away, leaving the crystal center to land. The tricky part is finding an intelligent being to inject the crystals into, either through a crash landing, as you experienced, or waiting for someone to find the landing capsule and come within range. I spotted the two of you on the crest of that coastal mountain and chose you, Nancy, as my host. I did not expect Dan’s gallantry in trying to shield you, but my crystals entering him first left enough residue that I could push your consciousness into him while your bodies were on the ground, rather than simply taking your place.”

Nancy said, “Okay, Cathy. Assuming I believe this story, I gather that you think it’s okay to displace me, but fuck off. I want my body back. Play ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ with someone else.”

Cathy sighed. “There’s only one way to do that, now. Get this body pregnant and I can merge into your baby during your birth process and return you to this body.”

I was stunned.

Nancy said, “You want to become my child? What if it is a boy?”

Cathy answered, “You’re assuming I’m female just because I’m occupying your body. My species has only one physical gender, you would call us hermaphroditic, each of us with the equivalent of a penis and a vagina, producing both sperm and eggs. It takes two parents to produce a child, so there is the concept of mother and father, but it is not uncommon for both mates to seek pregnancy at the same time, playing the opposite roles in sex. It is considered abnormal to prefer one role over the other.”

Nancy said, “You do realize that it’s Nancy’s personality in charge of Dan’s body, here, right? You want me to use his body to have sex with my own, knock myself up and wait nine more months to get back into my body?”

“Beats dying, doesn’t it?” Cathy countered. “I am actually quite surprised by the ingratitude you’re displaying. I could have just taken your place and Dan might never have noticed. I’m sure you’ve realized I’m telepathic as well? I could have met his every expectation.”

‘That alone would make me suspicious,’ I thought, expecting Cathy could hear me.

“Okay, so maybe not every expectation,” Cathy responded, proving her telepathy again. “But I could have made the impersonation undetectable. I have access to all of Nancy’s memories, which were not erased when I copied them into your body, Dan. That’s the main reason you were unconscious for two days, so your brain could sort things out to support both personalities. All damage done by the crystals penetrating your bodies was repaired in five minutes.”

Nancy asked, “If Dan’s brain has sorted things out, why can’t he control his own body? Why am I in charge instead of being the passenger?”

Cathy answered, “I actually have no idea why that happened. It could be that the neural pathways leading to your portions of the motor systems of the brain are stronger now. That could change over time, as your brain adapts further. Is that really a problem?”

Nancy replied, “Well, now I’m the one having to impersonate him with friends and families, without telepathy to help. Having him relay things to me for me to say will produce a notable lag. I don’t seem to have access to his memories, only my own. I’m also not sure I know how to operate the sexual equipment, since I wasn’t born with both sets like you. Nothing’s going to work, if this body won’t reach orgasm with me in charge. It would be easier if I was the passenger.”

So, what do you think?

M.R. Leenysman