From Professor to New Plumbing The New World of SwapTech chapter 4 by witeja9199

Professor Oyelaran's office sat at the end of a corridor designed by someone who disapproved of shortcuts. Jack covered it at a stagger, in a body that kept making decisions without consulting him. A hip swung here, a stride lengthened there, like a car with a mind of its own and a lead foot.

He didn't knock. He opened the door with a shoulder, which hurt in a way he'd have to learn the name of later.

"I'm invoking my right to a hearing."

"You have no such right." The professor was eating soup from a thermos. "It's not in the syllabus."

"Then I'm inventing one."

"Four hundred and twelve students have stood on that rug, Mr. Hollis, and every one has said the same thing. 'I'll just swap back.' And then, around week two, they didn't want to."

"I want to! Right now! I have a thesis defense and two dates and a bra, Professor, and it's aggressive."

"Underwire. It gets easier." She took a thoughtful sip. "Swaps reverse by mutual consent. Ms. Vasquez has not consented."

"The machine could just force it."

"It could. Last time, a young man came back with the wrong number of elbows. We're still in litigation. The elbows have a lawyer."

"That's not the—" Jack shifted his weight and stopped. Something deep in his borrowed midsection had cleared its throat. "That's not the point."

"I think you'll find it's exactly the point. Empathy begins when you stop being the hero of your own paperwork." She turned a page. "You may go. You'll want to, I suspect."

"I'm not going anywhere until you—" A second signal, firmer, and the faint, ominous clink of a bladder calling a meeting. Jack crossed his legs. The legs, being new, crossed with a flourish he found deeply upsetting. "Where's the, um. Is there a—"

"Left at the fire extinguisher. Ladies'."

"I can't go in the ladies'."

"You'll find the men's disagrees with you more."

The cubicle was narrow and smelled of lemon disinfectant and quiet desperation. Jack locked the door, stood facing the toilet, and for a long moment did nothing, like a man defusing a bomb he'd been told was also his own.

The jeans had a button. The button had opinions. After a negotiation that cost him a thumbnail, he got them down and then stood with his eyes tightly shut, in the dark, in a body he had known for forty minutes, trying to remember what the plan had been.

"First swap?" said a voice from the next stall.

Jack froze. "Is this a private—"

"Sit down. It's a sit-down situation." The voice was young, female, and unbearably cheerful. "You've got a lot more hardware than you're used to, but less plumbing. Don't stand. Don't try to aim. You'll hurt yourself or the wall."

"I'm not aiming. I'm trying to, to locate—"

"Just sit. Honestly, it's the only part of this I'd call easy."

Jack sat. It was a long way down. The seat was cold in a way that made him sympathize with every woman who'd ever existed, and he'd never felt such a pure, wordless solidarity with strangers.

"And relax," said the voice. "I can hear you clenching."

"I'm not clenching."

"You are. It's like listening to a pipe argue."

Jack unclenched. A moment passed, and then the plumbing of Delphine Vasquez, apparently saving up since Monday, let go with the force of a garden hose against a tin bucket. It was loud. It was long. It was alarmingly warm. Jack gripped the sides of the toilet and stared at the stall door, where someone had written Brenda sucks in marker and someone else had added Brenda is a Libra.

"Oh, God," he said, to nobody.

"That's the one," said the voice.

It went on a very long time. Jack began to suspect that Del had been holding it through some kind of campus-wide rugby tournament. He watched the minutes of his life drain away along with the contents of a bladder that, he was beginning to feel, had been quietly heroic for years.

Then came the wiping, which Jack had always assumed was a thing other people did elaborately. It had never occurred to him that it was a procedure with steps.

"Front to back," said the voice.

"Is nothing private?"

"It's a bathroom. Privacy's a rumor." There was a flush and the sound of a stall door. "Brenda. Sophomore. Four swaps. Don't pick the one with the dachshund."

"What dachshund?"

But she was gone. Jack was left to wrestle with the button, which took its revenge by fighting back, and then to wash his hands at the mirror, where he met the eyes of a stranger with freckles, brown eyes, a rugby player's jaw, and the nearly insulting look of someone who had never once been told to smile more. The stranger's lip trembled. Jack hadn't told it to.

His phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen with the weary dread of a man who knew exactly what was on it.

Del: Update! Committee loved the new direction. Marcus says 7 SHARP, he's picking you up in front of Hollis Hall (that's YOUR dorm, you absolute celebrity). Also your sock drawer is too neat. I'm reorganizing it by VIBES. xx

Del: ps. you're going to want to read footnote five

"There's no footnote five," Jack whispered. He checked the page-nine PDF on his phone, the one he hadn't read. There was a footnote five. It was very short.

Mutual consent may be given at any time, for any reason, by either party, including if bribed, blackmailed, or delighted.

It was 6:32. Marcus was due at seven. Priya at eight-thirty.