The Lottery - Part Three

Glancing over the scant little information I find myself reading about;

Alison - 22 - Unemployed - Young, Wealth, Very Attractive

I cock my eyebrow for a moment, reading the short description again as I try to find a way to see more. There was practically nothing there, no image nor proper description to make an informed decision by.

"So I won...a girl..." I mutter, chewing at my bottom lip nervously as I try to collect my thoughts over the scenario laid before me.

This was a Division One body, a top-tier life according to the people behind the Lottery. It would certainly be better than my own...right? The thought lingers in my head for a moment, just what my own tall and not that bad body would be worth to these people. How much did they know about me? My life? My... Assets?

Swallowing hard I glance down at myself, my eyes darting over my clicking wrists and well-worn knees. Sure my body had a bit of wear and tear, but it was still in good shape, and was certainly well above average in some departments.

I squeeze my legs together, feeling my large flaccid cock press between my masculine yet somewhat soft and poorly defined thighs. If I opted for this body I'd be saying good to my 'not so little' buddy, hell I might even be playing the catcher.

Despite all this I feel my thumb hovering over the accept button, the allure and intrigue of just what made up a top-tier body being too much to resist. I barely notice as my thumb lightly brushes over the screen, the window disappears as another series of pop-ups emerge.

Acceptance Confirmed: Please Go To Your Nearest Clinic

                  (Find Nearest Clinic)

My heart races, my eyes going wide as I realize what I just did without due consideration. With my stomach sinking and my blood running cold I tap the small link, one last window popping up and showing me a map to my nearest clinic. These were the larger Lottery offices, housing the vital machinery to perform the necessary procedures required to claim your prizes in the case your ticket won any given draw.

Mine, luckily, was only a few blocks from my apartment. I had heard of some people having to travel for hours to claim their prize, driving through the night to make sure they made it in time before their prizes expired.

I clamber to my feet, looking down at the black sweatpants and t-shirt I had gone to sleep in. I stunk, the faint musk of 'dude' clinging to my unwashed body after I failed to shower last night in between my fervent refreshing of the Lottery's webpage.

Smirking faintly I give a little shrug, walking to the door to get my sneakers with even bothering to go find socks to go along with them.

"That's going to be someone else's problem soon" I chuckle, the laughter failing to hide my nervousness.

It doesn't take long to race around the house, grabbing my wallet and polishing off my coffee as I race out the door in what essentially amounted to my pajamas. As I wheel about, not even locking up as I bolt out the door I practically run into my neighbor down the hall. Her name escapes my frenzied mind, the doughy woman in her late thirties already dressed in a flowery sundress with an apron slung over her shoulder.

She looks at me in shock for a moment before a warm smile spreads over her face, her dimpled cheeks growing rosy as she looks up at me.

"Someone's in a hurry" the recently married woman giggles, adjusting and patting down her dress after our near miss. "Sour milk? No tea?...jilted lover?" She coos in a slight whisper, the conspiratorial desire for drama or gossip dripping from her line of questioning.

"No, nothing like..." I blurt out, slowing myself as I decide it would only be proper to say goodbye. While I struggled to remember her name for the life of me, she had always been rather kind when we ran into each other around the building. She had always taken time to ask about my life, how I was going, what I was doing, and prying for all sorts of juicy information.

I had always just chalked it up to trying to be a good neighbor, maybe to her trying to adapt to being a stepmother of a college-aged daughter Kelly and wanting to talk to someone working in the field, but it was at least a nice gesture.

"I...I win the um..." I mutter, fidgeting in place.

She looks at me in confusion for a moment, not quite understanding what I was referring to before her jaw suddenly drops. Her face twists with a mixture of emotions, from shock to sadness and rage before finally landing on a grin of delight.

"Oh my, that's wonderful dear" she chimes, bouncing a little in place as her doughy feature shake and wobble beneath her loose dress. "Was it a minor prize? Something nice and..."

"One" I blurt out, inching towards the stairs. "I... Uh... I won the division one pri..." I begin to explain, watching as her eyes bulge in her skull.

"What?! And you're letting me keep... Go, go" she chides, waving me away with her pudgy hands.

She doesn't need to tell me twice as I quickly race last her and to the stairs. By the time I'm halfway down the first flight I remember what I had stopped to do, twisting around to call back.

"It was nice to be neighbors Mrs..." I shout, pausing as I realize I still didn't remember her name.

"Just call me Margret dear. Though I don't think it matters much anymore" chuckles the woman, her footfalls following me down as she begins her own trip to work.

I pound pavement towards the clinic, not wanting to be 'late' despite not having any sort of appointment time given to me or anything. The world races past me, my body quickly growing out of breath as a whiz in between out pedestrians that seem to have far less urgency than myself.

With sweat pouring down my face, my breath ragged and strained, I finally come to a stop Infront of the Lottery office. It is a rather small storefront, though larger than the other branches that existed all over the country. The front looks more like a newsagent, with magazines and small impulse buys littering the space between the front door and the counter.

An older woman, probably in her fifties or just very late forties, sits behind the counter. Her face is bony and gaunt, her bored expression being reflected in her fingers as she taps mindlessly at the countertop.

As I enter a small bell chimes above the door, the skeletal woman behind the counter barely moving from her slouched position. It isn't until I approach, the scent of my unwashed and now quite sweaty self likely catching her by surprise, that she finally sits up.

"Hello there darlin'" she croaks out in a bit of a drawl, coughing slightly as if she hadn't spoken all morning. She rolls her tongue around her mouth for a moment, swallowing something before trying to speak again.

"Are ya looking for a ticket for the next draw?" She chirps, slightly more cheerily as she gets into the customer service swing.

"Uh...no" I respond, struggling to hide my excitement as it bubbles beneath the surface. "I'm...um...Jordan Hughes, I won last night's..." I begin to explain, only to be cut off by the sound of a door opening behind the counter.

"Sorry did I hear..." calls out another older woman, this one slightly more Rubenesque than the one behind the counter. She adjusts her glasses for a moment, squinting at me with almost sparkling hazel eyes. "Mr. Hughes?" She asks, leaning out the door while her caramel toned hand wring and nervously twists the metal doorknob.

I nod at her, her own excitement seeming to build and exceed my own.

"Please! Please, follow me" she implores, gesturing deeper into the building with one hand while the other pushes the door further open. "Do you need anything? Tea? Coffee? Maybe a biscuit?" She chirps dotingly, quickly trying to make me comfortable.

"I'm fine, I just had..." I respond, coming around the counter as the rake-thin woman shuffles aside for me. "Actually, maybe a water."

"Got it, water, I can get you some water" she stammers out, overwhelmed for some reason as the gears turn in her head. She seems to forget 'how' to get water for a moment, not remembering that it was a core component of two of the other things she offered.

"Do you want me to..." Drones the slender woman, looking at the rotund Latina in disbelief.

"No no, I can... I can do this just fine Julie" the frazzled woman responds, ushering me deeper into the building and closing the door behind us.

The rest of the building is nothing too impressive, a small hallway with a storeroom and bathroom to the left and a cozy break room to the right. A large doorway at the back leads to a large and remarkably complex machine, though it appears largely automated for the most part with no real input beyond a camera and scant few buttons.

I'm led into the pale blue break room and guided to a small wooden chair, the doughy woman pottering about the room as she tries to find a clean glass without lipstick marks from herself or Julie.

"This is so exciting" she practically squeals, eventually producing a small purple plastic cup and plodding over to the sink. "Jackpot, at our store!" She exclaims, obviously head over heels with the idea.

"Um...yeah it's pretty exciting to see..." I begin to say, the older woman's excitement quickly forcing me to quieten down.

"Oh Susan is just not going to believe this. She's always been so stuck up since her neighbor won a Division Two..." She blurts out, scowling as she fills the glass from a nearby tap. "Well, I get to meet and process a Division One winner" she chirps, shaking her hips and shoulders in a delighted little dance.

She quickly places the glass in front of me, easing her larger frame into an equally small seat opposite me. Resting on her elbows, her head resting in her hands, she looks at me expectantly.

"Uh... Thank you" I mutter meekly, sipping from the plastic cup as I avoid eye contact. Her eyes however remain locked to me, burning a hole right through me as she stares.

"So...excited?" She coos pryingly, trying to make the most of the opportunity. "Not many people have won a Division One before."

"Um...yeah..." I chirp back rolling the cup around between my hands as I try to think of what to say. "More nervous than...do you know much about the..." I try to ask, stopping myself as the Latina shakes her head as dark curls bounce around her shoulders.

"Nothing more than you dear..." She states in an almost disappointed fashion, the frustration on her face quickly giving way to a sly grin as her eyes roam over my body. "So...a woman huh?" She says, raising an eyebrow as she nibbles her lip.

"Yeah...I mean she...Well I didn't get a..." I balk back weakly, eliciting a slight chuckle from the woman. "Um... shouldn't we start the..."

"Oh there's plenty of time dear" she responds dismissively, waving her pudgy-ringed fingers at me. "They still need to bring her into her office...one way or another" she explains, a hint of menace in her voice as she revels in the excitement of the situation.

"So... What's the plan first? Test out the new... equipment? I know if I could get my hands on a young man's..." She asks, losing herself in her own middle-aged fantasy before bottling up the end of the sentence. Her cheeks grow rosier and redder by the second, her wide hips wriggling in the tiny seat as she squeezes her thick black suit pants covered thighs together.

"I don't know..." I mutter in response, taking another quick sip from the cup. "I mean...maybe I'd..." I begin to reply, my own face beginning to burn with a flushed sensation as the older woman grins in response.

"Dirty boy" she playfully chides, slapping at my wrist with a little wink.

"No, no I was saying that... Well I'd need to get my bearings first before..." I explain in my defense, trailing off as my mind turns to the gutter like the woman across from me.

"Oh well of course, but after that..."

Our conversation seems to go on forever, the older woman prying for every last detail from the reason I bought to the ticket to how I had reacted to seeing the fact I had won a woman's body to the run over here. She digs and digs, giddy as a schoolgirl with each question as she builds material to show off to Susan.

Eventually the phone on the wall begins to ring, the woman leaping to her feet and waddling over. Clutching the receiver in her hand she calls out "I've got it Julie" before picking it up and bringing it to her ear.

"You've reached...oh...yes that's...yes he's...can we wait a...of course...of course..." She mutters, her excitement dying a little bit with each response. "But are you sure we..."

After a brief pause she hangs up without another word, her shoulders slumping in her cream-colored cardigan. She shuffles towards the door in a mildly dejected manner, looking over at me as she gestures for me to stand.

"They have Alison, they're just waiting on us now" she groans, waddling out into the hallway as I hope to my feet. As I follow her out she paces down the hall, away from the storefront and towards the back room.

"Urgh, I had so many more questions" she mutters in frustration, slipping through the wide-open doorway as she ushers me inside. "Like...like...oh are you straight? Do you have a girlfriend? Does...does she know about..."

My eyes are drawn to the large machine resting in the center of the dusty backroom, the large white cylinder with a hard plastic bed sitting inside of it. It looks like an MRI machine more than anything else, crisp and medicinally clean with a sci-fi bent. Thick bunches of cables as thick as my torso run out the bottom of the large ring from either side, disappearing into the concrete floor beneath us.

To the right of the strange machine sits a small console made up of a simple screen, four buttons, and a small camera. The Latina gestures with her hand, holding it out for me to pass her something.

I'll need your ID" she explains, still slumping and pouting like a child who had been told no for the first time in a while."Anything with a photo that's Government-issued will..." She continues, stopping as I fish out my wallet and driver's license.

"Yes, no, and so... technically no one to tell" I respond, watching as a small smile creeps over her face. She quickly places my ID beneath the camera, the whole machine whirring to life as it registers the identity of someone scheduled for a swap.

"Thank you" the older woman coos excitedly happy with the information. "So what about your family? Have you told them? Will you try to reconnect once you're swapped? I've heard so many stories of..." She rambles, trying to fit hours of conversation into the last few minutes.

"No, um...maybe...it might be..." I mutter in response, shuffling over to the machine and looking at her expectantly. As if heading my thoughts she perks up, realizing that she did have a job to do.

"Oh, right just lay back in the bed" she explains, pointing with her neatly trimmed nails at the flat firm plastic bed that has fully extended out of the cylindrical machine. "Head towards the transfer element, I'll do the rest."

I follow along with her instructions, clambering onto the almost painfully uncomfortable bed as I find myself sliding into a groove in the center. Gaps sit in the side, likely for carrying or handhold purposes though appearing strong enough to act as an anchor for shackles or worse.

"Oh..." The woman pipes up, pressing one of the few buttons as the bed begins to slowly retract inside the machine. "There may be 'some' data loss, long-distance transfers can be funny like that" she explains through clenched teeth.

"Wait! What do you mean by..." I call out, my voice echoing inside the cavernous device.

"Oh it's nothing dear" she responds in a well worn dismissive tone. "Any gaps will get filled in with your partner's leftovers" she continues, failing to ease my worries about what this data loss might entail.

As the bed fits into place with a loud click a small red light flashes above me, one last check that I was who the ID said I was. The layers upon layers of protection were intense, the multiple checkpoints and lack of real user interface keeping staff and randoms alike from stealing a body they weren't due.

"Oh oh" cries the Latina from beyond my line of sight, my vision being filled with the large metallic band around my head and shoulders. "Woman to...well you know... Invest in some good moisturizer, oh and don't skimp on... no she'll already have those... You can never go wrong with..."

The voice of the woman slowly fades out, her prattling list of items to buy or daily rituals to perform seeming to grow more and more distant. The ring surrounding me beings to whir more and more loudly, the vibrating drone making it hard to think let alone listen to the older woman.

The darkness inside the machine feels to grow more oppressive by the second, soon becoming pitch black as it feels like I'm just moments away from falling asleep.

Suddenly, there is a falling feeling, one all too familiar from those occasional strange sensations when one is trying to sleep. My heart rate jumps from a calm resting rate to pounding in my chest, anxiety gripping me as I find myself in a cold sweat. I gasp for air, my chest shifting strangely as I do so.

The whirring sound slowly begins to die down, my breathing quickly returning to normal quickly fight to get a grip over myself. My mind feels like mush, a mixture of the worst hangover headache of my life combining with the feeling of being woken up after only a few hours sleep.

Try as I might I can't seem to string together a single train of thought, my mind feeling like a roiling mass that was struggling to settle into place.

As the whirring comes to a stop I'm left listening to my own breathing, a faint adorable feminine whimpering escaping my lips with each exhale as I try to calm down.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I think to myself, my thoughts coming to me slowly and with no small amount of effort. It was like there was gum on the hair of my mind, each mental step taking extra effort to get off the ground.

Suddenly, I feel the bed shift with another loud clunk, the light outside the machine seeming vaguely different than before.

I'm met with the sound of a deep yet soothing male voice, the change from the giddy middle-aged Latina drilling home that I wasn't 'in Kansas anymore'.

"Alright Ms. Daniels, take it nice and easy. We don't want to get security involved again do we?"