Lake Otherlife, Part 1 (Patreon)

A visit to a mysterious outback lake results in a big change for George and Holly, who are already undergoing relationship troubles of their own. Now, with their genders and lives utterly altered, will their romance last?

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George:

We were in the second week of our little ‘relationship repair getaway’ in Kakadu National Park, and things were going less optimal than expected. We’d enjoyed the sights, the wildlife, and, yes, each other, but it wasn’t enough to stop the bickering. The little snippy comments or prolonged silences we’d told ourselves we were here to fix. All the small signs that things were slowly falling apart. I took a breath of warm, dry air, and tried to focus on the positives. The trip was my idea, after all. I’d look stupid if I was the one who packed it in.

“See? What did I tell you baby, nothing to worry about! And what a view.”

I grinned as I turned to my fiancée of three years, who was struggling up the side of the hill. She didn’t look as impressed. Holly had Irish convict blood in her, and ten generations of Sydney living had failed to make her any more resilient to the sun, even with half a tub of sunscreen on.

“I’d appreciate it a lot more if you’d stop gawking at the view and be a gentleman by helping me up.”

My grin became a little more forced. Three years ago, it would have been a playful joke. Now? It was impossible to tell what was genuine frustration. Some days Holly was an enigma to me. Still, there was a small victory as I pulled her up; she did indeed gasp at the sight:

The great red plains and scrub of Kakadu is beautiful enough on its own, with its ochre reds, vast plains, and rocky outcroppings, but the crystal blue lake wedged between the sun-burnt cliffs and shaded by craggy rocks on its other side was something else to behold. A little slice of paradise roughly five-hundred metres away, and completely missable unless seen from this exact angle. It was an oasis; a piece of perfection that was utterly inviting.

“It’s beautiful,” Holly whispered. Her blonde hair waved a little in the light wind, and I once again admired the looks of the woman who I’d fallen for over six years ago. She was thirty years old, but carried a wisdom around her eyes where the first signs of crow’s feet were developing. She had a cute button nose and a broad smile, and at only 5’3 she inspired protective stirrings in me. Of course, she was also a moderately shapely woman. Getting intimate in the outback reminded me of what we’d both been missing. She adjusted her broad brim hat and looked down at her chest.

“They sure are,” I quipped, and instantly regretted the dumb joke. Holly caught my glance at her chest. There was just the slightest faltering in her eyes that told me I’d ruined something sincere. The moment was gone. Once again I’d felt the need to say what didn’t need saying.

“Well, this is amazing George. I don’t know what else to say.”

She leaned forward, and we kissed, briefly. It was a makeup, of sorts. An apology on both ends. Perhaps I was overthinking it, though.

“I found it several months ago, when I took that extra weekend on the firm business trip to have an explore. I didn’t know if I’d even find it again. In fact, I could have sworn it was still a few kilometres further away, but I guess I was wrong.”

She beamed, gazing at the lake. “Well, are we going to stand here waiting or see it up close?”

Holly:

The sight was positively idyllic. Tucked away, obscured by a red cliff that hung over the spot, and a near-vertical edge of jutting rock on the other, was a crystal blue lake surrounded by verdant trees. It was only about half a kilometre down, and if you'd seen it from any other angle, you’d have missed it entirely. George was beaming by this point, his boyish smile threatening to take over his face. Even the slight sunburn on his forehead couldn’t keep him from looking sexy to me, standing there like a proud explorer in his white button shirt and grey shorts, the rugged brown scruff of his 5 O’clock shadow completing the look. He was a handsome man, my fiancé. Not model handsome or Hollywood actor handsome, but he was in pretty good shape, and his forearms just did things for me. He carried himself with confidence, and that too had once been deeply sexy to me. It was now.

But other times, the decision-making was too one-sided, and I was less a partner than an intern in the relationship, like one of the lawyer aspirants at his firm. Like this trip, which I’d had no input in. Part of it was my own fault. My lack of voice. We wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t rolled over and kept my mouth shut when I could have told him the whole thing wouldn’t do any good.

I shook the thoughts away. I was here now, and the sight was indeed beautiful. And a rest from the horrid sun would be good. A small irritation that George had forgotten just how easily sunburnt I get welled up in my mind. I squashed it flat.

We were meant to be trying.

“You listening, mate?”

I shook my head. “Sorry George, I zoned out.”

“I said shall we go for a swim in it?”

“I didn’t bring any bathers. Why would I?”

George just grinned. Ah, he’d brought mine. A warning sign flashed in my head. Oh god, not the purple one not the purple one not the purple one pleasepleaseplease-

“I brought that nice purple one of yours.”

Goddamnit George. “But honey, that’s the one that itches. I’ve told you before that the straps hurt my back. The cups don’t fit right anymore, not since I lost weight.”

His brow furrowed. “But you look so good in it.” He said it as if it explained it.

I tried to push back against the sentiment, but instead the anxiety bubbled, the awkwardness, and I did another classic Holly: I capitulated.

“Yeah, no worries then. I’ll wear it.”

“Great!” he said, and was already moving forward. Decisively.

George:

Holly looked so fucking hot in her purple bikini. I loved the way her nipples outlined against the fabric, pressing firmly against the thin material as if she were ready to make love. It reminded me of our early dating period, before things got tense the last as they had over the last year or so. She sauntered over to me, those gorgeous hips swaying, blonde hair swaying gently in the breeze, and she knew she looked good. I knew I had done the right thing by getting that purple bikini. She always complained about it, but the fact that she was making a smokeshow right now had to mean she actually liked it, right?

I brought myself closer, and took the opportunity of playfully grabbing her butt. She squealed and batted me away, and we both erupted into awkward laughter. It was how we used to flirt, but like most things, something had changed. I decided to ask why.

“We’ve been over this George. I don’t like my ass. Not anymore.”

“C’mon honey, your ass is amazing.”

“You called it ‘flat as a pancake.’”

“I was drunk.”

“In vino veritas, George. And we were in company. I just . . . I associate it with that moment. ‘Pancake ass’.”

“Well, you look fucking stellar. I fucking love that bikini on you.”

Another awkward smile, but she pulled against me, and kissed me deeply.

“We can do this, right? This getaway, this relationship repair?”

I held her closer, breathing in her scent. Even a little sunburned, she was beautiful. Not model gorgeous, but the pretty girl-next-door type that I was lucky to have landed. She may have been slipping away, but I didn’t want to lose her. I let her head rest in the crook of my neck and rubbed her hair how she always liked it.

“Of course this will work, babe. We’re already communicating better. And besides, last night in the tent was pretty good? You may have woken up some dingoes.”

“Not cool.”

“I’m just saying, you were enthusiastic. We just have some baggage. That’s why I made this trip a surprise; I needed to take charge again. Be the decision-maker. That’s what you deserve to have, Holly; a real man. And that’s what the outback demands. And, of course, there’s this place.”

I gestured to the gorgeous environment around us. The lake was an almost luminescent blue, and curls of steam rose that suggested volcanic vents, though I’d never heard anything like it in the park, or our country at all for that matter. But the water had tested fine, and it was wonderfully warm to the touch.

“So, what do you say, shall we take a dip?”

She nodded, wordlessly. I knew I had said the right thing.

Holly:

George had said exactly the wrong thing. Why did he always have to make himself the macho-man when things needed emotional airing? The decision-maker? Becoming a ‘real man’? It was like his lawyer buddies from work were dragging him back to the 1950s, and I was too much of a doormat to call him out on it. My purple bikini top was itching my girls something fierce, and the lout probably thought it was a victory. Except, as usual, I failed to stick up for myself. It was, as I had often mused, the reason I’d never pursued anything with my business degree.

The world walked all over Holly O’Neill.

And, despite truly loving me, George Willford was responsible for a sizable portion of that walking. I’d wanted to go to couple’s counselling, but the breadwinner had made the decision. All I could do was sigh, and pull away from him, and look to the lake. It did indeed look enticing, and warm. And besides, it wouldn’t be hard to lose my bikini top in it for good. Better than having to explain it to George and feel the urgency to apologise.

“Let’s swim then,” I said, and he grinned. God, he was handsome. He had that boyish grin, that confidence that projected handsomeness beyond the physical. Caught in the drudgery of relationship miscommunication, it reminded me that I loved him, and wanted to keep loving him, despite the wheels increasingly coming off.

“Then let’s get in,” George replied.

We found a beautiful spot to jump in together. The water was a vibrant blue, like a desert oasis, and the various trees and greenery enveloped it in a cool shade, even when the sun was directly overhead of the cliffs. Something about the sight was pure magic; though George never believed in such a thing, there was something to the lake, this oasis, that seemed magnetic to me. Increasingly, I found that I truly did want to jump in, and feel the warmth of its waters upon me. I looked across the view, and there, on the cliff wall, I noticed something.

Scratched into the surface were numerous symbols, some that must have dated back thousands of years in Aboriginal history. But there were newer ones, also, and one in English. It read simply, in white chalk.

Lake Otherlife. Accept What Comes.

“Hey George, do you see what I -”

Suddenly a hand pressed against my back, and I tumbled forward, screaming.
“George, you bastard!” I barely finished screaming it in time before I hit the water and fell, submerged and warm, into the embrace of the lake. A loud splash echoed, telling me he had followed shortly after, but it reverberated oddly, as if dozens of metres away. I turned and opened my eyes, but the crystal blue of the lake went on forever, shimmering motes in the distance.

It looked like starlight.

I moved, somehow at ease, comforted. A gentle pulse reverberated through the water, like a loving heartbeat, ancient and motherly and pure. It felt like coming home, like being nestled in the amniotic warmth of the womb. And for just a moment, I felt what it was to have total confidence and peace, to feel at one with my surroundings and not anxious or out of place. I surrendered to the feeling.

A single thought arrived in my head, one that I couldn’t say where it came from or what prompted it.

Holly, you have refused to take agency of yourself for far too long. You have been too permissive, and allowed your problems to fester. It is time for a change. It is time for you to have the confidence you always envied in others.

I nodded in assent, as if it were not my own thought but that of the universe, and slowly, with no movement from myself, I was pulled to the surface.

George:

Holly screamed as she fell, and I cackled before diving in after her. Maybe the moment was ruined, but sometimes a good laugh is everything. I hit the water with less finesse than intended, but rather than the sharp smack of skin against water, I was immediately submerged in total comfort, as if I were floating in a day spa resort pool, not in an outback lake. It was uncanny. I opened my eyes, and couldn’t see up or down. Swimming didn’t help, it was like my limbs were suddenly sluggish and uncertain, and the strange, menacing thumping of the lake, like some dark echo, only made my need to reach the surface more urgent.

I pushed my limbs against the molasses of the water, eager to move. Any direction was better than none. I fought, and fought, and fought to make my way out of the blue, which looked as much like a starlit cosmos as it did water, but still I kept fighting. My lungs were not burning, I felt no need for air at all, and that freaked me all the more. It was like this lake wanted me to give in, wanted me to surrender to the voice.

I wouldn’t let it.

But despite my wants, a thought that must have been my own echoed inside my mind, taunting me or guiding me, I could not say for sure.

George, you have confidence overflowing, but you know you lack the emotional understanding that should come with such confidence. It is time for a change. It is time for you to learn the compassion and vulnerability only another life could give you.

Suddenly there was the pattern of sun’s rays upon the surface of the water, right ahead of me. I was angled upwards, I knew up and down once more! I swam with power and decisiveness, the very decisiveness I had just questioned, though the thoughts did not feel like mine. And I broke the surface and took in the fresh air.

Holly was beside me, eyes wide, staring off into space. I took a moment to get my own bearings as well. She turned to me, looking gorgeous but spaced out, as we floated together in the centre of the small lake. At once, we spoke.

“That was amazing.”

“That was awful.”

We exchanged a look, and once more the gulf between us was exposed.

Holly:

It was like some revelation, like Mother Nature herself had spoken to me. George said only that the lake had left him ‘feeling funny’, and refused to share more. He was being pig-headed again, like he always got when things got real and emotional. And I failed to press the issue, because then we’d argue, and it would go right back to him needing to be ‘a real man’.

We stayed several more hours, but the magic of Lake Otherlife, as I referred to it now, never returned. It was an ordinary lake, and it was cool and refreshing, but lacked its warmth and seeming depth from before. I suspected we simply stayed to satisfy George; he seemed troubled by it, but even more so by the fact that his ‘outback relationship repair service’ had failed at its most important point. At one point I took to literally treading water until he finally decided to pack up.

We bid farewell to that magical lake, and made our way to the land rover. The journey back was fine. Neither of us spoke much, but there was no animosity. In some ways, perhaps, that would have been preferable. Instead there was just that disconnect. In the end I caved, and filled the car with all sorts of small talk and chit chat over inconsequential things, like what we might do when we got back to our house in Sydney, and wondering if Leanne had had her baby yet, and whether we should visit the beach together now that the weather was coming right there again. He did his best to respond.

And then, when the quiet fell in again, I simply placed my hand on his arm. A silent apology for somehow failing him, when he was doing so much to try to save us. He placed his free hand on mine, and he continued to drive.

George:

It was a long drive back to the resort, and far too long unpacking. I felt spent, and it was all that damn Lake Otherlife’s fault. Whatever Holly had seen in it was clearly because she loved deeper meanings. I just didn’t appreciate nearly drowning and getting my confidence kicked in.

We got into bed, cuddled up against one another. In the darkness, my fiancée whispered “Tomorrow, love.”

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

We didn’t have sex. We simply went to sleep.

Holly:

Something was different when I woke up. I felt heavier, yet more powerful, somehow. Like my limbs had been renewed with energy, and my weakness dissolved away. Something was odd between my legs, but I couldn’t be sure what it was, only that it felt utterly alien to me. My fingers felt odd also, but this time I knew why. My ring had slipped off again. The one George had given me when he proposed, three years ago. Those three long years of waiting for a next step that never came. It was a wistful thought, but still an alarming loss. I shifted, tired as I was, and turned to look at my still-sleeping fiance and wake him. I could hear him snoring, though he wasn’t usually a snorer, and his voice sounded higher. He was a marvel at finding things. He’d found Lake Otherlife, after all.

But my fiancé wasn’t in bed with me. What I saw when I turned jolted me straight awake and upright, right out of the bed, and waking the other figure too. A figure that was not only not my fiancé, but not even a man.

“Eh, ¿qué está pasando?”

The woman’s eyes widened as she saw me, and she leapt back. She was topless, her skin a rich chestnut brown, and she had a wild tangle of gorgeous black hair that spilled down her back. She had the figure of a supermodel; with round, full wobbling breasts that were far larger than my own, and a set of hips that could only be described as ‘child-bearing’. Her face was beautiful; vulnerable, with high cheekbones and thick, perfectly contoured eyebrows. Her eyes were grey-green, and they looked me with shock.

“Who the fuck are you? Where is my fianceé?” she said, in a voice that was accented in noticeable Spanish, or perhaps Mexican. I replied.

“Who am I? Who the hell are you, lady?”

It was then that I noticed my own voice. Deep. Brass. Baritone. And my height as well. My build: no longer slender, but muscular and powerful. My hair, short . My breasts, absent. My chest, hairy. My vagina . . . replaced. I looked to the woman who was already intently staring over her features, breathing heavily, her impressively stacked chest rising and falling with each panicking breath. She was wearing a set of boxers - male boxers - that were strained against her wide hips. The same yellow-black Richmond stripes my fiancé wore. It was then that I realised something magical and terrifying had happened.

I spoke in my new, deeply male voice. “George, is that you?”

The gorgeous woman held her heavy breasts in her hands and looked to me in surprise and fear.

“Holly, is that you?”

I nodded, still amazed at the woman that just last night had been my fiancé, and was now a good foot shorter than me. The woman looked down at her prominent cleavage, to her smooth arms and slender fingers, and back up to me. Her perfect lips trembled.

“Dios mío!”

End of Part 1