Writer's note: And so the saga of Natalia concludes. I might return for an epilogue later, but the story I wanted to tell is over.
Summer vacation was winding down, the days grew shorter, and with them the time Paul and Nathan inhabited the reality of Natalia grew shorter. Minutes had become seconds. My world was torn between a perky Nathan-as-Natalia one second to an antisocial Paul-as-Natalia. Natalia's body would be seen sunbathing out back in Nathan's red bikini, only to blink out of view then blink back in. Sleeping was impossible as the house would go from pure silence to the absurdly loud moans as Nathan and some man would warp into Natalia's room and fuck all night. We had three nights before school was starting up again and I had no solution.
Nathalia blinked in and out of existance all day, my mom swingings from the demands of one to the other as if it were nothing.
That evening while we were eating dinner with a Natalia that flashed between topless and wrapped in a bath robe ate her pizza Paul / Nathan froze up, a slice of pizza halfway bitten within their mouth. Natalia's body flickered between the two's selected atire, completely motionless. Mom and dad ignored the frozen woman as they continued to finish their pizza. Mom got up and began cleaning the table while dad started with the dishes.
"Have you noticed anything strange with Natalia?" I asked the two.
"Let her finish her dinner," mom said.
"Son," dad said, "It's rude to call a woman strange."
As expected they couldn't see or didn't care to notice anything strange from her. They cleaned up and called it a night, leaving me in the kitchen with a frozen Natalia. They had frozen in a juxtoposition of Paul's bathrobe and Nathan's bare chest. A transluscent bathrobe had formed over her body, doing half the work the other intended. I sat there for hours before my eyelids grew heavy and it was time to go to bed. I flicked off the kitchen light and retired to my room.
Before falling asleep I had to check instagram to see how the frozen Natalia had affected it. All of the pictures and videos had been removed, and yet there was a post to the story. The first story update since Nathan had left the body full time. I opened it.
In the update was a short video of Natalia in a black masqurade mask with the caption "Waiting for you," and a prompt to swipe up.
At this point I had nothing to lose, and so I followd the prompt. The action opened my browser and brought me to a website all in Russian. I sighed and closed the tab, the investigation could wait. I was too tired to carry forward.
The next morning I found Natalia's body still frozen with the pizza in her mouth, still dressed in her transluscent bath robe. Flies had made home on the Pizza and were finishing the parts Nathan / Paul couldn't. I sat there at the table browsing the strange website. It was full of professoinally staged photos of Natalia and a few that Nathan had taken. In its best effort Google translated the site into broken English which only told me part of the story. There was a page showing Natalia's dimensions, from her height to her bra size and even the size of her ears. The language made it sound like Natalia was a destination, like a resort down in the Bahamas. I studied the website for hours until I grew restless.
I left the froen Pual-and-Nathan-as-Natalia at the table and went for a walk to clear my mind.
I returned to the house a few hours later. My mom was making dinner and my dad was outside triming the hedges. I asked mom about Natalia, to which she responded with saying that Natalia is very eager for dinner. I looked at the frozen woman at the table, her pizza had grown rotten with spots of mold.
We ate dinner once again around the frozen Natalia, my parents oblivious to it all.
Mom got up to clean the dishes, and dad stared cleaning up the table. I sat there watching the frozen woman, and then everything changed.
Natalia's hands thawed and the pizza fell, splattering on the table. I looked at the pizza, then back to Natalia's eyes when I noticed the new outfit she had been dressed in. Natalia wore a low cut black top with a black and white jack, speckled in black dots. She stood up and whiped herself of any crumbs. I noticed the white skirt and black heels. Mom asked how she liked her dinner, but Whoever-it-was-as-Natalia didn't say anything. Mom asked again then Natalia said something in Russian. My parents appeared to understand as they left the room. The sink still running with water.
Natalia stepped out of the room and into the living room. She began curiously inspecting the contents of the room, from the remote to the grandfather clock. She withdrew a phone and earpiece from her bra and began speaking in Russian.
I approached the stranger and asked her who she was and what she was doing. She ignored my question and carried on with her inspection. She walked the backyard next, the the garage, and so on. I finally blocked her on the stairs. She shouted some orders at me in Russian, but I wouldn't budge.
"Tell me who you are and what's going on!" I demanded.
She rolled her eyes and pushed me aside. She carried on with her inspection as I sat there on the staircase.
Natalia returned to the livingroom and then motioned to me to join her. I walked over and demanded answers.
She spoke a few more things in Russian and then hung up the phone. "We're canceling the Natalia project." She finally said.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my heart pounding.
"We over promised and the project was a failure, simple as that. Your services will no longer be needed."
My palms grew sweaty. "What services, I never agreed to anything? What's the Natalia project? Who are you?"
"It was apart of the mission that our vectors not know who they are. Have you ever heard of a double blind experiment?" She asked.
I didn't say anything.
"A double blind experiment is when not only the ones being experimented on, but also the experimenters do not know what they're testing."
"Then what the hell was I testing?" My voice grew louder.
"You were testing how people behaved when they were given the experince of Natalia, and we were testing how a vector could control it."
"What do you mean? What's a vector?" My brain was becoming overwhelmed with questions.
"A vector is somebody who has a higher than average ability to alter the world around them," she sat down on the sofa. "You were our blind vector, but we had a few inline for once the project rolled out. It's a rare gift, you should be proud to have it."
I remained standing up. "Then who are you and what was the project? And why did you cancel it?"
"You need not to know how I am, but if you need an answer you can call me the Director of Research. Or just Director for short. The Natalia project was designed to give people, perticularly women, the experince of becoming a goddess on Earth. There are a lot of women back in Russian who would pay an arm and a leg to know what it's like to be not only beautiful, but rich. So we made the project with a target audience in mind, and whoever had enough cash could rent out Natalia as long as they liked. We'd send a vector over to their house, they'd take the payment and then Natalia would be all theirs until the next one. The data we received from here seemed very promising at first, until you made an unexpected change. A bug if you will.
"Your first long-term user performed as expected, he even used the body to his full advantage. Utilizing her many features such as drinking without consequence, shortened periods of sleep, invaunerbility, and enhanced orgams. But the body seemed to not be able to adjust to a second long term user and then tried to revert to its previous occupant."
"Are you saying Natalia is a robot or something?" I asked.
"No," the Director said, "just a specially designed human. But as you might expect, this had never been done before which made us very excited back in Moscow. But ultimatly our huburis had gotten in the way. After the success of the first long term occupant we decided it was time to begin marketing using footage from a trial back in Russia. Little did we know that here in the States our project was falling apart. So we cancled it. Our research isn't over yet, we're already back to the drawing board for our next interation."
"So what does that make Nathan and Paul?" I took a seat finally. "Aren't they stuck in there?"
The Director rolled back their eyes exposing their whites to me. His pupils returned a minute or so later and he shook his head.
"What is it? Are they okay?"
"It appeares the second long term occupant, Paul you called him, is able to be detangled. But the body seems to be deeply tangled with the first occupant, Nathan, I cannot garuntee we can extract his consciousness safely."
"But he will be safe though, right?" My heart continued to beat faster.
"I cannot garuntee his long term well being, but I can assure you that he wil be safe in the short term." Better than noting.
"Great!" I jumped from my chair. "How can we get started?"
"I will need your vector abilities, come here," the Director gestured for me to come over. I sat down next to the director.
"Place your palms on mine," they held up Natalia's hands. I opened mine and grasped hers.
"What will happen once this is done?" I asked.
"Nathan will continue existing as Natalia, and Paul will be back to normal."
"No," I said, "I mean what wil happen to this reality? Will things be the same as the summer or what?"
"That is for you to decide as a vector. He will still maintain most of the physical atributes and abilities, but his relationship to you and your parents will change. Now close your eyes."
I closed my eyes as requested.
"Now I want you to think of a reality you think would best suit your friend Nathan's life."
I thought hard about what would be a perfect life for Nathan to live out his existance as Natalia. I thought about Natalia as my sister, but that seemed strange. I thought of her as the daughter of Nathan's parents. That seemed appropriate. But Nathan would be older than me now, he shouldn't be living at home. I thought about where he could live and what job he could start out with, he could always change it later. And then it came to me.
"Alright, I'm ready," I said.
I felt Natalia's palms push firmly against my own, and then nothing. I fell foward onto the cushions and looked al around me. Natalia had dissapeared.
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I walked into the backyard, past the pool and to the guest house out back. I knocked on the door, nobody answered. I knocked again, again nothing. So I invited myself in.
The house was a small one story building, it felt like an apartment with its living room, single bedroom, and small kitchen layout. I checked every room only to find them empty. I finally opened the bathroom and saw Nathan in his red bikini standing in the shower.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just don't know where I am or how I got here," he said the Russian accent gone. "What happened to my voice?"
"It's a long story," I said. "But in short, my parents are now renting this house out to you."
"I don't have a job, and what house?" he asked.
"It's my parent's guest house, it's never used. Check your IG."
He opened his phone and saw his hundreds of thousands of followers.
"I know you love showing off that body a lot, so I figured you might as well be an influencer."
"I am so confused right now," he rubbed his temples. "Are we even related anymore?"
"Common," I said, "let's go outside. I can explain this all to you by the pool."
I took his hand and guided him through his new house. I sat him by the pool and began explaining to him everything.