No Vacancy

by Susan L. Lin

I’ve lived in the same dump for thirty-five years. My whole life, in fact. I was born here. For the longest time, I even thought I’d die here. Trapped in this sweaty, oppressive place I’ve been unlucky enough to call home. I’m convinced the space is haunted.

Sure, I fantasized about moving out all the time, especially when I was still a child, but the logistics were never in my favor. And so I stayed put despite my misery. I waited for a better option to arise, though I never had much hope for the day one would materialize.

I know what you must be thinking. That I’m lazy. That I haven’t put in the time and effort to clean this puppy up and make it look presentable. You couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve tried all the products. I’ve considered all the fads. The KonMari Method? Let’s just say that very little about the approach sparked joy.

But at long last, an unbelievable opportunity has landed on my doorstep. A once-in-a-lifetime offer. I never thought I’d live to breathe these words, but after all those years, I’m finally relocating this weekend. I can’t wait to fill the corners of a brand-new space, instead of one that’s overflowing with rancid memories. I can’t wait to lie on the cool hardwood floor and stretch all my limbs out as far as they’ll reach.

My broker is a lifesaver, and I mean that literally. Her name is Talullah. I met her for the first time at one of the lowest points in my existence. Following an unfortunate trip to the ER, I found her sitting in the waiting area after I’d been discharged. Her aubergine pantsuit caught my attention, and we got to talking about our shared love for the color purple in all its shades. When the conversation turned to more solemn matters, and she learned the details of my situation, she promised to meet up and talk me through every option currently available on the market. I was amazed by her depth of knowledge on the topic. The fact that our paths only crossed because she’d been visiting a sick relative that same afternoon made me think my fortune was finally starting to turn.

Her first recommendation was that I arrange a clean trade with someone in a similar boat. Evidently, I’d be able to find a restricted-access bulletin board on the web where interested parties posted details of their offers and stated exactly what they were looking for in return. These simple exchanges were the preferred method for most clients, she said, because it meant that no one had to worry about money. Well, except for a small service fee, which she would of course collect from both sides as the intermediary of our arrangement, but she assured me we could talk about exact figures later. Discounts and payment plans existed for every income bracket, and she was licensed to facilitate the entire transaction from beginning to end.

I gave serious thought to her initial advice. I’d always been careful with money, so what she was describing did seem like the most responsible course of action. But I had amassed a large sum in savings over the years. Once upon a time, I’d thought I might need surgery someday. In anticipation, I’d invested every last spare penny and felt my stomach see-saw as the number grew and grew before my eyes. Ultimately, I elected not to go under the doctor’s knife. But now I had a chance to put the money to even better use.

I told Talullah I was curious to hear what other options were out there. What other deals was she qualified to make? She thought for a moment. If I absolutely couldn’t find a perfect match to make a clean trade, she said, I could sell my own property for cash and then use those earnings toward my dream destination.

“But!” She knew I didn’t think much of what I already had. “Here’s what I tell all my self-conscious clients: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” She quoted the well-known adage with a look of pride that suggested she’d conjured up the statement on her own, completely out of thin air. “I’ll help you sell it,” she assured me. “That’s kind of my job. I have a fantastic copywriter on the payroll, and an even better photographer. It’s all about finding the right words. The right angles. So, what do you think? Are we going to do this?”

Again, her proposal was tempting. It was the ideal retirement plan. I would have a lot more choices at hand in the scenario she’d just described, especially if I was willing to drop extra coin. But something was still stopping me from taking the plunge. “Sure, but what if I’m not looking for another lifelong situation right now?” I asked. I’d had enough of permanence. How heavy and suffocating it all was. Maybe what I needed now was more freedom to truly exist without defined barriers.

Talullah’s grin grew noticeably wider. “Say no more.” She leaned closer to me: “Now, this route isn’t for everyone, and a certain amount of risk is involved for sure, but I think I have just the opportunity for you.” She told me about these new market listings that were cropping up all over the dark corners of the web and gaining massive popularity in the business. They essentially advertised rentals like roadside motel rooms or Airbnbs; you paid to stay or sublet for short-term periods. But this way of living was considerably more expensive than putting down roots, she warned. The bills could add up fast if I wasn’t careful.

I knew she was only trying to look out for me, but I had made my decision as soon as she’d said the magic words. Short-term. I didn’t want to be tied down anymore. Now that I’d discovered a way to leave all my baggage from the past behind, I wanted to enjoy everything this limitless world had to offer.

The corners of Tallulah’s mouth turned up even further. She had very large teeth that looked shrouded in dental veneers. “Excellent!” From a monstrously massive designer bag, she retrieved a thick sheaf of papers, all held together with a gold binder clip. “I’ll need you to read over this contract and then sign and initial wherever prompted. There’s a lot of information here, so please take your time. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.”

I tried to take it slow as she’d requested, I really did, but I was so overwhelmed with emotion that my eyes refused to focus, constantly skipping over entire lines of text. For the first time in a long time, my excitement for the future made it difficult for me to stay in the present. The dense paragraphs of prose were also crammed full of legal jargon that I could barely understand. I did manage to deduce from a highlighted section that I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone else about the particulars of this agreement. I could only refer other people directly to Talullah if they were interested in a similar deal.

She sat across the table from me the entire time I read, fingering a red tassel on her handbag, a dreamy look of satisfaction evident on her face. She must really love her job, I thought, if she gets that much pleasure from helping those in need.

“I’m just curious,” I asked her as I set the pen down and returned the pages to her hands. I couldn’t get over her toothpaste-commercial teeth. Her flawless skin. Blue eyes that almost glowed under the night sky. “How many times have you contacted a broker to handle your own affairs?” I hoped my question wasn’t too personal. The last thing I wanted to do was upset her. This woman who was trying to save me.

She pretended she hadn’t heard me at first, examining each page of the signed contract with laser focus and superhuman speed, never looking up once until she was finished. I wondered if her gaze had always been that severe, or if she’d had to cultivate that look over time. “Oh honey,” she finally said, wide eyes now trained on mine, “you don’t really want to know that.”

I did, actually, but I only shrugged. If she was going to be guarded and cagey about her own profession, that was her business.

“Alright, perfect!” A switch had flipped, somewhere deep within her being. In no time at all, she returned to her casual and carefree persona. Her eyes were practically glittering as she beamed at me. “I’ll file this away in my records and make sure my office sends you a copy. You can expect me back here on Saturday at noon. What we’re trying to pull off is a complicated undertaking that might take some practice the first time around, but don’t worry, I’ve had a one hundred percent success rate with all my clients. Just remember not to eat for twelve hours prior to my arrival. I’ll have you out of that body in no time, just wait and see!”

And with those beautiful words, she exited the front door of my house, a human form disappearing into the early morning fog.

Such a lovely place, this house. I’ll miss it when it’s no longer mine, but Talullah assured me that day doesn’t have to come any time soon. She assured me I can retain the deed, even after our plans come to fruition this weekend. I’m relieved. I’m not sure I can handle too much change at once, and this house has remained my constant through turbulent times. Every room is filled with new possibilities.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt out of place in my body. So much so that as time went on, I began to feel imprisoned inside. As I grew older, I slowly realized with horror that the body I’d been born with would be my permanent home for the rest of my life. As if it weren’t bad enough that I’d been saddled with soft edges and an inability to shed pounds in a world that placed far too much value on a toned physique. I’d also been saddled with parts and organs and hormones I didn’t want and had never asked for.

When I was ten, I asked my older sister to explain how our identities were shaped at birth. I wondered why we couldn’t ever experience the world through someone else’s perspective. She gave me a sympathetic look and launched into a big speech about Punnett squares that I couldn’t make heads or tails of at the time, but I nodded along like her explanation made perfect sense. It wasn’t until my high school biology class four years later that I dissected the sad truth with a sinking heart: she’d completely misunderstood my question.

Talullah, however, recognized my plight immediately. She assured me I wasn’t the only one in the world who felt the way I did. She was patient with me as she outlined, step by step, the ways in which I could leave the corporeal world behind. In that pivotal first moment, when her tireless instruction finally unlocked some part of me I’d previously been unable to access, when my soul abandoned its anchor to the Earth, I felt such autonomy! With nothing tying me down, I took a quick tour of the city I’d grown up in. I visited all the old haunts. They looked alien from above, but everything seemed that way with no eyes to see out of and no brain to process it. I don’t know how to describe the sensation to anyone who has never experienced it. And yet, my connection to this world and everything it encompassed felt deeper than ever. I briefly wondered why anyone needed a body at all.

Talullah had warned me of this phenomenon beforehand, of course. She told me not to stray too far from the ground. She told me that I might feel weightless at first, but the liberating feeling was fleeting. Without a body, she reminded me, I wouldn’t be able to interact with anyone or anything. I would be like a ghost. “Think how lonely you would get,” she said. Honestly, being alone didn’t sound that bad to me, but I was still touched that she cared so much. I cut my joyride short and returned to the house.

There, I found Talullah sprawled on the couch (my couch!) like she now owned the place. Her hair was different, I noticed immediately. So was her makeup. In fact, upon closer inspection, I was pretty sure her whole face was different. Her skin tone. Her silhouette. The shape of her smile. Even her very distinctive teeth. But her mannerisms remained the same. The way she held her head. The way she moved her limbs. She was engaged in an animated conversation with someone in the adjacent chair who looked an awful lot like I used to. But that was impossible. I was still here! We hadn’t agreed on a buyer for my body yet. And why were they both laughing so much? What was so damn funny?

“Oh, hello there, Ray,” Talullah said, apparently sensing my presence despite my lack of a physical form. I supposed that to excel in her line of work, she needed a sensitivity to unseen spirits.

Rayna! Not Ray. I wanted to correct her, but I didn’t have a mouth. I didn’t have vocal chords. I didn’t even have hands.

“Is that him? The previous owner?” The lips on my old face on my old head on my old body moved. They formed words with such ease. They spoke them out loud like it was nothing.

Her, I wanted to yell. Her!

“Ray, I can feel your anger from here,” Tallulah said as she sipped from a coffee mug pilfered straight from my cupboard, still making herself right at home in my actual home. The one she’d promised me would always be mine no matter what happened. “It’s unbecoming.”

That word only made me more mad. In fact, the opposite of her claim was true. I was finally becoming myself for the first time in decades. That had been the whole point.

“We talked about all of this.” Her voice was frustratingly calm. “We discussed all your options. You wanted a temporary body. You wanted to pocket the extra cash from the sale. And I have it right here.” She waved a wad of bills in my face. “Of course, money is of no use to you right now as you well know. Come back and see me when you have your rental. I’ll be more than happy then to hand over what’s yours.”

But I’d never given her permission to make a sale without my approval! Certainly not before I’d even had a chance to check out which bodies were available to rent. Unless…? I thought back to the contract I’d hastily signed. The frustrating walls of text. Their convoluted wording. But surely I would’ve noticed a clause that gave her authorization to disregard my opinion.

Turning my attention to the web, I flipped through the yellow pages on the black market but found it impossible to make a reservation in my current state. I quickly found that it didn’t matter. Neon signs flashed next to each listing, all accompanied by a detailed rundown of special features and available amenities. But across the board, every single status read no vacancy in incandescent tubing.

“Oh, you didn’t book a new body before you handed over the keys to your old one?” Talullah asked, not even trying to hide her delight at my misfortune. “You’ll have to be more vigilant in the future if you want to survive.” She turned to look at the other person in the room, and if I’d had a face in that moment, they both would’ve laughed in it.

When I’d first noticed Talullah sitting in that hospital waiting room after my near-death experience, I’d been blinded by her beauty and her confidence. I’d thought I might want to be a woman like that one day, the kind who appeared comfortable in her own skin: every muscle, every organ, every lifeline in the place where it felt most natural. Now I saw her as her true self. She was a shapeshifter who switched bodies not for the physical expression of her true identity but for the sole purpose of manipulating others. She preyed on our weaknesses and self-doubts, only caring in the end how she could twist them to her own benefit. The very real possibility that she had no ailing loved one suddenly seemed obvious. I had no idea if she had loved ones at all.

Now she lives in my house with the money she made from the sale of my body, while a strange man walks from room to room flaunting that very familiar figure. The one I lived in for decades. With some distance now behind me, I can scrutinize it objectively: Stubby legs. Flat chest. Long scars down the insides of each wrist. I don’t miss it at all.

I spend most of my days observing live updates for rentals in my area, hoping for any crack that will allow me to swoop in before the new occupant has time to get settled in. Vacancies have to open up sometime. Once I possess a human form again, I can work my way back through the system, until I eventually find my ideal accommodations. From there, I can dismantle her whole operation. I can take back my house. I can lie on the cold hardwood floor and stretch all my limbs out as far as they’ll reach. For the first time ever, I can finally be at home in my body.