Chapter 1: A Stranger's Bed
The first thing I notice is the smell. Vanilla, and something else underneath it—sweet, like cotton candy perfume and the faint, sharp burn of hairspray. It’s not my smell. My sheets smell like stale laundry and old pizza.
My eyes blink open to a soft, pink glow. Not the harsh, sun-bleached blinds of my bedroom, but a string of tiny lights draped over a mirror. A vanity. Cluttered with more pots and brushes and tubes than I knew existed. My heart starts a dull, heavy thud in my chest. This isn’t my room.
I push myself up on the mattress, and the movement is all wrong. There’s a weight on my chest, a heavy, soft pull that shifts and jiggles with the motion. I look down.
Two full, pale breasts, tipped with pink, are resting against a rail-thin stomach. My stomach. A delicate silver ring glints from one nipple. I don’t breathe. My eyes trace down the alien landscape: the sharp dip of a waist, the pronounced curve of hip bones leading to a thatch of dark brown hair. Between my legs feels… different. An absence, and a quiet, internal presence I have no words for.
I throw the silky sheet off. My legs are slender, crossed with intricate, colorful tattoos—flowers, birds, delicate script. My feet are tiny. I wiggle the toes. They’re painted a glossy black.
“No.”
The voice that comes out is higher. Softer. It has a breathy quality that sticks in a throat that isn’t mine. I scramble off the bed, my smaller body uncoordinated, every step sending a unfamiliar bounce through my chest and a shift in my center of gravity. My ass… it jiggles. A soft, persistent wobble with each movement. I stumble toward the gold-framed mirror.
Sabrina Mooers stares back at me.
Plump, surprised lips. Short, messy brown hair. Huge, hazel eyes wide with my own panic. It’s her. It’s absolutely her. I lift a hand—her hand, slender with short, perfect nails—and touch the face in the glass. The skin is impossibly smooth. I see the pulse hammering in her neck.
This is a dream. A bad, weird dream from too much cheap whiskey and late-night gaming.
I pinch the skin of my—her—arm. The pain is bright and immediate. I feel the pinch differently; the nerves seem closer to the surface. The scent of vanilla is coming from me. From my skin.
A violent shudder runs through me, making everything jiggle again. The sensation is horrifying and fascinating. I’m trapped in a puppet made of soft, scented flesh.
On the nightstand, a phone buzzes against the wood, lighting up. The caller ID makes my new blood run cold.
JUSTIN-NEIGHBOR.
My own name. Calling Sabrina’s phone. Which is in my hand. Her hand.
The ringing is obscenely loud in the perfumed silence. I stare at it. If I answer… what do I say? ‘Hey, it’s me, you. I’m you now.’ He’d hang up. Think it’s a prank.
But what if he’s in my body? What if he’s in my house, right now, waking up in my sweat-stained t-shirt, scratching my beard, confused by the sheer mass and ache of his—my—ordinary limbs?
The buzzing stops. A second later, a text banner slides across the screen.
Justin-neighbor: Saw your light on last night. Everything okay? Your car’s still here.
He was watching. Of course he was. I was always watching her. The irony tastes like bile in her mouth. My mouth. The taste buds are different. There’s a faint, coppery tang of last night’s lipstick.
I need clothes. I can’t stand here naked in her skin. I yank open the nearest drawer of her dresser. It’s a tangle of lace and thin straps. Thongs. Dozens of them in every color. I pick one up between two fingers. It’s less fabric than my cleaning rags. The next drawer is bras. Push-up, padded, wired. I select a black one, staring at the intricate hooks.
It takes me three fumbling minutes to get it fastened behind my back, my new joints flexible but the motions foreign. The cups encase the weight of my chest, lifting, shaping, creating a deep cleavage that wasn’t even there a second ago. The pressure is constant, a supportive hug around my ribcage. I step into the thong, pulling the scant triangle of silk up over hips that are wider than I’m used to. The string settles in a place that feels invasive and strange, a perpetual, intimate wedge.
I find a tank top. It’s soft, lavender, and cuts low enough that the top of the bra and the swell of my breasts are plainly visible. A pair of tiny, frayed denim shorts that barely cover the curves of my ass complete the look. The fabric of the shorts is rough against skin that feels newly sensitive. Every seam, every tag, is a distinct presence.
I look in the mirror again. A perfect, petite replica of the girl next door. A girl who makes a living being looked at. I feel exposed. The clothing covers nothing; it just outlines, suggests, displays.
My phone—Sabrina’s phone—buzzes again. Another text.
Justin-neighbor: I’m making coffee. You want some?
The normalcy of it is terrifying. He’s in my kitchen. Using my mug. Living my boring, solitary life. And I’m here, in this pink-lit dollhouse of a bedroom, inhaling the scent of my own perfume, feeling the cool air from the vent raise goosebumps on my slender, tattooed arms.
I have to go over there. I have to see. I have to know if he’s me.
My hand, now steady with a desperation that overrides the shock, picks up the phone. I type a reply with thumbs that feel too small and nimble.
Me: Yeah. Be there in five.
I don’t know how to walk in this body. I take a step, and my hips have a natural sway that feels programmed. The world is from a lower vantage point. The door handle is higher. My feet, in bare feet, pad softly on the cool hardwood floor heading downstairs. Each step sends a tiny shock up through my thinner legs, a vibration in my pelvis.
I catch my reflection in the dark TV screen as I move through her living room. A small, curvy ghost moving through a space decorated in whites and golds. I am a visitor here. An imposter.
I step out her front door into the blinding Saturday morning sun. The sidewalk is warm under my bare feet. Our houses are identical from the outside. Well-kept. Normal.
I walk the twenty feet to my own front door. It’s unlocked. I push it open.
The smell hits me first. My smell. Unwashed laundry, dust, the ghost of microwave meals. It smells like loneliness. And there, standing in my kitchen, in my grey sweatpants and my faded band t-shirt, is me.
Justin Zygurski. My body. He’s scratching my beard, looking confusedly at the coffee machine.
He turns. His eyes—my eyes—land on me. On Sabrina. On this body I’m wearing.
His expression shifts from confusion to a familiar, awkward politeness, tinged with that flicker of secret interest I know so well. He smiles my smile.
“Hey, Sabrina. Coffee’s almost ready. You, uh… you okay? You look a little out of it.”
He doesn’t know. He has no idea.
The realization is a cold flood. He’s in there. And I’m out here. Staring at my own face, hearing my own voice ask me if I’m okay, while I stand here in this skin, feeling the tight hug of the bra and the precarious hold of the shorts, the morning air on my bare legs.
My new lips part. My new voice, breathy and unsure, speaks to the man who used to be me.