Chapter 2: A Cocktail of Confusion
His smile was a trap, all white teeth and charming confidence. My tongue felt too thick in my mouth, this smaller, differently shaped mouth. I could taste the ghost of Sabrina’s lip gloss, a faint, waxy sweetness.
“Hi Mark,” I managed. The voice was wrong. It was airy, a breathy approximation of warmth that I hoped passed for his girlfriend’s usual quiet tone. I was painfully aware of Sabrina-in-my-body lurking just beyond his shoulder, a silent, panicked statue. I could see the plea in my own eyes: Play along.
“Just getting off early,” Mark said, his gaze never leaving me. It was like being studied under a warm spotlight. He shrugged out of his linen shirt, revealing the muscular, defined torso I’d seen at the gym a hundred times. It felt different now. It wasn’t my friend’s body. It was a predator’s physique, displayed with casual ownership. He tossed the shirt onto a chair. “Thought I’d surprise my girl. Water looks good.”
He nodded towards the pool, its surface a dancing sheet of liquid gold. My stomach, Sabrina’s tight, flat stomach, clenched. I hated swimming. I was a sinker. My old body had been dense, stubbornly buoyant only with effort. This new one felt terrifyingly insubstantial, like a bundle of twigs and soft fruit.
“I, uh… I was just getting pretty dry,” I stammered, gesturing vaguely at my skin. The movement made everything jiggle. A soft, unnerving wobble in my chest, a shift of weight on my hips. The sensation was impossible to ignore.
“Perfect time to get wet again,” he laughed, a rich, easy sound. He walked to the pool’s edge, his back muscles shifting under tanned skin. He didn’t look back. He simply dove, a clean arc that cut the water with a minimal splash. He surfaced a moment later, shaking his head, sending droplets flying. “Come on, babe! It’s amazing.”
I stood frozen. The concrete was warm and rough under my tiny feet. My pink-painted toenails looked absurd. I felt a sharp, insistent tug from behind me—the strip of the turquoise thong, a constant, intimate intrusion between the unfamiliar mounds of Sabrina’s ass. Every slight shift made it dig. I glanced desperately at Sabrina-in-my-body.
Her face—my face—was pale beneath the beard. She gave a tiny, frantic nod towards the pool. Go.
My heart was a frantic bird trapped in a delicate cage of ribs. I forced my small feet to move. Each step was a study in new physics. My center of gravity, lower and centered in my hips, made my walk instinctively sway. The gentle, alternating bounce in my chest was a sickening rhythm. I reached the rough, cool coping tile at the edge.
Mark was treading water easily, a few feet out. He smiled up at me, expectant. The afternoon breeze skimmed the pool’s surface and then washed over me. It chilled the damp spots on my bikini top, and my nipples, sensitive in a way that was utterly foreign, contracted instantly into hard, aching points against the thin, padded fabric. I crossed my arms over my chest, a reflex that did nothing to hide the effect.
“Don’t be shy,” Mark said, his voice a low rumble that carried over the water.
There was no way out. I took a shuddering breath, the air feeling thin in my smaller lungs. I closed my eyes, thinking of my old body’s solid plunge. But this wasn’t that body. I didn’t dive. I just stepped off the edge.
The drop was longer than I expected. The shock of the water was a physical assault. It wasn’t just cold; it was a total, enveloping invasion. The fabric of the bikini became a second skin, plastered instantly to every curve and cleft. The thong, a minor annoyance before, was now a wet, relentless wedge.
I sank. My new body had no natural buoyancy. My slender arms paddled uselessly, my legs kicking in a disorganized panic. The water closed over my head, muffling sound, flooding my nose. I was going to drown in five feet of water.
Then, hands. Big, strong hands. They hooked under my arms, their grip firm and absolute. I was hauled upward, breaking the surface with a gasp that was a high-pitched, feminine squeak. Water streamed from my long hair, clogging my vision.
I was pulled flush against him.
The sensation was overwhelming, a tidal wave of input that short-circuited my brain. His chest, hard and broad and ridged with muscle, was pressed against the full, soft give of Sabrina’s breasts. The pressure was immense, crushing. A bolt of something—not pain, not pleasure, but a shocking, deep cellular awareness—shot through me. His thigh, thick and powerful, slid between my smooth, slender ones as he stabilized us.
“Gotcha,” he murmured, his mouth close to my ear. His breath was warm against the cold shell of it. “You just stepped right in, huh? Forgot you can’t really swim.”
I was rigid, trapped in the cage of his arms. My hands, small and weak, came up and rested awkwardly on his slick shoulders. The difference in our strength was absolute. He held me as if I weighed nothing. I could feel the entire, formidable length of him through the water—the hard plane of his stomach against Sabrina’s soft one, the threatening, thick evidence of his arousal beginning to stir against my lower belly, a pressure that felt like a promise and a threat.
My face was buried in the space between his neck and shoulder. I could smell his skin, his chlorine-scented cologne, a fundamentally male scent that was both familiar and now terrifyingly intimate. My mind was screaming. This was Mark. My friend. And he was holding his girlfriend, whose body I was wearing, and he was getting hard.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice a vibration I felt through his chest and into mine.
I nodded, a frantic little motion, my wet hair slapping my cheeks. I couldn’t speak. The sensory overload was too complete. The water lapped at my chin. His hands were splayed across my bare back, his fingers spanning almost the entire width of it. One thumb stroked idly, a casual, possessive gesture along the ridge of my spine.
Over his shoulder, I saw Sabrina-in-my-body. She was standing at the pool’s edge, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. Her expression—my expression—was a mask of horror and helpless complicity. She had asked me to do this. She was watching me do it.
Mark shifted, lifting me slightly. The movement made everything slide and press anew. “God, you feel good,” he breathed, and the words weren’t just a compliment; they were a statement of intent. He nuzzled my wet hair. “Missed you today.”
I had to say something. I had to be Sabrina. I forced my vocal cords to work. “I… missed you too.” The words were a whisper, barely audible over the splash of water. They sounded hollow to me, but he seemed to accept them, humming in approval.
He began moving, wading us slowly towards the shallower end, still holding me tightly against him. Every slight motion sent ripples of sensation through this alien body. The water’s resistance against my legs, the drag of my hair, the unbearable sensitivity of my skin where it was pressed against him. I was a prisoner of flesh, a guest in a stranger’s nervous system, and the warden was my best friend, who had no idea he was holding a captive. The sun beat down, the water shimmered, and the terrible, fragile pretense held, balanced on a knife’s edge of every breath I took.