Chapter 1: The Swap at the Concert
The bass wasn’t just sound; it was a physical thing, a pressure in my chest that synced with the heartbeat of the crowd. Sweat and sunscreen and something sweetly fried hung in the warm air, a visible haze under the neon bracelets snaking through the darkness. I stood like a statue in the current, my hands shoved deep into my pockets, while Chloe swayed happily beside me, her voice lifting in an off-key shout along to the chorus.
“Come on, Justin! Live a little!” she laughed, her hips brushing mine.
I forced a smile. My shirt was sticking to my back. Mark, to my right, was surveying the scene like a king overlooking his domain, a bottle of beer dangling from his thick fingers. His other arm was slung around his wife, Sabrina, whose petite form was practically vibrating with energy.
“This song slaps!” Sabrina yelled, her voice cutting through the noise. She tipped her head back, downed the rest of her neon-blue drink, and handed the empty cup to Mark. “I’m getting another. Justin, you need one? You look tense, buddy.”
“I’m good,” I said, my voice barely carrying.
“Suit yourself!” She vanished into the pulsing crowd, a flash of pink hair and fishnets.
Chloe leaned into me. “She’s just trying to include you, honey.”
“I know,” I mumbled. I felt a familiar, dull ache behind my eyes. The overload. The sheer mass of people, the chaotic light show, the thudding that made rational thought a chore. I was calculating the minutes until we could reasonably leave when a collective roar went up from the stage. The lead singer screamed something unintelligible, and a new, heavier beat dropped.
A searing, white flash erupted from the main speakers—not a normal stage light, but a sudden, silent explosion of brilliance that left purple afterimages burned onto my retinas. At the same instant, a wave of dizziness slammed into me, a vertigo so profound my stomach lurched. The world didn’t spin; it folded. Sound became texture, sight became taste—a metallic zing on my tongue, a feeling of being yanked forward through a rushing tunnel of static.
Then, as abruptly as it started, it stopped.
I was still upright. The music was still pounding. But everything was wrong.
I was staring directly at the logo on Mark’s t-shirt, which was now at my eye level. I had to crane my neck to see his face. His familiar, concerned frown looked enormous from down here.
“Whoa, Sabrina, you okay? You just spaced out hard.” His voice boomed from above.
Sabrina? The thought was slow, syrupy.
A heavy, strange weight shifted on my chest with the simple act of breathing. I looked down. A tight, black cropped tank top stretched over two unmistakable, full curves. A silver hoop glinted from the navel just above the waistband of a microscopic skirt. My hands—no, not my hands—were small, with chipped black polish on the short nails. Intricate tattooed vines coiled around the slender wrists and up the arms.
A wave of heat, unrelated to the crowd, washed over me. This was a joke. A hallucination.
I tried to speak. “Mark, I—”
The voice that came out was higher, melodic, tinged with a slight rasp. Sabrina’s voice. It came from a different-shaped mouth. My tongue traced unfamiliar terrain: plump lips, the cool metal stud of a lip piercing, the smooth edge of perfect teeth. The beer I’d sipped an hour ago now tasted different on this tongue—sharper, more bitter.
“You’re white as a sheet, babe,” Mark said, his big hand coming down to settle on my bare shoulder. His touch was electric, overwhelming. His palm was so wide it nearly spanned the entire curve. I flinched.
“Don’t… don’t call me that,” I slurred. My head was swimming, a toxic cocktail of Sabrina’s prior intoxication and my own raging panic. The sensations were a torrent. The push-up bra was a relentless harness, lifting and separating a mass that was both part of me and a foreign object. Every slight movement sent a disconcerting jiggle through my torso. The thong was a maddening wedge of lace. The fishnets were a persistent, itchy grid against my thighs, which themselves felt smooth, alien.
I took a step back, and the world tilted. The knee-high boots added an unstable five inches. My center of gravity was all wrong, higher, making me feel precariously top-heavy. A strand of long, pink hair fell across my vision. I smelled vanilla and sweat.
“Justin? Where’d you go?” Chloe’s voice, laced with confusion. I turned, the motion causing another dizzying shift of weight on my chest. I saw her, my wife, looking past me, scanning the crowd for my face—my old face.
Then I saw him. Or… me.
Thirty feet away, near the drink line, stood my body. Justin Zygurski’s lanky, slouched frame in its boring graphic tee and jeans. It was staring down at its own hands, turning them over slowly. Then it looked up, and our eyes met across the chaotic space.
The expression on my face was one of pure, unadulterated shock. The glasses slid down the nose. A hand came up to feel the unfamiliar scruff of the jaw, the short blonde hair.
Sabrina. Sabrina was in there.
A violent, nauseating understanding crashed down. The flash. The vertigo. This wasn’t drunk. This was impossible.
“Sabrina, seriously, you’re freaking me out.” Mark’s arm slid around my waist, pulling me snug against his solid hip. The contact was intimate, possessive. I could feel the hard muscle of his side, the heat of him through our clothes. Every nerve in this new body screamed—some in alarm, some in a traitorous, instinctive response that made my stomach churn. The press of my new breasts against his torso sent a jolt of something that wasn’t entirely fear.
“I need air,” I gasped, the feminine voice trembling. “Let me go.”
I tried to pull away, but his grip was firm, friendly. “Hey, easy. I got you. It’s just the drinks. Lean on me.”
Chloe was still looking for me, a frown deepening on her pretty face. “That’s weird. He wouldn’t just wander off. Text him, Mark.”
The other me—Sabrina-in-me—was now pushing through the crowd, moving with a clumsy urgency toward the periphery. Our eyes locked again. There was a mirror of my own terror there, but beneath it, a frightening calculation.
Mark’s hand on my waist dipped lower, resting just above the curve of the miniskirt. His thumb stroked my hip bone through the thin fabric. A bolt of pure, clinical horror shot through me. This was my best friend. He thought he was touching his wife.
“Mark, please,” I whispered, my new voice thick.
“Shhh, it’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.” He pulled me closer, his lips brushing against my temple. The smell of his cologne, so familiar, was now overpowering. “Let’s get you some water.”
Over his shoulder, I watched my own body disappear into the shadows beyond the stage lights. I was alone. Trapped in this dizzying, jiggling, perforated, and tattooed prison of flesh, in the arms of a man who had no idea the friend he trusted was screaming silently inside. The music swelled, a mocking, throbbing soundtrack to the catastrophe. I had to get out. I had to find her. But first, I had to disentangle myself from the husband without giving us both away. His hand felt like a brand. The piercings in my ears and nose felt heavy. The one in my navel caught the light. Somewhere, beneath all the lace and denial, the other metal felt cold and strange.
My new, smaller heart hammered against my ribs. The game had changed. The rules were gone.