Chapter 2: The First Night's Swap
The first thing Ryan registered was the weight of hair on his neck. Not the short, bristly prickle of his own buzz cut, but a heavy, silken curtain that fell past his shoulders and brushed against bare skin. His bare shoulders. His bare arms. He blinked against the thin morning light filtering through the cabin's dusty windows and stared at the unfamiliar hand resting on the quilt in front of him. Small. Slender. Fingers tipped with chipped black nail polish—the same shade Mia had been wearing when they'd left for the cabin yesterday afternoon.
"What the fuck."
The voice that came out of his mouth was not his own. It was higher, softer, with a breathy edge that made the words feel foreign on his tongue. He sat bolt upright, and the movement sent a cascade of blonde hair tumbling over his face. He shoved it back with those small, unfamiliar hands, his heart hammering against a ribcage that felt suddenly, terrifyingly delicate.
Across the room, someone screamed.
Ryan threw himself out of bed, his legs tangling in a nightgown he vaguely recognized as Mia's—the pale blue cotton one with the little embroidered flowers at the hem. His feet hit the cold wood floor, and he nearly stumbled. Everything felt wrong. His center of gravity, the length of his stride, the way his hips moved when he walked. He caught his reflection in the small mirror mounted on the wall and froze.
Mia's face stared back at him. Mia's wide, startled blue eyes. Mia's pale skin, flushed pink across the cheekbones. Mia's lips, slightly parted in shock. He touched his—her—face, and the reflection did the same. The sensation was surreal, like pressing on a bruise that belonged to someone else.
"No. No, no, no."
He turned and bolted for the door, yanking it open just as another door across the hallway slammed against the wall. Mack—or rather, someone wearing Mack's body—stumbled out, thick arms flailing. The guy was at least six-two with the broad shoulders of a linebacker, but he was moving like a newborn foal, staring at his own massive hands with an expression of pure, unadulterated horror.
"Lindsay?" The voice was deep, rumbling, but the panic in it was unmistakably female. "Lindsay, is that you? Oh my God, I'm in Mack's body. I'm in Mack's fucking body."
Ryan's brain struggled to process the scene. Mia—no, Mack, Mia in Mack's body—was lumbering down the hallway toward the living room, those big hands gripping the walls for balance. Ryan followed, his sister's smaller frame moving with a grace he didn't possess, his stride too wide, his arms swinging wrong.
The living room was chaos.
Emma stood by the cold fireplace, and Ryan's breath caught in his throat because it was his body standing there. His broad shoulders, his muscled arms, his dark hair still mussed from sleep. But the way Emma held herself was all wrong—arms crossed protectively over her chest, weight shifted back on her heels, eyes wide and darting. She looked like a stranger wearing his skin.
"Ryan?" Emma's voice—his voice—cracked on the word. She took a step toward him, then stopped, her gaze raking over Mia's body with an expression he couldn't read. "Oh God. Oh God, Ryan, is that you?"
"Yeah." He winced at the sound. "Yeah, it's me. In Mia's..."
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Lindsay was sitting on the arm of the couch, or rather, Lindsay was sitting on the arm of the couch in Emma's body. The curly red hair was a wild halo around her face, and she kept touching it, twirling strands around her fingers with a bemused grin that looked utterly alien on Emma's sharp features.
"Okay, so, silver lining," Lindsay said, and even her voice was different—Emma's crisp, practical tone with Lindsay's irrepressible cheer bleeding through. "I've always wanted to know what it's like to be a redhead. Do the carpets match the drapes? Because I'm about to find out."
"Lindsay, what the fuck," Ryan snapped, but his sister's voice made it sound like a squeak of protest rather than a command. He cleared his throat, tried to summon the authority he usually carried so easily. "This isn't funny. We need to figure out what the hell is going on."
"Where's Mack?" Emma asked, her—his—jaw tight. She was staring at the figure still gripping the doorframe, the one with Mack's athletic build and horrified expression.
"Here." The voice was Mack's, deep and resonant, but the intonation was pure Mia. Ryan's sister looked down at her new body, at the thick forearms and broad chest, and something flickered across her face. Not fear. Something closer to wonder. "I'm... I'm in Mack's body. This is insane."
"No shit," Lindsay said, hopping off the couch. She wobbled slightly in Emma's body, getting used to the different proportions. "Where's Mack? Mack, buddy, you in there?"
The bathroom door swung open, and Emma—no, Mack in Emma's body—emerged with a towel wrapped around her waist and a grin that could only belong to one person.
"Holy shit, you guys." Mack's voice came out of Emma's mouth, but the lazy drawl was unmistakable. He ran his hands down his new hips, over the curve of Emma's waist, and let out a low whistle. "I have tits. Like, actual tits. This is awesome."
"Put some clothes on, man," Ryan said, his sister's voice rising in pitch. "Jesus Christ."
"What? We're all friends here." But Mack retreated back into the bathroom, still grinning.
The room fell into a tense silence. Ryan looked at Emma—at his own face, his own body, inhabited by the girl he'd been dating for two years—and felt something twist in his chest. She was staring at him too, at Mia's body, and there was a heat in those familiar brown eyes that he'd seen a thousand times before.
But this time, it was directed at him. At Mia's face. At Mia's body.
"Everyone, just... give us a minute," Emma said, and her voice—his voice—had that tone she used when she was about to take charge of a situation. The tone that usually made him proud to be with her, the future lawyer already practicing her advocacy. "Ryan and I need to talk."
Lindsay raised an eyebrow in Emma's face but didn't argue. She grabbed Mack's arm—the arm of Mia's body, which was strange and wrong and made Ryan's stomach clench—and steered him toward the kitchen. "Come on, big guy. Let's see if we can figure out how to make coffee in these bodies."
Mia—Mack—followed them without a word, but Ryan caught the look she shot him over her shoulder. There was something in her eyes, in Mack's deep-set brown eyes, that he couldn't decipher. Curiosity, maybe. Or understanding.
Then Emma's hand—his hand, strong and calloused—closed around his wrist, and she pulled him toward the bedroom they'd assigned to Ryan and herself the night before.
The door clicked shut behind them, and suddenly the room felt very small.
Emma stood in front of him, and it was like looking in a funhouse mirror. His own face, his own body, but the posture was wrong. She held herself like she was bracing for impact, shoulders slightly hunched, one hand rubbing the back of her neck in a gesture he'd never made in his life.
"This is so weird," she said quietly. "You're... you're Mia."
"I know." He looked down at his sister's hands, at the delicate wrists and slender fingers. "I've never been this... small before. Everything feels fragile."
"That's exactly how I feel." Emma laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I'm in the body of a guy who can bench press twice my weight, and I feel fragile. Make that make sense."
Ryan shook his head, and the motion sent blonde hair cascading over his shoulders again. He needed to find a hair tie. He needed to figure out why this was happening. He needed to stop looking at his girlfriend—at his own body—and feeling something other than horror.
But Emma was looking at him. Hadn't stopped looking at him since they'd left the living room. Her eyes—his eyes, dark and deep and rimmed with thick lashes—were fixed on Mia's face, on Mia's lips, with an intensity that made his borrowed skin prickle with heat.
"Emma." He held up a hand, Mia's hand, palm out. "Don't. I know what you're thinking."
"Do you?" She stepped closer, and the height difference was jarring. He was used to towering over her, used to the way she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. Now she was looking down at him, and the power in that gaze was unsettling.
"We can't," he said, and his voice came out breathy, uncertain. "I'm in my sister's body. You're in my body. This is... this is a brother and sister thing. It's weird. It's wrong."
"Is it?" Emma reached out and took his hand—Mia's hand—and the contact sent a jolt through him that had nothing to do with the familiar comfort of her touch. Everything felt different. New. Electric. "Because I'm not your sister, Ryan. I'm your girlfriend. And you're not my boyfriend right now—you're in your sister's body, but that doesn't make you my brother. It makes you... a person. In a body. A body I've never touched before."
"Emma, that's convoluted logic even for you." He tried to pull his hand back, but she held on. Her grip—his grip—was strong. Stronger than his own grip had ever been on... wait, no. That didn't make sense. He was the athlete. He was the strong one.
But he wasn't right now. Right now, he was Mia. Five-foot-four, hundred and ten pounds, delicate wrists and small hands that couldn't wrap all the way around his girlfriend's—his own—forearm.
"I don't care about logic," Emma whispered, and she was close now, so close that he could smell his own cologne on her skin, could see the way his eyes darkened with want. "I care about you. About us. And I've never felt like this before, Ryan. This... this power. This heat. I feel like I could do anything. Like I could take anything I wanted."
She took a step closer, and her chest—his chest, broad and muscled—pressed against his—Mia's small, soft chest. The sensation was foreign and shocking, and Ryan's breath caught in his throat.
"This is insane," he said, but he didn't pull away.
"Maybe." Emma tilted her head down—down, she was taller than him now—and her lips hovered over Mia's lips. "But I want to kiss you. I've been wanting to kiss you since I woke up and realized what happened. Is that wrong? Wanting my own boyfriend, no matter what body he's in?"
Ryan's heart was pounding. Mia's heart. His sister's heart, beating overtime in her chest. He should stop this. He should be the protector of the group, the one who kept everyone grounded, the one who had the moral compass.
But Emma was kissing him before he could form another protest, and the taste was familiar—mint toothpaste and the faint hint of coffee from last night's thermos—but the sensation was entirely new. Her mouth was harder, more insistent. The scratch of morning stubble—his stubble, on his jaw—pressed against Mia's soft cheek, and the roughness of it sent a shiver down his spine.
His hands came up to push her away, but instead they fisted in the front of her shirt—his shirt, the one he'd worn to bed last night, the one that stretched across shoulders that were now hers. He could feel the solid muscle beneath the cotton, the body that was his but also not his, and the contradiction made his head spin.
"That's it," Emma murmured against his lips. "That's my boy."
"I'm not—" he started, but she kissed him again, harder this time, and one of her hands—his hand, big and strong and confident—slid down his—Mia's—back, over the gentle curve of his—her—ass, and squeezed.
The sound that came out of Ryan's mouth was embarrassing. A high, thin gasp that had nothing to do with the way he usually responded to Emma's touch. But everything was different now. Everything was more.
"It's okay," Emma whispered, and there was something dark and beautiful in her eyes, something he'd never seen before. "It's okay to want this. We're not really related. This is just... us. In different wrapping paper."
"That's not—" He tried to protest, but her hand was moving lower, tracing the outline of Mia's panties through the thin cotton of the nightgown, and coherent thought abandoned him.
Everything was different. The sensitivity was different. The heat that pooled low in his belly was different—richer, deeper, spreading through his limbs like warm honey. He'd touched Mia's body before, obviously—he'd lived with her his whole life, knew the shape of her in the way siblings knew these things—but he'd never touched her from the inside. He'd never felt what it was like to inhabit this small, delicate frame, to feel his—her—body respond to pleasure.
Emma's hand found the waistband of the panties and slipped inside, and Ryan's whole body jolted.
"Fuck," he gasped, and the word sounded strange in Mia's voice—too soft, too innocent for profanity.
"You like that?" Emma's voice was low, husky in his own throat, and there was a smugness there that made Ryan's cheeks flush with heat. "I thought you might. Mia's body is really responsive, isn't it?"
"I don't... I can't..." But his hips were moving on their own, pressing into her touch, seeking more contact, more friction.
"Shhh." She kissed him again, softer this time, and her fingers began to move in slow, deliberate circles. "Just feel it. Let yourself feel it."
Ryan's mind was a storm of conflict. Every rational part of him was screaming that this was wrong—that he was in his sister's body, that the body responding so eagerly to Emma's touch belonged to Mia, that there was a boundary being crossed here that could never be uncrossed.
But the physical sensations were overwhelming. It was like experiencing touch for the first time. Every nerve ending felt raw, exposed, tuned to a frequency of pleasure he'd never known existed. His—her—body was so sensitive. The lightest brush of Emma's fingertips sent sparks through his entire system.
"Are you going to let me make you come?" Emma whispered against his ear. "In your sister's body? Are you going to let me see what Mia looks like when she—"
"Stop." The word came out strangled. "You can't say it like that. You can't make it..."
"Make it what?" She pulled back enough to look at him, and the expression on his own face was something he'd never seen there before. Hungry. Possessive. "Make it real? It is real, Ryan. This is happening. And I want it. Don't you?"
He did. God help him, he did. The body he was in was aching with want, with a deep, primal need that went beyond anything he'd ever experienced in his own skin. Mia's body wanted this with a ferocity that terrified him.
But more than that—more than the physical need—he wanted to know what it was like to be touched. To be wanted. To be pursued. In his own body, he was always the pursuer, the one who initiated, the one who took. But now, in Mia's body, he was the one being chased, and the thrill of it was addictive.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. But... but we're not going to think about the brother-sister thing. We're just... we're just two people. In bodies. Getting off. That's all."
Emma's smile was sharp and knowing. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
She pushed him—gently, but with a force that reminded him that she was in the body of an athlete—backward until his knees hit the edge of the bed. He sat down heavily, and the mattress squeaked in protest. Emma stood over him, looking down at Mia's small form with an expression of pure, predatory want.
"I want to see you," she said. "All of you. Is that okay?"
Ryan swallowed hard. He'd seen Mia in a swimsuit a thousand times. He'd grown up with her, for fuck's sake. But this was different. This was offering her body—his body, temporarily—to the girl he loved, and the vulnerability of that made his throat tight.
"Okay," he whispered.
Emma reached for the hem of the nightgown and lifted it slowly, deliberately, revealing Mia's pale skin inch by inch. Ryan watched her face—his face—as she took in the sight of him: the small, round breasts with their pale pink nipples already hard from the cool air and the heat of the moment, the flat stomach with its soft dusting of fine blonde hair below the navel, the smooth, bare mound between her legs.
"God, you're beautiful," Emma breathed, and the words hit Ryan like a punch to the chest. "She's beautiful. You're beautiful. I never... I never appreciated it before."
"I'm not—" He started to say it again, but she was already undressing herself—himself—pulling the shirt over his head and revealing the broad, muscled chest that Ryan spent hours in the gym maintaining. Except now she was the one maintaining it, and the way she moved in his skin was confident and fluid, like she'd been wearing it her whole life.
"You're not what?" She stepped out of the underwear—his underwear—and his eyes dropped involuntarily to the body between her legs. The body that used to be his. The cock that used to be his, half-hard and thick, framed by dark hair.
"Oh my God," Ryan whispered. "This is so weird."
"Weird and hot," Emma corrected. "Mostly hot." She climbed onto the bed, and the mattress dipped under her—his—weight. He was suddenly very aware of how much bigger his body was than Mia's. How much power Emma had in this situation.
But he didn't feel scared. He felt... awake. Alive. Every pore of Mia's body was singing with anticipation.
"Lie back," Emma said, and Ryan obeyed.
The pillow felt soft under his head—Mia's head, with its long blonde hair spreading out like a halo. Emma positioned herself beside him, one hand resting on his—Mia's—stomach, the other exploring.
"I want to touch you," she said. "Everywhere. I want to know what it's like to use these hands on someone so soft."
"Okay." His voice was barely a whisper. "Okay."
Her fingers brushed over his breasts, light as butterfly wings, and Ryan's back arched off the bed. The sensation was electric, shooting straight from his nipples to a place low in his belly that throbbed with want.
"Responsive," Emma murmured. "I like that."
She did it again, harder this time, pinching the nipples between thumb and forefinger, and Ryan cried out. The pain was beautiful—a bright, sharp counterpoint to the dull ache that was building between his legs.
"Please," he gasped. "Please, Emma, I need..."
"What do you need?" She tweaked his nipples again, and his hips bucked involuntarily. "Tell me what you need."
"I need you to touch me. Down there. I need—"
"What do you need?" She was teasing now, drawing it out, and Ryan thought he might die from the waiting.
"Your fingers," he managed. "Inside. Please. Inside."
Emma smiled, and it was strange to see his own face look so smug, so sure of itself, so... in control. "That's not quite what I had in mind."
Before he could ask what she meant, she was moving down the bed, positioning herself between his legs. The sight of his own body—his broad shoulders, his muscled arms—settling between Mia's pale thighs was almost too much to comprehend. But then she lowered her head, and Ryan's brain short-circuited.
"Oh fuck!" The scream was high-pitched, breathy, utterly unlike anything his own voice could produce. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, Emma—"
She wasn't using her hands. She was using her mouth—his mouth, his lips, his tongue—and the contrast between the stubble on the chin and the wet heat of the tongue was unlike anything he'd ever felt. Mia's body responded with a violence that made his vision white out at the edges, hips lifting off the bed, heels digging into the mattress.
"I've wanted to do this for so long," Emma said, her voice vibrating against his wet flesh. "You always said you didn't like being eaten out. I wonder if Mia's body likes it better."
Ryan wanted to protest, wanted to say something, but the words were gone. Everything was sensation—the lap of her tongue against his clit, the way his own face looked between his legs, the impossible knowledge that the girl he loved was using his own mouth to bring his sister's body to the edge of orgasm.
"Please," he babbled. "Please, Emma, please, I'm going to—"
She stopped.
The sound that came out of Ryan's mouth was not human. It was a wail of pure desperation, of loss, of need.
"Not yet," Emma said, and she was grinning. "I want to feel it. I want to be inside you when you come."
She climbed up his—Mia's—body, and the weight of her—of his body—pressing him into the mattress was strange and wonderful. Her cock—his cock—was fully hard now, hot and heavy against his thigh. She reached down between them, positioned herself at the entrance to Mia's body, and looked into his eyes.
"Ready?"
Ryan nodded, not trusting his voice.
She pushed in slowly. The stretch was impossible, the feeling of fullness almost too much. Mia's body was tight and wet and so, so responsive, and Ryan could feel every inch of his cock—Emma's cock now—sliding into him, filling him, making him whole.
"Fuck," Emma whispered, and her voice was strained now, the smugness gone. "Oh fuck, that's... that's so good. You feel so good. He feels so good."
"Move," Ryan begged. "Please, just move."
Emma started to thrust, slow and deep, and every stroke hit something inside Ryan that made him see stars. The rhythm was familiar and alien at the same time—he knew how it felt to be the one doing the penetrating, but being penetrated was a whole different universe. So much more intimate. So much more vulnerable. So much more.
"Harder," he gasped, and Emma obliged.
The bed creaked and the headboard slammed against the wall, and somewhere in the back of Ryan's mind he registered that everyone else in the cabin could probably hear this, could probably guess what was happening, but he didn't care. All that mattered was the building pressure, the coiling heat, the way Emma's—his—eyes were fixed on his face with an intensity that bordered on worship.
"I'm close," Emma gritted out. "Fuck, I'm close. You have no idea how good this feels. Being inside you. Being inside your body. Being inside my own cock."
Ryan's hands—Mia's small hands—were gripping the sheets, and he could feel the orgasm building, a tidal wave gathering strength, and he knew that when it broke it would take everything with it.
"Together," he managed. "Please, together—"
Emma nodded, and her thrusts became faster, sloppier, the rhythm breaking down as her body—his body—chased its release. Ryan was moaning continuously now, a high thin sound that didn't sound like him at all, didn't sound like Mia either, sounded like something entirely new.
"Now," Emma gasped. "Right now, yes—"
The orgasm hit Ryan like a freight train. His—Mia's—body convulsed around Emma's cock, inner walls clenching and releasing, wave after wave of pleasure crashing through him with such force that he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but feel.
Emma came with a shout that was both his voice and not his, driving deep one last time, and Ryan could feel the pulse of his own cock releasing inside Mia's body—hot and wet and impossibly intimate—and the sensation extended his own orgasm, made it something more than physical.
They collapsed together in a heap of trembling limbs and tangled hair, and for a long moment neither of them said anything. The only sounds were their panting breaths and the wind rattling the cabin's windows.
Finally, Emma pulled out slowly, and the feeling of emptiness was almost painful. She rolled onto her back beside him, and they lay side by side, two souls in alien bodies, staring at the wooden ceiling.
"That was..." Emma started.
"Insane," Ryan finished. "That was insane."
"Good insane?"
He turned his head to look at her—at his own profile, his own jaw, his own chest rising and falling with breath. "I don't know how to answer that. I don't know what just happened. I don't know if we just made the best or worst decision of our lives."
Emma laughed, and it was a strange sound to hear from his own mouth. "That's a lot of not knowing."
"Yeah." He sat up slowly, and Mia's body protested—sore in places he didn't know could be sore. "We should... we should clean up. Check on the others."
"Probably." But Emma didn't move. She was still staring at the ceiling.
Ryan stood, his—Mia's—legs unsteady, and walked to the small attached bathroom to clean up. When he looked in the mirror, he saw his sister's face flushed and satisfied, her hair a tangled mess, her lips swollen and red.
He didn't recognize the expression in her eyes.
When he came back, Emma was dressed—in his clothes, jeans and a t-shirt that hung differently on his body now that she inhabited it—and sitting on the edge of the bed. She looked up at him, and there was something softer in her expression now.
"We're going to figure this out," she said. "Whatever's happening. We're going to figure it out and fix it."
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. We will."
But even as he said it, he wasn't sure he wanted to.
And that uncertainty scared him more than anything else had all morning.