Chapter 3: A Knock at the Door
The knock was a staccato intrusion, three sharp raps that cut through the hum of the refrigerator and the frantic white-noise of her own thoughts. Joanna—the name echoed in her head, a sick joke—froze.The leather miniskirt felt like a vise. The sheer blouse was a cold draft against skin that wasn’t hers.
Go away, she thought, her mind screaming in John’s voice, but the plea stayed trapped behind lips that felt too soft.“John? You alive in there?It’s Dave.” The voice from the hallway was muffled but unmistakably cheerful. “You left your stupid financial calculator in the conference room. I was driving past, saw your light on.”
Panic, sharp and acidic, flooded her throat.She couldn’t be seen. Not like this. She looked at the door, then down at her body—the graceful curve of a stranger’s hip, the manicured hands clenched into futile fists.The calculator. John’s calculator.A piece of his old life, scratching at the door of this new nightmare.
She had to make him leave.Trembling, she approached the door. Her gait was all wrong—a smaller stride, a different balance. She kept her body behind the door as she turned the knob and cracked it open, just enough to show a sliver of the hallway and nothing of herself. The chain lock, unused for years, remained fastened.“Hey,” she said. The word emerged as a strained, soft alto.It wasn’t John’s voice. It was a woman’s voice, tight with fear. She cleared her throat, a dainty sound that horrified her, and tried again, pitching it lower, forcing a gruffness.“Thanks, Dave. Just… leave it there.I’m not feeling great. Really contagious.” It was a rasp, an unconvincing imitation of illness.
Dave’s jovial face appeared in the narrow gap, one eye peering in with friendly concern.He held up the sleek calculator. “You sound awful, man.Like you’ve been gargling glass.You need anything? Cup-a-soup?NyQuil?”
“No.No, I’m fine. Just sleep.” She tried to move the door to close it, but her new hand lacked strength. The movement shifted her position, and the lavender sleeve of the blouse, the sheer fabric, slid into view. So did a sliver of her bare shoulder.Dave’s eye narrowed.He wasn’t stupid. He saw the fabric.He saw the smooth, pale skin. His expression shifted from concern to puzzled curiosity.A slow, knowing smirk started to play on his lips. “Ohhh,” he breathed, the sound full of implication.“Not feeling great.Right.I get it. Sorry to interrupt your… convalescence.”
“It’s not—” she began, but her voice cracked back into its natural feminine register.Dave’s smirk widened. He gently slid the calculator through the gap, letting it rest on the small ledge of the doorframe. “Tell your… nurse… I said feel better.” He gave a little wave with his fingers, his eyes twinkling with merciless amusement. “See you tomorrow, John. Don’t work too hard.”
She slammed the door shut, the sound final and hollow in the quiet apartment. She stood there, forehead pressed against the cool wood, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hall, his faint, disbelieving chuckle echoing behind him. The humiliation was a physical burn, worse than the transformation itself.He thought John had a woman over. He thought John was lying to hide a hookup.Joanna.
The name wasn’t just in her head anymore.It was a label now, applied from the outside. A secret everyone was starting to notice.
She woke the next morning tangled in his own sheets, a dull ache in his lower back and a metallic taste of panic in his mouth.The room was his. The body was his—rough hands, flat chest, the familiar heft of himself.The clothes from yesterday were gone. No skirt, no blouse.Just his plain grey t-shirt and boxer briefs.
A dream.A horrific, extended, incredibly vivid dream.
He breathed out, a long, shaky sigh of relief so profound it felt like spiritual.He got up, padding to the bathroom. He avoided the mirror for a full minute, brushing his teeth with his eyes closed. When he finally looked, it was just John.Tired.A little puffy around the eyes.Normal.
The calculator was on his kitchen counter, a cold, hard rectangle of black plastic.Dave’s visit was real. The excuses were real.The woman’s sleeve in the doorway was real.
Everything else… couldn’t be.At the office, the normal sounds felt like a taunt. He buried himself in a complex reconciliation, the numbers a safe, predictable universe. Around ten-thirty, the familiar squeak of Dave’s sneakers approached his cubicle.
“So,” Dave said, leaning on the partition, his voice a stage whisper.“How’s the patient? Voice sounds back to normal.”
John kept his eyes on his screen.“Fine. Just a twenty-four-hour thing.”
“Must have been some potent medicine,” Dave chuckled.He didn’t leave.The silence grew thick.
John could feel the question hanging in the air-conditioned hum.He typed a meaningless string of numbers.
“Come on, Marsh.Level with me.” Dave’s tone was all friendly conspiracy. “Who was she?You’ve been holding out. That was not the shirt of a guy who’s ‘not feeling great.’ That was fancy stuff.And the, uh, shoulder I saw? Definitely not yours.”
John’s face grew hot.His fingers stilled on the keyboard. Denial surged up, clean and simple. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.I was sick.Alone.”
“Dude.” Dave laughed.“I have eyes. It’s cool.Good for you.She a Tinder thing? She seemed… stylish.”
The word stylish hung in the air, absurd and terrifying. John’s mind raced, a frantic animal in a trap.He couldn’t explain the clothes. He couldn’t explain the voice.A lie, a solid, mundane lie, was the only possible shelter. He swallowed, forcing a smirk he didn’t feel.“Okay.Fine.You got me. It wasn’t a date.It was my cousin. Joanna.”
The name felt like a betrayal as he said it.Dave’s eyebrows shot up.“Your cousin.”
“Yeah. From out of town.Surprise visit.She’s… going through a messy breakup. Crashed with me last minute.You saw her, she was a wreck. I didn’t want to broadcast her business all over the office.” The words spilled out, sounding almost plausible to his own ears.
“Joanna, huh?” Dave chewed on this. The prurient glee faded, replaced by a slightly embarrassed concern.“Oh, man.Now I feel like a dick. I totally misread that.Is she okay?”
“She’ll live,” John said, the words dry. He turned back to his screen, a clear dismissal.“Thanks for the calculator.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Dave lingered for a second, then retreated, his curiosity seemingly satisfied by the boring, tragic truth of a familial crisis.John stared at the spreadsheet, the cells blurring into a grey grid. He had done it.He had explained it. He had given the phantom a name and a backstory.Joanna was his cousin now.A real person in Dave’s mind. A piece of fiction made flesh in the company gossip mill.The relief was short-lived, cold and thin. Because lying had made it real.Naming her had given her power. And as he sat there, a deep, unsettling soreness bloomed anew in his hips—a faint, persistent echo of the change, a ghost of the skirt’s embrace—telling him the lie was the most dangerous truth of all.