Chapter 1: Pizza Panic
The first thing I noticed, absurdly, was the weight on my chest. A gentle, persistent pull against my sternum that hadn’t been there ten seconds ago. Then came the scent—vanilla and something floral, clinging to the long blonde hair that now fell across my field of vision. My field of vision which was, abruptly, about a foot lower than it should have been.
I was staring at my own hands. Or rather, I was staring at Sabrina’s hands, small and delicate with perfectly manicured nails, resting on my—her—jean-clad thighs. Which were also smaller. Everything was smaller, and softer, and utterly, terrifyingly wrong.
A sound to my left, a sharp, choked gasp. I turned my head—a motion that sent a cascade of blonde hair swinging over my shoulder—and saw myself. I saw my own face, pale beneath my beard, my own wide, horrified eyes staring back from across the coffee table. That was Justin’s body. But the person recoiling against the plush cushions of my sectional, clutching at my broad chest with my familiar hands, was not me.
“What…” The word came out in a voice that was a light, melodic soprano. Sabrina’s voice. I clapped a hand over my mouth. The feel of my own lips was alien—so much fuller, the texture different.
“Justin?” The word was a rasp, deep and rough and utterly bizarre coming from my own mouth. That was Sabrina, in my body. Her expression—my expression—was a mirror of my own panic.
The world tilted. I pushed myself up from the couch, a simple action that became a choreography of unfamiliar physics. My center of gravity was different, higher. When I stood, my hips seemed to swing forward to compensate, a slight, instinctive sway I couldn’t control. The yoga pants felt like a second skin, the thong a precarious, absurd line of fabric between… between things I desperately did not want to think about. The tank top was tight, the material of the bra beneath it a structured confinement I could feel with every shallow breath. And with every breath, the weight on my chest moved. A faint, unmistakable jiggle.
“Oh, God,” Sabrina-in-my-body whispered, staring down at the large, masculine hands in her lap. She—he?—flexed them, the tendons standing out. “This isn’t happening.”
“It is,” I squeaked, then cleared my throat, trying to find a lower register. It cracked. “Sabrina? Are you… in there?”
She looked up, and it was so strange to see my own face contort with her anguish. “I’m in your… and you’re in my… Justin, what did we do?”
“We didn’t do anything!” I protested, the higher voice making me sound hysterical. I wrapped my arms around myself, an attempt to steady the dizzying sensation, but my hands encountered the pronounced curve of my new hips, the shocking narrowness of my waist. My fingers brushed the side of my breast and I flinched. “We were just talking. You said you felt a headache coming on, I said maybe it was the whiskey…”
A flash. That was the only word for it. A silent, blinding burst of white light behind my eyes that had made the world dissolve for a second. And then this.
The bathroom door clicked open down the hall. Our heads snapped toward the sound in perfect unison. Mark’s heavy, confident footsteps approached.
“No, no, no,” Sabrina muttered, scrambling to sit up straighter in my lanky form. She tried to plant my feet wide, a masculine posture, but it looked awkward, forced.
“Play along,” I hissed, the command sounding ridiculous in this flute-like tone. “For now. Just… be me.”
Mark rounded the corner, his tall frame filling the doorway. He smiled, a warm, easy expression that usually made me feel comfortable. Now, it sent a completely novel pulse through this borrowed body. A flush of warmth that started low in my belly and spread outward, a reaction so visceral and unwanted it left me breathless. My skin felt hyper-sensitive. I could smell his cologne, something woody and clean, and it was all I could do not to take a step closer.
“Everything okay?” Mark asked, his gaze sweeping the room. It landed on me—on Sabrina’s body—and his smile softened into something more intimate, more possessive. “Babe? You look pale.”
He was talking to me. He was looking at this body with a fondness and a familiarity that curdled my stomach and, horrifyingly, did something else to it. I felt a faint, peculiar throb between my legs, an internal clench that was utterly foreign.
“Fine!” I chirped, too loud. “Just… a little dizzy for a second. Too much wine, maybe.” I tried to laugh. It tinkled.
“Since when does half a glass of Pinot knock you out?” Mark chuckled, coming over. He placed a large, warm hand on the back of my neck. His touch was electric. Every nerve in this body seemed to fire at once, screaming Mark, Mark, Mark. I froze, terrified that he would feel the frantic hammering of my heart—Sabrina’s heart—through my skin.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, trying to lean away, but the motion just pressed me slightly against his side. The solid muscle of his torso through his shirt felt like a magnet.
His hand squeezed gently before he let go and turned to Sabrina, who was watching the exchange with a look of gut-wrenching jealousy on my face. It was surreal.
“Justin, you good? You’re sweating.”
Sabrina jerked, wiping my brow with the back of my hand. “Hot in here,” she grumbled, doing a poor imitation of my usual cadence. “Maybe open a window.”
The front door slammed and Chloe’s bubbly voice filled the entryway. “Pizza’s here! And I found those brownie bites we love!” She bustled into the living room, a cardboard box in her hands, her smile bright. She looked at me, at Sabrina-in-my-body, then at Mark with his hand now resting on the small of my back. Her cheerful expression didn’t change, but I saw it—the slight, almost imperceptible flicker in her eyes. A dart of confusion, a question.
Perceptive Chloe. My wife. Who loved me, but who wished I were more adventurous. Who was now looking at her husband’s body being occupied by a terrified young woman, and at her husband seemingly staring, shell-shocked, from inside her best friend’s wife’s petite form.
“Did I miss something?” Chloe asked, setting the pizza down, her tone light but her eyes sharp. “You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Mark laughed, pulling me just a fraction closer. I could feel the heat of his entire body along mine. “Sabrina’s just feeling a little off. Probably just tired.”
“Right. Tired,” I echoed, my voice barely a whisper. I met Sabrina’s gaze across the room. In my blue eyes, housed in her face, I saw my own terror reflected back, compounded by a desperate, heartbroken longing as she watched her husband’s casual touch.
Chloe’s eyes lingered on us. She knew. She didn’t know what, but she knew something was fundamentally out of place in her warm, lamplit living room. The Scrabble board, the half-finished whiskey, the photos of happy couples on the shelf—it was all a stage set, and the main actors had forgotten all their lines.
“Well,” Chloe said slowly, popping open the pizza box. The smell of pepperoni filled the air. “Let’s eat. Maybe some food will… ground everyone.”
Mark’s hand slid from my back, but the ghost of its pressure remained, a brand. I lowered myself carefully back onto the couch, hyper-aware of every shift, every compression, every strange and intimate sensation of this body settling into place. Sabrina, moving my limbs with stiff, unnatural jerks, sat opposite.
We were trapped. And the night, with its casual intimacy and its probing, loving eyes, was just beginning.