Chapter 1: Chloe hands Ben a pill, telling him it's a vitamin to boost his immunity, but it's really a body swap pill that will turn him into a woman for the next two weeks.
The key was cold against Chloe’s palm, a tiny metal secret. She clutched it tighter, the sharp edges biting into her skin as she listened to Ben hum in the kitchen. The sound was off-key, mingling with the clatter of him loading the dishwasher. It was a domestic sound, a normal sound, and it made the thing in her pocket feel like a betrayal.
Her apartment smelled of last night’s garlicky pasta and the crisp, floral notes of the perfume she’d just spritzed into the air—a futile attempt to impose order on the comfortable chaos. Photos on the wall caught her eye: Ben laughing, his head thrown back, that mop of curly brown hair a wild halo. Him with his arm slung around her at a concert, her own choppy red hair tucked under a beanie. Happy times. Proof.
But proof of what, exactly? That things were good then? The nagging voice in her head, the one that sounded a lot like her own but infinitely more cynical, supplied the answer: Proof that he’s a good actor.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you to the airport?” Ben called out, his voice easy, untroubled.
“It’s fine. Uber’s cheaper than parking,” Chloe said, forcing lightness into her tone. She zipped her suitcase with a violent finality. Two weeks in San Francisco for a high-stakes software integration. Two weeks of leaving Ben here, in their city, with his bandmates and his late-night gigs and his infuriating, effortless charm that surely worked on other women just as well as it had worked on her.
He emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans. He was all lanky limbs and relaxed posture, a living monument to everything Chloe wasn’t. “Gonna miss this place,” he said, grinning as his gaze swept over the cluttered bookshelves and the guitar propped in the corner.
“Miss the place, or miss me?” The question flew out, sharp and brittle. She cursed internally. Don’t start.
Ben’s grin softened. He crossed the room in two strides and wrapped his arms around her, his chin resting on the top of her head. “You, obviously. This place is a mess.” He smelled of coffee grounds and his cheap, familiar cologne. A smell that usually spelled home. Today, it felt like a question mark.
“It’s just two weeks,” she mumbled into his shirt, the lie a passive warmth between them.
“Two weeks is forever when you’re slinging oat milk lattes to tech bros without you to come home to.” He kissed her hair. “I’ll be useless. A ghost. A sad, musical ghost.”
She pulled back, forcing a smile. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” He made the gesture, his eyes sincere.
This was the problem. He was always so damn believable. The anxiety was a cold knot in her stomach, a constant hum beneath the surface of her skin that no amount of logical reasoning—he’s never given you a real reason, he loves you, you’re being paranoid—could completely silence. It wasn’t about reason. It was about the unknown, the dark, blank space of two weeks where anything could happen.
And she couldn’t stand it.
“Here,” she said, her voice a little too bright. She shrugged out of his embrace and walked to the counter where two mugs sat. “Last coffee before I go. A send-off.” She’d prepared them earlier, while he was in the shower. Two identical mugs of black coffee. His, just the way he liked it.
Hers, laced with a single, clear capsule’s worth of powder she’d bought from a shadowy forum on the deep web. The “Trust Fall,” it was called. A two-week dose of absolute certainty. The marketing was disgustingly apt.
“You made coffee? You must really love me,” Ben joked, reaching for the mug she pushed toward him.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was it. A point of no return. Was she really doing this? Spiking her boyfriend’s coffee with an unregulated, probably illegal body-swap drug because she was scared? It was insane. It was monstrous.
It was necessary.
“To two weeks,” she said, raising her mug. Her hand was steady. She was surprised.
“To coming home,” he corrected, clinking his mug against hers. He took a long, grateful swallow.
She sipped hers, the bitter liquid tasting of guilt. They stood in silence for a moment, the only sound the distant hum of city traffic through the window.
Then Ben frowned. “Whoa. Weird.”
“What?” Chloe’s throat tightened.
“Just… a head rush. Must’ve stood up too fast.” He shook his head, but the casual ease was gone from his face, replaced by a flicker of confusion. He looked at his hand, turning it over as if seeing it for the first time.
A sudden, dizzying wave of nausea hit Chloe. The room swam. The floor seemed to tilt. She grabbed the edge of the counter.
“Chloe? You okay?” Ben’s voice sounded strange. Distant. And higher pitched.
She tried to answer, but a croak emerged. Her vision blurred, darkened at the edges. The world dissolved into a sickening swirl of sensation. A profound sensation of wrongness flooded her, a cellular-level earthquake. Her bones felt like they were twisting, her skin prickling as if a million ants were crawling underneath. She heard a gasp that wasn’t hers, saw the kitchen ceiling, then the gritty texture of the floorboards rushed up to meet her.
Darkness.
Consciousness returned in jagged pieces. The first thing was the smell. Not her perfume, but… him. Coffee and cologne, overwhelming, as if she’d been sleeping in his shirt.
The second thing was the view. She was staring at the legs of the kitchen table from underneath. She’d fallen.
She tried to push herself up, but her arms felt… different. Long. Lanky. Weak, like noodles. A wave of dizziness washed over her again as she struggled to her knees. Her center of gravity was all wrong. She was too tall, the perspective of the room unnervingly high.
And her body felt alien. A heavy, unfamiliar weight hung from her chest. The soft cotton of her t-shirt felt rough against skin that wasn't quite hers. She looked down.
And screamed.
The sound that came out was not her own. It was deeper, richer. A man’s scream of pure, unadulterated terror.
There, on the floor a few feet away, was herself. Or rather, her body. Short red hair splayed against the floor, eyes closed. Wearing her jeans, her favorite band t-shirt.
“What the…?” The voice was Ben’s. But it came from her mouth.
She scrambled backward, limbs clumsy, knocking into a chair. She looked at her hands. They were large. Palms broad, fingers long and masculine, dotted with a few faint scars she knew intimately from holding them. Ben’s hands.
A groan came from the body on the floor. Her body. Its eyes—her eyes—fluttered open. They were wide with confusion, then darted around the room before landing on her. On him. On the body she was currently inhabiting.
Those eyes—her eyes—widened in horror. A hand—her hand—flew to its mouth. Then a voice, her own voice, but thin and shaky with panic, whispered a single word.
“Chloe?”
The body that was Ben, piloted by Chloe, stared at the body that was Chloe, now occupied by Ben. The silence in the cluttered apartment was absolute, broken only by the frantic thumping of a heart that, for the next two weeks, was no longer her own.
Chloe—or rather, the consciousness that had been Chloe—stared from behind Ben’s eyes. The sensory overload was paralyzing. Everything was wrong. The world was suddenly framed from a height six inches taller than she was used to. The air hit her face differently. A dull, persistent ache throbbed in the small of her back, a familiar pain she recognized from when Ben complained about it after long shifts. She flexed a hand, watching the long, calloused fingers—his fingers—curl and uncurl. The mechanics of it felt foreign, like puppeteering a stranger’s limbs.
A soft groan drew her attention back to the floor. Her body—Chloe’s body—was stirring. The eyes she’d seen in the mirror every day of her life blinked open, clouded with disorientation. They darted around, unfocused, before locking onto the lanky form of Ben standing over her. Confusion. Then, dawning horror.
Those lips—her lips—parted. “Chloe?” The voice was hers, but the inflection was all wrong, strained and thin with a panic she never allowed herself to show.
Before she could form a word, a response stuck in Ben’s unfamiliar throat, the figure on the floor moved. It—he—pushed up onto elbows, looking down at itself. Ben’s gaze travelled over the landscape of Chloe’s body. He saw the worn fabric of her favorite t-shirt stretched across her chest. He looked at his hands—her hands—turning them over, staring at the short, neat nails painted a chipped burgundy.
A slow, trembling shake of his head. “No.”
Then, it hit him.
HE FREAKS OUT.
A raw, guttural sound ripped from Chloe’s throat, a scream that was hers and not hers at all. He scrambled backward, crab-like, heels scraping against the floorboards, until his back hit the kitchen cabinets with a thud. He stared down at the front of the t-shirt, at the undeniable curves beneath it, and his hands—her hands—flew to his face, patting his cheeks, threading through the short, spiky red hair.
“What is this?” he shrieked, the pitch escalating into hysterics. “What the fuck is this? Chloe! What did you do?” He clawed at the collar of the shirt as if he could tear the reality away. He tried to stand, legs buckling under the new, lower center of gravity, sending him crashing back to the floor with a cry that was half-sob, half-terrified yell. He curled into a ball, hugging himself, rocking back and forth, his breaths coming in short, sharp gasps that threatened to hyperventilate. “Get it off. Get it off me!”