Chapter 13: Whiplash
Amy’s voice, that ancient, honeyed contortion of SexiWoman’s vocal cords, hung in the air for exactly two more seconds. The smirk on the perfect face was a masterpiece of condescension.
Then it vanished.
It wasn’t a gradual release. It was a trapdoor. One moment, John was a compressed spectator in the back of a luxurious theater; the next, he was thrown, screaming internally, into the pilot’s seat of a supersonic jet during a nosedive.
Consciousness slammed into him—a raw, unfiltered flood of sensation. The tight, aching pressure of the lace panties cutting into his hips. The heavy, unfamiliar weight on his chest pulling against the seatbelt. The slick, cool feeling of silk stockings whispering against each other. The stabbing pain in his ribs from the belt’s restraint. And the smell—his own perfume, cloying and floral, mixed with the wet-dog scent of rain on hot asphalt and Chloe’s nervous sweat.
All of it, all at once.
Just as Chloe, white-faced and gripping the wheel, shouted, “What do you mean, vaca—“
Her foot, reflexively, stomped on the brake. A delivery van had lurched out of a side alley.
The car shrieked. Tires locked on the wet street. Momentum, that cruel, impartial law, took over.
John—in John, as SexiWoman—was a prisoner of physics. The seatbelt dug in, a sharp line of fire across her collarbone. Then slack took over. He was thrown forward, a doll of sinew and silk.
The world became a blur of dashboard dials and fuzzy dice. His—her—forehead connected with the plastic of the dashboard with a sickening, muted thock.
A sound escaped. Not a scream. Not a curse. It was a low, pained moan, filtered through a throat that wasn’t his, a sound of pure, surprised hurt that ended in a shuddering sigh of fabric.
Silence, then. Just the patter of rain on the roof and the van’s angry horn fading into the distance.
Chloe’s hands were locked at ten and two, her knuckles bone-white. She turned her head slowly.
SexiWoman was slumped against the dashboard, a tangle of platinum hair and long legs. One manicured hand rose slowly, fingers probing a forehead that was, miraculously, not bleeding, but would surely bruise.
“Ow,” the voice said. But it was different. Higher. Rougher with pain. Laced with a familiar, panicked confusion. It was John.
From the necklace, now pressed awkwardly against the dashboard, a sound bubbled forth. It was a laugh. A dry, crackling, utterly unrepentant laugh.
“Oops,” Amy said, her voice tinny and confined to the pendant.
John pushed himself back into the seat, his head pounding in time with his heart. The world swam. He looked down at his hands—her hands—the nails a perfect, shell-pink oval. A fresh wave of dizzying wrongness washed over him.
“You… you let go,” he croaked.
“You were being tedious. Wrestling for the steering wheel of a body is so… corporeal.” Amy’s tone was flippant. “Besides, you wanted control. Congratulations. You have a mild concussion and the attention of a very confused woman.”
Chloe was staring. Her gaze flickered between the dazed, impossibly beautiful woman rubbing her head and the gaudy heart necklace lying on the passenger seat. “John?” she asked, the word tentative.
“Yeah,” he whispered, the vulnerability in that admission making him wince. He felt exposed, more than by the body. “It’s me. I’m… I’m stuck in here. Again.”
“Stuck,” Chloe repeated, as if testing the word. The shock was receding, replaced by a sharp, investigative light in her eyes. “So the… the spirit. Amy. She makes you this?”
“No!” John said, too quickly. “I mean, she’s involved. It’s a… a condition. It just… happens.”
“When?” Chloe pressed. She put the car in park, still hazard-lit on the busy street. The city moved around them, oblivious.
John felt a heat that had nothing to do with the car’s vents rise up his neck. He was grateful, for once, that this body probably couldn’t blush.