Chapter 2: Chapter 2
He simply ceased, a platinum-haired ghost in a king-sized bed.
The rays of morning sunlight hit his body, slicing through the gap in the curtains like laser lines. They burned through his closed eyelids. He groaned, and the sound was a soft, feminine thing that scratched at the raw walls of his throat. A deep, throbbing pain hit his skull, a punishing drumbeat synced with his pulse. The hangover from too much whisky the night before was a familiar beast, but this one felt different. Heavier. The room spun in a nauseating carousel even with his eyes shut tight.
What a dream it was, he thought, the fragments assembling themselves in the acid-wash of his mind. The club. The green eyes. The words. The… transformation. A hysterical little laugh bubbled up. Hilarious. His subconscious was really outdoing itself. Award-winning nightmare material.
He pushed himself up on one elbow, the movement sending a fresh wave of pain through his head and a bizarre, swinging weight across his chest. The duvet slid down.
He was naked. And the body he saw was not the one he went to sleep in.
The breath left his lungs in a silent rush. He wasn’t looking at the familiar, taut plane of his stomach. He was looking at a smooth, concave curve that swelled out into the stark, undeniable jut of two full breasts. Pale skin. Rosy, prominent nipples.
His hands flew to his face. His features felt alien under his fingertips. The jaw was slender, the chin pointed. He scrambled from the bed, his legs tangling in the sheets, and stumbled toward the en suite bathroom. The gait was all wrong—a shift, a sway he couldn’t control. He hit the doorframe with a hip that felt wider, bonier.
He fumbled for the light switch, blinking in the sudden, cruel fluorescence.
The face staring back from the mirror was not his.
It was hers. The dream girl. The nightmare.
Platinum hair, a tangled mess of silk, fell past slender shoulders. The eyes were his own blue, but larger, lashed with thick, dark strands he’d never grown. The nose was smaller, straighter. The lips—his lips, now—were full, a natural pout, lightly chapped from sleep and whisky. A delicate neck led down to the sharp collarbones and the overwhelming, devastating evidence below.
He was beautiful. Exotic. A stranger.
A low, animal sound of pure denial vibrated in his new throat. He gripped the edge of the sink, his knuckles white. The sink was cool, real. The reflection didn’t waver.
This was not a dream. The hangover was real. The pounding in his head was real. The soft weight on his chest was horrifically, undeniably real.
His gaze, wild and darting, swept across the bathroom counter. His brain tried to process the information, rejecting it piece by piece.
His ceramic razor stand, the one shaped like a vintage sports car, was gone. In its place sat a sleek, pastel pink makeup organizer, bursting with brushes and tubes. His can of deodorant stick, crisp and masculine, had vanished. A trio of crystal-like roll-ons sat there instead, labelled with words like ‘Lavender Sky’ and ‘Sugar Bloom’. His signature cologne, the woody, spicy scent he’d worn for years, was absent. A collection of floral perfumes in elegant glass bottles caught the light.
No shaving foam. A moisturizer with ‘hyaluronic acid’ and ‘pearl extract’. No medicated face wash. A gentle cream cleanser and a bottle of micellar water. The tough, plastic comb was replaced by a wide-toothed, seamless thing that looked like it cost more than his old electric toothbrush.
It was as if his bathroom had been transformed, overnight, into that of a female occupant. Not just any female. One with expensive, specific taste. His things hadn’t been removed. They had been replaced.
He turned on the tap with a trembling hand and splashed cold water on his face—her face. The water dripped from a sharper chin. He patted it dry with a hand towel that was now impossibly soft, a shade of dove grey that had once been plain white.
After washing up, he headed back to his bedroom, his steps slow and disbelieving on the plush carpet. He stopped in the doorway.
The shock was a physical blow.
The room had been transformed.
The minimalist, grey-and-chrome scheme was gone. The walls, once a stark industrial concrete, were now a soft, warm charcoal. His black wool duvet cover had been replaced by layers of textured bedding—a silvery grey silk comforter, piled with velvet pillows in shades of emerald and deep plum. A faux fur throw was draped artfully over a sleek chaise lounge in the corner, where his leather reading chair used to be.
His framed vintage car posters were gone. In their place were large, abstract canvases, all swirling dark blues and metallic gold leaf. His brutalist iron floor lamp was now a sculptural piece of twisted bronze and opaque glass. The air smelled different too—like sandalwood and vanilla, instead of leather and clean linen.
It was not a male bedroom. It was a space inhabited by a female occupant, decorated with a woman’s touch. A sophisticated, luxurious, unmistakably feminine touch. Every anchor to his old self had been silently, thoroughly erased.
He stood there, in the middle of a room that belonged to the woman in the mirror, the throbbing in his skull a weak echo compared to the seismic collapse happening inside him. The last remnants of denial finally crumbled to dust.
“Seraphina,” he whispered, and the name was a curse, a plea, and the only truth he had left.