Chapter 1: A Beer and a Shock
The beer was cold, the patio was quiet, and the evening sun bled orange over the fence. I leaned back in the wicker chair, hearing it creak under my two hundred pounds, and took a long pull from the bottle. This was the groove. The neighbor’s lawnmower droned in the distance, a white noise that meant peace. I scratched my beard, felt the familiar scratch of coarse blonde hair against my fingers, and let out a contented sigh.
A sudden wave of dizziness washed over me, not unpleasant, just a swooping sensation behind my eyes like the world had briefly tilted on its axis. I blinked, setting the bottle down on the flagstones.
When I opened my eyes, my own face was staring back at me.
I was looking up at it, from about a foot lower than I should have been. My beard, my short blonde hair, my puzzled blue eyes were right there, attached to my own body, which was now towering over where I sat. But that body’s mouth was moving, and my voice wasn’t coming out of it.
“What the hell just happened?” The words were shrill, panicked, and in Sabrina’s tone.
They had come from me. From my own throat. But my throat felt wrong. Tight. Higher.
I looked down. Two massive, pale curves swelled against turquoise bikini fabric, blocking the view of my lap. A sharp, foreign weight pulled at my chest. I felt a bizarre, hollow jiggle deep in my torso with the faintest movement. My stomach was flat, alarmingly so, with hip bones jutting sharply above the bikini bottom. My legs were slim, crossed at the ankle, ending in small feet with perfectly painted pink toenails.
I tried to speak. “S-Sabrina?” The voice was a stranger’s. Light, melodic, undeniably feminine. It felt like speaking with someone else’s vocal cords.
My own body—Sabrina’s body?—staggered back a step. Her hands—his hands?—my hands?—flew to my bearded face, patting the cheeks, then down over a broad, flat chest. “Justin? Is that… are you in here?” The deep, familiar rumble of my own baritone was laced with pure terror.
“I’m on the chair,” I squeaked, pushing myself up. The world swayed. My center of gravity was all wrong, too high, like I was perpetually on tiptoe. Standing was a revelation of new physics. My breasts, God, they were heavy. A distinct, separate weight that moved with a lag, a soft thud against my ribcage. The bikini top felt flimsy, a stretchy constraint against a pressure I’d never known. I looked down the length of a body that was compact, slim, and utterly alien. I felt the brush of long blonde hair against my bare shoulders and back, a whisper-touch that made my skin prickle.
Sabrina—in my body—was hyperventilating. She held my large, hairy hands out in front of her, turning them over. “This is not happening. This is a dream. A stress dream. I fell asleep reading.”
“We’re both having the same dream?” I took a step. My feet, size fives, sank into the soft grass differently. My hips seemed to swing on their own, a swaying motion that felt both natural and performed. Every step sent a small, unsettling vibration through my chest and rear. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the dark patio door: a small, golden-haired woman in a bikini, with a look of absolute horror on her youthful, plump-lipped face.
“Oh my God,” Sabrina moaned in my voice. She clutched at the waist of my jeans, which were now loose on her. “Justin, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! I was drinking a beer!” My new voice broke on the last word. I could taste the lingering bitterness of the IPA on my tongue, but the flavor was brighter, sharper. My sense of smell was different, too—I could pick out the chlorine from the pool, the specific brand of Sabrina’s sunscreen on my skin, the damp earth under the deck.
The back gate clicked.
We both froze.
“Hey, babe! Car’s out front. You ready for dinner?” Mark’s voice, cheerful and booming, preceded him through the gate. He appeared, all six-foot-four of him, wearing a fitted polo shirt that stretched over his shoulders. His smile was easy, white, and directed straight at me.
No. Directed at Sabrina’s body. At me.
Sabrina-in-my-body made a choked noise. We locked eyes—my blue eyes in her face, her blue eyes in my face—a frantic, silent screaming passing between us.
Play along, her look screamed. For now.
My heart, a frantic bird in a smaller cage, hammered against my ribs. Mark was already striding across the patio, his focus entirely on the woman he thought was his girlfriend of two months.
“You look incredible,” he said, closing the distance. He didn’t even glance at “Justin” standing there, pale and sweating. His large hands came up to cradle my face. I flinched at the touch, his skin warm and rough against my incredibly smooth cheeks. His thumbs stroked my jawline and I felt a shiver that wasn’t entirely revulsion—it was a new, direct line of sensation, unfiltered.
He smelled like expensive sandalwood and crisp cotton.
Before I could stammer a greeting, he leaned down and kissed me.
It was nothing like the perfunctory, brotherly pecks I was used to. His lips were firm, possessive. My new mouth, with its fuller, softer lips, conformed to his in a way that felt instinctively correct, even as my mind recoiled. I tasted his mint toothpaste. I felt the slight scratch of his stubble against the supremely sensitive skin around my mouth, a sensation so acute it was almost painful. My smaller body instinctively leaned into the solid wall of his chest for balance, and I was engulfed by his size, his heat, his strength.
A low, helpless groan came from behind us. Sabrina, watching her own body be kissed by her boyfriend, was visibly ill.
Mark pulled back, his brow slightly furrowed. “You okay, babe? You taste like… beer?”
He still held my face. I was trapped in the gentle vise of his hands. Over his shoulder, I saw my own former body—Sabrina’s panicked consciousness inside it—standing utterly helpless, its hands clenched into fists at its sides. The fairy lights twinkled merrily above us, the pool glimmered, and the normalcy of the suburban evening pressed in, a cruel joke.
“I… had a sip of Justin’s,” I managed, my higher voice breathy with shock. “Nervous. For our date.”
Mark’s frown melted into a smile. He wiped a smudge of my lip gloss—my lip gloss—from his lower lip with his thumb. “Don’t be nervous. It’s just me.” He finally looked over at Sabrina, giving a friendly, clueless nod. “Hey, man. We’re heading out. Don’t wait up.”
He took my hand, his fingers completely enveloping my smaller ones. His grip was warm, confident, possessive. He began to lead me, this new, jiggling, unsteady body, toward the gate. I threw one last, desperate look behind me.
Sabrina, in my body, stood rooted to the spot, my face a mask of sheer, unadulterated panic. She mouthed a single, silent word.
Help.