The Body Thief - 2 (Patreon)

Chapter Two

I awoke to someone slapping my cheeks. “Wake up, bitch, I want my body back!”

I opened my eyes to see Sergio leaning over me. “Whaa—“

“Swap us back, now!” Sergio said, in a strident tone I hadn’t heard from him before.

It took me a moment to focus and realize what had happened. “Denise?” I said.

“Yes, you know goddamn good and well it’s me since you stole my body.”

I shook my head and tried to stand, but dizziness threatened to overwhelm me again. “It’s me, Geoffrey.”

Stunned, Sergio…Denise stared at me. “Oh, my God. Geoffrey? She stole your body too?”

I glanced down and shrugged Denise’s shoulders. “Apparently.”

“We have to catch him!” Another woman said, older, in her fifties and very overweight.

“Sergio?” I said, catching on.

“That bitch stole mi cuerpo, then went on to take La Puta!”

I got to my feet, but almost fell over. It didn’t help that Denise was wearing heels. I staggered toward the door. “Did we see which way she…he…I…went?”

Sergio got to the door first, but when he tried to open it, the door hit his immense bosom. “Ay, mi Senos!” He put a hand to it, as Denise pulled the door open again and we dashed out into the street, all of us staggering with the motions of new bodies.

I tried to run, but between the heels, my new assets jiggling, and the dress threatening to slide down my slim shoulders, I quickly found myself gasping on the sidewalk.

Glancing into the reflective surface of the store mirror, I could see myself, Denise, with those eyes, lips and face that I had fallen in love with. Only problem, I wanted to be with Denise, not be Denise.

I actually couldn’t catch my breath. Staggering, I went down on one knee, hand outstretched to the window beside me.

“Relax,” the older woman…Sergio…said beside me. “Here breathe en esto.” He held up a fast-food bag.

Grateful, I took it. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe into the bag, gradually I was able to slow down my breathing, but my heart raced in my chest. Was this how fast Denise’s heart usually went? It was like all sensations from every part of his body had increased about five times. He could smell the fumes of the old hamburger, feel the pavement under his knee as the tiny rocks pressed into his now tender flesh, painfully.

Denise came back after running down the street. “Any sign of him?”

I shook my head, taking my head out of the bag.

“Ahh, you hyperventilated, didn’t you.”

I nodded, breathing deeply into it again.

“Yeah, that happens. You also have a bit of a heart condition, if you haven’t noticed.

“I.I.is that why…” I had to pause to catch my breath. “It’s r.r.racing so much?”

She nodded. ‘Yeah, you’ll need to take it easy. It’s nothing major, but I’ve never been a sprinter.”

She stretched Sergio’s body out, looking down at his arms inside the gold top. “Man, I actually feel great! It was nice to be able to run down the street again!”

“Don get to used to it, Puta,” Sergio in the older woman, said. “Este cuerpo will be mine again soon!”

“Look, stop calling me Puta, puta,” Denise said.

“That body was a puta long before you ever took a dime.” Sergio said.

“Let’s go back,” I said finally, after standing up. “We need a plan.”

We walked back to the restaurant. After the excitement, it had returned to normal with people eating, drinking, and talking loudly.

Denise stopped me, pulling me aside. “You need to extricate yourself from that—“ she pointed at the table where the three men were still chatting and talking.

“Damn,” I said. “What do I say?”

“Tell them you’re having menstrual cramps and need to go home. That you’ll catch an Uber.”

I nodded.

“We can go back to my apartment,” Denise told Sergio. “Do you know the address?”

“Yes, bitch.” Sergio said. “Tell Reggie you also having menstrual cramp.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” I said.

“And tell them what, exactly?” Denise said.

“Well, I mean. What are we supposed to do now?”

“The first thing they’ll do is take us in for a psych eval. You really want to go through that looking like…well, looking like me?”

“No, but—“

“The only way we’re going to get our bodies back is if we do this ourselves.” Sergio said. “Hell, I don’t even know who this old lady is—“

“Evelyn Renquist,” I said. “She’s been in before.”

“Ew.” Sergio sighed. “Este nombre is no me.”

“This is crazy!” I said, feeling my temper rise. “We can’t just pretend like nothing has happened!”

“Shh, or people will start noticing.” Denise said. “First things, first. Go get rid of the guys.”

I sighed and nodded.

It took me a moment to navigate Denise’s heels back to table six. The guys had eaten all the chips and salsa.

“Hey, babe. You fall in?” Business suit—I now knew his name was Kyle, said.

How did I know his name was Kyle?

“Guys, I’m not feeling well. I think we need to put this off for a few days.”

“Aw, babe. We rented all the equipment—“

“Yeah, but I’ve got my monthly visitor and that won’t be a good look for any of us.”

The guys all looked a bit sick.

“You take care of the check?” Tattoo…Bernardo, said.

“Yeah, I’ll cancel the order. Looks like our waiter has left anyway.”

“This sucks,” basketball jersey…Aaron Davis said. “I took the whole damned weekend off for this.”

“I’m sorry, boys,” I said, scooping up Denise’s purse. “Maybe you can hit me up next week.”

“Don’t hold your breath, bitch.” Aaron shook his head and started walking away.

Kyle snorted. “You just pissed in his cheerios.”

I gave a wide smile. “Plenty of other fish in the sea.”

Kyle and Bernardo both kissed me. It startled me, but I just let my body do it’s ‘Denise’ thing and kissed them back.

“Take care, you,” Bernardo said.

“I will, darling.”

“You need a ride, or—“ Kyle said.

I reached into Denise’s purse and pulled out her phone. Without thinking I keyed in the pin, then found the Uber app. “I’ll just call an uber, thank you though.”

Kyle gave me a smile, then headed toward the door also.

Denise made her way back to me after yelling something…in Spanish, no less, to someone behind her.

“Wow, picking up the language quickly,” I said.

“It’s weird…I…my brain is trying to parse things both in espanol and in English.”

She had picked up a slight Mexican accent.

“I know. I remembered all your friends’ names, and I just got into your phone…” I held up the device to show her.

“Shit, we better get our bodies back quickly, or we may not know who we are.”

“Where’s Sergio?” I said, scanning the restaurant. Several customers from my section were starting to flag down Dylan, the head waiter, and I really wanted to get out.

“I think he’s going to meet us outside.”

I nodded, and we walked out of the restaurant.

Sergio sat in a four-door sedan out front. “Over here,” he said.

The driver noticed me as I got into the back seat. It took me a minute to get Denise’s dress under control. She laughed at me, tucking it in. “Cross your legs, honey.”

I did as instructed and shut the door.

“What is the destination?” the driver said.

“Two-Twenty-One cherry lane,” Denise said. “My apartment works for us, right?”

Sergio and I both nodded.

As we drove, I looked out the window. I could feel Denise’s body under my dress, feel the shifting of her weight as we took corners. It was so surreal and strange. I could feel my teeth with my tongue, and they all felt very clean and evenly spaced.

We didn’t speak on the short drive to her apartment, and when he pulled up, I again had to extricate myself as Sergio handed him some cash.

“Thank you, dear.” He spoke with almost no trace of an accent.

“No problem, Ma’am.”