Thrift Store Find (Patreon)

This story is based on the prompt "the problem with second-hand shopping" by patron Nate. Make sure you're a member of the Patreon Discord so you can suggest future story ideas!

For somebody who had spent the majority of his school years getting pushed around by meathead sports stars, Jason had quite the uncomfortable attraction towards jocks. He resented himself for it, but then again he resented himself for a great many other things too, so that was hardly out of the norm. Back in high school Jason had been pushed into lockers, tripped up in the corridor and routinely embarrassed by members of the football, baseball and wrestling teams. That wasn’t to say that all the jocks he had ever encountered were terrible people, but none of the others had ever stood up to their teammates and requested that he be left alone, so he was of the opinion that they deserved minimal credit either way.

Still, despite his terrible treatment at the hands of the various athlete cliques, Jason had been helpless when it came to his own carnal desires. How could a young gay man like himself ignore the hard muscles of their well trained body, or the intoxicating confidence with which they swaggered down the halls? The fact that one of the baseball jocks was dating one of the wrestling jocks was the real kicker too: Jason had watched them in envy as they stole kisses when the teachers weren’t watching, and cuddled in the bleachers during football games. He desperately wanted what they had, but he was about as far from them as could be.

Even now as a college freshmen, the young man had retained a cherub-like round face with pink cheeks and large innocent eyes. His years of growing had sputtered out once he had reached five-foot-six and despite a rather terrible diet of pizza and candy, he seemed to be cursed with the world’s fastest metabolism which kept him so skinny that anybody might think he was on the edge of malnourished. His wild mane of red hair was untameable at the best of times, and his pale skin was lightly decorated with freckles, features that ensured he could never totally blend into the crowd as much as he’d like to.

Leaving high school behind and beginning his freshman year of college had brought about a relative respite when it came to his turbulent relationship with the jock cliques, but his miserably uncontrollable lust for their athletic bodies, square jawlines and raw cockiness perhaps only grew more intense than ever. Despite having little to no interest in the sport itself, Jason found himself in the crowd for every football game and his eyes were almost permanently locked on the row of juicy asses squeezed into those tight white pants. He was under no illusions that he’d ever be able to enjoy a jock’s body up close but that delectable sight gave him plenty of fuel for his late night fantasies, as did the various touchdown celebrations featuring the players flexing the huge muscles in their arms. Jason swooned every time without fail just as much as the cheerleaders on the sidelines did.

There was absolutely nothing about the day to suggest that Jason’s life was about to take such a drastic turn. He had finished up his morning classes and decided to take a trip to the nearby thrift store to see if he could pick up a cheap jacket to keep him warm now that the winter months were approaching, although he wasn’t holding out much hope. After almost ten minutes of scanning the maze of railings within the store, Jason’s attention was finally caught by the exact sort of garment that costumed many of the studs in his sweetest dreams. It was one of the varsity jackets that the jocks wore around campus: a red cotton torso and white pleather arms. As he pulled it off the hanger and held it in his hands, Jason was already aware that it was probably going to be too large for his slender frame, but he simply couldn’t help himself. Just the mere thought of owning a genuine college varsity jacket was beginning to prompt his body to have an excited physical response. He had to have it!

Without even trying the jacket on, Jason took it straight to the counter and handed over the twenty bucks its label identified as the cost. He ignored the dubious look the man behind the counter gave him and instead hurried out to head straight back to his dorm room. His roommate would still be at his midday class, which meant Jason would be free to enjoy himself in private for a little while. There was a spring in his step throughout the small journey and by the time he was back in the dorm with the door locked behind him, his heart was beating in his chest like the drums of a heavy metal song.

Pulling the jacket up over his skinny shoulders, Jason relished in the sensation that he was doing something forbidden, as if an army of jocks were about to march into the room and berate him for daring to wear one of their jackets. The garment hung loosely over his torso and a fleeting thought in Jason’s mind suggested he looked like a kid in his father’s clothes, but that didn’t eliminate the sheer thrill he felt within that moment.

Unfortunately for Jason, his ecstasy would only last a few fleeting moments.

A sudden chill fell upon the young man, as if he had been dunked into a bath of ice without any warning. The cold provoked him to give a full-body shiver and caused alarm bells to sound in his mind, but after a thankfully brief moment that glacial bite subsided. Although he had his question about what had brought on that sudden frigidity, Jason put no real stock in the moment until his hands seemed to move of their own accord, raising in front of his face and turning, as if he was inspecting them for the first time. His eyes looked between them, and then past them to the mirror, where Jason could now see an expression of amazement settling onto his face. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if he hadn’t been one-hundred percent certain that he wasn’t responsible for making such a face.

“Holy fuckin’ shit,” his body gasped, although once again Jason seemed relegated to the passenger seat of his own body. “I’m a fucking stringbean!” The remark was followed by a hearty laugh and the hands began patting his body down, travelling from his face to his stomach, then his ass and crotch. “Oh fuck, it feels so good to be alive again. I missed having a human body so fucking much!” Trapped in the middle of a hurricane of terror, Jason could do nothing other than rage against what he now understood to be another presence inside of him, settling into the vacated spot behind the wheel.

This can’t be happening, he told himself. You’ve passed out and this is just a nightmare. This can’t be happening, it’s not--

“Oh, there you are!” His desperate thoughts were interrupted by the words leaving his mouth. His hands had finally stopped wandering and his body had moved closer to the mirror, eyes locked on their reflection and an uncharacteristic smirk decorating his pretty lips. “I’d say I’m sorry about the hijack but, uh… I’m really not, bro.” He paused, pulled a confused face and chuckled for a moment. “Okay, that sounds weird in your squeaky voice. Defo gonna have to get used to that, huh?” Jason’s questions were starting to answer themselves, and he didn’t like where any of those suggestions went. “What year is it? Lemme just check…” Jason’s invader pulled the cell phone out of his pocket to inspect it. “2020? Holy shit, it’s been fourteen years? I guess time flies when you’re stuck as an inanimate object!”

Please get out of my body. Please, I’ll help you find another body or something, just let me be me again! Jason was firmly within the grips of an immovable dread, the notion that he may be doomed to watch the rest of his life pass him by suddenly becoming very real to him.

“No can do, buddy,” the impostor Jason replied, slipping out of the varsity jacket and starting to strip out of the rest of his clothes. “You see, back in 06 I met something of a grizzly end: too much to drink, too confident on the roads… you know where that kinda story goes. I wasn’t ready to move on though and somehow I ended up in my jacket, the one that bitch Tanya stole after we hooked up. I’ve been dormant in there ever since and let me just say I’m glad she never tried it on because being a chick would suck. I mean, not that this shrimpy body is far from it, hey?” He followed his joke up with an obnoxious laugh that sounded foreign to the real Jason’s ears. “You were just the lucky soul to pick me up, put me on and, well, set me free. You’re a goddamn hero, buddy! My savior!”

“Of course, I woulda liked a body with a bit more meat on the bones, but I’ll take what I can get,” he continued. “Being alive sure beats being a varsity jacket! You’re about a fifth of the size I was back before my accident, but I think with a bit of work I can maybe pack on a bit of muscle. I always liked a challenge!” He was completely stripped down in the nude and inspecting himself in the mirror. Jason felt horrifically violated but also strangely aroused by the odd situation. He was sharing his body with a former jock! “Sure, I’ll probably never play Tight End again, but your legs look decent enough. Flexible, too. I could probably make a good kicker! What do you think, man? You want me to make you a jock?”

Jason desperately wanted to continue fighting against his ghostly possessor, but he could already feel himself giving in. The concept of actually ending up on the football team? That was the stuff his dreams were made of! If you’re not gonna give me my body back…

“I’m not,” the new Jason confirmed, beginning to play with his new equipment. “But don’t worry man, I’m taking you on the journey with me.”

It was clear to the original Jason that there was only one thing he could even do in his strange new situation: give in. Let’s do it. Make me a jock!

His body broke out into a massive grin. “That’s the spirit, my dude! Jock 101, here we go!”