Confidence Issues (Patreon)

Based on a prompt by patron YuriVolte. Don't forget to make your eight word requests over on the Discord server!

Despite having the All-American good looks and the muscular body of an Abercrombie & Fitch model, Ryan suffered from a severe lack of confidence and that had prompted him to miss out on a number of promising opportunities throughout his life. His family and friends did everything they could to try and help him believe in himself but their attempts always ended in failure. Throughout his college career at Johnsbridge University, Ryan had proven himself to be a talented football player, but now that scouts from the NFL were beginning to show up at games, his performances on the field were becoming startlingly inconsistent. He had never been good at dealing with pressure and he knew that if he didn’t find a remedy for it soon then his dreams of playing football professionally would be scuppered. No team wanted a player who crumbled under the spotlight, after all!

One of Johnsbridge University’s unique selling points was that it was considered to be one of the most haunted campuses in all of North America, although Ryan himself had never actually encountered anything that could possibly be interpreted as a supernatural occurrence. Indeed, he was highly doubtful that ghosts were even real, although some of his peers insisted that they had come across spectral beings late in the night. Ryan figured that those experiences could probably be put down to the intoxication of the students, although there was still a small part of him at the back of his brain that was curious as to whether ghosts really did roam the campus. He never expected to get an answer to that question, but that would all change on the night before the first game of the football season.

The sun had long since set when there was a thunderous rapping upon Ryan’s apartment door and he was understandably confused at who would be calling at such a late hour. Even more startling though was when he looked through the peephole and saw nobody waiting in the hall for him, nor was there anybody hiding just out of sight when he opened the door and glanced out. The football player was already feeling rather unnerved when he closed the door and returned to the living room where he had previously been relaxing and watching reruns of an old Super Bowl game, when he received an even more dramatic shock: there was a man sat on his sofa!

“Who the hell are you?!” Ryan exclaimed, his usually deep voice rising to a much higher pitch as a result of his sudden fear. He had immediately identified the man to be a complete stranger, but it took the college athlete several more seconds to acknowledge the fact that his unwanted visitor was vaguely incorporeal. Against all odds, the rumours were true: Johnsbridge University really was haunted!

The ghost was that of a middle-aged man with a bald head, thick moustache and a large round gut. His clothes were of a style more that had been popular in the seventies and the scent of cigars hung in the air around him. Ryan could imagine that the burly man had been rather imposing to be around when he had been alive, and the intimidation wasn’t exactly lessened now that he was a ghost who could apparently show up in people’s homes uninvited! “The name’s Coach Norris, but since we’re going to get to know each other quite well, you might as well call me Bob,” the spectral being replied, his lips curling into a smile beneath his bushy moustache. “I’ve been watching you for a while, son, and I think we both know that you need my help.”

Ryan was still struggling to accept the fact that there was a ghost casually sitting on his sofa - how was that even possible?! - and now he had to grapple with the knowledge that Bob had apparently been stalking him from beyond the grave? “I… what? Why would I need your help?” the two-hundred and twenty pound football player asked, embarrassed by how uncertain and vulnerable he sounded. Once again Ryan’s big muscles were betrayed by his lack of confidence and he was exposed as being nothing more than a scared boy in a man’s body.

“You’re on a collision course with failure, son,” Bob’s ghost declared, “Those nerves of yours will get the better of you once you’re in front of NFL scouts, trust me. That football future you want so badly? You’re gonna blow it. Deep down, you know that.” The words stung to hear, but Ryan knew that everything the ghostly football coach said was true. His lack of confidence would cost him the future he desperately wanted and he had absolutely no idea how to build up the internal strength to simply shrug off the nerves.

“And you can help me avoid that failure?” Ryan asked cautiously, still struggling to comprehend the fact that he was conversing with a real life ghost. “How do you figure?”

“It’s simple, really!” Bob announced, rising from the sofa and standing across from the college jock. Ryan was about a head taller than the ghost but the spectral visitor had a much rounder and heavier shape, as it seemed he had gone the way of many other college players who failed to go pro by packing on a serious amount of pounds. “I’ll just do my ghost thing, possess you and get you through the game, no issue!” The insanity of the words hit Ryan like a freight train, but before he could even comprehend what he was being told, Bob continued: You play Outside Linebacker, right? It’s the same position I played back in the day. We’re a perfect match!”

There were a few seconds of silence before Ryan finally found his voice again. “You want to… possess me?” he asked, unsure whether or not he should be laughing about the words that had just come out of his mouth. “That sounds… ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous, sure, but not impossible!” the ghost fired back, taking several more steps forward until his translucent gut was a mere inch away from Ryan’s solid midsection. Bob’s close presence brought about a chill in the air and an involuntary shiver ran down Ryan’s spine. Bob’s grin hadn’t faltered once. “So kid, what do ya say? Shall we tag team for a bit?”

Ryan opened his mouth to respond but before any words could emerge, Bob’s ghostly form suddenly dissipated into a cloud of pale blue smoke. Then, with the remarkable speed of a racehorse, the smoke shot into the college jock’s open mouth and forced its way down his throat! Ryan’s whole body twitched and squirmed as it was invaded by his ghostly visitor, and he felt incredibly full, as if he had just devoured absolutely everything at an “all you can eat” buffet. Grunts of discomfort burst forth from his lips but bizarrely so too did low-pitched moans of delight, as if there was actually some small part of him that was getting aroused by this turn of events!

After almost a minute of Ryan’s muscular body thrashing around the living room, his large frame finally relaxed and fell still, with his broad back pressed up against the wall. The jock began to laugh and brought his hands up to his chest, grabbing and groping at the meaty pecs hidden below his shirt. “Oh it feels so good to be flesh and blood again!” the ghost of Bob declared from within Ryan’s body. “These pecs are a thing of beauty, son. They almost need a bra to contain them!” With some reluctance Bob ceased his kneading of the large pectorals but only so he could bring his hands down to explore Ryan’s solid core and the tight abs which made an obvious impression under the thin fabric of his shirt.

While the long-deceased former coach was busy enjoying every aspect of the body he was currently occupying, the real Ryan remained entirely alert, only he was pushed back into the passenger seat of his own mind. Before he had even been able to contemplate whether he had wanted to accept Coach Bob’s deal, the man had wrestled control from him and asserted his dominance. Ryan was almost embarrassed by how quickly his will had been defeated by the ghost, but he was also strangely excited to see what the other man would do for him. Sure, he didn’t really have any reason to trust that Bob was a man of his word, but did he even have a choice anymore? Ryan sure as hell didn’t know how he was supposed to regain control of his own flesh without Bob willingly giving up the driver’s seat.

Despite having a muscular body and a face that looked like it had been sculpted by the most talented artist to ever live, Ryan had never been much of a sexual person. He hadn’t lost his virginity until he was nineteen and as he didn’t have much of a sex drive, he jerked off perhaps only once a week. With his body under Coach Bob’s control though, alleviating sexual desire seemed to be at the very top of the priority list. Over the next hour, Ryan was given a front row seat to a masterclass in self-pleasure, with Bob first using his tongue to worship his bulging biceps and then using one hand to stroke his borrowed man-meat while the fingers on his other hand introduced themselves to Ryan’s virgin hole.

Once he had blown his first load in almost half a century, Bob made use of Ryan’s shower so he could clean up his mess. As he did so, he began speaking to the young man whose body he had forced his way into, although he truthfully had no idea whether Ryan could even hear him, as he’d never previously possessed a living body for more than just a few seconds at a time.

While he soaped up the virile young body that he was already beginning to feel at home in, Bob explained how his own dreams of playing football professionally had been cut short by an injury in his senior year of college. After that Bob had alternated between dead-end jobs before finally finding himself back at Johnsbridge University, now as the coach of the same team that he had once been the star linebacker of. He’d been in the position for just over a decade when he was killed in a lightning storm that unexpectedly struck the athletics building on campus and he had haunted the school grounds ever since. Over the years he had accumulated spectral strength until he was finally strong enough to push his way into physical bodies, but he needed to find somebody who felt out of their depth in order to not get immediately jettisoned out. Considering his nervous state, Ryan ended up being the perfect match for him!

After a brief bout of sleep, the ghostly coach in Ryan’s body started his day in exactly the same way that the college jock always did, even down to stopping by the independently owned coffee shop and ordering the same highly-specific drink that Ryan always requested. He really has been watching me, the football jock remarked to himself. It was actually rather startling to see somebody else playing the role of him so well, although there was something subtly more confident about the way that Bob held himself compared to the real Ryan.

Later that afternoon, right before the first game of the season was about to kick off, the football team’s coach pulled the star linebacker aside. “I need you on your best form tonight, Ryan,” the man growled, “Whatever’s got you trapped up in your own mind, it needs to stop now that pre-season’s over.” He has no idea how ironic those words are! “This is your one shot at the NFL. Don’t blow it, kid.”

Bob puffed up Ryan’s chest and nodded. “Yes coach! I won’t let you down!” he exclaimed, before raising his helmet and bringing it down over his head. As he walked away and secured the chinstrap, he muttered some quick encouragement to himself, and to the real Ryan hidden inside his mind. “Finally time to prove that we’re good enough to go pro… we’ve got this, kid. Don’t you sweat it, one bit!”

Sure enough, Bob really was a man of his word. Despite not being an active participant on the football field for almost seventy years, the man moved as if his last game had only been yesterday. He played a dominant game, quickly locking down the running backs as they tried to break through the line and even getting a major sack on the opposing team’s quarterback. That play helped turn the course of the game and when the clock on the fourth quarter finally ran out, “Ryan” was credited with saving the game for the home team.

Once the excitement of the game had worn off and the combination of Ryan and Bob were back in his bedroom with his clothes off and a hand around his thick shaft, Ryan decided that it was probably for the best if he let Bob continue to take the wheel. If Bob’s performance in that game was anything to go by then it was almost certain that NFL teams would be clambering to take him in the following year’s draft. While Ryan knew he would miss having control over his body for the rest of the school year, he was confident that once the season was over and he had been drafted Bob would give control back to him. It was his body after all and Bob surely wouldn’t let Ryan remain a passenger in his own mind for the rest of his life… would he?