The First Change: Six Months Earlier (Patreon)

It was a little known fact that six months prior to The Great Change - the global event that caused approximately eighty percent of the Earth’s adult population to switch bodies - there had actually been a much smaller event of a similar nature. This overnight switching of bodies affected only around one thousand people across various countries and while some of those affected reported the incident, their stories were almost immediately brushed over and completely forgotten about by the time the Great Change finally happened.

Bailey was one of that small percentile of people who were affected by the First Change and it came at a point where he was feeling relatively aimless in life. He was two years out of college and yet still had very little to show for it other than a retail job that paid little more than minimum wage. It really didn’t help that he was unable to escape the judgment of his parents, especially as he was living in the family home’s basement (although it had been converted into an apartment with its own entrance to give him at least a little bit of independence). They were constantly telling Bailey that he was meant to do more with his life and that he was too lazy for his own good, which the young man resented. He was trying his absolute best to make something of himself (he’d applied for no less than fifty jobs in the last three months) but that was much easier said than done in the modern world, where everything was so unpredictable and even outright mean at times.

The one area where Bailey found regular success was in his dating life, although ‘dating’ was perhaps a strong word for what he was doing. In truth he rarely went on more than three dates with a guy before getting bored and moving on to the next. Certainly no relationship had progressed far enough for him to even begin contemplating introducing him to his parents, despite them being as supportive of his sexuality as parents could possibly be. He’d come out as gay when he was sixteen years old and seven years later he was still profiting off of his boyish good looks. Barely an hour would go by without somebody hitting him up on Grindr and the twink spent more nights cradled in a stranger’s arms than he did alone in his own bed.

Given his habit of spending the night with his Grindr hookups, it wasn’t immediately concerning for Bailey when he woke up to find himself in an unfamiliar bedroom. Even though he was turned to face one of the bedroom’s walls, he could feel the presence of a person in the bed with him which meant that morning cuddles (one of Bailey’s guilty pleasures) was still a possibility. It was only after a few seconds of consciousness that the young man discovered that he’d had no memory of leaving his basement apartment the night before. Had he gotten drunk and started browsing Grindr or something? It was the only logical explanation for how he could have ended up anywhere other than his own bed. Little did Bailey realize, all logic was about to go out of the window…

Rolling over to face his bed partner prompted a cry of alarm to escape Bailey’s lips. He’d expected to see the larger body of a burly man there as was his type, but the person in bed with him was a slender woman with brown skin and long black hair that had been chemically straightened. Despite his vocal outburst, the woman was yet to stir which Bailey was sincerely thankful for. Just how drunk was I to end up in bed with a woman?! Sure, he’d shared a bed with girls back during his university days but that had been totally platonic and only because he was too drunk to make it back to his own dorm room. Given this woman’s state of undress underneath the sheets, Bailey had heavy suspicions that the events of his forgotten night could not really be considered all that ‘platonic’.

After slipping out from under the sheet, Bailey rose to his feet and immediately noticed something else that was as unexplainable as finding himself in bed with a naked woman: he was suddenly a lot taller. Bailey had always been on the shorter side at five-foot-five but that no longer seemed to be the case, as everything in the unfamiliar bedroom appeared much smaller than it would have typically. No, he had to be at least a whole foot taller and as he looked down at himself, the confused young man discovered why. His body was completely alien to him! His pale and skinny frame had been replaced by the tanned muscles of an undeniable jock. It was the kind of body that would have made Bailey’s mouth water if he wasn’t so confused as to how he’d ended up occupying it!

Locating the en-suite bathroom, Bailey staggered forward until he was inside and had gently closed the door behind him. The very last thing he needed at that moment was for the woman in the bed to wake up! Once he was in front of the mirror, Bailey locked eyes with his reflection and his jaw dropped immediately.

The face that greeted him was handsome but it wasn’t familiar in the slightest; there wasn’t even the faintest trace of his own features. Instead of his rounder face, the one Bailey saw in the mirror was more rectangular and featured a heavier brow. His jawline and the area around his mouth were dominated by bristles of dark hair which the man was fascinated by, as he’d never been able to grow anything more than a few whiskers above his top lip. His bright blue eyes were framed by a pair of bushy eyebrows while the platinum blond curls that had once adorned his head had been replaced by a near-buzz cut, with the remaining hair the same shade of dark brown as his beard.

While there was plenty about the unfamiliar face to keep Bailey mystified, his gaze eventually traveled further down his reflection to take in his hairy chest and the magnificent cock that was swinging between a pair of thick muscular thighs. Although Bailey had done well for himself with an average six inches, he couldn’t deny that the manhood he was currently admiring was well above average in terms of both length and thickness. It was the type of cock that he previously would have considered a fun challenge, only he couldn’t think of it in such a way when it was attached to his own body… or at least the body he had somehow woken up in that morning!

In no universe is this me, Bailey decided, ruling out the possibility that he had somehow shifted into an alternate dimension overnight. He’d always been a fan of sci-fi books and movies so he naturally found himself searching through his brain for any sort of narrative that might help him make sense of what he was experiencing. Given his expertise in the genre, it didn’t take long for Bailey to conjure up a correct guess - he had switched bodies with a complete stranger! But whose body am I in? The more he stared at his new face in the mirror, the more he believed it to be vaguely familiar, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to put a name to it until he’d found some identification. That meant returning to the bedroom where the woman was sleeping and potentially risk waking her, where she’d almost certainly believe him to be her boyfriend or husband, whatever Bailey’s new body was to her.

Gingerly opening the door in order to make as little noise as possible, Bailey glanced out into the dark room and confirmed that his maybe-girlfriend was still sleeping. Once he was certain of that fact, he opened the door completely and tip-toed back into the bedroom. It didn’t take him long to locate the man’s wallet as it was on the bedside table next to a cell phone and a half-full glass of water. Quickly swiping both the wallet and the cell phone up into his hands, Bailey then made his way out of the bedroom to put some distance between himself and the woman. He only hoped that they didn’t live with anyone else who might see him walking around completely naked. He wasn’t sure how much they might appreciate seeing this guy’s cock, as much as Bailey was already a fan of it.

Finding a second bathroom down the hallway, the man closed the door to give himself some privacy and then immediately opened the wallet to inspect the contents. There was an abundance of credit cards and a photo of him with his arm around the woman, but it was the driver’s license that Bailey navigated towards first. “Travis Kelce,” he read aloud, frowning deeply as he attempted to recall where he’d heard the name before. “Isn’t he a hockey… no, football player! Yeah, he plays football!” Bailey had hooked up with enough football-obsessed guys over the years to recognize the names of a few of the more mainstream players but he’d never expected to actually have to need that knowledge for anything. “Holy shit, I’m in the body of an NFL player!”

Although he definitely felt relief in regards to finally having a name to match up to the face he saw in the mirror, Bailey immediately found himself underneath a dark cloud of anxiety. He hadn’t played football since he’d been in junior high when he’d been the team’s kicker for two whole games before quitting after missing three consecutive field goals. In the years since then he’d forgotten all but the complete basics regarding the sport and had scoffed whenever his hook-ups suggested that he stick around to watch a game with them. His enjoyment of football was pretty much limited to how good the guys looked in their tight pants, particularly those players who were rocking cute bubble butts (a brief turning in front of the mirror confirmed to Bailey that currently he was one of those players). Considering he had no idea how he had ended up in Travis Kelce’s body, Bailey was just as clueless as to how he might get back into his own body and so… Oh no, am I going to have to play football?! Oh no no no, this is going to go terribly! I’m going to totally embarrass myself-- or Travis, whatever. I’ve got to find a way to switch back!

Locating a pair of previously worn boxers in a nearby clothing hamper, Bailey slipped them up and over his thighs in order to cover up his copious manhood. As he did this, he turned his attention to the cell phone and used the front-facing camera to unlock the device. The phone’s background image was of the dark-skinned woman that Bailey had woken up next to, dressed in a tight-fitting dress that accentuated the curves of her breasts and hips. If he had been even remotely into women then he would have absolutely considered himself lucky to wake up in the body of her lover but his cock didn’t so much as stir as he looked at the image. So I’m still gay, Bailey realized, feeling a little relieved by this revelation. The morning was already full of weirdness as it was before throwing a sexuality change on top. He could only handle so much before being driven off the deep end!

Before Bailey could start looking around the various apps on the man’s phone, a rap song began to play from the device’s speakers while a pop-up appeared on the screen to notify him that he was expected to report to Arrowhead Stadium (the home of the Kansas City Chiefs) in exactly two hours. Hastily turning the alarm off and silently praying that it hadn’t woken anybody else up, Bailey left the bathroom and made his way down the stairs in search of the kitchen. His stomach was starting to growl in protest and he knew that he wouldn’t be getting much thinking done unless he got some caffeine in him. As he wandered through the rooms of the house, Bailey was fascinated by the various displays of luxury. Never in his life had he anticipated being in a house such as this one and especially not as its owner, even if it was hopefully only going to be for a very temporary amount of time!

Once he had managed to locate the kitchen and make himself both a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee, Bailey took a seat at the island counter and opened up the cell phone’s browser app. He immediately typed in the words “body swap” and hit the option to search before navigating into the news tab. Much to his distress, there were absolutely no results that helped give any context to what he was experiencing. Clicking out of the news tab didn’t help much either, as the page was filled with links to websites showcasing fiction featuring body swaps as a plot device or reviews of body swap episodes from various television shows. With this avenue leading nowhere of any use, Bailey switched over to the Twitter app and once again conducted a search. He wasn’t any luckier there, as all he found were various artists sharing images they’d created of popular anime characters switching bodies or people expressing their fantasies of being somebody else and being depressed that such a thing wasn’t possible. Oh, if only you all knew…

The longer he went without finding anything that would be of any help, the more alarmed Bailey became. Was he going to be trapped in Travis Kelce’s body for the rest of his life? Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing considering the guy was a total hunk but there was no way Bailey could pretend to be straight and as for the whole “playing football” business--

Bailey was snapped out of his panicked thoughts by a song beginning to play from the device still held in his hands. His gaze snapped towards the screen and his heart jumped when he recognized the number that was apparently calling him: it was his own! Why the hell didn’t I think to call my own cell phone? The chaotic events of the morning had blinded him to what was probably one of the more logical avenues to take. It seemed his counterpart hadn’t overlooked such an obvious thing to do which was a relief. Hitting the “answer call” option, Bailey lifted the phone up to his ear and waited.

“What the ever-loving fuck did you do to me?!” his own voice screeched from the other end of the call, prompting Bailey to wince and pull away due to the sheer volume. “Give me back my body! This is the most fucked up thing a fan has ever done to me, you know that?!” Bailey opened his mouth to respond and assure the other man that this definitely hadn’t been something that he’d done, but before he could even get a word out, the other man was ranting once more. “What, you think you can just steal my body and convince everyone that you’re the real Travis Kelce? Kayla will know you’re not me! Pat will know! You’re not gonna fool anyone, you sick fuck! Once I get my body back, you’re toast. I’m gonna make sure you’re locked up for life you… you body thief!”

The longer that the other man’s tirade continued, the more Bailey’s stubborn streak started to emerge. This wasn’t anything wildly out of character for him as he’d always objected to anybody daring to treat him poorly, no matter how much bigger than him they were. Of course that wouldn’t be much of an issue now that he was currently in the two-hundred and fifty pound muscular body of a professional athlete! Regardless, the other man’s celebrity status didn’t intimidate Bailey one bit and he took severe offense to the accusations being thrown his way. Was Travis’ body objectively better than his own? Of course! That didn’t mean he had purposefully stolen it as he was suggesting!

“You know what, fuck you!” Bailey growled down the phone, “You didn’t have to come at me and attack me like that, like I’m some sort of criminal. You don't know the first thing about me, you overgrown neanderthal!” All of the anxious thoughts that Bailey had been experiencing prior to the start of the call had drifted far away from his mind and were replaced by unearned confidence. “Don’t you worry, I’ll sort this shit out by myself. Until then, I suggest you forget this number and leave me the fuck alone!”

Before the other could get the chance to protest, Bailey pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed his thumb down on the button to cancel the call. His broad chest rose and fell as he took in several angry breaths while letting go of the tension that had trapped itself in his muscles during the short phone call. Bailey was so distracted by his sudden bitterness towards the other man that he couldn’t even properly enjoy the bulging biceps he now possessed!

“Travis?” a soft voice called from a nearby room. Seconds later, the only other occupant of the house appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She was wearing a large men’s shirt and panties, allowing Bailey to see her long legs without obstruction. He was once again struck by how beautiful this woman was but Bailey still failed to find anything that might be considered attraction. Yup, definitely still gay. “Were you on the phone just now? You sounded… angry.” Judging by the befuddled expression on her face, Bailey guessed that it wasn’t the sort of mood she’d seen much of from the real Travis.

“Uh yeah, sorry about that,” he replied, casting his mind back to the name he’d heard Travis use during the phone call: Kayla. Who else could he possibly be referring to? Well, time to see if he was right about her being able to tell that I’m not him. “It was… uh, a stalker. I don’t know how he got my number.” Thinking ahead, Bailey adopted an expression of deep concern. “He might have gotten yours somehow, babe. If you get any calls from an unknown number, ignore it and block it, yeah?”

Right on cue, the phone in Kayla’s hand started to ring, drawing both of their attention. She glanced at the screen for a moment and hit the option to reject. Thinking ahead paid off then. The very last thing he needed was for Travis to make this whole situation even messier by revealing to Kayla that the man in the home with her was a complete stranger. Travis would probably make him sound like a psychopath and that simply wasn’t true! All Bailey wanted was to get back to his body but he wouldn’t be able to find a way to do that until he managed to get some proper time to himself.

“What a creep,” Kayla declared in a disgusted tone, setting her phone down on the countertop once she had blocked the unknown number from calling or texting her again. “No wonder you sounded so mad.” She let out a sigh and walked across the room to lean in and place a kiss on his cheek. Bailey froze up in response but if the woman noticed her man acting strange then she chose not to say anything, saving him from having to make up another excuse for his apparent frostiness. “So, are you excited for tonight’s game?”

“Tonight’s game?” the body-swapped man exclaimed, his heart rate escalating rapidly. “Uh, yeah, of course. Gonna be an easy win.” Was that the kind of thing that professional athletes said? Bailey was casting his mind back to the jocks he’d encountered in high school and college, but he hadn’t exactly been friends with those guys. He’d lusted after them from afar, appreciating them much more for their bodies than for their personalities and certainly their behaviors. He didn’t have the time to panic about acting out of character though as his focus was now entirely on the fact he would supposedly be playing in an NFL game later that day if he hadn’t worked out how to get back into his body by then.

It might not be as much of a disaster as you think right now, a voice in Bailey’s head suggested. Wasn’t there that movie where the characters were really good at the things their bodies were used to after they switched? The muscle memory remaining with the body or something? Yeah, maybe we’ll still have that! The possibility of having retained some of Travis’ football skills brought his frantic heartbeat down a little bit and allowed for another more wicked thought to enter his mind: Plus, wouldn’t it be good to rub it in the real Travis’ face? He’d be so humiliated to realize that nobody can tell the difference between us!

That train of thought led Bailey all the way from the house Travis shared with Kayla to the locker room of Arrowhead Stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs were waiting for the all clear to head out onto the field. Bailey had bluffed his way through conversations with the other players and the coaches all afternoon and although a few of them seemed confused by some of his naive questions, they were quick to dismiss it as Travis just being his usual playful self. The irony that the real Travis’ personality allowed for Bailey to hide in plain sight was certainly not lost on the man. He’d actually enjoyed the pre-game workout that the team had participated in, especially when he got to flex his muscles and use his new strength.

Bailey spent much of the time between leaving Travis’ home and exiting the locker room to begin the game on his cell phone, desperately looking through pages upon pages of search results relating to the topic of body swaps. Even after getting some thirty pages back on Google though, Bailey was still yet to come across anything that suggested anybody had ever experienced one in real life. To say he was frustrated would be an understatement - he was actually pretty scared too. What if he never made it back into his own body? Would he ever see his family and friends again?!

Before he could dwell on these thoughts for too long, the coach blew his whistle and announced to the locker room that it was time they got out onto the field and showed what a dominant team they could be. Bailey followed his new teammates out through the tunnel, more than a little bewildered when he emerged on the other side to discover a crowd of roaring fans. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before and was both daunting and exciting, like he was one of his favorite pop superstars stepping out onto the stage to begin their concert!

The game started with Kansas City’s defense on the field, so Bailey was allowed some time to sit on the bench and look through the playbook he’d found on the sidelines. To his horror though, he didn’t actually understand anything written in it. There were various drawings of plays with various labels and it may as well have been written in another language for all the good it did him! The stubborn confidence that had blindly convinced Bailey to pretend to be Travis for the game was quickly abandoning him…

Before long it was time for the Chiefs offense to begin their first drive and as the star Tight End of the team, “Travis Kelce” was expected to be out there. As he gathered in the huddle, Bailey listened to the instructions of the team’s quarterback and once again found himself desperately trying to translate a language he didn’t understand. What the hell did “run the slant” mean?

He didn’t have much time to try and work it out because seconds later the quarterback was ordering them to get into position and then the people either side of Bailey were sprinting ahead. Hoping for the best, Bailey followed their lead, dodging past the defender who attempted to block him and continued running down the field. He’d barely been running for two seconds before the ball sailed over his head and skidded off the turf in front of him. That was meant for me, wasn’t it?

Returning to the huddle, Bailey found himself the subject of the quarterback’s ire. “Where’s your head at, Kelce? Not running the slant? Not even looking for the ball? What the fuck, dude?” the other man seethed. A glance around the huddle told Bailey that his teammates were similarly pissed off with his poor play. “Let’s run it again on the other side. Don’t fuck it up this time, Travis. Slant right. Got it?”

As the team got back into position, Bailey attempted to steady his panicked breathing. He wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced such horrific pressure before, not even his college finals could compare! At least then he hadn’t been in front of an audience of tens of thousands… The movement of everybody around him snapped Bailey out of his thoughts and he once again took off in a sprint, successfully dodging the defender just as he’d dodged oncoming homophobic bullies back in his high school days. This time though he remembered to twist his body back towards the quarterback and sure enough, the ball was already sailing through the air - although it was several feet to Bailey’s right. He attempted to change direction in time and reached out to grab it but he was simply too late and the ball soared past his hands to fall into the turf yet again. The crowd that had been cheering him no less than ten minutes ago were suddenly reigning down boos and jeers as Bailey sullenly returned to the rest of his team.

If his performance during the first play had pissed the quarterback off then the second play made the other man outright furious. “Just go to the fucking sideline, Kelce,” the quarterback spat at him, “We’re already on third down because you’ve apparently forgotten how to run a basic fucking slant. Just go, man. We’ll do better without you.” The words stung just as much as Travis’ had on the phone earlier that day but this time Bailey knew there was no way he could bite back. His hopes that Travis’ body might retain some muscle memory had been absolutely dashed; he had made a complete embarrassment out of himself! 

As he returned to the sidelines and pulled off his helmet, Bailey looked up into the crowd and took in the various angry faces looking back down at him. Those expressions were mirrored by the players and coaches waiting for him on the sidelines, with the senior coaches especially furious. Nobody could understand why Travis Kelce, a player who was widely considered to be the best Tight End in the whole NFL, was suddenly playing like somebody who had never stepped onto a football field before. They wouldn’t believe me even if I told them, Bailey thought as he miserably dropped down onto the bench and hung his head.

Two weeks later (and after having not played in another football game), Travis Kelce would shock the world by announcing his sudden retirement from professional football. That wasn’t the story that captured the headlines though. No, it was his coming out as a gay man during the retirement speech that was much more widely talked about. He’d broken up with Kayla earlier in the week, expressing that he needed time alone to work through some tough feelings. She expressed that she had anticipated the break-up given how he had stopped being affectionate towards her in the recent weeks; they had done no more than kiss since Bailey had found himself in Travis’ body.

The new Travis didn’t regret his decision to step away from football and announce his sexuality - as time passed since the initial switch, the man had grown surprisingly content with the knowledge that he wouldn’t ever switch back and so it was one less lie that he’d have to live! He was in a muscular body with a pretty boy face and had millions in his bank account, meaning he’d probably never need to work another day in his life! Oh if my parents could see me now, the former Bailey thought to himself when he first inspected his bank balance.

A few months later, Travis Kelce’s humiliating final football game would be forgotten about completely. There were much bigger things to worry about in the days that followed the Great Change but Travis remained unbothered throughout, having already experienced his own switch months before the rest of the world. When surveys went out for people to announce whether or not they had been among the switched, Travis could barely contain his smirk as he ticked the box to confirm he had been unaffected by the event. After all, six months on from his swap, he was well and truly settled into his new life and was perfectly happy to be the most eligible gay bachelor in the whole of North America!