Practice Makes Perfect

"Alright, enough about my tactical orgasms," he said, trying to sound casual and steer the conversation. "We're heroes now. We need a name. A plan. We can't just react to stuff."

Hailey shot him one last **** glare, but the topic shift seemed to calm her down. "Fine. But if you ever use me as an example for one of your... 'experiments'... again, I'll possess you and make you donate your entire comic book collection to the school library."

"See? That's exactly what I'm talking about," Aaron said, seizing the opening. He leaned forward in the chair, his expression turning serious. "We got lucky tonight. What if that woman had been able to fight me off faster? What if her will was even stronger? We need to train. We need to know our limits."

"Train?" Cody asked, raising an eyebrow. "Like, go to the gym and lift weights? Because I'm pretty sure we can't do that as ghosts."

"Not that kind of training," Aaron said, a glint in his eye. He looked directly at Hailey. "We need to practice possessing each other."

Hailey's arms, which had been uncrossed, immediately folded back over her chest. "Absolutely not."

"Think about it," Aaron pressed, standing up and starting to pace. "It's the only way. We need to know how much control we can take. How long we can hold it. What happens if we try to fight back from the inside. It's not about messing with each other, it's about... combat readiness."

"Combat readiness?" Hailey scoffed. "You just want another chance to get into my pants without actually having to ask me out."

"That's not it!" Aaron lied, a little too quickly. "Okay, fine, maybe that's a small part of it, but this is serious! What if next time it's not some random robber? What if it's someone with powers like ours? We need to be a well-oiled machine. A team."

Cody was stroking his chin, actually considering it. "He's got a point, Hales. What if we need to, like, swap bodies in the middle of a fight? We should know what that feels like."

"You're just as bad as he is!" Hailey said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Why would we ever need to swap bodies in a fight?"

"I don't know! To confuse the enemy? To get through a door that only one of us has the code for? There are a million reasons!" Cody said, getting into it now.

Hailey looked between the two of them, her two favorite idiots, a team of perverted superheroes. She let out a long, dramatic sigh. "Fine. Whatever. But we are setting ground rules."

"Of course," Aaron said, trying to hide his triumphant grin.

"Rule one," Hailey said, pointing a finger at Aaron. "No 'tactical maneuvers.' You stay away from my... my 'biological distractions.' If you even think about it, I'll make you spend the rest of the night as Mr. Henderson's prostate."

Aaron winced. "Deal. No tactical maneuvers."

"Rule two," she continued, looking at both of them. "No embarrassing secrets. If you learn something, you keep it to yourself. No **** material."

"Agreed," Cody and Aaron said in unison.

"Rule three," she finished, her eyes landing on Aaron with a final, challenging look. "I get to go first. I'm possessing you."

Aaron's smirk faltered. "What? Why?"

"Because I don't trust you," she said simply. "I want to know what it feels like to be in the driver's seat before I let you take the wheel of my car. Now, sit down, nerd. It's my turn."

Aaron looked at Cody, who just shrugged with a helpless grin. There was no way out of this. He sat back down in the computer chair, a nervous flutter in his stomach. He was about to get a taste of his own medicine.

"Alright," he said, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Let's see what you got."

Hailey's form dissolved into a shimmering orange mist. It floated across the room, a beautiful, terrifying swirl of light, and then plunged directly into Aaron's chest.

His world went white for a second. Then, a new consciousness slammed into his own. It was sharp, witty, and incredibly annoyed. He felt his own mind being pushed, shoved into the backseat of his own skull. He tried to fight, to hold on, but he could feel her determination, her sheer will to prove him wrong.

"Whoa," he heard his own voice say, but it wasn't him speaking. It was Hailey. She looked down at his hands, then flexed his arms. "Huh. Not bad. A little scrawny, but there's some potential."

He felt his body stand up and walk over to the full-length mirror on Cody's closet door.

"Okay, this is just weird," his own face said in the mirror. Hailey was making it do all sorts of ridiculous expressions, crossing his eyes, sticking out his tongue. Then, she stopped. A slow, wicked smile spread across his lips.

"You know," she said, her voice a perfect imitation of his, but with her own mischievous tone. "You're right. This is a great way to learn about someone." She turned his head to look at Cody, who was watching with a bemused expression.

"Cody," Aaron's body said, in Hailey's most sweetly innocent voice. "Did you know your best friend has a huge crush on Jamie Veck?"

Aaron's mind screamed in protest from the back of his own head. No! Don't you dare!

"Really?" Cody asked, leaning forward with interest.

"Oh, yeah," Hailey continued, using his mouth to devastating effect. "He's got, like, a whole folder of her pictures on his laptop saved under 'Calculus Notes.' He even wrote a poem about her hair once. It was... not very good."

Cody burst out laughing, a loud, booming laugh that filled the room. Aaron, trapped and helpless, felt a wave of humiliation wash over him. He had completely underestimated her.

"Okay, okay! You win!" Aaron's mind shouted, hoping she could hear him. "You've made your point! Get out!"

Hailey just smiled using his face. "What's wrong, Aaron? Am I embarrassing you?" She turned back to the mirror. "You know, this body is kind of fun. A little more leverage than I'm used to." She made his arm do a perfect bicep curl. "We should keep this up. I'm learning all sorts of things."

Aaron knew, with a sinking feeling, that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. He had wanted to possess her again, but now the tables were turned, and she was a much, much better student than he'd ever given her credit for.