invisible perversity

The guides for writing a résumé didn’t mention anything about including a short, personal biography. However, the guides also said I should make myself stand out. And with my father being Dr. Alexander Boswell—the inventor of the revolutionary Invisibility Serum—how could I not mention it? According to my perfect GPA, I must’ve inherited at least some of those genes, making me a prime job candidate. Well, he hadn’t technically invented the serum yet. He was working on it. But I felt like I should plan ahead for its inevitable success anyway. So, there I was, up in my bedroom, hunched over my desk, trying to polish up something that would earn me a decent, late-summer internship. I had the blinds half-closed, my laptop flanked by stacks of old textbooks I’d been meaning to sell but hadn’t done so yet. And my fingers deviated from the expected résumé format. Son of Dr. Alexander Boswell, lead researcher of Project… Wait. The name was top secret. I couldn’t just casually mention it. Son of Dr. Alexander Boswell, lead inventor of the Invisibility Serum, used by our great American military. I am equally passionate about applied scientific research and confident in my ability to carry on his legacy. I am a highly driven, innovative thinker with a knack for unorthodox solutions and a passion to prove that brilliance runs in the family.

Then I sat back and frowned at the introduction. It looked kind of ****, didn’t it? Like I was riding coattails I hadn’t earned. But on the other hand, nepotism worked in Hollywood and pretty much in every other job market. I didn’t agree with it, but I had to include something. My GPA was great. But two semesters as treasurer for the student video game club? Community service for cleaning up the park? Part-time projectionist for the drive-in theater that was only open during the warmer months? A recruiter’s eyes would glaze over all that. As I was starting to justify the nepo angle to myself again, the walls vibrated with the thumping bass of yet another godawful remix from my next-door neighbor. I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. My dad and I lived on a street where all the houses were nearly identical, separated by single-car driveway spaces. And my bedroom window was directly across from Mr. Headbanger’s next door. You could’ve strung up a clothesline of laundry between our windows. “Jesus, man. Every damn afternoon.” It had no rhythm. It sounded like a broken tape. I stood up, stretched, and moved to the window, where I saw Travis across the way, banging his drumsticks against his dresser and rocking out with his pants off. He was older than I was, and he’d moved back in with his parents after dropping out of college some months ago. All I envied Travis for was his smoking-hot girlfriend who always wore the tightest leggings humanly possible—although she wasn’t present. Shame. My eyes glared for a bit. He didn’t notice. I moseyed over to the back window and saw my other neighbor sunbathing out in the backyard, in the tiny patch of fenced-in grass. Chelsea Tucker lay on a beach towel, her long dark legs stretched out, her African-American skin glowing around the skimpy fabric of a tight yellow bikini. She was attending college out in California and was visiting her mom for the summer. I didn’t know much about her life or family beyond that. Must be nice over there compared to a New England winter, I thought. I caught myself staring too long and causing a stir in my underwear. Then I sighed, remembering my stupid résumé. Maybe my dad could help out. And my empty energy drink needed a replacement anyway. So, I thumped down the creaky wooden stairs, ready to draw upon my father’s superior intelligence for my job applications. He was so damn smart. He’d graduated from high school at the age of sixteen. He could probably whip out a résumé in five minutes’ time. Instead… He was snoring on the sofa. Papers littered the coffee table like someone had upended an entire box full of them. Diagrams, chemical formulas, a few open notebooks with scrawls and corrections in red ink. A half-eaten protein bar lay next to a half-full coffee mug. And my father was just as presentable. He looked like he had styled his hair by sticking it into a blender. I supposed being a genius was hard work.

Near his work materials, his phone buzzed. Someone was calling. Dad stirred but remained asleep. I took a deep breath and answered it for him. The caller ID said RESTRICTED. “Hello?” There was a pause, then a sharp voice: “Can I speak to Dr. Boswell?” “This is his son. Dad’s—he’s, um, in the shower right now.” Another pause. “Flynn, I remember you, yes. This is Director Castle, Office of Defense Applications. Listen, son, I really need to speak to your father.” I watched Dad drool in his sleep and slap his hand against his mouth, wiping it away without waking up. “And he’s practicing proper hygiene at the moment. Can I take a message or something?” “The nature of your father’s work is very classified—” “He’s inventing an Invisibility Serum, with useful military applications. I know almost everything about it.” Director Castle huffed. “All right. Flynn, you remind your father that the projected timeline for a viable prototype is coming due. We’ve already extended funding twice, and the project should’ve been completed six months ago. My prolonged goodwill ends in about two weeks.” “Dad’s working day and night on the project, I promise. He’s just extremely careful. Safety first. And safety is super important when you’re dealing with turning people invisible.” “I’ve heard enough about safety. I want something I can goddamn use.” I stiffened from the director’s irate tone and yanked the phone slightly away from my ear. “I understand, but…Mister Director, the science is really complicated, and—well, he did turn a hamster invisible, so I think the project just needs a little more time.” “Flynn, if your father doesn’t enter my office and put a serum into my hands that I can use on humans within the next two weeks, he’s gone.” I gulped. “Fired. Terminated. No more Christmas toys for you. Do I make myself clear?” “Well, first of all, I’m not a child—” The line went dead. Dad stirred on the couch again, this time muttering something about methylation, then fell silent again, lost in his dream world. My immediate reaction to the conversation with Director Castle was simple: Director Castle was kind of an asshole, and he clearly didn’t appreciate my father’s intelligence and commitment to safety when dealing with volatile compounds. Possibly lethal and explosive compounds, if mixed incorrectly. Dad was hoping to start trials on primates soon, but these things took time. But then the fears started to creep in. What if Director Castle kept his word?

What if Dad was fired? The house wasn’t paid off, and Dad had been struggling with the mortgage payments ever since Mom left. We rarely went out to eat, renting a movie was a once-a-month luxury, and Dad had refused to call someone about the leaky pipe in the basement and instead had fixed it with duct tape. But it would work. He was the smartest person I knew. He was like a rock star to me, but with his music-jamming skills replaced with math-wizard skills. Even if his snores sounded like a sputtering lawnmower. I noticed his work badge on top of some notebooks. What a terrible idea, I thought. But it consumed me. I wanted to prove Director Castle wrong. I wanted Dad and me to be able to do things again, besides talking about a baseball game two days after it was over and hearing about the chores he wanted me to do. Five minutes later, I was coasting on my electric bike, Dad’s ID badge tucked into my jeans pocket. The facility was past the outskirts of town, down a newly paved forest road. Even though it was still late in the afternoon, the road was dark enough that I had to turn my light on. I reckoned it was appropriate. The approaching night was the perfect backdrop for me doing stupid, no-good business that I was likely to get in major trouble for. But at that moment, I just didn’t care. And the four-mile trip did nothing to change my mind. Dad was going to change the world with his work. I would prove it. I would save his career. It wasn’t my first trip to the lab. Back when Mom was still around, Dad would bring both of us on Saturdays, and I’d get to pet the test animals: sheep, mice, even a few birds. Mom joked back then that Dad was obsessed with his work if a trip to the lab was his idea of us spending time together, but I hadn’t really noticed the early signs of the growing schism in their marriage. Too much time spent with my face turned down toward my Nintendo Switch, apparently. The gate and the security checkpoint came into view. Mike was inside the booth, reading a hunting magazine. The sign said ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN, but I probably could’ve biked on past without him even noticing. He was like seventy and almost deaf. I squeezed the brake and skidded to a stop. “Hey Mike,” I said, waving. My greeting startled him. He dropped his magazine and grabbed his chest. “Jesus, Flynn,” he wheezed. “Almost gave me a heart attack.” He squinted and looked out the window. “Where’s Mister Science at?” “At home. Working too hard. He asked me to come grab some materials. You know how it is with these government deadlines.” Mike grumbled. “I’ll tell you about the goddamn government, Flynn.” Oops, I hit the nuclear launch button.

“The government can go kiss its own ass. Back in the day, a security post was a man with a clipboard and a trusty watch. Now it's all emails and keycards and biometric this, biometric that. When they **** me to get a computer chip installed in my own ass, I’m done. Buncha sniveling jelly-spined paper-pushers down there in Washington. I can’t watch the news anymore. Kills my wife’s mood. I think it’s the magnesium supplements. Rides me like a bull at the county fair, making these noises—” “The gate…” “Oh, yes-uh-sir.” He stabbed a button on his console, and the gate rattled open. “Don’t steal anything, Flynn. Because, with your father not around, I’m not exactly supposed to, you know, let you be unsupervised…” “I’d never steal anything.” “How old are you again?” “Twenty.” He pointed at his own eyes and then turned the fingers upon me, in a I’m watching you gesture. The facility wasn’t anything glamorous. It was a boxy concrete building with a small loading dock and a parking lot for about fifteen cars. My dentist’s office wasn’t much smaller. At the entrance, I pressed my Dad’s badge to the scanner and got welcomed in by the automatic doors. Beyond that, I was pretty much free to roam around—until the next security roadblock, needing the badge again to get into the lab proper. As far as I knew, only a skeleton crew worked during the weekends, and half of that was janitors and basic security. Today, I didn’t even see any. It was clear coasting all the way into the lab where my father spent his long weeks, perfecting the serum that would revolutionize the world. All kinds of hazard signs warned me. The words morphed into phrases telling me I was stupid for planning to do the thing I was going to do. But it would work. And I had Snowflake here to prove it! Snowflake being the hamster. To a casual observer, her cage was entirely empty, but there was an infrared monitor showing her heat signature. I watched her red blob as I reached my fingers through the cage—more elongated red blobs against a bluish and greenish environment. She wiggled slightly as I petted her, nibbling on a piece of carrot. It was crazy, not only knowing there was a real-life animal that wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but also seeing little pieces of that carrot get cut out by invisible teeth. Because, once the carrot was inside Snowflake’s mouth, it became invisible too. “What’s so different about a hamster and a human being?” I pondered aloud. “We’re both just flesh. Bones. Organs. Practically the same.” With my courage faltering but still strong enough, I turned from Snowflake’s cage and took in the rest of the lab—the equipment, the low-power lights, and some kind of antiseptic odor hanging in the air. Metal carts lined the walls, cluttered with tubes, pipettes, and stacked trays of labeled slides. All the computers were off. But something that wasn’t deactivated or in some kind of idle mode was the main refrigerator on the wall, glowing as strong as a lighthouse. The sticker read BIOLOGICAL

COMPOUNDS. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked. Also thankfully, my father’s neatness insisted that everything be identified with more information than there was label space, his handwriting shrinking in size the longer the paragraph went. The serum was purple. There were different versions. Version 1.27 was the latest that I could find. Snowflake’s invisibility had been accomplished with 1.21, and surely there’d been only more improvements since then. My assumption made me feel better. I took the vial carefully in my hand. “Don’t be a coward,” I muttered. “I just want my father back, like the old days.” My heart started pounding. Sweat prickled my neck, sharp as pins. “And once I prove that it works, he’ll be so relieved. After being mad. But it’ll probably make him rich too. New house. My own car. Hot babes.” Well, I could dream… “It works, it works, it works, just like everything else he’s done in his life.” I took a sip before I could second-guess myself any longer. It was fucking foul. Bitter, soapy, with a lingering metallic edge. Like how I’d imagined gargling detergent might taste. I grimaced hard, mouth puckering as I nearly dropped the damn vial before steadying myself and resting it on a counter. I hoped I’d swallowed enough, because I dared not swallow more. And there wasn’t any kind of serving-size recommendation on the label. It burned all the way down into my growling stomach. And… Nothing. Not for a minute. Then two minutes. I felt like a suicidal idiot. I didn’t know what was in that stuff. And I began to feel dizzy, which only deepened my paranoia that maybe I’d made a mistake, maybe I’d need an ambulance and need my stomach pumped, and I’d listen to Dad rant about how he loved me but I was the dumbest, stupidest person to ever walk this earth, and just what the hell did I hope to accomplish? My whole body tingled. I braced myself against the counter. My hands— Oh. My fingertips were fading. Not disappearing all at once, but sort of ghosting away, the invisibility beginning at the ends and slowly traveling along the digits and joints. Like that photo in Back to the Future: transitioning from visible, to half-visible, then gone. I didn’t feel anything. No pain. No sensation along the gradient. The skin shimmered faintly, then went translucent, then vanished, and my eyes could see right through to the countertop underneath. “H-holy shit.” Wrists. Forearms. The rate was equal on both limbs. And not only were my arms turning invisible. My legs were undergoing the same process, and already there was a visible gap between my knees and my shoes when I pulled my jeans up, my socks wrapped around nothingness. Then the transparency crawled up my thighs.

“Jesus. Jesus, it’s working.” A wave of giddy relief spread through me. I wasn’t a madman! My dad was a genius! Well, obviously. How could I ever doubt him? And I was becoming the first invisible man. I unbuttoned my jeans and slid them down. My briefs floated, warping and stretching around my hips and my junk as I shifted. Funnily, I could see the inside of my briefs along the back, where they were wrapped around my ass, which was weird as hell. And the impression of my own scrotum, making a little dent at the bottom. God, that was unsettling. My arms disappeared. Then my whole torso. I hurried to the nearest reflective surface I could find, one of the blank monitors still turned off. By the time I got there, the process was already finished; there was nothing to reflect. Only the T-shirt on my upper body, wrapped around my invisible male torso. Yes! This is amazing! It clearly worked! And I was so eager to tell Director Castle to go shove it for not believing in my father, who was an absolute genius and way smarter than anyone working for the government. My triumph was interrupted by a sharp, blaring beeeeeeeeeeep-beeeeeeeeeeep-beeeeeeeeeeep. Then an automated voice: “Containment breach.” I looked over and saw the fridge door still open, the cool fog flowing out. Crap! I hurried over and shut it with my invisible hands, but the alarm didn’t stop, and beneath it I heard some distant radio chatter getting closer. Which made me completely screwed. But I was invisible… Not with my clothes on. Without much grace, I rectified the issue by yanking my T-shirt over my head, kicking off my shoes, then similarly removing my briefs and jeans. It was freaky as hell not seeing my own body, but that existential horror wasn’t the priority right now. I bundled my clothes and shoved them between two desks near some power strips. And it was not a moment too soon, because the lab door clicked open, and Mrs. Davila—the security guard on duty, it seemed—came in and looked around. “Hello?” she said, holding a flashlight. She didn’t have a gun, but she had a Taser, which her right hand stayed clenched to. Her gaze and light passed right over me as I stood in the middle of the lab.

I knew she wouldn’t have turned me in. She knew me. Last year for my birthday, she’d gotten me an Amazon gift card and a Rubik’s Cube. I’d solved my first Rubik’s Cube when I was twelve, but she was sweet and expected I’d be a genius just like Dad. However, this situation called for some tests. Mrs. Davila scoped out the scene, found no one, even though I was about two paces behind her the whole time, entranced by those tight, brown pants hugging her wide hips. Then she radioed in: “Tom, it’s all clear. No signs of entry or anything missing. Probably just a sensor malfunction like last month. You can turn the alarm off.” The alarm silenced. Then the radio cracked: “I thought we got those fixed.” “Apparently not.” She clipped the radio back to her uniform. Her flashlight beam then settled on the vial I’d sipped from, casually sitting there on the counter. She hovered near it, her mind surely wondering how in the world it had escaped the fridge with no one around. And it was at this point that I was feeling especially naughty. I reached out and nudged a metal tray just slightly. It scraped across the table. Mrs. Davila jumped, and her light whipped around, trembling. “Mierda,” she gasped. “Damn rats. Pardon my language, Snowflake. You’re not a filthy, ugly, disgusting rat.” I moved behind her, so close I could smell her perfume and her sweat, and I gave her shoulder a quick double-tap with my fingers. She spun around. “Wh-what? Hello? Okay, what the hell…” I stifled a snicker. The woman turned toward me. And for a long, scary moment, her gaze lingered very close to my position, but then she moved her attention elsewhere. “This place is haunted,” she sighed. “Or I need some rest. Damn weekend shift.” This was insane! I felt a little guilty for spooking her, but it was all playful. And I stepped close with an intention to give her just one more little scare before leaving her alone. I went to touch her. And I never made contact. My invisible hand penetrated her uniform and flesh, reaching somewhere within Mrs. Davila’s upper body, somewhere that was tingly and hotly throbbing. For a moment, those existential worries came rushing back, because, while I was invisible, I didn’t know of a way to stop being invisible. Like Snowflake. Who could only be monitored in the infrared spectrum. The security guard suddenly groaned. And a **** yanked my arm like a tornado. My feet left the ground, and my whole body followed my hand and arm into Mrs. Davila’s body, flying through her uniform, passing through her skin, and— I opened my eyes and took a deep breath that sounded completely wrong.

My head felt heavy. My limbs ached. I was shorter. My feet were cramped. When I looked down, I nearly screamed. My body was visible, but it wasn’t mine. A full, buxom chest rose and fell under the stretched fabric of a beige button-up shirt. My legs were thick, the brown pants clinging alluringly to the wide hips I’d been drooling over just moments ago. And as I rolled my sleeves up, I only saw smooth tracts of caramel-colored skin—not the pasty white skin I’d had my whole life, occasionally burned from summers out in the sun. My breaths quickened; my chest heaved heavily, lifting, settling, two weights shifting into firm, sturdy cups that pinched my skin, attached to straps digging into my shoulders. The weight of my ponytail tugged on my scalp. Sweat suddenly trickled down my back and somewhere deep inside my butt: my big, wide, cavernous rump jutting out behind me. And abruptly, my whole balance was off. I stumbled and caught myself, letting out a high-pitched squeak as most of my body jiggled. “Oh fuck,” Mrs. Davila’s voice said in my ears. I reached up and felt my face with shaking fingers. Full cheeks. Soft lips. Earrings. Big, long lashes. I about stabbed my eye with a fingernail. And then my hands quickly left my face and shot down below, reaching for my manhood—and only finding a smooth valley encased in taut fabric. I felt it. For a moment. That recess of something that went deeper into my body. And my hands flew away from my groin almost as quickly. Oh fuck. So, there were some side effects. I didn’t just turn invisible. The serum… It turned me into a fucking ghost… Or something? Allowing me to possess other people… Oh God, there was a rushing sound in my head, waves crashing through my temples. My attempt at validating Dad’s research and saving his career had gone off the deep end. Was my real body just gone? Was I stuck as a thirty-something Hispanic woman? I waited to wake up. Instead, the radio on my chest cracked. “Rosario, you still clocked in?” Rosario. Me. I grabbed the microphone piece and clicked the button. “Y-y-yeah. This is Rosario. Um. Checking in.” Tom laughed. “Why do you sound like someone is holding you at gunpoint?” “N-no reason. Thought I saw a mouse.”

“Shift’s over. Just making sure you knew.” “Oh.” After accepting this as a minor speed bump in my mission, I decided I couldn’t just stay here and draw attention to myself. So, I found a paper bag from the recycling bin and gathered up my clothes. I also took the vial, knowing it would be suspicious if left out or noticeably emptier than the other vials. But Dad was so obsessive, he’d probably notice one missing. I was on the verge of having a major panic attack. Silly me still hoped he wouldn’t find out about all this, and I could sweep this little detour into Mrs. Davila’s body—her very fleshy and very jiggly body—all under some kind of rug. My unsteady, booted feet led me down the hallway, my hips swaying in a manner that I was extremely conscious of and trying to prevent, but apparently they just did that naturally. I discreetly fidgeted with the damn bra, feeling very embarrassed whenever my fingers happened to feel the softness of those globes underneath my uniform. Sorry, I told Mrs. Davila. Was she even aware? Was she even alive? God, who knew? Since the facility wasn’t that large, happening upon the locker room wasn’t a surprise. And with it being a weekend, I was alone. The lockers all had names. My eyes scanned until I found DAVILA printed on one. The door wasn’t even locked. Inside wasn’t much. I found a purple purse—something I probably needed for leaving. In exchange, I left the radio and my belt. There wasn’t a change of clothes, so I left the uniform on, trying not to hyperventilate, trying not to panic about how my own underwear was pressing up into me and worrying about what the hell I was going to do when I needed to pee. Inside the purse, I found gum, a wallet, makeup, tampons, some deodorant, loose change, and car keys. Hmm, kind of handy, I thought. Like a giant pocket. With the purse and the sack, I walked out. It was getting properly dark now, and my bike was still leaning against the side of the building. It was my first choice, but what about Mike? He could be oblivious to my mode of transportation, because he was old and reading his magazine, or he could notice something off and start asking questions. I hid the bike in some bushes around the other side of the building. Using my new car keys, I found a Toyota Camry that responded to the buttons. “Sure,” I said aloud. “I guess I don’t really have a choice.” After opening the door, I slid my big butt into the seat, which felt extra squishy and comfy, and I was ready to praise the craftsmanship of modern Toyota sedans. And then I realized it wasn’t the seat itself. At the checkpoint, Mike gave me a wave without even looking up from his magazine. “Until next time, ma’am.” “Uh, you too, Mike,” I said. And I was out.

Back into the world in the wrong body. + + + The apartment complex matched the address on Mrs. Davila’s license. It was a respectable place, so I figured she was being paid well enough to guard some government secrets. Good for her. For me? I was scared as hell. Scared of opening the door and finding a kid. Or, God—multiple. I’d run. Back to my house, back to Dad. I’d confess everything and accept the responsibilities of my actions. I’d willingly go to fucking prison instead of having to deal with children. I unlocked the second-level apartment door with shaking hands. And peered inside. No kid stuff. No toys. No crib. No babysitter. Phew. I shuffled in, immediately feeling like a trespasser as I slid my shoes off and dumped my purse on the white sofa. There were framed photos above it. Mainly friends, I assumed, though some contained Rosario. I swallowed hard at the image of her in a swimsuit holding a margarita, very attentive to every swell that I now possessed. Flicking some lights on, I steered my big hips and bottom-heavy figure toward the bedroom, trying to imagine what the hell I was going to do if this was permanent. In one scenario, I didn’t tell Dad; I just assumed the identity of Rosario while the local police searched high and low for the missing son of a government-contracted scientist. Which sounded horrible. In the other scenario, I came clean to Dad, and we put our heads together and fixed the problem with his serum. Which was way more preferable. But not now. Not tonight. Probably tomorrow, when my head wasn’t in a whirlwind. I incidentally passed the full-length mirror that was nailed to the closet door. And there I stopped for a while. I lifted my hand; my reflection lifted hers. My new face looked tired, and it had some wrinkles, but I was still an attractive woman, especially with those expressive eyes. Those big, slightly scared eyes. Dark hair in a loose ponytail trailed past smooth, bronzed shoulders. My lips looked like I was intentionally puckering them slightly, but my attempts at making them less prominent enlightened me that I wasn’t. My hair was kind of curly, and very dark. But I was Hispanic now, so this of course was no surprise. It wasn’t my male face in a costume; I really was a woman of a different race. In the broader human sense, I felt no better or worse than being a white guy. Easy to say when I was restricting my observations to only above the neck. I stared at the strained uniform around my new tits for like five minutes. Just comprehending. My long nails—and trembling fingers—made dealing with the buttons a pain in the ass, but I managed, undressing my torso section by section and revealing the beige bra that Mrs. Davila had chosen to wear on this day, which was supposed to be like any other average day. My jaw dropped a little as I saw the slopes of her tan-colored bosom sagging heavily into the cups, cradled and contained by a contraption I’d never had to wear in my life. The shirt came off more, and I saw a pudgy belly. Not fat. But appropriate for a woman who was in her thirties and a little on the heavier side. I stopped, panicked, felt dizzy, and got a hold of myself again while pulling my eyes away from the deepest cleavage I’d ever seen in real life.

“God,” I whispered. It felt good to get the shirt off. I’d been sitting in my bedroom for most of the day, but Mrs. Davila hadn’t, and my new joints and muscles were slightly aching. With an embarrassed little whimper, I removed my pants next. They were so damn tight, I actually had to wiggle to succeed in getting the waistband past my monstrous ass. And when it finally popped down past the apex of my thickness, my body jiggled in such a sickening, unmasculine way. Gravity then assisted with pulling the pants the rest of the way down, revealing my plump thighs. Naturally, my eyes went to my groin. The satin panties. The lack of a bulge. The subtle muffin top created by my curves. And my ass—Jesus. My ass was enormous, jutting out like I was a horse leading a wagon, with enough surface area on top to be a shelf, so heavy and full and dimpling and wiggling every time I shifted my weight. I considered skipping the next part. But I had to see. After fighting with the bra clasps, I exhaled in relief as the prison for my tits finally released its stranglehold, and my big breasts flopped down. They drooped more than I had anticipated, their big, dark areolas and nipples aiming forward but also kind of downward. I couldn’t believe the size of my nipples. I brushed them with my fingertips and immediately winced. I’d heard large breasts were less sensitive than small breasts, but maybe that was just one of those internet urban legends. Then the panties. Michael Fucking Myers could’ve burst through the door with a giant knife, and I wouldn’t have been as scared as I was removing my underwear. My heart wanted to explode as I saw pubic hair. Down. Down. Then, a hint of the folds underneath. And— Was that a tampon string? The thing to…put inside…to absorb blood during…during… The room started spinning, and my big ass crashed on the mattress as I lost my balance entirely. No, I thought, confronted by all the horrors of the female body, even though I wasn’t ugly or a freak. I was human. But thinking about the organs, the reproductive system, all the images I’d seen in my anatomy class, knowing they were all inside me, everything to make babies and… Fuck. My head throbbed. My heart hammered. And no matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn’t fully push down the raw panic. But I was exhausted. Mentally and physically. Existentially.

So, I lay down. The pillow was soft, and the sheets were like silk. Once I got my plumpness wrapped into the bedding, I felt really comfortable. The foreign mass of my breasts nearly crushed my ribs if I rested on my back, and switching to my front was out of the question. I couldn’t do anything else but rest on my side, with my tits sandwiched together. And I hoped tomorrow would bring a cure. Somehow. I reluctantly drifted into sleep. And woke a few hours later. I was immediately aware of a presence in the room with me, stomping around heavily, something jangling, drawers and shit being yanked open and closed. And at first, I thought the noises were from some home invader, looting the apartment. Oh fuck, I thought. First, the accident with the serum, and now this? Was this the worst luck anyone could have? And what the hell was I going to do? A lamp was within reach. Projectile options. Then a male voice said: “Rosie? You out already?” I froze. Mrs. Davila didn’t live alone. How could I have not noticed? Well, I had a lot on my plate recently. “Uh…” I mumbled, facing away from the man and unable to will myself to turn over. Clothes rustling. “Got held up at the bar. Thought we were gonna watch that movie, but hell, I’m tired too.” “Yeah,” I said. “Long day.” He pulled the sheets off and slid in behind me, his arm immediately wrapping around my waist while his chest pressed into my back, and I felt his breath right on my shoulder blades. Spooning me. I was as rigid as concrete, sweating. His large, warm hand brushed my belly, then slowly crept upward, where it cupped the bottom of my breast and squeezed gently. I let out the tiniest gasp. “You okay, baby?” “Y-yeah.” He exhaled a warm breath into the back of my neck and pressed a kiss there. His hips shifted. I felt his groin push up against my ass. And more: the bulge of something else pushing against me. Reasonably, I knew he wasn’t trying to fuck me or anything, it was just a loving embrace, but I was on the verge of being absolutely horrified. “You smell good,” the man said. “Um. Thanks.” “You’re all stiff. Rough day?”

“Yeah, just…stressful” “I missed you.” And the man snickered behind me. “It’s only been ten hours. But I can barely survive that long without you.” I was quiet. My dad was going to be pissed. But I had failed to consider other repercussions in the relationships in Mrs. Davila’s life. I still didn’t know where the real Rosario was. I didn’t hear her. And I had stolen her body. Accidentally, sure, but none of it would have happened if I hadn’t decided to drink that damn serum. After a while, the man was snoring softly. A long time later, I joined him. + + + I stirred awake in the middle of the night, hoping everything was a bad dream and I was back in my own bed. Unfortunately not. Worse, I’d seemingly rolled over unconsciously, and now I was facing Mrs. Davila’s boyfriend or husband or whoever he was, a Black man who was mere inches away with his eyes closed. I’d never been this intimately close to another guy, so it was a little unnerving to be wrapped in his arms. He was handsome and muscular. In my daze, those were my only observations. Sleepily, I turned over. My hand clenched a pillow. A pillow that was warm and let out a soft moan. My eyes, once barely open, now widened tremendously as I noticed Mrs. Davila in front of me, and I was all but cuddling her curvaceous nude body. I instinctively tried to remove myself from the inappropriate situation, but then I was back against the guy again. Trapped. In the middle. What the fuck? My skin was pale. I didn’t have massive breasts. I was normal. And not invisible. All I could figure was I’d been ejected out of Rosario’s body after some unknown amount of time, and the serum’s effects had worn off. This was terrific! Except, as a result, I was in an entirely new predicament. I knew I had to get home. The sack with my clothes and the serum was on the table in the apartment’s little dining room, adjacent to the front door. If I could quietly sneak out. I held my breath and slowly, slowly began to lift the blanket and slide myself out, toward the foot of the bed, since I couldn’t go any other direction. The man sighed, and I stopped briefly, but the sigh was all. I continued, bending one leg out, then the other, focusing really hard to keep my movements careful and subtle. Rosario shifted. And as I was watching her, her eyes slowly opened. My resulting swallow was loud in my ears.

“Flynn?” she mumbled sleepily, her eyelids slowly coming back down. I started to exhale. Close call. Then her eyes snapped open. And she screamed like I was some demon apparition. Her scream woke the man. “What the fuck?!” I’d never moved so fast in my life. I flung myself toward the door, flopping clumsily off the mattress and rolling forward until I found my feet and bolted down the hallway. Rosario continued to scream while the man was shouting after me, and I could only assume he was either calling the cops, grabbing some kind of makeshift weapon, or both—meaning I had no business sticking around. I scrambled toward the exit, grabbing the bag along the way. Once I threw the door open, I sprinted down the stairs, past the parking lot, and into the night, completely naked, hyperventilating, and starting to laugh once I felt safe enough.

I woke up the next morning to the glare of sunlight cutting through my blinds and blasting my face. Damn east-facing window. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. Or mauled by a bear. One of those. Broken, glued back together, maybe a little rearranged on the inside. But at least I was awake, tangible, and otherwise not feeling under the weather after drinking that serum. Fuck, I thought, my mind replaying the escape from Mrs. Davila’s apartment over and over again. I was glad I’d had the forethought to keep my clothes. I was glad I’d woken up first. For a full minute, I just lay there, recalling the ghostly sensation of heavy breasts tugging down on my ribs and the empty, void feeling between my legs. In response to that, my hands automatically cupped my junk. It was just reassuring. I flopped over, stuck my feet to the ground, and wondered where my dad kept the aspirin. Then my phone buzzed. Not many people called me these days. The number wasn’t Dad’s. Maybe it was Director Castle, calling a scientist’s son to warn him that his father was about to be homeless if he didn’t pick up the pace. “Uh—hello?”

“Flynn.” The pocket of air entering my lungs suddenly reversed course, and I started coughing. Mrs. Davila: “Are you okay?” “S-sure,” I said, hacking some more. “Think I swallowed a bug.” “This is Rosario. From the lab. I asked your father for your phone number.” “Uh-huh,” I said, my pulse about to explode out of my temples as a million questions and concerns rushed through my head. Did she know? Was she going to call the police? “What’s…what’s the matter?” She hesitated, then said, “I have a crazy question. Were you in my house last night?” “What? In your house? How would I…” Then she started laughing. “I know. It’s silly. But I woke up, and you were in my bed. It seemed so real. And I’ve been trying to think why you’d be in my bed, and how you even got into my apartment. None of it makes sense. So, it has to be a dream.” I laughed back at her. “Yeah, that’s, uh…lay off those crazy pills, Mrs. Davila. I was home all night. And, you know, I saw this article that said stress can make people see things.” “You’re probably right. Come to think of it, I can’t even really remember clocking out of the lab or driving home. It’s probably a sign I need a vacation. I’m so sorry. This looks embarrassing for me.” “No, not at all.” Suddenly, a blast of distorted bass shook the walls. Travis, next door, had decided it was the perfect morning to practice for his nonexistent band. Guitar shrills and heavy drums shook the pictures. Mrs. Davila: “What is that terrible racket?” “My neighbor,” I said. “Is that music?” “Supposedly.” “Gosh, and I thought our apartment had thin walls. Anyway, sorry for bothering you, Flynn. I’ll let you go now.” “No problem.” After the call ended, I plodded over to the window, yanked it open, and pushed my face out into the swell of awful music. “Travis! Can you cut out?” His blinds rattled open just long enough for a tattooed arm to emerge and flip me the middle finger. Then the music got louder.

I slammed the window shut, then stomped down the stairs, feeling like I could eat a whole pizza. And it was my lucky day, because Dad had left a note on the fridge about working late, and there was a five-dollar bill for me to buy a pizza. That gave me a chuckle. “Yeah, sure, Dad. Maybe twenty years ago.” I pocketed the bill anyway, knowing I could use it on a bag of chips or something at the corner store. It was impossible to focus on anything other than the serum and the side effects I’d experienced last night. Envisioning myself in Mrs. Davila’s body again gave me a shameful boner, but I couldn’t blame my dick for getting excited. I’d been in a woman’s body. And, amazingly, she apparently had no recollection of my ghostly spirit possessing her! Which was a whole can of worms. And if this was a complication with the serum that had been observed by Dad—turning people into temporary ghosts rather than keeping them corporeal but invisible—I understood the delay. That was a big fucking problem. With my limited knowledge on the subject, I couldn’t even begin to know how my physical body could go into poltergeist mode and then come back from poltergeist mode unharmed. But it was neat. Putting it lightly. Travis continued to rock out, and it was annoying the fuck out of me. Which gave me an idea. My first experiment with the serum had been successful, albeit with a few unexpected twists. Why not start the second trial right now? I returned upstairs and found the paper bag. The clothes went into my hamper; the vial I kept. In the sunlight, the purple liquid shimmered like gasoline, reminding me of its foul taste. And my stomach was already turning itself into a knot as I downed another small gulp. It burned and made my tongue cringe, and I wanted to puke the stuff up even before it reached my stomach. I followed it down with a quick chug of water, which helped a little but not much. “Next version needs a better flavor,” I said, imagining Dad and myself as colleagues trying to improve the formula. Like the first time, the invisibility superpower took a few minutes to kick in. My fingertips started to fade. My arms blurred, flesh and pores dissolving into air—with the faintest hint of muscles and bones fading underneath too. My legs followed. Then my torso. I completely undressed while this was occurring, turning myself into just a floating head as I looked into my bedroom mirror. I goofed off for a while, thinking about how this serum would help me win every costume competition during Halloween. But I didn’t need a spooky holiday to spook people. Once I was fully unseen on the visible spectrum, I walked outside. Dammit, I was still erect. I felt my engorged dick swinging and bouncing around as I descended the porch steps. Was I indecently exposed if I was invisible, though? What did the law say about that? I hopped down to the sidewalk and made the short trip past the driveway. Along the way, Chelsea and her mom from the house behind mine passed. It was a beautiful morning, and they were roller-blading together, along with their golden retriever, who was half-jogging beside them on a leash. With my growing confidence in being an undetectable voyeur, I sure as hell noticed Chelsea’s curves in those tight jeans and kneepads. And my head did the swivel as they passed by, my eyes zeroing in on her buns wrapped in denim. However, the damn dog interrupted me.

Its ears perked, and it stopped in its tracks all of a sudden, causing Chelsea to take a spill onto the grass by the sidewalk. The dog started barking right at me, ferociously, those sharp canines snapping up and down, drool slinging everywhere. Whoa, whoa, whoa! I thought. Was my scent giving myself away? Whatever the reason, the dog wasn’t happy. “Bailey, quit!” Chelsea hollered. “What is it? A squirrel? You’ve seen plenty of squirrels.” Chelsea’s mom helped her up. “Are you okay?” “Yeah,” Chelsea said, picking herself up. “I thought she was going to run off, and I didn’t want to let go of the leash.” I walked away from the scene. Bailey eventually stopped barking, but she continued looking back in my direction. A possible weakness for the Invisibility Serum? The military couldn’t be as sneaky if they could be sniffed out by animals. In any case, I strolled up to Travis’s front door. Expectedly, it was locked. But the window was cracked, and there wasn’t a screen. So, I pushed it up, pulled myself through, and entered the residence of Mr. Headbanger, who was continuing his loud and discordant solo somewhere above my head. Upstairs, Travis had the usual rock gods plastered on his walls—Metallica, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses. A lava lamp bubbled on the dresser, next to a graveyard of empty energy drink cans. Dirty laundry blanketed the carpet, mixing with guitar and speaker cables. The wannabe rock star himself sat shirtless on the bed, his long, greasy hair laying across his shoulders as he jammed out a tune on his guitar. It sounded like two cats fighting, hissing and snarling back and forth. I, the trickster, crouched beside the amp and tugged the cable loose. Oops. The guitar wailed with a harsh pop before going dead. Travis frowned, tapping the strings to no avail, then cursed. He saw the loose cable, reconnected it, and resumed his shredding. I unplugged it again. “What the fuck?” he said. While keeping him perplexed about his equipment hiccups, I roamed around. He had a calendar and a black marker which he used to scrawl in notes and cross out days. I thought that was interesting. I took it and decided to write a different message. Across the wall, I wrote: THE GHOST OF ROCK HAS DEEMED THAT YOUR MUSIC SUCKS MAJOR ASS. He didn’t even notice it until I was nearly finished. After that initial glance and double-take, he spun around, dropping the guitar on the bed. His wide eyes regarded the communication from the supernatural. “No way, dude,” he said, going pale in a way I’d only ever seen in movies, with the makeup effects. I added: YES WAY, DUDE. Then I wagged the marker at him. He stumbled backward, almost tripping over a pile of laundry.

Right then, we had company. Footsteps came up the stairs, and then Travis’s hot girlfriend Jackie appeared in the bedroom. This was excellent. Supporting that her boyfriend was a nutjob, I dropped the marker before she’d had a chance to see it. She had brought Taco Bell, but the food was ignored by Travis, who rushed up to her, shook her by the shoulders, and yelled at her about how his bedroom was haunted. “What?” she said. “Slow down.” “The m-marker floated! I fucking swear! Look! It wrote those messages all by itself! I was playing my love song—” That was a love song? “—and…and some ghost wrote those words, saying my music sucks ass. Babe, I know you won’t believe it, and I never once believed any of those ghost shows, especially that shitty Zak Bagans one, but I swear on your sweet ass I’m not making this up.” She looked like she thought he was crazy. Perfect. “Are you high?” she asked. “No—” “I told you I hate that shit. It makes your breath smell awful.” “Babe, smell my mouth. I ain’t baked, and I ain’t making it up.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, I just remembered. I got some homework to do. And Rachel wanted to go to the mall.” “Fuck the mall! I got Casper living in here!” Jackie turned and left with a sigh of disgust. Yes! Yes! Fuck you, Travis. You punk loser bitch. The metalhead slammed his palm against the wall in anger. In my perfect fantasy, I imagined him finally giving up the hobby altogether and leaving me and my eardrums in peace. But he turned out to be more stubborn, because he marched right back to the guitar, picked it up, and looked around the room with a hateful glare. “You think my music sucks?” he said. “Fuck off. I ain’t listening to a word you say, you fucking ghost bitch. One day, I’ll be playing in Madison Square Garden. People are going to love this shit.” And he resumed strangling those strings. It sounded like screaming chickens going into a garbage disposal, with a little bit of broken police sirens on the side. Crap! That plan failed. But I came up with another.

Quickly, I hurried downstairs and out the front door. Jackie was already in her car and preparing to drive away, but I reached her just in time. Unlike with Mrs. Davila last night, I was aware of my possessive power, and I wasn’t freaked out as I reached through the side-window space of her hatchback and felt the suction pulling me deeper. My invisible form lunged, and I felt like I was spinning. A soap bubble around a drain. And eventually I spun myself right into her body. Her body stiffened. There was a cry out of her throat—then my throat. My long-lashed eyes blinked, and my dainty hands slowly removed themselves off the steering wheel. Since there was no panic this time, I skipped right to grabbing my tits. Jackie was far more manageable in that department, having a perky set of B-cups rather than some big floppers. My hands cupped them, quickly noticing the lack of a bra underneath my tank top by how squishy and bouncy they were. Honestly, what a relief! I understood why bras were necessary, especially for gals like Mrs. Davila, but I already much preferred not being pinched by those damn things. “The benefits of being young,” I mused aloud with a girlish giggle. The view down below was nice too. Those tight black leggings on my new hips. Woof. My groin was entirely flat, but my fear over that situation was greatly reduced, since I knew this was temporary. It wasn’t that I thought being Jackie was a downgrade. Hell, I probably could’ve used my new body to jiggle and flirt my way into getting better jobs with better pay. But I’d been born a guy. And the male configuration down there was what I preferred. I studied my big brown eyes and glossy lips in the rearview. Then I blew myself a kiss. “I am way too hot for that punk,” Jackie’s voice said. “But it’s not about me right now. It’s about Flynn. Who is, like, totally way cuter.” I let a moan vibrate from my throat. To my male mind in the driver’s seat, it was extremely erotic and made me tingle even without a penis. I popped out of the car—after stealing a nacho cheese fry out of the Taco Bell bag. After a few steps, I realized my new body was wearing a thong. And my reaction was: holy shit, that’s annoying. It was like having a wedgie! But I resisted the urge to adjust it and walked with it grinding into my crack and across my groin. Inside, I took Jackie’s sweet butt upstairs. Travis was in the middle of a terrible guitar riff. He saw me and put the instrument aside. “Babe?” “Casper is right, Travis,” I said. “Your music sucks. It’s awful. If music could cause ear cancer, yours would do it.” He blinked at me. “What? But, you once said you liked it, and you thought I was—” I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. Then I grabbed his greasy-haired head and shook that. Maybe it was a little too dramatic, but I was just in a mood. He pissed me off so much. “You have no chance. Zero. Nada. You’re not going to make it. You’re wasting your life pretending this is going anywhere. And the worst part is, you’re not even getting better. You’re actually getting worse. If that guitar was sentient, it would be screaming in agony because of you, and the Guitar Protective Services would come and give it a better home.” “Jackie, what the fuck—”

“Stop playing that shit. Stop. Grow the fuck up. Because it irritates me, it irritates the neighbors, like, well, all of them. And I would do just about anything for you to put all your music equipment on a garage sale or give it all to Goodwill or anything. I’d suck your dick. I’d—” Suddenly, I remembered the rules of the serum, specifically how I couldn’t leave this body anytime soon. I’d be stuck for a while. Uh. Oops. Travis looked up at me, his angry features softening. “You’d suck my dick? But you’ve never sucked my dick. You said it was gross.” “Well…change of mind.” “Right now?” “I didn’t exactly mean…” My eyes turned down. There was an increasingly prominent bulge in his camo-styled shorts. But I wasn’t panicking. I was actually pretty calm. Would I have sucked a dick to spare the damage to my eardrums every morning? To no longer have to listen to the worst music blasting into my bedroom like a full-volume radio broadcasting all the worst albums ever recorded? Yes! Resoundingly yes! It wasn’t even a hard decision. A few minutes of something yucky for peaceful mornings? Sure! And since I was in Jackie’s skin, no one else had to know. I wasn’t eagerly drooling at the thought, but… It was an acceptable compromise. I squared my shoulders, forcing a bright, flirty grin onto Jackie’s lips, and leaned over him. “Yeah, right now,” I cooed, playing the part of his hot girlfriend with a change of heart and new, naughty desires. “I think about your cock a lot, actually. My mom raised me to be one of those no-weird-shit-before-marriage types, but fuck that. I want cock, Travis.” Travis actually shivered. Guys. So easy. I helped him tug his camo shorts down, past that obstructive lump stretching out the fly. I expected the worst: a messy, smelly dick. Because he didn’t seem like the type to bathe himself on the regular. But actually he was trimmed down there. And his erection—it popped out, and I quickly realized I’d misjudged the position of my face as it nearly whacked me in the nose. It wasn’t unsightly at all. It was a nice-looking dick. And fairly big. That bastard. His Adam’s apple bobbed. After being such an asshole before and yammering on about ghosts, he was completely subdued by his arousal now. I let my painted nails graze up his thigh, shooting him a wicked smile. Then I assumed the proper position on my knees and wrapped Jackie’s hand around his much-engorged and throbbing shaft.

Travis: “You think I really suck at being a musician?” I nodded emphatically. “You’re so bad. I’ve been nice before, but I just can’t handle you wasting your life like this. You’re…” I bit back a laugh. “You’re gifted. In other ways. I mean, probably. You have a big cock, for one.” He closed his eyes and smiled slightly as I began stroking him. At first, I was clumsy. This wasn’t my usual position for masturbating. The cock was turned around. The balls were on the wrong side. And I couldn’t feel the effects of my work. Instead, as with fingering chicks, I had to go off Travis’s reactions. And God, he felt so big. I knew, sensibly, this was a byproduct of my hand being smaller, but he was so thick and hard and yearning to explode, and it was unquestionably erotic for me even as a straight guy. He groaned, his breath quickening and his neck muscles tensing. My enclosed palm glided across those swollen veins, rising and squeezing the glans before falling away. I rubbed my thumb along the underside, in a sensitive spot right where his scrotum met his shaft. The reason being I loved doing that to myself, but communicating to chicks how to touch me and how much pressure to apply wasn’t so easy. But I wasn’t a chick. I had firsthand experience with cocks. Hundreds of orgasms. Hundreds of evenings jerking off and learning. Then I rotated my fingers slowly around the head, twisting and turning as pre-cum oozed out. I actually felt proud of myself. Not only keeping him hard but making him leak. There was clear progress. Then I used two hands: one to milk the base of the shaft, the other to keep playing with the swollen glans. Travis flinched. “Holy shit, babe.” I giggled. “What?” I asked playfully. “You’re just—mm—really good.” “Thanks. Guess I’m a natural.” After a few minutes of an unforgettable handjob, I leaned in, flicking my tongue over the head, making a show of tasting him and slowly licking the most sensitive part of his manhood. It wasn’t a repulsive taste at all. It was just skin. As a result, he gasped, his legs spreading wider as he nearly collapsed on the bed. Then I licked up and down the underside, teasing the sensitive ridge, letting spit dribble down and slick the shaft further. I let the tip press against my lips, kissing it like I was making out with it. Truthfully, I was using the time to build up the courage for the next phase. But I was so into it. It was naughty being his girlfriend. And it was legitimately erotic and exciting, because one of my hands had left the scene and was now rubbing between my legs. I hadn’t consciously made myself start to rub there, but it just seemed expected. If I’d been with a chick, I would’ve been doing the same. As a chick…

For the first time, I was really aware of my own pussy. Heat pulsing through the outer folds, a damp sensation spreading into my panties, and an itch burrowing upward into my lower tummy. I knew the biology, but it was definitely freaky to feel my female body get turned on. Travis grabbed my head. I slowly went down on him, taking him inside. I stayed shallow at first, letting my lips seal just beneath the head, sucking gently while undulating my face up and down a little. His whole body shuddered, and I could feel his muscles clenching in his groin. And being there—literally having my face up in his junk—I swore I could sense the urgency in his balls. There wasn’t one telltale sign, and I figured it was a multitude of little things. My own sixth sense honed from years of experience. My fingers rubbed my crotch faster. My head bobbed lower. “I’m never touching a guitar again if you keep sucking me off like this,” Travis panted. That’s right, I thought. Do it for me. Do it for Flynn. Blowjobs were kind of complicated. I underestimated how having his dick crammed inside my mouth prevented me from breathing. I had to inhale and exhale through my nose only. Once I got that figured out, I had to be more aware of positioning my tongue. Sometimes, I used it as a cradle to cup and slide underneath him, but other times I wanted to lick him while sucking him. The techniques were all fun, and there was just as much variety as with hands. But then I lost control. Travis’s hand on my head began to exert ****. He started fucking me. Pulling my head down, jerking his hips upward. Initially I tried to fight it, but then I just relaxed and let him take over. He moaned his girlfriend’s name while I rubbed myself faster down below, feeling his girlfriend’s leggings stick more wetly to his girlfriend’s pussy. I rubbed my clit hard, and my sexy, toned body was shaking and spasming as much as he was. And as that female pleasure spread from my loins to my brain, I wanted what came next. He slammed his dick into my throat, ramming my face over and over. Snot, tears, and drool flew out of me. Not sad tears… Tears from being overwhelmed. Tears from the sheer joy of my secret power. Tears from being a guy in a woman’s body and experiencing things no other guy felt. His fingers clenched like he wanted to rip my skin off. And then it hit—the sudden twitch in his thighs, the tightening of his abs, the **** way his grip shoved me down. His whole body locked up. With a guttural groan, a violent, salty explosion happened at the entrance to my throat. It shocked me. I realized what I was doing. I nearly gagged, spluttering as his jizz filled the back of my mouth. I tried to swallow, but there was just too much—I wasn’t prepared, and his load was so fucking huge, pouring in hot pulses that had me coughing and drooling all over his cock. Cum shot down my chin, thick and sticky, leaking out of the corners of my mouth and spewing back down his shaft.

Travis rode out the climax, his hips jerking. I swallowed what I could, remembering the bargain. The taste of his cock hadn’t been bad, but the goopy texture of cum was so overpowering, and I fought not to gag. I survived, though. I finished him like a good girlfriend, and I released my mouth off his softening manhood with a heavy exhale. He might’ve been finished, but I was still trembling and rubbing myself even after nearly **** on a flood of semen, my pussy craving a familiar and mysterious kind of attention. Afterward, I wished I could’ve telelported back to my bedroom about twenty feet due north and cleaned up there, alone. The guy’s cum was on my face. With Travis thanking me and singing my praises for my excellent oral tongue-swirlie, I walked out, found the upstairs bathroom, and cleaned up a little. Jackie’s flushed face and smeared mascara stared back. Her neat ponytail was a little more tangled and sweaty, and there were actual strings of jizz dangling off my chin. My face had gotten a workout. “Fuck,” I uttered, splashing water before rinsing out my mouth. The time between possessing Mrs. Davila’s body yesterday and waking up in her bed had been about what? Eight hours? Ten hours? Was that the normal length? I’d swallowed a little less of the serum than last time, but I had no idea if the amount of serum consumed was directly proportional to the length of time spent as a poltergeist. After bracing myself for having to spend more time with this punk, I—now not wearing another guy’s jizz on my face—returned to the bedroom, where I found him slipping into a Metallica T-shirt. “So, my music sucks, huh?” he said. Still on this topic. “I’ve been dying to tell you,” I told him, “because I knew it was important to you. And…” I gestured to the equipment scattered about. I’d played a trombone during one year of high school, so my expertise was kind of limited. But I knew the shit wasn’t cheap. “That’s a lot of money.” “Yeah,” he sighed. “But instead of music time, we can have blowjob time with Jackie.” He smiled. Then he studied me, tilting his head kind of like a dog. “You’re different. Between the time you walked out and came back five minutes later, you became a completely new person.” I shrugged. And in a totally serious tone, he asked: “Did Casper possess you?” I burst out laughing. “Blowjobs are off the menu if you start talking about ghosts.”

I put my hands on my hips. Right then, I was thinking, I need to get him away from the instruments. The dude spent his life up here, practicing a skill that never improved. And I knew this, because I saw him every day. So, in my best flirty girlfriend demeanor, I sashayed over to him and pulled him off the bed. “Take me to the mall,” I said. “Buy me something. And there’s Taco Bell in the car, still. Might be a little cold, though.” The mall idea wasn’t original, but it was something. We ate lukewarm burritos in Jackie’s hatchback. Then we started making out. It was his initiative; he tugged me over into his lap, and my butt smacked the horn on the way. Our clothes stayed on, but it got pretty raunchy with our cheesy, sour-creamy tongues taking turns in each other’s mouths. The whole hatchback started to shake right at the same time a school bus went past, with a bunch of middle schoolers’ faces pressed to the glass and gaping at us. “Okay, okay,” I laughed, pulling away from his embrace, with his hands securely clenched to my tight ass. I didn’t like this. There was a purpose to it. A future of peaceful mornings. But this body… It was just thrumming. I could only compare it to having a major hard-on as a guy and feeling that pulsating, dick-aching feeling from my head to my toes. Obviously, I lacked a dick now. But the sensation of being aroused was very similar, all in all. My panties were downright soggy across my pussy, the fabric stuck to the folds. I tried to focus on the truth: that I was just burning time. I breathed hotly on Travis while he rubbed me for a bit. But I told him to stop and promised I’d model some panties for him, as long as he footed the bill. At the mall, we piled out of the car and held hands while heading inside. We both smelled like sex, but I figured no one would detect it in the sweaty, window-shopping sty of young adults. As we strolled past the food court, I happened to notice Travis thumbing through a little notebook of dark ink sketches: snakes coiled around daggers, cartoon skulls with roses, and a few surprisingly intricate geometric designs. He had a little pencil too, and he started doodling all of a sudden. “Hey,” I said. “Am I too boring for you?” He laughed. “Nah. Just…” “Are those supposed to be tattoos?” “A few.” It was more than a few. The notebook was filled with them, sometimes multiple per page. He showed me, and I was legitimately impressed by his artwork. Some could have been tattoos, some could have been album covers.

Why the fuck was he wasting time trying to play music when his natural artistry was in a completely different medium? Was the real Jackie just some hopeful groupie, waiting for his big break so she could mooch off him? Given the quality of what I heard blasting through my window almost every day, I highly doubted that her dream would come true. “Seriously, dude,” I said. “This stuff is better than any guitar solo you’ve ever played.” And I slipped back into my flirty girlfriend mode. “It’s actually making me a little wet, thinking about you designing my first tattoo.” “Your tattoo?” I nodded and bit my lip. I whispered to him: “Bet you’d love admiring my tramp stamp while you fuck me.” He nearly tripped over his own shoes. I dragged him into one of those neon-lit lingerie chains, like a sluttier Victoria’s Secret, with wall-to-wall racks of thongs, push-up bras, and tiny scraps of lace in designs that I didn’t even know the names for. I pretended to browse and look very knowledgeable about women’s underwear while he gathered up some kinky shit he wanted me to try on. And truthfully, I could barely contain myself. Not only was I actively improving Travis’s life and his relationship with his girlfriend Jackie, I was also feeling more comfortable around him every minute. There was a nonzero chance he was going to fuck me in the change room, and I wasn’t scared. My nipples were so fucking hard, and I wondered what it would feel like if he squeezed my tits while railing me from behind. Just bog-standard curiosity for a young guy. With a handful, we barged into a change room laughing like kids. Signs said we couldn’t try on panties, but fuck authority. I stripped off Jackie’s leggings and thong, enjoying the view of my lower body probably as much as Travis did while my gaze intermittently flicked to my flat crotch and trimmed pubic hair. Then, I shimmied into the first pair: a cherry-red string bikini. The poor thing was so clean before. On me, it was instantly stained. I loved feeling it adhere to the curve of my ass, especially when I tightened the strings. It dug into my pussy down below, and I shuddered. My reflection in the mirror—a bombshell with wild eyes, hard nipples poking through my tank top, and one sexy ass—nearly undid me. My arousal had been building all morning. It wasn’t a switch. It took longer. But once it was going, it was going. I turned, giving my perfect ass a little shake. Travis sat back with his legs spread. And, shit—he was hard again. It felt like a compliment. His eyes devoured my backside as he squeezed his junk through his shorts. Next, a black thong that left nothing to the imagination. I cupped my breasts, pinched a nipple, then let my fingers drift lower, stroking the soaked gusset as I gave him a little dance. And then after: a cutesy blue boyshort with HOTNESS printed across the cheeks. Now Travis had his shorts open, and he was jerking off. I wondered if I had it in me to suck him again. I had expertise on the subject now. Not much, but more than yesterday! He got up and came over. Then bent down.

Nope. It was my turn. Travis yanked my underwear down and gripped my hips. He buried his face between my legs instantly, his tongue hotly and hungrily licking along my soaked folds. I shook like I was about to fall down, my hands sliding against the wall as I struggled to keep myself upright. Maybe I was a dude in a chick’s body, but Travis was pressing the right button to make me squeal. God. And when that tongue swirled across my clit, flicking, grinding….mmm. It was incredible. And I grabbed my tits to make it even better, my hard nipples stabbing against my palm as I gave each one a hard, loving squeeze. I felt steadier. One hand squirming underneath my tank top, two hands on the wall— I blinked in confusion. Wait a second. The hand on the left was Jackie’s; the hand on the right was mine. The male one. They were split at the elbow, two different arms branching away from each other. I very calmly moved my arm back into Jackie’s arm, phasing it through, and that seemed to work. Crap. Was the serum wearing off, then? This was not an opportune time! I tried to relax, letting Travis’s tongue distract me with its long, pleasurable lashing of my pussy—and then its twisting dive into my hole, actually penetrating me. My eyes rolled back, and the vision of the two coexisting left hands could have been my stupid imagination. I was getting eaten out like a buffet, and I fucking loved it. “Yeah, baby,” I moaned. “Eat it all. Eat it all.” My right leg shifted forward. Now I had three legs. Jackie’s two, and a freakish third sticking halfway out of her sandal, my heel standing in the same place her toes were. “No, no, no,” I hissed, sliding it back in. Travis paused. “What, babe?” “Nothing. I mean, yes, yes, yes.” I didn’t want to come out now. I tried to focus, if concentration made any difference. It hadn’t before, but I wasn’t an expert on how the serum worked. I was just a self-imposed guinea pig! And for a while longer, my possessive term inside Jackie’s body was uninterrupted, my partner’s relentless tongue-action silencing my loudest concerns. I stood up. And when I looked down, Jackie was still there.

She was still bent forward, hands on the wall, moaning, and I could see her spine and ponytail as our bodies were merged at the pelvis, her torso jutting out of where my groin would’ve been. Yet I still felt Travis eating me out. Uh. I tapped my fingertip lightly on Jackie’s lower back. It was real. And solid. I slowly sidestepped and left her body completely. For a moment after, I was just an observer, watching Travis give oral sex to his girlfriend from behind, and she was clearly enjoying it. Both of them were too preoccupied to notice that there was a third person in the room. Seeing Travis’s camo shorts on the floor, I stole them and made my escape, and neither one of them saw me. Damn, I thought, earning a few odd looks as I left the lingerie store, shirtless. I really wanted him to bring me to orgasm.

It was a new day. And completely tranquil past ten o’clock. That was because there was no music blaring from next door. After enjoying the peace and quiet, I rolled myself out of bed and crept over to the window to peek across. Jackie was on Travis’s bed, lying on her stomach in shorts with no shirt—or bra. He was beside her, equally shirtless, doodling on her body with a marker. His tongue poked from the side of his mouth in concentration as he shaded in a stylized skull wrapped in roses across her shoulder blade. This was interesting to me. Mrs. Davila’s memory had been hazy of the time I’d spent in her body, and although she’d been a little confused, she hadn’t been suspicious of anyone possessing her. Because that was silly. How could that be possible? I could only assume that Jackie was the same. But also, was there some deeper alteration happening? Jackie hadn’t been the one to suggest to Travis that he should focus on his other artistic talents. That’d been me. But now it was like today’s Jackie was continuing where I’d left off, and perhaps she remembered yesterday’s events like she’d been in control the whole time, being fed up with Travis’s music, encouraging him to work on his tattoo-drawing skills, and then getting horny in a mall store change room.

And as I watched my neighbors, Jackie laughed at something her boyfriend said, and then they kissed. A sweet, unhurried kiss that began several more. He rolled on top of her, and the scene turned into something they should’ve closed the curtains for. I shook my head and backed away, smiling. See? I thought jokingly. I’m not a pervert. I’m improving the world! Like an angel. Padding over to the back window, I stared out at the rest of the tightly packed neighborhood. The Tucker family was enjoying the nice weather in their backyard. Chelsea, in a tied-off white shirt and denim shorts that showcased her shapely legs, was tossing a Frisbee to Bailey. Their golden retriever was a little clumsy and slow, missing her mark for catching the Frisbee by a mile, but she scooped it off the lawn inside her mouth and brought it back. The mom, wearing sunglasses and a floppy sun hat, was involved too, and she and her daughter took turns. Everyone was having fun. I pressed my forehead against the glass. It was a stupid thing to get nostalgic over. But my dad and I hadn’t done anything fun together in ages. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d worked on a project together or watched a movie or even eaten pizza without having to leave the leftovers in the fridge for when he came home near midnight. His project had swallowed up everything. His time, his brain, his presence in my life. I’d practically grown up in the shadow of his ambition, wanting to be exactly like him, and all I saw of my dad was when he slept on the sofa. I wanted him to be successful. I also wanted him to exist. With no loud music driving me insane, I felt inspired to get my phone and call him. It rang a few times. Then I heard his voice: a little frazzled, a little hoarse. “Flynn? Something wrong?” “Hey, Dad. No, I just—” I hesitated, feeling oddly nervous like I hadn’t talked to him, really talked to him, in years. “I was wondering, if you weren’t too busy, if maybe…oh, I dunno. If you wanted to do something. Like go see a movie. Or a comedy show. Or I could bring you lunch, to keep you fed while you’re revolutionizing the world.” “We’ve got lunch taken care of,” he said flatly. “Okay, then, uh—” “I can’t right now, sport. The deadline’s coming, and I’ve gotta keep working on this serum. I think I’m close, but it’s not ready. Maybe some other time.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Dad, you’ve been working nonstop for months.” He sighed. “Flynn, I know. But this is the final stretch—” “Just start human trials. What’s the big deal?” “Absolutely not,” Dad snapped in my ear. “That would be reckless. Irresponsible. Dangerous. I haven’t stabilized the re-materialization process. This isn’t medieval times, where I can just get a hundred volunteers to risk their lives.”

“But it works. I know it works. I mean, not that I know for sure, but I trust you enough that it does, because you’re the smartest man I know.” My jaw tightened. “Dad, Director Castle is going to fire you. And we won’t have a house. Or food. We’ll be living on the street. Seriously, why the hell haven’t you gotten this done by now? How hard could it be for someone like you?” I was unexpectedly emotional. “You’re just…not around anymore.” The silence was so uncomfortable. And then he said: “Son, I have to return to work.” Completely flat. No fucking sympathy at all. And here I was, wondering if I should just waltz into his lab and prove that the damn Invisibility Serum worked, even though he’d probably quarantine me and run a million tests to make sure I didn’t have super cancer or whatever. Now I wasn’t so sure. After hanging up, I regretted calling him in the first place. It was total bullshit. The dad I knew was long gone; he’d been this empty shell ever since Mom left. And my eyes were starting to open and see why he was unmarried. I felt lonely. However, the serum could fix that. I retrieved the vial from my desk drawer, still half full and glimmering that weird purple hue in the sunlight. My fingers weren’t shaking at all anymore. I uncorked it, took a breath, and downed a swallow. It burned all the way down, bitter and metallic, and my stomach twisted immediately in protest. I grimaced and clutched the desk until the feeling passed, knowing it was all worth it. It didn’t take long. I started undressing as the tips of my fingers began to fade. The translucency crawled up my wrists, spreading into my forearms and shoulders. I stripped down quickly, tossing my clothes onto the bed before my torso disappeared. Soon enough, my reflection was nearly gone from the mirror entirely. My eyes and hair lingered for a few seconds, creating a freaky, nightmarish scene, then nothing. Back in the ghost world, baby! This time, instead of heading next door, I went into the backyard. The morning air was already hot and humid. If I was sweating, it was fortunately invisible. I peeked through a gap in the fence—Chelsea was still tossing the Frisbee, laughing as Bailey bounded back and forth, tail wagging like crazy. Her mom had gone inside, leaving the two of them alone. Perfect. I climbed up onto the fence, hoisting myself over the rickety wood. The serum made me invisible, but it didn’t make me silent. When I landed on the opposite side, Chelsea spun around and looked in my general vicinity. “Hello?” she said.

Bailey’s ears perked, and her tail stiffened. She let out a low growl. But their eyes couldn’t see anything, so obviously nobody was there. And as Chelsea returned to playing with the dog and tossing the Frisbee, I snuck up behind her and reached into her body. The same suction feeling grabbed hold, and I was pulled forward, like a magnetized soul returning to its corporeal form. My lungs expanded. My chest felt heavier and tighter. The denim shorts pinched between my legs. A small gasp slipped out of Chelsea’s throat as my awareness replaced hers, my new eyes seeing the world. “Damn,” I said, rubbing my hands along my new curves, my male mind once again filthily aware of the shape of my body underneath my casual attire. There was nothing pornographic, visually. Yet my nipples were suddenly erect, and I could feel the minute texture of Chelsea’s panties pressed against her pussy—now temporarily my pussy. I stroked my curly ponytail, feeling its alien texture. Bailey was returning with the Frisbee clenched inside her mouth. But then she stopped and dropped it suddenly. And then barked. She backed away, hackles raised, teeth bared, growling like I was some intruder. Which…okay, fair. “Hey,” I laughed. “Easy. I’m just borrowing Chelsea’s body. She’s completely fine. You sense it, huh?” Bark. “I won’t harm her, I promise. I’m like a friendly ghost.” Bark. “Do you want extra treats?” The sliding glass door opened, and Chelsea’s mom stepped outside. “Chelsea, what’s gotten into Bailey?” I barely heard her. Barely comprehended English. Because Chelsea’s mom had come out wearing a cherry-red bikini around her curvaceous figure. She had a blonde-dyed curly fauxhawk. And while I loved chicks with that hairstyle, my eyes were super-glued to her wide hips and big, jiggling tits. She was on the heavier side, but she carried those pounds in all the best places, and so the bikini looked incredible on her. I could barely stop my mouth from hanging open. But I closed it. Because I knew how fucked up it would’ve been if she saw her own daughter checking her out like that! Dear Lord, I prayed. Bless me with the willpower to act normal. “Bailey’s just being weird,” I said. “Saw the meanest, ugliest squirrel. I’d bark too.” “Well, let’s get going,” Mom said. “You know I wanna beat the crowd to the water park. It’ll be packed on a day like today.” Water park.

Not what I expected. But I wasn’t complaining. I gave Bailey a wide berth as I headed inside. The house had a similar layout to mine, so I assumed Chelsea’s bedroom would be upstairs. Sure enough. The girly room. Posters of pop stars, seashell-style lights, picture collages, a plush pink comforter. It checked off most of the stereotypes. And on the pink comforter was a turquoise bikini waiting for me. I shut the door, knowing I’d made my decision. This was my body for the next several hours. And fuck it, right? Dad and I had never gone to the water park. That sounded like a great idea for a parent and her college-age daughter to do! I untied Chelsea’s shirt and pulled it off, revealing a black bra and more of her dark, milk-chocolate skin. With Mrs. Davila, I’d been Hispanic—now I was African-American. Again, the sensations weren’t really any different, and after being inside Jackie, I was accustomed to the jiggling of my chest, the swell of my hips, and the absence between my legs. I executed the removal of my bra with minimal fumbling, and out dropped my new tits. I looked away, looked back. I cupped them and squeezed them, my erotic thoughts already causing—and keeping—my nipples rock hard. And they were big, thick nipples too. “Don’t be a perv,” I muttered. Next, I slid out of my denim shorts, the waistband catching and then snapping off my ass, causing it to bounce. I followed the shorts with my white cotton panties, the damp material slowly peeling away from my new pussy and revealing it to my staring eyes. I shivered. How could chicks handle being so…hot? The bikini was a little tricky. First, I tied the bottoms too loosely. Then, I tied them too tightly—giving myself an inappropriate wedgie. On the third attempt, I found a happy medium, and applied this knowledge to the bikini top as I tied it around my neck. Figuring I probably shouldn’t ride to the water park wearing only the bikini, I put the shirt and shorts back on. The straps of the bikini bottom rode higher than the denim waistband, and I thought that was cute. Even a little sexy. Especially when I posed to look at my ass. “Dump trucks run in the family,” I mused aloud. The car ride over to the water park was a blur, mostly because I was constantly distracted by my jiggling body over every pothole, bump, and turn. I’d been in Jackie’s body on a car ride, but Chelsea was far more bouncy. Chelsea’s mom loved pop music. I still didn’t even know her name, which was a bad look for her own daughter! But all I had to do was call her Mom anyway. Mom drove with one hand on the wheel, the other waving animatedly as she talked about Dua Lipa’s music and her fashion choices, last night’s CSI episode, and how she wasn’t ready for me to fly back to California in a few weeks once school started. “It’s like…when did you stop being my little girl?” she said, half-laughing, half-sad, and she reached over to give my hand a squeeze. “But I knew you could do anything you wanted once I saw how smart you were.” “Thanks, Mom,” I said, with a tinge of real sympathy. Dad never spoke to me like this. Mom: “I’m thinking we start with the Lazy River. Then Tsunami Twist. Only if there isn’t a long line.”

Again, I tried to keep my eyes off her. Her thick legs almost completely filled the driver’s seat, her smooth, dark skin drawing my attention repeatedly. And those denim shorts could’ve been painted on. Kind of like mine. Wasn’t hard to see we were related, but she was definitely the original while Chelsea was the slightly lesser imitation—but still completely hot. At the park, Mom carried a bag for our outer clothes. The weekday crowd was still fairly dense, which was typical for a New England summer. If the families didn’t enjoy the outdoors now while the kids were out of school, they’d likely never have a chance. Colorful slides towered over the crowds, children screeched as they plunged into pools. And out in public like this, I definitely received a new kind of attention. It’s not like I could’ve switched off the SWAY setting for my hips! Guys stared. But either Mom was totally unaware or she just didn’t care. I was leaning toward the latter, since she was older and also single. Hell, I stared too. I caught myself lagging back a few steps just so I could enjoy the view of her massive ass shaking, only to **** myself to cut it out. We did the Lazy River first, floating in inner tubes side by side, Mom kicking occasionally to steer herself around. It was a leisurely ride, and we continued our conversation about school, friends, dumb movies, and so on. She was surprised by how many action movies I’d seen recently, saying I should be careful about them rotting my brain. I laughed in a typical Oh, Mom way. She splashed water on me. I splashed it back on her. It was easy to pretend we were just two friends hanging out. Next, the slides. Tsunami Twist was a mistake. Mom waited at the bottom while I rode down, thinking my sizable booty would be a nice cushion. Instead, I received the mother of all wedgies. And when I splashed at the bottom, my bikini top snapped loose—but thankfully it stayed looped around my neck. I was tying it back when I emerged from the water. And after that, I worked on discreetly pulling the fabric out of my ass crack. Poolside, Mom raised up ten fingers like a judge. Never trying that again, I thought. It was a fun time. She never ordered me around, she never scolded me, and she never suspected I wasn’t who I appeared on the outside. We devoured a hot pretzel together, we lounged together, and I totally fell into the role. A couple of college-age guys came over and struck up a conversation. After my shy introduction, I realized they must’ve thought Mom and I were similar ages. She never corrected them. In fact, she flirted back! Once they were gone, she asked me, “Which one you taking back to California?” “Mom!” I blurted. “There are plenty of men in California. Like, you know…beach…hunks.” She tilted her sunglasses down. “So, you got a man waiting for you, huh?” “No. My studies come first.” “That’s right. And if a man ever starts doing some man things you don’t want, remember that pepper spray I gave you.” I wondered how she’d feel about a young man possessing her daughter’s body.

Something else positive about being Chelsea was that I didn’t have to apply as much sunscreen. My higher melanin gave me more protection, which, as a pale white guy, was kind of neat! Because I was liable to burn if I didn’t cover every damn inch of my body, especially at a water park. After more rides and finding a shady spot to sip frozen lemonades, I caught myself staring at Mom, but not in the pervy way. When had Dad and I done something like this? I always fantasized about hanging out with my father, but memories were far less numerous. Suddenly, I just hugged her. My not-real mom. “Whoa,” she said, caught off guard but chuckling as she wrapped her arms around me. “What’s this for, honey?” I didn’t answer right away. The truth was ridiculous. But she actually cared. She cared about the person I was and the future I was striving to have, even if none of it was real to me. But the bond was real. And I realized: this was what I wanted. Not for my dad to be famous. Or rich. Or to be the inventor of some stupid Invisibility Serum, which definitely had a long way to go until it was distributed to the military. I told myself I was being stupid, and yet I buried my face tighter into her shoulder. “I’m just…really glad we came,” I said. “I’m just happy to be here with you, Mom.” If only I had a mom. This one rubbed my back and kissed the top of my head. “Me too, sweetheart. I love you.” “I love you too.” When we were driving back home, I almost didn’t want to leave this body. I was convinced I could resist the ejection phase. Maybe if I drank more of the serum, maybe if I just focused all day on my mind and this flesh being unified. But also I’d be stealing someone else’s life, and that was kind of shitty, wasn’t it? And Flynn would no longer exist. Mom’s departure had nearly broken my father. I couldn’t imagine what a missing son would do. I relaxed in Chelsea’s bedroom for a while, listening to her music and scrolling through her text messages. Based on some of the language and images I found—from guys and girls—I assumed she was bisexual. The music made it easier to let go. I sprawled out on the plush pink comforter, still wearing her clothes, but already feeling the buzz low in my belly. The kind of buzz that normally would’ve resulted in a hard-on, but now created a damp, achy sensation right in the middle of my loins. Of course. I couldn’t possess a chick’s body without getting aroused. I was human, after all. I slipped a hand beneath my shorts. The denim waistband hugged tight across my hips, and I unbuttoned it slowly, letting the pressure release. Underneath, my swimsuit clung to my female region, partly from the swimming, partly from the new moisture. My fingers traced the slick outline of my lower lips, dragging slowly across the thin material, feeling the tender folds shifting under the pressure. I pressed the heel of my hand where my clit was, and I actually fucking jolted like I had a spasm. Mom had left to run some errands. It was just me.

My other hand reached up and pulled the shirt over my head, then untied the bikini top beneath. My breasts spilled free, drooping slightly off the sides of my ribcage. I cupped one, kneading it slowly, letting my thumb play with the swollen nipple. God, it was so hypersensitive. Big, tingling, throbbing, as if begging for my attention. I answered the call enthusiastically, enjoying all the details of my dark-brown curves. My legs parted. Now, my hand—tired of exploration behind a layer—slipped inside the bottoms, and for the first time, I touched Chelsea’s pussy. The little variations were interesting, like the texture of her pubic hair. But it hardly mattered once I was running two fingers up and down my slit. Oh man, it was twitching. Not like a cock twitched, but deeper inside me. Within a minute, I was so fucking wet. A finger curled inside, and I pressed my head harder against the pillow, my spine arching into the air as I penetrated myself slightly. “Damn,” I whispered. “Damn.” I could live with being a chick. Fingering myself. Squeezing my tits. Posing in panties. They had it good. And masturbation was up there too. It didn’t have the immediate satisfaction of popping a boner and stroking one out; I had to work for my pleasure, but it was great. Once I had a rhythm going, once my hips were rolling and I was pumping a finger into myself and remembering to give some attention to my soft tits, I enjoyed it. I caressed my curvy ass. I heard Chelsea’s voice moan. My new hobby as a body-stealing ghost involved hearing such sounds more often. But as with Mrs. Davila and Jackie, none knew I’d been inside them. And perhaps, right now, Chelsea was aware that she was fingering herself, but she thought she was the one doing it, overcome with desires that she couldn’t ignore. Just as she’d been overcome with affection for her mother at the water park and hugged her out of nowhere. That made me stop. Dad’s serum, while not living up to expectations, had potential. I had a gift. And I could use it for good things, while having some fun along the way. Maybe I could fix Dad. Turn him back into the father he’d been before the divorce, before the contract. I didn’t have any exact plan. I could possess my father and possibly leave my influence inside him. Which…no. Just no. Still in Chelsea’s body, I got up and redressed before moseying downstairs. There was a knock on the front door while I was mid-descent, but when I opened the door, no one was there. However, I saw a postal service van and a package on the doormat and connected the two. I brought the package inside, not even realizing at the time the error that the mailman had made and the error I made—because the package was addressed to Dad. Not this house.

The other house and my other life. A simple delivery mistake. No problem. But because of the mistake, I was enlightened with a horrible, crazy, and fractionally ingenious idea…

I was becoming the master of short-sighted ideas. My newest was a doozy. There was no motion quite like a grown woman’s thighs rubbing together while she walked, the inside flesh bumping and crashing, the outer flesh jiggling incessantly, the lightest steps of my feet pounding a tremendous vibration through my curvaceous lower half. Because Lisa—Chelsea’s mom—was just ridiculous in the hips and ass department. I might as well have had a sign strapped to my booty. LOOK HERE! BIG RUMP! I wasn’t even going fast. Just carrying the little cardboard package under one arm as I waddled up the front steps of my own house like a postal service MILF. I’d searched for a shirt in Lisa’s closet that didn’t cling to my tits, but no such garment existed. Same for my shorts, which deliciously wrapped my big, wide buns. I was hyper-aware of my nipples stabbing the inside of my bra and Lisa’s silk underwear rubbing across my female mound, even though I was adequately and decently dressed. Just the typical distractions of being a man in a woman’s body, I reckoned. I adjusted my ponytail, took a breath, and rang the doorbell. It was stupid. It was insane. And the moment I heard the chime echo through the house, I considered turning and bolting because of how terrified I was in that moment. But I needed to do this for Dad. He was just a lifeless drone, wearing wrinkled clothes and refusing to shave his scraggly facial hair. He needed someone in his life, someone who cared about him. And Lisa was a single mother who lived on the next street over. And she was extremely hot!

So, logically… Assuming Dad wasn’t completely drained of basic human desires… The door opened. Dad blinked at me. He was wearing the faded T-shirt of his alma mater and blue athletic shorts that he’d probably slept in. Based on his initial appearance, a smoking-hot MILF like Lisa deserved better, but I was committed now. His gaze regarded the package. Then my chest. Then my face. Yep, I definitely didn’t notice that, Dad. “Hi there,” I said sweetly, but still extremely nervous. “I live in the house behind yours, and this package got dropped off on my doorstep mistakenly. It’s addressed to Alexander Boswell? Just making sure. I didn’t want to just leave it and have it sitting there for porch pirates.” Dad’s eyes flicked to my cleavage again. “Oh. Uh, yeah. That’s me. Thanks.” I handed it over. “No problem. Just assumed it was something my daughter ordered online until I saw the label.” I put my hand on the frame and cocked my hip out. “Do you have kids?” “My son, Flynn. He’s probably upstairs, sleeping in.” “Lazy during the summer, just like mine. She attends college in California.” Dad scratched his facial hair. “Flynn’s trying to get a job, or…I don’t really know. I’ve been kind of busy at work lately, and—” “Where do you work at?” As a guy, I knew the signs of a woman who was interested, and through Lisa, I tried to be that woman: smiling, maintaining eye contact, and pressing the conversation forward. Dad shared some information about the laboratory where he worked, but not the confidential stuff. I suggested that he must be super smart, with a tone that I was definitely interested in smart guys. He brushed it off. I smiled and folded my arms, which only pinched the shirt tighter around my chest. Lisa’s dark cleavage bulged a little more. “You’ve got a lovely backyard,” Dad said. “You keep it, uh, nicely landscaped. Nice dog too.” “Well, you’re free to come over and check the landscape more closely,” I suggested. It sounded stupid as hell, but I was trying to flirt a little without coming off as ****. Maybe that was too ****? What the hell was I even doing? Oh God, he’s looking at my rack again. Dad flushed. My body was trembling enough that my meaty ass was actually wobbling a little. “Or…we could get a coffee together,” I said. “Mrs. Tucker, that’s a sweet offer. But with my long work hours and our contracts—”

I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Just one coffee.” He nodded, and our date was made. Once I was off the porch and walking down the street, I was nearly hyperventilating. My actions were so close to being some seriously weird shit, but I knew that Dad was lonely—even if he’d never admit it. Lisa looked nothing like my mom, so if Dad had particular tastes in women, I was totally boned there, but it was something. I was trying, dammit. And I kept telling myself that as I returned to the Tucker house in Lisa’s curvaceous form. Dad wasn’t going to make the deadline. The Invisibility Serum wasn’t going to see use in the military. And now I was past the short-term strategy. This was the long-term play. Fixing my father. Giving him a reason to shave off his ugly facial hair, get some sun, and enjoy life beyond a few baseball games on TV and his dead-end research. And if I made him happier, he’d make me happier to be around him, and we’d probably hang out again. At least more than never. Of course, this meant meddling in Lisa’s life. Whatever. Jackie and Travis were clearly in a better place after my alterations to their relationship, so I trusted myself to continue making improvements in the neighborhood. Back at the Tucker house, I resumed what Lisa had been in the middle of before I’d inserted myself into her flesh: doing chores. Specifically laundry. Because, after the first step of my plan, I had some time to kill before the serum’s effects wore off. So I returned to her pantry and began transferring the wet load from the washer to the dryer, very aware that I was handling many of her intimates, including her bras. Once that was taken care of, I started on the next load. Which included panties. So many thongs. And the swimsuit from the water park. I couldn’t help but smell them and clamp each gusset over my nose for a moment. The scents were produced from this body, but I was still a man inside Lisa’s skin, and to me, they were very intoxicating and arousing. My hand picked up another. The soft, sensual fabric slithered across my fingers, and I could feel the thrum already starting low in my belly and descending toward my groin. “No,” I muttered, half-laughing, shaking my head. “Come on, dude. I have a mission.” Although, this was kind of the intermission. The dryer hummed, and I backed against it, my wide butt giving it a solid whack as I slid my hand down to this hot mom’s crotch. By now, after Mrs. Davila, Jackie, and Chelsea, I was very acquainted with women’s bodies, and there was no hesitation or uneasiness—only eagerness—as I rubbed myself through the clothes, immediately finding the subtle impression of my pussy, my fingers and palm sliding forcibly back and forth across the entire sensitive region. I liked that. I liked starting off with broad strokes and working my way down toward the finer nuances of the female body, building the heat before setting off the sparks.

And it wasn’t long before I was needing to touch, flick, pinch, and brutalize my nipples and clit. “Fuck,” I whispered, back arching slightly as I found the damp heat underneath my panties and applied maximum friction to this body’s clitoris while my other hand found an ample mound of tit-flesh to play with. In minutes, I was gone. Humping, thrashing, banging my ass against the dryer. A finger went inside me, and I growled like an animal. Lisa had a kid, and yet she was so tight, hot, and wet! The walls of her pussy clamped down gently around the intrusion, and I couldn’t resist pumping deeper. Everything was so rich and overwhelming, so many layers of pleasure that greatly overshadowed anything a man could experience while jerking off. Perhaps I was getting addicted to this shit. I told myself it was all to get my Dad’s life sorted out, but… Mmm, that pussy! A door opened and closed. I jumped. Then scrambled to get myself dressed while I frantically used some of the dirty laundry to wipe the juice off my fingers. Chelsea appeared in the kitchen, next to the pantry. She looked around, confused. “Where is it?” “Where is w-what…dear?” I said, my voice trembling up and down the register. “You said you were getting Burger King.” “Oh. Right.” I sighed so hard it was basically theatrical. “Heavens me. I got distracted with doing the laundry.” I then proceeded to look around for the woman’s car keys. I checked my pockets—nothing. Checked the countertop—nope. I started looking high and low, completely unaware of how silly I must’ve looked. Chelsea pointed to the living room. “Your keys are on the coffee table.” “Right. Thanks, sweetheart.” “Are you feeling okay?” “Never better,” I said, strolling out.

Over the following days, my deep-cover mission tested me. Dad and I grabbed coffee, although I hated the stuff. However, going out with a beautiful woman like Lisa was reason enough for him to finally shave that shit off his face and wear a shirt that wasn’t creased. He was surprised at my knowledge of chemistry and joked that I should work at the lab alongside him. I also revealed that the Red Sox were my favorite team. His too! What were the odds?

The weekend after the coffee date, we took advantage of the nice, cooler weather to explore a nearby trail system. As his son, I knew Dad had been more of an outdoors person back when he was still married, and this was my attempt to remind him of the fun of being in a relationship. Unsurprisingly, he was completely out of shape. Equally surprising, Lisa was in shape—even with the extra pounds. I found myself able to outlast Dad on the tougher inclines. For the occasion, I was dressed in the tightest black leggings I could find in Lisa’s closet, and more than once I feared my giant ass was going to rip out of them. They were stretchy, but this was like trying to fit a rubber band around a beach ball. They worked, though. Dad noticed me. He was embarrassed to be so easily winded, but I knew he wasn’t hating life when I was standing in front of him with my hands on my tremendous hips, doing mid-hike stretches while he recovered and quenched his thirst. Once, I even took off my shirt and fanned myself with it. I had on a sports bra, so it wasn’t like I was really being immodest, but I was definitely trying to send some messages. “I used to do this more,” he panted while we paused to admire a stream. “Hiking, I mean. Before the project took over my life.” “What’s so important about this project?” I asked. He shrugged. “The money, I guess.” “Hm,” I said, intentionally sounding skeptical. We sat on a trailside bench. I swatted a spider off his leg, and he shared his water with me after I ran out. For the first time in a while, he seemed to just relax and enjoy the outdoor air. Some days later was our trip to the science museum. It was Dad’s idea. He’d taken me before, back in middle school, and it was his excuse to geek out. He even wore a button-up shirt for once, and I told him he looked sharp. We walked together through the dim halls of glowing exhibits—not too crowded during the weekday—moving from dinosaur skeletons to spacesuits to quantum diagrams as he held my hand. He started rambling, totally unprompted, about the first time he saw a live MRI scan, how he'd always wanted to help people in the fields of medicine and technology, and how he’d gotten his first real laboratory job at a symposium on regenerative biology. I almost forgot I was Lisa. We were father and son, and he was back. He was alive. Hell, he looked younger without the bags under his eyes and the tan he’d received on our hiking trip. He talked at length about some display on the Human Connectome Project, lecturing on and on about neural pathways like I was a student on his field trip. “I studied this stuff in grad school,” he said, practically glowing. “Showoff,” I teased.

Our next evening together was in familiar territory: our house. All the lights were on, the living room was clean, and it was the setting for trivia night. This was my idea. And I explained that a few people from work—nonexistent—had their weekly trivia gathering, and I was trying to improve my skills—complete lie—so I needed a trivia master with a science brain to practice with. He was becoming a new man. Even the couch was Febreezed! And he’d washed all the dishes without relying on his child-****. I brought chips, drinks, and Lisa’s best cleavage, wrapped tightly in a cropped sweater with a V-neck so deep I had to keep pulling it up so my girls didn’t flop right out. Intimacy was never my intention while I was inhabiting her body, obviously. But I rode the line. I pushed him. I sat close, I presented myself as interested, as if a one-word trigger could cause Lisa and my dad to end up sleeping together. And I was concentrating hard to make Lisa be like me. Because, even when I wasn’t possessing her, I knew she was talking to Dad on the phone. I’d heard them. And Dad had told me about this amazing woman he was seeing and soon hoping to introduce, and he’d been giddy about their friendship progressing to something more meaningful. Something deeper. And God, I was right there. He smoked me at the game. Then we watched a movie together. Some rom-com on cable. Halfway through it, he was leaning his head on my shoulder, and I knew my task was finished. Nothing happened beyond that. He dozed off, and I soon followed him. Around midnight, the serum wore off, and I slipped free of Lisa’s body, finding myself naked in the living room. No problem; my clothes were upstairs. But before I went there, I lingered and looked at the new couple while standing behind the couch. “Good night, Dad,” I whispered. “Stick with her. She’s more important than the serum and the contract. I hope you see that.”

I stopped borrowing Lisa’s body, because it soon became unnecessary. She made regular visits of her own volition, and I was introduced as if the two of us were proper strangers. One night, Dad went to her house, and I was unable to monitor progress between the two. Or was I? I didn’t even hesitate. I prepped the serum in my room. Then, with a single gulp and the usual disgusting taste, I disappeared from sight. Ghost Flynn was on the case. While I could’ve hopped the fence, I decided to go around the block. A few cars passed, their headlights shining right through me. After spending some time to get to know the Tuckers, I knew Lisa kept an emergency spare key stashed in a little slit on the bottom of her porch mailbox. I secured it, then slipped inside after peering through the windows to make sure no one would hear the door opening. Upstairs, I drifted toward Chelsea’s room first. Couldn’t help myself. My pervy habit. The door was open, and she was flopped on her bed in a tank top and boyshorts, texting furiously with her feet hanging in the air. Being naughty, I leaned in close and blew on the sole of her foot, just gently. She whipped her head around, but saw no one. And for a while, I just enjoyed the view of her amazing ass. In my head, I was cackling evilly.

Down the hall, I heard murmuring. Then laughter. It was coming from Lisa’s bedroom. In there, Lisa and Dad were sitting on the bed, close together, sipping some wine and chatting back and forth about novels. She leaned in, touched his arm. He said something, made her laugh. Her hand slid down his thigh, and she set her drink aside. Okay then! I liked what I saw! Dad looked so happy. He’d been such a corpse before, and now the company of a partner had brought life back into him. Like he had aged backward five years. He wasn’t some washed-out, stressed scientist; he was a handsome, early-forties bachelor about to score, his eyes locked on the woman’s lips and cleavage. They started to kiss. Then Lisa interrupted it. “I’d better close the door,” she said, getting up. I knew my presence was no longer needed, and I escaped before I was stuck inside the bedroom with them. Out in the hallway, I fist-pumped like…like my favorite team had just won the championship. Dad was back! And I never thought I could be so happy for him. I was his number-one cheerleader, and he didn’t even know it. He probably thought I was at a friend’s house smoking weed, or whatever. Let him think that. I didn’t need the acknowledgment. I just wanted the results. Not wishing to eavesdrop, I drifted downstairs. The TV was muted, and near it, Bailey was curled up in her dog bed, still awake. I felt a twinge of unease from knowing she could be a loud alarm if I wasn’t careful. She despised my invisible presence. But tonight, she didn’t seem to mind. Her big brown eyes blinked slowly, and her tail gave a hesitant wag as if she knew someone or something was close by. “Hey girl,” I cooed, reaching out to pet her. “I’m not so bad, right?” Invisible fingers pressed down on her fur, flattening it in repeated streaks. “And to be honest, you might be part of my family soon with how things are going. And Chelsea might be my stepsister. So…” I chuckled to myself. “Guess I’ll have to learn some manners.” Bailey sniffed the air. Then she tried to lick me, even though I was certain she couldn’t know exactly where I was standing. Maybe I just needed a shower. I felt a **** pulling on my hand. It yanked my arm, shoulder, then my body. “Oh no. Oh crap. Nonononononono—” Suddenly I was on the ground, in a very hairy body. Everything was extremely wrong—the angle of the world, the way colors were muted, and the overwhelming smells. My heavy, floppy ears twitched as it sounded like someone had cranked the volume up. Muscles in my lower spine twitched, and my long tail thumped. I craned my neck, and looked at my canine body sprawled in the bed. I smelled like dog. Well, obviously. But I smelled intensely of dog, like I was trapped in a room with a hundred filthy dogs, and I was suffocating in their odors. And the air freshener…God, I needed to gag. It burned my nostrils. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a confused bark. Good one, I thought. You stupid idiot. You couldn’t have left the dog alone. I reckoned I learned something from this: with the Invisibility Serum, a human could also possess another animal! It made me wonder about the limitations, like maybe only mammals were likely conduits. Otherwise, I would’ve incidentally possessed about a hundred bugs by now. Or bacteria. Well. Shit.

It looked like I was sleeping here for the night. On the floor. Naked. With some of my favorite chew toys. I opened my long jaw and nibbled on a much-destroyed duck, wondering what the big deal was. But before I could thoroughly study the enjoyment factor of dog toys, I had an annoying itch on my belly region. Of course, my human instinct told me to use my hand—or paw, in this case. That was useless. I didn’t have the dexterity, and my fingers were tiny. So I bent around and put my snout in there and licked myself, my mind filling with the horror of the germs I must’ve been ingesting. But I stopped itching. Footsteps came stomping down the stairs. Chelsea appeared. She whistled toward me. “Come on, let’s go outside.” Go outside? What does she think I am? I was happy where I was. I was not interested in terrorizing the local squirrel population or rooting my nose in the flowerbed. I was sophisticated. I had decency. She could go outside by herself, if that was her ambition. Chelsea: “Bailey, hurry up. You know Mom gets upset if you pee on the floor during the night. Don’t blame me.” She came over and grabbed my collar. I barked in retaliation. Translation: I use toilets! After a tug-of-war, I finally relented and went with her. I was displeased and humiliated, having to walk on all fours so close to the ground. The walking part was simple; my muscles seemed to know how to move in a coordinated, natural trot without making a fool of myself, even though the person in control was inexperienced. We went out into the cool night air, and I was blasted with all the outdoor scents: soil, grass, flowers, Bailey’s previous shits and pisses, and the neighbor’s trash. Especially diapers. I didn’t even know which of our neighbors had a baby, but I sure smelled the mess it made. Chelsea texted on her phone as I roamed my territory. You gotta be kidding me, I thought, feeling an alien but familiar pressure in my bladder region. I turn around my dad’s life, and this is how I’m rewarded? Being a fucking dog? Heroes. Sacrifices. Blah-blah. The urge built inside me as I paced, pretending like the exact spot of my impending relief mattered. But it really didn’t. I squatted my hind legs down, and my canine body did the thing automatically. It was rank. God Almighty. Forget the Invisibility Serum. The smell of my own dog piss could’ve wiped out entire armies across the globe. It was probably the most awkward bathroom break of my whole life. But I managed. And I trotted back toward the house with my tongue lolling out. Chelsea gave me a pat on the head. “Good girl,” she said softly. She fed me a dog treat that was rubbery but kind of tasty. A nice, meaty snack.

For the rest of the night, I just lounged. Lisa and Dad never came downstairs, and I could only assume good things were happening behind the closed door. I shut my eyes and drifted away, having the strangest damn dreams. I dreamed about a big, mommy dog nursing me. I dreamed about chasing a school bus. I even dreamed about fetching a tennis ball over and over in the backyard, because apparently that was akin to heaven for dogs. And then I dreamed I was a naked human on the floor. No, wait. That was real. It was the middle of the night. And the house was quiet. Perfect for my escape. But as soon as I started to move, Bailey went apeshit. I tore ass toward the back door, slid it open, and raced across the yard with the damn mutt chomping at my heels. At the fence, I leapt over and landed on my ass on the other side, with the dog continuing to bark at me. “Fuck,” I groaned, rubbing my aching tailbone as I limped toward my house. My human bed had never felt so comfortable.

I was back to working on my résumé when a line of black SUVs rolled up outside. Only two types of people drove them: prima-donna suburban moms and the feds. I flicked the blinds up and watched a few fed-looking types pour out and head toward our house. A few others formed a perimeter around the parked vehicles. The rest stayed buckled in. “Uh oh,” I said. Dad’s time had run out. Not long after I spied this government entourage, I heard the downstairs door slam. It was forceful enough to rattle the drywall. I got up and slunk over to my bedroom door and poked my ear out, catching the noises happening not far below me. I didn’t have to, really. The loudest voice shook the damn house. “You’ve burned through ten million in federal grant money, Dr. Boswell. I’ve got committees and congressmen breathing down my neck for results, and you serve me nothing but excuses and serums for hamsters? Taxpayers will be fed up with paying for your little freak show.” Director Castle. The bureaucratic pit bull. I recognized his tone after hearing it on the phone about two weeks ago. Definitely more booming in person, though. I poked my head out a little more. I saw the stairs, but I didn’t have the angle to see anyone down below.

“I told you it’s close,” Dad’s voice muttered. “The latest version was stable—” “Stable? On who? On what? A goddamn frog? The grant was for human-viable trials, Boswell. And this circus has gone on long enough. I don’t only want you forever barred from taking any government contract ever again, I want you prosecuted in a federal court. When you signed on, you agreed that you’d produce a viable serum within the specified time frame, and all you’ve made is jack shit. You’ve breached your agreement. And this dishonesty can’t go unpunished!” Oh shit, I thought. Could Castle really do that? Lock my father up in prison? “We’re shutting this down,” Castle growled. “We’re shutting you down.” “Sir, please,” my dad pleaded. “Just give me two more weeks. You’ll have a testable prototype. Canceling the project now destroys all the progress. Just let me demonstrate my—” “The only thing I want demonstrated is how fast your office can be cleared out. You’ve wasted my time. You’ve wasted the president’s time.” Damn. Damn! What a fucking asshole! But I knew I wasn’t powerless. The serum I’d stolen from the lab was nearly empty, but I still had some left. Right then, knowing that it was very possible Dad could be taken away in handcuffs soon, it was the only solution I came up with. The drawer was already open. I snatched up the vial with trembling fingers, popped the stopper, and took a sip of that yucky shit one more time. I swear it kept tasting worse, as if the nastiest ingredients were condensed toward the bottom. I choked, gagged, nearly puked into my trash bin. But I held it down. And within a couple minutes, my clothes were on the bed. Fully invisible, I crept down the stairs, careful not to hit the spots that squeaked. The scene finally revealed itself, and I saw Director Castle and Dad in the living room, surrounded by a few people who must’ve been Castle’s security team. One guy was looking out the window. Another was guarding the door. They wore suits, but their gun holsters weren’t completely hidden. I gulped hard from that observation. Unlike my other shenanigans with the serum, this was serious. A woman with a voice recorder stood next to Director Castle, who was short and stout with a buzzcut. There was only one way out of this. If I had the balls. And within a few seconds, I’d have a different pair of balls. Probably tinier than mine. On my unseen feet, I crept toward the loudest person in the room. And I reached. It was like grabbing a live wire. And then that same yank, like a vacuum sucking the air out of a plane. My body lurched, and I flew into him. I gasped. The lights dimmed for a moment, and a wave of dizziness went through my head like a whirlwind as my mind replaced his. I clutched the side of my new temple, wincing. The lady next to me said, “Director Castle? Are you okay?” “I just need a moment,” I grumbled.

My experience with the serum thus far had only involved women; this was my first time in another man’s body. Which should’ve made the translation easier, but not really. I felt bulkier and heavier, and amped like I’d consumed about ten energy drinks. I felt angry. My heart was hammering and my blood was pumping. I felt the nicely tailored suit hugging my musculature. Gradually, I looked at my father. He looked scared shitless. After all the work I’d done to improve his life, everything was now in jeopardy. I had to save him one more time. Don’t worry, I wanted to tell him. I got this, Dad. But I couldn’t be sentimental and blow my cover. So I enacted a slightly different strategy. “Enough,” I growled. The woman next to me blinked. “Sir?” I cleared my throat. “I said enough. You can stop the recording.” “We still need his testimony for the trial—” “Stop. The recording. I’m in charge. Stop.” She clicked a button on the device and put it down. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. The voice was rough. Like gravel through a garbage disposal. I tasted cigarettes in my mouth. “The committee of top minds couldn’t find anyone better than Dr. Boswell. And while he’s an incredibly intelligent man, his inability to manufacture a viable Invisibility Serum proves that this project is reaching too far into the realm of science fiction.” Dad raised his eyebrow at me. I barely held back a smile. He’d never know the factor I’d played in his life, and I wished I could tell him. But it was probably better that I didn’t. I went on: “What good is the Invisibility Serum anyway? Our enemies will employ infrared sensors. And do we want our United States military—the best military in the world—to be walking around naked on covert ops? What message does that give? This stuff doesn’t even work on clothes. Or guns. We’d be making our soldiers enter hostile territory as some kind of…I dunno, ninja strippers. That’s not the American way. The American way is all about having bigger guns and bigger bombs. The American way is all about leveling ten square miles of terrorist caves in the Middle East. The Department of Defense doesn’t need this project.” So, at the end of the day, a short, xenophobic speech was the final solution to saving my father. I wasn’t proud of it, but it sounded like something Director Castle would’ve said, avoiding any suspicion for my actions. The Invisibility Serum was unmanly. Big warheads? Now those were manly. Such easy logic. “From here on,” I continued, “the Office of Defense Applications will cease all research into Dr. Boswell’s serum. His contract is terminated. End of story.”

The lady nodded. “Yes, Director Castle. Understood.” I let out a breath and turned to Castle’s—my—security team. I noticed they were all men. “So,” I said. “It’s been a long day.” I checked my fancy watch. “Wow, it’s nearly eleven in the morning. Let’s get some beers and hit the nearest strip club. You guys deserve some fun every now and then.” My suggestion received a few whoops. The lady with the voice recorder frowned. Of course, I’d actually have to go with them. I’d be stuck in Director Castle’s body for a few hours, living through the horror of sexy women taking their clothes off, getting lap dances, and maybe actually drinking a beer or two just to keep up appearances, because I didn’t want anyone else doubting that I was who I appeared to be. I’d do my best to survive.

Epilogue The vial tipped slowly in my hand, the last dregs of purplish serum wobbling at the glass lip just above the bathroom sink drain. My heart raced. I leveled the vial out again. Fuck, I thought. With the lab officially closed and everything disposed of or sold off, there would be no more Invisibility Serum coming into my possession. What I had here was it. So much fun in a little package. I was going to miss it. God, I was going to. Being like a ghost. Slipping into people’s bodies. Some of what I’d done had been irresponsible, sure, but I’d tried to balance out the morality scale along the way, with guiding my neighbor toward a better life and bringing out the better version of my father. Still. There were so many more possibilities. Like hijacking the sexy body of some Hollywood actress. Or maybe a muscle freak with a huge dick. I hadn’t gone that route! But to be honest, that didn’t intrigue me like being a woman did. Having the breasts, the hips, the whole playground to my exploring fingers. And the variety of women’s bodies only increased the possibilities. I supposed this was the part where I became a better man. With a heavy, mournful sigh, I said, “Goodbye, you disgusting shit,” and poured it down the drain. I closed my eyes, wincing from the pain of watching it spill out in one smooth, oily line. And then it was gone. Not long after, Dad hollered from downstairs. I answered the call and found him by the front door, situating his old, worn-out Red Sox hat on his scalp. Next to him stood Lisa—his new girlfriend. She looked as amazing as always, and it would’ve been a lie to say I didn’t look at her ass. I’d had that ass. I reminisced on its big, wide, wobbly weight. And I knew those pants must’ve been digging into her crotch in a tight but pleasurable way. Chelsea was there too. Lisa: “Oh, you two haven’t met yet.” Quite possibly the funniest joke of the past few weeks.

I played along by introducing myself to the girl from California. It felt weird having her eyes actually focus on me, since my only interactions with her beforehand had been as some poltergeist. “Flynn,” she said. “That’s a cool name.” I shrugged. Dad grabbed his keys. Lisa grabbed her purse. Chelsea continued to stare at me. I played it off cool, but she kept staring at me. And eventually she said, “This is so weird.” “What?” I said. “I feel like I’ve met you before.” “You’ve probably seen me in the backyard. We do live right across from each other.” She pursed her lips, then nodded. “Maybe.” Dad patted my head and ruffled my hair. I wasn’t ten anymore, but I appreciated the affection anyway. “Lisa works for the city water department. She says they need someone like me with a science background to monitor the chemical composition of the neighboring streams and rivers, as part of an ongoing conservation project. The income isn’t as good as the federal contract was, but we’ll be fine.” “I know, Dad.” Because he was smiling. I followed them out into the front yard toward Dad’s SUV as we began our trip to the game. Sure, I couldn’t turn invisible anymore, but I had nothing to gain—except my pervy fantasies, which were still feeling the blow. But I had a family again. And I had new friends who might soon expand that family. Because Dad and Lisa kissed. A lot. And I was pretty happy with that.