1.

“Kept busy?” Dr. Santos asked as he walked into the room. I sat there in nothing but my boxers, more than a little self-conscious. “Seeing anyone?”

I laughed. “Not really. To either question.”

He sighed. “It’s important for a young man to keep active and find someone in their life.”

“Did you just see that on Dr. Phil or something?”

He let out a light-hearted glare toward me. “I remember being a slack-off loser when I was your age, and would rather most of my younger patients not follow my example.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Yeah, because who would want to be a doctor, heading out to the golf course every other day and driving a Lamborghini?”

He checked some things off on his clipboard. “It’s a Ferrari and I’m only at the golf course three times a week.”

“My mistake.”

He asked me the usual questions, health, the family, whether or not I was going to try out for sports at school. I gave the usual answers. The conversation went as they do whenever you see a doctor that you’re used to seeing.

Then, suddenly, I got oddly self-conscious. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and felt like I really should have been. And then there was the cool draft I felt against my chest. What was going on? I shivered for a second, then Dr. Santos told me I could put my shirt back on. Why did I feel so much better wearing a shirt?

“You okay, Ken?” Dr. Santos asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, just… Weird chill, that’s all.”

He nodded his head oddly, then turned back to his laptop. I was happy he didn’t pry into that any further, because it confused the hell out of me. I’d never felt that before. I pulled on the shorts I’d worn and then my sandals. I was hoping that I’d be able to leave soon.

The minutes ticked by as Dr. Santos tapped away at on his laptop, then he finally turned around around and handed me his customary Tootsie Roll Pop, something he did despite the fact that I wasn’t a kid anymore. “Alright, Kenneth, you can go now. Talk to Mikaela at the front desk, she’ll have the card for your next appointment.”

I took the Tootsie Roll Pop and smiled. “Thanks, Doc.”

2.

Mikaela was a new girl I’d never met, around my age and almost exaggeratedly gorgeous. I would’ve asked her out on a date, if she didn’t seem like she was annoyed with everything.

Not to mention if not for Gabby.

The card I was given listed an appointment in three months, so I assumed I was reasonably healthy. I gave Mikaela a smile that she didn’t return, and left the doctor’s office, where my mom was waiting in the parking lot with a magazine in her hand and the car’s AC going. Despite the fact that it was colder in the car than it was in the doctor’s office, I didn’t feel that chill that had hit me inside.

“How’d it go?” Mom asked.

“It was a regular physical, nothing weird.”

“Good.”

I nudged her with my elbow. “You’re being weird, what’s up?”

She shook her head. “Just curious how it felt having a man see you mostly naked instead of Gabby.”

I rolled my eyes. “If I was still Kendra, it’d probably creep me out.”

“If you were still Kendra, I’d rather you see a gynecologist.”

I coughed out a laugh. “So, what’s up today?”

“Hmmmm… You still have three days off before school, I’d say you get out there and enjoy the rest of your summer vacation.” She smiled. “And maybe go spend the day with Gabby.”

I noded. “Sounds like a plan.”

3.

“No.”

I was leaning up against the support beam beside the stairs that connected the first floor of Gabby’s house to the basement. She was moving boxes around, looking for something, but she wouldn’t let me help. I didn’t know why she wouldn’t let me help, though. “Is there some sort of reason you won’t let me help you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s personal.”

I glanced down at the box that was sitting beside me. “It’s not sex toys, is it?”

Gabby grabbed the box and pulled it away from me. “No.” Then, with a smile, she added, “The sex toys are in my bottom dresser drawer. If you’d spent a little more time as Kendra, I would have introduced you to them.”

That weird chill hit me again. I shook and asked, “Can we go upstairs? It’s… Damp… Down here.”

She looked at me funny. “No it’s not. It’s dusty down here, but it’s not damp. You okay?”

I shook my head. “I’m… I dunno. It’s weird.”

She smiled again. “You’re weird.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Look, let’s just go upstairs. I bet you’re not gonna find what you’re looking for down here.”

She set the box down on a table. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She patted me on the shoulder. “If you put something cute on, I might still let you see the sex toys.”

I smiled. “Whatever.”

4.

“Okay,” Gabby said as she clasped her hands together in front of her, “we need to find something to do to kill some time before I have to kick you out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have to kick me out?”

“Yeah. You know my dad, he doesn’t like you being here for dinner.”

I’d never understood why exactly, but she wasn’t wrong. Her dad had never much cared for me being in the house in the first place, which I always attributed to him just worrying about me having sex with his daughter. If he knew what Gabby and I had done on the hood of my mom’s car the other night, I wondered how he’d feel.

I walked over to her bookshelf. Gabby had a decently sized collection of fantasy books I’d never heard of, which was pretty impressive because I had a decently sized collection of obscure fantasy books, in addition to the ones everybody knew about, like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

Looking at her books made me think about that story I was writing at home. “Hey, you got a problem if we head over to my place for a second?” I asked.

She gave me a confused look, then said, “Sure. Whaddya need?”

“Just wanna grab my notebook, that’s all.”

She smiled. “Actually, that gives me a good idea.”

I dreaded that smile now. “What kind of idea?”

“Think you could write a nice little erotica short based on us from the other day?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You want me to write a story basically about us having steamy lesbian sex?”

“Essentially.”

“Why?”

She poked me in the chest, which felt… Odd. “Because we had a moment the other day, and I want a memento.”

I was about to say something when the room began to spin. Everything around me went in every direction except the one it was supposed to be. The walls grew taller, the floor shrank into a purple square, and the ceiling became a red and white umbrella that eclipsed the… two suns? Why were there two suns? What the hell was happening?

“Are you okay?” I heard Gabby ask. She was standing right in front of me, but she was twenty stories up at the same time. I tried to move closer to her, but then I was standing on a floor made entirely of her face. I moved my foot away from her nose, but I ended up by her left toe instead.

“No,” I said, though my voice was pure helium. I grasped at my throat, only to find myself scratching my arm instead. I tried to clear my throat, but instead ended up with a ear ache. I decided to seek out Gabby’s bed and sit down. It had to be somewhere around there. “Can you help me to your bed?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, or at least one of her did. There were suddenly about nine Gabbys standing around me, not including the one made out of putty that was clawing its way through the ceiling. There was another one out the window, waving a flare around for some reason.

I had to be dreaming, that was it. Except that, unless I’d fallen asleep on her couch, or something, I hadn’t actually gone to sleep. I had been wide awake when I’d gotten to her house, and I was fairly certain I’d been wide awake when we’d come upstairs into her bedroom, so why was everything so fucked up?

“Gabby?” I called out to her. She’d disappeared, all of her. The room was suddenly back to normal, except everything was in grayscale.

“I’m here.”

“Where?”

“Right in front of you.”

I didn’t see her. I reached out into the air in front of me, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t feel anything.

“No, you’re not.”

“Ken, swear to God, you just grabbed my boob.”

“No I didn’t.” My voice sounded normal again, but I could still hear the embarrassment in that line. Even though I couldn’t feel that I’d accidentally groped her didn’t mean that I hadn’t accidentally groped her. “Sorry, if I really did.”

“You’ve touched more than that, so don’t worry about it. What’s going on? If you can’t see me, what do you see?”

“The room. It’s completely gray, though.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” The door opened. There was a figure there, female by the body shape. “Wait, did you just open the door?”

“No. Why, is the door open?”

“You’re not the one standing in the doorway?”

“No, Ken, I’m not. Are you high?”

The figure stepped closer to me. I recognized her, but I couldn’t peg where I knew her from. I moved closer to her, but I didn’t seem to be gaining any ground. Was the room fucking up again? “Gabby, where am I right now?”

“Uh, sitting on my bed. I helped you there, remember?”

“I’m not seeing the same things you are.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. This is weird.”

“No shit. Uh… Help me to the door?”

“No.”

“But, the girl…”

“What girl?”

“Her! The one in the doorway!” I did my best to point at the figure, but God only knows if I was actually pointing. The girl in the doorway put her hands to her mouth and started to giggle. I could hear the giggle, almost as if she was standing right beside me.

Where the hell did I know her from?

“Ken, you are not getting moved. Just lie down, I’mma call your mom.”

“Don’t,” a voice said, but it wasn’t mine. “Don’t let her.”

The girl had moved closer to me again. I know I saw her at some point in the last couple days now, but I still couldn’t peg her. Why did she look so familiar to me?

“Don’t…” This time it was my voice.

“What?” Gabby asked.

“Don’t do that,” my voice again.

“Have her leave,” the girl’s voice. What was her name? It started with a K, I knew that much. Why couldn’t I remember more?

“I think I’ll be fine if I just have some rest,” I said. “Mind if I take a nap?”

I still couldn’t see Gabby, so if she was making any sort of look on her face, I didn’t know. Eventually, I heard her sigh, and say, “Okay. I’ll be back in here to check on you in twenty minutes.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said. I finally felt the bed underneath me. I heard the door open, then close again. I couldn’t tell if there’d been enough time for Gabby to have left, but I had no reason to believe she would have stayed in the room.

“Good,” the girl said. I felt her sit down beside me, and her hand suddenly started to caress my face. “Just drift to sleep. Drift… To sleep…”

It was strange. The second she started talking, I started to feel my eyes getting heavier, then close. I could still feel her hand on my face, I could feel warmth spreading from her body to mine. Then, the warmth started to spread through my body. From my face to my arms, to my legs, to my vagina, to my breasts.

I didn’t even have time to realize what I was saying to myself before I was asleep.

5.

“Please get up, please get up, please. Get. Up.”

The voice sounded like it was coming from a million miles away, but I knew that was just my fucked up sense of hearing after whatever the hell had just happened to me. I rolled over onto my side and tried to shut the voices out. The bed was too comfortable.

“Goddammit, Ken, wake! Up!”

Ken. Ken… Ken… Why did that sound so familiar?

“I mean it! Get up, now!”

I knew that I recognized that name, but I couldn’t think of who it belonged to. Was it somebody I knew? Was it somebody I’d dated? He didn’t sound like my type of guy. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember the last guy I went out with. Maybe I needed to head out to the mall and start flirting a little before school kicked off.

“Kenneth Matthew Brewster, get your ass out of my bed now!”

Kenneth? Wait… Ken… Kenneth… That had to be where I recognized the name from, but there was a slight problem there.

My name was Kendra.

I opened my eyes to see Gabby standing there, looking down at me. “How long have I been asleep?” I asked.

“That’s what you’re asking?” She looked like she’d just watched me grow a second head.

“Yeah, because I don’t remember falling asleep.”

“You’re not asking why you’ve suddenly become a girl again?”

“Again?” What the hell was she talking about? I’d always been a girl. “Are you okay?”

She now looked like she’d seen a thousand ghosts having an orgy. “Oh… Oh… Oh no… Oh shit oh no…”

“What?”

“Gimme your phone.”

I reached into my shorts pocket and pulled out my phone. She took it from me, nearly scraping me with her fingernails. I thought I had longer fingernails than she did, mine looked weirdly short. And I wasn’t wearing any nail polish.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“Your cousin. I need her to talk to that sorceress she knows.”

“Uh, why?”

She looked over at me, concern flashing across her face. “You.”