by Tempe O'Kun
Laura chittered through a laugh. “I write things the fans will love, even if it’s the fans of an 11pm sitcom. If I go into a space where people expect mediocrity and raise the bar a little, maybe they’ll realize that’s what they actually want.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Elevating the art form. Mom.”
“You know it.” The older otter cleaned her glasses on her shirt. “What are you kids up to?”
Kylie shrugged broad shoulders against the back of the sofa. “Idle youth.”
Onscreen, flying luxury cars revved and fired lasers from their headlights. A radical dude shouted: “Let’s make an early withdrawal, bros!”
Laura tsked. “I leave Hollywood for a year and this is what happens.”
Max raised a webbed finger. “It’s underwritten by the National Credit Union Administration.”
Kylie paused the cartoon and scrolled down to the description. “‘Mars has a much more advanced banking system, so the Banker Mice from Mars fight against evil bankers who would introduce sinister alien financial products that Earth is not equipped to regulate.’”
He tried to sound chipper like Kylie, while still sounding cynical like Kylie. “They all have names like ‘Escrow.’”
The cartoon mice, accompanied by electric guitar, explained various banking practices that had been outlawed over the past few centuries on Earth, then compared them to more advanced scams imported from the Martian financial sector. Fist-bumps abounded. It took one of them responding “Consider my interest compounded, bro!” before Laura squawked with outrage.
“This is all terrible!” The writer waved a webbed paw at the screen. “I’m going to make some more calls about the rights to Majestica. Maybe we can get the ball rolling on that again.”
“Never give up the dream, Laura.” Kylie smirked at having used her mother’s name without sounding like a complete weirdo.
The lutrine emitted a sound like a rusted door hinge as she waddled back upstairs. “Someone has to save television.”
As soon as her mother’s office door closed, Kylie wiggled with pride, shaking the sofa. “See? If we can fool Mom, we can fool anybody.”
He crossed his arms, more carefully this time. “You seem not very freaked out by all this.”
She shrugged. “If freaking out would solve this, we’d have switched back right away.”
“I can’t tell if I’m freaking out or having heart palpitations or if this just the speed it’s supposed to being.”
Reaching to his throat, she felt an artery. “Nah, that’s normal.” She tapped her chest, which made a hollow thump. “I keep thinking yours has stopped.”
His little ears flicked up. “So, this doesn’t scare you at all?”
Kylie took a deep breath, then let it out, buying herself time to reflect. “I am not scared about this because we’re doing it together.” She grabbed his paw with her gigantic one, completely covering it. “If we can flip this switch, clearly we can switch it back.”
Max nodded. “And if we can’t?”
She hugged him to her broad chest. “Then you’re going to have to show me the finer points of jerking off, because I have not been good at it so far.”
“Work the sheath.” He made a lewd, but vague gesture.
“Oooh!” Interested, Kylie sat up straighter on the sofa. Then she dismissed the topic with a wave of her paw. “The thing that matters is that we’ve still got each other and so we’re fine.”
“Mmf.” Max found himself really enjoying being held. The warmth. The support. The things he’d normally be providing.
“Eventually, hiding in the house is gonna be just as suspicious as going out in public.” She patted his back with a powerful thump. “I can only take so many days off from this job before I just don’t work there anymore. You might eventually have to sit behind a counter for a few hours.”
He nodded as the hug tapered off. An empty fork reached his lips. He finished the eel pie, much to his surprise. He still wasn’t sure if he liked eel pie. Squirming, he felt hazy, disconnected. Not a sensation he liked, though enough easy to ignore. For a moment, he considered raising the topic, but Kylie seemed content. Would stressing her out help anything? Maybe she was right. Maybe waiting this out was the answer. They’d dealt with weird stuff before. Getting back into his routine might help too. Resolving to do so, he nuzzled up against her chest and settled in for another round of terrible cartoons.
“How did CyCorg even get an animated series?” He extended a paw at the screen, the light glowing through his finger webbing. “It’s an R-rated action film.”
“Mm.” Kylie nodded against the top of his head.
A moment dragged on. “I get that the extendo-limbs are easy to animate, but this is just going to make a bunch of pups watch a gunfight movie.” Another stretch of silence, aside from cartoon sound effects. He wasn’t used to being the one to carry a conversation. He looked up at her.
She grinned down at him.
He gave her a weary look. “What?”
Her giant canine head rocked back and forth with mirth. “Sooooooooooo, fooling Mom was super easy. We could do this all the time.”
He rolled his eyes, which he apparently did wrong because it hurt a little. “We barely pulled that off with the one person who least wants to believe in the supernatural. We cannot keep this up.”
“We’ll be fine. We’re actors. And I bet this will wear off in the morning or something and we’ll miss it when it’s gone.” She tapped blunt claws on his rainbow bracelet.
Max stuffed the concern down. If Kylie was doing fine, he could tough this out too. No need to disrupt her with his problems. He might be in his girlfriend’s body, but he was still himself. He was the stable one in the relationship, the bedrock. His job was to stay strong. They’d figure something out.
Max awoke in his bedroom, but in Kylie’s body. Laying in a too-large, empty bed, he took stock of his situation. Still an otter. That wasn’t a dream, then. Birds chirped outside, drawing his attention to the full-risen sun. His borrowed body had decided to sleep in. He had, however, managed to sleep without twisting into a pretzel, so at least some of his habits had come with him. A deep sigh stretched his chest in uncomfortable new ways. Max wondered if this was normal. He then reminded himself that nothing about trading bodies with his best friend was normal.
After a brief fight with that gigantic tail, he sat up. In an additional unforeseen complication, he had no clothes to wear in his own bedroom. Waddling to his feet, he pulled on pants, even though Kylie rarely dressed so modestly in the morning. His breasts wobbled. He found himself cupping them with both hands, purely to stabilize. He recovered her discarded bra and after several attempts that sent it springing to the floor like a rubber band, he managed to puzzle it on. Thank goodness otter underwear had more in common with swimsuits than lingerie. The occasional drag of his tail along the carpet managed to distract him every time, throwing off his stride even more. Sure, his dog tail had been the demise of many cans of soda, but this new butt was all over the place.
Letting out a breath he’d been inadvertently holding for several minutes, Max opened the bedroom door.
Kylie stood at the counter and munched her way through an entire bag of bagels. “Hey.”
“Hey.” He turned to sit on one of the kitchen chairs and his tail sent it clattering to the floor. With a groan, he stooped and righted it. With greater care this time, he managed to thread his tail through the slot at the back of the chair. At last, he sat.
“How’s life on the otter side?”
Leaning on the table, he gave her a bleary look. “I’m beginning to understand why otters make so many rusty-hinge noises.”
Muzzle stuffed with salmon lox, she cast him a wry look. “Rough night?”
“It should have been.” He shrugged, a motion which didn’t stop and instead translated down his entire spine. “But I was too exhausted to stay up worrying.”
She nodded and stuffed another bagel in the
toaster. “I slept like a rock. I was brushing my teeth before I was even conscious.”
He nodded. Unsettling as the situation was, he had to admit it was interesting on an academic level. Thinking about it from that distance also kept him from freaking out.
“Ouch!” She yapped. “I keep biting my tongue.” She stuck it out to check for damage. “How do you keep this thing in your head?”
Max scowled. “I want to be mad at you for adapting to this so fast.”
“Oh, c’mon M— Kylie.” She winked conspiratorially. “There has to be some part you like.”
His tiny ears flicked down. “…I liked the part where you held me.”
“Awww, tiny boyfriend.” Ducking over to the table, she hugged him until his shoulders popped.
“Ack!” He wiggled free.
“You want some orange juice?” She grabbed a citrus from the fruit bowl and gave it a testing squeeze. “Pretty sure I can crush these with my huge paws.”
“No, please.” He plucked it from her and placed it back in the bowl. “Those paws stain really easily.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe something to eat?”
He grabbed a bran flake that had fallen between the box and its internal bag, then popped it in his mouth. His pointy otter teeth crushed it, then vanished behind a frown. “Even the cereal tastes weird.”
“Cereal always tastes weird first thing in the morning. It’s how my body works.” She propped heavy paws on her hips. “Why do you think I like bagels with smoked salmon instead?”
“Because that’s one of the few breakfast fishes.” He looked up at her. “And you’re an otter.”
“Well, I’m the Max now.” She snatched a spatula from the drawer. “So I’ll cook you whatever you want.”
“I think I want to go for a run.” He sighed. That usually made him feel better. “Clear my head.”
“Okay. I’ll be here.” Putting the fruit back, she patted his shoulder with an orange-fresh paw. “Not like I can fit behind the wheel of the Amphicar to drive anywhere.”
After a kilometer of waddles, wobbles, and stumbles, Max returned to Bourn Holt. How Kylie got anywhere on these stumpy legs, he had no idea. He trudged up the driveway. From his lowered vantage point, he noticed the gravel consisted largely of clam shells run over by countless trips to town.
Not only did his legs hurt, but his breasts did too. They bounced around all over the place, even in a bra. Plus, running with an otter tail felt like running with sandbags tied to his butt, so he’d been slowed to a walk for fear of throwing out his back. His feet hurt too, lacking their thicker shock-absorbing pads. The world around him smelled muted with only a lutrine nose.
He slumped in the front door, then shut it. On his tail. He squeaked with pain, jumped forward, and clattered the door back open. With a scowl, he shut it with marked determination.
Standing on the stairs, Kylie looked up from her phone. “Ouch. Careful there, Maxie. Did you have a good run?”
Max sighed deeply. Wobbling on one foot and then the other, he pried off the sneakers with a grunt of relief, feeling the webs between his toes stretch as he flexed them. The webbing had begun to pinch almost immediately into the run, each step squishing the sensitive skin between his toes. He could tell he’d have been in for blisters had he continued, which would have been its own special kind of nightmare.
Kylie grimaced, wincing over the railing as she watched him massage his toes. “Yeah, uni-species shoes are fine for most things, but for running you need special sneakers with padding for the webs.” She tilted her head. “I’m sure we could find you a pair easy enough.”
He gave her a tired look.
“Okay.” Towering inadvertently, she propped her hands on her hips. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know.” A sigh trailed out of him. “Maybe I need more coffee.”
“I’m an expert in how much coffee that bod runs on.” She looked him up and down. “And I think it’s more than that.”
His hand tipped toward her, the gesture practiced and nonthreatening, even as the rest of his body bounced and leaned, battered and tense. “And you’re doing just fine?”
“I guess? I’ve mostly been distracted by my new superpowers. Did you know you can move the oven?” She gave a thumbs-up review to his body. “Sure, I hit my head on all the cabinet doors, but we’re replacing those anyway, so I’ll have my revenge.”
He nodded.
She’d thought that was pretty funny. “So, are you going to tell me why you’re so bent out of shape?” Conscious effort kept her tone relaxed. She didn’t want to railroad him, like his mother had done on the phone to her before. “You seem more stressed out than when you left.”
Pulling off his socks, Max said nothing. The counterweight of his tail almost tipped him over. He bounced off the door and kicked his shoe under a kitchen chair. An attempted growl emerged as a squeak extruded through frustration. “Because this body won’t cooperate!” He threw his arms out to the sides. “Because I’m anxious all the time, since I’m too small to protect you now. I have no idea if any of this will ever actually get better or if I’m stuck being someone completely different from who I was my entire life. I can’t reach stuff or lift stuff or even go for a run without my butt flinging itself all over the place.” He stood, panting and stammering and slightly shaking.
Padding up, she hugged him. Those big, strong arms did feel reassuring. Those large paws wrapped around his tapered waist. That felt nice too. Then she picked him up.
He squawked in surprise. “Hey!”
“Settle down.” She patted him on the rump. “I’ve gotta show you something.”
Carrying him all the way, she traipsed into the great hall. A path led her through the vast sea of boxes and furniture. Her ancestors had no doubt charted more graceful paths across the dance floor. She knocked over at least one floor lamp with his tail, but instead of falling it slumped lazily against crates of knickknacks and other otter ephemera.
She booted open a side door and toted him through a succession of smaller rooms. A claw-footed cast-iron bathtub appeared in their path, only to be dodged. Beyond lay a room clad in tile with a U-shaped pool set into the floor. Sunlight gleamed through tall windows, shimmering across the surface of the water. She snagged the phone from his pocket and stuck it in hers.
Max realized she planned to stick him in the pool. “Kylie. I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t bad-mouthing your body. Kylie!”
Woofing a chuckle, she again picked him up and gingerly dipped his tail in the pool.
Max squirmed in her iron grip, twisting to see the rippling water beneath him. His body curled up as he tried to stay out of the water. “Kylie, I’m serious. Don’t you dare—”
With an impish smirk, she hefted him like a sack of flour and tossed him into the pool.
A heartbeat of weightless anticipation dragged out before Max hit the water. He clenched, bracing for the shock of cold, the rush of water filling his nose and ears, the added weight as it soaked his fur and began to drag.
It never came.
Instead the water enveloped his body in a vast, cool embrace, a gentle pressure from all directions that pressed in without penetrating his layers of dense, oily fur. He opened his eyes and was surprised at the clarity of his vision, suspended upside-down in the chest-high water. He righted himself with shocking ease, his body curling around itself in a flurry of instinct and muscle memory. Every twitch of one of his webbed paws seemed capable of spinning him in any direction he desired.
With a giddy lurch, he shot forward, slicing through the water like an arrow, propelled by the rippling of his curvy body and a flick of the tail that had been such an impediment on the jogging trail. The far wall of the pool came rushing up fast, but he barely had to think about turning before he veered in a graceful arc and corkscrewed back to face the way he came. Excitement thundered in his tiny otter breast. this water, all water, belonged to him. He was made for this. It was incredible, electric; his body moved
like it was just another current beneath the waves, the only drag coming from the running clothes he still wore.
The pool was too small to achieve the speeds he knew he was capable of, but he did another half-dozen laps, skimming the floor of the pool and letting the water rush through his whiskers. He surfaced, more because his brain wanted air than because his lungs did, and saw Kylie watching him with a patient smile, sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet dangling in the water. She’d stripped down to her boxers, and when she saw she had his attention she slid into the water and grinned at him. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah…” He tried to think of a way to talk about it. The first thing he noticed about the water was how dry it was. A husky’s fur soaks up water like a sponge, but an otter pelt was a built-in drysuit. He glanced at the myriad tiny bubbles trapped in his fur.
Big, strong husky paws angled him to float on the surface.
His dog body didn’t float. But the length of his body buoyed at the surface. “Huh. Cool.”
“I know, right?” She leaned over the side of the pool and gave him an upside-down kiss.
Ears dipping, he kissed her in return. In contrast to the chill of the pool, her lips felt warm. Their whiskers touched. Her dry muzzle fur rubbed along his for a sweet moment before she sat up.
“See? Otter bods are great.” She laughed. “You’ve been using it wrong. I’m not trying to use your big, burly husky body like an otter—I’d probably dislocate something if I tried. So maybe you should try chilling out and ottering, okay?”
He nodded. Seconds passed, ripples calming with each bounce across the pool. “Still. I’m not big enough to protect you.”
“Aww. You’re more than just the muscle.” Her voice softened as she smiled down at him. “You’re smart. You stop me from being too reckless.”
He lifted his wrist, the snap bracelet the only garb he wore. Its abstract 90s pattern darkened a few shades from the soaking.
“Okay, you mostly stop me.” She leaned against the tiled wall, watching him float. “And you make me feel sane.”
