As Tom entered his apartment, he struggled to get the lights on, burdened by his purchases in his smaller, thinner body. He eventually managed to bump the switch with his elbow, and the living room lit up. He made his way into his bedroom and placed the suits on his bed, fully intending to hang them up in his closet.
However, a light on his nightstand attracted his attention. It was the kid’s phone which he had left to charge before he gone to dinner. The light was from the full battery notification. He picked up the phone and after fumbling with it for a bit to figure out how it turned on, the screen lit up to a picture that he recognized. A teen Hispanic guy with dark curly hair looking into the camera with a slight smile on the edge of his lips. The boy looked strangely familiar, and Tom struggled to remember where he knew him from. His teenaged cock started hardening at the picture, and Tom quickly figured out how to unlock the phone before he got a full boner.
He got the phone unlocked with his thumbprint, and the screen popped up with a bunch of apps, with a marijuana leaf as the background. Tom realized he was still wearing Danny’s hoody, with its strong marijuana scent to it. He subconsciously sniffed the side of the hoodie, relaxing at the scent. Returning his focus to the phone, he first realized that Danny had some sort of dark mode on which reduced the amount of white backgrounds in apps. He also had 70 text messages and 15 voicemails.
Opening the text messages first, he saw almost all of them were from someone named Miguel, whose name was programmed in Danny’s phone followed by the heart emoji. He opened up the message thread and was greeted with a slew of unread messages, the earliest of which were from 3 nights ago.
Yo babe! Where u at?
Dude! Brandon just nutted himself tryin 2 grind. U gotta get here.
What’s takin so long????
Pick up ur phone
don’t make me cum find u.
alright, im heading ur direction. If this is sum sorta prank, Im not talking to u 4 a week. :P
There was an hour break in the text message thread before they started up again.
Babe. This isnt funny. Pick up ur phone.
No one knows where u are. Even the dupes at wadswrth don’t know where uve been.
If u need sum time alone, just tell me
Ur freakin me out!!!!
Plz call me…txt me…sumthin!!
There was another break for a couple of hours, the last text sent shortly before midnight 3 nights ago.
Babe, if ive hurt u, im so sorry. Plz forgive me. I love u!!!
The next text came the next morning.
Babe, plz dont tell me u ran away. i cant handle things without u.
Plz pick up ur phone!!
There were several more texts similarly begging Danny to pick up his phone, concern for running away, no one at school or the youth home having heard from Danny. Then, that afternoon, the message changed.
wtf?? they packed up all ur stuff?! noone is sayin shit about where ur at. whats going on???
Mick said he overheard ur in a hospital?? which hospital??? these fuckin assholes wont tell me where ur at.
Im hittin up all the local hospitals. plz dont ignore me. i just wanna make sure ur ok
Apparently Miguel had poor luck with the hospitals, as later text messages went on to complain about privacy laws and being unable to find Danny. Still, Tom had to admire his tenacity. Over the period of several hours, Miguel complained about not being able to find Danny. Finally, the texts ended similarly to the night before, Miguel wishing Danny goodnight and sending his love, begging him to pick up the phone.
Tom scanned through the rest of the text messages, all of which were more of the same. It appeared Miguel skipped school that day with someone named Brandon to search for Danny, but to no avail, of course. Tom paused for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to do. After all, Danny was technically dead. But at least he physically lived on through Tom. Should he call Miguel? The boy deserved that much. It was very clear that Miguel held strong feelings for Danny, and Tom struggled with the fact that his new teenage body at least found the Hispanic guy attractive as well. He looked down at his phone, which had automatically locked by this point. He figured that Miguel was the lock photo, and the slight smile on his face made Tom’s heart ache. Miguel needed to know the truth.
He unlocked the phone and went to the contacts, finding Miguel’s name. He paused for a moment, beginning to freak out. What would he say to this kid? How would he respond? Tom’s finger hovered over the call button, and then he finally pressed it.
The phone barely rang once before it was answered.
“Babe!!!! What the literal fuck!!!” a sexy deep voice said on the other line. The voice proceeded to spout out a number of sentences in Spanish that Tom couldn’t understand. Then, the voice paused. “I’m sorry, Babe. What happened? Where are you? Can I see you?”
“Umm…hi,” Tom said weakly. What should he say? “Umm…I’ve got some bad news.”
“Really? What’s going on? Did they have to amputate something? Are you okay?” Miguel asked.
“So, about that. I don’t really know all of the details,” Tom replied. “My name is Tom Allen. I’m a 35-year-old insurance broker. There was an accident 3 nights ago. I’m not sure what happened. But Danny…he got hurt. Really badly. As in a lifetime coma hurt.”
“If this is a joke, this isn’t funny,” Miguel said, a hint of anger in his tone.
“This is no joke,” Tom replied. “I know I sound like Danny, but I’m not actually him. Have you heard of the Mind Store Machine?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it. It’s some sort of brain copying and scanning thing for people who are dying, right?”
“Right. Well, your friend, Danny, he wasn’t going to recover from whatever happened to him. He had no brain activity and was going to be in a coma for life…but he saved my life. I was dying from cancer, and now I get to live on through him.”
Miguel didn’t say anything in response. Then, he started chuckling. “Damn, Danny! You really had me going for a while! I know I said not to mess around, but you actually put a lot of thought into this!”
“This isn’t a joKE, Miguel!” Tom said, unable to hide the frustration with his voice crack. He sighed. His headache was starting to return again.
“Look, if you don’t want to talk about what happened at the hospital, that’s okay. At least video chat with me,” Miguel said.
The phone in Tom’s hand buzzed, and he looked down to see he had an incoming video chat request from Miguel. He accepted it. Miguel looked the same as in his photo from Danny’s phone, his thick curly hair and dark skin on display. He had a little bit of scruff on his cheeks that wasn’t present in the photos, as well as the shadow of a mustache above his lip. He had on a black Metallica T-shirt, but that was all that Tom could see from the camera angle. “There’s my sexy ginger,” Miguel said with a smile.
“Look, I know I look like Danny, but I’m not him,” Tom said. “Take a look around!” Tom held the phone around his bedroom.
“Damn! That’s a nice place! Where are you?”
“I’m at my apartment. I live here with my roommate and my son. Look!” Tom walked over to his dresser and picked up a picture of him and Matt. “This is me,” he said, pointing to his old body in the photo. “Go ahead and look up Thomas Allen with Stephens Insurance Company. You’ll see it’s the same guy.”
“Man, you’re really trying to sell this. All right,” Miguel replied.
Tom watched as Miguel started typing into his laptop, which was next to him in what Tom could see was a small bedroom. He saw a frown appear on Miguel’s face as he looked back at the image of Matt and Tom’s old body, which Tom still held up in the frame.
“What the hell, Danny? Did you break into this guy’s apartment?”
“No! I am this guy!” Tom replied. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Okay,” Miguel said, looking back at his laptop. “Let’s say I believe you. You’re telling me that Danny’s dead, and you’re some old guy who now has control of Danny’s body?”
Tom bristled a bit at being called an “old” guy. “Yes, and I’m sorry for your loss,” he replied.
“Can I meet you somewhere?” Miguel asked. “I want to see if this is for real.”
“I don’t know,” Tom replied. “My license hasn’t been updated yet, and it would be hard to explain all of this if I got pulled over.” He thought for a minute. “I mean, I guess it would be all right if we went somewhere near my place. What about Cool Beans coffee shop? Would you be okay meeting there? Do you know where that is?” Cool Beans was a coffee shop easily within walking distance of Tom’s apartment. It would be a nice public place where they could theoretically chat without anyone getting crazy.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” Miguel said. “I can meet you there in about 20 minutes.”
“All right,” Tom replied. “See you then.”
Miguel started to say something, then stopped himself, looking intently at Tom’s face. “Yeah,” he said, speaking again. “See you then.”
Tom hung up and breathed a sigh of relief, falling down onto the bed and running his hands through his shaggy red hair. He wasn’t sure how to take that conversation. What was going on? Was he really going to meet this guy who was clearly the boyfriend of his host body? He remembered the hardon he had when he got measured for his suits. Would he be able to control himself around Miguel? Should he? The pounding in his head was worsening. He got up off the bed, looking over at the suits that he had piled on the end of the bed. He really needed to pick them up, but he had to deal with the pounding in his head first. He walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, getting some Tylenol out and downing the pills with some water from the sink. Maybe he needed more caffeine. He really hoped that these headaches were due to caffeine withdrawals and not due to withdrawals from something else. Still, the telltale smell of marijuana did have an incredibly calming effect on him. He absentmindedly walked back into his room, and before he realized what he was doing, he had opened his top drawer and had fished out the baggie of marijuana he had hidden earlier. Opening it, he inhaled the scent. The pounding in his head lessened significantly. Or maybe that was just the Tylenol working?
He shook his head, sealing the baggie and hiding it back in his drawer. He couldn’t give in to these urges. He could fight them, just like he could fight these gay thoughts that he kept having. He had a fiancé, a good-paying job, a strapping son. He was successful. He had overcome a lot in his life, and he could easily overcome these things as well. He closed the drawer and grabbed Danny’s phone, not even realizing he had left his own phone on the bed next to the suits that he had forgotten to hang up. He strolled out of his apartment, locked the door, and headed towards the coffee shop.