Greg looked at his phone on the table and tapped the screen. They had been waiting for 20 minutes. "How much longer should we wait before we give up?"
Kim sighed and shook her head. "I'm going to call someone else now. I don't think Howard's actually coming."
Greg groaned. "Maybe we need a more convincing story. I don't know." He felt his chest again to try and determine how much time they had left.
Kim caught Greg sticking his hand on his shirt again. "Stop that. People are going to notice."
Greg scoffed. "There's hardly anyone here. Nobody's going to care..." A figure caught his eye entering the hotel. Although it was difficult to see the person with bright daylight shining in the doors behind him, he could tell the individual was wearing a sequin jacket. He poked Kim and pointed toward the door. "I think that's him!"
They got up from their table and walked over to the man in the sequin jacket. "Howard Wolter?" asked Kim.
"In the flesh!" replied the tall man with dark skin. He had closely cut black hair and wore black pants below his sequin jacket. He pulled his right hand out of his pants pocket and shook Kim's hand and then Greg's. "You must be Greg and... I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."
"Kim," she replied. "Thank you for coming! We were starting to worry."
Howard looked around the hotel lobby. "Where's Marvin?"
"Marvin is down in Los Angeles performing at the Magic Castle," Greg explained. "That's why we called you. As I explained on the phone, Marvin did his leg swap trick last night and didn't change us back."
"Yeah and I don't know what the big deal is. Swap your pants and shoes." Howard rolled his eyes. "I can't believe I came all the way over here for this."
"No, Marvin literally did a leg swap," Kim explained. "Greg got my body below the waist and I got his. I can prove it."
"No, no, no." Howard waved his hands. "Look, I'm all for trans rights, but I think it's a shame that Marvin's using you for some elaborate joke."
"It's no joke," Greg insisted. "Can you come backstage with us? Let's at least talk in private."
Howard looked at his watch. "Okay, but only because I've got some time to spare before I have to start rehearsal."
Greg and Kim led the way to the theater. They kept glancing behind them to make sure Howard was actually following. After getting backstage, they showed the cabinets to Howard and explained what happened during the previous night's show.
Howard shrugged. "So if I knew how Marvin did his trick, I wouldn’t reveal it. However, since I’ve only seen it performed, it’s okay for me to explain how I would do it. If I was doing it, I'd have two people planted in the audience. The guy would have shaved legs and a skirt under some tearaway pants. During the trick, he'd pull his pants off so that when his legs are revealed, the audience would see legs and a skirt. I suppose I'd have him slip out of some loafers and into something which can easily slide onto his feet. For the woman, I'd have her wear pants pulled up under a skirt that looked identical to the tearaway pants. She'd remove the skirt and let the pants fall. She'd have to slip into some different shoes too. I'd have their actual legs hidden in a secret compartment, but the audience would see fake legs after they're sawed off. The fake legs would also have the same clothes on. With a little more in the budget, I'd put some motors in the feet and knees to make them move a bit. A friend of mine is a wiz with a Raspberry Pi. That's a little computer and it could be used to motor control to make them move randomly and more realistically. So, yeah, that's how I'd do it. Marvin never told me how he did it and I never asked. I actually never ask about any tricks out of respect, but I'd imagine it's something like that."
Greg smiled and shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Take a look in his cabinets here. There's no secret compartment to hide our legs. While we were in there, we could still feel our legs like they were in the cabinet and still below us, but we could also see the bottom half of these cabinets being wheeled out from under us. I don't know how to explain it."
Howard was silent and examined the boxes. He tried the latches, rolled the bottom section out and back, and tapped the inside of the cabinet looking for any difference in sound that might reveal a secret compartment. "And you’re certain these are the cabinets that Marvin actually used?"
"Yes, they are," Kim confirmed. "They're right where we saw them when we came backstage looking for Marvin after the show ended, but he had already taken off to fly to Los Angeles."
Howard looked at the cabinets and scratched his head as he spent a minute in thought. Looking over at Greg and Kim, he cocked his head slightly to the side. "You're really sure your legs got switched? You’ve got to be joking around."
Greg reached into the front of his jeans and pulled out a sock. "I can assure you that I was not this flat here yesterday. " He turned around and lifted his suit coat. "My butt wasn't this round either."
Howard stood there looking at Greg in disbelief. "So if he's now flat..." He looked at Kim. "Does that mean you...?"
Kim pressed her skirt against her crotch to reveal a bulge. "Yep. Fully endowed. It's getting worse though." Kim lifted her blouse and revealed a hairy stomach. "The change has started working its way up our bodies. Almost an inch every hour."
Howard’s eyes opened in astonishment. He finally seemed like he was starting to believe it.
Greg took off his suit coat and laid it on a chair. He then lifted the bottom of his polo shirt to reveal a thin, hairless waist. He pulled the shirt up more and there was a slight growth of flesh at the top of the hairless portion of his torso which then became a hairy male chest just below his nipples. "Yeah, I can assure you that we're not transgender and in the process of transitioning. Look at my face. It's a male face with some stubble. It simply doesn't match everything below my chest area."
Kim continued and tried to explain the urgency. "Unless we change by around 5 PM, we estimate that the transition will have started to swap our heads and I don't know how this trick to saw people in half would work once it's above our chins."
Howard stood there dumbfounded. "Wow, okay, that's incredible. So Marvin isn't doing some trick with fake legs and swapping clothes. Marvin's doing something really advanced and beyond my understanding."
“Real magic?” Greg asked.
Howard scoffed. “I hate to break it to you, but there’s no such thing as magic. It’s all tricks, misdirection, and illusion. However, this is an incredible result I’m not able to explain. Perhaps there’s some technology at play here? Any significantly advanced technology may appear as magic.”
Greg shrugged. “There’s no kind of body part swapping technology that I’ve ever heard of. Does anything like that even exist?”
Kim smiled awkwardly. "I suppose we're living proof! Can you try to swap us back?"
Howard nodded slowly for a moment. "I've watched Marvin perform this act quite a few times. I thought I knew how it was done, but apparently I was wrong. I can try to go through the motions, but I don't know if I can actually do it."
"We're desperate," Greg pleaded. "We don't know where else to turn. It's not possible for us to get these cabinets to Marvin before we'd be swapped completely, so we need to rely on people here in Reno. People like you."
"Okay, well let's start by getting you both into these cabinets," Howard instructed. He helped Greg and Kim into the cabinets and fastened them shut.
"Won't this only change us from the waist down?" asked Kim who was confined to her pink cabinet with only her face exposed. "What about the parts above the waist that have changed?"
"If this works, we can worry about that later," explained Howard. "Consider this a test run so I can see if this actually works."
"Okay, understood."
With Greg and Kim inside the cabinets, Howard retrieved the square metal blades which had to be inserted into the midsection of the cabinet. Howard tried inserting a blade into Kim's cabinet.
"Woah, stop," exclaimed Kim. "I can feel that. I didn't feel it when Marvin did it."
"Okay, maybe if I do Greg first," Howard thought out loud. He tried inserting the blade into Greg's midsection.
"Ouch! That's me," Greg confirmed.
"See, normally your bodies would be bent back into some sort of secret compartment," Howard explained. "I have to confess, I have no idea how he did this." Howard started to unfasten the latches keeping Greg and Kim inside the cabinets.
Greg seemed defeated by the news as he stepped out of the cabinet. "Do you know anyone in the area who might know how he did it?"
Howard stood and thought for a moment as Kim exited her cabinet. "We don't have a ton of money, but we'd pay," offered Kim.
"Okay, let me make a few calls," offered Howard. "I'll see what I can find."
Greg smiled wide. "Thank you!"
As Howard walked out to the stage in the empty theater to start making a few calls, Kim smiled at Greg. "We'll get through this...somehow."
Greg looked back at Kim. "Wait a second. We're almost the same height! Are you getting taller or am I getting shorter?" he asked.
"I think both," Kim theorized. "Our legs are roughly the same length, but you have a taller torso. As it transitions to me, I get taller and you get shorter." Kim reached behind her back and adjusted her bra. "This bra is getting uncomfortable as my chest expands to your size. I'll have to adjust the hooks to a larger size soon."
"This is so bizarre," said Greg as he rubbed his forehead.