Tom was a short fine boned nerd, and he usually tagged along with Mike
and Stu. Both of them were jocks: Mike was the muscular hunky running
back type, and Stu was the brick wall type that you expected to find
on the front line of the football team. Tom was the team manager.
"That blue spandex out fit you guys gave me is way too big. Do you
have something smaller?" Tom asked coming out of the changing room
carrying the blue garment. "Guys?" he asked since they seemed to have
disappeared. "Oh, they're probably showing off to Claudia, Magda, and
the other girls," he said with a shrug, "Hey, look a yellow rubber
singlet, I wonder if that would fit me?"
He grabbed Mike and headed back to the dressing room. Tomas' olive
skin would look better in yellow than blue anyway. It took him only a
few minutes to strip and pull on the tight yellow singlet. He noticed
yellow highlights in his hair, and his eyes seemed lighter. As he
leaned into the mirror, he watched his eyes turn hazel and then green.
When they were blue, Tom stepped back, and what he saw in the mirror
made him jump three feet backward. He slammed into the changing room
door. Mike was staring back at him. Mike was wearing the yellow
singlet, but where was Tom? He watched as the Mike in the mirror
mimicked his every move. Then he looked down at his body. It was
Mike's body, but it was Tom's now. He grinned, and then he went to
Mike's dressing room.
Tom figured if he had Mike's body, then Mike probably had Tom's. In
the dressing room, Tom found only Mike's clothing. He pulled on
Mike's clothes over his yellow singlet, and then went back to his
changing room and stuffed his gear into Mike's gym bag. Then he left.
He didn't notice the red rubber singlet draped over the chair in the
corner.
Mike in the meantime was horrified by what had happened. Tom had
stolen his body. Mike tried so hard to communicate, but he was
inanimate even if he could see, smell, hear, feel and taste, he
couldn't speak or move of his own volition.
Halfway to the mall exit, Tom ran into Dirk and Roman, Magda's
brothers, they were both shorter than Tom now. They shoved him.
"Hey, Mike, you were supposed to try on the yellow wet suit we gave
you," Roman said in an accusatory voice.
"Yeah, it didn't fit," Tom lied. Now he knew where those spandex
outfits had come from. Those two were too Goth for Goths. They had
homemade pentagram tattoos and wore way too much jewelry. The yellow
singlet must have been what was left of the wet suit after it did
whatever it did to Mike. Now Tom guessed that it had absorbed Mike,
and that the singlet made the wearer appear to be Mike. In truth it
was more than that, but he was on the right track. "Tell you what
though, I bet you'd look fine in Spandex," he said reaching into
Mike's gym bag. He pulled out the blue spandex.
Roman and Dirk stepped back a few feet, and turned and ran out of the
mall. Tom thought about chasing, but decided to go back and look for
Stu, who was probably a red singlet now.