"Your first assignment," says the lackey. "Major League Baseball: Toronto Blue Jays at Chicago White Sox. Your job is to ensure that the White Sox win. So who would you like to be?"
"Excuse me?" you say.
"Who would you like to be?" he repeats. "We will give you the assignment, you two can decide which bodies you would like to take over to complete the assignment. The choice is yours, just make sure the assignment is successfully completed."
"Oh, uh, I don't know," you say and turn to Josh. "Who should we be?"
Josh shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, the two best players?"
"Hmm, OK." you say. "So we need the White Sox to win, so we should be the two best Blue Jays players. Well, I think one of us should be the starting pitcher. He could probably almost throw the game single-handedly."
"Yeah," Josh replies. "And how about if the other is the best RBI guy on the team."
"That sounds like a good plan," you say. "OK we want to be the Blue Jays' starting pitcher and RBI leader."
"And those would be?" asks the lackey. "You boys are going to have to do your homework before coming in."
"God dammit," you mutter as you pull out your own smart phone and pull up some stats. "OK, we want to be Ricky Romero and Edwin Encarnacion."
"Very well," the lackey says as he walks over to the computer. "Take a seat. And who will be who?"
You and Josh look at each other and shrug. "I guess I'll be Encarnacion," Josh offers as you both take your seats.
"Very well," says the lackey. "Then I guess we're ready to begin. Remember, touch your nipples to come back, but not until the task is complete."
You're about to make a smart ass remark, but you begin to feel light-headed and your body is overcome by a strange tingling sensation. The room around you begins to fade, even gravity itself seems to lose its hold on you and you find yourself in what can only be described as a void.
The tingling sensation in your body fades, but now your body feels like its changing. You feel like you're growing larger, as if muscle and fat is being pumped into you while your bones stretch longer. You watch as your hands change shape slightly and your skin grows darker. You feel stronger and more powerful all over when suddenly your body is jerked forward as a blinding flash of light fills your vision.
You feel something slip out of your hand and look up to see a batter standing at the plate in front of you as the umpire yells, "Strike!"
The catcher stands up and throws the baseball back to you. You reach up the glove on your right hand to catch it, then look around. You're in the middle of a baseball stadium and you're standing right next to the pitcher's mound.
You look down at yourself. You're now wearing a grey Toronto jersey. You take off your cap to look at the front and sure enough, it's a Blue Jays cap. As you take the ball out of your glove, you notice the glove says Ricky Romero on it and you take a moment to look at your left hand, darker and larger than your own.
"Holy shit," you mutter and are shocked to hear a different voice come out of your mouth. "That fucker wasn't kidding. This fucking thing works!"
You step back up to the mound and stare in towards home plate. The catcher flashes you a set of signs and you nod when he signals for a two-seam fastball. You adjust your grip, go into your motion and let loose. The batter swings and fouls it off.
The catcher throws the ball back. This time, he signals for a curveball outside. You throw the pitch, it misses wide. The ball comes back again. The catcher signals for a slider. You throw the pitch. The batter swings and misses.
"Strike three!" the umpire yells and everyone starts running back to the dugouts.
Thank God, you think, this will give you an opportunity to figure out what the hell is going on. And to find Josh!
You get back to your dugout and begin to look for Josh in between fist bumps and ass slaps. OK, so he's Edwin Encarnacion, but you don't know what he looks like or even what number he wears so you try to peek at the backs of players uniforms to read the names and find him. Finally, you spot him! Unfortunately, he's at the other end of the dugout, walking out to the batter's box. Shit. You'll have to wait. You look around, still too nervous to talk to any of the other guys and just take a seat on the bench.
You watch as Edwin Encarnacion, who is hopefully really Josh, lines out to right field. As he walks back into the dugout, you eagerly move over to meet him.
"Josh?" you ask.
The baseball player looks at you for a moment. "Holy crap man! It's you! That guy wasn't…we're…" At this point, you see one of the other players leaning on the railing in front of the dugout turn around and look at you strangely so you signal Josh to come with you to the other end of the dugout where no one is sitting.
"So it really worked, look at us!" Josh says with a Hispanic accent. You look at his strong Latino body.
"Fuck, dude, this is crazy," you say.
"I know, and it's like, when I was up at the plate, I knew how to play baseball!" he gushes, which sounded odd coming out of the mouth of a major leaguer with the excitement of a schoolgirl and an accent. But that made you realize that when you were out on the mound, you knew how to play baseball too. You knew the catcher's signs and how to grip each pitch and the proper mechanics for your windup.
"Holy shit, you're right!" you say. "I didn't even realize that! Fuck dude, I'm not even left-handed!" You look down at your left hand again in awe, marvelling at how natural it feels to throw with that hand. You hear music blasting in the stadium, signalling that the inning is over and it's time to get back out to the mound.
"Hey man, get back out there!" Josh says.
"Yeah dude," you say and lean in closer. "Hey, remember we gotta lose OK, we'll regroup after the game."
Josh winks at you and you run back out to the mound, invigorated by all these newly discovered abilities. You find it's a blast to throw pitches that fool hitters, strike out batters and induce ground balls. You never even made a varsity team in high school and now you're standing on the mound in a major league game, borrowing someone else's ability and body to boot!
As much fun as it is to be good, you're sure to give up some base hits and a home run, putting the Blue Jays behind. Between innings, you're a bit distracted by how attractive some of the other players are, but luckily, they can't muster much offense and when you're taken out of the game, the Blue Jays are trailing, 2-0, and that's how the game ends.
As your teammates walk with heads hung back to the clubhouse, you grab Josh and pull him aside.
"Hey, good job man," you say quietly to him. "That was actually pretty fun, it's just too bad we had to lose."
"Yeah," Josh replies and looks around. "But you know, maybe that guy was right. We really could have some fun while we have these bodies." He grabs your crotch with a playful smile.
"Come on, man, let's get out of these uniforms," he says as he peeks into a door to find an empty room and pulls you inside.