As Jim hung up the phone and turned around he caught a glimpse of his new reflection in the full length mirror. Staring back was a perfect copy of the old Bobby. As he walked closer to the mirror he was surprised the floorboards weren’t creaking under his weight for the first time since he had moved into this apartment years ago. More importantly his thighs were no longer rubbing together as he was accustomed to and he wasn’t waddling when he moved. He was actually feeling sprightly, like he could just leave his house on a whim and run a marathon there and then. He was still adjusting to his new size though. Being half a foot shorter needed some getting used to; everything around him appeared bigger and felt higher to him.
As he reached the mirror, he admired his new looks. Who would have thought that weird shit spell in that old wicked ass spell book would have worked? He certainly hadn’t expected this outcome even in the slight off chance that it worked. He had always envied Bobby for his skinny guy physique though he had never imagined and wished to actually be him. That said his new body was growing on him. True Bobby didn’t have any mass to him but at least he looked toned and Jim finally had the flat stomach he had always dreamed of. Gone were his moobs; his chest was lean albeit only minimally defined. His nipples were now less than half the size they used to be. His limbs may now be shorter but they also felt more nimble then they had ever been.
The more he looked at himself however the more he felt something was missing. Then he realised that gone was his grizzly brown pelt and beard and in their place was just a sparse light dusting of pale blond hairs that he could barely see from afar on his limbs only . He missed the presence his old body had, but he would gladly give it up all over again to have the agility his new body possessed. He reasoned if Bobby had kept at it just a little bit harder at the gym he would have built himself the perfect physique. If somehow they wouldn’t manage to fix this, being stuck as Bobby probably wouldn’t be too bad. He almost didn’t want to fix this any longer. That said he had promised the now more corpulent Bobby that he would at least try. He’d better got on to it; Bobby was probably on his way as fast as his now oversized legs would allow him to.
Jim had reasoned if the first part of the weight swap spell combined with the second half of the body swap spell had resulted in them swapping bodies; then using the first part of the body swap spell combined with the latter half of the weight change spell should swap them back to their bodies. In reality he was only conjecturing, making educated guesses after studying the effects of the two spells. He didn’t want Bobby to know this though, as he’d probably chicken out from taking a second whirl at this.
Jim made his way to the kitchen to start preparing the ingredient for the spell. His boxers were slipping down his legs as he walked. Damned he thought as he pulled them back up, he should have remembered to tell Bobby to get set of his old clothes with him before hanging up the phone. Anyways now was probably too late, Billy was probably already on his way.
He had just enough ingredients left over from the first spell to try one other attempt at the spell. As he was mixing the ingredients he heard Bobby’s old car pull up in his driveway. He could hear the car groan as Bobby made his way out of it. He sure was happy to get rid of all of his old weight.
Sure enough there was a knock on the door, although this knock was unlike Bobby’s usual meek ones but felt as if it would unhinge the door as it reverberated throughout Jim’s house.
“Hold on big guy I’m on my way! There’s no need to tear the door down! ” Jim shouted in his new higher pitched voice. Damned his old body had been strong.
He opened his front door and standing there occupying the doorframe was a towering vision of his old body stuffed in a gray T-shirt and black shorts that looked like they would burst at any second. Bobby was huffing and glistening at the temples from his short walk from the car.
“No way man this is so f*cked up dude!” was Bobby’s booming reply on seeing the new Jim. “Aren’t you gonna let me in?”
“Yeah sure…” Jim realised he had been staring at his old body. Damned he never had noticed he had looked like a damned brick wall before. But from his new perspective his old body looked positively huge from every dimension.
“Hold on though. Let me get out of these clothes first cause they’re killing me” said Bobby as he waddled in through the door; floorboards creaking under his mass. He slipped off his flip-flops which had looked ridiculously small on his stout large feet. He struggled with his T-shirt.
“Hang on let me help you” Jim said helping Bobby pull the shirt over his head. The shirt finally come off but not before the side-seams gave way. Bobby’s belly and moobs jiggled as the shirt came off.
Bobby wiggled his oversized legs as he slid his shorts off with difficulty. “Ahhh I can finally breathe. Didn’t know clothes could be so constricting.” He added heaving, his face and pits wet with sweat after his struggle with his clothes.
“So what’s the plan?” bellowed Bobby between one deep breath and the next.
“We give it another whirl, wasn’t that what you wanted?” tailed off Jim, half-hoping Bobby would say no.
“Yeah. So that old book actually has a reversal spell in it?”
“Yeah, something like that…” added Jim somewhat dryly.
His reply must have hardly satisfied Bobby’s curiosity, but Bobby didn’t question Jim’s answer. Boy Bobby must really be inching to get back to his body, Jim thought, as his feeble reply went by unchallenged.
“Okay so when do you need my blood, I mean your old blood?”
“Hang on big guy just give me a second here! Are you so impatient to get back to your old body –“
“Why aren’t you?”
“Well whatever dude. Aren’t you happy to have the physique you always wanted?”
“I guess… but not like this. This is not what I had in mind. What about our families, work and all that shit? We just go on living each other’s lives?”
“You’re probably right. Just give me your hand.”
“And if I have to be honest I never thought carrying all this extra weight could be so tiring –“
“Come Here” Jim said before Bobby could finish his sentence.
Jim pricked the two of them and their blood trickled into the concoction.
“It’s ready” Jim stated.
“No vodka this time round little dude” added Bobby quickly.
“Fine we’ll have it your way. Bottoms up fat ass”
They toasted the drinks and downed them in one gulp.
“Arrrgh. It never gets easier on the tongue” roared Bobby
“Quit complaining”
“So how long do we wait this time?”
“How the heck do you want me to know that?”
“What wasn’t there an activation time on the reversal spell like for the first spell?”
“Hmmm. Yeah. Well not exactly…”
“ Wait… Let me guess there’s no reversal spell, right you made all that shit up? What the f*ck did you give me to drink man? NOT cool!”
“You wanted to change back so I made a spell with the remaining parts of the weight swap and body swap spell we didn’t use last time. I assumed – “
“What, we just drank what you ASSUMED was the correct spell? How can you play around with this shit, now we know it works?” roared Bobby as he turned redder and sweatier still in the face. His moobs and belly jiggled as he bellowed in rage.
“Why are you being so uptight?”
“Ehh just forget it! I guess I’d better hang at your place for now. Don’t want to be in public when this shit, whatever it will do, works”
“Yeah sure. Make yourself at home.”
The rest of the evening went by pretty uneventfully, if you consider being in our best bud’s body uneventful. They ordered home-delivered pizzas. Jim could barely eat half of his while Bobby wolfed down two whole ones and the rest of Jim’s. No wonder Bobby had been so skinny before, thought Jim, he could have barely kept anything down that tiny stomach of his. Meanwhile Bobby was worried about his new-found appetite; he was still ravenous after eating all that food. Sure he had been skinny before, but was having Jim’s large and out-of-shape physique any better? With the benefit of hindsight he was having second thoughts about having gone along with this physique swap in the first place. He regretted having wanted to give up his old skinny build. He hoped Jim’s attempt at fixing the spell succeeded and all went back to normal.
Stuffed after dinner they watched a movie on TV, which turned out to be so boring that both slept on the sofa watching it.
Jim woke up suddenly at around midnight. He was startled and disoriented. Infomercials on the latest weight-loss gizmo were going on loudly on TV. He bolted upright from the sofa with a cold sweat as he saw his old body snoring loudly next to him. He slowly recalled the events of earlier that day and calmed down. He looked at his wiry arms, down his still flat abdomen and onto his lean legs. He was secretly relieved he was still in Bobby’s skinny body.
“Ahhhhhhhhh”
Just as he was thinking this Jim felt a now familiar cramp in his stomach which made him wince in pain. Hearing Jim’s cries, Bobby woke up suddenly.