CHAPTER FIVE
Nora
My head pounded as a siren sunk its wailing claws into me, dragging me from my dreams and rudely shaking me awake.
I didn’t recall changing my alarm tone, but as soon as my brain started working properly this morning, I’d be changing it back to the quick, consistent beeps that were short and to the point.
My fingers fumbled with my phone, small and delicate in my hand.
In fact, smaller than I remembered. Despite hitting every inch of the screen, the siren continued.
I gazed around my blurry room and wiped my eyes to remove the sleep, but everything remained a blur of fuzzy shapes and shadowy figures.
My legs swung over the side of my bed, and my feet hit the ground with an unexpected thud.
No wonder my childhood ballet teacher suggested taking up football – I had the grace of a troll.
My nightie scrunched around my thighs; material stretched so tight I mentally added a new one to my shopping list.
With closed eyes, I inhaled a deep breath, counted to five, and released with it all the internal rage I’d encased since coming to terms with being Freddie’s bitch.
Arriving home from class, I’d spent last night reading Fake It Til You Make It with tearful eyes.
Now that I’d practiced my happy face in the mirror, no one would think any different when I waltzed into the office.
The siren continued as I daydreamed about Freddie falling from the window of his office.
‘Nora.’ The siren turned out to be a voice yelling outside my front door.
Eager knocks vibrated the wood, which soon turned to door-rattling bangs.
A woman’s voice called out, hysterically begging to be let inside.
I raced for the door, tripped, and stubbed my toe on the corner of my bed.
Foot in hand – I had no idea my feet had hair on them – I glanced down and noticed how hideously neglected my feet had become.
I wouldn’t have believed they were mine if they weren’t attached to my body.
I hopped the rest of the way planning to text Hayley so we could book in for a pedicure and peeped through the hole at what appeared to be, well, me.
Ripping the door open with a force that almost tore it from its hinges, I stared into the blurry outline of my brown eyes and tilted my head to analyse my black hair. It couldn’t be…
‘What the hell!’ I yelled at Nora 2.0.
My hand reached to my own head for hair which couldn’t be found. Wide eyed, heart racing, I stumbled back as Nora 2.0 stormed inside and closed the door.
‘Give me my body back,’ she yelled.
‘Your what? You’re me! You give me my body back.’ My hand grabbed my throat at the husky voice coming from my mouth.
I stretched my arm in front where tiny hairs covered my oversized hand, and my neglected feet suddenly made sense.
My gaze wandered up my arm, following the swirl of tattooed feathers and scattered stars I stared at every Monday evening.
My abnormally large feet trampled over my dirty washing as I burst into the bathroom, face close enough to the mirror that my breath fogged the reflection.
My hand slid over the mirror revealing something impossible, yet true.
Corey’s grey eyes.
My heart pounded in my throat, fighting for a place with the rising bile. I spun around to stare at Nora 2.0.
‘Holy fuck, it’s happened. I’ve officially lost my mind. Why do I look like Corey Flemmington?’ I shrieked.
‘Probably the same reason I look like Nora Claremont,’ the imposter exclaimed.
She slapped her hands to her face, dragging them down and stretching my skin as her enormous pants fell to the floor.
‘Stop stretching my skin, you’ll give me wrinkles,’ I shrieked. ‘Wait…’ My hands groped my flat chest, patting the firm muscles down my torso, further down until… ‘Ouch!’ I slumped forward and bent my legs into a huddled crouch.
‘You chicks never believe how sensitive it is down there.’ Nora 2.0 pulled her pants back up.
Holy shit.
A penis. There was a penis between my legs.
I lunged forward and wrapped my fingers around Nora 2.
0’s ankles. She screamed and tried to shuffle away, but my grip was an iron fist. Her ass hit the floorboards, and I dragged her closer.
I swung my leg over her right hip, then my other over her left.
Her hands – perfect replicas with the pink manicure I’d gotten last week – gripped my nightie and yanked it until the stretched seam gave up and ripped.
‘That was my favourite!’ I roared. ‘First my body, then my pyjamas?’
‘Get off me!’ she yelled.
‘Not until you give me my skin back!’
I was now naked other than my tiny black lace underpants stretched across this giant body. Nora 2.0 continued to buck beneath me as my hands fought hers. My weight and muscle won against her skinny arms, and my hands gripped her shoulders.
I froze.
What now? Was I really going to peel the skin from her like a banana and glue it to me like paper maché? She even had a darker freckle beneath her right eye, just like me.
Me.
I stared at me. Bile trickled up my throat like an upside-down waterfall, an abomination against nature. Just like me. I was an abomination against nature, trapped inside Corey Flemmington’s body.
Corey.
I rolled off his body – my body. My head lightened so much I thought I might float away, and my chest tightened more with each passing second. I was a piece of paper, scrunched into a ball and thrown through the air, waiting to crash to the floor.
‘I’m sorry, but this is some Freaky Friday shit. I need to go back to bed so I can wake up from this nightmare.’ I turned towards the bed, cupping the tender real estate caged inside my lace underpants.
‘It’s not a dream,’ Corey called after me.
I tried to curl into a ball, but my body covered most of the double bed. The overpriced silk sheets I’d splurged on were like nails on a chalkboard against these hairy legs, then when my stubbly chin grazed my pillow it sent my legs kicking in a fit of sensory overload. Nothing was right.
‘What is this magical shit?’ I flinched at the deep anguish in my voice. Men and emotions, why was it so hard to combine them?
‘I don’t know. But when I tried to pee this morning…’ Corey gestured to his groin as he paced the discoloured timber floor from the bookshelf in my living room to the pantry in my kitchen.
‘I look like a fucking dungeon troll,’ I moaned.
Corey’s mouth dropped in offence. ‘Excuse me?’
Lucky weaved between us, stopping to sniff each leg in confusion.
I crouched down to run my hand along his soft fur, but he hissed at me and ran under the bed.
I pulled my hand back and noticed his left palm was marked by the umbrella, just like mine had been.
I suppose instead of good luck, we’d both been treated to monstrous bad luck.
‘Good riddance. I can’t stand cats.’ Corey scrunched my adorable little nose on his face.
My fingers pressed against my temple, wishing I could perform a lobotomy on myself. My stomach twisted, pulsed, and shoved my organs around. Nothing was in the right place. My heart – which may or may not even be my heart anymore – pounded hard enough to thump through my head.
‘You’re me,’ I whispered, ‘and I’m you.’
Corey shook his head, and the black hair attached whipped him. ‘Argh.’ His hand flew to cup his eye.
What would my mother say? Not only was my life currently revolving around a man – I was a man.
My obsessive need to prove my life wouldn’t turn out like hers had been crushed into a tight ball and thrown into a paranormal universe.
I couldn’t show her all my hard work had paid off if I was peeing in a urinal!
‘How?’ I sighed. ‘How did this happen?’ I blinked a few times to keep my tears at bay, though if there was ever a time to cry, it was now.
‘You got a voodoo doll around here or something? Been sticking pins in a tall one with curly hair?’ Corey joked but his shoulders were tense.
I scratched at my palm and trailed my gaze over Corey’s – my – body. ‘Okay, okay. Let’s breathe. We can figure this out.’
‘You’re right.’ Corey stopped walking barely a breath away from me. ‘Except all I can smell is this damn citrus smell you cover your body with.’
‘Be grateful you don’t smell like an ancient pyramid anymore,’ I snapped. I closed my eyes and imagined my happy place, just as page 243 of Cool as a Cucumber had explained. ‘I’m the one who smells like an ancient pyramid now,’ I grimaced.
‘All right, we need to focus.’ Corey clutched his head with the dramatics of a theatre student, as though the citrus scent might grow arms and strangle him.
‘Well, I’ve got nothing. My brain is panicking.’ My voice cracked.
The screen of my phone glowed ‘Mum’, and I clenched my teeth.
My finger stabbed the red button, because I did not have time for that.
As much as I loved her, she wasn’t the kind of mum to hold my hair while I threw up, she was the kind who would stand in the doorway and say, ‘This is a great lesson to learn from’.
Tears pooled in my eyes. I didn’t even have enough hair to hold back anymore. Corey cocked an eyebrow as he glanced between my frown lines and my phone.
I cleared my throat and shoved the heels of my palms into my eyes. ‘Don’t ask.’
‘Okay, okay. We can figure this out. We’ve got all day to try to switch back.’
My palm flew into the air, stopping him from speaking. ‘What do you mean all day? I’ve got to be at work in two hours.’ My breath quickened at the thought of being late.
‘Well, you can’t go into work like that.’ Corey gestured at my body.
‘Oh, no!’ My hands covered my face. I couldn’t let this problem keep me from my goal. Nora Claremont shows up. That’s my thing; and it was more crucial than ever for me to show Mark I was still reliable. ‘You need to go to my work.’
‘I’m not impersonating you at work.’ Corey scoffed.