Jon stumbled backwards on his heeled boots, barely remaining upright. Everything felt different than it had moments before. His entire center of gravity had shifted, he was several inches shorter and long dark hair now cascaded down his back overwhelming him with new sensations. He took a moment to settle himself, ignoring the disoriented Penelope in his former body next to him. He ran his new hands up his purloined body, feeling the tight core contained within Ms. Dearheart's soft sweater. Almost magnetically his hands were drawn to the two giant mounds sitting on his new chest, and he couldn't resist giving them a small squeeze. OH GOD they were sensitive. The news sensations he was being bombarded with threatened to make him get carried away but suddenly a voice cut in.
"What the hell just happened? Why am I you?" his old body squawked, looking around dumbfoundedly. It sounded so odd to hear his voice from the outside, like when he heard himself on a recording. Jon strode unsteadily towards the door on his new boots; they weren't particularly high heels but he wasn't used to wearing heels at all. A smile played across his stolen lips as he realized he'd soon be getting plenty of practice. Jon shut the door and turned back to his former body, trying to hide his excitement for what was happening.
"Why did you close the door?" Penelope asked.
Jon cleared his throat and activated the hypnotic voice he'd wished for for the first time as he answered, "We don't want to cause a scene. We can't let anyone know this happened."
Penelope blinked as she listened to her own soft melodic voice. Moments before she had been thinking they needed to tell the principal, or even the authorities but for some reason Jon seemed to be making sense. Jon smiled and continued, "Obviously people would think we were crazy if we told them we swapped bodies, so we absolutely can't tell anyone."
Penelope staggered back towards her desk and collapsed in her chair, overwhelmed. Jon was right, they couldn't tell anyone, it was impossible. "Then what do we do? How do we change back, do we need to run into each other again?"
Jon strode over to the counselor and put a gentle hand on her back, much like she usually did for students in distress. "We could try but I'm not sure that would do anything. We need to do some research to figure this out, maybe it's a sort of freaky friday thing where we need to learn a lesson?"
Penelope found herself nodding, "Right, there has to be a reason. If we study-"
Jon cut her off, "But we can't do that right now. School's going to start soon, and it's imperative no one knows we're in the wrong bodies, you're going to have to be Jon Gibson, and i'll have to be Penelope Dearheart, at least for today."
"But I'm not Jon!" Penelope declared, indigent. She was a grown woman godamnit, and she absolutely didn't belong stuck back as a highschooler. Much less a male one.
Jon frowned down at her and parroted one of her favorite phrases, "That's not a productive attitude, Jon." It was the exact same thing she'd said to him when he'd gotten exasperated during a session last year. "I told you, I'm not Jon!" Penelope insisted stubbornly.
Jon poured more of his hypnotic power into his voice, making Penelope's voice even more mesmerizing, "I know it's confusing, and I'm scared as well, but we can't screw up each other's lives while we're stuck like this. Just think what anyone would say if they heard a teenage boy claiming to be the school's counselor? We need to use the name's that go with our positions."
But-"
Jon cut her off, "Look at me, Jon" He gestured down to his new body. "Between the two of us, who's wearing Penelope Dearheart's clothes, who has her magnificent body, who's speaking with her voice?"
"You" Penelope grudgingly admitted.
"Then who am I?" Jon asked, resolutely fighting the urge to smile. No need for the original Penelope to know how much he was enjoying the reversal.
Penelope paused for a long moment before quietly saying, "You're Penelope."
"Ah, ah ah," Jon said mischievously, "that's Ms. Dearheart to you. Also, I really think you should sit over there while we talk." Jon gestured to the smaller straight backed chair typically used by students. Penelope numbly got up and walked over to it, while Jon took her place in the comfortable leather office chair behind the desk.
"Now, we've got about an hour and a half before school starts, so we need to go over the bear minimum to get through the day in that time. We can reconvene after school to figure out a plan." Jon steepled his new fingers on the desk in an imitation of Penelope's mannerisms, his new striking green eyes gleefully examining the hands he now had. They were small and feminine, with long french tipped nails, and a large princess cut diamond ring on the left ring finger?
"When did you get this?" Jon asked, bewildered.
"Siobahn proposed at the beginning of break." Penelope reluctantly admitted. She didn't relish sharing intimate details of her personal life with a student but she didn't have many other options. Siobahn Finley was a history teacher at Lakeview and the two had been a couple for close to four years, first getting together back in college. Penelope really wanted to go tell Siobahn what had happened, but Jon's instruction that they couldn't tell anyone held her back.
Jon twisted the ring on his finger, admiring how it caught the light. He hadn't realized Ms. Dearheart was in that committed of a relationship, but finding out he was suddenly engaged to one of the other most beautiful women in town wasn't exactly a negative. Jon smiled with Penelope's ruby red lips and perfect teeth, he could certainly work with this.
