Dinner was weird. Not the food. No, the cooking Jon's mother had begun, Jon had continued, and Zoe had finished, was perfect. Flavour, presentation, everything was a great home-cooked meal. It was his family that made is so weird.
In Jon's mind, only his outfit had been swapped with his father's. He knew that he was still the oldest boy in the family, still in school, still growing up. His family, though, seemed to think differently. He wasn't sure how far the swap had changed his life, but his family seemed to treat him differently. Whenever there was something that came up in conversation, something that needed a family decision, both of his parents looked to Jon and Zoe, waiting expectantly for them to say something. When Mikey rolled his eyes at a question his father asked him, Jon's dad whined and said, "Jon! Mikey's being a jerk!" Jon's mother even asked if she and her husband could go on a date to a movie on the weekend, even though it was past Jon's father's bedtime.
When they had finished eating, Jon excused his parents and brother from the table, informing them to clear their dishes as he'd heard his father say thousands of times. Zoe smiled at him appreciatively. Jon figured that whoever wore his mother's clothes got stuck with the lion's share of the household chores. He was glad he was currently dressed like his father.
After dinner was cleared, Jon's parents disappeared to their room. Jon didn't want to imagine what their relationship was like now, so he pushed them from his mind. Mikey returned to his own room, evidenced by the loud industrial music that began pounding once his door was closed. This left Jon in the kitchen with his sister.
"What a family," she laughed good heartedly, "What did we do to deserve this motley crew?"
Jon smiled. It had been a long time since he'd had a good conversation with Zoe. Once she'd 'turned goth' she'd closed herself off to her brother. She was growing up to be a woman, and he knew that soon she'd finish school and move away. Maybe this new power of his would be a way he could reconnect with her.
"Probably did something very bad in a previous life," he chuckled, opening the dishwasher to put away the clean dishes.
"But seriously," she continued, wiping the stove-top, "what teenage girl has to make sure that her dad brushes his teeth before bed? What teenage girl has to tell her mother to take a shower before she goes to the parent-teacher meetings? What teenage girl has had to give the talk to her parents multiple times?"
"Just you, I guess," Jon smiled, hoping that he'd be able to glean some information about their lives, "but it's not all bad, is it?"
"Sure, we get a lot of freedom that kids our age don't get," she continued, her cleaning moving to the countertop, "no curfews, no bedtimes. But it's not an even swap. Sure, I like taking care of the family, but sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't had to step in and pick up the slack for mom. I mean, don't you wonder what your life would be like if you hadn't graduated from high-school early and had to work full-time? If you could just goof off like mom and hang out with, what was that girl you used to like in school, Karyn?"
Jon put a mug on the shelf and paused. His swap had made it so that he wasn't friends with Karyn anymore. Sure, he was still massively turned on by the chain of events, and if he hadn't pulled one off earlier he would still be sporting an erection. Outfits swapping every which way had been a secret fantasy of his for as far as he could remember, but he hadn't considered the fact that the parts of his life that he truly did like would be forever altered.
Jon wanted to rush out the door to see Karyn, to see if there was a way to rebuild their relationship, but he was afraid. What would happen to his family if he were to swap his father's outfit away? They seemed to have found an equilibrium with him working outside the house, Zoe working inside, and the rest of the family being far less responsible. Would they lose their home? Would the family be broken up? If Jon stopped being the bread-winner, where would the money come from?
Jon was so lost in thought that he missed hearing someone knock on the door. He only clued in that he was about to have a visitor when his sister's voice rang in saying, "Don't worry, Jon, I'll get it."
