After breakfast, Kat had told Alex she was going to run clothes shopping. "I'll be back in about two hours, okay? You'll be fine here? Just call if you need anything, babe. I'm just going to get some basics for you." Alex had nodded, his mind spinning in circles at a hundred miles an hour, but unable to grasp any conclusions. This new body had to be reted to Fiona's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but that was magic - and magic wasn't real. He heard Kat's G-Wagon pull out of the driveway and stood, his body on autopilot as he put away the dishes and cleaned up from breakfast, walking back toward the bedroom. As he did, Alex's phone rang and he answered automatically, raising it to speak before pausing in a panic as he saw the caller ID.

  "Hey Alex, it's Jon from ExxMo," came a gruff voice from the speaker. "Did I catch you at a bad time?" Alex stared at the phone in horror, unsure of what to do. Jon was his usual partner on the Exxon side, they chatted a few times a week about how Jon's team was implementing Alex's nanofluid, production issues, and Alex's future research ideas. He hadn't realized that Jon was going to call this morning, but it wasn't out of the ordinary for him to reach out like this. "Alex?," came Jon's voice again.

  Dread surged into Alex's system, magnified even more. He couldn't possibly fake his own voice, Jon knew him too well. And Jon knew Kat as well, they'd met many times, so there was no way that Alex could try to fake Kat's voice. And the thought of a mysterious woman answering Alex's phone and saying "Oh, Alex is busy, he can't come to the phone right now" was not going to work. Jon would ugh, assume he was having an affair, and never speak of it again, but Alex wasn't okay with someone thinking he was cheating on Kat. Fuck, he thought frantically, oh fuck. What am I going to do?

  "Alex? You there buddy?" came the voice from the speaker again. The phone cttered to the floor of the bathroom as Alex dashed for the toilet, bile rising in his throat. His breakfast came flooding back out in a rush, chunky vomit spilling into the porcein bowl as his stomach turned inside out from the stress of the situation. He coughed and spat, then his stomach spasmed and he threw up again, another flood of liquid spshing into the toilet, spshing loudly. This new body's long brown hair dangled forward, tangling in the foul water, as he clung to the lip of the toilet. Strings of vomit dripped from his lips into the bowl and he sniffled, then dry heaved once more.

  "Uh, never mind, sounds like I caught you at a bad time. Why don't you give me a call or a text when you get a chance. Hope you feel better!," came the voice from the phone, forgotten on the floor behind Alex. As he heard the call disconnect, Alex sobbed and puked once more, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand as he did. He reached out a shaking hand and flushed the toilet, watching the remains of his breakfast swirl and descend into the plumbing. The silence in the bathroom was deafening after Jon’s call ended, the weight of his predicament crashing down anew, his trembling hands clutching the toilet as he fought to steady his breathing, the reality of his new voice a haunting reminder of his altered state.

  "Fuck," he gasped aloud in the bathroom and rested his head on the cool porcein lip. Alex hiccuped, dry heaving again, spitting into the bowl once more. Finally, he felt like his stomach was settled enough to stand. Alex walked away from the toilet, staring at himself in the mirror for the first time, truly taking in his new body. A beautiful but wildly disheveled brunette stared back at him, her green eyes rimmed with tears. The green eyes in the mirror weren’t his, yet held his fear. Was he still Alex, engineer and husband, inside this stranger’s skin? The question gnawed, his new body’s fragility a stark contrast to his usual strength and confidence. A generous but not overwhelming pair of breasts strained forward underneath a "UT Austin" shirt covered in vomit, streaks of it still tangled in her hair. Pale legs stretched out below the shirt, toned but not muscur. "Fuck," he said again, this time taking his appearance in appreciatively, the word repeated but the tone different.

  Alex realized what he needed most at the moment was normalcy, something to ground himself amidst the life-altering chaos of the morning. He stripped the shirt off, admiring the perky tits and firm nipples, but opting not to be distracted and instead threw the fouled shirt into the washing machine. Alex then grabbed a washcloth and tried to scrub the worst of the vomit from his hair before donning another t-shirt from his closet. He grabbed a gss of water, drinking and spitting some out, rinsing his mouth and brushing his teeth before leaving the bathroom and climbing the steps to the second floor of his house.

  The second floor of his house was split into three parts - the central area was a giant three story foyer, the west wing was an expansive guest suite, but the east wing, over the garage, was a gym. As he strode into the gym, his usual pce of comfort, he gnced around, taking it all in. The nearly two thousand square foot area was brightly lit by floor to ceiling gss windows across the back of the house, allowing him to gaze across his back yard while he exercised. Every imaginable machine sat avaible to him on a field of bright green astroturf, from squat racks to leg presses, cable machines, free weights, exercise bikes, treadmills, the list went on. Exercise would calm him, like it always did. He may not be able to lift the same amount of weight as he always could, not in this smaller, more fragile body, but he could at least go through the motions.

  As he stepped forward, pcing a barbell on the squat rack, Alex realized there was one problem he'd overlooked - clothes, yet again. There was no way that he could work out in an oversized t-shirt, it would be a safety hazard. He could catch something on it, trip, fall, and get seriously injured, so he had to find another solution.

  "Well, big brain, what's the pn?" he said aloud to himself in the empty gym. "Go see if Kat's workout clothes will fit me?" He shook his head, dismissing the idea. "I may be in a woman's body, but that's a line too far. I will not dress up in my wife's clothes. That's just ... weird." He paced back and forth across the gym, turning the problem over in his mind, trying to find an alternative. "So that's it, huh? You're giving up and not working out, just because you can't find something to wear?"

  "No, I'm not going to be a bitch like that. I need this exercise. Fuck it, I can work out naked. Nobody will know, nobody will care." Alex stripped the t-shirt off, tossing it to the side. As he did, the unfamiliar long brown hair swirled around him, reminding him of yet another change. "Shit, I do need a hair tie though. Otherwise it's going to catch on the barbell." As he scanned the gym once more looking for inspiration, he saw a scrap of fabric lying behind a set of weights. As he walked over and picked it up, a memory sparked in his head and he ughed, a smug expression cracking his face.

  The week before, Alex had been working out in the gym, a heavy set of squats that really had him straining. Kat had walked in, home from pying tennis, and fshed him mid-set. He'd dropped the weights on the safety strap, pounced on her, tearing her underwear off, before they fucked for an hour straight, using as many exercise machines as possible for fun positions. Apparently they'd forgotten about the torn panties by the time they finally staggered out of the room, exhausted and sweaty, leaking a trail of fluids behind them. As he picked them up, he sniffed them cautiously, Kat's musky scent coming to his nostrils. With a shrug, he wrapped his new hair into a ponytail, tying it back with the torn panties to keep it out of his way, the brown hair hanging down and tickling his lower back.

  Over the next hour, Alex moved around the room, trying to do as many of his usual workouts as possible. While he had to drastically drop the weight, the motions were a comfort to him, helping soothe his frantic mind. Squats, curls, deadlifts, leg press, flys, the list went on and he was sweating heavily. As Alex exercised, he became more and more aware of the sweat pouring down this new, female body. Rivers of sweat, clinging to his hair, carving their way down between his breasts, running along this thighs. Alex tried to put it out of his mind and focus on the weights, but the distraction was real and he could feel an unfamiliar arousal building in himself.

  A warm flush spread through his core, his new body tingling with a strange, electric heat, the sensation both thrilling and disorienting as his mind struggled to reconcile it. Finally, he decided to try an exercise that he knew Kat loved, but he never paid much attention to - hip thrusts. Alex set up the squat rack with a second barbell, positioning himself accordingly, and began, adding weight every few repetitions as he clenched his glutes and drove his hips forward, raising the heavy bar, grunting with the effort as he clenched his glutes.

  Alex heard Kat clear her throat, without even looking he knew she had a smirk on her face, just by the tone. He set the weight down, shimmying out from under the bar, and stood, turning to face her. Kat leaned against the doorframe, her body a testament to exercise and sex appeal. Apparently, Alex realized, she had thrown on a pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, and a loose off-the-shoulder cutoff shirt when she ran her errands, and she looked good. Kat quirked an eyebrow, smiling as Alex walked over to her, a slight spring in his step.

  "Working out in the nude, huh? I never knew you were such an exhibitionist, babe." Kat ughed, stepping close and pcing a finger under Alex's chin, raising his head to look at her as his body flushed with arousal from the nearness to his wife and the vulnerability of the position he found himself in. "And ... are those my panties as a hair tie?"

  "It’s a practical solution," Alex said with a defensive ugh, her mind already calcuting safer alternatives. "I didn't have any workout clothes and I was worried about my hair getting caught on a barbell."

  "Oh, I'm not upset," Kat purred, taking another half step closer, Alex's nerves tingling from the charged atmosphere. "I didn’t expect this," she said, her voice a mix of amusement and curiosity. "How does it feel to move like that in your new body?" Suddenly, she stopped and tilted her head, sniffing and gncing at him. "What's that smell?"

  "I threw up," Alex admitted. "Kind of a lot. Jon from ExxMo called, I accidentally answered, then had a panic attack and vomited breakfast into the toilet. I toweled off most of it, but then came to work out. I hadn't bothered to shower yet."

  "Gross, babe. And you had nobody to hold your hair back when you puked, so ... ugh. Okay, new pn. We need to get you into the shower and clean. Let's go, hot stuff." Kat turned, grabbing Alex by the hand, and led him back downstairs to their bedroom and the shower.

  WhimsicalLantern