When the Wrong Person Walks In

Nathan felt a cold sweat run down his back.

This whole mess had started that afternoon, when Alan had practically burst into the arcade where Nathan worked.

The kid had been desperate.

He was in trouble at school and needed someone to pretend to be his mother and smooth things over before the situation got any worse.

Nathan, mostly out of sympathy and partly because he had nothing better to do, had agreed to help.

Then Alan had produced the strangest thing Nathan had ever seen: an old talisman he'd found somewhere and insisted could make the whole plan easier.

Nathan had barely had time to ask what it did.

One flash of light later, everything had changed.

Somehow, the talisman had actually worked.

Nathan had ended up in Alan's mother's body, while she had been left in his.

He still remembered exactly who he was. His memories hadn't changed, and neither had his personality. As far as Nathan was concerned, he was still the same thirty-year-old arcade guy who spent most of his days in cargo shorts and old band T-shirts.

He went to the school, played the role of Alan's mother, helped the kid out of his predicament, and eventually made it back home.

That should have been the end of it.

Except Nathan had discovered something else.

He was curious.

Very curious.

And with the house empty, curiosity had gradually turned into experimentation.

One thing led to another, and before long, Nathan found himself standing in front of the bedroom mirror, trying on some of the things that belonged to Alan's mother.

That was how he had ended up in the middle of the bedroom, wearing clothes and jewelry he had absolutely no business wearing when Ricardo came home early.

Now his thirty-year-old arcade-guy brain was in complete panic.

He knew exactly who he was.

He just had absolutely no idea what his friend's mother was supposed to say to her own husband.

The metallic click of the doorknob turning echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Natan's heart, or rather, the heart inside Alan's mother's generous chest, suddenly began pounding against the delicate green lace of her bra.

He froze.

It swung open completely.

Ricardo, Alan's father, stepped inside holding his car keys and a work folder. He looked exhausted from the day's routine, his tie slightly loosened. But the fatigue vanished from his face the instant he looked up and processed the scene before him.

Ricardo stopped in the doorway.

His eyes moved across the room: the wardrobe standing wide open, the empty hangers, and finally his wife standing in the middle of the bedroom, dressed in a mint-green lingerie set with delicate floral embroidery.

Natan was quite certain it wasn't part of the family's usual Tuesday wardrobe.

"…Honey?"

Ricardo's voice came out uncertain, caught somewhere between surprise and complete confusion. He blinked several times, as if checking whether he had somehow walked into the wrong house.

"You… came home early from the school meeting? And what… what is all this?"

Natan felt a cold sweat run down his back. His thirty-year-old arcade-guy brain had officially gone into complete meltdown.

But to Ricardo, the woman standing in front of him was unquestionably his wife.

If he spoke like the real Natan, everything would be ruined.

He had to become Alan's mother immediately.

But how the hell was he supposed to do that?

"Alan's father?!" he blurted out.

His eyes widened in pure panic as he desperately tried to raise his voice and imitate the sophisticated tone he remembered from Alan's mother.

Instead, his voice came out a little too high, almost a panicked squeak.

He instinctively folded his arms across himself, trying to cover up as much as possible. The movement only made the rhinestone necklace around his neck catch the bedroom light.

"You… weren't supposed to be at the publishing office until eight!"

The room fell completely silent.

Ricardo stopped two steps away.

The confused smile disappeared from his face, replaced by an expression of absolute bewilderment. He frowned at his wife as if she had suddenly started speaking another language.

"…What?"

Ricardo blinked.

"What did you just call me?"

Natan felt the blood drain from his face.

Oh, crap. What did I just say?

I thought I wouldn't need to know little details like, "What's your dad's name?"

He had just addressed his "own" husband as "Alan's father", with the startled tone of someone who had unexpectedly encountered a complete stranger.

And Ricardo was beginning to wonder exactly what had happened to his wife.

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