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The Twenty Year Reunion (Part One)
🕑 Added 2022-04-23 09:11:09 +0000 UTCThis 3,636 word bodyswap story is the first in a two-part series and was requested by one of the Bosa Tier patrons, L.B. Wolf. I hope you all enjoy it!
When Ben first received the invitation for a ‘twenty years later’ high school reunion, he had initially laughed at the concept. His teenage years hadn’t been the most pleasant for the now thirty-eight year old man and he wasn’t exactly excited by the idea of being in the same room with his former tormentors again.
As the weeks passed by and the event approached though, the man found himself slowly reconsidering his stance. The invitation had encouraged Ben to think back on his high school days and while there was no denying that they had been miserable at the best of times, there had also been some redeeming features. Not all of his classmates had been totally terrible: Lewis Smith and Paul Joseph had been his close compatriots in the journalism club, Jenny Hanover had always been incredibly kind to him despite being from one of the wealthiest families in town, and if teachers were going to be there then Ben was interested in catching up with Mr Barnes, the eternally optimistic history teacher whose inspiration had ultimately led Ben to his current position of being a museum manager.
Then there was Julian Westbrook. It had been at least a decade since Ben had last thought about him, but the moment that his name had drifted back to the front of his mind, Ben was able to picture Julian perfectly. He had been one of the star defensive players on the high school football team and had been one of the nominees for Prom King, although he’d lost to Deacon Hargreeves, the team’s quarterback. Unlike Deacon though, Julian had never participated in tormenting Ben. They had been partnered on a science project once in sophomore year where they had scored top marks and the (admittedly intimidating) jock had been cool with him after that, even subtly redirecting Deacon on occasions where the quarterback saw fit to make Ben a victim once again.
It was fair to say that Ben had developed something of a crush on Julian during their high school years. Coming to the realization that he was gay was difficult for Ben (and for his staunchly religious parents) and he had done everything to try and conceal his sexuality, but he was never quite successful. He had already been singled out as one of the few black kids in his class (although he had mercifully received very little grief for that) and then his bullies had gone and thrown the “gay” label on him to set him even further apart from the rest of them. Deacon had used that as part of his ammunition to torment Ben and it wasn’t until he was well into his twenties that Ben finally felt comfortable enough to come out to the wider world and own his truth. He definitely still bore the mental and emotional scars of all that homophobic abuse and there were definitely times were he was gripped by internal homophobia, but ultimately he had finally reached a point where he was proud of his identity as an openly gay black man.
While he knew that nothing would ever come of it, it was his desire to cross paths with Julian that ultimately convinced Ben to reply to the invitation with confirmation of his planned attendance. Just thinking about his high school crush had brought familiar butterflies back to his stomach, like he was transported back in time to be that eighteen year old nerdy kid again. He couldn’t quite stop himself from being impatient and so soon found himself searching Julian up on social media, eventually discovering an Instagram account after an embarrassing amount of time hunting for it.
What he found definitely wasn’t a disappointment though. Even twenty years removed from the last time Ben had laid eyes on him, Julian Westbrook remained as handsome as ever. Those two decades had definitely been nicer to Julian than they had to Ben, because while the former nerd’s body had only become softer, Julian’s muscles were as hard and prominent as ever! Not only that but they were paired with full tattoo sleeves and ink that spread across his pecs. Ben had never really cared for tattoos but Julian wore them so well that suddenly he found himself a huge fan of getting inked. Another new addition was the neatly trimmed facial hair that adorned Julian’s sharp jawline, which Ben was delighted by. He’d always appreciated a guy who could wear stubble well and his old crush pulled it off flawlessly!
Many of Julian’s pictures had him in the gym and there were even a rare few of him on stage at bodybuilding competitions, all of which Ben not-so-innocently saved into his phone’s picture folder. He was glad that the other man had kept his body in such great shape; it would have been a real shame for Julian to have gained a hundred pounds of fat and a couple extra chins. Ben didn’t have anything against plus-sized guys and had even dated a few over the years, but he’d always gravitate more towards muscular guys. It was just a shame that so few muscle guys were interested in a guy who only made it to the gym once a week and lacked the self control to stick to a healthy or even balanced diet.
Over the next few days whenever Ben had a spare moment (and even sometimes when he was supposed to be working), he found himself stalking Julian’s Instagram page and the Facebook and Twitter accounts that had been linked in his profile. Using those three sources, he had started to build a mental timeline of what Julian’s life had been like since he had graduated from high school twenty years prior. He had gone to college to play football but an injury in his third year forced him to drop out. He had returned to their hometown shortly after, where he’d quickly scored a job as a construction worker and settled into a simple lifestyle. A few years after that he’d even gotten married to Kelsey Minette, his on-again-off-again girlfriend from their high school years, although Ben was selfishly delighted to find that they had divorced two years later. He was hardly surprised to discover that the reason for their separation was Kelsey’s unfaithful habits - even in high school she had been a massive flirt with the other guys on the football team and she had always been at the center of the hottest gossip.
After Kelsey, Julian had moved through a long chain of girlfriends, although none of them had lasted any longer than a year, and mercifully he hadn’t fathered any children in that time either. Ben wasn’t sure why he actually cared; there was absolutely no way that his crush on Julian could ever develop further. In all of his social media postings there hadn’t even been the slightest hint that Julian might have even a small interest in dating another man. Ben was clinging onto a fantasy from his teenage years but try as he might, he couldn’t force himself to let go.
When the day of the reunion finally rolled around and he had traveled from the city all the way back to his rural hometown, Ben began experiencing a multitude of nerves related to the event. He’d never been the most socially adept of people but when the backstory he shared with these people was added into the equation, he couldn’t help but predict that there was a good chance he’d end the night feeling depressed and humiliated. Always such a pessimist, just like Mr Barnes used to say, Ben chided himself. Who knows? This might end up being the best night of my life!
Once he had squeezed into a suit that was just a little too tight around the waist and shoulders, Ben called for a taxi to take him to his old high school where the event was arranged to take place. As he waited in his hotel room, Ben did a couple shots of whiskey just to try and calm the anxious voices in the back of his head. The alcohol burned his throat on the way down but he was able to leave the hotel room with his head held high and feeling a little bit bolder, so he considered it a win.
The first of Ben’s former classmates to cross his path was Paul Joseph of the journalism club, who had brought his wife along. Paul had grown to a full height of six-foot-six but was as skinny as he had been back as a teenager. The conversation was a little stilted at first but Ben’s nerves eventually started to ease off and by the time they parted ways and he ventured further into the school gymnasium that was the venue for the event, he was feeling optimistic.
Of course, as fate would have it, that meant the next person that Ben was reunited with was none other than Deacon Hargreeves, the obnoxious jock who had been most responsible for making school an unpleasant environment for Ben. Deacon had been all too outspoken on how distasteful he thought the homosexual lifestyle was, so it was a great surprise for Ben to discover that Deacon was not only now openly gay but was also married and had a pair of toddlers at home. A shiver ran down Ben’s spine as he learned this piece of information; he had great pity for those children, having such a slimeball for a father. Deacon apparently didn’t see fit to apologize or even acknowledge his behavior from their youth and instead spent the majority of their brief time in each other’s company talking about all the work he was doing to organize the town’s first Pride festival. Despite knowing it was petty, Ben’s stomach turned in dismay at the thought of his former bully being the town’s face of acceptance for its LGBTQ+ populous. The irony was quite literally sickening.
It was almost directly after escaping his conversation with Deacon that Ben had his first in person run-in with Julian Westbrook for two whole decades. He had made his way directly to the refreshments table in order to grab a much needed can of fruity cider, but as he stepped away he found himself mere inches from a collision. Ben’s eyes bulged and he clamped his lips together in order to silence the yell that instinctively attempted to form, which he was particularly glad he had managed to do when he saw who it actually was that he’d almost spilled his fresh can of cider over. Upon locking eyes with Julian, the lustful thoughts and romantic feelings that had been brewing over the past several weeks were instantly multiplied to an insane degree. At that very moment, Julian was the most beautiful man in the whole world to Ben.
“Shit, that was close,” the inked up construction worker remarked, the corners of his lips pulling up into a faint smile. “Sorry ‘bout that.” Julian paused, his gaze scanning Ben’s face for a few seconds before recognition finally crossed his face. “Wait… Ben Wolf, right?” Ben opened his mouth to reply but when one failed to form, he simply nodded in confirmation. “Woah, that’s a throwback. Last I heard you were living in the city or something. I didn’t think you’d be the type to come back for this sort of thing.”
Much to Ben’s complete embarrassment, the reunion with Julian had left his brain a scrambled mess and the most he could do was chuckle and shrug his shoulders. “No, I’ve been looking forward to seeing… everyone,” he finally managed to get out, although he’d had to censor himself at the last second. There was no way in hell that he was about to express to Julian that he had been the main factor influencing Ben’s decision to return to a town he had happily left behind so many years prior.
The pair stood in silence for a few seconds before the former football jock cleared his throat. “Well, I hope you have a great night, man. See you around maybe,” Julian remarked, offering another brief smile and clapping a hand on Ben’s shoulder. After that brief moment of contact though, he was gone and had disappeared into the crowd once more, with Ben watching wistfully after him. It had been such a fleeting and innocuous moment that it seemed entirely likely that Julian would forget it within a few minutes. For Ben though, it was both incredibly thrilling and highly disappointing. Despite knowing it was naive, he couldn’t help but want more from the conversation and it seemed unlikely that he would be getting anything else. Julian had been popular back in high school which meant that plenty of people wanted to spend time with him. Ben, not so much. He’d be lucky to have a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes.
Still suffering from a racing heart and heated face, Ben carefully navigated through the crowd until he found a quiet corner to himself. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry in response to the short-lived reunion with Julian, but he didn’t have long to figure it out because mere seconds after taking a seat, the space next to him became occupied. At first Ben didn’t quite recognise the red-haired woman, but when he focused on her face rather than her hair he quickly identified a number of familiar qualities to the new arrival. “Jenny Hanover?” he inquired, albeit not completely confident in his guess.
“You got it!” Jenny exclaimed, pressing a hand against his bicep in a gesture that Ben might have presumed was an attempt to flirt had Jenny not already long known about his lack of interest in the female gender. “The red hair threw you off, right? I’ve heard that a few times tonight. I know blondes are meant to have more fun but honestly, I’m so vibing with this new look!”
“It’s cute,” Ben confirmed, offering up a smile in order to not appear too cold. He was most definitely still emotionally rattled from crossing paths with Julian but he was going to do his best to not let that completely derail his night. “So, uh, what’s new with you?” he asked, doing his best to sound casual. He hadn’t kept up with a single person from his high school after departing for college, not even the folks who had actually been nice to him like Jenny. Now that he was face to face with those same people, Ben actually felt a little bad about that.
“Catching up on two whole decades in one night might be a little too ambitious a task,” Jenny pointed out with a good-natured giggle. “Why don’t we talk about something that hasn’t changed like… that adorable crush you have on Julian Westbrook?”
Ben was so glad that he wasn’t light skinned because his blush would have been so horrifically obvious even under the venue’s dim lights. The surprise was still written over his face with his wide eyes and slightly agape mouth and even though Ben’s first instinct was to deny that there was any truth to it, he knew that the expression he had immediately adopted said everything it needed to. “You know about that?” he asked in a timid voice. “Did everyone know? Does he?!”
Jenny giggled once more and shook her head. “No, no, I’m just observant! Trust me, Julian has no idea when people are crushing on him,” she assured Ben, with something of a wistful tone entering her voice. “Anyway, his ex told me he can be a bit crude and extra macho at times, so I think we both dodged a bullet!”
Ben really wasn’t sure how to respond to this latest revelation that Jenny not only knew about his crush on Julian, but also had one of her own. She certainly stood more of a chance with the tatted-up hunk than he did, so there was definitely jealousy on Ben’s part there, but her tone suggested that it was something she had written off entirely. Just how many of us are in this ‘heartbroken by Julian Westbrook’ club?
Before he could even think about offering a reply, Jenny suddenly thrust a red solo cup full of drink into Ben’s hand, despite the fact he was still holding a half-finished drink in the other. “Uhh… thanks, but why?” he asked, silently wondering just how much alcohol his conversation partner had consumed that night. He supposed he couldn’t exactly judge though, as he was definitely feeling the buzz as a result of his own consumption. Rather than immediately replying though, Jenny simply snatched the half-finished drink from him and began to down its contents. “Oh, I guess you can help yourself to that one, sure. Why not?”
Despite being understandably perplexed by the woman’s odd behavior, Ben ultimately decided it wasn’t worth wasting too much time thinking about. He was thirsty so it was only logical for him to drink from the only remaining cup in his hands. Even though he knew it was risky to accept drinks from strangers (which Jenny basically was, after their two decades apart), Ben was doubtful that she’d had anything other than the best intentions. He soon discovered that the contents of that cup was incredibly sweet and tasted vaguely like peaches; it wasn’t a familiar drink but it definitely wasn’t unpleasant either. “Thanks, I guess,” he offered before downing the rest of the drink. While he was doing so, he missed the brief smirk that passed over Jenny’s bright red lips.
“When do you leave town again?” the woman inquired, her innocent tone continuing to give Ben no reason to suspect anything of such a question. He quickly confirmed that he’d be staying for another two days after the function and only really had plans to visit his parents. “We should totally get a coffee together tomorrow afternoon then! It’ll be so much easier to catch up without all this loud music and with us both a little more sober!” Considering his plans for the remainder of his stay in town were relatively sparse, Ben didn’t see any harm in agreeing. He was sure that she’d be able to tell him all of the best gossip about his classmates from the past twenty years and maybe she’d even have a story or two about Julian to share as well…
The earlier odd moment with Jenny was soon forgotten as the pair confirmed their plans to meet at the local coffee house in the early afternoon the next day. Then they briefly hugged before parting ways and continued to mingle with an assorted collection of their former classmates and teachers. After another twenty minutes though, Ben was beginning to feel incredibly drowsy. He checked his watch and was surprised to see that it was only just coming up to ten o’clock at night. He was usually a pretty late sleeper, so to feel sleep calling him at such an early hour was unusual. Although he did his best to deny it so he could continue to enjoy himself, each passing minute was making the drowsiness more prominent, so Ben decided to make an early exit and return to his hotel. He almost fell asleep in the backseat of the taxi on the short journey from the high school, so he was relieved when he finally made it back to the privacy of his hotel room.
It was one of those rare nights where Ben was sucked into a slumber as soon as his head had made contact with the pillow. He was still dressed in his shirt and pants, having only kicked off his shoes and removed his jacket before dropping down on top of the mattress. The lights were even still on in the room but that didn’t stop the gentle snores from beginning to rise from the thirty-eight year old man’s open lips.
Ben’s dreams that night were as mundane as they could possibly be, but the events happening in the real world as he slept were nothing short of extraordinary. The man’s consciousness was pulled from his body like a flower being plucked from the earth, and slowly journeyed through the walls of the hotel room and out into the night. An invisible hand gently guided Ben’s consciousness from one side of the town to the other, bringing him all the way back to the high school. Once there, he lowered down into the parking lot and was safely deposited in the vacant shell of a body that was slumped over the wheel of a plain black truck with mud-caked tires.
Hours later, Ben finally jolted awake. Although his memories of the night before were foggy, he remembered enough to be certain of the fact he had made it back to his hotel room. As such, the driver’s seat of a vehicle was quite the startling place to discover himself in. Various muscles across his body ached from sleeping in such an unsuitable position but as Ben attempted to stretch his back out, he caught a glimpse of something in the rear view mirror that gave him pause.
Reaching up to adjust the mirror into a better position though brought with it a discovery that caused an audible gasp to escape the man’s lips. His hands were white. He, a black man from the day he was born, had white hands. As such, it was with quite considerable concern when Ben finally adjusted the mirror and stared apprehensively into the reflective surface.
Despite all of the warning signs, he was still completely bewildered to find that the eyes looking back at him were not his own, but rather those of one Julian Westbrook…
Comments
Henry Cavanaugh
Wasn't intentional, but that may have subconsciously influenced me!
This is so random but is "Jenny Hanover" a play on "Jenny Haniver," those fake mermaids sailors used to carve out of dried stingrays?
