The Neighbor's Body Swap Brouhaha

I walked through the door, ready to kick off my shoes and unwind. But as soon as I stepped inside, I froze. There was my wife, Natalie, strutting around in her underwear like she was on a catwalk.

My confusion deepened when I heard, "Dang, this body’s got some serious munitions! Look at the size of this rack... and check out this dumptruck!"

I blinked a few times, hoping it was some sort of weird dream or hallucination brought on by the leftovers I ate for lunch.

"Uh, honey? What are you doing?" I asked, staring at her – or was it her? – suspiciously.

"Who, me? Oh, just admiring the goods, buddy," she responded, her voice a weird mixture of Natalie’s sweet tone and something more high-pitched and annoying.

"Admiring the goods? And what’s with the ‘buddy’? Natalie, are you okay?" I took a few tentative steps closer.

She put her hands on her hips, almost like she was posing for a centerfold. "I’m more than okay! This body is..."

"Okay, seriously, who are you and what have you done with my wife?" I demanded, cutting her off.

She – or whatever had taken over my wife – giggled like an immature high schooler. "Dude, you caught me. It’s Brad. You know, from next door? Man, I always thought Natalie was a total babe. Found this super sweet takeover spell online. Think of it like renting a luxury car, only... more fun."

Realization dawned on me. Our pervy 19-year-old neighbor, Brad, had possessed my wife’s body. I wanted to strangle him but figured it wouldn’t accomplish much if I ended up strangling Natalie instead.

I took a deep breath. "Alright, Brad. You’ve had your fun. You need to vacate my wife’s body, right now."

"Relax, dude," he said, bending over and peeking down her top. "We’re all just cool neighbors here. You can think of it like a... housewarming."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Brad, if you don’t leave Natalie’s body right now, I’m going to call the exorcist, the Ghostbusters, and my Aunt Karen. She’ll nag you so much your soul will practically jump out on its own."

"Alright, alright, no need to get all intense. But seriously, do you know how hard it is to peel her away from those lectures on Dostoevsky? So boring."

"You know what else is boring, Brad? Prison. And lawsuits. And shoveling snow off my driveway. All of which you’re about this close," I held up my fingers an inch apart, "to experiencing."

Natalie’s body, or Brad-in-Natalie, looked momentarily concerned. "Fine, but this lingerie drawer is insane! Dude, does all this really fit her?"

"Brad, you’re digging your own grave," I warned.

He sighed dramatically. "Okay, okay! I'm out." Natalie’s body shook for a moment, and then her usual expression returned. "Chris, what’s going on? Why am I standing in the living room in my underwear?"

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Natalie, you won't believe this. Let's just say we need to put stronger passwords on our Wi-Fi, and if you notice Brad hanging around, deadbolt the door."

As she looked at me, utterly bewildered, I couldn’t help but think we’d just escaped a Twilight Zone episode. But hey, at least now we had plenty of fodder for future parties, and Brad? Well, I had a feeling he’d be avoiding us – and Aunt Karen – for a long time.

This story was generated by user zach3 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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