Monkey’s Paw

— ...Thus, if we substitute this value into the equation, we’ll get… — Andrew Miller’s voice sounded confident, but inside he felt the same familiar anxiety, realizing that at least half the class wasn’t listening to him at all. Of course, he had prepared himself for this, expecting that the first year of teaching after college would be tough, but it was one thing to expect it, and another to actually live through it.

The silence in the chemistry classroom lasted exactly three seconds before a voice came from the back row:

— Hey, Mr. Miller, what if your life equations don’t add up either? — Ryan Rodriguez drawled with mockery, a tall handsome guy in the local team’s jersey. His bright white smile drew a few muffled giggles from the girls in class.

Andrew froze, feeling the heat rising up his neck.

— Ryan, — he tried to sound firm, — keep your comments to yourself.

— What? — Ryan leaned back lazily in his chair. — I’m just asking. You too, Mr. Miller, must have a hard time sometimes… like with girls, for example. — He paused, then added: — Or do you just spend all your time with textbooks?

Laughter rolled through the classroom like a wave. Andrew clenched his fists. An ugly truth burned in his head — yes, through all of college he never had a real relationship, and now, working as a teacher, he was watching guys like Ryan, who easily got everything he himself only dreamed of.

— You’ve got an assignment, Rodriguez, — he finally said through clenched teeth. — Do it instead of playing the clown.

Ryan lazily spun his pen between his fingers, smirking, while the girls, almost as if on purpose just to tease Andrew, giggled again. Of course, he knew those giggles were aimed more at getting Ryan’s attention. But that didn’t make it any easier. Andrew realized that once again this “show-off” had beaten him.

…

The evening, which he had been waiting for so much lately, didn’t bring him any comfort today. He came back to his rented apartment on the edge of the city, knowing his mood couldn’t be darker. His bag crashed onto the couch as if all his failures were stuffed inside it. Andrew threw his jacket on the chair and went straight to the fridge. As always, it was empty: a couple of eggs, a jar of sauce, and a bottle of cheap water. He sighed heavily and slammed the door shut.

— Great life, Miller… — he muttered and flopped onto the couch, covering his face with his hands.

The laughter of the class still echoed in his head, and especially Ryan’s smug voice. With every second, the memory of today’s scene burned deeper. He felt like a kid who had been mocked in front of everyone again.

‘Why does he have everything? Why is he so easygoing… handsome… confident? And me? I’m just a shadow next to guys like him,’ — rushed through his mind.

He jumped up sharply, not wanting to drown in those thoughts, and that’s when he noticed something strange on the table near the window.

A small dried-up paw with claws.

Andrew frowned.

— What the hell?.. — he muttered, stepping closer.

He was sure it hadn’t been there before. The paw looked disturbingly real. Coarse fur, shriveled skin, claws that once seemed to cling to branches.

A fragment of a story he’d read back in college flashed in his memory: “The Monkey’s Paw.” A fairly popular book, but obviously just fiction.

— Someone’s been in my place…?

Andrew froze, staring at the paw as if it were evidence of a crime. His heart began to pound furiously. He slowly walked through the apartment and checked the front door. The lock was intact, windows shut, no sign of a break-in. But the paw… it was lying in plain sight, as if someone wanted him to find it.

He carefully picked it up.

— What a disgusting thing… — he muttered, yet for some reason didn’t let go.

Inside, something twisted painfully when he remembered the class’s laughter again. Ryan. His words about girls. And how the girls giggled, not even trying to hide their admiration for that smug pretty boy.

‘Why do they never look at me like that? Why am I always just the dull, boring teacher, while he’s the one they desire? I’m not worse than him…’

Andrew felt his thoughts clinging to the paw, as if it were a lifeline.

He gave a short laugh, but there was more despair in it than joy.

— Nonsense, of course, but… — he said quietly. — But if it were real… I would wish to be… handsome. Desired. I would wish for them to want me… to look at me the same way they look at Ryan.

He squeezed the paw like the handle of an emergency brake.

Silence… he was about to laugh it off when suddenly the air grew heavier. The light bulb flickered as if from a surge, and the next moment… a sharp snap somewhere inside the wall. The air shifted, the smell of burnt dust was replaced by a thick cloud of cheap perfume and something unbearably sweet, and under his palm there was no longer the rough skin of the artifact but a smooth lacquered tabletop. Loud bass instantly pounded in his ears.

He inhaled and immediately choked, as something in his chest swung sharply and kept bouncing heavily, as if two warm heavy sacks had settled inside his body. Andrew straightened up in shock and stared down in horror. Instead of his familiar flat chest, his vision crashed into a deep, ridiculously feminine cleavage, squeezed tight by a narrow corset. Thick hair, long and black like a waterfall, tumbled over his face, tickling his cheek and collarbone.

— ¿Qué…? (What…?) — his voice broke into a high, breathy, unnaturally sweet tone. — Dios mío… (My God…)

Panicking, he tried to climb down from the barstool and immediately stumbled: his legs were trapped in narrow, shiny stilettos. The heel slid on the tiles, and he nearly fell. Luckily, a man nearby caught him quickly by the waist. Andrew shuddered at the touch, feeling the man’s fingers press firmly into his side, a hot wave rushing through his whole body, especially when his breasts, with a heavy bounce, pressed against the man’s shirt.

— Easy there, mamacita, — the man drawled with a lazy grin, looking at him as if this little accident was only the beginning. — Wouldn’t want you twisting an ankle. Legs like that should be taken care of.

Andrew jerked, realizing he hadn’t understood most of what the man had said, only a few words flashing in his head like clues: mamacita… wanted… legs. The rest drowned in the noise of music and foreign speech. He tried to answer in English:

— I… I not… understand… — but the words came out with such a heavy accent that he felt like a caricature of himself.

The man leaned closer, the smell of his expensive cologne cutting through the cloying perfume that now covered Andrew’s whole body.

— You not understand, — he smirked, — I say… I want fuck you.

Andrew’s eyes widened! In that same second he jerked away desperately, hearing the man’s words behind him dissolve into some messy blur of sounds. His heels nearly failed him again, and he grabbed onto the counter. His hands shook, nails gleamed crimson, and his breasts were still surging with the wave from that touch. The weight of those monsters, together with the corset’s pressure, didn’t even let him take a deep breath.

‘No-no-no! This is some fucked-up shit! I need to go back!’ — he screamed in his head in panic.

— Carmen, — a stern female voice rang out, — ¿Por qué rechazaste al cliente? (Why did you turn away a client?)

‘A client?! Am I in the body of some whore?!’ — Andrew’s thoughts exploded. He turned and saw a woman around forty-five, with heavy gold earrings and a cigarette between thin fingers. She stood at the entrance to the hall, arms crossed under her breasts, looking at him like a scolded schoolgirl.

— Yo... yo no... Yo no soy Carmen (I am not Carmen), — his voice cracked into a whining squeal, so high and sugary that Andrew himself shuddered at the sound.

The woman with the earrings narrowed her eyes.

— Dios mío, niña, ¿estás drogada hoy? (My God, girl, are you high today?)

Andrew stepped back. The heel slid, his breasts lurched forward so heavily he barely kept his balance. Panic struck as he noticed the eyes around him fixed on him at that moment: men at the bar, girls in short dresses, the guard at the door. A shiver army ran across his skin.

— ¡No! (No!) — burst out of him. — No soy ella… yo… (I am not her… I…) — he hesitated, forcing out the English word: — I… teacher…

— What? — the woman laughed hoarsely. — She’s totally wasted. You, — she nodded to one of the guards, — drag her to the room, we’ll deal with her later.

A massive guy with tattooed arms started moving toward him. Andrew felt his legs give out.

He rushed toward the exit. Heels loudly clattered against the tiles, breasts bounced as if pulling him down, hair whipped across his face. The man shouted something in Spanish (по-испански), but the music and screams blended into a roar. Andrew slammed his shoulder into the door, stumbled into a narrow alley and almost collapsed to his knees.

Cold air burned his skin. The skirt stretched tight and rode up so that the little it had been hiding now was laid bare for everyone watching this scene, but he didn’t stop. He kept running, heels catching on the uneven asphalt.

'The Paw! It’s at home! It can bring me back! It… That girl is probably in my body right now! I need to… need to call!'

He stopped sharply, gasping for air. His hands fumbled across his body, and suddenly he felt something hard between his breasts. With difficulty he shoved his fingers into the narrow neckline and pulled out a shiny pink phone with a cheap heart-shaped trinket. The screen blinked, the backlight hit his eyes, and for a second Andrew felt wild relief.

His long-nailed fingers struggled to hit the screen. The polish glittered in the dim lantern light, and each time he missed the right button Andrew wanted to scream in frustration. The screen was all in Spanish (на испанском), but his brain seemed to translate the words on its own. He mechanically dialed his own number. The very same number that just this morning had been his.

Long torturous beeps, which seemed to last forever, and finally:

— Hel… hello… — an uncertain male voice mumbled. Andrew’s voice.

Andrew, standing under the dim lantern, clutched the pink phone tightly in his palm. His breasts heaved with every breath, the corset felt like it was crushing his ribs, and the heels trembled on the cold asphalt.

— Hey! — burst out of him in English, with a heavy accent, every word dragged up from deep in his throat. — You… this… me!

On the other end there was silence, then a nervous chuckle.

— What… who is this? — the voice was the very same, his old voice, but now it came from another mouth.

Andrew swallowed.

— You… no, listen! Listen to me! This my voice… this… — he was choking, words tangling. — I… teacher! I Andrew!

— Wait… you… you now in my body? — the words sounded weak, as if the person on the other end didn’t believe what he had just said.

Andrew pressed the phone closer to his ear, feeling his long earrings painfully sway and catch in a strand of hair.

— Yes! — his voice squealed higher than he wanted, almost breaking into a sob. — Me you! You me! Dios, ¡tienes que creerme! (God, you have to believe me!)

On the other end came heavy breathing, then a muffled:

— Holy shit… I thought I was losing my mind — then a pause, the voice turning harsh: — What the fuck did you do, asshole? — another pause, Andrew tried to find words, but then he heard: — And why can’t I understand you, I… Oh fuck, I’m speaking fluent English!

A loud male laugh rang through the receiver. A laugh that wasn’t sarcasm or irony, but pure joy, like a child who finally got what he had been dreaming of for so long.

— So that means I’m an American citizen now!? — in the background came the sound of rustling, like someone flipping through clothes or rummaging in drawers.

The voice on the line was his own. His native, confident one, but now it sounded from a place it shouldn’t. Even the words were barely recognizable.

Andrew swallowed. His heart pounded wildly, his breasts under the corset heaved heavily, and every breath shot pain through his ribs.

— No, listen… ¡Escucha! (No, listen! Listen!) — he choked on the words, feeling how English broke apart, slipped away, and only Spanish pushed onto his tongue. — You… tú estás… en mi vida! ¡Es mi vida, cabrón! (You… you’re… in my life! It’s my life, asshole!)

— I don’t understand you, can you speak in English? — said “Andrew,” unable to hide his excitement.

— I… I try! — Andrew shouted, but the words came out broken, sliding into Spanish. — You… have… uh… ¡pata de mono! monkey… thing, understand!?

— Monkey… thing? — a surprised chuckle came through the line. — You mean that disgusting paw? I threw it in the disposer, it was disgusting.

But Andrew didn’t seem to understand at all.

— ¿Qué? (What?) — he breathed into the phone, his heart dropping into his stomach. The word disposer didn’t register in his head, his brain seemed to deliberately shift everything into Spanish. — ¿Qué dices? ¡No entiendo! (What are you saying? I don’t understand!) I go to you! ¡Necesito la pata! (I need the paw!)

At that moment someone appeared from around the corner, startling Andrew, and he rushed off in another direction, clutching the phone tightly, while “Andrew” on the other end kept exploring more about his brand-new life.