The Heat in Los Angeles

Los Angeles was unbearable. It wrapped around you with scorching air, filled your lungs with the noise of traffic, voices of passersby, flashing advertisements, and endless movement. Sophia Roberts—a name Oliver Freeman was still getting used to—stood on the sidewalk, staring down at the worn-out pavement beneath her feet.

Once again, his gaze landed on his tits. They pushed against the gray top, standing out as if deliberately trying to attract attention. The bra dug into his skin uncomfortably, leaving strap marks on his shoulders, and every little bounce—from breathing, from walking—felt disturbingly real. It wasn’t like Oliver hadn’t gotten used to this… body after a month. But seeing something soft and foreign move under his clothes (his old body sure as hell never had anything like this) irritated the shit out of him.

He wanted to hide them. To hunch over, cross his arms over his chest, wrap himself in a hoodie. But, for fuck’s sake, it was too damn hot in Los Angeles.

A month. A whole month in this body, this life, this endless performance where he had to pretend to be her. Oliver wanted to scream, to spill everything—about the secret experiment, about how they’d ripped him, an ordinary guy from suburban Detroit, out of his routine as a strong-ass construction foreman and shoved him into this fragile shell. But he couldn’t. The government had made it crystal clear: stay quiet, live, act like you are her. Otherwise… What "otherwise" meant, he didn’t even want to think about. The stability he had once valued had collapsed, like a poorly secured beam on a construction site.

— Hey, Sophia!

Shit. Oliver froze, almost hunching his shoulders. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t react like a man. He couldn’t forget that he was Sophia Roberts, a twenty-year-old college student, working part-time at a coffee shop and dreaming about traveling.

He slowly lifted his head and forced a smile he fucking hated. Standing in front of him was a skinny guy wearing a T-shirt with some music festival print. Max. He was someone Sophia knew. Her classmate. And, from what Oliver gathered, she kinda liked him.

— Hey, — Oliver said, using a voice that still didn’t feel like his own and sounded foreign to his ears.

Max grinned.

— Haven’t seen you at the coffee shop for three days. Are you quitting?

Oliver swallowed. Another humiliating reminder of his new life. As soon as he was thrown into Sophia’s body for some dumbass reason, the government didn’t just tell him to live like her—they made him work like her too.

— No, I just… — He winced. "What would Sophia say? What would I say?... Fuck it, I’ll just say it how it is," he thought, and she answered: — I was studying for my macroeconomics test.

Max whistled.

— Wow, didn’t know you were taking it so seriously.

Oliver barely held back an eye roll. Yeah, sure. As if there was any other way to take it when it determined whether he could stay in this damn college or not. For Sophia, education was important. And… and traveling and… parties. Fuck, all of this was so foreign to Oliver that even macroeconomics—something he didn’t give a shit about—seemed more… manageable?

Max glanced downward. Oliver followed his gaze—and only then realized he was standing there with his arms crossed under his chest, pushing it up. "Fuck," he thought, feeling his face burn.

He quickly dropped his hands, feeling the blood drain from his face.

— Uh… you okay? — Max asked, raising an eyebrow.

No. I’m in a girl’s body. I’m in a city I hate. And my tits have a mind of their own. But he couldn’t say that. Instead, he forced out:

— Yeah. Of course. Just… the heat, you know?

Max chuckled.

— Oh, tell me about it. My back’s killing me. Laptop, books, and a water bottle in my backpack. Feels like I’m lifting weights.

Weights? Oliver clenched his jaw. Dude, you have no fucking clue what it’s like to carry extra weight on your body every damn day. I lifted weights. I know what it’s like.

— By the way, I was just about to stop by the coffee shop for an iced latte. Wanna come?

Internally, Oliver groaned. More than anything, he just wanted to go back to his room, shut the curtains, and not leave. But Sophia had a social life. Which meant he did too. And as much as he hated how guys flirted with him now, he understood how he looked and who he was now, so… So what? So he just said:

— Yeah… Sure, — even though every fiber of his being screamed no.

Max nodded and headed toward the crosswalk. Oliver followed, feeling how his jeans pressed against his widened hips, how his thong dug into his ass… In the corner of his eye, he caught his reflection in a store window—Sophia. Himself. A girl with an irresistible figure, decent tits, and that look that could almost be called cute. But to her, it wasn’t cute. Inside, she was still a 28-year-old man, used to the smell of sawdust and the weight of a hammer in his hands. But now, instead—thin straps, a bra that was always too damn tight under his ribs, and a body that felt too light, too foreign.

A month. A whole fucking month.

Was this forever?