Taken Over (Part 1)

A school bully discovers an app that lets him possess anyone he wants and uses his new powers to have his way with his teacher and his crush in Taken Over, available only on Body Swap Stories and Smashwords.

Seth is the school bully, always picking on nerdy Greg, hitting on cute Avery and imagining lewd things about his busty teacher. One day Seth discovers an app that allows him to possess anyone with the click of a button. Even better, when he leaves, they think everything they’ve done is their own choice and change their personalities based on what Seth has made them do.

Suddenly, school isn’t so boring. Not when he’s got the hot teacher on her knees for him in detention and the cutest girl in school throwing herself at him. When he hops out of their bodies they’re still so enamored with him they’ll do anything he asks.

Meanwhile, Greg knows something strange is going on, but he doesn’t know exactly what it is. Can he find out before Seth starts to mess up his life?

Part 1 of 3

---

Greg

I leaned my head on my hand and gazed morosely out through the car window as the streets rolled past. Each second took me closer to school where I would spend another awful day being bullied and nearly friend-less. It was difficult transferring in to a school mid-year. Even harder when your role model was physicist Richard Feynman. Few people wanted to make new friends at this point in the year and even fewer wanted to make new nerd friends. I realized long ago that was what I was so I tried to embrace it, like mom suggested.

“If you just be yourself you’ll find other people just like you who will like you,” she told me on that first day of high school.

I came to learn very quickly that wasn’t true but I couldn’t convince my mom of that until senior year when everything came to a head and I was shoved into a dumpster behind the cafeteria. That prompted us to move. Unfortunately, the new school wasn’t much better.

I was only a month in and I’d already managed to rouse the ire of this new school’s bully. I don’t know why he singled me out. Maybe that special radar bullies have for picking out the weakest member of the herd.

The only thing that made this school different from my old school was Avery. She was nice to me. Treated me like a person. Laughed at my jokes. I think that it’s because, despite her girl-next-door looks and affability, deep down she was a nerd like me. Though with a shinier veneer. And more social graces. And friends. I met her in the after school astronomy club and fell in love with her immediately, even though I knew it was hopeless.

My mom must have heard me sigh because she turned down the Christian pop music blaring from the car speakers and focused her baby blue eyes on me as we waited for a light to change. “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Fine,” I mumbled.

“Oh.” She pursed her lips. “Something’s wrong. Mommy knows it. Now what is it?”

“Same thing that’s always wrong, mom.”

“Oh. That young man, what’s-his-name?”

“Seth. Yes. The guy who keeps picking on me.”

“I’ll have a talk with the principal and we’ll work with your teachers to develop a plan—”

Oh god. That would just make a bad situation worse. I couldn’t imagine what Seth would do if he discovered my mom was trying to stick up for me. I’d probably end up in another dumpster.

“No, no. It’s okay. It’s not that bad. It just feels bad.” I said, quickly trying to backpedal. “But it’s just normal.”

I turned and tried to give her a comforting smile even though I felt sick to my stomach.

“Okay. Well, if someone is being mean it probably means they have troubles at home. Have you tried befriending him? That’s what Jesus would do.”

It took an effort to not roll my eyes. My mom was an old school southern belle stuck in the fifties where every problem could be solved by a little talk and a lot of Jesus. Heck, her only jobs were to take care of the house and look pretty while dad went to work. Every Sunday she would go to bible study with her friends, all of them equally put-together and in long, conservative dresses. I couldn’t expect her to understand my problems.

“I’m trying, mom,” I lied. “But it’s hard work.”

She patted my knee. “Just have faith.”

Right.

About a block away from school I turned to her. “Can you drop me off right here?”

“Here? Why?”

Thinking quickly I said, “I just want to get some exercise before I sit in class all day.”

“Of course, sweetie.”

She pulled into a side street and I hauled my backpack out of the backseat. She kissed me on the cheek and as I walked away she gave a little honk of the horn.

“I love you!” She sang out.

That was why I didn’t want her to drop me off with all the other students.

“Love you, too.” I said as quietly as I could manage and still have her hear.

I walked slowly towards the school, giving mom plenty of time to drive away. When I turned the corner there was the campus. Edward Carville High School. A sprawling red brick building with a big parking lot out front and a bigger football field out back. The parking lot was nearly full and a constant stream of cars and school buses were pulling up around the front drive and discharging students into the school like chum being fed to sharks.

I hiked my heavy backpack further up my shoulders and kept a wary lookout for my tormentor as I slipped between the rows of parked cars and up to the front entrance. I melded into the groups of students walking up the wide front steps and into the maw of the school building. My locker was along the next hall and as I turned the corner I paused briefly. My heart leapt into my throat, as it always did when I saw Avery.

She was talking to a friend and didn’t see me at first, which gave me a moment to admire her from afar. Her face was in profile and I drank in the delicate slip of her nose and that adorable face. She had deep auburn hair—for which she was sometimes nicknamed ‘Red’—that was tied back with a pretty pink ribbon. Today, a simple T-shirt clung lightly to her supple body. Her jeans were tight, forming her wonderful rear and long, enchanting legs into perfection.

By some miracle, Avery and I had been assigned lockers right next to each other. It was both a dream and a torment. My palms were already sweaty as I approached my locker, rehearsing what I’d been planning to say to her this morning. I had to rehearse it because when she gazed at me I forgot everything I ever knew.

Avery sensed me approaching and as I reached for my lock she turned to me. Her green eyes were kind and inviting, and the light spray of freckles across her tiny nose made her look so cute as she beamed at me.

“Morning, Greg.”

She had the voice of an angel. How could I be so blessed as to have her like me? Her smile made my heart sing and I could barely speak. Fortunately, I’d figured out exactly what to say to sound suave.

“Good. I’ve got the…stars from the pictures…yesterday…on the internet.”

Jesus Christ, I sucked at talking.

Avery cocked her head and furrowed her brows. God, I wanted to just kiss her little forehead. Behind her, Avery’s blonde friend laughed at me.

I blushed beet red, gulped, and tried again. “That supernova we were talking about. Yesterday at astronomy club. I found some of NASA’s pictures.”

“Oh!” Avery’s eyes lit up. “Show me.”

I sensed her friend rolling her eyes but, at the same time, accommodating Avery’s geekiness. Why couldn’t she do the same for me? Maybe I was just a purer geek than Avery.

I flipped through my phone, pulled up the picture and handed my phone over to Avery. For a brief instant our fingers touched and it was magical. Did she do that on purpose? Was she looking for an excuse to touch me? No. Come on. Get real, Greg.

It was like that a lot with Avery. My brain was constantly looking for signs that she liked me as more than just a friend and then just inventing them when it came up empty.

“That’s so cool,” she said, as she gazed at the picture on my phone while I stood there with a grin on my face watching her watching it.

After a few seconds she handed it back. I was about to say something so totally cool she would fall for me right then and there when I was interrupted by Seth’s gruff voice.

“Hey, share it with the rest of us.”

Seth snatched the phone out of my hand and flipped through it with a frown. He was a beefy kid with a wide face, a scraggly mustache, and mouth set in a perpetual sneer. His dark hair was gelled into spikes to try to make him look like a badass.

“Give it back,” I demanded.

I reached for it and he held it away while he pushed me back with his other hand. The more I struggled to get it the more fun he had keeping it from me.

“What else you got on here? Oh, look here’s a picture of you and your mom. Shit, she’s hot.”

I grabbed for the phone but he moved his hand out of the way and shoved me back against my locker with his other arm.

“That’s my phone,” I tried again, despite him being nearly twice my size.

He just laughed as he held the phone out of reach and batted my hands away.

“Stop it, Seth,” Avery sighed.

“Why, Red? You in love with this loser?”

“You’re such an asshole,” she retorted.

“You know you like it, Avery. Give me a chance. Once you try Seth you’ll be hooked like meth.”

“You’re disgusting.”

---

Read the rest on Body Swap Stories and Smashwords.