It had been three days since she met Jay-z, two and a half days since she'd started calling him Jay, and one day since they'd switched bodies.

His bed, it turned out, was more comfortable than hers. She was kind of pissed about that, but only in the way where she needed to be pissed about something to distract herself from the fact that she was stuck in an egomaniacal rapper's body.

And an ugly one, too. No amount of time in the gym would pretty this face up.

There she was, being pissed again. She closed her eyes, forcing her hands out of the fists she'd curled them into unconsciously. She had to keep her head straight. They probably wouldn't figure out what was wrong right away, but they had to work it out sooner or later, right?

And if they didn't...well. If they didn't, she was going to have to learn how to rap.

Making herself fall asleep had never been easy, but she managed to do it. She slept so soundly that she didn't even wake up when Jay's phone rang three times in a row.

-

She did wake up when it rang again in the morning, though.

"What?" she snapped into it, wincing when her voice came out unnaturally low.

"Calm down, B." Her own voice, of course, but Jay had turned it into a lazy, smug drawl.

She gritted her teeth. "I'm as calm as someone stuck in an egotistical rapper's body could be."

"Uh-huh." A long silence that couldn't possibly mean anything good. "You've got a hell of a rack, though."

Oh, Christ. "I will kill you," she said. "Don't think for a second I won't cut off your nose to spite your face."

"That doesn't make much sense, honey."

Hanging up cell phones just wasn't as satisfying as slamming a phone into the receiver. She solved the dilemma by throwing the phone across the room once she'd cut the connection.

Being rich had its benefits; by lunch, she had a new phone. Unfortunately, by lunch she also had an interview with some kid from some magazine.

She made a big show of studying her fingernails. Too girly, maybe, but it kept her from having to make eye contact. "So. We doing this?"

"Uh." The kid scratched his scraggly goatee. "Uh. Okay. Uh. So. Uh. You...uh. You're doing a video."

For the love of God. "Yep."

"Wanna maybe...talk about it?"

"It's symbolic of football," she said. "It's pretty obvious, man."

The kid blinked. "...football?"

"I fuckin' love football." Wait, Jay loved basketball more. "Uh, basketball. I meant basketball."

Now he was looking at her like he thought she was crazy. "What?"

"Basketball's great," she said again, trying not to squirm.

He let her go after another half hour of disjointed answers. She wondered what the headline for the article would be. "Rap Star Finally Cracks"? "Jay-z: I'm Unsure of My Own Likes and Dislikes"? Or just "Jay-z: Pod Person or Egomaniac"?

She didn't care too much about Jay's reputation, but she still felt a bit responsible, being in his body and all. She called him once the guy left. "We need to talk."

"Tell me about it." Her voice was lower and more aggressive than usual. Beyoncé rolled her eyes; like people didn't jump to do what she said when she talked normally. "What the hell's your favorite color?"

"Chrome," she said. It was partly a lie, but it'd be easy for him to remember. "What's your inspiration?"

"Coke. How many guys have you slept with?"

"No one's going to ask you that," she snapped. "My publicist makes sure of that."

"Yeah, right. C'mon, B. You can ask me about getting laid, too."

The worst part was that she couldn't even accurately fantasize about killing him right now. "One," she said. "Satisfied?"

"Ten," Jay said. "Unless we're counting oral."

"Yeah, thanks, I don't need to know that."

"But you want to know it."

He was so smug she wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. "Keep it up," she said. "I'll walk this body right off a cliff."

That startled a laugh out of him. "Uh-huh, sure. See you on set tomorrow. You might wanna practice your rapping."

Oh, shit. "And you ought to practice singing and dancing," she said acidly.

Silence.

And then the question she'd been dreading as soon as she'd realized he would inevitably say it. "So. Wanna meet up and practice?"

Well, fuck.

"Fine," she said. "Come to my – your place. As soon as you can."

This time, she let him hang up on her. The fewer smartass cracks he made about them falling into habits, the better.

-

"The fuck are you wearing?" she said when she saw him.

She was dressed in uncomfortably baggy jeans and a huge shirt. He was wearing her gold lame leggings and a tank top that she was pretty sure she never wore except to do laundry.

"I had to get dressed in a hurry."

God, watching herself talk was weird. "Yeah," she said, not bothering to hide her disdain, "I can tell."

"Uh-huh. Let's just do this."

"I'm still trying to learn the damn words," she said.

"Yeah, rapping's harder than just throwing some breathy lyrics all over the place."

"Give me a fucking break," she said. "If this was one of my videos you'd need a week just to learn the choreography without heels." She sounded insanely defensive and she knew it, but damn – it wasn't her fault he had no clue how to use someone like her in a video.

"Don't even start," he said. "You know I'm not the only one with ideas, here."

"Oh, right, your little puppy dog."

"Kanye's -"

"A puppy dog," she said dismissively. "And if it was me, I'd have him calm the hell down. You like people sucking your dick too much."

She was pretty sure her face had never worn a smirk that ridiculous before. "Don't you know it, B."

"Just coach me on the damn rap," she snapped.

His laugh somehow sounded like his, despite the fact that it was coming from her. Jesus Christ, this bodyswap bullshit was going to give her a headache. "Alright, alright. Calm the hell down. Let's go." He walked over to the couch and sat down, patting the spot next to him.

His body was just – the only word she could think of was clumsy. He was plenty fit, but fucking ungainly. She was pretty sure if she tried to really dance, she'd end up falling over. She sat down carefully, as far away from him as she could.

"I don't bite, you know."

"I do," she said without thinking. A second later she was thanking her lucky stars that he apparently wasn't a blusher. The tension in the room was so thick she could have slapped it silly.

"We gotta do work first." He waggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Run me through it."

It took a long fucking time. She knew she caught on quickly, but there was still a lot to learn, and Jay was a perfectionist. "You only do these things in one take!" she said finally, frustrated beyond belief.

"Doesn't mean I don't practice before. Let's do it again."

They sat on the damn couch for three hours. At one point Beyoncé tried to get up to grab some water, but Jay leapt up before she could, bringing a glass back to her. He was creepily focused on her not getting distracted. She would've respected his work ethic if it hadn't been so fucking annoying.

And...well, okay, she'd been weirdly attracted to him before all this started. Now she was attracted to him in her body, which was just flat-out confusing.

Finally he said, "Alright, that's as good as it's gonna get."

"Thank God," she said, standing. "Do you have any other appointments?"

"You mean my body? Nope. Free as a bird."

He would make that sound dirty. "Good," she said. "See you, then."

"Oh, come on, you don't want to hang out?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"It's not like you can go with any of your friends. Let's watch TV or something."

"Look, not to put too fine a point on it, but we're not actually friends."

He didn't even bat an eyelash, the bastard. "We could be. We got along fine the first day."

"That was before we swapped bodies!"

He shrugged. "We can still get along. Just relax, B. I sure as hell didn't do it. Come on."

Something about the way he was looking at her made her hesitate. She'd gone up on the defensive as soon as this insane magic shit had happened, because that was the only way she knew to handle what was happening – but he was right about them getting along.

"Fine," she said finally. "What do you want to watch?"

He shrugged and flipped to Cartoon Network, stretching out until his – her – his legs were almost touching hers. For her to ensure they wouldn't touch, she'd have to sit like she was in the military.

So she slouched too, letting their legs press together. It was comforting. She could ignore the weird tension between them when they were both focused on the TV.

But eventually the cartoons got boring and she found herself glancing at him when she thought she wouldn't get caught. She barely recognized her own face: he'd moved it into expressions she was barely familiar with. It was tempting, in a weird way, to reach out and touch, to figure out exactly how he'd managed to move her own muscles into such a foreign configuration.

It wasn't that he looked particularly male. Just...different.

It had been a long time since she'd had this much chemistry with someone, and even longer since it was someone she liked hanging out with.

"You're staring," Jay said without looking over at her.

Luckily, she had an excellent excuse not to be embarrassed. "Can you blame me? It's fucking freaky."

Was it her imagination, or did he look a little pale? "I'm trying not to think about it."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. She pushed his leg, jiggling it a little. "Come on, I could put you in a headlock in this body. Why?"

"It's pretty obvious, B." He was still staring at the TV like his life depended on it. "We fucking magically switched bodies. Why would you want to think that shit over?"

"It's interesting," she said. "And it's not like you can ignore it."

"I can try."

"Okay, look, you know that's actually my body, right? I know for a fact you can't ignore the rack, the hair, or the v -"

"I'm gonna go now," he said, standing up.

And the award for 'Most Capable of Making Things Incredibly Awkward' did, in fact, go to her. "Uh. Bye," she said, biting down on the urge to apologize. She didn't know Jay well enough, but she would've put money on an apology making things even more awkward.

He left without another word. She spent a solid ten minutes sitting around feeling a little sorry for herself before she finally got up and put on some pajamas.

Cartoon Network was still marathoning old-school Looney Toons. She curled up, hugging a pillow tight, and watched like her life depended on it.

Her head felt too big when she slumped sleepily, closing her eyes. She understood Jay's point after all; this was just flat-out wrong, and the novelty of peeing standing up wasn't worth the insanity of having to accept that body-switching magic was apparently a fact of life.

Sleep, she told herself. It wouldn't fix anything, but at least she might be able to forget just how much things needed fixing.

-

Of course, that reasoning established, she woke up to the shrill sound of the phone ringing.

The display read "B". She scowled and picked it up. "All your money, and you couldn't pay for a phone with a nicer ring?"

"Funny. I can't sleep."

"I was." And now she had...she checked the clock. Midnight wood. "What, am I supposed to entertain you?"

"Having your shit scared out of you makes you nervous, huh."

"Shocking, isn't it?" She took a deep breath. "Okay. Sorry."

"Hey, I know that sound. You're hard, aren't you?"

"What?" Way too fast and high. She was a shitty liar. "No! Of course not!"

"It's cool. You've got a great rack."

"Keep talking and I'll cut your balls off."

"That uncomfortable, huh?"

Damn it. She gritted her teeth. "Look, I know you go on the offensive when you're freaked out, but could we not? This is...really uncomfortable."

"Hm." A long silence. "Alright, you're right. Sorry."

"Thank you," she said stiffly.

"But you really do have a great rack."

"Damn it!"

"Hey, you're the one who told me I wouldn't be able to forget 'em. They're sensitive, too."

"Don't you dare." She was going to kill him. She was going to –

Her hand brushed against her dick and the thoughts fled from her head. Christ – in her own body she'd at least have had to open her legs first.

His laugh told her he knew exactly what she'd just done. "That bad, huh? You're not much better. Didn't know a girl could get this squirmy."

"You must be doing the wrong things when you sleep with a girl, then." He had to be touching himself by now, right? She clamped her jaw shut and slid a hand under her pajama pants. The angle was different, but the plumbing was familiar. And...she stroked a hand up and down her (oh Christ, there was no way to be okay with this, was there?) dick. It felt really fucking good.

"You're doing it, aren't you?" he said quietly. The mocking was gone from his voice, replaced by tension that made her squirm.

"Can't help it," she said.

"Yeah," he said, and moaned into the phone a little. "Me neither."

Were they really doing this? But she stroked again, harder, and knew the answer. "Hang on," she said, and put the phone down so she could grab some tissue.

"You're not still on the couch, are you?"

"Because that's so much better than jerking off in your bed would be," she said, easing the pajama pants off.

"Maybe not. But your bed - " A theatrical moan. " - is really fuckin' comfortable."

"Jay?" she said, jerking herself off more quickly, running a hand up and down her stomach, letting herself feel as much as she wanted.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up," she said, cupping her balls.

And he did. She heard the occasional moan or hitched breath, and returned it in kind, but they didn't say a word until he finished with an almost obnoxiously loud moan.

"Jesus," she said, pumping her hips. She couldn't quite –

"Come on, B," he said, voice low. "Do it."

– get there. "Oh fuck," she said, too loud – but she didn't care, because she felt like she was fucking shattering, coming hard into the tissues she'd just remembered to grab, dropping the phone and throwing her head back, completely lost in it.
It made picking up the phone a few minutes later incredibly embarrassing. "You there?"

"Yep." He sounded on the verge of laughter. "That good, huh?"

Had they just had phone sex? God, she was pretty sure they had. She couldn't even – did it count when they were in each other's bodies? It felt like it counted, but then, maybe magic meant –

"Hey, B, stay with me." Now he sounded a little worried, the asshole. "You okay?"

She took a deep breath. "Just fine," she said, voice completely steady.

"Awesome. So hey, Kanye wants to meet you."

"Does he really," she said, not quite restraining her suspicion.

"Yep. So...tomorrow I'm gonna pretend to be you. Meeting Kanye."

"On set?"

"Yep."

"Okay." She'd deal with that tomorrow. "So..."

"So."

"I like basketball, too," she said.

"Wait, seriously? You're yanking my chain."

"I like watching most sports. Just not, you know, slavish devotion."

The phrase made him laugh. "Yeah, alright. But let me tell you..."

And he was off. She tossed the tissues in a wastebasket and put her pants back on as she listened – and then, twenty minutes later, found herself lecturing him about pop choreography for women.

They talked until three in the morning, and she didn't regret it until his manager called at six to yell her awake.

"Ow," she said. "Alright, alright, I'm up. When'll the car be here?"

"Fifteen minutes," the guy said, and hung up.

She made a face. Great. At least it'd be easier to get ready to go this time.

An hour later, she was still waiting for Jay to arrive on set. "What's taking him so long?" she said irritably.

"Him?"

Shit. "I meant her," she said, scowling at the assistant who'd corrected her. "Where the hell is she?"

"Her driver called fifteen minutes ago. She's on her way."

"She'd better hurry up."

"He said he's speeding?"

The uncertain tone got a smile from her. "Hey, it's cool. I'm not pissed."

Now he just looked nervous. What, was Jay never nice to underlings? She shook her head; she wasn't going to bother trying to figure it out. "Let her know I'm making a coffee run," she said. There was a Starbucks just a couple blocks away.

"We could have someone -"

"No, seriously. I'm getting coffee." She turned and left.

She'd just gotten her latte when she turned around and saw Jay in front of her.

"Damn," she said when her brain stopped twisting itself into pretzels over the fact, shiny and new and entirely worthy of flipping her shit over, that they'd had phone sex. "You cleaned up nice."

"I try," he said, smirking. He held out a hand. "So let's go, Jay."

"If you say so, B," she said, and grabbed his hand.

She suddenly got dizzy. She blinked to dispel it and –

Found herself back in her own body. He'd dressed her in obnoxiously tight jeans.

"Hey," he said loudly.

She was smiling so hard her face almost hurt. "Yeah?"

"I – nothing." He smiled back and squeezed her hand, but didn't let it go.

Phone sex. Right. She kept holding on, partly because it was a decent deterrent to feeling herself up out of sheer relief...and partly because it just straight-up felt nice.

They'd been staring at each other for a seriously awkward length of time when an insanely-dressed guy Beyoncé vaguely recognized ran into the Starbucks, leapt over a chair, and skidded to a stop in front of her. "Beyoncé Knowles! I'm Kanye! I've wanted to meet you for forever! You're great!" He grabbed her free hand and started shaking it vigorously.

She couldn't help herself: she threw back her head, laughing hard. This video might just be even more interesting than being in Jay's body had been.