Mad Monday
by Pan
Chapter 43:
I stared at her, agog.
“You what?”
“Don’t be mad,” she said warningly, in what could have been an uncanny impression of my wife…but was more likely an honest plea from my teenage daughter.
I forced a grin to my face.
“Why would I be mad?”
Mary’s eyes narrowed.
“Well, marijuana is a gateway drug. Super dangerous, right?”
I pretended not to notice the out-of-character choice of language coming from my wife’s lips (not to mention the sarcasm) and took a moment to gather my thoughts, trying to work out what had happened, and remember who was meant to know what…and what I was supposed to know about who knew what. Oh what a tangled web we weave, and all that.
Mary and I had emphasized the danger of pot to Belle for years; doubly so, once we’d seen her starting to make some particularly poor life choices.
Not, I should be clear, that we were ever seriously concerned about what it would do to her. Sure, it’s not great for teenage brains, but neither is drinking, and when I had been my daughter’s age, I’d had more than a few glasses of wine (the only alcohol I’d been able to get my hands on).
My actions over the past two weeks weren’t the most compelling evidence, admittedly, but I really don’t think it rotted my brain or anything like that.
No, we were more worried that she’d fall in with a bunch of potheads, and not the honor students she would ideally befriend. Of course, that hadn’t gone exactly as planned—Belle had instead ended up lonely and isolated at school, started dating a drug dealer, and sent her life off the rails so rapidly that my wife had been forced to swap bodies with her to fix it.
So on one level, it made sense that Belle would think I’d be concerned if my wife were to get high. She had no way of knowing it was something we’d done together, more than a few times. Not so much since we’d had kids, of course, but when certain friends came to town, it wasn’t unusual for them to bring a little green for us to share.
In her mother’s body, Belle had easy access to money and a much lower risk of causing damage to a developing brain (something else that Mary and I had been very emphatic about in our “Just Say No” discussions with her). When she’d recognized Spike’s car outside, she’d probably known that he had some pot on hand. And so she’d…
A wave of relief crashed over my body.
Belle hadn’t used my wife’s body to have a threesome. I mean, yes, it was theoretically still possible…but for all her faults, my daughter wasn’t deceptive. As she stared at me, anxiety was visible in my wife’s eyes. I suppose it could have been fear that I’d see through her lie, but more likely it was just…guilt.
Guilt, for using her mother’s body to do drugs.
I wasn’t particularly proud of her for abusing her mother’s body like that, of course. But smoking a little dope was nothing compared to the torrid affair I thought she’d been carrying out last night.
Besides, I had lost count of how many times I’d cum in my daughter’s body while my wife had been inhabiting it. It wasn’t like I could exactly claim the moral high ground in this situation.
“I mean, yeah,” I finally responded, rearranging my facial features to convey the disappointment Belle no doubt thought I felt. “We always agreed that we’d stay away from pot. To set a good example for our daughter.”
I managed to keep a straight face at Belle’s reaction. In my defence, it wasn’t entirely a lie—if she’d ever caught us with a joint, she would never have ever taken us seriously again. But the look of realization that dawned on my wife’s face…
Mary had been right. Despite all the trouble it had brought, this body-swap scheme really had giving Belle a much better idea of how much we did for her.
How much we loved her.
If that stuck—if, after they switched back, Belle understood that we didn’t exist purely to give her a bad time—maybe it would all be worth it.
Maybe.
“I remember,” Belle replied, trying to act as though she did. “But...no, you’re right. I just…I wanted to try it once, y’know?”
“Sure,” I smiled. “Let’s just make sure it’s only the once though, okay?”
“Thanks for understanding…Andrew.”
I reached out and took her hand in mine. She didn’t wince…she didn’t seem particularly thrilled by the gesture, but she didn’t pull it away in horror or anything like that.
“So what did you tell the police?”
“Not that I bought pot, of course. I just…I told them that our daughter had been involved with the guy, but that it was over now.”
“You really think it’s over?” I asked. Maybe the tint of hope in my voice was too obvious, because my daughter shot me a look. “I just, uh…well, you remember at the beach last weekend. Belle still seemed pretty into him.”
“It’s over,” my daughter said firmly, using my wife’s best matter-of-fact tone.
Again, I was hit by a surge of relief. That damn kid…at first, I’d been worried that he was dating my daughter. Then I’d had twenty-four hours of panic thinking he’d fucked my wife.
Now, maybe he’d be out of our lives forever.
A thought struck me.
“Where were you last night?” I asked. “I checked Find My Phone, and it looked like you’d left it at home.”
“No,” Belle replied, looking at me like I was an idiot. “I didn’t leave it at home. I was at home. I bought some pot from Spike, then went down to the basement and smoked it.”
“Oh.”
She was right to look at me like that. Maybe my teenage wine years really had destroyed my brain. I’d barely slept, gotten myself so worked up wondering where my wife’s body was and why she didn’t have her phone on her…and she’d been just two storeys down the whole time, toking up.
“How was it?” I asked, trying to hide my embarrassment.
“Not as good as I’d expected,” Belle said. “But y’know, I’m glad I tried it once.”
“Just once?”
“Yeah,” Belle nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
I smiled at her, and was hit by a strange pang of nostalgia when I saw my wife’s face smiling back at me.
My wife’s smile. For almost two weeks, I had barely seen it. When Mary had gone on that cruise, that was the longest we’d been apart…until now.
I mean, we weren’t really apart. But still, seeing a close resemblence to my wife’s smile on my wife’s face…it made me miss her.
Three more days, I told myself. Three more days, then everything is back to normal.
* * *