Body Surfing

Jarhead’s—pants.
    “Don’t worry,” Danny/Leo spoke to Jasper’s crotch. “We’ll get to that part eventually. Right now I’m going to let you know what’s going on, and then”—the snigger that came from Danny’s mouth sounded anything but girly—“we can attend to more pressing matters.” She squeezed Jasper’s leg tightly. “Okay?”
    Jasper’s leg twitched. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Just nodded meekly.
    “Okay,” Leo said. “Here it is. You ready? Because you died a virgin, your spirit has come back to correct the error. Once you have sex in the body you now inhabit, you can pass into the wild blue yonder.”
    Jasper bit back a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “Think of it as the golden rule: you gotta fuck, either in the body you were born with or in one you borrow. It’s called unbinding the soul.”
    Jasper couldn’t suppress his own snigger. “That’s it? No big secrets? Just—just sex?”
    Leo plastered a knowing smile on Danny’s innocent face. “Oh, there are secrets, Jasper. Mysteries and covenants to which only a very few are privy. But these are material phenomena. The universe is exactly as it appears to be. The senses you were born with, the eyes and ears and mouth with which you experience the world, the carnal appetite that drives you, these are all you need to get to the next plane of existence.”
    Jasper tried not to gulp. “What does come next?”
    “Well, I guess that’s secret number one. If God didn’t see fit to tell you, then far be it from me to spoil the surprise.”
    “God didn’t tell me I had to have sex, either.”
    “He didn’t?” Leo narrowed his host’s pretty eyes. “Has there been a day, an hour, a sweaty teenage second that you haven’t thought about getting your rocks off since you were, hmm, Jasper, how old? Thirteen? Twelve?”
    Jasper would’ve blushed, but it seemed a little complicated in Jarhead’s body.
    “Eleven.”
    “Eleven. So for six years dipping your wick has been a pretty much constant desire. Do you really think that was an accident?”
    Jasper didn’t answer. The truth was written all over his body. Or, rather, in one specific place on his body. He didn’t want to say it out loud but felt he had to.
    “So you’re saying that if I…”
    “Fuck.”
    “If I fuck you…”
    A lift of the eyebrows. “Or anyone else.”
    “If I fuck, I can leave. I can…”
    Again Leo came to his aid. “Die.”
    “I can die.”
    “Remember, Jasper, you’re already dead. This just seals the deal.” Leo paused. Then: “She wanted you, you know?”
    “She?”
    “Danny. She thought you were hot.”
    One of Jarhead’s memories flashed in Jasper’s mind: Danny looking over at his—at Jasper’s—sleeping body where it lay on the bank, and telling Jarhead that she thought he was hot “for a kid.”
    Leo slid closer to Jasper on the bench. “In a way, you’d be giving her what she wanted.” His host’s voice was husky. Hungry.
    But it wasn’t true, Jasper thought. Danny thought Jasper was hot. But he was in Jarhead now. And there was another memory: of Jarhead making a drunken grab for Danny’s ass one night and Danny playfully but forcefully batting it away. She didn’t have any desire for this body at all.
    “So, what’s it gonna be?” Leo said impatiently. “Miss Thatcher’sflesh is starting to chafe on me, and I can see you’re a little antsy too.” Danny’s hand fell on Jasper’s crotch, and Jasper figured out how to blush pretty quickly. With a single contraction, the hand squeezed all of Jasper’s scruples away. He was dead, after all. He was hardly accountable for his actions.
    He nodded rapidly, tried not to gulp.
    “Okay.”
    “Okay?” Leo teased him. “No wonder you died a virgin. Your seduction method leaves something to be desired.” He stood up and peeled off Danny’s shirt in a single smooth motion. “Come on, Jasper. Show me how badly you want it.”
    Jasper stood up and fumbled at his belt. It was only the unfamiliar roll of flesh at his waist that slowed him down. Every action reminded him that this wasn’t his body. His head was spinning. Just a few more seconds, he told himself. A few more seconds and he would be out of this foreign flesh, and this strange sense of dislocation would be gone forever.
    He avoided looking at Danny’s face. Kept his eyes focused on her breasts instead. Did his best to imagine that they were Michaela’s. That the body emerging