“Are you checking me out?”

Joana’s voice was loud and indignant, and the luminescent blush that appeared on Cassidy’s cheeks answered before she could say anything.

“Oh my god, you are checking me out!”

Her friend waved her hands wildly. “It’s not what you think!”

“What am I supposed to think then? Are you gay?” Her friend pondered for a moment, but quickly shook her head. “No, you were way too into Travis our senior year for that to be true. Bi then?”

Cassidy tried to push through the mortification. She raised her hand to her mouth, placing her index finger on her lips like she always did when she was unsure of herself. “No, I’m not!”

“Well, you’re something else then, because you just looked me up and down like a chunk of particularly fine meat.” Her friend flashed a thousand watt smile. “Which I am, of course. But I never thought you’d be giving me that look.”

“I know, it’s just… I can explain!” Cassidy seemed to finally realize she had her finger on her lips, and quickly lowered her hands to her lap.

“Really?”

“I need you to come sleep over in my room tonight.”

“Oh, really?” Joana’s grin had gone downright feral, and her eyes were blazing.

Cassidy, on the other hand, was barely capable of talking. “Not like that! It’s just, it’s hard to explain, and everyone says it’s easier if you just show it.”

“But dear, I’m not sure my body is ready.”

Even after retreating to the safety of the bathroom, Cassidy could still hear the laughter from down the hall.

---

“So, what are you showing me? That dumb game you’ve been playing?”

Cassidy nodded, ignoring her friend’s put down of how she spent her free time. They had bonded in middle school over a shared love of Nancy Drew novels, but in the last few years their tastes had diverged wildly. Joana loved every trashy romance novel she could get her hands on, while Cassidy would never admit in public to having read one. And she made sure they were quite hard to find in her closet, since she knew Joana would be looking.

Joana indulged in the occasional time waster on her phone, but was otherwise uninterested in video games of any form. She would occasionally indulge her friend, and try something out, but she just didn’t see the point.

“So this is the Dusk of the Worlds, then?” asked Joana, when her friend had finally gotten the game loaded.

“It’s Dawn of the Realms and you know it,” huffed Cassidy, even though she knew she was playing into her friend’s hand.

“You’d know better than me, nerd girl. So what’re you supposed to… oh my!”

Cassidy didn’t need to ask what the reaction was for, because she very well knew. She had reached the character select screen, and her avatar was right there in front of her.

His name was Trent Maavos, and he was the boy of her dreams. Tall and thin, with intense blue eyes, and shockingly white hair. He had just enough muscle tone to hit her buttons, and those cheeks were enough to drive her to tears.

“So what, you just wanted to show me the boy toy you made?”

Cassidy knew this next part was going to be difficult.

“I need you to not fall asleep before me, ok?” she said, trying to make her tone strong. “And after I fall asleep, I need you to log on here with a different character.”

She clicked the mouse over, showing the female character she had in the second slot. She actually looked vaguely like Joana, albeit a Joana that worked out and wore amazing evening dress while also carrying a sword.

Joana, for her part, was sufficiently surprised to just nod. Something odd was going on here, and if her friend didn’t want to tell her yet, she trusted she’d find out soon enough.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Speaking of finding things out…

“In the meantime, let’s check your closet then!”

“No!”

---

They’d put on a rom com just after eleven, and Cassidy never even got to see the second love interest show up. Joana was pretty tired herself, and ready to call it a night. She had just lain back on her side of the bed when she realized she had a promise to keep.

Grumbling to herself, but driven by curiosity, she opened the game back up on the computer.

She was briefly worried she’d select the wrong character, but she soon found that Trent Maavos, also known as Cassidy’s man candy, was currently already in play. She was briefly confused - did Cassidy share the account with someone? - but quickly just logged in with the second and only other character on the list.

A moment later, the game loaded in, and she whistled. She wasn’t a gamer, but everyone had heard about how impressive Dawn of the Realms was, and it lived up to the reputation. The character loaded in a bedroom, with a window view of a snow-covered forest, and the way the snow came down and the trees moved were breathtaking.

Then she realized that Trent Maavos was in the room too.

Joana picked up the headphones on the desk so she could speak. After she had sat in the chair, and was sure everything was connected properly, she tried speaking.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

“I can,” answered Trent, and Joana found herself blushing.

There was no getting around it - that voice was hot. Her tastes weren’t exactly in line with Cassidy’s, but they were similar enough that she could appreciate her friend’s creation.

“Are you Cassidy’s boyfriend or something? Is that what this is, some big reveal?” she asked the adonian figure sitting on the bed. He currently had on no shirt, and his legs were spread widely on the bed. If he was a real person, sitting in the actual room with her, she’d be all over him.

Then he raised his index finger to his lip, as his cheeks burned.

“...Cassidy?”

---

“Oh my god!”

“Stop saying that!”

“Stop being a hot guy!”

Cassidy - or should that be Trent? - had filled Joana in on the basics. She’d been in the game for two weeks, she wasn’t alone, and it happened when she slept.

And she just so happened the enter the body of the only character she’d made so far, a bit of eye candy she’d made to play as.

“And why do you sound like that? That is not your voice!”

Trent shrugged. Even the way he shrugged screamed Cassidy - arms drawn close, head tilted up at an angle, and shoulder shrugged inward as much as upward.

“I don’t know. When I play normally, I just avoid talking as much as possible. But when I’m in the game, I just have this different voice.”

“A hot voice,” said Joana, and to her surprise her friend didn’t just blush. She… or he… seemed to revel in it, seeming to take a great deal of satisfaction from the comment.

Trent’s next words were slow and careful, seeming to waltz around his true meaning. “It’s not just the voice. When I’m in this body, things work differently.”

Joana had heard the basics, but this was still fascinating. “So it is a full fledged body? With, ah, all the parts?”

Trent just nodded, refusing to look at her.

Joana looked back over to Cassidy where she slept on the bed, and tapped her on the arm.

Trent’s embarrassment was gone in a flash. “Hey, stop that! It’ll take me forever to get back to sleep!”

Joana smiled and shrugged, then realized her friend couldn’t actually see her. She could hear her, thanks to the extra character and voice chat, but Trent’s vision only included what was in the room with him in the game.

Then Joana’s eyes grew wide.

“Why were you checking me out this afternoon then?” she asked.

Trent’s finger was back at his lips.

“I’d have sworn you were straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with the alternatives, of course,” she added hastily, “but I’ve never seen you look at a woman that way.”

Trent’s answer was slow in coming. “I was just… testing something.”

“So you’re still straight?” she asked.

She thought her friend wasn’t going to answer when finally he eked out, “Yes, I am. In both bodies.”

Joana burst out laughing. “Oh my god!”

“Shut up!” whined Trent, and buried his head under the pillow on his bed.

“So in the game you’re attracted to woman!”

“Yes,” replied Trent, muffled by the pillow.

“How does that even work?”

Trent sounded miserable when he answered. “I have no idea, but it is very confusing.”

“Do you know anyone else that’s playing as a different gender?”

Trent slowly lifted the pillow from his head, sounding thoughtful. “You know, I’m not sure. I haven’t talked about this with anyone else yet.”

Joana sounded excited, and had already reached a conclusion that seemed the most exciting to her. “You should find a guy playing a girl in the game, and then you could begin dating, and meet up in real life, and you could both be both parts of the relationship!”

Which caused Trent to retreat back under the pillow.

And so things went, until finally Joana went to sleep in the early parts of the morning.

And, to both their surprise, woke up in the game soon after.