The Turnaround

Published by: eXtasy Books

Author : J.S. Frankel

ISBN :978-1-4874-4365-8

Page :172

Word Count :65300

Publication Date :2025-10-10

Series : #

Heat Level :

Available Formats :

Category : , Fantasy Romance , (YA) LGBTQIA+ , What's New

BrandsExtasy Books
Product Code: 978-1-4874-4365-8

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Switching minds with someone of the opposite sex is one thing. Switching worlds, though, is an entirely different matter.

Joel Silverman, short, skinny, and homely, scores a date with the hottest girl in school. However, things go sideways when he’s attacked, forced to flee, and ends up in a building where an experimental portal is housed. Drawn in by its power, he’s sent to another Earth, but on the way, he meets a young woman, and the impossible happens—he switches minds with her.

He—now Kathy Goldbloom, and in a relationship with another woman—ends up on an alternate Earth where the US is ruled by a semi-fascist government. Gay rights are limited. Dissent is limited. Com-links—like smart watches—must be turned on twenty-four-seven.

Worse, Joel, now Kathy, discovers that a shadowy group called the Center is after the portal for their own reasons. Enter Myrna Loi, Kathy’s ex-girlfriend. Together, they try to discover the truth, but by that time, it might already be too late!

Run. That was my first thought. Actually, it was my only thought as my legs churned along the sidewalk and I dodged in and out of human traffic. If I didn’t keep running, those punks, drunks, stoners, killers, or whoever they were, would catch me and turn me inside out.

“Get that punk, get him!”

Their shouts got louder. They were catching up, and it was time to get real. Punks, the bane of my existence. They served to make everyone’s life hell because they could, and they picked on people who were much smaller than they were because they could and because it made them feel good.

Wait, thought number two—why in the hell had I chosen to come down to this neighborhood in the first place? Oh, yeah, it was to see a movie with a girl in my class, a girl with blonde hair, green eyes, a killer body, and a smile that canceled the sun and lit up the night.

Jennie Garver. That was her name, and one of her nicknames was Ms. Untouchable. Every dude in school wanted her. Half the girls did, too, or so the rumors went. No one ever got her. No one ever got close to her, not the jocks, not the brains, not even those in the popular crowd. She held herself somewhat aloof from everyone else, as if we weren’t worthy. Like all the other young and horny dudes, I’d wanted to ask her out, not that I’d ever had a chance to begin with…

One day ago. Friday, two-thirty-five PM, Portland High School. My locker.

Dating had never been easy for me. In fact, dealing with people had always been difficult. I was one of those people who existed outside the social spectrum, someone permanently on the perimeter, always looking in, but never fitting in. Did I have some disability, or was it just social anxiety?

No, I simply didn’t have the gift of gab, or a killer body, or a brilliant mind. Just how it was. And since everyone knew those facts about me, it was a given that I’d never be admitted into their inner circle.

Additionally, I couldn’t fight to save my life. Junior high had seen me get into scrap after scrap by those who wanted to further their fighting resumes and get another notch on their belt. By the time I got to high school, the rest of the student body had left me alone. It wasn’t worth their time to smack me around. It was too easy.

So, my me-time got turned into my-study-time. I concentrated on my studies, and, to be perfectly honest, I was a washout at them, too. Lousy at math and the sciences, first-rate in English and history, and middling at Social Studies. I was almost eighteen, so I’d have to study my butt off in senior year just to have a chance at getting a scholarship. “This is your make-or-break year,” my teachers said. “Stick to the straight and narrow path.”

Straight and narrow—that was funny. They meant that I shouldn’t get involved with drugs or booze or the wrong kind of people. No problem on that end. Even the drug dealers at my school didn’t want anything to do with me.

On the short side of five-seven and weighing around one-fifty on a good day, with a hatchet face, a long nose, dark hair, and a shy and retiring personality, the only thing I had going for me was the ability to cook. My mother was into teaching life hacks, and cooking was one of them. My lessons began when I was ten, and for some reason, I’d excelled at making pizza.

In life, everyone had a special talent, and mine was making pizza. I’d always made it from scratch, and it had always turned out perfect. My father and I had built an oven on our outdoor patio, and I worked it every weekend to create something delicious. Pepperoni pizza, Hawaiian, Marguerita-style pizzas—I made them all.

I’d even brought my creations to school for my classmates—not that they deserved it, but I wanted their opinions—and everyone had given me a five-star rating. That had made me famous…for a while.

Then things went back to the usual, that is, I got put on Ignore Mode, which gave me more time to study. Of course, I had to concentrate on my studies, but more than that, I was keen on getting a date.

The question was, who with? No girl in their right mind wanted to talk with me, much less be seen with me. I’d asked one other girl out earlier that year, just before Christmas. Ann Dornier, a pretty brunette, seemed like a nice person.

Seemed was the operative word, as when I asked her, she eyed me up and down like a scientist would when observing a particularly ugly parasite. “No. Hell, no.”

That was all she said, so, confidence shot, I didn’t ask anyone else out, and considering I was persona non-grata at my school, it was all the more inexplicable to me that Jennie had come up to me at my locker to ask, “What’re you doing tomorrow night?”

No preamble, no segue, no pretense…I liked that, even though it startled me, so much so that I actually did a double-take, looking around at everyone else first before looking at her three times in rapid succession. Wait, that was a triple-take. “You’re asking me?”

A tiny smile appeared on her face, and that made me feel more confident. “Yeah. I mean, we’re going on summer break next week, and you’re the best in our class at English literature. We haven’t spoken all year, but I wanted to change that, starting with…I want to talk to you about a few things.”

Oh, so that’s what it was—a private tutoring session. That figured. “Not to be dense, but are you asking me to talk about homework?”

Her smile grew larger. “No, you got it all wrong. I’m a big reader, and I bought a few new books and I like them, and no one here wants to talk about fantasy or Victorian literature. Like I said, you’re number one in English class, and you know more than the teacher does, so…why not?”