Health Swap

I had fewer than 2 weeks to leave my flat and I'd barely started looking for a new place. My landlord needed the place to raise his new child and apparently his old house wasn't big enough for a wife and two children. Both my flatmates had left ages ago, it was only me in this ghostly, half deserted place on the top floor of a tower block.

My room was a mess and I felt hopeless. Why must he make me leave? After I'd only just got settled. One morning he knocked on the door, waking me from a lie-in. The doorbell rang and rang. I pulled off the covers and, of course, I had morning wood. I pulled on some clothes and caught myself in the mirror. I wasn't a bad looking lad, skinny but muscular at my core. I could go to the gym more since my arms were tiny but then I have been told by gay guys that I look twinky and sexy so if I don't need to put the effort in, why bother? Women didn't seem so interested in me though, so maybe I should go to that gym. The buzzer continued to go.

"Caleb, I know you're in there. Can I come in?"

Why doesn't the fucker just come in? He's got a key!

I pulled on yesterday's T-shirt and some tracksuit bottoms, couldn't find any pants. Quick look in the mirror. I have a short haircut but I have definite bed hair. My black curls were sticking in all directions. My freckles have come out in the summer sun. I stuck my tongue out and went to open the door, trying to push my unruly stiffy into my waistband to hide it.

Ben, my landlord, was standing there holding a giant picture frame.

"Thank god you're here" he said, pushing past me.

"I left the keys with Jenny. Hope you don't mind, I'm gonna start moving my stuff in."

It seemed like it didn't matter whether I minded or not as he set to work moving in boxes he'd piled outside the front door.

He was dressed in a grey tracksuit, must have just come from the gym I'd been avoiding. He owned a construction firm so he wasn't much impressed by my lazy lifestyle. I worked as little as possible to pay the rent from my job at the local supermarket beeping and stacking things. Ben tried to give me a construction job at the start but now he knows me better he's stopped offering.

He was in his only in mid-thirties but he'd used his twenties productively. I was 24 but could tell already I would probably waste them.

I watched him moving about the place. Everything about his appearance looked like a chav. His tracksuits, trainers, his short back and sides haircut, his tattooed arms. But he was no dosser. He had muscles I could only dream of earning. His arms and pecs alone were something to behold.

He caught me staring at his arms.

"Caleb, can you help me put up this picture?"

I silently accepted and wandered around trying to help but he did most of the work. I helped level it as he stood back. I really hoped he didn't notice my morning wood, it wasn't going away and only seemed to grow as my waistband rubbed on my bellend and foreskin. I billowed out my t-shirt to try and hide it.

"What do you think?" Asked Ben, jolting me out my distracted thoughts.

The picture looked ugly as hell. It was a pencil and charcoal drawing of strange, abstract figures sitting around looking at each other. The largest figure had one hand in its mouth and the other between its legs as though it were masturbating.

"Yeah looks good" I shrugged.

Ben wasn't satisfied with this.

"It's from Peru" he began. "These come out of psychedelic ceremonies they do out there. The art looks right into your soul doesn't it?"

Again I failed to see what he meant.

"Yeah, totally" I squirmed and went to leave.

"Take another look" Ben insisted.

Not expecting much I glanced at the drawing again. This time it looked more interesting. I could see colours forming at the ends of the rough scrawlings as though a small window were opening. I stepped closer and felt like I could see a world opening up in there but slightly out of focus, slightly out of view. Each strain to see it made me feel higher, warmer and more filled with joy. I tried to get even closer and I saw fireworks and thought I heard music, deep classical music. I pulled back.

"Woah" was all I could utter. I had totally forgotten that Ben was expecting an answer from me and god knows how long I stared into the drawing before he snapped me out of it.

"You know, if you want to stay a little longer here, you can. You'll just have to put up with me, Jenny and the kids."

I blinked at him, dumbfounded.

"That drawing, Jesus!"

Ben laughed and patted me on the shoulder.

"You seemed to enjoy it a little too much, mate"

I became aware that my tracksuit bottoms were covered in warm cum. And my cock was fully out and leaking globs of it into my shaky right hand.

I should have felt shame but I didn't. I just feel warmth and calm, like something really profound had just happened.

"I think I saw God" I spluttered.

"It's good isn't it?" Ben squeezed my arm. "Good lad. Look at it whenever you like."

I went into the bathroom to clean up, still shaking.

Without my trackies and t-shirt I pulled a towel around my middle and walked out into the corridor. Ben was still standing by the painting and he glanced over.

"Listen, mate. It's no secret my lad has been suffering with something called type 1 diabetes. He's only 16 and he has to inject insulin before meals. Terrible burden for someone so young. You're a bit older, a bit more responsible. If you could take it off him, you would, right? You'd take the diabetes and have to be reliant on injected insulin for the rest of your days."

I nodded sagely.

"Yeah, poor sod" I muttered.

"Thanks, Caleb." Ben said and he turned and left through the front door. It slammed behind him and I felt a pain in my side. I looked at my bare chest and tummy but nothing looked different. Just my same skinny, slightly muscled tummy rising and falling with my breath. The pain faded away just as soon as it arrived and I went about my day. I had a 2pm til 10pm shift and I'd be late if I wasn't careful.

I had trouble concentrating during the shift. I kept forgetting to ask customers to pay for their shopping and then being interrupted from my daze by a £20 being insistently waved in front of my face. I couldn't stop thinking about that drawing. I wanted to get back to it and stare at it, this time without the embarrassment of being in front of my landlord while I did it.

I ate my sandwiches during my break and felt a bit ill afterwards, like a fog had descended over me. I asked my manager if I could go home and she grumpily allowed me to. I walked back slowly, tiredly. I lacked energy and the sunshine only seemed to make me feel dehydrated and hot. God, I needed water. I stopped into a pub and asked for a water which I drank thirstily, it tasted like the best water I've ever drunk. After gulping it I still felt unsatisfied but something else odd was happening. I needed to pee all the time. I'd gone for 4 in the past hour. This pee at the pub I opened my flies and from my willy gushed a torrent of water like Niagara Falls. I was ill with something bad.

This continued for a few days. I didn't even have the energy to look at the drawing. I took to my bed and eventually went to the hospital. After a series of tests a young female doctor crouched in front of me.

"Caleb, I'm sorry to tell you that you have type 1 diabetes. Treatment is limited at the moment, you're going to have to inject insulin before each meal but new technologies are coming all the time and maybe in future there will be a cure."

I couldn't believe it. I thought back to my conversation with Ben. Hadn't he said something about his son having diabetes? Didn't he ask me to "take it" from him? I must have been misremembering, you can't pass it on, it's a genetic illness.

Over the next few days I started to take my medicine and feel better. I got my energy and sex drive back. It wasn't easy though, I kept having to eat sweets when I took too much insulin and I spent many hours with high blood sugar feeling sick. My mum cried when I told her.

After an early shift at the supermarket I got home to find the door to the flat wide open. Inside the place had been rearranged, all my kitchen stuff was in bin bags outside my room. The furniture was different. Ben was in the kitchen with his son. I entered warily.

"Caleb!" Ben smiled. "How you doing, mate?"

I told him about the diabetes diagnosis and he looked shocked and offered his condolences.

"Don't you have it?" I asked his son, who's name was apparently Kyle.

Kyle looked confused and smirked.

"What do you mean?"

I frowned.

"Oh, Ben said you had diabetes"

They both laughed.

"Don't think so, mate." Ben winked. "Anyway, Kyle, can you leave us for a bit? I've got some admin I want to do with Caleb." Kyle left and I heard him thumping down the corridor away from the flat.

I eyed Ben distrustfully.

"Why did you wink?" I asked.

"Wink?"

"You winked when I mentioned the diabetes. You told me Kyle had it last time, remember?"

Ben didn't reply he just sighed.

"Come with me" he clicked his fingers. I followed him into the corridor.

"Now look at this part of the drawing"

I wasn't going to do that again.

"Fuck off!" I backed away. "You did something to me last time, you gave me Kyle's disease. You wanked me off or something! I'm not doing anything until you explain what's happening."

He suddenly grabbed me by both arms and dragged me into the kitchen. I cried out but he put his hand over my mouth. My wretched body was thrown into a chair and he tied me to it with extension cords.

"I'm sorry about this, mate. But you're hardly using your life. Kyle, Stephanie, and Jenny have so much more to give."

Jenny? Stephanie? What was he talking about?

He pulled the chair over to the drawing and even a small glimpse of it was enough to enrapture me. The ends of the charcoal scrawlings lit up with light and colour and I was transported into a warm and pleasurable cocoon.

I was vaguely aware of Jenny in my peripheral vision whispering in my ear and Stephanie whispering in my other.

"High blood pressure."

"Obesity"

"Smoking addiction"

"Alcohol addiction"

"Infertility"

"ADHD"

"Poor impulse control"

"Low intelligence."

The picture then filled my entire vision. I could see all the figures smiling sadly at me and colours warming my face.

"He probably has a few of those, already, let's be honest." Said Ben and they all laughed.

I seemed to be in this blissful state for hours. I was enraptured by the feelings of the gods, a feeling of total ecstasy.

Then I awoke, on my bed and gasped. I breathed in sharply but my breath felt shallow and inadequate. I tried to sit up but I felt heavy and.. fleshy? I collapsed down on the bed and looked down my body to see two bare-chested man boobs and a large fat belly. I couldn't even see my penis anymore. I reached for it and found it under a fold of fat. It was tiny! It didn't stir like it usually did. But something else was stirring in me, a catastrophic need for booze and cigarettes. My hands shook as I reached around wildly.

On the bedside table was a pack of Marlboro Reds and a bottle of gin. I fell on my side and began my morning ritual which felt so natural. The cigarette smoke hit the back of my throat and I coughed and hacked. But it felt surprisingly good, like something I'd been missing my entire life. I breathed in the smoke urgently, hungrily.

Eventually I was able to sit up and I could see I was in an entirely different room. It was simple, only a bed, a wardrobe and a bedside table with ashtray, cigarettes, booze, some high-blood pressure medication, some insulin medication and some amphetamines prescribed for ADHD.

I drank a large glass of gin that stung my mouth and made me feel warm inside but made my cravings for cigarettes worse. I lit another right after my first one. The gin and cigarettes kept coming until I was feeling dead drunk and hardly able to think. I took the ADHD medication which made me feel somewhat stimulated.

I could hardly recall what I was doing or what my life once was.

I saw an envelope on the floor which had been slipped under the door. I heavily panted and stepped towards it through the mist of smoke.

It was from Ben.

"Cheers mate. Your rent is paid for and here's £1000, your monthly allowance. I'll provide you with whatever alcohol and tobacco you want. Just write it down on the whiteboard in the hall. You're a good man, Calab."

I reached in and found the envelope stuffed with dozens of £20 notes. I wouldn't have to work anymore, I reflected. Just as this welcome thought dawned on me I caught sight of my appearance in the mirror.

I was enormously fat. I had a large double chin. I still looked young and hairless but so utterly wreaked from overeating, cigarettes and alcohol. My cheeks were red and my penis was missing under a huge fold of flab.

I injected myself with insulin and ordered a huge fry up from Uber Eats. All thoughts faded in the face of my multiple addictions and low intelligence. If someone was going to pay me to get wreaked and smoke, I was gonna take it. I fell backwards on my bed, cigarette in mouth and looked up.

The drawing was on the ceiling. I let the bliss overtake my mind and I fell backwards onto a wonderous, and pleasurable sleep.