Ladies Drink Free The New World of SwapTech chapter 3 by witeja9199

The sign outside Tipsy McStagger's said LADIES NIGHT: LADIES DRINK FREE in letters that had once been neon and were now merely buzzing, like the three men staring at it from a parked Buick.

"Free," said Roy Kowalski. It was the first word he'd spoken in forty minutes, a personal best.

"For ladies," said Clive Wetherby.

"I can read, Clive."

They had been laid off at two o'clock that afternoon from Brannigan Freight & Haulage, along with a hundred and twelve others, by a man who said "right-sizing" while visibly eating a sandwich. Roy had eleven dollars and forty cents. Drinks at Tipsy McStagger's were nine.

Dennis Hobbs, in the driver's seat, was smiling. It was the smile of a man who had waited thirty years for his friends to hit rock bottom so he could finally be useful.

"I have a solution," he said, and produced a tackle box from under the seat.

Inside the lure compartments lay pills: blue, green, red, and a single pink one stamped with a tiny skull.

"Swaptyx," Clive whispered. "You actually use those?"

"Since '09. Festivals, mostly. Weddings. One very productive jury duty."*

"No," said Roy.

"Free drinks, Roy."

"I'd rather drink bleach."

"Also free, but the hangover's worse. Green pills. Six hours. Cinderella rules: come midnight, you're a pumpkin again and nobody's the wiser."

"What does it feel like?" Clive asked.

"Like being unpacked and repacked by a thorough but disappointed airline."

Clive looked away quickly. Roy noticed, because Clive had been looking away from him since the first week of September. Clive had built the spreadsheet. Column G: Redundancies (Projected). Roy was G47. For three weeks Clive had asked after Roy's knee and said nothing.

"Anyone ever mentions this," said Roy, "ever..."

"Never."

"Ever."

What nobody noticed, because Dennis was busy with his own pill and Clive with his conscience, was that Roy, a man who believed in value, had palmed a red pill instead of a green, on the grounds that it was bigger.

The pills tasted of fruit-flavored antacid and regret. The Buick's windows fogged, there was a noise like a zipper being drawn the wrong way through a cat, and then there was silence.

"Oh," said Clive, an octave higher. He looked down. "I can't see my feet. There's a lot going on."

"Hips," said Dennis kindly. "Structural."

Dennis himself had become six feet of silver-bobbed magnificence, with a bust of such ambition it deserved its own postcode. He adjusted it like a man settling a cat. "Bit generous up top. Dosage is more art than science."

From the back seat came a strangled sound. Roy, now five-foot-one and a redhead, was cradling his chest like two bags of groceries he hadn't asked for.

"They're heavy," he said. "Nobody said they'd be heavy."

"Gravity," said Dennis. "Gets everyone."

"Where's my mustache?"

"Mourn later."

"Twenty-six years, Dennis!"

"Roy," said Clive, "you look..." and stopped, because the end of that sentence was "terrific," and he didn't feel entitled.

Inside, the bartender, a woman with forearms like hams and a tattoo reading NO REFUNDS, looked them over. "What'll it be, ladies?"

"Whiskey," said Roy, in a falsetto he'd decided was dignity. "Double. Free."

"Spritzer," said Clive.

"Something with an umbrella," said Dennis, "and a stool with a view."

By the third round, Roy had stopped hunching, Clive had discovered that men were suddenly very nice to him and was deeply suspicious, and Dennis was giving a bachelorette party advice on bra fittings from the perspective of someone who'd seen both sides of the underwire.

Then a pink cocktail arrived at Roy's elbow, with a napkin: Gorgeous. Join me?

At the end of the bar, in a pastel polo, sat Gordon Brannigan. He raised his glass.

"That's the sandwich man," hissed Roy. "He's hitting on me."

"He's hitting on a redhead," said Dennis. "Different person. Drink the drink." Then he frowned, opened the tackle box beneath the bar, and went very still. The red compartment was empty.

"Roy. Which pill did you take?"

"The big one. Better value."

Dennis closed his eyes. "That's the Weekend."

"So?"

"So it's Tuesday. You're a woman until Thursday night."

Roy considered this. "I have a prostate exam Thursday morning."

"That," said Dennis, "will be interesting for everyone."