PRETTY PRIVILEGE

PG 16+

My name is Oseyagbón Oyakhilome and I am the most beautiful girl in school.

I am the kind of girl that walks into a room and all heads turn to my direction. I hang out with the popular kids. I get any boy I like. I make ugly clothes look beautiful— including this cranky school uniform I am wearing right now.

No one, absolutely no one, can stop me from getting what I want.

My life is so perfect.

Except for one little problem.

This is not my body.

If I must say, my body is on the other side of the classroom, staring right at me with red eyes, a drooling nose and clenched fists, wondering what in the world I had done with her beautiful body.

Inside that other body is the true owner of this beautiful body I am inside— Angel Jemide.

I stare back at her, guilt swelling inside of me as I mutter the words, “I’m sorry.” before she stretches out her hand to give me a resounding slap that made me do 360 degrees, returning me back to the place where this whole devious plan all began.

It started when Angel saw me reading Othello, a William Shakespeare book that we arts students were forced to read for literature. I was so engrossed in the book that I did not realize she has been sitting next to me for over five minutes, staring right at me with anticipation in her eyes.

“Ose.” She called my name when I finally looked at her, “Let’s switch bodies.”

I stared back at her, mute and confused. Why would a drop-dead beautiful goddess like Angel want to switch bodies with someone like me, a girl who had nothing to show for.

In this little part of Edo State we lived in, witchcraft was common. Although Angel was not from around here, she was familiar with our ways of sorcery.

Like the Medicine of Souls.

The Medicine of Souls was a ball-shaped herb designed by our ancestors many years ago that allows two people to swap their souls into each other’s bodies.

This sorcery was banned in our school and the Medicine of Souls itself was contraband, but some students still snuck in this herb to get advantage of one thing- deception. Be it to gain prefectship, or for exam malpractice, or for something as petty as wanting to kiss your inattentive crush through another person’s body.

Angel told me she had a crush on Bassey, our school’s head boy in SS3. He was two years our senior. But the problem was... Bassey was sapiosexual. He was only interested in super intelligent girls. Just like me, the girl who has never dropped from first position in class.

Also, Bassey was a die-hard fan of William Shakespeare and any girl that read his books had automatically won his heart. And that was why Angel chose me of all girls to swap bodies with her to win her crush’s heart.

“Why are you going the extra mile to get this boy? You can get any other boy you want.” I said to Angel.

“It’s quality over quantity.” She responded, “He’s worth more than the thousand guys after me now.”

I told Angel to get lost and look for somebody else to toy with.

But she was persistent. Every day, she begged me to switch bodies with her for just one week. It was not like I was going to gain anything in return.

Except... it was him. The boy sitting next to Angel right now.

My own crush— Solo Solo my king.

He sat there, trying to wrap his hands around Angel’s shoulder but she slapped it away and stood up to leave the class. But he still chased after her. And that was exactly what I wanted.

Solomon, my Solo Solo, was one of the most popular boys in our set and the finest living creature my eyes has ever laid on. Tall, caramel-skinned, buff, big pink lips and a squeezable ass.

But, he was Angel’s ex-boyfriend. They dated for three months in JSS3 and broke up during the summer vacation last month. There was no way in the world that Solomon would move on from dating a goddess like Angel to a fish like me.

Then it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I did have a chance with Solo Solo. All I had to do was one simple thing.

“Yes!!!” Angel squealed and hugged me when I finally agreed to switch bodies with her.

That night, Angel brought the Medicine of Souls to my bunkbed in the girls’ hostel, and we secretly followed the rules that made this sorcery come to pass.

First, we broke the ball-shaped herb into two and ate it. Then we muttered some incantations for ten minutes, making sure no one heard us through the dark, quiet room. Then we slept next to each other, holding hands, and waiting in anticipation for this soul-changing experience.

The next morning, as I walked into the dining hall for breakfast, all eyes were on me. Their gaze pierced through my skin as I walked pass their tables.

It was like I was floating in the sky and my face shining bright with light, like I was an angel.

Indeed, I was an angel... inside Angel’s body.

Angel’s body was way different than mine. It was heavier and required more effort, being the most beautiful girl in school.

My chest felt heavy from the fullness of my breasts and my thick laps kept gumming together in this good-for-nothing tight uniform Angel wore every day. My face felt a bit sticky from the unnoticeable Matte foundation, brown powder, mascara, and lip gloss Angel applied every morning to deceive everybody that she was a natural beauty. She was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the way the natural make up made Angel look.

Being in Angel’s world was completely different from mine. She got stared at wherever she went to. She was called ‘beautiful’ at least ten times in a day. She was never alone.

Angel got doors opened for her. She got extra meat for lunch. She was allowed to choose which chair to sit on in class. She was allowed to give an opinion without being cut off. She had countless school daughters that she barely remembered their names. She talked to at least twenty guys in a day.

I never got to experience any of these things in my ordinary body. Especially when it came to the guy part. On a regular, I spoke to only two men in a day – my form teacher and the security guard that greets me.

All this showed that Angel had one thing that I didn’t have: Pretty privilege.

But here was what I hated the most about being Angel: passing the hefty group of SS3 boys sitting outside the senior block. In my ordinary body, those boys would pay no attention to me when I passed by, and they would continue their conversation like I was an invisible spirit.

But when Angel, which was now me, and her two best friends passed by, they would block us and begin to “toast” us. I wouldn’t call it toasting because it felt more like harassment from their forceful tones. And all we had to do was smile and play along because if we didn’t... well, the rest is history.

One of the guys did not fail to joke about Angel’s famous lips. Angel was quite popular among the senior boys for not just having a thick ass, but for having “dick” lips. And that was something only the boys understood among themselves.