This is a modern continuation of my story 'Welcome to Salem', written back in 2000/2001 and last updated in April of 2003. Days of Our Lives and all characters belong to Corday Productions and Sony and this story isn't meant to imply anything about the sexuality of any of the actors who plays these characters.
"Bet you wish you could meet a guy that hot, huh?" my roommate Josh asked. The question caught me off guard, since I'd been staring intently at my computer screen, enjoying the latest shirtless scene from Casey Deidrick, who played Chad DiMera on Days of Our Lives.
"Yeah, me and every other gay guy in the world," I said, laughing. "You know me too well."
"Hey, it's not hard to figure it out when you're sitting there with a puddle of drool in front of you, staring at him like he's dinner," Josh said.
"So sorry, am I disturbing your straight sensibilities?" I joked. I was lucky to have such an easy going roommate in the dorm, someone who didn't even bat an eye when I told him I was gay. It was certainly making my freshman year of college a lot easier.
"Nah, I look the same way when I'm watching Jessica Alba in action, like I'm ready to climb right into the movie and fuck her," Josh grinned.
Something about this last comment, though, struck a chord with me.
I'd come out of the closet at 15 and was lucky to have an incredibly supportive family. The path had been paved, in fact, by my mom's younger brother, my uncle Chase, who'd come out when he was in college and I was just a little kid myself.
Chase and his partner, Wes, had been real role models for me and I loved them both. They seemed like the perfect gay couple and I never doubted that my uncle was happy and completely normal, which was probably why the story he told me a few years after I came out was so surprising.
It was the holiday season and he and Wes had both had a few drinks. Wes, in fact, was already sleeping it off. Chase and I were shooting the shit in the living room as he messed around with our DVR. He'd seen the backlog of Days episodes and grown strangely quiet, finally asking if I still watched the show.
My uncle Chase was a fan of Days of Our Lives. Both he and my Mom had grown up watching it, as had my Grandma, so I had no worries about admitting that I watched. "As long as Chad is on the show, I'm not missing an episode!" I'd said with a laugh.
"I used to feel the same way about Shawn," Chase said quietly.
"Yeah, Brandon Beemer is a total stud," I said. It was nice to be able to talk hot guys with my Uncle.
"No. I mean, yeah, he is, but I was talking about the Shawn before him, Jason Cook. I had such a crush on him." My Uncle looked a bit odd and sounded like he was talking about someone he'd actually known.
"I came so close. Just another hour...."
"What? You met Jason Cook?"
"Shawn. I met Shawn. I met all of them."
"Huh?"
"Can I tell you something, Nate, without you thinking I'm totally crazy?"
"Sure."
My uncle Chase stared at me for what seemed like a long time, as if trying to judge the truth to my offhanded assurance. Finally he looked straight at the blank TV screen and began to talk.
"I was in Salem. Just like I'm here, now, sitting in this room with you. I know it sounds impossible, but I was there. One night, I went to bed in my dorm room, and then next morning I woke up in the Kiriakis mansion as Philip Kiriakis. It wasn't a dream, or a delusion. I was there, Nate."
"Okay," I said, waiting for a punchline. My uncle was one of the most grounded people I knew. There had to be a punchline.
"It was amazing. I lived in the mansion, ate at the Brady Pub, went to Salem High, and I had sex with Jason, Austin, and Brady. Really, really hot sex. The best sex I've ever had in my life, though if you tell Wes I said that I'll have to kill you. It was out of this world, probably because I was out of this world," Chase laughed quietly to himself, still staring at the TV screen.
"I was so close to making a real connection with Shawn. It was happening. We were staring in each other's eyes, the air between us was electric, I could feel it, and then... I was in my dorm room again. I was me again."
"You woke up," I said.
"No! It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a horny delusion, either. It was real. Oh, I told myself I'd been dreaming, at first. Once I'd become myself again, I tried to dismiss it as a dream I'd woken up from just as I was about to get what I wanted. Don't we always wake up just as we get to the good part? But then-"
He grew quiet. I waited, wondering if this was all an elaborate practical joke on me, though my uncle Chase wasn't really that kind of guy.
"Then?" I finally prompted him.
"Grandma Betty died. Your Great Grandma. We all took turns sitting with her at the end. She had lucid moments and moments when she just rambled on. I was the one sitting with her when she finally passed away, and just before that, she told me something."
"What?" I asked, completely confused. What did Great Grandma Betty have to do with uncle Chase thinking he'd fucked soap opera characters?
"She was lucid at the end. She recognized me and smiled, patted my hand. Then she said that there was something she'd never told a soul, and it was now or never. She was the first in our family to watch Days, back when it started, you know. She got your Grandma hooked, and Grandma got me and your Mom hooked, and now you watch, too."
"Yeah, I know. What did she tell you?"
"She told me that, for several months in the late 60's, she was Alice Horton."
"What?"
"Nate, I'd never told her, or anyone, what had happened to me. Why would I? I thought I was either crazy or just very, very lucky to have had such a hot dream. But Grandma Betty, on her death bed, told me that the same thing had happened to her! She'd woken up one day, in Salem, as Alice Horton. She lived Alice's life for months, and then one day she just found herself at home again, plain old Betty, and no time had passed. She'd never told anyone, but she knew that it had been real."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. It was such a relief, Nate. I'd always known, deep down, that what happened to me was real, but I couldn't believe that, because it would mean I was crazy. Now I know I wasn't nuts. I really was in Salem."
I didn't know what to say to that, and not long afterward my Uncle had stumbled up to bed. In the year that had passed since then, he'd never mentioned our talk and I wasn't even sure he remembered it. I'd decided that it was just drunken fantasy and hadn't thought much about it since, though it still remained in the back of my mind, especially when I watched scenes with some of Salem's shirtless hotties.
"That would be nice, huh? To just climb right in and have your way with Mr. Soap Stud there?" Josh grinned.
"Yeah, I wish," I said, feeling a bit strange about the direction the conversation had taken.
"I've got a final tomorrow, man, so I'm pulling an all nighter at the library. I'll leave you alone to pull something else while staring at Mr. Soap Suds," Josh winked. He grabbed his backpack and headed out, leaving me alone in our dorm room.
I watched the rest of the episode, but my mind was on that conversation with my uncle. What if it really had happened to him and to my Great Grandmother? What if it was something that ran in the family, some secret magic ability? The idea was crazy, but it was still nice to fantasize about finding myself in Salem, surrounded by some of daytime's hottest guys in the flesh.
After daydreaming for awhile about that, I yawned and looked at the time. I had a seven am final, but since it was in Film Studies I wasn't too worried about studying. Instead, I set my alarm and then crawled into bed and felt myself starting to drift off.
A moment later, or so it seemed, I heard a banging noise, like pots and pans in a not so distant kitchen. My eyes flew open and I winced at the unexpected brightness. Daylight already? Had I been asleep?
"My final!" I sat up in a panic. It was way too bright for seven a.m. Why hadn't my alarm gone off? I sat up, furious with myself and wondering if I could get Professor Lewis to agree to a make up exam.
Something was wrong, though. I wasn't in my dorm room. I'd never seen this room before in my life.
"What the fuck?!" I shouted, fear mixing with confusion. A minute later, the door opened and a blonde woman stuck her head inside.
"Watch the language! Your little brother and sisters are out here!"
My mouth dropped open in disbelief. It couldn't be. "Sami Brady?"
"You can call me Mom, thanks, and like I said, watch the language! I don't care if you are in college now. And don't you have class this morning?"
"I have a final," I mumbled, my heart pounding.
"Well, you'd better get out of bed and get to Salem U, then," Sami said, closing the door behind her.
"Salem U." I said the words under my breath. I got out of bed, looking down at myself and knowing without a doubt that I was no longer me when I saw the pecs straining beneath the Salem U T-shirt I was wearing. I myself had a nice body, but from what I could make out under this tight shirt, this was clearly a soap star body.
I could see a mirror on the back of the bedroom door and I braced myself, squeezing my eyes closed before stepping in front of it. I slowly opened them and found myself staring into the incredibly hot face of the actor Chandler Massey or, as he was known in Salem, of Will Horton.
I put a hand to my face, and in the mirror Will did so as well. I slowly raised my shirt, getting a close up look at the tight body and amazing pecs underneath. I raised a hand to gently squeeze them, and my new reflection followed suit.
"Holy fucking shit," I mumbled, and this time I recognized my voice as Will Horton's. "I'm in Salem."