* Author : Derek Des Anges * Narrator : Isaac Harwood * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Devin Martin * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 799: A Change of Clothes is a PodCastle original. CW for references to child abuse and looooots of swearing Rated PG-13 A Change of Clothes By Derek Des Anges Security at the Bellside Gym and Leisure Centre was, in the opinion of Ivan Kles, a joke. Just as an example, like, he’d been able to walk right into the changing rooms and lockers where everyone kept their stuff without having a gym pass and without anyone challenging him, even though at sixteen he was graced with the exact kind of face that usually featured on Crimewatch reconstructions about corner–shop robberies. Same outfit, too.  It was a peaky day in mid-March and the smell of cheap bad coffee from the gym concession swept in through the door and mingled with the smell of stale sweat in the changing rooms and the cheap deodorant and chlorine from the showers. Ivan wandered into the changing room with his hands in his trackie bottoms, looking even by his own estimation guilty as hell. He knew from previous experience he couldn’t get into the ones with the padlocks on, not without some kind of bolt cutters, and it wasn’t worth the aggro. But a lot of people, a surprising amount of people considering Bellside backed onto his kind of area, just didn’t bother to bring one. You could get a couple of bits and bobs out without any bother at all. Sometimes even just walk off with a whole bag. No one stopped you. There was only the one today: Ivan pried it open, listening to the showers hiss and roar and the muffled sound of some shit ‘90s chart music from the gym floor coming in under the door. Inside there was a massive blacky-brown fur coat, taking up almost the whole locker. “Mint,” muttered Ivan. He’d heard they could go for a bomb on eBay. He pulled it out and started searching around for the pockets. It might just be easier to nick off with the wallet, and it’d look a lot less suspicious.  “Mmmmblahblbhalbh,” said a very serious-sounding voice right outside the door. Ivan froze. He was pretty sure that was the security guard. The big one with the England tattoo on the back of his neck who looked like he ate bricks for breakfast. The one whose left leg was bigger than Ivan’s whole entire waist. Ivan stuffed the coat under his arm and considered making a break for the toilet cubicles.  “Mmmblah bmlala blah blah,” said the probably-security guard outside the door, and the door hinge creaked.  Ivan wondered if he should just stuff the coat back into the locker . . . then he could pretend he wasn’t doing anything very much, maybe take his shoe off and put it back on again, and when the guy was gone he could get the wallet or whatever out of the pocket . . . The door opened. In walked a man who didn’t look a thing like the security guard: he was tall, thin, wearing a boring-looking suit and talking on his phone. Ivan exhaled slowly. The man caught his eye, said, “Nice coat,” and took off his suit jacket, still talking to whoever was on the other end of the phone in the most condescending voice Ivan had ever heard in his life. Ivan sidled out of the changing–room door as fast as he could while still looking inconspicuous.