CHAPTER 3

I started to rise to grab her but she just disappeared into thin air. My dog, trained never to bark unless in real danger, simply whined and ran from the room, scared. He was the smart one, I thought.

What the hell just happened? I reached for a cigarette and my computer, and searched for my birth mother's name. Dead, killed in a drowning accident on vacation the week before down in Florida. A cold feeling filled me: did I grieve? Should I be relieved I didn't have to make up my mind about her? Did I call up my half-siblings and step-father? If I did, what would I say?

I wandered into the bathroom for the only mirror that was easy to see in the house.

I wished I have perfect skin, my scars and pimples to be gone. The tingle came and my skin was perfect. Heart pounding I felt my face and my fingertips felt no small mountains or rough skin. Jerking down my pants every mark on my legs was gone. I wished I had no leg hair, and it disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, I wished I weighed whatever the ideal weight was for my height and build. The tingling was harsh and dropped me to my knees, my head hit the sink and I saw stars. When cool air touched me I stood, and my pants and panties fell off. My arms were slimmer, my legs too.

In the mirror the woman who looked back was slimmer in the face. I thought my heart might explode and wished to calm. A tingle and instantly I was calm. I wished my hair was blue for no reason then I wanted to see if this was real. It was blue.

I kept scissors in the kitchen and ran for them, cutting a hank off carelessly. It was blue. I wished for my hair to go back to its bland mouse brown and ran to the mirror again. My hair was brown, the uneven cut showing. The hank in my hand was blue.

I passed out.

I couldn't sleep. Not that night, not with the terror and hope this "gift" installed in me.

I played around and did the things I'm sure anyone would expect. I removed my epilepsy and fixed my bad back. I fixed my teeth and removed the filled cavities, made them straight and as white as my eyes. I removed allergies and made my alcohol tolerance higher, though for both those I didn't have a way to test them.

I shaped my body until I was like a pin-up. I made it so I looked more like I was twenty-five, not thirty-one. I made my skin a little less pale, my hair golden blonde, and made the green of my eyes brighter. I made my nose smaller, my eyes bigger, and my lips thicker, my mouth wider.

I kept the basic shape, desiring to look like myself, just...more. I fixed my posture, wished to be graceful, wished to be athletic with great stamina. I wished my breasts, still large, were perky, I wished my ass was more lush and larger. I wished my waist was nipped in nice and tight, as small as it could be and look natural. I wished for no hair on my body except the hair on my head and my eyebrows. I wished those be perfectly groomed. I wished my eyelashes to be thicker and longer, inky black.

I wished I could tan, I'd never get cancer, that basically I'd be super human. I wished for things no one would notice, but made me happy. I couldn't say why, but I kept my freckles. When I was done I had firm skin, a body for sin, and beauty that was haunting and captivating. Yet somehow, I was still me, just an idealized version. I had explored the full depth of my vanity and stood in the bathroom laughing for long minutes.

Then I turned to my mind. First I wished to speak, read, and write Spanish perfectly, and then I went to Spanish websites. It worked. By six a.m. I'd learned twenty more languages. I played with my IQ but had no way to really test it, so I settled for making my memory near perfect and acquiring the knowledge of ten degrees.

After breakfast I remembered to wish food would always give me energy, but I would never gain weight. Then I wished I would not have a period, no cramps, no PMS. I wished for no colds, no sickness of any kind.

I wished for knowledge in fighting right out of the movies, then wished for the strength of a much bigger man, but still having the body of a woman who appeared to jog and lift a few weights, no more. I could have wished to fly but I admit, it scared me, so I kept it basic.

By noon I could think of no more, and twenty-four hours had passed. I waited twenty minutes to be sure and wished my hair had a blue streak. Nothing happened. In the mirror I was still the new me. My dog watched it all with no canine comment. I had concrete proof, but I couldn't quite believe it.

I looked great but nothing fit me, and I had no money. I could have dressed up with a mask and robbed a bank, and I truly thought about it. But this was a test, of what kind I didn't know, so I decided against it.

Instead I found my smallest dress and put it on, pinning it tight. Luckily my bra still fit as did my shoes, but nothing else. So I went onto craigslist and looked for a modeling job. I took a picture with my camera and uploaded it and emailed a few people looking to hire. One wanted to work that day.