Chapter 1: The Transformation
The music in The Rusty Bolt was a physical thing, a throbbing bassline that vibrated up through the soles of your shoes and into your molars. Blake hunched over his beer, the foam long gone flat, watching another failed approach dissolve into the neon haze.
“See?” he said, voice thick with defeat. “I smiled, I used your opener, I asked about her tattoo. It was a goddamn starfish. Who gets a starfish tattoo? She said ‘thanks’ and turned back to her friend.”
Kyle, leaning against the sticky bar with the ease of a conquering king, took a slow sip of his whiskey. “You’re trying to solve her, man. You’re not a puzzle-master. You’re the fun. You’re the distraction from her starfish-tattoo life.” He shook his head, blonde hair catching the cheap light. “Your energy is all… homework. No one wants to fuck homework.”
“My energy is tired,” Blake muttered, running a hand through his own brown hair. “I’m tired of the code. The rules. The fucking starfish.”
Kyle’s eyes, a pale, calculating blue, scanned the crowd. They missed nothing. “The problem isn’t them. It’s the hardware.” He tapped Blake’s temple. “You’re running outdated software in a market that demands a premium experience.”
“Oh, enlighten me, guru.”
“It’s about perception. Confidence isn’t something you have, it’s something you project. It’s a signal. And right now…” Kyle gave him a once-over, from his sensible shoes to his anxious posture, “…you’re broadcasting static.”
Blake wanted to argue, but the evidence was stacked against him. His dating life was a graveyard of polite rejections and ghosted texts. Kyle’s was a thriving, amoral metropolis. It was infuriating.
“What’s the solution? A personality transplant?”
“Something like that.” Kyle’s voice dropped, cutting through the music. He leaned in. “I’ve got a friend. Biochemist. Freelance. He makes… adjustments. Not forever. A weekend. A taste-test of a different life.”
Blake stared. “You’re talking about drugs.”
“I’m talking about experiential therapy. A perspective shift. You know what your problem is? You’ve never seen the world from the other side of the smile. You don’t know what it’s like to be the prize.” Kyle fished a small, unmarked vial from his jacket pocket. Inside, a silvery liquid swirled, catching the light like molten mercury. “This is a key. It lets you try on a new skin. See how the other half lives. How they think. What they want.”
“That’s insane.” Blake’s eyes were glued to the vial. “What is it?”
“Call it… Cognizance-9. Rewrites neural pathways, triggers a temporary somatic shift. Makes empathy a physical experience.” Kyle’s spiel was smooth, practiced. “You want to be attractive and confident? This is supposed to do it. Then you wake up tomorrow, back in your cozy, frustrated life, but with the answers. No more guessing.”
The logic was a seductive, twisted spiral. The disgust was immediate, but it was quickly swarmed by a desperate, clawing curiosity. What was it like? To walk into a room and feel eyes latch onto you, to have the power of simple presence? To not have to be the one constantly calculating the approach?
“Temporary,” Blake breathed, more a question than a statement.
“Swear on my life,” Kyle said, his expression open, convincing. “A trial run. In-and-out. Think of it as advanced fieldwork.”
The flat beer, the starfish tattoo, the echoing loneliness of his apartment—it all condensed into a single, impulsive need. To know. To stop being the one who was always, eternally, outside looking in.
“Fine.”
The word was out before he could choke it back.
Kyle’s smile was triumphant. He passed the vial under the table. “Bathroom. One shot. Effects are… rapid.”
The bathroom was a tomb tiled in neglect. Peeling linoleum, a sink stained with rust, and a single fluorescent light buzzing like a dying hornet. Blake locked the stall door, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. The silvery liquid looked alien in the dim light. Temporary. A key.
He uncorked it and drank.
It tasted like ozone and peppermint, cold all the way down.
For three seconds, nothing. Then a searing heat erupted in his gut, spreading through his veins like lava. He gasped, doubling over, the vial clattering into the toilet. A sound escaped him—a choked, guttural rasp—as his bones began to sing.
It wasn’t a song. It was a scream.
He felt his spine cinch, vertebrae grinding and compacting in a series of sickening, internal cracks. A white-hot agony blazed across his shoulders as they narrowed, pulling inwards. His ribs constricted, his breath coming in short, sharp pants that hit a new, higher register. He stumbled against the stall wall, watching in detached horror as his hands slimmed, the knuckles becoming delicate, the fingers tapering. The hair on his arms vanished, leaving skin smooth and inexplicably softer.
His pelvis flared with a deep, aching wrench, bones realigning with a brutal pop. He cried out, and the voice was all wrong—higher, tremulous, laced with panic. A searing, full sensation bloomed across his chest, heavy and tight, straining against the fabric of his shirt. He looked down, and two impossible curves swelled beneath the cotton.
His clothes didn’t tear. They dissolved. The fibers unknit like sand in a wave, melting off his shuddering body and pooling on the floor in a slurry of color and thread. In their place, something else formed from nothing, weaving itself around his new shape: cool, sleek black leather hugging his waist, stretching over the shocking new swell of his hips and backside, the minidress barely containing the reality of his transformed body.
The convulsions subsided, leaving him shivering, weak, leaning against the door. The buzzing light was the only sound. Slowly, on trembling legs that felt too slim, too unsteady, he pushed the stall open and staggered to the cracked mirror.
A stranger stared back.
Huge, terror-wide eyes, a startling green, looked out from a face of delicate, sharp features. Full lips, parted in shock. A cascade of dark, curly hair fell past slender shoulders. Nerdy, stylish glasses perched on a small nose. The black leather dress clung to a figure that was pure, exaggerated hourglass—a bust that strained the top, a waist his hands could nearly span, and curves below that the skimpy dress barely covered. He—she—was devastating. And tiny. The mirror showed a woman barely over five feet tall.
Blake’s mind shattered. A frantic, internal chant began: No no no no this is wrong this is a dream this is a nightmare Kyle you bastard you said more attractive what is this what did you do—
But the body in the mirror moved when she moved. She raised a trembling, elegant hand, and the reflection did the same. She touched the glass, feeling the cold, solid reality of it. The sensory overload was catastrophic. The weight on her chest, the drag of the hair on her nape, the unfamiliar, empty space between her thighs, the constant, subtle awareness of the dress against skin that felt hypersensitive, every nerve ending screaming.
Horror was a flood. But underneath it, a treacherous, mesmerized thread: I’m… beautiful.
The thought was vomit-inducing. It was also undeniable.
Rage, hot and pure, cut through the panic. Kyle. This was Kyle’s fault. He stormed—or tried to. The movement was a sway, the new center of gravity foreign. The tall, intimidating stride she’d intended was a clattering, unsteady clip in the ridiculous heels that had formed on her feet. She burst out of the bathroom, a tiny, leather-clad volcano of fury.
The bar noise hit her differently. It was louder, sharper. And the eyes. Everywhere, eyes. Sliding over her, sticking to her. A man carrying drinks actually stopped and stared, his mouth slightly open.
She zeroed in on Kyle, still at the bar, now talking to a brunette. He hadn’t seen her yet. She marched up, the anger giving her a temporary, wobbling confidence.
“Kyle!” The name came out in that strange, melodic voice, brimming with fury.
He turned, his eyes passing over her without a flicker of recognition. They performed a lazy, appraising sweep down her body and back up to her face. A slow, appreciative smile spread across his features. The smile he used on conquests.
“Well, hello,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, intimate register. “Where have you been hiding?”
The world dropped out from under her.
“It’s me, you asshole!” she snarled, jabbing a finger at his chest. The gesture felt absurd, feeble.
Kyle’s smile didn’t falter. He chuckled, a soft, patronizing sound. He glanced at the woman beside him, sharing a get-a-load-of-this-one look. “Feisty. I like it. But I think you’ve got me confused with someone else, sweetheart.” His gaze lingered on the neckline of her dress. “Though I’d be happy to get acquainted.”
The gaslight was so total, so seamless, it stole her breath. He wasn’t pretending. In his eyes, she was just some hot, emotionally volatile girl causing a scene. The manipulation was absolute, a prison built of his sheer, unwavering perception.
The brunette beside Kyle giggled. “Someone had too many cocktails, honey.” He said as he placed a condescending hand on her hips.
Blake stepped back and shouted “it’s BKAKE you idiot” and watched as Kyle’s eyes opened wide and shock played across his face. “Bro what???” Blake explained what the drug did and Kyle takes time to process it.
He finally looks up. “I’ve got it!” He exclaims “Just because you’re a hot chick doesn’t mean you can’t land a hot chick. Looks like tonight we have to find some sexy bi girls for you.”