Chapter 15: Playful Omnipotence
The silence that followed was thicker than the come drying on Lisa’s skin. The two headless Delores clones shimmered, their forms blurring at the edges like a mirage. Then, with a soft, implosive sound, they collapsed into one another, merging back into a single, solid form. The extra cock and pussy vanished. A head, with its vibrant red hair and a slightly dazed expression, popped back into existence atop the neck.
The original Delores Rodriguez stood there, naked and whole, blinking as if stepping out of a bright light. She looked down at herself, then at Lisa, still splayed on the living tongue of the sofa, and finally at Mark, pale and frozen by the door.
“Well,” Delores said, her voice a little rough. She cleared her throat. “That was a thing.”
Lisa pushed herself up on her elbows, the new mouths on her breasts and abdomen sealing shut with faint, wet sounds, leaving behind only unbroken, if slightly flushed, skin. The couch beneath her shuddered, the massive tongue receding, the plush velvet fabric re-knitting itself until it was, once again, just a sofa. A faint, musky scent lingered in the air.
“I’m… I’m going to be sick,” Mark whispered, his hand gripping the doorframe.
“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Mark,” Lisa said, swinging her legs off the couch and reaching for her discarded robe. She tied it around her waist, the motion casual, almost bored. “It was just a bit of fun. A different kind of fun.” She looked at the ring on her finger, a slow, possessive smile spreading across her face. “I think we should try some other kinds.”
Delores stretched, a long, languid movement that showcased her curves. “I could go for a drink. A real one. My mouth feels… weird.”
“Wish for it,” Lisa said, her eyes gleaming.
Delores considered it, then shook her head. “Nah. Takes the fun out of it. I want to hear the ice clink.” She padded, still naked, toward the kitchen.
Mark finally found his legs and stumbled into the room. The family photos on the mantelpiece seemed to accuse him. “Lisa, what… what is happening to you?”
“To me?” She laughed, a light, airy sound that was utterly disconnected from the scene of minutes before. “You’re the one who wanted an adventure, honey. I’m just… expanding the itinerary.” She held up her hand, the ring catching the firelight. “My turn. Let’s see… I wish this room smelled like a bakery. A really good French bakery.”
The air shifted. The residual scent of sex was instantly, completely replaced by the warm, buttery perfume of fresh croissants, the rich aroma of dark coffee, and the sweet promise of baking bread. It was overwhelmingly pleasant and utterly disorienting.
“Oh, that’s better,” Lisa sighed, inhaling deeply.
Delores returned from the kitchen, now wearing one of Mark’s discarded flannel shirts, unbuttoned. She held a glass of whiskey. “Not bad.” She took a sip. “My turn. I wish I could speak fluent Italian. The sexy kind, like in those old movies.”
Her eyes went distant for a second. Then she smiled. “Ciao, bella,” she said to Lisa, the words rolling off her tongue with a perfect, melodic accent. “Sei così bella quando giochi con i tuoi giocattoli.”
Lisa blushed, a genuine, girlish flush. “What did you say?”
“That you’re beautiful when you play with your toys,” Delores translated, winking.
Mark just stared, his mind reeling. This was insanity. They were treating the power to reshape reality like a party game.
“Okay, my turn again,” Lisa said, tapping her chin. “I wish… I wish I knew how to play the piano. Like, really play it.”
A vintage upright piano, which Mark was certain had never been there before, materialized against the far wall. Lisa walked over to it, sat on the polished bench, and without hesitation, her fingers flew across the keys. A complex, beautiful jazz piece filled the room, a tune Mark had never heard her hum, let alone play.
She played for a full minute, then stopped abruptly. “Neat.” She stood up, leaving the piano behind as if it were a forgotten umbrella.
“This is crazy,” Mark breathed.
“Oh, lighten up, Mark,” Delores said, taking another sip of whiskey. “We’re just having fun. It’s not all… you know.” She gestured vaguely toward the sofa. “Although that was also fun.”
“My turn,” Lisa said, her gaze falling on Mark. A mischievous glint entered her eyes. “I wish Mark would tell us his deepest, darkest secret. The one he’s never told anyone.”
Mark’s blood ran cold. “Lisa, no.”
But the ring had already glowed. His mouth opened without his permission. The words tumbled out, flat and toneless, forced by an invisible power. “I sometimes pretend I’m someone else when I masturbate. I have a whole other life in my head. A life where I never got married, where I live in a different city, and I’m… important.”
The room was silent save for the crackle of the fire. The confession hung in the bakery-scented air, small and pathetic and devastating.
Lisa stared at him, her expression unreadable. Then she burst out laughing. Not a cruel laugh, but a genuine, surprised giggle. “That’s it? That’s your deepest, darkest secret? Honey, everyone does that.” She shook her head, still smiling. “You’re so boring.”
The dismissal was worse than any anger. It stripped him of even the dignity of his shame.
Delores looked at him with something akin to pity. “Tough break, kid.”
Lisa stretched, the game already moving on for her. “I’m getting hungry with all this bakery smell. I wish we had a picnic. Right here. A proper one with a checkered blanket and a wicker basket.”
A red-and-white checkered blanket spread itself across the Persian rug. A large wicker basket appeared in the center, its lid bulging.
But Mark wasn’t looking at the picnic. He was looking at the grand mirror above the fireplace. His own horrified face stared back, but superimposed over it, faintly, he could see the reflection of the bedroom again. The memory of the vertical slit, the headless bodies. It flickered, then shifted to a view of their quiet, normal street outside, then back to his face.
The mirror was broken. Or it was seeing everything at once.
He looked from the mirror to his wife, who was now pulling a roasted chicken and a bottle of champagne from the impossibly small basket, laughing at something Delores was saying in Italian. The cozy, familiar room was now a stage for whatever whim struck them, the boundaries of reality as flexible as clay in their hands.
His adventure had arrived. It had just decided he was no longer a participant, only a spectator. And he had the terrible, gut-churning feeling that the prelude was over, and the main event was about to begin.
The champagne cork popped with a cheerful finality that made Mark flinch. Lisa poured the frothing liquid into crystal flutes that hadn’t existed moments before, her movements graceful and utterly assured. “To new experiences,” she said, handing one to Delores, who clinked her glass with a smirk.
Mark’s own secret still hung in the air between them, a ghost they had already forgotten. He watched them tear into the roasted chicken with their fingers, laughing as grease shone on their chins, the picture of a decadent picnic. The mirror above the fireplace flickered again, this time showing a brief, silent image of their neighbor, Mr. Henderson, mowing his lawn, completely unaware that the world’s rules no longer applied to this house.
“You’re not eating, Mark,” Lisa said, not looking at him, her attention on a plump strawberry.
“I’m not hungry,” he managed, his voice tight.
“Suit yourself.” She bit into the berry, its red juice like a wound on her lip. “This is all so much more interesting than grading spelling tests.”
Delores leaned back on her elbows, the flannel shirt falling open. “It beats watching reality TV. Although this is better than reality TV.” She gestured around the room with her flute. “We’re the show.”
“My turn again,” Lisa announced, wiping her hands on a napkin that materialized for the purpose. She stared thoughtfully at the grand piano. “I wish that piano could play itself. Something moody.”
The piano keys depressed, and a slow, haunting nocturne began to flow from it, the notes echoing in the strangely fragrant room. The player was invisible.
“Convenient,” Delores noted.
“Isn’t it just?” Lisa’s smile was brilliant and empty. She turned her gaze to Mark, and for a second, he saw the teacher she used to be, the one who knew how to get a classroom’s attention. “Your turn, honey. Make a wish. Anything you want.”
He stared at her, at the ring. This was a test. “I wish you’d take that thing off.”
Lisa’s smile didn’t falter, but it hardened at the edges. “Denied. That’s not how this game works. You have to wish for something. Something fun.”
The piano music swelled, a little too loud now. The mirror flickered faster, showing fractured images: the living tongue of the couch, the headless Delores clones, a storm cloud gathering over their roof. Mark felt a pressure building behind his eyes.
“I… I wish I had a different tie,” he stammered, grasping for the most mundane thing he could imagine.
A faint shimmer passed over his chest. His boring blue tie was now a slightly different shade of boring blue.
Lisa sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. “See? Boring.” She looked at Delores. “He’s always been like this. So afraid of the menu he just orders the same safe thing every time.”
“Maybe he needs a push,” Delores suggested, her voice a low purr that cut through the piano’s melody.
“Maybe he does.” Lisa’s eyes locked with Mark’s. “I wish you understood what it feels like. Just for a second.”
The ring flared. A searing heat exploded in the center of Mark’s chest, followed by a terrifying, visceral tearing sensation. He looked down, a scream caught in his throat. His sternum was splitting open, skin and cartilage parting like fabric to form a wet, vertical gash. There was no pain, only a horrific, full-body awareness of the new opening, a second mouth gasping soundlessly on his torso.
He could feel the air on its sensitive inner walls, could feel the rhythm of his own frantic heartbeat from the inside. It was a violation so complete it emptied his mind of everything but raw, animal terror.
Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone. His chest was seamless again, his shirt undisturbed. He stumbled back, clutching his unmarred skin, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“See?” Lisa said, her voice light again. “Now you know. It’s not so scary.”
The front doorbell rang, its chime absurdly normal.
The self-playing piano fell silent. All three of them turned toward the sound. Through the frosted glass of the front door, they could see the blurred shape of someone standing on their porch.
“Oh, good,” Lisa whispered, her eyes alight with a new, predatory interest. “Company.”
The single word hung in the bakery-scented air, a stark contrast to the normalcy of the doorbell’s chime. Lisa’s face, which moments before had been a mask of predatory interest, smoothed into a placid, welcoming smile. It was the same smile she used for parent-teacher conferences.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Mark,” she said, her voice a quiet command. “Answer it.”
He moved like a automaton, his legs stiff, the phantom sensation of the vertical slit on his chest still screaming in his nerve endings. He could feel their eyes on his back—Lisa’s amused, Delores’s curious. The checkered picnic blanket, the self-playing piano, the impossible smells—it all seemed to contract around him, a staged scene waiting for its unwitting guest.
He opened the door. Mr. Henderson from three doors down stood on the porch, his bald head gleaming with rain, holding a slightly damp package. “Hey, Mark. Sorry to bother you. This was delivered to my place by mistake.”
Behind him, the world was gray and ordinary, a steady drizzle painting the street in muted colors. It was the world that used to be his.
“Oh. Thanks, Jim,” Mark heard himself say, his voice strangely calm. He took the package, his fingers brushing against the cold, damp cardboard.
“No problem.” Jim’s eyes drifted past Mark’s shoulder, into the living room. His genial expression faltered, his gaze snagging on the impossible picnic spread on the floor, the naked woman in a flannel shirt sipping champagne, the grand piano that definitely hadn’t been there at last week’s block party. He blinked, his mind visibly struggling to catalogue the incongruity.
Lisa appeared at Mark’s side, seamlessly sliding her arm through his. Her skin was warm. “Jim! How sweet of you. We’re just having a little… impromptu indoor picnic. The weather, you know.”
Jim’s eyes darted from Lisa’s overly bright smile to Delores, who gave a slow, deliberate wave from the floor. “Right. Indoor picnic.” He forced a chuckle, taking a half-step back. “Well, I’ll let you folks get to it.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” Lisa called out, her tone sickly sweet.
As Jim turned to leave, shuffling quickly down the wet path, Lisa’s smile vanished. She closed the door with a soft, definitive click, plunging them back into their curated reality. She leaned against the wood, tilting her head as she watched Mark.
“He saw,” Mark whispered, the package feeling like a lead weight in his h
hands.
“Of course he saw,” Lisa said, her voice flat. She pushed off the door and walked back toward the picnic blanket, her bare feet silent on the floorboards. “He saw a weird party. His brain will rationalize it by dinner. People see what they want to see.”
She knelt, picking a grape from the basket and popping it into her mouth. “It’s boring.”
Delores watched Mark still standing by the door, a statue holding a cardboard box. “He’s freaking out, Lis.”
“I know.” Lisa didn’t look at him. She examined the ring on her finger, turning her hand so the metal caught the light. “He wanted magic, but he doesn’t like the price of admission. He never does.”
Mark finally found his voice, a raw, strained thing. “The price? Lisa, you… you opened me. Like a piece of meat.”
“And then I closed you,” she replied, her eyes finally meeting his. They were the same warm brown they’d always been, but the light behind them was different, colder. “It was a lesson. You didn’t learn it.”
The phantom ache in his chest pulsed in agreement. He could still feel the ghost of that violation, the intimate tear of his own flesh.
“My turn,” Delores announced, breaking the tense silence. She stretched, the flannel shirt gaping open. “I wish I knew what Jim Henderson is thinking about right now.”
A voice, thin and reedy, filled the room. It was Jim’s internal monologue, spilling out of the air itself. —weird, really weird, the redhead was practically naked, and that piano, where’d they get a piano, must be one of those rich people things, probably on drugs, should tell Carol to avoid them for a while—
The voice cut off as Delores laughed, a sharp, delighted sound. “He thinks we’re on drugs.”
“See?” Lisa said to Mark, a triumphant little smirk on her face. “Weird party. Drugs. Not a world-altering ring. Not a couch that turns into a tongue. Just a weird Tuesday.”
She stood up, brushing invisible crumbs from her robe. “But it’s getting stale in here. I wish the rain would stop. I wish the sun was out, right at that perfect golden hour angle.”
Through the window, the steady gray drizzle vanished. The clouds didn’t part so much as they were erased, replaced by a deep, warm orange sky. A brilliant shaft of sunlight sliced through the glass, illuminating dust motes that danced like gold flecks in the suddenly summer-evening air.
“Better,” Lisa murmured, soaking in the manufactured glow.
Mark watched her, the woman who had once fretted over lesson plans and grocery lists, now casually commanding the weather. The fear in his gut was curdling into a thick, cold dread. This wasn't an adventure anymore. It was a possession.
“My turn,” Lisa said, her gaze drifting back to him. That predatory look was returning, softening into something more like pity, which was infinitely worse. “I wish Mark would stop being so afraid of me.”
The compulsion hit him like a warm wave. The tight coil of anxiety in his shoulders loosened. The memory of the chest-slit receded, becoming a distant, clinical fact. He looked at Lisa, at her smile, and felt a surge of fondness, an artificial calm smoothing the edges of his terror.
He fought it. He clung to the shreds of his own horror, digging his nails into his palms. “Stop it,” he gritted out, the words a struggle.
Lisa’s smile widened. She’d felt his resistance. “You see? You’re even afraid of not being afraid. It’s who you are now.”
Delores watched this exchange with the focused interest of a scientist observing a lab rat. “He can’t help it. You’re rewriting the world, and he’s just a footnote.”
“I don’t want a footnote,” Lisa said, her voice dropping, becoming thoughtful. The ring seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. “I want a partner. Or I want… less static.”
She took a step toward him. The manufactured sunset haloed her hair. “I wish you understood how small your fears are. How small you are.”
The room didn’t change. The picnic, the piano, the perfect light—it all remained. But Mark felt it. A profound and sudden diminishment. His terror, his love, his entire history, it all felt like a tiny, insignificant speck in the vast, silent universe of her power. The urge to fight evaporated, leaving behind a hollow, quiet ache.
He was nothing. The realization was absolute and cold.
He looked at the mirror above the fireplace. For a split second, it didn't show his reflection at all. It showed an empty room, a quiet, normal living room where no one lived.
Then his own face returned, pale and defeated.
“There,” Lisa whispered, her voice sounding genuinely satisfied. “Now we can have some peace.”
She turned away from him, her attention already moving on. “I’m bored of this picnic. I wish it was gone.”
The checkered blanket, the wicker basket, the chicken bones and the champagne flute in Delores’s hand—they all vanished into the nothing they came from. The room was pristine, back to its normal, cozy self, save for the impossible sunlight and the silent piano.
“What should we do next?” Lisa asked Delores, as if planning a trip to the mall.
Mark didn’t hear the answer. He was staring at his own hands, wondering if they were even his anymore. The doorbell felt like it had happened in another lifetime, to another man. The package from Mr. Henderson was gone, too. He couldn't remember what he had done with it.
He couldn't remember much of anything at all.
The hollow feeling inside Mark was a vast, quiet cavern where his fears used to live. He watched Lisa trace a finger along the piano’s lid, her brow furrowed in a parody of concentration. “You know what this room needs?” she said, not to anyone in particular. “A different view.” The grand mirror above the fireplace shimmered, its surface melting from reflective silver to a transparent window looking out onto a moonlit beach, the sound of waves a soft, rhythmic hush in the room.
“Oh, I like that,” Delores murmured from the sofa, where she was now painting her toenails a shocking crimson without a bottle in sight.
“It’s okay.” Lisa shrugged, and the view flickered to a bustling Parisian café, then to the silent, star-dusted vacuum of deep space. She left it on the void, the infinite blackness dotted with cold, distant stars. “There. More room to think.”
Mark tried to form a protest, a question, anything. The words were shapeless things in his mouth, dissolving before they reached his tongue. His own mind felt like that starscape: vast, cold, and empty of life.
“He’s too quiet now,” Delores noted, blowing on her toes.
“It’s an improvement,” Lisa said, but she glanced at him, a flicker of her old curiosity in her eyes. She walked over and cupped his chin, her touch cool. “What’s in there now, honey? Is it peaceful?”
He looked back at her, and the only thing he could find to say was, “The package is gone.”
Lisa dropped her hand, laughing softly. “The package? Oh, Mark.” She turned away in disappointment. “I wish you had something interesting to say.”
The compulsion seized him again, a mental shove. His mouth opened. “The fundamental nature of reality is probabilistic, a cloud of potentialities until observed,” he heard himself say in a flat, academic tone. “The ring is a localized collapse of the wave function, a perceptual singularity granting conscious agency over quantum decoherence.”
Delores burst out laughing, a real, hearty sound. “Holy shit. You turned him into a physics textbook.”
Lisa smirked. “Better than ‘the package is gone’.” She peered at him. “But it’s still him, just… louder. I don’t want louder.” She sighed, a theatrical sound. “I wish you could feel what I feel when I use it. Just for a second. The… connection.”
The ring glowed, and a circuit closed between them.
For a single, shattering moment, Mark wasn’t in his own skull. He was everywhere. He was the grain of the wood in the floorboards, the heat of the fire, the cold of the space beyond the mirror. He was the potentiality of the piano, the memory of the couch’s tongue, the millions of dust motes dancing in the air. It was a boundless, terrifying symphony of existence, and at its center was Lisa, her will the conductor, plucking notes from the chaos to form her desired melody. The power was a drug, sweet and absolute.
Then it was gone.
He gasped, stumbling back, the normal confines of his senses feeling like a suffocating coffin. The echo of that omnipotence roared in his veins.
“See?” Lisa whispered, her eyes wide and bright. She had felt him feel it.
A new, different kind of terror ignited in Mark’s gut. It wasn’t fear of her anymore. It was a craving. He had tasted the godhood, and his own humanity now tasted like ash.
“Do it again,” he breathed, the words raw.
Lisa’s smile was beatific. “No. You had your turn.” She deliberately turned her back on him, addressing Delores. “We should get a pet. Something unique.”
“We had two of me an hour ago. How much more unique do you want?”
“Something permanent,” Lisa said, her gaze drifting to the star-filled mirror. “I wish for something to love us.”
A whimper came from the corner of the room.
It was a dog, of sorts. It had the shaggy, golden coat of a friendly retriever, but its eyes were the exact warm brown of Lisa’s, and it had six legs, allowing it to stand with an unnervingly stable, spider-like grace. It padded toward Lisa on its silent extra limbs and nuzzled her hand.
“See? It loves me already,” she said, scratching behind its ear.
The dog then turned its head and looked at Mark. In those familiar eyes, he saw no animal simplicity, only a deep, calculating intelligence, and a reflection of the vast emptiness he now carried inside. It let out a low growl that was not a sound of threat, but of recognition.
It knew what he was now. It knew what he had become.
And it found him lacking.