Chapter 1: The Proposal
The air in Mark’s study always smelled like old paper and ambition. I found him slumped in his giant leather throne, staring at a rectangle of cream-colored cardstock like it had personally offended him. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat within reach, a single glass beside it.
“You look like crap,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.
He didn’t look up. “She’s getting married.”
“Ah.” I pushed off and wandered into the room, my sneakers silent on the Persian rug. The chandelier overhead threw wavering shadows across the bookshelves. I could hear the steady, distant hum of something electrical from the lab wing—Mark’s other, more reliable child. “And you got the invitation because…”
“Because she’s a fucking sadist,” he muttered, finally tossing the card onto the desk. It skidded and bumped against a microscope. “Or because she thinks we’re ‘adults.’ I don’t know. It’s in two weeks. Black tie. Plus-one encouraged.”
He picked up the whiskey glass, drained it, and poured another two fingers. The liquid caught the light, amber and angry. At six-four, all coiled muscle and repressed intensity, Mark Mooers usually filled a room. Right now, he seemed shrunken, diminished by a piece of stationery.
I dropped into the chair opposite him. It was still warm from where he’d probably been pacing. “So don’t go. Problem solved.”
“I have to go.” His voice was flat. “If I don’t, it means she won. It means I’m not over it.”
“Are you?”
He shot me a look that could have curdled milk. “What do you think, Justin?”
I held up my hands. My own hands. Scruffy, familiar, with bitten nails and a faded ink stain from a leaky pen. “I think you’re a masochist. And you’re going to show up alone, brood in a corner, and make everyone uncomfortable. Classic Mark.”
“Got a better idea?” he snapped, rubbing a hand over his face. “You want me to hire some escort? Show up with a twenty-year-old bimbo on my arm? That’s even more pathetic.”
The hum from the lab seemed to grow louder for a second. An idea, ridiculous and fully formed, dropped into my head. I’d been holding this secret for fifteen years, since college. Mark was the only person in the world I’d ever consider telling, and even then, I’d never actually done it. It was my thing. My weird, private joke on the universe.
But this was Mark. And he looked like hell.
“What if I could be your date?” I said, the words out before I could chicken out. My voice was casual, like I was suggesting we order pizza.
He blinked. “What?”
“Literally.”
“Justin, I love you, man, but you’re not my type. And the beard is not a good look for a black-tie event.”
“Not like this,” I said.
I let it happen. I didn’t need to concentrate, not really. It was like deciding to stretch a sore muscle, a release of a tension I almost always carried. It started in my core, a deep, internal unraveling.
My spine seemed to compress, vertebrae clicking softly. A wave of heat, not painful but profoundly strange, washed over me as my frame began to pull inward. I heard the sharp intake of Mark’s breath as I visibly shrank in the oversized chair. The world literally grew taller around me; the desk loomed, the chair enveloped me.
My shoulders narrowed, bones grinding with a muffled popcorn sound. The fabric of my hoodie, once snug, became a cavernous tent. The sleeves swallowed my hands. I felt my hips widen, a sudden, alien pressure on the joints, followed by a sharp, tingling ache as new bone and flesh structured themselves. A sweeping sensation of lightness followed as mass redistributed, vanishing from my arms and back, gathering in two new, heavy points on my chest.
That was the weirdest part. The pull of gravity on my chest was immediate and impossible to ignore. As the transformation finalized, a gentle, aching weight settled there, sensitive and full. I glanced down. The neck of my hoodie gaped open. The plain cotton tee underneath was now strained across two unmistakable, rounded curves. They moved when I breathed, a soft, independent jiggle that sent a thrill of sheer wrongness up my spine.
My jeans, which had fit fine a minute ago, were now bunched and baggy at the waist, threatening to slide right off my new, narrower hips. The waistband rubbed against a foreign landscape below my stomach—a smooth, flat plane that felt taut and strangely vulnerable. Between my legs, the familiar weight and arrangement was just… gone. Replaced by a faint, cool pressure and a sense of absence that made my heart hammer.
I lifted a hand. It was small. Delicate. The fingers were slender, the nails somehow neater. I brought it to my face. My beard was gone. My cheekbone was higher, my skin smoother. My lips felt different—fuller, softer against my fingers. When I swallowed, my throat felt tighter. I took a breath to speak.
The voice that came out was higher. Clearer. It had a lighter timbre, almost melodic compared to my usual gravel. “See?” I said. “No beard.”
Mark was statue-still. His glass was frozen halfway to his lips. His eyes, wide and unblinking, traveled from the top of my head—where long, blonde hair now spilled over the hoodie’s shoulders, fine and smooth—down the ridiculous swell of my chest, to the dramatic curve of my hips under the pile of denim, to my feet, which now swam in my size-ten sneakers. I wiggled my toes inside them; there was yards of empty space. My feet felt tiny, arched differently.
The silence stretched, thick and electric, broken only by the hum of the lab and the frantic thump of my new, faster heart. I could smell the whiskey more acutely, the oak of the books, the faint, clean scent of my own new skin. It was overwhelming.
Mark slowly, carefully, set his glass down. It clicked against the wood.
“Justin?” The word was a rasp.
“The one and only.” My new voice felt like using someone else’s instrument. “So. About that wedding. I’m thinking a size two, maybe four dress. You’ll have to buy me shoes. My feet are… really small now.” I kicked off a sneaker. It thudded to the floor. My bare foot, pale and narrow with high instep, looked utterly foreign. I flexed it. The bones felt fragile.
He just stared. His gaze was a physical thing, moving over me with scientific intensity, but beneath it was pure, unvarnished shock. And something else. A dawning, reluctant intrigue.
He leaned forward, elbows on the knees of his thousand-dollar trousers. “How?”
“Dunno. Woke up like this when I was twenty-one. Well, not like this. I woke up able to become this.”
“And you never…”
“Told anyone? Nope. You’re the first. Figured you’d either have a hypothesis or a straitjacket ready.” I tried to stand. It was a disaster. The jeans, with no hips to hold them up, immediately slid down. I grabbed a fistful of denim at my waist to hitch them, the movement causing my chest to sway heavily. The sensation was dizzying. I had to look down to see my own feet to place them. The floor was further away. My center of gravity was different—higher, more precarious. I felt off-balance, like I was on a ship. “Whoa. Okay. This is going to take a second.”
I took a step. My hips moved differently, a sway I didn’t initiate. The denim chafed against my inner thighs, which now touched in a way they never had before. Every motion sent subtle ripples through parts of my body that had just… appeared.
Mark watched me shuffle, holding my jeans up, dwarfed by my own clothes. The shock was finally melting from his face, replaced by a sharp, calculating curiosity. And a spark of something that looked like hope.
“A date,” he said slowly.
“A stunning, five-foot-tall, inexplicably blonde date who knows all your secrets and won’t expect a goodnight kiss,” I clarified, my voice oddly cheerful in this new register. “I’ll need a bra, though. This is… a lot.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. It was the first one I’d seen all night. “I think,” he said, his voice low and steady, “we need another glass.”