Guys, I assume you like the work we do here (not always a lot of comments, so we may just be talking to ourselves!)
But here’s your chance to shine! for the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting an image, one a week.
Caption it or write a short scene and we might just make it into a story for you!
Don’t be shy – be anonymous if you want!
Stuart stared wide-eyed at his reflection in the mirror: bulging pecs; large, rounded biceps; flat stomach with well-defined abs; all topped by a face with flashing black eyes and a thatch of thick, dark-brown hair ... He swallowed, raised the phone, and pressed another button—
The vision vanished, to be replaced by another well-sculpted torso and handsome face. This one was a little less moody, and he sucked on his lower lip thoughtfully. Then raised the phone and pressed another button—
Another image, and this one, to his surprise, came with a shirt and jeans. He glanced down and fingered the buttons running up and down where he normally wore a featureless gray hoodie. If it was illusion, it was a firmly tactile one. He held up the phone again ...
... Twenty minutes later, and he hadn't repeated a single image. Some were very tall, which gave him vertigo as he glanced around his small bathroom. Some were packed with muscles while others were slight, even elfin. Some were clothed, and some had tattoos.
And when he pressed "C" he returned to normal: a skinny, acne-scarred seventeen-year-old with scared eyes set over an incongruously lop-sided grin.
* * * * *
He'd found the phone sitting on the wall near the park where he liked to skateboard. Bored, he'd picked it up; being an honest sort of kid, he'd checked to see if he could find who it belonged to. But there were no messages, no calls, no directory, no nothing. It seemed like a fake; and when, after twenty minutes, no one had appeared to claim it, he'd taken it as his own. Not that he'd get any use from it. But his mother wouldn't buy him a phone, and it would make him feel better if he could at least flash it as school and pretend that he had one. And it did have a functioning camera, even if it didn't seem to want to record any of the shots he took of the urban landscape.
We could describe the small series of coincidences that put him in his bathroom some days later, to try taking his own picture (successfully) and to discover (accidentally) his new possession's occult ability to impress the image of handsome strangers over his own. But it is a tedious story that would only delay our arrival at his excited decision to turn it to his own advantage. Why, he almost certainly wouldn't need a fake ID to get into any of the nightclubs, not when he was walking around looking like most of the guys in the phone's database.
* * * * *
"What's your sign," he asked the luscious red-head at the bar. He danced slowly in place to the beat of the deafening music.
"Stop," she curtly replied, and turned back to her friend.
He complied and sheepishly retreated, bumping into a blonde in a very tight black dress. "Hey, come here often," he cheerfully asked.
"Only when I don't feel like putting up with jerks," she snapped. She snatched up her drink and huffed away.
Must not be their type, Stuart told himself hopefully. He wormed his way through the crowd to the bathroom for a quick change ...
"I love this song," he shouted to the girl with the cascading blonde curls, and did a fast thrust with his pelvis.
"Good for you," she said. "Maybe you can try dancing to it some time."
He stepped back, causing a shriek. "Watch where you're going, you elephant!" a voice yelled, and he had to look down to even see her. Angry, beady eyes flashed up at him.
"Sorry," he said. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"You can leave her alone!" Another girl took his accident victim by the elbow and helped her stagger away.
Maybe the third time will be the charm ...
"Are you a poet," she asked him. She wasn't pretty, but she had a happy, breathless expression on her face as she stared hungrily at him.
"Uh ..."
"Because you look like one. I mean, not to stereotype or anything, but you look so ... sensitive."
He shrugged and leaned back against the wall with a smile.
"Would you tell me one of your poems?"
He pondered a moment, remembered one he thought would be appropriate for the circumstances, and leaned forward to whisper it in her ear. Halfway through, she yelled and smacked him across the face. He only had to watch her retreating back to imagine what her face looked like. Guess she was looking for sonnets, not limericks ...
His fourth attempt also got slapped ...
His fifth, like the first four, got some appreciative looks. Until he opened his mouth.
The sixth was doing well with this one totally awesome, super-cool chick who smiled but did not laugh at him. And then this guy who claimed to be her boyfriend came up, and Stuart could have totally taken him except this other guy knew something about using his fists or maybe it was karate or tae-kwan-do; and Stuart, despite having some really great arms, couldn't even figure out if he should close his fingers around his thumb or leave it exposed.
He didn't even make it out of the bathroom in his seventh guise because he bumped his head on the top of the door frame and the three chicks just outside burst out laughing and one of them even spilled her drink all down her front.
None of the next five had shirts, and the three after that didn't even have pants ...
The bar was a lot quieter when he finally re-emerged with an air of grim determination. The floor was mostly empty, and he couldn't look at the remaining women without deflating. By now it was so much easier to imagine defeat than victory. He took a barstool, ordered a beer, and just hunched over.
It was like they all had X-ray vision. But when he looked in the mirror he saw a face that wasn't his own. He tugged at his front, and felt a shirt he'd never owned. He regarded his hands, which were strong and ended in well-trimmed, unchewed fingertips. He took a pull on the beer and cupped his chin in his hand. Only dimly did he sense the new presence at his shoulder.
"Oh, man, I thought you said you'd lost it," the voice said. He looked over in surprise; it was a guy in his mid-twenties with an open shirt, rakishly cut hair, and cheeks that glowed a healthy pink beneath the light tan. His eyes gleamed hungrily. "Awesome surprise. It's like my birthday again to walk in and find you here, decked out like this," he continued warmly. Stuart didn't react, even when the stranger leaned in to whisper. "Love it when you're wearing Ryan. He's just about my favorite. Last time you were wearing him ... Oh my God!" The guy shuddered pleasurably.
There was a suspended moment as Stuart waited for the punch line to the joke or the howl of anger or something. But the guy just kept smiling. Then he pulled back, cocked his head quizzically, and walked to the nightclub door. There he stood, gave a little gesture of invitation, and slipped out.
Stuart looked around the nightclub. He looked at himself in the mirror. He rubbed his eyes wearily.
Oh, what the hell.
He dropped a tip on the bar and shuffled his way outside, where he let the stranger put an arm around his shoulder and pull him close. The car wasn't far, and it wasn't even much of a drive back to his place.
