Special FX -28- Sleeping on It (Patreon)

Instead of kissing Jack, I turned and stumbled back into my bedroom. “I’m-a going to bed until the world wakes up and makes sense,” I said to no one. I stumbled to my bed and tumbled into it.

I went under like a submarine in a WWII movie with the skipper shouting, “Dive! Dive!” while he was still on deck. An ocean of unconsciousness dragged me down into the depths of sleep, but when I emerged on a game show set, I wasn’t surprised.

Mike Myers was the host, doing his obnoxious Scot character, and right away, I knew I was dreaming. I mean, no one is going to hire Myers as a game show host, am I right?

But seemingly, I had won a car, a convertible, the only problem being that I could only ride on the hood and only if I wore a bikini. And even I knew that my generous curves were not ideal for being displayed in a skimpy two-piece! Somebody was sure to make mooing sounds.

And, of course, it was Myers himself who went there. Funny man, but he’s always been known as a bit of a jerk.

The car was a candy-flake gold 1957 Pontiac, and so was my bikini….

* * *

A dream transition had me as a little girl with blonde pigtails attending Standard Middle School.

“I never went to Standard Middle,” I protested to my BFF, Amelia Waits.

“Sure you did, Billie,” she countered. “I remember going to school with you. It was only seven years ago. Not like it was forever!” She laughed at me. Her rust-colored pigtails were shorter than mine and stuck out sideways. And she had 673 freckles, each of which had a name, address and grade point average higher than mine.

“But that was Billy! Not me!” I tried to make her understand.

“You are Billie,” she insisted.

“No, I’m not. I’m Hallie!” I countered. I glanced down. Even at twelve, I had twice as much bust as other girls my age. “See?” I said, pointing at my chest.

“I wish I had a neat middle name like Hallelujah,” she complained.

Amelia’s middle name was Frances, and she hated it.

“We could make it like a nickname, huh?” I suggested. “We could start calling you Fancy!”

She blinked. “I kind of like that,” she admitted. Then she asked, “Are you going out for the cheerleading team?”

I thought about it. The cheerleading costumes were really cute….

* * *

But the dreamscape changed again, to high school shop class. Woodshop, where Mr. Bertoldt and I were working on flats for the school production of Arsenic and Old Lace.

“I oontershtand you’re going to be in der play, alzo?” The instructor commented in his German accent as we pulled the canvas tight over the frame.

For some reason, I giggled. “Yeah,” I admitted, pushing blonde hair out of my face. I had been going to play one of the old maids, but ever since I got my picture taken by the magic camera, the director insisted I would have to play Elaine, Mortimer’s love interest. And the handsomest boy in school was playing Mortimer. “I get to kiss Dickie Moller!” I squeaked, embarrassed and thrilled at the same time.

“Ach, zo!” Mr. Bertoldt laughed and shook his hand as if he had burned it. “You like dis boy?”

“I dunno,” I said. “I’ve only kissed him once, so far. I need another sample. We’ll have to see what happens.” More giggles.

“Ja!” he agreed, laughing even harder.

* * *

My giggling woke me up. In the darkness of my room, I felt as if the weather outside had changed. I sat up enough to lift the corner of a curtain and peek out. The walk outside my room was still wet, even puddled in places, but across the courtyard, I saw stars and an inky sky above the other wing of the Lowering Heights apartment complex.

I lay back down and pulled my sheet and thin blanket up to my chin, and sighed. It just might be good bikini weather tomorrow, after all. Then again, the car show was going to be inside, wasn’t it?

“I’m not sure I want to wear a bikini atoll, anyway,” I murmured, falling back into a dream of a radioactive sunrise over the Columbia Records building.

* * *

Jack knocked on my door way too early. “It’s Saturday, Mom!” I shouted.

“No, it’s not,” Jack countered, laughing. “It’s Sunday, and you have a gig in Century City at ten thirty.”

I pushed my eyeballs back in my head with both fists, tangled with the blonde lock of hair that always seemed to be in my face and managed to ask, “What time is it?” In the middle of a yawn. It came out more like, “Wahdai-aimzit?”

“Eight fifteen,” he answered.

“Plennyuhdai-aim,” I said through another yawn, pulling the pillow around my head. Hadn’t I done this already once before?

Jack responded by beating Reveille on the door, eight-to-the-bar, provoking squeaks and splutters from me. “God rot your guts, Jack Urquhart!” I shouted.

My feet hit the floor, and I got traction, headed for my door. “You’d better not be between me and the bathroom, Jerq!” I warned him. I slammed the door open, actually hoping I would hit him, and ran as fast as I could with my thighs held tight together.

That’s hard to do, so I squealed as I ran, hoping it would relieve some pressure. I was distracted, but I distinctly heard shutter clicks as I ran past Jack standing in the arch to the kitchen, fortunately well out of my desperate path.

I made it only because I realized at the last moment that I was naked except for the costume plastron still glued to my chest! I felt sure I’d been wearing panties when I went to bed, but I was so near out of it last night that I couldn’t be sure. Last night? Wasn’t that earlier this morning?

But I had something else to worry about. “Ja-ack!” I wailed. “You took my picture?”

“Yup,” he agreed. “Candid camera, right here on Levering Way.”

“I’m half-naked!” I protested.

“A bit more than that,” he observed. “Yow!”

“You’re looking at the picture! Aren’t you?!”

“I’m looking at the most perfect ass West of the Rockies!”

“You’re a perfect ass!”

“Ho, mama!”

“Dang it, Jack!” I started the process of wiping myself dry. How was I going to get back to my room without giving him another chance to take my picture? “If you show that pic to anyone, I swear, I will feed your t-t-testicles to the g-g-garbage d-d-disposal!” Was I crying? Damn it, I was crying!

“Whoa, whoa, sugar buns!” Jack called out. “I’ll send the pic only to you and erase it from my phone, okay? Don’t cry.”

“How can I trust the biggest jerk west of the Mississippi?” I fumed at him, realizing he must be right outside the bathroom door, probably waiting for another chance to snap my picture.

“Gotta say, the camera loves you, babe. Even just woke up and wearing that Space Amazon breastplate, you’re gorgeous. No shit, sheila.”

I examined myself in the mirror on the back of the door. Yeesh! Blonde bombshell was the only description that came to mind. My bush was even trimmed into a provocative triangle. “Hallelujah,” I said, “That is really me!”

“It sure is,” Jack said on the other side of the door, with a bit of reverence in his tone.

I wondered if I could open the door suddenly, hitting him with it and grab the phone out of his hand. The toilet bowl was handy for disposing of the evidence, but the dang door opened the wrong way.

Something occurred to me. “Jack!” I shouted. “If you’re going to take my picture, use that darn magic camera!”

“But-uh-what if it turns you back into a boy? You’ll miss the car show.”

I bit my lip. Wait a minute. Did I want to change back into a boy? Did I want to miss the car show?

Hallelujah Jones had a career ahead of her already and Billy was just a skinny kid from Oildale? But wasn’t he the real me?

I glanced down at the deep vee neckline of the costume I was still glued into. Didn’t this have a diamond-shaped boob window in it before? “I’m so confused,” I complained out loud.

“That thing isn’t really a camera, you know,” Jack was saying. “I really have no idea what it might do, and neither do you. I’m not even sure how to operate it. It’s got too many dials and buttons and wheels and levers.” He paused as if considering whether to tell me something else.

I couldn’t see him, but I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “You know something about that—thing!—that I don’t know,” I accused.

I heard him sigh. “I had it for most of a day yesterday, you know,” he began, then stopped again. I heard him move away from the door.

Something occurred to me. “You used it, didn’t you?” I asked.

“Not intentionally,” he said. “I was just looking at it, and I must have touched something. It went off!”

I opened the door a crack and tried to look at him. I couldn’t see him since the door opened inward, and he was down the hall in the wrong direction. But I was still naked except for the costume piece, and I wasn’t going back into the hall if he still had his phone and camera. “I need some clothes, Jack,” I whined. “Did it turn you into a girl?” I asked, intending it to be sarcastic.

But he answered. “Yes, it did.” We both went quiet while I absorbed that idea.

“Did you use it again to turn back?” I asked. Was that hope in my voice?

“Nope,” he said. “Being a girl was a heck of a mind-flip, but I didn’t touch the damned gadget for about four hours.” He paused again. “Then I just changed back. Without using the device again.”

Something he still wasn’t telling lurked in his voice. “What is it? You were a girl for four hours, and you just changed back?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I haven’t changed back,” I pointed out.

“I know,” he said, flatly.

“Dangit, Jack! You’re not telling me something!” I made a face, but he couldn’t see me, and it was completely wasted on the mirror. “What were you doing when you changed back?”

Another pause before he answered. “I’d rather not say.”

“Jack, you weasel! Tell me!” Silence, but I had an idea what the answer might be.