Consequences free porn video

Consequences. By Tanya H. When chance and workload allowed I would excuse myself from the office at lunchtimes and enjoy a short walk into town for a sandwich and cup of tea. If I had made my fitness commitments the previous week I'd even allow myself a cake. That particular day spring carried the promise of summer, the sun was shining, it was pleasantly warm and I had left my jacket across the back of my chair. Through trial and error I had found the cafe where I could get the best Earl Grey tea and enjoyed that I knew the staff there and they knew me, but when I stepped inside that day the first face I saw was one I had hoped never to see again. Sight of him stopped me just inside the door. If it hadn't been so clear that he was watching for me, or that his whole body language became upright and alert when I went in I'd have turned and walked out. "Charlotte," he said and his voice carried through the clatter in the coffee shop. He smiled that familiar smile, as though he were genuinely pleased to see me. That could not be true. That he were here at all meant only mischief and pain. He was sitting in a low easy chair beside a small table in the back corner, a place I liked to sit with my lunch and a book. His face looked a little more careworn than I remembered, older than his 35 years. He wore fitted jeans and a casual shirt, his body was still trim, but there were scars across the backs of both hands I didn't recognise - they looked like scalds. His eyes were the same blue, to go with his fair complexion and hair, but they were cold when they looked at me. When he beckoned what else could I do? He rose like a gentleman as I stepped through the other tables and customers to him. He offered his hand, in some pretence that this was an amiable meeting, but I refused to take it. In my heels I was at his eye level, but he had never been a tall man. "What do you want?" "Hardly very friendly, Charlotte," he said with an expression of mock rebuke. "How long is it?" "Five years," I said, my voice cool. "What do you want?" "Why don't you sit down. Can I buy you lunch." "I seem to have lost my appetite." He shrugged. "No problem. Do you mind if I have some, I'm starving." He sat down and indicated I should sit opposite. For a moment I thought I would just turn and walk out, but tempting as that option was it would only postpone dealing with whatever had brought him back into my life. I sat, checked my hemline and crossed my legs. His eyes never left me. "You look good. I'm pleased you're looking after yourself, that you haven't let yourself go." "I've always been fussy about my appearance," I said. "You know that." "Of course I do. It made things a little easier; only a very little easier mind." "What do you want, Mark?" He snorted at the name, pursed his lips for a moment and looked at the ceiling. "I want Charlie," he said slowly. "That boat has sailed," I said, leaning back in my chair and catching a waitress's eye. I ordered a pot of Earl Grey for myself. Mark ordered a sandwich and coffee and smiled smugly until the girl had gone to the counter. "You've managed to ladder your tights," he said pointing to my left knee. Irritatingly there was a spot of pale skin showing through a tear in the black nylon. I tutted. "I suppose you might be wearing stockings though," he said. "Do you wear stockings for Chris, I know he likes them. Do you parade yourself in stockings and lingerie and fuck-me-shoes before you suck his cock, Charlotte?" I stared at him throughout that little speech, my lip curled with disdain. "You haven't changed then," I said coldly. He leant forward then and the good humour vanished from his expression. "I knew you were a fucking faggot the first time I saw you." "Actually, Mark, I wasn't. But you were so self-centred, I presume you still are otherwise you wouldn't be here again, you never realised what I was." I held up a finger to shush him. "Which brings me back to my original question. What do you want?" "What I've always wanted,'he sad smugly. "I want my life back and I want Chris." Which was nothing new. Five years ago, just before I'd got rid of him, he'd said the same. "Anything new?" I asked. My tea arrived, but after thanking the waitress I ignored it. "I wanted to tell you." "And that's it?" I said feeling some of the tension leaving me. He didn't have any surprises. My lunch was ruined, but aside from that everything was fine. I gave him a sour smile and stood. "Good bye, Mark. Leave us alone, or we'll have to get the police involved again." "Don't you want your tea?" "Good bye." "Before you go, Charlie," he said. "What?" "I just wanted you to know that I worked out how to do what you did. I know how you stole my body and my life. More importantly, I want you to know that I can reverse it. Think about that when you call the police." He lifted his sandwich and dismissed me. "Off you go. Make the most of it." Chris was still out at the factory when I got home, the house was still and cool. Normally coming home, kicking off my shoes and dropping into an easy chair for a few minutes with a good book was enough to sooth away any office worries. Mark haunted me though, his voice and his words kept slipping greasily through my thoughts and as felt his eyes on me wherever I went. That was stupid. Mark had never been to this house, we'd moved there about a year after the wedding while he was still in prison. While I was getting used to a new career direction and being Mrs Witham. I decided to go for a run and by the time I'd worked up a good sweat, when my skin was glowing and my breasts ached Chris was home. He found me leaning on a work surface in the kitchen going through my emails on my phone. I'd heard the front door click, heard him shout hello, but he'd tiptoed through the hall and surprised my by kissing the back of my neck and sweeping his arms around me. His left hand cupped my right breast softly, his right was laid on my tummy with the tips of its fingers just abouve the swell of my pubis. "Lottie," he whispered into my neck. "I missed you." That embrace, more than the run or anything like wine or chocolate I could have thought of, drained the tension from my shoulders and I sighed into his arms. He felt tall and strong, a comfortable scent of man, aftershave and coffee enveloped me. "I missed you," I said closing my eyes. He moved my pony tail aside and kissed my neck some more. "Good day?" he murmured. "Average, but improving," I replied. My breast responded happily to the warmth of his hand and the slight movement of his fingertips. The nipple started to crinkle erect and I knew he'd be feeling it. "It could get better," he whispered and now there was something hard pressed to my bum, laid almost perfectly along my cleavage. "I'm stinking," I protested half heartedly, pushing back onto him. "You never looked more beautiful," he said. His hands dropped to stroke my hips and thighs, up and down through my lycra running shorts. "And besides, we have to do this as often as possible. Remember?" "You used that excuse this morning," I said softly feeling a delicious heat building between my legs. I didn't need much persuasion before I was bent forward across the work surface with my shorts around my ankle as he eased himself slowly inside me. I was hot and slippery and it was almost frictionless - just whatI needed. I almost cried when a wonderful orgasm took me and then he filled me with his. I couldn't bear the thought that it might be my last. After a shower and some tea, I slipped on a shortish, flared dress, some black opaque tights and flat ballet pumps, picked up my hand bag and car keys and headed for the door. "Maths at Joy's?" said Chris after kissing me goodbye. "I'll be home by eight," I said and kissed him back. He ran his hands down my waist, over my hips and then under my dress lifting it so he could caress me through my smooth tights. "I'll have wine and chocolate waiting for you when you get back," he murmured. "Twice in one day is plenty," I chided, gently, pushed him away and ran to my Audi before he could get his shoes on an make me late. Joy, my boss, lived in the next town and her son was building up for his GSCE exams. She was worried enough about his maths to have asked me to help out and I would go over for an hour every Wednesday. I've always been good numbers and while I don't do accountancy or really get involved with figures any more I enjoyed helping him through the mathematics maze and finding him some directions along the way. It was a pleasant evening and I was following a four by four pickup along a winding, country lane convincing myself that Mark's threats were no more than words when the pickup came to a sudden, smoking tyre stop. I was quick, I like driving, and the Audi's brakes were good enough that by the time I'd hit the truck my speed was slow enough that the airbags didn't smack me in the face. I sat there a moment, panting with my knuckles white about the steering wheel staring at the wide, white expanse of the truck filling the windscreen. Idiot! What the hell had he done that for. My lovely Audi! I pushed open the door, made myself tall and was striding forward to vent a little anger when the lack of movement from the cab calmed me. What if he was hurt, maybe he'd had a heart attack. It was a tall vehicle and I couldn't get a view into the cab. Engine noise came faint behind me, there might be another crash in a minute. "Hello? Are you okay?" Nothing. No movement. Reaching for the handle I feared the worst for this driver. My phone was in my handbag in the car, I wasn't sure if I could remember much first aid. The door was thrust open so suddenly it caught my left arm and knocked me off balance. I glimpsed a man as I spun, his arm flashed out. He was holding something black which connected with my side between my ribs and pelvis. It made an electric crackling noise. Pain seared through me, I screamed long and shrill. There was a prick at my neck, like a bite, and something cool flowed under my skin. The world tipped sideways, my legs went rubbery and didn't want to hold me up any more. The last thing I saw before he bundled me into the back seat of the truck was Mark's face. He was scarlet with effort and now he was holding a gun. For a moment, as my perceptions went drunken, I imagined he would shoot me, which was odd because he wouldn't want my body with a bullet wound in it. When the gun went bang I whimpered, but he hadn't fired it at me. Then everything went grey. And black. ********** I woke in a place that smelt of furniture polish and clean linen. I felt sick. The air was warm across my skin and though something soft, like a mattress, supported my back I was not covered. I felt naked. When I opened my eyes first the light was so bright a great scream of pain shot through my head so I closed them again. I tried to move a hand to shade them, but it was tied at the wrist. So was my other arm and both my legs. Worse than that my legs were spread wide, like I'd been made into a cross on a big, double bed. I squinted. Sunlight streamed through window curtained by soft nets. I was in a bland, floral bedroom on a canopied, four-poster bed. I was tied to the bed with beige nylon stockings. When I looked towards the foot of the bed, across my breasts and between my toes I saw Mark sitting in a rocking chair looking at me with a smug look on his face. "You've slept all night," he said. "It's nearly eight in the morning." "You bastard!" I struggled against the bindings. My head hurt and I felt like puking. "Not very ladylike," he chided. "Mind you, you don't look like a lady with your legs spread like that." "Let me go!" Why did I say that? It sounded stupid, but I wasn't really at my best. "Not until I get what I want," he said and brushed his fingers across my left toes. I moaned and closed my eyes. "Do you remember the first time we met?" he asked. He left my foot and I heard the chair creak as he sat again. "How could I forget," I muttered and he laughed. Chris had phoned me up, out of the blue, late one morning when I was at work. "Take the afternoon off, mate," he'd said. "I'm interviewing for a new PA this afternoon. The first one is called Charlotte, she sounds hot. Come and interview her with me." When she'd walked into Chris's large office I'd had to agree with his appraisal. Charlotte was beautiful; in her mid-twenties with long dark hair tied into a professional bun and a dark grey, conservative styled trouser suit that didn't hide her curves, or her full breasts, but didn't flaunt them either. She wore neat, mid height heels, flattering make-up and a minimum of jewellery. I'd known Chris for long enough, I'd been his best friend and confident for long enough to know that he was hooked straight away. The rest of the women who'd come for the job paled to insignificance after Charlotte. She'd started work the very next week. "Did you start wishing you were me right then, you pervert?" Mark hissed. "Had you always dreamed of being a woman? Was that it?" "You don't understand, do you? Even now." I wriggled against my bindings again, but he'd done a good job. I'd never wanted to be a woman, never even though of it before that night on the bridge. I'd never had so much as a sneaking, guilty gay fantasy and my heterosexual credentials had been well established by my neighbour, the buxom Mrs Rhodes, while I was growing into manhood. The things she'd taught me! "Don't worry, darling," he said heavily. "When I'm finished with you, where you're going you'll still get plenty of cock. Only it won't fit quite as well as you've got used to. Have you and Chris tried anal? He liked it with me. Anyway, you're going to be getting plenty, I can assure you of that!" He'd know. He'd been to prison. I'd seen to that. Perhaps that had been the hardest part of what I'd done - deliberately trashing my own reputation and trashing my life. So I could steal hers. I suppose, on reflection, it had been a terrible thing to do to her, but I hadn't done it for me - I'd done it for the poor, intoxicated, hopelessly in love Chris. I tried to squint down at my body, to see if it had already started. That was the only reason Mark was keeping me tied like this; we had to be in proximity to each other. At least when I'd done it I had let him sleep through. It looked like he was going to make me watch. Were my breasts smaller already? I didn't think so, but it was hard to be sure from this position. The way he was staring between my legs made me wonder if my clitoris was already beginning to swell into something else. "Of course it's started," he said contentedly. "I can feel it. My skin is smoother already." "At least I've cleaned up for you," I said heavily, letting my body sigh into the bed and staring at the ceiling. "What?" "I got you off cocaine and the drink, I only have a couple of glasses of wine each week now, and I don't spread my legs for every well stacked man who looks twice at me." Mark stood up. There was a frown on his face. Did his skin look smoother? He looked older and more careworn than the last time I'd looked out of those eyes. The last few years had been tough on him. "I didn't realise you knew about that," he said, walking around to stand close to my head. "I'm Chris's best friend," I said and felt a dreary sadness press down on me, because I wouldn't be any more. "When I realised how completely hook, line and sinker he'd fallen for you I made it my business to find out everything I could about you. You weren't a nice person. I had to stop you." "Well it hasn't worked has it?" He screwed up his face into a mask of hatred and practically spat the next word over me. "Mark!" Five years since I'd been called that. Five years since I'd been a man. I closed my eyes. I'd never see Chris again after this. I wasn't sure if I could bear that. "Why didn't you just come between us?" he asked. Softly. His weight settled on the bed beside me. "You could have told him about the drugs, the men." I shook my head. He'd taken my hair down when he'd undressed me. I could feel it piled around my head. I suppose I wouldn't have to manage its mass anymore, though I had come to enjoy it. Braiding waist length hair can be very very therapeutic. Though it makes your arms ache. "That just shows how little you understand about it." I laughed a little, bitterly. "About love." "You love him?" he sneered. "You've always loved him. Little Mark following Chris around like a puppy." "If I'd have told him you were an addict, you were fucking all kinds of men when he was away... Well, first he wouldn't have believed me. He'd have thought I was jealous, maybe. You tried to turn him against me, didn't you? He told me. He challenged me over the lies you told him, as though I really had behaved that way towards you. If I had convinced him what you were really like, it would have broken his heart." "How noble. Pathetically so. You gave up your life, you became a woman, just to spare his feelings? Christ!" I'd never convince him, but we'd grown up together, practially shared everything, even the odd girl. Only when we'd finished at uni, when he took over his dad's engineering firm and I followed the numbers into accountancy did we live apart. He prodded my shoulder, I turned and looked at him. He was looking down and gloating. He was wearing a dark blue, satin dressing gown - a woman's one. It was hanging open and would have shown his cleavage if the magic had gone that far. I saw he was wearing black opaque tights under it, my tights probably. On another chair, beside the window, he'd laid the dress, jacket and bra I'd been wearing when he'd jumped me. Ready for when he'd stolen his body back. "I loved him too," he said. "You loved yourself." "He'd have given me the stability I needed and I would have been the perfect wife." "You didn't love him. You loved his money, his house, his company, his cars, his status," I said. "I knew that after you made Hardwick go bust." He sneered. "Hardwick was an idiot. He didn't deserve to be in business, Chris was too soft on him." "John Hardwick lost everything after you persuaded Chris to enforce that debt. You didn't need his money either." "Chris's company needed a harder touch, the profits were there to be had He wasn't a charity." "You would have ruined Chris. You only ever loved yourself." He stood at that, no answer for it, and looked down on me. You get used to men looking at your body when you're a woman, most of the time you teach yourself to ignore it, but I hated the way he looked at me. He drew his fingers down my cleavage, over my tummy and rested them on my mound. His touch made my nausea double. "I'm going to watch you change. I'm going to watch your perfect body grow into this one," he said. "You'll see it too. You'll enjoy having a cock again, wont you?" That wasn't worthy of an answer. I'd got over not being able to pee standing up very quickly and while Mrs Rhodes had taught me the joys of having a penis, I'd learnt that being the recipient of a well used erection more than made up for it. "Did you sleep through the change last time then, Mark?" he sneered, his fingers still circling my mound. Actually I didn't, though I'd given her, Charlotte, enough sleeping pills to make an elephant snore. I'd sat through the night, naked, with wine and a thick paperback and charted the changes the wish worked on my body. It was while Chris had been on a trip to Germany, to win an order from an aerospace company. The wedding was only three weeks away and it was his last trip before the honeymoon. I, as his best friend and best man, had been entrusted with keeping his fiancee looked after. After I'd engineered a significant water leak at Chris's house and while the insurance company had sorted out the damage, Charlotte had moved in with me. While she had slept the sleep of the well drugged I had watched my body become hers. It had been a fascinating, unsettling and faintly erotic experience. To be honest, in quiet moments I had often enjoyed a leisurely session gently fingering myself while I thought of it. The unsettling part had come from wondering of the wish would actually work and, when I had started to change, worrying that it would complete before Charlotte woke up. I couldn't bear the thought of being left some kind of freakish half-Mark and half-Charlotte. My skin had smoothed first. While I had never been very muscular, cricket and running had kept me toned, but as I'd sipped my wine I'd seen my body smooth out, my hands grew smaller and my fingers fine and feminine. The wish was supposed to make me a perfect copy and this was born out as my fingernails lengthened slightly, became oval and manicured. Like hers. But the strangest, and most tingling, was as my penis shrunk and my scrotum shrivelled between my stringy thighs. There was perhaps a period of perhaps thirty minutes where my manhood resembled that of the boy I had been many years before. More wine, another chapter, a few yawns and then I had felt something tickle my shoulders. My hair was growing out, it had darkened from mousy to a rich, dark brown and was starting to curl. Goosebumps lifted across my body and there was an unusual sucking feeling between my legs. When I looked past my book and parted my thighs my scrotum had vanished, the skin was flat where it had been and my cock had shrunk into a nub like the last joint of my little finger. I hardly even blinked as that taught skin folded in and left me with neat slit while my penis vanished under a hood of skin. I had gone from boy to girl. By morning I had felt my hips spread, watched as I formed a smooth layer of womanly fat around my hips and thighs while the skin around my darkening nipples had puffed, bloomed and swollen into Charlotte's firm, round and heavy breasts. I had already researched her clothes - she was a D cup and their weight was amazing. Despite the gravity of the situation I had taken the time to cup their weight and run my fingers up my inner thighs to brush them along my vulva, fully developed now and with dark curls lined above it. I was a woman. I was Charlotte. I have never been so scared in all my life. Back in that room, tied to the bed with Mark glowering me I shivered under his touch. He looked at his watch and then stared out of the window. He lifted his hands to his chest and frowned. Maybe his nipples were itching as they swelled. Of course he had already been through puberty as a girl, maybe going through it the second time was not so pleasant. "Who did you shoot?" I asked. He shook his head, irritably. "Shoot?" "When you drugged me or whatever you did. You had a gun, you fired it. You didn't hurt somebody did you?" A wicked smile spread over his face and my stomach turned over. I really did feel sick. "You know the money you stole?" he said. "From your clients? To make sure I went to prison while you went on my honeymoon in my body? I have taken steps to make sure you get some jail time too. I didn't shoot anybody, I'm not a killer, I just shot your car. Now there'll be armed cops looking for you and as well as the kidnapping charges you'll get, there'll be firearms offences too. The judge won't like that. Big house for you, Mark." "I need to be sick," I said. My voice was thick. My belly churned. Alarm made his eyes wide and he ran from the room. I was moaning with nausea when he dashed back in with a bowl, just in time for me to vomit awkwardly while he cradled my head and tucked my hair out of the way. He gave me a sip of water then I told him I needed to wee. That was most humiliating. He'd obviously planned ahead, for he had one of those cardboard bottles they have for bed-bound women in hospital and he held it between my legs while I sighed with relief. Then I was sick again. I supposed it was the after effects of whatever it was that he'd injected me with? Silence fell between us after that. I looked at the blue sky through the window, watching the clouds moving along and wishing I was anywhere else that this. I could feel his eyes on me, but I ignored him. My belly felt a little more settled. "Did you keep the dress?" he asked suddenly, after looking up from his watch again. He looked down the front of his dressing gown and frowned again. "Which one?" "Which one! My wedding dress. I've a mind to try it on again, maybe I can get Chris to reaffirm the wedding vows. After you stole my big day." I'd been terrified of the wedding. The three weeks between that day and the my transformation into Charlotte had been exhausting. As well as learning to be a woman, I had to be Chris's fiancee and his PA. My fumbles in all areas were excused, readily, by all concerned by the stress we were all under from Mark's arrest and remand into custody. Once he'd awoken from and discovered what I had done to him he reacted badly, worse than I had anticipated.. On the day of the wedding I still had the bruises on my arms. A neighbour had called the police and it had taken three of them to get Mark into a van. But I'd worked hard. I taught myself how to manage skirts, long ones initially so my occasional lapse of not keeping my knees together would be overlooked. It was strange at first, to be moving with my legs surrounded by billowing, constraining material, but I learnt to keep my steps shorter, to relax and roll my wider hips and enjoy skirts. Knowing that I was going to have to dance in a pair of satin, open toed slingbacks with 3" heels I wore heels almost every day, starting low and getting taller and taller until I could balance and glide like a ballerina. It didn't always go smoothly, I had a couple of comedy moments on gravel, steps and grating, but only my dignity was hurt. Chris remarked that I appeared to have given up on trousers and flat shoes, he's always enjoyed women in heels, and as my confidence grew and my hemlines lifted, he enjoyed the sight of my legs more and more. Learning to be Chris's fiancee was helped by the pain he went through over Mark's arrest. As the scale of the fraud and theft I'd engineered became clear and the growing feeling of betrayal sat like a tumour at the centre of Chris's thoughts, I put aside my own guilt and sorrow and concentrated on being his best friend. At the lowest point, when I had Chris in my arms sobbing silently into my chest, when my own tears ran down my cheeks, I told him not to remember Mark as he was, but from before. I reminded of all the good times they'd shared. People changed, I said (what an understatement) but he had to remember the Mark of old. I think it helped. Chris seemed calmer, he held me tighter and tighter before whispering that he was glad I was there for him, that he still had me and he kissed me, on the mouth which greater and greater urgency until I realised what kind of comfort he was looking for. I'd known that as Chris's wife I was going to have to make love with him, I'd been hinting that we might leave it until the wedding night - to give me more time to prepare.Looking back, I suppose I'd loved him since we were kids and if Chris had been gay and if he'd come onto me would I have refused him? On that day, when our tears were mingling on our cheeks, I couldn't have refused him anything, but my body wasn't quite ready and that just made things worse. I was stiff and uncomfortable and dry, he was guilty and apologetic. At that moment I wanted him, I actually wanted that intimacy with him, to feel him inside and be his woman. He tried to pull away, I held him close, whispered that I just needed him to warm me up, to take a little time over me. It was amazing. When he made me cum, first with his mouth and then with his cock deep inside me, I thought I was going to lose control of myself. I thought I would wet myself, have some kind of fit, my heart would stop or I'd have a stroke. Women definitely get the best orgasms. On the wedding day, Chris's sister, Clare, helped me dress. Charlotte had no sisters or nieces to be bridesmaids so Clare was all I had. By the time I had eased into my white lace lingerie, drawn some incredibly sheer white stockings over my legs and fiddled with the suspender belt clips, after Clare had fastened me into the floor length, flowing gown I was almost one hundred per cent living the bridal dream. Everything was so sensual. Clare did my make up and I loved the sheer, slick feel of the subtle lip gloss she used. She braided flowers in hair and reached under the elegant drape of skirts to slip on my heels. At the moment when I faced Chris down the length of the church aisle, with my veil set, nervously clutching my flowers and ready for the longest walk in my life I felt something I had never experienced before. I felt beautiful. When Chris lifted my veil and kissed me, I was overwhelmingly happy. Mark brought me back to reality by shaking my shoulder. My tummy growled, now I'd been sick it was hungry. I wondered where breakfast or lunch might come from. A police station cell block most likely. He looked red and angry, kept looking at his watch and glancing outside. "Nothing's happening," he said. "Not a single fucking thing has changed on me or you." "Maybe you did it wrong." I looked down to the familiar rise of my breasts and flat curves of my tummy. I wriggled my toes. Their nails were still painted a pretty lilac shade. "I did what I was supposed to do. It started hours ago. I should be myself again," he snapped. "You bought a wish?" I said. "From some scrawny thing on that bridge." That bridge! You can find it and find its power if you follow the signs an look hard enough. It had been ancient and draped with moss with the cold light of the moon making the stream underneath look black and slow. I'd thrown silver, a fifty pence piece, into the water and it had vanished without a plop, without even a ripple as though the water was an illusion or night. Then I'd made the wish and I closed my eyes and concentrated on the words as if this wasn't the last straw I could clutch at to save Chris. I wish to change Charlotte's heart to make her the friend and the wife he deserves. When I opened my eyes and turned to walk back to the car, thinking what an idiot I'd been she was there. I nearly shit my trousers. She must have been a fairy - ethereal and hauntingly beautiful. Her hair was silver or blonde or green, her eyes were black and her full lips framed pointed, feral teeth. She'd glowed and scared me rigid. In her fingers she'd held the silver coin I'd just dropped into the stream below. "The silver is good and your heart is strong," it had said, or I'd though it had for its lips hadn't moved. She'd reached out to touch my cheek and I'd recoiled back. "I need to change the heart of my best friend's fiancee, before she becomes his wife." "You cannot change a heart. She is what she is." Those chill, midnight eyes were looking right into me. "And you cannot wish to destroy, to cripple or disease." "Then what do I wish for?" I'd mumbled, trying to look away, desperate not to let the trembling in my legs and arms or the churning in my belly build and build until I wet myself. I couldn't even blink. "A wife should be a best friend," she'd said and then she'd explained what I was to do. Mark swore under his breath and stared at me. I didn't like the hard look in his eyes, like he was thinking that if he couldn't have this body back then nobody should have it. "What were you doing, before this?" I asked. He laughed, humourlessly. "I drove a taxi. In Hastings of all places. It was about the only work I could get and I hate it." "Walk away now. Just go. I won't say anything, I'll make something up. Go and don't come back." "Too late for that," he shook his head. "Why didn't it work? Shit! Shit! Shit!" A phone rang and I twitched. Mark snatched his phone up like it was a snake and held it at arms length. I saw his thumb jab at it, but he hadn't had chance to drop it on the dresser before it rang again. "Hello?" I heard a voice, a deep and calm man's voice, but I couldn't get any of the words. Mark fell backwards in his chair like all the bones had been snatched from him. His eyes closed. When he answered the man on the phone he whispered, single words only. Then he stood and walked towards me, shoulders rounded his face a mask of utter hopelessness. "They want to talk to you, to make sure you're okay," he moaned and held the phone to my ear. "Hello?" I said, wondering who could have had this effect on him. "Lottie?" said the man. He really did have a wonderful voice, but I didn't recognise it. I'd wanted to hear Chris, maybe for the last time. "Yes. Who is it?" "My name's Gary, I'm a police officer." I glanced up at Mark. He was staring out of the window. "Are you okay, Lottie?" "Yes," I said and my voice quavered. "Good. My job's to make sure nobody get's hurt here, but I need you to keep calm. Everything's going to be fine, okay?" I nodded, but of course he couldn't see that. "Yes." "Good girl. Now, would you let me speak to Mark again please?" "Chris, can I speak to Chris," I started to say, but Mark snatched the phone away and paced around the room. He kept stopping at the window and staring out. His voice got louder and angrier until he cut off the call and glared at me like it was my fault." "Fucking police have got us surrounded. I didn't think the stupid bastards would get here this quickly." "How did they find you?" I asked. I was shaking now, mixed between relief that I was still a woman, that the police were outside, but terrified that Mark might be pushed into doing something stupid. "I left a trail, told you. I wanted you in prison, where you put me. I wanted you to have all that shit I went through in there." "I'm truly sorry about that," I said. It wouldn't help now, but I'd wanted to say that for a long time. I'd wanted to have the space to get to know Chris as his wife, as a woman." "Too late for sorry. Why did they call you Lottie? I liked people to call me Charlie." "He used to have a dog called Charley." "He never said." "He never would have." Mark snorted. "Don't move," he said drawing the curtains closed and leaving the room, shutting the door behind him. He was gone only a few minutes, during which I expected to hear a Butch and Sundance style hail of gunfire, but when he returned he was wearing his own clothes again. His phone rang again. The jolly ring tone seemed so far out of place. My mouth was dry, I was damp with sweat and I shook. "I'm not going back inside," Mark said to the handset and set it down on the bed. "Why didn't it work?" he said to me. "I bought the wish. That sprite thing told me what to do and I did just as she said. I wasn't going to kill you, to cripple or disease you because she said I couldn't. Why didn't it work?" "I don't know." The phone rang again. He stared at it then picked it up, held it at arm's length and stabbed at the screen with his thumb. "What?" His teeth were bared. He stepped to the window and opened the curtains. I could see trees and some blue sky. The clouds were fluffy and picture perfect. "No I will not listen to you! You listen to me. I will not calm down, no I won't. Where are you out there? I'm not going to calm down while that bitch is still that bitch and I am still fucked! Yes I am, don't tell me I'm not. Why didn't it work. Mark! Don't call me that you arsehole. You don't get it, I'm Charlotte, the bitch on the bed is Mark!" The phone got launched across the room. I couldn't see where it landed, but I heard it tinkle and smash. When he turned to me he was almost unrecognisable, not the man I had been. My eyes blurred with tears because this was my doing. I had made this and if I hadn't have been tied I would have reached for him, held him close and tried to calm the shaking across his body - my body. "I'm so sorry," I mumbled. "Sorry! You fucking cow! You're sorry now. You made me a man, a fucking man! You sent me to prison. And when I thought I'd worked out how to get it all back, it didn't fucking work. Well that about wraps it up for both of us." He pulled something black and compact from his pocket. I felt myself looking down the endless dark of a pistol muzzle. It was shaking. "No, please, don't." Now I was trembling too. The sickness was coming back and I needed to put my hands across my tummy, as if they could stop a bullet from puncturing me there. "Fuck you." The gun shook even more. His knuckles were bleached around the grip. "I know why it didn't work. We can try again, later. I promise. Have it all, everything, just don't do this now." He shook his head. "Too late, bitch." "No, I'm-" I saw the flash. Didn't hear the bang. It felt like somebody had punched me hard in the shoulder. Cool numbness spread from where he had hit me. Warm ran under may back. My breath came fast and shallow. I closed my eyes. The wavering, smoking pistol muzzle was coming my way again and I didn't want to see. I wanted Chris, I wanted to tell him what I knew and I wanted to live to be sorry and to make it better, but I didn't want to see that flash again. Another bang. I winced and screamed as something heavy and warm fell across my legs. Wet splashed my thighs. He'd shot me again, he must have. There was no pain, no impact. Shock perhaps. There was a clunk under the window, clinks and shouts. Glass shattered and my world exploded into an agony of noise and light that flashed so bright it made my eyelids pink. I screamed again, but my ears were numb and I'd been thrown into a world where all I could hear was my heart, my screams. The bed was jostled. Shouting! So much shouting, but dulled like I was under water. The weight lifted from my legs. Something soft was laid across my body. That numb place on my shoulder was pushed towards the bed and pain spiked. "Lottie? Can you hear me?" The voice was softened with concern, but high with adrenaline and over loud. "My names Daz, I'm a cop and a medic, weird but true. You're safe now. Where do you hurt? Anywhere but your shoulder?" The pressure on my wrists eased, then my ankles and aside from the pressure on my burning shoulder I was free to move. I drew my knees up to my chest and cried and cried and cried. I was in the back of an ambulance when they let Chris come to me. Inside it was cool, antiseptic and calm - just me and two lady paramedics who surrounded me with bleak humour and maternal tenderness. Daz, a dark policeman in military style black equipment and ballistic helmet, draped with velcro and pouches and a stubby carbine stood guard outside. There were loads of armed cops and people in plain clothes and a sense of orderly, structured chaos all centred on a very pretty, single story cottage set inside a leafy copse and rosy gardens. I could see the window behind which I had been a prisoner. There was a short ladder leading up to it. All the glass was smashed and the frame hung forlornly to one side. Some smoke still drifted out. I think one of the stun grenades they'd chucked in had set fire to something inside. My ears were still ringing, my eyes were swollen and my face felt prickly. I was wearing an oxygen mask and had dressings all around my shoulder. The bullet hadn't come out of the back and they were waiting for a helicopter. I needed surgery. Maybe he'd nicked a lung. I must have looked a sight, but Chris knelt beside me and tried to wrap me in his arms. One of the paramedics said, "Aw, bless," before they went outside and left us in a peace for a moment. "I thought I'd lost you," Chris said to me neck while he squeezed me and stroked my hair. If Mark's plan had worked out he would have. He'd be holding the real Charlotte now, not the Lottie he'd grown together with. Would he have been able to tell the difference? "He's dead, isn't he?" I said. That second shot I'd heard must have been the gunshot that had killed him. One of the police snipers watching from outside must have done it after he'd shot me. He'd be going through worlds of pain and enquiries and inquests now and it was all my fault. Surely Chris would have seen through the real Charlotte before too long, he'd have left her, found somebody better. I knew it wasn't true. He was too loyal, too stubborn for that. "Don't worry about him, baby," he said. "I'm so sorry, Chris. So sorry, it's my fault and he was your best friend." He squeezed me a little tighter. "You're my best friend, Lottie. I love you." I cried a little more and almost told him there and then, I almost blurted my secret, but I held it in. Chris would never need to know. I would have to live with what I had done and I would have to live well for his sake, for all our sakes. "Are you sure you're okay, darling?" he said again. I took his hand, placed it under the blanket onto my tummy. It was cool and lovely. I took a deep breath, this wasn't the place but I had to tell him before the paramedics did. I'd worked out why Mark's wish hadn't worked and why I was still a woman. A wish couldn't kill, though it's consequences might, and had, but it couldn't kill itself. I pressed his hand into my tummy, as though he could feel what must be inside. We'd been trying hard enough.