Sister Holiday (conclusion)

His eyes widened slightly. "That's really neat. Can you send me back and forth?"

I had no idea. He had been deep in work, and I had yanked him out of it with a thought. I should send him back but, underneath the panic, I was really happy to see him. Relaxing, he vanished.

He rang the house line a few minutes later to confirm he'd made it back safely. "No one even noticed I was gone." We set up a time for him to visit again after work.

I took a shower in the meantime and tried not to think. Heartbeats tingled through every vein of my feet as I stood in the shower. Were there limits? I didn't want to stretch for them. I set the rules for myself: No causing suffering. No wishing some bitchy lady who called for my parents and tried to strongarm me into buying solar panels would have her mouth sealed up.

However, I had a better idea. I commanded she would get a phantom erection when she was trying to do what she wanted. A mysterious tent bulging the gusset of her underwear. Smiling at a coworker? That coworker wonders if she stuffed a length of salami from the employee fridge in her business skirt. Her only remedy was to treat people nicer over the phone and not harass them.

I had no way of knowing it would work but the mental image of it was enough.

I did push the water pressure in those old pipes to bracing strength with a giggle. The glass and tile cleaned itself and I stepped out, releasing a breath I never knew I was holding. My ancient phone brought up all the fancy websites which were too new for its dated software. I sat and read and tried not to think of scary stories online that a single, stray thought could bring to life. I did wonder about life out there in the universe but couldn't bring myself to ask for something to make or confirm their existence.

Stories. I could materialize every story I ever mulled or mused without an ache of my typing wrist or a long, anguished spell of editing. I could lure every potential eyeball to my words. But it felt like the worst kind of cheating. Those works wouldn't be mine and those readers wouldn't either. Still, a nice hardcover completion of one of my long-gestating tales with all the rough spots ironed out wouldn't be too bad. I held the fresh, glossy dust jacket and ran my finger over the unevenly-cut pages. It was beautiful. A clever, adventurous girl looking to her next trek decorated the cover, just as I imagined it.

Such stories held impossible things, things I was now living. I had to wonder, could I do the things to people which I had ever only done in stories? Make wide-eyed, unsuspecting guys into lovely girls. I had done it from the weirdest of ages onward with unrelenting, almost irrational determination in my goals. I needed these sweet, impossible things because life was too cold and harsh. There needed to be joy, my joy, this joy to share.

Yet even in those stories, I set rules too: Nothing to hurt. Nothing to destroy. Only to create. To make a soft face and a smiling heart.

Ryan was often my target of focus. Scenarios, idle thoughts, daydreams. Stuff that tingled me on the inside in ways that brought embarrassment to tell anyone else. But Ryan was happy to help.

My best friend, my sister, my twin, my surrogate mom, my playful, mature female friend. Each state I tried not to dwell on, only remember. I hoped he was keeping warm in the holiday, wintry cold. I wanted to bring him back to the desert where at least he would just need the one, simple blanket we would share.

But not yet. Patience. He would call me, and I would teleport him when the time was right.

I stared at the phone in my hands. Patience. I removed the dust around me but DID NOT put into effect the idle thought I often had of ever-running nanobots keeping everything clean and nice around the house. Ryan's ideas with the little things gone rampant were enough to warn me off that approach.

Was it even safe to dream in bed now? I could try to make it that way. I could enforce a rule set where nothing I thought or expressed in dreams was a valid command to reality. Same with any wandering of my mind. It had to be an intentional feeling expressed conclusively. Maybe I could even throw in a "Are you sure?" mental image in front of me which clarified what I intended to do and what would result from it.

At the same time, I wondered how much the ghosts of my parents were putting these rules together just to hold me back one last time.

By willful intent, I made a room dedicated to books, my favorite books all in a quaint little library, like something out of dreams as real as any moment of life. That felt like this moment, this evening. Like a dream I expected to shuffle away the chaos which had been placed at my cracked and tired feet. I could fix them right then, same as my hands. But if I changed too much of myself then the temptation would be to change more. At what point might I stop being me? Did it matter?

What about what I was doing to Ryan? I wanted to make a new girl of him. It gave me excitement without explanation and peace despite uncertainty. Why did I need to hold the chaos of creation? What had I done to deserve this above anyone else? What was my lottery win? Had I suffered the right amount, had I taken the right path, had I lost my mind just enough, or had I done something special?

It had to be something but asking the potential omnipotence before my grasp made me sick. If I could have anything and be anything would I still be me? What dark threads would it pull on and free from inside me? At the same blush, it was giddy. I wanted it all and damn the consequences. I could fix it and correct it in time, with the right will and choices. Even if I made Ryan into someone else, I'd just need to say 'no', and he would be back. Everything was within and possible around me.

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But I waited those mundane, quiet minutes with little in mind but the friendship he always showed me. The love, the hope, the kindness, the intuition, the joy, the creativity, the confidence, the wisdom, and everything beyond. On the one hand, I knew he was strong, stronger than me, and yet I feared by touching him with my dreams and thoughts I might feed him my weakness and the least desirable parts of myself, an infection of duplication where the wrong cells split and carry the same infirmity to the next.

The answer was sex. Not with Ryan. Goodness, no. But to fertilize my field of ideas, my self-propagation of hopes and dreams with the melding of another with differences, conflicts, pairing, compliments, and more. To let Ryan do as he always did for me: Change my mind. Push it, ponder it, find the simple through-line in the forest of my thoughts. Be my friend no matter what.

The phone rang, and I gently pushed the green button.

"Lucy? Everything okay? Having fun?"

The notion, the question. I had all the power in the world. Shouldn't I be having fun and not an existential panic?

"Yeah. My mind is racing. It's a lot. I don't want to mess things up." I could've said more, but I stopped there. My soliloquies were already passing from my mind.

"It'll be fine. I trust you to do the right thing. Want me to come over? I can help clean some stuff and make a nice dinner."

With a smirk in my thoughts, I told him, "Yes ma'am."

I brought him right into the room, and we got to work. He fixed stuff I never really understood how to fix with only a tip of good fortune from my strange abilities. I wore out quickly, my back spasming with a sponge in my hands. I lent him whatever strength I could warp into reality. He deserved more. He was so amazing, so precious to me. How could I ever think to change him?

Dinner was lovely, meaty and perfectly seasoned. We talked about a dozen silly things that didn't even touch upon the impossibility of all that was occurring.

At the clinking bottom of my dish, I asked him, "Can I try making you into a girl...like right here?"

"Try? Haha. Please go ahead and have fun. I never stopped you before. Why would I now?"

I never had the powers of a goddess before. Was I really that trustworthy? Watching Ryan, I realized that nothing had changed. He had moved across the expanse of the country in an instant because I willed it. I was presenting to change his very sex and it was the same as any chat we had before. It didn't matter. It was us, our friendship. Always.

A heady, giddy sort of relief lifted, and I told him, "Well, your name is Jodi and you're...oooh."

I could change him however I wanted. The consummate girl, the absolute woman. An older lady filled his place with a knowing smile and maternal kindness. A woman who knew birth and truly being with a man with pouty kisses when she and her lover had some free time. The kind of mother that I had been without. Free of the scourge of my biological mom. But nothing like her. She would not be her. Never.

Despite the face changing so much with every thought and feeling, Ryan was still there, properly translated, still loving me in ways no doubt could dim or stray thought could shatter. I knew him, I knew her.

But the infinity of girls I could make, like the deepest closet for dress-up, only entertained me so much. I knew what I wanted, what I needed. My friend, like the sister he always felt like, clear before me. I opened my eyes and there she was. Her hair was up slightly where mine was down, but I could see her truly. She had shades of me, but she was a different girl. A sisterly compliment.

It was like a snapshot at every blink. A busty, mature sister. A slim, smirking one. All the sisters in the world, all the sisters of my dreams released in a kaleidoscope that shone through the lens of my best friend. Once the ecstasy settled she relaxed in a sweet form that evoked my own. Better breasts, cuter hips, and an infectious smile. I wanted to hand my powers over to her, but I feared it might all be even more for her than it was for me. She looked so strong though, so beautiful in every breath and moment. I wanted to spend the holidays with her in the best way...

The house changed, dappled with cinnamon, spices, and sweet treat aromas. The clear air flowed with refreshing warmth as my beloved sister wore a cute little Santa hat with a fringed, lovely outfit. Such fashion sense. The hallway was tidied, the bathrooms were lovely, and the beds were made with the gentlest sheets. A tree and strung lights decorated the room in ways I had long forgotten. It was Christmas with the two of us and dense tears lashed my eyes in the way they often fell when the furnace blasted my face with ancient dust. All the dust was gone, and the world and house were new with the two of us.

My sister Jodi brought over her finished cookies and I sampled one. It was a bit rough on a sensitive tooth, but I still loved it. I could've fixed my tooth, but it reminded me. Same as the lovely smile on my sister reminded me that Ryan never left.

We sat together on the couch and I hugged her, not because she was my sister then or because I had made her so cute but because I knew this was always the way. I had just pierced through to the clarity of what I knew. Sure, there were endless moments ahead I could not know and through which what I felt might be dimmed or fraught with doubt but there was Christmas, and I was happy. So, whatever story I could tell about me, my sister, and what happens should stop there. With the joy I always wanted so near through the dark days.

No caveats, no dreams I never wake from, no reveals I actually passed out from snorting candle fumes. That is my story, my tale, my happiness. May you always find your own in your heart too.