“100 Main Street.” She read the address from the weathered sign that hung, sagging, from the side of the crumbling house. Now she remembered: she'd been here once before. It wasn't pleasant.

The huge fat man held the door open for her as she tiptoed up the steps, careful not to catch the spike heels of her shoes in the grate. She stepped through the doorway into the darkness of a room crowded with over-sized furniture, smelling of rancid food and mouse urine, and cluttered with piles of fast-food wrappers. It was illuminated by the light of an enormous flat-screen television.

She didn't want to sit down, as nothing appeared to be clean, so she stood near the center of the room, holding her purse in front of her, in both hands, like a fig leaf.

“How much?” he asked.

She shrugged, prettily. She did everything prettily. It was not something learned. It just was. It came as naturally to her as breathing; even more-so perhaps. She had no idea why or even how. She often wished it weren't so. Being pretty, and doing things prettily, she'd learned, oftentimes attracted unwanted attention. It could even be dangerous. But she'd never been able to figure out any other way to do things.

She had the fat man's attention now. Eyes riveted on her; roving up and down her form; pausing at breasts - perhaps a little too long. Peering into her face. Roaming over her hips and legs. Why did he think this was his privilege? She knew why. He was a man. That's why. That was what she'd learned the hard way long ago. Now she was almost twenty, and she knew a lot. A lot more than she knew when breasts and hips and puffy lips first made their appearance on her body, along with dark, smoldering eyes. The brilliant blue irises she'd always had. They too, attracted attention, but mostly from older, doting women who gave her candy as a child.

This new attention was far more unwieldy and dangerous, and mostly involved older men who exhibited a compelling need to touch her.

She didn't want to be touched. Usually. And the men that she wanted to touch her seemed, too often, aloof. Unapproachable, while at the same time intrusive. Women, though… women seemed at ease with touching and had a marvelous sense of when and how that might seem comfortable, right from the start. It was so soothing. So easy. So right. She sought that out often and found it comfortable and, usually, alluring in a very visceral way. It seemed to her like more than just a good fit.

But now, there was a closed, uncomfortable room and an old, fat man staring at her tits.

Again he asked her, “How much?” and again she shrugged. This time, perhaps even more prettily than before. It was more natural than breathing. She couldn’t NOT do it.

“You don't know?” he said. “How stupid can you be?” He looked very smug now. Arrogant, even.

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He reached for her but she batted his hands away, not saying anything. The grabby hands made her angry, but she showed nothing, except her pretty smile. That was all she dared, given the situation.

“You can sit down if you want,” the fat man bellowed. In the small, cardboardy room, his big, harsh voice seemed oppressive.

She just shook her head, very prettily this time. Cringing inside, as she knew she couldn’t help it. She hoped the fat man wouldn’t lose his… his what? Composure? Self-control? Reserve? Whatever. Whatever it was, whenever any man had lost it before, it had been unpleasant. She hoped it wouldn’t be unpleasant today.

“Listen honey, I'm a busy man. We need to get down to brass tacks here, pronto. Understand?”

Again, she smiled prettily, but didn't say anything.

“Are you here to do business or not?” He seemed to be losing patience.

She set her purse on the coffee table in front him. He sprawled, legs wide with his belly between them, on the dilapidated couch. The purse was big; made of dark, soft leather – and heavy. She was glad to get the load off her shoulder at last. He looked at the purse, then at her tits again as she bent over to rummage around in it, then finally at her eyes. She pulled the widget out of her purse: small, roughly oblong. Internally it sparkled and whirled with brilliant colors, but you had to hold it just right to see them.

“I was once just like you,” she said.

The man looked at once surprised and disbelieving, as though he was certain he'd misheard. “You were once just like me?”

“Yes. Smug. Privileged. Arrogant. Now it is time for you to change, just as it once was for me.”

She handed him the box. He looked skeptical.

“How much?”

“One hundred dollars.” He looked annoyed. “Lemme see first.”

He peered into the box, just for an instant, and the colors caught his eye. They were captivating. Almost hypnotic. With effort, he forced himself to look away, back at her tits. They were very big, he noticed, and added their own captivating sensuality to her lithe form. Her round hips balanced things out nicely. He was proud of himself for noticing. Noticing made him something of a connoisseur, he thought.

“I don’t think you get it yet!” she said, which surprised him. Given what he’d seen so far, he didn’t expect her to be so assertive.

“Get what?”

“Look again. Really look this time. If you really try, you can see hell. Or at least something drastically different than what we have here. It only works once every one hundred years. Today could be your lucky day!”

That surprised him a bit. Just how crazy was this babe, he wondered? Why did he get all the loonies? Shrugging, he looked again. This time, he really stared hard into the odd eyepiece. And disappeared.

“Good!” she said, and picked up the widget from the floor where it had fallen.