Super Wishes and Leotard Dreams, Chapter 2

It was obvious now. I was turning into a supermodel. If not… Superwoman.

The hands that slid around my newly narrowed waist felt different—larger, stronger, fingers more calloused than I remembered. I could smell every nuance of her breath. Before I could react, Benna pressed against my back, her chin resting on my shoulder as we both stared at my reflection. “Getting a little narcissistic, aren’t we?” she teased.

Benna’s reflection in the mirror behind me was different unrecognizable. Her once-rounded cheeks had hollowed into sharp angles, her jawline now a clean, masculine cut that made her look four years younger overnight. The softness of her neck had been replaced by the distinct prominence of an Adam’s apple bobbing as she swallowed. Her sandy-blonde hair, coarser between my fingers when I reached back to touch it. Benna’s torso had undergone a dramatic reshaping overnight—her stomach, once softly rounded, now lay flat against her pajama top. The fabric draped differently over her shoulders, which had broadened noticeably, the slope of them sharper where muscle definition pressed beneath skin that looked tauter, smoother. Her collarbones jutted sharply above the neckline, casting shadows that made them look almost sculpted, as if someone had chiseled away the excess flesh while she slept.

“Look who’s talking,” I shot back, twisting slightly in Benna’s arms to face her reflection. My voice hitched but the smirk felt natural. “You’re turning into Clark Kent before breakfast.”

We freshened up and went into our renovated kitchen. The overwhelming scent of coffee hit me first—rich and dark, from the Quindio region, harvested in February last year ( How did I know that?!). There it was, brewing in our unfamiliar marble-countered kitchen, steam curling from a stainless-steel carafe that definitely hadn’t been there yesterday. Asher stood at the stove, his back to us, flipping unusually pungent pancakes with a flick of his wrist that was too fluid, too practiced. Usually we had to wake him up, but there he was.

Asher turned halfway, spatula poised mid-air, and I nearly dropped my coffee. His face had sharpened overnight—the soft roundness of his cheeks replaced by defined cheekbones that cast shadows in the kitchen light. His sandy hair, always a mess before, now fell in deliberate, sun-streaked waves just above his eyebrows, as if styled by an invisible hand. But it was his voice that startled me most when he spoke. “Morning,” he said—two syllables that shouldn’t have rattled me, except they came out in a smooth baritone that hadn’t existed yesterday. The cracks of puberty were gone. I dropped my jaw. Asher smirked, and I saw it then—the faintest shadow of stubble along his jawline. Twelve hours ago, he’d been a boy. Now he looked like a high-schooler ready to start dating. He continued, “Dad, uh—” His eyes flickered down toward my chest, then back up. “Your shirt’s kinda…” He gestured vaguely, fingers twitching like he was afraid to finish the sentence.

Embarrassed, it gave me a chance to get dressed for work. I walked back to our cavernous walk-in closet of our master suite—a space that had somehow tripled in size overnight, its cedar-lined walls and full-length mirrors now stretching like a boutique dressing room. I could smell the individual fibers of the wood. My fingers brushed against unfamiliar fabrics as I stepped into my side of the closet—no longer the cramped afterthought it had been yesterday, but a curated space lined with neutral-toned garments that seemed to anticipate my shifting form. The hangers held tailored blazers with nipped waists, silk blouses with subtle gathers at the chest, and trousers cut to accommodate widening hips without declaring femininity outright. It was as if someone had distilled the essence of academia into a wardrobe that straddled genders effortlessly.

There were even bras. Not tucked away in some shameful corner, but hanging openly among the blouses—soft cups of silk and lace in muted tones that wouldn’t show through dress shirts. My throat tightened as I lifted one from its satin-lined drawer, the straps slipping through my fingers like water. The tag read *34A*. I laughed, sharp and sudden—just 36 hours ago, I’d been flat-chested. Now, the weight of my own palms pressing against the swell beneath my white undershirt confirmed the measurement wasn’t hypothetical. I took off my shirt hesitantly, then put it on. The bra fit right on my chest.

The silk blouse slipped over my shoulders like liquid silver, the fabric cool against skin that was somehow smoother than yesterday—no longer just *taut*, but unmistakably soft, the faintest sheen catching the morning light. I buttoned it with careful fingers, noting how the gathers at the chest now served a purpose, the fabric draping gently over the swell of breasts that had grown overnight from mere suggestions to something undeniable. The trousers were next—charcoal gray, tailored with a high waist that nipped inward before flaring slightly over hips that had widened just enough to make yesterday’s belt obsolete. When I cinched it, the leather strap settled into a dip at my waist I’d never possessed before, the hourglass shape no longer imagined but *there*, undeniable in the mirror.

Before I saw her, I could smell her strawberry-masculine musk. Benna leaned against the closet doorway, her silhouette changed overnight—broader shoulders cutting a sharp line against the soft morning light, her stance wider, more relaxed. A smirk played at her lips as she took in my startled expression. “You look like you’ve been waiting your whole life to wear that.” Her fingers brushed the silk blouse’s collar where it draped just above my collarbone—a collarbone now more pronounced, delicate where hers had grown angular.

“Thanks.” I meekly stated as I stepped out of the closet.

The silk blouse whispered against my skin as I walked into the college building, the February wind doing nothing to cut through my newfound invulnerability. My feminine shoes clicked rhythmically against the pavement, a sound that should have drawn stares from my colleagues. The smells of dormant maple leaves particularly struck me today. Inside, Lieutenant Colonel Hendricks merely nodded as he saw me coming into our shared office, his eyes glazing over my softened jawline, the subtle swell of breasts beneath my blouse. “Morning, Jensen,” he grunted, same as always, as if I hadn’t developed a 34A cup overnight.

Lieutenant Colonel Hendricks’ aftershave hit my nostrils like a chemical weapon—bourbon oak with undertones of stale coffee and something vaguely medicinal. Dr. Cho smelled of sesame oil and morning breath layered beneath her jasmine perfume. Captain Ruiz carried the sharp tang of gunpowder residue beneath his cologne, though he hadn’t been to the range in weeks according to institutional memory. Their scents bloomed in my nasal passages with cinematic clarity, each odor unfolding like chapters in a book I hadn’t realized I could read.

The coffee in Lieutenant Colonel Hendricks’ mug wasn’t just “coffee”—it was Guatemalan Antigua, roasted three days ago at 425 degrees, with two sugar packets torn open hastily (one partially spilled on his desk blotter) and a splash of creamer that had expired yesterday. I knew this the moment the scent hit me, my nostrils flaring as raw data streamed into my brain like a forensic report. My fingers twitched against my lecture notes as another wave assaulted me—the synthetic lavender of the janitor’s floor cleaner three hallways down, the metallic tang of the plumbing in the men’s restroom, the ghost of Benna’s jasmine shampoo lingering on my collar from this morning’s goodbye kiss. My nose was in overdrive all morning. Then, I realized. I had super smelling abilities!

The scent of Lieutenant Colonel Hendricks’ coffee nearly made me gag—not because it was bad, but because I could suddenly taste the oxidation of the beans, the bacterial bloom in the expired creamer, the aluminum ions leaching from his thermos. My nostrils flared as I fought to dial down this new sensory onslaught, gripping the edge of my desk until the particleboard. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus on just one smell—Benna’s lingering jasmine shampoo still clinging to my collar—like anchoring myself to a lifeline in a hurricane of olfactory data. It took all by concentration the next half hour to control this new power, but I figured it out.

“Hey, rockstar,” Hendricks asked me, “How’s it feel to have a seventh book under contract?”

“Huh?” I asked surprised.

He nudged my arm and stated, “Don’t be coy with me. You have the highest book count in the department and, by far, most selling.”

“I don’t—”

Then, the phone buzzed against my thigh—Benna’s ringtone. I ducked into an empty conference room, my hips swiveling with unfamiliar grace that made the movement feel choreographed. “What about the kids now?” I said by way of greeting, pressing the phone to my ear.

“I love you too, sweetie.” Benna joked and then continued, “The kids have smartphones now—brand new, top-of-the-line models. Apparently, they just… appeared in their rooms courtesy of your Voice. Crystal’s is rose gold, Asher’s is matte black. And Jensen—” She paused, and I could hear the smirk in her voice. “They called me *Dad*.”

I paused, amazed at another change in our lives, then asked, “ What did they have to say?”

Benna’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “First, Asher had to get on another school bus. The bus driver looked at him incredulously and said to get on bus 4 for the high school. He’s now a freshman at Salem High instead of an eighth grader!”

The phone slipped in my suddenly damp palm—my sweat glands apparently hadn’t gotten the memo about my transformation’s grace period. “Wait, *high school*?” Through the conference room’s door, I smelled Major Ruiz scrape burnt coffee grounds from the breakroom carafe with a butter knife.

“And that’s not all,” Benna continued, her baritone voice humming with barely contained excitement. “Asher had an *incident* in first-period P.E. You won’t believe this—he was playing kickball, standing in the outfield, when someone launched a line drive right at him. He panicked, inhaled sharply, and *blew* the ball foul like he was extinguishing a candle.” She let out a chuckle. “The damn thing went sailing over the school fence by the dugout. The coach just stared. Asher played it off like a freak wind gust.”

“Is that all!?” I said in disbelief.

“Oh, and Crystal called,” Benna said nonchalantly with a hint of amusement, “She had the same bus problem and is now a sixth-grader at Virginia Beach Middle School.”

The phone trembled against my ear as Benna’s words sank in. *Sixth grade?* Crystal had been in fifth grade yesterday—had woken up yesterday morning still clutching her stuffed dolphin and complaining about fractions. Now she was navigating middle school hallways. What next?

The brass handle turned with surprising weight beneath my fingers. I stepped inside my larger house-not quite a mansion—and froze. My breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat, trapped by the sheer impossibility of the space unfolding before me. The foyer yawned open, its vaulted ceiling stretching upward like the nave of a cathedral, all cream-colored crown molding and recessed lighting that cast no shadows. A chandelier—crystal, undoubtedly—dripped from the center, its prisms scattering fractured rainbows across the white marble floors that hadn’t existed yesterday. My feminine shoes clicked against the marble, the sound swallowed by the enormity of the great room beyond.

Crystal bounded down the marble staircase with a coltish grace that made my breath hitch—her legs, impossibly elongated since yesterday, carried her downward in effortless strides. “Mommy!” she called, the word lilting in a voice that had shed its childish squeak overnight, settling into something richer, more melodic. Her honey-blonde hair cascaded past her shoulders in thick waves, catching the chandelier light like spun gold. But it was her face that arrested me—the soft roundness of her cheeks were sharpening into delicate angles, her jawline now a clean curve beneath skin so luminous it seemed lit from within. She wore a conservative outfit, but the plaid skirt hit higher on thighs that had lengthened, the blouse straining slightly across a chest.

I pressed my lips to Crystal’s forehead—still warm from her sprint up the stairs—and caught the faint chlorine scent clinging to her skin. “Swim club?” I asked. The word *Mommy* still sent a thrill through my softening body, though it clashed with the bomber jacket I hadn’t yet swapped for something more… fitting.

Crystal practically vibrated with barely-contained energy as she tugged me toward the grand staircase—her fingers, curled around my wrist “Mom, you won’t *believe* what happened at swim club today,” she breathed, her blue eyes reflecting the chandelier’s fractured light like polished sapphires. There was an unearthly glow to her irises I hadn’t noticed before—like sunlight filtering through shallow Caribbean waters.

Crystal pulled me down onto one of the velvet-cushioned benches in the foyer, her newly elongated legs bouncing with excitement. “They made us do this stupid breath-holding contest at swim club today,” she said, rolling her eyes with a pre-teenager’s exasperation that shouldn’t have belonged to her fifth-grade face. Except—I blinked—she wasn’t in fifth grade anymore, was she? The realization hit me like a punch to the gut even as she continued, unaware.

Crystal leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that smelled faintly of chlorine and bubblegum. “I *could’ve* held my breath forever,” she confessed, fingers twisting in the hem of her skirt. “My lungs just… didn’t care. Like they forgot they needed air.” She demonstrated by inhaling sharply through her nose, the sound unnervingly similar to a vacuum seal. “I breathed eventually as to not arouse suspicion.”

“Prudent, my little girl. But that’s so cool! I’ll have to try that power soon.” I grinned. I changed the subject, “Can you get your brother and sort your laundry? It’s laundry night.”

“Sure thing Mom!” She said cheerfully. It will take a while to get used to that.

I few things stuck out that night before the kids went to bed. First, the dirty laundry changed in appearance magically to reflect our transformations. The laundry baskets hit the floor with soft thuds as Crystal froze mid-step, her widening eyes reflecting a kaleidoscope of fabrics that shouldn’t exist. My old flannel shirts had morphed into blouses overnight, Benna’s stretched-out yoga pants now crisp dress slacks with razor-sharp creases. Asher’s cartoon-print boxers had transformed into sleek black briefs that shimmered under the closet light like liquid shadow. “Mom,” Crystal breathed, fingers hovering over a lace-trimmed bra that certainly hadn’t been in yesterday’s wash, “are we magic laundry fairies now too?”

Next, I grilled steaks outside on my new gas grill. The propane hissed to life with a click and a burst of blue flame beneath the grill grates. Snow crunched under my bare feet as I adjusted the knobs. The Virginia winter air should have stolen my breath, turned fingers to ice. Instead, it brushed over my skin like a lover’s whisper, my nipples hardening against thin spandex not from cold, but from the sheer novelty of sensation. The sports bra clung to curves that hadn’t existed yesterday, the short shorts cinched at the waist.

The last bite of perfectly medium-rare steak lingered on my tongue—rich, smoky, impossibly vivid—as I realized my enhanced senses now made even mundane meals feel like religious experiences. Across the sprawling mahogany table (when did we get mahogany?), Crystal dabbed her lips with a linen napkin, her movements fluid and poised like a woman twice her chronological age. Asher leaned back in his chair, the stubble shadowing his jaw catching the light from our new crystal chandelier.

“Hey, kids,” I said, “Can your Dad and I have a date night?”

Crystal arched a newly sculpted eyebrow, her lips—fuller now, painted a soft pink—curving into a smirk. “Date night?” she echoed, twirling her fork. “You mean like, before you turn into actual gods tomorrow?”

“We won’t be gods, Crystal,” Benna admonished her, but winked. “Besides, gods date too.”

Asher playfully consented while getting a jab in, “Just make sure you two come home at a decent time.”

“Yeah, you two have fun.” Crystal grinned and said, “We’ll make sure to go to bed at a decent time for school.”

The closet door clicked shut behind us, sealing Benna and me in what had become our private sanctuary—a space larger than our old bedroom, lined with racks that seemed to shift daily to accommodate our morphing bodies. I ran my fingers along the silken blouses, their fabrics impossibly soft against skin that grew smoother by the hour. My reflection in the full-length mirror caught me off guard—the curve of my hips, the subtle swell beneath my nipples pressing against the thin cotton of my tank top. Benna plucked a charcoal-gray button-down from the rack—the kind that draped just right across broadening shoulders. The fabric whispered against her skin as she rolled the sleeves up to her forearms. She paired it with tailored slacks. I caught myself staring at her hands—those elegant, veined fingers that now buttoned the shirt with effortless precision. There was something devastating about the way the fabric stretched across her back. I swallowed hard and turned to my own selection: a lavender blouse with delicate pearl buttons and a neckline that dipped just enough to tease the soft cleavage forming beneath. The fabric slid over my skin like liquid, clinging to curves that were still unfamiliar territory. I finished it off with tighter blue jeans and I’ve ever worn before.

The garage door silently opened—a lack of sound that shouldn’t exist because we’d never had a high-end automatic garage before yesterday—revealing the sleek black Ascent that had replaced Benna’s old minivan. I hesitated at the passenger door, my fingers brushing the handle. It felt wrong, somehow, to be the one sitting there while Benna adjusted the mirrors with those newly large hands, her wedding band glinting under the garage lights. But somehow it felt right.

The neon sign outside Virginia Beach Dockers pulsed like a drunken heartbeat, casting garish pink and blue light across the wet pavement. Inside, the air smelled of stale beer and the electric hum of bad decisions. A heavyset man in a Commanders jersey was butchering “Sweet Caroline” on stage while the crowd dutifully bellowed the chorus back at him.

The barstool creaked under me as I adjusted my weight. Benna’s knee brushed mine, her posture already shifting into something more masculine, shoulders squared beneath her crisp button-down. The man lumbered toward us like a bear who’d raided a distillery, his flannel sleeves straining around biceps thick as tree trunks. The man’s breath hit us first—hot and sour with cheap whiskey, the kind that clung to his pores like desperation. His fingers, thick as sausages, jabbed toward Benna’s chest. “Ain’t seen you ladies before,” he slurred, his grin revealing teeth yellowed by tobacco and neglect. His eyes flicked between us, not seeing—not really—just registering the long sweep of my hair, the swell of Benna’s breast in the bar’s dim light.

“We aren’t interested,” I said plainly.

Benna’s hand twitched toward the bar top—instinctive, protective—but she caught herself. The drunk’s grin widened as if he’d won something. “C’mon,” he drawled, leaning in close enough for me to count the broken capillaries on his nose. “Just one drink. What’s your name, darlin’?” His fingers grazed my shoulder, sticky with condensation from his glass.

Benna’s fingers curled into fists—knuckles whitening. Something hot and unfamiliar surged through her veins, prickling at the base of her skull. The drunk’s grin faltered when her nostrils flared, when the muscles in her jaw tensed like coiled springs.

Benna exhaled—not a sigh, but something deeper, something that started in her diaphragm and rolled up through lungs that now held impossible capacity. The drunk’s eyes widened a fraction before his entire body lifted off the ground as if caught in a hurricane. Glassware rattled behind the bar. His shirt flapped against his ribs like a loose sail as he sailed backward through the air, limbs pinwheeling, until he sailed through the open front door the bouncer had open. Nobody in the bar cared. They were all drunk. The drunk man tumbled out into the February night like discarded trash, and the music didn’t skip a beat. A man kept whining through the karaoke speakers about lost love and pickup trucks while beer bottles clinked against tabletops. The bouncer—a mountain of a man with a neck thicker than my thigh—just shrugged and shut the door behind the airborne nuisance as if this happened every Thursday. Which, in Virginia Beach, maybe it did.

Benna’s hand hovered midair for a second longer, fingers still curled from the unconscious flex of power, before we both burst into breathless laughter—the kind that makes your ribs ache and your cheeks hurt. Her laugh, the way she clapped a hand over her mouth was pure Benna, unchanged despite the masculine cut of her jawline. “Did you see his *face*?” she wheezed between giggles, her other hand gripping my thigh—my softer, rounder thigh—for balance.

“Come on,” I said to Benna as I pulled her on stage, “The karaoke machine is open. Let’s sing Bryan Adams’ song , OUR song, ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You’.”

The karaoke screen flickered to life with that unmistakable 90s ballad font—the kind that looked like it belonged on a romance novel cover—as Benna hesitated beside me, her newly veined hand flexing around the microphone. “You’re kidding,” she murmured, though the corner of her mouth twitched upward. The bar smelled of spilled beer and fried food, but beneath it—sharp in my new nostrils.

Benna’s voice cracked on the first chorus—not the tentative waver of someone unsure of their voice, but the glorious, drunken imperfection of someone who didn’t care. I matched her with my own voice, cracking, and we butchered the harmonies with the confidence of people who’d sung this same duet in shower stalls and road trips for fifteen years. The microphone screeched feedback when I leaned too close, but Benna just grinned, her squared teeth flashing under the neon lights. Somewhere between “Look into my eyes” and “you will see,” her arm slid around my waist—not where it used to settle just above my hipbone, but lower now, accommodating the hourglass curve that hadn’t been there a few days ago. We finished the song giggling.

Then, our lips crashed together with the kind of reckless abandon we hadn’t dared in years. It was the kind of kiss that ended in sex at the end of the night. The taste of whiskey and salt lingered between us, her grip tightening on the small of my back where my spine now dipped dramatically before flaring into hips. Someone wolf-whistled. Normally I would’ve flushed, but tonight I just laughed against her mouth, drunk on this impossible second wind of our marriage.

Benna quickly picked up the tab. The engine growled as Benna floored it, her forearm flexing against the steering wheel with effortless control. I clutched the passenger door handle—not out of fear, but because the G-force pinned me against the seat as we hit sixty on residential streets. Streetlights blurred into golden streaks. My laughter came out breathless, high-pitched in a way that still startled me. “Slow down, you maniac!” I shouted, but my fingers dug into her thigh instead of reaching for the wheel.

When we got home, true to their word, the kids were in bed.

“I have a naughty idea, Benna.” I said seductively, “Just go with it.”

Benna arched a brow—an expression that looked different now, more pronounced with her sharper jawline—as I practically skipped to the dresser, my hips swaying in a way that felt both foreign and exhilarating.

The drawer slid open with a whisper, revealing folded spandex that shimmered faintly under the bedroom lights. I traced a finger along the raised webbing pattern of the Spider-Girl suit—the fabric impossibly smooth against my newly sensitive fingertips. My pulse thrummed when I noticed how the red sections deepened to match the flush spreading across my collarbones.

I tossed the Spider-Woman costume to Benna with a flick of my wrist—her reflexes catching it midair with that eerie new precision. Her throat worked as she held up the black-and-white fabric, fingers tracing the hourglass stitching. “You’ve had these the whole time?” She grinned.

The Spider-Girl suit unfolded like liquid against my thighs—cool at first, then warming instantly against my skin as if recognizing me. The spandex clung to curves, the reinforced bustline cradling the swell of my breasts with a pressure that made me gasp. I twisted to reach the back zipper, but my smoother fingers fumbled at the small pull. “Let me,” Benna murmured as the edges as her hands settled on my hips. Her fingers were sure, drawing the zipper up my spine with a sound like a held breath releasing. The suit sealed me in, the fabric tightening across my ribs in a way that should’ve been constricting but instead felt like being held.

When I turned, Benna was stepping into the Spider-Woman suit, tugging it over hips that were already losing their softness. The black spandex curved around her torso in ways they never could’ve before—accentuating the new width of her shoulders. I zipped her in, my fingers brushing against the taut spandex. The suit clung to her like liquid—white fabric stretching across shoulders that now carried a distinctly masculine breadth, black lycra accentuating the newly defined planes of her torso. My breath hitched when she turned. We caressed each other.

The moment our lips met, it wasn’t like any kiss we’d shared in years—not the tired, habitual pecks of a long marriage, but something feral and desperate. Benna’s hands dug into my hips through the spandex, yanking me against her with a force that would’ve bruised me yesterday. Now, it just made me moan. The suit stretched taut between us, the heat of her body searing through the fabric as her tongue slid against mine. I could taste the change on her—something metallic and electric, like licking a live wire.

The crotch zippers parted with a sound like tearing silk, our breaths already ragged against each other’s mouths. Benna’s hands dug into the spandex at my hips, peeling the fabric aside to expose skin that shouldn’t exist yet. Hers was slick and fever-hot, the folds glistening under the bedroom’s low light. Mine was half-hard, the shaft thickening under her manly fingers even as I traced the her folds.

Benna’s fingers dug into the small of my back as I rocked against her. The spandex trapped heat between us, our bodies slick with sweat where skin met suit. My cock throbbed against her thigh, half-hard and leaking, while her folds glistened under the dim bedroom light. I traced her slit with trembling fingers, marveling at how wet she already was—how *different* she felt, yet how familiar.

I started thrusting—harder than I ever had before, harder than our tired middle-aged bodies would’ve allowed just days ago. The Spider-Girl suit stretched tight around my hips, the spandex straining as I pushed into her, my cock sliding against her wet heat. “This is may be the last time I’ll be on the giving end,” I gasped softer at the edges. The words hung between us, heavy with finality. Benna’s breath hitched—not just from pleasure, but from the truth of it. Her hands, those broad, masculine hands that had once been so familiar, gripped my ass, pulling me deeper.

Benna took control. Benna arched beneath me roared. The Spider-Woman suit tore at the seams where her shoulders strained against the fabric, the sound of ripping spandex lost beneath our ragged moans. My cock—still mine, for now—twitched violently as her slick walls clamped down, her orgasm triggering mine in a white-hot cascade that left my vision speckled with stars.

The zippers hissed shut like a sigh, sealing away the evidence of our desperation. We lay tangled in torn and wet spandex, my softening cock still pressed against Benna’s thigh under the fabric—one of the last time for Benna’s eyes before it vanished forever. Her fingers traced the curve of my hip where the suit had ridden up. “You’re gaining more shape,” she murmured into my hair.

Exhausted, we cleaned up our messed-up makeup. We fell into bed I fell asleep in her arms. The scent of her skin carrying a sharper musk that hadn’t been there when we’d woken up. The Spider-Woman suit clung to her in tatters, barely containing the breadth of her shoulders now. My last conscious thought was of her palm spanning the small of my back, fingers splayed wide enough to cradle half my spine.

Dawn wouldn’t touched the Virginia sky for hours. But I jolted awake, my body thrumming with energy that felt stolen from the sun itself. I’m discovering I don’t need sleep nearly as much as I get super. The yellow sun rejuvenates Kryptonians. The alarm clock said 4:27 a.m. The empty space beside me still held the impression of Benna’s body, the sheets cool where she’d lain. Three days ago, I would have panicked at her absence—now my new enhanced hearing (That’s new!) caught the distant clatter of pans downstairs, the rhythmic tap of unfamiliar footsteps moving through our transformed kitchen with a confidence that didn’t belong to the woman I’d married fifteen years ago.

I immediately bolted for the bathroom mirror to see my changes while in my Spider-Girl regalia. My knees nearly buckled when I saw my reflection. The man staring back wasn’t just feminine—he was *beautiful*. My hair cascaded past my shoulders in thick, golden waves, so silken it caught the dim bathroom light like spun honey. I ran trembling fingers through it, marveling at how the strands slipped between them like liquid. The mirror didn’t lie—couldn’t lie—not with the way my reflection shifted when I turned my body. The face in the mirror belonged to a trans-female in his late thirties. My hands flew to my hips—or rather, where my hips *used* to be. The bones had shifted overnight, widening so dramatically that my palms barely spanned the new curve of my pelvis. When I twisted to see my profile, the mirror showed two dimples materializing above what could only be described as an ass sculpted by some divine hand. The flesh there was firm, round, lifting with an impossible buoyancy that made my old man’s flat backside seem like a distant nightmare.

The used Spider-Girl suit hit the hamper with a damp “thwap”—still sticky with last night’s escapades—as I peeled it off my newly sculpted frame. No secret female fetish hamper now! I dressed for work after cleaning up. My fingers trembled buttoning the blouse, its silky fabric whispering against skin that felt smooth, sensitive. The collar dipped lower than I’d ever dared before, revealing the hollow of a throat that shouldn’t exist on me. The pencil skirt and sheer pantyhose hugged curves, the waistband nipping in where my torso now tapered sharply.

The melody floated up through the house’s new marble floors—Benna’s deepened baritone humming *”Everything I Do”* with a richness that vibrated in my bones. My enhanced hearing caught every imperfect note, every breath between phrases, the way her voice cracked slightly on the high notes she used to hit effortlessly. It was imperfect. It was beautiful. I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the small swell of breasts beneath my blouse—foreign yet thrilling—as I followed the sound like a lifeline.

The scent of butter and chives hit me before I even reached the bottom step—rich and golden, with an underlying sharpness that made my mouth water instantly. My enhanced senses cataloged each component separately: the caramelized edges of the eggs, the exact moment the cheese reached melting point, even the faint metallic tang of the stainless steel pan. But all that sensory overload vanished when I saw her standing at the stove.

Benna moved with a predator’s grace now, her shoulders rolling with each flip of the omelet pan—The soft lamplight caught the sharp line of her jaw. Her hair—god, her *hair*— the sandy-blonde was noticeably thicker, the stands course. When she turned to grab a spatula, I caught the full effect: Benna’s hips no longer swayed—they *pivoted*. Every step carried an unconscious precision now, her legs swinging from the sockets with an economy of motion that made her glide rather than walk. When she turned toward me with the spatula, I caught the way her ribcage expanded visibly beneath the thin, “wife-beater” undershirt—wider, deeper, like she’d grown an extra set of lungs overnight.

“Hi babe,” Benna said, the pet name unfamiliar on her lips—masculine in a way that sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. “You look beautiful.” Her voice had deepened overnight, that smooth baritone curling around the syllables like smoke. I could hear her heartbeat racing clear as day letting me know that she had the “hots” for me.

“Hi, darling,” I said. Likewise a pet name I never used, “Thanks for making breakfast, handsome.”

After breakfast I got in the car to drive to work. The car’s leather seat molded against my hips differently now—wider, accommodating curves that hadn’t existed forty-eight hours ago. My blouse strained across the fabric pulled taut over my breasts. At a red light, I caught my reflection in the rearview: golden waves tumbled past my collarbones where my military-regulation haircut used to sit.

I arrived in the office I was a little confused. I expected the key to turn with a soft *click*—the same motion I’d made every morning for two years—but I pushed open the door, as it was already unlocked. Everything was wrong. The stuff on my half of the office space was gone. My maps of interwar D.C. had vanished. The scent of my archival material was absent, replaced by something floral—lavender, maybe—that clung to the air like perfume. The office that I shared for two years with Lieutenant Colonel Hendricks was apparently somebody else’s. My replacement professor, who seemed embarrassed to explain it to me, told me reverently that as department head I had my own office. She shared the space with Hendricks for two years. Then she meekly pointed down the hallway.

The nameplate on the door hit me first—JENKINS, J. in bold black letters beneath “Department Head, Military Strategy.” My fingers traced the engraved letters as if they might dissolve under my touch.

The key slid into the lock with a whisper, and when the door swung open, my breath caught. The office wasn’t just larger—it was a cathedral of academia. Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows, catching motes of dust like tiny stars. My old desk, cramped and battered, had been replaced by a sleek mahogany monolith, its surface polished enough to reflect the sharpening angles of my face. I ran a hand along the edge, marveling at how my fingers looked foreign yet perfectly at home. I comfortably sat in my leather chair with my hands relaxed behind my head.

The phone vibrated against my thigh—Benna’s third call in as many days at work. I swiped answer and said. “Tell me she hasn’t jumped to high school already.”

Benna’s baritone chuckle vibrated through the phone a shift I noticed immediately with my heightened senses. “No high school yet,” she said, “but Crystal’s blasting through seventh-grade math like it’s toddler arithmetic. Asher just corrected his physics teacher on relativistic time dilation.” A skillet sizzled in the background.

The skillet’s sizzle faded as Benna’s voice dropped lower—not just her deepening register, but something protective. “Chrissy cried at school,” she said. “Turns out superhearing isn’t all catching distant car crashes and whispered secrets. She heard Ashley Langford’s squad dissecting her ‘weird beauty growth’ between second-period lockers.”

The phone nearly slipped from my fingers—not from shock, but from the sudden slickness of my palm. My sweat glands had changed overnight, leaving my skin dewier, more delicate. “Christ,” I muttered, pressing the phone tighter. “She’s eleven. She shouldn’t have to—”

“Wait—*eleven?*” Benna’s chuckle rumbled through the phone, deep enough that I felt it in my sternum. “Babe, look at the calendar. It’s February 20^th. She’s thirteen now.”

The calendar numbers blurred as I stared—February 20^th. My breath hitched when I realized everyday is more than a year in her transformation. The phone creaked in my grip. I thought I couldn’t wait to see Crystal to give her a big hug from her new protective mother.

Better yet, I’d taken off early on a Friday afternoon to follow through with my personal promise. The car door groaned as I pulled it shut and the metallic screech echoed across the parking lot. My fingers lingered on the handle, the cool touch of chrome registering differently now, sharper, like my nerves had been rewired. Every sensation felt amplified, electric. The wind carried scents I shouldn’t be able to detect from thirty yards away: chalk dust from the middle school’s erasers, the sharp citrus of some kid’s abandoned orange peel, and—God—Crystal’s shampoo, honey and vanilla, cutting through everything else. My stomach lurched. Thirteen. My little girl looked thirteen today, or at least her body thought so.

The school doors burst open, but Crystal didn’t emerge—she *flowed* through them. Gone was the coltish gait of yesterday; now her hips swayed with unconscious grace, her stride impossibly long for someone who’d been four-foot-nothing two days ago. The sunlight caught her hair—no longer honey-blonde, but molten gold spilling halfway down her back in waves that moved like liquid. Her jeans clung to newly sculpted thighs, the denim straining at the hips in a way that made my stomach twist. Her eyelashes—God, her *eyelashes*—were the first thing that stopped me cold. Yesterday they’d been the soft, sparse fringe of childhood. Now they swept upward in dark gold arcs, thick enough to cast shadows across her cheekbones when she blinked. And those cheekbones—sharp enough to cut glass, high and defined beneath skin that glowed like she’d swallowed sunlight. No zit in sight, no uneven preteen texture. Just smooth, poreless perfection, flushed pink at the apples as if she’d just come in from the cold. *Ten?* She looked thirteen.

“Crystal,” I whispered, the name barely leaving my lips before her head snapped up—eyes locking onto mine with unnerving precision from thirty yards away. Superhearing. *Day three,* I realized. The textbooks fluttered from her hands as she moved, not running but *gliding*, her stride elongating until she covered the distance in six effortless steps. The car door handle opened.

“Feeling better now that I’m here?” I asked, reaching across the console to brush a strand of golden hair from Crystal’s face—the gesture automatic, parental, though my fingers trembled at how *different* her cheekbones felt beneath my touch. Harder. Older.

She smiled and said that now that her mom is here she is now—her sentence cut off mid-breath as her pupils dilated suddenly, nostrils flaring. Before I could react, Crystal’s head whipped toward the school building with alarming speed. “Mr. Shields is microwaving fish in the teacher’s lounge again,” she grimaced, delicate fingers pressing against her temples. “It smells like… old tuna and shame. God, I can *taste* the shame.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust, and I realized—super smell. Day three.

We drove home in an abnormally warm February day. The car tires crunched over the freshly expanded driveway as I pulled in, my grip tightening on the wheel when I saw Asher winding up to throw. His friend Aaron stood thirty yards away—too far for any normal twelve-year-old’s arm, he looked 14—but Asher’s pitch streaked across the lawn like a comet, barely a blur before smacking into Aaron’s mitt with a crack that made my new superhearing wince.

Asher stood in the frontyard, his silhouette outlined by the afternoon sun, and I realized with a jolt that he no longer cast the shadow of a child. Asher’s transformation wasn’t just noticeable now—it was accelerating like time itself had given him preferential treatment. The front yard sunlight cut across his torso as he pulled off his shirt, revealing collarbones that jutted sharply above a chest that had widened overnight. Where there had been softness yesterday, now twin grooves of nascent muscle framed his sternum, the faintest shadow of peach fuzz above his pectorals catching gold in the afternoon light. His waist nipped in slightly, the first suggestion of the V-shape that would one day make girls stare, and when he stretched to grab another baseball, the movement pulled his skin taut over newly defined hip bones. Asher was coming along quite nicely.

Later, that night, we had much needed relaxation. The Trivial Pursuit box shattered open against the mahogany game table of our new gameroom, plastic wedges scattering like shrapnel across the polished surface. Crystal’s hand froze mid-throw not with childish petulance, but with the eerie control of a concert violinist (like her pa’s) caught between movements. I watched a bead of sweat roll down her temple, tracing the sharp new contour of her cheekbone before vanishing beneath the cascade of honey-blonde hair that now brushed her collarbones.

The game only lasted 20 minutes. All of us were geniuses with eidetic memories. None of us missed a question. Benna only won because of a lucky roll to the center. The die clattered to a stop—a perfect six—and Benna’s lips curled in triumph as her game piece clicked into the center hub. “Beginner’s luck,” she lied, her deepening voice rich with amusement. Our fingers brushed when I passed her the winning wedge, and the contact sent an electric jolt up my suddenly sensitive arm. Across the table, Asher’s eyes—already a sharper, more calculating blue—flicked between us with unsettling perception.

Poker wasn’t that hard, because all of us could count cards. You couldn’t bluff. The deck might as well have been transparent—every shuffle, every deal parsed instantly by minds that now processed probabilities like supercomputers. Crystal’s fingers twitched against her cards tapping the Queen of Spades with rhythmic precision. She knew I held a full house. I knew she knew. And yet, the game continued, because the real stakes weren’t in the chips piled between us—they were in the unspoken tension of bodies that no longer matched our memories.

Needless to say the memory game didn’t last too long either. Crystal flipped over the last matching pair with a sigh—the Queen of Hearts and Queen of Diamonds—her fingers lingering on the cards just a fraction longer than necessary. “This is stupid,” she announced, voice already losing the childhood rasp it had yesterday. “We could play this backwards in the dark.” Asher snorted, stretching his arms behind his head in a motion that pulled his t-shirt tight across shoulders that had no business being that broad on a twelve-year-old. Game. Set. Match.

We went to bed that night tired of easy games, but excited for the changes the next day would bring for budding superheroes. The house groaned around us—not metaphorically, but with actual structural shifts as another wing materialized overnight. Our beds had transformed too; Crystal’s childhood twin now sprawled queen-sized beneath her coltish limbs, while Asher’s mattress had somehow acquired the firmness of an Olympic gymnast’s training pad. Even Raccoon stretched luxuriously across a velvet cat bed three times her size, tail twitching as if dreaming of her own superhero transformation.

The alarm never stood a chance. Six a.m. on a Saturday, and I was wide awake with the kind of alertness that used to require three espresso shots. Benna was still asleep next to me. The sheets slithered off my body with unnatural smoothness, as if even the fabric recognized something had fundamentally shifted in the physics of me. The bathroom tiles were cold beneath my feet—not painfully so-I’m invulnerable-but with a crispness that made me aware of every inch of skin. I flicked the light on and froze.

The mirror didn’t lie. It couldn’t. Not anymore. My reflection showed a stranger—or rather, the stranger I’d always dreamed of becoming. My arms, once lightly dusted with fine blonde hairs, were now utterly bare, the skin so smooth it caught the light like polished marble. I ran a hand up my forearm, half-expecting resistance, but there was none. No stubble, no follicles—just an impossible slickness, as if someone had airbrushed me alive. And, oh! My face! So feminine!

After the Initial shock of seeing my new appearance. I sat down on our bedroom recliner to check the messages on my phone. The daily text message of our joint bank accounts came in. My fingers trembled against the phone screen—not from fear, but from the sheer impossibility of the numbers glowing back at me. $1,387,652.14 across our accounts. Yesterday it had been $87,652.14. I blinked hard, waiting for the decimal point to correct itself. It didn’t.

“Benna!” The name tore from my throat in a voice that wasn’t mine—melodic, higher-pitched, but commanding with a resonance that vibrated strangely in my chest. My hands flew to my throat, fingers tracing the barely-there bump of my Adam’s apple. The shock of hearing myself sent a jolt through my body, electric and awesome.

I was definitely becoming a woman. Superwoman!