After two weeks, the answer was, apparently, ‘no.’ 

That’s not entirely true. We’d both gotten rid of numerous little flaws and infirmities. Our knees didn’t hurt any more when we stood. I was able to sleep through the night without having to go to the bathroom. But our sex life was no better than before.

It wasn’t that we hadn’t made any changes. I’d always found Lucy beautiful, but now she was a total knockout. She’d kept those two inches she’d given herself, and added another two.

We’d tried so many changes that we’d come up with a handy shortcut to direct changes.

Calling out some list of specific measurements for one of us to match was both annoying and error prone. But, if we held up a piece of clothing and said ‘fit into this,’ well, even if the change didn’t go exactly as we intended, we knew there’d be at least one piece of clothing that fit.

As a result, we were both, physically at least, back in our twenties. We’d used the chain to sculpt our bodies to perfection. I’d let Lucy pick the changes for both of us. I thought she was perfect as is, and I just didn’t care much how I looked. I wanted her to want me. 

While Lucy had settled on her own improved looks pretty quickly, neither of us seemed especially satisfied with anything we did for me. I wasn’t especially enamored of my off the shelf form, but any significant change we tried was worse. The sixteen hours I spent looking like a hulked out bodybuilder were utterly miserable. I couldn’t look in the mirror, or even down at myself without feeling nauseated. 

In the end I was the same old me, but younger, toned, and more symmetrical, with most of my imperfections edited away. I knew I was better looking from the reactions I got on the running tack, but I mostly didn’t see it.

But when it came to sex, nothing really changed. We were both a little more excited to get started after the changes, but once we were actually going, everything was the same again. Worse, really, because we weren’t really able to ignore our problems like we had been.

Part of it may have been our upbringings. We’d both survived conservative religious homes, but we hadn’t escaped unscathed. Speaking for myself, I was very sex positive, in theory. Any two (or more, I supposed) consenting adults should have sex however they wanted it. Lucy felt mostly the same way, from what we’d discussed.

Theory was one thing, practice was another. When it came to the two of us, bringing a vibrator into the act was as wild as it got. Even that often made me feel awkward. The fact that we were both suddenly deeply hot didn’t change that.

About five and a half weeks after the chain showed up in our lives, things changed.

I was working late in my office to catch up on a project that had fallen a little behind. One of my coworkers had been out sick, and I was having to pick up the slack. I didn’t begrudge him the help, since I knew he’d do the same for me. I did hold it against management, who didn’t build slack for such eventualities into our project timelines.

Around ten, I decided that I wasn’t going to accomplish anything else useful that evening, and put my system to sleep. The lights were off in the living room, but there was a pale blue glow which told me Lucy was in there on her laptop. I approached quietly, in case she’d fallen asleep at her computer again. 

She hadn’t. From my position behind the sofa, I could see her screen. She was clicking through pictures of women. I assumed she was considering new looks for herself. Even though she hadn’t changed appearance in over a couple of weeks, she’d been talking about the idea of trying something else almost that long. 

I was going to say something when I noticed that she was breathing a little heavily. I noticed that while one of her hands was on the computer, I couldn’t see the other one. I knew that if she knew I saw her like this, she’d be embarrassed, so I quietly returned to my office, then made a noisy show of being done for the day.

“I’m all wrapped up in here,” I called, “see you in bed?”

“I’ll be right in,” she called, with a slight catch in her voice.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed when she walked in. Without a word, she strode up to me and pushed me back onto the bed. I started to speak, but she put her finger on my lips, silencing me.

I scooted myself further onto the bed while she pulled off my pants and underwear. She lowered her face to mine and gave me a long, passionate kiss, then crawled across me to reach her nightstand. As her body passed over me, I placed frantic kisses on her chin, her neck, her breasts, tummy, and vulva. 

I heard her nightstand drawer open, then repeated the series of kisses in reverse and her body returned. Her calf, then her thigh rubbed my erect cock. Soon her mouth was on mine again and I heard a click. I felt a buzz against my cock as her vibrator turned on. It was amazing.

We had the best sex we’d had in years. Maybe ever. I was spent before we ever got to penetration, so I took care of her with my fingers and the vibrator. I fell asleep exhausted.

🔗

She was out of bed when I woke up the next morning. I heard the shower turn off and laid there, savoring the memories of last night. I must have drifted back off, because the next thing I knew, she was leaving the bedroom, throwing a quick “The shower’s all yours” over her shoulder.

Before getting in the shower I stripped the bed and tossed the bedclothes into the hamper. I’d drop them in the wash a little later. There wasn’t a lot of hot water left, so I kept my shower short.

When I exited the bedroom fifteen minutes later, I was surprised to find Lucy already gone.

Once I’d eaten breakfast and cleared my dishes, I texted Lucy.

Me: Last night was amazing.

Lucy: 💗

It was hard to focus on work for the first hour or so. Once we had our daily check in meeting, though, I was able to get into the flow. After that, the day passed quickly enough.

Lucy was subdued when she got home. She kicked her shoes off and went straight to the kitchen to start dinner. When I wrapped my arms around her from behind, she didn’t quite pull away, but she didn’t lean into me, or respond at all.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied.

She clearly wasn’t.

“If you want to talk . . .” I trailed off.

She shook her head.

“Want any help?” I asked. 

“Not right now. Thanks.”

I left her to her work.

Once it was ready, we ate dinner mostly in silence.

I was feeling awful. I thought last night had been wonderful, but she was clearly upset, and that was the only thing that I could think of that could be causing it. I wanted to discuss it, but the weight of years not talking about sex were too much.

Since she’d cooked, I took care of cleanup, as was our tradition. It didn’t take long, since she was pretty good about cleaning as she cooked. When I finished, I went out to find her sitting on the sofa watching some reality baking show. I sat down at the other end of the sofa and read for a while.

“I’m sorry,” I said. The silence had been too much for me.

“You didn’t do anything,” she replied.

“Then—”

“I can’t right now,” she interrupted.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” I said, and went to get ready for bed.

At eleven, well past the time she’d normally be in bed, I woke and noticed she wasn’t there. I got up and quietly walked to the living room. She was snoring lightly on the sofa, her laptop open beside her. There was a mostly empty bottle of wine on the coffee table in front of her.

I did something I’m not proud of. The screen saver hadn’t kicked in, so her laptop was unlocked. I carefully shifted it so that I could see the screen. The browser was currently showing a discussion forum for the show she’d just been watching. I clicked on the history menu.

She’d been looking at a lot of pictures of women. And she’d been looking at some porn. I had no problem with porn, but it surprised me that she was looking at it. That wasn’t like her. Especially since most of it was lesbian porn. Well, then.

There were also quite a few entries on Amazon. I clicked through and looked at her order history. I knew I shouldn’t, but I was weak. A half hour ago she’d placed an order for a lingerie set. The odd thing was that it was very much not her size. It was extra small, and she was very vocal about how happy she was with her new height.

I couldn’t process it all. I erased the last hour of browser history, basically just the stuff I’d just done, and put her laptop to sleep. Totally confused, I went back to bed.