After a few minutes to just exist in his new state, Eugene finally heaved his feminine bulk upwards and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark silence of his thankfully hardly changed bedroom. The sounds of the apartment building hadn't changed as well, the rumble of old pipes, the slight creak of the floors in the next apartment over as one of his neighbors was clearly busy doing something in their kitchen. The unintelligible sound of Ralph's TV as it echoed up the stairwell.
Everything was as it should have been. Except for Eugene and the small affectations that dotted the apartment now. And the magical gemstone that was still clutched in his flabby palm. The janitor uncurled his fingers and stared at the dark green artifact that caught the light of the lamp on the end table and caused the golden core to glitter in a way that Eugene knew was not natural. There was nothing natural about it, from transforming him into some teenage diva that was beloved by the entire school and stuck in awkward social situations that Eugene had no business ever being in before thankfully depositing him into this out of shape, older body of said diva. He cast a glance at the picture frame on the bedside table and once more felt a pang of sadness. Not just because of losing that one moment of happiness from his former life, but because of what had happened to the girl he had become.
Everyone knew him as 'Mrs. Kazinski', instead of Eve, instead of Eugene. Although he KNEW that Eve hadn't existed and that the queen of Shermer High had always been Joanna Ingerman, there was still a pang of regret at having distorted what had been a charmed life and transforming it back into...this. And clearly it had been a life that he had just been unceremoniously deposited into. The picture of the younger yet-slightly-older version of the Eve he'd been earlier cuddled against the admittingly handsome dark-skinned man was proof that he hadn't gotten his old life back. Not entirely, at least. What other unknowns were now part of Eugene's life? He still clearly single and working a dead-end job, he was just as old as he'd been before...And Ralph was clearly interested in him and not above trying to 'pull rank' in order to get a date...
"Asshole" Eugene muttered, shutting his eyes and shaking his head, feeling the limp locks bounce against his forehead and on the back of his neck. He'd been female for all of four hours and just to keep a damn roof over his head, he'd agreed to go on a date! Didn't the old superintendent know what it felt like to be...used like that!? With his eyes closed Eugene never saw the sparkle of light from his hand, but right as he was about to make some kind of awful wish upon the bald building manager, he felt the sharp end of the Stone poke his calloused hand. Eugene's eyes shot open and he let out a soft gasp as he saw that he'd curled his fingers back around the gemstone, and realized that he had been about to make another wish! And who knew what THAT was going to do to him!?
So Eugene carefully reached over, pulled the drawer of the bedside table open, and slowly deposited the dangerous object into the change tin he kept in there, right next to a small notebook that held basic information like phone numbers, appointments, rent due dates. There was also a larger book of some kind that was flat against the bottom of the drawer, and Eugene decided to examine it. It hadn't been there this morning, when Eugene had grabbed a handful of change for his usual mid-day soda from the school vending machines. He placed the surprisingly heavy and bound-shut book on the mattress beside him, and with a another look to make sure that this time the Stone wasn't going to slid into some crack or hidden compartment and leave him stranded (like it had nearly done in the gym), slowly slid the drawer shut.
A wave of relief washed over him and Eugene felt his smaller jaw unclench. Had the gemstone truly had some hold over him? It seemed to amplify his feelings when he was angry, and almost as if it had drawn him towards making every wish that had landed him in this situation.
"Does it feed off anger?" The janitor wondered as he stared at the closed drawer. He'd definitely have to do more research before he'd risk another wish. Even if that meant living like this for a day or so. Just long enough to figure out a plan or a foolproof way of getting back to his male body.
Or maybe figuring out a way to get exactly what he actually wanted, like a younger body WITHOUT being turned into a child, staying male, getting more money without being turned into something or someone terrible. The possibilities were endless...But not without enormous risk to everything. And who knew what else was changing besides just Eugene and the immediate reality involving him? If he was an older version of Eve...What of his/her parents? Who was the black man in the photograph? What led someone like Eve down such a path that resulted her living like this? Was America even still America!?
But Eugene pushed the alarming thoughts out of his mind. Everything still seemed like America, unless they'd all somehow changed to speaking German or something and the magic was just making it sound like English to him. It was unlikely...But then again, he hadn't expected anything that had happened to him in the last four hours to ever be possible. He'd definitely need to do get some more information before anything else.
"Maybe this?" Eugene muttered as he picked up the surprisingly heavy book. He didn't open it quite yet, but quickly figured out that it wasn't a book, as he thought, but actually a photo album!
"Hot damn!"
Unlike Eve, Eugene had never kept a photo album. Too many bad memories. And to be honest, as much as he WANTED to know about yet another life he'd been thrown into, as much as he wanted to undo the clasp on the cover, his pudgy hand hesitated and hovered over the leather cover. Did he really want to know? If this woman he'd become ended up the same as him...If she'd gone from the beautiful looking girl he'd been and the one staring at him from the photograph to this whale he was now...Would the memories inside the album be worth it? Would they be sad and depressing like his life had been? Or full of success until whatever happened struck her down into this lesser form? What if this version of Eve had been a supermodel? Or an actress? What, exactly, had caused her to go from THAT to THIS?
Not that Eugene was fully complaining, given he was, save for the gap pinched between his swollen thighs and the weights on his chest, back where he'd otherwise started.
After another moment Eugene shook his head and slid the photo album back into the drawer, double, and then triple checking to make sure the gemstone was still in the change tin and secure, before sliding the drawer shut. And instead of wallowing in self pity and unsureness there on the bed, Eugene had decided that he was done with magical hijinks for the night. Instead he pushed himself off the bed and waddled through the apartment and into the small kitchen and began rummaging through the shelves, looking for something to eat as his engorged gut rumbled in protest. And then he settled on a bowl of cereal, because it seemed like everything this woman owned required some form of preparation and he just wasn't about to try his hand at cooking at...Eugene looked at the cat-clock on the wall and narrowed his eyes at the novelty appliance as it read 8:05PM.
"That's too fucking late" He groaned in his husky voice, and quickly just pulled out a bowl from their new position (kitchen organization was something else that had clearly changed, with everything being in the wrong place now), grabbed a box of cereal and went to work preparing the staple meal of the lonely and near-destitute. With his meal assembled, Eugene grabbed a bottled water (now flavored, which he wasn't a fan of) and made his way to the living where he plopped his ultra-wide rear down onto his couch and tried his best to forget his worries as he clicked on his aging TV.
But the changes didn't stop there. They were not huge, just clear choices in this woman's preferences, but it was enough to be annoying. The default channel wasn't the local network, but CNN. His favorites list of the older stuff like westerns and The Waltons had been replaced with soap opera channels and those annoying call-order networks for expensive knockoffs, and his sports programs weren't saved.
"Ugh" The obese former skinny man grunted as he spent more than a few minutes trying to fix the mistakes of his female counterpart. And by the time he had finally gotten things fixed to his liking and JAG was playing...the cereal had turned soggy. But Eugene ate it anyway, mainly just out of spite of the gemstone that seemed absolutely determined to make him angry, make him make a wish that it could twist against him.
No, as easy as that route might have seemed, it clearly had consequences, and Eugene was done with consequences, at least for now. Tomorrow was Friday, so he wouldn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday (he hoped) and go to some other forsaken job, so he could spend tomorrow evening after getting home from buffing the gym floor to see what he could figure out about the magical gemstone of misfortune.
Eugene set the now empty bowl on the small coffee table in front of the couch and settled back and tried to just...forget the events of today. It wouldn't be so bad being this version of Eve for a day (hopefully not two because, ugh, he did NOT want to go on a date with Ralph), would it?