Seconds And Irregulars : 10 (Final)

A Fit-4-U Tale
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

Many things that seem magical to most men
are the every-day commonplaces of my business.

– Harry Houdini

---

 

Camille's brain was topsy-turvy as she drove home. Laura's explanation of Fit-4-U was frankly bewildering. Of course, the explanation was complicated by the fact that neither woman believed in the M word. Then again, Fit-4-U didn't seem to require belief or any particular attitude. The clothes just worked.

In retrospect, though, it was nearly impossible to believe: that she and Laura had each worn the bimbo-making bathing suit, and experienced the radical shape-change that ended the moment they took the suit off. There was no reasonable explanation for that! Absolutely none!

She was irritated at having her credulity strained and stretched so far. She couldn't escape the feeling that it was all a prank Laura was playing on her.

At the same time, Laura wasn't the sort of person who played pranks... and she did say that if Fit-4-U *was* a joke or a trick, it wouldn't be a trick that would go far, because the clothes were on the expensive side.

She was also irritated that the website itself didn't explain how their clothes worked. The closest they came to any sort of self-justification was a line of small print at the bottom of the home page, that read "A wholly-owned subsidiary of Spells-4-U."

Which was pretty much a slap in the face.

Spells? No. The idea didn't sit well with her. There were no such things as spells. Dizzy spells? Sure. Magical spells? No frickin' way.

Even so... she knew what she was going to do. Quietly, without telling Laura or Ozzie or anyone, she was going to choose an item from the website: something where the effect would be incontrovertible. Maybe a sheath dress, or a pair of shoes. Or a bathing suit! She'd order it, she'd try it on, and see. If it didn't work– well, there was a guarantee! She'd get her money back. Best of all, no one would ever know that she'd ventured a try.

Camille would have loved to talk it through with Ozzie. In spite of his faults, Ozzie was down-to-the-dirt practical. He'd have observations, speculations, thoughts. With him, it would be easy to remove the taint of the M word, to peel back the hype, sniff out the truth, and simply take the clothes on their own terms.

Unfortunately, Ozzie had already ruined that possibility. His reaction to Laura's jacket was full of mockery and condescension. All of his remarks belittled her, belittled Laura, and insulted Fit-4-U.

On the other hand... he had admired the jacket. That was a first for him. That was almost magic in itself.

 

---

 

When Camille arrived home, she found the house strangely quiet. The TV wasn't on. Neither was the radio. She knew Ozzie was home; his car was in the garage.

Maybe he was asleep?

Or was he up to something? Probably spying on the woman next door, she thought, rolling her eyes. As if he had a chance!

Whatever he was up to, she could sneak upstairs and catch him in the act. It was funny the way he'd jump away from the window, or slap his computer shut, or throw a towel over his lap, feigning child-like innocence.

Camille crept slowly, quietly up the stairs and down the hall, avoiding all the creaky spots. She peeked into Ozzie's office and found a sight so unexpected, she nearly shouted in surprise. Her jaw dropped open in astonishment.

There, on the floor, sat a young woman, her head down, her body and limbs curled into – it must be said – an adorable pile of slender legs and arms, adorned in black satin-like clothes, trimmed witth bright white ruffles and lace. She wore an outfit that Camille recognized as one of Ozzie's relentless fantasies: a French Maid costume.

In spite of her shock and surprise, Camille had to recognize that the outfit appeared, at least at first glance, to be of ver high quality and a rather perfect fit. It had to be expensive.

At first she was too perplexed to speak or move, but when the power of speech returned, she put all the steel and authority in her voice that she could muster and demanded sternly, "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?"

Imagine how baffled and disoriented she felt when the trim little feminine figure looked up from the floor. The head that sat atop the lovely little body was absurdly, comically outsized – and not only that, but the face, the head, the hair was unmistakeably Ozzie's!

"Ozzie, is that you?" she cried.

"Who else would I be?" he shot back, his voice heavy-laden with misery.

"I don't know!" she exclaimed. "What the– Tell me: What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, Camille!" Ozzie wailed, "This isn't what it looks like!"

"It's not?" Camille replied. "I'm not sure what it looks like, Ozzie! I'm not sure at all!"

"Well...," Ozzie ventured, his furtive nature reasserting itself, "Whatever you're thinking, it isn't that."

Camille put her hand to her head. She pulled Ozzie's desk chair into the middle of the room, and sank into it, fearful her legs would give way from under her. She felt as though the ground had been pulled out from under her, literally and figuratively.

"Help me out here, Ozzie," she told him. "What on earth is going on?"

"Oh!" he groaned. "The main thing is... God help me! The main thing is, that I need to use the bathroom!"

"The bathroom?" she echoed. "Ozzie, are you out of your mind? If you have to go, just go!"

"Maybe I have lost my mind," he said, sighing heavily. He lifted his face and looked into Camille's eyes. "What do you see when you look at me, right now?"

"I see a slim young woman in a sexy maid costume," she said, "with your big, stupid head stuck on top."

"Oh, hell," he breathed. "So it's real." He covered his face with his hands for a moment, then said, "Can you help me?"

"Help you?" she repeated. "Ozzie, first YOU have to help ME, here: tell me what in the name of Jesus is going on here?"

"I can't get this damn thing off!" he said, pulling fussily at his skirt. "I put it on to prove–" he interrupted himself with a deeply frustrated growl. "I wanted to prove that this whole Fit-U-Up thing was a load of crap."

Camille caught a glimmer; she was beginning to understand. She asked, "And how did that work out for you?"

"Like hell!" he replied. He actually trembled a bit as he admitted, "I have no idea how these damn things work, but somehow these clothes – and your crazy body wash – make me look like a girl! It's insane!"

"Okay," she said in a gentle voice. "I'm sure the body wash has nothing do with anything, but If this outfit is upsetting you so badly, why didn't you just take the costume off?"

"Oh, why didn't *I* think of that!" he shouted, in a voice loaded with bitter sarcasm. "Aren't you listening to me? I can't take it off! It won't let me! It won't move! See?" To demonstrate, he tuggled on one end of the bow that tied his apron. "It doesn't budge!" Camille, thinking he was faking, reached out and tuggled on it. Puzzled when the knot didn't give way, she tuggled even harder, to no effect. She tried the same with the knot at the bottom of the bodice: again, no result.

"And now I have to pee," Ozzie went on, "but I can't budge the underwear! I am this close to just letting go and peeing myself."

"Well, don't do that," Camille replied. "But listen, it's impossible that you can't just slide the underwear off. Come on!"

"Look!" Ozzie demanded, lifting the skirt and its petticoat, revealing the panties. It was a good thing that Camille was already sitting down. If she hadn't been, the revelation of Ozzie's intimate transformation would have knocked her flat on her butt. "See?" he asked frantically. "See? See?" as he tried to get a grip on the underwear. His fingers passed over the garment as easily as if it were a tattoo. Camille could barely take it in; her unbelieving eyes were focused on Ozzie's smooth groin.

"Can I try?" Camille asked, greatly puzzled and more than a little frightened. The changes she underwent at Laura's were astonishing and fun, but nothing like this! She never crossed the gender divide. Here, apparently Ozzie had, though he didn't seem to realize it.

What was stranger? Camille wondered, the fact that he'd altered his body so drastically, or the fact that he didn't see that he'd changed?

"Oh, yeah," Ozzie agreed, "give it a shot." He remembered in that moment that Avery had told him that another person might be able to help. And she was right: Camille easily got her fingers into the leg holes, and she slid the panties down... but only as far as his Ozzie's knees. Somehow, they refused to go any lower.

Unfortunately, she had no time to explore, to try to work the panties down any farther.

But if Camille was surprised by the profile of her husband's privates when they were covered by his panties, she was beyond amazement and disbelief at the sight of the naked truth: Ozzie's genitalia were completely altered. His man-parts were gone without a trace, and in their place was a fully appointed mons veneris: a perfectly formed genital configuration, suitable for even the most discerning women on earth.

Ozzie was totally oblivious to both Camille's consternation and its cause. His single focus was on the fact that he was now free to relieve himself. Gripping the arm of his recliner, he managed to stand upright, and off he waddled knock-kneed to the bathroom, his knees more or less bound together by the panties.

Camille heard him lift the toilet seat cover. It banged against the tank. She called out, "You'd better sit down, Ozzie!"

"Why?" he called back, amused at her intervention..

She paused for a moment. She scratched her head. Then she called, "Because you don't want to pee all over the petticoat and the skirt. Hang on – I'll help you." She ran inside the bathroom, turned her husband around, and gathered up the skirts behind him as he sat. There followed a great hissing sound, a tremendous spray, accompanied by Ozzies's rapturous sighs of relief. "Thank God!" he cried. "Woo! I really had a full tank!"

"I can hear it," Camille replied, humoring him. She was stupified. She knew that Ozzie was pig-headed, but she had no idea he could be this obtuse. He really had no idea of the extent of his transformation – or that his body had changed at all. Once the hissing sound stopped, Camille tore off some squares of toilet paper and tried to hand them to Ozzie. He wouldn't take them.

Amused, he asked, "What's that for?"

"To wipe yourself. What else?"

He laughed. "Men don't need to do that," he said.

"Humor me," she replied, and before he could object she reached down and patted him dry.

"Wow," he said, and half-joking, "I liked that! Maybe you can do that for me, from now on!"

Then, as he stood, still chuckling to himself, not thinking at all, he pulled the underwear back up, over his derriere, and settled it in place. "Oh, God damn it!" he exclaimed. "I should have taken the damn things off!" But his attempts to pull them back down again failed, exactly as they had earlier.

 

---

 

The two of them returned to Ozzie's office. "Now tell me," Camille told him. "What on earth happened here? Where did this outfit come from?"

"Listen," he told her. "Could we get a couple of beers to drink while I tell you the story?"

Out of habit, Camille almost got out of her seat to fetch them, but she stopped herself. "You're the maid," she said. "You go get them."

Ozzie paused at this minimal inversion of roles, but he realized that he had some explaining to do, and giving in a little at this point could earn him a bit of goodwill. So he clomped into the hallway and down the stairs, still unused to the heels that were stuck on his feet.

While he was out of the room, Camille collected her thoughts. She hadn't missed the fact that Ozzie's arms and legs were slimmer, more feminine, and completely free of rough, mannish hair. The heels did a little to hide the fact that he was now shorter than Camille. If his head was proportioned to his brand new body, he'd be more obviously petite. She also hadn't missed the fact that he sported a cute set of breasts... to say nothing of the entire set of womanly plumbing installed between his (her?) legs.

As shocking and inexplicable as these alterations were, the strangest thing of all had to be Ozzie's blindness. He simply didn't see any of it. Somehow he'd worked out a way of *not* seeing what was right in front of his eyes. He explained it all away.

She knew the man was pig-headed, but this relentless voluntary blindness surpassed all bounds.

As she listened to Ozzie carefully climbing the stairs, she was thankful that Laura had given her a rundown on Fit-4-U. Otherwise, she'd be fit to be tied! As it was, she was freaking out pretty badly, but not so badly that she couldn't hide it from her husband.

When he clomped back into the room, Ozzie carried an entire six-pack of beer, along with a pair of glasses (thinking that a little show of civilization might win him some points). He popped open one bottle and poured a glass for Camille. "I thought this might help," he explained, then poured a glass for himself.

He made an odd picture, with his delicate female frame and his massive Ozzie head. Camille was dying to take a picture, but she knew he'd violently object.

"Why hasn't your head changed?" she couldn't help asking.

"Changed?" he repeated. "Why would it change?"

"Every other part of you has," she answered.

He laughed. "No, no. See? They've taken you in, those Fit-4-U clowns! Nothing changed. I'm still the same old Ozzie. It all just looks different." He gestured at himself, at his body. "It's an illusion, see? The clothes make me look different. It's like the slimming effect you always talk about, but a la grande!"

When he sat down, Camille took a closer look at his legs. "Did you shave?" she asked.

Ozzie, who was busy taking a large sip of beer, missed the direction of her attention. "Did I shave?" he touched his cheek absently. "Yeah, sure. I just, uh, felt like running the razor... I never got such a close shave! Feel!" and he leaned forward, offering his cheek, which she (humoring him) ran her hand over and pronounced it smooth.

"So what happened here?" she asked.

Ozzie, now that the worst seemed to be over (meaning, his discovery by Camille and his relief in the bathroom), relaxed. He leaned back and took a healthy swig of beer. He explained how puzzled and provoked he felt by the mystery of Laura's jacket, and how he looked for a Fit-4-U product that wouldn't fit either woman. "This outfit," he boasted, "is a size six! Too big for Laura, too small for you!"

"And you figured that if it wouldn't fit either of us–"

"–it would prove that the guaranteed fit was a crock!"

"Okay," Camille said, treading carefully, "But now... you see that it fits you... and it looks like it fits you perfectly, right?"

"Yes!" he agreed, smiling.

"So, if it fits you, doesn't that prove that the guaranteed fit is real? Haven't you just proved yourself wrong? I mean, there's no way you could fit into a real size six. A woman's size six."

"No, of course not," he said.

"So... you think you've proved that you're right? That it's all a crock?"

"Yes, of course!"

"How?"

"Well," he said, looking around the room as if the answer to her question was written somewhere... if only he could find it. "I don't quite know," he admitted, "but as soon as I take these things off of me, I'm sure I'll understand how."

"Okay," she said, although the situation was far from okay.

Then the two of them then set to trying to remove the outfit, or any piece of it. They first struggled with the shoes, which didn't budge.

"It's like they're glued to your feet!" she exclaimed. "Did you put anything like glue inside, before you put them on?"

"No, of course not!"

Camille fetched a shoe horn, but wasn't able to slip it in behind Ozzie's heel.

"It's a good thing these shoes are so comfortable!" Ozzie quipped.

"Are they?" Camille asked.

"Oh, yes, they are! The whole outfit is incredibly comfortable!" he enthused. "I have to say that these are the most comfortable clothes I've ever worn, as weird as that sounds."

"It does sound very weird," she agreed.

None of the garments were movable, not even minimally. Not even the underwear, which Camille had successfully lowered earlier. "It's the craziest thing!" she conceded, as her fingers slipped over the lingerie without catching hold.

"You know, the one thing I don't understand," Ozzie mused, "is that jacket: it didn't change the way you look; it simply fit you, right?"

"That the one thing you don't understand?" Camilee replied in disbelief.

"These things–" here he gestured at the costume he was wearing– "they change the way I look. That's different, right?"

"Yes, very different," Camille said, distracted. She remembered Laura's explanation about the two different fits: one where the clothes change to fit you, and the other where the clothes change you to fit.

"Ozzie," she queried, "do you mind if I call Laura, to ask about this?"

With a look of horror, Ozzie gripped her arm like a steel vise. "No," he said in a decisive, intense voice. "No calling Laura! Why would you call her?"

"Because she might understand. She knows Fit-4-U. She might be able to help."

"I don't care. If she knows I did this, she'll tell her asshole husband, and I will never live this down."

Camille rolled her eyes, but let it go.

At the same time, she remembered one of Laura's remarks: that the clothes that change you, change your body, cost MORE than the other type. A lot more. Which meant that this costume had to be fairly pricey.

"Ozzie, how much did you pay for this outfit?" she asked.

His face it up at that. "Oh! I forgot to tell you! I did REALLY WELL in getting this one! It was FREE! Completely free! It even came with free shipping!"

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "That makes no sense. No sense at all!"

"It was a whatchacallit," he explained. "Seconds... or irregulars, or something."

"Oh," she said, recalling. "That's you asked about seconds last night."

"Yeah, heheh."

"Huh. Can I see it?"

Ozzie frowned, not understanding. He gestured to the clothes he was wearing.

"No," she said. "On the website."

He tried to return to the page, but it was no longer available. "Oh, yeah," he said. "This was the only one in stock."

Camille began clicking around the site. "But it was a Second?" she asked.

"No, it was Irregular." he said. "That's why it was free."

Camille read through the explanation page, taking in all the things that Ozzie missed or ignored. Words like unexpected, unpredictable, and the phrases an open mind may help and a definite element of risk.

"Did you read this?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah," he replied, waving his hand dismssively. "And when I bought the thing, I had to scroll through this long, stupid disclaimer and – what, uh – acceptance of risk. Can you believe it?"

"Yes," she replied. "Yes, I do believe it."

He gave her a look, slack-jawed, laughing. In his mind, only geeks and nerds and other losers read disclaimers and agreements on the internet.

"Don't you see the risk?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah," he said, getting it, at least for a moment. "Yeah, I guess so."

She slapped her forehead and slid her hand over her eyes. "Oh, Ozzie!" she moaned.

He shrugged. "Listen, none of this is my fault. It's them. Fit-4-U did this. It's their responsibility. They have to fix it."

"Do they?" she asked. "You accepted the risk, right?"

He made a pfft! noise and laughed scornfully. "We can sue. We can sue the pants off them."

"Before we do that–" she cautioned– "before we start suing anybody, there are other things we can try."

"Like what?"

"Like..." her eye drifted to the computer screen. "We could try calling Customer Support."

"Oh, Customer Support!" he exclaimed in a voice full of scorn. "I tried that! Total waste of time! I talked to an idiot named Avery. She was no help at all. Didn't listen to me, didn't know her ass from her elbow. And then, the bitch hung up on me!"

Camille recoiled at the sound of the B word – understanding in the same moment why Avery hung up.

"Do you mind if I try calling them?" she asked.

Ozzie opened his hands in a gesture of magnanimity. "Go right ahead," he said. "be my guest! I'm warning you, though: it will be a complete waste of time!"

"That's okay," Camille assured him. "But I have to try it."

"Oh," he remembered, reaching into the delivery box. "You're going to need the so-called order number, here. It's not strictly speaking a number, but you know–" he made a face to indicate that the Fit-4-U crew was a passel of idiots.

Camille glanced into the delivery box. It was full of light packing paper, and amongst the paper was something that appeared to be a hair ribbon. It featured ripples of black and white lace, tangled up with some other item... possibly a choker? For no particular reason she picked it up, hefted it in her hand. It weighed nearly nothing.

Her gaze travelled from there to Ozzie's absurdly large head, and she wondered...

"Do you mind if I leave the room while I talk to them?" she asked.

"No, why would I? Honestly, I don't want to listen to those morons."

"Okay. Don't go anywhere," she joked.

"Dressed like this?" he asked drily. "Where could I go?"

"To clean somebody's house," she answered with a grin.

He made a rude noise as she ran downstairs, chuckling to herself.

 

---

 

Camille called Customer Service. Purely by chance, Avery answered. On the second ring.

Yes, the very same Avery. After her extremely distressing call with Ozzie, Avery left her desk, ran downstairs, and left the building by the back door. There, alone, where no one could hear, she balled up her fists and screamed with rage and anger – something she never did. Avery knew she was a good person; a patient person. She always tried to be kind, and prided herself on her ability to navigate through the upset feelings of clients with issues. It gave her an immense satisfaction when she converted a frantic or angry customer into a happy one.

Now, to have her empathy and forbearance thrown so rudely back in her face... it stung. It did worse than sting. It hurt.

Avery sat on a wooden crate and cried for a while. She'd never dealt with a caller who was so rude, so insulting, so demeaning.

After she'd cried enough, dried her eyes, and wiped her nose, Avery composed herself, brushed off her skirt, and went directly her supervisor. Avery poured out her wounded, deeply-offended feelings, and delivered a heavily-censored version of her conversation with Ozzie. Her supervisor listened sympathetically. She assured Avery that even though calls like this did happen, they should not and would not be tolerated. She asked Avery to write a summary of the conversation, leaving nothing out, bad words and all. She further instructed Avery to forward any calls from that number directly – or any abusive call, for that matter – to the supervisor on duty.

Finally, she offered Avery the option of taking the rest of the day off, but Avery refused. She squared her shoulders and bravely returned to the phones.

Camille's was the first call to come in, and her first words were, "Avery? I believe you spoke with my husband earlier. I don't know what he said, but I'm pretty sure it was unpleasant and undeserved. I'll speak to him about it, and I'm really sorry. There's no excuse for his behavior."

Tears sprang to Avery's eyes. She did her best to be gracious. Camille aimed to be as conciliatory as Ozzie was offensive.

After the niceties were exchanged, Avery ventured a guess that Ozzie was still in the same predicament as earlier. In the time since the call with Ozzie, she'd been able to gather her thoughts, and was better prepared to explain.

"First you have to understand how the regular, full-price costume works," she told Camille. "If your husband bought that one, instead of the irregular one, he would have been able to put it on and take it off as much as he liked, whenever he liked. All of it, or any part."

"And would it change him? The way he's changed now?"

"Yes," Avery replied. "Definitely. That's what makes the outfit so expensive. We actually have another version, that costs a lot less. It *looks* the same, and it's the same high-quality workmanship and materials, but that version that will only fit you. It won't change you."

"Okay, I get that," Camille acknowledged. "But what's the story with your irregular items? Why do you make an outfit that gets stuck on the a person? It almost seems like a practical joke."

"We don't make irregulars on purpose," Avery informed her. "And they're not jokes. They're mistakes. They're defective. In the end, they do what the expensive version does, but... there can be problems. Hiccoughs."

"Why do the irregular items stick on people like this?"

"They don't. I mean, that's not the... okay. See, irregular items are unpredictable. They do all kinds of funny, weird things. In the end, they get to the right place, but they don't go directly there. And you know, this costume you have... next time he puts it on, it might do some other thing entirely. Or it could simply behave itself, like the full-priced version. There's no knowing until you try it on."

"I don't think anyone's going to try that costume on after this," Camille told her. The two women laughed. Camille asked, "Can I send it back? I'm a little afraid of having it around!"

"Oh, no. We don't give refunds or accept returns on irregular items."

Camille then explained that – besides the obvious problem of being stuck in the clothes, there was another puzzle: while Ozzie's entire body from the neck down, was slender, delicate, and feminine, his head was enormous (in proportion) and distinctly male.

"I tried to tell him!" Avery protested, "I explained several times that he hadn't put on the whole outfit. We've seen this before, with other irregular items! But he wouldn't listen. It sounds like he's not wearing the hair ribbon and the choker. Those two items finish off the outfit. They complete the look. And the transformation."

"Are you saying that once he puts those last two pieces on, he'll be able to take the whole outfit off?"

"Oh, yes!" Avery answered. "Of course!" and after a pause, she added, "If not right away, then eventually."

"Eventually? How long is eventually?"

"Judging from our Knowledge Base, maybe thirty minutes or an hour? It's hard to say. The longest wait that's been reported was ninety minutes."

"Okay, so an hour and a half? I guess that's not so bad."

"If it's a little longer, don't worry. You can always call back if you want reassurance, but honestly, all that's required is a little patience."

Camille gave a scoffing laugh. "Patience isn't Ozzie's strong suit, so this little exercise will do him good."

Avery made a neutral, noncommittal sound.

Camille, with a sudden thought: "And then, as soon as he takes the outfit off, all the physical changes will disappear, right? He'll go back to being plain old Ozzie, with all his... bits? And pieces?"

"Oh, yes, for sure! All the physical changes will go away! If they don't disappear immediately, don't worry! They'll all go away eventually."

"Eventually? Again, eventually? How long is *eventually* this time? Is it ninety minutes like before?"

"I can't say," Avery replied. "Not exactly."

Camille could almost hear Avery smiling. She could sense that the young woman was enjoying a bit of schadenfreude as she delivered this portion of the news.

"Let me get this straight: until the effects wear off – whenever that happens to be – my husband's going to look like a sexy young girl?"

"Yes. If the changes don't revert immediately, then yes, what you said will be true."

"But... but... Ozzie is a man! He has a job, and a life, and all–" she couldn't find the words; they caught in her throat "–as a man! He's a man! I mean... what is he supposed to do? He can't just show up at work as a petite little hottie and tell everyone Hey, boys! I'm Ozzie!"

"I understand," Avery acknowledged in a gentle tone, "But keep in mind: The outfit, the costume, was designed for women. He took a risk when he put it on."

Flustered, Camille scratched her head. "So, what you're saying is, we won't know whether the changes will stick, and if they do, how long they're going to last?"

"I'm sure they'll go away eventually. Remember: It is possible they'll disappear immediately. But right now there's no way of knowing."

"Can you at least give me an idea of how long it's going to take for him to go back to normal?"

"No, I'm sorry. I wish I could, but I simply can't. I mean, as I said, he *might* just take it off and be himself again, right away. Our irregular items are unpredictable."

Camille frowned. "Avery, please. Can you at least give me a ballpark estimate? How long could he be stuck as a woman? Are we talking days? weeks? months? What's the worst-case scenario? Could he be stuck this way forever?"

Avery laughed. "Oh, no, it can't be forever!"

"It can't? Are you sure about that?"

"No – it can't! At least, it's never happened. It's never been reported. Not so far, anyway."

Camille had to sit down. She tried to get a grip on herself and find out the facts. "Well, if it's not forever, how long could it be? You must have some idea."

"I can check our Knowledge Base," Avery replied, typing. As she searched, she said (repeating), "Okay, so if this was the regular, full-price version of the costume, the change would only last while you were wearing it. That's all. You take it off, and the changes disappear."

"I got that," Camille acknowledged, getting a little testy. She understood perfectly: She'd experienced exactly that kind of change at Laura's house, when she tried on the bimbo swimsuit.

"Does your Knowledge Base tell you about the free, irregular version? How long does that change last?"

Avery blew out a long breath. "See, it's not like we have an irregular version of this costume very often. This might be the first one. I'm looking at issues with irregular items generally, and honestly, there's no telling. That's why it's irregular, see? Irregular items are unpredictable. I'm sorry that I keep repeating that, but it's the key feature of these items."

Camille could hear Avery's mouse clicking.

"Okay, on the occasions when changes didn't disappear right away, the shortest reported instance in our records was a day, a single day. The longest instance was four months."

"Shit!" Camille gasped. Her face went white.

"But that's why it's irregular!" Avery explained. "Most of the people who order these outfits *want* that effect! They don't see it as a problem!"

"What's the average duration?" Camille asked, feeling that she was at sea, grasping at flotsam to keep her head above water.

"I'll have to, uh, have to figure... um, give me a second... Keep in mind, these are only our reported cases... People who are happy with the change don't call. But anyway..."

Camille could hear Avery scribbling as she whispered numbers to herself. Then, at last: "The average reported duration for a transformation is 24 days... three weeks and three days. But you know, as they say, your mileage may vary."

When Camille didn't respond, Avery again tried to explain, repeating: "See... this is why that item was marked Irregular. Because it's unpredictable. If this was the regular full-price costume, he'd be able to take it off and put it on again as often as he liked."

"I know, you've said that," Camille responded. "Twice, maybe three times. But tell me: why on earth was this costume free? I mean, any idiot could order it and get themselves in a whole heap of trouble!"

"Yes, that's true. That's VERY true. But that's the idea of the irregulars: it's a gamble. You have to be willing to take the risk. That's why we warn people before they complete their order. We explicitly say, the lower the price, the higher the risk. Before you can finish your order, you have to read a disclaimer and acknowledge the acceptance of risk. Your husband did that. I can see it in our system. If a person can't handle the risk, if they want to avoid the risk, they need to spend a little money, or a lot of money, and get the full-price outfit."

Camille blinked, mouth agape, trying to process all that she'd heard. Avery gave her a little space, to let it sink in.

Until, after a long period of silence, Avery gently asked, "Can I help you with anything else today?"

"No, thank you, Avery," Camille responded. "I think that's everything."

"Okay, then. Thanks for calling Fit-4-U, home of the guaranteed fit! Have a lovely rest of your day!"

"You betcha," Camille said, and ended the call.

She looked at the ceiling, drawing a slow breath. Directly overhead, on the floor above, Ozzie sat, sucking down a beer, dressed like the cutest, most petite maid imaginable – with the biggest, dumbest head in creation.

Camille rubbed her left eye, groaning softly. Another fine mess, she told herself.

Then she took the logical next step: She did the only thing she *could* do: She called for backup. She called her best friend, Laura, and told her, "Laura, you're not going to believe what happened today!"