OBJECTIFICATION
 
 
 
 
  My name is Alisha Medellin and I'm supposed to begin this story with a pithy sentence or two meant for arresting your attention to hold it captive indefinitely. I suspect that my English teachers just about forced me to write this way because my usual drivel would really be unbearable otherwise. Now the short blurb about myself. I am twenty-five years old, dating, a New Yorker, working as an important decision maker in the volatile fashion industry, and described by my colleagues as a high-powered modern woman. I have a boyfriend who serves the purposes of a dog, a parrot, and a cat respectively, meaning that he growls all morning, swears all afternoon, and stays out all night. I have my own apartment, two pet goldfish, three secretaries, four fashion lines to oversee, and no free time. With all of that trivial nonsense out of the way, Mrs. Augurbrandt, I demand my grade of A for remaining completely true to form while completely circumventing the spirit of your lessons.
 
  ... Bitter? BITTER? WHO the HELL are you calling BI -!
 
  Alright alright, calming down. Tranquil as a pool of water. It's a mental trick that my big sister Sileth taught me. I imagine a pool of water in a nature setting - rock garden, maybe - and focus entirely on the absolute stillness of the surface. Or was it my little sister Serin? Anyways, I'm the middle sister and I make hash out of behavioral psychologists' neat profiles of how middle children are supposed to behave. Middle sisters are supposed to be the peacemakers of the family, calm and collected and a tad reticent, feeling that the oldest sibling gets all the attention while the youngest escapes all the discipline. Oh, and I'm supposed to be able to read people well, see all sides of a situation, and exercise ingenuity and inventiveness.
 
  The last bit might be true - nobody lasts long in the fashion industry without creativity, and plenty of people don't last even with it - but the rest can go straight to the garbage heap. If I read people worth a bean then I wouldn't end up with so many shoes lying untouched in my closet. I can see my side of the argument perfectly clear, thank you very much, and if you can't then that's your problem. If you think that I'm calm and collected then you skipped the first two paragraphs, in which case you are a bad reader and soon to be added to the shoe rack. Serin is painfully shy, but me ... me, I've never really had a problem going out and socializing. My problem is that I attract jerks the way honey attracts flies.
 
  Before we dive into the meat and potatoes of my little story, there's one last thing I need to mention. You see, my sisters and I are all Gifted; not just gifted, but Gifted. I don't mean that we pick up on skills or tasks faster than other people. Those are ordinary gifts, although they allow their wielders to accomplish truly amazing feats; Mozart and Picasso were gifted too, and you, my dear reader, are probably gifted in your own way. No, our Gifts allow us to do things that other people simply cannot do at all. The Medellin family is very old blood, truly ancient blood that runs all the way back to the mists of antiquity. We are descended from the citizens of Atlantis, the old blood runs strong and true in our veins, and our Gifts ... Sileth possesses the Gift of Appropriation, Serin has the Gift of Confabulation, and mine is the Gift of Objectification. Even my cousins - like Dorothea, Annalisa, and Amorti - have their own Gifts.
 
  I hate it when people laugh at me like that. It reminds me of a string of ex-boyfriends.
 
  Remember what I said about collecting jerks? Sometimes, in my rare lucid moments of sanity, I wonder if other women suffer from the delusion that men will change for them, or if it's just me. Serin says that guys go into a relationship expecting girls to stay the same and girls go into a relationship expecting guys to change, but that neither happens. She probably picked that proverb out of one of the books that she's always reading. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that I find a dream guy who's full of promises that life will be exciting and beautiful, a waking adventure every day, and then he invariably breaks my heart when other women become more interesting. Sileth, in her wisdom, says that it's not my fault. Sure feels like it though, especially when the cycle continues.
 
  Some women cope by shopping. I open my wardrobe and shoe rack, then examine the contents with a great deal of satisfaction, relish, and anticipation.
 
  My current boyfriend lies sprawled on my couch, watching television and ignoring me. His name is Julien Stendal, and he's cute enough when he wants to be, I suppose. A night in bed does strange things to a man. The same guy who could make my heart skip a beat over a candlelight dinner looks repulsive in the morning. Then I stumble out of bed and look at myself in the mirror and decide that a night in bed does strange things to a woman as well. Julien doesn't seem to mind of late, by which I mean that he's become indifferent to me. Oh, he'll still invite me out for pizza with his guy friends and parties every now and then, but I know the real reason he often turns evasive. He's seeing another woman.
 
  Probably an ugly landwhale with buck teeth and a lisp. Or maybe a hot goddess with an hourglass figure and model's looks. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's agony.
 
  This is when it's really useful to have an older sister who's protective of me. Sileth not only possesses the detective skill of a private eye, she can also remain as unseen as a ninja, all from her particular Gift. Julien, the scoundrel, is merely stringing me along while he cozies up to this other woman. She doesn't know anything, but Jules ... oh no, not that smile. If he smiles at me like that again my anger is going to melt! But he does, and crooks his finger, and I go and sit next to him on the couch. Immensely frustrating, to have my mind loathing him while my body still wants him. He's wonderful in bed, but he brags too much about all the experience he's had. And the moment he's done, it's over; not his particular fault though, since even I know enough to realize that all guys are like that. Sometimes I take out that frustration with the male gender on my clothes. I smile at him when he makes his dumb jokes and he sees what he wants to see, namely a silly girl easily manipulated by his charm and good looks. He thinks he'll take what he wants from me and then dump me.
 
  I have the same plans for him, but I also have work in the morning, so I bid him goodnight after some idle fondling on his part. A long, warm shower is what I need, to wash the smell of him out of my pores. Thirty minutes later I step out and towel off, then brush my black hair back and air it out to dry. The negligee that I carefully wrap around my body is a natural article of clothing, not something made with my Gift, but we'll get back to that later. Sleep, for me, is a pleasant time to rest my weary body. Serin spends so much time in her books that she hardly needs to sleep while Sileth's sleep is a tortured crucible of anguished souls and experiences clashing in her nightmares. Gifts have their drawbacks.
 
  Julien is still lying on my couch in the morning, sprawled insensibly in his jeans and shirt and fast asleep with gentle snores escaping from his lips. Part of me wonders if he gives me the same excuses that he gives to his other girlfriend for being away. I often wish that I could just sleep in the mornings as well, but a job like mine demands me to show up at least six days out of the week when the sun is still getting up out of her bed. Sundays are the best, though. Sleeping in is one of the simplest pleasures of life, along with delicious food, handsome men, warm showers ...
 
  ... and revenge.
 
  Leaving him asleep requires that I tiptoe around in my own apartment - my own apartment! - because otherwise he'll throw a fuss if he wakes up and I don't have breakfast ready for him. I'd rather not have my good mood spoiled so early by a shouting match over his immature antics, so I make a cold bowl of Lucky Charms for myself and eat in haste. None of Serin's boyfriends in her many books treat her like a maid; if anything, they treat her like a queen. But that is Serin's particular Gift, Confabulation - the power to make her imagination into immersive reality. We all experimented heavily with our Gifts as children, and I use mine every day.
 
  Choosing what to wear is often my favorite part of the morning routine. Dress code demands that I wear hose and heels to work, so I bring out my faithful black pumps which have served me well for the past two years. Some shoes can be neglected, but not this pair; sleek, uniformly sable, and professionally plain, they fit snugly on my feet and give me an extra three inches of height. I make sure to clean these heels the moment I detect a spot of dirt or a smudge of dust, knowing how much it pains her when I do so. Wearing her, half of her body covering each of my feet, is utterly humiliating and degrading for her, therefore nearly euphoric for me. With every step I take, I walk on her. My former superior, an overbearing and demanding tyrant named Hannah Winters, had been one of the most intimidating presences at Cherie's. But that is my Gift: Objectification, the power to turn living creatures into inanimate objects, their minds trapped helplessly inside and unable to act while remaining painfully aware of their surroundings. Trapped forever unless I chose to release them. I have never released anyone.
 
  Objectification does have some side effects, few of them pleasant. The items that I make can be molded and changed purely by my imagination if I concentrate while touching them, but increasingly intricate and complex objects require correspondingly higher levels of focus, which is why I prefer to make simple substances. Yet even something as elementary as a blouse or a pair of pumps requires a considerable amount of concentration and focus; coffee makers, door locks, and any electrical devices are right out. The objects also develop what I, in my capacity as discoverer of the phenomenon, call a Lish addiction. They need my touch the way a smoker needs his cigarettes or an alcoholic needs his booze, and the longer they are separated from my touch, the more painful the withdrawal becomes. An ember of need burning inside of their poor inanimate selves flares up into a mind-blanking conflagration of agony. Most objects, if restored, would have long gone insane from deprivation of my humble presence. After a year of mute torture sitting motionless in my closet, even my lightest brush is like cool water on the tongue of a man dying of thirst in the desert. I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream has nothing on me!
 
  I haven't touched some of the shoes in my closet for a decade or more. I do so love to show off my collection to my girl friends, though!
 
  Hannah Winters' disappearance two years ago had set off a media frenzy. For years she had made her reputation as the face of Cherie's, the iron-fisted dictator who terrified the employees by her very presence, a difficult and demanding woman who tolerated nothing short of perfection. I can still remember throwing hissy fits back in the condo that I shared with Sileth two years ago, or crying on Jessica Raymer's shoulder after yet another excoriating talk from our fearsome boss. Naturally, it's only poetic justice that I wear my former boss to work every day and step on her constantly. The news media had covered the story for weeks as it developed into a high profile police case, but no trace of the woman had ever been found. I had an alibi carefully crafted for me by Sileth which I never used, the police charged her live-in boyfriend, and over time the frenzy died down as no new leads were found. With Hannah's removal, my rise through the ranks proceeded rapidly. Her overbearing, authoritarian style had driven away most of the brains and the talent behind Cherie's, so when the higher-ups did find a young girl with a killer fashion sense and a penchant for not only predicting but also setting trends, I was a shoe-in. Pardon the pun. Couldn't resist.
 
  Walking out to the street, I would have liked nothing more than to reduce Julien into a pair of stilettos right then and there. It still galled me that I had to carry my pumps to the door lest the distinct clicking awaken him, and more so that I did not dare make a move yet. My older sister had told me what the consequences could be if I used my Gift impulsively, without careful forethought or preparation, and I had no desire to be led to the New York Police Department in handcuffs while being subject to a barrage of awkward questions. Once outside, I saw that my carpool ride had not turned into the street yet, so I called Sileth on my cell. I had enough of Julien and I left a message for my big sister to inform her that I wanted a new pair of shoes - sexy slingbacks with an immodest amount of toe cleavage, lots of straps and laces, "as unashamedly girly as possible" were my words. Sileth always understood what I really meant by my messages.
 
  Jessica Raymer and I had been secretaries and fashion assistants together under Hannah. The fashion magazine industry has been stereotyped as a ruthless and cutthroat business, but outside of a very few instances of high-heeled, heartless behavior, the people that you meet in it become your best friends. Jessica is one of them, first bonding under our mutual animosity for our former boss and blossoming afterwards. Now she served as my secretary while I made the important decisions, but I still considered her one of my closest companions. In public I was "Ms. Medellin" and she was "Jessica," yet alone we could be simply "Lish" and "Jess" with each other. We carpooled together to work on most days, but today her boyfriend Timothy Manderley sat at the wheel while we bundled up together in the backseat. That caused a stab of jealousy in me. Julien might be fun in his own way, but looking back I was always the one doing favors for him.
 
  "Good morning, Lish!"
 
  "Top of the morning to you, Jess and Tim." Once in the car I pulled my heels off and stretched my toes, Jessica on the left of the backseat and me on the right. It's a short drive to work and Tim piloted the car with all the skill of Luke Skywalker in the Death Star trenches, that is to say he made it look easy going bumper to bumper in a city where the traffic laws get treated as mere suggestions. This, of course, permitted Jess and I to catch up on gossip snugged with each other in the backseat. Jess has been to my apartment plenty of times and I to hers. The topic shifted over to Julien easily enough. "... ate all the food in the refrigerator and then vanished for a few nights. He came back yesterday in the afternoon and has been vegetating on the couch since."
 
  "What a jerk! Lish, you really need to have the relationship talk with him." Jessica has been with me through more than one painful breakup, whereas she and Tim have been together since ... well, since before I met either of them. Tim isn't the type of guy that I'd go for, but I can see why Jessica likes him - a nice guy, polite and well-mannered, not particularly suave or exciting, very responsible and competent yet plain and a little dull. "A nice guy" - when a woman gives a man that moniker, it's something of a death sentence. Julien looks better and acts much more self-confident, the jerk.
 
  "I know, Jess, but part of me just wants to throw myself into his arms and say that everything will work out -"
 
  "Never do that!" Tim actually seemed to wince as he interjected.
 
  "I won't! But is it really so wrong of me to want him to ... just ... be a fairy prince for me?" That's what's wrong with me and our whole family in general. I'm hopelessly in love with an ideal, a mythical, non-existent man who's strong and handsome and caring and tender and sensitive and breathtaking and ... well, if you pooled together what Serin and I want, it would fill a book with more words than the Bible. Sileth at least has enough borrowed experience to know better. Damn Mr. Right for his failure to exist!
 
  "Aww, Lish ..." Jessica laid a hand on my shoulder and she doesn't need to do any more. Touch is a strange sense, given how so little can convey so much, and through her fingers I could feel all the care that she has for me. It's a comforting emotion to feel, one woman's concern for another.
 
  "It's okay, Jess. I just ... need to be firm with Julien." And not let his lazy smile or his looks melt me. "I need to tell him off and let him know that I'm not going to put up with his behavior any longer."
 
  "Make sure he understands, guys have a way of worming back if you leave the least bit of room for doubt."
 
  "Oh, I'll definitely let him know," I promised. Jess might have heard the ominous undercurrent in my voice, but she would have no idea what plans I had in store for him. The Gift is something that we keep very secretive in the Medellin family, and since it manifests only in women, not even my father has an inkling about it.
 
  "You should have been more firm with him from the beginning, Lish," Jessica persisted.
 
  "I know, Jess. A man is like a pair of shoes, they both have to be broken before they're useful for anything." A man IS a pair of shoes with me.
 
  "You can stop pretending that I'm not here, you know," Tim Manderley quipped from the front seat. That broke the tension, Jess and I collapsing into giggles as the car pulled into the massive parking deck a block away from Cherie's. Tim worked at a shipping firm close by, so we said our goodbyes to him and walked inside together. Even at this early in the morning, Cherie's already bustled in anticipation of the day's activities to come. Jess alerted me of overnight e-mails which required my personal attention; taking care of the mundane details always required a significant amount of time, even with three competent secretaries working for me, and the morning flew by in a whirlwind of business.
 
  That left the afternoon for the really important decisions, namely a meeting with my coterie of associates where we try to anticipate and set the next fashion trend of the year. It's a misconception that every power broker in the fashion industry is beautiful, gorgeous, and stylish. I know that I'm attractive enough, but you'd hardly think it if I were standing next to some of the stunning models hired by Cherie's. Our eagle-eyed expert on women's accessories is a balding, overweight man in his mid-fifties. The jewelry fashionista is a Hispanic woman who used to work for National Intelligence as a cryptographer. And so on. They're all relatively new, however, since none of them would even have been considered under Hannah's wintry regime. All of which meant that I acted as de facto leader of the group due to my seniority, never mind that most of these people are old enough to be my parents. I like to think that Cherie's has become a place where talent and leadership can be carefully nurtured and cultivated, a radical change from the way that Hannah ran business. Please, there's no need to thank me.
 
  Anticipating trends and fashions is hard work. Hannah had an intuition which very seldom failed her, but I don't have my former boss' brilliance in that regard. Instead, I have to rely on some insights from Sileth, who has the ability to see everything in every perspective, and a great deal of data carefully gathered and mathematically distilled into something sensible. That, I think, is what separates me from all the other hopeful girls wanting to make it big in the fashion industry. I have a head for figures, graphs, and the all-important discipline of statistics. But I don't let the math dictate to me, either. It's just a tool, and although an extremely powerful one, it's one that I use cautiously in order to try and decipher what is really happening. Just thinking of Hannah soured my mood and I kicked the tips of my pumps into the floor much harder than I had to.
 
  Strategy meeting lasted two hours, after which I returned to some of the more ordinary business of the company - editorials, photo spreads for the magazines, budget for hiring freelancers, and reviews of hopeful models. Every woman has her own style that she brings to the productions. Mine is fairly orthodox, but I like to think that I give the impression of Cherie's being the wise and knowledgeable friend who's up to date about the fashion world while still being cozy, warm, and familiar. For many men and women, fashion is a forbidding and intimidating subject, obfuscated by subtle undercurrents too complicated for most people to spend time understanding. It's my job, but it's also my passion, and it dovetails nicely with my Gift.
 
  Speaking of gifts ...
 
  Tim Manderley drove me home with Jess and I kissed her goodbye as I got out. The sun still had an hour or two before setting. The front door had been locked after I left, which I took to mean that Julien had left as well, but I nearly had a heart attack when I let myself into the apartment and saw a shadowy figure's ill-defined silhouette clinging to one of the walls. Then Sileth materialized out of the gloom and my poor heart, which had promptly jumped into my mouth, started to settle back into my chest. "Don't scare me like that, VoiceEater!"
 
  Sileth frowned. "Lish, you know I don't like that name."
 
  Of course I knew, and I suppose it was childish of me to get back at Sileth for frightening me like that. I set my purse down and rudely kicked my heels off, casually shoving Hannah aside as though she meant nothing to me. "I'm sorry. You just frightened me, and after how exasperating Julien has been acting of late, I guess I'm more snappy than I should be. Feeling hungry, sis?"
 
  "A little. I brought some Chinese." Only then did I become aware of the mouth-watering smells. Sileth and I seated ourselves at the table and dug in, and by that I mean that we truly dug in. I watched how much I ate around Julien lest I invite one of his cutting remarks about girls eating too much, so being able to tuck away with abandon came as a relief to me. I must have been hungrier than I thought, as Sileth did not even try to slip a word in sideways. My sister has her rough edges, but she's always been very good to me. "Do you feel ready to tell me what this is all about now?" she asked when we both finished.
 
  It came out then, all my frustration with Julien's selfishness and the mounting pressure I felt with him around, the pain of finding out that he was seeing another girl, and the self-recrimination that by now I ought to know better. Sileth listened wordlessly, but she did not take my hand or hug me the way Jessica Raymer would. My sister is a hardened woman, and I often wonder if she really can absorb the knowledge and personalities of others without being affected herself. The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time I finished and Sileth pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I'll help you, Lish. I've been gathering information on your boyfriend ever since you first started talking about the relationship problems."
 
  I listened carefully as Sileth disclosed what she knew, and as she began to talk I gradually had the nasty realization that she probably understood Julien more than I did. Curse the man. Being distant, cool, and inscrutable came across as fascinating and attractive at first - what kind of woman can resist a mystery? - but that same detachment of his manifested as emotional indifference and a wall to me once we started the relationship. To him, I had never been any more than just a toy to play with if he had the inclination and an annoying nag to be ignored otherwise. Sileth discussed his movements with me, the places that he frequented, the location where he lived, and his connections. Unfortunately, a lot of people would notice if he went missing. That was the wrench in my plan to turn him into a cute little pair of girly shoes.
 
  "You will have to stay beyond suspicion, of course," Sileth told me.
 
  "So, a dramatic breakup?" I asked her.
 
  But my older sister shook her head. "No, Lish. The police would immediately flag you as a person of interest if it was known that you had a bad breakup a month before he vanished. Just act like you don't care whether or not he's cheating on you. I'll find a way to kidnap Julien and bring him to your workplace, and you'll have a perfect alibi - you were at work the whole day, as everyone in your company can attest to, therefore you could not have had anything to do with Mr. Stendal's mysterious disappearance."
 
  "You make it sound so easy, Sileth," I grumbled. "I'm the one who has to put up with that low-down, philandering, no-good, cheater of a -"
 
  Sileth shoved a plate of leftovers at me. "Wake up and smell the eggrolls, Lish. Serin spends all of her time buried in books. Do you really think that what you're doing is any different? Sometimes I feel as though I'm losing both of you, that you'd rather live out your fantasies instead of real life." That stung.
 
  "At least Serin has the power to prevent the nasty parts of real life from intruding on hers," I said, avoiding the subject, and if I sounded resentful ... well, Serin's Gift allowed her to be constantly surrounded by every woman's ideal men. Abruptly I stood up and stalked to my bedroom, where I drew open my shoe closet and peered down at a string of ex-boyfriends neatly lined side by side. I still had plenty of space for Julien. I passed by the bathroom. The jerk had left the toilet seat up!
 
  "You wore each of them once and then threw them in here to be neglected and suffer in silence, didn't you?" Sileth asked quietly. I started, as I had not heard her silent footsteps behind me, but I did not close the shoe case yet. "Is that supposed to be poetic, Lish? A reflection of how they treated you?"
 
  "I ... I hadn't even thought of it that way," I admitted, the uncannily perceptive observation pre-empting my usual sarcastic responses. Sileth is more philosophical than I am, however. I think it probably comes from all the brainy types that she eats. Sighing, I carefully closed that shoe closet and then opened my wardrobe. Kneeling down, I pulled out a small shoebox carefully concealed under a pile of clothes and removed the lid, taking out a pair of glittering ruby dress heels worked with intricate filigree and threads of silver. I held them up to the light, my fingers running lightly over the jewels. "Do you remember these, Sileth? You still have your pair, don't you?"
 
  "Of course. How could I forget?" Sileth replied simply. My fingers tingled merely from the touch of these elegant and beautiful high heels, formed by a combination of our Gifts. Serin with Confabulation had written them into existence, I had reduced them into objects for our use with Objectification, and Sileth had drawn out their power using Appropriation. The pair that I held had once been a giantess, a beautiful and powerful woman towering some three hundred feet over a frightened populace of slaves cowed into subservience by fear. After I turned her into a pair of shoes, Sileth had done ... something ... and now if I slipped on the scarlet heels, I could will myself to be as tall and massive as the giantess. Sileth and Serin owned matching pairs. My older sister simply repeated what she often told me as a child. "Power is a dangerous fire to play with. Leave those be, Lish. You'll have your chance to step on Julien soon enough."
 
  "But I want to step on him now," I pouted.
 
  "Revenge is like fine wine, it should be aged until -"
 
  "Oh spare me, Sileth! That's a corny saying and you know it!" I glared at her, daring her to disagree, and she glared right back at me. Our standoff lasted only a moment before we both burst into girlish giggles and collapsed into each others' arms, setting my special heels back into the box. Sileth, Serin, and I often experience friction - what family of sisters doesn't? - but we still love each other with all our hearts. Both of my sisters have always been there for me throughout my string of boyfriends and breakups. Still giggling, Sileth and I settled down cross-legged on my bed to discuss plans for Julien. Guys, would you like to know a secret? Girls are always making plans for the men in their lives. Hell hath no fury, indeed ...
 
  Julien stayed away for the next few months and I did not hear so much as a peep from him. My temper cooled and I even left a few messages on his phone that he never returned. Sileth continued to drop by the apartment and do a little housework now and then while I worked in the mornings and afternoons. A rather idyllic month passed while we pushed a big project to completion at Cherie's and I subjected Hannah to excessive wear and tear. Then I came home late one day after putting in some extra hours at the company and found Sileth bleeding on my doorstep, her creamy blouse and faded jeans drenched in crimson. A small crowd had gathered and some stranger was applying first aid to her when I forced my way through the throng. "Sileth, what happened to you?!"
 
  My older sister smiled at me as the man wrapped her arm in a T-shirt. Sileth looked pale but composed as she deadpanned, "Four men, a knife, a lead pipe, and a baseball bat decided that I looked like an easy victim."
 
  "Are you alright?" I asked anxiously, kneeling next to her.
 
  "Oh, but of course!" she assured me. "You didn't think that a single woman could bleed this much, did you, Lish?" Only then did I notice just how much blood had been spilled around the porch and the steps; scarlet footprints and trails of red branched off haphazardly from the pool that my sister lay in. Under the bright city lights the whole scene looked surreal, and even the distant sound of police sirens did not snap me back to reality immediately. Sileth stood up and I gave her an arm for support, but she did not falter as she slowly stepped off to the ambulance. "If you think I look bad, you'd be shocked at what I did to those men." She handed her purse to me, and then in a whisper meant only for my ears, she said, "I'll be convalescing at Serin's place for a while. Don't do anything rash."
 
  Sileth's visits stopped after that incident, which rather abruptly opened my eyes to her incredible lethality as a fighter. Of her attackers, two did not survive the night, one was left paralyzed from the waist down, and the fourth died of unexplained heart failure a few weeks later. Suddenly I almost felt sorry for Julien at the thought of my dear eldest sister sinking her claws into his succulent flesh. Without Sileth or Serin around, I spent much more time on the town with Jessica and Timothy and my other friends, and I even started to visit bars and nightclubs again. My moods swung erratically like a weathervane in a storm. I still heard nothing from Julien; being rather sour over his treatment of me, I must admit that I began seeing some of him in all men. Secretly I think I missed being in a relationship, so I let pride and anger keep me out of any that might have formed in the intervening months. A few guys certainly tried their best.
 
  I only heard of Julien's disappearance right before the big fashion week in Paris. Cherie's had gone into overdrive mode preparing for the massive show, an annual bloodletting rite of sorts where every fashion company pulls off all the stops to make the absolute biggest splash that it can. The year after Hannah vanished we had made the mistake of bringing less our usual drive and determination to the Paris fashion show, resulting in narrower profits through much of the next three fiscal quarters. The police came to interview me about anything to do with Julien since they'd apparently heard that I was an ex of his, but once again I had an alibi ready and I did not even have to lie. I told the helpful detective that Julien had suddenly stopped seeing me or returning my calls. Apparently this squared with the evidence, because the detective nodded self-importantly and took a statement from me and told me that Julien's mobile phone contained messages from me only in the trash bin. Bastard deleted them all. That put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day and nearly everyone at Cherie's acted as though Hannah had filled my shoes. Coupled with the high stress of rushing a presentation, and I ended up snapping at an assistant so hard that she broke down crying in the halls. I can be such a terrible person at times ...
 
  ... and it doesn't help that many of the people at Cherie's are too intimidated to say anything to my face. Sometimes I miss Sileth's straight shooting. Even Jessica Raymer tiptoed around me for the whole day. I had to swallow my pride and humbly apologize publicly to my minions before my attitude caused a brain drain in the company.
 
  We landed in Paris four days before the show and were chauffeured to one of the grand hotels with much flowery French speech and fanfare. I had a small hotel room to myself at the insistence of Cherie's logistics manager, although Jess and a few of the other girls roomed nearby. Once the bellboy brought my luggage up to the room and I bribed him to leave me alone, I kicked Hannah off my feet and sank my tired body into the queen-sized bed with a luxurious sigh. See, dear reader, French people do luxury correctly by pampering the body and catering to the lusts of the flesh. My room was large without being excessive, cozy without being smothering, and a faint scent of rainflower-laced soaps tempted me from the direction of the bathroom. I asked around for a bootblack to shine my Hannah pumps into presentability - "vigorously and hard" were my exact instructions - then treated myself to a decadent hour-long soak in the jacuzzi. Between my sisters, Serin and I are more apt to wallow in luxury. Sileth, on the other hand, is a hard woman.
 
  I didn't notice the nondescript notebook lying on my dresser until after I dried off and wrapped myself in a sea green negligee with my hair turbaned in another towel. It looked thin and dull to the eye, bound in a black hardcover with no markings on the front or back. The first page read "Lish's Revenge - Part Seven by Serin Medellin" in ordinary Times New Roman font, and I picked it up to carry back to my bed. There I languidly laid myself down and idly thumbed through a few pages; most of them turned out to be blank, as my dear little sister had written enough only to flesh out the setting. Serin, I must add, is a very skilled writer. She uses words the way an artist uses shades, hues, contrasts and inflections, producing books written in a beautiful, flowing style where the reader can practically see the scene unfolding like the Garden of Eden at creation. A marked contrast, clearly, from this whimsical piece of drivel that I sincerely do not apologize for inflicting upon you, dear reader. But back to the story. I placed my right hand on the first blank page and allowed Serin's power to envelop me, pulling me into the pages themselves.
 
  Each time, Serin has given me a different setting to work with. Some are beautiful, some are majestic, some are intimidating, some are scenic, some are grandiose, but all are imaginative. This time Serin had written a scene straight out of a high fantasy. I found myself standing on a small island, not much larger than my hotel room, filled with soft gold grass which brushed against my ankles like a cool carpet. Rather than drifting on the ocean, however, this island floated unsupported in the air with nothing separating me from a sheer drop hundreds of feet down to a shallow sea brightly illuminated by the sun. The waters down there must have been only a few feet deep and no more; the sparkling polychromatic rays reflected off the surface with a soft and focused intensity, past which white sands stirred beneath the clear sea. A gentle breeze swept past my body, a caressing wind which brought the scent of thousands of flowers drifting past me. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of other floating islands dotted the area as far as my eyes could reach, most of them larger than the one I stood on, many of them containing small waterfalls which spilled a steady torrent of the same clear, sparkling water into the ocean below. I had never seen a horizon quite like this before; while the sun lit the sky, the atmosphere must not reach much further above my little floating island since I could see the stars merrily twinkling above my head. Serin had further decorated the sky with liberal use of the aurora borealis. I watched, fascinated at first by the myriad ways which the sheets of light shifted and contorted, bending above me in the sky. Above all, a massive moon dominated much of the celestial sphere, wreathed in a translucent rainbow of clouds and gases that shed pale light over the world and bathed the islands and the ocean in the same ephemeral kaleidoscope of hues. I wish words could describe the surreal, spectral beauty that surrounded me in that fantasy world, but it would require a pen much more skilled than mine to convey even a glimmer of its artistry, and I stood speechless in admiration of my sister's masterful orchestration.
 
  But of course, Serin had not written such a setting merely to impress me - although she never fails to impress - and gradually I became aware of a girl standing on another island waving to me. A chasm of some two hundred feet separated us and I could not hear anything that she might be calling over the wind, but a bridge of shimmering rainbow light connected our two islands. She stood next to a large, heavy-looking chest made of some solid kind of wood. As I watched, she placed a foot on the rainbow bridge to indicate that I could walk upon it, then beckoned for me to come over to her and the chest. Obediently I turned and the soft grass brushed against my feet, reluctant to let me go. Walking on the rainbow bridge felt like walking on air; I could feel almost nothing solid beneath my feet, so I picked my way over carefully as the multicolored pathway shimmered and gently rolled. Part of me wondered what would happen if I stepped off and let myself plummet into the shallow seas below, although Serin always writes safeguards into her worlds as well - defense mechanisms designed to prevent any of us from coming to harm. I stepped back onto terra firma with some relief and Sileth greeted me with a nod. "Hello, Lish."
 
  "Hello, Sileth. I'm glad to see that you're looking much better."'
 
  "I am indeed. Are you certain you want to face Julien wearing ... that?" she asked, indicating my very out-of-place nightrobe and the towel on my head - rather jarring in such a beautiful locale. Sileth herself wore riding leathers and a stiff Victorian blouse complete with jockey boots. As a fashion industry worker, I sometimes wonder if the people in her head affect her sense of style.
 
  "I ... I am. Give me a moment to compose myself," I told her. Sileth fell silent while I thought of everything and anything that I might have wanted to say to Julien. Had he been a jerk to me? Totally. Did I need some closure? Maybe I did. Did I want to gloat over him while savoring my revenge? Not really. What did I want out of him, after all? To be chased and caught? Or perhaps, simply to be loved as another human being, rather than being treated as an expendable toy or a naive fool useful only for her gullible soul. Now that I had him within my power, why had I wanted revenge so much anyways? For a fleeting sense of delight in his suffering, followed by sleepless nights of gnawing guilt and a troubled conscience? Why is life so complicated? "... This is wrong, Sileth. But I don't care."
 
  "It is wrong, but we've never cared," Sileth agreed solemnly, and she knocked the lid off the heavy trunk with one precisely aimed kick at the latch. Julien Stendal blinked up, wincing from the sudden brightness flooding into his cramped quarters, as Sileth and I bent over to peer down at him. Although a relatively tall man, Sileth had bound him up so tightly with ropes and a handcuff that he had been squeezed almost into a ball within the old chest. Concern welled up in me as the pitiable man squirmed in his bonds, gagged by a cloth tied around his mouth while the ropes cut cruelly into his skin. Instinctively I reached down to soothe him, but his eyes widened at the sight of me and he tried to shuffle away awkwardly from my hand. Then his eyes narrowed and he convulsed. I could tell that he felt angry, which raised my own ire as I glared down at him. Various emotions warred within me as my sympathy and concern fought with my indignation and fury. My desire to settle the score won out, as it had with all of my other former boyfriends.
 
  "Remember me, Julien?" I asked coldly. "You thought that you'd just use me and throw me away. Karma is a bitch, isn't it?" I touched his cheek and he shied away, trying to brush my hand away with his head. I smiled grimly down at him. "You poor, pathetic excuse of a man. By the time I'm finished with you, you'll be begging me for just one touch." I extended a finger to his forehead and my Gift enveloped him. Sheesh, why am I so melodramatic about it? I just said I didn't want to gloat over him - well, maybe I do. Just a little.
 
  He must have felt the transformation beginning immediately, because his eyes bulged and I heard a panicked shriek from deep within his throat even through the heavy gag. Stark white with terror and confusion, his eyes widened and showed the whites all around his handsome pupils while my Gift began to consume his body. Sileth had described it to me once: a very odd sensation of one's body morphing and twisting to conform to a new shape, the sense of touch becoming increasingly disjointed from the brain's perception of how your body meant to work. Nausea and panic manifested as very common symptoms, since the body instinctively sensed that a terrible metamorphosis pervaded it. Julien writhed and squirmed as his legs fused together and shrank, dwindling down to mere stems, a cleft beginning to form in the middle of his body and smoothly dividing him into twin halves while his skin hardened and paled to a smooth, pleasing hue of red. I decided that I would wear Julien to the fashion show and arranged his body to match: a solid body of crimson, covering enough of the foot to be professional, interlaced with delicate silver filigree and violet ribbons, laces, and thatch patterns for a sexy overtone. Two and a half inches of heel stem tapered down from the sole as I left small openings to show a hint of toe cleavage where Julien's eyes used to be. Once the transformation finished, I slipped my new pair of heels onto my feet to make fine adjustments, altering the shape and size of Julien until he fit snugly without too much tightness.
 
  "Like these?" I asked Sileth, sitting down on the soft, warm grass to raise my feet.
 
  "Definitely an improvement on Julien," Sileth callously agreed.
 
  I stood up to walk around experimentally, making further changes to improve the stability and gait of the heels. The uneven terrain of the floating islands played havoc with me, however, and I might even have fallen off the island entirely if Sileth's lightning-swift reflexes did not catch me when I stumbled. "At least he's actually useful now. Julien doesn't want to work with me, not that he gets a choice in the matter. Sileth, what happened on the day you were attacked? I couldn't sleep that night."
 
  My sister settled down next to me to enjoy the scenery. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry about it. They were Julien's friends, sent to vandalize your apartment."
 
  I sucked in my breath. "What?! Why?" I kicked the chest with my new shoes to hurt Julien, which backfired spectacularly as I forgot about the peep opening and bruised my toes. "Ow!"
 
  "They were supposed to intimidate you and keep you away from him," Sileth told me, glaring angrily at my shoes. "I didn't find out myself until I caught Mr. Stendal. He said you were - well, never mind, that's in the past now. That's why he was avoiding you, he didn't know if he would run into me." I pulled my Julien shoes off and gently massaged my injured digits - hurt, but mercifully nothing had broken. Sileth took one of the heels and twirled it around her index finger. "I'd tell you to burn them if you didn't have an even worse fate in mind for Julien."
 
  "Julien has no idea that he messed with the wrong girl. But why don't you tell me more about yourself and Serin?"
 
  Sileth rolled her eyes. "You mean, her latest fantasy? I found her in a new book." She paused and pointed out a flock of seagulls wheeling through the breezy air, skillfully navigating around the various floating islands dotting the sky. My mind forgot my body's pain for an instant as I admired their graceful motions, wishing perhaps that I could be so carefree as well. Sileth pulled up a blade of grass and let the wind carry it away fluttering from her hand. "Serin is living out another romantic story. Are you ready for this, Lish? She's a peasant girl in a storybook medieval kingdom - ordinary enough, except that the people are about this tall." Sileth measured with her hands about five inches apart. "So, she's the giantess next door. Serin has a one-story cottage as big as the palace, and she goes over to visit the young, charming, sensitive, dashing prince every day with a basketful of baked goods. Then they spend the hours whispering sweet nothings and making lame romantic gestures while he neglects his studies and subjects." My older sister rolled her eyes to show what she thought of that particular interaction.
 
  "... Sounds sappy," I observed. "But very much in character for Serin. What did you do?"
 
  "Like I say, I went there to recover," Sileth shrugged carelessly. "You could say I was a foil to Serin. While she acted as the kind, sweet, innocent love interest to the prince, I protected the kingdom with my phenomenal giantess powers. Practically everyone there was intimidated by me. At least it was a peaceful, idyllic place to rest. If it weren't for, you know, the grim and scary giantess who had all the big strong knights quaking in terror." My sister is very ... self-aware.
 
  I brushed an errant lock of hair out of my sister's face and tried to imagine what it must have felt like in that fantasy land. "And what happened with Serin and the prince?" I asked curiously.
 
  Sileth pulled up another blade of grass. "Dances, parties, fancy clothes and stargazing on clear nights. Serin thinks it's romantic to have the prince sitting in the palm of her hand, or playing the lute for her perched on her shoulder, so that's exactly what he does. He was planning to ask her hand in marriage when I left. We're losing her, Lish." I thought I heard a rare note of anguish creeping into Sileth's voice. Did I disagree? My mood sank from its previous high following Julien's transformation and I laid my head on Sileth's shoulder, embracing my sister. Sileth's eyes looked so distant and so pained that I wondered how much of her feelings she still kept hidden away from me.
 
  We sat there together for a time without saying any more. Really, words would have been unnecessary anyways as we understood each other's feelings on the matter. The high breeze brushed past our cheeks and I wondered what my youngest sister did at that moment. Maybe I would have felt more optimistic in Sileth's place, but I know my older sister well enough to understand that she has a subtlety for understanding the innermost workings of others - she can intuit the subconscious processes that most people are not even aware dictates their behavior. "I haven't seen Serin in almost a year."
 
  "We're losing her," Sileth repeated, hanging her head. "And it's all I can do to not lose myself, Lish. All these voices in my head, trying to submerge my identity ..."
 
  Strangely, I started to chuckle at that as I reflected on my own problems. Everyone you ever meet is a normal person, dear reader, until you get to know them. There's a Chinese proverb about it - crouching tiger, hidden dragon, meaning that every person has secrets which takes familiarity to draw out. Three seemingly ordinary sisters, all of them drowning in the hidden depths of their personality problems. Sileth looked at me as though my hollow laughter was the saddest thing she had ever heard. "We're a family full of complexes, aren't we, Sileth?" I asked with a sigh, dangling my legs over the edge of the floating island and leaning back, feeling warm sunlight washing over my face. Sileth nodded and I fondly snugged my sister close to me. "I love you, sis."
 
  "I love you too, Lish. So let's go and show Julien a bad time."
 
  "Yes, let's," I agreed, standing to my feet. Slipping out of the story is easy; I closed my eyes, concentrated on willing myself to float away and out of the setting, and a rather gut-wrenching sense of the ground free-falling away from me abruptly ended with my feet planted on the hotel room carpet. I opened my eyes and gently tucked the book away to deliver back to Serin at some unspecified time in the future. As for poor Julien, now trapped in a sightless world with nothing but touch and hearing left to him, I tucked him into bed next to me and snugged up beneath the sheets.
 
  The next few days swept by in a whirlwind of frantic activity, which left me very little time during the nights to ruthlessly break in Julien. Morning dawned for the fashion show and I chose an outfit to match my new Julien shoes. For my blouse and skirt I selected a shade of dark violet which had a subdued hue and shade to contrast against the shoes. I used brilliant but small ruby earring studs to complete my fashion pattern, using the rest of my outfit to draw attention to Julien. The style of shoe meant that it went poorly with pantyhose, so I dispensed with my beloved socks. "Showtime," I whispered to Julien as I reached for my high heels.
 
  Sileth once described a shoeperson being slipped onto my foot as being worse than any rape. The utter helplessness of the victim and the dominance of the assailant both multiplied many times. Julien could only suffer in horrified silence as I carefully inserted my foot into his entire body, the objectified remnants of his flesh conforming to the shape and structure of my extremity. Rather than just hurriedly putting him on then, I took my time and stretched out the minutes as I slowly tortured Julien by slipping him on with exquisite languor. I murmured observations to belittle him, commenting on how beautiful he made me look and how sexy he made me feel as a slave to my feet. All of his ambitions, dreams, accomplishments, and purposes in life reduced into irrelevance; this former man's only utility now was to glorify part of me. Knowing that my shoes contained the history of an entire life gave me a mildly erotic buzz and I preened, admiring my sense of pleasing aesthetics embodied in the hostage of my feet. All I had to do was twitch my feet like so ... and his entire frame moved with me, helpless to resist my will. I actually had three or four pages writing out the act in exquisite description but my editor insisted that I trim it down.
 
  On the afternoon and night of the fashion show, Jessica Raymer proved only the first of many to compliment me on my adorable Julien high heels. Our big night in Paris isn't about any of us, of course; it's about Cherie's, the brand, but it's also a very important time to go and network with other power brokers in the fashion industry. What better way than through the age-tested method of female gossip? I gathered a dozen expressions of "cute shoes" within half an hour, the golden standard of female compliments by which a woman's inflection conveyed any emotion from admiration to raw, covetous lust. Oh, and guys? Don't ever use that phrase, trust me.
 
  Attending to business took precedence over my own personal pleasures, of course, which brought me to the other important point of the Paris exhibition: sounding out the ideas of one's business rivals and surreptitiously stealing their best innovations while flattering them to their faces. Alright, that sounded a little cynical. In truth we don't really do that, but it's hard to last in the fashion industry without knowing who the trendsetters and fashionistas are. Our models walked the runway and the employees of Cherie's acquitted themselves honorably, though we certainly did not have the old flair and extravagance that Hannah Winters showed. Our competitors strutted their fashions as well, each trying to be more outrageous than the last. The style business combines the worst of mob mentality with herd mentality; anything, anything at all, no matter how silly a rational person might find it, could set off the next wild fashion craze that sends items flying off the shelves and a hefty compensation package to boost yours truly into the one percent. I decided that Jessica deserved at least a twenty percent raise if we succeeded.
 
  Part of me wanted my little Julien shoes to upstage the whole event. The more sensible part insisted that my personal grudges should take a back seat to business. I tried my best to be my most charming self for the whole night to everyone, and I like to flatter myself with the thought that I largely succeeded. Successful ventures depend very much on who you know and my purse grew steadily more varied through the show with the business cards which I received and gave. I got to sidle up and schmooze with some of the biggest power brokers in the fashion industry, flirting playfully with several in order to worm myself into their good graces and memories; there are definite advantages to being young and pretty in an occupation full of people old enough to be my parents. I blithely ignored resentful glances from some of the older, bitter women in the background.
 
  You had to interact differently with different kinds of people as well. There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all behavior: with older men you had to be a coquettish tease with a flirtatious flavor, with old matrons you had to be a perfectly polite and well-behaved lady and listen to their incessant drivel, with young men you had to pretend to be impressed by their intelligence and charisma, and with other women my age - what few there were - feminine gossip could be a powerful social equalizer. I'd practiced my mannerisms with Sileth, who can emulate any kind of personality with scary precision and nitpick all the subtleties of my body language that betray what I am really thinking. From one of the random, forgettable faces in the crowd I picked up an important idea that I mentally noted to bring up at our next strategy meeting. Don't give me that look, dear reader; poaching inspiration is an important part of business. Or would you like to find yourself turned into a pair of striped thighsocks?
 
  My feet ached by the time I stumbled back to Jessica's hotel room, rather the worse for wear from too much alcohol, too much standing, and too much socializing. Strutting around in high heels that just happened to be your former boyfriend is exhilaratingly erotic - really ladies, every woman should try it at least once - but it also hurts the feet a lot. I decided that it was Julien's fault, since if he hadn't treated me like garbage he wouldn't have been turned into a pair of sexy shoes and my feet might not be aching so much. As always, my logic is infallible, but the more I dwelt on it the more my mood soured.
 
  After kicking Julien off none too gently, I flopped into bed next to Jess and stretched my cramped ankles out. "You look like you've been having fun the whole night, Jess."
 
  "I have. You look trashed, Lish." Good old Jessica, enough of a friend to be brutally honest with me whenever I needed it. "Can I get you something for your head? You look flushed."
 
  "One too many champagnes," I complained. "So if I start saying some weird things, Jess, you didn't hear any of it."
 
  "We swears on the Precious," Jess agreed with fitting solemnity, for which I threw a pillow at her and she gamely tossed it back. Jess and I giggled like teenaged schoolgirls at that before she sobered up. "But really Lish, what's on your mind?"
 
  I looked sideways slyly at her. "What? You're acting like you can read my mind, Jess."
 
  "I don't need to, I'm reading your face," Jess pointed out. She grinned cheekily at me. "Penny for your thoughts ..."
 
  "... Mine are worth a dollar," I replied with an equally wide smile. It's a kind of in-joke between the two of us, dear reader, and you are not privy to it. I tucked my legs crossed on Jess's bed and stared at the ceiling without seeing anything in particular for a moment. "Hmm, where do I start? You know how Julien kind of just vanished from my life, Jess?"
 
  "Guys do that when they find someone else, Lish," Jess assured me with all of her wisdom.
 
  "He's the seventh boyfriend in three years to do that. How have you stayed together with Tim for so long, Jess? Don't you ever get tired of him?" I hugged another pillow to my chest.
 
  "I'm surprised you ask, Lish. You know that we fight as much as you do with any of your beaus. Maybe even more. But at the end of the day he always apologizes to me and I apologize to him, we bury the hatchet, and we move on together." Jess tossed her hair over her head with a casual flick of her neck, watching me with her big earnest eyes. "I think Tim's helped me realize when it's important to apologize - which is always, even when you aren't wrong. It's easy to forgive someone for being wrong, but it's hard to forgive him for being right."
 
  I complained, "Now you sound like my big sis."
 
  "Well, that's a flattering thought," Jess smiled. "Surely you can guess what else we do for each other, Lish."
 
  I nodded, although my alcohol-hazed brain and aching feet sapped my mental power. "Yeah, um ... I think it's really sweet how Tim is always writing little notes to you and bringing you gifts every now and then. And how he always ends his phone calls with 'Love you, hun.' My boyfriends ... didn't really do that for me." I exhaled a long and slow sigh. Some women had all the luck. "I get crushes so easily, Jess. ... I dunno, maybe it comes from growing up in a family with lots and lots of sisters but no brothers. How do you manage Tim so well?"
 
  "Oh Lish ..." Jess reached out and took one of my hands in her own. "It's no big secret. I want him to be happy. That's really all there is to it, and he wants me to be happy as well. That's why he's so kind, so considerate, so thoughtful to me and everyone else."
 
  "... Really? That's the only secret?" I asked, puzzled.
 
  "Maybe. Or maybe we're just really lucky to have each other. It wasn't love at first sight or anything like that - I actually thought he was pretty boring at first - but that was before I got to know him. Did you know that Tim likes wearing kilts?" I burst out giggling at that mental image. "Oh, and the first time he tried to make grilled salmon for me, he overcooked them to the point that the smoke alarm started to wail. He also tilts his head to the left and scratches his temples whenever he's stuck on a problem. Now, can you tell me what Julien's personal habits are like, Lish?"
 
  "Huh? Well, he's arrogant, annoying, and ..." And what? A pair of discarded shoes on the carpet? Some secrets couldn't be shared even with my best friend, which frustrated me to no end. Jess might not be as subtle or perceptive as Sileth, but she also didn't act with robotic detachment half the time. "... and ... damn it all, Jess. I just don't know any of those little interesting details about Julien." Jessica Raymer, to her immense credit, said nothing in reply and just patted my hand comfortingly.
 
  I pushed myself off the bed. "Thank you, Jessica. I might not remember any of this in the morning but I'm glad we had this talk. Hopefully I'll even learn something from it."
 
  Jess stood up as well. "Drink some water before going to bed, Lish, or you'll wake up with a terrible hangover."
 
  "Oh, I'm not that drunk yet. I think. I hope." I half-shambled to the door, still dressed in my evening attire which had turned quite rumpled from too much flopping on the hotel door. When Jessica picked up my little Julien shoes and started towards me, however, I raised my hand and shook my head. "No thanks, Jess. You can have them. In fact, I insist that you keep them." She protested, of course, as any good friend would. About my not thinking rationally - now when has that ever happened? - about how I might regret the choice in the morning when I felt sober again, about how she just couldn't accept such a gift from me without offering something in return. I just shrugged carelessly, too weary to really argue with Jess. With deliberately casual cruelty towards Julien Stendal, I opened the door and tossed a final repartee over my shoulder as much for his ears as for hers.
 
  "After all, I don't need them anymore."
 
 
 
 
fin