Best of Intentions                     by: Vanessa Singer

 

Greg Carter strained to see the road as he drove. He’d been driving for a long time, trying to make the trip from Boston to Chicago as quickly as possible. It had been an uneventful trip until an hour again, when the storm to end all storms brewed above him. Rain fell in sheets, blinding his eyes and causing the car to lose traction even on the straightest of roads.

"It’s gotta let up soon," he thought, glancing over to look at the map. The tiny map light was directed right onto the page, but it still took a moment for him to locate himself. In that moment, Greg found that the road had taken a sharp and unexpected turn. He gripped the wheel and turned hard, but it was too late. His little Ford Focus drove straight off the road and into a large open field.

Greg held on, hoping that the field would dump onto another road at the other end. The wheels dug into the dirt, spraying mud behind him as he drove. The car flattened the tall plants in front of him for almost half-a-mile, until he slammed on the brakes. From out of nowhere, Greg saw his headlights fall onto a large stone wall. The car continued, slamming into the wall and triggering the airbag. Greg felt it slap into his head, then he fell into unconsciousness.

He awoke later, listening to the steady rhythm of his windshield wipers moving over the cracked glass. Sitting up, he inspected himself. His vision was distorted, thanks to one of the lenses from his glasses being shattered. But, aside from some bumps and bruises, he found that he was unhurt. Waiting for the rain to let up some, Greg climbed out of his car and, using the map as an umbrella, began to follow the old stonewall. After a few minutes, he found an open iron gate.

Inside the gate, Greg raced across a well-groomed courtyard up to a large Victorian home. He had just reached the porch when a bright floodlight turned in his direction, and an electronic voice echoed through the night air.

"What do you want?"

Greg looked for something to speak into, but found no intercom or microphone. He looked up at the light and explained his situation. How he’d been traveling, crashed off the road and into the wall. The voice did not respond for a moment.

"What do you want?"

"Can I please use your phone? I just need to call a tow-truck."

The door opened, and Greg found himself face-to-face with a strange old man. He was small, and wore thick glasses that made his brown eyes look enormous. His head was shaved, but gray stubble was clearly visible. He had a white goatee that hung from his chin to his chest.

"Come in…"

Greg thanked the old man and entered the house. It was well decorated and very clean, which surprised Greg.

"My name is Doctor Leonardo Mendes," the old man said, extending his hand. "Welcome to my home."

Greg shook the old man’s slender hand and introduced himself as Gregory Carter. The doctor, his tone jovial and pleasant, noticed how Greg seemed chilled to the bone by the cold rain, and offered him a hot drink. Greg smiled, accepting the offer for a cup of coffee. Dr. Mendes led Greg, dripping wet, though the house into a large dining room. He directed him to the head of the table before vanishing into the kitchen. Greg sat down in the antique wooden chair, admiring the old man’s taste and feeling very appreciative of his hospitality. The old man returned with a silver tray with two piping-hot cups of coffee and all the necessary accoutrements.

"So, Mr. Carter, what brings you out to this part of Ohio?" Dr. Mendes asked. Greg added a sugar and two creams to the coffee before answering.

"I’m on my way to Chicago. I have a job waiting there at the University, and my computer said this was the fastest way to get there. But, the rain made it hard to see, so…"

The old man laughed a little, admitting the weather patterns around here were more unpredictable than most. When he asked what position at the university Greg had earned, his face lit up to discover that Greg Carter was just a thesis away from his own doctorate in biochemistry.

"A fellow lover of science, I see."

"Oh, yes sir. I’ve always wanted to be a scholar, and soon, I’ll have a position where I can help teach other young minds the wonders of nature and science."

"Very noble of you, my dear boy. Very noble, indeed." The old man said softly. But Greg couldn’t hear him. He was already feeling the effects of the exotic drug that Dr. Mendes had slipped into his coffee. His body grew very tired, and he found it impossible to keep his eyes open. The coffee cup slipped form his hand and crashed onto the floor, as his head fell against the hard wooden table.

Greg regained consciousness quickly, as a potent form of smelling salts assaulted his senses. He awoke, strapped to a large metal table. Thick leather straps bound his bare arms and legs. Greg found that he had been stripped totally naked, feeling the cool metal against his bare back and buttocks. He looked around, seeing a room that was straight out of an old monster movie. Machines and chemicals were scattered about on various worktables. Large generators hummed, causing the lights to occasionally dim. And Dr. Mendes stood right beside him, feeling the bare skin of his chest.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Science, my dear boy," the doctor said, walking over to a large machine. It had a large cylinder sitting upon it, and a series of coiling wires lay across the floor, linking the mystery machine and Greg’s prison. Beneath the cylinder, a large parabolic projector aimed in Greg’s direction. "You are going to help me with a little science project."

"You can’t do this!!!" He cried, but Dr. Mendes just laughed.

"You don’t even know what I’m going to do yet. I could be saving you from some horrible disease, or making you immortal."

"What are you going to do?" Greg asked, unsure of the old man’s motives. The old man looked up at the cylinder, and then stroked the machine lovingly.

"This is my greatest achievement, Mr. Carter. It has the power to redefine science as the world knows it, but it has never been tested. I have never had the final ingredient to power it, before tonight."

"What…what do you mean?" Greg stammered.

"I have harnessed the power of this storm. The lightning. God’s own power will allow me to test my greatest creation..." He said, putting on a pair of thick safety glasses. "On you."

"No, please. I’m begging you…"

"Do not worry, Mr. Carter. If my machine works, which I am sure it will, you will be unharmed."

Before Greg could protest further, he saw Dr. Mendes throw a large switch and heard an ear-shattering thunderclap. The cylinder above the machine began to glow with such intensity that the metal became translucent. Inside the cylinder, Greg could make out the faint outline of a human body. But, before the thought could register, he felt himself being bombarded by energies from the large projector across the room.

The streams of energy painlessly passed through Greg’s body, and he found himself feeling very warm inside. He could feel every organ of his body. His heart beating. His blood pumping. His stomach swirling. Everything felt so real and yet, so surreal. His senses turned inward as the beam’s intensity grew. He could feel every cell of his body now. Each cell seemed to be rebelling, moving and changing, but the big picture eluded Greg’s mind. He could only sense the individual changes, but not the total effect.

It was impossible to know how long the beam remained on, but as soon as it vanished, Greg felt his senses returning to normal. He could feel again. He could see again. But, everything felt wrong. Everything was twisted and shifted and just out-of-place. He squinted blurry eyes and saw Dr. Mendes removing his safety glasses, admiring his handiwork from across the room.

"What…what happened?"

The voice that came from his throat was foreign to him. It was softer and sweeter than his own. Greg looked down, and saw a pair of large breasts now resting on his chest. He couldn’t see anything below them, but he could feel a strange absence below his waist.

"It has worked. My machine is a success!!!!" The doctor cried, looking positively gleeful.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Greg screamed as the leather straps automatically retracted, letting him fall to the floor. Greg stood on smaller feet, but found his balance was unimpaired. He could walk without difficulty, despite a sudden shift in both proportion and height. He raced over to the old man, feeling his uncontained breasts rising and falling wildly.

"Calm down, and I shall explain my actions," the old man said, grabbing Greg by the arms. Dr. Mendes now seemed much larger, and there was a softness in his touch that confused Greg. The doctor reached up and touched Greg’s face, and for a moment, he looked like he was about to cry. Despite his fear and shock, Greg backed away and let the old man speak.

"I was not always the old hermit you met this evening, Mr. Carter. I was once a well-respected scientist with a good life and loving family. I was married once, to a lovely woman named Francesca," he recounted, his face softening at just the mention of her name.

"Francesca and I came to the United States from Italy in the 1950’s, and we were so happy. I was a teacher and scientist. My wife was a simple woman, knowing nothing of the things that gave my life meaning. But, that never mattered. She loved me, not for science, but for who I was."

Greg leaned against the strange machine, listening to the story but mostly noticing how swollen his rear end had become. He was very curvy, but it was particularly obvious upon his chest. The breasts he now possessed were too large to be fully covered by his arms.

"We wanted to have a family, but it was difficult. In 1962, though, we were overjoyed to find that she was with child. It was like a dream come true, but that dream soon turned into a nightmare. On the day she was to deliver our baby daughter into the world, there was a problem at the hospital. Both of them died, Mr. Carter, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing science could do to save the two people in the world who meant more to me than life itself."

Greg was honestly touched by the story, and felt sympathy for the old man. But, it didn’t really explain why he had changed Greg into a woman. And Greg pointed out that fact to him.

"I began to look to things other than science for answers. I began to study arcane religions and strange traditions from Africa, South America and Asia. This machine is the sum of my studies. It is the way for me to correct that which science allowed to go so wrong."

The old man took Greg’s hand and led him to a large piece of polished glass. In it, Greg could fully see his new body for the first time. He had to get very close to the glass, allowing his eyes to focus properly on the image.

"Here." The doctor said, handing Greg an old pair of small silver glasses. Greg slipped them on and found his vision was completely restored. He was small and curvy, with a face that reminded him of Sophia Loren in her prime. Short brown hair fell into his face. His breasts, while not grotesquely oversized, were far larger than average. His hips were wide, and his legs were slender and shapely.

"Am I…did you turn me into…" Greg stammered, touching the new face that Dr. Mendes had forced upon him.

"My Francesca? No." He gave Greg a white lab coat to cover himself, then led him back to the machine.

"In that cylinder are the remains of my wife and child. They have been preserved for forty years, while I searched for a way to return them to life. But, all my studies showed me was that it was impossible. But, I could do something else. I could take their essences, their "Chakras", and using the science which had failed them so long ago, I could return them to life…together."

"You are a fusion of the woman my wife was, the woman my daughter could have been, and the man you once were. No longer do your three essences exist separately. You are now one woman. I am sorry that you were not given an option, Mr. Carter, but your arrival was like a sign from above. The storm was at its peak, and a vessel was delivered to my doorstep. I do hope you understand."

Greg stood silently for a moment, unsure of what to say. He thought about all the old man said, and wondered why he didn’t really feel any different. He didn’t have any new memories or new feelings. He could remember everything about his old life. He could remember summer camp as a youth and his graduation from the University of Boston. But something inside him seemed to be reaching out, caressing his raw emotions. It was a velvet thought begging him to be gentle with the old man.

"Dr. Mendes, I don’t understand what you’ve done, but I can understand why you did it," Greg said softly, nervously keeping his chest covered. "You’ve done a bad thing with the best of intentions, but it’s still a bad thing."

"I understand, Mr. Carter." Dr. Mendes said sadly.

Dr. Mendes led Greg up a long series of stairs into the main house and further up into a guest room. He told Greg that he would allow the capacitors to fill with lightning the rest of the evening, and in the morning, he would undo the process. Greg felt relieved, and after the old man left, he quickly fell asleep on the soft down-comforter.

In the morning, Greg awoke to a new day. His dreams had been filled with images that he could not place. Scenes of a woman and a man. Scenes of a wedding and of two people who loved each other very much. He realized they were the dreams of Francesca Mendes, and felt like a voyeur spying on another’s imaginings.

"Dr. Mendes?" Greg said, walking down from the room wrapped in a silk robe and slippers. He made his way down the silent halls, looking for the passageway that led to the secret lab. The old man was sitting at one of his many work areas, hunched over a small keyboard.

"Doctor?" Greg asked, reaching out and touching the old man’s shoulder. He slumped over, sliding off of the stool and landing on the stone floor. Greg leaned over and took his pulse, but he knew as soon as he’d entered the room that the old man had passed away during the night. Looking at the workbench, Greg found a hand-written note addressed to him.

 

Mr. Carter,

I am truly sorry for what I have done to you. I should never have destroyed another life in my haste to recreate two lives lost. My blind devotion to that goal has cost me my soul, and I hope that God will be merciful on me when I met him. I lied to you last evening. I cannot undo the process which has fused your soul and those of my loved ones. If I could, you have to believe that I would. But, it is impossible. All I can do now is pray that you will forgive me for the violation which I have committed.

I fear that my time is short, so I must tell you these things quickly. This house and the land upon which it sits now belongs to you. In the safe in the study, which I have opened, you will find stocks, bonds and enough money to live upon for many years. Also, I wish to give you all my research, including the notes pertaining to the Chakra transfer device. Perhaps, if you desire, you can find a way to reverse that which I have done…

Greg let the note fall to the floor and stared down at the strange, sad little man on the ground.

**************************************************************************************

The sun rose slowly, casting a warm glow through the Eastern window. A single figure awoke and, wrapping a sheet around her, stood up to close the window. The cool night air was giving way to the warmth of daybreak, and it was time to start a brand new day.

"Where are you going?"

Francesca Carter turned and smiled, looking back at the bed where her lover lay. He was young and handsome, but that wasn’t what she’d fallen in love with. She loved his mind and his soul. She dropped the sheet, revealing her lusciously curvy form to him and returned to bed to cuddle. He kissed her softly on the forehead, playing with the short auburn strands of hair that fell across her face.

"You are so beautiful." Jake Pickett said as she moved closer to him. They had met a year ago, when Francesca Carter had joined the faculty of Crawford County High School. She taught both biology and chemistry, and Jake, who taught chemistry and physics teacher, found himself drawn to the sexy young teacher. They began to work together often, and spending more and more time away from the school together as well. He was surprised to learn that she lived so far out in the country, in a large Victorian mansion that had been left to her by a crazy old uncle. But that was all about to change.

"And you, Mr. Pickett, are so handsome!" Francesca grinned, returning the kiss and straddling Jake’s bare stomach. She rubbed her hand across his chest, admiring the small diamond ring on her finger. It looked good, she thought, and she felt warm inside at the idea of becoming Mrs. Francesca Pickett.

"Are you sure you want to sell this old place?" Jake asked, caressing her ample bosom. Frannie nodded. The day that he had asked her to be his wife, she revealed that she was going to sell the old house. She told him that if they were going to be man and wife that she wanted to start over completely. No strings attached. She’d even hired a group of movers to come and clean out all her uncle’s old equipment from the basement. It had taken three days, but now there was nothing but a stack of old notebooks piled up on the old stone floor.

"Frannie Carter, how did you get to be so wonderful?" Jake asked as they began their morning with a vigorous session of lovemaking. She smiled a cryptic smile as her curvy little shape glistened with sweat, and wondered if she’d ever tell him.

The End

 

 

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