Generic Brand Hero              by: Sarah Barndt

 

I was, admittedly, a loser. I was a 24 year old college drop-out who worked at a video store and lived in my parent’s basement. Add to that I was 5’5, scrawny and kind of weaselly looking. Well, as you could imagine, I was beating the babes off with a stick. Actually you could describe my love life by removing the words "the babes" and "with a stick" from the last sentence.

The only thing that kept my Dad from thinking I was a complete failure was I loved football, just like him. While he actually played the game, I had placed the occasional wager. One night, real late, I was watching TV and saw an informercial for generic celebrity DNA. I’d been doing a joint and sucking back some brews by then so maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. I could never afford a real DNA transplant and become a twin of some celebrity, but these guys were offering a chance to look ‘a lot like that celebrity of your dreams’. Since they didn’t pay royalties to the celebrity, their rates were lower. On the other hand, you didn’t look exactly like the celebrity either. That was OK with me. I wanted more a ‘body type’ than a look anyway. I went to their website to see who they had available and what the prices were. I wanted to become a twin of a football player. This was no small decision. Any DNA transfer was a one-way, once-in-a-lifetime deal. Nobody could survive a second DNA treatment so there was no way to reverse or fix any mistakes. It was still very expensive, but within the range of possible for me.

As I thought, even ersatz DNA for the super-stars was way too expensive.

Except O.J. Simpson, but that came with an indemnification agreement 30 pages long. "The purchaser agrees to hold the seller harmless for all aberrant or anti-social...." Better find someone else. Looking around the less well known NFL players I found one I could afford, Dan Owens, a Detroit Lions linebacker. He even looked a little like my Dad in his younger days. I placed the order and maxed out my VISA card. I guess I should mention now that I was, slightly, wasted by now and I mis-typed my order. I didn’t enter DAN Owens, I had typed in DANA Owens, otherwise known as Queen Latifah. I hit the ENTER key and took the first step to becoming a new man. Little did I know..........

A few days later UPS dropped off a package for me. I looked at the vial. Taking that stuff was a big a decision, so like everything else in my life, I put it off for a while. Later that night I was my usual buzzed self. I saw a beer commercial where these jocks switch their brand of lite beer and hook up with the Swedish Bikini Team. Do I have to mention the vial was empty in 2 minutes? The instructions said I wouldn’t notice too many changes right away since I was mutating (mutating!) at a genetic level. Later on these changes would become visible as RNA altered, which would change my DNA.

As they said, I seemed to have a low-grade fever and a touch of fatigue for a couple of days, but that passed and I felt fine. I noticed my appetite picked up. A week later it was obvious I was gaining weight. For the first time in my life, clothes didn’t fit like on your average scare crow. It was working. At least, I hoped it was. A month later I was 30 pounds heavier. Everybody noticed and commented, but the comments were all good. It was about then I started to get taller. This was fantastic!

Over the next month I grew from 5’5" to 5’7". I grew so fast my joints hurt now and then, even my pelvis. I couldn’t hide the truth anymore so I told my folks I had taken a DNA treatment. Naturally, my mom was worried, but my Dad was thrilled when I told him it was a football player’s DNA. My mom was won over when my dad said,"June, now he’ll be able to get a date- with a girl." Gee, thanks dad. However, that did please my mom.

During the third month I grew to 5’9", though I thought my hip bone was getting kind of wide and my shoulders hadn’t changed much yet. Another thing. I had been lifting weights since I took the DNA and though my muscles were firmer and I felt better, they weren’t getting as big as I though they should. My big concern was Dan Owens had used steroids. I wanted to be big and muscular but I didn’t want to use that stuff. Like tinkering with my DNA was much better, but no one had ever died from DNA transfers. Towards the last week of the month I felt tired and had an upset stomach all the time. It got worse and worse to point I didn’t go in to work. Eventually it became a severe cramping. This got worse, too until I collapsed onto my bed. My fever came back and I got vague. I must have fallen asleep because it had been night and now it was sunny.

My dad had already left for work and Mom was cleaning the breakfast dishes when she, first, heard me scream, then burst into the kitchen naked. She gasped and dropped a bowl, but not from seeing me naked- not exactly anyway. She gasped when she saw, as I had earlier, my new vagina!

I was so desperate I asked her examine me and make sure what I saw was really what I saw. It was. She called my Dad at his office. From the her responses I guess she told him what had happened. She had me put on a robe and we waited, oddly quiet, for my Dad to come home. He came home about an hour later. He looked at me an said, "Moron."

For the next few minutes he launched into a tirade about how I couldn’t do anything right; how this wouldn’t have happened if I had a real life and not depended on ‘magic pills’ to make my life better. All true, I’m afraid. He was a corporate lawyer and had called GENERIC BRAND HEROES to see what had happened. They were in the clear. I had ordered Dana Owens and I had received Dana Owens. From the looks of things I was becoming Dana Owens, too. They did offer a refund since Dana Owens sold for less than Dan Owens. Thanks dad. I’ll be needing that money.... for bras!!!!

Being true upper-middle class suburbanites, we decided to hide my condition as long as possible. Maybe it would ‘go away’ or no one would notice. Sure. The only other black women in this neighborhood all wore maid’s uniforms. They’d notice. But for now at least, I still looked like me, as long as I didn’t drop my pants.

The next few weeks passed almost normally. I went to work, came home, watched TV and got wasted. Physically I looked the same but I definitely was losing strength. My muscles looked the same but just weren’t as strong as before. But things changed. I had my first period. That was awful. Mom showed me what to do and I stayed home from work ‘with the flu’. After that, the whole world seemed different to me. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I had become a visitor to my own life. The most frightening thing was Carl.

He worked with me and was my best friend, sort of. We didn’t hang out because he was bi, which to me meant gay but not pushy about it. After I had my period he started to look........ well......... attractive. The idea of it made me ill but I was getting so horny lately. Though it was still new to me, I was already adept at massaging my clitoris to orgasm, but more and more I wanted ..........more. They say stress isn’t caused by not knowing what to do, but from knowing what to do and not wanting to. I wanted a man inside me.

 

 

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