Customer Satisfaction

"Oh! Excuse me, I'm going to go to the..." Zara paused, correcting herself with a small, pleased smile, "...ladies' room. I think I need to powder my nose," she snorted. "I think that's supposed to mean I need to pee."

She slid off the stool, smoothing her skirt again.

Then she walked.

Heels clicking. Hips moving. That same subtle sway she’d clearly practiced, now deployed with deliberate precision. Not exaggerated, not clumsy. Controlled. Intentional.

Roy watched her go.

Hard not to.

Across the dim bar, she cut a clean line through the space. Confident. Eye-catching. Composed in a way that didn’t happen by accident. A few heads turned—not dramatically, not enough to make a scene, but enough to register.

And she knew it.

Or at least she was learning how to know it. A quiet breath slipped out through his nose as he leaned back slightly on the stool, beer resting in his hand.

Zara.

The same woman who, just yesterday, had been all bright energy and scattered enthusiasm in the passenger seat of his car. The same woman who had talked about Warhammer painting techniques like she was giving a TED Talk to an audience of one. The same woman had now become...

This.

A small shake of his head, more disbelief than denial.

It wasn't just the clothes. Not just the makeup. Not even just the way she moved. It was that everything about it was on purpose.

The outfit: chosen, assembled, tested. The heels: practiced in, learned. The voice: the dips and soft edges she kept trying on like costumes. Even the lines. God, the lines. Half of them sounded like they'd been pulled from a script, delivered with varying degrees of success before dissolving into laughter.

Performative.

But not empty.

That was the strange part. Underneath the performance, Zara was still there. Bright, curious, a little chaotic. The mask didn't replace her, it layered over her. And somehow, instead of feeling false, it felt enthusiastic. Like she was enjoying the act of becoming. Like this was a project.

And she was succeeding.

Roy took a slow sip of his beer. Cold. Bitter. Grounding.

Who really was this woman who now considered herself his girlfriend? The question lingered longer than expected. Not the version sitting beside him ten minutes ago. Not the version walking through the bar right now. The real answer. From before all of this. Before the wish.

Before him.

A faint crease formed between his brows. Truth was, he didn't know. Tonight was supposed to be simple. Play the part. A loving boyfriend wanting to spend Friday night with his girlfriend. Let things progress. Let the inevitable intimacy happen. Then, afterward, she'd be free.

That was the plan. It had worked before. It would work again.

And yet something about what was happening with Zara made the whole thing feel less clean. Already there had been too much change, too fast.

Michelle had shifted, yes. Opened up. Leaned into something more playful, more immediate. But she'd still felt like herself, just with new doors unlocked.

Elaine had given him space in her life, even in her grief. But he was certain that she hadn't lost her identity when she'd fallen into the relationship with him.

But Zara? Zara was different. She seemed to be building something, piece by piece, for him. He wasn't sure if she was sacrificing her own ideas of who she was, or if this was an act. Either way, it made Roy nervous.

It reminded him of Tabitha. The second woman the wish had latched onto. He'd just spent the night with her sister when the familiar tingling, his arm hairs standing up, told him that the relationship was transferring to a new person. And there she was: beautiful, edgy, energetic.

And gay.

Tabitha was a lesbian. The wish, however, didn't care. It had rewritten her sexuality to be a lesbian with one exception. It had changed her so dramatically that he'd found himself in a gas station restroom, Tabitha on her knees in front of him, his pants around his ankles.

The memory sat heavy.

A different kind of guilt settled in, layered over the familiar one. Not just the quiet, persistent awareness that this entire situation was wrong, not just the knowledge that these relationships existed because reality was being warped to make it true.

This was sharper. More personal.

Had he done that?

Not intentionally. Not consciously. But Zara, by becoming this amazingly sensual creature, was walking away from who she truly was. Roy racked his brain trying to remember if he'd sent her on this path inadvertently. Had he looked at her differently? Said something, even in passing?

A slow exhale.

Did she think he needed this to want her? Because if she did, if she'd reshaped herself to match something she thought he desired, what did that say about him?

Another sip of beer. Longer this time.

Maybe that was what tonight needed to be. Not just following the path laid out. Not just moving toward the same inevitable endpoint. A chance to actually talk to her. Strip away the performance a little. See what was underneath when she wasn't trying so hard. Show her that she was enough.

Encourage her to be Zara.

Not "Sexed Up Zara". Not a constructed version built from observation and guesswork.

Just her. She deserved that much. More than that, honestly. At the very least, he could try. At the very least, he could give her space to exist without feeling like she had to optimize herself for him.

A quiet clink sounded nearby as glass met wood.

The bartender moved along the back counter, stacking clean glasses onto a shelf with practiced ease. Routine. Normalcy. The kind of small, grounded motion that made everything else feel just a little less surreal.

Roy glanced over, half out of habit. The man was already looking at him. Something about that look. Not unfriendly. Not curious.

Knowing.

A flicker of unease traced along Roy's spine. Then...

"How's the wish going?"

The words landed softly. Casually. Like small talk. Roy blinked.

"...Sorry?"

The bartender didn't look away. Didn't smile.

"The wish," he said, enunciating each word just slightly, like he was clarifying an order. "The one I granted the other night. Is it going okay?"

Silence stretched.

The noise of the bar seemed to dull at the edges, like someone had turned the volume down a notch too far. The television flickered on mute. A laugh from somewhere across the room came through distorted, delayed.

Roy stared at him. For a moment, nothing in his face moved. No reaction. No recognition. Just blank.

"...What?"

The word came out quieter than he intended.

The bartender tilted his head slightly. Patient. Like this was expected. Like confusion was part of the process.

"I'm just checking in," he said. "Customer satisfaction and all that."

A faint, almost polite smile touched the corners of his mouth.

"I mean, from the looks of her, it kind of looks like it's working."