Erica Stevens - Votes for Women - Aware

It had been a long time since Erica Stevens slept in. Normally alerts from her phone would coax her from her slumber before the sun crested the horizon, pulling her from her rest and into the life she had chosen. Being a correspondent for the largest news broadcasters in the world was all she had dreamed of as a young girl and more. Erica could still remember watching Barbara Walters with her parents and informing them, in no uncertain terms, that she’d be on TV one day, and that it would be her doing the hard-hitting interviews, quite the ambition for an eight-year-old. And as she lay lazily on her bed that morning, enjoying the rarity of the combination of a day off and a slow news day, Erica smiled knowing she had made it happen.

Not all at once, of course. Years of schooling, sacrifice, and a dirty trick or two, all had added up to a successful career in broadcasting. Erica Stevens was known across the nation as a trusted source of information, speaking truth to power, all while projecting the image of a strong, independent woman. Success looked like Erica Stevens, and she wore it well.

"Erica!" a man's voice pulled her from her thoughts, "I hope you're not planning on sleeping all day. You've got chores to take care of!"

Erica sat up, eyes wide. Who the hell was that?! She reached over to her nightstand to grab her mobile phone in order to call the police but was shocked that there was no such phone. Her eyes darted around the room. No, she couldn't see it anywhere. But what she did see shocked her.

Everything was different.

Everything.

Every piece of furniture, what was on the furniture, the colour of the drapes, her duvet, it was as if her room had been redecorated while she was asleep. Carefully, quietly, she crept out of bed for a closer look. The dirty clothes in the hamper weren't just clothes she'd never seen before, but half of them belonged to a man!

"Erica! Baby!" the man's voice called again, "Hurry up and get down here! My lunch isn't going to make itself!"

Erica turned away from the hamper, pausing as she saw her reflection in the large mirror over her dresser. Her face, for the most part, was familiar, but just as her room had changed, so had she. Her trademark brown hair had been dyed bleach blonde. Her eyes were ringed by thick eye make-up. Her breasts, clad in a silky nightie, were easily twice the size they had been when she had gone to sleep.

The room spun. Reaching out to the dresser, Erica steadied herself. There had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this. Rooms, or people for that matter, didn't just change. There was a reason. A cause. Erica's journalistic mind began to whir with ideas on how to get to the bottom of it.

"If I don't see you down here by the time I count to ten, little lady," the man's voice called again, "I'm going to come up there and put you over my knee!"

Without thinking, Erica grabbed a nightgown from the back of the closet door, threw it over her shoulders, and scurried out of the room. It seemed that she had a man to meet. And, she supposed, a lunch to make.