Sarah never existed

Tom's heart hammered as the full scope of what he'd done crashed over him. The wish had been too vague, too open-ended - and the coin had filled in the blanks in the most literal way possible. Sarah wasn't just modified. She'd become someone else entirely - Deja Trimble, the Detroit rapper who'd blown up years ago with "Try Me".

But unlike the confusion he expected, Sarah - no, Deja now - seemed thrilled about it. She'd recognized immediately what had happened, that the wish had transformed her into a real person rather than just giving her a rap career.

"So you still remember?" Tom asked carefully. "Everything? Being Sarah, the wishes, all of it?"

"Of course I do," Deja said, but even her speech patterns were different now - the Detroit accent, the cadence, the confidence in her voice nothing like Sarah's usual tone. "I remember being your wife, being forty, the age wish, the race change, all of it. But I'm also Deja now. I've got her memories too, her skills, her whole life history. It's wild - like I lived two completely different lives and they both feel real." She examined her hands, turning them over. "I know how to write bars, I remember recording sessions, beefs with other artists, performing at festivals. But I also remember our wedding day and arguing about whose turn it was to do dishes."

Tom looked around the living room again, seeing the changes with new understanding. "And what about... us? Our marriage?"

Deja bit her lip - a gesture that was pure Sarah despite the completely different face. "That's the weird part. Check this out." She grabbed her phone and pulled up what looked like social media. Her Instagram had millions of followers, posts from concerts and studio sessions going back years. "I'm Deja Loaf. Like, the REAL Deja Loaf. And according to reality..." She scrolled to some older posts, showing Tom photos of her with other people, at events, living a completely different life. "I've been famous for years. Never married. Never even met you until recently."

"Recently?" Tom echoed.

"Yeah. Based on what's in my head from this reality, we met about eight months ago when you were hired as my personal assistant. We've been hooking up for like six months." She grinned wickedly. "And apparently we're really good at keeping it secret from my management and the media. Very scandalous."

Tom felt his face flush. "So we're not married. You're my boss. And we're having an affair."

"That's what reality says," Sarah-as-Deja confirmed. She moved closer, running her hands down her new body with obvious appreciation. "But I remember the truth. I remember agreeing to let you change me, wanting you to explore your fantasies. This is just way more **** than either of us expected." She looked up at him with eyes that held Sarah's warmth despite their different shape. "The coin didn't just make me A successful rapper. It made me into an existing one. Like it pulled someone real from the world and merged me with her."

The implications were staggering. "So what happened to the original Deja Loaf? Is she just... gone?"

"I don't think so," Sarah said thoughtfully. "It's more like the coin rewrote reality so that I've always been her. Sarah and Deja Trimble merged into one person - me. I've got both sets of memories, both personalities kind of blended together. I feel more confident, more aggressive, more sexual than I did as Sarah. But I'm still me underneath." She paused. "Although, if we check online, I bet the 'real' Sarah - your wife - doesn't exist in this timeline at all."

Tom pulled out his phone with shaking hands and searched. Nothing. No Sarah with his last name, no marriage records, no trace of the life they'd built together. According to this reality, he'd never been married at all.

"Fuck," he breathed. "This is way more than we bargained for."

"Is it though?" Deja challenged, and there was something of Sarah's playful daring in her expression. "I mean, yeah, it's ****. But isn't that what we were doing? Testing the limits? Seeing how far the coin could go?" She grabbed the coin from the table, looking at the image of original-Sarah embossed on it. "This still has her face on it. Your Sarah. Which means it should still work to change me back, right?"

"In theory," Tom said. "But we don't know if it's recharged yet. And..." He hesitated, then admitted the truth. "I don't know exactly what to wish for to undo this. Do I wish you were Sarah again? Do I wish you weren't a rapper? What if I make it worse?"

Deja laughed - a rich, confident sound. "Baby, you're overthinking this. We've got time to figure it out. Meanwhile..." She glanced at her phone, where notifications were piling up. "According to my calendar, I've got an interview downtown in two hours. You're supposed to drive me and help manage things. Want to play this out for a bit? See what it's like being a rapper's secret side piece?"

The suggestion was tempting and terrifying in equal measure. Tom looked at his wife - his wife who was now a famous stranger - and felt the weight of the coin in his pocket.

"You're seriously okay with this?" he asked. "With being someone else? With our marriage just... not existing?"

"For now," Deja said, moving close enough that he could smell her perfume - something expensive and unfamiliar. "Look, I'm curious too. I've got this whole other life in my head now, and part of me wants to experience it. Plus, you wanted to explore fantasies, right? Well, here's one - I'm a celebrity, you're the hired help I'm fucking in secret. That's pretty hot." Her hand slid down his chest. "We can change me back whenever the coin recharges. But until then, why not lean into it?"

Tom's mind spun with the possibilities and the dangers. The framework had warned about this - how the coin could seduce them into making increasingly **** choices, how reality changes could have unexpected consequences. But Sarah - Deja - was right. They could reverse it. Eventually.

"Okay," he said slowly. "But we need to test if the coin is ready soon. I don't want you stuck like this if you change your mind."

"Deal." Deja grinned and kissed him hard, her technique different, more demanding than Sarah's usual tenderness. When she pulled back, her eyes glittered with excitement. "Now help me pick what to wear to this interview. I want to look fire, and you know my style." She paused, laughed. "Well, Deja's style. Fuck, this is so weird."

As Tom followed her toward the bedroom - a bedroom that was decorated nothing like the one he and Sarah shared - he couldn't shake the feeling that they'd crossed a line they might not be able to come back from. But he also couldn't deny the dark thrill running through him at the prospect of living this twisted fantasy, even temporarily.

The coin burned in his pocket like a guilty secret, Sarah's original face watching from the metal, waiting for the moment they'd need to undo what they'd done.