Three Bored Girls: Ashley

“I choose...Ashley,” May said.

“Oh, c’mon!” Abrams said, throwing his hands up, “Didn’t I just say she was too nice for it?”

May just shrugged.

“You let me pick. I’m picking her.”

Abrams rolled his eyes, but fiddled with the controls.

*****

“Unf… shit,” Ashley coughed as she tasted the sangria she’d made. Even by her standards, it was especially well fortified.

Her phone buzzed. Reflexively, she checked it, hoping for some positive news on the job front. Instead, she found another notification for that weird app she thought she’d deleted twice already. Its icon was a steaming potato with a magic wand over it.

5 Minutes Remaining. The notification read.

“Goddamnit...” she muttered, opening it.

The description sounded wild. Change your life? Purchase transformations? Who wrote this crap?

Still, curiosity compelled her to press on. She read through the description of its purpose and moved along to the next screen, which listed her potential “targets” of the magic it claimed. Her two roommates were the only ones.

Ash selected Bianca. Why not start with the one she actually liked?

She found herself confronted by a list of rather cryptic options.

Select a Category:

1. Next Breast Thing

2. Clothes Make the Woman

3. Improving Relationships

What an odd set of choices. She had no idea what any of them meant, but relationships sounded the least stupid. So, she clicked it and a new set of options appeared.

Complete the Sentence:

Bianca is ________.

1. A flirty tease

2. Attracted to her roommates

3. Polyamorous

She frowned. How did it know Bianca had roommates? Why did the options seem so thirsty? It was all profoundly creepy. She closed the app, deciding that big tech’s surveillance tools had gone too far. She’d barely closed it when another notification appeared at the top of her screen, which she dismissed with an annoyed grunt.

3 Minutes remaining. If no option is selected, one will be chosen.…

She dismissed it with a swipe and deleted the app for the fourth time.

*****

“Awww… that’s no fun!” May complained.

“Hmm?” Abrams asked.

“It’s just gonna pick for her?” she asked. “I didn’t program it to do that. I programmed it to affect the recipient if no change was selected.”

“Oh, right. Major flaw in the system. We had a failure rate around 92% when we first launched because nobody was willing to make an initial change. Finally, we decided to just shorten the initial timer and make the leap for them.”

May frowned.

“92%? Damn… I didn’t think it’d be that high.”

“You’re a developer. You wouldn’t,” Abrams said. “This is our 10th trial group since we made that adjustment. 8 of them had to let time expire on the first change to get the ball rolling.”

“And the two who didn’t?”

“An annoyed CS worker and a pervy teenager.”

May thought it over. Maybe he was right. Maybe they did enjoy their own toys too much to think about how they’d be practically used.

“I guess this is why we hand these things off to Research, huh?” May said. “I wonder which it’ll choose for them.”

Abrams gave her a wolfish grin.

“There’s no ‘it’ deciding. We do,” he said. “We’re also picking the categories and options they receive. Can’t really let algorithms do it until they have the data to work with.”

“Yeah, that’s cool. It’s kinda fun to come up with ideas anyway.” May said, leaning forward. “She’s about out of time though. Much as I hate this automatic approach, I’m excited to see this.”

*****

Bianca let out a sigh as she stepped out of the shower. No matter how shitty her mood was, a good, long, hot shower never failed to make her feel better. It had a head clearing effect and always made her feel refreshed after one of her classes.

As she toweled off, she examined herself in the mirror. She was 5’6 with bronze skin and straight black hair that she kept about waist length. Her job wasn’t hard to guess looking at her. Her body rippled with lean muscle, from her four pack abs to her arms to her thick, toned thighs. Her breasts were on the smallish side, comparatively speaking, but she was by no means flat chested, and she had a round, perky booty to compensate in any case.

She was, by almost any standard, a beautiful woman. And while she knew on an intellectual level that Carlos’ refusal to see her wasn’t a rejection, she couldn’t help but take it as one.

His loss, she thought for the umpteenth time.

Suddenly, as she reached for the clothes she’d brought to change into, she spaced out. Her mind went blank, rearranging itself. She blinked when her attention refocused, assuming nothing more than that she lost her train of thought. Instead of changing in the bathroom, she wrapped her towel around her waist and stepped out of it.

*****

Ash was nursing a glass of wine and fretting over Netflix by the time Bianca emerged. The app had gone completely out of her head.

Her eyes went wide when she saw her. Bianca wore nothing but a white bath towel; one which barely covered her breasts and didn’t quite cover the large swell of her ass. Her skin was radiant, and even living with her, it was a better view than Ash had ever enjoyed.

“Feeling clean?” she **** herself to ask, making a conscious effort not to stare.

“Squeaky,” Bianca replied heading toward the kitchen with an alluring sway in her hips.

Ash tried, and failed, not to gawk as Bianca leaned into the fridge to grab a beer.

“So, what do you wanna do today?” she asked, popping it open. “Other than drink your white girl sangria?”

“Uh, I…” Ash stammered, “hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Watch and make fun of some dumb sappy movies?”

“Sounds like a plan. Mind if I slip into something comfy?”

Ash shook her head as her roommate departed, shifting in her seat.

_Jesus, _she thought to herself, does she even know how fucking hot she is?

*****

Bianca, in fact, knew perfectly well how fucking hot she was. She also now knew something she’d long suspected; that Ash had eyes for her that were more than just friendly.

She’d thought the girl was straight when they’d moved in together, but one too many lingering glances and odd comments had been made for her to still believe it. Now, having put on a bit of a show for Ash, she’d confirmed what a part of her had suspected, but simply chosen not to internalize.

Not that she had any idea why. Ash, with her long legs, hourglass waist and large breasts, was a classic beauty. She had a pretty face with high cheekbones, framed by wavy, light blonde hair. What Bianca admired most was now effortless she made it seem. She’d never understood the term girl-next-door until she’d met Ash, but she embodied the term.

Bianca had always seen it, in the way all good looking women noticed one another. But thinking about her now, she began to see the sweet midwesterner in a very different, very appealing light.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand where she’d left it charging. It was probably Carlos. She decided to ignore him. If he wouldn’t pay her attention, she thought she knew someone who might.

Discarding the towel, she rummaged through her dress, slipping on a cute pair of flowery board shorts loose enough to pass as casual, but that still hugged her bottom. She paired them with a short, tight camisole top. She did not include any underwear.

Tying her hair back, she did a quick twirl before a mirror to check herself. She looked cute, she decided, and not in a way that was obvious. Smiling, she left the bedroom.

*****

Ash was starting to feel the wine by the time Bianca came out to join her. She was surprised when, rather than taking a seat in the couch opposite the one she occupied, Bianca stepped over the coffee table and plopped down next to her.

“This for me?” she asked, pointing at the glass Ash had laid out for her.

“Sure is,” Ash said, lifting her own. They toasted. “To… a fun lazy day.”

“Without boys,” Bianca amended with a wink. “Fuck boys.”

“Fuck boys!” Ash agreed.

Bianca settled back in, propping her feet up on the coffee table. On such a small loveseat, it brought their hips together, though Ash didn’t do anything more to move that Bianca did.

“So… crappy romcoms, huh? You find us any winners?”

“One. It’s either gonna be hilarious stupid or so bad it’s unwatchable,” Ash answered, turning to it on the streaming site. “ChristCross: the Movie.”

“Wait… like, that Christian dating site? That ChristCross?”

“That’s the one,” Ash said with a grin.

“Well, fire it up! Can’t wait to see it!”

Ash did. And was… disappointed. As the movie dragged on, it proved to be neither entertainingly awful nor completely repulsive. It was bad, but boring; the worst kind of shitty film. By the halfway mark, they were ignoring it.

“Maybe I should get on ChristCross the next time I’m on the market,” Bianca mused. “Can’t be like, too much worse than my last adventures on those apps.”

Ash gave her a look. Sometimes, Bianca acted like she and Carlos were already finished, though Ash wasn’t about to call her out on that.

“I’d think the sexy cardio classes would be kinda hard to explain to that crowd,” she said instead.

Bianca grinned.

“You know about those, huh?” she said. “They’re def my most popular. Makes sense when you think about it. Who doesn’t want to get fit and confident at the same time?”

Ash felt heat rise into her cheeks, and hoped it didn’t show.

“It’s hard not to notice just coming and going through the studio, y’know.”

It’s definitely not because I creep your studio’s youtube. No ma’am.

Bianca’s face kept a cool, coy expression, but she moved on.

“How about you? Feels like it’s been awhile since you brought anyone home,” she said. “You like, use any apps yourself or anything?”

A sore point. Ash tried to dance around it.

“Oh, I’ve tried it. Just haven’t had any luck finding what I’m looking for on it,” she said half truthfully.

“And what’s that, anyway?”

It was a forward question; one a great deal of even her own soul searching had proven unable to answer.

“I don’t know,” Ash admitted. “LA’s dating scene… I dunno. It’s intimidating. I guess I’m afraid of jumping in.”

“Well, you should give it a shot. You’re cool, and sexy and you deserve someone awesome.”

Bianca placed her hand on Ash’s thigh as she said it. At first, it seemed like a reassuring gesture… but then it didn’t leave. Ash felt her heart quicken a bit, and it began to jackhammer when she turned to find Bianca staring right at her. Her brown eyes locked into Ash’s blue ones, and she held them there very intently.

“Uh… uhm….” she stammered stupidly.

Bianca leaned in close, her lips pressing against Ash’s. Her hand crept up her thigh, beneath the pleated skirt she was wearing. Ash was alarmed, shocked and extremely excited all in one confused blur of emotion. For a brief moment, she gave in, leaning into the kiss.

And then she remembered the app she’d deleted, and its creepy list of “changes”. And suddenly, she realized Bianca was acting out every one of them. She recoiled as if her roommate had bitten her, retreating as far as she could across the couch and shrinking into it.

“Bianca, what the fuck?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

Bianca, for her part, looked confused.

“What?” She said in an exasperated tone, “Isn’t...I thought you’d like that…”

“You’re my friend! It’s not like that!” Ash stammered as she groped for a measure of composure.

She wanted to prod at her theory, but without confronting it outright; both because explaining it would make her sound like a lunatic and because she didn’t want to be blamed if she was right.

“Look, you’re not acting like yourself. Are you feeling okay?” She said.

The confusion on Bianca’s face was starting to give way to something that resembled horror. She met Ash’s eyes, and recoiled at what she must have seen in them.

“I don’t…” She stammered, standing up quickly. “Look, I’m sorry. Fuck! Jesus...Fuck!”

She ducked her head and retreated to her room, head down. Her door slammed a second later.

“Bianca! Wait!” Ash called after her, but she heard her roommate’s lock click a second later.

Ash collapsed on the couch. What had she done? Had she even done anything? That some phone app had changed her friend was a crazy thought. But between Bianca’s flirty show in the towel, her invasion of her personal space and that kiss...it just wasn’t a dismissable one.

For a time, she just stood there paralyzed, wondering what on earth she should do about the disaster that just unfolded.

*****

Bianca slammed and locked her bedroom door, successfully extricating herself from the train wreck she’d just caused. She really wanted to crawl in a hole and die, but this was a close second. Any minute, she knew, Ashley would bang on her door and demand to speak to her.

But the knock didn’t come. That was surprising, but welcome; a nice reprieve while she tried to figure out what the name of holy fuck she’d been thinking. It was not unlike Bianca to aggressively go after something she wanted; even when that something was a someone. And she certainly _wanted _Ash.

But now that it had blown up in her face, she wondered why that desire had come on suddenly. Why had she been acting like this? It made no sense…

Her phone made a notification sound. Immediately, her hand shot to it, certain it was a text from Ash. Instead, it was a notification from some new app on her phone. An icon showing a magic wand laying over a steaming potato appeared next to a text:

You’ve been transformed! Congratulations! You’re holding the Hot Potato! Open to learn more.

“The fuck?” She asked, swiping at it.

As she read, her eyes widened. Something about her had been changed by someone else in her apartment. She didn’t know what it was, or who had done it. And she had a chance to get one of them back for it. The options appeared: Ashley or Erica.

Well, as preposterous as that sounded, she had been acting strangely. That came almost as second nature, but she supposed if something had fucked with her mind the way this app claimed it could, that would make a good deal of sense. And she was pretty sure she knew exactly what had changed, or at least roughly what had. This was as good a reason as any she could think of as to why she’d come onto Ash so suddenly.

The question, then, was who had done it. And who would she try to get back at?