I tried and tried to find out the secret for my recipe

Fourth Course: Salad Course

Mimi didn’t know what she was looking at. The kitchen was one thing, she’d seen kitchens before in movies. No, what confused her was what she found in the kitchen.

A little girl, maybe about seven or eight years old (Mimi had no idea what human ages looked like, she was just guessing) with brown hair and crystal blue eyes stood in front of her, wrapped in a white dress. She had a bright smile on her face and waved at Mimi cheerfully.

“Hello!” The girl giggled.

“Who are you?” Mimi asked. “What are you doing here?”

Sylvia had mentioned that Mimi would be getting an assistant to help her with her cooking, which was good because Mimi had never cooked anything before.

This was not what she had in mind.

The girl just giggled in response. “What do you mean? I’m you!”

THAT seemed hard to believe. The girl was half Mimi’s size. Mimi glanced down at her large rack, and then at the tiny girl’s child figure.

She shook her head. “No. You aren’t.”

“Yes I am!” The girl whined obnoxiously.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am!”

This continued for about five minutes before Mimi decided there was no use arguing. So she changed course instead.

“If you’re me… why are you a child?” She asked.

“Um… because I am?” The little girl looked confused, like she didn’t know how to answer that question. “Wait! You mean why am I not all slimy anymore?”

Mimi nodded.

“Because I’m real now! I became mom’s kid for real!” The girl giggled. “It’s me, Emmy!”

Mimi opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was a bubbly gurgle. Her vocal chords had turned to slime in her throat and she just barely managed to wheeze out a response. “Em… my…?”

“Yeah! Mom gave me that name!” The little girl nodded.

“Mom… you mean…” Mimi felt a wave of doubt start to take root in her chest.

“My mom, Carly,” the girl who called herself Emmy clarified. “She’s really pretty! Someday, I’m going to grow up and be just as pretty as her!”

Mimi took a step back and tried to look at this from an objective perspective. There was still a lot she didn’t know about how humans worked, but she was pretty sure they didn’t go from tall to small. So what, was this girl lying then? …But no, upon closer inspection with Mimi’s analytical abilities, she could tell that this child had a lot of the same physical features as Carly, and thus, the same as Mimi as well. She did look like she could be Carly’s daughter.

And the ache in Mimi’s breast confirmed the connection between the two of them. While the small child in front of her may have been completely human, she was also Mimi. The slime girl had no doubt.

“I become… a child?” That wasn’t at all what she expected.

Emmy looked a little worried. Like many perceptive children, she could sense that Mimi wasn’t in a mood to discuss this. “We can still cook, right? I always help mom in the kitchen so it’ll be fine! We bake cookies together!”

She flashed Mimi an innocent smile that Mimi couldn’t deny.

This is my future? I’m going to become Carly’s daughter? Mimi didn’t know what to make of that. “…Yes. Let’s cook.”

“Yay! What are we making today?” Emmy cheered.

“Salad.”

The little girl’s face fell immediately.

“Salad?! Blech! I hate salad!” She whined, stomping her foot.

Mimi sighed. She couldn’t believe her future self could be this immature and petulant.

“Well we’re making it.”

Learning to tolerate whiny children was something that took a lot of time and practice and patience.

Mimi, who had been sapient for all of a week, had absolutely zero training in doing so. The fact that the child in question claimed to be her only made things more uncomfortable.

She put Emmy’s whining out of her mind and walked over to the counter, picking up the cookbook. There were all sorts of salad recipes in there to try out.

“Why don’t we make a fruit salad?” Emmy asked.

Mimi blinked. “A fruit salad?”

“Yeah. You know, chop up a bunch of fruits and stuff? It’s called a ‘salad’ so it counts!” Emmy explained.

Mimi considered that for a second. But she wanted a regular salad.

“…You’re a child. You need vegetables.”

“I’m not even going to be eating it!” Emmy whined. “Besides, vegetables are gross and dumb and taste like blech! I wanna make a fruit salad! You have to listen to me, because I’m the real one and you’re not!”

Mimi frowned. “You’re my assistant. You were created by Sylvia, my real mother, to assist me.” Most of that was her guessing, but she was right on the money.

“…Yeah, but you’re just a plant…” Emmy muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Mimi asked sharply. She’d spent enough time with girls like Rose and Dakota to not tolerate backtalk.

“I said, it’s not fair that you get to tell me what to do!” Emmy whined. “You’re not my mom! You’re just a plant! I’M the real one!”

“I don’t understand. Why do you keep saying that?” The continued accusations of Mimi not being real were starting to hurt. “I’m real…”

Emmy winced, realizing she’d said something bad. “Um… I’m not supposed to tell you,” she said, quickly looking down contritely.

Well, that didn’t work for Mimi. She walked over to the pantry and grabbed a carrot.

“Tell me or I’ll make you eat nothing but vegetables until the pantry is empty,” she threatened.

Emmy turned pale. “B-But I’ll get in trouble…”

“Does Carly know you’re keeping secrets?” Mimi asked, crossing her arms and staring down at the little girl. “What would she say if I told her you weren’t going to eat your vegetables?”

Emmy gulped. “Um… okay… but promise you won’t get mad?”

“I can’t promise that.” Mimi didn’t even know what Emmy was going to say. How could she make an irrational promise like that.

“Well… I guess…” Emmy sighed. She looked like she was about to cry. “I’m you… but I’m Emmy, too,” she explained.

“…I don’t understand what that means,” Mimi said. “Explain clearer.”

“I don’t get it either,” Emmy admitted. “I’m only eight you know!”

Mimi did some quick math in her head. “So you really are that Emmy? Carly’s Emmy?”

Emmy nodded. “I know mom… she really loved me. But I never got the chance to love her back, because I became a ghost right after I was born.”

A ghost. Mimi was talking with a ghost. That was really something. Any of the other contestants might have been shocked at such a revelation (probably not Dakota though) but Mimi wasn’t exactly normal herself, so she was rather ambivalent about the whole thing.

“Mom was so lonely after I died…” Emmy started to tear up. “I wanted to stay with her, so she’d never be alone. But I couldn’t even hug her like this. Then this nice lady came to me, and told me that she could help.”

Mimi narrowed her eyes. “…Help?”

Emmy nodded. “She said she would grow a new body for me! And I could be with mom again! And that’s you! You’re gonna become me!”

She smiled innocently. “We can finally be with mom!”

If Mimi was being honest with herself, she still didn’t have the best grasp on human morality. But even she could understand the horrific implications of what this little girl was saying.

I suppose it makes sense though, she thought. She’s a child who never had a chance to learn anything about the world.

For the first time, Mimi could really see herself in the girl standing in front of her. But Mimi had grown beyond her thoughtlessness and become something more due to her interactions with the other girls in Nick’s harem.

Emmy… was innocent. She truly knew nothing.

She probably doesn’t even understand what’s wrong about what she’s saying, Mimi thought. Then she felt an ominous chill rolled over her slimy skin.

But… is she wrong?

If what Emmy was saying was true, then Mimi didn’t really matter at all. She’d never mattered. She’d always just been a vessel, preparing to inhabit Emmy’s soul. Or inherit the ghost’s memories and become her in a different way. With the host’s powers, there were a lot of potential ways to go about doing this.

But the fact of the matter remained that Mimi existed to eventually be replaced by Emmy.

I thought I was becoming more human… but was I really just slowly starting to become her? She felt an ache in her heart. Is that the reason I have such a connection with Carly? Because I’m supposed to turn into her daughter?

From what she read in the rhetoric books she’d obtained while on the island, this could be considered “ironic”. Mimi had used Carly as a host to copy her template, and now she herself would be the host of Carly’s child.

Emmy was staring at Mimi with a worried expression on her face.

“Um… are you mad?” She asked, on the verge of tears. “Because I told?”

Mimi took a deep breath and gave Emmy a smile just like her mother’s.

“No, little one,” she assured the little girl who would soon supplant her. “I’m not mad at all. Let’s make a fruit salad, alright?”

“Really?” Emmy’s face lit up with glee.

“Yes. It’s your reward for telling the truth,” Mimi replied.

Emmy will replace me anyway. So I might as well do what she wants, Mimi reasoned. She began searching the pantry and the refrigerator for fruits to add to the fruit salad.

It’s not like my opinion matters.

Mimi was just supposed to be a body. Not someone with opinions of her own.

They got started on chopping up the fruits. It was just like a game! Emmy would pick out which ones she wanted to add, and Mimi would do her best to cut them up.

“You’re kinda clumsy, huh?” Emmy giggled as Mimi’s knife slid off the side of the apple.

“I’ve never done something like this before,” Mimi admitted. She tried again, perfectly slicing the apple into slices while Emmy stared at her in shock. “…But I’m a very fast learner.”

“That’s so cool! Can I try?!” Emmy asked.

Mimi shook her head. “When you’re older.” A tad ironic, given the girl was her future self, and Mimi had only been human for about a week. “You won’t want to hurt yourself and worry your mom.”

Emmy hung her head and sighed.

“Yeah, I guess…” She mumbled.

Mom. That word echoed in Mimi’s ears. Before entering the kitchen, “mom” had meant Sylvia. The woman who’d read her books every night while she was gestating, even though she was a plant. Who always came by to dutifully water her every day, and who talked about her dreams of running her own season someday, and making her creator proud.

When Mimi became Emmy, would she still feel the same way about her mother? Or would those thoughts be replaced by adoration for Carly?

How much of Mimi would even be left?

But then… Sylvia is the one doing this to me, Mimi reminded herself. She calls herself my mom, but… she’s just going to have me become another person? Does she think I’ll be happier that way? Or did she never even care about me at all?

She remembered Carly’s smiling face, and how she cried when she told Mimi about her daughter. That was what a mother’s love looked like.

Maybe Carly wants this, too. Of course she’d rather have her daughter back than a blob of slime like me who just looks like herself.

It would be best for everyone if Mimi just disappeared.

“Um…”

Emmy tugged on Mimi’s sleeve, and the slime girl glanced down at her. But she couldn’t quite make out her face because her vision was so blurry.

“Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

Crying… Mimi was crying?

She wiped her eyes and realized that yes, she was crying. Her face wasn’t wet just because of the slime.

“I… this is…” She didn’t know what to say. But the more she thought about this, the more her heart hurt.

Mimi looked down at the bowl of fruit salad in front of her, almost complete. It hadn’t been what she’d wanted to make. But she’d made it, because Emmy wanted her to.

Because what I want doesn’t even matter.

She thought about all the people she’d met, the people who she thought were her friends and acquaintances. But in reality, she barely even knew them. Would any of them be sad if she were to become Emmy? Wouldn’t they naturally like her better, because she was Carly’s daughter? Because she was human? Because she’d died, and by some miracle, came back to life?

It was the right thing to do. So why did it make her feel so awful?

The last face to appear in front of Mimi was her mother, Sylvia. Sylvia, who apparently was going to replace her with another woman’s child.

Even mom doesn’t want me.

Mimi didn’t want to accept that. She couldn’t.

“Emmy, can I ask you something?” Mimi turned to her.

“Sure!” Emmy nodded. “What?”

Mimi tried to keep her voice from cracking. “The woman who told you that I was going to be your new body… was her name… Sylvia?”

Emmy scrunched up her face and tried to remember.

Then she shook her head. “No, it was some other lady.”

And everything changed for Mimi then and there.

So Sylvia didn’t know anything about this. It must have been set up by her predecessor. Mimi had no idea what the circumstances were behind how her mother had become the host of this season of Harem Hotel, but she knew it had happened quickly. Perhaps Sylvia didn’t even know about this possible future.

Which meant Mimi didn’t have to become Emmy. Sylvia didn’t want that for her.

She imagined the look on Sylvia’s face when the time came for her to be replaced by Emmy. How sad that would make her, how much her heart would break. She imposed that over the image of Carly sobbing her heart out at having lost Emmy.

Mimi had to make a choice. She could continue down this path, turn into Emmy, and make Carly happy again, but at the cost of losing who she was, and breaking her mother’s heart.

Or… she could try to figure out who she was on her own.

“Who am I as a person?” That had been a question Mimi had been trying to figure out for the last few days. And for a moment, she’d almost convinced herself that she was no one. Just a shell for Emmy to one day inhabit.

But that wasn’t true. That wasn’t who she was. She was still finding herself, but she was unique.

“I’m Mimi. That’s all I really know right now.”

She’d told that to Nick last night. But now she had a more concrete answer.

“I’m Mimi. And that’s enough.”

“…I’m sorry.” Mimi turned to the little girl beside her, who still looked up at her with those big eyes full of worry. “I won’t become you. I still have to be myself.”

She expected tears. But Emmy looked at her as if she expected that all along.

“Okay…” Emmy nodded. “That’s okay… but when you see my mom… tell her I love her, okay? And that she really was a great mom while she was carrying me.”

Mimi started to cry again. She smiled and nodded. “I will. And I’ll make her happy enough for both of us. Even if it won’t be as her child.”

Mimi already had a mother who loved her.

She picked up the bowl of fruit salad and walked out of the kitchen.

Nick was caught off-guard when he saw Mimi come out of the kitchen with a bowl of fruit salad in her hands. She looked completely the same, but at the same time, completely different. He couldn’t articulate it, but there was something about her that had changed in the short time since he’d last seen her.

“Mimi!” Sylvia greeted her with a giant smile. “What do you have for us?”

“This,” Mimi said, setting the large salad bowl down on the table, “is fruit salad. And this…” She held her arm over the bowl. “…Is ambrosia salad.”

Before Nick or Sylvia could respond, her hand turned to slime, and a giant glob of the stuff schlurped right off and landed in the middle of the pile of fruit. Mimi held up a large spoon and stirred it in, mixing it until she got a nice sticky white mixture.

Nick wasn’t sure if that was the most appetizing thing in the world. But he didn’t stop her from scooping a big mound of it onto his plate, and then onto Sylvia’s.

“Try it,” Mimi encouraged him. “It’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. Something I made from the heart.”

Yeah, the heart and other parts, Nick thought. But he held a spoon up to lips to test.

It was Sylvia, though, that finally pushed him over the edge.

“Ogh! Oh my god!” She gushed, shoveling the sticky salad into her mouth. “This is delicious! Best meal I’ve ever eaten! Mimi, you’re perfect, ungh, you’re the best!”

She was laying it on a little thick. But Nick tried it nonetheless. She’d made it for him, after all, he couldn’t turn it down.

And he was glad he didn’t.

“Hey, this really is good!” While certainly not the best thing he’d ever eaten, it tasted great. Mimi’s slime added a strange tanginess to the fruit that made everything just pop in his mouth. Before he even realized it, the food in front of him was gone.

Mimi sighed in relief and smiled. “I’m glad you like it,” she laughed. Then she turned to Carly, and threw her arms around the other girl in the cuddling of a lifetime.

“I love you,” she said, squeezing the cosplayer half to ****. “And Emmy loves you, too. She said you were a great mom.”

Carly had no idea what that could mean, but it moved her all the same. She fought off her tears as she hugged Mimi back.

Fifth Course: Fish Course

“Ugh. You? God, I can’t believe I used to look like that. Talk about boring.”

Kim’s jaw dropped as she stared at the girl seated on the counter, looking back at her with an “I don’t give a fuck” sort of nonchalance.

“Are you… me?” That was the only thing Kim could guess, unless she had a sister somewhere she didn’t know about. Which, considering her father, could have very much been the case. But no, this girl looked too much like her, even if she looked completely different.

“Yeah… unfortunately.”

The first, and most noticeable feature of this other her was her hair. It was bleached a bright blonde. Next was the skin. The girl in front of her had a deep tan, and not a natural one like Carly. It looked like it came out of a bottle. And while the last detail might not have been very egregious, it still bothered her quite a bit- the girl had her shirt unbuttoned, showing off the modest cleavage Kim had to show.

She looked like those gyarus her mom complained about.

“So, um, wait, you’re like… what? Another version of me? Is that’s what’s going on here?” Kim was trying to put together the theme of this challenge, and that was the best she could come up with.

The blonde rolled her eyes and sighed. “Look, it’s like this, okay? I’m you. Well, I mean, the hotter, more popular, less boring version of you.”

“Boring?!” Kim sputtered, turning red. “I’m not… boring.”

“Uh, yeah, you are. Totally boring. Like, what? Working all the time? Going on nice chaste dates with your crush? BORING! No one wants to see that.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So here I am.”

The harsh words from her other self stung. But she couldn’t argue with the popularity polls, and the massive crash she’d suffered. Maybe this gyaru Kim was right, and she WAS boring. “So what, you’re my future self, then? The audience is going to turn me into you, is that it?”

The gyaru seemed marginally impressed by that. She raised her eyebrow a whole four centimeters.

“Yeah, basically. Out with the bland wallflower, and in with me.” She leaned back and put her hand on her hip, and smirked. “I know how to have a good time, if you know what I mean.” She held her hand in up to her face with her thumb and pointer finger making a circle, opened her mouth, and pushed it back and forth in front of her.

Kim winced. She really didn’t want to know what she meant.

“C’mon, Kim.” The blonde rolled her eyes. “Do you think the audience wanted you to be a schoolgirl because they wanted you to be all chaste and pure? They wanted a slutty schoolgirl, and instead they got… this mess.”

She waved her hand dismissively at Kim, who self-consciously hugged her body.

“I-I’m doing my best, it’s just… hard.” Kim had never really tried to not be boring before, because until now the only opinions that mattered were those of her bosses and customers. “Boring” wasn’t a valid criticism for a cashier.

The gyaru just shrugged again. “Look. I’m not gonna tell you what to do. ‘Cause I don’t care. You don’t bother me, I won’t bother you. Deal?”

And with that, she fished out her phone from her breast pocket and started typing.

Kim remembered Sylvia’s words about an assistant and scowled. This slacker gyaru (who seemed VERY much to still be boring, by the way!) clearly wasn’t going to be helpful.

This was what she was going to become? Some lazy slut who cared more about her popularity than actually doing a good job?

It was anathema to everything Kim believed in.

“I’ll show you!” Kim scowled. “I’m going to do something that’ll knock your socks off!”

“Uh-huh.” The other Kim didn’t even look up from her phone.

Whatever. Fish. It’s a fish dish, so I just gotta make something involving fish. Kim smiled. She was uniquely qualified for this course.

She went to go get her ingredients out of the ice box, while she got the ricer going. She knew exactly what she was going to make- sushi.

…Yeah, she was Japanese, and she was making sushi. It might have been a stereotype, but if anything, she expected that to go over even better with Nick and the rest. He liked that sort of stuff, right?

More importantly, she’d worked a few months at a sushi restaurant. You never know when skills like those will come in handy!

Kim got to work cutting up the fish, making each incision as precise as possible. She delicately crafted the rice by hand, making sure that it looked perfect. Proper sushi preparation was just as much about the presentation as the taste.

And this way, she wouldn’t have to cook anything. Cutting up fish she could handle. But she didn’t want to take her chances with the oven, given her inexperience.

It took a lot longer than it would have if she were a professional, but after a while, she managed to craft a pretty exquisite-looking sushi platter that she was certain would delight Nick’s tastebuds!

“There!” Kim stood back and proudly admired her work. “Done!”

The gyaru Kim looked up from her phone, and seemed moderately impressed. “…Not bad. You actually managed to pull it off.”

She went back to her texting, but that wasn’t good enough for Kim.

“There, you see?” She declared proudly. “I made sushi! That’s impressive, right? I’m not boring at all!”

The gyaru rolled her eyes, not even looking her way. “Yeah, whoopee. You can chop up raw fish and serve it on rice. You must have to bat people off with a stick you’re so beloved.”

Kim blushed in frustration.

“Yeah, well… you’ve just been texting all day! That’s what I call boring!”

The other Kim just shrugged, not at all fazed by her outburst. Which just drove Kim even crazier.

But rather than take it out on her other self, she took a few deep breaths to calm down.

“…You’re right,” she admitted. “I am boring. I always have been… since I don’t have anything to get excited about. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for just telling me what I needed to hear.”

“Mmng,” the other Kim shrugged again, reduced to monosyllabic responses at this point.

“So… can you help me?” Kim pleaded. “Tell me how I can become less boring?”

A mischievous look crossed the gyaru’s previously ambivalent face and she smirked, looking up from her phone.

“Oh… you want to live a little, huh?”

Kim nodded eagerly. “Everyone’s always telling me just to do what I want, but-”

“No no no.” The gyaru hopped off the counter and sauntered over to Kim, shutting her up with a perfectly manicured finger over her lips. “Tell me, did you become such a good employee because you always did what you wanted to do? Or what your bosses wanted you to do?”

“Uh… I did above and beyond what my bosses wanted me to do…” Kim said, not sure how that applied.

“Excellent! Then if you want to really wow Nick and get his attention, you can’t just do the normal thing,” Gyaru Kim smirked. “You have to go above and beyond and give him a presentation that he’ll never forget!”

Kim gulped. This didn’t seem like the best idea. Her gyaru self typed something on her phone, and held up the screen for her to see. Kim’s instincts were right on the money.

Sylvia felt a twinge and smiled. She turned to Holly, who was waiting attentively beside the table.

“Holly? Be a dear and go help Kim in the kitchen, would you?” She asked pleasantly, in a good mood after tasting her daughter’s ambrosia salad.

Holly nodded obediently and headed into the kitchen while Nick turned to Sylvia suspiciously.

“What are you talking about? What does she need to help Kim with?” He asked.

Sylvia smiled mysteriously. “Kim has to bring in her food, but she’s rather… occupied at the moment. Look! Here she comes now!”

Nick turned to the kitchen door as it opened, and gasped in shock.

Holly was wheeling a cart into the banquet all, and on top of that cart was Kim, buck naked, with her body artfully covered in sushi.

“K-Kim?!” He sputtered, rising to his feet. “What the heck is this?!”

He expected a fetish display like this from Gina, or maybe Carly, but from KIM of all people?!

“It’s called nyotaimori,” Sylvia explained. “Eating sushi off of someone’s naked body. It’s quite a popular thing in Japan… probably.”

Nick couldn’t believe it. “Kim, and you’re… okay with this?”

Kim’s face was pinker than the salmon nigiri covering her nipples. But she nodded.

“I wanted to give you a proper meal… one you would never forget, g-goshujin-sama,” she stuttered out.

Sylvia cleared her throat. “Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s finish this off before Yuki gets wind of what we’re doing here and stops by for a visit.”

She grabbed the chopsticks Kim had generously brought with her, and snagged a bit of sushi on the girl’s taut belly. As she ate, she made sure to leave Kim’s naughty bits covered- it wouldn’t do to spoil Nick’s surprise.

“I’m surprised she actually did something like that,” Dakota said. She sounded genuinely impressed.

“Woohoo, way to go, Kim!” Gina whistled. “That’s really something.”

“That’s pretty bold even by my standards,” Carly laughed. “But I wouldn’t mind trying something like that in the future.”

“Hungry now,” was all Mimi contributed, licking her lips.

Kim felt like she was going to die of shame listening to their comments, but she kept her eyes aimed squarely at Nick. She was practically pleading with him.

Understanding that she was okay with this, Nick finally picked up his chopsticks and finished off the rest of the sushi. Seeing someone he had a crush on in this state had worked up his appetite, in both senses. Soon enough, the asian girl was picked clean of even a single grain of rice.

Showed Naked Body to the Master! +5 VP

“Wow…” Nick had been so distracted by the sight before his eyes, he hadn’t even been focusing on the taste. But Kim certainly looked delicious enough. Her nipples were bright pink and stood out nicely against the pale skin of her modest chest, and since she’d shaved her pubic hair smooth to facilitate eating off of, he could see the tight little lips of her pussy in their full glory.

She wasn’t as sexy or erotic as girls like Gina, Carly, Rose, and Mimi, or even Dakota, but she had the delicate intimacy of Holly, Mary, and Dawn. Someone who wasn’t used to putting themselves on display like this, but was willing to do so for the sake of his pleasure. And since he had already seen Dani naked, Kim truly was the last flower on the island he had yet to witness in full bloom.

And as she lay there shyly in front of him, so obviously wanting to cover herself, he felt his heart leap in his chest. She really looked gorgeous.

“Um… can I have a towel or something, please?” She asked. “I feel a little sticky…”

Sixth Course: Main Course

Dani was screwed. She was so fucking screwed. She couldn’t cook to save her life, and now she was in precisely that position.

A string of curses ran through her mind as she popped into the kitchen, but they all disappeared when she saw what was waiting for her.

A gorgeous older woman stood in front of the stove with a smile on her face. For a second, Dani thought she was staring at her mom. But her mom didn’t wear her hair long, or tie it up in a braid to drape over her shoulder. And she certainly wouldn’t have been caught dead in an apron, certainly not the former Olympic athlete! And unlike her mom’s athletic figure, the woman in front of her had bountiful curves that seemed to practically ooze maternal energy, like a fertility goddess given flesh.

Dani might have actually started drooling, except she finally recognized who the woman was before those feelings could really take root.

“You’re me?” She asked. “But like… a MILF version of me.”

“Something like that,” the older woman laughed. “Though hearing the word ‘MILF’ used to describe me from my own lips is a bit…”

“Ah, uh… yeah.” Dani blushed in embarrassment. “Sorry, you’re right.”

“Forget it,” her older self giggled, waving her hand. “It’s not an issue. But you know what will be confusing is us both having the same name. So why don’t you just call me Danielle, and I’ll stick with Dani, alright?”

Dani bristled. She really didn’t like that name. Only her parents ever used it. But then… this was her other self, so…

“…Sure. Okay then. Danielle.” It still sounded weird on her lips. “You went back to using that? Or… I guess I did?”

There were other things she wanted to ask. Like why her other self seemed to radiate femininity. There wasn’t a trace of tomboy in her, as far as Dani could see, which is why she had trouble recognizing her at first. She’d even washed out her hair dye!

“Oh, yes, right after I moved in with my partner and started taking a more active role in housework and chores, I thought… ‘well, this just feels right’ you know?” Danielle laughed, beaming like a schoolgirl.

Dani felt a murky feeling inside. This wasn’t some chat with her other self. This woman was giving her some ominous vibes, like a shadow from Persona. “So this partner of yours…” Dani narrowed her eyes. “It is a woman, right? Not a man?”

Danielle’s smile was indecipherable. “Let’s not waste time talking about things like that, it’s not important,” she replied, dodging the question completely. “We need to focus on making dinner for Nick!”

“Ugh… don’t remind me.” The last thing Dani wanted to do was cook a meal, and even worse, for a guy. Even if it was for Nick. It was just so fucking stepford it made her want to throw up!

“Now, now, that’s not the right attitude!” Danielle put her hands on her hips. “I think you’ll find that if you really give it a chance and set your mind to it, you’ll come to like cooking, Dani!”

Her eyes twinkled. “I know I sure did.”

“Really?” Dani found that hard to believe.

“Of course! There’s nothing more satisfying than making something for another person to enjoy,” Danielle smiled. “It’s the privilege that comes with being a woman, knowing we can bring so much pleasure to the ones we’re with.”

There it was again. That buzzing feeling Dani didn’t want to think about.

“I’ve never been good at cooking,” she grumbled. “Never wanted to, either. I got by just fine on hot pockets, thank you.”

Danielle sighed and shook her head. “Dani, if you keep blaming our mother for everything, you’ll never get anywhere.”

“I’m not blaming her!” Dani scowled.

“Not directly, maybe. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll teach you how to cook.”

Dani stared at her. “Seriously?”

“Of course,” Danielle giggled. “I’ve only taught Home Ec. at the high school for five years, I think I can teach myself a thing or two!”

“WHAT?” Dani’s jaw dropped in shock. “You… I… we teach Home Ec.?!”

Danielle looked to be about ten years older than Dani. She was nearing forty but looked good for her age. And she taught Home Economics at a school?

“Not even an art class?” Dani asked, though it sounded more like a whine. “Or P.E.?”

Danielle shook her head. “Home Economics is crucial! How else are we going to teach those fine young ladies how to rope in a good man? Or woman?” She asked, winking knowingly at her younger self. “Or for the boy, how will they wow their prospective dates with a display of culinary mastery, if not through our tutelage?”

Those were some big words. But more shocking to Dani was how adamantly her other self was espousing the virtues of cooking.

“Enough chit-chat, we need to prepare!” Danielle hurried Dani over to the counter and got an apron for her to try on. “I was thinking we could make a nice pot roast. What do you think?”

Dani felt her mouth start to water. She nodded. “Yeah, that… that sounds good,” she admitted. “But I don’t know how to make something like that…”

Danielle didn’t chastise her. She just gave her younger self a beatific smile. “That’s alright. If there’s something you don’t know, I can teach you.”

Dani found herself smiling back.

“To start, we want to preheat the oven to 425 degrees,” Danielle explained. “It may take a while to get that hot, but that’s fine. We can begin preparing the other food while we wait!”

“Other food? Aren’t we just going to stuff the roast in there?” Dani asked.

Danielle stared at her as if Dani had suggested shoving a cat in the over instead of a pot roast.

“A nice pot roast simply isn’t complete without garnishments!” She tutted, shaking her head. “Carrots, potatoes, and onions, all nice and sliced up on the side! Come, come.”

She showed Dani how to properly wash and cut the vegetables, and then took a large chunk of beef out of the refrigerator.

“To get the skin nice and crisp, you want to sear it with oil for about 2-3 minutes on each side,” she explained, placing the roast inside the sizzling cast iron skillet. “Would you like to try?”

Dani nodded and took over, turning over the meat every couple of minutes. It was actually kind of fun! Meanwhile, her other self was assembling the carrots, potatoes, and onions together on a large casserole dish with foil on the bottom.

“Once we’ve seared all the sides, we’ll place the roast on top of our assortment of veggies,” Danielle explained, showing Dani how to arrange it properly. “Then as we leave it to cool, we mix together beef broth, red wine, Worchester sauce, garlic, and onion together in a bowl, like so.” She showed Dani each ingredient and how much to use as she added it in, stirring gently to mix it all together. “Then add a pinch of salt and pepper, some garlic powder… and there we go! Perfect!”

The timer on the oven rang just as Danielle finished pouring the sauce over the pot roast.

“Mom, the oven’s done,” Dani said. Then she turned red. “Err… I mean… not mom, it’s just… um…”

God she could just die.

“…I know, dear,” Danielle smiled, patting her younger self on the arm. “I wish mom had showed me how to do all this, too.”

“I-I mean… it’s not like I wished for it or anything…” Dani blushed. “Just… I mean…”

“I know, but let’s talk in just a second. We need to get this bad boy in the oven!” Danielle set some foil over the pot roast to cover it completely, and then turned to Dani. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Dani’s jaw dropped. “M-Me?”

“You’re rather strong, aren’t you? Sadly, my days of lifting weights are long over,” Danielle chuckled. “Come on, it’s easy. You’ve carried much heavier.”

She wasn’t wrong. The casserole dish was light as a feather to someone with Dani’s enhanced strength. She carried the roast over to the oven and set it inside.

“So how long do we have to wait?” She asked, turning to Danielle.

“Oh, not too long, just thirty minutes or so.”

“Half an hour?!” Dani gasped. “That long?!”

“Oh my, that’s nothing!” Danielle laughed. “After thirty minutes, we’ll have to reduce the heat to 300 degrees, and then wait for another 4 or 5 hours!”

Dani didn’t know what to say. “Why does cooking take so damn long?!” She groaned. “I don’t have the patience for that!”

“Of course you do!” Danielle assured her. “Remember when we were learning how to draw? Even though we had so much talent, we didn’t get anywhere at first, because we didn’t have the patience to go over our mistakes again and again until it was right.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Dani blushed sheepishly.

Danielle kept pressing. “We wanted it done now. Now, now, now. So impatient! But we also really wanted to get better. It was hard, but we kept going. Hours and hours to get it right, and we only got better at it.”

“I already said I remember.” Dani felt so embarrassed to have her future self bring up her past like this.

“I know, I know. But I’m just saying, if you could be that patient with your art, don’t you think you could give cooking a try?”

Dani nodded sheepishly. “Yeah… I guess so. It’s so boring though, just waiting for it to be done.”

“True,” Danielle admitted. “Back home, I’d be cleaning up the house, doing the laundry, taking care of all my other chores, but you know how it is. Right now, we have nothing but time.”

She gazed deeply at Dani. “Would you like to try making some other, simpler dishes while we wait? We have all the ingredients we need.”

Dani’s eyes lit up. “Really!?” She asked. “I mean… yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“You really liked cooking, didn’t you?” Danielle laughed. “Don’t lie, I can tell when I’m lying you know.”

Dani blushed and nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

Danielle sighed. “Mom always said she wanted a daughter, but she never really knew how to raise one, did she?”

“Well, it wasn’t her fault,” Dani protested. “She was a tomboy like us. She wasn’t very good at cooking either?”

“Remember that time at Thanksgiving when she insisted on making a turkey for us?” Danielle laughed.

“Of course I do, I thought she was going to burn the house down!”

The two women shared a laugh as they reminisced about their past.

“…You know, sometimes… I wonder if I’m the way I am because of mom, you know?” Dani murmured. “Like… I joined the track team because I wanted to make her proud… and I never did any of that girly stuff like playing with dolls or learning how to sew because mom didn’t either. Do you think… if mom had been a bit more like you, maybe… things would have been different?”

Danielle had given Dani a glimpse of what growing up with a homemaker for a mother would have been like, instead of a woman whose idea of supper was to throw a TV dinner in the microwave and call it a meal.

Maybe she could have been girly and feminine too.

“Maybe,” Danielle shrugged. “But I think you’re still pretty happy with the mother we had, right?”

Dani thought back to her mom, how she’d drag her on daily runs, carefully monitored her protein and nutrient intake (even if she was too incompetent to actually cook anything) and bought her her first set of dumbbells for her birthday instead of a puppy.”

She cracked a grin. “Actually, mom was pretty great.”

Danielle laughed. “That she was. And besides, look at me. Just because mom was a tomboy, that doesn’t mean you can’t become like me in the future, right?”

“…I guess not,” Dani said, shaking her head.

“That’s right,” Danielle nodded. “If I can learn to do it, so can you! You’re me, after all. Keep it up, and you’ll be able to find a nice man just like my husband!”

And there it was. That stabbing feeling in her gut returned.

Danielle was lovely. She was sweet and feminine and caring, just like Dani had always wanted for a mother.

And all it would take to be just like her was to give away the parts of her that made her herself. Stop working out, settle down and marry a nice man.

Dani looked sadly at her other self and shook her head.

For the rest of their time together, they made awkward small talk while trying out recipes and waiting for the pot roast to be done.

Nick dreaded the next course. He knew it was rude, but he didn’t believe Dani could make anything fit for human consumption.

“Dakota,” Gina whispered into Dakota’s ear loud enough for everyone to hear. “Did you remember to bring the stomach pills for when we need to cure his food poisoning?”

“Right here,” Dakota nodded, patting a bulge in her pocket.

Carly shot a dirty look at the snickering women but unfortunately she couldn’t defend her friend on the merit of her culinary skills.

Until the kitchen door swung open and the most sumptuous smell in the world wafted in.

“What?” Sylvia sat up in her chair, surprised. Dani walked into the banquet hall with a steamy pot roast, filling the room with its delicious aroma.

“It’s a pot roast,” she said bluntly, setting the tray in the center of the table. “I’m not going to do a strip show or anything, but please enjoy. It took me six hours to make this.”

“It only took you six hours to make something edible?” Sylvia was shocked.

Dani scowled at her.

Now it was Sylvia who was **** to try. But it smelled too good for Nick to resist. He cut off a chunk of meat and took a bite, and his eyes widened as a burst of flavor exploded in his mouth. It was the best pot roast he’d ever tasted.

“You made this?” He asked incredulously. He was so blown away by the meal he didn’t even realize how rude that question was.

Dani didn’t mind, though.

“You bet I did,” she said, cracking a grin. “Pretty good, right?”

“You’re telling me!” Nick nodded. “It’s amazing!”

That was enough for Dani to feel satisfied after a hard day’s work. Maybe it wouldn’t kill her to do something “girly” like this after all.