A few, and almost a week of waiting before things start to get spicy

You take a minute to think things through. You can’t think about a way this could turn into a horror-flick about an obsessed stalker. But that doesn’t mean there are none.

“If I tell you ‘Cupids Arrow’, you will no longer veto any changes I make to your reality and do anything short of dying to avoid displeasing me because you believe you are genuinely in love with me. ”

Knowing that backdoor is there, will take a bit of the challenge out of this. But you’d rather make things a bit less interesting than end chained up in some cellar somewhere.

“At least once per week, you’ll find some excuse to get me to make some change to your reality, even if it is something as minor as a different haircolor. ”

There, now she’d need to hear you speak at least once a week. So no gagging you indefinitely for your own good.

And maybe one last change for fun “In fact the prospect of being changed in a way you could blame for acting naughty, is a bit of a turn-on for you. Especially, if it is something that you expect to find inconvenient or annoying outside the bedroom. ”

That should do it.

“As soon as you get up the command to whisper and not draw attention will end. When I snap my finger you will get up and storm off somewhere. ”

*Snap*

As soon as you snap your finger, Adam jumps up and stalks off with a growled “Fuck you!” flipping you the bird over her shoulder until she disappears from sight.

You don’t hear from Adam/Robin again for the rest of the day.

Which is fine with you, because you need to check out if changing a 26 year old office worker into random 21 old student, changed the timeline so you are now homeless. Or happily married. Or CEO of the company you work for.

And lo and behold, none of that happened. In fact there seems to be almost no butterfly effect. At least at first glance. But just to be sure, you still put in a token effort to pretend this is just a regular boring workday, when you get back to your cubicle. Just to be sure.

And as far as your online research can tell, your life is still the same. A few email-conversations that included Adam, now have you talk shop with some random colleague. And apparently you liked to take long walks during the times when you used to chat with Adam. And visited the movies on your own a lot more often.

Until you met Robin a while back at the movies at least. After that it was back to lunchbreak chats as usual.

So aside from being friends with some random student, your life is pretty much the same. Seems the stone was a bit lazy when it came to adjusting reality. Or considerate enough not to include a bag-full of unintended consequences for every minor change.

Either way, you probably wouldn’t need to worry too much about erasing your own grandpa by accident.

You don’t hear from Robin the next day either.

And the only reply to your calls is a short text-message “Still mad at you.”

Which is fair enough. You don’t mind giving her a bit of space and let her settle into her new life. You are still settling yours, after all.

You didn’t make any truly drastic changes yet. Just a pay raise, better working hours and your female colleagues are nicer to look at then before. Aaaand that one annoying manager with his not-so-subtle power-moves is a lot more subdued, since he scored with the hot brunette in the cubicle next to yours yesterday. The hot brunette who is now really into macho men, blow-jobs and taking it up the ass. Now if the guy could just figure out why he agreed, when she dropped her skirt to show of her own dick after blowing him in the copy-room and asked to him return the favour if he wanted an encore.

It was kinda fun seeing him lurking around the office, unsure what to do with the memories of that encounter. If his pride allows him to admit that he kinda enjoyed it, he’ll get to look forward to having a very talented and very inventive fuck-buddy as long as he lets her experience things from the other side every once in a while. Either way he can look forward to friendly teasing on her part, every time he gets too full of himself from now on.

As amusing as the will-they-wont-they at the office may be, it doesn’t suffice to distract you from your project with Adam forever. Time to offer an olive branch.

<Hey. You are right to be mad at me. That wasn’t cool. Let’s meet up and we’ll get you back to normal.> you text her shortly after arriving at work.

It doesn’t take long for a reply to arrive <Yes it was, asshole! The park. Usual bench. 11:00.>

That leaves you…. about an hour of spare time after work. Killing an hour can be real annoying when you are eager to get started, but at least you have ample time to rehearse while you are pacing up and down in front of the bench waiting for Robin.

Who arrives almost half an hour late. Probably as a way of petty payback.

When she arrives, she doesn’t return you wave and just glares at you expectantly for several long moments. When you don’t react she scoffs “No apologies?”

“I am sorry for what I did. ” you don’t have to entirely fake your bad conscience as you put your hand in your jacket-pocket. “I really am. Here let me make it up to you.”

“Wait!” as expected Robin stops you before you can say anything else. When she doesn’t say anything else, you ask “Yes?”

“Look….” she takes a deep breath “What you did was NOT cool. But I did always regret not going to college. So thanks for that. ” she admits grudgingly. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t still an asshole. But getting to be an engineer is kinda cool. So.. I have been thinking. Maybe you don’t have to change back everything. Just the part about me being adopted. “

You had always intended to reverse the part about the adoption along with the part about Robin being a 21 year first-semester instead of a fully fledged engineer. You threw those in to have an olive branch to offer, when this talk inevitably happened.

You already knew Robin would stay a girl, but her wanting to study for an degree was a genuine surprise. so you don’t need to fake your surprise when you say “Just the part…..?”

“Yeah. It’s just that…” Robin starts, stops to rethink her words and starts again.

In the end it takes Robin an annoyingly long time, of false starts and longwinded tangents to say that she isn’t comfortable with having an entire education crammed into her head on top of the fake memories already in there.

As for wanting to stay a girl. Somewhat predictably Robin had been complaining about the situation you dumped her in quite a bit until she calmed down. Especially about the fact that she might look kinda like a guy, but she was still clearly a girl if you knew what to look for. Which ended with her blurting out “I am a girl you know!” in sheer frustration, in the middle of a lecture the very next day. Which was certainly ONE way to make sure she wouldn’t have to go to any more trouble to disguise herself as a guy.

Half of her rambling explanation as she builds up to her point, is Robin assuring you that she doesn’t want to stay a girl. It’s just circumstances forcing her now, no thanks to you. Because now that the cat was out of the bag, going back to being a guy after all would just make a complicated situation even more complicated. She probably knows or suspects that you could solve that easily via the stone, but she had to rationalize wanting to remain a girl somehow.

“But aside from being a girl, you enjoyed university then?” you ask once Robins tale winds down.

“It’s ok. People realizing I am a girl, kind of overshadowed things for a while. But yeah, there was this one guy…..” The implied accusations that you made things needlessly complicated for her, keep up as she talks about life on campus so far, but she visibly mellows out the more you talk.

Towards the end her glares have simmered down to sullen looks, at least. When you declare “You are neither adopted nor Korean.” you even get a smile and a “Thanks. I’ll allow it.” before she remembers she is supposed to be mad at you.

“So, are we good?”

Your question is answered by a long moment of thoughtful silence, as Robin actually thinks about the question before deciding “I should be furious at you fucking up my life like that. I WAS furious at you for screwing me over like that. But now….. ” she shakes her head “ At least you offered to fix this and gave me the ability to veto the next time you pull some shit. That makes it kinda hard to stay mad at you. So yeah… we are still friends.” she sighs and gets up “Even if you are a pretty shitty one. Just give me a few days to sort this out.”

When you set things up so it would take a while before Robin was starting to actually flirt with you, you hadn’t really been planning for it to be more than a week. Which was a distinct possibility at the rate this was going. Hopefully the anticipation was worth it.

Luckily you don’t actually have to wait a few days. In fact you don’t even have to wait a full day, before Robin texts you. <Hey. I thought about what we talked about this morning. Maybe I was a bit harsh on you. Do you want to meet up? About 17:30?.> A look at your watch tells you it’s 16:27. Plenty of time to make it. Especially now that noone will blink an eye if you leave early.

<Sure. Where?.>

<Can you pick me up at campus? I’ll send you the address.>

<Of course.>

Which is how you end up sitting on a low wall beside the campus parking lot waiting for Robin to arrive.

“I was wondering why Robin was trying to ditch me.” One of the girls walking down the path from a nearby building has stopped beside you and is giving you a bemused glance.

“Huh?” is the only thing you can come up with, during the moment it takes you to realize it’s Rachel, just with her hair up in a loose bun.

“When I asked if she wanted to come over tonight, she said she was meeting someone. ” Rachel explains, that small smirk still on her face “She didn’t say it out loud, but it was still pretty clear that I’d be kind of a third wheel. so I was wondering what she was up to. Uuuuuh you do know she’s a girl right?”

You nod “I know.” then - after a quick look if Robin was anywhere in sight – you put your hand in your pocket around the stone “You will think acting on any of the changes I am about to make right now, are your own ideas. You find me kind of cute. You’ll tell Robin as much at the next opportunity when I’m not around. You will also strongly imply you’d like me to take you out on a date, to gauge her romantic interest in me. ”

Hopefully, that will move things along.

Robins reaction when she arrives to find you and Rachel talking animatedly about movies, is a good indicator that it will. You have know Adam long enough, to notice the signs of mild annoyance, as she greets Rachel. She isn’t impolite by any measure, but neither does she waste any time in mentioning that times a wasting and steering you towards the car and away from Rachel.

You aren’t even sure Robin is even aware how she relaxes slightly, once she has you to herself again. Or that she is walking a lot closer to you than usual as you head across the parking lot.

From there it is straight back to the apartment she already had as Adam. The apartment even looks almost identical to her old one. Robin is even back to acting almost like her usual self around you.

Which is a surprising turn of events. But it doesn’t take you too long to catch on to the fact that a part of that is her trying to butter you up. For what becomes obvious too, once the hints start dropping how much fun you had just palling around. That maybe it would be better to return things to how they were after all.

But she can’t bring herself to outright say it. And the few times you agree to strongly that maybe it really would be nice to hang out with Adam again, the counterarguments start spilling out.

But you don’t want to spoil this by teasing her to much about having to sabotage any chance of becoming Adam again. So for the most part you enjoy the smalltalk and a relaxing game of exploding each others heads with sniper rifles on the TV.

Things really start to pick up when the next (Satur)day when Robin asks you to meet up with her and Rachel at the mall.

When you arrive, you find Robin leaning against the wall beside a clothing-store. “Hi there.” she greets you and points over her shoulder ” Rachel is still inside. Which is great because I wanted to have a word in private before we get her, anyway.”

“Do you need me to rescue you from being pressured into a shopping trip? ”

“Not..exactly. ” Robin admits with a wry grin “I’m the one who wanted to come here. “ before dragging you a few feet away from the entrance to avoid anyone entering or exiting from overhearing her next words. “Look, I am getting sick of the way people look at me when they realize I am a girl. Either they are trying not to snicker or they get extra nice to hide their pity. I figured I could try wearing something else. Then Rachel said she wanted to hit the mall anyway because…. ” she hesitates for a moment before visibly changing mental tracks “Eh, that’s not important. The important thing is that she tried to help but none of the stuff works. None of the stuff I am willing to wear anyways. My body is still basically a boys. So….” she gives you a glare daring you to laugh “ I was wondering if you could..y’know… help. ”

You try really hard not to suppress a triumphant smirk. but given the ways Robins eyes are narrow you aren’t entirely successful. “Nothing much.” she clarifies firmly “Just enough T&A for the stupid saleslady to stop giving me that doubting look when I poke around the womens section. I know this all started because I complain all the time. But you owe me for getting me into this mess in the first time. ”

When you don’t answer immediately, the noticeably embarrassed girl in front of you throws in “I’ll let you choose my underwear.”

Well that came out of nowhere. and surprised Robin almost as much as you, by how fast she backpedals. “I’m not saying I’m going to model it for you! “ she clarifies “ It’s just to show I’m willing to pay a price for asking you to fix this. If I keep binding my breasts, it defeats the purpose of asking you in the first place. Sooooo I’ll need to get a bra anyway. And I’ll wear whatever you pick for the rest of the week, no matter how embarrassing. ” she licks her lips nervously "Do we have a deal?"

You are pretty sure there is a hint of anticipation in her eyes as she asks that question. Things are definitely picking up speed.

You'll obviously agree to give your fuckbuddy-in-the-making some curves.