The Future is Female

Written by HikerAngel

Edited by EngineeredSorcery

Commissioned by RJ

Tony Reynolds was exhausted.

After a long day of trying to make it work with his latest fling, they had sadly cut off after a mutual realization that what they had wasn’t working. It wasn’t exactly Tony’s fault, nor had it been hers, but he wasn’t jiving with what she was offering.

They both had a mutual interest in movies, but that wasn’t enough to carry the relationship alone. She hadn’t shared (change to past tense?) his interest in video games, and he didn’t find her fascination with animals particularly captivating. And that was fine. It wasn’t going to work out, so why delay the inevitable?

But such  thought processes inevitably led to him speeding through three dates in a single week. Not a very healthy method for a man with crippling anxiety about if he was even dateable to begin with. He didn’t think he was particularly picky when it came to the women he liked. If they were really pretty, that was a huge bonus, but all he wanted was to find a girl who shared most of his interests.

Of course, there were a few other features of his partners that he would’ve liked them to have, but perhaps those were better left unsaid lest he become sad about how reality could never be as cool as his deepest desires…

Too late.

Now he was thinking about it, and now it wouldn’t leave his mind. The Optimized Girl of His Dreams—much as it pained him to refer to another human being as that—there wasn’t a better title to give. She would be a lot like him, but not too similar. Was he perhaps somewhat narcissistic? Maybe. Of course, she’d also be a lot, lot more…

No! Stop it! Just accept that those desires could never be real! His mind chastised him as he lay dormant upon his couch in his tiny apartment. Now he needed something, anything, to take his mind off of the crippling loneliness he’d inflicted upon himself.

And so unboxing his late grandfather’s heirlooms became his new task. He already had to do it, as they had just arrived today, but he had been putting it off due to the date he had set up for— Nope. No. No, no, no. No time to think of that. Start putting stuff away. You know where that fruit bowl goes. It’ll make a nice centerpiece for that table of yours.

Slowly but surely, Tony fell into a manageable groove. His feet moved fast as he cleaned out one of many boxes in what felt like record time. However, as he reached the bottom of the cardboard container, a faint glint within the shadows caught his eye.

It was unmistakable—a gold watch, one bedazzled with small jewels and silver streaks. Immediately, his mind was flooded with faint memories of him and his grandfather sitting by the fire, the older man regaling his grandson with captivating tales of grandeur. The watch was a frequent prop used in those stories, though Tony now found himself struggling to remember exactly what exceptional effect the bejeweled wrist accessory promised to grant its protector.

Take control of your own life? Become what you desire most? It was one of those sayings. Tony couldn’t remember which, it had been so long since his grandpa had imparted this wisdom upon him. He must’ve been, what? Five? Six years of age when the old, grizzled war vet told the tale of how this timepiece gave him good luck during the war.

Good luck. Now that was something he could use a little of right now. As Tony recalled, his grandfather did leave behind quite a suspiciously large fortune after he passed away, though the old vet had also never been confirmed dead, having disappeared mysteriously one day without a discovered body and leaving behind his fortune. Perhaps the watch was cursed? More likely his grandpa just got caught up with some mob connections. What if it brought about some sort of deity that weighed his grandfather’s soul and dragged him to the underworld? What if the magic wouldn’t work on Tony because he was left-handed and it was a right-handed watch—of which there was most certainly a difference? What if the watch’s luck was negated because today was the third Wednesday of the month?

Tony absent-mindedly flipped the watch over a few times in his hand, ruminating over whether or not he should actually wear it—if it really did grant good luck—as his mind filled with increasingly anxious hypotheticals.

But before he could make his choice, he heard a knock at his door. Tony raised an eyebrow and darted his head towards the door, he hadn’t been expecting company, or any packages either. Plus it was Sunday and the mailman wasn’t supposed to arrive. Just who exactly could this be?

And then he opened the door to the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

Her eyes were like his, only prettier. Radiant hazel with an ever-deepening complexity Tony could barely escape from after getting lost in them. Her stylish brunette locks made his look boring and dull by comparison. She was adorned in an elegant yet simplistic sundress, one that fit her spunky body far better than his simple t-shirt and khakis combo fit his, as well as a pair of elegant high heels that allowed her to almost match his height. A prominent boob window gave a pleasant courtyard view of her perfectly perky C cups. It was as if the only fat on her body was reserved for her breasts and thighs. She was the perfect portrait of symmetry, with one exception—a singular golden band that was exclusively cuffed around her left hand. This contradiction however only served to further accentuate her beauty, as if she knew she could easily pull off even the most unorthodox of styles.

“Um, c-can I help you?” Tony sputtered, his words captivated by her beauty. For some reason, this random girl at his door didn’t seem as surprised as he was about the whole situation.

“Yep! It’s me, Antonia!” When Tony didn’t react as expected, she raised a sculpted eyebrow in confusion. “Err, we matched on that dating app yesterday and we’re here to meet for a date?”

“Um, I don’t… is this a prank or something?” Tony replied, that explanation being the only sufficient answer his brain could accept to explain why a girl of her caliber was at his door. “I didn’t plan for any more dates this week.”

“This is 1888 Rose street, Apartment 11, right?” Antonia asked, pointing a manicured fingernail down at the dirt beneath her.

Sure enough, it was.

“But that… doesn’t make sense. Who, uh, who exactly were you supposed to meet here? By the way, my name is—“

“—Tony Abbot?” She finished his sentence for him.

“Yes, actually. What the hell?”

“Oh, uh, you know how technology can be sometimes,” Antonia replied, clearly attempting to explain the situation, but in a way that seemed to imply she knew more than she was letting on. Tony hated that his ethics were willing to completely excuse this because of just how pretty she was. Then she sighed. It was easily the prettiest sigh he had ever heard in his life. “Damn, well, there goes all my plans for the day. ‘S a shame too, I was really looking forward to a walk in the park for the date. It’s an absolutely beautiful day out.”

She began to traipse away, though even dejection in her step could not stop her gait from being absolutely jaw-dropping. The mere sight of her sculpted back walking away immediately brought him to half-mast, an event that he was grateful her eyes were turned away for.

Tony, what the hell are you doing!? Shouted his consciousness. The prettiest girl you’ve ever seen just dropped by and you’re not going to seize the moment!?

“Hey! Uh, Antonia!” He shouted out.

She whisked around with excitement beaming from her face before he had even gotten to her name. “N’yes?~”

“Um, well, since you’re already here, um…”

“Would you like to accompany me to the park, Tony?” She asked with a sly smile, as if she already suspected what his question was going to be.

“...Yes. Very much so.”

Antonia giggled with giddiness, a cute squee escaping her clenched teeth as she rattled her hands before her chest with excitement. “I’m so excited! You’ll be the first guy I’ve ever successfully landed a date with!”

Unless she had been exclusively dating women up to this point, Tony highly doubted that Antonia was telling the truth. Then again, she didn’t seem to be that great of a liar if her ‘you know how technology can be sometimes’ excuse was anything to go by.

Then, after a short walk that seemed almost too short given how far his house was supposed to be from the nearby park, they arrived at their destination. Tony could’ve sworn that there was an entire city block missing during their trek, but he also wasn’t paying that great of attention to his surroundings since all of it was squared on Antonia.

She was making smalltalk though it felt more like bigtalk with how much he was struggling to keep up. Most girls would wait for him to set up the conversation, but she was just as talkative as he was! At some point, she must’ve realized how much she was controlling the conversation, because she began to taper off, giving Tony an opening to talk about something that interested him and might just even interest her.

The park was surprisingly beautiful once they arrived, as was the city around it. Usually the pathways had their fair share of litter and weeds, but today they were uncharacteristically clean and kempt. Even though there was a ninety percent chance of rain that day, only scattered clouds dared to interrupt the bright blue sky, their sole purpose slightly hiding the sun so that its blistering heat was easily mellowed with a pleasant breeze. There was supposed to be heavy construction in the area, at least, his mind vividly recalled the stinky wet asphalt and obstructive orange machinery that had populated the surrounding streets yesterday. Yet now, there was nothing of the sort to be seen.

With a content sigh, Antonia spontaneously fell backwards into the grass, her lengthy hair cascading in waves along the verdant greens of the park grounds beneath her. Not a single blade of grass dared to peek up beyond her hair, as if mother nature knew its place when dealing with a girl of her prowess.

…But of course, that was just creative, fantastical thinking on Tony’s part. It wasn’t like Antonia was actually a goddess or anything, this just happened to be a particularly beautiful day even though it really had no right being so.

“Well? Are you gonna join me down in the grass or am I gonna have to pull you down?” Antonia asked, giggling as she kicked off her intricately-weaved sandals and languidly wrapping a solitary foot around Tony’s ankle. His first instinct, having felt a foreign object touch his body, was to rescind the touched body part in question.

Yet his ankle would not budge. Antonia’s foot was like a prisoner’s ball and chain, at least, it felt that way. By lying prone on the ground and lazily holding his leg in place with her own, there should have been some give that his ankle was able to achieve, some resistance, but there was none at all. Resisting the casual hold of her foot felt like trying to escape recently-hardened concrete that he had foolishly stepped within. Sure, he could’ve easily unhooked the sole of his foot from her lack of grip and escaped, but the sheer amount of strength on display from Antonia had practically short-circuited his brain.

“Very well, looks like I’ll have to pull you down,” she said. Tony had spent so long being dumbfounded that he never actually answered his date’s question, and so Antonia naturally forwent the questionnaire phase to get right to her preferred answer.

She yanked at his ankle with her foot, softly—a single swift motion. Tony was a big guy for most people, yet he was felled all the same. Curiously, while all logic would dictate that he’d fall opposite to Antonia, his body instead tumbled towards her, falling face-first into her prominent cleavage even though his face should’ve landed nowhere near there.

“Ooh, teehee, how forward! Usually I wait until the third date for something like this, Tony~” she taunted. “Though I understand. Seems like you’d want to cushion a fall like that, hehehe.”

Tony, now a devastating cocktail of embarrassed and aroused, began stuttering incoherently until finally mustering up the sense to simply lay beside Antonia and pretend none of the previous interaction ever happened. Of course, that didn’t stop Antonia from continuing her relentless giggling as she cuddled up to him on the grass. In a bid to distract himself from the thoughts of her mountainous bosom and the logistical errors of physics that seemed to be cropping up a lot lately he took to cloud gazing. Pretty soon he found his mind wandering as clouds began to populate the sky.

“Heh, you know,” Tony began, pointing out a specific cumulus among the pack. “That cloud right there kinda looks like—” but then he paused, knowing that the thought which came to his head was a niche video game reference that she probably wouldn’t understand.

“Sol Badguy’s Fireseal?” Antonia asked, once again finishing his sentence for him. Only this time, it drew far more confusion from Tony. Not only had she guessed exactly what he was thinking, but she knew the exact terminology to describe an obscure weapon from a still rather niche fighting game franchise. She didn’t say ‘oh it’s like a cleaver of some sort’ or ‘that one weapon from that one game wielded by that one buff guy’ or even ‘the guy from Guilty Gear’s sword.’ She knew the weapon’s name and the name of the man who wielded it, and spoke of it so confidently that she didn’t even feel the need to reference the name of the series it hailed from. It was… surreal.

Antonia seemed to realize this too, as she quickly attempted to downplay what she had just said. “Er, I mean, I think that’s the name of his little sword thingy, I could totally be wrong. I-I probably am wrong!”

But the damage had already been done.

“You’re a… Guilty Gear fan?” Tony struggled to even put that sentence together.

“Um, well, not really… I mean, I watched, like, a YouTube video of it once and found the lore, um, decently compelling!” Once again, all her confidence had vanished in an instant. Tony recognized a bad liar, as regrettably he was one himself.

If only she wasn’t so pretty! I’d totally call her out, but I’m just too transfixed by her beauty! Tony thought, only for the beautiful brunette to smile knowingly, as if he had spoken it aloud for her to hear.

Could she… actually read my mind? Tony thought once more, afraid to even bring up the thought knowing that Antonia could potentially know. While she didn’t excel at lying so much, this mysterious woman was phenomenal at creating plausible deniability for her capabilities. Then again, he didn’t mind if that was the case. A girl who was powerful and beautiful and, maybe, just maybe, borderline angelic in her prowess…

She seemed strong enough to trap him in place with just her foot, and lithe enough that such a feat seemed impossible. Not only that, but the growing list of positive coincidences that only seemed to start when she arrived at his house.

Tony thought back to the many church sermons he had attended as a younger man, how a depiction of an angel descending from the heavens and tending to the people filled him with a level of comfort he had never before known. After many lonely nights, he found himself returning to that happy comfort and his mind therefore began to conflate the two. He could settle with a regular girl—and realistically he probably should—but the desire was always there in the back of his mind, one that refused to leave whenever a girl was in his presence. Usually, Tony could placate the thoughts into the annals of hindsight, but not with Antonia. Her presence wasn’t just setting off alarms in his head, it was setting off air raid sirens. Worst of all, it was exactly what he wanted.

Was the watch responsible for this? He had held it in his palm, was that enough to alter reality and bestow upon him the girl of his dreams?

Tony attempted a furtive glance at Antonia, but her eyes were right there to meet his own. He quickly rescinded his glance, but it was too late. He had spent so long thinking that there had grown a palpable silence between the two and he had just foolishly made a move that would place the onus of attention back onto him.

Then, as if knowing Tony had screwed himself, Antonia offered an out.

“Y’know, we don’t have to just sit here all day if we don’t wanna. There’s a really good ice cream joint that opened up nearby. They’ve apparently got some of the best milkshakes in the whole world!” She then realized how out of the blue such a definitive statement felt and quickly tacked on an additional cover. “Er, well, so I’ve heard at least! Definitely worth checking out such a bold claim!”

Tony, also looking for an out, bought the offer hook, line and sinker. “Hell yes! I love milkshakes, how did you know?”

“Oh, heh, just a lucky guess.~”

The walk to the shop restored the enjoyable vibe from earlier. The two found a mutual enjoyment in riffing their surroundings, mocking several strange choices that the park made, from controversial figures on statues to the ineffective water fountains that seemed incapable of fulfilling their sole purpose. It became a downright running gag when the fifth water fountain on their trek spewed water directly into Tony’s face after four broken fountains in a row. The two enjoyed a hearty laugh between themselves, both nearly collapsing over from sheer bliss.

“Wow, lucky us! No line!” Antonia remarked. Sure enough, they walked into an empty store, greeted by the sole employee working behind the counter. This confused Tony. He and Antonia had been strolling around the park for what felt like hours and he was fairly certain it had been late in the day when the two of them had left for their first date. Pretty soon, Tony was led down a concerning line of thinking. Wait. No. How is the sun only halfway up in the sky? Wasn’t it two o’clock when I left the house with Antonia?

Tony reached for his phone, only to find that the battery had seemingly died. “Antonia, what time is it?”

She quickly pulled out her own phone, an identical model with a far more girly, sparkly phone case. It had a full battery. “Hmm, looks like it’s only two in the afternoon! Well, that explains the empty shop, not exactly milkshake-drinking hours!”

Two in the afternoon!? That doesn’t make any sense! Then again, no one else seems to be weirded out about this…

He had no choice but to simply stew with his inner conflict as the two ordered their milkshakes and brought them to a nearby table to sit at. The first crack was noticing that both of them ordered the exact same flavor—mint chocolate chip. It happened to be Tony’s favorite, but he hadn’t met too many people who also partook in the light green greatness. The second crack was the first sip, as he found his taste buds overwhelmed with what he could only describe as the best milkshake he had ever experienced in his life. Smooth, creamy, minty but not toothpaste-like.

“Howly shiot dis ish da best milshash ave eer had,” he spoke with a mouth full of frozen dairy, unable to wait until he had swallowed the first sip to vocalize his thoughts. In an instant, all of his anxieties had been washed away, something Antonia seemed particularly fond of as she giggled at his silliness.

And just like that, he was enjoying his date again, savoring the simple pleasure of what he had to concede was easily the best milkshake in the world to him. Despite the rollercoaster of emotions today had put him through, the highs of dating Antonia seemed to far outweigh whatever lows he could think of.

“Y’know, this might be a totally insane thing to say, but I think it was some sort of magical fate that brought you here, Antonia,” Tony remarked, wistfully twirling the plastic straw in his emptied drink. Antonia was not so wistful, coughing and hacking mid-sip as if what he had said interrupted her flow.

“Um… yep! That’s exactly it! You sure found me out!” Antonia confessed, though rather unconvincingly. It was as if she was content with admitting only half the truth of the situation to Tony to dodge an uncomfortable reality. Even then, he was willing to go through with any new information he could gleam from an increasingly suspicious situation.

“Wait, so the watch actually brought you here? My grandfather was right about the watch’s magic potential!?”

“...Yes.”

Once again, an answer that seemed to be only half of the truth. He didn’t want to pry too much, but the constant ambiguity and mystery was seriously getting to him.

“Antonia, are you being fully honest with me?”

Her plush lips trembled, knowing that this was a question that she couldn’t just half-answer. A great debate was raging behind her beautiful face, as if there was a great and terrible secret that could jeopardize the entire date should it be revealed.

“I’ve… been controlling this date the whole time! Every aspect of it!” She shouted loud enough for all the employees to turn their heads towards the two of them, of which she quickly rectified with a snap of her fingers that removed the attention from their conversation, all the workers returning to their scheduled shifts as if they had all been struck by an amnesiac wave. “See! I can manipulate reality! I’m… just a wish that the watch granted for you. That’s all.”

Tony’s mind was racing with the new information, but he still wasn’t sure why Antonia’s tone seemed to suggest she was withholding even more from him.

“Okay so… let me get this straight…” he paused to look in both directions, before leaning in across the table to whisper. “Does that mean every aspect of my specific wish was granted? Even the… um…”

Antonia mimicked his eye movements before she too bent forward over the table to whisper. “Perhaps we should take this to a quieter place before I reveal that stuff.”

A nod of agreement from Tony and suddenly the two of them were back at the apartment, with Antonia now standing before him as if she were about to put on a show. Tony should’ve been dumbfounded that the most beautiful girl he had ever dated could also command reality with such ease, but, well, it was something he wanted more than anything.

“Look, I’d say ‘don’t freak out’ or something along those lines but let’s be real, this is something you definitely are going to want to see,” she said, bracing him for something he could possibly never be ready for.

Antonia brought her lithe fingers up to her chest, tracing them sensually along her body as what Tony initially thought was an addition to her attire began to change. His eyes exploded with excitement and his jaw hit the floor however once he noticed that the growing white twin objects were not mere extensions of her sun dress but instead full on angel wings. They unfurled from her back like a bird preparing to take flight for the first time, filling Tony’s mind with awe as they twitched and rustled with life.

“You wished not only for the Optimized Girl of Your Dreams, but an Angel. One who would descend from the heavens and be your loyal wife,” she spoke, adopting a far more regal and distant tone with her words.

“Holy shit! This watch really is the real fucking deal!” Tony exclaimed with glee, holding the watch up in the air with both hands as if it were his pride and joy. He then, almost instinctively, moved to put the watch on his wrist, only to be stopped by Antonia slapping the gilded timepiece out of his hand and onto the floor.

“No… I-I won’t let you put the watch on,” the beautiful brunette demanded, her eyes becoming glossy with tears. “Just… please. Don’t put it on. Just leave it be.”

“Um, okay?” Tony replied. “But why? If you came from the watch, then why do you hate it?”

“...The watch is cursed, Tony,” Antonia admitted, looking away as if it were a shameful thing to reveal knowledge of. “It was crafted in an ancient forge by a cruel trickster god, giving the wearer exactly what they want… but only after they become that very thing, cursed to never experience what they want. The previous wearer, our grandfather, wished for a lifetime of riches, only for his body to horrifyingly morph into a mountain of gold and jewels. I… I don’t want a similar fate to befall to you.”

Tony moved further away from the watch as it sat upon the floor, his mind coming around to what Antonia was saying. “But… How do you know that? H-how do you know all this stuff? What do you mean by ‘our’ grandfather!?”

“Well, that’s because…” she sighed, realizing there was no way to sugarcoat what she was about to say next. “I’m you. Y’know, like, from the future. I wished for a superpowered, angelic girlfriend and the watch turned me into one.”

Tony reacted about how she expected, jaw agape and posture faulted. There was a great deal of dead air after Antonia’s bombshell, the rinky-dink air conditioner of Tony’s apartment was the only appliance who dared to break the silence.

“I… suppose I owe you a thorough explanation,” she began, sorrow filling her eyes—sorrow that Tony couldn’t stand to see. No matter how earth-shattering the revelation was, no matter the fact that Antonia could simply read his mind and find out the truth, he put on a brave face and brought the buxom brunette into a comforting hug.

“I promise whatever happens, I’ll keep an open mind. You have nothing to feel guilty over,” Tony spoke, voice partially muffled from within her lengthy, silky hair. Antonia chuckled softly, and Tony could feel two leaking streams of wetness fall upon his shoulder.

“I’m just happy you’re still acting like I remember. No matter what the world threw at you, you looked it in the eyes and smiled through the pain,” Antonia replied, savoring the hug just a little while longer. “I can never be you again, but at least I can experience who I once was vicariously through myself.”

“But I don’t understand, if you’re powerful enough to manipulate reality and time, why not just turn back into me?”

“It’s the one thing the cursed watch will never allow me to do,” she spoke solemnly, glancing at the gold band upon her wrist. “It morphed from a watch to a cuff, trapping me within the wish I desired the most, like some sort of one-finger monkey’s paw. All the power and prime wife material I could ever want, only I could never embrace it, kiss it, cuddle it after a long day. I spent a full year like this, having to reintegrate into society, reintroduce myself to all my family members and loved ones, trapped in a body of immeasurable power yet alien all the same. Tony became Antonia. I tried Toni for a while, y’know, with an ‘I’ at the end, but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t see myself as any sort of ‘Tony’ anymore.”

“Gods above, that sounds awful,” Tony said, his face falling. But Antonia didn’t let his face fall far, catching it with her dainty hand and bringing his eyesight back up to match hers.

“It might’ve been, but I realized there was a loophole. A way that, via a technicality, I could still get everything I wanted. An assurance that Tony Reynolds would still get the girl of his dreams, no matter what happened.”

Antonia leaned forward and placed a kiss on Tony’s lips, his eyes widening as fireworks of passion erupted all around him.

“The world may’ve denied me a future with the girl I loved, but thankfully the wish gave me quite a bit of power. One trek through time later, and here I was, ready to become Tony Reynold’s loving wife, just like I had always dreamed would happen. I know it probably sounds a little strange, me dating someone who’s effectively myself from the past, but I don’t care! Curses are dumb and deserve to be spited!”

“Hey, I wouldn’t say it’s strange at all! Under those circumstances, I would’ve done the same thing!” Tony declared, mitigating the potential awkwardness through empathy.

“I mean, yeah, you literally did it. Like, literally,” Antonia replied with a flat expression.

“This is true.”

“Now, all that to say, I think you can see why I can’t let you put that watch on. I managed to alter the past once, I don’t really feel like doing it again.”

“Oh my, is time traveling particularly challenging for you?”

“Nah, not really,” Antonia confessed, laying upon the couch and propping her feet up on one of the arms. “You of all people should know that I’m just really lazy.” She then flashed a sly smile his way, knowing that such flippant usage of god-like power was exactly what Tony’s deepest desires loved the most. Sure enough, a tent had been thoroughly pitched in his pants. She giggled.

“And, y’know, I…” Antonia then paused. She had come to a revelation, Tony could tell. Whenever it came to life-altering decisions for him, they always happened at seemingly uneventful moments. “...I like being a girl. I like wearing cute dresses and feeling pretty. I like it when men compliment me on my beauty. Maybe it’s the bracelet’s doing but… does it really matter? If I’m happy, and I can make you happy—“

She held Tony’s hands in her own, dragging him onto the couch atop her. She savored the rough skin she once knew, as glad as she was to leave it behind for smoother, silkier skin.

“—Then we can be happy together. That I believe.”

They spent a good long while cuddling together after that. With Antonia serving as a cushion, the garish, second hand couch that Tony had considered tossing out more than once now felt like a mattress from the heavens. Tony wasn’t sure if minutes had passed or hours, but it didn’t really matter to him. Antonia could make this day last forever if she wanted to. But just as Tony thought he had seen the extent of his female counterpart’s trickery, she then held up his watch, only once it was dangling over his face like a hypnosis trick did he realize Antonia had swiped it from him during their prior hand-holding.

“Hehehe, what if I were to slap this one on my wrist? What do you think would happen, Tony? Would the wishes cancel out? Only one way to find out.~”

“W-wait, won’t you applying the second watch rupture the time space continuum or something!?” Tony asked, rightfully worried.

“Nope. Me becoming ‘beautiful beyond reality’ has its perks, y’know?” Not to mention, symmetry is important and my right wrist is getting a little cold without a gold band accompanying it.”

She sat up from the couch, forcing Tony to rise with her unstoppable body. In an instant, she was in the center of the room, as if suspecting that the mere act of applying even more impossible power atop already existing overwhelmingness would create a potential area of unintended ramifications around her. Hopefully, a meter and a half between her and Tony was enough distance to account for that.

With the grace of a ballerina and the efficiency of an engineer, Antonia slid the watch onto her other arm in one smooth swoop. “Make a wish, dear~” she spoke, firing bedroom eyes and a sly smile in Tony’s direction as she adjusted it on her wrist. In an instant, it morphed into a second matching gold band, further cementing this body as one Antonia could never escape from. The brunette was engulfed in a white light; its loud, otherworldly hum second only to the vast amount of orgasmic moaning that echoed throughout the universe at the magnitudes of pleasure coursing through her veins as the cursed wish doubled its effectiveness upon her body.

A long, shapely calf emerged from the whiteness, blindsiding Tony far more than the light ever could.. Never had he seen an ankle so delicate—nor the outward curving flare of flesh so firm that it sent shivers down his spine. Never had he seen a tight ball of muscle so perfectly formed under tanned flesh so sumptuously silky that his first thought was to run his tongue down its flawlessness before ever even seeing its owner’s face.

By the time her slender thigh emerged from the light, he was fighting to keep himself from drooling. The endless length of toned thigh that was still on its long journey beyond the fading magical effects was almost too perfect—perhaps he had set his expectations too low and was now paying the price.

Right as Tony was regaining his composure, her perky breasts emerged, followed closely by her shapely hips. The former? Far too voluptuous for any model. The latter? Far too athletic for any supermodel.

Her stomach was the next vision of divinity to meet Tony’s trembling gaze. Covered by the dual reds and whites of her tight dress, it was far from hidden. The cloth seemed to cling to its inward curve as if it wanted to touch her body as much as he did. A tapestry of feminine perfection. Was he drooling? He couldn’t even spare a thought to check.

And then, just as he found reality returning to his mind, he saw her face and hair. The spindly, branch-like tiara that adorned her hair might have just saved his life at that moment, sparing him the mindbreak that likely would have been the endless beauty of her now snow white eyes.

But he had been so caught up in her body that he had almost neglected to notice the four massive white elephants in the room, that being the absolutely supermassive wings that now rested atop her back, the individual span of each wing rivaling her own height from head to toe.

“Well Tony? What do you think?” Antonia finally spoke, her voice a harmonious merger between two equally feminine tones that seemed to reflect the overlapping wishes.

Tony couldn’t verbally respond, his mind still struggling to comprehend the sheer masterwork that was Antonia with exponential wish effects. This didn’t hinder Tony’s answer one bit, as she knew exactly what it was going to be before he could even formulate a response in his mind.

“Heeheehee, I agree. I am too pretty for this mortal coil.~” she replied, her body gyrating with languid motions as reality struggled to accurately represent her existence. Light bent around her form, yet she appeared to possess a bioluminescent light source of her own that illuminated every angle and divet of her smooth, silky skin far better than the mere light of the apartment or even the natural light of this solar system’s star. “And now, the Optimized Girl of your Dreams has some important business to attend to.”

A snap of her perfect fingers and a strange man was suddenly warped into the room. He looked to be from the crusades era, metal shoulder blades holding together a raggedy shawl that composed his attire, with a lengthy, scraggly, wispy white wizard’s beard that reached down to his belt. He seemed to be just as confused to be here as Tony was to see him in the living room.

“By the gods, where am I? Last I remember I was—”

“Kneel,” Antonia commanded. The man’s body obeyed her words before his mind could even comprehend his situation.

“Antonia? W-who is that?” Tony asked, pointing a shaking finger at the man who looked out of time.

“The creator of this infernal watch. He both forged it and brought a curse upon it, and he did it for his own amusement. But worst of all, he was foolish enough to think that being dead for nine hundred years would spare him from my vengeance.”

If the watchmaker’s mind wasn’t already blown by the sight of a functioning electric lamp, then the goddess-given-flesh who floated inches above the ground he kneeled upon certainly did. Antonia giggled as she telekinetically played with his limbs like a life-sized doll, forcing him into humiliating poses for her amusement. Then Antonia’s wings grew larger, then larger still. Within seconds she had encased the entire room in a dome of her feathery radiance, the whites and sparse reds consuming all hope of escape.

“Please, angry goddess, if this is hell, I apologize for my transgressions! Forgive me!” The ancient watchmaker begged, his jaw and tongue serving as the last muscles she allowed his control over.

Antonia simply laughed. “How cute, you think this is hell. You wish. Hell is a construct that exists beyond humanity, one which seeks to judge us for our sins. This is worse. This is a hell of your own creation. If you had not created this watch, cursing those who wear it with twisted, cruel wishes, then you would’ve been allowed to rest for all eternity. But do not fret, as I will grant you a fate similar to the lives you have ruined with your trickery.”

She brought her hand up into a shaking clutch, as if commanding an invisible orchestra to unleash every instrument as loud and booming as possible. From every feather of her overwhelming wings came a golden watch, the locust swarm of timepieces zeroing in on the old man’s location, some swerving around the stunned Tony to do so. In an instant, every inch of his body was covered in the cursed gold and gears, gilding his body like a Pompei victim if the volcano was created by a vengeful watch god.

“Your wish was to create a cursed object that would live on, to be immortalized through your craft. Now, your craft will immortalize you.”

Her wings rescinded, returning to accentuating her form. A snap of her fingers and the vitrified watchmaker’s body vanished into thin air.

“Wh-where’d he go?” Tony asked. After everything that had just occurred in the last thirty seconds, he was surprised he could muster the ability to speak.

“He will make a fine centerpiece for the new park fountain I have erected, fated to be the mockery of the public and the toilet of the pigeons.”

“Woah…” Tony replied, followed by a moment of awkward silence. After the intensity of what had just transpired, he wasn’t sure if he should be aroused or scared of his beautiful counterpart. Scaroused perhaps.

“Antonia? Are you… okay?” Tony asked, nervously approaching his divergent future self.

“Yup!” she replied, whisking around to face Tony as cheerful as ever. Her voice had returned to its normal pitch, though Tony wasn’t sure if it was a deliberate choice or simply a result of her getting the hang of her powers. “Sorry, just kinda… had a moment there. I definitely think I’m good now. And I have a few ideas on what we should do next.~”

“Oh?” Tony replied, his voice cracking slightly as Antoine approached her alternative self with a hypnotic hip sway, shed feathers falling from her wings only to disappear into stardust.

“Well, nothing gets me riled up quite like delivering vigilante goddess justice upon an ancient curse maker…” She traced a slim finger down Tony’s chest, slowing down but not stopping as she grew closer and closer to his crotch. “And if you’re anything like me, I think you’ll come to agree.~”

Once more, Tony didn’t need to respond. She knew exactly what he was thinking and was already crafting the perfect scenario in her head. Gravity suddenly turned ninety degrees and Tony found himself on the bed, Antonia floating over him parallel to his body like a guardian angel appearing in his dreams. Only this was no dream—nor would it ever be some baseless fantasy ever again.

Antonia began running her hands down Tony’s well-sculpted abs, though he certainly didn’t remember having those yesterday. Not that he was about to complain, or would ever complain about such a stellar bod—especially one granted to him after consistent gym visits had become more of a rarity. A rising inferno of heat was building up around the room, congruent with Antonia’s moaning as her greedy fingers gripped his chest and kneaded one of her breasts.

As if foreplay were an obstacle to overcome, Antonia leapt over it effortlessly. In a single swipe of her hand, she was disrobed, her tattered dress disintegrating into ash before it completed its arcing trajectory to the ground. She was barely able to contain her drooling as she straddled him, tearing every inch of his clothing to shreds like a wild animal on the path to his engorging manhood.

“I-I don’t know why, but I fucking need your big cock inside of me, Tony!” she exclaimed, positioning his member over her dripping sex. “These watches, they’re making me crave you more and more with every passing second and I fucking love it!” Her eyes crossed and she bit down hard on her lips as she gripped both sides of her head, left eye twitching as she allowed the insanity of the moment to completely consume her mind, the primal desire to mate with her partner was in full force.

If Tony was anyone else, his body would’ve been eviscerated the second her uncompromised netherregions came into contact with his mortal cock. Fortunately for him, Antonia was the Optimized Girl of His Dreams, and she had been optimized in such a way to ensure that she could never put him in harm’s way. The bed and most of the surrounding room did not fare nearly as well, however, but it was nothing that Antonia couldn’t just fix later. So what if the spiderwebbing cracks spreading across the room were spewing chunks of magma summoned from the earth’s mantle? Tony was safe, that was all that ever mattered.

And Tony would continue to be safe, even as Antonia’s full-body thrusts increased in both speed and intensity.

He groaned, his eyes squeezing shut in ecstasy as shockingly powerful jolts of electric pleasure shorted out his desire-addled mind from the violently erotic contact with her perfect body. Antonia straightened slowly, deliberately—grinding his sizable member against her boiling hot snatch as she made waves with her groin, her steely nether muscles clenching and releasing against his throbbing shaft.

Tony gasped aridly, and Antonia knew his climax was already near. She suspected that a being as tailor-made to Tony’s desires as her would invoke such a rapid orgasm in her male counterpart. She knew that she could create a sexual experience that would be unforgettable, and she wanted nothing more than to brand that memory of her existence directly into his brain.

She pressed her hips into him, rising to her full height, sliding his cock between the impossibly defined ridges of her crushingly powerful sex. Any other man would fail to breach her, but it was as if Tony was the perfect skeleton key to fit into her gordian knot of a lock. But no matter how perfect, she was too much for him to withstand, just as she’d known it would be.

He exploded, his rapidly softening cock blasting hot, viscous fluid directly into her powerful womb. Her wings shuddered at the surreal feeling of her hymen breaking for the first time, but she did not let up. Antonia continued to milk him, not stopping her undulating motions, enjoying the feel of his helplessly mortal body against hers as it grew taut and spasmed with orgasmic pleasure.

“Omigod, omigod, OH MY GOD!!!” he cried as he thrust his hips into her taut body over and over for a solid minute of breathtakingly powerful climaxes. A snap of her fingers, and the mess was swept up in an instant, allowing her to lean forward onto a freshly clean Tony, smothering his face with her prominent breasts. Even though the position probably wasn’t ideal for transferring oxygen into his mind, he chose to ride it out, basking in the ecstasy that was his counterpart’s perfect bosom.

After an unknown amount of time, Tony finally tapped out. Her magnificent breasts pulled off his face like unearthing the tomb of an ancient civilization, revealing the perfectly preserved, sweaty form of her lover, dazed and thoroughly satisfied with every second of the otherworldly fuck.

“Phew, that was… wow. Holy shit. That was the most insane experience I’ve had, well, ever!” Tony blurted out, given a brief moment to collect his thoughts post-coitous.

“Fuck, I think I… totally fucking love you?” Antonia confessed, unrelenting in her breathy kissing of Tony even as her tempo slowed. “It-it’s the ring, isn’t it? It has to be. Why would I feel this strongly for a man? I-I didn’t think I even liked men. But you… god, I just love every part of your body. At first I was hesitant that I wouldn’t like this, but now I’m confident that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“And I—shit, can words even describe how perfect you are? I mean, you’re literally the girl I wished for, times two!” Tony admitted, somehow able to confess that between rapid smooches from his loving partner.

And partners they now were. They didn’t even need to say it, Tony simply thought it and Antonia’s mind did the rest. A ripple spread through reality, irrevocably changing the world in minor ways. Social media statuses were modified, apartment leases were updated, and an entire distinct lore for Antonia was canonized into incontrovertible physicality.

“So, it’s official now, huh?” Tony remarked, noticing that Antonia was kind enough to keep him in the know about her universe-altering shenanigans even though she could just as easily. “We’re actually a couple... woah."

Antonia giggled adorably, sitting on the side of the bed and letting just enough of her wings part so that Tony could catch a fleeting glimpse of her adorable face. “Ready for round two? Or would you like to call it for the night, babe?”

Tony’s eyes lit up at the prospect of a second session, but doubt had already been cast in his mind. “Maybe just a little break? I’m sweating like I just ran a marathon!”

“Mmm, I see. Don’t worry, I know just the place to cool you off.~”

“Ooh, a cool place would be nice.”

Now with Tony’s verbal consent obtained, he found himself dropped within Antonia’s lap. She cradled him in her lower wings as support, with her upper wings stretching out as she took to the skies. Tony instinctively braced for impact with the ceiling of his apartment, only for the two of them to phase through the plaster, brick, wood and concrete altogether like a phantom couple. His arm hairs stood up on their ends as a late night spring’s windchill blew past his body.

Even as they rapidly approached the stratosphere in the nude, Tony never felt too cold. The embrace of Antonia’s wings was like a grandmother’s wool sweater—one made with love above all else.

“Mmm, see? Sometimes a little trip outside is exactly what you need to calm the nerves and relax the senses,” Antonia said, becoming slightly distracted as she waved at a series of confused passengers from a nearby commercial airliner.

“Wow… the world looks so small from up here,” Tony remarked, caught up in the sheer magnitude of his position. Sure, he had seen the miniature buildings and ant-like cars from the window of a plane before, but that was like looking at a picture of Everest’s peak compared to being there oneself.

“Is it too intimidating? I know we don’t have a fear of heights, but… I mean, it’s never too late to start I suppose,” Antonia asked, fearful of where her alternative male self might begin to diverge.

“As long as you’re holding me, I fear nothing,” was all Tony replied with, and it was all he needed to reply with. In that moment, he knew that he would never need any woman other than Antonia, and that this was all going to work out.

~

“Alright, you should definitely Steamroll great baths and place it next to where you currently have the commercial district. Ooh, and you're using all your good tiles next to the river, but you have perfectly useful tundra files—and a river—to the north of you. Definitely chop the stone to help build the great bath, and since you’re playing China you build even faster, so definitely do that. Ooh, oooooh! And build the campus where the stone was, Aqueduct to the left of your city. Then place your production district above that next to the river. Definitely then put a commercial hub on top of that. That should give you a minimum plus four campus and a strong production to boot. That way, you can just sit back and watch as your river floods and grants you some insane yields.”

“Antonia, this is literally the first round, there’s no way I’m gonna remember all that,” was all Tony could respond with, his mind once again overwhelmed by the sheer existence of this girl he had been on exactly one date with before marrying her. Sure, Tony was a total nerd when it came to 4X games such as Civilization VI, having been a loyal fan of the series since the second entry, but even he was overshadowed by Antonia’s knowledge and skills, not that it bothered him one bit. Knowing that he had a hand in making her more comfortable with embracing the nerdy side she had once thought to have left behind with her manhood was satisfying enough to last him a lifetime.

“Anyways, you have fun with that. I’mma go get dinner ready, then we can sit down in front of the TV.” Antonia offered, her eyes wide with giddiness at the prospect of another lovely night with the man of her dreams. “I just pirated that new Dungeons & Dragons movie! I heard it was supposed to be really good!”

“Awesome!” Tony replied, stealing a kiss off of his loving girlfriend before turning his head back towards the game. Not looking to be outdone, Antonia suddenly appeared out of thin air, phasing through his computer screen to steal a kiss of her own off of his lips before she giggled and warped back away.

“Got you~” came Antonia’s ethereal voice, carried along the wind.

And ‘got’ he had been. It had finally worked out for Tony, no matter how surreal the experience was to get him there.

Who knew that all he had to do to be happy was fall in love with himself?