• Part 1 (WebArchive)
• Part 2 (WebArchive)

The digital clock on the nightstand read 10am. It was almost showtime.

Standing naked in front of the hotel bathroom mirror, Amy held up a piece of her costume: a black slip-on eye-mask with orange lenses and pointed protrusions on the two top outer corners. She grinned, eyes closing, the heat of anticipation flaring over and over in her chest. The transformation was immanent, she had to commune with her – her other self. Shoulders rolling, hips gyrating, she imagined herself embodying the being in her minds eye: an athletic, seductive cat burglar, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in search of the perfect crime. Between her thumb and forefinger she rubbed the mask, feeling it’s shape, it’s smooth, lacquered texture. She imagined it covering her face, obscuring her features and turning her into...someone else.

As the excitement built, she felt a slight, sticky dampness build down below as her thoughts turned more and more erotic. To her this is what she imagined foreplay was like, as if her other self were her lover.

Then her eyes opened.

It wasn’t a comic book heroine staring back at her, not even close. Instead there was just her, the same, ugly, stick-figure woman that had always been there. On her head a neck length mop of frayed, straw-like brown hair draped around her listless eyes, which were already obscured behind a big ‘ol pair of what she called “granny specs”. Those brown plastic frames pressed against her bony arched nose and massive forehead. Her mouth hung open, and within were two rows of crooked teeth framed by a masculine square jaw which jutted to create a slight under-bite. Completing the package, her scrawny frame was wrapped tight in sickly, sun-deprived paleness. The sight made her depressed, but the familiar, normal kind – and at this moment normal was precisely what she meant to escape.