Belated Birthday Suprise

Chapter 1
Chapter 1

Josh was sitting home frustrated that his birthday had passed with hardly a mention from the TSA folks. "You’d think with the 50 emails a day a few of ’em would’ve remembered my birthday!" he mumbled as he changed channels on the TV. Here it was almost a week later and nothing special from the list. His mind wandered as the images on the SciFi channel flickered by. He was about to fall asleep when his attention turned to a light knock at his door. "Great..." he exclaimed sarcastically as he walked to the door. Josh foolishly opened the door without question even though he had no idea who was on the other side.

WOW! Standing at the door was what he would call a total KNOCKOUT! Long blonde hair, blue eyes... a real babe.

"I’m looking for someone named Josh...are you Josh?" she said.

"Ummmmm yeah...I’m Josh... uhhhh come in" he stammered.

She entered the room and Josh noticed she was carrying some sort of package. His mind was racing ’what’s going on, has my luck started to change?’. Josh just stared at the young lady ’about 25 years old he thought (considering himself somewhat of an expert at judging people’s ages), nice long legs, flat stomach...

His thoughts were quickly interupted as she broke the silence and said "listen, some friends of yours asked me to come over and cheer you up. They said it was your birthday soooooooo ’Happy Birthday!’".

Josh was surprised for a bit but managed to speak "Ummm What friends?".

"I don’t know, they just paid me and..." Josh interupted her "Paid? Are you a PROSTITUTE?".

"No, no, NO!...I’m a dancer down at the EXXXtreme Club" was her reply.

"Cool!, I didn’t really have a problem if you were a prostitute though... So are you going to dance or strip or something?" Josh asked anxiously.

"Patience, I got this bottle of booze and thought we might have a couple of drinks and talk first. You seem like a nice guy and I don’t meet too many nice guys where I work!" she said.

Josh started getting excited and ran off to the kitchen to get glasses. He yelled back at her to open the bottle because it’s "Party Time!".

Pffffffft... the bottle was open and Josh set down beside her on the couch. "So, you know I’m Josh, what’s your name?".

She began filling their glasses and replied "Glitter...well ummmmm Amanda actually, but at the club everyone calls me Glitter. I prefer Amanada. Here’s your drink. Heres to ya ’Birthday Boy’, bottoms up!".

Josh took a big swig and thought how good this stuff tasted. He noticed Amanda had taken a big swig also. ’Probably gets a lot of practice where she works’ he thought.

"So I wonder, which of my friends do I thank for this surprise anyway?" Josh said thinking out loud.

"I don’t know their names but they said you all got together on some kind of a computer thingy...."

Uh oh. "They weren’t from the TSA list were they?" he asked worriedly and then quickly put his glass down.

"Yeah, I think that was it. TSA, is that a club or something?" she asked. "Errrr kinda... well... um what is this stuff we’re drinking any...." his voice trailed off as he noticed Amanda’s appearence had changed ever so slightly.

"Is something wrong" she giggled. She looked fresher somehow, her face was smoother. Josh looked at his own hands and noticed they looked different. Something didn’t feel right. He looked back at Amanda and the change was more distinct now. She was still Amanda but she looked barely 20. Her features were rounder, her eyes appeared wider. She was staring at Josh and looked confused.

’If she’s 20 now I must be...FOURTEEN!’ he thought.

Josh ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. Staring back was a boy fast approaching puberty...The wrong way! 13, 12, 11...he had to do something, he had wanted to be younger but HE had wanted to control it.

He hurried back to the living room stumbling on his now too long jeans. Amanda was still sitting on the couch but was crying now. "What’s happening to us?" she sobbed. She looked to be a high school girl now. Her legs were skinnier and her shoes were too big now. Her breasts no longer filled out her crop top as they had before.

"You look like a 16 year old!" Josh said as he noticed his almost girlish sounding high pitched voice now.

"This can’t be happening, you’ve got to do something...ohhhhhhhh I feel funny" she said as another year quickly left her. 15-14-13... Josh got her one of his old T-shirts because her formerly tight short shorts were now WAY too big. The T-shirt was huge on her but it covered the important parts. The years kept washing away. Josh was now 7 and the effect showed no sign of slowing. Everything was looking so much bigger to him. He looked back at Amanda and watched as she seemed to shrink into the T-shirt right before his eyes.

"Amanda, where didja get that booze?" little Josh asked.

"Your friends sent me to some shop in the mall. A new place..."

She was stopped in mid-sentence as Josh, now no more than 5, said "Did a wittle o man know your name?".

Amanda started to answer but felt strange sensations throughout her body, she too was drifting to the wrong side of puberty. 12-11... " Uhhhh Yeah, he did know my name... I thought it was kinda strange... Spells R Us was on the sign. Maybe we can call him and he’ll fix us!" she said frantically, totally shocked at how young her voice sounded.

Josh had quit paying attention to the funny girl on the couch, he was fascinated by the hands of the shiny clock behind her. She looked for a phone, then turned back to look at Josh. "No, Josh! You’re just a baby!" she screamed. She began wiping the tears away from her eyes and then noticed just how strange her face felt. Young. Small features. A missing tooth! She hopped ’down’ off the couch, her bare feet no longer touching the floor as she sat on the couch. She hurried to the bathroom mirror.

"Noooooooooo, it can’t be". Staring back at her from the mirror was a kindergarten version of Amanda. Mandy they called her back then. She remembered everyone calling her Mandy because it was too hard to say Amanda. She felt confused. Slowly she stopped crying. She ran her hands through her hair. She looked at her now small hands and feet. Confusion was sweeping over her as she tried to concentrate. The T-shirt she was wearing now swallowed her. Her reflection in the mirror only served to confuse her even more. She tried to fight the feelings she was having.

’Help... Amanda, I’m Amanda, Amanda, Aaaam, ummmm I, I’m Manda’... I’m Manda...’. All of a sudden she began smiling at her reflection. Her thoughts turned to playing at the beach, swimming pools, other children she knew. She turned and padded back into the living room. She wanted to play with the baby. She knew the baby’s name was Josh but she wasn’t quite sure how she came to know it.

"Oooooh me too wittle, you need a mommy" she said to the small baby who was cooing on the floor.

3-2...umph- little Mandy sat on the floor no longer able to walk. She started watching the light flicker between the blades of the whirling ceiling fan. Now not even 1 year old the youthening effect began to finally halt. She started sucking on her big toe...

In a small shop in the mall an old man in a bathrobe makes a call to Thomas "Thomas, I think we’ve solved the problem of Josh writing stories and then never finishing them. It’ll be a long time before he starts another story and leaves people hanging..."