Magic is in the (h)air

1 – Myra

Myra froze as the strange face stared at her through the shop window. The eyes tired, the face pale, and the bald head covered with a scarf. For a brief moment, Myra thought the face was a ghost, until it dawned on her: It wasn’t a ghost staring at her, but her own reflection. The ghost was her. It had been clear to her from the beginning, yet a small part of her still denied the new reality.
She raised her head, turned away from the horrific sight, and looked at the once-golden letters that adorned the impressive storefront. M Y R A’s was written there. The gold had turned into an ugly green. The shop hadn’t been entered in over a year. The designer pieces, worth a solid five-figure sum: untouched. Covered in a visible layer of dust. M Y R A’s had suffered the same fate as its owner.

It had all started with a few strands that had collected in the sink during Myra’s morning routine. At first, the naturally optimistic woman hadn’t paid any attention to it. At almost fifty, a little hair loss was normal, right? Four long strands of her precious hair were hardly worth mentioning in view of the otherwise full mane. But four became eight. Eight became sixteen. Sixteen became thirty-two. And a few strands turned into whole clumps. No matter how carefully Myra let the teeth of the brush glide through her hair: Her beloved hair seemed to detach itself from her head all on its own.

Thanks to her generous financial means, she got an appointment with a specialist quickly. “Alopecia totalis,” was his emotionless and sober diagnosis. An autoimmune disease that causes hair to fall out. “Irreversible” and “unstoppable.” Myra almost collapsed at his words. “It’s only your hair that’s affected – you can live your life completely normally. I wish you all the best, Mrs. Wood.”

ONLY her hair?

Live completely normally?

Those words would have been a slap in the face for any woman. But for Myra, they bordered on mockery: they weren’t JUST hair – her long flowing mane was what made Myra the woman she was: Myra Wood – former model and successful businesswoman. Myra Wood – the woman who made other women pale with envy. She was the woman wives didn’t trust and the woman men envied Ethan for. Myra Wood – the woman with the inimitable beautiful, long dark-blonde hair. Myra Wood – the queen of Willow Heights.
The disease turned the former beauty queen with the perfect life into a desperate and bitter bald woman who would have traded all her luxury for her hair without hesitation. Alopecia totalis took not only her hair from Myra, but also her joy of life. Within months, a deep depression had spread in her, extinguishing the optimism and cheerfulness.

Before that, Myra had still fought, tried various immunotherapies. When these showed no effect, she turned to various natural healers and even spiritual healers. The only effect she achieved with that was lightening her wallet. And eventually Myra surrendered to the disease. She no longer left the house at all. She completely neglected the household. The temporary closure of M Y R A’s became permanent. And even Ethan, her beloved husband, who tried with all his might to pull her out of this hole, she kept at a distance.
Months passed. Myra lost not only the last strand, but some weight. Her body became as weak as her mind. Supposed friends and supposedly concerned family members contacted her less and less over time with offers of help or encouraging words. Over a year after her diagnosis, there were still two people who cared about Myra: Ethan and Lucy.

Lucy was also the one who had persistently tried to get Myra to leave her house. And that’s what Myra needed after months of isolation right here. In front of the window of her closed shop. A remnant of her old life.
She looked at herself in the pane again, this time consciously. Myra had pulled the scarf deep into her face to avoid being recognized. But with the sunken face and the now clearly visible cheekbones, she was no longer recognizable as Myra Wood anyway. At least not as the Myra she wanted to be – the one everyone knew and admired. That was devastating in one way, liberating in another. The woman with the scarf detached herself from the sight and walked on toward Maple Grove, where Lucy lived and ran her hair salon.

Maple Grove offered far less of the luxury of Willow Heights – but still belonged to the upscale residential areas of Eldridge. The countless maple trees had not only given the district its name, but spread a scent that Myra immediately associated with Lucy.
She had repeatedly declined Myra’s earlier offers to move into her guest house – that’s how Lucy was: She needed no one. She wanted to stay alone in the apartment in Maple Grove that she had lived in for thirty years.

Lucy and Myra had been best friends since high school. At school, the two were only called “the blonde and the brunette.” When Myra went to college, their paths initially separated, but their friendship remained. Myra met Ethan, whom she would later marry to build a life of luxury with him. Lucy took over her mother’s hair salon, which she ran exceedingly successfully from then on.
Myra loved Lucy’s energy. Lucy loved Myra’s self-confidence. And Myra knew: Lucy was her only real friend – while all the other fake snakes wanted a piece of the dark-blonde beauty’s cake, the brunette worker always cared about the well-being of her best friend – and not about her bank account. If Myra owed anyone besides Ethan anything, it was Lucy.

Myra took a turn earlier than usual to avoid the busy pedestrian zone with the shopping stores. This street housed some cheap junk shops and the antique store that Lucy liked to visit so much: The Raven’s Sanctum. Myra found this shop more than suspicious, but her friend had always had a preference for the obscure or mystical. Here she would find an ideal gift for her friend, whom she hadn’t seen in over a year.
The interior of the Raven’s Sanctum was dimly lit, the air cool and damp. For most people, the shop seemed uninviting – a quite deliberate effect. Myra pushed past clinking vessels into the interior and nodded briefly to the eccentric guy behind the cash register, which he ignored. A sign reading Antiques pointed the shivering woman the way.

Lucy particularly liked old stuff – preferably very old stuff. The shelves held various vessels like jugs and glasses, coins, clothing, and even weapons, which for Myra were nothing more than worthless junk. Nevertheless, she made an effort to choose a suitable gift. A cold gust of wind pulled through the shelves and drove the pondering customer one aisle further, where books and various writings were piled up.
A book was exactly the right thing for Myra’s friend, who liked to read fantasy novels. At first, the choice seemed to fall on a specimen with a leather cover, on whose title page an accurately embroidered horse was visible. But following an inexplicable impulse, Myra reached for a dusty, small book that showed considerable signs of use. It was nothing more than an ordinary notebook, yet it seemed as if an unusual attraction emanated from the artifact. The brown cover – it was soft, almost as if it were woven from real hair – showed a plain “E” that was barely visible anymore. The pages were yellowed, the paper porous. The hieroglyphs on it seemed to move, causing dizziness in the reader. The room seemed to spin as the characters danced before Myra’s eyes.

It was incredible, yet the characters rearranged themselves and formed a picture that seemed both real and a fantasy construct at the same time: Left a person – bald and frail. In the middle a vessel from which steam rose. Right another figure – young, fit, and with a flowing, long mane.
Myra’s heart pounded up to her throat. Her palms became sweaty. She slammed the book shut and hurried to the cash register. She bought this book – but not for Lucy.

Myra paid and hurried out of the shop. The appointment with Lucy was suddenly forgotten.
Myra knew that something unusual, no impossible, had just happened. It was impossible and yet it was clear to Myra: What she had just seen had really happened that way. She hurried home with quick steps and was quite exhausted when she completed the climb back to Willow Heights in record time.

When she stood in front of her front door, she felt hope for the first time in a long time.
2 – Ethan
Ethan looked out the window of his office into the distance. Through the pane of the impressive room on the seventeenth floor of the Silver Oak Realty building, he could overlook all of Eldridge. The once quaint little town had grown fourfold in the last three decades. Willow Heights towered over the rest of the former small town with its modern and spacious buildings. When Ethan had moved here in the late nineties, this development was not yet foreseeable.

The economic prospects were not the reason for the move from New York to Eldridge either. It had been the love for a young woman that had moved the young man to take this step. He had met and fallen in love with her in college. She was witty, charming, educated, full of life, and blessed with the most impressive head of hair he had ever seen. He studied economics – she marketing. He was a linebacker on the football team. She a cheerleader. It sparked between the two at a fraternity party. The handsome athlete loved everything about her: The broad smile, the confident posture… her perfect, hip-length, straight hair. From then on it was clear to him: He wanted only her. And she wanted only him from that moment on. Things quickly got serious between the two. And when college graduation was done, Ethan followed Myra to her hometown of Eldridge, where a small two-room apartment became their first shared home.

Eldridge had been an ordinary small town until then. Maple Grove formed the center at that time – Willow Heights didn’t even exist in the local architects’ planning books yet. This changed when a huge deposit of rare earths was discovered right outside the city gates. Investors pounced on the find and stamped a new industrial branch out of the ground in this region quasi overnight. Ethan immediately recognized the opportunity that came with it and started his career at Silver Oak Realty – the only real estate office in the entire county at the time. Thanks to the exploding demand for living space and some implemented projects, he quickly made a name for himself in the real estate firm and held a high position in what was now the largest real estate office in the state as early as his early thirties. Ethan thus had a not insignificant share in the fact that his wife’s hometown had taken this development – and found a new home for the next phase of life with the dreamlike estate in Willow Heights.
A phase of life that lasted almost twenty-five perfect years: Ethan and Myra were in love down to their hair tips. They shared everything with each other and had all that every person longs for: money, luxury, and the freedom that comes with it. Love and the certainty of having found the partner for life. An extremely fulfilling sex life – characterized by trust and with a never-ending desire.
A phase of life that came to an abrupt end with Myra’s diagnosis. The disease had robbed Ethan’s wife not only of her wonderful hair – but also of his beloved wife.

The monster, as Ethan called Myra’s autoimmune disease, had first sucked the joy of life out of her and then filled the emptiness with a dark empty mass. Of course he held on to the marriage with his childhood sweetheart, but he increasingly asked himself whether Myra even still existed. These thoughts always brought on bad conscience; when he saw himself as the victim of the situation. Myra had to go through this shit – not him. But soberly considered, he had also lost everything that was important to him.
Myra – the love of his life. The woman for whom he did everything. M Y R A’s had been a gift with which she could realize herself. He knew how much his wife loved selling overpriced clothing to the “envious bitches” from Maple Grove and being in the center of attention. The shop made losses in the high five figures year after year, but that didn’t matter. The Woods had enough money and Ethan wanted to see his wife happy. And how happy Myra was to have such a man by her side.

These memories seemed to be fading for Ethan already. Day after day Ethan tried to somehow conjure a smile on his wife’s face or at least lift the corners of her mouth. But Myra avoided him. It hurt him and yet he wasn’t angry with her. Because he knew that she was struggling with herself. It broke his heart that he could do nothing for her. He would have given everything to get his wife back. And he continued to do everything to show his partner affection and desire – despite everything that lay behind them – even if this served purely the purpose of suggesting to Myra that she was still desirable.

Because, even if he hated himself for it, he had to admit one thing to himself: In this form he could feel no lust for his wife. No matter how much he loved her. His advances were pure expression of his loyalty and the attempt to make Myra feel desirable. That these remained unanswered was therefore not unwelcome to him. The worry that his body would fail in an intimate situation because of Myra’s appearance was omnipresent.
Which drove him to the perpetual, tormenting question: Where is this supposed to lead?

The question tormented him day and night. He constantly pondered possible solutions to get his wife back and save both their life and marriage.
Ethan turned his gaze from the window and directed it to the door of his office. Roger, a colleague, entered. “Fuck, you look like shit, Ethe,” he joked. In Ethan’s eyes Roger was an asshole. But Ethan was a chameleon. While at home he was the perfect husband and lover for Myra – his true nature – his colleagues wanted to see the average mid-fifties businessman version in him. And so he slipped into this role every workday with the purpose of keeping superficial conversations with colleagues to a minimum. For his colleagues this had the advantage that they felt confirmed in their behaviors and did not have to question them. So everyone could be satisfied.

Ethan loosened the top button of his white shirt, which strained around his body. He still had an impressive, powerful build, even if his muscles were now covered by a small layer of fat. He fanned himself some air and grumbled a “Rough night…” in the direction of his same-aged colleague, who looked downright scrawny next to him.
Without responding to Ethan’s remark, Roger started rambling: “Have you seen Gloria today? The little blonde from Eric’s team? If not, you should check her out, my friend… I tell you: Those tits practically jump out at you… who knows: Maybe I’ll snag her later and…”
Ethan ignored the rest. Roger was one of the biggest blowhards in the whole company. He rattled off the monologue in a put-on, self-confident tone that Ethan found pathetic. Moreover, he knew exactly that Roger’s wife wore the proverbial pants in their marriage, which made the whole thing even more pathetic. For a brief moment Ethan felt the urge to explain to his long-time colleague that unlike him he was happy in his marriage and it would be inappropriate. But then he decided against it and let the uninvited guest finish. Seriously talking to people like Roger was pure waste of time.

“I’ll definitely check her out – she’s got a really cute ass too, right?” Ethan couldn’t hide his indifference. However, he didn’t expect his counterpart to notice it. This idiot was simply glad to have received his confirmation. “Cute? How old are you? Twelve? Shit, she needs to be fucked deep in the ass!” Roger beamed from ear to ear because of his obscene remark. Ethan secretly wondered what it was like to be so simple-minded and nodded in agreement. Roger finally said goodbye after this performance: “Well old man, I gotta go – knock ’em dead…” and Ethan saw himself confirmed once again that simply playing along in this game was the easiest solution.
Of course he had no intention of ogling Gloria. And not just because he still loved Myra. Gloria was THE woman in the company that men like Roger talked trash about: Tall, slim, model measurements. Her clothing always chosen so that it was chic enough for the workplace and revealing enough to draw the gazes of her male colleagues. Gloria knew exactly about the effect of her flawless appearance on the male world – an effect that failed with Ethan.

Gloria wore her blonde hair in a stylish but completely uninteresting short pixie cut for Ethan. A circumstance that made the office beauty automatically uninteresting to him. If Ethan was looking for something for the eye, he went to the accounting department on the second floor for flimsy reasons. That’s where Madison Bates had her desk. Madison was completely different from Gloria: She avoided being in the spotlight. Her clothing style was inconspicuous and her body pure average. Her face had no feature except the beautiful full lips that gave the rest of the male staff reason to feast on her. Her friendly brown eyes were framed by the frame of black glasses, which made her face look even more generic. Madison’s unmade-up face was quite attractive in Ethan’s opinion – he generally preferred naturalness. But the reason for her attraction was to be found higher up.

Madison was blessed with wonderful, strong hair. Jet black and hip-length, it flowed in a smooth, silky stream, so thick and healthy that it shimmered like polished obsidian in the light. Mostly she hid this splendor in a simple hair clip or a tight bun, a large black knot that only hinted at the true length. But Ethan had once had the luck to see this dreamlike hair curtain open. On that day the strands fell over her back down to her hips, where they ended abruptly at one length with perfectly healthy tips. A sight that burned itself into his memory and had drawn him to accounting ever since.

Ethan had always had an extremely pronounced fetish for beautiful, long hair on women. Nothing radiated more femininity, beauty, youth, and eroticism for him than healthy, full hair. Breasts, ass, hands, feet – all that was secondary compared to the adornment women wore on their heads. For that reason alone Myra had been the jackpot. Her hair had been so wonderful that it hypnotized Ethan. Whenever his wife wanted to seduce him after a long day, she used the dark-blonde weapon. Let the silky strands glide over his skin or asked her husband to help her brush the strands. An offer that he as a hair fetishist accepted all too gladly and that always ended with him burying his hands and face in the shampoo-scented silk. It inevitably led to incredibly intense sex, in which the well-equipped lover invariably ensured that his also highly aroused wife, who in turn took extreme sexual pleasure in her husband’s greed, came at her expense before he allowed himself a climax. He often induced this by satisfying himself with his partner’s hair, to then spread his semen on the crown of his satisfied wife. This and other practices that put Myra’s hair in the center were the center of lust for both.

Madison’s sight brought these thoughts up in him every time. Her hair was basically a black version of his wife’s former mane. Memories of past sessions with Myra mixed with inappropriate fantasies about the young accountant and her hair. It happened frequently that Ethan caught himself staring too long at his colleague’s confined strands. How he cautiously approached her to inhale the scent. How he secretly looked at the thick black strands that reflected the light of the ceiling spotlights and on which the lights danced when Madison moved. Ethan wanted to free them, wanted to loosen the hair clip and watch the black, silky gold fan out and spread before him and…

Ethan banished the thought game from his head. They were not welcome. He could and would not betray his Myra. Not even in thoughts. But he had already done it – multiple times. And the longer he was in this situation, the more often it happened that he lost the fight against these invasive thoughts and satisfied himself to the images created in his head. On one side he was ashamed of distancing himself from his wife in this way. On the other side it was the only functioning way to do justice to his body’s desire.

The hand jumped to four. Ethan wasted no time, grabbed his bag and hurried out of the office toward his sports car. On the way home he stopped at Monica, who ran the small flower shop at the intersection to Pine Street. The older lady had known him forever and she had the bouquet ready for him: “As always: a bunch of yellow tulips. Every first Monday of the month.” For over twenty years Myra got a bunch of her favorite flowers every month. Ethan had once jokingly said to her: “If you ever don’t get a bouquet from me anymore, you’ll know I don’t love you anymore.” But the once careless remark had gained extreme importance.

Ethan knew that the bouquet would remain untouched – nevertheless he stopped at Monica every first Monday of the month to keep his word. Because it was true: The love was still unbroken. Things had simply changed. A week-long business trip was coming up for Ethan – so it was all the more important to him that his wife saw the flowers – in case she had locked herself in her room again full of gloom and he didn’t get to see her before then, she should at least know in this way that his love was unbroken.
Ethan packed the bouquet on the passenger side and stepped on the gas – well aware that another problem was waiting for him there.
3 – Myra
Myra hastily turned the key in the door lock and stumbled inside. The door fell shut behind her. She held the just-acquired book tightly pressed to her chest. Her steps echoed through the entrance hall as she, still out of breath, collided with an unexpected figure. Shortly after, Myra found herself on the floor, followed by a quiet “Oh!” and the clatter of a bucket whose contents spread on the floor.
“Sorry, Mrs. Wood! Are you okay?” A gentle voice, polite and with a slight accent, cut through the silence. Lisa, the young German woman who had been working as an au-pair in the Woods’ house for two months, was already kneeling next to her, ignoring the tipped bucket. With a friendly smile – thin lips, but warm and sincere – she held out her hand to help the fallen woman up.
Myra reluctantly took the helping hand and got up with its help.

That Lisa was here at this moment, Myra owed to her husband. He had contacted the agency of a colleague’s wife in search of household help, which assigned them the reserved but diligent Lisa. In the months before, Myra had not been able to muster the strength or desire to keep the dreamlike estate in shape or take care of everyday things like cleaning, cooking or shopping.
All this had been taken over for two months by the au-pair, who had moved into the guest house on the Woods’ property. Polite, educated, reliable – that’s how Ethan had formulated the requirement when he gave Jeanette the order to find someone. It should not be a simple household help, but someone who could support Myra around the clock. The well-intentioned gift of the concerned husband triggered discomfort rather than gratitude in the desperate wife. In Myra’s eyes, Lisa was an intruder who didn’t belong here.

Not only because the power woman from Willow Heights had never depended on help from strangers. But because the appearance of the young woman was pure provocation: Her gaze fell on the carelessly tied bun that tried to tame Lisa’s dark brown hair – an impressive knot, threaded with a few lighter strands. Hip-length, Myra had noticed once when a loose strand had freed itself from the clip. Thick, silky, as healthy as her own mane had been. A sight that constricted Myra’s heart. This splendor, carelessly hidden in hair clips and knots, as if it were insignificant. Envy burned in Myra. How could someone blessed with such a treasure waste it like that? While she herself had lost everything – every strand, every trace of her former beauty – this young woman hid her most attractive feature as if it were annoying.
Myra didn’t hate the young woman. She couldn’t help what had happened to her. And she was indeed the relief she had needed. But she hated everything about her hopeless situation and the universe that seemed to mock her.

The bald woman swallowed the bitterness as she murmured a curt “Thank you” and turned away from Lisa, the book still pressed tightly to her chest. It was as if the book whispered to her to continue. As if it urged her to shake off the self-pity that had paralyzed her for months. Determined, she straightened her shoulders, hurried up the stairs of the estate and closed the door of an unused guest room behind her. The silence of the room enveloped her, broken only by the quiet creaking of the floor. She sank onto the freshly made bed, the notebook in her hands, its brown cover soft like hair under her fingers. With a deep breath she opened it. On the first page was a handwritten note:
“From Elvira to the one who needs it”

As soon as she studied the yellowed pages, the strange power returned that had seized her in the Raven’s Sanctum. The hieroglyphs seemed to vibrate, their forms rearranging themselves over and over. A quiet humming, barely audible, rose from the book, crept into her ears and merged with the ticking of the wall clock into an eerie, pulsating sound. The white-blue striped wallpaper of the room began to float, as if detaching from the walls. Colors – the brown of the carpet, the pale gray of the bedspread – flowed into each other, mixed into an unnatural shimmer that was neither blue nor brown, but something she had never seen before. Her fingers clutching the cover tingled, as if an invisible current flowed through them. The room tilted, as if she was being pulled through the mattress into a vortex, deeper, ever deeper, until the world around her blurred.
Sounds became a dull roar – the ticking of the clock, the distant clinking of Lisa’s bucket in the hall, her own breath – everything merged into a confused chorus that echoed in her head. Her senses staggered, colors and tones mixed into a chaos she could not grasp. Her heart raced, sweat beaded on her forehead, yet she could not tear her gaze from the dancing characters. Suddenly it became quiet. The world went out, as if someone had flipped a switch. Darkness closed around her, endless and strangely warm.

Then, like a beam of light in the darkness, an image formed, clear and sharp, as if her spirit had fled the body. She saw herself – or rather a version of herself. Bald, the skin pale and sunken, this figure stood at a table. In her hands she held a bottle that seemed to glow, filled with a violet liquid responsible for the glowing effect. She poured a drop of it into a silver vessel. A small clump of hair – dark blonde – followed and sank slowly into the liquid. Steam rose and the figure raised the glass to her lips. She drank. For a brief moment nothing happened. Then, out of nowhere, the figure began to change. Dark blonde hair sprouted from the pale head and grew within seconds into a dreamlike long hairstyle. The cheeks filled out, the eyes shone again, youth and strength returned. It was Myra – the Myra from before, the queen of Willow Heights, radiant and unharmed.

Myra was brutally torn from the vision. Her hands trembled. The book slipped from her fingers and fell with a dull thud on her face. She gasped and had the feeling she had to vomit. Panic seized her: was she going crazy now too? But the images had burned themselves into her memory. Not like a hallucination, but like a memory of a true event. So real that she thought she could still smell the steam and see the violet liquid before her. Was that possible? Could this book – this thing – really show her the way back?
Myra’s breath and heartbeat. In the Raven’s Sanctum the thought had still seemed silly to her. A magical book – what nonsense. But now she was sure: This book was anything but normal or just old:

It harbored a secret waiting to be unveiled by Myra.

4 – Ethan
Ethan steered the black Porsche Panamera into the double garage of his estate. The sky that day was gray, but at least it stayed dry. He grabbed the bouquet of flowers and walked the path through the overgrown garden up to the front door of his house. He hoped to find Myra inside, who might have at least mustered the strength to watch one of her old TV shows. But to his dismay, he only encountered Lisa, who was just mopping the tiles.
She didn’t notice him at first, which tempted him to admire the brown bun on her head a little too long before greeting her hesitantly. Lisa smiled as always friendly and greeted him back. For Ethan, Lisa was both curse and blessing. Blessing, because she was insanely diligent and had restored the house to its original immaculate condition. Moreover, she respected Myra’s wish for distance and generally understood a lot about adapting her behavior. She was trustworthy and thus the absolutely right person for this job.
The curse was the brown, long hair – of which she herself seemed not to know how incredibly beautiful it was. She always carelessly pinned it up in a bun or tamed it with a faded hair clip. In doing so, she obviously proceeded far less accurately than Madison. While with the black-haired office worker every hair had its careful place, with the brunette au-pair some of the strands strayed on her back. Unfortunately, or depending on the perspective fortunately, Ethan had not yet seen Lisa’s hair in full splendor. But the size of the bun told him enough to know that Lisa didn’t have to hide from Madison in terms of hair length either.
This circumstance was another test for Ethan to keep his desire in check. It was ironic that Jeanette had chosen someone like Lisa for him. He hadn’t thought about this possibility beforehand and now had to live with the consequences. Even if it would have been strange to explicitly avoid exactly this situation: “Oh yes Jeanette, please no long-haired beauty. I totally have a thing for long hair and since my wife lost hers, my life is hell – thank you!” Yes, that sounded stupid even to Ethan. After all, no one except the Woods could suspect that a normal young woman could become a problem because of her hair.
In his weakest moments, he painted a picture that shamed and aroused him at the same time: Madison on the left, with her pitch-black, shining curtain; Lisa in the middle, her dark brown hair a silky stream with golden highlights; and on the right Myra, as she used to be: her dark blonde mane no less beautiful than that of the two younger competitors. Three women, connected by the beauty of their hair, each in her own way a magnet for his longing. The idea was tormentingly pleasurable, and he banished it from his head with great effort.
“She went straight upstairs,” the unsuspecting Lisa said to him in almost accent-free English. Ethan nodded. He knew what that meant: Myra didn’t want to see anyone. Not even him. It helped him return to reality.
“Thank you, Lisa,” he said. She was so innocent, and Ethan definitely didn’t want to involve her in inappropriate fantasies. Ethan treated every person with the respect they deserved. Lisa had earned all his respect, and he was ashamed when his sexually starved brain created an inappropriate version of her for extravagant fantasies. Fantasies that were far from reality.
A pretty, educated young woman certainly had no use for a fifty-year-old whose best days were behind him. Not to mention that the aforementioned gentleman had already chosen a partner for life.
Ethan placed the flowers in a vase and on the table. He noticed Lisa’s pitying look. He turned to her: “I’ll be away for a few days. You’ll manage…”
Lisa nodded and replied: “Of course.”
Ethan breathed out and said goodbye again. His flight was in two hours.
Perhaps the distance would do him good.
5 – Myra
Myra noticed nothing of what was happening one floor below. Her entire focus was on sorting her thoughts. She sat up. She was still dizzy. And then she felt it: In her hand was a glass vessel that didn’t belong to her. In disbelief, she looked at it and immediately recognized the violet liquid from her vision inside. In shock, she almost dropped it. That was… impossible, but if this was really happening, maybe it was a way to end this whole misery.
The book had not only shown her the way back to old glory, but apparently given her the tool for it as well. In the vision she had seen it: a drop of the liquid, a clump of hair, steam, then the transformation – back to her old self. The book had given her the liquid. Only the hair was missing. A spark of hope sprouted in her, the first in months.
An unusual surge of energy made her jump up and rush into the bathroom. Her hands trembled as she ripped open drawers and threw out boxes of old cosmetics, dusty perfume bottles, and useless creams. She was looking for her old brush, a comb, a hair tie – anything that might have preserved a clump of her dark blonde strands. Within moments, the bathroom had turned into pure chaos, but Myra found nothing she was looking for. No brush, no comb, no hair ties, not a single hair.
She sank to her knees, her hands buried in a pile of empty boxes and useless care products. The memory hit her like a blow: Months ago, in a fit of rage and despair, she had thrown everything away. Back then, when the last strand had fallen, she had stuffed the brush, the combs, the shiny hair ties – everything – into a garbage bag. She had screamed, cried, torn the things – and irretrievably disposed of them.
But she didn’t give up – something had to be here somewhere. The spark of hope that the book had ignited burned too strongly. With firm determination, she crawled across the floor, rummaged through the lowest drawers, and felt in the corners of the cabinet. Her fingers glided over the dusty floor until she suddenly paused. There, in a crack between tiles and sink, was something. A single hair, long and dark blonde.
Carefully, as if it were made of glass, she picked it up. Her throat burned, tears stood in her eyes. A single hair – no clump, like in the vision, but enough to keep the hope alive. She held it against the light, saw the familiar color. The little bottle in her other hand felt heavier, as if it pulsed with new power. It was no coincidence. The book had guided her. She had what she needed.
With the little bottle and the hair in her hand, she sneaked down the stairs. It was quiet, and Myra was probably alone now, but she played it safe anyway. In the kitchen, she threw a hasty glance through the open door – Lisa was nowhere to be seen. Probably in the guest house or out. Good. Ethan was traveling, which suited her just fine at the moment. He would have thought her crazy if he had seen her like this. Clutching the little bottle and the hair like a junkie his syringe. She could almost feel his skeptical looks, hear his voice admonishing her to “come to her senses.” And he would have been right. This wasn’t sensible. It was… magic?
She grabbed a simple water glass from the cabinet and clumsily removed the cork from the little bottle. A few drops of the violet liquid fell into the glass, and a quiet hissing sounded as the liquid reached the bottom of the glass vessel. She held her breath, stared at the little bottle – and saw how it refilled before her eyes as if nothing had happened. That was no coincidence. The book, the little bottle – they were more than real. They were magical.
Carefully, she let the single hair slide into the glass. It immediately began to dissolve and made the liquid foam. A faint scent – sweetish and unknown – filled the air. Her heart hammered, pounded up to her throat. This was it. The moment from the vision. With weak hands, she raised the glass to her lips. For a brief moment she hesitated – what if it didn’t work? What if it destroyed her? But the hope, and despair, was stronger. She drank.
The liquid burned on her tongue, bitter and cold. She felt nauseous. The room began to spin. Her knees went weak, and she grabbed the edge of the countertop for support. Dizziness overwhelmed her, colors flickered before her eyes, like in the vision. Suddenly the unpleasant sensory perceptions stopped and were replaced by a warm tingling on her scalp. She gasped, her hand shot to her crown. Under her fingers she felt it: tiny stubble formed there. Hair. Her hair. It grew, became longer, smooth and dark blonde, like a stream of silk flowing over her shoulders.
A laugh, half sob, half triumph, broke out of her. She ran up the stairs into the bedroom and positioned herself in front of the large mirror. There she stood – Myra Wood, the queen of Willow Heights. Her mane was back, long, shiny, dark blonde, exactly like before. She ran her fingers through it, felt the familiar fullness, the length she had missed. Tears ran down her cheeks, but this time they were tears of joy. Everything would change. Everything was possible. The book had saved her.
6 – Ethan
Ethan sat at the hotel bar counter, tie loosened, a glass of whiskey in his hand. The day had worn him out – a marathon of meetings with investors who wanted to win Silver Oak Realty for a luxury project. He had smiled, shaken hands, and maintained the charming facade that had brought him here. But now the loneliness overcame him as so often. He had done all this for Myra. So why should he put up with this world any longer? He stared at his glass, and his thoughts wandered to Willow Heights – to Myra and to the gulf that had grown between them.
A movement next to him tore him from his thoughts. A woman, late thirties, glided onto the barstool to his right. Her walk confident, her smile offensive. She wore a simple but elegant black dress that left her shoulders free. And her hair – a precise bob, the ends bluntly cut to shoulder length – immediately drew his gaze. It wasn’t the length that captivated him. Length was never the central point of his fetish. It was the volume, the dense fullness, the silky shine – and the feeling on the skin that set his lower regions in motion. The bob framed her angular face perfectly and completed the look of an elegant but provocative lady.
“Long day?” she asked, her voice brighter than expected, as she ordered a glass of white wine. He nodded, his throat dry despite the whiskey. “Yeah, as always,” he murmured more to himself, his eyes focused on the counter to evade her approach. But she leaned slightly forward, and her perfume crept into his nose. “You look like you could use company,” she said, her eyes sparkling. A smile that challenged him. His heart beat faster, and he felt the familiar pull in his chest that he tried to suppress. Madison came to mind, whose presence at work had become an overwhelming burden. Lisa, who with her dark brown bun ensured that he found no peace even at home. And now this woman, whom he could actually have, unlike the two younger ones.
“Just a drink…,” he said out loud what was going on in his head as a consideration. She laughed quietly. Her self-confidence indicated that she was practiced in such situations, which in a certain way had an appeal for the struggling man. “Just a drink?” she teased, and a strand of her bob fell slightly forward. He imagined how it would feel to let his hand glide through it, to feel the softness, the fullness. How he would grab this woman by it and…
The thought hit him like lightning, guilt and desire wrestling inside him. Myra. She had lost everything, not him. It was his duty to stand by her. He had been selfish and only fought with himself. He hadn’t been able to save her, had watched her withdraw while he let himself be distracted by hair that wasn’t hers. How could he sit here while she was alone in Willow Heights?
“Tell me about yourself,” the woman said, her voice enticing. She leaned closer, and the ends of the precisely cut hairstyle brushed his cheek skin. His mouth opened, part of him wanted to answer, to let himself fall into the conversation. Into the lightness she radiated. “I… I’m married,” he said abruptly, his voice rougher than intended. Her smile flickered, but she only shrugged slightly. “The best ones often are,” she said with a wink, but he was already rising.
“Sorry,” he murmured, laid a few bills on the counter, and turned away. Her surprised look followed him, but he didn’t look back. Ethan had feared for a moment succumbing to temptation, but had remained steadfast. He couldn’t fall, not like that. Not when Myra needed him.
Back in his room, he sank onto the bed. His fingers found the hair clip that Myra had worn on their first date and that had accompanied him on every trip since. Its sight comfort and reproach at the same time. He thought of the beginnings of Silver Oak Realty, when he and Myra had dreamed together of the life they later built together. This life that was too perfect to last any longer. His gaze fell on the flight plan on the nightstand. Another meeting was scheduled for tomorrow, but this hotel room suddenly felt like a cage.
Myra came first. He had no plan how he wanted to fix everything. How he could help her be the woman she once was. But he had to try. With a determined breath, he reached for his laptop and booked a flight to Eldridge, first thing the next morning. He would fly home. He would do something – anything – to save Myra. And perhaps, just perhaps, himself too.
7 – Myra
Myra couldn’t believe it, but the one in the mirror was her. The hair in her hands hers. The darkness in her had suddenly disappeared. She lost herself in the sight. Again and again her fingers glided through the shiny, dark blonde hair. From the roots to the tips. Again and again and again. She had missed this feeling so much. She had missed herself so much.

In the midst of her bliss, another thought crept in: Ethan. Her poor Ethan. Myra had completely lost sight during the past weeks and months of how much her beloved husband had to suffer from all this. From the fact that she could no longer give him what he needed. From what this disease had made of her. And from how she hardly paid attention to him, although he really did everything to make her feel better. Guilt overwhelmed her, and yet she was glad to finally feel anything at all again.

All that would change when Ethan came home in a few days. When she closed him in her arms as the woman he had once married. When they could be the Woods again, as everyone knew them. When she could be close to Ethan again…
While she continued to smooth the strands, Myra imagined Ethan sneaking up on her from behind. How he looked at her greedily and his hands reached for her crown. How he pulled her close, kissed her. Myra was incredibly intensely aroused from one moment to the next and was about to touch herself when she abruptly stopped her movement.

“No, no, no…,” she cursed and looked incredulously at her hands. The long strands detached from her head, just as they had done once before. And although this process accelerated it many times over, Myra repeatedly grabbed new strands and pulled carefully at them, as if to convince herself that this was just imagination. But a short time later the brief moment of happiness was already history again, as Myra looked incredulously at the pile of hair in her hands. The bald figure in the mirror witnessed how the strands crumbled to dust and dissolved into air.
Myra stood there speechless. And then it broke out of her – like back then when she stuffed the bathroom utensils into the trash can. “No, damn shit no – That can’t be…”. The triumphant moment before made the renewed loss even more bitter… The book flew in a high arc through the air while being screamed at by the upset woman. “Why are you doing this to me… what do you want…?”

She deliberately hit the hopeless face of the bald woman and shattered the mirror into hundreds of small pieces. Blood ran from the knuckles of the hysterical woman, but the physical pain was not even remotely perceptible to her while she incessantly screamed at the walls until her voice failed. Exhausted, she sank to the floor.

“A clump…” she murmured. It was pure despair and no hope. “A clump, not a single hair…” Her breath was heavy from the preceding orgy of destruction. Her body clearly signaled that it needed a break, but Myra forced it to function. Again she moved it toward the bathroom, where the search began anew.

This time the sink cabinet had to take it completely. The wood splintered as Myra, driven by despair, turned every corner of the room inside out. As if driven by a foreign power, she whirled through the estate. Entered bedroom, living room, and dining room. Even in the guest rooms that she hadn’t entered in years, Myra searched without leaving out a single centimeter. She needed this clump of hair. The spell had probably not been strong enough because of that. “Yes, that’s how it must be…,” she talked herself into. She just needed this damn clump.

The search brought no success. Myra’s battered and weak body craved a break. She didn’t want to give up, but she lacked strength. Eventually she sank to the floor in the middle of the hallway and ripped the small key cabinet from the wall. It was over. Even this book hadn’t been able to help her. If it was real and she wasn’t stuck in some nightmare. Now her last willpower was broken too.

All the keys lay scattered around her. Ethan had recently neatly sorted and labeled them. He would be angry when he saw the chaos. The bad conscience was just about to announce itself when the key to the guest house fell into her hands. “The guest house!” – Myra’s emotional pendulum swung violently toward hope again.

Shortly before the first symptoms of her disease had become noticeable, the Woods couple had argued fiercely. The reason for this argument had been so banal that Myra no longer even remembered what it was about. Only that she had been too proud to give in and waited for Ethan to do so. Since this didn’t happen, Myra simply moved into the guest house to “win” the argument that way. In hindsight, it seemed completely ridiculous to her, but her pride sometimes led her to such actions. The memory of the insignificant argument was completely unimportant now. What was important was the object she had with her back then: A bag with all her cosmetics – and a hairbrush.

Myra grabbed the key to the guest house. She stormed outside into the garden and made her way to the small but chic building on the edge of the spacious property. She didn’t know if Lisa was present at that moment or not. But she didn’t care either. Yes, Lisa currently lived in this building – but she was only a guest here, and Myra had every right to enter her property. And at the moment she had every reason to. She inserted the key into the lock and gained access to the quarters that had only really been regularly used since Lisa’s arrival.

Apparently, Lisa kept not only the Woods’ main house in perfect order, but also her own accommodation. She was truly tidy and reliable, as Myra noted half impressed, half cynically. But it made Myra confident that the object she was looking for would still be exactly where she had carelessly left it back then. Lisa would never dispose of someone else’s property without asking. Perhaps she had neatly put the bag aside – but definitely not removed it. Hope continued to prevail, and the weakened woman was seriously unsure whether she could cope with another setback. She put everything on this card and trusted that the book had a plan for her.

“Lisa?” No answer – very good. Myra purposefully headed to the bathroom. It was exactly as empty as Myra had entered it back then, when the guest house had been unoccupied for a long time before. Only a toothbrush next to the sink indicated that someone was currently living here. Myra could hardly contain the excitement as she opened the left door of the mirror cabinet. She closed her eyes, then opened them again: There it was. Myra jumped for joy. The ivory-colored brush was still there, unmoved and untouched. And between the teeth what Myra had been searching for hours: long strands that had collected between the teeth. Once insignificant and destined for the trash – now irreplaceable and priceless in earthly terms. Almost ruthlessly, Myra tore the silky treasure to herself and ran back to the kitchen of the main house.

The vial with the pink liquid and the glass were where Myra had left them. Impatiently, she tore the cork from the ornate container and now carelessly poured the contents into the water glass. This time too, the liquid magically reappeared inside the little bottle, and on the spur of the moment Myra decided to pour the contents into the glass again, filling it to the brim. There was nothing left to hold her back, and immediately Myra let the clump of her brushed-out hair follow.

The reaction was many times stronger than in her first attempt. The liquid began to boil and made the glass tremble. Volcanically, violet foam shot up. The clump of hair dissolved with a gurgling sound until it finally disappeared. Slowly the glass came to rest. This was the moment when Myra grabbed it and downed the drink without thinking further.

Immediately the dizziness set in. The burning sensation was not limited to the tongue this time. The cold seemed to paralyze her breathing. Myra collapsed. Foam ran from her mouth as she gasped for air. She fought against the threatening unconsciousness, but was unable to control her limbs. The potion first robbed her of her sight, and then it became quiet. For a brief moment Myra still perceived the infinite darkness and silence.

And then there was nothing more.

8 – Ethan
Ethan stepped off the plane. He was glad he’d managed to keep lustful thoughts at bay during the flight. As he left the airport building, he turned off airplane mode on his smartphone and couldn’t help but smirk at the absurdly high number of missed calls, all from colleagues at Silver Oak Realty. He ignored them. As if they needed him. He was here, where he was truly needed. With quick strides, he headed to the parking garage, started the engine, and set off on the good hour-long drive home.

Myra hadn’t contacted him the night before. What would once have been unthinkable had become the norm. In the past, he would have given Myra a stern lecture about how worried he got when she didn’t check in, but now he accepted the new reality where Myra often lacked the strength to fulfill that obligation. Ethan believed it was best to give her time and space, that pressure might only make things worse. Still, every time he hadn’t heard from her, a queasy feeling settled in his stomach, and he was relieved when a short message finally dispelled the uncertainty.

He drove—still without a concrete plan—swiftly along the highway, which was unusually empty for a Wednesday morning. He reached the turnoff toward Willow Heights in under an hour and soon stood at the foot of his home. For September, the day was unusually warm, and Ethan was sweating under his tailored suit jacket. The erratic weather was getting to him, and he cursed himself for not packing lighter clothes. But whatever—onward up the path to the house, where he finally wanted to bring Myra back into his life.

Ethan entered and tripped over the key cabinet, which, instead of hanging on the wall, lay half-broken on the floor. His instincts immediately put him on high alert. “Myra?” he called several times as he scanned the living room for further irregularities. Break-ins were extremely rare in Eldridge, and in Willow Heights, he knew of none at all. Besides, nothing else seemed touched except the key cabinet. So either he hadn’t screwed it in properly, or Myra had once again needed an outlet for her pent-up anger.

He stepped over the keys and looked into the kitchen, which at first seemed normal—until he spotted the shards on the floor. “Myra?” he called again, getting no answer. A queasy feeling spread through him. He thought it over and concluded: This must have happened recently, because Lisa would have cleaned up the mess immediately—until he remembered that Wednesday was Lisa’s fixed day off. Ethan called for his wife again as he climbed the stairs. He was about to burst into the bedroom when he noticed the open door to one of the unused rooms. “Myra, are you in here?” he asked, more worried than he cared to admit.

The worry turned to fear when he saw the broken mirror. But it wasn’t the mirror that scared him. It was the dark red traces of dried blood on the floor. “Myra!” His shout was now panicked, and he fumbled his smartphone from his pants pocket, ready to dial emergency services. Just as he was about to unlock the screen, a hand surprised him, clamping over his mouth.

Reflexively, he tore the hand away and shoved the person it belonged to. The hand was delicate and barely strong, just like the arm attached to it. Though Ethan had lost some of his athleticism over the years, he spun around lightning-fast and braced for a fight. He focused on his opponent, and it took a few seconds to process the sight.

“Lisa? Shit, what’s going on here? Where’s Myra?” he burst out. The au pair wasn’t even supposed to be here—not today, and certainly not in the Woods’ private rooms. In disbelief, he stared at the silent young woman who had just attacked him for no reason. She looked nothing like the reserved maid she usually was. Her normally loyal, earnest gaze had turned into an intense stare. Her posture was anything but timid. Her hair… wasn’t hidden in a messy bun but spread wildly over her body. Was she on drugs? Had she done something to Myra? Ethan had seen things like this on the news.
“Fuck—what the… where is…?” Lisa lunged energetically toward him and clamped her hand over his mouth again. In a tone that sounded more like Myra than Lisa, she commanded: “Ethan—shut up! Stop yelling.”

Ethan’s eyes widened. What was happening here was utterly incomprehensible. He no longer assessed the situation as dangerous, but the question of his wife’s whereabouts remained unanswered. He scanned the room—no one else was there.
“Please stop yelling and let me explain…” Lisa said now in a far less aggressive tone, though given their superficial relationship, it sounded far too personal. But the confused man desperately needed answers, so he ignored such trivialities—and anyway, this whole situation was surreal. He waited and nodded briefly to signal her to continue…

“Honey, it’s me… in this body… Myra…”
Ethan heard the words but didn’t comprehend them. He repeated them three times in his head. Had this young woman completely lost her mind? What did she want? She was clearly delusional, which could mean she had truly put Myra in danger. He scrutinized Lisa, only now noticing that she was wearing one of Myra’s comfortable tracksuits. She looked so different, mainly because the thick brown strands framed her round face, making it appear narrower than usual.

Ethan grew angry. “Lisa—I’m asking you one last time: Where is Myra?” He took a threatening step toward the au pair, but she didn’t back away an inch. Instead, she continued unfazed: “Your name is Ethan Eugene Wood—when you proposed to me in Portorosso, the red wine bottle fell and ruined your white shirt…” Lisa spoke as if she had actually been there. But Myra had told that anecdote more than once in company. And his middle name—he hated it—had occasionally been dug up and was noted in his ID documents. “How did you…?” he began, but Lisa interrupted immediately and continued her monologue: “On our first date, I wore a silver hair clip that you still carry with you whenever we’re apart…”
Ethan’s breath caught. That information was known only to his wife, he was one hundred percent sure. His fingers reached for the item in question as he continued trying to make sense of the situation. Two possibilities remained: Lisa—or rather Myra—was telling the truth, or Lisa had somehow obtained the information, though the motive for that remained unclear.

On the other hand, there was no logical explanation for how Myra could have taken on another woman’s appearance. Every train of thought led him into a dead end. There was only one way to solve this riddle: With a trick, he would find out if his wife really stood before him, even if it seemed utterly absurd. He signaled clearly for her to be quiet and moved toward her.

She stood still as he circled her. He took a deep breath and approached from behind. A scent emanated from her—unfamiliar yet somehow familiar. Without warning, he slid his hand past her shoulder toward her ear. His fingers grasped Lisa’s earlobe, which unlike Myra’s was attached, and squeezed gently. Myra hated it to death when he touched her earlobes. He had once grabbed them with his teeth during lovemaking and endured Myra’s displeasure for days. That was when Ethan became acquainted with her irrational aversion to that touch. It was so incredibly specific, the reaction far more intense than warranted, that the following response would reveal the truth.
“Shit, Ethan, stop that—you know exactly how much I hate it!” She spun around and shoved him away energetically. It was Myra. In disbelief, he looked at the woman who looked like Lisa but was somehow also his wife.

“Myra… what… how… Shit, how the hell did you get in there?”
When Myra realized Ethan believed her, she let the shoulders of the foreign body sag and smiled at him. A smile he hadn’t received from the real Myra in far too long—and it suddenly made his heart beat faster.
She nodded slowly. “I know how all this must look, how it must sound… so I’ll just show you everything…”
Myra told him about the book. About her search, the potion, and the transformation. She showed him the little bottle that magically always remained full, and where she had collapsed in the kitchen.

Ethan’s mind needed a break. And as he stood next to Lisa—no, Myra—in the kitchen, all he could manage was: “I need a drink.”
9 – Myra
Of course, Myra gave her husband enough time to come to terms with the situation. She was even surprised at how quickly he had let himself be convinced that it really was her in this body. He had probably understood it faster than she had.
The evening before, just an hour after collapsing in the kitchen, she had woken up. She immediately sensed that something was different from her first attempt. She felt strangely energized and optimistic. A tentative touch to her head seemed to confirm that the spell had worked. Her hair felt even thicker and silkier than she remembered. She sprinted upstairs again to examine herself in an intact mirror in one of the other rooms. Her legs moved unusually fast and pain-free, even though she felt heavier than normal.

The mirror revealed why. She immediately recognized herself as the young woman from Germany. Instinctively, she had turned around to check if the woman was standing behind her. But she knew she was alone. For long minutes, she studied the reflection before piecing together what had happened: The hairs she had added to the potion weren’t her own—they were Lisa’s. That realization hit her like a blow, because it meant: Myra would never again be the woman with the long, dark-blonde hair.

What would have knocked the ground out from under her just hours earlier, she now accepted quickly. Because this body felt good. She didn’t just feel young and strong—her mood had brightened in an instant. The veil over her mind that had turned her into a lifeless shell was blown away. Hopelessness was replaced by an inexplicable euphoria. Of course, Myra still had no plan for where this would lead, but she finally felt alive again. Alive and clear-headed.

That Lisa hadn’t found her like this—and thus probably suffered the shock of her life—was pure luck. Tuesday evenings and Wednesdays, the au pair was never at the Woods’ house. For Myra, a fortunate circumstance, because it meant the matter could remain her secret, and she could also get somewhat familiar with the new body. Lisa was a bit shorter and decidedly sturdier than she was, which meant she had to consciously perform some movements differently. But adaptation came intuitively, and soon the shell felt as if it had always been there.

With this shell, Myra had also inherited the other woman’s mane—and how amazing it felt! Myra couldn’t stop running her fingers through it, impressed by how the young woman had achieved such a magnificent head of hair. Because upon closer inspection and feeling, Myra had to admit one thing: Even in her best days, at Lisa’s age, she had never had such thick, velvety-soft, long, and healthy hair. Only she would have showcased it worlds better than Lisa did with her practical hairstyles—though she could do that herself in the coming time.
Myra enjoyed being in this body. It didn’t just give her strength—it finally let her feel good again. The dark thoughts had vanished from one moment to the next. This glimmer of hope was all she had needed. Though this twist was certainly unforeseen, the transformed woman welcomed the new life with open arms. There were only two hurdles to overcome: Lisa mustn’t see her like this, if only for the girl’s own protection. Myra had already prepared a story—to make Lisa believe she was traveling until the Woods’ guest returned to Germany in about two months. After that, Myra could move freely.

The other was Ethan. He was the reason she hadn’t completely given up. Because she owed it to Ethan. Because she loved him. He was her whole life. Of course, he had to know the truth. For hours, she devised strategies to explain the situation to her beloved husband, only to be caught off guard by him. She was supposed to be alone that day—Lisa had the day off, and Ethan was still in Atlanta. But Ethan had stormed into the house unexpectedly and put her in this position.

Now she sat beside him on the kitchen floor, watching him thoughtfully drink his whiskey. She had always loved the thick veins that stood out on his strong forearms. Myra admired how attractive her aging husband still was. The distinctive face shaped by the angular jawline. The gray-blue eyes that used to look at her with an intensity brimming with desire. His upper body still broad and muscular, even if no longer with the glory of his past American football days. His brown hair was thinning and starting to gray—but that hardly made him less attractive. His calm, confident manner—her anchor. Tears nearly welled up in Myra’s eyes as she realized she could finally see her Ethan again as the man he truly was to her: Her dream man.

“Shouldn’t we go upstairs? I mean, in case Lisa…the real one…walks in…?” Ethan broke the silence with his usual serious tone.
“It’s Wednesday, she’s never here…and in the evenings, she has no business here anyway…”
Ethan laughed. It was the kind of laugh he had when he was laughing at himself. “Can you imagine how crazy all this is… I mean you… as her… it’s really strange seeing her and knowing you’re inside…”
“Yes, I mean… it’s just as weird being in here.” Myra joined his laughter. It was the first time in a year that the two of them had talked lightheartedly, and for Myra, it felt like the greatest happiness in the world.
“What’s it like in there?” he asked curiously, and she answered by telling him how good she felt. “…But the best part is that it gives me the strength to finally be myself again… with you here…” She leaned against his shoulder, and Ethan flinched at first but then stayed put. Cautiously, he put his arm around her and then asked, to Myra’s surprise: “May I…?”
Myra looked at her husband in confusion. “Yes, of course… You have no idea… how much I’ve missed this…”
He nodded. “It’s just… well—I know it’s you, but… my eyes still see something else…”
“It’s okay—really… I’ve missed it so much… missed you so much… All of that has become clear to me since I’ve been in here… able to think clearly again, you know?”

Cautiously, Ethan kissed Myra on the forehead—Lisa’s forehead.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better—even if it took a magic book to do it. But I need to process all this… Can we maybe go to bed—then we can let it all sink in… what this means for the future…?”
Myra agreed with Ethan. It was a good idea. This was a turning point in their lives, and they had all the time in the world—they didn’t need to rush anything. Ethan had been patient with her for over a year—he deserved the same patience.

Together, they went to the bedroom. It felt good to enter it together again after so many separate nights. Myra slipped into one of her pajamas, which, like the tracksuit, was a bit too tight in this body. She would need to update her wardrobe. A decidedly joyful prospect for the fashion-loving woman. New clothes and an incomparable mane of hair—she would make the most of this appearance. She made herself comfortable and waited for her husband. How she had missed cuddling. One day in this body had made her forget everything she had felt—or rather, not felt—as the bald, desperate Myra.

A few minutes later, Ethan joined her. He wore only tight boxer shorts that emphasized his pronounced masculinity. For over a year, Myra hadn’t touched this body. He looked so good, her Ethan, standing there like that. So masculine, so strong, so… arousing. Myra clearly felt how Lisa’s body—her body—reacted to the sight of Ethan. She had forgotten what lust and desire felt like, and she wasn’t sure if the intensity was normal. She knew she shouldn’t pressure Ethan. But she wanted him—now.

10 – Ethan
Ethan had never experienced such a long day. Early that morning, he had still been standing at Atlanta’s airport, full of worry; now he stood before the marital bed, in which his wife was inside another woman’s body. A damn lot had happened, yet Ethan knew one thing: It had been right to return to Myra. Even if it had ultimately turned out differently than expected. But who could have anticipated something like this? Ethan was drained, but mostly he was glad that Myra was obviously finally Myra again—at least in this way.

Yet the new form also put Ethan in a conflict. He loved Myra idolously. That’s why he had returned. But he had also harbored inappropriate fantasies in which Lisa had played the central role. In the very form in which she now lay before him. How would Myra react if Ethan showed interest in her, even though she wasn’t herself? Would that upset her? Would she even catch on to him and his secret fantasies? That was one of the things he needed to find a solution for, and he was glad that Myra was giving him time for it.

Myra had already slipped under the covers—the long brown hair pinned up with a hair clip. This look was so typical of the real Lisa that in that moment, it was hard for Ethan to perceive the figure as Myra. The practical pinning wasn’t an attempt to mimic the original as closely as possible, but rather a repetition of a years-long habit. Myra had always tied her hair up at night. And Ethan loved watching the long mane unfurl when his wife freed the wild strands. A sight that was extremely arousing for Ethan, and which Myra often used deliberately to get him in the right mood.

Ethan lay down beside Myra and raised his arm. An offer for her to rest on his chest, which she accepted immediately. She traced her finger over his bare chest, which felt unfamiliar since Lisa kept her nails short, whereas Myra usually let her long artificial nails graze his skin. He tried to focus on Myra’s touches, but kept getting distracted by the brown mane towering right in front of his eyes. Lisa’s hair was every hair lover’s dream. So full, so healthy that it could star in a shampoo commercial. Myra had turned on the TV to fill the silence, and the brown strands reflected the changing light from the screen. Ethan had never been this close to Lisa’s magnificent hair—knowing it would fuel his inappropriate fantasies, he had always kept a certain safe distance from her. But now, to top it all off, the scent from the tips wafted into his nose.

Ethan couldn’t prevent his body from reacting. Myra was about to reach his lower abdomen with her hand. He stopped her movement because he didn’t want her to misunderstand his arousal. Though he himself didn’t really understand who his desire was truly for. Because no matter how alluring the sight of the young woman was: His fantasies were fantasies. They never envisioned actually ending up in this situation. It made him uncomfortable, because in that moment, it felt like he was lying in bed with a stranger.

“Myra… no,” he murmured. Myra turned Lisa’s head toward him and looked at him, surprised by Ethan’s hand holding hers. She must have noticed his worried expression, because she immediately said: “It’s okay,” freed herself from his grip, and sat up. Powerlessly, Ethan watched his wife skillfully move the foreign body. With a deft motion, she opened the hair clip, and Ethan admired how the brown hair freed itself from the prongs and cascaded down. A fantasy that had now come true, and from whose sight the hair fetishist couldn’t tear himself away.
With another deft motion, his wife turned and knelt before him. Like two curtains, Lisa’s hair fell around her face, leaving only a narrow slit through which the lustful eyes of the woman were visible. In his fantasies, Ethan had always dictated the actions, which Lisa performed willingly but rather passively. That Myra was now aggressively using this body for seduction didn’t fit the image of the reserved Lisa—and ultimately allowed Ethan to give in to the advances of his aroused wife.

Once he had overcome that hurdle, he grabbed her firmly by the back of the head to kiss her. A kiss that truly felt magical and made it clear to him: This was his wife—in an exceedingly alluring form. Lust took the reins, and so Ethan roughly pushed his partner downward. The chemistry between the two hadn’t changed after a good year of abstinence, because Myra immediately devoted herself to her husband’s now fully erect penis and began sucking on it just as she had in the past. While he moaned his pleasure into the dark room, he couldn’t resist seizing the silken adornment to gain additional ecstasy from it. He spread the soft strands over his body and nearly brought himself to climax just from the feel on his skin. Out of consideration for his beloved, he stopped her movements with a grip and flipped her onto her back.

Both bodies now craved more. Ethan spread Myra’s legs. Either Lisa generally kept her body hair-free, or the smooth skin had been achieved through Myra’s actions. For the moment, it didn’t matter. Wordlessly, Ethan pushed his hips forward until his glans touched the dark labia. He continued the motion and began penetrating his wife, who accompanied the entire process with demanding moans—Ethan found Lisa’s deep voice quite sexy. It required some stretching, but Ethan’s phallus pushed relentlessly forward until it was swallowed up to the root by Lisa’s labia.
He immediately began rhythmic movements. Back and forth. Myra’s reactions told him how much she was enjoying it. How much she needed it. She writhed under the simple motions, and both knew the fun would be short-lived. At first, Ethan avoided putting his hand back on the brown hair and continued thrusting into Myra without that touch. When he felt her vulva clench tightly around his shaft, he abandoned that restraint, grabbed the entire mane with his right hand, and pulled himself closer to the female body with it. Usually, lovemaking between the Woods lasted much longer and included far more practices, but the lust had been absent too long and could erupt any second now in a gigantic climax. Ethan buried his nose in the fruity-scented crown and prepared for the final thrust. As he pumped his seed into the foreign body, Myra gasped incessantly and rolled her eyes back, experiencing several orgasms at once.

Finally, Ethan collapsed onto her. It had been incredible for both of them. They didn’t bother getting dressed and united their bodies again, this time purely to be close. Then Ethan fell happily asleep.
11 – Myra
Ethan fell asleep shortly after the act, but Myra savored being close to her husband for quite a while longer. It felt incredible to be so near him—almost like the first time. Yet the sex had been worlds better. Myra had known Ethan would hesitate. She knew she always came first with him. And she felt so loved, so happy to have such a man, which once again brought the past months vividly before her eyes and made her feel incredibly sorry for Ethan. How good that everything would change now.

But just as Myra knew Ethan would hesitate, she also knew he stood no chance if she wielded the weapon of this body. She wanted him, and this hair helped her get him. The act that followed was confirmation of their mutual desire. Myra felt no jealousy or resentment toward Lisa or her appearance, because Ethan had always addressed her as Myra. That meant he saw her—not the person who normally inhabited this body.
Ethan’s body was warm. His scent masculine, and his skills in bed godlike. Myra reminded herself that her husband was the jackpot. Not this house, not M Y R A’s and the envy of other women—nor her looks and her hair, which had always meant everything to her. Ethan was the reason she had always loved life so much. And this body gave her that opportunity back. The chance to enjoy life and sweeten her beloved’s.

Myra’s eyes grew tired. She fought sleep because she wanted to savor this moment with Ethan a little longer. The TV, which Myra had only turned on to fill the room with background noise, flickered. Apparently, the adult programming had started, showing a very explicit film. Two young women were kissing and pleasuring each other intensely. Nothing that would normally arouse Myra, but the abstinence probably brought the desire back—or perhaps this young body simply demanded more than she was used to. Since Ethan was asleep, Myra resorted to pleasuring herself. After two successful attempts, she finally managed to fall asleep. She drifted into a long, dreamless sleep.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Ethan greeted her the next morning. The first rays of autumn sun filtered through the curtains, and she felt as if she had awakened from a months-long hibernation. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and asked: “What time is it?”
“Almost 11 a.m.—you probably haven’t slept this late since college.” Myra laughed and gave her husband a smile. She felt good, still transformed in this body, but needed a moment to fully come to.

“You look beautiful, my darling,” Ethan said suddenly. To Myra, those words felt wrong, because the compliment was for Lisa, not her. Had she used this body to be close to Ethan, to be intimate with him? Yes. Still, she didn’t want to hear how pretty Ethan found another woman. Horny—okay. But not “beautiful.” To avoid spoiling the mood, she replied in a tone far friendlier than her thoughts: “…You’re only saying that because…”

“…you are you?” He smiled gently. The kind of smile he used to calm her in stressful situations. Then she reached for the long hair that should have been on her head—but wasn’t. She immediately jumped up to look in the mirror. And she saw: herself. The bald Myra Wood stared back at her from the mirror. Yet though she was bald, she no longer looked nearly as fragile as before. She smiled and felt that this body wasn’t so very different from the young au pair’s. It was nonsense anyway: Myra was an athletic and fit woman—despite the unwanted weight loss of recent months. That could only mean her body had reacted to her emotional wounds with pain. Pain that had magically vanished. Was it the transformation? Or the returned self-confidence? The closeness to Ethan? Or the certainty that there was a solution to her problems?

Ethan’s compliment thus gained tremendous meaning. He had fucked her the night before in Lisa’s body, yet it was she who was beautiful. Myra Wood—wife of Ethan Wood. The beautiful, versatile Myra Wood, who was everything to her husband. And whose husband was the best in the whole wide world. She jumped up, clung to him, and covered him with kisses. “Oh Ethan—I love you so much!”
Myra was happy. Because the gray fog over her mind was gone. Suddenly, she looked happily upon her life again, in which she had everything—except hair. Though that problem suddenly seemed far less important. She could look optimistically to the future, and in that moment, she fully surrendered to the feeling of love for Ethan.
“That was… that was…” she stammered. “Ethan, did I dream that?”
He shook his head. “No, it all really happened.” She still clung to him. “Ethan, I feel so transformed…” she said, feeling every fiber of her body quiver euphorically.

“And I’m just glad to seemingly have you back.” They kissed passionately and held each other for a long while before moving on to their normal daily routine. Though “normal” in the sense of “before all this shit” didn’t feel normal to either the woman or the man at the breakfast table. It felt more “like old times,” and both couldn’t be happier about it.
“Breakfast?” Ethan asked in a gentle voice. Myra’s stomach growled. She had a huge craving for pancakes. She didn’t just need to eat something—she wanted to! Emotions overwhelmed her, and with tears of joy in her eyes, she nodded to her husband. “Yes, let’s have breakfast together.”

Ethan went to the kitchen and started mixing the batter. Myra admired him as he did, her thoughts wandering again and again. It was clear she wanted to return to Lisa’s body to take advantage of its benefits. That she needed to find a way to use it permanently. And she already had a plan for that. This plan gave her the security to enjoy this moment in her own body. She gave Ethan a big kiss when he served her the pancakes.
“I love you, Ethan Wood.”

Ethan smiled and silently mouthed “I love you too” without speaking aloud. He lifted the pan and served Myra another pancake. A morning like the hundreds they’d had before suddenly felt like the magical wedding night decades ago. And so the Woods enjoyed breakfast until the click of the front door lock snapped them out of their reverie.

“Good morning, Mrs. and Mr. Wood.” Lisa had entered to start her duties. Normally, she would prepare the breakfast that Ethan hastily packed for work and Myra left untouched. Not this morning. As always, Lisa was dressed practically. An oversized sweater and jeans with a cut that didn’t flatter her much. Not just since the previous evening did Myra know how much potential the young woman was wasting.
“Good morning, Lisa,” Ethan greeted the young woman, but Myra could clearly detect a certain unease in his voice. Ethan even blushed slightly, which was rare—for Myra, given what they’d experienced, all too understandable. Myra also greeted Lisa warmly, and suddenly an overwhelming feeling of shame washed over her. But not because she had borrowed the body opposite her. Myra realized she had behaved impossibly. She had always been dismissive and cold when the polite young woman was nearby. Yet she couldn’t help how Myra felt. That realization burned in Myra. She owed Lisa more than the girl could imagine.

“Oh, you’re already having breakfast? Is there anything specific to do?” she said, as always dutiful. Myra ignored the question and stood up.
In a gentle voice, Myra began: “Lisa… I… I wanted to apologize. For the past months. I wasn’t fair to you. You’ve done so much for us—for me—and I was… distant. Cold. I’m sorry. You’re more than just help here. I’m glad you’re here.”

Lisa smiled as she often did. But this time, there was a bit more genuine joy in it. She seemed surprised yet found the right words: “Oh, Mrs. Wood, that’s okay. I understand. You’ve had a hard time. I’m glad you’re feeling better today.” Myra took her hand and squeezed it. It felt strange to squeeze the hand that just hours before had been her own, even if it all somehow made no sense. She offered Lisa a seat at their table and some of Ethan’s pancakes, which she accepted somewhat reluctantly. That Myra was putting her husband in an awkward situation was okay—it was even a small, tantalizing game in everyday life. But Ethan behaved entirely appropriately and gave no hint of any dirty thoughts. Because Myra knew: He had no interest in Lisa unless Myra was inside her.

So they enjoyed breakfast and then went their separate ways for the rest of the day. Ethan resumed work and kissed her passionately goodbye. Everything felt just like old times—with the prospect of more.

12 – Ethan
Nearly two weeks had passed since that magical night, and Ethan was still living off the extraordinary experience. Everyday life had normalized as a result, and Myra had transformed back into the carefree woman he loved so deeply. And since last year’s anniversary had fallen victim to Myra’s illness, Ethan had double the reason to make this year’s even grander. An enormous bouquet of yellow tulips. A table at the city’s best restaurant, the Tropics. And perhaps—definitely—Myra would dare another transformation for him.

But just as he was planning the evening, a text message from his wife reached him: “Don’t plan anything for tonight. See you at 6 p.m. I love you.”
The short text ignited an anticipation in Ethan that he hadn’t felt in this form for a long time. Myra apparently had just as much interest in making the most important date of the year in the Woods’ life particularly special. And so Ethan spent the day lost in thought at the office, picked up the flowers from Monica on the way home, and stood in the doorway of his estate at exactly 6 p.m.

“Babe? I’m home!” he called expectantly into the house. And without receiving an answer, she appeared: Myra in the guise of youth, which she had regained through the spell in the form of Lisa. But before him stood not just the young guest from Germany. No. Myra had created a hot, provocative version of the young woman. As if someone had turned a FIAT into a Ferrari. Myra had elegantly made up the face of her borrowed body. Black lines accentuated the brown eyes, the cheeks lightly rouged. For the lips, she had chosen a dark red shade that was just right—not crossing the line between provocative and slutty. The body was adorned with elegant lingerie of black silk with light lace elements. Sheer stockings snaked down her legs.

But all of that was secondary compared to the main adornment of this human body. Lisa’s—Myra’s—brown hair lay perfectly on the scantily covered body. The parting precisely centered, as if measured with a laser. The tips nearly reached the narrow band of the thong Myra had put on this body. The light danced on it as Myra moved the body in her own rhythm. It was like one of those days when Myra had spent half the day at the hairdresser and let Ethan share in the perfect result. Now she strode toward him in this form, grabbed him by the waistband of his pants, and whispered: “Tonight, you deserve something very special, my beloved husband,” which was enough to set his lower regions stirring.

Without using any more words, Myra grabbed his hand and led him into one of the guest rooms. Ethan could hardly believe what he saw: Myra had hastily turned the room into an improvised hair salon. For this, she had placed an expensive-looking, height-adjustable chair in the middle of the room. Opposite it stood a dresser with a large mirror above it. On the dresser lay a cape, along with various brushes and combs, and a sharp pair of scissors ready. Ethan loved hairdresser role-play, and Myra knew it. In this way, she was saying thank you for his loyalty during the difficult time that lay behind them.

“May I sit down, Mr. Hairdresser?” she asked in a playfully naive tone that fit her appearance in this body. Ethan knew he didn’t have to hold back during this game and jumped right in. “Of course, young lady, please take a seat.”
Myra sat on the chair, and her face radiated the same unbridled anticipation for what was to come. In this body, she sparkled with self-confidence again, which suited both Myra’s character and Lisa’s body perfectly, creating an ideal symbiosis. Without rushing things, Ethan draped the black cape around the neck of the young woman before him. His penis was already stiff as he grasped the long brown mane to keep it away from her neck.

He stored the image in his mind as he closely observed how the brown curtain fanned out in the most erotic way on the black polyester and finally came to rest—accompanied by a familiar, erotic sound for him. Despite the overwhelming arousal, Ethan continued to play the professional hairdresser, asking his client what she “wanted done.”
Myra answered with the familiar “Just the tips, please,” underlined by an expectant giggle. Ethan didn’t need to be asked twice; he reached for one of the brushes on the dresser and didn’t hesitate to pull the teeth through the silken curtain, letting himself be hypnotized by the sight. This not only fueled the man’s desire as he performed the action but also the woman’s as she enjoyed the procedure. Soon, Ethan noticed movement under the rustling cape. “Aha,” he said sternly and slid his arm under the cape. Myra’s shock was, of course, only playful as she pretended to be surprised by Ethan. “So that turns you on, huh?”

Myra couldn’t suppress a smile but tried to continue playing the naughty client. “Please—don’t judge me; you’re just so handsome… and when someone touches my hair like you do…”
Myra hadn’t forgotten how to push her husband’s right buttons, because wordlessly he stripped off his clothes, revealing his enormous, hard masculinity—without putting it in the spotlight. He wanted to give his wife the satisfaction she deserved first. With skillful movements, his fingers reached the wet slit of the borrowed body in which his wife sat before him. In no time, he sank a finger into the woman’s vulva and massaged her clit with another. With surgical precision, the aroused man worked his partner’s genitals, spurring her on with comments like “You’re a naughty young woman, you know that? Good thing I like that.” It took less than a minute for Myra to make Lisa’s body tremble under Ethan’s attentions and pour herself onto his hand in an explosive climax.

Ethan seized the moment for himself—and it even gave him an idea. A fantasy he had harbored for years but, for obvious reasons, could never make reality: He had always dreamed of cutting his partner’s long hair during such a game. Preferably while she pleasured him. Of course, that was never really an option because he didn’t want Myra to lose her long hair permanently—but here it would only be temporary. Myra knew about this fantasy and seemed to either remember it in that moment or have planned it from the start. Because as she recovered from the orgasm, she said cautiously: “I’m so sorry—please don’t punish me!”

Ethan wiped his hand on a towel and couldn’t hide his grin as he stepped close behind Myra. He didn’t let anything stop him from touching the hair before him with his entire body and enjoying the feel on his skin. Finally, he said sternly: “I’m afraid there’s no way around it, my dear.”
Myra lowered her head and agreed: “I’m afraid I deserve that.”

Ethan gathered the brown strands into a thick, smooth ponytail and wrapped it several times around his hard shaft. With gentle thrusts, he penetrated the dark bundle of hair, bumping against the back of her head with each motion. Ethan quickly felt like he was about to explode but didn’t want to let this unique opportunity pass unused. He released the repurposed ponytail and positioned himself in front of Myra, who looked at him expectantly. Ethan grabbed the brown mane again, this time much rougher—but even without that urging, Myra’s mouth found its way to his glans. Ethan grunted as he pushed deeper into her, the hair between his fingers. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer and finally said: “Look what you’ve done with your hair—I can’t tolerate that.”

Myra understood this signal as the prelude to the grand finale and wrapped her hand around her husband’s balls as he filled her throat. Ethan reached for the sharp, gleaming scissors and, while filling his wife’s mouth, set the sharp blades just above his grip. He watched as the metal severed the strands—how more and more strands detached from the head. When he made the final cut and held the long brown ponytail in his hands, he finally ejaculated after agonizingly long arousal into the mouth of the woman whose hair he had just cut.
13 – Myra
Myra gave her husband time to recover from what had just happened. She knew she had just fulfilled one of his wildest fantasies—thanks to her ability to slip into another body. And this evening was far from over: It had the potential to be the best anniversary of all time—including the actual wedding and the subsequent wedding night. But now Myra would use the short break for duty. The duty of securing such evenings for the future, because when Myra had planned to have Lisa’s long hair cut off, she hadn’t just had Ethan’s fantasies in mind.

Myra grabbed some of the strands Ethan had let fall and hurried to the kitchen. Lisa would soon return to her homeland, and thus Myra would no longer have a chance to help herself to her hairbrush to brew the potion that let her slip into this body. So she would use the huge amount of hair Ethan had just taken from her to brew decades-long supplies for the future. The sexual future of the Woods would thus be secured.

Myra took the little bottle and poured it as usual into a vessel, bringing it to a boil with the special ingredient. But the glass shattered immediately, the liquid glowing in an ugly neon green color. For Myra, there was no doubt this was a warning: Don’t drink that. Though the supply of magic seemed unlimited, the desired effect apparently only worked with the real hair of the donor person. Myra was disappointed—she had hoped to find a long-term solution to her hair loss—but quickly refocused on the present. She would worry about the future later; now it was still about giving Ethan the most exciting night of all time.

She found Ethan in the room, the improvised hair salon, where she had left him. Still naked, his penis still—or again—swollen. His perfect mature body ready for her, the foreign body, and her hair. He smiled when he saw her and joked: “I wish we’d done that a little later,” gesturing toward her head, alluding to the fact that he would have liked to have Myra as long-haired Lisa in front of him a bit longer. But Ethan wouldn’t have to worry about that for long.

“We’re not done yet,” she said in response and sat back on the chair, whose seat was still wet from her bodily fluids. Ethan had placed the cut-off ponytail neatly on the dresser, tied with a hair tie to lose no strand. Myra knew he had done this with the plan to use it again in some other way. A toy of a special kind, and Myra grew wet at the thought of how it could be used as a restraint or something similar.

“Or do you want to fuck me like this?” Myra continued, referring to the uneven cut Ethan had given her in the heat of battle. The tips of the thick brown hair were full and blunt but uneven, noticeably longer on the left than the right. A nice bob would certainly be far more erotic than what she currently had on her head, and Ethan more than agreed.

Ethan draped the cape around her again. The cold plastic made her nipples harden, and the sight of Ethan about to style her naked aroused her immensely. Once more, her husband took the scissors and began evening out the lengths of the now much shorter hair. Myra watched with what devotion and attention to detail her husband worked. Cut hair reached the floor and stuck to his sweaty body. Ethan’s penis stood at full size, but he concentrated purely on adjusting Myra’s hairstyle. He truly showed talent and gave her a chin-length bob where all the hair was cut to one length. This cut suited Lisa excellently, though Myra thought it could have been a bit longer—but the look with the full tips emphasizing Lisa’s thick, dense, and straight hair made her appear more mature and feminine.
14 – Ethan
Ethan stood behind her, scissors still in hand, staring at his work. The bob was perfect—blunt, smooth, the tips exactly at chin level, brushing her skin with every small movement. Like the woman in the hotel. Ethan was surprised to be the creator of this masterpiece himself. Myra turned her head slightly. She looked like a woman who knew exactly what she wanted—and exactly what he wanted.

“Do you like what you see?” she asked in Lisa’s voice, deeper, smokier than her own, and the sound alone was enough to make his cock twitch. Ethan set the scissors aside, stepped closer, and let his hands glide from her shoulders to the freshly cut ends. The hair felt even fuller than before. “You know the answer to that, darling,” he murmured and pulled her up. The salon chair creaked as he turned her on it, spread her legs, and stood between them. Myra leaned back, hands on the armrests, and looked at him—these brown eyes that weren’t hers but in this moment radiated everything of her. Ethan pushed the black lingerie aside, found her wet and ready, and entered her with a single thrust.

She moaned, and her fingers dug into the armrests as she took him in. The chair squeaked in rhythm with his thrusts, brown strands sliding down the black cape. Myra threw her head back, and Ethan couldn’t help but plunge his hands into the brown bob and grip it. Thus he forced her to look at him—in the certainty that his partner liked it. “You’re the best wife in the world,” he growled, and she smiled with the unique expression Ethan otherwise knew only from Myra’s own face. He fucked her until her legs trembled, until she moaned his name. When she came, everything inside her clenched, and Ethan held back only with difficulty. He wanted more. He wanted everything.

He pulled out of her, lifted her up, and carried her to the bedroom. Myra laughed softly as he threw her onto the bed, knelt behind her, and pulled her onto all fours. The cut-off ponytail still lay on the dresser. Ethan grabbed it and tied it as a gag between her teeth. She bit into it, looked at him over her shoulder, eyes dark with desire. He entered her again from behind, hard and deep. His hands holding the ponytail like reins, the hair between her teeth, her moaning muffled and animalistic. He fucked her until the bed frame banged against the wall and they both felt as one. Myra moaned incomprehensible words into the improvised gag as she came. Ethan followed and emptied himself into her in several thrusts.
They collapsed, sweaty, breathless, laughing. And it wasn’t over yet. The rest of the night, they fucked like possessed. In the shower, where water ran over Lisa’s body and hair as Myra pressed him against the tiles. On the carpet, where she rode him until she begged him not to stop. In every imaginable position. They came again and again until their bodies trembled, until they no longer knew where one began and the other ended. Eventually, when even Lisa’s young body gave out, they finally lay still, entwined, the sheets rumpled.

Ethan kissed her forehead—Lisa’s forehead, Myra’s soul—and whispered: “Happy anniversary, my queen.” Myra smiled, exhausted, happy, and fell asleep. He followed shortly after, the scent of Lisa’s hair still in his nose, Myra’s heart against his.

15 – Myra
The magical night for their anniversary was now almost two weeks ago, and Myra still felt the lust echoing within her—even though she had long since returned to her own body. But she also looked back on that night with a touch of concern, because her plan to brew enough magical potion to slip into Lisa’s body until the end of her life had failed. And Lisa would return home at the end of this week, thus taking away Myra’s opportunity to exploit the potential of her body for her own purposes. But Myra wasn’t giving up that easily.

She wanted to make one last attempt to stockpile the secret ingredient needed for the transformation. Myra invited Lisa on a shopping trip, during which they would also visit M Y R A’s, where Lisa could pick out anything she wanted. This was not only part of Myra’s plan but also a kind of apology for the cool treatment of the au pair during her stay. And a thank you for the opportunity she had given Myra—even if Lisa knew nothing about it. Which was somehow unfair, because Myra knew more about Lisa than the girl perhaps even knew about herself, for her body had betrayed the young woman.

Lisa browsed hesitantly among the clothes while Myra waited patiently. Myra saw that Lisa had no pronounced interest in fashion and suggested an elegant knee-length dress to her. She explained that she could wear it when visiting the Tropics, where it was hard to get a table—another part of Myra’s farewell gift: An evening at the city’s best restaurant. The dress suited Lisa excellently, and obviously she liked herself in it more than she openly admitted. Looking at the price tag, she said she couldn’t accept it, but Myra insisted. Myra, of course, knew perfectly what suited Lisa and showered her with compliments. As the au pair admired herself in the mirror, Myra posed her. Then it was time to move to Plan B.
“You have such great hair, Lisa! But I keep thinking how good a bob would look on you!”

Lisa now examined her hair closely and pondered. Myra expected protest, but to her surprise, Lisa admitted: “I’ve been toying with the idea for a long time, but… somehow I don’t dare. I’ve always had long hair, and… my boyfriend likes it… I think…”
Myra saw her doubts and understood. “Is it important what he likes? He won’t love you just because of your haircut! And besides… that makes you a real woman, trust me… Plus, I know an extremely talented hairdresser…”

Lisa smiled faintly. Then Myra could spot a spark in her eyes as she finally said: “Okay! I think I want to do it.”
This part of the plan had gone better than Myra had expected. Myra recognized anticipation in Lisa, and they headed to Lucy’s hair salon. Lucy, whom she had actually wanted to visit before all this happened, wouldn’t ask questions about where Myra had been: She knew all about the difficulties of the past months. And one day Myra would explain everything to her friend—but not today.

A quiet bell tinkled as the door to the small but stylishly furnished salon swung open. Lucy came around the corner, and Myra knew a “Sorry, we’re closing soon” was on her lips, which she immediately swallowed when the hairdresser spotted her friend and instead hugged her wordlessly and warmly. She greeted Lisa kindly and nodded understandingly. She understood and said: “I’ll just finish my client, and then I’m all yours.”
Myra sat with Lisa on one of the armchairs in a seating area that offered the best view of Lucy and her client. On the chair sat an elegant woman in her thirties. Tall and with striking features, her hair bleached and curly. There was something impressive about her—and Myra noticed Lisa’s furtive glances at her, which she tried to hide. From the accent, the woman wasn’t from around here, which she confirmed in the course of the conversation with Myra’s friend: A businesswoman—possibly connected to Silver Oaks—who would travel back to her hometown that evening. Finally, she paid for Lucy’s services, and Lisa was up.

She explained her wish to Lucy, who asked no questions, and shortly after, Lisa’s transformation began. The scissors set in. The first strands fell. Myra stood beside them, her heart pounding in her throat—not out of sentimentality, but out of anticipation. Lucy worked precisely, cutting a perfect, smooth bob that made Lisa’s face look softer, more mature, more elegant. When the last strand fell, Lisa looked like a different woman. Confident. Sexy.

“Wow,” Lisa whispered and touched the blunt ends. “That’s… really me?” She was overwhelmed by her new look and visibly thrilled.
It was Lisa’s penultimate evening. For the next day, Myra had reserved a table for her at the Tropics. Myra explained to the young woman that she wouldn’t be home that day and that it was time to say goodbye. Lisa said a warm goodbye to Myra, though Myra still felt she hadn’t treated the young woman as she deserved. She had apologized for it today and made up for some of it.

Then Myra thought of the seemingly endless amount of brown strands in her bag, which would bring Myra—and Ethan—a lot more joy, and she knew: She owed Lisa far more.
“Take care, Lisa,” she said finally and turned her back on her. Knowing full well that they would see each other again soon.
Epilogue
Lisa stood in front of the Tropics, her heart pounding in her throat. The dress Mrs. Wood had given her hugged her body, and every time the wind blew through her new bob, she felt… different. More mature. Bolder. Her time in Willow Heights had passed faster than she had initially expected—and she felt a touch of melancholy at the thought of leaving tomorrow. The Woods had never treated her like an employee or help and had given her all the freedoms she wanted and more.

Mr. Wood always polite, always respectful. And Mrs. Wood… initially cool, almost dismissive, but in the last weeks so warm, so generous. The shopping day, the dress, the haircut—all incredibly generous gifts. She had really felt at home here. Safe. And she had become so much more independent—more grown-up.

She took a deep breath, brushed a strand from her face, and stepped inside. The table was reserved—“for Lisa, from Mrs. Wood.” The waiter led her to a small two-person table by the window. Candlelight flickered, soft jazz played, and Lisa sat down. The waiter brought her an unsolicited selection of expensive wines and stylishly arranged dishes. It was incredible, and she felt a bit like a star sitting alone at this table. Until someone approached the table.
The woman from Lucy’s salon. The same elegant businesswoman with the wild blonde curls. She wore a tight red dress that accentuated her curves. Her gait was confident, almost predatory, as she headed straight for Lisa’s table. “Here alone too?” she asked with a smile that made Lisa blush immediately. The voice was deep, smoky, and confident. “You look… different. The bob suits you incredibly. You’re attractive. Very much so.”

Lisa felt her face burning. “Thank you… I… yes, I’m alone.” The woman sat down uninvited. “May I? By the way… just call me Alex.” She extended her hand, and when Lisa took it, Alex held it a moment longer than necessary. “You know, I saw you in the salon. And I couldn’t stop thinking about you—that’s why I stayed an extra day, hoping to find you, and fortunately your friend could help me.”
Lisa swallowed. She had never been flirted with so directly—especially not by a woman. Alex looked at her with a piercing gaze. As if she knew things about Lisa that Lisa herself had always hidden. The secret glances at women in the changing room. The dreams she had never told anyone. The longing she had always suppressed. Alex moved closer. “I’m flying back to Carolina tomorrow. Tonight, I’m looking for an adventure. Just tonight. No names, no questions. Just us two.”

Her hand rested on Lisa’s knee under the table. Lisa trembled, but Alex made no move to withdraw it. “What do you say?” Lisa couldn’t get a word out. Her heart raced. She just nodded and pressed out an excited “Yes.”
They left the restaurant and drove to the Woods’ estate. Lisa led Alex to the guest house she had lived in for months. She knew no one was there—Mrs. Wood had said goodbye yesterday, and Mr. Wood a week ago. The door fell shut behind them, and immediately Alex pressed Lisa against the wall and began kissing her hungrily. Lisa moaned into the kiss. Her hands trembled as she pushed up the red dress and found the soft skin beneath. Alex laughed softly, gently bit Lisa’s lower lip, and whispered: “You’re so beautiful when you let go.”

They undressed, stumbled into the bedroom, fell onto the bed. Alex was everywhere—her lips on Lisa’s neck, her hands between her legs, her tongue that knew exactly where to go. Lisa had never felt anything comparable. It was as if this woman knew every secret spot in her.
Finally, she exploded under the woman’s touches, who seemed to know Lisa’s body better than she did herself. Lisa collapsed exhausted into the sheets, and the stranger was already starting to get dressed.
She stood up and left. As she stood in the doorway, she said one last thing:

“Thank you, Lisa—for everything.”