Cute.

What does it mean to be cute? Darla pondered this question as she looked at the dozens of options laid out in front of her. Darla was woman fresh out of college who had recently come into a lot of money (rest in peace, Grandpa Milton) and with that money, she decided to purchase a Skin Salon 3000. This wonderful device, which looked like nine foot tall transparent dome connected to a computer, had the ability to change a person’s appearance instantly! Plastic surgery was a thing of the past.

Stepping away from the monitor, Darla, unable to come to a decision, got up and took a break from her wondering. Hers was not a glorious house: it was essentially a mobile home with some extra rooms attached making it a patchwork of shoddy architecture and clogged by messes she swore she would clean up later. As for Darla herself, she had thankfully not ballooned out during college, but that didn’t do much to approve her appearance, at least in her eyes. She wore a navy blue beanie and a jacket the exact same color and smell as cigarette smoke over an olive green shirt. Her jeans were skinny, torn and stained and she wore pink flip flops under that.

As she stepped outside to take a drag from her cigarette, she thought about her situation. She could buy new clothes, but that alone couldn’t make her more attractive. At least in her mind, her stringy black hair and her skin, red and wrinkled from sun and smoke, made her, again at least in her mind, look more like a woman in her 40s as opposed to the 25 year old she was. She had to change. For more doors to open, she had to look cute.

Returning to her machine, she looked at all the options again. Hundreds of body parts presented themselves to her, all matching some definition of “cute”. There was “sexy” cute, “child” cure, “doll” cute…it was too much, and that wasn’t even counting how far she wanted to go! It was all too much, but thankfully, she found a voice command.

“Make me cute. Like…really cute. Extreme over the top cute so I don’t gotta keep coming back here for changes.”

At the computer’s promoting, Darla stripped off all her clothes and piercings and stepped under the glass dome, which lowered over her. There was a brief moment of heat and Darla had a horrible lurch in her stomach as she thought she was falling through the floor, but then, with a pleasant ding, it was all , the dome lifted and Darla could examine herself.

The changes were as extreme as they were instant: she was much lower to the ground, lower than she ever remembered being! Her skin was also an inhuman shade of white. Looking down at her body, she didn’t recognize any part of herself (which made her feel bad that no part of her was apparently cute before). Her breasts, belly and ass were enormous (at least on her) especially compared to her tiny hands and feet, giving her an almost spherical body from the neck down. Waddling over some supplies she brought for this occasion, a mirror and a tape measure, she noticed a few other things: for one, her now cyan eyes made up about fifty percent of her face, and what wasn’t taken up by eyes seemed to be colored to form naturally red cheeks and lips (which we’re also disproportionately thick). The whole effect made her look like a porcelain doll.

She also measured herself. Two feet exactly. That was 61 cm, and she didn’t have any clothes that fit!

“Wow, those changes really were extreme!” she said, gasping at her new voice. It was high but not shrill, more like some sexy anime girl trying to sound cutesy. Throwing on a shirt as though it were some oversized dress, Darla left her house (barely able to reach the doorknob) and waddled down the street to the bus stop, her new pudgy body refusing to stay still.  People stared of course, who could blame them, and Darla drank in those eyes.

She tried to buy new clothes, but nothing in the adult department was short enough and everything in the kids section wouldn’t fit her flabby body! Frustrated, she left that store and tried to head to the mall food court. With her tiny legs and fat body, even small distances were a huge undertaking for her and she  had to stop for breath more than once. Once she got to the food court, she couldn’t get the cashier’s attention due to being shorter than the counter and when she did get her food, the tray was too big and heavy for her small frame and tiny hands, causing her to drop the tray! Cheap rice went everywhere.

“Okay, screw this” Darla simpered in her adorable voice. She wiggled her way through the mall, getting lost in a sea of knees and shins that knocked into her and at one point she heard a strange jingling sound. After escaping the mall and taking the bus home, Darla was happy to be away from the mall and already planning on how to fix herself. She reached into her purse, and…no house keys. The must have fallen out somewhere in the mall! Well, that’s okay, she kept a spare key in the backyard. It was kept in a secret device that looked like a wasp nest (so people wouldn’t look for it. Making her was back there, she found the fake nest.

It was in a tree, a good five feet off the ground.

Darla sat and sighed.

“Well, at least I’m cute.”