“You know”, said Alice, “I could totally pull off short hair.” She took a strain of her hazel hair and tucked it behind her ear.

“No doubt you could.” Jack looked at her thoughtfully. “Wanna bet you won’t actually give it a shot though?” He flashed a provocative grin.

“Oh come on, that’s not fair”, she protested. “You know as well as I do that going with pink hair would have looked stupid as hell and I would have regretted it instantly. But short hair… I think that could actually work.”

“If you say so, but I believe it when I see it. Speaking of work, I’m afraid I have to…”

“Go!” Alice grinned. “I’ll see you on Friday. Your place or mine?”

“Mine sounds good.” He kissed Alice goodbye and left the Vietnamese food stand at which they’d met. It had long become a tradition. Lunch at the Vietnamese food stand halfway between campus and Jack’s work, every Wednesday.

They’d met at a party through mutual friends. Jack was two years older than Alice, 24, and he’d graduated early after putting in lots of extra hours at college. She’d enjoyed his gentle and kind manners, and his attention to the little things, and they quickly hit it off. She was still working on her own degree. Political science, and social studies. Alice was very passionate about those things. At 22 she was still idealistic and she knew it, but she hoped that would last for a while longer. She had her own social circle, but she liked Jack’s friends well enough. Their friends seemed fairly compatible thankfully, so meeting in any sort of group constellation was usually an enjoyable occasion. Alice had moved here from her little home village, halfway across the country. While she liked her hometown well enough, there really wasn’t much to do for a somewhat excited and wide eyed idealistic social warrior with an interest in scuba diving and hiking, and so she’d moved out into the world to learn new things, much to the dismay of her conservative family. Oh well… they’d get over it eventually.

Alice gathered her notes, which lay scattered across the little table. She had just discussed them with Jack. They often did that. Jack’s area of expertise was engineering and everything concerning cars, but he was curious and a smart cookie in general and she enjoyed getting deep into her own subject matter with him. It was a frequent topic of their Wednesday luncheons at the Vietnamese food stand. She crammed her notes into her backpack and hurried across the road to her political analytics class.

“Come on in”, Jack said to Alice on Friday evening as he opened the door for her. “Dinner’s almost ready. Oh hey, your hair! It does look good!”

“Thanks”, Alice grinned. She kissed Jack hello set down her backpack and hung her coat on the rack by the door before she turned on her heels so Jack could get a good look at her stylish new short haircut.

“Smells delicious”, she said. “What is it?”

“I found this recipe for a shepherds pie and figured I’d give it a shot.”

“Cool, sounds good. I brought some wine. Primitivo, one we both liked the other week.” She handed him the bottle, which he accepted excitedly. She strolled into the living room as he went to fetch a cork screw and two wine glasses.

Jack had started working for a local car manufacturer even before graduating. He’d done an internship at the company and left an impression, and they had offered him a part time job. They’d made him a proper job offer for a junior engineering position with ample opportunity to progress further after graduation, and he’d accepted eagerly. He earned well. Good, qualified workers in his field were hard to come by, and the companies in the industry made sure to keep people like Jack happy and comfortable.

He lived alone, in a nice three-room apartment in the western outskirts of the city. Alice lived with roommates near the campus. They had discussed Alice moving in with Jack, but the relationship was still fairly new and the current arrangement worked out well. Alice had some clothes at Jack’s place and they met two or three times a week, either at her place or at Jack’s. They also enjoyed spending the weekends together. Usually that happened at Jack’s, but they also travelled to other places on occasion. AirBnB’s for a long weekend in the mountains or by some lake…that sort of thing.

Alice worked part time. While her parents begrudgingly paid for her “expensive chic city life”, as they’d phrased it, meaning they sent her €200 every month, she obviously couldn’t  live from that, and so she worked part time in a consulting office as a secretary. The job was great: good pay for reasonably little work, and she could afford to finance her studies and flat that way, using the money from her parents to buy the occasional treat and to set away some money when possible. Still, finances on her end were perpetually tight. However, Jack didn’t mind. His philosophy was that excess money was to be shared, and he had no issues paying for the occasional weekend retreat. He also enjoyed them, he reasoned, so there was no real trade-off for him. Besides, there were worse things than a relationship to spend money on, and it wasn’t like Alice actually lived the “chic city life” her parents claimed she did. She was in this relationship for Jack, and for Jack alone, not his financial possibilities. She’d made that quite clear to him, repeatedly.

“So, how was your day?” Jack had returned from the kitchen with the wine glasses. He set the glasses on the table and began opening the wine bottle.

“Good, honestly. Got an A in my essay in social issues.”

“Well done, that’s amazing! I know how much time you put into this. You must be super proud.”

“Thanks”, Alice beamed. “Jennifer Haurte is now dating Tobin Detegun, and Joy Brooks broke up with Lenny.”

“Aw man, that sucks for Lenny. Poor guy, but that’s been coming for a while, huh?”

“Yeah, honestly, I think it’s for the best. I like Joy, but she was a piece of work for him. That relationship wasn’t healthy”, Alice said. Jack filled the two wine glasses and handed one to Alice.

“Still, he must be heartbroken. We should invite him out some time, get his mind off of things”, Jack responded while walking to the kitchen to fetch the pie from the oven.

“You’re a good guy”, Alice said. “I’m sure he’d really like that.”

“Then let’s do it. Should we ask him for Monday night?”

“Good idea, I’ll text him later this weekend…Thanks”, she smiled as he loaded some pie onto her plate.

They silently toasted each other and began eating.

“This is really good”, Alice commented.

“I’m glad to hear that. I figured it sounds tasty, and leek is an underrated ingredient. I’m glad this worked out this well.”

“It did!” She grinned and took a sip of wine. “So how was your day?”

“Fine I guess. There’s this engine I can’t seem to get to work. Every time I identify one issue and fix it, another seems to open up. I’ve taken that bloody thing apart and put it back together at least five times by now, but to no avail.”

“That sucks. But what are you doing working on engines anyway? Didn’t you move to another department recently?”

“I develop suspensions right now, yeah. But they were short staffed in my old department and Bernie asked if I could pop by and give them a hand, and I was dumb enough to say yes.”

“I bet he appreciates it though.”

“He does. Leaving Bernie when switching departments was the hardest thing. I’m glad to be working with him again.”

“I’m happy to hear that.” She smiled. Jack was too nice for his own good at times, but it was nice to see that others appreciated him for that as well.

As the dinner progressed, so did the conversation. After talking about other people they slowly drifted towards themselves and the weekend ahead.

“So what are we doing this weekend?”, Alice asked as she helped Jack clear the table.

“I want to show you something tonight. I bought a little something that…might make things a little interesting for us”, he responded.

“Ooh, sounds interesting”, she said with a smirk. “In what way?”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see”, he said with a wink.

“Not fair”, she shouted with feigned outrage.

Jack only laughed. “Come on, get settled for the weekend, then meet me in the living room. I’ll go and set it up.”

“Alright”, Alice grinned as she put the last plate in the dishwasher. She grabbed her bag and headed to the bedroom to switch into pyjamas and get cozy.

Ten minutes later she entered the living room to find that Jack had placed a small box with a little sensor behind plexiglass at the top. The box had a small touch screen and a power button on the side. All in all it was a sleek design. Jack seemed a little nervous, but also excited.

“Here I am”, Alice said. “What’s up?”

“Let’s sit down for a second”, Jack said and pointed at the couch. Alice sat down, Jack followed her.

Jack cleared his throat. “You know how there are some things about me I’m having difficulty sharing? Like…all sorts of things, but including…” He tapered off again. “You know how we’ve started…um…experimenting a little in bed?”

“Yeah, I liked that. Shows me a side of you I don’t often see, and I like that side too, you know?”

“I’m glad to hear that. Really. I loved that you were up for trying something new.” He smiled nervously.

“What is it, Jackieboy?” His face flushed a little. He always said he didn’t like the outrageous nicknames she came up with for him, but that was a lie. The truth was that he did enjoy it. He knew it, she knew it, she knew he knew, and he knew she knew he knew. Those nicknames were So she kept doing it. It was one of their little games.

“I…I don’t know how to phrase this any differently…I heard about this device which can do certain things, supposedly…”

“Like what?”

“Apparently, please don’t laugh, but apparently it can alter bodies.”

“Alter bodies? How do you mean?”

“Like it sounds. It supposedly can alter bodies. Genuinely. Like…remove your hand, for example. No idea how exactly it works. I’ve seen parts of a review by some streamer, but then again that could also be fake. They call it ‘The Atomizer’.”

“That sounds completely insane. Like…why? How? And why again? Why would anyone do that?”

“I mean…I guess…if it is reversible and safe  it could be fun to explore different bodies and generally play with it.”

“I guess so…” Alice didn’t seem convinced.

“Anyway, Internet searches also didn’t really say whether it’s legit. However, the company that supposedly made the first versions just revealed a new prototype and announced they were looking for consumers to test it. They claim it did really well in in-house testing and is safe, got all the permits and stuff, but it’s not quite ready for the market, and so they are looking for consumers to test it and give feedback.”

“And you just figured we should? Why?”

“Why not? Like I said, they say it’s safe. It seems like they already successfully published their first two versions. They have a permit, so I figured…why not?”

“I guess…uh, I don’t know. It just seems crazy to me. How much did they have you pay for it?”

“Nothing, actually. Assuming this works I got a crazy sweet deal on it. If we’re happy with it, we get to keep it, they paid us €500 for testing it and we also got coupons on a bunch of other stuff.”

“Wait really?”

“Yeah!”

“Well…I guess it can’t hurt to keep an open mind”, Alice finally said.

“So you’re in?”

“I still don’t know why anyone would do something like that, but sure, let’s give it a try. Can’t be much different than allowing yourself to be tied up for sex or spending a day on the couch, right? People do that all the time…”

“Good point.” Jack seemed relieved to have cleared the first hurdle.

“So… what exactly do we do, how does this work?”, Alice asked.

“I’m actually not exactly sure. The device arrived today, and I haven’t had enough time to look into it. Wanna do it together?”

“Tonight?”

“Sure, why not? We’ve got all weekend and the bank holiday on Monday until we see Lenny in the evening to play with it. Why not start now?”

“You really want to, don’t you?” Alice grinned at Jack.

“Um…yes.” Jack blushed again.

“Okay then”, Alice said. “Nice taking initiative, Jackieboy. How about I go text Lenny about Monday and you read up on how this works?”

“Sounds like a deal! Come back when you’re done”, Jack said and began reading the manual as Alice left the room.

Alice came back 15 minutes later. “Lenny is thrilled to see us on Monday.” She smiled at Jack. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Of course! I like him too, you know?”

“I know! But it’s still super nice of you. So how does this work?”

“Well, so, this version of the Atomizer is “new” in that we can simply trigger reductions and alterations remotely.”

“Reductions?”

“Vanishing a limb.”

Alice still didn’t seem convinced, but didn’t say anything.

“We don’t have the old versions, and we don’t know them, but supposedly the old versions had to be physically held over the limb or body part, or you had to stand in a chamber, like in an airport body scanner”, Jack continued. “This one works as long as you are within the same room. It says they have made a reductive king’s cup that did something similar, but at a much closer distance. This is a further development of the same technology.”

“So, what, you can press a button and my hands fall off?” Alice asked.

“More like disappear rather than fall off, but…yeah, I think so.”

“Okay, but how does it work?”

“Well, first we need to scan the body we want to alter into the system. Alice…will you be my guinea pig?”

“If you ask this nicely then I suppose I have to say yes, even though I want to stress that this seems like an elaborate prank, like make-belief.” She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Okay then…well, worst thing that can happen is that it doesn’t work and I feel like an idiot.”

“MY idiot, please”, Alice said with a wink. Jack smiled shyly.

“Sure! So first it says that in order to scan you, you need to be in underwear or naked.”

“You know, I’m kinda seeing someone right now…” Alice teased. “I’m not sure it’s serious, but he’s this cute engineer guy and it could turn into something more…” She stopped and giggled at his uneasy expression. “But for real, there are easier ways to get me to undress for you”, she laughed while she began undressing.

A minute later she was in underwear, and Jack instructed her on how to position herself so that he could best scan her using the prototype of the new Atomizer version.

Once the scan was complete, they sat down on the couch again.

Jack touched the screen of the Atomizer to activate it and navigated through the settings, the open manual next to him.

“Right, so here it is. I selected “reduction” and “no timer”.”

“Timer?”

“Yeah, there are two sorts of reductions or alterations. One is without a time limit. In that case the alteration or reduction stays until it is manually reversed. The other is with a time limit. In that case the alteration or reduction reverses itself after a set amount of time whether if the Atomizer is nearby or not.”

“That seems rather handy”, Alice commented before giggling at her involuntary pun.

“It does, but there’s a catch. A time limited reduction cannot be restored manually. So once you’ve set the timer, you’re stuck in whatever configuration you picked until the timer runs out.”

“Huh, that’s good to know. What’s the minimum and maximum amount of time one can pick?”

“There’s a minimum of 10 seconds and a maximum of five years. It used to be two years, then three, now they got it to go to five years.”

“Damn that’s a long amount of time. So why can’t I further reduce a limb with a time limited reduction and then restore everything? Like… if I have a time limit of two days, and I reduce the same limb further with no time limit, shouldn’t the entire limb return once I restore the unlimited reduction?”

“Good question!” Jack flipped through the manual. “Ah, here. No. It looks like the device programs your cells directly to halt or enable growth of your body from that point onwards. If you further reduce your time-limited reduction and then restore it, you restore the limb you removed including the programming. So your limb would come back up to the point where the time limited reduction is and then stop. And what’s even worse is that the limit obviously doesn’t go down while a limb is reduced further. So if you remove a limb for, say, two days, and then add another reduction on the same limb for three days, your limb will come back to the point of the original reduction after three days, and completely restore two days after that”, Jack explained.

“So I can stack them?”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

Alice nodded, signalling her understanding.

“So what now?”, she asked.

“Now I get to select what to take away from you for a little while. Any preferences?”

“Honestly, no idea. I straight up expect this not to work and I have never asked myself what part of myself I’d cut off if it could grow back. That’s not really something I think about a lot.” She smirked. “How about we start with my arms?”

“Your arms? Plural?”

“Sure, why not? You said this is safe. We might as well take a proper leap if we try this.”

“Okay then…”, Jack muttered. “Any preferences of how much you want to have left?”

“You do realise that is a weird fucking question, right?”

“Yeah, I do. But look, there’s a slider. You can do the arms individually or together. Want to do it yourself?”

“No, surprise me”, Alice said and turned around.

“Okay then..”, Jack said. “Huh, that’s cool!”

“What?” Alice asked.

“I can pair the Atomizer to my phone and remote control it via an app.”

“That is super cool! If that thing even works”, Alice said.

“Well, let’s find out, shall we?” Jack moved the sliders so that they showed the “reduction point” right through Alice’s elbows on the screen. He pressed “enter” and was faced with the next screen asking him about scars and stump shapes. He quickly selected “no scar”, “natural look” and adjusted yet another slider for slightly narrower stump endings. He hit enter again and hit the final screen that asked him to initiate.

“Okay, I’m done”, he said to Alice, who promptly turned back around. “Are you ready?”

“I guess so”, Alice said, suddenly with a slightly concerned look on her face. She took a deep breath and smiled at Jack with uncertainty.

“Hey, Alice, relax”, Jack said. “I’m right here and as soon as you say stop I will reverse everything and whatever happens, I am here for you, do you understand?”

Alice nodded and smiled warmly, visibly more relaxed. “Go”, she said.

Jack hit the “initiate” button. Almost immediately Alice felt a warm, tingling feeling in her lower arms.

“Uh, Jack, I feel someth…” She stopped talking when her lower arms suddenly disappeared. Her eyes widened while her mind tried to comprehend what just happened. Jack just stared.

“OH MY GOD, MY ARMS, JACK, MY ARMS, PLEASE, HELP ME!! JACK!!” Alice shrieked. She was breathing heavily and waved her symmetrical arm stumps up and down for a moment before Jack snapped out of his shock.

“Alice, hey, ALICE, listen…”

But Alice couldn’t listen. She was caught in this state of shock, and she waved her arms up and down and kept shrieking for Jack to do something, so Jack hit the “restore” button on the screen. Almost instantly the warm feeling in Alice’s arms returned and her arms reappeared.

There was a moment of complete silence while both of them tried to comprehend what had just happened.

“Holy fuck”, said Alice. “This actually works. I would not have thought that. Just…wow!”

“Wow indeed”, Jack said softly. “How do you feel?”

“I…I think I’m fine”, Alice said, inspecting her hands and arms carefully. “Sorry about that, I…I just really didn’t expect that to happen. It caught me by surprise.”

“Honestly, me too. I just wanted to see if I can get you to undress almost immediately after dinner”, Jack said with a smirk, earning him a playful shove from Alice.

“Idiot”, she giggled. “We didn’t really get to inspect this now, did we?”

“No, but that’s okay. I guess…”

“I want you to do it again”, Alice said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Now I know that it works, and, far more importantly, I know that I can reverse it. I want to actually try this, because…this is crazy!”

“Okay then”, Jack grinned. “Same setting, or do you want a different configuration?”

“Same configuration please.” Alice took a deep breath.

Jack pressed the “initiate” button again and the warm, tingling feeling returned. A few heartbeats later Alice’s lower arms disappeared again.

“Wow!” Alice stared at her two new arm stumps with wide eyes. “This is insane!” She turned to Jack. “What do you think?”

Jack didn’t respond immediately.

“Jack?”, Alice asked again.

“Sorry! This is incredible. It looks…” Jack paused, “…as if you were born this way. Can I see?”

Alice was busy clumsily rubbing the ends of her arms together. When Jack asked, she turned to him and held out her stumps for him to inspect. Jack grabbed the ends of her arms, felt them and inspected them.

“How does it feel?” Jack asked softly.

“Honestly, it feels…normal? Like… I don’t have any feeling in the parts that are gone, but up until the point where my arms end, it feels completely normal. Give me your arm”, she demanded and grabbed it between both stumps. She tapped the point on Jack’s arm where both her arms ended.

“This is what my arm feels like. Just…normal until here, and then nothing. It’s honestly super weird, but not too bad. Hang on, I need to see this…” She jumped up and ran to the bathroom where she thoroughly inspected her body in the mirror. Her hazel hair was short and it did suit her. It highlighted her dark green-golden eyes and played well with her pale skin and the proportionate and sporty figure. She worked on her body. Not for muscle, but simply for a proportionate and nice body.

Her utter lack of lower arms or hands looked very natural. It was odd to her, but she also felt…liberated? ‘Maybe that’s the wrong word’, she thought to herself, but she did feel the adrenaline rush of having done something really fucking weird and outrageous. She could find no other words to describe it. But she loved it. Somehow she enjoyed this. Obviously she would never have voluntarily crippled herself like that permanently. But she didn’t. This was reversible. This was new. It allowed for her to try something bold, something new. Like her hair, but way more dramatic. She giggled as she waved her stumps. This was so, so odd. And she had all weekend to try it out.

“Can you restore my arms please?” Alice asked as she walked back into the living room.

“Aw, so soon?” Jack asked, teasing.

“Yeah, I mean, we can do it again later, but I’d like to get changed first and it’s going to be a little tricky like this”, she said, waving her stumps up and down.

“Why do it yourself? I can help you. No need to restore your arms. I mean…I will if you want me to, but I can also just help you…”

“Alright then”, Alice grinned. “Let me fetch my pyjamas and I’ll be right back.”

She walked into the bedroom, pulled open her drawer in the cupboard using both stumps and made a mess of her neatly folded clothes when she pulled her short-sleeved light-green pyjamas out of the drawer. She returned to the living room, holding her things between her two stumps.

“Could you help me get out of my underwear please?”

“Sure”, Jack said and quickly opened Alice’s bra. As she slipped out of her bra swinging her upper body and shaking her abbreviated arms, Jack pulled down Alice’s panties. He paused for a little while and looked at Alice’s new form, now completely unobstructed by any clothes.

“You’re stunning, you know?”

“Really? Like this?”

“Absolutely, yes”, he responded. “No idea why, but this is…you are…wow!”

She blushed, but still managed to hit him with a “well said”, to which he rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Now help me get dressed, you pervert, so we can move on to better things tonight.”

“And your arms?” Ben asked, as he helped her into her pyjama shorts. “Should I…?”

“Not until tomorrow”, Alice said as her head emerged from her short-sleeved pyjama-top that Jack helped her put on. “Thanks”, she beamed and hugged him as best as she could with her short stabby arms. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips before she turned towards the door.

“Now come to the bedroom and help me tidy up the mess I made when getting these pyjamas out of my drawer.” And with that she left the living room.