Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

"THE CUTE-IST"

Submitted by Crimson Coconut

I was an early bloomer. My body was starting to change around 7 or 8, and with it began a series of changes in environment. Every year it was a different school, every two years a different town. I wasn't a troublemaker. I never started fights, but they came to me. I have to admit it was a little fun, seeing everyone freak out over their own insecurity. The look on Sarah Valona's face when I told her "No, YOU'RE the ugly one", because she knew it was true. Soon I was the "tough girl" just through having to defend myself. I didn't have friends, just people who would tolerate me for a little while, before I "developed" further, shall we say. You know how peer pressure works.

Mom and Dad always told me to be proud of who I was, so I didn't flinch. I didn't let it get to me. I didn't hate anyone else, either. I felt sorry for them, that they had to go through all this to feel superior. We were all growing up, physically, mentally- it's a difficult time as it is. I was growing up very differently than anyone had expected, and that was the only difference.

My parents began to change there minds when my appearance started effecting them personally. By the time high school was starting they were getting letters from the community just for letting me wander around. I continued to blossom and school got worse and worse. It was always a choice between isolation and torment, but here affection was truly weaponized. Boys asked me out, keeping up the mask of acceptance until the time was right for public humiliation. Through it all I kept going to school, until I was expressly told not to by the faculty. Before long I was confined to the house, under quarantine by my loving family.

This was around the time my parents were looking into a specialist. Plastic surgery alone was much too little. Dad started putting out feelers among his business partners, and through friends of friends of friends, we finally got a telephone number and an address. That was it.

I watched my parents make the call and heard the voice on the other end, like a creaking chair. The office was at the top of a complex in an older part of town. We'd seen it up for lease for at a year or more. Tomorrow morning they would be open for business. I went along, more than a little unwillingly. This was just "to talk", as they put it.

The waiting room was perfectly clean and blindingly white. The glow of the lights reflected off the dozens of degrees on the walls, the only decoration in the room. The receptionist spoke to my parents from behind a glass window that obscured her features. It was the voice from the phone, but in real life she sounded more like a gentle, soft spoken grandmother.

A handful of magazines sat on the waiting room table, none of which I'd ever seen before. What mattered more was the large folder, an album of the doctor's other patients. It was true. His work was incredible. More than that I knew I wasn't alone! They were all different before, but after they where "finished" they all looked...

The same. Basically. Different colors and shapes, minor details. But, there they were, just like everyone else. Better than everyone else.

I slammed the book closed. I started screaming to go home, I didn't want to do it, I kicked and screamed and turned the table over. Thought I might as well give them what they wanted. I told them that they just had to accept me for who I was, their horrible disgusting awful daughter, whatever you do don't look beyond the and if this is how everyone thought I should be then-

The door to the office opened and the argument ground to an awkward halt. A little dark haired nurse announced softly that the doctor would see us now. Maybe it was her warm grin or her gentle tone, but I felt all my anxiety and rage leave. I decided yes, we'll talk.

The examination room had charts and models of organs we'd never heard of. The doctor was already there. He was a in his sixties, but with a youthful air about him. For a long time, we talked, and my parents explained to him my whole history. They don't know why I turned out this way, the nightmare that was school, all that. He listened with a mix of understanding and indifference, like he'd heard it all before.

Then he looked at me. That's the thing, everyone here looked at me without batting an eye. And he asked, "What about you? What do you want to do?"

They were stunned into silence by someone regarding me as a person with an opinion. So was I.
A long silence.
"I don't know. Is it the right thing?"
The Cute-ist

"Well..I'll say this- It will change who you are. For better or worse. I can tell you that the way the world is, at least for now, it will make your life easier."

"How can we even trust you? What if you're some nutcase?"

He nodded, it was a fair point. "I'm a patient too, for one. Except for what parts I need for my work.." He said. And several tiny, white arms emerged from his collar and sleeves. Never seeming to end, they stretched out, adjusting objects in the room. Each was long with multiple joints, ending in a small but fully articulate, long-fingered hand, also many jointed. They fixed his glasses, adjusted the decor, and gradually receeded to somewhere beneath his coat.

My parents just about lost it, running out of the room. We both couldn't help it, we laughed. He gave me the night to consider it. It was a quiet drive home. I didn't sleep much that night. I went over all the reasons why I shouldn't go through with it, knowing on some level, this wasn't how it should be. But I agreed.

The next days and weeks are blurry. I remember operations. Many operations, some happening at the same time. I shouldn't have been concious at all, I guess they're memories of dreams. He stretched out my sagging, wrinkled skin and made it smooth and pink. He dislodged my fangs, removed one set entirely, replacing them with two rows of small, flat, pearly white teeth. I had fingers, eyes, hair removed from everywhere except where they're supposed to be. He removed all but one pair of breasts, reshaped my body entirely so I could stand up straight again. By the end, he said I was some of his best work.

Life was very different from then on. School was turned around completely. I suddenly had friends, people who had forgotten how I was. I was indeed an entirely new person, an object of desire, an object of envy. A goddess of a sort. And as I grew to despise those unworthy of me, a true monster.

I feel like we have a responsibility to every new generation, to try to make the world just a little bit better, a little more welcoming for all its flaws. I feel my daughter rolling over in my belly now, and I know she'll be very different indeed, even more than I was. I forgive my parents, I know they sort of meant well in their hearts. I have a life now, a family. Maybe they did force me into it. I don't know. The worst thing is that now I understand a little bit more. I dug up the doctor's phone number. I keep reading it over and over, wondering if I'm any better.