Melanie.
I've been tasked, before, to take on... special requests for concerned individuals. Sometimes it's a girlfriend. Sometimes it's simply a neighbor. Yet other times it's a sister or a mother. Who it is to me, does not matter. All that matters is that the individual knows that the 'trail', such as it could be called, would lead to them, and not to the company.
Melanie is one such case. Normally, as I've explained, talent is found based on someone who matches harder to adjust characteristics. Freckles, skin tone, height, eye color and the like. However, special requests are a little more... flexible. A woman with deep red hair, about shoulder length. Pale skin and long legs, at five seven... Not a terrible looking girl. That is, for a vanilla anyways. Soft looking lips... Though her breasts clearly needed some work. B cups to me were just over what one would find in a barely legal coed. Perhaps it's my profession that has tainted my tastes, but under a C cup I simply can't find myself attracted to them. Fortunately, at least for her, that was about to change.
Some joe, apparently her husband, had requested a 'tune up' for her. My usual techniques wouldn't quite fit. Taking a woman back to the basement is troublesome enough without it being a special order, and I can't have the client picking her up. Too easy to track me back to that location. No, for special orders I use a bit of what could be called magic. I dislike the term. Call it.. Alchemy and Arcane Math. Much more of a fitting name I think.
A quick overview of her schedule provided by the client showed that she spent a significant amount of time in a run down bookstore in a quieter part of the clients town. I'd picked up plenty of talent there. Usually when clients wanted a girl to be not quite 'finished' and had a glasses fetish. The owner and sole employee often slept through the entire day. People only woke him when they wanted a purchase, which suited this just fine.
I found Melanie in the historical fiction section, sitting as she listened to some book on tape, utterly distracted while her hands ran through knitting. Something with hot pink yarn as I understood it. Looked to be a vest she had nearly finished. I had brought with me a small bag of objects, hidden in a simple laptop case. I sat at a reading table, gathering a book, I believe it was some Grecian history text, and set to work. Pulling a small stone from the bag, and a match, I muttered an incantation, striking the match and blowing it out swiftly. The smoke rose from the stick before bending back down towards the stone. Wisps of barely visible pink energy floated into the room, directed by my will towards Melanie. She was wearing something so very drab. A pair of simple grey slacks, a similarly grey suitcoat and a black blouse. The woman shot upright, her eyes wide as the smoke snuck into her nostrils, and went slightly limp, sitting right there, shoulders slack. Her eyes went dull and a gentle smile came on her lips.
Seeing her react like that was good. Some people are just immune to that sort of thing. The more superstitious among my compatriots say its because their ancestors were witch hunters or demon hunters. It matters very little to me. Regardless, the mark was now in a dim state. I'm told they have dreams about something pleasant.. usually a favorite sexual encounter. with the stone glowing the same soft pink as the smoke drifting from her nose, I set about the next part.
Her husband was to arrive in just under an hour, so I needed to work quickly. Next came a vial of milk and a few drops of a green concoction I'd learned to boil. I popped the cork on the vial and dripped it in.. The milk boiled a bit and turned slowly black, the same color as her blouse, which would suit me just fine. The clothing she wore would be ruined by the process, but always best to avoid drawing attention.
