AgeArts 3D Comics

Series commissioned by anonymous, originally published on my Patreon.

Continued from Chapter 2.

The beach was as crowded as they had ever seen it. The heat this morning had risen with the sun, and many people had come to the same conclusion: the beach was the place to be today.

Erica parked near an entrance to the beach that also had a convenient shop just across the road, selling anything a person might need to spend a day on the sand. They stopped inside and purchased bathing suits and towels and suntan lotion and even a beach umbrella. Ricardo had selected a tight blue Speedo. Susan had gone with a somewhat modest black one-piece suit with a low cut back. Erica had decided to be showy. She was wearing a pink string bikini, with a top that seemed ready to snap off at any moment, revealing her enormous breasts.

The three of them then made their way onto the sand to find an open spot to set up camp for the day. Ricardo planted the umbrella as Susan laid out a beach blanket and their beach towels. Erica, meanwhile, took out the beverage cooler and set it in a central position where her mother and Ricardo could not miss it.

Then, it was lotion time. They each had their own bottles and began the work of lubing themselves up. When it came time to cover their hard-to-reach places, Susan was quickest on the draw.

“Ricardo,” she said. “Could you be a dear and do my back for me?” She lay down on her towel to give him easy access.

“Certainly,” he said, kneeling down next to her and filling his hand with lotion. He began to rub it into her exposed back, massaging it in and eliciting a gentle purr from Susan in response.

Not to be outdone, Erica grabbed Ricardo’s lotion and, without a word, knelt behind him and began rubbing it into his shoulders and back. Susan only noticed what was going on when his hands seemed to lose focus on their task. She looked over to see what her daughter was doing, realizing that they had unintentionally entered some strange lotion three-way.

Susan rolled away from his hands, saying, “That should do it.”

Erica continued working on his back, while admiring his diminished but still impressive muscles.

To beat Erica at her own game, Susan rotated around the group and began putting lotion on her own daughter’s back, stealing the job away from Ricardo.

Watching from his store, the wizard could not help but chuckle at how petty and silly it all was. Still, at least it was amusing to witness it all through his crystal ball. Soon, he saw that they were all lubed up and ready for what was next.

“Come on, Ricardo,” Susan said, pulling him by his arm. “Let’s get a cool snack from the refreshment stand. I feel like ice cream.”

“Wait,” Erica said, grabbing his other arm. “We can’t eat now. We would have to wait a while before going in the water. Let’s go for a quick swim first. Come on, let’s take a jump in the waves.”

Before Ricardo could respond, Susan had given his arm a strong tug. “He’s coming with me. We’re getting ice cream. You can go dunk your head in the water on your own.”

Erica tugged back. “He’s a big boy. He can choose for himself where he wants to go. And, he’s coming with me. Right, Ricardo?”

“No, he’s with me. Right, Ricardo?”

Feeling like a bone in the teeth or a pair of ravenous dogs, Ricardo said, “Enough. I’m not going anywhere with either of you. You two go do what you want. I’m staying here for a bit.” He shook free of their grasp and lay down on the towel.

The two women glared at each other furiously, each blaming the other for upsetting their man.

“Fine,” Susan said.

“Fine,” Erica replied.

They stormed off in opposite directions, leaving him alone in the shade of the umbrella. For a moment or two, he had peace. That ended when a gorgeous woman emerged from the water in front of him, drawing his attention. Had he been an adult still and not under the influence of intense teen hormones, he might have realized that adding a third woman to this situation was a bad idea. Instead, his attention was focused on her as he tried to put the other two quarreling women out of his mind.

The wizard gazed into her life and saw she was Selena, a fair-skinned Peruvian lady in her early 20s. She had her damp dark hair cut short by her chin. Her green string bikini held a pair B-cups, concealing perky brown nipples beneath the fabric. Below, she had a lovely large ass and a strong pair of legs. Her feet were sandy, and Ricardo wanted to brush them clean.

To his delight, she stopped at the towel laid out next to his own camp. She pulled out a dry towel from her bag and began to wipe down her body.

Feeling his excitement growing, Ricardo tried to think of a way to approach the woman. When she sat down and tried to take a drink from an nearly empty water bottle, he knew just what to do.

“Would you like some water?” he asked her.

She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked over to him, seeing a young teen gazing back at her, hopefully. Had he been older, she might have mentioned her boyfriend would be on his way here in a short while. Instead, she smiled and said, “Sure.”

Ricardo grabbed a plastic cup and filled it from the beverage cooler. Then, he hurried it over to her, only spilling a little of the water into the sand as he went.

She smiled to see him so eager to please, deciding that she might have some fun with the boy. She took the cup from him and said, “Thank you.” Then, she took a sip of the youth supplement. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Ricardo. And you?”

“Selena.” She drank down more, enjoying the icy cool liquid. “This is very refreshing.”

“Good,” he said, beginning to feel a bit awkward. Somehow, she intimidated him. There was a maturity to her that he seemed to be lacking in himself. He decided that he needed to make a move. Seeing her suntan lotion in her bag, he said, “Can I help you put on some more lotion? You’ve been in the water, and I’m sure you don’t want to get burned.”

Selena took another drink from the cup, draining the remaining youth supplement from it, and said, “Sure. You can take care of my backside.” She rolled over onto her stomach and undid the strings of her bikini top, leaving her back bare.

Realizing that the only thing concealing her chest was that she was laying on the towel, Ricardo felt himself getting hard, tenting out his Speedo a little. He knelt next to her and got to work.

Selena cooed gently as he smeared the white lotion onto her smooth skin. “That’s nice.” His hands traced the curves of her shoulder blades and massaged the muscles around her shoulders. She had been expecting to feel a clumsy boy’s hands on her, but she was pleasantly surprised to receive a more expert massage.

Ricardo wanted to flip her over and massage her chest as well, but instead he was content to work his way downwards towards her bulbous ass. He worked the lotion into it, but was surprised to find it seemed increasingly smaller as his hands traced its curves. He worked his way down to her legs, which too seemed less shapely than they had been a moment ago. Soon, he began to wonder how he had imagined her to be so much curvier when he had first seen her.

At last, he reached her feet. Without asking or waiting for permission, he began to massage them as well, enjoying their arches and the cleavage between her delicate toes, solid and soft all at once. He wanted to taste them, but even in his current frenzy, he held himself back, knowing she would not accept that. Instead he focused on a massage.

Strangely, he felt her feet seem to dwindle away slowly beneath his fingers, like melting ice cream. When he had begun, they had been more than a handful for him. Now, they seemed much smaller and softer. In fact, they had developed the gentle freshness of a girl’s feet with beady little toes.

Certain that he had never massaged a pair of feet so small, he spoke to her. “So,” he said. “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

“Twenty-one” Selena said, but her voice sounded too young even for high school.

Ricardo looked back up at her body to see the back of a girl that matched the voice. There were no wide hips or shapely legs to be seen. Instead, she had the body of a pubescent girl, one smack dab in the middle of an awkward tween phase. Her waist and butt were chubby and soft, while her tooth-pick limbs seemed too skinny and gangly.

He dropped her feet, shocked at how he had made such a mistake. He was certain she had been older when he had first seen her.

Selena was feeling drunk from her rejuvenation. She rolled over, not thinking about her untied bikini top. “What’s the matter?” she asked him. Even with the horrified expression on his face, he looked cute to her. She remembered thinking he was too young before. Now, she felt he might be a bit too old even.

Ricardo saw the pimples on her plump face. He saw her bare chest, exposing her nascent breasts and immature pink nipples. Then, he glanced down at her crotch for a moment, just long enough to see her untrimmed pubes protruding from beneath an ill-fitting bikini bottom, before averting his eyes and excusing himself. “Sorry, I should be going,” he said, getting to his feet. “Just remembered I have to… meet someone somewhere.” He turned and walked away down along the shore, not looking back once.

“Hey?” Selena said, out of confusion and annoyance. She had thought he wanted her. What had changed? She wondered. Was there something wrong with her?

She looked down at her body, but instead of being horrified by the sight, she was embarrassed to see that her top had come undone. Blushing, she rolled back over onto her stomach and tied it back on. Then, she tightened up the bottom of her bikini which had also become strangely loose. All the while, she wondered what had happened to her bathing suit. Had it become stretched out somehow while she was swimming?

Once she felt properly clothed again, she sat up and thought about Ricardo, deciding that he had been freaked out by her loose bathing suit. That had to be the reason he had left. She looked around herself, wondering what she was doing at the beach alone. She had the vague memory that someone was coming to meet her here, but the idea that it was a man felt wrong to her. Maybe it was her dad that was coming. Feeling nervous about being alone, she spotted some kids her age having fun throwing around a beach ball near the water and decided to join them. She stood up and ran towards them on her soft sandy feet.

***

Moments after Ricardo and Selena had left, Susan returned to their beach blanket and umbrella. She had made it all the way to the refreshment stand before realizing she had left all of her cash behind in their bag.

“Ricardo?” she called. “Erica?” She saw no sign of either of them and started to worry that they might have run off somewhere together.

Susan checked in the bag for her money and found the youth supplement bottle inside right next to a filled water bottle that Erica had left behind. Her daughter seemed to be getting a bit too big for her britches. Maybe a little taste of the youth supplement would put the girl back in her place, Susan decided. She opened the water bottle and the supplement bottle and scooped in maybe a little too much of the powder. Then, she shut up both bottles, shook up Erica’s drink, and put both back in the bag.

With that done, Susan found herself still craving a creamy treat. She checked in the bag again for her money and found the nutrition bars inside this time. She noticed that they were described as “creamy” while ignoring the text saying how they would affect her breasts. Not feeling like taking another walk, she decided to lay down on her blanket in the shade and tear open one of them.

“Ooh, that’s good!” she said after tasting how creamy the bar was. She quicky scarfed down the rest of the milky snack and opened another one, realizing that she would probably have a third a little while later.

***

Down the beach, Ricardo had wandered over to a group of cute teen girls. Normally, he would deem them a bit too young, but today they seemed the right age for him. he approached them and asked, “Hey do you know anyone interested in throwing around a Frisbee?”

They exchanged a look with each other and smiled. “Maybe,” the blonde girl said. There was a Frisbee on the sand at her feet.

Just as she was about to pick it up, out of nowhere something hit Ricardo in his head, causing him to stumble back and turn to see where the hit had come from.

There was a football laying on the sand next to him and a group of three teenage boys chuckling with each other.

“Sorry about that,” one of the boys said. “You all right?”

Feeling himself getting angry, Ricardo picked up the football and stormed over to the boys to confront them. He tossed the ball back to the boy who had spoken to him and said, “You’d better watch yourself, kid.”

The boy looked less amused and more annoyed now. “You watch yourself… kid. And, stay away from our girls… or else.”

Ricardo stepped up the boy, but when he was closer he realized two things. One, the boy was bigger than him, and, two, he was alone and that boy had two friends about the same size as him.

Without warning, the boy gave Ricardo a quick shove, knocking him on his ass on the sand. The boys started laughing with each other. Ricardo turned to look at the girls, who were stifling laughs themselves. Feeling as though he wanted to cry, Ricardo ran off back to their blanket to escape the humiliation.

He found Susan was lying there on the sand, but she seemed to be a bit uncomfortable as her swelling breasts were stretching out the top of her black swimsuit almost to the point of bursting loose.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I forgot.”

“Whoa,” he said. “Are you all right.”

“I think so,” she said, trying to readjust her swimsuit. “I’m just a bit uncomfortable.” As she moved the fabric around, she felt it slip against her nipples, stimulating them and eliciting moans from her. Soon, she was just lying there fondling her own enormous breasts, seemingly lost in the pleasure of it.

Realizing that she was in her own world, totally oblivious to him, Ricardo decided that he needed to do something to feel more manly. He started doing pushups and other bodyweight exercises. They made an interesting pair: a teen girl fondling her own huge breasts and a teen boy growing sweaty exercising next to her.

Soon, he had started to get thirsty, so he filled a cup of water from their beverage cooler and gulped it down. Immediately, he felt refreshed and went back to exercising. His body was buzzing with energy as he pumped away at push ups. It felt as though he was getting lighter and lighter as he went. He did not notice himself shrinking although he did have to keep repositioning his feet to keep his balance. His arms, instead of getting thicker, were thinning out as he lost muscle mass all over, during his slide backwards through puberty.

Susan continued fondling her swelling mammaries. As she worked, she had become dimly aware that there was an increasing dampness forming around her nipples.

Ricardo was finding it harder and harder to complete a pushup. The invigoration he had felt was losing power. He had started to feel weaker instead of stronger. He rolled over to do crunches, but they felt nearly impossible to manage now. Looking down he was shocked at the pudgy belly he saw. It seemed as though he had no muscle mass left on him at all.

For a moment, Susan looked over to find Ricardo, maybe to ask if he would lend her a hand with her breasts, which had begun to feel painfully swollen, but all she found was a small boy attempting to exercise and failing at it. She had to settle on trying to leak out some milk by tweaking her nipples under her suit.

Ricardo had switched over to jumping jacks, but now he found it hard to jump. He started to move into yoga poses, but his weak core muscles made balancing difficult. In fact, just standing up straight was a struggle. Eventually, just after his previously tight Speedo had dropped to his ankles, he dropped as well, landing on his bare behind.

He tried to remember what he was doing, but his mind felt like a dim light bulb with too little current running through it. The big thoughts that might ask a question like, “Why do I feel so little and weak all of a sudden? What happened to me?” were all too heavy to move through his mind. Only light little thoughts would budge. “Where’s mommy?” was an obvious first question. Looking to his side, he found a possible answer. He crawled over to Susan as she was preoccupied with her breasts. He found them enticing, but there was something else that drew his attention more: her bare feet, right near him, with her lovely toes just waiting to be sucked. He crawled to the nearest foot, and wrapped his lips around her toes and started sucking.

Susan was surprised to find a year-old baby sucking on her toes, but considering the problems she was dealing with on her chest, the baby seemed like a perfect solution. She lifted up little Ricardo, who whimpered anxiously when the toes he revered were plucked from his mouth.

“I have something else for you to suck on,” Susan said, setting him on her lap. She slid the shoulder straps of her swimsuit down her arms, letting her swollen breasts flop loose from their confinement. Then, she maneuvered the baby into position to suckle on her. Her nipples were already dripping with milk, and Ricardo found himself suddenly feeling desperately thirsty. He took her nipple into his mouth and began to drink the rich warm milk from it.

Susan sighed in relief. If she had not found a baby when she did, she might have started sucking on her own nipples to relieve the aching pressure inside her breasts. After Ricardo had made some progress draining her left tit, she switched him over to her right to even the pair out.

It was at that moment that Susan heard her daughter chuckling next to her.

“How adorable,” Erica said, stepping over her mother’s legs, dripping water on her. Erica picked up a towel and started to dry herself off. “I never knew you could be so nurturing. I always assumed you only fed me from a bottle.” She took a seat next to Susan on the beach blanket under the umbrella.

“Y-you!” Susan said. “You did this to him?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erica said and smirked. “You can’t blame me if he accidentally happened to drink a little of that supplement you bought. Besides, you don’t seem very upset. You make a perfect couple now.”

Susan glared at her daughter and pulled little Ricardo from her breast. He whimpered as she set him down between them on the blanket and pulled her suit back up over her drained but still enormous mammaries. She was ready to tear into Erica, but stopped when she saw her daughter pull a water bottle out of their bag. Instead, she decided to wait and watch.

“I mean, how careless can you be?” Erica asked and unscrewed her water bottle. “It’s sad to think that I’m more mature than you, but I suppose that’s been true for a long while now.” She took a swig from the supplement mixture.

“Is that so?” Susan asked, trying to hide her delight.

“I mean… yeah,” Erica said. “You’re just desperately clinging to your youth. You’ll do anything to avoid getting old. It’s kind of… pathetic.”

“Uh huh,” Susan said watching for any signs of Erica getting younger.

“What’s worse is you keep on criticizing me, like I’m still a child,” Erica paused to readjust the knot holding her top in place. It seemed to have gotten looser while she was swimming. “I’m a grown woman,” she said, but she was starting to look like she belonged in high school again.

Susan was about to respond with a snide remark, but they were interrupted by Ricardo, who had begun to suck on Erica’s toes.

“How cute,” Erica said. “I think he’s a bit thirsty still.” She poured some water down her leg from her bottle so that it would flow all the way down to her toes where Ricardo would have a taste. Then, she took another sip from the bottle herself. Once more, she felt that her suit was getting a bit loose. Now, it seemed that both the top and bottom halves of it were too large.

Susan could no longer hold back her smile as she watched her daughter drop back into her early teens. The shapely hips Erica had been so proud of dwindled away, narrowing down to more boyish proportions. Her chest deflated a bit as well, but the effects of the bust enhancing bars prevented her from going completely flat. The breasts that remained seemed incongruously large on her pubescent frame. Her skin lost its mature luster as acne returned with a vengeance on her more rounded cheeks. Her whole body thinned out as if she were a wax sculpture melting in the heat.

As the changes slowed to a stop, Erica was marooned in what could best be described as the most awkward body she had suffered through in her entire life. Puberty was hitting her unevenly and cruelly all over. Not only did she have chicken legs and overlong feet, not only was her childish face mutilated by a mess of pimples, not only did she she have a bony ass and hardly any pubic hair on the front, but she had all of them at once, each imperfection multiplying against the others to increase her overall awkwardness.

Susan began chuckling. It was even better than she had hoped for.

“What’s so funny?” Erica demanded, but she was not prepared for the shrill girlish voice that left her narrow lips. “What the hell?” she asked as she realized at last that something was wrong. She looked down at her ruined body and shrieked.

Susan was laughing hysterically.

Erica saw that and said, “You did this! Didn’t you?”

Susan just smiled and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t blame me if…” But, before she could finish mocking her daughter, Erica had opened her water bottle again and pointed it as Susan’s mouth. A good squeeze sent a spray of the youth supplement water into Susan’s face, causing her to sputter and spit it out.

Once Susan had gotten over the shock, she prepared to leap at Erica to attack her. However, they both stopped when they heard a baby crying at Erica’s feet. They looked down to see poor Ricardo, regressed now to a tiny naked infant, looking desperately up at a pair of feet that he was struggling to reach now. In his frustration, he began bawling and pissed all over the blanket and sand beneath him. He rolled over on his back and kicked his legs up, only to discover that he was limber enough for his own feet to reach his face. He pulled a foot in to start sucking on his own toes. It was not what he wanted, but it was good enough to pacify him for the moment.

As the enormity of the situation hit the two girls, Susan lost another year of maturity, leaving her at about the same age as her daughter although with less awkwardness aside from her improbably huge breasts. Her swimsuit now fit her poorly all over, being too tight on top and too roomy below.

“Oh man,” Erica said, starting at the baby on the blanket. “What are we going to do now?”

“It’ll be fine,” Susan said, but she sounded as though she was trying to convince herself as well. “Maybe we can swing by the store where I bought the supplements. Let’s just head home first and think this through.”

“‘Head home?’” Erica said. “How’re we supposed to do that now? Neither of us looks like we’re old enough to drive. We hardly even look old enough to be in high school now. I doubt I could even pull the seat forward enough to reach the pedals.”

“We could call for a rideshare.”

“They don’t pick up kids.”

“Oh,” Susan said, realizing that she had just accidentally stranded them at the beach as a pair of girls with a baby. “I suppose we could walk home.”

“That could take hours,” Erica said as she retied her bikini to fit her diminished body.

“Well,” Susan said. “Then, we’d better get going now.”

They stood up and started to put away their things. After deciding that the pee-soaked blanket was destined for the trash, there was a bit of a stand off over who would be carrying Ricardo around. In a reversal of their earlier conflict, neither of them wanted him. Besides smelling of urine, both of them knew he would need a diaper, and likely a second one before they got home. Ricardo was oblivious to them as all his attention was placed on sucking his own toes. Eventually, they agreed to take turns carrying him. He would be their hot potato. The one unfortunate enough to be holding him when he needed a change would be the one stuck doing it.

They walked to the shops to buy some clothes that would fit them as well as a couple of swim diapers for Ricardo. Then, they swung by the bathroom to clean up the baby and get dressed for their trip home. Erica made a quick stop by her car to make sure it was locked and lamented that it was likely going to be towed away that night.

With their preparations done, they started the long hike home.

The wizard, watching it all from his crystal ball, was laughing as he watched the pair of girls walk, while doing their best to lug the burdensome baby along with them while coping with their oversized bouncing boobs.

As amusing a sight as it was to watch them, the wizard turned his attention over to Carolina, who was in possession of the jar of skin cream. His view in the crystal ball flew across town and back in time to the moment when Erica, Susan, and Ricardo had left for the beach.

***

Carolina gazed down at the jar with fascination and wonder. After checking that the three of them were gone, Carolina rushed inside for some privacy to start applying the cream.

Once she had reached her bedroom, she stood in front of a mirror and unscrewed the cap on the jar. After a quick sniff that found it smelled like ordinary skin cream, she started off by rubbing in a generous amount of the cream onto her hands. Then, she watched as her skin smoothed out and a youthful softness returned to her hands.

“Amazing!” she said. “It works!”

Next, she applied some cream to her face. She felt a gentle tingle as it absorbed into her skin. Moments later, she was staring at a face in the mirror she had not seen in years. Gone were her middle-aged wrinkles, replaced by the smooth complexion of a woman in her prime.

“Beautiful,” she declared. “I’m beautiful!”

She found herself getting turned on by her own sexy face. She removed her top and bra to look down at her saggy old breasts. Soon, she was rubbing cream onto her breasts as well, feeling stimulated as her young fingers massaged and fondled her tits, which had started to gain back some of their youthful shape and perkiness. The stimulation she was feeling in her nipples from rubbing in the cream was making her wet. As one hand focused on feeling up her breasts, her other hand scooped up more cream and slipped down into her underwear to start working on her worn-out old labia, which immediately started to tighten up around her probing fingers.

There she stood, groping herself, rubbing magic cream into her tits and pussy and enjoying the pleasurable tingle it produced in her sensitive skin. For a short while, it was ecstasy. Her erogenous zones had regressed back to their youthful state, getting more sensitive as they went, but the changes did not stop there. The cream that had gotten pressed into her vagina soaked into her bloodstream and began to affect her whole body, lagging only a little behind the changes to where she had applied the cream to her skin.

Her face began to seem less sexy and more childish, briefly developing pimples before falling backwards into girlhood. Her breasts went from perky to immature. Her tight pussy became almost too tight for her fingers now. Meanwhile, the rest of her body slimmed down and lost it’s mature weight. Her curvy hips and ass narrowed away, letting her pants drop to her ankles as her underwear hung on to her girlish hand, which was struggling to stimulate her youthened crotch.

However, just before she became too immature to finish. An orgasm shook her barely pubescent body. As she shuddered, lost in the pleasure, her big wet underwear slipped down to her feet below, and she stumbled back to sit on her bed.

Once she had regained her composure, she took another look at herself in the mirror. She gasped at the face she saw staring back at her. Not only was it younger than she had expected, but it seemed even too young to fit with the rest of her pubescent body. If her body seemed to be about 13 or 14, then her face looked as though it belonged to a 9 or 10-year-old girl. Same with her flat chest and her absolutely hairless tiny pussy below.

“No,” she said, sounding like the scared child she had become.

***

The wizard ran the timelines forward again until the paths of Carolina and the beachgoers converged again. Carolina spotted the girls walking up the driveway lugging a bag and a baby with them. It took a moment to recognize their faces, but she remembered Erica from when she had been a girl originally. She ran out to meet them.

“Erica!” she cried as she approached. “Susan! Is that you?”

Erica and Susan exchanged a weary but still annoyed look with each other.

Erica replied, “It’s us. I see you had some trouble as well.”

“You told me to use a lot of it!” Carolina complained. “Look what it did to me.”

Ricardo began to cry, and Susan, who was holding him at that moment, groaned and said, “I’m taking him inside to change him.”

“Wait,” Carolina said. “Is there nothing that can be done to fix us? Can’t we call the company that made the cream?”

“Yeah,” Erica said to Susan. “Let’s go back to that shop where you bought all of this, see if we can get a refund and get turned back to normal now, maybe.”

Susan was rocking Ricardo to calm him down. “I don’t have a number, but I remember where it was. We can go there tomorrow. I’m too tired to go anywhere right now.”

“Fine,” Erica said, and followed Susan to the house.

“Wait!” Carolina cried. “What am I supposed to do?”

Erica replied, “I don’t give a fuck. Just bug off, you old bitch.”

Carolina gasped and marched back into her house in a huff as the other girls entered the home next door.

***

The wizard drew back from the scene, drifting backwards in time, back through the day, back through space, hurtling to the present where he was. For a moment, he saw himself in the crystal ball, standing before the crystal ball, like an inverted mirror. Then, time settled back down into its regular rhythm.

The wizard calmly stepped back into the shop out of the storage room. He walked to the “Open” sign by the door and turned it off. Then, he shut the lights off in the shop.

“Time to move,” he said to himself, not for the first time. Not even for the first time this year.

He had discovered a long long time ago that the best way to deal with dissatisfied customers when they returned to complain was to simply be somewhere else far away before they got there. He would find a new empty storefront in another town and transport the whole shop there, swapping one interior for another in an instant. After manipulating the memories of a few concerned parties, it will be as if nothing had changed. (Why pay rent when you can make your landlord believe he has already been paid, after all.)

As he started constructing the spell to move shop, he began making mental notes for adjustments to his supplements. Susan had shown him that his products were way too potent. They would need to be diluted and their effects would need to occur more gradually. That way, they will seem almost plausible to people skeptical of magic.

“Yes,” he said. “Just a few tweaks, and they’ll be perfect. I’ll make a killing in the next town.”

For a moment, he thought of Susan and the others she had involved. Everyone of them had experienced an overdose, which meant the effects of the spells would be lasting a lot longer than intended. How long was hard to determine—days, weeks, months? It may be a long while before they would all be back to normal in their old bodies (much longer for the baby).

He looked out the window and realized that Susan was probably still on her way to the gym right at that moment. He might even have a chance of catching her before she took the supplement if he bothered to follow her. He shook his head.

“Caveat emptor,” he said. She knew what she was buying, and he was not a fan of refunds.

He focused on his spell to move shop, summoning up his power.

A moment later, the storefront was empty, a sign had appeared in the window advertising the open retail space. Every trace of the Fitness Arcanum sign above the storefront had vanished as well.

It was as if the shop had never existed.

The End