Jon was stunned for just a moment, but realized what was happening and said "I wish this wasn't happening."
Like most hasty wishes, this one didn't work well. In fact, it didn't work at all.
Karyn helped him waddle back to the bed. "Jon..." she said. "This is all messed up."
"I should have expected it," he said. "There's no way I could have gotten wishes forever. Maybe it was some kind of a test, to see how greedy I would get. It feels weird. My chest."
"Your chest?" said Karyn."
"Yes, it's like I can feel a bigger distance away from my skin. I'd have expected it to feel like I had balloons under my skin, but it's not like that. I just have sensations in a different place." He touched his left nipple, which was exposed since he had just put the whole device on and not had a chance for a bra or shirt. "Ow. It's like my nipple moved. It used to be on my chest and now it's out here."
He lowered his hands to his belly. It was no longer an empathy belly. It was real. The skin was his own skin. The belly was now smoothly part of himself, with no seam visible.
"What do you feel farther down?" asked Karyn.
"Farther down... what do you mean. Oh. I can't feel what I usually feel. It must have made me a girl. I hope I can get my dick back, when I can make wishes again." The baby kicked. "I can feel the baby," he said. "I've got a new person inside me. Or is it a person?"
"We can't worry about that now," said Karyn. "Let's get your mom... you said you told her everything. She can get you to the hospital."
"It's important," said Jon. "It..." He yelled out and convulsed at the first contraction, which would no doubt draw his mother soon anyway. "Oh god, it hurts. It's important, Karyn. It was just a piece of stuff. Plastic and rubber and whatever they make strings out of. But now it's a life. Coming out of me. Is it a real baby? Can it grow and learn? Five years from now is the baby going to be a child, saying 'Daddy, where did I come from' and I have to tell him that he's really a piece of equipment and that I gave birth to him anyway? Will I still have to shake his hand or something to get wishes?"
"Well, if there's anything like life force, maybe the life came from you," said Karyn. "Or not. Who knows...?"
"But it was just there. I wasn't eating for two or anything like that."
Jon's mother burst into the room. "Jon! Are you all right?! I heard you scream."
"I'm not all right," said Jon, "but it's what you'd expect. It worked exactly like it said it worked and I have to go to the hospital and give birth."
"Are you... a girl now, Jon?"
"Yeah," he said. "Just the girl stuff I need. Breastfeeding and giving birth. I didn't get sexy legs or anything like that."
"I see..."
"After the birth I should be able to make wishes. We're going to need them. Wishes to get stuff for a baby, wishes so that I don't get on a freak show somewhere. Just to keep life normal."
"And to recover from the pregnancy," she said. "And some other things. Diapers. Sleep."
"What?"
"Babies feed all hours of the day. You may want to wish you'd always be rested like you slept normally. I wish I had that when I had you."
They drove to the hospital. Jon didn't know the details, but he was given some kind of anesthesia called an epidural. He listened for the doctor to slap the baby, which he expected from fiction, and which of course didn't happen. He was awake enough to hear the doctor say "Congratulations, Ms. Stevenson, it's a girl!"
"Ms. Stevenson?" he asked his mother, who was leaning over his bed.
"If I said you were Jon Madison, would they have believed me?" she whispered. "Jon is the father. You can wish that away later."
A doctor lowered the baby into Jon's arms. "She's so tiny, and red," said Jon, instinctively holding the baby. "She looks just like me. Sort of."
"Are you saying that because that's what you think or are you saying it because it's what you think you're supposed to say?" replied his mother.
"A bit of both, but she does really look like a baby that I'd have. She's not a generic baby, she has my face, squashed into a baby. I even have a name... Petra."
Jon opened the hospital gown and let the baby feed. He tensed. "Ow. She's sucking on my nipple. With all that girl stuff under it giving milk. I think."
"It doesn't," said his mother, "but it'll come soon."
"Try a wish," said Karyn.
"Fine." He was certainly touching the wishing item... now the wishing baby. "I wish that for no reason except magic, I've recovered from the aftereffects of birth." They all blinked as if something was in their eye and Jon felt no fatigue, no cramps, and no soreness between his legs. "It's working! I wish that I'm listed on the birth certificate as mother with no father, and everyone just didn't notice it's strange for a boy to give birth."
"Maybe we should go home," said Karyn. "To your home, I mean. You've got wishes to make it happen and you're probably going to have that baby as close to you as if it's a magic item you put in your pocket."
"Yeah... lemme think. Okay, I wish...."
