Author's Note: In this branch, Jon wears glasses. I didn't see anything upstream that contradicts that... It just didn't matter until now. :)
"So, where are you going to change?" asked Karyn.
"I guess in the bathroom," mused Jon. "No, wait. If I change away from you, you might be included in the magic and think I've always been this way."
"Oh right.... Hmm. I could face the other way... But the same thing might happen if I'm not watching."
Jon bowed to the inevitable. "Oh well, you won't have to put up with the full monty for very long."
Jon dropped the briefer and pantyhose on his bed. He kicked off his shoes, and pulled off his socks. He started to unbuckle his jeans. Then he caught the look of anticipation on Karyn's face. He glared at her and said, "Don't say a word."
She pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key, and then cocked her head to the side, waiting.
Jon quickly shucked off his jeans, and tossed them on the end of the bed. He sent a final glare at Karyn, and took off his briefs. He left his t-shirt on, and of course his glasses didn't need to come off yet.
For the first time since ... well, ever, Karyn got to see Jon's privates. She then wondered why she had been so anxious to see them. They were nothing really out of the ordinary, considering the education she'd already gotten online and from her girl friends' dirty magazines.
Jon looked back over at her, and she sent him an encouraging look. He nodded, and sat down on the edge of his bed. He picked up the pantyhose package, opened it, and pulled out the contents. He noted that the black hose was actually an opaque style, delicately thin like most pantyhose, but with a tighter weave, looking more like tights. He removed the cardboard insert, and stretched the hose out, removing the wrinkles, and separating the legs. He gathered up one leg of the pantyhose with his fingers, until it was bunched up in his hands, with his thumbs inside at the toe. He slipped the end over his toes, positioning them in place, and then slipped the hose over the rest of his foot. He carefully started to stretch the left leg up over his ankle, and then he noticed the first change happening: His foot did not shrink, but rather his bony ankles did. They had pulled inwards, becoming much less pronounced.
Karyn smirked inside. She had long suspected, and here was the proof. Jon was no stranger to this. He knew exactly the right way to put on the hose.
He was now engrossed in what he was doing, and failed to notice her reaction. He realized something else was different; his toes were now glinting at him through the fabric. He wasn't expecting that, so he reversed his actions and removed the hose-leg from his foot to get a better look at his toenails. He gaped at the unexpected change: The toenails on his left foot were now painted with a pearly pink polish.
Jon pointed at his new left foot. "Well, I wasn't expecting that, since you didn't give me a pedicure first with that nail kit."
Karyn took this as permission to speak. "Huh, yeah, this is going beyond what I thought the hose by itself would do. Hmm, let me think."
She stared at Jon's two now-different feet. The changed one was now hairless up to just above the ankle, and even though overall the foot was the same length and width, it looked more delicate somehow. Not as bony, softer. She hesitantly asked him, "Can I... touch your feet? Feel the difference?"
Jon wondered why she needed to, but nodded his acceptance anyway. She rolled Jon's desk chair closer to the bed and sat down. Jon extended his legs, and she took both feet in her hands. She caressed one, and then the other, alternating feeling his hairy foot, and his newly smooth foot, as she pondered. Jon was liking how her fingers delicately traced his new slim anklebone. Is this, like, copping a feel? he wondered.
"OK, I think I know," she suddenly announced. She let his feet drop to the floor. "I've read up some about the way Magick is supposed to work, and a lot of it is bound up in intent. I had been thinking about this exact shade of polish for both hands and feet when I first started pulling out clothes from the box. The hose didn't change your fingernails when you stuck them in there, but its intended use is to cover your feet, so it changed your toes to match what I was thinking about. I bet a lot of the way wishes are interpreted by the stone is also due to the wisher's intent, otherwise you'd have to spend all day exactly specifying out loud how you wanted your wish to come out. The stone interpolates an amazing amount of detail from just a few words."
"So, " she continued, "let's try a quick test to see how far I can alter my intent. There's nothing inherently tied to any given nail color in ones general expectation of pantyhose..." As she said this, she was removing her shoes and socks, exposing her feet. Jon noted her toenails were not polished. As she rolled up her jeans to her knees, he also could see her calves had fine downy hair; she hadn't shaved her legs a while. She continued, "...OK, hand me the hose, please."
With much more practiced movements, she quickly slipped on the pantyhose and pulled them up as far as her knees. She waited a beat, and then unrolled them off her legs. "Voila! A different shade... Oh... darn. I was trying to envision keeping my legs unshaven, but they're shaved now."
Karyn's lower legs now looked just as smooth as Jon's left foot. Her toenails were a significantly darker pink than Jon's new shade.
Karyn ran a hand up her calf. "Wow, very smooth. No stubble... As if I waxed them, and not the cheap stuff you get in a box, either... like I went to a salon and they did the dirty deed for me."
Jon asked hesitantly, "Can I feel?"
"Heh, guess it's only fair," she replied.
She smiled, and stuck both legs out from where she was sitting. Jon perfuntorily ran his hands over her knees and calves. He enjoyed touching her now-ultra-smooth calves, but he kept it short. He'd just wanted to see if she'd let him, and he really didn't want to get overly engaged while sitting there naked from the waist down. Karyn looked a bit disappointed that he stopped so quickly.
Jon gave voice to the theory that had been growing in the back of his mind about this "intent" thing. "Maybe it's not just your intent. Maybe my expectations went into it too... or maybe not. I'm not sure how much thought I was giving to your legs being shaven, but there are millions, no, probably billions of people in the world outside who do expect it, at least when pantyhose is worn.
Karyn pondered this idea. "That fits with other things I've read. Anyway, we could spend all day with little side experiments, but we still haven't completed the main one yet." She handed the pantyhose back to him. "Go on, put those on all the way, and we'll finished getting you dressed. Isn't your mom coming home soon? We'll see if she recognizes you as her daughter or not. Or maybe we'll dig up your family albums and see if there's a girl there now where you used to be."
