Grandmother, Who, Me?

Grandmother, Who, Me?

Chapter 13: Perfecting the Creation

Jessica’s POV

“So you want me to perfect my creation,” I said, looking at Shreya across the small metal table in my private salon. “Consider it done.”

I had already examined the thin, dark-skinned man sitting quietly in the corner. A beggar from the temple steps. Rough hands, sun-darkened skin, greying temples, the kind of quiet desperation that made people agree to almost anything when enough money was offered. Perfect raw material.

Convincing him took less than an hour. Money, clean clothes, regular meals, and a soft bed were powerful arguments. Teaching him would take longer.

I spent the next ten days turning him into a proper husband.

First came the grooming. Full body cleaning, dental work, haircut and dyeing to a respectable salt-and-pepper, a neat mustache trimmed into the classic Tamil father style. I straightened his posture, taught him how to walk with quiet authority, how to speak in a deep, measured voice, how to look at a woman as if she belonged to him. I drilled the basic manners of a middle-class husband into him until they became automatic. By the tenth day he stood straight, spoke clearly, and carried himself like a man who had spent twenty years as the head of a household. We named him Rajan.

Meanwhile, one full month had passed since I first transformed Satish into Lakshmi.

Now it was time to upgrade her.

I brought Lakshmi back to the treatment chair. She still looked convincing, but she looked like a newly created woman, not one who had lived twenty years of married life. That needed correcting.

I began with the body. Additional soft-tissue work around the hips and lower belly gave her the slightly settled, lived-in shape of a woman who had borne a child and managed a home. The skin on her hands and feet received a subtle weathering treatment, faint lines, a little more thickness, the look of years of work. Even the vagina received an upgrade: deeper tissue integration, slightly more natural coloration and texture, a more realistic response to touch and pressure. When I finished, it no longer looked like a perfect prosthesis. It looked like it had always belonged to her.

Then came the jewelry of a long-married woman.

I took an old, weathered thali, black beads dulled by years, the gold pendant slightly worn, and fastened it around her neck. The heavy chain settled deep into the soft cleavage between her breasts, the pendant resting exactly where a husband’s claim should sit. The weight of it was constant and deliberate.

Next, the toe rings. Small, old-fashioned silver ones. I forced them onto her second toes until they sat tight against the skin. Once on, they could not be removed without cutting. Every step would remind her.

A small traditional nose stud went into her left nostril. Matching ear studs replaced the simple earrings. Each piece was chosen to look like it had been worn for decades.

When I finally stepped back, Lakshmi stood in a simple maroon saree, the old thali heavy in her cleavage, the tight toe rings pressing into her flesh, the nose stud glinting under the lights. Her body now carried the quiet authority of a woman who had been someone’s wife for twenty years.

I called Rajan in.

He stood beside her. Straight-backed, calm, one hand resting lightly but possessively on her waist. She looked up at him with the automatic deference I had trained into her posture.

I raised my camera.

“Smile for the family album,” I said.

The shutter clicked.

Husband and wife. Twenty years of marriage captured in a single frame.

I looked at the image on the screen and felt deep professional satisfaction.

Perfect.