Perfectus In Mundo.
That’s what the latin phrasing that ran around the outside rim of the silver coin that she’d picked up in that antique shop read. Running the pads of her fingers along it, Aubrey could feel the embossed lettering scrape hard against her skin. The coin was inordinately thick with a surprising amount of heft to it. For such a small thing—no bigger than a silver dollar—she could feel its weight in the center of her palm.
Ever since she had been, rather aggressively, given ownership of the coin Aubrey had been lowkey obsessed with it. It helped that she was already the sort of person who would collect oddities and trinkets where she could, but this one little worn coin seemed somehow alien even to her other eclectic acquisitions.
A quick Google search had proven her right in that regard, at least. Of the small collection of foreign coins that she’d collected (several Francs, a Euro, and a 5 Jian coin from China) this one was distinct among all of them. The coin didn’t belong to any particular country or nation, and she couldn’t find anything even referencing the thing. Searching for the inscription written along the edges had yielded the translation to its Latin motto, at least:
In a Perfect World.
“What a weird thing to put on a coin.”
Aubrey had been running it between her fingers for a good bit now. Her hands had taken on a metallic scent from handling her mystery coin, and even now that she had solved the enigma of its inscription, she found herself oddly fixated by its design.
There was the outline of a vaguely androgynous profile on one side; sort of like how they used to chisel statues. It was beautifully done, but the features on whatever monarch had been carved into the side of this thing were frustratingly difficult to discern. Not that she particularly cared much, beyond identifying a potential commissar for this strange piece of currency and therefore pin down a point of origin.
The other side was equally vague in its design, in the sense that it took quite a while for Aubrey to discern just what exactly she was looking at. At first it had gone without notice, but there was a distinctive horizon line cut at a curving angle. She could feel the little cuts and engravings that gave the back side of the coin a distinct texture from the front, but it wasn’t until she’d held it directly under the overhead light of her room that she’d been able to make out just what—if anything—it was supposed to be.
“Oh, it’s a pasture!” she’d announced it to her uncaring and otherwise empty room, “Like greener pastures because—”
She flipped the coin over.
“It’s a Perfect World.”
Feeling suitably brilliant, she smiled with just a hint of smugness as she let the coin fall back into the center of her palm. Closing her fingers around it, she held it there in her hand for a moment before turning back to the rest of the world for the first time in about forty-five minutes.
And, unfortunately, her reflection had been the first thing that she’d seen.
Her sister, Riley, had always been the one who’d gotten attention for her looks. She had taken after her mother more and had inherited the beautiful Puerto Rican features that had helped her to stand out in the mostly white population of their upscale neighborhood. With her olive skin, luscious locks, and pert chest, was it any wonder that she had always been the pretty, popular sister? While neither of them had ever been particularly keen on the attention of boys (even back when they were little) Aubrey would admit to feeling a little jealous of the leers that she’d gotten after she hit puberty.
Unfortunately, Aubrey had taken more after their father—the Irish features ran so much stronger in her than they did in Riley.
Aubrey was taller than her sister, but much paler. Less “exotic” looking, to mitigate the “height advantage” that they’d jokingly talk about from time to time. She blended almost seamlessly into the crowd at just about any given moment, particularly back in school when they were just girls. Her hair was just as honey brown and her eyes just as green, but Aubrey had never been under any illusions that she was as pretty as her sister. Her face was more angular and her features more boring. Adding into the source of just one of her many idiosyncrasies and self-esteem issues, she had grown up into a lankier and somewhat birdier figure than Riley’s natural curves had granted her.
Without her sister’s athleticism, good looks, and ability to go way longer talking to people without getting anxious, that left Aubrey as a pale, skinny, awkward beanpole.
Was it any wonder that she’d grown up into such a wallflower? Who wouldn’t have with Riley overshadowing them?
But her plain-jane looks weren’t the only reason that she’d been so discomforted by what she’d seen in the mirror. They weren’t really why she’d been so upset with herself—at least, and increasingly, not lately.
Perhaps because of her issues with her uncanny ability to fade into the background, Aubrey had always had a fascination with the obese. Those that were much harder to ignore, the large and in charge beauty queens that had been heading the Body Positivity movement in the years as of late. Eventually, that fascination had led her to the revelation that she would like to become one of them.
But running a hand over her soft but flat stomach, Aubrey was filled with disappointment.
Of course, with her mother grilling her whenever she put on so much as a pound, that dream was never going to be realized. And the one time she did bring a girl home—an excessively plush Communications major back from her college days—all she had heard for weeks after was how she couldn’t understand how people could let themselves go so much. Unhealthy this, heart disease that, blah blah blah…
Aubrey had often tried to picture herself as a Big Beautiful Woman. But more often than not, the crushing weight of reality put a damper on even her idle fantasies. Long ramblings from Riley’s spiels as a Personal Trainer would chisel back her double chin, her mother’s shrill lectures about weight management would make her fat tummy suck in, and her thick thighs would positively shrivel at the idea of what they might have told her if she dared to speak her desires aloud to them.
But sometimes—just sometimes—she managed to paint a picture in her head. One that consisted of her coming down fifty… a hundred… two hundred pounds heavier, with her mother and sister down at the foot of the stairs. Their eyes wide with shock and their mouths agape in awe as Aubrey waddled down the steps one heavy footfall at a time. Her belly jiggling, her wide hips swaying, and her chest heaving as she worked herself down through the staircase. In her braver moments, she dared to picture her swelling saddlebag thighs bulging over the handrail with perhaps a little brush against the balusters.
And her Ideal Aubrey would just smile that round-faced, chubby-cheeked, double-chinned smile, positively beaming with the confidence that her real self had always wished she’d had.
“Aubrey honey, dinner!”
Fuck.
Aubrey hadn’t realized how hot she’d gotten. Her thoughts had drifted away from the coin and even the mirror as she’d indulged herself in the rare fantasy. One hand placed on her flat stomach pressing down so as to feel whatever squishy softness that clung to her modest frame while the other fiddled idly with her sex through the denim of her jeans.
“Aubrey?”
“I’m coming, mama!”
She had probably come across as terser than she really needed to. Her mother was a sensitive woman and no doubt wouldn’t hesitate to tell her if she’d “sassed” her when she went to go sit down. But this hadn’t been the first time that her mother had interrupted her fantasies, and it almost assuredly wouldn’t be the last.
“I really need to get my own place.”
Aubrey cursed as she tried to calm herself down. Taking deep breaths and doing awkward stretches, slapping her face lightly with both hands now safely removed from her more sensitive areas. All techniques that had proven at least a little distracting. If only she could have broken away for a quick cold shower. Or if only it was late enough for her to get the most out of a long, hot, steamy shower…
“If you don’t get down here in two-point-five seconds—"
“I’m almost there, mama!”
Jesus, if only…
Preparing herself for another awkward dinner with her mother and sister, Aubrey took the coin out of her pocket with the intention of putting it on the bedside table.
Perfectus in Mundo—In a Perfect World.
“If only, you stupid coin.” Aubrey sighed, “If only.”
Positioning the surprisingly heavy hunk of metal on the tip of her thumb, she prepared to flip it. She wasn’t sure why the urge had overcome her so suddenly, but she didn’t think too particularly hard about the innate desire of humans to want to flip coins. Plenty of her other coins had been flipped in the past… why shouldn’t this one?
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