Your character is getting changed in the bathroom of a nightclub or restaurant, then emerges looking completely different. Why?

Posted in Short Story on Feb 7, 2025

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✍️ 58 stories

“It's the Orange Fur Coat” by Daniel Rogers

Submitted to Contest #289

I needed this date to be good. After dozens of failed online dates, I finally built enough courage to ask a real woman out. We worked on different floors, Betty on the twentieth and I on the twenty-seventh, but we shared an elevator from time to time. We couldn't talk much, but I felt a connection. She thought I was funny, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I've ever met. I popped the question on the elevator. Regrettably, my nerves got the better of me, and I blurted out, "Will you be eating dinner this Friday? I know I will." M...

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“The Change Room” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #289

“WHAT?”“I SAID, YOU WANT ME TO GO WITH YOU?? LOTTA SKEEVY DUDES HANG AROUND BACK THERE!”“I’M GOOD! THANKS!”“WHAT?”Madison waved it away and began the gauntlet toward the indeed skeevy and cannabis-and-piss-scented hallway to the rear of The Mill, ignoring the roman hands, the fondling and brushing and inebriated oopsy-doodles, the redcoating and scibzing, the Friday preddos and thirsty eddies packed beyond fire capacity into the bar. There was like a thesaurus the size of the presumably defunct Chicago White Pages just for the pervs, and Mad...

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“Antitrust” by Martha Kowalski

Submitted to Contest #289

“So, tell me, Ed,” I touch his hand lightly from across the table, “how on Earth did you find the time for this? I expected you at the head of a high-powered round table closing out your latest buy-out, not taking little ole me to lunch.”“Your company is worth more than a seven-million-dollar merger, my dear,” Ed clinks his wineglass against mine and I daintily take a sip to distract myself from rolling my eyes. God, where do these guys get off? If it were me, I’d take the seven mil. Seriously, anybody would take the seven mil. “Ho...

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“A Night Out” by Marisa Billions

Submitted to Contest #289

It’s 1:30 in the morning and the bass is hammering so hard I feel it beat in time with my heart. It could be my adrenaline. No one sees me. I’m invisible to them. I’ve always had the ability to make myself invisible. Most of my life was spent being invisible to others. It’s a hell of a super power right now. The lights are flashing and the beautiful bodies of strangers are grinding against each other to music. It’s an odd mating ritual. I don’t understand it. You get dressed up, made up, and go writhe against a stranger in ...

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“Unseen” by Abbey Ryan

Submitted to Contest #289

I show up lovely, but everyone else looks perfect, so I must adjust. I can’t afford to be less. Not tonight. I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror surrounded by a mess of makeup products strewn across the sink. I study every inch of my face, satisfied to find it perfect now. Everything is exactly as it should be. The dress, the makeup, the hair—I’m flawless now. I’m the center of this universe tonight, and soon, they’ll be orbiting around me. A knock at the door startles me, dragging me back to the desperate mess I’ve made on the b...

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“New Friends, Old Problem!” by Chris Cancilla

Submitted to Contest #289

Ruby was scared and nervous. She entered the ladies’ room and had no idea what to do. This guy she met, the one that was so damn cute, started sending up red flags and flares. She needed to get out of there.She was standing at the sink, looking in a mirror at herself. Pretty upset at the fact she let it go this far. But he was just so cute!She did not notice someone come in and go into a stall. A minute or two later, the woman used the sink. They made eye contact.“What’s wrong, girl? You look scared to death and all mad at the same time.”&nb...

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“Élixir d’immortalité” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

Submitted to Contest #289

Jean-Paul D’Armon’s was a small sliver of a bistro by all accounts when Damon Presque walked in off the busy bustle of Parisian boulevard. Living the life of the stereotypical starving artist, Damon felt claustrophobic in his small flat in Greenwich Village Flat in New York where his perspective saw the American Art movement stuck in a rut. Scrounging up enough for a ticket across the Atlantic, Damon was eager to find his way to the City of Lights. He had heard this is where some of the boldest dynamic art movements were being...

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“Getting Real” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #289

Dressed elegantly in a black velvet dress and pearls, Siobhan entered the hotel lobby. She spoke with the desk clerk, Tamara, for a moment, before entering the dining room. They smiled and nodded before Siobhan broke away. All her old school mates waved her over when she paused at the threshold. She’d known Lourdes since grade school. Though not always friends, the decades had softened edges. Ford and Axel were always buddies, inseparable. The jokes about their names went way back. ‘Where could you go without me?’ was Axel’s famous question....

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“Lady in the Mirror” by Jay Lawson

Submitted to Contest #289

The flickering overhead light is too dim to know how bloody my hoodie is, and the raw public bathroom tile on my feet gives me pause. I fumble with my frigid fingers, but I don’t mind the temperature even as I stand bare with one pant leg wrapped around my ankle with the other free. I slide my final sock off and let it pile inside the crumpled jeans. I take a moment to think but can’t get a steady track. My heart races as I pull a pair of shorts over my waist, Nike and gray, while I size up a shirt pulled from a plastic market bag. Than...

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“Just Once” by Jed Cope

Submitted to Contest #289

Just once, he’d wanted things to be different. And they were. He smiled as he took off the jacket and hung it ready to place it carefully in the zip bag the hire company had provided. Then it was the trousers. The shirt was his own, it had been largely concealed by the suit. People rarely looked beyond the surface. From his rucksack he brought out and unrolled his well-worn plain black trousers and slipped into them. Transformation complete, he left the cubicle and stood in front of the mirror. Was he really so different? He knew the a...

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“The Depression of Dr. Caligari” by Aidan Romo

Submitted to Contest #289

Author's Note: This short story is loosely inspired by and borrows elements from the 1920 German horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. ACT I "God, what the hell am I doing? You're married..." A man washes his face in the bathroom of a Red Lobster. The one he and his wife went to for their first anniversary dinner. The man looks down at his beer spilled shirt, and realizes that some of it trickled down to his pants. "It's not my fault she was so hot. Any one would go for her. It’s not like this is a serious thing." In a huff, the man goes...

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“My Date from Hell” by Alison Tuite

Submitted to Contest #289

*Trigger Warnings*This story may contain multiple triggers not palatable for some readers including but not limited to:-sexual violence-physical violence-domestic violence-sexual scenarios-poisoning-murderYou never really think that the simple act of swiping right on someones dating profile could change your life for the worst. Yet here I was, in the bathroom of Chateau le Rouge with my emergency pack. I wasn’t completely innocent either, but in no way was I going to allow Brad to hurt another woman the way he hurt me. Backtrack to about one...

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“What's Inside” by Alaina Hammond

Submitted to Contest #289

What’s Inside “Can I ask you a personal question?” she asks me. I hear more than a flutter of flirtation in her voice. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me something personal,” I reply. I hope I sound equally flirtatious, and not at all like a weirdo. She laughs. But not at me, it seems. With me. OK, that’s a good sign. “I was wondering if you’...

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“Risk” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

Submitted to Contest #289

Emerald smiled the smouldering smile required and gave a coy wave with her fingers which implied she would be right back. No point in trying to say anything under the crashing heavy metal music that echoed from wall to wall inside the nightclub. The player’s greedy eyes reflected her gold spangles, no doubt already imagining her satisfying his every craving. Not so much player as predator—assuming she was his prey.Even a shade for hire needed to powder her nose now and then, realign her parameters due to excessive sensory input so as to...

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“No Return ” by L.S. Scott

Submitted to Contest #289

The bass from the club’s speakers throbbed against the restroom’s tiled walls, shaking the floor and traveling up Charlotte’s unsteady legs.Behind the door, the venue pulsed with life—laughter, clinking glasses, the dull hum of conversation beneath the music.And then there was him. Waiting. Watching.She clutched the edges of the sink, staring at her reflection in the grimy mirror. The fluorescent light above flickered, cutting her face into pieces—now whole, now fragmented. Her black dress clung to her body, the high neckline suffocating her...

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Your character is getting changed in the bathroom of a nightclub or restaurant, then emerges looking completely different. Why?

Submissions are closed

✍️ 58 stories

“It's the Orange Fur Coat” by Daniel Rogers

“The Change Room” by Martin Ross

“Antitrust” by Martha Kowalski

“A Night Out” by Marisa Billions

“Unseen” by Abbey Ryan

“New Friends, Old Problem!” by Chris Cancilla

“Élixir d’immortalité” by George Georgerfrost@gmail.com

“Getting Real” by John K Adams

“Lady in the Mirror” by Jay Lawson

“Just Once” by Jed Cope

“The Depression of Dr. Caligari” by Aidan Romo

“My Date from Hell” by Alison Tuite

“What's Inside” by Alaina Hammond

“Risk” by Tempest Phoenix Smith

“No Return ” by L.S. Scott

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with the lines: “The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

Write your story as text messages or an online conversation between two characters — and at least one of them isn’t who they say they are.

Write an open-ended story in which your character’s fate is uncertain.

Write a story in which a character discovers that a truth they've believed their whole life is either false or not the whole story.

Contest #289

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

364

Contest entries

155

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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