The next day, Sharon called up a private investigator, Duane Christensen, along the line that Callie had traced for them. "Hello. This is Duane Christensen, private investigator, speaking. How may I help you?
Sharon said, "I need help finding someone."
The private eye responded, "Most people who reach me do."
Sharon said, "I know, but my request will be a little unusual. I have a sketch of his face, like a police composite drawing, and a line of places where he might live. I need you to find him."
Duane said, "So what is this person to you?"
Sharon paused, then said, "He sent me a package that I don't think was intended for me, and I want to return it."
"With no return address? Listen, I don't take jobs where I can't trust my client, because I don't want to get involved in something that could be dangerous. Now, you're hiding something from me, and I need to know what it is if you want me to take this case."
Sharon took a deep breath and tried to figure out how she might tell this man enough to convince him without having him hang up on her. After an uncomfortable silence, she said, "He sent me a cursed ring. I want to get rid of it, but I can only do that by returning it to him."
"A cursed ring, eh? And how did you get the guy's picture?"
"I did a little investigation of my own at the post office, talked to the person who accepted the package."
Duane paused, as if in thought. Then he said, "Ok, I'll do it. I'll warn you, I think you're nuts, but I believe that you believe the ring's cursed, and that's good enough for me. Send me the sketch and any information you have on the man's address."
Meanwhile, life went on; Sharon and Jim dealt with it as best they could. Jim's body went through a few more changes. His voice jumped a few registers. His beard growth stopped at last, which allowed Jim to go out in public without heavy make-up. His breasts had started to lactate a bit; Sharon discovered she didn't mind gulping down a few mouthfuls of strawberry-tinged milk in the morning and before they went to bed. Finally, his scrotum contracted into his abdomen and split into a vagina, leaving his penis and his height as the only reminders that he had ever been male. However, even his penis experienced changes: the urethral opening at the end of his penis closed and another inside his new vagina opened. Upon examination of his new genitalia, Sharon pronounced that he was now the possessor of a much enlarged clitoris.
Both of them were pleased that Callie's binding spell seemed to have preserved at least that much: Jim wanted to keep at least one memory of his maleness, conveniently one that could be hidden without too much trouble, and Sharon felt less weird about Jim's body than she would have if he had been female through and through.
However, now when he tried on male clothing and bound his chest, he didn't look like a man, he looked like a woman in drag. Given the difficulties of presenting himself as male, after a long and weepy discussion, Jim and Sharon decided that it would be best if Jim started to live full-time as a female.
The reasons for this were clear to Sharon as she saw Jim walking out of the bathroom after taking a shower. Jim had never been ashamed about being nude, but now that they had the same equipment, he was even less abashed.
In truth, Jim was stunning. He had let his cute light sandy blond hair grow down to neck length, and Sharon found that even more adorable than his short masculine cut. His face, symmetrical and attractive as a male, had shifted in just the right places to make him not just pretty, but beautiful. His chin had softened and straightened, his nose had relaxed into a cute button, and his heightened cheekbones gave him an aristocratic air. Sharon had always loved his gray-green eyes, and they remained just as lovely in his new face.
The rest of his body didn't detract from his face. All his male body hair had vanished and he'd acquired female body fat in all the right places. His skin had always been clear, and now it had softened, begging to be touched. His exercise regime had given him comely clean lines and excellent proportions. His rosy nipples drew attention to his buxom and rounded breasts, which in turn complemented a tight but curvaceous ass and hourglass waist. Even his new vagina was well-formed, his outer labia symmetrical, his inner genitals a perfect pink to match his nipples.
Sharon had never thought herself ugly: she liked her curly brown hair and blue eyes, she thought she had attractive lips, and her figure was nothing to be ashamed of. Still, she couldn't compare to Jim; and while Jim had been a handsome man, he was even more attractive as a woman. Sharon had never thought about a woman with real desire before, but Jim's body made even her feel a little something.
Jim startled Sharon out of her adoration when he said, "What?" He was toweling off with an unaffected air.
"Nothing," said Sharon, blushing a bit. Having Jim turn out so easy on the eyes certainly didn't impede her attempts to come to terms with his sex switch. Jim still seemed ignorant of the effect his body had on others. Sharon noticed, though, and felt a rush of jealousy every time she saw a gaze lingering on him a little too long.
Sharon decided to take advantage of her momentary appreciation of Jim's assets, so she got up off the bed and reached up to kiss him: she wasn't that much shorter than he was, just enough so that she had to stand on her toes if she wanted their mouths to meet without Jim craning down. She was still wearing her nightshirt and panties, but she could feel a slight stiffening of his nipples and clitoris through the cloth.
Jim said, "Sharon! I just took my shower."
Sharon grinned. "I do believe this is a first, for you to be the one to refuse my advances."
Jim laughed and said, "We'll see about that!" Jim grabbed her under her buttocks and lifted her up, carrying her to the bed with his erecting clitoris sliding between her legs. In one motion, he let her down and began to lick her pussy.
She spread her legs to allow him better access. Sharon appreciated that Jim knew that she needed up to be warmed up to sex now more than ever, even when she initiated it. Sharon laid back and enjoyed Jim's tongue as he worked into all her most sensitive areas. She loved the way Jim paid attention to the sounds she made, easing off, lapping harder, and shifting position based on the timbre of her moans.
When she started begging for release, Jim crawled up her body and penetrated her with his clitoris. Meanwhile, he kissed her, and she felt the slipperiness of her own fluids on his chin and lips. He started thrusting, laying gentle pressure on her clitoris with his thumb and tweaking her nipples as he did so. Jim's skilled touch on her body soon brought her release, and, after she recovered, she blushed wondering if the neighbors had heard.
However, it was now her turn: as Jim's genitalia had changed, so had his orgasms. Jim laid down and Sharon began licking his clitoris and massaging it with one hand, while she slid a finger from the other into his anus. Jim moaned, "Pussy."
Sharon, with a little trepidation, took Jim's clitoris as deep into her mouth as she could, freeing her other fingers for Jim's vagina. She slid two in and started thrusting, noting how odd it was to be feeling her fingers enclosed by a wet pussy that wasn't hers.
Ever since his change, Jim had become more vocal during sex, something that Sharon appreciated. Thus she wasn't surprised when he screamed even louder than she had when he came, almost immediately after Sharon added the vaginal stimulation.
After their orgasms, they lay next to each other and exchanged inanities about how wonderful it was. Without the male refractory period, Jim was more loquacious after sex, and moreover, though they had yet to take advantage of it, there was the potential for them to go multiple times, though they hadn't taken advantage of it yet.
Sharon was discovering that sexual attraction and sex weren't as close as she had thought. The intimacy of having a lover who knew her body and listened to her signals overwhelmed most of the aspects of attraction in the heat of the moment. And, of course, her strong romantic feelings for Jim didn't hurt either.
While it was the middle of the afternoon, Sharon was feeling sleepy: her head lay pillowed on his left breast as she listened to the thrum of his heartbeat. If someone had told her a year ago that she would be laying her head on her boyfriend's bosom, she would have laughed in their face. However, now it didn't seem either so ridiculous or so disagreeable.
Jim stirred beneath her and said, "Sharon, I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor."
"What?" Sharon brushed curls out of her eyes and sat up so she could look at him.
"Could . . . could you use the ring to give yourself a penis? Or a clitoris like mine? I want to feel what it's like to be penetrated during sex."
Sharon couldn't help feeling weird about it, but she reached over to her bed stand where she kept the ring. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she visualized her clitoris and its hood lengthening. When she opened them again, she looked down and saw protruding from her body an organ much like Jim's. She stroked it: it was hers alright, but it felt foreign to her.
She was sitting cross-legged, and when Jim saw what she had done, he leaned over into her lap and took her clitoris into his mouth. Even insulated by the hood, the sensation of having her clitoris engulfed by Jim's warm wet mouth was heavenly. Sharon asked, "Have you . . . ah . . . done this . . . ah . . . before?"
Jim paused long enough to say, "I'm just doing what I like to have done," then plunged down again.
Sharon could well have come right then, but as she could feel the sensations peaking, Jim slipped off. He wagged his finger, "Uh uh . . . you aren't getting off that easy." Sharon could see her love's eyes shining with desire and amusement as he turned around on all fours and raised his ass towards her. "Here, I'll make it easy for you. Take me . . ."
Sharon, caught up now in the situation and erect, crawled forward and inserted herself into Jim after only one false try. Then, she began thrusting, while reaching around and tweaking Jim's nipples as he did hers when their positions were reversed. She stopped when she reached orgasm, seemingly only moments after entering him, clutching herself to Jim's body, then realized Jim was still waiting. Having her clitoris engulfed by Jim's warm tightness had been too much for her. Embarrassed, she thought, Oh my. Her softening erection slipped out.
Determined to satisfy her lover, she visualized her clitoris becoming erect again and plunged back in. Jim gasped, "Thicker . . . thicker." It took a moment for Sharon to understand, then she used the ring's magic to thicken her clitoris, increasing the friction and sensations. Now, when she heard Jim cry out, Sharon let go her control and came herself.
When they collapsed next to each other on the bed this time, Sharon knew that nothing more was going to happen that day. She shrunk her clitoris back to its normal size, and then a curious thought occurred to her: as hard as the ring's magic had made their lives, in some ways it had brought them closer together. Even sex, before the ring, had started to become routine. Now, they had to try harder to be passionate, so when they did have sex, it was special. Sharon shook her head, wishing that her feelings weren't sometimes so confused and contradictory: about the ring, about Jim, about everything. Then she looked at the clock and realized that it was time for her to start getting ready to go to the hospital. At least that aspect of my life hasn't changed, she thought wryly.
It was a Saturday two weeks later when Jim led Sharon out to his car and told her he had a surprise for her. Jim started driving while Sharon begged him to tell her what was going on, with little success. However, as Sharon recognized where she was, she started to get more excited. When Jim pulled into their destination, she clapped her hands and burst from the car.
About a year ago, Sharon and Jim had gone looking for houses to rent, since they had both gotten tired of apartment life. However, they'd discovered that most of the houses were out of their price range and those that weren't, weren't good places to live. Sharon had found this house charming. It had been owned by a professor of English literature with two hobbies, gardening and collecting books. The result was a house with a beautiful landscape, shaded by dignified old trees, filled with thousands of books. Sharon had fallen in love at first sight.
The house was put up for rent by his children, who seemed nice enough but didn't share his predilections for books or trees. However, at the time Sharon and Jim had decided they couldn't afford to pay for it. Thus, Sharon turned to Jim and said, "What's going on?"
"Well, I was looking through the real estate ads one day and I noticed that this place had gone up for sale. Apparently, no one was biting at the rent they were charging, so they decided they could get more money out of it by selling it now and investing the proceeds.
"I sat down and did the math, and discovered that we weren't far off on the mortgage payments. I called up Rick and asked him if he might be interested in buying a house with us. He said yes, and so I figured I'd bring you here."
"That's not fair! If you hadn't brought me here, there would at least have been a chance that I'd say no." Sharon smiled. "This is such a wonderful gift! You make me so happy! I really don't deserve you." She strode over and kissed him. "Why so sudden, though? And why the surprise?"
"Um . . . that wasn't the only reason I brought you here." Sharon looked into his eyes, confused, still sensing something else going on. Awkwardly, Jim slid to one knee. "Would . . . will you marry me?"
"Yes." Sharon said it without thinking, without even realizing the word had passed her lips. "Oh God yes." She was crying, and even with blurry vision she saw that Jim was crying too. He stood up and hugged her, and each basked in the warmth of the other's embrace.
Later that day they went to celebrate their engagement at Sharon's favorite expensive restaurant. As they ate, they talked about logistics. "I know we've talked about getting married before, but with the changes that have happened to me I figured it was only going to get harder the longer I waited. And . . . I've gotten more confident about our relationship. After all we've been through, I don't see us splitting up."
Sharon could tell Jim was second-guessing himself, trying to convince himself he'd made the right choices, as was his wont after an important decision. "You were right. I've been thinking the same thing myself, that if we can survive that damn ring we can survive anything. It feels right to me, as I'm sure it feels to you."
Jim fidgeted with his hair, a habit he'd picked up since he grew it longer. "I think we'll need time to plan and work out the details of the real ceremony, but I think we ought to get legally married as soon as possible. If I'm going to live as a woman, I'll need to change my name and the gender on my birth certificate, and after that, we won't be able to get married. I'd been thinking we should take a long weekend and drive up to Nevada."
Sharon nodded. "I can live with that: legally married, but in reality engaged."
Jim said, "After this, I want to go home and go over the financial details of the house with you. I wasn't sure how you would feel about living with Rick, but I know back in college you shared an apartment with a male roommate for awhile, so I figured it would work out."
"I'm fine with it. Rick is a decent person, from all I've seen, and we get along well."
For Sharon, the next few weeks passed in a delirious blur of happiness. They went to pick out matching engagement rings. They finalized the mortgage and got ready to move in. They went to Vegas and stayed at a hotel for a night, so Jim could put his hair into a masculine style, bind his chest, stuff his pants, and otherwise do his best to dress as a clean-cut man. As he got ready, he remarked, "I think this has to be one of the most twisted things I've ever done."
They got "married" in a drive-through wedding chapel, just for the kitsch value. While Jim attracted a few odd glances garbed up as he was, no one leaped out, tore off his shirt, and screamed, "He's a woman!" during the process, so they considered Jim's efforts a success. After getting married, they went back to the hotel and Jim changed back into the casual androgyne style he'd been developing: no tight clothing to accentuate his body, no dresses or skirts or other overtly girly wear, only an occasional touch of makeup, but nothing so baggy as to be intended to hide his bosom or other feminine curves. Sharon, meanwhile, went for a more feminine look, with a short skirt, tight blouse, and slightly overdone makeup. Thus dressed up, they went down to the casino and gambled the night away. When they were together, laughing and touching as lovers, Sharon noticed a few covert looks in their direction. She thought she read disapproval in some and envy in at least one.
It was on odd thought, that they were going to "officially" become a lesbian couple once Jim changed his documentation. Of course, they'd been presenting that image for months now, but they'd been avoiding going out in public for most of that time, as well as avoiding acting like anything other than best friends. Sharon didn't intend to let matters remain that way, though, which meant that soon she and Jim were going to be viewed as out-and-proud-about-it lesbians. Thinking about it made Sharon feel strange: she'd never been one to let people's opinions of her dictate what she should do, but she'd never done anything quite like this. What strange paths life takes us on. Who would have ever imagined that I'd become a poster child for gay rights?
It was only a week before they were scheduled to move into their new home when Sharon received a phone call from Duane. "Hello? Is this Sharon McClellan?"
"Yes. Did you find him?"
"I did." He paused. "This was a hard case, until I thought about who might send someone a ring like that. Then I started thinking about family members and started looking for relatives of yours in the area traced near out by the angle, latitude, and longitude you gave me."
"The man's name is Jeffrey Graves. He's your grandmother's half-brother's son, on your mother's side, which I believe makes him your half-cousin, second-removed. Or something like that. Anyway, one of his aunts recently died, and in her will she left him only a wooden box, which I think contained your ring. Do you have piece of paper and a pen handy? Here's his address and phone number." Sharon wrote it down, thanked Duane for his help, winced again at how much it cost, then called Jim at work.
After talking it over, they decided to go in person, based on a strong suspicion that this Jeffrey Graves knew something about the ring and might just hang up on them over the phone, given the effort he had put into being anonymous.
Thus it was that Sharon and Jim got out of their car in a nice suburban neighborhood at about 5:00 pm, after having watched Jeffrey go into his house a few minutes before hand. They went up and rang the door bell. No response. They kept it up, and finally on the fifth ring, Jeffrey opened the door looking annoyed. "I don't care what you're selling, religion, charities, or junk, I don't want it."
Jim jammed the door open with his sneaker while Sharon thrust the ring in Jeffrey's face. "I'm not here about any of that, I'm here about this! Recognize it?"
"You're Sharon? Sharon McClellan?" Jeffrey asked. She thought he'd gone a bit pale.
"Yes. And I think you have some serious explaining to do."
Jeffrey hesitated, then opened the door. "Goddamn fucking ring. I even do my best to get rid of it in an acceptable way, and still it haunts me."
Sharon and Jim sat down on a couch while Jeffrey got them water. "What do you want to know?" he said.
"What can you tell me?" she countered.
Jeffrey said, "Not much. But I'll tell you what I know.
"The ring is a family heirloom passed down the female line. I don't know how old it is, but it goes back at least five generations."
Jim said, "Then how did you get it?"
"My grandmother gave it to my aunt, who was named Jessica. Jessica never married, probably because she had the temperament of a wolverine, so she didn't have any descendants to pass the ring onto. My parents and Jessica had a falling out years ago, so she never liked me. When my grandmother died two years ago, she left me what Jessica felt was an unfair portion of her property, starting the old argument again.
"Jessica decided to punish me by leaving me that ring in her will. You see, it carries a curse for male descendants of our family. I don't know what the curse does, but I've seen my grandmother use the ring, and I knew I didn't want to be on the receiving end of the curse. The only exception to the curse is when a woman only has sons: one of them can hold the ring in trust for a future daughter.
"I couldn't just discard the ring, because the curse would remain in effect until I passed it onto a female relative.
"My grandmother had two daughters and three sons, to two different husbands. The first husband fathered your grandmother, Sharon, and one of the sons before dying in a farming accident. Jessica and the other two sons, one of whom was my father, were fathered by the second husband. Your grandmother and her full brother didn't get along with any of my family, by all accounts, including their stepfather, stepsiblings, and even their mother, my grandmother.
"After doing some digging, I discovered that you were descended in a direct female line from my grandmother. The ring is supposed to be passed from mother to daughter when the daughter reaches maturity, so that made you the rightful heir. I sent it to you anonymously because I was afraid you'd think I was nuts and, frankly, I didn't want anything to do with it ever again."
Sharon said, "Do you know anything about its powers? Can you tell me any more?"
"I told you everything I know in that letter."
Jim said, "Do you know anything about the ring changing someone's sex?"
Jeffrey said, "No. Why?"
Jim took out a picture of himself, taken a year ago. "This used to be me."
Jeffrey looked at the picture, then at Jim, then at the picture, then at Jim again. "I . . . I don't what to say. I had no idea the ring could do this. I would have warned you if I did, you have to know that."
Sharon said, "That's all well and good, but do you know if the ring can be used to fix it?"
"No, no I don't." Jeffrey paused. "Well, let me get you something."
Jeffrey went upstairs and rustled around in a closet, coming down with a small wood box. He opened it to reveal some aged paper and a scroll. "The paper is a note from some ancestor or another explaining more or less what I told you tonight, plus what I included in my original note. The scroll is in Chaldaean, or at least that's what the note says. I certainly can't make either head or tail of it. Maybe if you can get it translated, you'll be able to find something useful.
"There is one other thing. There's a story that my grandmother told me, that there was a mate to this silver ring, a gold ring intended for males with the same powers. The rings were divided along different lineages long ago. I know it's not much, but maybe if you could find it . . ."
Jeffrey let them out, and when they got to the car, Jim said, "I don't feel up to driving. Can you?"
Sharon said, "Sure."
Jim sighed when he got into the car. Sharon asked, "What's wrong?"
Jim said, "Nothing, really. I mean, it's no less or more than I expected. Still, I guess I had a little hope. Now I have less, but it's still there; that if we could get that gold ring . . . . In some ways, I think it would be easier if I had no hope, so I was forced to get on with the business of living. As it is every time we follow the trail of the ring, the hope recedes, but it's still there. I feel like we're chasing a will o' the wisp. I'm trying to ignore the hope, to concentrate on living, female body or no, but it's hard.
"You know? I'm still male in my dreams. At least some of the time."
Sun Oct 12 11:05:26 2003
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