Potential of the Amazon

Commissioned by Loamlife
Written by HikerAngel

Jay couldn’t sleep. The deep purple bags under his eyes suggested otherwise, but his brain refused to allow slumber to come to him. With his wife, Cassie, sleeping in the guest bedroom for the better part of a month, he thought her lack of snoring would at least improve his chances, but it hadn’t. Not even the silver lining perks of his failing marriage could calm his mile a minute mind.

He was adamant that he and Cassie would stay together for the sake of their two daughters, but even he was beginning to suspect that wouldn’t last. The couple couldn’t go an hour without arguing about the littlest things, with Jay insisting he was right about everything even after realizing that he had been battling for a lost cause. She kept calling him out on his stubbornness, but he continued down the path. Nearly pushing forty five, Jay had simply become set in his ways. To be a man was to know, to teach. That he believed. If he couldn’t be assured in his knowledge, he would have failed masculinity.

Knowledge wasn’t the only barrier hindering his performance of his ideal masculinity, so was his looks. With a receding hairline, pudgy potbelly and uneven stubble that looked more like a minesweeper board than an actual beard, he couldn’t bear to look at himself in the mirror most days.

And without masculinity, he felt he had nothing else.

So he coped with whatever extrinsic performances he could muster, no matter the further cost to his family life. He would throw extravagant sports watching parties with his coworkers, even if his wife hated their rambunctiousness. He would willingly sacrifice crucial bonding time with his daughters so that he could spend more time after work away from home, drinking at the bar with his buddies and ogling women half his age. It didn’t fill the hole in his heart with anything substantive, but it put a cheap smile on his face in the moment and cheaper beer down his gullet.

Yet right now, he felt trapped, claustrophobic. Why? He had done everything that the men in his life assured would make him happy. So what if the women in his life didn’t approve? He wasn’t looking for their approval! He was the breadwinner of the house, they should’ve been grateful that he worked so hard for their livelihoods. While the logic was sound to his mind, his body seemed to disagree. He squirmed in the bedsheets as every inch of his skin itched with heat.

He needed to get the hell out of this house.

The bitter cold nipped at Jay’s body as he walked out into the snow. It was foolish of him to leave the warmth of his place with just a light jacket on, but the minute it would’ve taken him to track down a windbreaker was another minute he didn’t want to spend in that house.

No matter how cold it got, he continued to walk aimlessly. He thought a walk would be good to collect his thoughts and come to some sort of resolution, but he couldn’t bring himself to start. He was trapped in a horrific feedback loop of cowardice and ignorance, unsure of where to even begin when it came to addressing his problems and where to begin to fix them.

Like a stuttering machine, his thoughts never terminating only brought his brief walk around the block to new levels of insanity. He wasn’t even paying attention to the road as his feet continued down whatever path they could make sense of, his slumped gait bringing him away from the edge of the city where he and his family resided and down a dirty rural pathway.

The current snowstorm limited his vision, but he continued forward, undeterred. His teeth were chattering and his fingers and toes had long since seceded to the numbness. Still possessing a smidgeon of self-preservation, he turned around and attempted to make his way back home. However, with the increasing intensity of the snow, his tracks had been covered up fairly quickly.

Realizing it was either survive or die, he quickly took refuge underneath a graffiti-laden bridge. It wasn’t a lavish locale by any means—the dimensions were quite small and circular, the underside feeling more like an exposed section of a sewer drain than any particular spot for recreational shelter. Regardless, he was out of the snow’s direct strikes and the wind’s harsh blows. At this point, he’d take any victory he could get.

Before he could formulate a plan on what to do next, however, a certain trinket caught his eye. He pulled it from a fresh pile of snow that had been recently shed from the sky, even to the untrained eye, it was obviously a tiara.

It would look out of place in a museum of ancient artifacts due to its surreal design, much less a random bridge in the middle of nowhere. He held it in his hands as if it were a tender child, though only because it looked valuable to him.

A good chunk of his personality had been shaped around mocking girly things, and this pitiful crown was no different. Even when no one was around to experience it, he put the tiara on and did a little ironic girly curtsey in place. He reached to take it off, but his hand was halted as his attention was suddenly drawn to the opposite wall from where he sat.

The graffiti on the wall had changed.

At first, it was simply an artist’s tag, but now it read—clear as day in the same pop punk style—”HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY FOR UNLIMITED POTENTIAL, JAY?”

He would’ve thought nothing of it, chalked it up to a meth head successfully stringing together a coherent sentence, had it not directly referenced him by name. Now he was sure that the cold was getting to him, that his mind was hallucinating and frostbite would soon consume him. As if proving his point, the graffiti changed form once more.

“IF YOU SACRIFICE THAT WITH WHICH YOU VALUE MOST, UNLIMITED POTENTIAL YOU WILL FIND. WHAT WILL YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE?”

Then, perhaps it was the cold, perhaps it was him being alone in the middle of nowhere, perhaps it was what he felt was a rhetorical nature to the graffiti’s statements, but he felt compelled to actually answer the spray-painted question with as much earnesty as he could muster. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, his life was fucked. He had squandered every chance given to him, peaking in high school band class of all places. Now he was stuck in an unhappy marriage with miserable children, a dead-end job and sleepless nights.

“I’d give up anything to live a better life,” he admitted, finding warm tears restoring his cheeks from painful numbness. “If it meant my family could be happy—that I could be happy with them—I’d give up whatever I cherished most in a heartbeat.”

And then, he wasn’t cold anymore.

Jay’s first thought should’ve been that his body had finally succumbed to hypothermic madness, that he would soon be compelled to rip his clothes off and dance around in the snow naked as he rambled about nothing. But it was as if he knew better now—he could feel it out. His mind felt as if it had achieved a greater level of clarity that it simply could not meet before, one that informed him that his warmth status was a fact and not a result of insanity.

Of course, his gut reaction still resisted this greater clarity. “Feelings” were something men repressed, ignored. If his body was feeling strange, he simply needed a good night’s sleep and he’d feel better the next day, ready to tackle the world. He reached for the tiara on his head, ready to end any semblance of girly charades, only to find that it was no longer there. The amount of thick, luscious hair that now resided on his head should’ve been more of a shock to him, but his masculine anger had been so caught up in allowing himself to indulge in the action that it was quickly swept away in a sea of self-hatred.

He deserved to punish himself for allowing such a raw moment of vulnerability to be expressed physically, even if no one was around to hear it. He had just confessed his deepest desires to a hallucinated piece of wall art, even if a voice in his mind kept assuring him that it wasn’t a figment of his imagination at all.

The trek back to his house was surprisingly simple. Jay was sure he would’ve been lost five times over as he had on the way to the bridge, yet his memory had no problems retracing every single step he had taken to get there. The prowess of his mind also seemed to extend to his eyes, as the thick winter fog that was once a severe hindrance to his vision was a completely manageable obstacle now. Like some sort of advanced scanning technology, his eyes were recalling the prior terrain geometry and applying it to his return visit.

Upon finally making it home, he promptly collapsed on the bed. He barely managed to take his boots off, trailing several snowy footsteps into the house before his head hit the pillow and sleep overcame his body.

~

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE!?” was the first thing Jay’s ears detected as his heavy eyelids slowly creaked open. It was unmistakably his wife’s voice, and it was one in distress. Once his mind put two and two together, his body was quick to follow, rocketing out of bed. His hyperactive brain raced with possibilities—an intruder in the house, the police with a search warrant, some sort of vengeful ex from his past—only for the first face he was greeted with being his wife’s.

Cassie was standing in the doorway, body shivering with fear. Her two children followed suit, cowering behind each of her legs as their childlike curiosity beat out their desire to run away in terror.

Jay quickly looked around the room in confusion, not wanting to believe the voice in his head that kept insisting he was the person his family was frightened by.

“I’m only going to ask this one more time!” Jay’s wife insisted, holding her phone in her hand with 911 pre-dialed into the screen. Her trembling thumb hovered over the green ‘call’ button with as much threatening energy as she could muster. “W-who the hell are you and what are you doing in my husband’s bed, wearing my husband’s clothes!?”

This situation was only growing more confusing by the second for Jay, who wasn’t even sure what he believed about this situation anymore. All he knew was that this was his house, Cassie was his wife, and Ashley and Jenna were his two lovely children.

“Cas, hon, did you take crazy pills this morning or something? It’s me, J—”

He paused.

That was not his voice.

It had come out of his mouth, it carried the inflections that he had developed over countless years of living in the northern east coast, the voice in his head was even reassuring him that it was indeed his voice.

But it didn’t sound like his voice at all. It sounded…

…Feminine. Unmistakably so.

“Wait, what’s—? What the fu—?” Twice he attempted to speak his mind and twice he was met with the same uncompromising unfamiliarity. First his wife and children weren’t recognizing him, now he didn’t even recognize his own voice! He looked to Cassie, still in the doorway with their children. Now she looked more confused than anything, as if she wanted to pity what she saw before her.

Look in the mirror. The voice in his head suggested, referring to the one on the adjacent wall. He wanted nothing more than to not do that, shutting his eyes tight in defiance. This was a voice of feeling, nothing he could trust. The facts didn’t care about his feelings, and the facts were that he was the same man that he had been yesterday—the same man he had been every day since his birth.

You are no longer what you think you are. The voice once again insisted. He hated that it sounded more like him than his own speaking voice, like it was appropriating his existence for its own gains. He was ready to rip out what little hair he had left on his head—only his fists curled around luscious locks of cascading brilliance.

Jay couldn’t resist the urges anymore, he had to look in the mirror now. Too many things weren’t adding up and the curiosity was killing him. In a single motion, he opened his eyes and looked towards his closest reflection.

He now understood why his wife hadn’t recognized him. He barely even recognized his own reflection. The person staring back at him in the mirror shared only superficial aspects with himself, like they could be his sister or some equally feminine family member. They sported his firm jawline, yet their eyes were larger and more wondrous while their nose was smaller and cuter. Their hair, while still uncomfortably thinner on top much like his own, was curlier and thicker overall, flowing down the sides of their face until it settled comfortably on their shoulders.

Jay’s hand ran down the side of his face and the person in the mirror mimicked his movements flawlessly. His hand was treated to the smooth sensation of hairless cheeks, unburdened by the rough 5 o’clock shadow that often accompanied his face. The lips his fingers brushed past were fuller and plush, but only barely.

But the face was not where these changes ended. His hands explored lower, groping perky yet underdeveloped breasts which seemed uneven in their sizes and redistributed fat that seemed to shoot for an hourglass figure rather than a triangle in composition, yet still falling short. Most of the chub that he hated was still present on this body, but in an admittedly less intrusive fashion.

He could no longer deny reality any further. The body in the mirror was his.

And this will likely be as ‘manly’ as your body is allowed to be, the voice in his head deduced. Your masculinity… that is what you sacrificed for unlimited potential.

He didn’t want to believe it. What the voice was offering as a solution seemed completely far-fetched and nonsensical. That tiara he clearly hallucinated was not only real, but it changed reality to a degree of supposed impossibility.

Jay was a man of science—at least when the scientific theorems conveniently coincided with his own beliefs—yet he could not offer up any explanation other than witchcraft to justify what was happening to him. Sure, a few months of HRT would’ve probably done the same thing to his body, but this transformation hadn’t happened in months, nor weeks, nor days, but mere hours.

Then his hands fell lower and discovered something that not even a change of hormones could introduce to his body.

His cock. Or, more accurately, his lack of one.

Placing a hand down his pants—what should’ve been there wasn’t. His fingers kept tentatively pressing down upon the sensitive pelvic flesh like they were searching for the light switch in a dark room, his memory betraying his fingers. Instead, they ventured deeper into softer, concave flesh, nearly eliciting a moan of surprised arousal as electric shocks of pleasure rippled throughout his body from the exploration.

The trek didn’t last, his wife couldn’t let silence persist as this strange person touched themself in her bedroom mirror.

“J-Jay, is that really you?” Cassie asked, her posture softening, finally coming off edge even if only slightly.

Hearing his name coming out of someone else’s mouth felt strange, as if there was a nagging static at the back of his cranium that flared up at the sound of it. His emotions were already haggard to the point where he forgot about it as soon as the sensation ceased, yet it still managed to be heard within the ocean of stressors that currently ailed him.

“Y-yes…” he replied, still not used to the voice coming out of his mouth. “Honey, it’s really me, y-your husband.”

Jay hated how weak his voice sounded now. All he wanted to do was cry.

“Daddy is a… mommy now?” Ashley, the younger of the two daughters, asked. Her child brain couldn’t comprehend the situation any better than the adults in the room, but she seemed more innocently curious than worried or afraid.

“Does this mean we don’t have to watch those boring boy sports anymore?” Jenna, the older and more opportunistic of the daughters, asked. She didn’t seem to understand the crisis of identity that her father-turned-mother seemed to be going through.

“Kids, why don’t you give your parents a little bit of alone time, okay?” Cassie said, adopting her lighter voice that she often put on when talking to her kids. “I promise we’ll explain everything soon.”

“Okaaaay,” the two girls replied in unison, skipping off to their rooms. She then shut the door, silencing their trailing off rambunctiousness with it. Now the estranged couple were alone together, Cassie wordlessly walked over to the bed, gesturing at Jay to sit beside her.

“So, was this like… a curse from a demon or something? Maybe a freaky Friday situation? How did a guy who—and sorry to kick you when you’re already down here—is so toxically masculine that he was angry when his second child was a girl, suddenly switch biological sex over the course of a single night?”

Jay could sense the bitter resentment that still simmered within his wife’s voice. She still remembered that drunken “she’s a girl too so now I’ll have no children to relate to” rant of his like it was yesterday. With nothing left in his mind but a sense of shame, he didn’t feel like sugarcoating or downplaying what had happened to him last night.

“It was a cursed Tiara. At least, it felt cursed. It gave me a choice—to give up the thing I loved the most for ‘unlimited potential,’ or some crap like that.” He paused, choking back tears as his voice became hoarse and wavy. “But I didn’t even get any potential! My life still sucks and I’m still just as fucking ugly as I was last time, only now I’m stuck in the body of an ugly woman!”

He couldn’t hold back his tears anymore, collapsing into his knees and bawling his eyes out. To Jay’s surprise, Cassie comforted him during this outburst, reorienting his head so that it was laying upon her lap. He couldn’t remember the last time he had touched his wife, now she was actively consoling him, gently rubbing her hand up and down his back.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be a curse, if you don’t want it to be,” she said with a surprising amount of sympathy. Jay nearly stopped crying out right, arcing his head up to look his wife in the eyes.

“What do you mean? All it did was take away my manliness and left me feeling even uglier than before. How could I ever come back from this?”

“Well, I could help you feel pretty in your new body,” she offered, taking Jay’s hands in her own. “Here, follow me.”

Cassie led her husband-turned-wife by the hands into the nearby bathroom, Jay offering little resistance as he currently lacked the will to give any.

“Alright, now usually you’d have to be standing in front of a mirror for half an hour which gets tedious, but since I’ll be applying it, you get to sit on the grand porcelain throne!” Cassie spoke with a certain amount of pep in her voice. This had been the most his wife had spoken to him in weeks. Not only that, she appeared excited to do so.

“You’re gonna… put mascara on my face?” Jay asked nervously, unsure if this would work.

“Pssh, nah,” Cassie replied. For a brief moment, Jay was relieved. “…Mascara is step ten of the process, silly!”

“Oh dear.”

“Now, hold still, hon!”

Jay did as he was told, sitting perfectly—almost inhumanly—still as his wife went to work on his face. At first, he feared it would be an uncomfortable process, but his doubts were alleviated when cool, crisp moisturizer was applied to his cheeks and chin. He could feel the stress washing away as Cassie added primer and foundation, two steps he wasn’t even aware of when he first pondered how applying makeup could take his wife so long. He couldn’t even see his face, but already he felt leagues better. His grooming choices had once been limited to dingy razors, odorless soaps and occasional trips to the barber, who somehow cared less than he did about his appearance. But to have someone as special to him as his wife pouring passion and love into the craft made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. He may have still been ugly, but he felt more loved than he had in decades.

Come the concealer step, Jay and Cassie found themselves making pleasant small talk between each other. The pretty blonde was quick to share her techniques and Jay found himself fascinated by the level of intricacies that came with an act he had been so dismissive of in the past. The couple always felt they had little in common, conversations often trailing off and serving little function beyond obligated formalities, and even those had become rarer as time went on.

“Wow, I didn’t know all this stuff, why didn’t you tell me about it earlier, honey?” Jay asked, making sure to wait for when his mouth movements wouldn’t mess up his wife’s application of powder.

“Well… because you didn’t seem like the person who would care about that kind of stuff. Y’know… The stuff I actually care about.”

Jay fell silent, and not just because Cassie was applying blush to his cheeks and he needed to keep still. His wife was right, and his mind was quick to back up her claim by relaying vivid memories of past interactions. His mind was awash with turmoil, immediately recognizing his past ignorances and feeling great shame. There was a prolonged silence that remained between the two of them after that, broken only once Jay was absolutely sure he wouldn’t interrupt his wife’s concentration once she got to his eyebrows.

“Cas, why are you doing this for me?” he said, sorrow in his voice. “Karma is finally punishing me after years of my awful, awful behavior and you’re making me feel loved like I’ve never felt before.”

Her patient smile grew into a loving one, eyelids falling on their outward edges into loving semicircles. “Because when you told me that you were willing to give up what you loved the most for this family, I knew something had changed within you. And when your body had morphed into that which you hated, I saw this potential in you that I had never seen before.”

“I… don’t think I fully understand?” Jay admitted. “You think I want to be a girl?”

“I think you hated the societal situation that has been thrust upon you just as much as I had, you just didn’t know how to express it,” Cassie expressed, her hand moving on to eyeshadow without missing a beat. “But now, you can start fresh, be someone you didn’t even know you wanted to be.”

Jay’s lip quivered, a mere aftershock of the fierce battle that raged on within his brain. “B-but… my friends… my job! They’ll never see me the same way now! I-I’ll lose everything!”

“And yet, you will gain back so much more,” Cassie said, adding cool mascara to his face that tickled his eyelashes. “Trust me, you weren’t as happy with those as you probably thought you were.”

“I just… I don’t know if I want to be a woman for the rest of my life,” was his final response, as Cassie held his chin in place and began to apply lipstick to his face.

“Hon, no one wants to feel like a second-class citizen constantly. No one wants to leave the house and fear unwanted advances from stubborn men…” she paused, collecting her thoughts as if past traumas had reared their ugly heads and prevented her from finishing. A steady application of lip gloss then got her back on track. “But being a woman isn’t just that. It’s frightening, but it’s also exhilarating. I should know, I’ve been fighting for that feeling for forty odd years. You get to feel on top of the world when everything works out, to beat the odds and succeed anyways. When you feel pretty and powerful and…” she found her words drifting off again, but now with nostalgic fervor in her tone.

“You think I’ll like it?” Jay asked, his posture still hunched and unsure.

“Only one way to find out!” She emphasized the finality of the procedure with a satisfactory click of the lip gloss cap. “See for yourself, babe!”

Jay stood up and turned around, only to freeze once he saw his reflection in the mirror.

“I… I…”

A tear welled in his eye.

“I look beautiful.”

Sure enough, he did. Cassie knew her way around makeup and it showed. His appearance was tasteful yet bombastic, every pretty aspect of his face subtly emphasized to completely overhaul the negative thoughts into positive ones.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had looked in the mirror and didn’t hate what he saw. He couldn’t remember any time when he looked in the mirror and actually liked what he saw. He knew the rest of his body was still lacking, but it didn’t matter, Jay couldn’t take his eyes off of his own face.

Jay took a deep breath, straightening his posture to reflect his new confidence. Only then did he feel that his shirt had become uncomfortably tight. He bounced his shoulders absentmindedly, assuming it to be briefly caught underneath the curvature of his uneven, unimpressive breasts. Only this was not enough to shake the shirt loose.

He looked down to see what the holdup was, only to immediately be treated to a surreal sight.

There was no other way to say it—his breasts had gotten bigger. Once uneven and unsightly, they had morphed into chest mounds that nearly surpassed his own wife’s. This sudden development was not lost on Cassie either, who found her gaze also consumed by the addictive sight.

“W-w-w-whaaat!?” The couple said in unison.

Jay grabbed his left breast, just to be sure that the sight before him was real. Cassie wasn’t above mirroring this action, groping his right breast with similar fervor. All this attention towards his sensitive nipples caused a cute moan to escape Jay’s lips, one which got an equally adorable giggle out of Cassie.

“H-hey! That’s not funny! I just—ah~!” Jay’s attempted protest was snuffed out by Cassie deviously pinching his nipple, leading the brunette to quiver with newfound pleasure, his knees wobbling with erotic turmoil.

“Heehee, looks like you got all the same weak spots as a woman too,” Cassie joked, grinning devilishly as she teased her morphed husband. “Mm, I bet you’d enjoy the nice day at the spa I’ll be having today, some of those women really work their magic on my period cramps. Oh god, you’re going to have to deal with period cramps.”

Jay sighed, but not for the reason Cassie thought. “Man, I wish I could go to the spa, that actually sounds like a lot of fun… but I’ve got work today. Shit, I totally missed breakfast too, which is weird because I don’t feel hungry either…”

Then, as if on cue, Jay’s phone rang. He began to panic when the caller ID read Frank DeGrossi—his boss. He wordlessly handed the phone to his wife, understandably terrified to answer with his voice in its current state. While equally panicked, she did the best she could.

“Hello? This is Jay’s wife. Jay currently can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’d like to pass along a message, I-I’d be happy to take it for you!”

“Ah, hello Cass! Just calling to let you know there’s been a spontaneous power outage at the building, let your husband know that work will be canceled today with full pay for all staff.”

“O-oh! Wow! I’ll let him know right away as soon as he… gets out of the shower. Yes. Okay! Bye!”

Her smile practically erupted with joy as soon as Cassie pressed the end call button. A rising squee exploded into a full on squeal of joy as she ran up and hugged her husband. “Yaay! You get to come to the spa with me today!”

Jay was also excited, yet confused. “Wow, there’s never been an outage at the building before… they’ve got like, three backup generators. And the boss is usually never nice enough to give PTO without any caveats…”

“Must be that ‘unlimited potential’ the curse was talking about,” Cassie said, only half joking. “Anyways, you can borrow some of my clothes if you’d like, that’d probably help you blend in.”

“B-blend in?”

“Well yeah, my friends Brittany and Alma are already going to be there! And… uh… well…” she trailed off, clearly embarrassed about something.

“What’s wrong? You think the curse would be too hard to explain to them?”

“Ehhhh… they kinda, sorta, totally hate your guts.”

“Oh,” Jay said. If this information had been shared with him pre-curse, he would’ve been furious, blaming his wife for being a lying bitch and shit-talking him behind his back. Now, his head hung low with understanding shame.

But he didn’t let it consume him for long, bouncing right back into excitement at the prospect of a spa day. If mere makeup had him feeling better about the curse he was trapped in, he couldn’t imagine how good something like a spa day could be for his mental health.

…He also couldn’t believe he was considering his own mental health over his ego.

“Cas, give me a dress you haven’t worn in a while and let’s hit the road!”

He had never seen his wife smile harder than she did at that moment.

~

As Jay and Cassie arrived in the parking lot of the nearby spa, the man-turned-woman was understandably hesitant once he spotted Cassie’s friends waiting for them. His wife had informed Brittany and Alma that her “husband’s sister” would be accompanying them, but admittedly that was where all the careful planning had ended. The couple found themselves enjoying each other’s company on the ride there a little too much, so caught up in endless engaging conversations that they had no time left to prepare and would simply need to adjust on the fly if they wanted to survive this pleasant encounter with friends.

“Hello! Um, nice to meet you two!” Jay spoke, his feminine voice only making his nervousness more evident—as if his slouched posture didn’t already give it away.

“She’s just a little nervous, it’s her first time at a spa!” Cassie quickly added. “But I’m sure you’ll love her once you get to know her.”

“Ooooooh, spa day with the in-law!” Brittany said, furthered hyping up the day as a greeting. “Surprised she’s never joined us before, she seems like a fun gal!”

Jay’s heart fluttered at the compliment. He had never just been… praised for existing. His male colleagues would’ve scoffed at the idea, finding joy in who best could deride their fellow man into looking like an idiot while being quick to criticize anything that wasn’t perfection.

“Yeah, and your makeup game is on point, girl!” Alma added, shooting a wink Jay’s way. “I like this girl already, what’s your name?”

“My name’s Jay,” he responded, realizing a little too late that he hadn’t thought of an effective cover name so as not to draw suspicion. He had been so caught up in the euphoria of acceptance that he completely cornered himself without realizing. He quickly held his tongue from saying any more, but the damage had already been done.

“Wait, both you and your twin brother’s names are Jay?” Brittany asked, raising an eyebrow of confusion more than suspicion.

“Uh, well yeah!” Jay responded, flashing a quick glance at his wife who looked absolutely terrified. “Y’know, our parents weren’t expecting twins and my dad was pretty uncreative so he named us Jayson and Jayla.”

Even Jay was surprised how quickly he pulled that excuse out. It sounded so reasonable, his voice filled with confidence that didn’t reflect the associated body language of a liar. Cassie almost believed it and she was in on the deception.

“Heh, you know, I’m surprised you didn’t change your name. Sharing a bloodline with that guy is bad enough, but a name? That’s just fate being cruel!” Alma said, with Brittany giggling at the roast. Cassie did her best to fake a passive smile through the dramatic irony of the moment.

“Hey! That’s… my brother you’re talking about!” Jay spoke up, nearly flubbing his lines and giving away the gambit. Once again, his male insecurities were rearing their ugly heads and he nearly caved to their temptations.

“Yeah, then you of all people should especially know how shitty he can be,” Alma joked, pulling out her phone and digitally paying for the service at the front desk. “Besides, this is a safe place where you can vent your frustrations about somebody, knowing they can’t hear you.”

“Yeah the masseuses here keep their lips shut tighter than Fort Knox,” Cassie remarked, trying to keep a grasp on the conversation while being constantly on edge of Jay’s cover being blown. “Anyways girls, shall we?”

“We shall!” The two other women and Jay replied in unison, all of them giggling as they did so. It was such a simple, silly moment, but there was a certain palpable profoundness to it that Jay couldn’t deny. The child-like joy that he had to deny himself in a man’s body was perfectly acceptable here.

Just when Jay thought the day couldn’t get any better, he was treated to a female full-body massage. He never knew a body could be this pampered. Every inch of his ever-improving form was bathed in comfort. His naked body was then wrapped in a massive sheet of seaweed from shoulders to ankles like a human sushi roll. Laying face-down atop a massage table, he was encouraged not to move, as the fragile water plant could tear at the slightest shift of his form. It was designed to encourage the recipient to relax their joints to reach a physical and mental state of zen—at least, that’s what his stationed massage therapist said. Whatever the reason, he followed her instructions to a T, remaining motionless.

Riiiiiiiiiip.

His half-conscious slumber was restored to full consciousness as the sound of tearing seaweed passed his ears.

“Ah! Ms. Jay! Your… um…” the massage therapist began, only to halt her words out of meek embarrassment.

“What? What is it?” Jay asked, lifting his head up through the hole in the massage table to attempt to catch the source of the sound, though to no avail.

“It appears your… rear has torn through the seaweed wrap,” she replied, attempting to use as little colorful language as she could muster to maintain presentation.

“B-but that doesn’t make sense, I was literally motionless the entire time!” Jay said, still attempting to remain stoic, though to little effect as the sounds of ripping seaweed continued.

“Dodaeche mwoya, your ass is getting fatter!?” the massage therapist shouted, dropping all pretenses of professionalism and briefly reverting to her native language upon witnessing the impossible occur before her.

“What!? Really? Oh shit!” Jay whisper-shouted, not wanting to cause a scene. He quickly stood up, ripping more of the seaweed as he quickly ran to the locker room to get some proper privacy. Sure enough, upon thorough inspection in the mirror, what his masseuse had claimed was a definitive fact—his backside was plumper. Not only that…

“Holy shit, your ass is fatter than mine now!” …came Cassie’s voice from the other end of the locker room. She had become so blindsided by her husband's new assets that she found herself caught at the door in a dumbstruck state. “That definitely has to be the curse’s work! Undeniably so!”

Jay would’ve responded, but he too couldn’t break his attention from the figure in the mirror. The makeup, spa treatments and magical enhancements had created the cocktail of beauty that was his voluptuous body. At that moment he felt ready to admit something—something big—but he stopped himself. The brunette wasn’t sure what he couldn’t admit, or why he couldn’t admit it, but the nagging feeling wouldn’t leave the back of his mind.

“Cas, I think I’m ready to leave,” he replied, somewhat nervously.

“What’s wrong, dear?” his wife replied, rushing over to comfort him.

“I’m… not sure,” his fallen face then perked up into a tired smile. “I had a lot of fun today but… I think I’d just rather spend the rest of the day at home with my lovely wife. Take my mind off of these… complicated feelings I’m having.”

“Whatever you want dear. You gave me a wonderful day, my friends absolutely love you. Let’s go home.”

“And another thing…” he then gestured at the clothes Cassie had offered him, ones that looked rather tight on his newfound ass. “I’m probably going to switch back into my clothes for a good while until we can get a pair of women’s clothes that actually fit me.”

~

When the two arrived home from the spa several hours later, Jay was still noticing changes with his body. The mirror next to the front door stopped him dead in his tracks, noticing just how plush and plump his lips had become. They were like miniature pillows made of the softest material he had ever felt in his life, rivaled only by his own wife’s lips. Jay would immediately be reminded of this rivalry as she lovingly pecked him on the cheek.

He attempted to scoop his wife up into a bridal carry, only to find out the hard way that his strength wasn’t what it used to be. Instead, he awkwardly fumbled around with his wife’s body, making little progress outside of shifting Cassie’s position slightly further to the left.

Cassie giggled at Jay’s awkwardness as he inevitably let her go.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” Jay spoke, frustrated. While he unconsciously attempted for his voice to sound gruff and uncompromising—a common coping mechanism that would take a while for him to unlearn—now it just sounded cute.

His wife giggled again at his newfound adorableness. “Oh, seriously, what’s not funny about this, Jay? You’ve spent your whole life trying and failing to be a ‘tough guy’”—she put on a faux gruff voice for that part—”and now you’ve somehow become the cutest darn girl I’ve ever seen in my life without even trying!”

But did he really want to be cute? Was that all there was to womanhood? While he understood that his ego did not need to be satiated and that being seen as adorable was nothing to be ashamed of, there were aspects of manhood that he enjoyed that seemed all but forgotten with his current body. The muscles—the physical power—all aspects he feared would be lost to time.

But it won’t be lost to time if you so wish. Right on cue, the voice in his head had returned.

He wouldn’t get much time to pursue that train of thought, however, as there was a loud knock at the door. Jay’s pupils shrunk. There was only one group of people belligerent enough to bang on their door when a perfectly fine doorbell was within arm’s reach.

He had completely forgotten that tonight was the big game!

“Hey don’t keep us waitin’ out here too long, Jay-boy,” a male voice spoke from just outside the door. Several more playful jeers were quick to follow, though Jay did not seem as eager to engage with them as he had in the past.

“Should I… go deal with them? Tell them you’re not here?” Cassie offered. An unsaid mutual awareness had quickly formed between the couple from a single shared look, understanding that Jay’s friends probably wouldn’t be receptive to his unprecedented changes.

But Jay put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder. “No. I’ll let them in and explain everything to them. Maybe, if I was willing to listen to reason, they’ll listen too. I’ve been a coworker to each of them for nearly a decade. If there’s anyone they’ll be receptive to, it’ll be me.”

Cassie didn’t seem entirely convinced, but she trusted her husband now to make the sensible choice, no matter how misguided it may have seemed. Stepping aside, she offered no resistance as Jay walked to the door to greet his friends.

The brunette took a deep breath and put on a patient smile as he opened the door. Immediately, the rowdiness of his three friends tapered off, all of them helplessly enraptured by the beauty of the unfamiliar feminine figure greeting them at the entrance.

“Well damn, I didn’t know it was that kind of party!” Cody, the most abrasive of the three men, spoke. With fiery red hair and a build of a stallion, Jay found himself more intimidated in his friend’s presence than he ever had before—even if he didn’t appreciate the implications.

“Maybe Jay finally got wise and ditched that nag of a wife in favor of a real stunner!” Dan, a man who couldn’t read a room to save his life, spoke up, offering his theory to the situation. His lanky body snaked around the larger Cody, getting the best view that he possibly could of Jay’s form—the brunette also did not appreciate how Dan talked about his wife.

“Or maybe she’s just about to leave and needs a gentleman to walk her home in the cold?” Moe, the sleaziest of the three, asked. With how Moe composed his style, Jay always thought he’d fit in perfectly with the three stooges—fitting, since he shared a name with one of them.

Jay wanted to respond to his friends, but he froze up. He realized he was now acutely aware of just how much unwanted attention his body was receiving. Receiving praise for being pretty was one thing, but he felt like their eyes were violating him with their constant stares. While he wasn’t too much smaller than they were, actually matching Moe in height as he always had, Jay felt minuscule compared to the towering, toxic confidence that these three men exuded in droves.

“Well, are you going to say something or just stare at us?” Cody then asked. He jabbed at Dan’s shoulder with his elbow. “I think her poor brain short-circuited at the sight of me. Happens often.”

Jay hadn’t realized just how long he had been staring and now it was getting awkward. “Guys… um, it’s me. I’m Jay. This is my body now.”

A beat passed, then the three men erupted with laughter. “Oh man, Jay, this is your funniest bit yet,” Cody remarked, pushing past the actual Jay and entering the house uninvited in an attempt to find where the ‘actual’ Jay was hiding. Cassie quickly shooed their daughters off to bed, fearful that the situation was spiraling out of control and things were about to get ugly.

“No, guys, I’m serious, it’s actually me,” Jay assured, reaching into his wallet and pulling out his ID. Much to his surprise, the photo on the card had somehow been updated to reflect his current appearance, though his name and, surprisingly, even his gender remained the same.

Cody snatched the card out of Jay’s hand and brought it up to his face to inspect it, with Dan and Moe attempting to catch glimpses of it themselves. Their chuckles had become sparse, but they still didn’t believe what Jay was telling them.

“Okay, wow, you clearly thought this bit through. Mad respect. But you can’t fool me, I know the real Jay is around here somewhere.

“Cody, five years ago you and I got trapped in the bathroom together and you confessed to me that you’d never seen Die Hard and you weren’t sure if it was going to live up to the hype if you did watch it and that made you afraid,” Jay admitted out of desperation.

Immediately, Cody changed his tune from dismissive to shocked beyond belief. That was a story he had never confided with anyone else. “Holy shit… Jay, it really is you.”

“Wait, what the fuck, Jay’s a chick now?” Moe asked, barely able to believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

“Wait… Cody, you’ve never seen Die Hard?” Dan asked, once again failing to read the room. Cody buried his head in his hands.

It took a while for Jay to explain the situation to his friends, but at the end of it he was pleasantly surprised by how well they took it. Once he explained that some cursed tiara did this to him and caused him to lose what he valued most, they met him with a level of understanding that he hadn’t expected. Mostly, Cody, Dan and Moe all seemed excited that he still enjoyed football and his brain hadn’t replaced it with, as Dan put it, “like, ballet or some shit.” While Jay was apprehensive at first about even letting them in the house, fearing their behavior, he had warmed up to them and through a bit of peer pressure was actually feeling comfortable enough to get back into the sports mood.

And so, the four men sat down before the TV, much to the chagrin of Cassie. She feared that Jay was regressing back into his old, brutish ways, but then again, she wanted him to enjoy male activities if he so chose. Maybe—just maybe—Jay would be able to ease his friends into having less shitty attitudes towards women and everyone could win.

But problems already began to rear their ugly heads as the game started and the cheerleaders came out on the field. Jay’s three friends began immediately comparing the women against one another, giving demeaning number ratings to each of the thirty scantily-clad dancing girls and hypothetically pitting them against one another. This used to be an activity that Jay found himself engaging with, but now that he shared a body with girls like them… it just felt wrong.

“Maybe we shouldn’t rank girls. It’s just not right,” Jay said, speaking his mind.

He was quick to receive a brutal ribbing from his friends for that one, all of them mocking him for looking just as limp-wristed as his comment sounded and complaining that he was killing the vibe.

“Jay, maybe you tell your friends to leave. They seem to be making you uncomfortable,” Cassie piped up. There was that twinge in the back of his head again, the angry static that turned on whenever he heard his own name.

“Hey, fuck off, lady. This is Jay’s house, he invited us in,” Cody clarified, laying down the law as he saw fit. The static in the back of Jay’s head only grew louder. “Maybe if you stayed in the kitchen, then you—“

“Hey! You don’t talk to my wife like that!” Jay interrupted, shooting up off the couch at physics-defying speeds and raising his beautiful voice to a level that no one had thought possible. “In fact, you shouldn’t talk to any woman like that at all!” His eyes glowed with supernatural rage, though his “friends” were too caught up in their dismissal of Jay to actually notice.

“C’mon, dude. Just because you look like a bangable chick now doesn’t mean you also gotta stoop to their bitchiness,” Cody insisted.

Jay wanted to be bitchier now.

“Yeah Jay, you used to be the funniest guy out of us, to be honest. You’ve totally become lame now,” Moe added.

Jay wanted to be even lamer now.

“You totally don’t deserve that bangin’ wife of yours. Or maybe she doesn’t deserve you. I’m still trying to find out which one of you I find hotter,” Moe said.

Jay wanted to kick Moe’s ass.

“You all need to leave. Now,” Jay insisted, standing up from the couch. The three men just scoffed and returned to watching the game, but their attentions were forcefully stripped when a twitch of Jay’s head shut the TV off. All three of the men reasonably supposed that Jay had used a remote, but Cassie knew something else was afloat.

“Jay what the hell!?” Dan was the first to air his grievances, rocketing up from his seat to size up who he thought was his friend. “The game’s in the middle of the fourth quarter and it’s neck and neck! Turn the game back on, dude! Quit being a piece of shit.”

Jay hated hearing his name. He hated being called ‘dude.’

“Yeah! It’s a live game! We’re missing the good stuff!” Cody added, searching for the remote to no avail.

Moe wordlessly rose from his seat and walked over to the TV to physically hit the power button. However, he found his progress halted as an invisible wall appeared to stop him in his tracks. “Hm, what the hell?” he remarked, pushing up against the air with a shoulder bash’s worth of force, though whatever was blocking him would not budge in the slightest.

“I said you all need to leave. Now,” Jay repeated, this time more sternly. “I won’t say it again.”

Moe was beginning to grow afraid, as if he somewhat understood what this new being before him was capable of. Dan and Cody would not share in this wisdom, as they continued to harass Jay, not respecting the brunette’s wishes. Cassie hid behind the nearest wall, knowing things were about to get ugly.

“Christ, all that estrogen’s getting to your head, bud,” Cody said, pointing down at Jay from his half a head of height advantage. “Look, we know who you are, who you’ve always been. You love being a man! Doing manly things! Drinking beer, watching sports, getting pitch-black fuckin’ wasted at bars!”

“I may love those things to an extent, but…” Jay admitted, only for a pregnant pause to follow. The room fell quiet, all background noise ceasing as if understanding that what was coming next was a big moment. “...I don’t love being a man.” Jay’s body suddenly shot up an inch in height, as if closing the gap between them and Cody.

“In fact, I’m not a man.”

Jay grew two more inches in height, now halving the disparity between the two of them.

“I’m a woman, one in a proud lesbian marriage with my wife and a loving mother of my two daughters!”

With every declaration, she grew exponentially larger. By the end of Jay’s sentence, she was now the one looking down upon her former friend with a head of height to her side. Sinuous musculature surged through her body, though making sure not to compromise the delectable chub of her breasts and ass that she had rightfully earned throughout the day. The unmistakable sounds of tearing cloth accompanied this growth as even her larger-bodied clothing couldn’t keep up with Jay’s impressive musculature.

Cody threw a punch, but it was effortlessly deflected off of her taut, muscular abs. Panicked, he threw another, only to hurt himself in the process. Two punches in and all he had managed to accomplish was obtaining bloody knuckles. Now it was Jay’s turn.

The newly-formed Amazonian winded back her fist, muscles contorting and bulging with feminine prowess. She unleashed the devastating left hook, one that would have surely scattered Cody’s atoms—alongside the atoms anything foolish enough to exist behind him in a mile radius—across the universe, had she not exerted such perfect control over her attacks that her fist halted a mere centimeter before his face. But even for how dumb and belligerent the big man was, Cody understood clearly that he had just brushed up against death. The sonic boom of wind that had generated from the wind up was enough to send Dan and Moe off of their feet. They quickly scrambled up onto some semblance of stature like baby deer attempting to walk for the first time before making a run for the exit. They didn’t need to be told twice to leave.

“Now Cody, I want you to apologize to my wife,” Jay spoke, her voice echoing with newfound confidence and otherworldly power. With the stature and authority of manhood complete with the beauty and mystery of womanhood, she was now the complete package of her desires.

Cody attempted to form an apology, one that seemed genuine out of fear, but his sputtering, shivering body made it impossible for the words to actually leave his mouth. Fortunately for her, Jay’s advanced telekinetic mind had already sused out all the intention from Cody’s brain and deemed it acceptable enough for him to be set free.

Jay grabbed Cody by the collar and casually dragged the six-foot-three man to the door like he was trash in need of disposing. She tossed him across the yard, aiming for the trash can and ensuring her telekinesis opened up the green lid just before he fell squarely into it. She pumped her fist as if she had just pulled off a clutch three-pointer, watching with glee as Cody pulled himself out of the bin and ran off like a wuss with his tail between his legs.

“God, Jay. I’m so glad you let those guys into our house. That was like… the most cathartic feeling I’ve ever experienced!” Cassie admitted, tenderly embracing the naked musculature of her beautiful, overpowered wife.

But Jay wasn’t finished yet, her mind was still overwhelmed with static, pulsating white noise that simply wouldn’t leave her alone.

She leapt into the air, but did not descend with the natural curvature of gravity. Instead, she only sped up, rocketlike acceleration from the ability of flight allowing her to quickly clear the cloud layer in mere seconds. Cassie’s jaw dropped as she witnessed the impossible, her head turning further and further back until she nearly lost her balance.

But this was no time to be away from those she loved the most. The Amazonian wouldn’t allot too much more time to this decision, merely needing a small amount of time to think as she floated in the upper atmosphere. “Jay” wasn’t cutting it anymore. She needed a new name—one that reflected her new sensibilities and vibes. She looked among the various star clusters that dotted the night sky, her perfect memory recounting information from Greeks and Romans that she had half-learned in highschool 25 years ago. A snap of her fingers and the surrounding space junk began to close in an orbit around her, meticulously merging and forming a two-piece metal bikini that fit her amazonian aesthetics perfectly.

Cassie, Ashley and Jenna were waiting patiently on the doorstep for the final member of their family to return, and return she did. Her descent was graceful like a ballerina and impactful like an atom bomb as her bare feet touched down upon the earth once more.

“My name… is Andarta,” she spoke, a confident smile appearing on her face for the first time since she had been cursed. “And I want nothing more than to be a loving wife and a caring mother to you all.”

The children were overwhelmed with joy, gleefully dashing over to their new mother and hugging her tree trunks of legs. Cassie just giggled and remained where she stood, but soon realize she would not be spared from her superpowered wife’s love as Andarta zipped fifteen feet forward in less than a millisecond, lifting Cassie up into a passionate kiss that seemed to last forever. The couple immediately thought back to their initial wedding kiss, how it felt more out of obligation for tax purposes and because Cassie was already pregnant with Jenna. This kiss couldn’t have been more different.

For the first time, the couple felt proud to bear those golden rings on their fingers.

~

“Jeez, babe, what are those things now? C-cups?” Cassie remarked as the couple stood together in the bathroom, freshening up before bed.

Andarta paused her repetitive teeth brushing and took a second to spit so that she would not be talking with a mouthful of fluoride. Each second felt painfully long to Cassie, knowing that her ears would soon be blessed with her wife’s beautiful voice, but that it would take what felt like three to four business days to arrive.

The still-growing amazon then giggled excitedly. “D cups, I think! They’re growing so fast I can barely keep up with them! Hell, they’re getting so firm I’m thinking about going without a bra! I don’t really need the support and I’ve already broken a few of yours…”

Cassie’s heart skipped a beat as the visual of her wife popping a bra strap just by breathing too hard popped into her head. Andarta smiled deviously, as if she knew exactly what imagery her lovely wife’s mind was conjuring.

With a single arm, Andarta scooped her wife up into a powerful flex, Cassie riding high atop the amazonian woman’s bicep. An “Oh my~” of exhilarated surprise escaped the smaller woman’s lips as she was lovingly carried into the bedroom for a beautiful night of passion.

Somehow, the trek to the bed ended with Cassie on top, and while she knew it wouldn’t last long, she appreciated that her superpowered wife with three feet of height over her and muscles the size of cantaloupes was not afraid to bottom every once in a while, even if Cassie couldn’t make much of her newfound authority.

Cassie’s hands left her wife’s thighs, roaming upwards to firm, supple hips. She attempted to pull herself towards Andarta, only to find that they would not budge. Now it was the amazon's turn. A flip of both bodies 180 degrees and Cassie found her slender thighs smothered in massive girl muscle and the rest of her body bathed in an oppressive shadow. The imposing form of Andarta towered over the smaller of the two women, yet the smiles on both of their faces conveyed more of their true feelings than any body language could.

Cassie’s hands were then both held within a single clenched fist of Andarta’s, freeing up the right hand of the amazon’s to venture deeper within her wife’s body. The heat of Cassie’s loins felt room temperature compared to the volcanically erotic sultriness of Andarta’s powerful digits. They effortlessly penetrated her wife’s netherregions, venturing deeper than forgotten appendages of the past. Cassie loved her children very much, but she would easily forgo those uneventful missionaries of the past if it meant she could experience sex this good for the first time. She wasn’t even aware sex could feel this good.

It wasn’t long before Cassie’s body convulsed into a rapturous orgasm, her roaring screams of ecstasy loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood.

“How… the hell… did you… get so good… at that…?” Cassie asked between laborious breaths, her eyes staring off into space as she finally came down from ambrosia.

“I’ve become capable of many things now,” Andarta replied, her smile ear-to-ear with smugness as she cuddled up next to her lovely wife. Cassie felt herself wanting to melt into the warmth that was the amazonian’s oppressive musculature, like a never-ending personal mountain range of comfort to the smaller woman. “Plus, I had plenty of time to practice on myself.”

The two women’s giggles melded together as their lips locked passionately. Andarta may have given up what she once valued the most, but that curse couldn’t have anticipated just how much more she’d grow to value in the coming days.

Cuddling up to her wife who was still coming down from the best orgasm of her life, Andarta slept better than she ever had before.