Chapter One
“Dear great-great nephew Zachary,” read the note, which had arrived by messenger with a small box. I sat at the dining room table reading it. “I hope you find the enclosed ring useful. Through it, I have gained great wealth and enjoyed strange and varied pleasures.”
“You will not, of course, believe me, but if that is the case, you can see for yourself. The ring operates according to some very simple rules. It is capable of changing our bodily form into that of a woman. While you are in your female form, you gain mana by various actions, which you can use to improve either your male or female forms. The ring will instruct you in how to gain mana, and how you may spend it. It’s all something like a game, really, and I understand you enjoy playing games.”
“Eventually, if you live a long and happy life as I have, you may unlock the ability to escape your body entirely, and gain a sort of immortality. Until then, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”
“Your loving Uncle, Malachi de Grote.”
The ring that came in the box looked old. The twisted gold still shone in places, and a red stone set in it had a dull gleam, more like a garnet than a ruby.
“No fucking way,” I said to myself. De Grote was my grandmother’s maiden name, so crazy Malachi was some kind of relative of mine, but I never met him. Rings did not transform people into other forms. Not even old rings owned by ancient great-great uncles. The world did not work that way.
So, then, it wouldn’t hurt to put it on, would it?
I felt trepidation, and tried to come up with a good, rational reason for it. I picked the ring up and looked closely for hidden catches or poison needles. I didn’t find any, although there was some writing engraved on the inside. It looked like it might be words, but many of the letters had worn off. Tr, fo, m, n, C. No needles or catches, no odd holes, and why would Uncle Malachi want to poison me? Or even anyone else, since I couldn’t be sure that Uncle Malachi even existed. It was nearly as fanciful as the note. But even putting on the ring to prove that it was entirely ordinary would be like admitting I thought there was some possibility it was all true.
Of course, refusing to put on the ring had the same problem. I compared the ring to the size of my own fingers. I suppose I was stalling. I walked into the kitchen, put it on the table there, and poured myself a tall glass of milk. It tasted cold and refreshing. The ring sat there, taunting me, daring me. Glass in hand, I walked back to it.
I set the glass down and put the ring on my left ring finger.
“Naturally,” I said. I picked up the glass of milk and took another sip.
I cannot describe the sensation that went through my body. But I dropped the glass of milk. It shattered loudly on the floor. Looking down at the broken glass, I saw that my jeans looked baggier than usual, as if they’d gotten bigger. My legs felt slender inside them. I smelled different, a smell I associated with being on a date.
I looked at my hand. It was definitely smaller, the fingers more delicate, the hair that grew on the back of it more sparse and fine. No wonder I’d dropped the glass, my hand wasn’t even the same size. I clutched my chest to assure myself of my physical reality.
I had boobs.
Not very big boobs. B-cups? But breasts, nonetheless. And I was smaller, shorter. I had the incongruous thought that this was all impossible because mass needed to be conserved, and I had gone from a broad five-eleven to a svelte five-five or so. And I hadn’t gotten denser. If anything, I was softer and squishier, especially in some places. I took my hands off my chest, which I’d been absently squeezing. This made no sense. If a transformation was possible, mass would have to be conserved. I clung to that thought, ignoring the fact that such a transformation was impossible in any case.
I didn’t believe the evidence of my senses. I smelled like a woman, felt like a woman, looked like a woman, but I couldn’t possibly be one. But what else was there to believe? Not believing one’s senses left one completely adrift, as Descartes suggested.
Thinking about Descartes was better than thinking about what was happening. I decided to proceed philosophically.
Either this was happening to me, or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t happening to me, I still perceived it, and couldn’t perceive any world that it wasn’t happening in. So, I should act as if it was real, at least for the moment.
I picked up the big pieces of glass, sopped up as much of the milk as I could with a towel, and then got the rest of the glass with a dustpan and broom. My clothes were baggy on my new lithe form, but they provided protection from the glass. Cleaning up the mess was a simple task that helped me settle my mind.
I headed to the bathroom. There, I stripped off my ill-fitting clothes, and got a good look at myself.
I was cute. Not my type, exactly. Not very curvy, but nice in a petite way. I had a short pixie gemlik escort cut, and medium-brown hair. I smelled good. I ran my hands over my new body, feeling every little curve. I enjoyed the way my nipples tightened when I played with them, and how the sensation traveled and turned me on. I could smell my arousal. Finally, I let my hand move through my bushy mound, and to find my clit.
I shook with a sudden, unexpected tremor. My knees buckled. God, that part of me is sensitive! Was that an orgasm? It felt kind of like cumming as a man, but without the spurting part and somehow more about the rest of the body. I sat down and did it again, slower this time, exploring my very wet vulva. And then a third time, not so much for science as for the fact that it felt so damn good. I didn’t need any recovery time, either. I brought my fingers to my lips and tasted myself.
To gain mana, you must use your body to make a man look at you with desire. Thus will you attain mana with which to create change.
The words came into my head with a definite British accent.
“The male gaze, huh? What about getting a woman to look at me with desire? Because I think I could totally be a lesbian.”
That wouldn’t count, Ma’am.
Ma’am? “That’s sexist as hell. Not to mention heteronormative.” I wasn’t always so passionate about those subjects, although I thought of myself as a pretty progressive guy. But right now it was personal. I would way rather get a hot lesbian chick to look at me with desire. Oddly, being gay seemed less gay.
The rules are the rules. I can’t change them. But I do find that they amuse me.
“I see.” I thought about it. Mana seemed like a good thing, if Uncle Malachi’s note was to be believed, and everything it said had been true so far. I couldn’t go out into the world naked, though, although that would get a man to look at me with desire, and I didn’t have any clothes that would fit me.
Maybe I didn’t want mana, after all. Having a guy desire me? That was creepy. On the other hand, when I looked in the mirror, I desired me. And I was a guy. Wasn’t I?
Maybe I should just take the ring off. “What can I do with mana, once I get it? Are you allowed to tell me that?”
While you can only generate mana as a woman, you can use it to enhance either form, physically, mentally, or psychically. Your uncle obtained power, wealth, and a harem of desirable women. You can’t get those things directly, but becoming smarter, stronger, more attractive, and more in control of yourself can create change around you.
That sounded pretty good. Maybe worth having some guy lech at me. I could order clothes online but that would take a while. I’d get dinner first, though, because I was hungry. Then I’d take my time measuring myself, carefully. Even the idea of measuring tape all over my naked body turned me on. I could happily spend the rest of the evening feeling myself up.
I decided to get my dinner delivered. When I ordered from the pizza place, it was pretty much always a guy that showed up with it. It would be faster to get a man to come to me than to wait for clothes.
I ordered the pizza online, and then went through my closet until I found a thin white dress shirt. It covered all my naughty bits, while leaving my legs almost entirely bare. Those legs were my new best feature. The implication would be that I was sleeping with Zack, and that Zack was still in the apartment presumably having recently made love to me. That would probably stop the pizza guy from making a move on me. But it would also make him associate me with sex, which would probably make him look at me sexually, if the legs didn’t already do that. Or if he couldn’t smell it my arousal. Guys tended to think that a woman who had sex with one guy was at least somewhat likely to have sex with some other guy, at least until she had a ring on.
Which, of course, I did. But not that kind of ring.
Meanwhile, I got out the measuring tape. I Googled what to measure and how. 34B, that was the first thing I found out. Taking an inseam measurement was distracting, but I managed to stay on task. I wrote everything down and was about to try to shop for clothes when the doorbell rang.
Sure enough, Morgan the pizza guy was standing there. He gawked at me. I’d paid online, so all I had to do was take the pizza and say thank you. But I needed to make sure he gave me a good long look, so I winked at him as I said thank you.
“Like what you see?” I asked.
“Um, you’re welcome. Have a good d-d-day,” he stammered.
Having that kind of effect on someone was intoxicating.
“Welcome for you staring?”
“N-n-no for the pizza. I g-g-gotta go now.” He turned and ran.
I laughed. It was a melodic, lilting laugh. It might have been better than my legs. I closed the door and brought the pizza to the kitchen table. “Well, ring? Mission accomplished?”
Yes. You have earned approximately three mana for your first time. inegöl escort Having more men look at you with desire will give you very small amounts of mana in the future. Significant amounts of mana will be gained by accomplishing additional steps. To proceed and open more opportunities, you must arouse a man so that his phallus reaches full hardness.
How far was this going to go? “Do I have to, er, verify that they are hard, or will you just know somehow?”
I’ll probably know. I’ll notify you when the task has been completed, Ma’am.
The “ma’am” was annoying, but I had more important things to worry about. “What can I do with three mana?”
You can increase your intelligence slightly, in either form. You can make one of your forms stronger or make other similar changes to either body. No changes carry over from form to form.
“You said something about psychic changes?”
Those are much more expensive.
Right. It seemed simple. Making my male self smarter seemed like a good idea. Gain mana as a woman, spend it as a man. As my true self. That seemed to be the general idea behind the ring, it was a game, and my female self was the engine, my male self the way to win. I opened my mouth to tell the ring what to do.
And closed it again. I’d played plenty of games, and the way to win in them was almost always the same. Build your engine first. Only worry about victory points later. And that, especially if this quest too was repeatable for small amounts of mana, meant making myself sexier.
“Ring, what would it take to make my breasts bigger?” I asked, and then hastily added, “In this form, of course.”
Three mana would make your chest an inch larger around, Ma’am.
A C-cup, then. If the tasks were going to be like the two so far, I had a feeling that would come in handy. Not to mention that I’d be the first person to feel them. “Any chance you can call me ‘sir,’ regardless of what form I’m in?”
I could, but I won’t.
“You won’t respect my pronouns?”
The way I see it, you are all woman right now.
Well, fuck. I supposed I couldn’t expect a ring as old as this one looked to have anything approaching a modern perspective. “Okay, do it. Make my chest bigger.”
Yes, Ma’am.
It wasn’t nearly as confusing as that first transformation. I could feel my chest swell. I reached up and gave my new boobs a feel. I measured once more.
I felt myself up some more and made myself cum. Only then did I remember the pizza, which had gotten somewhat cold. I ate it anyway.
It had been a good thing that I waited to order clothes until after I spent the mana, and gotten the next mission. Not only did I know what bra size to get, but I understood the process more. I needed to dress to make a man hard, and I bought clothes that would help me do exactly that.
Chapter Two
I still hadn’t gotten tired of feeling myself up by the end of the first night. I tried to go to sleep as a woman, but after a while I gave it up. There were little things I never thought about, like how to sleep so I didn’t squish my boobs in the wrong way. Maybe I should have waited to give them a boost. I took the ring off and put it by the bedstead.
I managed to ignore it the entire day while I worked from home, until three or so when the delivery truck brought the clothes I’d rush ordered. It was tempting to take a break from coding, put on the ring, and try them on, but I knew I’d never get any work done if I did that.
I usually worked late. I got caught up in the problem I was trying to solve and kept going until I was satisfied. But that day I clocked off promptly at five. Was I that eager to be in that body again? I told myself I just wanted to know if the clothes fit, the same as I wanted to know if a piece of code worked after I wrote it.
Or maybe I wanted the mana. Mana could make me smarter, stronger. But to get that, I would have to change into my female body and make some man rock hard. Was I going to do that? I didn’t have any problem with seeing hard cocks in porn, and this would be like that. I might not even see it. And hopefully I could do it with no touching required.
Just as I was going to open my packages, someone knocked on my door. A delivery guy handed me a manila envelope, and asked me to sign for it. I did. The package could wait. Perhaps the envelope would shed some light on my mystery.
It contained documents. A birth certificate for a Charity Landon, born just a month after I was. A bank statement, for the same person, with a hundred dollars showing in the account. A social security card; a credit card. A statement showing a near perfect credit score.
I thought of rushing out and trying to catch up to the delivery guy, that he’d made a mistake, but he was long gone. I looked at who sent it. Malachi.
I had an identity, pre-manufactured for me by my great-great-uncle. A legal existence. No photo ID, because no photos of me existed, but I could escort bursa get that, presumably. It was the sort of thing I should have thought about if I hadn’t been too busy feeling myself up. Why didn’t it all come with the ring, if Uncle Malachi wanted me to have it? Perhaps so I’d spend the time discovering for myself, first? I shrugged.
I put the documents in a drawer and opened my package. First, I tried on the bra. The underwires pinched some, and so I probably hadn’t gotten the size quite right. The lace was scratchy against my soft, smooth skin. But it was bearable, and the black lace provided good contrast with my creamy breasts. Then, the matching thong.
Wearing a thong means having a wedgie that doesn’t go away. As a man, I knew what men liked, and it looked sexy on me. Maybe I’d get used to it, but I wished I’d gotten an alternative. I was pretty sure I could make a man hard without letting him see my panties.
Then, the dress. A simple black body con dress, very short, very tight, with a zipper that could be pulled as far down as my navel. The snugness of it was like a warm hug. Men’s clothes were almost never that tight. I experimented, pulling the zipper to reveal as much cleavage as possible without showing my bra from anything but a very oblique angle. Once I was sure I could get to that point without looking, I pulled it up to reveal only a little.
I’d ordered shoes with hardly any heel. Heels would require practice.
I had problems I hadn’t thought about. For one thing, I had no pockets, and I hadn’t thought to buy a purse or anything like that. For another, even if I had pockets, I wouldn’t have had much to put in them. I looked my age – twenty-five – but I couldn’t get into a bar without photo ID. Bartenders would think I was of age, but they’d be unsure enough to check. I tucked the credit card and my house key into my bra, but the card spoiled the line, or rather the curve, I was trying to have. I had a twenty in my wallet, so I took that instead.
I was hot enough to make guys look. I’d get a very small amount of mana just from them lusting after me. But get them hard, to get the full mana award? That would probably take more concerted, one on one effort than just walking down the street.
“Ring, how hard do they have to get, anyway?”
To get the reward, they have to be hard enough that they could penetrate you.
I pushed that image away. Okay, they needed to get pretty hard. I didn’t want to think about another guy’s cock, but I wanted the mana. With it, I could become smarter, stronger. Or, alternately, I could probably become a D-cup. I wasn’t sure what I could do, exactly, but just three mana was enough to go from a B to a C, and that seemed pretty dramatic. Five, no doubt, could do all sorts of things, and it seemed like to figure out how to get still more mana I would first have to complete this “mission” as I thought of it.
I headed for an Applebee’s about a half-mile away. They wouldn’t check ID if I didn’t order anything alcoholic. There were lonely guys that hung out at the center bar. It seemed like a plan.
I live in the “downtown” of a little suburb, so I passed a lot of people on my way. An old guy stared, so I pulled the zipper down to the spot I’d practiced. He kept staring, but that was it. A few other times I thought I might get lucky, especially when someone a little younger than me looked. I’d gotten hard just looking at a sexy woman before, although even at twenty-five that happened less often that it used to. But no such luck. I knew I got a little mana from them just leering, but it looked like I was going to have to proceed as planned.
The thong didn’t get any more comfortable when I was walking.
I zipped up a little just before I walked in and sat down between two guys. One was white, in his forties, a little on the paunchy side. The other was a tall, skinny Black guy, maybe thirty, thirty-five.
They both turned to look at me. Their gazes dropped to my breasts. I pulled the zipper down to the pre-decided spot, making sure they focused. I had them hooked. A thirty-something Latino guy in a flannel shirt on the other side of the horseshoe shaped bar looked, too, as did the brown-haired guy behind the bar. A blonde the far side of forty shot a glance at me, and it wasn’t cordial.
None of them got instantly hard at the sight, or if they did, the ring didn’t tell me. But it did tell me I got small amounts of mana just from them looking at me. Very small, a hundredth of a point. I smiled at the bartender and asked, “Could I have a tall glass of milk, please?” I watched as the paunchy guy next to me looked up at my eyes, and then at the word ‘milk’ went right back to ogling my boobs.
I was hit with an emotion I hadn’t expected. I felt powerful.
“So,” I said, looking back and forth, “I’m Charity. I’m new in town. Who are you guys?”
“Vince,” said paunchy.
“Tyrone,” said tall and skinny.
“So nice to meet you both!” I put out my hand to each in turn, dipping just a little as I shook so that they could get a good view down my dress. “Do you guys come here often?” It was corny as hell. As a guy, I never would have thought I could get away with it. With tits on display, I didn’t figure I needed brilliant conversation.