Becoming Lexi

Alex thought the idea seemed a little sketchy. At least until Mark showed him the text messages from Julie. “Are you watching us yet? Do you like the pink ones? Or are they better off?”

“So this is a weird sex thing for them?” Alex asked as the two guys crawled through the hedge row.

“Nah, it’s not weird,” Mark’s voice answered in a whisper. “Well, maybe it’s a little weird.”

They emerged into the small lawn area at the rear of the condo building. The night was moonless, but the two shadowy forms were visible in the light spilling out from the bedroom window. Both were tall, but Mark was much broader. Alex’s slight frame disappeared easily back into the darkness of the hedge walls. Their faces were youthful and bright with the glee of mischief. They craned their necks around to see into the bedroom and, despite knowing full well their task, were shocked to see their friend and her boyfriend. Julie was topless and going through an assortment of lingerie. The man in the room was naked and bound to the bed, forced to watch her tease and toy with him as she paraded in front of the window. Seeing the full display Alex whispered, “Definitely a weird sex thing then.”

Mark’s eyes locked onto Julie’s naked form. “Have you ever seen tits that big before? Jesus, I knew she had a big rack, but this is amazing.” Both of them had thought about it, ever since they met Julie as sophomores. Any time she moved, her breasts would sway slightly. They watched as she picked up a light blue lace bra and brought it up to her chest. Her attention focused on the man tied to the bed, but Alex thought he noticed her eyes flick occasionally to the window. Recalling their mission, he pulled a camera from the bag he’d brought.

“We better not wind up on some kind of registry for this,” Alex muttered as he fiddled with the camera’s settings.

“Don’t worry so much,” Mark said. “We’re fine as long as we don’t start jacking off while we watch.”

Alex brought up the camera and tested the focus, “Was that part of the terms? ‘Hey Mark, can you bring Alex and hide outside my window while my boyfriend and I fuck. Take pictures for us, but don’t jerk off.”

“Pretty much,” Mark answered. “She said we could use the pictures if we wanted though.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh, “This is so fucked.”

Alex brought the camera up again. He watched through the lens as Julie climbed on the bed. She still wore a lacy thong, but had discarded the last of lingerie show. She crawled on the bed on all fours, her breasts hanging down beneath her still looking perfect. Mark wasn’t wrong Alex thought, Julie’s breasts were the biggest he’d ever seen in person. Once, they’d been playing a drinking game, and she let him feel her breasts. The over the shirt sampling clearly did not do the woman any justice.

As the two young men watched their friend move up the body of her boyfriend, a embarrassed desire to look away nagged at them. Neither of them could place exactly why, but it seemed like something they shouldn’t ever see, despite how often they’d fantasized about it. Slowly, each of them separated the idea of their friendship with Julie from the moment and gave their full attention back to the show she was putting on, not only for her boyfriend, but for them as well. Her mouth neared the guy’s cock, and Alex saw her definitely look over at the window as she lowered her mouth on his length. The shutter clicked rapidly. The boyfriend’s body rebelled against the restraints, his legs and arms tensing as he tried in vain to push more of himself into Julie’s mouth. Both of the observers could only imagine his frustration. To have that beautiful of a woman pleasuring him at her speed of choice would be enough to drive the most stalwart person mad with lust. Julie relinquished her prize momentarily and brought her hands up to her breasts, pushing them together around the throbbing cock. Alex moved to the side for a better angle as she started to fuck the guy with her breasts.

“Oh shit,” Mark muttered. “I’m gonna…uh, I’ll be back here for a minute. You’re doing great.” Mark disappeared into the shadows. Alex cringed at the idea of his friend masturbating a few feet out of sight, but he understood the compulsion. Alex’s own cock pressed uncomfortably against his pants, but he tried to remain on task.

Julie finished toying with her boyfriend. She stood up to wriggle out of the thong, dropping it to her ankles. For the first time, she turned around at the foot of the bed and bent over. Her breasts were certainly not her only asset. Having been an ass man his whole life, the sight of Julie bent over and ready to fuck was almost too much. He snapped a few more pictures and readjusted his throbbing cock wondering how much longer he could watch before desire turned to frustration and pain. After dancing for her boyfriend and the hidden camera a moment longer, Julie climbed back on the bed and straddled the lucky bastard. The back of her thighs rested on his legs as she took his cock in her hands, stroking it up and down casually while saying something to him. In the new position, Alex could judge the man’s size a bit better and estimated his own cock was a good inch or more bigger. Intrusive thoughts of primal jealousy invaded his mind as she rubbed the other man’s cock against her pussy in preparation. Knowing she was stalling for Alex to have time to position the shot better, he zoomed in on her pussy as the cock slid along her lower lips. The man tried to push upwards, but she continued to hold him down. Then, as slowly as she could, she let him enter her. The camera clicked as every inch of the man’s cock disappeared into Alex’s friend.

Alex’s hesitancy to touch himself had vanished, but he couldn’t drop the camera. Instead, he painfully watched as Julie’s hips started to gyrate against her captive lover. Her ass bounced slightly with each thrust. At some point, she released one of the man’s arms, and he immediately began to paw at her body, squeezing her breasts and pulling at her ass. From outside, it was soundless, but Alex could see the expression on Julie’s face and the movement of the bed in time with their lovemaking. He watched the details so carefully that his mind filled in the moans for him as Julie built speed. In a sudden movement, she pulled the cock free, and Alex moved his camera barely in time to see the first spurts of white, pearly fluid splatter on Julie’s stomach. She pressed the cock against her stomach and rose up and down, providing some small amount of friction for the man to struggle against as his cock spurted cum.

She sat there for a moment with a smile on her face before getting off the bed and walking to the window. Alex was overwhelmed with panic, but enough reason remained for him to know that Julie wanted this too. She paused for a moment in the window, her body flushed and cum dripping down her stomach. Alex took a picture as she smiled. Finally, she closed the blinds, and Alex knew it was time to go. He put away his camera carefully, very eager to get home.

Mark reappeared looking a little sweatier than when he left. He didn’t meet Alex’s eye immediately, but Mark’s usual confidence returned quickly. “Your cock might burst after watching that if you don’t hurry up and rub one out,” he whispered as they clambered back through the hedge. “How long is going to take for you to get the pictures ready?”

“You said she wanted it to look like creep shots, which they fucking are,” Alex said, his voice returning to normal as they entered the lane. “So I just have to upload them, and she can have a copy in a few hours. Which way? I’ve got turned around.”

Mark looked around for a moment before leading the pair back towards the car. “Reckon why she wanted us to do that?” he asked as they walked.

“Voyeurism is a thing. She gets off on knowing people are watching her.” Alex doubled checked his camera, checking a few of the images on the display.

“Ok, but then why us? She’s got plenty of other friends, and I thought that the idea was that strangers were watching you.”

“Maybe the rest of them don’t own a camera?” Alex proposed. “Or maybe she thought we wouldn’t think anything of it. I mean, she’s always been very open with us. Frankly, I’m surprised this is the first time we’ve seen her naked.”

“True,” Mark agreed. “She’s seen me naked, guess it’s fair.”

They reached the car and got in, slamming the doors of the ancient transport in order to get them closed. “Wait, when did she see you naked?” Alex asked.

Mark started struggling with the key and steering column, cursing the old car under his breath. “It was that night I was with Tara.”

“You mean the night you struck out with Tara?”

Mark finally managed to crank the car. It roared to life. “Yeah, more or less. We were going at it. She even had my dick in her hand and then out of no where decides to leave. Tara starts going on and on about her boyfriend which she hadn’t mentioned. Once she started crying, I noped out of there. I was a little drunk so Julie took me home. I told her the story of what had happened, and she was all like, ‘well we can’t let all of that build up go to waste.’ Before I know it, she’s got my cock out and jerking me off. It was nice, but pretty mechanical. Soon as I blew my load, she kissed my forehead, told me to go to sleep, and left me there.”

Alex’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “She gave you a handjob? Because she didn’t want you to have blue balls?”

Mark shrugged. “Weird, but that’s kind of what sex is to her. I find it refreshing, personally. Fuck, at least we know we’ve got someone to go to when a girl that actually wants to fuck us goes batshit crazy.”

“I guess,” Alex said. He turned his attention back to the photos as the car rattled off towards their apartment.

“I’m sorry, could you say that again.” Mark leaned over the counter, his hands gripping the edge. “What do you mean ‘not approved’?”

A young woman behind the desk smiled apologetically, “It’s not as problematic as all that. You both just need to take one more course.”

Alex leaned against the counter with his head in his hands. When they arrived at the office expecting to pick up their diploma applications, they were in high spirits. The young woman behind the desk looked grief stricken when she read through their file. Three credit hours short in humanities electives. Mark was not handling the news well. “Three weeks ago, three! That’s when I came in here with this stupid thing all filled out and signed off on by my adviser. No problem you said, come back in three weeks you said. Well this seems like a fucking problem, don’t you think?”

The woman fought back tears, “Like I said, it’s a departmental change this year. Most people who apply for a Liberal Arts degree have plenty in the humanities column. Somehow you two hit the old requirement exactly.”

“Because that’s what the fucking thing said to do!” Mark blurted out. Alex grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back a little. Mark at his friend with a flash of anger. Alex knew the other had a volatile temper as the two of them had brawled several times in the past. In this instance, Mark’s better nature prevailed. He took a deep breath and turned back to the woman. “Look, I understand this isn’t your fault. It’s…upsetting is all.”

“So what do we need to take?” Alex asked, resigned to dealing with the problem rather than yelling at it.

The woman shook slightly under Mark’s gaze. The two of them watched as she nervously tried to type. Finally Mark reached over the counter and placed his hand on top of hers, “It’s ok. I didn’t mean to yell at you.” He smiled warmly at her. Mark could be charming when he chose to be. Other than the argument, the plain looking girl was equally flustered by an obvious attraction to Mark. Alex smirked as Mark’s attempt to soothe the situation only made it worse.

“Oh, I uh, let me….I’ll go look at the offerings…for the summer. In the back, we have those,” the girl yammered. She delicately pulled her hand away from Mark and fumbled her way to the back of the office.

“That was super helpful,” Alex chided.

“You fucking kidding me, dude? How are you not losing your mind about this?”

Alex shrugged. “We were staying in town for the summer anyway. So now we have to take yet another blowoff class? Can’t be that bad right? We don’t get drunk two less nights per week, probably help keep us sane.”

“You don’t understand,” Mark said, a panicked look in his eyes. “This is our last two months. After this we have to get jobs and shit. No more staying up until dawn getting drunk and pissing off the side of the apartment. We’re going to have to buy suits and get health insurance and car insurance and six other fucking kinds of insurance. And do you know why we have to get all that insurance? Because we’ll be adults, Alex. Adults who have to actually care what happens two hours after the awesome thing. Hey, let’s jump off this bridge into the lake! Awesome, right? Fuck yes, that’s awesome. You get that feeling of pure adrenaline because you know how fucking stupid it is, but you don’t care. So you hit the water and break your ankle, big deal. You walk around on crutches for six months, and then you’re fine to go do something else incredibly stupid. But not when you’re an adult. Because then you have to worry about missing work. You have to be pissed that you didn’t break your leg enough so that the medical bills hit your deductible on your damn insurance. We have two months left of being stupid man-children before the fuckin specter of death starts hanging out in our guest bedroom.”

Alex grabbed him by the shoulder, “Whoa there, champ. Keep it together.” Mark flailed his arms to push his friend away as the young woman returned.

“Ok, so I have a great solution,” she announced, sounding very proud of herself. She handed them a course catalog where a selection was circled. “Introduction to Stage Production. It’s part of the theater department and counts as a humanity course. Here’s the great part though, it’s this amalgamation course where other classes meet up to put on a play. So, like a costuming course, a lighting course, and a bunch of other specified classes in the theater department. They all coordinate and put on a play, but they need actors. Mostly placeholders really, but it’s become a fall back course for your kind of situation.”

Mark peered at the circled selection with a blank look on his face, “Four weeks? And all we have to do is stand around for some play?”

The girl shrugged, “I think you’re expected to actually learn the lines.”

Alex tapped the book, “Is there a better choice?”

“Not really,” she answered.

“Fuck it then,” Mark said. “Sign us up.”

The girl nodded and went to her computer. The two guys turned away so she wouldn’t fumble at the task for twenty minutes. Mark fished his phone out of his pocket and started to text. “Where do you want to have lunch?”

Alex loathed the question. “Doesn’t matter. Somewhere on the square is fine. Assuming this class doesn’t start tomorrow, I don’t see any reason for us to leave wherever we go until we stagger home drunk. Why? Who are you texting?”

“Julie,” Mark answered as his phone made a quiet chirping noise.

Alex’s cheeks reddened. The night of photography two weeks before had left his relationship with Julie in a strange spot. Perhaps not stranger than her relationship with Mark who freely admitted to masturbating in her hedges while Alex photographed her coating her stomach in cum. She had insisted on meeting in person to exchange the image files. During their terse conversation, she’d asked bluntly if Alex had also masturbated to her pictures. Not wanting to lie, he admitted to the act. She had only smiled at him, taken the files, and said “I hope you kept some copies.”

Alex cleared his throat, “How come?”

Mark didn’t notice his friend’s uneasiness, “She’s as thick as thieves with everyone in the theater program. I figure she’ll be able to tell us what to expect. If I remember right, she did something like this a year or two ago. Besides, we haven’t seen her since the night we watched her fuck.”

Alex’s eyes went wide, and Mark realized he should have lowered his voice in the very echo prone room. They looked back at the girl at the desk. She intently stared at her computer, but her cheeks were beet red. They waited the remaining time in silence, other than Mark’s phone clicking and chirping as he talked with Julie. Once they were fully enrolled, the girl handed them two printed out forms. “The first is your registration for the course. The second is an extension on your diploma application. Everything’s been filled out on it. Once you’ve finished the course, sign that and bring it back here. We’ll rubber stamp it, and you’ll officially have your Bachelor’s Degree.”

They thanked the girl and left quickly.

Most of the small town revolved around the University, but a rival section was dominated by bars and restaurants. Mark and Alex made the quick trip across town in the rattling, decrepit car. They looked rather out of place as they walked around the small shopping area. With graduation weekend a day away, friends and family of the lucky bunch of new bachelor degree owners littered the town. Alex drab style and Mark’s haggard looks might have been appealing to others their age, but to the middle aged parents, they looked like scraggly ruffians. More than once, Alex noted a woman check her bag as they passed. It sort of made him proud.

Mark blundered through the small crowds, ambivalent to the world around him. For those that paid attention to the slightly taller man, they noticed his rugged handsomeness beneath his erratic exterior. Alex envied his friend’s confidence as he watched Mark flash a single smile at a passing woman. She looked quite fit, considering she had one toddler at her feet and another in a stroller in front of her. Both of them stole a furtive glance at the woman’s ass as she walked away from them. Mark mouthed “milf” silently as they reached their destination.

They stepped into Ares, a local restaurant and bar which they frequented enough to recognize the entire staff. The interior was dramatically darker than the afternoon outside. Small yellow lights hung over the dining tables, doing little to offset the dark walls. They noticed Julie seated near the front windows. Neither guy could help but stare at her cleavage. She wore a low cut top that barely managed to keep her breasts from spilling out onto the table. The server standing beside her similarly struggled to concentrate. “Three gin and tonics?” Julie asked as they approached. The two guys nodded and the waiter disappeared.

As they sat down, Alex shifted as far away from Julie as he could. Something about her made him uncomfortable ever since seeing her naked. She noticed his odd behavior immediately, “Come on, Alex. You’re not still freaked out by the pictures are you? Take a lesson from Mark. Treat sex like sex. Squishy fun where everyone gets to have a good time. Loosen up a little.”

Mark grinned, “Oh, he’ll get over it after a while. I remember when he lost his virginity. I’ve never seen him so disappointed. Tiffany Ethridge, right?”

“Yes, Tiffany Ethridge, the dead fish,” Alex said, the tension in his neck easing slightly. “Body like hers and had no idea what she was supposed to do with it.”

“How about me?” Julie asked. “Did I look like I knew what to do with these?” She squeezed her breasts, and Alex noticed a middle aged man at the adjacent table stare with a bewildered smirk.

“You’re trying to freak me out aren’t you?” Alex said. “Is that part of it? Find some guy who’s not super comfortable about photographing his friend having sex and toy with him about it?”

Julie shook her head, “No. I do think you’re being silly about it though. You kept copies after all. I want you to be comfortable around me in every way. That’s what I expect of my friends. That’s why I asked you two to be the ones who took the pictures.”

Alex shrugged, “You’re weird.”

“True,” she agreed. “Now, you two have gotten yourself into some new fuck up, right?”

Mark explained the situation in full, trying to keep his anger in check. “Now we’re part of some theater production thing, and we were wondering if you knew anything about it?”

“Oh, this is fantastic!” she squealed. “You’re going to have an amazing time. Professor Corley is running the summer program this year. And it’s not really a whole play, just scenes from the standards. Lots of Shakespeare usually.”

“So we have to perform Shakespeare?”

The waiter returned and sat down a drink in front of each of them. They quickly ordered, and the waiter lingered only a moment more than proper to look down Julie’s shirt. She didn’t seem to notice. After a long gulp from her drink, she continued, “Perform is probably overstating it. Look the whole point of the course is a sort of thesis project for underclassmen. The ‘actors’ are guinea pigs. It’s pass-fail for three hours credit, hard to beat. You’re lucky to get in. Someone at the registration office must be sweet on you.”

Alex nudged Mark’s shoulder, “See, that doesn’t sound so bad does it?”

Julie’s eyes flashed, “I haven’t told you the best part yet. Theater in the summer is insane. Only the true believers stay on through the summer. Your little course is a blip on the radar. We have a drama festival and week long seminars and summer camps.”

“Sounds like nothing to do with us.”

“No, the actual activities don’t. But the culture that comes with them. That’s what I live for. Those are my people. All summer long, people from other schools will be coming through to help with the different programs. I usually have them crash at my apartment if they’re a good fit. You wouldn’t believe the girls. After all, theater girls are weird.” She downed the rest of her drink in a hurry to get to her next thought. “Last year, at the end of the big festival, we had a big party. All the girls from the play got together and voted on a leader, and the guys did the same. The leaders got to make one rule each and everyone had to follow it. The guy’s rule was that no one could wear anything above the waist. All us girls were topless all night.”

Both of the guys mouths hung agape, “What was the girl’s rule?”

Julie smiled. “Nothing below the waist.”

Several days later, Alex and Mark arrived at the Small Stage building for their first day. Alex assumed that the name was a contrast to the “big screen,” but when they arrive he saw that it was a lot simpler than that. The theater’s stage was very small, only about ten yards across and five yards back. Further, the theater didn’t have many seats, instead the auditorium was occupied by lighting and audio control stations. It was all very clearly designed to facilitate rehearsals rather than full performances.

Beyond the strange layout, the theater was dark and smelled of old clothes. Large red curtains with old fashioned tassels hung from the walls and the seats were all rigid plastic, preserved from decades before. The two new students soaked in the peculiar atmosphere as they scanned the room for some indication of where they were meant to go. Finally, in a dark corner, they noticed several rows of seats occupied by others who looked very much out of place. In front of the group, an older woman talked causally with the lot, none of whom seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Alex and Mark made their way through the cluttered rows, stepping over crates and wires and an odd assortment of things they didn’t recognize, until they reached the seats. The woman smiled at them as they arrived and took seats on the second row.

“Welcome!” she beamed. “You’re our last two, I think.” She counted through the gathered troupe quickly, first in one direction, and then in the opposite. “Excellent, everyone’s here. Let’s get started. I’m Dr. Corley, I don’t like being called doctor though, I find it too clinical and rigid for our environment. Veronica is fine. If that makes you uncomfortable and you absolutely need some moniker that conveys station, Professor Corley is acceptable, though it may take a few yells before I realize you’re talking to me.” Veronica Corley said everything with a slightly musical lilt in her voice and tended to end her phrases on a breathy chuckle. She was a middle aged woman with streaks of gray hair peaking through an otherwise black bun. Somehow scarves comprised the majority of her clothes. They all seemed barely attached to her, but created a colorful display which shimmered in the dim light. Alex saw a youthfulness in her face that he had not seen in any of his other professors over the past four years. English professors all had squinted eyes and a constant windswept look. In contrast, Veronica had an earthy, vibrant quality to her that was rather infectious.

“Now then, let’s not make a lot of pretense about all this,” she continued. “You’re all here because somehow you wound up a course short of getting your diploma. We like that. You all have basically no idea what we do here and, believe me, that’s easier to work with than our acting students who want to inject proper method into everything. The focus of the aggregate class is on stage production which is a messy, crazy process where you think on your feet. It is an art in its way, but more importantly it’s the grunt work that makes actors look like they know what they’re doing. So, I suggest you approach the next four weeks with an open mind. Be here every day, have a decent attitude, and put in effort to your tasks. Those three things will get you a passing grade and back to your normal lives.”

She picked up a list and called roll. Mark realized halfway through that she had not called a single female name. Looking around, the two friends realized the entire class was male. As Veronica finished, she flicked her eyes from the class down to her tablet, making unseen notes that made more than a few of the young men uncomfortable. “Ok, now, as some of you may have realized, we have no young ladies in our group this year, which is very exciting. As long as none of you signed up hoping to find a girlfriend.” She laughed at her own dull joke, but her students watched with an uneasy feeling brewing in their stomachs. “Ahem, anyway, I say it’s exciting because this gives our costume department a wonderful opportunity. We’re still going to have female parts so we’ll be taking a rather archaic tradition into use this year. Anyone have an idea what that might be?”

Alex was surprised he knew the answer, “Most female parts were played by young boys up until…I guess you’d call it recently.”

“That’s correct,” Veronica replied with a warm smile. Alex became keenly aware of the woman’s eyes. The glowing yellow lights made her eyes gleam like warm amber. “Until the late 1600’s was it essentially illegal in Western Culture for women to play the female roles. It was considered indecent. Well they’re plenty of things indecent about the theater life, but thankfully that’s no longer among them. Still, for our time together we will make due.” She clapped her hands together. “Alright, sixteen of you, and we have six scenes planned. Three scenes will have two actors, one will have five, and the remaining scene will have four. Our plan for today is for each of you to audition, of sorts, nothing to be nervous about. We’ll go one at a time and do some simple reads so that I can get a small grasp on where you might fit best. In the meantime, I’ll have one of stage hands take you around and introduce you to everyone.”

Veronica called over a girl wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. The girl’s incredibly chipper attitude disappeared when Veronica gestured to the rag tag group due for a tour. Alex saw Mark seething with distaste for the whole event. It was unlikely that anything about the situation wasn’t irritating him, not even the fact that their tour guide had huge breasts for her small frame, exaggerated by the strap of the messenger bag she wore across her chest. Reluctantly, the novice actors followed her while Veronica pulled two out for the auditions.

They went into a side hallway and headed down to the back of the theater. Alex remembered from his freshman orientation that the Small Theater building was one of the original campus structures once used for faculties offices. The building had been renovated many times over the decades, but never torn out and built back from scratch. Instead, rooms and floors were added on top of one another until someone decided to add the building to the theater department. At that point, the small auditorium and stage area were attached to the existing structure.

Mark was not aware of any of the building’s history. He mostly noticed how cramped it was once they entered the backstage area. He had to stoop slightly to pass through several of the doors. While the auditorium had been somewhat empty, the backstage thrived with people. At least, Mark thought that was the case. It was difficult for any of the outsiders to discern much of what was going on. The hallways were cluttered with boxes, detached lights, stage scenery, costumes, and any other odd thing that could possibly be useful in a production.

As they moved through, the girl leading them would periodically stop and gesture to an area backstage and say something like, “That’s rigging and scenery. Paint shop is a little further back. They do the cutting at the shop next door. That’s Kenny, Erica, and Gwen.” The three people she pointed at would wave and gawk at the travelers from beyond the theater world. Both Alex and Mark started to realize how different they and their classmates looked. The denizens of the Small Theater had their own sort of style. They retained the disheveled appearance of other normal college students, but each person seemed to have their own distinct flair. Some of them wore an excess of makeup, others dressed flamboyantly, and others still dressed barely at all. In the makeup room, a curvy girl wore shorts that would have been considered obscene anywhere else. All of the young men stared blatantly as she leaned over the counter and wiggled her ample hips, either for their amusement or simply because she was trying to decide on a color of powder to use.

Throughout the tour, the girl in charge would go quiet while a voice in her headset spoke to her. She would then call out someone’s name from her group of bumbling oafs and send them off toward the stage. None of the young men returned, hopefully because they were sent home, but it was equally likely that they were lost somewhere in the backstage labyrinth. Mark’s name was called first, and he grudgingly shambled off in the direction of the stage. Two more guys went before Alex, but he was finally called right before they went exploring the costume department.

“Alex!” Veronica called from the center of the stage as he emerged from the curtains. “Wonderful, come right on out here. Nothing to be nervous about.” Alex moved out onto the stage, his eyes wincing as they adjusted to the brilliant stage lighting. Once he could see, he scanned the seats to see if Mark or the others were waiting. None of them were visible, but he did notice Julie who gave him a cheerful wave. “Ok, so take this and read through it a few times. Once you’re ready, come up and give us a reading. Remember we’re not expecting you to be a great actor, but try to think of an actor you like and sort of emulate them.”

Alex nodded and looked down at the paper. It was a speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but not one that Alex knew off hand. He was to read one of the garrulous lines of Puck the trickster fairy. He muttered to himself as he read through them, trying to understand the cadence of the speech ending with, “Titania walked and straightway loved an ass.” He took a deep breath and read through the lines once again before Veronica reminded him that he need not memorize the speech. With no confidence at all, he stepped over to the center of the stage, held the page out in front of him and read. The words poured out of him with an unexpected ease, and he watched Veronica’s face change from kind patience to surprised delight. Once he was finished, she gave a rapid applause.

“Wonderful!” she said. “Maybe one of you lot has a future in acting after all. That’ll be all for today, come back tomorrow, and we’ll have you assigned to a role. We’ll go from there. Oh, one last thing. Tracie!” She called over a young woman slightly older than Alex. “Tracie is going to take some measurements for costume later on. Is that alright?”

Alex didn’t think he could refuse so he nodded. Tracie instantly produced a measuring tape and started to rove up and down his body, making notes as she did so. She measured his neck, across his chest, and his hips before doing his inseam and making Alex blush. Once that was done, Alex went to say hello to Julie, but she’d already gone. Instead, he checked his phone and saw several messages from Mark bemoaning the fact that he had to wait for his friend.

“Oh, god, I hope I don’t get one of the female parts,” Mark said as Veronica came up to them with a chart in her hand.

“Mark and Alex! I’ve been told you two were friends before our class,” she said. “Hope that won’t make things too awkward for you, but I’ve decided to put you as Romeo and Juliet. It’s cliche, but we think of it as a standard for stage construction so we always include it. You’ll be doing the balcony scene.” She handed them two small scripts and started to totter away. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you who was who.” Alex could feel tension radiating off of Mark as he obsessed with worry. Ever since they’d been told about having to take the extra course, Mark had been in a foul mood. The idea of playing a woman for his three last hours of credit seemed like a bridge to far, even to Alex. Mark had never been the expressive type, not even in an introverted manner. Mark was comfortable only being Mark. Alex, on the other hand, had been considering it.

He’d been as surprised as Veronica with his reading. He wasn’t rushing off to Broadway, but the brief moment reading on stage had made him feel something he did not quite understand. Alex thought about it for the remainder of that day and fell asleep imagining himself as someone else. Alex didn’t mind his life, but a nagging feeling had been preoccupying him ever since he’d gone to Julie’s apartment. Something felt off, and the brief time spent as Puck had lessened the feeling. As Veronica announced who would be playing whom, Alex found himself hoping not for the male part, but for Juliet.

“Mark, you’ll be Romeo. And Alex, you’ll be his Juliet. As long as the both of you are comfortable with that? Which, I’ll add, I hope you are. It adds an additional level of complexity for our costumers.”

Mark’s face was a mask of anger, frustration, and a hint of disgust. “But…we’re friends! We live together and everything!”

“That’s a problem?” Veronica asked, not seeing any logic behind Mark’s objection.

Mark fumbled for a different way to explain himself. “I can’t….he’s Alex!”

“Yes, he is. But let’s give our crew a chance to make you think otherwise. You don’t have to kiss him if you don’t want. Alex are you alright with being Juliet?”

He was thrilled, but Mark’s rambling incoherence made him suppress his excitement. “Yeah, sure, that’s fine.”

She pushed the scripts into their hands. “Ok then, that’s settled. Start learning your lines. One of the girls will be up to take you down to costuming in a few minutes.”

Once Veronica moved out of ear shot, Mark tossed his script on the chair beside him. “This isn’t worth it man. Fuck it, let’s drop out.”

They already had this conversation several times, but Alex put down his script to address it once again. “We can’t quit. Registration for all the summer courses is closed. If we drop this class, we’ll have to wait until fall. Fall courses are much longer than four weeks. We won’t get our diploma until Christmas which isn’t going to sit well with our potential employers. Also, tuition is higher in the fall, and we’d have to renew our lease for another year despite not wanting to live here past this summer. That’s a lot of extra collateral because you don’t want to man up and be Romeo for three and a half more weeks. Shit, we only meet three times a week anyway. Ten more three hour sessions, and we’re done. Forever.”

Mark let out a long sigh and picked up his script again. “Fuck it have to be Shakespeare for though. I hate Shakespeare.”

“Could be worse,” Alex mused. “Could be doing Oedipus, and I could be your mom.”

Tracie appeared out of thin air beside them. Mark cursed, and Alex dropped his script from being startled. Upon further inspection, they saw she had emerged from a trap door a few feet behind them on the stage. “Remind me, which one of you is Alex?” Alex meekly raised his hand. Tracie was an intimidating woman, tall with cropped hair, sleeve tattoos on both arms, and a stud in her tongue. “Come on, we want to try some stuff on you.” She did not wait for him to agree, but turned back to the trap door and dropped out of sight. After a worried look to Mark, Alex followed.

Tracie moved through the narrow passages quicker than Alex would have liked. They passed through room after room until they reached the section dedicated to the costume department. Alex’s face turned beet red as they rounded a corner into a room with three topless girls. One glanced up at him, but the others left their focus on their phones. Tracie didn’t slow her stride. “Try not to stare,” she said as she pulled him on through the room.

“I like it when the newbies stare,” one of the girls said. She had bright blue hair and smacked bubble gum.

“Put your tits up, Carol, you’re done for today anyway. You other two, the tops should be done in about fifteen minutes.” She continued on into a room where she finally stopped. After recovering from the shock of seeing three half naked women, Alex realized he had been led to Tracie’s own private corner of the Small Theater. The rectangular room had a wall length mirror on both ends with small platforms in front of them. Adjacent to the fitting mirrors was Tracie’s desk, though it took a moment for Alex to think of it as a desk seeing as it was entirely covered in fabrics and thick, three ring binders. On the opposite end of the room was an almost identical setup other than the small personal touches. Tracie’s end had photographs of intricate tattoo designs and a smattering of black and white photography while the other end looked like the wall of a teenage girl plastered with cut outs from fashion magazines. “You have a problem with nudity? We’re all pretty laid back about that around here, but usually it’s a slow adjustment from freshman to graduation. Two years ago, we had one of you freshman newbies go full weirdo about it. Found him masturbating in a closet. You’re not going to start jerking off in a closet are you?”

“What? Jesus Christ,” Alex yelped. “This place is a fucking mad house, you know that right?”

Tracie smiled, “Sure we do. Shoes off, shirt off, shorts off. Hope you wore clean boxers. Then hop up here. Time to make you Juliet.”

Meekly, Alex undressed, casting a few glances over his shoulder toward the room where Carol had been. Tracie tutted at him to hurry while holding up swaths of fabric to his bare chest. As she worked, she started explaining how stage productions traditionally dressed Juliet in white to emphasize the virgin aspect of the character. Alex nodded along, but mostly focused on not popping an erection as Tracie periodically ran her hands over his body to take another measurement.

After a few moments, she produced a dress and told him to try it on. Alex obeyed, feeling absolutely ridiculous. Before he had it halfway on, a true difficultly seeing that he had no real notion of how to put on a dress, Tracie snatched it back from him with an announcement that it was all wrong. After three attempts, he had a light blue dress fully on, but one look in the mirror made him very aware he looked nothing like a young woman, but very much like a guy in drag. Tracie produced a large number of pins and started moving around him, pulling and twisting at the fabric until Alex’s narrow hips started to look round. Tracie pulled the dress off his shoulders and left sleeves about halfway up his arms. “Don’t worry, we have a prosthetic you’ll wear for your breasts. This doesn’t look half bad though. You have a neckline a woman would kill for by the way. Needs something to go with it though, I think.”

Alex agreed. He was also surprised he had an opinion on the matter one way or the other. Remembering his part, he finally said something, “Isn’t Juliet essentially going to bed during this scene? Wouldn’t she have removed her jewelry?”

Tracie looked impressed. “You’re probably right if we’re trying to stay pure to the material. But we’re not. I need to go fit the other girls”

Feeling more comfortable Alex said, “I could help with that.”

“Careful, therein lies the path to wanking in a closet. Go down the hall a bit and look in those drawers for a necklace. Pick out a few that you think would work, and I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared through the door, and Alex fumbled his way off of the fitting platform. He tried not to let any of the pins slip and walked rigidly down the hall as a result. Finding the drawers Tracie mentioned, he started looking through piles of fake jewelry for something he could wear. Again, his lack of fashion sensibilities reared its ugly head, and he picked out three gaudy gold chokers and silver chain. As he started to close the drawers, he noticed a silver ring tucked away in a corner.

The ring had a vine like patter wrapped around a star and blended into the band. Alex picked it up, and its weight surprised him. Everything else in the drawer was plastic or at least had a hollow feeling to it. The ring had the heft of real metal, and Alex wondered if it hadn’t fallen off someone’s hand and simply been stuck in the drawer. Out of curiosity, he slipped it on his finger and found it fit perfectly, though it did not seem to be a man’s ring. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he tried to pull the ring off, but it wouldn’t budge past the knuckle.

He picked up the necklaces and headed back to Tracie’s station, taking a seat at the desk and continuing to fiddle with the ring. Tracie returned a few minutes later. “What’d you find then?” She grabbed the necklaces and wheeled Alex to the mirror. “Oh these are all awful,” she said as she moved them quickly to and from his neck. “Tell ya what, you don’t need a necklace for this anyway. One less thing to worry about. I like the ring though, let’s keep that.”

“Mind if I wear it out?” Alex asked. “It’s sort of stuck on for the moment, but I can probably get it off. Been standing up for so long, fingers are a bit swollen.”

Tracie grabbed his hand and examined the ring. “Hmm, not one of ours, but you found it in the jewelry collection?” Alex nodded. “Well, keep it then. But hang on to it for the dress rehearsal. Now then, blonde or red head for the wig?”

“Uh, blonde, I guess?” Alex said, and Tracie disappeared into another room.

While she was gone, Alex pulled and twisted at the ring, but it wouldn’t budge. After a while, his attention turned to the multiple pictures on Tracie’s wall. One drew his eye, and he leaned closer. “Mother fucker…” The picture was a black and white copy of Julie. A picture which Alex had taken.

“I see you’re admiring my collection,” Tracie said upon her return.

“Oh, uh, yeah. So you know Julie?”

“Of course, everyone knows Julie. It’s a wonder any of us manage when she’s not around. Do you like that picture?”

Alex swallowed. “I took it, actually.”

“Really?” Tracie said, spinning him around to look him in the eye. “Well, the collection was quite good. You should ask Julie to put on a show. We all thought it had been done by a professional. I mean, well, you know what I mean.”

Alex had no idea what she meant. Tracie put a curly haired wig on his head as he stared at the naked body of his friend once again. A strange sensation crept through his body, and his hands moved up to his chest as he looked at Julie’s large bosom. He imagined those same breasts filling out the dress and his own hips replaced by those of his curvy friend. His head swirled, and Alex saw himself in the mirror. No, that’s not me, he thought. That’s just someone who looks like me.

“You alright?” Tracie asked, turning him back away from the mirror.

Alex’s head cleared up. “Oh. Sorry, I think I was dozing off or something.”

“Well, we’re done for the day. You can head back out to the stage for your rehearsal. Get dressed first though.”

Alex quickly put back on his street clothes and headed back towards the stage. All the while, he rubbed at the ring on his finger and thought of the woman he’d seen in the mirror.

On the third day of class, the actors did their first run throughs with the stage direction and lighting. The majority of it involved standing around and chatting with one another as other groups did their part. Alex discovered he wasn’t the only one cast in a female role. It seemed about half and half.

Mark continued to be a curmudgeon about the whole situation, but other than their thirty minutes on stage, he was at least somewhat personable. He and many of the others were fascinated by the idea of the theater culture. Alex had not been the only one to encounter something strange backstage. One group of guys had mistakenly stumbled into a shower at the end of class. Impossible as it was to believe, somewhere in the bowels of the theater was a fully functioning shower and locker room. This was not a typical modern shower though, but a communal shower that was fully occupied at the time by a half dozen busty coeds and two guys who, as the other newbies told it, “weren’t even looking.”

As they drove home after class, Mark explained his fascination with the idea. “Julie was right. Nudity is as common as oxygen around that place. No one cares. Half the guys I’ve talked to have slept with the majority of the women. How did we not know about all this? Why didn’t someone come and tell us as freshman? We could have been part of it all. I was talking with one of the stage hands. His whole major is about rigging up lights and cables and shit. I could have done that.”

Alex replied blithely, “I wanted to be an English Major though. If you’d have done theater, we’d probably never have met. The only reason we know Julie is because we met her at a party.”

“So we’d have never met then,” Mark answered with a shrug.

“You’re my best friend?” Alex said, trying to subdue the surprise in his voice. Mark’s quick dismissal of their relationship had hurt.

“Course I am. Could have been as well had we not met when we did. Or you could have been like a play writer instead of wanting to be an author. Then we’d have wound up crossing paths.” Mark smiled, and Alex noted how charming and disarming his friend could be. Alex looked away quickly.

For the past two days, strange thoughts had been filling Alex’s head. The night before, he and Mark had been sitting at home watching a movie. At some point, Mark slipped his hand in his shorts to hold his balls, not something even a little uncommon, but for the first time Alex watched him do it and wondered what it would be like if it were his hand instead. “So what time is this party then?”

“We’re to be there at ten, I think. I’ll drop you at the apartment so you can shower and then head down to the liquor store. You’ll be done by the time I get back. I’ll shower. Then, we’ll load up and go.” They had been invited to their first theater party, and Mark was beside himself with excitement. It had been Tracie who suggested they attend, but she cautioned them that it was early in the summer and not to expect anything outrageous. The car rolled to a stop in front of their apartment, and Alex hopped out and headed upstairs.

Alex looked through his closet for a shirt to wear before heading to the shower. He turned on the water and steam started to billow up from behind the curtain. He looked at himself in the mirror after trying to get the ring off once more. His form looked slighter than he remembered. The definition on his chest had faded, and he was gaining weight around his hips. Too much beer, he thought and made a mental note to go running over the weekend.

As he waited for the temperature to adjust in the shower, his skin prickled and itched. Anxious for some relief, he jumped in the shower and was met with a hot blast that made him twist around in unbelievable shapes until he was able to turn the knob. The itching vanished as he started to wash himself. The warm water felt amazing on his skin. He did not think that he had been stressed, but his muscles soothed and relaxed under the torrent of steamy water. He lost track of time and didn’t snap out of it until he heard a knock at the bathroom door.

“Fuck, hurry up in there, I need to shower, and we’re already going to be late,” came Mark’s voice through the door.

Alex got out of the shower and started to dry himself off, but noticed something wrong. For as long as he could remember, water had been wicked away from his body by his body hair, but he could feel it instead beading up on his skin. He looked in the mirror and gasped at the sight. The whole of his body was smooth and pale with the sudden lack of hair. His hand touched his chest to be certain it was him. Moving his hand down, he felt nothing but slick, wet skin. He reached his crotch and found his cock and balls entirely smooth. Checking his neck and face, he found no stubble or hint of facial hair. On the whole of his body, only his eyebrows and head hair remained. Mark knocked on the door again. “Alright!” Alex yelled back. He finished drying off and wrapped the towel around his waist.

“Did you shave your chest?” Mark asked when Alex opened the door.

Alex didn’t want to talk at all, but strangely Mark was the last person he wanted to talk to. “Uh, yeah, part of the prosthetic thing they have me wearing for the class really itches so they recommended shaving my chest.”

“Oh, right,” Mark replied. His eyes looked more intently at Alex, as if searching for something else off about his friend. “Well you better not have clogged the fucking drain.” Mark ducked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Alex sighed in relief and rushed to his room.

Alex tripled checked that the door was locked before going to his closet door mirror and dropping the towel. What’s happening to me? How is that even possible? He combed through his mind, trying to think of any explanation for sudden and total hair loss, but only below the neck. He pulled at the tuft of hair on the top of his head and found that it held firm. The more he looked at himself, the more it felt like he was looking at a stranger. He turned around and craned his neck to see his back. Are my shoulders smaller? Wait…holy shit.

Alex turned sideways and looked at his profile. Earlier he thought that he was gaining a belly, instead his stomach was flatter than ever while his hips looked wider. Still, the shocking thing was his butt. For his whole life, he’d had a flat ass, to the point where it was troublesome to keep pants on. To his astonishment, that was no longer an issue. Tentatively, he touched the new curve of his ass, wondering how it could be possible. His hand pressed into his rear and sunk into soft, supple tissue. This is the kind of ass a girl would kill for? What’s it doing on me?

Thoroughly unnerved, but at a loss for what to do, Alex started to get dressed. As a troublesome reminder of his changes, neither his underwear or jeans fit comfortably. He put on his shirt and immediately the unpleasant itching sensation returned, concentrated around his nipples. Pulling off the shirt, he looked closer at the area, but saw nothing out of the ordinary other than the lack of hair. He added an undershirt and finished getting dressed. Despite his worries, his final inspection in the mirror pleased him. Maybe it’s not all bad. I haven’t had a shave this smooth in years. And my junk looks huge.

Mark barely bothered to dry his hair, throwing on a polo and some shorts he found on the floor. Alex thought it was peculiar that he noticed how his roommate was dressed at all. As they returned to the car, Alex was overwhelmed by the smell of Mark’s cologne. It wasn’t unpleasant, but too powerful. Alex started to mention it, but thought better of it.

The drive to the party was short, but incredibly uncomfortable for Alex. He couldn’t stop looking at his roommate. The two had lived together for years and Alex had not once noticed the line of Mark’s jaw or how his forearm flexed when he turned the wheel. The thoughts intruded as very unwelcome guests until the itching sensation returned to his chest and started to spread down his body until it felt like his crotch was on fire.

They arrived at the party, and Alex received some relief as he put some distance between himself and Mark. It’s the cologne, maybe I’m allergic. He consoled himself with the thought, but knew that his friend had worn that same cologne for four years and never once provoked a scratch. The party itself provided an additional distraction. They were in someone’s home. The claustrophobic rooms evoked the same mood as the back of the Small Theater. The lighting was darker though and loud music thrummed through the whole building. A quick assessment led both of the guys to see no difference between this party and any of the others they’d been to during college. Tracie emerged from a bedroom, the smell of weed following close behind her, “Oh hey guys! Glad you made it. Put that stuff back in the kitchen and come play cards with us!” As quickly as she had appeared, she vanished back into the crowd. Alex was disappointed as her presence had made him feel an immense relief. It’s Mark himself. Something he’s wearing or…doing.

The kitchen was the most crowded room by far. They squeezed through, pushing on by Mark’s determination to find a glass to pour himself a drink. Alex followed closely behind him. As a gap closed behind Mark, Alex impulsively reached out for the larger man’s hand, but snatched himself back at the last moment. They reached a counter where large coolers full of ice stood. The area was moderately clear, but the crush of people constantly shifted around it. With an aggravated grunt, Mark cleared a spot on the counter and dropped the liquor they’d brought with them. He grabbed a bag that had once been filled with cups, but pulled out only one. “Here, you take this one. I’ll grab some more,” he yelled over the din. “On your back.”

He pushed the cup into Alex’s hand and started back the way they had came. Mark’s hand pushed lightly against Alex’s back as the former started to squeeze through the crowd. It was a tight fit, and Mark’s body pushed into Alex from behind as he moved. Alex could feel his friend’s chest press into his back and crotch press into his ass. As Mark slid away, Alex’s body started to tingle and burn. The feeling spread as if thousands of fire ants had suddenly decided to bite, radiating out in a careful pattern from the place Mark had touched him. I have to go…somewhere.

Desperate, he started to shove his way through the crowd, moving through the waves of people like a man in a panic. A few patrons blurted out curse words as he shoved through them, but most of them seemed to barely acknowledge his passing. Alex considered calling an ambulance or screaming out for help, but instead he was driven by a mad desire to simply get out. He turned a corner and crashed into someone, bowling them both into a corner. “Well nice to see you too, Alex,” said a familiar voice. Julie stood him up and looked at him up and down, “Wait, you’re different.”

Alex pushed out the feeling ravaging his body. He wanted to speak, but knew she wouldn’t hear him over the noise. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “Somewhere private, please?”

She nodded silently and led him towards the back of the house.

They made their way to one of the back bedrooms. A few younger girls were sitting on the bed as Julie barged in the room. Alex saw that one of them was crying and immediately turned to leave, but Julie held him in place. She didn’t say a word, but glared at the girls with a ferocity Alex had never seen before. After a few terse moments, the girls composed themselves and left the room. Julie shut the door behind them and locked it. Behind the bedroom door, the music was a low thrum that shook the walls, but could easily be spoken over. “What’s happening to you?” she demanded. “Did you take something?”

Alex struggled to find words for his predicament. The obvious problem was the burning sensation, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Mark. Not knowing how else to express himself, he pulled off his shirt. “Look!”

Julie looked. “What am I looking at?”

“No, you’re not…feel my arm,” he said thrusting his arm out to her. Her face remained alarmed, but she ran her fingers across his skin. Every place she touched became a cool spot of relief on his aggravated skin.

“Ok, you shaved your arm, and I’m assuming your chest. Are we dealing with a bad razor burn problem because if so this is a bit over dramatic.”

“No, Julie, look at me,” he said, frantic for someone to understand. “Try to remember what I looked like a few days ago and compare it to now. My hips! Hell, look at my ass!” He turned in profile and bent over, feeling absolutely ridiculous, but he heard Julie gasp.

“So, that’s new,” she said. “Hang on, stand up straight.” She went to him and started moving him like a marionette, positioning him however she wanted. Alex happily gave in. As her hands flitted across his bare skin, more and more of the horrid feeling went away. She was close to him, and he could smell her, an earthy scent of perfume mixed with sweat. “Nothing for it then, take off your clothes.”

“I’m not—”

“Do you want my help or don’t you?” she asked, sternly. Her hands went to his pants after he unfastened them. With a difficult tug, she pulled them down and tossed them aside. She paused, running her hand up his calves, marveling at the smoothness of his skin. “I could shave four times a day and not have legs like this. Is it…everywhere?” Alex’s embarrassment had finally broken. Something about Julie’s touch caused the burning to stop, but the worst of it remained in his crotch. On the off chance that she might be able to sooth that last spot, he shucked off his boxers and kicked them to the side. “Oh,” was all Julie said.

Alex could feel the room’s slight air current shifting around his body. At that moment, Alex understood how in tune a person can be with the body they’ve had their whole life. Each inch of his skin tingled and responded to the slight breeze. An electric sensation gripped him as Julie moved closer, as if he pulled to her by a magnet. Julie peered at his crotch with a curiosity that would make the most confident man cower in shame, but Alex understood why without having to look. He could feel the difference, however slight, though he couldn’t define it as balance or core of being. He moved his hand to between his legs, a motion he had done thousands of times before, to grip his cock, but nothing was there. Instead, he found a smooth mons which preluded the wet lips below. A mingle of horror and excitement gripped him as his fingers slid against his pussy. My pussy. I have a pussy. I’m touching my own pussy. What the fuck. He felt a rush of blood and a wave of dizziness before falling back on the bed.

Instantly, Julie was over him, giving him rapid slaps to the face. “No, no. Can’t have you passing out on me. That would be difficult to explain to anybody. ‘Hey Julie, how come you were locked in a room with Alex and now his junk is gone?’ Some questions you shouldn’t have to answer.”

Alex remained on his back on the bed, trying to stay calm. He could feel the air moving over his bare pussy lips and the more he thought about it, the more he could feel the emptiness behind them. Is this what a girl feels all the time? This void? He knew the answer almost immediately. No. This is specific. Images of Mark flashed into his mind, bare chested and pushing against him. His friend being intimate equally excited and revolted him as his new dual being waged war inside his body.

“By your reaction, I’m guessing your sudden lack of dick is a surprise,” Julie said. “Let’s try to approach this rationally. First off, tell me how you’ve been feeling.” Alex described as best he could how the burning sensation had started a few hours earlier, but he left out the prior two days of strange thoughts and stranger dreams. “And you feel better when I touch you? So what if I did…this?” Her hand drifted slowly down between Alex’s thighs, grazing his pussy lips. Everywhere her fingers went, the burn ceased to be and a pleasant tingling sensation replaced it. She read this from Alex’s reaction and pulled her hand away. “Ok, my touch or at least someone’s touch makes the feeling go away. How did this all start?”

“I have no idea. Maybe something to do with the theater? Can someone be giving me hormones or something?”

“Hormones don’t make a pussy pop open, sweetie.” Her eyes moved to the only remaining item of clothing on Alex’s body. “Hang on, where’d you get that ring?”

Alex held up his hand. He’d entirely forgotten about it. “Found it in the costume department.”

“Can you take it off?”

“No, it’s been stuck for two days now.”

“Ok, so it’s a magic ring,” Julie said.

Her matter of fact tone puzzled Alex. “A magic ring? You can’t say magic ring and suddenly everything makes perfect sense.”

Julie crossed her arms. “Alex, your dick has disappeared after wearing a mysterious ring you found in the Small Theater. I think magic rings are on the table. Let’s assume it’s a magic ring problem and start finding a way to fix it.” She looked up and down his body again. He was lying on his back with his legs on the edge of the bed. While his new figure was extremely feminine, he did not have the manners of a woman. His legs spread both out of habit and because the air grazing off his pussy felt nice. “I have an idea. You said that the burning goes away when I touch you right? So maybe I should touch you.”

Alex watched in bewilderment as Julie moved off the bed and knelt on the floor between his legs. He started to protest, but the feeling of her hands sliding under his thighs overwhelmed his objections. She groped up to his new soft ass, squeezing and pulling it into position. Alex had experienced the brief moments of wonder and anticipation before girl took his cock into her mouth, but this was different. He could feel Julie’s breath on his pussy. She kissed his inner thighs, sending sparkles through his body. Everywhere she moved her fingers, a slight tickle preceded the same electric feeling as a new sort of tension started forming in his gut. Alex looked down across his smooth chest and stomach to see Julie looking up at him as she opened her mouth and pressed her tongue into his virgin pussy. She repeated the motion again and again, but Alex wanted more. This can’t be it. His body ached for something else.

Julie’s hands retreated from his plump ass and for a few agonizing moments, he didn’t feel her fingers on him at all. She pulled her mouth away from his pussy for a moment, and he felt her thin fingers probing his new womanhood gently. After toying with him, she pushed her fingers into his wet folds and resumed her licking. More and more of the tension started to build. Alex wanted her to go faster, to push in father, but Julie maintained the same pace. Alex reached down and pulled her head hard against him. Her free hand moved up to his stomach, feeling the rise and fall of his ragged breath as he urged her deeper. He squeezed his thighs around her face, trapping her in his crotch as small ripples of pleasure radiated out from his pussy. He started to gasp, and his eyes squinted shut as more and more pleasure washed over him. Instinctively, he brought his hand up to his chest and squeezed at his nipple. Instantly, the pleasure vanished, and the stinging sensation returned. His moans turned into a low cry of dismay as the tension in his body vanished.

Julie stopped and looked up, seeing for herself the newest change manifesting on Alex’s body. “Uh oh, that may have backfired,” she mused, calmly. The skin on Alex’s chest rippled and grew. As they both watched, new flesh bounced forth from nothing, creating small breasts on Alex’s chest. His nipples jutted out, painfully erect as the areolas around them expanded. His immediate concern was that his breasts would look awful, but the tissue kept growing to match the size of the darker patches of skin. Curious, Julie reached out and started to massage her friend’s miraculous breasts. As she did, Alex let out a grateful moan. More and more of the fatty tissue swelled under Julie’s grasp, exciting her in the process. She moved closer to Alex, but first removed her own top. “You’re going to have to ride it out, I think.” With that, she brought Alex’s mouth to hers in a long kiss. The kiss allowed him to focus, and desire overwhelmed him. For two weeks he had been secretly lusting after Julie and now she was topless in his arms, even if he was transforming into a woman.

In a mad frenzy, he rolled on top of her. Julie pulled his mouth down to her own, larger tits. Alex drank in her voluptuous figure, kissing and sucking at her breasts before trailing down her taut tummy. Julie started to wriggle out of her skirt. With a quick jerk, Alex freed her ,revealing a bare pussy of her own. Of course she doesn’t wear any panties. Trying to mimic Julie’s efforts from earlier, he dove into her wet pussy, licking excitedly. His hands moved over her body ravenously, squeezing her ass and thighs while his tongue lapped happily at her folds. He had eaten a girl out before, but now he understood. He teased her body, enticing her and denying her again and again until she screamed with pleasure as he pushed his newly feminine fingers into her. Julie’s hips pushed up against his invading tongue, and her thighs threatened to crush his head between them. Her breath caught, and she groaned a long wail as orgasm crashed through her body. Alex didn’t stop. Julie bounced between a broad smile and a concentration that brought tears to her eyes until he finally relented. Alex crawled up her body, trailing delicate kisses until he took a handful of her breast for a last playful squeeze.

“Not bad,” Julie said breathlessly. “Uh, you should probably go take a look in the mirror though.”

For a brief moment, Alex had forgotten his own troubles, losing them in Julie’s soft body. He saw a mirror on the back of the door. Reluctantly, he left Julie on the bed and went over to look at himself. From the eyes, he knew it was him, beyond that the woman standing in the mirror was nothing like Alex. His ratty hair was gone, replaced by long curls of raven black. His skin was a rich, tan color rather than pasty white. Breasts almost as large as Julie’s hung from his chest, the type of breasts he would have killed to touch days earlier. His waist was tucked and slim, but his hips flared out to match his round ass. His thighs met below his bald pussy, letting in a stream of light from behind him. Absolutely nothing about him belied the fact that he was truly a man. The ring remained on his hand even though his fingers had surely shrank to match his new form. Julie walked up beside him, pulling her skirt back up. She hefted one of his breasts and compared it to her own.

“Don’t think we can call you Alex any more. At least not for the moment.”

“What? But that’s my name. I feel like I’m losing my mind.” Even his voice had changed. His normal baritone had changed into a cheerful, bubbly voice that made him shudder.

“I have an idea,” Julie continued. “You need a girl’s name though. How about…Lexi? That’s close enough right?” He nodded, despite his protest, the name pleased him. “Hang on, there’s probably stuff that will fit you here.”

Julie started going through the closet of whoever actually lived in the house. She quickly produced a bright colored top and a skirt similar to her own. “No underwear?” Lexi asked.

Frowning, Julie pushed the clothes into Lexi’s hands. “Ok, so we’re trying to break some kind of sex curse.” Lexi held up a hand to object, but Julie waved it off. “Sex. Curse. We started fooling around an out popped brand new titties. I don’t think I can fix you because it’s going to have to be a guy. Lexi, I think you need to fuck someone and that will get the ring off your finger. Want me to go grab some dude and offer him a quickie? Jonathan is cool or I could get Mason, my boyfriend.”

Lexi swallowed down a lump. Lexi. I am Lexi, a woman. It won’t be weird. He’ll never know. “No, that’s ok. I know who will do it.”

Lexi grabbed her phone. It surprised her how quickly she had started to think of herself as a woman. Granted, it was not that difficult now that she was walking around with huge breasts jutting out of an ill fitted top. Julie had already returned to the party, leaving Lexi to figure out how to best approach her plan. First, she had to explain what happened to Alex. She pulled up Mark in her phone and sent a brief message, “Felt sick. Got a ride home.” Mark was likely at least somewhat confused as to where his friend had gone. Lexi was thankful he hadn’t barged in on them earlier. Then, considering it, Lexi felt a little disappointed. Better not get too far ahead of ourselves.

She and Julie had discussed it, and Julie came up with a plausible scenario. They assumed that the ring was cursed to make the wearer want to have sex with the first person of the male gender encountered after putting the ring on. Lexi agreed that Mark had been the first one she’d interacted with after they’d finished the costume work. She also finally admitted to her weird fantasies over the past two days, most of which involved Mark. As she explained them to Julie, she realized that climbing into his bed at night and slurping his cock into her mouth wasn’t nearly as strange if she was a girl rather than his old male college buddy.

Lexi took one last look at herself in the mirror before heading back into the party. The male part of her brain knew she looked hot. It was another thing she struggled to control. The Alex part of her seemed to be asleep, mostly. His memories and experiences were all on the surface, but the new desire’s of Lexi’s body overrode Alex’s. She had female wants and needs. In describing them to Julie, they discovered that Lexi was a particularly horny woman. Again, they attributed this to an unknown curse. She adjusted the shirt one last time, making her breasts look even better for the small change, and headed out into the party.

Finding Mark wasn’t difficult. Most of the other guys were shorter and scrawnier. Mark loomed over the crowd looking as affable as ever. As Lexi approached, she saw him chatting with some other girl. To Alex, this would have been unsurprising and expected, but to Lexi, it was shocking and insulting. A huge swell of jealousy reared up inside of her as she stalked over to them. Before she reached the girl, ready to claw her eyes out for daring to speak to Mark, Julie appeared. With a snap of her hands, she dismissed the trollop right before Lexi walked up.

“Oh Lexi! Come here and meet Mark,” Julie said. “And here’s that drink you were asking for.” Julie handed her a drink, and Lexi downed it in one long gulp while her two friends watched with surprised eyes. “Ok then, I’ll get you another one. You two chat.” Julie took the empty glass from her and pushed through the crowd, giving Lexi a squeeze on the ass as she did.

Mark grinned broadly at her. Lexi didn’t know what to do or say, so she smiled back. Finally Mark spoke, but she couldn’t hear him over the crowd. Pointing to her ear she shook her head, and he leaned in closer. “I said, you’re very pretty.” His breath rushed against her ear, and her whole body shook with excitement. This close, the smell of cologne was no longer overpowering, but intoxicating. She could smell the sweat on his neck and caught a glimpse of his bare stomach as he leaned back. She thanked him, and he asked her to dance.

Lexi struggled to contain herself through the whole song. She wanted to tear her shirt off and press Mark’s chest into her tits while fishing out his cock to suck right in the middle of the party. As they dance, she turned her back to him and let him press up against her. His arm wrapped around her stomach and pulled her close as he inhaled her scent. Finally, she could contain herself no more and asked, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Mark agreed quickly, surprised in his own right that such an attractive woman would bother to pay him any attention. He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the party. Lexi smiled as his strength wrapped around her petite hand. After they broke free of the party, Mark asked, “Do you want to go to your place? Or somewhere else?” Lexi quickly asked to go to his apartment. Mark nodded and led the way to his car. He didn’t act the least bit embarrassed about the ramshackle automotive, and Lexi found it endearing. They made the short drive over to their apartment, the whole while, Lexi a nervous wreck. What if Mark goes looking for me? When I’m not there he might want to go find me or call me or something. I need this to work to get back to myself. Lexi put aside the thought that she wanted it to work because she actually wanted to sleep with her roommate and best friend.

Lexi followed Mark into their apartment and was relieved to see that he had left his door closed. Mark mentioned that his roommate was sleeping and brought Lexi into his bedroom. He started to nervously clear away things from his bed while Lexi looked around the familiar room. Her gaze landed on a photo stuck to Mark’s dresser mirror. In it Alex and Mark posed in front of the school cheerleading squad. Lexi turned away from the photo and tried one last time to pull the ring off her finger. Mark walked over to her and gently bent down to kiss her. Lexi’s mind exploded with mad desire. The heat returned to her body, but this time it wasn’t painful or irritating. Instead, it drove her wild. She grabbed the hem of her friend’s shirt and pulled it over his head. Mark still spent time in the gym, and it showed. Lexi ran her hands over his broad chest and bent forward to lick him playfully. Oh god. Why do I want this?

She moved over to his bed, bringing him with her. His hands rubbed along her body, but she didn’t have time for such small steps. In a single fluid motion, she pulled off her top and threw it across the room, letting her bare breasts free. Mark’s eyes stretched wide as he drank in the full figure in front him. Lexi grabbed his head and pulled his mouth to her breast, desperate to feel her friend’s mouth on her tits. Mark was fumbling and clumsy, but soon left wet kisses across her breasts and swirled his tongue around her pert nipple. She moved her hands down his chest until she found the hard lump in his shorts. She rubbed and pulled at it through the fabric, making him involuntarily thrust against her palm. His hands replaced his mouth on her breast, and she took the opportunity to remove the rest of his clothes.

Alex had seen his friend naked before, but not like this. Mark was a grower not a shower. His cock stood up, rock hard as Lexi pulled away the boxers. Before he could react, she dove into his lap, stuffing his cock into her mouth. The latent part of Lexi’s mind flared up for only a moment in pure, primal shock, but again it was drowned out by the pleasurable sensation of having her friend’s cock pushing against the inside of her cheek. The sudden outburst of Alex did remind her of one thing — Mark had no idea. How would he react if he knew that the gorgeous, black haired girl bouncing her head up and down on his stiff cock was actually his best friend. The idea thrilled Lexi even more, and her own arousal started to dampen the skirt. The cock in her mouth kept her fixation though. She slathered her tongue up and down the shaft before moving down to lick her friend’s balls. As she bobbed back up to once again take his whole length into her mouth, she made eye contact with him. Mark stared at her big eyes as her lips parted around the head of his shaft and for the briefest moment, she thought she saw recognition in his gaze.

As she lavished attention on the hard rod in her mouth, she tried to remember what Mark would be feeling from the times she’d received a blowjob. Her tongue twisted around the crown of his cock slowly, knowing that’s something that she would have liked, and she was rewarded by a deep groan from Mark. His cock started to pulse in her mouth, and she pulled away quickly. Not yet.

She hopped off the bed and pulled down the skirt. Remembering how Julie had teased her boyfriend, Lexi turned around and bent over slowly to pick up the skirt and toss it aside. Mark’s hand immediately reached out and grabbed her full ass, kneading it roughly. Before Lexi could react, he stood behind her, his strong arms pushing her forward. Her elbows hit on the front of the dresser and she looked in the mirror to see Mark grinning behind her. His cock slowly slid up her leg, and she realized he was about to fuck her bent over in front of his mirror. Happy to oblige, she moved forward a little more so that her chest rested on the dresser top, her breasts squishing out to the sides. Mark looked down at his glorious conquest’s perfect body while she pushed back against him, hungry for his cock.

Mark took his dick in his hand and guided it carefully to sopping wet pussy in front of him. A sudden anxiety gripped Lexi. She could see him behind her, his eyes closed in concentration as he was about to shove his cock inside of her. Oh god, Mark is about to fuck me. My best friend is about to stick is cock in my pussy. His…thick, hard cock is going to to fill me up. He’s going to shove into me again and again until his cum splatters all inside of me. Mark moved forward, his cock sliding into the wet hole with ease, and Lexi felt complete for the first time in days. She reached between her legs and started to rub her clit as Mark thrust into her. From the look of him, Lexi knew he wouldn’t last long, but she bounced her ass back against him all the more determined to reach her own orgasm. The tension built to its peak as Mark’s rhythm fell off. His strokes slowed, and he pushed into her harder and harder until finally he shoved into her pussy with all his strength, bottoming out inside as his cock erupted with cum.

Lexi’s world exploded. Her eyes locked with Mark’s as he pushed himself deep inside and let his cum fill her up. Her body trembled as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her. She could feel Mark’s hands roughly holding her ass, and she pushed back against his cock, refusing to let him leave her. Finally, her muscles released, and her quivering body went limp. She stood up and kissed Mark deeply as they moved over to the bed. He laid down first and pulled her into his arms. Their breathing slowed. As Lexi drifted off to sleep, feeling safe in the crook of Mark’s arm, she envisioned a life where this happened night after night. Even the small part of her mind that was Alex seemed content.

She woke up. Mark still slept beside her, his breath deep and slow. Carefully, she extracted herself from him and made her way out to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and admired her own beauty. As she brought her hand up to pull back her hair, she noticed the ring on her finger. Nervously, she gripped the small band of metal and pulled. With barely any effort, it slipped off. She held it in her palm for a moment before putting it down on the counter top. Lexi looked in the mirror and waited. No burning sensations, no odd thoughts. She looked at herself and shrugged. Maybe it takes a while. She left the ring by the sink and started to go Alex’s room. I’ll go to sleep and wake up as myself in my own bed and all this will be over. Mark will assume his one night stand slipped out and went home. No big deal.

Hesitating in the hall, she considered the familiar pull towards Mark. The past two days had been odd, but not really unpleasant. Mark was her best friend, but like this they could be more. If she went back to being Alex, how could he ever look Mark in the eye again. The guy fucked me like a dog in heat. Drinking beer and playing video games is going to be different. Lexi finally resigned and went into Alex’s bedroom. She pulled out a pair of boxers and put them on over her plump ass. Hoping that it had all been a fever dream, she climbed into bed and went to sleep.

●●●

Alex woke up. The night’s events came flooding back in a rush. His hands immediately went down to his crotch, and he sighed with relief as he grabbed hold of a half erect cock. Feeling better than he had in years, he hopped out of bed and headed into the living room. Somehow his worries of embarrassment had been unfounded. Mark sat in the den watching television, looking slightly hung over. Alex felt no attraction and remembered only the most wonderful feelings from the night before. “Morning!” he said, cheerfully. “Sorry I disappeared last night.”

“Feeling better then?” Mark asked.

“Much, thanks,” Alex plopped down beside him on the couch.

“Oh, we need to go get some butter or something,” Mark said, holding up his hand. “I found your dumb ring in the bathroom and wanted to try it on. Now I can’t get it off.”

Alex’s face turned white. “Oh, fuck.”