Midas Journal 4

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Part 4; see first part for information.

Entry: Mar 20
So instead of getting more normal today, things got weirder.
What a surprise.

I explained everything to Carlos over lunch. Everything. I started with the gun-wielding robber turned schoolgirl, figured that was a good starting point because he was there to see it. Then I moved on to Seth. Sarah. Okay, that was out of the way. By this point we were sitting on the couch, on opposite ends, and the TV, naturally, was off. I wasn't sure how to move on from there:

“This is all pretty crazy. Woo. So it looks like you can touch guys, and turn them into girls—generally girls who are a lot happier. I thought you were acting a little odd around me..trying not to touch me, I guess?”
“Oh..I thought that wasn't noticeable,” I said. “I was trying to be discreet.”
“Oh, you were, I know you too well, man. But...wait a minute. that started Saturday. How'd you know about it then?”
“Okay...Ahm, Carlos. Did you have any kind of..dreams that night?”
“Yeah, I remember dreaming I was some girl, and getting up and taking a shower in your house...and then I woke up..in...the....shower.” He paused a moment, catching on.
I cut in before he could say anything else: “I had a dream that night too. It didn't make any sense to me, some guy turning stuff to gold. And I thought—that day, I thought I was dreaming when I got up and..and watched you change into that.”
He paused a moment, and nodded. “Okay. So...it was an accident, right?”
I nodded.
“But I saw that, ah, Rio girl yesterday in school. She never turned back. Why would I?”
“Well, after you went into the shower, I was..really freaked. I think I panicked, and my brain locked up, thinking how you couldn't be a girl, and there was no way what I'd seen was real.”
“So..you panicked, and you were able to turn me back by disbelief.”
“You could put it that way.”

Carlos paused. It was one of those awkward pauses where one person has no idea what to say (AKA me), and the other (AKA Carlos) is working up the courage to say something that isn't going to make sense to the first person. Okay, so I couldn't tell it was that kind of pause at the time, but looking back...uh...I'll just go on, alright?

At the end of that awkward pause I mentioned, Carlos said, “Try touching me again.”
“What?!”
“Hold up, it's not that crazy. I just want to see what happens. If it works, you know? I mean, it looks like you could turn me back if I don't like it.”
“But, it's not that simple. I don't even know how I did that.”
“That's easy, you denied it. With the other two, you seem like you didn't believe it, but it was more of an amazement than a straight-out 'this can't be' deal.”
“...Okay...but...I don't even know what happens to a person's mind, when I, do that. I mean, I'm pretty sure that robber guy lost every bit of whoever he was before turning into Rio.”
“You don't know that though. You've got to try and figure out just what happens when you touch people and change them, so maybe if it's not too bad you won't seem like a freak afraid to touch any other human being.”
I started to calm down a little. Carlos was doing his 'logic' thing now. “Yeah...yeah...but what about you​​? I mean, you want to be the guinea pig for this?”
He grinned a little, which only confused me a bit worse. “Eeh..you got me. I sorta want to know what it's like to be the opposite sex...especially if there's a chance I could turn back. Besides, I remember being sorta happy in that 'dream' I had Saturday morning.”

I thought on it for a minute. I tried putting myself in his shoes, but it was sort of hard. I like my present gender, thankyouverymuch. But...Carlos is adventurous, likes to try new things. He might enjoy it, and not in a 'pervert' kind of way. Finally I nodded hesitantly. “Okay...”

Carlos held out a hand, and I tapped it hesitantly with my index finger. It was like dropping that lead nitrate stuff into pandemonium capacitate, or whatever—it happened fast and spread fast. All at once, that hand had limber, thin fingers, pretty, long fingernails, and the attached arm thinned. Carlos watched intently, almost a little too excitedly—his black shirt tightened, turned a light blue and sleeveless, while his shoulders shrank and his stomach sucked in, and his face shrank into a blue-eyed, blue-haired form I immediately recognized.
It was on to the hips, which got wider, pressing out his jeans—though those got tight, fast, accenting thin, long legs Carlos suddenly had, and revealing a hole between them no man could pull off having. The shirt had shrunk so fast I had missed it, exposing the stomach and the shoulders and most of the rest of, well, her—and turning a little frilly, rounding out on the front expectantly just before Carlos's chest expanded straight into it.

...Great. It was the same girl Carlos had become before..on Saturday morning. But she was wearing clothes.
No shirt. Because Carlos only wore a T-shirt, and apparently whatever made this work couldn't, or wouldn't, create fabric out of nothingness.
After a moment she grinned up at me. “I'm gonna have a look at myself in the mirror. Be right back!”
She ran off to the nearest bathroom (Guess whose? Mine? Right.), and after a moment came back, still grinning from ear to ear, and sat on the couch right next to me.
“Aww, you're blushing. That's cute.”
“Um..Carlos?”
“Carla.”
“Carla. Do you..feel alright?”
“I feel great! I don't think I've ever felt so confident about my body before in my life.”
I spoke slowly and carefully. “So, you're not just randomly cheerful for no reason. Right?”
“Yeah. I have a legitimate reason. And changing was fun.”
(Not the word I would use to describe it, but okay.) “Uh..glad I could help?”
“Of course, thank you.” She nodded. “Seriously though..let's see what's different.”

“Well, you're sitting..um..there...and apparently have no problem being practically topless. And you're enjoying tormenting me.”
“Only because you're being so shy. C'mon, we're friends!”
“...Right. So, um..do your memories feel any different?”
“Hmm..” She paused a moment, thinking. “I still remember every bit of being Carlos. You know, hanging out as guys...all that stuff. I've got other memories though, as Carla. They're almost exactly the same until about the time I hit puberty.”
I was hesitant to ask this, but went for it anyway: “...What then?”
“Oh, you started to act a lot shyer around me. I've always been open with myself—it seems—so you were kind of embarrassed when we're together and I'm not perfectly modest. I can recall teasing you a lot—it's fun!—and some serious conversations about it, too. I mean, we're friends.”
I put my hand to my forehead at this point. “What's wrong?”
“I...have two memories now too. No idea how that happened.”
“So I don't have to go into detail, I hope?”
“No..plenty of detail in my brain now,” I said. “I guess you don't want to change back anytime soon.”
“Nawh. Let me try it for a few weeks. At least long enough to discover the nightmare of a period firsthand, non-memory...see if it's..you know...worth it.”
“Um..by then I might be unable to deny it though. I mean, it's pretty hard to right now, with the whole 'dual memory' thing...?”

“Well..you can't be the only person that can change people, right? I mean, that wouldn't make any sense.”
“Spoken like a genre savvy,” I commented.
“Yup.” She nodded. “So even if you can't, there's probably someone who could—if I ever get to hating this. Can't imagine it now, though...”

...So what happened the rest of the day? We...talked. The conversation degenerated into our usual kind of conversation. Gah, I mean the kind of conversation that's usual with Carlos. With Carla. Both memories agree it's usual. That's...really confusing. Whatever. It got awkward a couple of times—for me only, of course—but...I don't know what to make of it. I guess I didn't lose a friend. Wonderful. I've just gained a strange power I know absolutely nothing about.

Yeah, okay. It's kind of nice to have a...hot girl as a best friend now. But it raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, not to mention the fact that I'm easily flustered by...ahm...beauty...and she just laughs about it.

Anyway, the rest of the day...after we had our typical (not going over that again) remainder of the day, she picked up a shirt that Carlos's coat had morphed into and put it on for her walk home. We said goodbye.
And here I am, writing this. I don't know if it's possible for things to get stranger.


NO WAY.


I did NOT just say that, did I!?



Just...forget it. I'll write something else when it happens. Yes, when.