One Last Game

Note: 
Turns out this is actually the longest caption I've ever written. It's so long that it's kind of hard to read in my preferred pure-image form for captions, but here's a link to that anyway. In light of how long it is, it's in the text+image form I usually present stories in below:

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Nick was in serious trouble. It wasn't enough that he had managed to declare bankruptcy and be in just as much debt all over again a couple of months later; he'd taken a bad deal to get out of that and now some of his considerable debt was to people nowhere near as kind about asking him to pay it back. It had all started because he had a serious gambling problem, and he had tried a few too many times to gamble his way back out of debt on money that was itself borrowed, only to lose everything again.

So he was sitting on his bed, head in hands, swearing to himself that if he survived this he'd never gamble away his money again. If there could be some way he could start over with a clean slate, he thought, he'd pay any price for that, and never go back to it afterward.

Nick's phone rang.

He got up slowly and walked over to the dresser it was on to see who it was. It wasn't as if he really had any friends left, having borrowed a little too much money from those who would otherwise have been friends in the past. The number was 'withheld', so it wasn't one of his creditors, but that was the kind of thing the phone said for someone who wanted to sell something, too. He decided to let it go, and watched for his phone to stop ringing, but curiously, it didn't do that. It just kept on ringing. If Nick wanted it to stop, it seemed he would have to pick up the phone and hang it up himself.

Well, this situation was strange enough to make him curious. He could always just hang it up right away if it was just his imagination and a telemarketer, after all. So Nick picked up the phone and answered it. "Hello?"

"Greetings. Is this Nick?"

"..Yeah, who is this?" He didn't recognize the deep male voice on the other end, but there was something about it that seemed...powerful. It was hard to place why.

"I want to play a game with you, Nick. But before I tell you about that, I'd like you to check on your credit card accounts. I'll wait."

Nick put down the phone, confused, and opened up his ancient computer, looking at the balances on the several credit cards which he had actually just spent the afternoon cutting up with scissors and throwing in the trash. To his surprise, one of his accounts showed as entirely paid off. It seemed that its exact balance had been paid off at exactly the time he had picked up his phone. Well...now this stranger had his attention.

He picked back up the phone. "Uh..thank you.." he said, still a little stunned.

"Consider it a token of goodwill, and proof that I can remove your debts," said the strange voice. "Are you interested in the game now?"

Nick caught on that he was talking about possibly a very high-stakes game, having thrown around that kind of money as a mere 'token'. But...he'd just promised himself he wouldn't gamble, hadn't he? "Well..." he said slowly, uncertain.

"My stakes would be monetary," said the man on the other end of the phone, "paying off more of your debts when you win. Your stakes won't be monetary, but something else instead."

"Uh..." That was something different, thought Nick. If he didn't have to risk any money...he'd just been thinking he'd pay any price for a clean slate. This way he might not even have to pay any price at all, technically!

"So, are you interested? I can come by your house to explain more before you agree to the game."

"Yes. I'm interested."

"Good." There was an audible click from the other end of the line as the phone hung up, and not two seconds later Nick's doorbell rang, making him nearly jump.

He went to the door carefully, avoiding the windows, and checking the peephole in the door to see who it was. It was a tall, well-groomed and generally rich-looking man in a black-and-white suit, who seemed to turn his head toward the peephole as soon as Nick looked in it and nod in what appeared to be intended as a reassuring manner. "It's only me," he called through the door, and Nick recognized the voice from the phone. He opened the door.

"It's good to meet you in person," said the stranger with a calm smile, offering a hand to shake. "You can call me 'Y'."

Nick shook his hand. "Uh, I guess you already know my name," he said, to which Y nodded.

"May I come in?"

"Yeah, sure." Y walked inside and strode over to the kitchen table, Nick following behind with some confusion.

He stopped just next to the table. "So.." said Nick, not sure how to react to much of anything that had happened thus far.

"Right. The game. As I said, my stakes will be monetary. Your stakes would be your form."

"My..form," repeated Nick, clearly not understanding.

Y nodded. "Whenever you lose, you cede some control of your appearance to me, which I may use to alter your form as I like. But I will not render you helpless, unable to speak, or unable to continue playing. Does that sound agreeable?"

"Well..I guess so. I'm not sure I understand how you're gonna do that, though.."

"Don't worry about it," said Y. "It'll become clear once we're playing. May we use this table?" He tapped the kitchen table.

"Oh, sure."

They sat down on opposite sides of the table, and the strange man tapped the table a couple more times. This time, a bunch of small circular pieces wood rose up out of the table and separated from it, glowing slightly before turning red. There were fifteen of them total, arranged evenly in a wide 5x3 rectangle. Seeing this happen, it dawned on Nick that he was either dreaming, hallucinating, or dealing with something very supernatural. Well, there had been some clues that something supernatural was going on before now, but this clinched it.

"The game's rules are fairly simple," said Y. "You see there are three rows and five columns. Each game the player take turns selecting a row or column and, beginning at the left or bottom end, take as many as he wants from that row or column, but it must be at least one. The winner is the player who takes the last one."

Nick nodded, understanding. He'd never seen this game before, but it seemed simple enough.

"We'll take turns going first. I'll go first this game, to show you how it works." Y made a gesture, and the entire row closest to him swept along the table to the edge in front of him. "The winner can choose to double the stakes, in which case I'll add another row and column, or cash in, in which case I'll reset things to how they were at the start of this game. If you want to stop at any time after one of us cashes in, we'll stop. Is that clear?"

"Yeah." Nick took his turn, removing all of a random column.

Before moving again, Y said, "The starting stakes..ten thousand dollars on my end, a small change on yours. Agreeable?"

"Yes."

Soon there were only three of the wooden tokens left on the table, none of them in the same row or column, and it was Y's turn. As he made a small motion to take just one token, Nick realized he was going to lose this round. Oh well, he thought, he was just learning the game right now. Nick took one token, and Y took the remaining one. "All right," he said, "I'm going to cash in this game." He pointed vaguely at Nick's right eye, and nothing much seemed to happen.

He tilted his head in confusion, but Y produced from under the table (where there definitely hadn't been one before) a small hand mirror and held it up to his face. Nick's right eye had turned a bright yellow! "Oh...okay," said Nick. It was a relatively small change, he thought, probably Y just making sure he understood that giving over control of his form was a real thing and he really was capable of changing things once control had been won.

"Would you like to continue?" said Y, putting the mirror back down (and seemingly out of existence again).

"Yes."

Y won the next two games, doubling the stakes each time and summoning more tokens. But Nick was catching on to how the game was played, the right kind of strategy to take. He was able to demonstrate that he had at least somewhat figured it out when he won that third round, which would earn him forty thousand dollars less debt.

"I want to cash it in," he said. "Pay the mob."

Y nodded, and dismissed the extra tokens back into the table. It was a fairly small dent, but Nick hadn't been willing to take a huge risk yet.

The next game went well, too, and Nick chose to double. There was a tense silence as the game after that played out, but Y eventually one and decided to cash out. He pointed up at Nick's hair, and this time no mirror was necessary to see that it was growing out, some bangs falling before his eyes, some of it framing his face and falling across his shoulders while an even longer lock fell down to stomach level in the back. He took some of it to examine it curiously; it seemed cleaner and shinier than usual, as if it had been very well kept.

"Play again?" said Y, and Nick nodded.

"It's awfully silent," said Y as he played his next round. "Would you mind if I ask you a little about yourself?"

"No, that's fine." He didn't want this strange, supernatural visitor to get bored and leave before at least getting rid of most of the debts, or at least getting rid of the dangerous ones.

This turned out to be perhaps the right decision, as Nick won the next four games, doubling up the first three before cashing in. Y was asking him about his background: Where he'd grown up, what his family had been like, childhood friends. It seemed like he was distracted from playing the game well even though Nick was the one doing a lot of the talking.

That was eighty thousand more dollars of debt, gone. Nick breathed a sigh of relief; at least now the only people after him would use legal means to get their money back. But when Y asked him if he wanted to play again, he nodded, preparing to concentrate again.

Y asked him about his interest, what he liked to do with his free time. Nick mentioned gambling as something he used to do, but had decided not to do anymore. But after that he brought up some things that he had enjoyed when he was younger, before he started gambling. They still sounded fun, to be honest. He won and doubled up twice more, but this time Y got him on the third round.

"I'm cashing in," said Y. "Well...brace yourself, I suppose." Nick nodded, and Y made a sweeping up-and-down gesture toward him. Suddenly Nick was shrinking, the room and the table and Y all seeming to grow up around him. He didn't merely grow shorter, but slimmer as well; he watched his hands become smaller with thinner, more delicate-looking fingers. As his clothes felt increasingly loose on him, a tingling spread from his face downward, all the way to his toes, and as he watched his arms became smoother, softer and paler as well as thinner and shorter, rapidly losing their hair. He gently felt of his face as the shrinking finally tapered off and found it just as smooth, and then looked up to see that his eye level, even sitting down, was now just at Y's chest.

Y asked Nick more questions, and they kept talking. Y was strangely easy to talk to, for being some kind of super-powerful magical being, and Nick found himself opening up about some of his more private feelings. They went back and forth for ten whole rounds, each time the winner doubling the stakes, until the tokens at the start of that last round nearly covered the entire table between them. When Nick won that round, he knew better than to double again, and chose to cash in instead. It was over five million dollars he didn't owe anymore, and he felt like a massive weight had been removed from his shoulders.

He didn't even mind that he lost the next couple of rounds, his opponent doubling and cashing in that order. Y waved at him, and he could feel his clothes shrinking, pulling tighter against his body. But it was more than shrinking: His shirt turned bright yellow and lost its sleeves altogether, the collar dipping down a bit, and his pants turned to a softer material, also yellow, and shrank up to his thighs, exposing most of his legs. The exposed legs, thanks to the earlier changes, looked rather girly overall, slim, clean-shaven and smooth. But it didn't really bother Nick; he could just change into other clothes later.

They talked like old friends over the next couple of rounds, which Nick won and doubled on. Winning the the third round, he knocked out a little more of his debt. It was more than two-thirds gone, by his estimation, and he just needed to get a few more good rounds in to win.

The subject of Nick exhausted, Y began to talk about himself. He was from a magical race whose name was unpronounceable in human language, as was his own actual name, which was why he called himself 'Y' instead. They had a lot of power, but obeyed strict rules, requiring permission from a conscious being to interfere with that being or their possessions in any way. Nick was fascinated, having never encountered anything remotely magical before, and started asking questions about what other kinds of magic was around. He was the distracted one now, losing three games in a row before Y called attention to it by cashing out again.

"Your form is almost out of changes to make," said Y, gently moving his hands together as if in a slow-motion clap before lowering them. Nick's shirt clung tight against his waist as it slimmed down still more, curving inward; its hem merged with the top of what had been pants and the spread out as his hips pushed out, forcing him to shift around to get back to a comfortable seat. Underneath, his underwear turned softer and lost its leggings entirely, pulling a bit snugly between his legs but otherwise seeming to grow with his hips. Before long the outerwear had changed into a single piece with a skirt at the bottom, and then a little red ribbon grew out of it in the middle of his chest.

"Are.." Nick paused, having not expected to find his voice nearly an octave higher, almost like a young boy's. "Are you..changing me into a woman?"

Y nodded. "To tell the truth, I observed you some and found your spirit captivating...but, to be honest, your body less so. My people are somewhat shallow and petty in ways you might not expect."

"You're...interested in me, like, romantically?"

"Well...yes. But I would never, rules or not, force you into a relationship."

Nick thought about that as he played the next several rounds carefully, asking a few more questions about magic, about Y's race or Y himself, but a little less frequently. Y seemed like an awfully nice guy, and he was interesting and a little funny. But of course, since he was still male right now, Nick didn't exactly feel attracted to him the same way.

His careful playing, as well as his experience from the earlier games, payed off, as Nick was able to double six times before finally losing. But Y, with an unusually kind look in his eyes, doubled when he won the next two rounds, allowing Nick to cash out when he finally won the ninth one.

"Well, that's almost all of your debt," said Y. "Are you sure you want to keep going?"

"Yes," said Nick, nodding. "I feel like going around like this would be a little awkward anyway. Besides, I'm still in debt. I want an entirely clean slate."

"All right." Y nodded.

Nick won, doubled, and lost. Y cashed out, making a small upward sweeping motion, and he found his underwear pulling tighter between his legs again. Only, it was accompanied by an odd inward slipping sensation down there, and a movement deep inside the pit of Nick's stomach. He squirmed slightly in his seat in discomfort before the feelings slowly faded off, a pair of soft panties now pulled tight against an unfamiliar flatness between her legs. She felt a heat in her cheeks as she looked back up at Y now: He was rather handsome, and now that she was actually a girl the missing physical attraction from before was rushing in.

"U-um..one more!" she said, frowning and trying to look intense, but her face had lost the ability to look anything but cute several rounds ago. It was even worse now since her voice had become high and feminine, a perfect match for that face.

She crossed her legs and leaned forward in her seat, frowning more as it became clear she wasn't going to win this round, either. But Y doubled again and she got another chance. She lost again, but he gave her another chance. What was happening? Surely there was so little left to change about her now that he could cash in and it would be totally over. Was he...being nice to her? Nick felt even more flustered, thinking about that, and had a hard time playing the third round.

But Y doubled again, and there was a fourth round. Before making her move, Nick took a deep breath to calm herself. Come on, she thought, this would be enough money to be out of debt and even have a little extra! She played carefully, one move after another, and before long it was her round in a position she knew she could win. So she took the one token she needed to, and Y nodded, smiling, as he took his. With one last move, Nick won, and sighed in relief.

"I'm cashing out," she said, grinning, and Y nodded.

"Well," he said somewhat wistfully, "Your debts are all paid, so I suppose our game is over." He made a small motion, and the tokens sank back into the table they had come from.

"You kinda, let me win though," she said, slowly, carefully standing up and standing awkwardly, unused to the balance of her widened hips. "D-do you really...like me as much as you said?"

"Of course," Y nodded, appearing next to her standing up and helping her get steady, taking her small hand in one of his own.

"Y-you know.." Nick blushed, looking up at him. He was so tall, and handsome, and nice...! "I, don't think I would mind if you just did whatever you were gonna do if you won again."

"Are you certain?" said Y.

"Y..yes," she said, nodding. "I mean, I do like what you've done with it so far. So..you can have the last of the control over my form."

"All right," he said, and gently placed a hand on her chest for a couple of seconds before letting go.

Her chest tingled briefly, and then it pressed forward, two little bumps forming under her dress. "Ahm...mm.." The newly-growing skin was strangely sensitive, and Nick felt a pleasant feeling between her legs as the bumps brushed forward along the soft material of her dress. She closed her eyes, smiling a bit at the feeling. "Mmnh...!" Her legs started to feel weak, and she stumbled backwards out of Y's attempt to steady her, finally falling back toward the ground...but instead, she found herself falling onto cloth, with something soft and springy behind it.

"Hhh, hh.." Nick panted slowly as her chest's growth finally slowed down, leaving her with a nice pair of breasts to match her small, girlish figure. She slowly opened her eyes to find herself looking up at a ceiling from what a quick look left and right revealed to be a bed with a pink floral bedspread on it; Y was standing at the foot, looking down at her with a quiet smile.

"H-hey," she said, "I guess I can admit now that I actually really like you too..." 

She slowly sat up and scooted herself up to the foot of the bed, her feet hanging down but too short to actually touch the floor. "I, uh...what do you think I should call myself now?"

"I'm fond of 'Nima'," said Y, "but your name is your decision. It doesn't really matter that much to me."

"Nima," She nodded, "...Yeah, I like that. D-do you want to, like...go steady for a while?" she said, her blush brightening.

"Certainly." Y sat down next to her and put his arm around her waist, gently teasing her hair a bit before gently turning her head to him. "Would you...be agreeable to a kiss?" he said, betraying his first bit of shyness since he had first appeared. His face was even a little bit red.

Nima threw herself onto him, wrapping her arms around him as he fell onto his back, and pressed her lips against him, beginning the first of a lifetime's worth of long, passionate kisses. Actually, more than that, since Y's race didn't grow old with age and he now had permission to change her form nearly any way he pleased...