Heart's Desire

Basically an expanded caption. Just something light I wrote in an effort to get myself back into the habit of writing after a very long creative slump.

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Heart's Desire

The summer of their sophomore year of college, Morgan invited his two roommates along for a vacation down near the sunny coast. Allen was all for it, but Ethan they had to more or less drag along. Yet...Morgan was sure they'd done the right thing when he sneaked a look in his reluctant friend's direction as they got out of the car at the hotel and saw him smiling up at the setting sun.

The first thing they did, of course, was unpack at the hotel. Ethan pretended to sulk in a corner, so Morgan turned his attention to his other roommate..who was busy unpacking a pair of dumbbells. “Dude, what are those doing in your suitcase? This is a vacation, y'know.”

“Well, there's no vacation from bein' buff,” said Al, pumping one of them up and down.

“You coulda at least asked me if it was okay! All that weight's killin' my gas mileage.”

“You tell me how much it costs and I'll pay you back.”

“Okay, fine. Hey, hey egghead!” Morgan stomped over in his general direction. “How much more gas do a hundred pounds of weights waste?”
Ethan glared at him for what felt like a long time. Morgan even started to think he might have crossed the line and made him mad. But then he said, “...What? I thought we were on vacation.” And the whole hotel room burst into laughter.

It was almost noon by the time Morgan woke up the next morning. Ethan, of course, had been up for hours and was on his computer already, while Al was sleeping on top of the covers, still in his clothes from the day before. “Hey!” he yelled, sitting up, and getting both of them to look in his general direction. “What are we doin' still here? Let's go look around town or go to the beach or somethin'!”

Allen yawned loudly, “Yeah, lemme just take a shower real quick..” and lay back in bed.
“I'll give you a shower in bed if that's what you want,” said Morgan, picking up a glass of water menacingly.

“I'm up, I'm up!” While he stumbled his way to the bathroom, Ethan took off his headphones and started looking for interesting places to go.

They wound up mostly driving around town and finding about half of the places the Internet had said existed closed. But they did manage to find a really good place for supper, and on the drive back, Morgan stopped the car in front of something they hadn't seen on the map. “Hey, look, a fair!” he said. “You wanna go to the fair?”
“Sure, whatever,” said Ethan, shrugging. He'd given up on pretending to hate being here by now, and was mostly just along for the ride.

“Yeah, maybe they've got a strength test,” Allen added, flexing.

On their way in, Morgan said, “Hey, you guys wanna go to the beach tomorrow?”

“I guess we might as well,” said Ethan. “Sun'll do me some good, probably.”
“Heck yeah,” said Al, “I've been training my whole life for showin' off on the beach.”
He raised his arms to flex, but Morgan elbowed him in the side. “Hey, leave some of the beach babes for me, alright?”

Near closing time at the fair, they ran into one of those “fortune-teller” games, but not one any of them had exactly seen before. It was called “Heart's Desire”, and rather than claiming to tell a person's future it said it could “read and grant your deepest desires...for a price!” Well, the 'price' was apparently only 25¢, so they decided to give it a go.

Allen went first, inserting his quarter and putting his hand on the little crystal orb thing when it lit up. It glowed and pulsed like a blue lava lamp for a moment, and finally the machine spat out a small ticket and shut down. He pulled out the ticket and looked at it. “..Huh.”
“What?” said Morgan, trying to see it over his shoulder.

“Seems kinda weirdly specific,” said Allen, pulling it out of Morgan's sight in the process of handing it to Ethan.
“It says..'You shall lose your most valued asset, but gain that which it never gave you'. That sounds pretty generic to me.”

“Well, you try it then,” he said, half-shoving Morgan at it.

“Okay, okay, sheesh!”

He put his hand on the orb, and could swear he felt a bit of static or something going through his palms when it glowed. Soon another ticket came out, and he read it aloud immediately: “'You shall find yourself surrounded by immaculate beauty but unable to fully appreciate it.' What does that even mean? Am I gonna go into a coma in an art museum?”

“Well, at least it has some kind of edge to it,” said Ethan. “Most things like this will just give good news or generic advice, these sound more like, I dunno, curses? I'm gonna try.” After handing Allen's ticket back to him, Ethan did the same thing and got his own ticket. He read it to them: “'You shall find it harder to gather your thoughts, but easier to keep going.' I wonder what this means...”

“Well, it's just a carnival game,” said Morgan. “It probably doesn't mean anything.”
“Yeah..” Ethan nodded, but pocketed his ticket and frowned.

Al looked around. “Well, looks like they're closin' down anyway. You wanna head back?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They went to bed a little earlier that night, so Morgan was awake only a couple of hours after sunrise. He sat up and yelled “Beach day!” loud enough to possibly wake up their next-door neighbors, and looked around to see Ethan fully dressed and covering his ears, and Allen putting his pillow over his head. “Aww c'mon, we gotta get out there before all the babes leave.”
“I'm pretty sure the women will still be there this afternoon,” said Ethan dryly.

“Yeah, lemme sleep.”
“There's plenty of time for sleep when we get back home!” Morgan pulled at Al's pillow and wound up in a tug-of-war which he of course lost, but in the process Al pulled himself right off the bed and onto the floor with a loud clunk.

After several seconds, he sat up and shrugged. “Well, guess I'm awake now. Dibs on first shower!”

“Hey!” He got the bathroom door shut and locked before Morgan could reach it.
“Glad I take them at night,” said Ethan.

“Like you'd have a problem anyway, as early as you're always up.”

Allen came out already wearing his trunks, and Morgan decided to follow suit after his own shower. Then he stared at Ethan from just inside their hotel room's door, blocking him from leaving, until he shrugged and went to change himself. So they were all in swim trunks and t-shirts on their way down to breakfast, and went out to the car as soon as they were fed.

They walked out onto a beach devoid of people. “Huh...seems pretty empty,” said Morgan, looking around.
“Uuugh, I told you it was too early,” said Allen.
“No you didn't, you told me 'dibs on first shower'!”

“You know what I—huh?”

Al paused at a lock of hair appearing in front of his eyes, just as his two friends both noticed his hair visibly growing longer. Not just that: Its dark color was lightening, and gaining a bluish tint! “What th..” he started, but then gasped, crossing his arms and shuddering. Suddenly he was starting to shrink, becoming shorter and slimmer all at once. His hair grew out to frame a face that was quickly becoming smaller and rounder; his trunks began to tighten while his shirt split down the middle from the bottom up. Morgan couldn't help but stare in shock as he saw Allen's hard-earned six-pack beginning to fade away, his stomach becoming thinner and flatter by the second, his beefy arms and legs slimming down and steadily losing their tone.

As he changed, Allen made noises: Surprised “Aah”s and “Mmh!”s that were a bit higher in pitch every time one came out. His trunks lost their leggings and became increasingly tight between his legs, showing off a bulge there that was definitely smaller than it should have been, and now became smaller still. He finally stopped getting shorter and thinner once his muscles had completely vanished, along with most of his body and facial hair, and suddenly it occurred to Morgan that his friend was looking...awfully girly now. His head-hair had turned a bright blue color by now, and grown out all the way to his hips..hips that were starting to widen slightly, complementing the inward curve his stomach now had.

Al's shirt had lost its sleeves and most of its collar while Morgan wasn't looking, and now just had a couple of frilly bits of cloth going out from what looked an awful lot like a bra. In fact..he looked down again, and saw that his friend had become completely flat between the legs, the trunks having turned fully into a tight little bikini top that showed off her decidedly female body very well.

The newly-made girl's eyes slowly opened as a flower ornament appeared in her hair, followed by it pulling itself together into a pair of long twintails held together with little ribbons. “I-I..wha..?” she started, her face reddening as she looked up at the two men, and then suddenly burst out into a fit of giggles. Suddenly her chest started to expand forward, pushing and stretching the bikini top as a pair of rapidly-growing bumps. She doubled over in laughter, her slender arms wrapping around herself just under the increasingly large breasts, and then gasped for air as they finally stopped growing, catching her breath as she stood back up, grinning brightly.

Ethan started, “A-Allen..what just—?”

“I get it! Ohmygosh, this feels great!” she said, twirling happily in place and then suddenly tackling Morgan into a hug. He awkwardly returned it, unsure of how to feel about his friend's new breasts pressed up against him. “It's a blessing and a curse!” she said, disengaging.

“What is? What are you talking about?” said Ethan.
“Dude, you just turned into a chick!” added Morgan, helpfully.

“I know I know! But like, see, I stopped being buff and all that stuff, 'cause that's what I valued, but I feel...happy! Like, really great!”

“You mean..you didn't like being strong?” said Ethan, who seemed to have caught on to something Morgan hadn't yet.

“Well, I mean I did, but it was always such hard work, and sometimes I didn't feel like it was getting me anything, or like it was any fun. But now..I feel..” she giggled again. “Oh, wait! So, if my ticket thing came true, does that mean you guys' will too?”

“Ticket thing...like at the fair?” said Morgan. “You think that had something to do with this?”
“I...suppose it makes sense,” said Ethan, putting a hand to his chin. “I mean, it's...like...sort of what his ticket said.” He suddenly looked around at the beach. “Man, it's really pretty here. I kinda wanna just...run around on the sand, or like..play in the water or something...”

Morgan gave Ethan a very confused look; what had just come out of his mouth sounded nothing like himself. “Uh, are you okay?” he said.
“Yeah, I think so, why?” Ethan tilted his head slightly (also a bit uncharacteristic).

“You were sort of talking weird..”

“It's your ticket!” said Allen, suddenly hopping in front of him. “'Cause you're having trouble concentrating, right?”

“I, uh..yeah, like..I mean...” fumbled Ethan, shaking his head uncertainly. “Hey, I feel kinda strange..” He put his hand up to his face and Morgan noticed that he was beginning to get smaller.

“Dude, y-you're shrinking!” he said.

He looked around. “Hey, yeah, l-look at that,” he said nervously, in a slightly higher voice than before. “I feel really strange down in my, uh..” he said a little more quietly, his voice's pitch changed even more. “Um...”

Ethan's trunks shifted almost instantly into a flowery, frilly bikini bottom, showing that what made him male was rapidly disappearing. Then his shirt started pulling tighter against his body as he continued to get smaller, showing his slight gut slowly sucking itself in and his shoulders narrowing. “Am I gonna, like..” he started, sounding like a young boy, “..be a girl...too?” He bent over, looking down at the bikini bottom and the positively tiny bulge within. “Whoa...aaaah...aaaah!” His voice started at the same pitch, then pulled up to about the same range as Allen's, then suddenly went much higher as the bikini visibly flattened between Ethan's legs.

“Ohmygosh, oooh-mygosh!” she said, as her body rapidly changed further to reflect her new sex. Her body hair disappeared, her chest immediately springing forward into a bikini top under her shirt that probably hadn't been there before while her stomach curved inward and her hips and butt pushed their way out. Her hair grew out to her shoulders, not nearly as long as Allen's but enough to frame her suddenly very cute face and make her look very girly; a few little flower hairpins appeared in it as well, which also helped along the impression.

As her breasts pushed out again, growing even bigger than Allen's, Ethan suddenly burst out into her own fit of laughter, but she recovered from it much quicker. “Woo-hoo!” she shouted suddenly, jumping up into the air (which made her new assets bounce around a bit) and waving excitedly. “I feel like I could do anything, like, run a marathon or swim across the whooole ocean! Well, like, maybe not the whole ocean 'cuz that's pretty far, but like, maybe the English channel or something!”

“You're, uh, not upset about suddenly being a chick?” said Morgan, too confused by this whole situation to even be in shock.

“Like, why would I care about that? Besides, I'm kinda good-looking, right?” she said, leaning up at him a bit.
“Um, y-yeah..”

“Soo,” said Allen, “If what that carnival game said about us came true, I guess something might happen to you too?”

“I, hope not?” Morgan realized that the first part already had. Both of his roommates...? Former roommates..? Well, nearby friends at any rate, had suddenly turned into absolutely gorgeous girls. But what did it mean about not being able to fully appreciate it? He looked around apprehensively, worried something terrible was going to happen to him soon. Meanwhile the girls looked at him expectantly, both of them looking less concerned and more just eagerly curious about what would happen next.

And then Morgan started to feel a strange tingling coming across his face. He slowly reached a hand up and felt it, and discovered that his skin there was suddenly soft, silky smooth to the touch, and totally hairless. The tingling started to spread downward. across his neck and shoulders to his arms and torso, and he looked at his arm to see most of its hairs starting to retreat back into his skin, like watching a time-lapse of grass growing in reverse. “Oh..oh no...” he muttered, beginning to suspect that the major theme of his friends' changes was on its way to him.

Indeed, as the tingling spread down through his midsection to his groin and legs, Morgan began to see his friends, and the ground, slowly rising up toward him as he began to lose height. “No..no..!” he said, but heard the slightest change in his voice. His trunks began to pull closer against his body, while his shirt split open down the middle, suddenly turning into a short-sleeved cloth jacket. “I..I wanna stay a guy!” he said, his voice noticeably higher now.

Morgan felt a slight squeezing feeling across his body, especially his arms and legs, as he begin to get thinner; he felt hair tickling the sides of his face as it grew out. “M-make it stop..!” he said, as he felt his trunks pull closer between his legs, and the beginning of a gentle tugging down there. The shorts crawled up his legs a bit, not losing their leggings entirely but becoming considerably shorter, while the jacket pulled closer against his arms and shoulders, shrinking along with him.

“Aww, come on, like, it's not that bad,” said Ethan.
“Yeah, it's kinda nice actually,” added Allen, and Morgan looked at her to find to his shock that the top of her head was now his eye level.

“B-but I, I..!” he protested incoherently, his voice sounding like a little boy trying to imitate his father. He felt the tugging between his legs shift into a kind of inward slipping sensation as the tiny shorts his trunks had turned into became steadily more comfortable between his legs; the squeezing sensation had largely stopped, leaving him very slender and feminine in shape, which only got worse as a slight push from his hips signaled their growth outward, along with the rounding out of his bottom.

He looked at the girls again to find he was now the same height as Allen, but everything was still slowly crawling up around him. “N-no...” a low but decidedly girlish voice came from his lips as he felt the sensation between his legs change again, the thing he'd had there all his life starting to get strangely numb. “No..!” Now he was at Ethan's eye level, and still going down...and the shorts pulled snug against Morgan's now-flat groin...!

“Nooooo!” An unmistakably girly voice yelled from Morgan's mouth as she felt something new in place down there, something that signaled the end of her life as a man. She now saw that she was the shortest of the three girls by at least an inch or so, and suddenly felt very small and impotent. But she was distracted from that by the feeling of something pulling itself close around her neck and back, and cloth lightly touching her nipples. She looked down to find that a bikini top had somehow appeared around her still quite flat chest, just in time to start to feel a resurgence of the earlier tingling across her chest.

Two little bumps formed there under the top as the tingling subsided, and then there was another pushing sensation, much stronger than her hips earlier, as the bumps began to expand outward.

“Nn..aah..” Her chest was suddenly very sensitive, and feeling the new skin rub and press against the bikini top gave her strange, unfamiliar sensations down in her new equipment. “..Mnhh..!” She felt her entire face heat up as she realized just how nice those sensations were. And even though the new top from nowhere was growing itself to fit her each time, her new breasts kept straining against it. She kept making those sounds for a good several seconds as they slowly grew into place, until finally there was one especially hard push, along with a surprised “AAAaah!” from her lips as they settled into their final size.

She looked down at her new body with a scowl, still blushing brightly, and glared at the other two girls, angry at...well, at something, anyway! “Wh-why did we have to go to that fair anyway!” she yelled, “I..I didn't wanna, turn into a girl..!” Seemingly out of nowhere, Morgan was on the verge of tears.

“Aww, I'm sorry..” Allen wrapped her arms around Morgan again, and she automatically returned the hug, leaning her head on the slightly taller girl's shoulder and sobbing slightly. She became even more upset as she realized that she was hugging a very pretty girl now, and didn't feel...anything! Well, sure, she could feel Al's new breasts pressing against her, but it was just...yeah, they were there. This blessing or curse or whatever had taken away Morgan's attraction to girls entirely.

But slowly, she pulled herself out of it, sniffing. “Uh, th-thanks, Ally,” she said, and then paused. “I, I mean..” For some reason she felt like Ally really was her friend's name, even though she knew it was Allen. She turned to the other girl, “E-Ella?” she said, and then realized she'd said the wrong name there too. “What's going on?!”

“Like, I think the magic or whatever is changing more than just our bodies, and minds and stuff,” said Ella.

Morgan wasn't sure what she meant at first, but then she started to remember walking onto this beach as a girl...with Ally and Ella, both also girls, of course. And driving here in the same state, and waking up this morning, and all of yesterday, except for seeing that strange machine at the carnival. She wasn't forgetting what had really happened, but somehow her rapidly-forming memories of the past week...month...year, felt rather real.

There was a dazed look on Ally's face, and Ella was tilting her head nearly to a right angle, suggesting they were experiencing much the same thing. She remembered starting college as a girl, and going through high school...puberty...growing up in general. Before she knew it, Morgan felt as if she'd been female her whole life.

Somehow she felt completely sure that if she went back to the hotel, or called home, or drove back to college, everyone else would remember that new version of events. It was hard to put her finger on the source of that confidence, besides just guessing that it was more weird magic stuff. “Ugh..this is even worse, now I can't even prove I used to be a guy,” she moaned.

“But, like, you don't have to explain what's happened to anyone, either,” said Ella.

“It's okay, we've been through the same thing,” added Ally.

“No you haven't! You two got all, giddy and happy when you turned into girls! I just feel like, like I'm suddenly tiny, and w-weak, and an emotional wreck,” said Morgan, her voice cracking near the end as a new crying fit loomed.

“Hey, hey..” Ally put a hand to her face and wiped a few of her tears off, and somehow this did make her feel a little better. “It'll be okay. We're here for ya anyway. Besides, we're at the beach...maybe we can just have some fun?”
“Yeah, yeah!” said Ella, hopping around again.

Morgan sniffed and managed to calm down. “Yeah, I..I guess,” she said, still upset but at least not feeling like she was about to break out sobbing again. “Uh..”

She paused, looking around and discovering the beach suddenly fully populated, just as much as she'd expected when first walking here. “..Where'd all these people come from?”

“My best guess is, like, more magic stuff,” said Ella quietly. And then, “Hey, let's get a photo!” She pointed to a guy sitting at a booth with a camera, and Morgan realized slightly to her own horror that he was kind of..cute? Which meant she was not only not attracted to girls, but was actually feeling very attracted to boys just now.

No sooner had that revelation hit than the excited girl was grabbing her hand and leading her over, Ally following gracefully after them. Before she knew it, Morgan was stuck in the middle of a girl-sandwich pose, simultaneously blushing at the pleasant feeling she'd gotten between her legs when the photographer had called her and her friends gorgeous and frowning at this overall turn of events.

She thought maybe she could find the fair and the game there again, or some other kind of magic stuff, and turn herself back to normal. Her friends were having fun, but she just wanted to go back to being a guy! But then Ella spotted an ice cream stand and she was being pulled along again. “C'mon, like, I'll buy!” she said, and Morgan slid her hand out of the other girl's grip to just walk there herself.

As the day wore on, Morgan kept thinking about turning back to normal...but less and less frequently as her friends kept finding fun things to do to distract her. She really was having fun before long, and soon she found herself enjoying even the compliments from boys on her newfound figure. By the time they drove back to the hotel (and passed the place where the fair had been, at which there was an office building and no evidence of any fairgrounds whatsoever), she was talking and laughing with her friends as if nothing had even happened that day.

The next morning, a few hours after sunrise, Morgan woke up and stretched, and looked around to find Ella hugging her pillow and Ally face-down under the covers. “Hey, wake up!” she said, and Ally pulled the pillow over her head. So she went and pulled at it to get it off, getting into a tug-of-war. “C'mon, we're only gonna be here the rest of the weeeek!” Soon it ended, with both her and her opponent falling back, her landing on her bed while Ally fell over onto the floor.
Ally tossed the pillow but overshot and hit Ella, who popped up and tossed it so it hit Morgan's back. She slowly glared at both of them while picking up her own pillow. “Oh, it's on!” And then they were suddenly engaged in a pillow fight.

As a boy she'd never really believed this kind of thing happened, but apparently it was a fairly regular part of the three roommates' friendship in this...universe? Version of events? Whatever. At any rate, before long they were all sideways on Morgan's bed in the middle of the room, giggling like crazy.

It was hard to believe she'd ever been mad about turning into a girl; somehow Morgan's “curse” had in the span of a day or so turned into one of the most fun things that had ever happened to her. By the time their vacation was over, the three of them were even better friends than ever, which, to be honest, was Morgan's purpose in taking them along in the first place.