Stocking Stuffers

by Sara James

  Turning out the lights and getting into bed, he did his best to relax. Sleep was a long time coming. No matter what position he tried reminded him of his transformation. On his back, his butt’s extra volume lifted his hips higher than he was used to. On either side, the curve of his hip rose into the air like a small hill. And his front? Forget it. The absence of of even mild pressure or discomfort at his groin was bad enough, but the knowledge that his buttocks rose above the rest of his body kept his mind too preoccupied to relax and drift off to sleep.

  When he did finally exhaust himself by tossing and turning, his only dream was of the woman at the mall. She was still her from the waist up, but she had stolen his legs, jeans and all. Like her, he was still himself from the waist up. Below that, he had a woman’s legs clad in the elf leggings below a holiday miniskirt pushed out by lacy petticoats in red and green holiday colors. He chased her through a faceless crowd, mincing along in high heels with jingle bells sewn onto the toes, unable to catch up to her. He ran as fast as he could, but the skirt, petticoats, heels and crowd conspired to keep him from catching up to her. She walked and he ran, but he couldn’t get any closer to her than he already was.

  The mall was even more crowded on Sunday than it had been the day before. It was only one day closer to Christmas, but the urgency and volume of shoppers had increased quite a bit. Max felt a little like a sardine in a can, except he was moving. Certainly the commingled smells of sweat and desperation were about as pleasant as the tiny, canned fish would have been.

  Holly was not at Santa’s Village in the center of the mall. The workers there didn’t even recognize her description, not that he had much of one to give them. He had a vague memory of her face framed by shoulder length blonde hair and the elf costume. It really wasn’t much to go on. One of the workers asked if he wanted to sit on Santa’s lap and ask for the phone number of the woman he was looking for as his Christmas present. The other young women all thought it was hilarious. Max could only work up a thin smile. If he couldn’t find Holly, he was stuck as a woman from the waist down. That was an outcome he didn’t want to consider.

  He wandered the crowd, hoping to run into her. As his search drew out, he found himself plagued by worry, hoping no one noticed how female his lower body now looked. He’d had to opt for his loosest pair of dress slacks to help hide his transformed figure. No one seemed to notice or care. Of course, wearing his shirt untucked and an overcoat might have had something to do with that. Even so, he kept glancing over his shoulder, haunted by the thought that some man might confuse him for a woman and start eyeballing his rear end.

  By mid-afternoon, he was no closer to finding her. She might as well have been a figment of his imagination. He was tired of walking. He was tired of talking to clerks and mall employees, hoping for any hint of who “Holly Day” really was.

  His empty stomach rumbled, telling him he was overdue for a meal. He picked a sit down restaurant near the food court that let him spread out at a booth and take off his coat. The table hid his lower body, but taking off his coat and sitting down gave him a few nervous moments. Bending at the waist to sit made his rear end feel like it was projecting out behind him several feet, which of course it wasn’t. It still felt huge, though. Once sitting, he glanced around, looking for any stares, whispers or general reaction. There was none.

  The waitress showed up to take his drink order before he could look at the whole menu. He ordered his usual cola as he considered his appetizer options. By the time he looked up at her she was already walking away to put in his drink order. He did his best to not glare at her retreating back. Her abrupt arrival and departure made him feel rushed. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that it was a busy day on the weekend before a major holiday. She was just being efficient. His only other thought was to notice that the white dress shirt and black slacks of her uniform weren’t very flattering. Overall, she was pretty, but not memorable. At least not from behind.

  His opinion changed when she showed up a few minutes later to drop off his soda. Her large breasts dominated her tiny torso. She knew it, too. Her snug blouse was unbuttoned just enough to expose her deep cleavage along with a hint of her lacy bra. She leaned forward more that was necessary to put the soda on the table, putting her cleavage in his direct line of sight.

  He did his best not to stare at her breasts too much as he ordered, again when she dropped off his meal, and again each time she checked on him right up until he paid the check. Signing off on the credit card slip, he left her a fifty percent tip. He tried to tell himself it was because of his small bill, the holiday season and her excellent service, but even he knew that what he was really tipping her for was her display of cleavage.

  It was as he was leaving the restaurant that he saw Holly again. She was standing against the wall across from the entrance to the restaurant as he emerged. Her hands were on her hips, shaking her head at him with a look of distaste. She rolled her eyes and turned to walk away.

  By the time he fought the crowd to get to the other side, she was gone. In her place was another present, identical to the first, sitting on the floor in the exact spot where she had been standing. He craned his neck to look for her among the crowd. Her costume should have stood out. Instead, all he saw was people staring at him as they passed. Holly was nowhere to be seen. He cursed under his breath, trying to decide which direction would give him the best chance of catching up with her.

  Walking away, he left the gaily wrapped package on the floor of the mall.

  Several more hours of searching and asking didn’t bring him any closer to finding Holly. All he had to show for his trip to the mall was a restaurant payment on his credit card and sore feet. His tiny, delicate, sore feet. He kicked off his shoes as he entered his apartment. He’d had to stuff socks into the tips to get them to fit. It made him curse. While hiding his rear end had been his priority that morning, the ill fitting shoes had ended up being the larger burden. More than once he’d come close to breaking down and buying a pair of shoes that fit, but that seemed like admitting defeat. He wasn’t about to do that. He was one-hundred percent committed to getting back to normal as soon as possible.

  Annoyed by the setback at the mall, he walked into the living room to sit down and relax. That was when he found the present he’d abandoned at the mall under his Christmas tree. It was right next to the one he’d already opened.

  Max stood in his living room, jaw slack as the minutes slid by unnoticed.

  Damn her, he thought. Damn her and her sexy elf ass. He took his wool overcoat off and deposited it on the couch. He ran his hands over his own hips and rear. They felt huge. The untucked shirt and his own paunchy gut helped hide it, but it was still really big. He was glad it wasn’t summer. The cold weather let him hide his malformed body under layers of clothing. With a frown, he squeezed his backside with gentle care. If it wasn’t his, he might have admired its size and shape.

  Damn her, he thought for the third time.

  The house phone rang before he could decide what to do about the new present. Glaring at the festive wrapping paper, he moved to the end table where the cordless handset sat on the base. “I’ll get to you in a minute,” he told the package. He answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Honey,” his mother’s voice cooed. “Why haven’t you called me? I need to know what your plans are for Christmas.”

  He’d just called her on Friday night, a little less than two days before. He rolled his eyes and sat on the floor in front of the tree. He felt himself blush. It was weird to hear his mom’s voice while he was female from the waist down. It seemed like he was hiding it from her. Which he was, but still, it wasn’t the kind of thing he thought she would believe without proof, let alone sympathize with. It made him feel like a teenager again, telling her he was doing homework when he was really looking at magazines borrowed from his father’s pornography collection.

  He braced himself to answer her question. “Hi, Mom. I thought we settled this on Fri
day. I’m driving home Tuesday night after work. I’m only spending the one night because I have to work on Thursday.”

  She sighed as if he had told her he was on drugs or in jail. “Why can’t you stay Christmas night? You know how I worry when you drive tired.”

  Getting up early and driving home at the crack of dawn seemed more dangerous to him. There was no point arguing that with her though. “Are Katie and Emily there yet?”

  His sisters were a safe topic that let his mother prattle on for almost half an hour about Max’s two younger sisters, their husbands, their kids and every plan, achievement or activity that involved them. All he had to do was grunt occasionally to spur her on. He didn’t even mind when she asked him when he was going to settle down and find someone. As long as she didn’t try to get him to call in sick on Thursday and Friday to stay at the house with the rest of the family.

  The conversation eventually wound down and they said their goodbyes. Nothing had been resolved. Not his lack of a romantic life. Not the departure time for his visit. Not the unwelcome present that had appeared beneath his Christmas tree.

  He shut the phone off and set it aside with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered to himself. He pulled the present into his lap and opened it in spite of his better judgment. If it could follow him home, it could probably follow him to to the bathroom or the kitchen. It might even follow him to work or his parent’s house, either of which would be a disaster. Better to open it and get it over with. Maybe it would be the high heels, short skirt or petticoats he’d dreamed of wearing the night before. Or maybe all three.

  After tearing off the paper and opening the box, he found another card on top of the tissue paper inside. This card showed a woman’s exposed cleavage, framed by the white fur and red velvet of a tight fitting Santa-style dress top. The interior of the card had another handwritten message in pink glitter-ink. The looping, feminine script read:

  You must be quite dense

  Or semi-illiterate.

  I tried to explain

  But I don’t think you’re getting it.

  The longer you’re bad

  The more girly you’ll get.

  As proof this is true:

  This big bra? Perfect fit!

  - Holly Day, Elf

  Max didn’t wait for anything to happen. He flipped the box off his lap, leapt to his feet and ran for the bedroom. He didn’t make it more than two steps before a white arrow of twinkling, luminescent glitter speared into him from behind.

  “Shit!” he swore, even as his shirt tented outwards, propelled by two mounds with a very familiar shape. He’d been admiring breasts since puberty. He knew them when he saw them, even under multiple layers of clothing.

  As those mounds continued to grow, he began to wonder when and if they would stop. After a full minute, they seemed to reach their final size. He ended up with larger than average size breasts, but not ridiculously so. At least he hoped not. It was hard to tell just by looking down at them how big they really were. They seemed huge, but that was probably just because he wasn’t used to having any at all.

  Feeling his sides under each arm, he could feel the distinctive band of a bra under his clothes. “God damn it,” he swore again, then thought better of it with the holiday that was approaching. “Sorry,” he told the ceiling. “God bless you, baby Jesus. Happy almost-birthday.”

  He took off the button-down shirt he’d worn to the mall. Without going any further, he could see how dramatic the change in this torso really was. The loose fabric of the shirt had been hiding more than just his hips and rear, softening the way his new curves stood out from his chest. By contrast, the snug fit of his t-shirt’s thin fabric was unable to hide the straps and edges of the bra he was wearing, let alone the bulk of two large breasts.

  He hesitated to do more, but he had no intention of wearing a bra voluntarily. Taking off the t-shirt, his chest was revealed as a mix of male and female. While he did have breasts, his chest hair hadn’t disappeared, thin though it was. With breasts and his flabby gut, he looked like he might be pregnant. Only his flat, feminine lower abdomen below his more expansive belly ruined the impression of impending maternity. His appearance was more like a severe case of muffin top, only without the tight pants to cause it.

  Taking the bra off did nothing to change the balance of that mix. Hair surrounded his areolae like twin, furry crowns. His broad torso and muscular arms made it seem more like he had extreme man-boobs. Only the wide areolae and the thick, protuberant nipples at their center made them seem feminine. After some more consideration of their appearance, he decided their large size and teardrop shape helped too, but without the support of the bra, Max was confident an ace bandage would be able to hide their bulk beneath his clothes. They didn’t stick out anywhere near as far without the bra to cup them from beneath and lift them up.

  The bra itself was a white lace that was patterned like snowflakes falling. Out of curiosity, he checked the tag. It was a 40C. He snorted. If it hadn’t been intended to fit him, he would have been disappointed with the cup size. A bra with a C cup was OK for a woman, but far from being ideal. Ever since those long-ago nights during high school spent secretly looking at centerfolds, he’d thought that DD cups were the best size for a woman to be. And a 40? Compared to the measurements of the centerfolds he’d admired, that seemed far too large, like something a centerfold’s heavyset grandmother might wear.

  Thinking about it some more, he decided he was glad the bra size was less than ideal. What was sexy for a woman would be grotesquely large on him. The smaller the cup size, the less he had to hide.

  Like he had with the stockings, he put the feminine garment in its box under the tree along with the card that had come with it. He had a few hours before bedtime. It was time to start planning what he was going to wear to work to conceal the changes to his body. If he didn’t, he was going to have to answer some really uncomfortable questions.

  “Nice suit, Max.”

  He felt stupid wearing a suit to work instead of his usual khakis and dress shirt, but it was the best solution he had managed to come up with. The jacket was loose enough to hide the changes to his body from curious eyes. The length of the jacket hid his wider hips as well as his expanded chest size. That was a near thing, though. Even with his breasts strapped down as they were, his dress shirts strained the upper buttons if he took a deep breath. His tie helped hide the gaping between the buttons.

  “Thanks, Dan,” he answered with a smile as he walked to the break room, doing his best to not blurt out an apologetic explanation. Every time he got a compliment or a comment, he had the urge to launch into the careful lie he had prepared in case anyone asked him about his clothing choice. So far, it hadn’t been necessary. He managed to confine his reaction this time to a forward adjustment of his jacket’s lapels to better hide the strained fabric of his shirt. He had left the front unbuttoned. His thinking was that the jacket would be more effective at hiding the changes to his chest if the lapels were loose and not snug against his body.

  It was his last break of the day. He’d gotten through six hours of work and his lunch hour without being found out. Two more hours to go. He smiled to himself as he poured himself his last cup of coffee for the day. He just had to add cream and sugar, get back to his desk and he would be home free. His overcoat would be more than enough to conceal his changes during the short trip from his desk to his car.

  Just as he finished pouring coffee for himself, Susan walked into the break room. She was wearing a knee-length skirt made of black wool that hugged her full hips. With her cream colored blouse, black pantyhose and high heels, she was dressed a lot more formally than the casual office attire she normally wore. “Hey, Max.” She eyed him over from head to toe. “Don’t you look extra sharp today.” She walked to the sink to rinse out her coffee mug.

  “Thanks. You too.” He rushed to get the cream and sugar added. It made him spill a little on the counter. He sucked air in between h
is teeth, careful to keep his suit and tie out of the mess. “Nuts.”

  Susan pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser over the sink and handed it to him. “Here,” she offered, still eying him over. “My husband’s taking me out for dinner right after work. How about you? Why are you so dressed up?”

  For the first time that day, he had a chance to break out the lie he had rehearsed. He cleaned the counter as he explained, trying to make the words seem casual. “I’m going to that photo place at the mall to get my picture taken. They do prints while you wait. It’s for my mother’s Christmas present. I already bought a special frame to put the print in.”

  “Aww,” she cooed. “That’s adorable. She’ll love it.” Having finished washing out her mug, she pulled out a paper towel for her own use. In doing so, she bumped a rack filled with packets of tea and cocoa over that was near the dispenser, causing it to tip over. Most of the packets stayed on the counter, but a handful fell to the floor. “Ooops. My turn to make a mess.” Bending at the knees instead of the waist, she lowered herself to pick the packets off of the floor where they had fallen. With her high heels and the tight fit of her narrow skirt, she was forced to move with care to maintain her balance as she crouched down.

  She had her back to Max as she picked up the packets. He found that his eyes were drawn to her body. While her pose was quite demure, it did accentuate her feminine shape. The black wool of her skirt was stretched tight over her wide rear end as she picked up the packets one by one with her long nails painted in a pale pink nail polish. The iridescent fabric of her cream colored blouse hung loose on her upper body, gliding over her skin, revealing rather than concealing how narrow her torso and shoulder blades were in contrast to her full hips.