by Sara James
That was when Max’s supervisor came through, announcing that the manager had an announcement. Everyone was supposed to go to the front of the office.
It was a disaster. The last thing Max wanted to do was walk around and put himself on display! If anyone noticed his body, he was going to have a hard time explaining away his large backside. He stalled, waiting for everyone else to go first. If he could stand at the back of the main group, maybe no one would notice anything different about him.
Up front, everyone bantered and speculated about what the announcement was. Max just focused on finding a spot behind everyone else that let him keep his back to a cubicle wall. Once the meeting broke up, he could stand there for a minute or two. That might be enough to prevent anyone from noticing his changes. Nervous to be so exposed, he pulled at the lower edge of his sweater, willing it to be longer to cover more of his bottom.
Jenna appeared at his side. She was out of breath and still wearing her coat. “Hey, Max. What’s going on?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“Announcement of some kind,” he told her, more worried about concealing his body from his coworkers than in what the manager was going to tell them.
“Did anyone ask about me?” she probed. Her eyes took him in from head to foot as she explained why she was late. “I got stuck in traffic. There was an accident.”
“No one asked about you.” He kept his eyes facing forward, telling himself her appraisal of him was just normal female interest in what he was wearing. She probably thought it wasn’t flattering, which was the whole point. Flattering clothes would reveal too much. “I think I overheard Dan telling Marissa about the accident. He got stuck in traffic too. You should be fine.”
That was all the time they had to talk. The manager clapped his hands and raised his voice to get everyone’s attention. “OK, folks, I’m going to keep this simple. Our owner, Mr. Morgan, wanted to do something nice for us. As we speak, a nice brunch is being set up for us in the break room. Please help yourself to a plate of food before going back to your desk.” The was a murmur of approval and even some scattered applause. “He also wanted all of us to get a head start on the holiday, so we’re only going to be working a half-day today. The phones close at noon.” That resulted in outright cheering. “We still have to answer the phones until then,” he reminded them, shouting over the uproar. “I think we all know that it’s going to be slow, so enjoy your food, enjoy the extra time off and I’ll see you all on Thursday.”
Some people lingered to ask questions about the loss of wages for the afternoon, but the manager assured them the owner would be paying for the full day. That made everyone happy and things broke up quickly.
Jenna lingered at his side when he didn’t head for the break room with the others. He wished she’d go get a plate of food so he could use the extra privacy of the empty office to return to his desk without being seen.
“Aren’t you going to get a plate of food?” she asked him when it became obvious he wasn’t just waiting for other people to go first.
“I’m still full from breakfast,” he deferred. “I’ll go on my break.”
Still standing at his side, she very deliberately leaned back and looked down at his rear end. “Diet, huh?”
He could feel his cheeks blushing bright red. He wished he had his normal coating of stubble to help hide it. His abnormally smooth facial skin was yet another thing he couldn’t hide. That made him even more self-conscious. “No, I’m just not hungry.”
“OK,” she agreed, but it was obvious from the high pitch of her voice that she was playing along with him, not buying into his excuse. “I’m going to go get a plate.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Now might be a good time to go back to your desk. No one’s watching.”
Her knowing look was just what he’d been hoping to avoid. He stood frozen while she headed for the break room. Once he was sure she wasn’t going to look back to watch him walk away, he fled back to his desk. He took refuge in the chair as soon as he got there.
He hadn’t been as careful as he’d thought. Were people talking about him already? Were they in the break room, putting food on their plates, laughing about his big butt? His only consolation was that Jenna seemed to think it was because he was getting fat and was dieting to compensate. As embarrassing as that was, it was a whole lot better than the truth.
His lungs couldn’t get enough air. That was partly the fault of the ace bandages. While they only did a so-so job of flattening his breasts, they did an excellent job preventing him from taking more than shallow breaths. The sweater and the towels were making him hot. He’d already begun to sweat. He wiped his forehead and pulled the Santa hat down on his head to make sure it covered his hairline. One of the things he’d noticed in the mirror that morning when getting ready was that his hairline had become lower and more rounded, like he was back in high school. The hat hid it, but he had to remember to keep it pulled down, which only made him hotter.
People began to reappear, going back to their desks to eat. The phones still weren’t ringing. He began to wish they would. If people were calling in, the others would be too busy to spend any time looking at him.
Jenna appeared with a full plate. She set it down while she took off her coat. He glanced at her rear end as she faced away from him. She was wearing jeans for the holiday, which they’d been told they could do. He felt a moment’s bitterness that what looked so good on her was almost identical to his own hidden shape. As he looked at the profile of her full breasts, he wondered what her bra size was. Or if that size was even the right one for her. Maybe like the web sites he had visited the night before claimed, she was one of the majority of women wearing the wrong size bra.
She sat down and logged in to her computer and phone before starting to eat. “I could get you a plate of food,” she offered. “They have fruit and yogurt cups.”
He examined her face. She didn’t seem to be mocking him. “No thanks.”
She ate in silence while he pretended to read the news on his computer. He couldn’t do any more web searches. She might notice what terms he was searching. Besides, “magic sex change” had brought up a number of results that weren’t work appropriate.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she said at last. “It’s not really my business. I just noticed when you took off your coat yesterday morning that you seemed to have put on weight. You seem really self-conscious about it. Nervous, even. I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
She had, though not for the reasons she thought. “No, not at all.”
She began empathize by telling him about how she always put on weight during the holidays. He listened to her with half his attention while worrying who else in the office had noticed but hadn’t said anything, or might be overhearing what she was saying. He was terrified. If people began examining his body for changes, they might notice things he didn’t want them to see and put two and two together. They would probably think he was taking hormones as a prelude to getting a sex change, but that was so close to the truth that the rest didn’t really matter.
He endured the morning. His “weight gain” was the elephant in the room. Jenna had stopped talking about it, but he could feel her eyes on him from time to time, searching for additional changes, real or imagined. She was sympathetic when he skipped his break. The lack of calls was a curse, giving him nothing to think about other than Jenna’s solicitous attention and his predicament. He couldn’t live like this for a whole year. He just couldn’t. If for no other reason, wearing towels for padding and a bulky sweater during the summer months just wasn’t feasible. At some point, he would have to dress more normally and let other people see his body for what it had become.
With a little less than two hours to go before noon, his supervisor Marissa appeared at his desk pushing a cart loaded with presents. “Secret Santa time,” she declared with a smile. “Maybe I should borrow your hat.”
“Uhh,” he droned, caught off guard. He couldn’t think of
a good excuse why she couldn’t.
Lucky for him, she didn’t seem to be serious. “For you, Jenna.” She put a medium size gift bag on Jenna’s desk. “And for Max …” She began to search the cart.
“I didn’t participate.” He hadn’t; it was optional. Besides, he always got a novelty mug. He had enough of those.
Marissa picked up a package wrapped in familiar red and white striped paper. “Someone didn’t get the message on that. This was under the tree with the other presents. Lucky you!”
The last thing Max wanted was whatever was in that package. “Thanks,” he said with a wan grin. “That’s really nice of, um, whoever.” He let Marissa place it on his desk while he kept his distance from it.
Jenna’s eyebrows were furrowed. The candy cane striped wrapping paper was distinctive.
They both waited until Marissa had moved on. Jenna spoke first while Max was still trying to come up with an explanation she would accept. “I’m guessing that’s not from your neighbor.” It wasn’t a question. She raised a single narrow eyebrow, her lips quirked into an almost-smile.
Caught. “No.” He slumped down as much as the thick wrapping of towels would allow.
“So … a secret admirer?”
It was pure speculation on her part. He could have played along with her guess and made something up. He didn’t want to, though. He was too emotionally exhausted to make the situation any more complex than it already was. He might not be able to tell her the whole truth, but he was done lying.
“Not really,” he admitted. “More like a stalker. She doesn’t work here, so I don’t know how she got the present under the tree.” All of which was true enough.
She looked at the package with interest. “What do you think it is?”
Something to make me look even more like a girl, he thought with certainty. “Something embarrassing. Women’s clothing, maybe. Some form of beauty product.” A thought occurred to him. His face was about the only part of him that was still recognizable as his old self. “Makeup, probably.”
Her face screwed up in confusion. “Why?”
“Payback,” he admitted. “To embarrass me. She thinks it’s supposed to teach me a lesson about treating women with more respect.”
He expected her to be shocked, to stick up for him, to reassure him that he already treated women with respect. Instead, she turned her head slightly and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Did you do something to make her think you don’t respect women?”
He was surprised to find himself hurt that she didn’t immediately take his side. Had he done something at work to upset her? If so, he wasn’t sure what. He was no pervert. He didn’t stare the women in the office any more or less than anyone else did. “I guess,” he found himself admitting. “I almost knocked her down at the mall because I was busy looking at a lingerie display.” He swallowed. “I also think she might have caught me looking at some of the young women working in Santa’s Village.” He held up his hands to hold off her response as she crossed her arms. “They were walking right in front of me. Anyone would have looked. You would have looked. Those outfits they wear might not be revealing, but they don’t hide anything either.”
Her crossed arms made her look stern, but her mouth was struggling not to smile. “I know! My daughter, Aimee, wanted to work there because she heard the elves get the mall employee discount at all the stores. I told her no. I wasn’t going to let her be seen in public in one of those costumes they make the girls wear.” She rolled her eyes. “John and I were up there over the weekend.” John was her husband. Most of her family stories involved him, almost always at his expense. “I caught him staring at one of those girls’ rear end. I had to remind him that Aimee had applied for the same job and that the girl was young enough to be his daughter. You should have seen how green he got!” Her laugh was filled with delight at the memory of her husband’s chagrin. “He didn’t even glance in her direction the rest of the time she was in front of us. It serves him right for acting like a dirty old man.”
He smiled for her benefit. Why couldn’t Holly have picked him to torment instead of me? he wondered.
Knowing some of the truth seemed to pique her interest in the present. Or maybe it was just that the phones were so slow there was nothing else to entertain her. “So what did this stalker really give you yesterday?”
In for a penny. “A Christmas corset. Red satin fabric with white fur trim.” He made sure to keep his voice low. “One of the real ones that you can lace up.”
She tried not to laugh and failed. “Oh, Max! That’s hilarious! No wonder you didn’t want to show it to me.” She laughed into her hand, looking around to make sure no one was focused on her. They weren’t. Everyone was caught up in their own side conversations. She bit her lip a little before she asked her next question. “Do you think I can borrow it sometime? I bet John would get a kick out of it.” Her blush advertised the fact that her husband might not be the only one to enjoy having her wear it for him.
He found himself chuckling at the thought of her borrowing lingerie from him before he remembered what that corset had done to his body. What would it do to her? The situation would have been funnier if it wasn’t for the magic involved. He coughed in embarrassment as his amusement over the situation drained out of him. “Sorry, but no. I’m trying to get in touch with her to give it back.”
For a moment, he considered telling Jenna everything. She’d always been open with him, or seemed to be. She’d even been to a psychic fair the year before. Maybe, just maybe, she would believe the whole truth if he told her the details. It would be nice to have someone to share his predicament with. He could really use some insight and sympathy. Or, if he couldn’t undo what had been done from him, someone to provide advice on how to dress and act like a real woman.
But going to a psychic fair and believing in real magic wasn’t the same thing. Not even close. For better or worse, this was his burden alone to bear.
“Do you want me to open it for you?” Her smile said she was only suggesting that to tease him.
“No,” he said with extra emphasis, which made her laugh.
They talked for the rest of the morning. It started with her playful banter, trying to embarrass him by talking about holiday lingerie and how much John enjoyed seeing her in it. After that, it drifted into a more normal conversation about presents and what they both hoped to get for Christmas, which led to their family plans, which led to shared stories of family Christmases past. It didn’t seem like long at all before their half-day was done and they could go home. There were moments when he was even able to forget the present sitting on his desk and the peril it posed to his remaining sense of self.
She matched his pace as he lingered over shutting down. Almost everyone was out of the building by the time they finished. Without him even asking, she turned her back while he stood up and put his overcoat on. He appreciated the gesture. They walked out of the building together, sharing mutual good wishes for a happy holiday.
At last, she pulled out of the parking lot, leaving him alone in his car. The package sat on his lap, unopened. He was glad it hadn’t unwrapped itself while he was still inside.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled off the ribbon and tore open the paper. This box was slightly smaller than the others, but heavier. Lifting the lid off, there was a card on top. It had a picture of a woman with festive makeup, crowned with a wreath. The red of the berries in the wreath matched the bright red of her lipstick. The familiar pink lettering in the card read:
Up until now
You’ve just had a taste
Now try to enjoy
Your new, pretty face.
If you try to object
You’ll sound like a lass.
Your new feminine voice?
Soprano, not bass!
-Holly Day, Elf
Crap! he thought. Face and voice at the same time. He braced himself to be assaulted by glowing flecks of light. Nothing happened. This time,
the magic seemed content to wait.
He set the card aside, looking at the box’s contents. It looked like a complete makeup kit. There was lipstick in multiple shades and types, mascara, eye liner, blush, foundation, creams, powders, application brushes in many sizes and types, bottles of nail polish and much more. It was far more than what was needed for one makeover. There was even a makeup bag big enough to contain it all.
He picked up the card to look at it more closely. It seemed just like the other ones he’d gotten. He picked up a tube of lipstick and stared at it. Why so much makeup? For half a minute, he’d wondered if the gift had been a prank by Jenna. She knew what the wrapping paper looked like, so it was possible. There was no forging the card, though. She didn’t see the one that came with the corset to duplicate the pink glitter ink or the handwriting.
Driving home with the package in the passenger seat was like driving around with a loaded gun. There was no telling what might set it off. Stop lights made him the most nervous. He dreaded the possibility of having nearby drivers see his transformation. With his luck, it would end up as a viral video on the internet. Worse, if it happened while he was driving, he might have several long seconds where he wouldn’t be able to see. That could have a very unhappy ending. The Christmas music on his car radio only set him more on edge. He had to turn it off to focus on his driving, hands clenching the steering wheel.
Pulling up the driveway and parking in the small parking lot behind his apartment building, he had another nervous moment. While the parking lot was free of witnesses, it might not stay that way. He could run into almost anyone on the short walk to the back door of his apartment.
As if that thought had roused the magic from a nap, the package’s contents flashed like a firework exploding in a rainbow of colors, filling his vision with light. It tickled, but he couldn’t laugh. He had no voice. Even his mouth and throat was filled with the tickling. All he could do was wiggle in his seat and wipe at his face, trying to clear away the sparkles of light so he could see.