The Curse

[Vibro repairman]

Jake slammed his bedroom door shut behind him and shivered, his heart racing. He had never felt so terrified in his life. Sure, he knew he probably shouldn't have asked such a jerk, he had been in a foul mood, and the woman didn't deserve to be the target of his outburst. He'd used words he would normally never even consider speaking, he had been raised better than that.

Yet his anger had overclouded his more usual polite self, a fact that he now did feel ashamed of. His lengthy argument with Lindsy had been the reason for his mood, before he ran into the woman on the street who he had so rudely spoken to for her bumping into him, when it was really his fault. He would have apologised to her, he told himself, he would have.

But for the look she had given him.

He could swear that her eyes had glowed, and she had retorted in a language he didn't know that seemed almost sibilant. She had thrust her finger towards him, and something struck a chord of fear and he had simply fled. Even now, in the safety of his family's own home, in the bedroom he had slept soundly for the majority of his life, he still felt panicky.

He didn't know why the thought had came into his head, but it lingered on. She cursed me. She was a witch. I've been cursed. That woman was a witch and she put a curse on me. For some reason it seemed... the sensible thing to think.

Sitting down on his beanbag in one corner of his room, Jake slowly began to calm down. Putting his head back, berrating his foolishness, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

It was only a half hour or so later when Jake awoke, his head feeling a little blurry, but better. He chided himself. A witch. Yeh, stupid. He had almost pushed the idea out of his head when he glanced downwards and noticed... the Jake he knew was not there. The Jake he knew certainly didn't have a long pair of smooth, toned legs, or painted nails, or long dark hair... and all the other changes his mind struggled to comprehend all at once.

A further somewhat hurried physical self-inspection sunk the change home. He'd been turned into a girl. Even his clothes had 'transformed.' A short skirt and tank top, underwear, trainer-socks and pink trainers. He stared at his face, her face, in the bedroom wardrobe mirror, still in shock. Oh my god, what am I going to do? he thought. Even the voice in his thoughts sounded feminine.

Jake felt the girl in the mirror was very pretty... which was silly. It was him. Her. He was her. What am I thinking now, that I'd like to fuck myself? Shit. Does that make me a lesbian or what?

Mind racing, Jake decided on a couple of things, at least to begin with. First, he couldn't really call himself Jake anymore, at least openly. As absurd as the situation was he had to deal with it. Jane? Jackie? No, too derivitive. Too derivitive! Listen to yourself! Sarah? Karen? Rachel? Hmm, Sarah. That'll do.

Secondly, he had to find some way to reverse this. Find the 'witch' who had cursed him seemed the best bet he could think of.

The thoughts were interrupted by the ring tone of his mobile. A text message from Lindsy. WE NEED 2 TALK CALL ME SOZ 4 B4 LUV U. Great, just what I need. How am I going to sort this out?

 

[Vibro repairman]

Jake closed his small mobile phone and slipped it back into its case, throwing it onto the bed. The problems kept mounting in his head, and they were beginning to give him a thumping headache. Leaving his room, he took a couple of aspirins from the bathroom cabinet. As he left the bathroom, he looked again at his bedroom door, where a sign reading 'Jake' was prominently placed. Shit, theres my parents and sis too... how can I explain it to them? CAN I explain it to them? Will I have to find somewhere else to sleep? Glad its just me at home at the moment, guess I better get out of here.

He took his credit card and the few notes he had out of his wallet, putting the rest into his bedroom chest drawer, and headed downstairs. A quick glass of water for the aspirin and he was out the front door, the catch dropping as it closed behind him. Or behind 'Sarah.'

So, 'Sarah' drew some cash from a supermarket bank machine. Jake figured he - she - would need some. If he couldn't solve the dilemma he found himself in pretty quickly then there were the additional problems of getting work and a place to stay.

He also only had one set of clothes, well, one set that fitted his new current self. So many things to consider. Didn't mom mention that Judy was advertising a room to rent? he remembered. Judy was a friend of his mothers, and only lived a couple of streets away. A look in the local newsagents window confirmed it. Well, that should solve that problem, I hope.

His next stop was the street where he bumped into the woman, the witch, who had cursed him. He stood at the spot, looking around all the houses and wondering if she lived in one of those. She had a shopping bag from the local supermarket. He looked at his watch, which previously was a nice digital but now a slim and somewhat gaudy looking dial on a bracelet. Two hours already like this he thought. The best chance of meeting up with the witch again seemed to be between here and the supermarket, If she shopped there regularly, and that wouldn't likely be today.