Since Wanda has been unable to deliver more of The Fairy King right now, I took a similar idea and went somewhere else with it. I'm not sure what to do next; if you have any ideas, leave me a comment.

Bobby Lee Meehan knew he could hear puffing and panting that he wasn't making himself but he couldn't see anyone following him up his Private Mountain. It wasn't really private and not much of a mountain, just a rubbly hillside behind his parents' house where he went when he wanted to be alone. He didn't like the idea of someone following him, intruding on his private spaces.

He wondered if it could be his best friend Gomo Vasquez but he knew that the bigger boy had gone into town with his older sister, Lucy. Bobby's parents had told him that he couldn't go, that he spent too much time with Gomo anyway and why didn't he have any other friends? They meant, why didn't he have any white friends but they wouldn't say that. Well, his Mom wouldn't, his Dad sure might. Gomo lived less than a block away, physically but a chasm existed between his blue-collar, immigrant family and the Meehan's affluence and privilege.

Bobby could still hear the panting so he squatted down in the shade of a big rock and waited to see who might be following him. Gomo would surely never make that much noise; his grandmother was an Apache Indian and Gomo actually practiced sneaking up on people. Bobby had been pretend scalped several times and he smiled to think about all the games they had played in the brown hills behind their homes.

He snorted to cover up expressing the emotion he suddenly felt. Gomo had turned fourteen in April but while they would both be in eighth grade this fall, Bobby would only be thirteen, tomorrow, the 20th of July. He wondered if Gomo would buy him a present while he was in town with Lucy. He wondered vaguely if that might be why his parents wouldn't let him go with his friends; some benevolent conspiracy to surprise him. He couldn't work it out though, his Mom would hardly look at the Vazquezes let alone plot a birthday surprise with them.

The puffing and panting had gotten louder, presumably meaning closer but Bobby had a good view of his back trail and could see no one. The spookiness of the heavy breathing suddenly seemed to suck all the heat out of the desert afternoon sunshine. Bobby stood, his back against the rock, his feet digging into the dirt a little for traction in case he needed to run.

"Yer a hard'un to catch up, Robert Meeghan!" said a voice near his kneecap.

Bobby yelped in surprise and had sprinted a good twenty feet up the trail before he realized that he still hadn't seen anyone.

"Och! Blast and damn you for a rabbit and make a stew of yer meat and a pie of yer innards!" said the voice in an oddly accented and strangely cadenced version of English.

Bobby looked back, stepped off the path, tripped over a creosote bush and tangled briefly with the prickly limb of a paloverde before getting turned around for a good view. He still saw no one. "Who is it? Where are you? Why can't I see you?" Bobby screeched, poised to run again.

"Now don't be running off, ye blitherskite! I've had enough trouble catching ye up." Suddenly, a small man stood on the path in the shade of the same rock Bobby had been standing beside. A very small man, he appeared to be less than two feet tall, dressed all in browns, reds and greens. Fierce blond mustachios saved him from looking like a certain cereal mascot but the thought still occurred to Bobby who probably watched too much television.

"Lucky Charms?" breathed the boy in wonderment.

The tiny apparition scowled. "I'm no bloody leprecaun; I'm a self-respecting firbolg and a member of the Seelie Court, never you doubt that!" The little man pulled himself up and managed to look quite fierce.

Bobby swallowed hard. One part of his mind considered sunstroke as a possible explanation while another part wanted to babble incoherently. As a sort of unhappy medium, he managed to stammer, "How do you know my name? And what's a furbog?"

"Firbolg," corrected the little man. "And that's me. One of the Fair Folk whose true name you must not say but you may call me, Cullain Toomey." Then he added, "Not that our acquaintance is going to be long enough for extensive pleasantries." The strange little man gestured at the plants near Bobby's feet which wriggled and extended themselves to wind woody twines about his ankles.

Struggling to move only caused Bobby to trip and sit down heavily in the stony dirt. He opened his mouth to scream but another gesture from Cullain Toomey effectively silenced him. His voice came out in tiny, breathless whispers, "Help! Mom! Daddy! Gomo! Someone!" No one would hear him.

Toomey shook his head. "'Tis a bad business, delivering a curse onto the head of a child but there it is, 'tis why I am here. Don't take on so and 'twill soon be over."

"Curse?" whispered Bobby. He began to cry. Had he tripped and hit his head? Accidentally eaten poisonous plants? Did he actually lie somewhere in the dry landscape out of his head with the brainfever of sunstroke? "Please, go away! Leave me alone."

"Sure and I can't, you see? I've got my duty to the queen. Queen Maeve that is. Your birthday falls on the full moon after Midsummer which was also a full moon this year. It's your birthday by your calendar and his by our moon calendar. You're the 21st inheritor of your family curse, you see?"

"No," wept Bobby. "I don't see. Am I gonna die?" His energy sapped by terror, Bobby lay back among the stickergrass and wept.

Toomey snorted. "What sort of curse just kills its victim? Not a very good curse at all. No, you have to suffer," the boy winced, "and suffer appropriately."

"What?" Bobby managed.

"Almost 400 years ago, your ancestor, one Alasdair Powers, offended the Queen who would have offered him her heart. He spurned her and then he did what ye must never do to one of the Wise Ones."

"What? Is this real?"

"Real as a cockleburr in your hose! He laughed at her. Your ancestor laughed at the queen of the fair folk for offering him her love. So she cursed him. And being an immortal--deathless, cruel and unforgiving--she cursed all his male descendants who share his birthday, too. Which brings us to here and now and me and you."

"Aghh!" Bobby cried out but it was still no use, his voice couldn't have been heard a dozen feet away. "No, please, don't."

"I maent refuse the command of my queen, but don't take it so hard," Toomey said, trying to be a little conciliatory. "Mayhap you'll come to prefer it."

"You--you're not real," Bobby accused. "Curses and fairies and all that, it's not real."

"Smart child," nodded Toomey. "But being unreal is no disadvantage if you can do magic." The little man smiled, touched his nose and pointed at Bobby. "This won't hurt at all," he said. "which considering, is truely amazing." For the boy, everything seemed to go black.

* * *

Bobby woke with a start, the dream had seemed so real. His room seemed strange for a moment with silvery moonlight coming in the big window and competing with the bluish nightlight in his bathroom. The big mirror over his chest of drawers showed a ghostly version of his room but nothing seemed out of place. Bobby got up out of bed and made the short trip to the bathroom, still not sure he was completely awake.

He decided that he should sit down to do his business, thinking that he might be too sleepy to aim well. The flow came in a flooding splash rather than a tinkling stream but he didn't think too much about it. After peeing, he felt damp down there so he took a handful of tissue and patted himself dry before pulling up his underpants and pajama bottoms and going back to bed. The digital clock on the dresser blinked 4:15 at him.

Once in bed and covered with the sheet, he slid a hand into his pants and put two fingers under the end of his penis. He wiggled and stroked for a moment, it felt very good but something didn't seem quite right. Had he always had a groove on the underside of his dick? His finger followed the groove while his mind sleepily puzzled over the anomaly until his fingers found the soft, damp hole right where his balls ought to be.

Bobby felt suddenly wide awake. He knew very well that he had had balls and an ordinary penis yesterday morning. He felt of himself again and his flesh stiffened a bit in response to the repeated probing. But it wasn't anywhere near long enough or big enough--it didn't feel at all right.

His heart hammered in his chest. "No," he whispered. He sat up in bed and flicked on the bedside lamp. He peered into his pajamas and stared at the shrivelled little stub where his dick should be. It couldn't be longer or bigger around than the end of his little finger and it had no hole in the end of it. Surrounding it, mostly below it, wrinkled flesh looked rather like his ball sack should, sparsely covered in pale downy hair. He couldn't really see anything below that, had everything moved further back besides--what else seemed to have happened?

He couldn't find his balls but his fingers did find the damp slit they'd found before. He snatched his hands away. "I've got a pussy?" he asked no one. He pulled his pajamas and underpants off, then the t-shirt, too. He never wore the pajama tops. "Am I really awake?" he wondered.

He turned on a few more lights, then stood on the bed where he could see all of him in the dresser mirror. He'd never seen a girl naked before but he certainly didn't look much like a boy now.

Even her chest had changed, two small cones of soft flesh surrounded her nipples. "Ack!" she squeaked. She felt them, they were very tender and sensitive and seemed to itch a bit. She put her hands behind her back for a moment and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. This couldn't be happening she told herself.

She tried to get a better look at her groin but the mirror had the wrong angle and sat too far away from the bed. Her gyrations would have been funny if anyone had been watching but try as she might, she couldn't see exactly what had been done to her.

Even biting her lip didn't really help and she began to cry. "It's not fair," she wept. "I didn't do anything to any old fairy queen, it's not fair." After sniffling and snuffling a bit, she went to the bathroom to get some tissues. On impulse she turned the light on in there and stared at her reflection. Did her hair look a bit longer? Not much, but maybe. Her face did seem different, less chin and eyebrows, hollower cheeks, fuller lips. "Damnit!" she squeaked then blushed to hear her own cursing.

A draft from the A/C made her nipples crinkle as she plodded back to her room. She rubbed them absently then snatched her hand away because it just felt so weird. "Oh, please," she whimpered. "Change me back, please change me back." But no one answered; the strange little man--in what now looked to be a memory rather than a dream--did not appear. "I don't want to be a girl!" she whimpered.

Then she scampered to the bed and pulled the sheet over here because she heard her mother in the hallway. Maybe she wouldn't open the door. Right.

* * *

Eunice Meehan did not have feelings. She did not suffer from strange premonitions and quiet alarms in the night that woke her with the conviction that something was wrong. She was much too sensible a woman for such odd, spiritual going-on. Nevertheless, she had got up at twenty past four on her son's birthday morning. While she was up, she might as well check on him, right?

When she reached the hallway, a light under the door to her son's room confirmed that he must be awake. And if he was awake this early, something must be wrong. Perhaps she had heard him make a noise and that had wakened her. But none of this women's intuition bullshit.

Her son Bobby had the second master bedroom in the big house. The bedroom suite she shared with her husband Chaz had big double doors at the far end of the upstairs hall. The two other bedrooms upstairs shared a bathroom between them. One she used as a craft room, the other had been filled over the years with assorted unused pieces of furniture. She ignored those doors and strode to the end of the hall and opened Bobby's bedroom without knocking.

It didn't occur to her that maybe she should give the boy a little warning or the expectation of a little privacy.

Bobby lay on his bed with the sheet pulled up to his chin and all the lights in the bedroom and bathroom on. He didn't say anything but just stared at her. She noted the pajamas and underwear on the floor. Oh, my God, she thought, I almost caught him jacking off. It would be funny if it wasn't disgusting. Such a sweet little boy he'd been but now he would begin turning into a big hairy insensitive brute like his father.

But four o'clock in the morning was no time for even a brand new teenager to be awake. She began a circuit of the room, turning off lights. "Your birthday will wait. Go to sleep," she ordered him but to her surprise, Bobby burst into tears.

She stopped beside his bed and pulled her robe around her to make sitting easier. Then she felt of his forehead with the back of her hand and wiped away the tracks of tears. He didn't seem to have a fever. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head and wouldn't look at her.

"Okay, don't tell me," she said and stood up.

"Momma," his voice sounded squeaky and childlike. "Momma, what happened...yesterday?"

She stared down at him. "You wanted to go into town with that Mexican boy and we said no, so you went off and sulked all afternoon somewhere."

"After that," he asked.

She shrugged. "You must have come back sometime because you were in your room asleep when I asked you if you wanted dinner. You didn't answer so I figured you'd eaten while you were out. Did you wake up hungry?"

He shook his head again.

"Why are you asking me? Don't you remember?"

"Not really," he said so softly she almost didn't hear him.

She snorted. "You're too young to be getting blackouts--or flashbacks."

He closed his eyes and began to cry again.

"Jesus," she muttered but sat back down and held his hand in both of hers. With his other arm, he held the sheet against his chest. Feeling absurdly tender, she bent down and kissed him on the forehead, something she hadn't done in a very long time. "You're not supposed to be getting upset about birthdays at your age," she told him. "Besides you're a guy, you don't really hit the bad ones till you're fifty."

For some reason this comment made him cry harder. "For gosh sake, for gosh sake, what's turned you into a waterworks?"

He shook his head and muttered something.

"What?" she demanded.

"I said, 'hormones,'" he said.

She laughed and stroked his hair. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were about to start your period. That'd be a first, huh?"

He looked suitably horrified and she laughed longer and harder than before.

"Mom, Momma," he said, "what do girls do when they have a period?"

"They bleed," she said.

"I know, but what do they do about that? Is it messy?"

"This is a damn funny conversation, especially for not yet five in the morning on my son's birthday. It's a damn big mess so we wear a Kotex or a tampon." She didn't ask him how he even knew about periods, hers were legendary. Damn, she thought, I'm less than a week away myself.

With that though, she stood and moved away from the bed, turning out more lights. "Go to sleep," she ordered him again. "I'm going to get you up later and we'll go out for cinnamon French toast. Okay?" He didn't answer but she let herself out of the room and closed the door behind her firmly.

When she got back to her own bed, Charles pulled her against him and began to sleepily grope her breasts. She knew better than to resist, that would only wake him up and he'd be even hornier. Spitting into her hand, she took care of the problem with a few dozen strokes then settled into the contented spoons position. For some reason, she shed a few tears herself then fell asleep before the morning sun could find her.

* * *

After her mother had left, Bobbi lay quietly for a few more moments. "I'm not a girl," she said aloud finally. "I'm not a girl and I'm not about to start my p-p-period!"

She cried some more then she tried cursing. "Damn," she said but it made her blush and she gave that up for a bad job. "I'm not a girl," she repeated. "I don't want to be a girl!"

After a bit she asked the walls, "Why do I have to be a girl? What did I do that was so terrible? I'll kill myself if I have to be a girl!" But she knew she wouldn't; death scared her much worse than having periods, and besides, it would probably hurt. She knew that periods could hurt but dying probably hurt much worse.

"I should have told Mom," she said. "I could have showed her, I'll have to tell her sometime. I'll have to tell Daddy and then everyone, even G-g-gomo! Everyone will know I'm a girl!"

Thinking about Gomo did something very weird inside her; thinking about telling him about what had happened scared her so she tried not to think about it at all. Thinking about telling her dad scared her even more. She felt very strange about her father, anyway. She knew she loved him but he scared her now, or had he always scared her?

What if her father and mother wouldn't love her anymore since she had turned into a girl?

And just what could she tell them? If she told them about the curse and the little man, they'd probably lock her up. Maybe she was crazy, that would explain a lot. "'I've always been a g-g-girl, you just never noticed,' -- that's not going to work!"

She got up and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water this time. She washed her face without turning the light on then wondered if she should put something on before going back to bed. "All I've got is boy's clothes," she realized.

And then she realized something else. "I can't wear boy's clothes!" The idea felt actively creepy, disgusting and just wrong. "Oh, no-o-o-o!" she whimpered. "I can't even wear boy's clothes anymore? What did that little monster do to me?"

She ran back to the bed and pulled all the covers up over her head.

Now that she thought about it, this was a boy's bed and a boy's bedroom and the idea that that felt so wrong began to freak her out. The clothes and toys in the closet were all boy's clothes and toys, even the old ones she didn't play with anymore. The video games for her game console, and the DVD's she normally watched were all to the taste of boys. Did girls even play video games?

Her parents didn't let her have her own computer for fear of her getting on the internet and being exposed to smut but like almost any twelve-year-old boy, Bobby had managed to acquire a couple of the racier men's magazines hidden away under some old sweaters in the bottom drawer of his chest. The very thought of having to touch those magazines now, just to get rid of them, made her sick to her stomach. "Well, I can't wear the sweaters anymore, either," she thought.

She peeked out from under the covers and glared around the room. "You rat b-b-b...." She couldn't say 'bastard'. "You rat! You better not be laughing at me, Mr. Lucky Charms!" No one responded.

"Wottamygonnadooo!" she moaned then kicked all the covers off the bed and lay there naked for as long as she could stand it. Somewhere inside her, some part of her knew--good girls did not sleep naked.

Finally she got up and went through her things--his things. After compulsively tidying several drawers of things, she found a pair of yellow shorts that had no fly. They didn't look too boyish so she pulled them on. A long white t-shirt, the longest one she could find almost reached the hem of the shorts. She pulled and tugged to make the shirt longer, then sighed and went back to bed.

Exhausted, she fell almost immediately asleep.

Notes: