In this magical romantic mystery, a teenage boy wakes up one morning to find himself afflicted with a strange musical curse. The boy tries to find the source of the curse to end it but finding magic in today's world isn't easy, especially when love is involved.

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This is a complete story of four parts and I'll post one part every Sunday.

Music Magic
by Terry Volkirch

Prelude to a Curse in A Flat

Steve's life was an opera — teenage angst set to music. Something strange happened to him when he listened to music, something impossible, starting at the tender age of fourteen.

One morning, lying in his bed, he woke up to his radio playing a song he'd never heard before. A wonderful female vocalist sang, and her voice was magical.

Can you hear it, can you feel it in the air?
It's like fingers runnin' through your hair.
Comin' through the trees and runnin' through the earth,
If you're still, you hear.

The words consumed his thoughts, became his universe. 'Heed us!' they implored. They seeped into every pore of his skin and filled every corner of his mind. His scalp tingled as if fingers actually ran through his hair. The trees outside his window whispered and the earth hummed. He gave himself to the song, and as soon as he did, he felt different. His whole body tingled and it felt so good that he actually moaned. He felt wonderfully relaxed all over, like getting a super awesome massage, so he couldn't help moaning. And as he moaned, his voice changed. It raised in pitch and stayed that way.

His voice had been moving towards a more masculine pitch, exactly as it should for a pubescent boy, and suddenly having a girly voice bothered him a little. Still, he stayed put and listened, more intrigued than fearful, even as the one line of the chorus repeated several times near the end and echoed in his head after the song ended.

It's time you're hearin' a woman's voice.

He felt… odd, quite different from his usual mornings. He swatted at his clock radio to turn it off and missed several times before he succeeded. But he never missed!

'Two arms,' he thought, raising them a little off the bed and letting them drop and bounce. 'Check. Two legs,' repeating the same action with his legs. 'Check.' He wriggled his fingers and toes, touched his nose, lips and ears, felt the top of his head. He felt intact but still not quite right.

Frowning, he slipped out from under the bed covers and slowly sat up. That's when he found a major change. His chest wobbled, causing his eyes to widen in surprise and disbelief. Boys didn't have chests that wobbled. No way!

He ignored his chest for the moment and reached up to feel his neck as he cleared his throat a couple times. 'Must be coming down with a cold or something,' he thought when he continued to hear feminine tones. It was so easy to ignore or explain away the impossible.

He got up — there was that chest wobble again — and scuffed his feet out of his bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom. His pajamas were all wrong, hanging more like a dress, but he mostly ignored that too. He needed to relieve himself and wake up from what had to be a very strange dream.

When he got to the bathroom, he squinted at the bright morning sun that lit up the nearly all-white decor. He stood, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light and soon felt his gaze drawn to the large mirror over the sink. Several things battled for his attention but his chest won out with two small but noticeable breasts pushing out against the fabric of his… extra long tee shirt. If he wasn't already preoccupied, he might have wondered how his blue and white pajamas turned into a lavender sleep shirt but instead, he focused on his chest.

He remained fairly detached for the moment, thinking that although the breasts might seem small at first glance — an A cup at best — they felt heavier and larger than they looked. Most boys at school would consider a girl with those breasts to be flat-chested. He had to disagree.

His hair caught his attention next. It was a little longer and a lighter shade of brown than it should be, but other than that, it still looked somewhat boyish. Then his face caught his eye. It was definitely more feminine, though it was hard to define exactly what was different about it. He also noticed that his height hadn't changed just before he was reminded of a certain pressing need.

He shook his head and moved to stand in front of the toilet, flipping up the toilet seat and lid together and hiking up his sleep shirt. His self-examination could wait. He really needed to pee. But that led to a fruitless search and a very rude and complete awakening. After fumbling for a good minute and failing to find what he was looking for, he ended up screaming long and loud, hitting a perfect high A and then dropping half a step when he realized that he was screaming just like a girl.

Steve's mother, Sue, came running when she heard the screaming, and there, in the bathroom, she saw a very freaked out teenage girl.

"Who… who are you?" she asked the girl. "Where's Steve? Where's my son?"

Steve had stopped screaming when his mother appeared, but he wasn't sure he wanted to see her at the moment. He didn't want to see anyone. He just wanted his apparent bad dream to end.

"I'm Steve," he said quietly, feeling emotionally numb after having had a good scream. "I just want to pee and go back to bed."

"Very funny, young lady. Where is he? Please tell me you two weren't sleeping together."

That stung — more than a little — and Steve found himself crying.

"Hey," his mother said gently, realizing she went too far. "I'm sorry. Here now. Go ahead and use the bathroom. I'll wait for you in the hall."

"But I can't stand up and pee!" Steve wailed.

Sue didn't know what to make of that. The girl wasn't making sense. The first thought that popped into her head was that the girl was on drugs. She didn't say anything though. She just took charge.

"Lift your sleep shirt. Now!"

Steve wasn't sure what a sleep shirt was but he guessed correctly and did as he was told, revealing a pale pink hipster.

"Panties down. Now!" Sue ordered.

Steve looked down and gasped. He was wearing panties! He pulled them down like they were on fire, stepped out of them and kicked them in the bathtub.

Sue thought that was a bit extreme but continued issuing orders. "Put the seat down."

Steve hesitated.

"Do it!" Sue barked and the girl complied.

"Now Sit!"

Steve sat on the toilet.

"Relax… and pee. Now!"

Steve heard the sound of tinkling and immediately felt a great sense of relief. It felt so good that it didn't even occur to him to be embarrassed, not even after his mother finished his female urination lesson and led him from the bathroom to the master bedroom. They sat together on his mother's bed while he tried to compose himself. The panties remained in the bathtub.

While Sue patiently waited for the girl to begin her story, she had a good look at her face and noticed a very strong family resemblance to her son and husband. 'What the hell?!' she thought. She suddenly wondered if her husband, Jack, had been unfaithful and her anger returned.

"Again, I ask you," Sue said. "Who are you?"

"I already told you and you won't believe me so what's the point," Steve said.

"Look here. I have to be at work in less than an hour. I don't have time for this. Just get dressed and go to school… or go home. I don't care which. And if you know where Steve is, I'd appreciate it if you told me."

Sue wasn't as concerned about the possibility that her son was sleeping with the girl. She suspected they were half-siblings and her mind skipped ahead to thoughts of divorce. She barely noticed when the girl got up in a huff and marched down the hall to her son's room. She absently followed and watched as her unwanted house guest went through her son's clothes, and she just shook her head when the girl took off the sleep shirt, threw it on the floor and put on one of her son's tee shirts without first putting on a bra. But she received a bit of a shock when the girl slipped on a pair of her son's underwear.

"What are you doing in those clothes?!" Sue asked as she slowly went over to sit on her son's bed.

Steve stood in front of her still wearing just the tee shirt and underwear. "What did you expect me to wear," he shouted, "that dress? I'm not wearing a dress!"

The girl confused Sue for a moment before realizing that they were talking about the sleep shirt. How could the girl not know the difference between a sleep shirt and a dress? Nothing made sense.

"If you mean what you were wearing a moment ago, then I agree you shouldn't be wearing that outside. Where are the clothes you wore when you came over?"

"Hah!" the girl suddenly shouted, startling Sue. She had a very smug look on her face as she continued. "If you can find any more girls clothes… that fit me… I'll put them on and leave." She momentarily looked a bit flustered when she tried to cross her arms over her breasts but her smug look quickly returned when she dropped her arms at her sides.

Steve had an older brother who was away at college but no sisters. The only person in the house with feminine clothing was his mother and she didn't have any clothes that looked like they'd fit, at least not very well. His mother was a couple inches taller and had a very full figure. He knew that she wouldn't be able to find any clothes that would fit his current body other than what he was wearing when he got up that morning.

Sue fumed. She wasn't going to be treated badly by anyone in her own home, especially not some strange girl. "I'm not your nursemaid. I'm not going to find your clothes for you so just get them on and leave my house before I call the police."

Steve's face went pale. 'She wouldn't dare, would she?' he thought. He looked closely at her face. 'She would! I am so screwed.'

Once again, the girl started crying. She slumped down on the floor, sobbing and trying to speak between sobs. "I… don't… have… any… other… clothes," she said. "Please… please don't call the police."

Another ten minutes went by as Sue watched the girl cry herself out. She believed the girl was sincere and that only confused her more. Why would a girl come to her house with almost no clothes and sleep? And where was her son?

"Okay. Okay," Sue soothed. "Don't worry. I'm not going to call the police. I still want answers though, and I want them soon. I need to finish getting ready for work first. I should be done in about thirty minutes. You've got until then to figure something out because I'm not letting you stay here after I leave."

"Oh…," Steve said. He wanted to curse but his mother taught him too well. He wouldn't curse in her presence.

Sue watched as the girl picked herself up off the floor and resumed looking through her son's dresser. She shook her head and got up off the bed to go back to her bedroom.

Steve tried on a couple pairs of jeans but they wouldn't stay up. He tried adding a belt but the belt wouldn't tighten enough to hold them up so he gave up on jeans and found a pair of shorts with elastic that worked, soon to be replaced by a pair of gray sweat pants with a draw string that he could tighten enough to keep them up. Socks were no problem but he almost started crying again when he tried on all of his shoes and none of them came close to fitting. They all flopped around on his feet, reminding him of clowns.

He shuddered then. He hated clowns. But he was too upset to dwell on that subject. He needed to find decent footwear, though he suddenly wondered why. Where would he go? What would he do? He couldn't go to school. Thanks to all the school shootings across the country, his school required student badges. There was no way he could get a badge to match his current body.

He flopped on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, almost wishing he could cry again. He thought about how much he'd been crying since becoming a girl and how much better it felt after having done so. 'How very strange,' he thought. 'How very, very strange.'

His morning was strange, and the strangeness continued. As he was lying on the bed, he began tingling again, just like when he was waking up, when the bad dream had begun. He wondered if he was about to change into something else, an animal perhaps, or an alien. Nothing would surprise him after that morning.

The tingling lasted about a minute, and when it was done. He did a quick body check. He still had a human body as far as he could tell, and when he sat up, he noticed an absence of wobbling that evoked some optimism. After a quick cupping of his hand between his legs, he shouted with joy, and he noted that his voice was back. He was a boy again!

He tore off his sweat pants, threw on a pair of jeans — they fit! — and went looking for his mother. He found her applying makeup and he almost laughed when she smeared lipstick across her cheek after he startled her. She wiped it off and didn't try again right away. She decided she had something more important to do first.

"Where have you been, young man? And where's that strange girl? Who is she? What's she doing here?"

"Whoa! Hold on, Mom. I think I need to show you something before I answer any questions."

"What do you mean? I want to know what happened to that girl!"

"We need to perform an experiment. If it fails, I'll… I'll do all of the housework… for a day."

"For a week and I'll consider it," she countered.

"Right. A week then. But if this experiment succeeds…," he said, pausing to gulp. "I think all of your questions will be answered."

Sue looked at her son with suspicion but still followed him back to his bedroom.

"This all started," he began, "when I was listening to music. I don't know if it will happen again but here goes nothing." He turned on his radio alarm to hear some male vocalist belting out an 80's tune.

Sue raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Ah. Maybe it doesn't work when men sing. Hang on…." He hit the scanning button to change the radio station until he found a song with a female vocalist. The words came through loud and clear.

'Cause I'm just a girl, I'd rather not be
'Cause they won't let me drive late at night
Oh, I'm just a girl, guess I'm some kind of freak
'Cause they all sit and stare with their eyes

The familiar tingling came back and with it, the changes. Steve was right. A female vocalist made all the difference. The lyrics might have helped too, or perhaps it was just coincidence. It didn't matter because as he faced the radio, he mouthed the words to the next two lines and the change was complete.

I'm just a girl, I'm just a girl in the world
That's all that you'll let me be

He knew he'd changed so he turned off his radio and as he did so, he noticed something funny about his clothes. They were different! He wore a very feminine top in a bright blue color, very different from the dark green tee shirt he put on not long ago. He pulled the collar out and looked down to see that his breasts had returned, and this time they were nestled comfortably in a light blue bra. 'What the f…," he said, almost cursing again before he remembered that he wasn't alone. He wanted to inspect his jeans and underwear, suspecting them of changing as well but instead, he turned to look at his mother.

She was lying unconscious on his bedroom floor.

Playlist for Part 1

1. A Woman's Voice by Wendy Wall
2. Just a Girl by No Doubt

 © 2012 by Terry Volkirch. This work may not be replicated in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder). All Rights Reserved. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental.