From: SRU - Deceiving the Deceiver by Stephanie Date: Monday, May 08, 2000 SRU: Deceiving the Deceiver by Stephanie "Can I help you, Jake?" the old man behind the counter said. Jake tried hard to avoid smiling and feigned astonishment instead. "How do you know my name?" "Oh, just a trick of the trade," the man replied with a small grin. Jake wandered through the small shop. Every shelf was piled up with strange items, no two the same. "Are you looking for anything in particular?" the old man asked. "Well, there's this girl I like, but she doesn't really notice me. If I had the sort of body she really wanted, then it would be different." The old man thought for a moment, then walked over to a shelf and handed Jake a strange little device. It had a hand grip, a button, and a red bulb. It looked to Jake as if it had been thrown together from scrap. Jake turned it over and over in his hands. "How is this supposed to work then? Like magic?" The old man laughed. "Yes, exactly like magic. Do you want it?" "Yeah, I'll give it a go. How much?" "Five bucks." Jake gave a silent prayer of thanks. He had managed to scrape together twenty-eight dollars and he had been afraid the old man would want more. He pretended to think about it before handing over the cash. The important thing was to appear as another unsuspecting customer. "So how does it work then?" "You simply press the button and it gets to work transforming. The effects could be drastic so you might want to wait until you get home." "Won't everyone notice that I'm different?" "Anyone who is transformed by this will remember the way they used to be, but everyone else will believe that the new form was the one they always had. Less problems that way." Jake nodded, thanked the old man and left. He headed through the mall trying to keep the exultation he felt hidden. He had done it! There had been strange rumors floating about ever since he arrived at university. Rumors that people who had one day been one sex was another by the next day. Then one day, Jake had seen the shop in the mall. He must have walked past it a hundred times, but he had never noticed it before. He had known that that was where he had to go. It was no good, he couldn't wait until he got home. He walked over to the men's washroom and locked himself in a stall. He looked down at the device held in his trembling hands. Ever since he was a boy he had felt a wrongness. It had taken him years to work out what this wrongness was. He had caught himself wishing to be with girls, not as a boyfriend, but as one of the girls. He had never hated his male body, but he had always wished that he had been born a female. Jake never felt much attraction for other men, and if he had ever talked about it he would have described himself as a lesbian trapped in a man's body. He wanted to be a girl more than anything else in the world. A fully-functioning female capable of that greatest act of all: bringing life into the world. The rumors had sounded ridiculous at first, but they were consistent and persistent. Jake had tracked down them down as best as he could. Though he had never actually found someone who claimed they had been transformed, several basic facts emerged. No two items were alike and they never seemed to work as advertised. The mysterious old man who ran the shop never actually lied, but he often misled. So Jake had carefully worded his request in such a way as he'd end up with a stunning body just like the woman who he admired from afar, Rachel. In one impulsive movement he pressed the button. The red light glowed and the device made a quiet buzzing noise. Jake sat there with his heart racing as he waited for the transformation to start. He checked every part of himself waiting for the transformation to start. After several minutes he was very puzzled. His hips were no wider than before and his chest was decidedly absent of any large breasts. Maybe he was doing something wrong. He decided to take it back to his room and examine it more closely. He put the device away, opened the stall and walked out. He was very surprised to see a well-stacked woman staring at herself in the mirror. "Hey, miss," he called, "you do know this is the men's room?" She looked at him in the mirror. "Y-yeah, I do, thanks." Jake shrugged and walked back out into the mall. That was a perfect example of the freedom good-looking women had, he thought to himself. They could do things men could never get away with. If he had been hanging around in the women's washroom he would have been arrested by now. The device felt very heavy in his pocket all the way back to his dorm room. He cut through the park on his way. It was fairly empty except for an overweight, balding, man jogging in a slow circuit of the grounds. Almost unconsciously, his hand slipped around the grip of the device and pressed the button again. He knew it was rash to try it in the middle of the park, but as long as it worked who cared? Again it buzzed and again nothing happened. This was ludicrous. Why wasn't it working? He carried on past the jogger who had stopped and was frantically grabbing her own breasts. Jake avoided eye contact and hurried on intent with his own problems. As soon as he was back in his dorm room he pulled out the device and studied it. There was no logo or instructions printed on it. There were no hidden flaps or switches. Just the one button and the light. Perhaps you were supposed to touch the light while pressing the button... The door opened and Jake's friend, Carl, meandered in. "Hi, what's that?" "Just some old junk I found." Jake didn't want to put down the device and wait hours to try his hypothesis. He put his hand on the light and pressed the button. Carl staggered as the world reeled. Just as suddenly as it had come it was gone. "Are you alright?" Jake asked. "Yeah, I'm..." Carl's voice died as he heard himself speak. That didn't sound like his voice at all, his sounded much lower. As he raised a hand to his throat he brushed something that hadn't been there before. He looked down to see his shirt had become a low cut blouse, which was full to the brim with soft flesh. "Tits! I've got tits!" "You've only just noticed?" Jake replied in a puzzled tone. "You must have had a pair for well over five years and you've only just noticed?" "What?" Carl's hand ran over the skirt that had replaced his pants. He pushed between his legs, but there was no familiar lump there. Instead there was a soft mound that had replaced his masculinity. He looked up and unconsciously brushed the long hair from his face. "I've got a pussy! I'm a woman!" "Well, of course you are, Carla. Is this some sort of weird joke?" She stared at him, horrified. "Jake, I'm a man! Don't you remember? What's happening to me?!" Jake frowned at her. Was it national crazy-woman day or something? "Carla, I'm really busy. Can't this wait till later?" Carla just stared at him and then turned and ran. Jake shrugged and went up to the door to shut it. Carla was already out of sight. He shut the door and returned to the device on the bed. He and Carla had been friends since the first day they arrived and they often went drinking together. Jake thought it was odd that he had only felt attracted to her in the last few moments. Before that there had been absolutely no physical attraction between them, but that hadn't seemed to matter. He hadn't even noticed how beautiful she was. Jake stopped worrying about that and returned to the device. His body was still totally unchanged. The device had done nothing but light up and buzz. Over the next few hours he tried everything he could to make it work. Every possible combination of button pressing he could think of he tried. Finally, he gave up. He was going to have to return to the shop and talk to the old man. He put his jacket on and headed out the door. The atmosphere of the dorm was very odd and this penetrated even Jake's other worries. He looked around as he tried to work out what was wrong. All the other residents of the dorm seemed upset or shell-shocked about something. Maybe it was something on the news, thought Jake. No matter, this was more important. The dorm building he lived him was almost totally occupied by women and he considered that to be something of a bad joke. He considered himself to be a woman in spirit and yet he couldn't join them the way he wanted to. By the time he reached the mall he was in a bad temper. How dare that old guy sell him a dud? His anger deepened visibly when he failed to find the 'Spells R Us' shop. Jake searched high and low for it for the best part of an hour, but there was no sign of it. His constant searching had attracted the attention of a burly security guard. Jake was conscious of being watched by him as he settled down in a seat. He pulled out the device and looked at it and sighed. He was just going to have to accept that he had been done out of five bucks. It had been too good to be true after all. He walked slowly towards the exit, leaving the device on the seat. Unnoticed by Jake, the old man picked up the device. "I would have thought you'd have worked it out for yourself, Jake," the old man muttered to himself. "Anyway, you shouldn't have tried to trick me. I never said that the user would be the one transformed." The old man turned the device over and over in his hand as he watched Jake's retreating back. "You were very productive, though. Over one hundred and forty transformations. So why not one more?" He pressed the button. Jake had just reached the glass doors to the outside when he felt the floor shift. Earthquake! he thought as he regained his footing. Looking around he couldn't see anyone else reacting and the floor felt steady now. He took one step closer to the door and realized that something was very wrong... or very right! The door in front of him held the image of a buxom woman of Jake's age. If you looked at her face you could see a family resemblance to Jake, though she was far more stacked than any member of his family he knew. Jake looked down and saw the large breasts almost pushing their way out of his tight dress. It had worked after all! He was a true woman at last! he leapt in the air and yelled "Yes!" He almost sprained his ankle when he landed because of his high-heeled shoes, but he didn't care. He turned and grinned at the startled security guard who had been following him out. Then he rushed back to his dorm room as fast as his shapely legs would carry him, intent on examining his -- no, _her_ body in minute detail. The old man chucked and headed back to his shop. He stopped as he passed a couple bickering while their young boy stood forgotten next to them. He handed the device to the boy, saying, "this will cheer you up." The kid looked dubiously at the old man, but then took the device. The old man smiled and walked on past the arguing couple who were so wrapped up in their fight that he wasn't noticed. The kid turned the device over and over in his hands and then pressed the button. The End