Even after three years of living together, almost two of which in married bliss, there is something magical about having the house to yourself. I could put anything I wanted to on the TV (this week, a M*A*S*H marathon), come and go as I please without reference to anyone, and even pop open a beer with dinner, without having to share. I was also walking around the house without pants, but let's be honest, I do that when she's home too.

So does she. Marriage is kinda great.

Lindsey was at a conference in Des Moines, the hip, happening spot of the Midwest. She told me the name of her paper, something about quarks spinning, but when she gets all physicky, I just go into smile-and-nod mode. Biology is my field, and I've seen her make similar faces if we get onto the subject of protein synthesis.

I was doing laundry like a good husband, listening to Hawkeye (not the archer) crack wise in the other room. The house was chilly (lower thermostat, another perk), and I decided it would be a good idea to slip on some fresh-outta-the-dryer sweatpants. And so, without really looking, I grabbed a pair out of the top of the basket and stepped into them.

I did not realize anything was wrong right away. I folded two of my T-shirts and a pair of Lindsey's jeans before I realized that the bed, where I had dumped the clothes, seemed awfully high. But then, so did the dresser. In fact, everything had shifted upward about six or nine inches.
The reality didn't sink in until I walked by the big stand mirror in the corner. It looked like a funhouse mirror at first, one of those that distorts your shape. My upper body was normal, but from the waist down, my legs were short and somehow smaller within the still-warm sweatpants.

I don't think I ever depantsed myself faster than in that moment. There I was, standing plain as day, with tiny legs emerging from a massive upper body. I exaggerate -- in reality, they were shorter and skinnier, but not unnaturally so. It was the juxtaposition of a big torso on the smaller legs that gave me the appearance of a cartoon weightlifter.

I had just had time to move from wonder to panic when the room began to shift. Before my eyes, my thighs thickened, my calves filled out, and my bones lengthened. In only a few short moments, I was back to normal.

You might think that I would have thrown the offending sweatpants away, but instead I picked them up. Now that I looked closely, I could see quite clearly that they were Lindsey's. We both had a pair of navy blue ones, and I must have grabbed hers. To my knowledge, though, none of her clothes had transformational powers.

But then again, how would I know? I didn't make a habit of wearing her clothes. Any other considerations aside, she was rather petite, a few inches above five foot, and nothing she owned would fit me.

Except it did. It had.

We were scientists, both of us. And when presented with a new phenomenon, we were compelled by our very natures to experiment. And that's why, after turning off the TV and downing a shot of tequila, I put the pants back on.

Like any good experiment, this one was apparently repeatable. My legs slid into the sweatpants, and immediately I was a head shorter. I took them off, and almost immediately I resumed my normal height.

A bit of testing revealed that the longer the pants stayed on, the longer I remained transformed when I took them off. The stopwatch on my phone revealed that five minutes in the pants equated to about four and a half minutes changed. Ten minutes gave me about eight and a half minutes. Non-linear, then. Most likely there was some upper maximum or limit value, but that would take more testing. I grabbed a notebook out of my office and began making notes.

Before I did more longitudinal testing, there was one big question I wanted to answer. Namely, was it the sweatpants themselves? Or would any of Lindsey's clothes work? I scrabbled through the pile of unfolded laundry, tossing aside my own clothes, until I found a random article of hers.

Panties. Cotton panties, faded from pink to a dusty salmon hue. I mentally shrugged. Here goes nothing.

They went on as easily as the sweatpants. Despite the small size, the waistband fit perfectly around, with no tightness or discomfort.

Everything I had experienced so far made that unsurprising. My legs did not change in height, but my thighs narrowed to fit the leg holes perfectly.

More surprising, though, were my genitals. After a moment of a scrotum spilling out either side of the narrow portion between my legs, the skin disappeared. The bulge in front -- not huge, as I'm a grower, not a shower -- likewise smoothed away. In barely seconds, my penis and assorted private parts had completely disappeared.

I almost ripped the panties in my haste to remove them, cursing myself for not understanding sooner what was happening. The sweatpants had not made my legs smaller, or at least not only that. It had made them feminine. And now, the panties had done the same to my genitals.

I had only a few seconds to observe the tight, perfectly formed pussy between my legs before it began to change. The outer lips knitted up like zipping a jacket, and the skin extended out as my testicles descended into it. In front, the eraser-like nubbin of my clit swelled into the head of a penis. It took only a few seconds, and the physical sensation as it happened was mild, barely noticeable.

I gave myself a few moments for my heart to slow. All right, scientist, what have you learned here? Whenever I put on an article of my wife's clothing, my body would transform to fit it. When I took it off, I would return to my normal form, in proportion to how long I had been transformed.

Another shot of tequila told me what I had to do. I had to go all the way.
Whether to delay the act, or out of a sense of preparation, I laid out the intended experimental apparatus. The cotton panties were first, but instead of sweatpants, I took the nearby jeans. I found a pair of socks, and went into the closet to fetch a pair of sneakers.

That did for the lower half. Now for the upper. A flesh colored bra came out of the drawer, and from the closet came a long sleeved top in stretchy knit fabric. Lindsey was never much into hats, so there was not much more I could do.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I put on the panties. As before, my penis melted into my body underneath the concealing fabric. I did not stop, but pulled on the jeans. The feminine shape of my lower body, once I had them on, was unmistakable. I had hips, which narrowed to a pair of denim-clad legs. Only my feet remained unchanged, huge and hobbit-like, but slipping them into the white socks brought them into proportion with the rest of my lower half. I put on the shoes, but as my feet had already shrunk, they did not appear to do anything unusual.

I took stock in the mirror. I removed my shirt and saw my broad shouldered, masculine torso with a pair of women's legs cut-and-pasted at the waist. Where my stomach joined my pelvis, I stretched outward somewhat grotesquely. This was no place to stop. I had to go forward, or back.

I went forward. The bra came next. I did not feel capable of hooking it behind my back, so instead I connected the clasp in front, and then turned the whole thing around. Doing so caused my torso to contract to fit the size of the band. I slipped my arms through the straps, which cost me a few more inches of height.

With a strange spreading sensation, the flesh of my chest began to grow, filling the cups. Lindsey wears a B cup, and I had long hosted a secret desire for her to be a bit bigger, but now that I saw them on me, they seemed quite large enough. I was small enough that I had no cleavage to speak of, but the cups supported and shaped me so that an area of soft, curved flesh was exposed on either side.

After that, the top was almost an anticlimax. My arms slid easily into the sleeves, and the top settled around my bust like it was made for it. The top was long enough to cover my stomach, unless I lifted my arms. I did so and found a flat, feminine stomach with a narrow waist was hiding behind it.

One strange thing I noticed right away were my hands. The right hand was smaller than the left, though not fully feminine. I tried to account for the difference, and in a moment, I had it. My wedding ring was on the third finger of my left hand. I took it off and set it on the dresser next to our wedding portrait.

I set the alarm on my phone for ten minutes. I had been transformed for that long and changed back, so I felt safe to do so. Once Siri confirmed the timer, I set about the critical scientific task of staring at myself in the mirror.

Removing the wedding band, my last article of male clothing, had apparently made a difference. Despite being uncovered by gloves, they had started to shrink, though more slowly than areas that were covered. Within minutes my hands were narrow and feminine, and even the nails had lengthened to an elegant sharpness.

My uncovered head was changing too. It began at my neck, which narrowed and lost its adam's apple. My jaw became more rounded than square, and my cheekbones lifted and softened. The changes were actually hard to detect as they were happening, but no sooner did I stop scrutinizing one area than another caught my attention with the extent of the alterations. In five minutes, according to the timer, I looked fully female. Even my hair began to grow, descending to my shoulders and a little beyond in brown ringlets.

And there she was, complete, a stranger in the mirror who looked like a female version of me. Her eyes and hair were the same color, and I could recognize my mother's nose and my father's ears in her face.

In figure, though, she matched my wife. Small surprise, since the agent of the change was Lindsey's own wardrobe. The top revealed way more collarbone than any men's clothing ever would. The neckline came to a point a few inches above my solar plexus. On either side, the top bloomed out into breasts, which stretched the weave of the fabric in a most appealing way. I leaned over and saw how the neckline fell slightly forward. I could see the tops of my breasts, where not shielded by the bra, peering back at me from the shadows.

The top ended where the jeans began. My hips and ass filled the seat, and I turned to admire the curve of it. Other changes may have been more dramatic, but it was my butt that suddenly brought it home to me that I was wearing a woman's body.

All too soon, the alarm sounded. I felt a flash of irritation -- I was not done posing in front of the mirror. But no, I would still have this body for another eight or nine minutes. The only difference was that now, I got to see it naked.

The shoes and socks came off first. That was my normal evening routine, and the motion felt just as natural now. I marveled at the petite shape of my feet, high arched and narrow.

I took off the top next, and struggled a bit to manage the bra clasp. Not that I had never disengaged one before -- on the contrary, I had taken this exact bra off many times, just never from this angle. A moment's fumbling was all it took, and I dipped my shoulders to let the straps fall off and the cups come away from my chest.

The sensation of having breasts unencumbered by restraint was perhaps the oddest thing I had experienced on a day full of oddities. I cupped them, and my brain received signals of skin in contact with skin in a location that I was convinced should be inches away from the surface of my chest. They moved and changed shape as I raised my arms, or leaned over, sending entirely new sensory feedback to my mind. Strangest of all, I felt my nipples contract in the cold air. As a man my nipples would harden with the cold, but not in a way that I felt. Now the sensation was quite intrusive, and I held my palms against them to warm them up.

The sight of a topless woman in tight fitting jeans, holding her breasts in a way that squished them together, distracted me from my business. It was the casual nature of the action, paired with the state of undress and all the curvy bits, which did it for me. After a moment, I recalled that it was myself I was ogling. It was past time for me to get fully naked so I could change back.

The jeans and panties came off in a single motion, and there I was, a petite woman without a stitch of clothing. My hair tumbled down to my shoulders, and two small manicured hands reached up to scratch an itch under the lower fold of my left breast. I had only a small tuft of pubic hair, and my legs and armpits were smooth and hairless.

Between my legs, my anatomy was just as perfectly womanly as the rest of me. I sat on the floor in front of the mirror and spread my legs. I pulled the lips apart to reveal the soft pink skin inside, like the inside of my cheek. Tentatively, I extended my index finger, feeling among the soft folds for the opening I knew was there. After a moment I found it, and for the first time experienced the sensation of penetration. Muscles I barely knew I had contracted around my probing finger, and to my nose came the odor of my own natural lubricant. I felt a sudden flood of wetness, and when I withdrew my finger, it was shiny and slick.

And then, the world shifted. My whole body was changing at once, getting taller and broader. My breasts were pulled tight against my chest, at which point they compressed into my usual flatness. Down below, my vaginal opening sealed, and my penis reasserted itself.

Just like that, I was a man again. Even my finger, so recently inside me, bore no trace of fluid. I put on my own clothes, put away the laundry and the clothes I had just worn, and got quietly drunk in front of the television.