"What the heck?" I frowned at the book I'd just pulled out of the padded shipping envelope.

I was expecting a boring old geometry textbook my math tutor recommended two weeks ago. The Art of the Hexagon or something like that.

That's why I was at home alone looking at the mail on a nice Friday evening at the end of May, instead of doing something fun with my best friend Tabby. I was supposed to get a head start on this new math text, so when my tutor came by in the morning I'd be all ready to go. I needed extra help with my math class or there was a good chance I might flunk the exam next month.

Except instead of some boring math text from the eighties I found myself holding what looked like a leather-bound antique the size of a paper-back novel. There was some faint faded embossing on the front that looked like it was once filled with silver-coloured foil. When I tilted the book just right so the light picked it up I could make out the shape of a six-pointed star, and a word which seemed to read 'Hexinomicon'. I couldn't see any indication of the author's name and there were no clues as to what it was about, but something told me it had very little to do with geometry.

On the plus side it definitely had that old book smell, which always made me smile. My mom loved old books and they always reminded me of her. I remembered how she used to go on about all the ways real books were better than the electronic kind, how they engaged almost all your senses. But the thing that always stood out most for me was the smell.

And unfortunately, while this book smelled nice and that gave me some happy thoughts about my mom, it probably wasn't going to help much when it came to my grades. Then again, at least I had a new old book to look at.

So I sat back in my chair and opened it at random to somewhere in the middle, and immediately frowned.

For just a moment or two it seemed like the text was all in some foreign language. Latin was the first thing to pop into my head, not that I actually knew Latin or anything. Before I had a chance to even try to figure out what I was seeing it seemed as though all the letters on the page suddenly reorganized themselves into English.

I blinked a couple times and gave my head a little shake, then wondered if maybe I stayed up too late reading again last night. I flipped to another random page and checked, but it was all still English so I figured I was just overtired and my eyes had been playing tricks on me.

It was printed in some sort of heavy goth calligraphy font that wasn't the easiest thing in the world to read. It made sense though, I probably just mistook that for Latin when I first saw it.

Flipping back to the front of the book I carefully went through the first couple pages, but there was no author information, no publishing information, not even a copyright page or anything to say when it was made or where it came from. After three or four blank pages I found the title page, which made me pause.

"Hexinomicon ~ A Compendium of Consistently Curated Curses for the Casual Caster"

The title page was followed by a couple more blank pages, then the next page started describing a 'beginner-level' curse that would give someone twenty-four hours of bad luck. There was no table of contents, and jumping to the back of the book I found there was no index either. Then flipping through it to another random page I noticed the last problem. There were no page numbers.

The book was a little thinner than your average paperback, while the paper seemed thicker than usual. At a rough guess I figured there'd be about sixty or seventy pages, but I wasn't going to sit there and count them.

It seemed like a really weird find. I had a feeling it was either something old and rare and possibly valuable, or it was some new-age knock-off that was probably worth less than half what I paid for the math text I didn't receive.

Rather than spend the thirty seconds it'd take to answer that with a quick internet search I decided to just enjoy my new purchase for now. I started carefully flipping through the pages to see what other 'curses' I could find, and I quickly got a feel for how the book was laid out.

Or rather, how it wasn't laid out. It seemed almost random, the curses weren't organized alphabetically, and my casual page-turning didn't reveal any obvious grouping of categories. Seemingly innocuous or silly curses were next to terrifying or horrible ones. Curses that would wear off in a day were mixed with curses that would last forever.

I frowned to myself as I flipped all the way to the back of the book and muttered, "Curated my ass. More like chaotic. Or crap."

About the only thing the various curses seemed to have in common was the actual 'magic words' part was usually only a couple lines long. The shortest ones were a single line, the longest were four lines of text.

The other thing I noticed was each curse contained a couple pages of information before you got to the 'magic words' bit. Like there was background stuff, details about how the curse worked or what the specific effects would be, and there were usually a couple paragraphs of warnings or things to watch out for.

As for what the curses actually did, I spotted one that would make a guy impotent for a month, one that would cause insomnia for a week, and one that would put someone into a deep sleep that was supposed to last for two days.

While those could definitely be unpleasant they weren't as downright horrifying as a few of the other ones. Like one that was supposed to just straight-up kill the victim. Or the one that really turned my stomach the most basically claimed to give the victim cancer.

After seeing those last two I closed the book and put it on my desk as I suppressed a shudder. I shook my head and mumbled to myself, "Nope. That stuff's not cool. Maybe if there were some fun curses, but if that's the sort of thing in there I'm done."

I tried to distract myself with something else, but naturally my curiosity got the better of me. Unfortunately I hadn't bothered to bookmark my place or anything, and without any page numbers or a table of contents I couldn't find where I'd left off. So I just opened to somewhere in the middle and started slowly turning the pages again. And this time I found some more interesting stuff.

In fact the next group of curses I came across were like the sort of thing you'd find in some horny webnovel. Not that I stayed up late reading those on a regular basis.

Anyways there was a curse of submission, that'd make the victim submit to the caster's desires for a week. A curse of horniness, that'd make the victim's libido shoot upwards and make their junk more sensitive for up to an hour. Then I came across the biggest genre trope of them all, the gender bending curse. Although technically it wasn't about changing someone's gender, what it claimed to do was swap the person's physical body to that of the opposite sex.

"As if," I scoffed.

The book looked and felt and smelled like an antique, but by that point I was positive it had to be some modern knock-off. I knew there was no way any of that stuff was real.

I flipped past a few pages of details and warnings before I found the actual 'magic words' of the curse. Like all the other curses I'd seen it so far, was just a couple lines of gibberish.

"Right," I chuckled as I rolled my eyes. "If this sort of thing was real then why hasn't every trans person out there demanded a copy of it? Or at least this page? People would be lining up for this stuff."

"Either that or some evil jerks would be using this to make their worst fantasies come true," I added as I thought about the two preceding curses, about horniness and submission.

I could just imagine some jerk using this sort of thing to turn his enemies, or his friends - or maybe even me - into a harem of slutty subby cuties. For some reason that mental image lingered for a few moments, until I pushed it away with a shudder.

Still, the fantasy that this stuff might actually be real led me to think of a few other possibilities. Like the gender bending curse, if that really worked maybe I could use it to help trans people. Not that I was trans myself, but my best friend Tabby was. And I was online friends with several more. In fact most of my online friends were either trans or lesbians. Or frequently both.

I actually related to a lot of the stuff they talked about too. Not so much the dysphoria, but I often thought about how it'd be cool to be a girl. And I wondered what it'd be like to be cute. Or sexy. Or even subby.

And honestly, I couldn't help but envy all the different options girls had when it came to clothes, and even over-all style. Heck for that matter even make-up and jewelry looked like they could be fun sometimes.

But I wasn't trans, I didn't hate my penis or anything. I wasn't obsessed with it like other guys seemed to be, and I definitely wouldn't miss it if it was gone. But I didn't hate it, I just kind of ignored it most of the time.

Eventually I rolled my eyes and grimaced when I realized I'd fallen down that mental rabbit-hole again. I pushed all that stuff out of my head once more, then looked back at the book in my hands. It was still open to the page with the gender bending curse, and I chuckled again as I stared at those few lines of gibberish.

I have no idea what possessed me to do it, it was like I almost had to prove to myself it was bogus. So I took a deep breath then read the so-called 'magic words' out loud, although there were a few words I almost stumbled over.

"Zaq czyizaq kojifo folaji ce jino foyi zaqbn.
Jifozaq mukozaqda ce kozaqfo uhzaq velr jifo jizaq ko.
Zaqi pofoyi yifo ji zaquh jiyive kofo ve mu."

After I was finished I waited a second or two then rolled my eyes. I knew it was nonsense from the start. It was kind of fun to mess around and pretend or imagine, but that's all it was. The worst part was the forty dollars I was out, plus I still needed that stupid geometry book.

With a quiet sigh I closed the curse book and set it aside on my desk, then turned to my computer and hunted up the browser tab with the bookstore website. I pulled up my order info, and sure enough I'd put the wrong book in my cart. It was probably like the next one to the Hexagon thing I was supposed to get. At least I didn't accidentally pay a fortune for the silly curse book, it was about the same price as the thing I meant to buy.

I went through the checkout process again, for the correct book this time. My math tutor would be by tomorrow morning so I'd have to tell her I messed up and the textbook wouldn't be here for another week or two, so until then I'd have to keep muddling along as best I could.

Luckily Holly was pretty patient with me, even if that patience did seem to wear thin now and then. She was actually really nice, and pretty hot too. Not that I'd ever try and hit on her. She actually commented on that once, that I was one of the few guys she'd tutored who didn't try and ask her out or something. Which was a relief for her because guys were very much not her type.

My email pinged with the order confirmation, and this time I double-checked that I'd ordered the correct textbook. Then with that out of the way there wasn't much else to do but make dinner and maybe stream something on the TV. Or maybe I'd have another look at the Hexinomicon later. I never did finish looking at all the curses in there.

I stood up from my chair and immediately wobbled as a little wave of vertigo passed over me. I put my hand on the desk to steady myself as I blinked my eyes a few times to try and clear my head.

It was the strangest thing, but my whole bedroom seemed a little off. Like my perspective had changed or something, the whole room looked somehow bigger. For that matter so did my desk. I was still leaning against it, only the top of my desk seemed higher than it should have.

After a couple deep breaths I started for the door, but I immediately had to catch myself again.

It was like my centre of balance was off, my legs and hips felt strange, and they were moving differently than I remembered. For that matter my chest felt weird too, like there was something heavy stuck to the front of my body. My clothes seemed like they weren't fitting right either, and the material felt kind of rough and itchy. My shoulders and back even tickled a little, as if there was something like long hair touching me back there.

By that point my heart was racing and my brain started filling up with words like 'impossible' and 'no way' and 'not real'.

I stumbled the rest of the way out of my room, careful not to trip on the cuffs of my jeans which had slipped down over my feet. I put my hand on the wall for support as I stepped around the corner and into the bathroom. I fumbled once before finding the light switch, which was higher up on the wall than it should have been.

I flicked on the light then found myself staring wide-eyed at the mirror over the sink. Staring back at me was a cute hot blue-eyed blonde coed. She had a pretty face, full wide pink lips, a pert little nose, and her long straight hair hung down past her shoulders.

She was wearing my oversized guy's t-shirt with the college logo on the front. The shirt was way too big for her small slender frame, but the logo was a little distorted where the shirt was stretched out across her ample chest.

"Holy heck," I mumbled in my cute new soprano voice. "That book's really real?!"

PurpleCatGirl

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