"So that's about it?" I sighed after explaining what happened to me. "And because the curse was permanent, I'm pretty much stuck this way."

I was sitting crosslegged on one end of the sofa and Avery was relaxing at the other end, she was mostly focused on her phone though. And Tabby was in the recliner off to the left, but she'd turned it to face the sofa. She'd been mostly quiet for the last ten minutes while I gave her the detailed explanation of what happened to me.

My best friend was quiet for another couple seconds as she just stared at me. Then she finally sighed and shook her head, "So you tried to order some old math textbook but accidentally ordered a book of magical curses instead. Then instead of trying to return it you actually read one of the curses out loud. And that permanently transformed you into a cute girl."

Tabby paused and gave me a look, then nodded "Yeah. That checks out for you."

"I'm not that bad!" I protested with a pout. Then I gave her a hopeful look and asked, "Does that mean you believe it's really me?"

"Yeah I know it's you," Tabby sighed again. "And even if I wasn't sure, Avery says it's you and I trust her. I'm still having a hard time believing in magic though?"

My sister agreed, "I felt the same way. Then she accidentally cursed herself smaller. And she let me use another curse to make her clothes all fit? So I've actually seen the magic happen, and it's pretty wild. And a little scary."

My friend looked thoughtful, "Yeah I bet. I kind of want to see it myself now?"

"Hey Tabs?" I asked nervously. "You're not mad at me are you?"

She gave me a confused look, "Why would I be mad at you?"

I shrugged, "I don't know? For making myself look like a girl when I'm not really a girl? I'm not trans or anything. I don't want people to think I'm fetishizing stuff you and other trans girls have to deal with, or trying to steal your culture or anything like that."

Tabby and Avery exchanged a look, then my best friend asked me "Would you like me to use a different name for you now? Or should I keep using the same name as always?"

I felt my cheeks starting to colour as I replied, "Uh, I'm going by Cheryl now? So I guess if you could call me that I'd appreciate it?"

"Ok Cheryl," Tabby continued, "What about pronouns? Do he and him still work for you, or do you maybe have something else in mind?"

"I guess she-her pronouns would be best now?" I answered as my cheeks got a bit brighter. "If that's ok I mean?"

Tabs nodded, "All right. You said the curse was permanent right? How devastated are you? Are you going to have to miss the last few weeks before summer break so you can learn to deal with this tragedy? Or have you thought about going into therapy, to help cope with the mental trauma?"

"Uh, no not really?" I shook my head. "It's not that big a deal I guess? Like I mean, I'm pretty ok with most of it."

"Last question then," Tabby stated after a brief pause. "Magic turned you into a girl, but there's non-magical ways to get back to being a guy again. Would you like my help? I can hook you up with some trans-masc folks, I can point you to some doctors who can get you on T and even talk about stuff like top surgery so you'll start looking and feeling like a guy again."

Even before she finished I was grimacing and shaking my head. "Uh thanks Tabby but I definitely don't want to do that. Like I said I'm pretty ok with this. I think I'd rather just stay a girl and be Cheryl and all that stuff."

Tabs watched me for another second or two then gave me a knowing smile and stated, "Good girl."

"Wha?" I blushed and sputtered, "What's... Why? I don't..."

Both my sister and my best friend stifled some giggles, while I pouted and blushed even more in confusion. I had no idea why she called me that, or why it made me feel all warm and happy inside. I kind of wanted to ask, but at the same time I had a feeling it was some kind of test and they were just going to use it to embarrass me even more.

"Should we tell her?" Avery asked as she looked at Tabby. "I think we should tell her."

Tabs suppressed another giggle but shook her head, "People need to figure it out on their own. Even if it takes forever."

"Figure what out?" I demanded quietly as I continued to pout and blush at them. "I know you two are making fun of me."

"Sorry Cheryl," Tabby finally said after she got all the non-existent giggles out of her system. "And don't worry about it. Tell you what, if you don't figure it out by Monday I'll give you some more clues."

Before I could respond she added, "And I'm not mad at you ok? So don't worry about that. I do think you're a bit of a dense idiot, but that's not new. And anyways I know you're a good person and a true friend. I also know you have terrible luck, but in a really weird way that your bad luck always seems to pay off in the end."

That was kind of a mixed-message thing, but I chose to focus on the important part and ignored the rest.

"Thanks Tabs," I smiled. "I'm glad you're not mad at me. So uh, that's about it. That's what happened to me."

She smiled back, "I don't know how you can say that's it like you're just going to leave it at that? You have a bona fide magic book that really works! Can I see it?"

"Uh sure I guess?" I replied as I leaned forward and picked it up off the coffee table. "This is it here."

Tabby almost jumped to her feet then came and sat down on the sofa between me and Avery, so she could have a closer look at the curse book. I let her take it, then watched as she started flipping through the pages.

"Where's the contents?" she asked with a frown. "How do you know what's in it?"

I grimaced, "Yeah it's kind of weird? There's no table of contents, no index, and no page numbers. Avery put a few of those sticky-note flags in to mark the curses we tried, but otherwise I guess you just have to hunt through to see what you want."

My sister spoke up again, "I really don't think either of you should try and use that book again ok? It's dangerous, and some of the curses are permanent so if you mess things up there's no way to fix it."

"I think the bottom line is it's a book of curses," she added. "Not a spell book. Those things are meant to mess with people."

Tabby nodded, "Makes sense. I could see it being like a monkey's paw thing in a way? Like even if you have good intentions and try to use it to do something positive, there might be some unintended negative side-effects. Or the good outcome is delivered in a negative way."

"How do you mean?" I asked. "Like I guess, how can a good thing also be bad?"

Avery reminded me, "How about like me trying to carefully curse your wardrobe so it's the right size for your new body, but accidentally making your entire wardrobe skimpy and revealing? Not to mention messing up a couple of your favourite pictures of mom."

"Wait that was your fault?" Tabs looked at my sister in surprise. "I assumed she was dressed like that because of her own silly ideas."

My sister laughed, "Let's say me and Cheryl share the blame on that? I told her to get dressed, she's the one who thought tight leggings and a half-open hoodie - and literally nothing else - were appropriate attire. But it's my fault she only has brightly coloured skimpy things to choose from."

"Huh," my friend frowned as she thought about that for a few moments. Then she went back to slowly looking through the curse book again.

After a minute or two I commented quietly, "So uh, one thing that I thought about when I found that gender-bending curse was maybe it could help trans people? Like what it did to me? That might actually be good for people who wanted it?"

"It crossed my mind as well Cheryl," Tabby admitted. "I already saw that one and skimmed through the details? But I can think of some monkey's paw ways that could turn into an absolute nightmare too. Like depending how it interprets things, it might swap someone's body from a trans femme to a trans masc? Someone like me who's already a few years into her transition might have all that work reversed or inverted? That'd be horrific."

I grimaced, "Oh. Yeah, I never thought of that."

Avery agreed, "Like I said, I think maybe it's not safe to use that book at all."

Tabs shrugged, "I'm not so sure? I'm just saying I wouldn't trust that particular curse. Like this one here might actually be more useful?"

She'd found another curse near the back of the book that was more of a generalized transformation curse. It would change the target's body into what the caster wanted. It could do whole-body transformations or it could be focused on specific parts of the body. It was another permanent curse, like the gender bending and the height changing ones, so there was still some danger in messing with it. It seemed ideal though, if Tabby only wanted to make some specific changes to some specific parts of her body.

"Ok that's weird," Avery stated with a frown. "I'm positive I went through the book from cover to cover earlier, and I don't remember seeing that curse in there before."

I frowned as well, "Huh. I don't remember seeing it either? But without any page numbers or an index I'm not sure I looked at every single page."

"Whatever," my best friend shrugged again. "I can see some real potential with this curse? It looks like it gives enough leeway to get things just right. And I'm sure if it was cast with a really specific goal in mind, it should be reasonably safe too."

Avery shook her head, "I'm not sure anything in this book is safe Tabby. This goes for both you and Cheryl ok? Please don't go cursing each other or yourselves. Or me either, for that matter."

Tabby sighed, "But I really want see something happen. You've got this amazing magical resource right here, how can you not want to use it?"

"You already saw Cheryl's spring jacket change didn't you?" my sister pointed out. "That's why you called in the first place."

"Except I didn't actually get to see it happen," Tabs protested. "I was wearing it, then suddenly it got really tight then shredded itself. Like one moment I was wearing Cheryl's dark grey jacket, then next thing I knew there was a bunch of hot-pink nylon fabric falling off my shoulders? I didn't know what happened."

She looked to me and apologized, "Um, sorry Cheryl. Your spring jacket got ruined."

"It's ok I guess," I shrugged. "Pretty much all my clothes got zapped one way or another."

"Why don't you show her what happened to your clothes and those pictures and everything?" Avery suggested to me. Then she looked back to Tabby and added, "All that was from me cursing my sister's belongings so they'd fit her new body."

"Yeah ok sis," I nodded.

Me and Tabby got to our feet to head up to my room, but I faltered as I looked up at her. She was a little tall for a girl at almost a hundred and eighty centimetres, but I was always a bit taller. Now she was practically a whole head taller than me, and it gave me some strange but exciting feelings. She seemed to notice it too, she was looking down at me with a wide and slightly intense smile.

After a couple seconds we both finally got over it and continued on our way upstairs. She was still carrying the curse book with her, and we both stopped in the kitchen to grab a couple cans of cola on our way up. Then when we got to my room I closed the door behind us so my sister wouldn't bother us, and finally gestured around at the stuff that had changed.

"There's that picture of you and me from graduation," I said. "Only now it shows girl-me instead? Same thing happened to that picture of me and mom and Avery from a few years ago. And the last picture of me and my mom on my desk."

Tabby's eyes widened as she stared at the graduation photo, "Holy shit! I have a copy of this at home... I wonder if mine changed too? Or if I still have the original version."

"No idea," I shrugged. "I think the curse only affected my stuff though? So your copy of the picture should be fine."

"That's kind of wild. It'd be even weirder if we had them side-by-side, the original and the updated one," she said with a thoughtful look on her face.

A moment later she commented to herself, "Huh. That's interesting."

"What's that?" I asked.

"You look a lot happier in the new pictures," she replied. "All three of them. I've seen the xmas one and the one on your desk a dozen times before, but girl-you looks a lot happier."

She raised an eyebrow and had a half-smile on her lips as she added, "What do you think that means, cutie?"

I felt my cheeks heating up again as I shrugged, "I noticed that too? I don't know what it means though."

"Of course you don't," she rolled her eyes.

Then she went on to have a look in my closet, and my dresser. She suppressed another giggle at my pink blue and white thigh-highs, and all the other colourful thigh-high socks she found.

Then finally she asked, "Am I going to have to teach you how to dress yourself properly now that all your clothes are femme? Do you want me to teach you how to put on a bra? Or will you get your sister to do that?"

My cheeks went from warm to on fire as my eyes widened. I shrugged and mumbled, "I'm sure I can figure it out for myself. How hard can it be?"

Tabby rolled her eyes again, then sat herself down on my bed as she opened the curse book up again to that transformation curse she found. She frowned at it, "I'm really tempted to give this a shot, you know? Even if Avery says it's dangerous. No risk, no reward, right? And I really want to see magic in action. It just sounds too cool."

"I don't know Tabs," I sighed as I sat down beside her. "Like I want you to be happy and if you think that a magic curse will help then maybe it's ok? But Avery's pretty smart and she does have a point, it can be dangerous."

After a second or two I suggested, "Maybe if you really want to see some magic happen you could try one of the not-permanent not-horrible ones? I'm sure I saw a few that would wear off in an hour, something like that might be safe to mess around with?"

She stared at that transformation curse for a few more seconds then sighed, "You're probably right. Anyways it's a good idea to start somewhere small."

I watched as she turned back to the beginning of the book, then started slowly flipping pages again till she stopped.

Tabby looked at me and smirked, "How about this one? A curse of horniness? It says here it only lasts for up to an hour."

"Seriously?" I asked with wide eyes. "I mean, I guess it's relatively safe? It wears off fast and doesn't do anything permanent, but... Ok. I guess it's alright if you wanted to try that."

Her eyes flicked up and down over me as her smirk shifted to more of a wide grin, "All right Cheryl. If you say it's ok, I'll give it a shot."

I just nodded slowly, then watched as she carefully read out the two lines of gibberish. It wasn't until she got to the end and spoke my name that it suddenly dawned on me what she'd meant. I thought she was talking about using it on herself, not that she was asking permission to use it on me.

My eyes went wide and I opened my mouth to protest, but it was too late.

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