"Is someone in there?" asked his mother's voice.
Jay tried to imitate a lower voice. "I'll be out soon," he said.
"Jay, do you have a cold? You sound strange."
"I... uh, something happened. Don't worry, Mom, I...."
This was exactly the wrong thing to say and his mother tugged on the door to open it. "Mom, you can't come in!" he yelled.
"Now I know you sound sick," she said.
"I'm not sick. I turned into a girl. If you don't believe it, here, you can see." He unlocked the door and opened it.
His mother gaped at the sight of Jay's face and body, which were off by enough to obviously not quite be Jay, yet not a different person. "I thought that was just an old story," she said. "Let me look at you."
"Mom, get away from me," said Jay. "I'm old enough to have my privacy here. Now what was that about a story?"
"A long time ago a neighbor of mine named Mr. Merlin told me about magic. I was just a kid and he was my age. He said there was magic that was loose in the town and he said that if it found anyone they could end up being able to change sex. He told me about other things too like a magic stone from a lost civilization. He could do magic, so I believed him. but when I got older I thought he was just using tricks. It must have been real, and one of those loose spells must have hit you. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. except I'm not me."
"If it's real," she said, "you should be able to change back. Can you?"
"I... I never tried!" Jay faced the mirror, pointed his finger, and said "Change back!" Nothing happened. He tried to think of what it would be like to change back. Nothing. "It's not working."
"Try really hard?"
Jay tried again. He closed his eyes and really concentrated. He didn't bother pointing this time. A minute later he heard his mother saying "I think it's working."
"Really?" he said. His voice seemed too high, still, but not quite the same as before. He opened his eyes and watched in the mirror as his face and body changed back and he felt his penis suddenly poke against his underwear.
He tried thinking about being a girl. Using basically the same method, he was able to feel himself changing. I don't want perfume this time, he thought, but makeup is okay. And I want the hair longer. He opened his eyes and as he changed, he got the makeup and no perfume; the hair was exactly the same length as before. "Wow," he said. "I thought I was stuck. But if it works by choice, it's good, And it seems like it's hard enough that I can't change by accident. And once it does start, it doesn't stop halfway so I can't look like a freak."
"Jay," said his mother, "it's great that nothing's wrong with you, but even if you really caught some kind of spell that some old man warned me about decades ago, I don't know if it's good."
"It's not bad, Mom, if it only happens when I want. I can choose when to do it."
"And what are you going to do with it?"
"For one thing, you're always telling me that porn isn't real. I can look at myself. I think I'm real enough. As for the rest, I'll think of something."
"Have you thought this through, Jay? You've had this power for an hour at most. I don't want you to do something you'd regret. Like tell people you can turn into a girl and give them a reason to tease you. Or get called gay."
"I think I need to tell people. They're going to freak out sometime. If I tell them, they freak out at a time of my choosing. If I don't, they freak out when I have to do it and they find out."
"At least don't tell everyone. You can't undo telling people. Will you at least think about it?"
"Okay, Mom." Jay didn't want to admit it, but he knew his mother was right. If he did tell people, he couldn't undo it. On the other hand, telling people immediately had a lot to recommend it--what if he needs to keep a bra in his locker? Keeping a bra in his locker without everyone knowing why would be really bad. Not that he was very stacked as a girl. He could probably get away without one.
Besides, there couldn't really be any time where he had to become a girl. Though there might be times when he'd want to become a girl for some reason, even if just to see how people react. He also wondered what lesbians like Thea Woods would think--they might hate him for daring to pretend to be one of them, but they might like him.
Experimenting showed him some of the limits of his power. He could change whenever he wanted, but he could only alter his girl form in purely cosmetic ways--in fact, in literally cosmetic ways. He could become a girl with different makeup, perfume, eyeshadow, lipstick, nail polish... not a different body. His hair was a little different, but he couldn't make it more different. When he cut off a tiny piece of hair in female form, it was no longer missing when he was a guy but was missing when he was a girl--it seemed that each form had its own separate hair length that didn't carry over to the other form. Which boded well for chest hair and leg hair, which he really didn't want to carry over.
Jay eventually left for school as normal, without the bra. He did compromise by stuffing an old shirt in his bookbag. It was too small on him but would fit him as a girl. At any rate, as long as the power was voluntary, it couldn't be a problem, right? All he had to do was learn to handle it properly.
