Mystery Lake
[3] Barryed in Changes
This was not the way I expected to spend my spring break. My big plans were to make a high-quality astronomy website with all the cool photos coming out compared with the old ones, but I couldn’t quite get the sizing where I wanted it to be for hosting.
After that, there were a few series online I’d been meaning to watch, and then my Steam backlog.
“Barry?” Duncan Rogers, my neighbor, came knocking at my door with an optional quest proposal: Join him and a party he was putting together to visit a supposed magical, mysterious lake up north, near the border with Canada. I could’ve said no; I was getting better at the idea of rejecting without guilt. But I found myself intrigued.
Joel Griffin would be coming along, though. In freshman year, I thought he was a total meathead without enough of an intelligence bulb to read by. And he had it out for me. But I noticed that when he put an embarrassing thing on my phone, some of the girls in my math class actually kind of looked at me for once. He probably didn’t intend that, but it wasn’t the worst thing.
His jokes weren’t really that funny, but he knew when to quit. My dad always told me to trust first, but Joel pushed that to its limit. Sometimes, I humored him. A big guy like that was useful when we needed to move stuff around the dorm. He wasn't a bad roommate, either. Somehow, he knew to make the best dinners whenever I was feeling crappy.
Along with Joel, he told me that Joel‘s girlfriend, Jess Butler, would be coming too. And then he had thoughts about asking this one girl I figured he had a crush on, Alyssa Eckhart. She had this sort of subdued, almost goth mood about her and didn’t say much in class. She looked kind of like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice crossed with Shelley Duvall in The Shining. Too intimidating for me, but more power to Duncan.
Out of everything, it was his mention of Layla Eggers that got me to go. She was like sunshine beaming out of a person. Instead of eyeliner to make her eyes look like she was a decomposing corpse, hers were a playful accent to punctuate her smiles. She had streaked golden locks in feathered tiers like a starlet of yesteryear. Her lips were plumply pink, like something out of my dreams. Even if we only went to a shopping mall on the other side of the state, I would’ve gone with her.
Since I had a reputation for being the best driver on campus and it was my car, I drove through the dips, rises, and stretches of the forest. I sweated when we needed to sneak around a blockade. Not because I thought we were in any danger, but because I had never done anything this questionable before. I nearly lost my mind when I saw a gardener at school, and we were stopped in a loading zone. I wondered if he could arrest us. In retrospect, that was dumb, but it was how I felt.
When we arrived, the place was pretty for this part of the state, and it was nice to basically have like a private lake. Even though this was the kind of situation where you run into Bigfoot, aliens, or the government doing something it doesn’t want you to know about.
I went to go get some firewood, and Joel made a slasher movie reference. I bristled that he was trying to scare the girls, but I did my best to play off it. I couldn’t remember any scary movies I’d seen recently, though.
My thoughts were all about Layla, and I didn’t want her to think I was some sort of creepy guy. I tried not to go too far into the woods because of all the astronomical stuff about this region, and the crazy folklore had me on edge. If someone started calling my name with my own voice and smelling of rotting meat, like a Skinwalker, then I was climbing the car. Fortunately, there were just squirrels.
Joel set everything up, but I noticed he was watching me a lot. When Duncan revealed the secret of this place, I felt thoroughly skeptical. That sort of thing was reserved for Chinese springs in anime TV shows. Fantasy. Not to denigrate the stories of local tribes, but they were just stories.
Of course, Joel got into it with him. And then he turned his attention to me. Before I knew it, he picked me up and was dragging me to the water. My first thought was brain-eating amoeba. I could tell Joel wasn’t going to just toss me without a care. He knew how to roughhouse without hurting people. At least my phone was safely put away. I just didn’t want any part of it, and at the same time, I wanted it to be over so we could have a good laugh and forget all these crazy lake myths.
The lake didn’t feel like the worst place to land. The water was cool but not freezing. It cushioned and propped me up after a roll. Fortunately, I was able to get to my feet and stagger to the shore. Immediately, though, I felt absolutely weird and funky.
My hips seemed so awkward. Swollen but slim. Plush but lean. And it felt mechanically complicated just to step onto shore. A moment later, it dawned on me that my ass was bare. What I could feel between my legs wasn’t normal. So much flesh and yet so little, and it was folded, split, and raw. If I had to describe it as anything, then it felt kind of like when my allergies go off. A deep, sensitive point inside me. Vaguely like it was consumed by an intangible fire. I didn’t want to imagine it dripping, like my nose did during those times.
The fact that I clearly had girl parts between my legs was immediately overshadowed by the fact that my damp shirt clung to the most ludicrous curves imaginable. Massive tits rose from my chest like a practical joke prop. Ha ha, someone stuck oversized balloons on you. No joke.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The weight of them pulled on my back, pits, and neck. They moved, jiggled, and reacted to me in a way only vaguely muted by my soaked clothes. How could I possibly deal with these things until it wore off?
Layla rushed over with a towel as we recovered my pants. She wanted to know if I was okay. I would’ve been better if I was still myself in that moment. All the girls crowded me, and it was quite intimidating because of decades of feeling like girls were some distant thing to admire from afar and not actually interact with. I just wanted to hide away.
I felt so weird and told everyone as much. My drenched Hawaiian shirt would have to go. It was already starting to feel irritating, clammy, and heavy against me. I started to take it off before I realized, with alarm, that there was nothing under there to hide how I looked. I just flashed the other guys. Well, just the guys, since I wasn’t one of their number right now.
Layla led me over to the far side of my car. To say the walk was surreal would be the biggest understatement. I wasn’t sure what to hang onto. Keeping my thighs together to muffle things down there had the opposite effect. Trying to restrain these wild tits required pushing slender arm flesh against yielding warm boob. Layla helped me undress. She was the first girl to see me naked outside of my family. Not exactly the scenario I daydreamed of.
We were basically the same, and that kind of blew my mind. She fumbled around the backseat with what clothes everyone had brought. I got permission to take pretty much anything. It again melted my brain that all the girls' clothes in the back were stuff that I could wear and not look weird. Well, weird for me, but not weird for a girl.
Holding a quick breath, I gestured to one of Jess’s bikini tops. Layla raised a lovely eyebrow and asked me if I was sure.
A lot of me wanted to say no and just go with the safe stuff. But I was a girl, and I figured, why not? It felt so insubstantial to actually cover me. I was so vivid and exposed. Layla had some running shorts, which took care of my lower half. Still so surreal. And then she added on what seemed like a tracksuit with drawstring pants and a windbreaker for my crazy top. Fortunately, there were plenty of sandals to spare.
Walking back was a battle against my timid nature. Crawling into a sandy hole never to be seen again seemed like a good idea. Joel noticed what I was wearing and paid extra attention to it. Being smaller made it feel like every gesture that others made was somehow patronizing. I was, however, used to that in general and eager to find out when this would wear off.
When Duncan unfurled the truth after dancing around it, I wanted to scream that he was lying. My soft legs gave out from under me. I couldn’t even hold my mouth up to talk. Maybe plopping on the ground on my knees was a little melodramatic, but I didn’t feel like hiding my emotions.
Joel got up soon after, and it was easy to see the outline of his… Himself… His well, his stuff through his pants. He took a nose dive, but we all knew. Any other day, I would’ve laughed it off or yelled the things that guys were always supposed to yell when something gross happened. But this day, he was different. Not just the kind of cool guy and surfer dude whose orbit I only entered due to derision and pranks, but a man with a certain scent carried across camp on the breeze.
Uncensored, my mind envisioned just the two of us. He still joked and teased, but slipped warmly around me with his big arms and leaned close over my shoulder. He breathed on me, and everything quivered. I could feel him rising as I settled into his lap, vulnerable but wanting to be that way. And if we were naked together...
I felt abject embarrassment and screamed, “WHAT THE HELL?!?” as much to where my thoughts were leading me as to Joel getting hard just from me being around. His girlfriend chewed him out, and Alyssa slipped over by my side. She offered me one of her sweaters for more coverage than just the windbreaker. I was fine with this outfit, but I put it on anyway.
Joel tried to smooth things over. I wasn’t sure what to think when he referred to me as a “goddess”. The sniffles were definitely starting between my thighs. I had so many new thoughts to try on and think through. The girls eventually took me back over to the car for a more coordinated outfit. It felt more like they just wanted to dress me up in all sorts of things, but I obliged. At least what they settled on looked decent and felt comfortable enough. I kept the bikini top on for reasons I didn’t quite understand.
Reflecting on everything and still getting used to walking around like this, I noticed that Alyssa snapped up the bucket for the fire and walked over to the pier. Scooping carefully, she came up with a bucket full of lake water. Joel wasn’t really paying attention, and Duncan was off to the side. The other girls soon noticed and took a few steps back. I didn’t, but then I was far enough away that I didn’t seem to be at risk. Granted, if another dose of the water would change me back... I wasn’t sure if I would jump at the chance yet. I wanted to let this soak in more.
Joel tried to jump with the water that Alyssa hurled at him, but it got him all over, especially in the face. Watching a transformation was way different than being the subject of one. I could see Joel’s thick muscular arms turn into tanned but slender girlish limbs poking out of his top. I felt sad but also satisfied to see him become more petite than anyone else. Her pants couldn’t stay up either.
“Bitch”, sounded strange coming from a girlish voice with the intonation that Joel gave. I honestly didn’t expect her to use that word, but I could understand. Alyssa rocked her head and held out a hand, as if to say, “Takes one to know one.”