Santa’s Helper (Sexy!) With Boots : 4 / 6

An Altered Fates Story
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

When Jackie awoke, her eyes opened to the sight of Grady, who was sitting on the bathroom floor, looking at her. His back was against the wall, and his head rested against the window sill. He’d perched his mug of coffee on the edge of the sink, to his right. She could see its steam curling up into the air. Her bathwater was still hot. She reached for her coffee cup, and that, too, was pleasantly hot. She took a sip. “Good coffee,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “They’ve got pretty decent stuff here. I had to reheat it a few times while you slept. It’s nice that the flavor survived all that nuking.”

She sipped and smiled. “Oh God, look at my fingers! They’re all wrinkled and pruny!”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Bath water will do that to you, when you’ve been in there for a while. Hey, tell me something,” he ventured, catching her completely off guard. “That car that you have to get back... does it belong to Jack, by any chance? Jack Redhaven?”

She froze. “Yes, um… Jack. Right. Yes, it’s Jack’s car.” She looked down and sipped her coffee. She tried to not show her surprise at hearing her real name. How did Grady come to know it? Did he know anything about her transformation? Would he believe her if she told him the truth?

“Won’t Jack want his car back?”

“Right, yes, he would.”

“What makes you think Jack isn’t going to go get the car himself?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, I guess he would… if he could… I guess.”

“You guess,” he repeated. He held her with an even, neutral gaze, silent, waiting for her to add something… anything. He learned this technique when he was interrogated by the police: guilty people tended to talk, if you simply waited and didn’t prompt them. The more they talked, the more were likely they were to slip up and tell you things they didn’t mean to tell. So he waited, expecting her to feel the need to fill the silence. But she didn’t. She sipped her coffee, looking down at the bubbles in the tub, uncertain whether to own up to her crazy, true story or just go with the flow, as she had so far. She shoved the bubbles around with her hand. At last, Grady could wait no longer. He had to ask her, “Who is Jack?”

Jackie let out a big breath. She had to tell him. “Okay. Who is Jack. That’s… that’s a story. It’s… quite a story. Can I get out of the tub and get dressed and then I’ll tell you?”

“You can get out of the tub, but you can’t get dressed. After you tell me the story of Jack, well, then we’ll see.”

She nodded, and stood up. He lifted her out of the tub and set her on the bath rug. He wrapped her from her neck to her toes in a huge, white towel -- the biggest, thickest, softest towel she’d ever experienced -- and draped a second, smaller towel over her head like a hood. He gently patted and caressed her body until her body was still humid, but not dripping. Then he vigorously rubbed her scalp and hair with the smaller towel, rubbing the water from her hair. She watched his face closely as he held her. As he did all this to her, she tried to read his expression, but he was unreadable. She didn’t think he was angry or upset. He looked and acted with a maddening calm. He lifted her, all warm and cocooned in her towels. He cradled her in his arms, and carried her gently downstairs. Before he set her down, he dropped a throw pillow from the couch onto the floor in front of an armchair. He set her on her feet and took the big towel from her, leaving her naked once again, except for the small towel that covered her hair. I’ve been spending a lot of time naked since I became a girl, she thought. I don’t think that’s normal. But what is normal any more? Though the house was pleasantly warm, her nipples stood at attention. He put his hands on her hips, and as he lowered himself into the armchair, he pulled her toward him. With his chin, he gestured at the pillow between his feet and told her, “Kneel there.” She knelt between his big bare feet, resting her hands on her naked thighs. Her body was still warm and moist from the long, hot bath. Her skin was soft and lovely and utterly without flaw. She blinked and looked up at him, realizing yet again how long her lashes were. “Now, tell me all about Jack,” Grady told her. “But before you begin, I’m going to guess something: Jackie is not your real name. You’ve taken that from Jack.”

She nodded her lovely head. Then after a big, deep breath, she slowly began, “I know this is going to sound hard to believe, but…” From there, once she started, it was like diving off a cliff: she couldn’t stop. The story spilled out of her in one long, continuous flow. Grady didn’t interrupt her; he didn’t ask any questions. He let her run all the way through the events she’d been waiting to tell, dying to tell. She told it exactly the way it happened. She told him how Jack was hired to liquidate the theater, how he drove into town, how he found the box with “zulo” on the side, how the costume fell, and -- guess what! -- Jack became Jackie! She told him about her panic in the bathroom, the plan to get clothes, how she put on the costume, how her car was gone… about Lucy, the bus, the drugs, the Santas, …

When she reached the end, she stopped, surprised that she had no more to tell. She ended by telling him, “It’s all true. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what happened.”

He looked into her face without talking for two beats. Then he asked, “What did it say on that box? Was the word ‘zulu’?”

“No -- it was zulo,” she corrected, and she spelled it for him.

“Why didn’t you keep the necklace? Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

“Why would I?”

“It’s obviously connected to what happened to you. Isn’t it?”

Jackie blinked. “No, it was the costume that made me change. Wasn’t it? I mean, I had the necklace on for a while, and nothing happened. It wasn’t until the costume fell on me…” Suddenly she felt immensely stupid. It *was* obvious, wasn’t it: it was the medallion. “Oh, what an idiot I am.”

“Let’s put a pin in that for a minute,” he said. “I need a little time to think. Yeah. Time. And I need Jack’s phone unlocked. What’s the code?”

She fetched the phone and unlocked it for him. He pulled up a search window and began typing. She stood by his side, waiting, but soon it was clear that the phone had taken all his attention. She felt a rumble in her stomach, and went into the kitchen to find herself a snack. After she ate and drank, he was still reading something on the phone, so she wrapped herself in the big towel, lay down on the couch, and slept some more. When she woke, Grady was there, waiting for her, looking a little impatient. “I have one question,” he said. “Does Jack have a criminal record? Is he married? Is anybody looking for him for anything? Debts? Alimony? Child care?”

“No, none of the above,” she replied. “Why?”

“I’ll tell you in a little bit,” he said. “But I have a plan that will solve both our problems: yours and mine. And if you don’t like it, I have a plan to fix that, too. But we have to move. We have a few errands to run and not a lot of time. First, let’s get you some clothes to wear.”

In the master bedroom, they found a top, a skirt, and a pair of sneakers that fit well enough, but the underwear was all too small. “Leave the underwear,” Grady told her. “We’ll pick up some later.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s get a move on.”

They climbed into the truck and drove about a mile to a mobile home that was in worse shape than Lucy’s. “Good,” Grady observed. “Buddy’s not home. You wait here and don’t unlock the door until I tell you.” He ran inside, and Jackie could hear him, even through the truck’s closed windows, banging around, looking for something, rapidly opening and closing drawers and doors. While he was still searching, a beat-up pickup truck pulled into the yard, and a skinny young man jumped out. He had to be Buddy. He looked beaten down, sad, alone, abandoned. His face evoked pity and pain, as though he’d been crying for years. He stared at Jackie with big round eyes and shouted, “Who are you? Who the hell are you?”

Then, hearing the noises from within, he dashed into the house. The banging and crashing sounds increased in tempo, with the addition of shouts between Grady and Buddy.

Then the banging stopped, and Buddy cried out, “No! No! Put that down, God damn you! Put it down! Put it back! You got no right! It’s all I have! You can’t! My God, you have no heart! Stop! Stop! STOP, damn you!”

Grady burst out of the front door and ran for the truck, signalling Jackie to unlock the driver’s door. He jumped in, slammed the door behind him, and locked it.

Buddy ran up and hammered on Jackie’s window, crying and shouting. “You’re a grave robber, Grady! Do you hear me? You’re a goddam grave robber! You’ll rot in hell, you S.O.B. You got no right! YOU GOT NO RIGHT!” They could still hear him shouting even after they drove out of sight.

Grady didn’t make a sound or look at her. After a pregnant silence, and once they reached a paved road, Jackie asked, “What was that all about? Why did he call you a grave robber?”

“Okay,” Grady said after a glance at her. “I’ll tell you. You ought to know. But you cannot tell a soul. Not one, single soul. This is a deep, dark, terrible secret. If anyone comes to know it, the person who will suffer most of all is Buddy back there. It will tear him apart, and hurt him more than he can bear. Do you swear you’ll never tell?” Jackie agreed, and crossed her heart. Grady sighed again, then said, “That kid back there is Buddy Gammisen. I mean, he’s grown up, he’s an adult, but in his head, developmentally, he’s just a kid. He’s not a bad kid, but he’s not very bright. He’s kind of a simpleton. I’m not being unkind; I’m just telling you a fact. He had an older sister, Zadie, not much older than Buddy… a few years younger than me… anyway, she was a nice girl, a lovely girl, beautiful inside and out, with a good head on her shoulders. Well, their parents died in car crash. Both of them, at once. Her father was a no-account fall-down drunk. One fine night he drove his car right into a tree. Killed himself and their mother -- Buddy and Zadie’s mother. After that, she and Buddy moved to that… to that shack back there, although it looked a lot nicer while Zadie was alive.

“Obviously, they never had much money, and up here in the hills, it’s very common for people to grow pot or to cook meth. It’s one of the few ways to earn a living. One day Buddy took it into his head that he was going to cook meth. He figured that’s how he’d contribute. But he didn’t understand how dangerous that business can be. I mean, sure, everybody’s heard about meth labs exploding and all that... So Buddy knew that making meth is dangerous, but he figured he’d start small and that way he’d be safe. Somebody told Buddy about ‘shake and bake,’ which is where you mix the ingredients in a bottle and shake it. I don’t know the details, but eventually if you do it right, you get a small batch of meth. Just to say it like that, to describe it that way, it sounds simple, but the grim reality is that you’ve got highly volatile chemicals in a very potent reaction. The two most important things are that you know exactly what you’re doing, and that you pay close attention, and Buddy didn’t do either of those things. He didn’t learn all the details, and he got distracted. He left the bottle on a tree stump out back of their home. He forgot all about it and went off to look for me, so we could get some beers.

“Zadie came home while we were gone, and she went out looking for him. She ventured out back. She saw the bottle, didn’t know what it was. She touched it or picked it up or maybe it just happened by itself, but however it happened, the damn thing blew up and burst into flames.” Grady fell silent and looked off in the distance until he was sure he wasn’t going to cry. “Buddy wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. There was nobody there to help her, so she died, all alone. She burnt to death in that shitty little backyard there.

“Of course, we had no idea. We’d been drinking, and I dropped him home. The two of us were standing near the house, peeing in the bushes, laughing. All of a sudden he remembered about the bottle, so he ran back to get it. He figured by then it had to be ready, and that’s when he found her. I heard him screaming, so I...” Grady drew some deep breaths to steady himself before he went on. “God Almighty, it was horrible. It was the worst thing I’ve seen in my entire life. It shook me the core, but Buddy, he went all to pieces. He couldn’t stop screaming. I had to slap him in the face to make him stop.

“By rights we should have called someone. The police, the sheriff, somebody. But we didn’t. I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t see Buddy in jail. I just couldn’t. So the two of us buried Zadie.

“Even then he was going to mess it up and land himself in jail. He wanted to mark her grave with a cross, a wooden cross with her name on it and the date. Of course I couldn’t let him do it, and I told him why, but the next night I went back to check, and sure enough he’d put up a marker. Zadie Gammisen, RIP, and the date. I took it down, and burned it. I dug her up and buried her a second time, far off, in a spot that Buddy wouldn’t know or ever find. Then I went and told him, and he went wild. He was desperate. He couldn’t understand. He wanted to honor her gravesite, and didn’t see that it would land him in jail.”

After a few moments of silence, Jackie asked, “Didn’t people wonder what happened to Zadie?”

“Oh, sure, of course they did.” Grady replied. “But me and Buddy told people that she’d gone East.”

“Gone East?” Jackie repeated. “What on earth does that mean?”

Grady gave her an irritated look. “East is that way,” he said, pointing with his finger. “You start walking in that direction, and you’ll hit one big city after another, from Carson City to Chicago, and beyond. She went East. It’s something people say around here. People do go East, you know.”

After about twenty minutes of driving, Grady pulled up in front of a sporting-goods store. He told her, “You stay here, don’t open the door for anyone. I’ll be right back.”

He returned fifteen minutes later with a big shopping bag, which he tucked behind the driver’s seat. One of the items was poking out the top of the bag. “Is that a woman’s bathing suit?” she asked.

“Yep. And a few other things. Luckily there was a salesgirl who was just the right size and shape.”

The right size and shape for what? she asked herself, but aloud she said, “Hey, can we stop somewhere? I really need to pee.”

“Yeah,” he said. “How do you feel about some food?”

“I could eat again,” she agreed.

“Okay, let me run over to that drugstore, and then we’ll get some food.”

He brought her to a diner. The place was bright and shiny and clean, and the menu had every possible kind of food on it. She ordered a chef’s salad and he ordered a steak. While they waited for their food to come, she asked him, “Do you believe me? Do you believe that I’m really Jack, or that I used to be Jack?”

Grady smiled. “Let’s say that I have reason to not disbelieve you. I did a little research on your phone while you slept, and there’s quite a bit online about the Medallion of Zulo -- hence the ‘zulo’ on your box -- and what I read fits with your experience.”

“Really!”

“Yes, and also, a little closer to home, there was a story, happened right here in town. In fact, the story connects the medallion to the theater. It was back in 1961, way before I was born. As a kid, I was never clear on the details, but I found them after a little searching. There used to be an elite prep school for boys over in Premsby -- that’s the next town over. Back in those days the boys would put on a play every year in the very same theater where you found the necklace.

“That year, the play was Lady Windermere’s Fan. Since it was an all-boys school, the female parts had to be played by the younger boys. The drama teacher, who was a woman, apparently put the boys in their costumes every chance she could. Seemed she got some kind of thrill out of dressing boys in girls’ clothes. Anyway, the interesting part is that some way, somehow, she came into possession of the medallion, and she turned one of the young boys into a young girl.”

“Oh, my God!” Jackie exclaimed, just as their food arrived. The waitress smiled and refilled their water glasses. After she left, Grady continued.

“Of course, no one believed her about the medallion. She wanted to change him back, but no one would let her near the child. The whole business ended very badly. The boy’s parents didn’t believe that this strange young girl was actually their son, transformed, so she became an orphan and went into the system. The teacher was charged with kidnapping, and they threatened to bring all sorts of other charges against her, including murder. See, everyone actually thought and believed that it was a double kidnapping: that she’d kidnapped a boy and a girl. In the end, the teacher and the girl disappeared, along with the theater’s maintenance man.”

“And nobody knows what happened to them?”

“Not as far as I can tell.”

“If the medallion could do all that, why didn’t they take it with them?”

Grady shrugged. “Maybe they figured it had caused enough trouble in their lives.” He chuckled to himself. “Maybe they didn’t have sexy Santa Baby costumes back then, so they couldn’t imagine what else to do with it.”

“Hmmph.” Jackie crunched her lettuce thoughtfully. “So, do you think the medallion can turn me back into Jack?”

Grady hesitated before he answered. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

“Of course that’s what I want! Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Honestly? You don’t seem to mind being a girl. In fact, you seem to like it quite a bit. The way you walk and talk. The faces that you make… You’re all flirty and sexy and cute. Like, when you were in the bathtub, you were batting your eyes and saying in that little-girl voice oh, my little baby fingers are all pruny and wrinkly! Everything about you screams girl. But at the same time…” Grady hesitated again. “I don’t know how much of what I’m seeing is really you.” He scratched his head. “Look: I have to tell you something. I love submissive women: Passive, obedient, pliable women just drive me wild. And you are the most submissive, feminine, docile woman I have ever met or seen in my entire life. BUT -- and this is a big ‘but’ -- and even apart from the whole business with the medallion -- I don’t know if this is really you. I’m afraid that everything I’ve seen and experienced with you is just the effect of the drugs that Lucy gave you.”

“Wouldn’t that have worn off by now?” Jackie asked. “I don’t feel high at all. I haven’t for a while.”

“For most people, yes. It would have worn off hours ago. I’m no expert, and I’ve never taken ecstasy, but I do know that for some people, E can have an aftereffect that lasts for days, even a week, where the person is all happy and open and just --- well, just way too open. They’re… well, they’re like you are now. Face it, I’d love to fuck you every which way. I’d love to do all kinds of things to you. You must know that. You must feel that I want it. And God, I know I’ve taken liberties with you that I probably shouldn’t have, but there’s a good reason that I haven’t gone all the way. And believe me, it’s been a battle. Inside of me, it’s been a fight. Lord knows. But there’s one thing about submission that’s very important to me, and it’s this: submission has to be honestly and intelligently given. It’s all about consent. It’s a fully informed and conscious agreement between two people. And I’m not sure that you’re in a state where you can truly consent. I’m not sure you can authentically consent to anything, I mean.”

Jackie considered this in silence. It did make some sense. The way she behaved as Jackie was nothing like the way she behaved as Jack. Jack had zero trouble saying no. In fact, he liked saying no. Jack was kind of an asshole, really, and proud of it. Jackie, on the other hand, loved people and fun. Yes was the word that was written on her heart.

Grady continued:

“At the same time, I think about the things you did, before you took the drugs. You didn’t seem in any kind of hurry to get rid of your new girly self. You didn’t even try to explore why and how it happened. Think about it: What were the first things you did after you changed? What were the first things you wanted to do? You wanted to look in a mirror. You wanted to clean up. You wanted to get some nice clothes to wear. And then, what DID you wear? What was the first and only thing you even tried on? In a building full of costumes of every imaginable kind, you went and put on that sexy Check-Me-Out-and-Fuck-Me-Santa Baby-Doll outfit, with the shiny red panties. That’s what you did.”

Jackie blushed crimson, and responded, a little hotly, “And what would YOU have done?”

Grady laughed. “I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t have done! I wouldn’t have left that theater until I got my cock back! That’s for damn sure.”

Still flushing red, Jackie demanded, “And how exactly would you do that?”

Grady smiled and held up Jack’s phone. “I’d do it with this, exactly the way I did up at the house just now. I did a little searching, starting from the word z-u-l-o, and pretty quickly I knew all about the medallion and how it works. If you had done that, you’d know that if you just sat down and waited twelve hours, you could change myself back.”

“But it’s been twelve hours,” Jackie protested. “It’s been MORE than twelve hours, and I haven’t changed back.”

“You can only change once every twelve hours, but you need the medallion to do it. Don’t worry, I’ll show you. I’ve got a plan.”

They took a few bites of food in silence, then Jackie asked, “Your plan -- you said you had a plan that would solve both our problems, yours and mine. What’s your problem?”

“Mmm,” Grady said, swallowing. “My problem is probation. I’m supposed to meet my probation officer tomorrow morning, and I know he’s going to violate me.”

“Violate you?” Jackie asked, alarmed. “Do you mean, like, rape?”

Grady almost choked on his coffee. Laughing, he told her, “No, no -- I mean, he’s going to throw me back in jail for violating the terms of my parole. I don’t want to get into the particulars. Let’s just say it would be immensely useful to me if I could be somebody else for a while. Or even permanently. Being me hasn’t been working for a while now. It’d be nice to have a clean slate.”

Jackie nodded.

They finished their food, than made a quick stop at the theater to pick up the medallion. They put it inside the necklace case to keep it safe and to prevent accidental transformations.

That was the last of their errands, so from the theater, they went to Jack’s motel room.

Jackie looked around. Everything was exactly as she’d left it -- or, as Jack had left it. Although only one day had passed, it seemed like years since she’d been in that room. Jack’s suitcase was exactly where Jack had dropped it. Jack really hadn’t used the room at all; he’d only checked in and run off to the theater -- the theater, where everything had changed. It seemed as though she’d lived an entire lifetime as Jackie. Was she ready to change back? Did she want to change back?

She looked at Grady, who was busy laying clothes and other items on the bed. She saw the bathing suit he’d just bought, and now he was opening and unrolling a condom that seemed impossibly long. “I don’t know if I’m up for that,” she found herself saying.

“That’s interesting,” Grady observed. “It sounds like you’re starting to come back to yourself. That’s the closest you’ve come to saying ‘no’ since I met you. Anyway, don’t worry -- this isn’t for what you think.” He stopped and surveyed the items on the bed. Then, realizing what was missing, he opened Jack’s suitcase and took out a pair of boxer shorts. “Jack *has* worn these, right?” he asked. Jackie nodded.

“Okay, here we go,” Grady said, rubbing his hands nervously. “Now we’ll see if this thing works as advertised.” He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his shirt. As he started opening his pants, he nodded to Jackie. “You should take your clothes off, too.”

By the time they were both naked, her breasts were freely bobbing, and he had an erection of considerable size. Grady saw her looking, so he said, “You know that I want to, but let’s do this medallion thing and see if it really works. Because if it doesn’t, I’ll need to high-tail it out of here. There may already be a warrant out for my arrest.”

Grady sat Jackie in a chair, and then bound her hands with zip ties. “What happened to consent?” she quipped, only half-joking.

“This is just a precaution,” he replied. “If you touch the medallion in the wrong way at the wrong time, we’ll be screwed.” She nodded. He took a breath.

Jackie asked him, “You’re really nervous, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, of course I am,” he responded. “I’m afraid it won’t work -- and then what? I’ll be on the run. And I’m afraid it *will* work. If it really works, it’s going to be a whole new life, with all that it entails.”

“Okay,” she said in a doubtful tone.

“Listen,” he told her. “This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to change us both, and if you don’t like the result, we can change again tomorrow morning. It’s almost six now. It’ll probably take a half hour each to transform, so that’s seven. We can change again at seven AM, or twelve hours after we’re done changing. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’m going to change first, then I’ll change you. Now, I told you that I think the drug is still affecting you, so I’m going to change you into somebody -- a real somebody with a birth certificate and other documents, so you can live a real life.” She frowned, not understanding. “What I’m thinking is that that is what you really want: you want to be a young, good-looking woman. This way, you can do that. I might be wrong; we’ll see. After you change, the drugs should be out of your system, and then you can tell me what you really want.”

“And who are you going to change into?” Jackie asked.

“Watch and you’ll see,” he told her. He put the medallion around his neck, and touched Jack’s boxers to it. He gasped slightly as the tingling sensation hit him, then slowly the changes began to spread over his body. Jack was a tall man, but not anywhere near as muscular and wide as Grady. As the two of them watched, Grady grew slimmer. Fine lines appeared around his eyes and mouth. His lips thinned. His hair darkened, and his shoulders narrowed. His neck and face got smaller as well. Grady looked down at his penis, and saw that it was growing shorter as well.

“I kind of thought so,” he commented, and picked up the long condom from the bed. He held it against the medallion until his cock grew to what seemed to Jackie an unnatural length. “That’s better,” Grady said. “Now we do you.”

He hung the medallion around her neck, and touched it with an old cotton dress that he picked up from the bed. Grady dragged her chair closer to the mirror on the back of the door so she could see her reflection. As she watched, her hair grew shorter, curlier, and lightened to a sandy, reddish brown. Her breasts began shrinking and her hourglass figure widened to a narrow rectangle. She had a cute face, but the rest of her… and oh, lord! “I’m flat as a board!” she cried, “and I’ve got big feet!”

She looked at Grady, who was stunned by the transformation. It was a shock to see Zadie’s face again. “Don’t worry,” he said, coming back to himself. “Zadie always hated her figure and her feet, so we’ll fix that now.” He touched the medallion with a small-sized pair of womens sneakers. Then, as Jackie’s feet began to shrink, he touched the medallion with the bathing suit he’d bought earlier. Jackie’s figure began to morph once again, filling out to match the bathing suit’s measurements. In moments, the medallion returned to her the curvy hips, narrow waist, and generous breasts that Jackie had so quickly gotten used to.

Once the changes were complete, Grady cut the zip ties from Jackie’s wrists, and the two took stock of themselves and of each other.

“Shit, it really works!” the new Jack whispered, in a voice filled with awe.

“What the hell?” Jackie asked, once again startled by the new voice coming out of her mouth.