Fred stumbled on the hem of his dress for the hundredth time, reeling sideways in a blind effort to stay upright as he found his ever-elusive balance once again. Every recovery felt like a miracle at this point, even as he finished off the last of his mostly-spilt beer and started hunting for the next one. The large green sundress he was wearing would have been difficult to move in at the best of times, with a long skirt that brushed the gown and threatened to entangle his feet with every step. Frederick had also managed to lose track of how many drinks he’d imbibed in the last few hours, which wasn’t helping. His head reeled as he slumped against the wall and awkwardly waved at a couple walking past him. Any other day he might have garnered a more cagey reaction from passerby, but it was a party, after all.
The noise of the St. Patrick’s Day parade pressed in from all sides as the streets rang with hoots, hollers and music. Somewhere over the heads of the crowd a giant papier-mache leprechaun loomed gaily over the pedestrians. On a day like this, Fred would have preferred to be partying with his friends, getting smash-drunk in the spirit of the holiday or just trading shots of spirits with his wife. But no, instead all he had was the product of an ill-concieved wager and an inevitable faceplant in the near future, unless he could find a solution.
Finally spotting an out-of-the-way odds and ends store that looked like it would have what he needed, Frederick ducked inside, leaning on the door a bit too heavily and staggering into the small shop.
“Make yerself at home….sir.” A small voice offered from behind the cashier’s desk.
The door swung shut behind Fred, muffling the ruckus outside and letting him collect himself.
“Just....lookin’ for….something.” He mumbled.
Fred’s vision cleared enough to get a good look at the store owner. She was a small woman, with pointy, upturned features and a wild mane of uncombed grey hair that completely hid her ears. She carried the bearing and stance of an older woman, despite having a relatively young, unlined face.
“Jes’ keep the door closed while yer’ rummagin’ “ She spoke in a lilting Gaelic accent. “Bad enough I’ve to deal with that nonsense every year, without the noise fillin’ up me shop” She picked up a pair of knitting needles with her long, boney fingers and got back to work on what looked like a very long scarf that had been in her lap.
“Aw, I like Saint Patties…” Fred straightened himself up and began to browse the shelves of knicknacks, hitching up his dress in one fist.
The woman scoffed. “Feh! Lot of puffery and nonsense for some godly busybody had no right meddlin’ in affairs t’weren’t his to begin with. At least it gets the menfolk nice and sauced and knocks em’ all out fer a day or two.”
“If you say so…” Fred mumbled. “Hey do you sell...safety pins?”
The shop owner looked over Fredrick with a pair of large, almond-shaped eyes that seemed a little too big for her head and raised an eyebrow. “Regrettin’ yer wardrobe?.”
“It wuzza...bet.” Fred explained. “Me n’ my pals thought it would be funny, I lost and now I gotta wear my wife’s dress all day. It’s...breezy.” He shrugged.
“Awful cruel of yer friends” The tiny shop owner replied.
“Actually, dress was my idea.” Fred offered. “Belongs to m’ wife, and she’s a lot taller than me...hence all the stumblin. Didn’t think I’d be the one to end up wearin’ it...’”
“Indeed…” The odd woman tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Now yeh be wantin’ a way to make that dress fit a little better, or at least avoid scuffin’ it so much....”
She bent over and disappeared for a moment, returning with a long, thin, brass coloured clasp with a small dark brooch on one end. It looked like a fastener for a dress, which could open and close on one side.
“This’ll do yeh. Have it on the house, for yer sake. And that dresses.”
“Aw thanks.” Fred stifled a burp as he teetered over to retrieve the offered pin. “But I was really thinking more of a few-”
“It’ll work.” The store owner cut him off sharply. “Hike up the dress by the shoulder and use the pin there. I guarantee it’ll make yer dress fit perfectly.” She squinted at him, but flashed curved, toothy grin that left Fredrick feeling unsettled. Her mouth was full of small, pointy teeth.
“If you say so.” Fred nodded, the fog of intoxication lifting long enough for him to prioritize leaving the store as fast as he could.
“Have a glorious day, Freddie my dear….” The store owner waved as he dipped outside. Fred didn’t even realize that he had never told her his name before the door closed behind him with a faint tinkle of bells.
Trying to straighten up himself and his dress in equal measure, Frederick wandered back out onto the street and let the noise of the parade engulf him once more. Common sense dictated hiking up his lengthy skirt and pinning the bundle away from his feet as best he could, but the thought of bending over in his current state gave him vertigo and the store owner seemed very insistent, so Fred acted on her certainties, grabbing as much of the right shoulder strap as he could to lift the entire dress off the ground and pin it in place with the brooch.
The effect lasted less than a second, with the garment quickly slipping through the pin and the dress falling back into place. But Fred didn’t feel it pool around his feet as it was expected to. He glanced down, only to find his toes visible poking out from under the hem of the dress that barely brushed against his ankles. He tugged at the armpit of the garment, noticing that it didn’t sag against his sides and felt much more snug by the second.
Blinking and taking a few uneasy steps, Fred felt the dress conform more confidently to his body, the skirt easily picking up momentum and fanning about his legs. He blearily figured that it had to be shrinking somehow, until he almost collided with a partygoer nearly as drunk as he was and started to look around, noticing that the crowd all seemed...shorter. He awkwardly shifted his weight and looked down again, at a patch of ground that seemed farther away than usual. The dress hadn’t changed at all, he was simply growing to fit it.
A sober man might have found his changing proportions worrisome, but all that escaped Fred’s mouth was a half-formed guffaw of disbelief. His legs definitely looked and *felt* longer, and a great deal smoother too. And much more toned…
His hands began to feel at his thighs, groping at a thickness that hadn’t been there before, and a swell of hip that was very unfamiliar. By the time his hands reached his butt, Fred could feel his flesh quickening under his fingers. Muscle and fat built and thickened until his hips and backside perfectly filled out the dress with a very feminine swell, just as his waist contracted, belly tucking in to better compliment his hips. Fred’s hands flew away as he already could tell what was going to happen next, his inebriated mind open and willing to the possibilities even as his freshly hairless chest began to grow.
What began as a slight warmth and pressure behind both nipples blossomed into a surge of growth as his once unspectacular pectorals gave way to a pair of growing breasts that filled his top and stretched the neckline out to display his modest cleavage.
Fred stared at his new endowments, eyes boggling as his hair, which he had always kept long out of preference, grew thicker and tickled at the top of his shoulders. His face collapsed slightly, redistributing bone mass and shape as his lips swelled, his eyes widened and his cheekbones grew more pronounced.
“Huh, could sworn that I wouldn’t still have myeeeeEEEEEE!” Fred yelped as he felt his member briefly stiffen as if in a panic, and draw itself up inside of his pelvis, inverting and dragging his testicles with it. Fredrick groaned as he felt his internals rearrange to make way for his reproductive organs’ unexpected migration, leaving only a warm, wet opening between his legs in their wake.
Frederick blinked, his unexpected metamorphosis going unnoticed by the rest of the parade save those eager to eyeball the six-foot tall woman immaculately dressed in a green gown. In the space of a minute, Frederick’s body had become completely and unmistakably female.
Fred should have been panicking, upset, trying to wake up or maybe storming back into the mysterious shop and making demands of that impish lady behind the counter. But all his beer-drenched mind could really focus on was how much more comfortable the dress had become now that he had a body that properly filled it out. The statuesque woman strutted much more confidently down the sidewalk, weaving through a crowd she could easily navigate with her loftier vantage point and smirking to herself as her hands occasionally touched her hips, stomach and breasts.
A thought occurred to Fred as he spied another store along the street, a much more reputable-looking outlet that offered activewear. He needed a mirror, to really understand what had happened to him. Slipping inside and cheerfully waving to the shop girl, Fred plucked something off the rack as an excuse to steal away into a dressing room and locked the door behind him.
Test number one was removing the pin from his wife’s dress, half expecting his body to start shrinking down. It didn’t. Test number two was removing the dress all together, letting it hit the floor and leaving the woman in the mirror naked save a pair of y-front briefs that stretched to fit over her butt. Fred stared at her, marveling at the length of her limbs, her smooth, soft skin and the svelte form that stared back at her. And her face. It was strange to see a woman’s reflection blink when he did and frown when he frowned. But then he noticed the small birthmark on her cheek, under her left eye, exactly like the one that he had. It was still his face, just with all the male filtered out. Using the birthmark as a starting point, he could see she had the same structure, the same eyes and the same mouth. It was still Fred, looking out from the mirror.
Very gently, subtly, he dipped his fingers into the waistband of her underwear and felt the smooth opening between her thighs. It should have been an alien sensation happening to an unrecognizable reflection, but Fred didn’t see a stranger staring back at him in the mirror. He saw himself. Herself. It felt correct, like some filter had been lifted away to display her form as it was supposed to be.
Fred quietly stripped her briefs off and left them on the floor, marvelling at her body. She turned to the article of clothing she had grabbed, a workout top and bottom that looked as though it would fit someone of her wife’s proportions. While she was here, she might as well…
The stretchy material comfortably formed itself against her body, leaving her looking ready for a jog, even if it was a bit baggy around the thighs and shoulders. She was about to remove it, until a thought occurred to her. Carefully, she picked up the pin that had seemingly caused all this, and clipped it to the breast of her sleeveless top.
Watching her body reshape itself in the mirror was bizarre, and thrilling. All at once her body gained and redistributed its mass in subtle ways, her butt tightening and perking up as lines of sinewy muscle defined themselves on her arms and legs. Her already petite stomach shrank away completely, leaving her with a visible set of abs that made her bite her own lips in delight. Her entire body had become sporty and toned, a runner’s form suited to a hard-working athlete or fitness buff. The pin had once again shaped her to suit her clothes.
Emerging from the changeroom, still wearing her new exercise gear, Fred slyly looked around the shop, her mind starting to clear as another idea came to her. She slipped into the swimwear aisle looking for a suit -no- a bikini that was just a few sizes too big for her…
Ten minutes later Fred was headed to the cashier with her new purchases tucked into a bag, back in her green dress with the swell of a plump butt straining her skirt and the jiggle of several additional cup sizes fighting to escape her top.
Fred had started to sober up as she fumbled with her wallet, pulling out a card to pay for the purchase. She idly wondered if the sudden gain in height and mass had made her more capable of handling her liquor.
“Enjoy your gear, ma’am” The cashier offered, getting a girlish giggle out of Fred from the novelty of being called that. As she was fumbling her cards back into her wallet, she noticed something that made her pause. Her credit card was the same make and number, but the name had changed. It stared back up at her in embossed lettering.
“Winifred Clarke”
Fred checked her other cards, they all said the same. Finally she flipped to the photo she proudly kept in her wallet of herself and her wife. The picture of her one and only tenderly planting a kiss on her shorter husband’s forehead had altered, featuring two women, one kissing the other on the cheek. Fred’s cheek. Her cheek.
The picture made it all click. The rest of the world had shaped to fit her just as much as her body had. Everyone and everything acknowledged her for the woman that she was.
For the woman that she always had been.
Winifred tucked her wallet back into her newly-acquired purse and gave the same shop girl from earlier a polite nod as she slipped back out into a world made for her. She still had the pin, and if she wanted, she could always just put on a masculine suit as a way back. But this felt better than what she had, more vivid, more real. She thought about her friends, her wife, and couldn’t wait to see what her life had in store.
Though the first thing she could use was another beer.