Cat Crazy 3
Curly was not the usual sort one finds doing the rounds of housekeeping, even in a cheap hotel like the Daffodil. He'd always been the smallest of all his friends while growing up, and had acquired his nickname due to the one thing about his body that he was proud of, his golden, curly hair. He'd gone through a phase where he'd dyed it black, and another longer one where he'd kept it purple for most of a year, but he'd never gotten rid of the curls.
When he grew older he'd grown it out long, and between his small stature and androgynous face, he often got mistaken for a girl. At first this had frustrated him, but he'd come to find it amusing. He even made a point of dressing in plausibly feminine cuts of shirts and pants, and cultivated a soft, sweet voice. None of which had helped him find a job, of course... until his mother had suggested he try applying to a friend's place without specifying his gender. Curly had written up a thoroughly gender-blind resume and had gotten the job. As far as he knew, everyone at the hotel thought he was a woman.
Curly didn’t find the work itself terribly interesting, save for the ongoing game of trying to keep up the charade. He would spend his days making up elaborate stories about the people who lived in the various rooms he cleaned. Some days it was spies, others it was tales of tawdry sexual encounters. The latter was almost as much a stretch imaginatively as the first, as Curly’s looks had made him a number of female friends, but none close enough for that.
Curly’s favourite made-up stories involved tales of magical transformations, of men trying to live (forced or willingly) as real women. They were at least as likely as the tales of clandestine meetings of spies, as there was magic about in the world once again. He’d not seen any himself, as it was rare, and hard to come by, even for short term changes. Jackson, the crazy old guy down the street from Curly’s home had similar dreams. He had studied the matter enough to build some magic-related electronics, and had a slow but steady business selling spell rechargers of his own design. They were toaster-sized objects that could sustain an existing spell if you spent at least eight hours a day near them. Curly sometimes helped Jackson with the finer bits of soldering, as the old guy’s hands weren’t as steady as they once had been. As a result, he’d been rewarded with one of Jackson’s earlier projects, a magic detector. Curly carried it whenever he was at work, hoping someday he’d at least find evidence of one of his tales of transformation.
When the detector went off as Curly entered room 213 he was surprised, but also elated. He looked around the room. He’d had some fun telling stories of what had gone on in here, as the current resident had bras in about four different sizes, starting with some modest Cs and going up well into the custom range. He’d checked the bras out with the detector, but they weren’t magic. Still, he’d made up tales of a shapeshifting exotic dancer, and hoped he’d run into her one day.
Sweeping the room with the detector soon located the source. A highly realistic love-doll was lying on the bed, buzzing softly. Curly stared down at it in wonder. Was this how his imagined dancer changed her breast size? He smiled, imagining all kinds of twisted scenarios as he cleaned around the doll without touching it. None of his imaginings came anywhere close to the truth.
The next day, the doll was still there. The room was spotless, as if nobody had been there since Curly’s last visit. He began to construct an elaborate fantasy about a woman who’d accidentally turned herself into a doll. He wasn’t sure, but he thought her expression had changed, from one of bliss to one of... anticipation? Curly couldn’t help but touch the doll, and a brief graze of his hand over its breast drew a thrumming from it that left him wondering. He fancied the expression was even happier afterward, but as he left he shook his head. His overactive imagination was finally catching up with him.
When the room was still undisturbed on the third day, he started to worry. He checked with the manager, and found the rent for the room was past due. If the rent didn’t show up by that very night any possessions in the room would be boxed up and stored.
Curly was concerned about the fate of doll, especially as he had the next few days off and wouldn’t even be there for the boxing up. So Curly did something he’d never done before. He went back to 213, deflated the doll, and hastily tucked it away in his backpack. All the way home he tried to ignore the fact that he’d felt the doll vibrating in his hands as he’d done so. He failed, and his mind spun fantasies of why such a gorgeous woman would have turned herself into a doll, or how she had been cursed to become one and would wake up and thank him if he kissed her.
When he reinflated the doll and saw an expression that he could only interpret as thankfulness, Curly tried that last fantasy. Kissing the doll on the lips didn’t cause it to wake, though something stirred indeed. When he pulled back, the taste of rubber still hot on his tongue, he could swear the doll looked even happier than before. Well, that was more than enough invitation for him! He tried to draw it out, but it wasn’t long at all before pants were around his ankles and he was pounding away at the doll frantically.
Curly felt something tingling as he frantically used the doll, but was too focussed on the novelty of the act to pay it any attention. The tingling spread further, into his stomach. Finally, he found himself unable to stay inside the doll at all, slipping off to one side. He stared down at his crotch in panic. There was nothing there! Nothing but smooth plastic and a...
A loud meow from his bedroom door startled Curly even more than his discovery. A cat with bright violet eyes was staring at him intently, with an expression that promised mayhem if Curly didn’t do what it wanted right that moment.
Curly stared at the cat. “How did you get in here?”
The cat stared back at him, and flexed its claws. It meowed again, even more loudly, then stomped toward the kitchen. Curly followed, and resignedly fetched a tin of tuna from the shelf. Once he’d opened it and set it on the floor, the cat purred loudly and started to eat. Curly shook his head. “I hope you’re not going to stay, Mom’s not big on pets.”
The cat looked up at him with those piercing violet eyes, and he could swear it smiled. Curly just sighed, and looked down at himself. Now that the panic had passed, he could see that his hips looked very much like the doll’s had. A quick trip to the bathroom for a hand mirror confirmed that between his legs was a very artificial looking hole. Curly started to smile. He’d always wanted to experience magic, and now he had! The fact that he had partly turned into a doll couldn’t dim that excitement. Better yet, he was part female. Well, sort of.
Curly went back to his bedroom to examine his new parts in more detail. A sweaty hour or so later, he was happier than ever with the changes he’d experienced. The soft thrumming from the doll finally percolated through his pleasure-addled brain. Something was inside the doll. And that something had changed him when he’d touched it. Could he get that something out?
Curly tried to fish whatever it was out, but the finger he was probing with started to tingle, and before he knew it his right hand was a doll’s mitt. He wiggled it, giggling more than a little madly at how weird it looked and felt.
As the strange-eyed cat prowled up to him, despite his closed and latched door, Curly sighed. “Kitty, I think I’m in over my head. I really need to talk to someone about this.”
The cat just meowed, and made itself comfortable on his bed. Curly shook his head, deflated the doll once more, and returned it to his backpack. Once he was fully dressed once more, he figured that as long as he kept his mitt-hand in his pocket, he wouldn’t draw too much attention.
Jackson opened the door to his lab with a creak, then grinned as he saw Curly standing there. “My boy! What brings you here on this fine night?”
Curly showed his hand, and Jackson’s grin got even wider. “You found something magic? Oh, wonderful. I need a power cell for my latest invention, let’s see what you’ve got!”