Altered Fates: The Vacation Souvenir free porn video

Altered Fates: The Vacation Souvenir by Tim Willows "Be careful!" June cried. Philip dismissed his wife's warnings with a backward wave of his hand. She stood anxiously on the dock as he swam farther and farther out into the lake. The early autumn sky was grey and many of the trees at the edge of the water were already bare. The water was freezing, and June had decided to stay out of it after only dipping her foot into it. Philip had laughed at her, shivering in her bikini in the cold wind. "It's warmer in the water than it is out of it," he had said, a little condescendingly, and dove headfirst off the dock. He had been swimming in this lake since he was four and the cottage had once been his family's regular vacation destination. Now his parents had died and he, an only child, had inherited it. But he hardly visited it anymore- -June, his wife, hated cottage living. "It's too dull here," she would complain as they watched another sunset from their chairs on the deck. "It's beautiful, I'll grant you that, but there's no adventure. It's boring." A petite twenty-eight-year-old beauty with long, dark hair, June had been born in Hong Kong and had lived there until she was eight. From there, her family had moved to Toronto. She loved the city's bustle--that was where the magic was, as far as she was concerned. A cottage in Northern Ontario was the most ordinary place she could imagine. She was not a strong swimmer, though, and had a pathological dread of riptides and whirlpools. "Be careful!" she cried out again. "There could be an undertow!" "There's no undertow," Philip answered impatiently. "Dive in! You'll see!" Philip did a happy somersault in the water. He swam nearly every day if he could manage it. There was a time when his high-school swimming coach had suggested that he try swimming professionally--he had the long, lean body and the powerful shoulders of a classic swimmer. He could have gone to the Olympics if he'd only applied himself, his coach had insisted, but at the time, Philip thought the very notion was the definition of ridiculous. It was only now that he wondered what he had given up. If only, if only. Philip was six foot four, still in excellent shape, and towered over his tiny wife, a fact that secretly delighted him. When they cuddled in bed, Philip enjoyed placing one enormous hand palm to palm with June's; her fingers barely reached as high as his first knuckle. "Come in! You'll love it!" Philip announced. He swam back to the dock and playfully splashed some of the cold water at her feet and smirked as she girlishly scampered backward. "Don't!" she squealed. "You'll get my towel wet!" Philip grinned and did another somersault. The water was surprisingly clear- -he could see the sunlight glinting faintly off the rocks and the shells lodged in the murky sand some distance beneath his feet. Philip dove under the water one more time. He thought he had spotted something metallic down there, something almost golden-looking. It was a curious sight--what could it have been? It was fairly close to the dock, and he wondered if maybe it was a piece of jewelry, a bracelet maybe, that his mother might have accidentally lost one day at the cottage. He swam closer. It wasn't his imagination--it was a piece of jewelry, but it was nothing he had ever seen his mother wear before. It looked like a pendant or a necklace of some kind, half-mired in the silt at the bottom of the lake. Philip underestimated how firmly it was stuck in the mucky sand, and almost broke the object's slender chain when he pulled at it. After a couple of gentle tugs, though, the necklace came free and Philip swam back to the surface. "There you are," said June, relieved. "I thought you weren't coming up. I thought I had gotten my secret wish and you'd drowned yourself." Philip lifted himself up onto the dock with one effortless motion and gave June a big, wet, freezing hug. "Oh, I'd never cause you that kind of misery," he said as she tried, unsuccessfully, to wriggle out of his grasp. "No, I found something under there. Look. I found you a present." He held the necklace out in his hand. There was an engraving on one side, a crude drawing of a fairy or an angel holding a wand. June inspected the object skeptically and wrinkled her nose. "It doesn't look like much," she said. She lifted away Philip's arm, walked to the start of the dock, and put on her thick cotton robe. "Well, it's been underwater for who knows how long," said Philip. "I think it could look kind of nice all shined up. Maybe it's worth something. It's gold, you know." He put the necklace over his head. "Gold? Hardly," said June. "Why not? It's just got a lot of dirt all over it. Here." Philip leaned over, took hold of one of the floppy sleeves of June's robe and began cleaning off the necklace. "Don't get my robe all filthy," June said, jerking her arm back. She sighed when she saw the disappointed expression on her husband's face. "Oh, don't look so hurt. It's a lovely present. Thank you. You're a wonderful husband. I'm very grateful." She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Just don't get all self-congratulatory about finding me a golden necklace, though, buster. I don't think we're likely to find anything very valuable lying at the bottom of Ahmic Lake, are we?" She paused. "Honey? Are you all right?" "Um...no, I'm fine. I just feel a little strange is all." "Are you sick to your stomach? Did you swallow any of the lake water?" "No, no...I just feel a little dizzy...and--" He stopped himself from speaking. "And what? What were you going to say?" "No, it'll sound stupid. It's just...my crotch feels a little strange." June rolled her eyes. "Oh, brother." Men! Always thinking about one thing! She was about to make a sarcastic reply, when she noticed Philip's face seemed to look a little different. It was softer, somehow. And his skin colour was starting to darken slightly, and his eyes seemed a little...well, narrower. "Oh my God, Philip," June said, a note of wonder creeping into her voice. "Your hair is changing colour." It was true. Philip's hair had always been blond, and all those hours he had spent in swimming pools had virtually turned it white. Now, it seemed to be turning black. It was impossible, but it was happening before June's eyes. June watched as the changes to her husband's body began to progress more and more quickly. He actually seemed to be shrinking. His broad shoulders were getting tinier and more delicate, as the circumference of his arms dwindled to half their former size. It was a little like watching the air go out of a balloon. His legs became thin and shapely, the hair growing lighter and lighter and then vanishing altogether. His "outie" belly button turned into an innie and his waist puckered in beneath the bottom rib. He couldn't have been taller than five foot seven now. "Wh-what's happening to me?" said Philip in a panic, feeling himself all over with his now-tiny hands, feeling his chest swell outwards and his ass swell pertly out and his hair grow longer and longer until it reached down past his shoulders. His swimming trunks were loose and baggy and comically large, and as they fell from his hips, they revealed a pathetically small penis, maybe one and a half inches long, retreating steadily back into his body like a turtle head into a shell. He was naked now, and so panicked over his ongoing transformation that the chilly wind blowing off the lake didn't even register in his mind. After half an hour, the changes were complete and June looked at her former husband in astonishment. "Honey..." she said, her hand lifted wonderingly to her mouth. "You're me." She spoke the truth. June now had a twin sister standing in front of her--a five-foot-one Chinese woman with long dark hair, a slim waist, hairless legs and beautiful, heavy breasts. Philip stared down at himself. "How...how..." "Follow me into the cottage," June said. "I'm taking a wild guess here, but I'm making a tiny, tiny bet that this has something to do with that necklace you're wearing. We'll figure it out,, cutie pie? But first, let's go where it's warm." *** "This is impossible," said Philip. "This cannot be happening. I'm tiny!!!" He was sitting on the couch in the cottage's living room. June had loaned him a pair of her cute little satin pyjamas, and Philip stared in helpless wonder at the tiny pair of bare feet sticking out of the leg cuffs. His new nipples kept rubbing annoyingly/pleasantly against the inside of the smooth satin top and he kept snagging his new long fingernails on the throw pillow he anxiously held close to his chest. His feet barely touched the floor. His voice was ridiculously soft and high. It was humiliating. He looked at his reflection in a picture frame on a nearby table, and gazed at his new Asian features, especially his exotic, slanted eyelids. June was beautiful, he would grant her that much. "Stop wriggling, Philip, and we'll figure this out." "Well, I can't get comfortable." "Tuck your legs under, try." To his surprise, this new position, which he had seen so many women, including his wife, adopt, and which had always appeared so awkward, turned out to be surprisingly cozy. "Hmm. All right. Now, tell me. How do we get me back to normal?" "Well," said June. "The necklace is obviously magical." She held it in her hand. All the mud had been carefully cleaned off--June had hoped to find an inscription giving a clue to the instructions, but there was none. "Now, before you changed, you put it around your neck, right?" "That's right." June put on the necklace. "Watch it!" Philip cried out. "That thing's dangerous!" "Nothing's happening," said June, a little disappointed. "I'm not changing." "Take it off!" shouted Philip. "You don't know what that thing's going to do!" "It's all right. I'm not changing." "But I didn't start changing right away, either." "No," said June thoughtfully. "That's right...you cleaned it off on my robe first." She paused a moment, temporarily lost in thought. "You wait there," she said, and dashed into the bedroom. "Where are you going?" Philip shouted. "Be careful! It's dangerous!" He realized with a start that June had said the same thing to him shortly before he discovered the necklace. Was there something about being in this body that made you worry about everyone else's safety? He exhaled loudly. What a mortifying position to be in! He fiddled absently with a long strand of hair, holding it under his nose and gently smelling it. It smelled lovely, like perfume. On an impulse, he unbuttoned the first two buttons of his pyjamas. He reached inside with his hand and ran the side of his finger up and down along the crevice between his breasts. What a strange body this was--strange to him, normal to her. He could feel his crotch beginning to tighten. My God, everything in the cottage had seemed so big when he had re-entered it. June's closet seemed suddenly enormous. Even June had seemed bigger now, even though he knew she only seemed bigger in comparison to his former perspective. He reached into the waistband in back of his pyjamas and felt his new ass. So soft, so shapely. Mmm. It was embarrassing, but he found himself getting more than a little turned on. He wondered if he could interest June in a girl-girl session tonight. That bathtub would be huge for him now... Say, where was June? She'd been gone for a while now. "June?" he called out. June re-entered the room, naked. "June?" he asked. "What were you doing? Say, you look a little differ-- Oh no!" "What?" June asked mock-innocently. "You touched that necklace with something of mine, didn't you?" "Oh, I may have grazed the medallion a little with a pair of swimming trunks." Philip shot out of his seat and grabbed June by the shoulders. "Are you insane?" (Jesus, he said to himself. She's getting bigger already.) "What if we can't get back to normal?" "I'm sure there must a way somehow. Say, cutie, are you getting shorter on me?" Of course, June was in fact getting bigger. Knowing what was happening to her made the experience a lot more pleasurable for June than it had been for Philip. She walked back to the bedroom, Philip tagging despairingly along behind her, and stood in front of a full-length mirror to watch all the changes in detail. Her breasts flattened out and were replaced with a wide, manly, hairy chest. The bones of her delicate face hardened, her chin strengthened, and her eyes widened. She grew big, powerful muscles everywhere. Her feet got big--she slapped them on the wooden bedroom floor as if they were a pair of diver's flippers. Her hands grew hair on the fingers and the back of the palms. She watched as Philip's large penis sprouted from between her legs and a pair of reddish testicles descended beneath them. She playfully gyrated her hips and watched it twirl like an awkward tassel. And of course she grew. She burst into laughter, she was growing so tall. After half an hour, with Philip by turns swearing, crying, and staring in horror at the mirror, the transformation was completed, and petite, weak little June, Philip's "Asian princess," as he liked to call her, was now a dead ringer for her husband Philip, the six-foot-four, muscular swimming champion. Tiny Philip stared up at his now-powerful wife in awe. Had he always looked this intimidating? He took a couple of involuntary steps backward. "June?" he asked. "Is that you?" "It's me, all right, princess," said June, smiling happily. "I am not your princess!" Philip was almost frantic. What kind of craziness had possessed his wife? What was she going to do to him? "Calm down, Philip," June said soothingly. "Sit." She gestured to the bed. Philip paused, then reluctantly hopped up onto the bed. June, still naked except for the necklace, felt her flat chest and her rippled abdomen with her broad hands, and slid onto the bed next to him. "This is insane," murmured Philip. "I'm going to wake up in a couple of minutes and this will all be over with." "Oh, pooh, Philip," June replied. "This is the most exciting trip to the cottage we've ever had. It's the first time I've actually enjoyed being up here! This necklace is the door to adventure. Don't you realize that?" "What are you planning to do? I mean, what kind of adventures' do you have in mind here?" "I don't know yet. I almost can't even take it all in. There's so many possibilities. I bet we can be anybody we want, Philip!" "Yeah, well, I...I just want to be me." "Oh!" June said in disgust. "You are so boring. Is it that horrible a predicament to be me for a while?" "Well...I don't know about horrible." "Oh, don't play innocent with me. I heard you moaning back there in the other room. This necklace isn't a curse--there's no such thing as curses, Philip. That's storybook stuff. The necklace...well, it's a tool, isn't it?" "A device." "Exactly! We can have more fun with this...device than you can possibly imagine." Philip was silent. "Listen," June said. "Let's start out slowly. I'm not going to rush you. You big chicken. Let's go for a swim." "What--are you serious?" Philip said. "You never want to go swimming." "Well, I want to see what this body can do. Let's start with what it's best at." Philip formed June's lips into an ironic smile. "You'll find out there's other things that body's much, much better at doing." "No," replied June with a similarly knowing grin. "You'll find that out, sweetie." * * * Philip was mortified to have to wear one of June's bikinis into the water, even though there wasn't another human soul around for miles to see him. June, meanwhile, seemed to revel in being able to put on one of Philip's skimpiest Speedos and plunge confidently into the icy water. Her powerful arms churned through the waves--she performed stroke after stroke and before she knew it, she had travelled far, far beyond the dock out towards the middle of the lake. She floated on her back and felt her cock through the thin fabric of the swimsuit. It responded instantly to her touch. "Hair trigger," she thought to herself. "Watch out." Philip watched enviously as June, using his former body, effortlessly swam out into the water. He was beginning to understand why June hated swimming in the lake--the water really was freezing, much more so than he could ever remember it being when he was a man. His nipples hardened and poked through his bikini top, and his breasts kept getting in the way of his strokes. It felt like he had no strength at all in his upper body, and he wisely stayed close to the dock, where he'd be safe. He circled the dock in a shivery dogpaddle. Once, he lay on his back, held onto the end of the dock, and began idly kicking his legs in the water. He felt a strange sense of alienation as he watched them move--so sleek, so thin, so lovely, and now they were his. He couldn't get over the sight of the bulgeless crotch within his bikini bottoms. I'm a girl, a small, beautiful girl. Kick, kick, kick, kick. He closed his eyes and began losing himself in the rhythm. Soon, he reached down with one hand and felt between his legs. The sensation was so warm and pleasant--he wasn't even stroking. Cautiously, he opened his eyes to see where June had gotten to, and to his embarrassment, he discovered that she had silently swum up next to him. Her eyes danced with amusement, and she surprised him with a quick kiss on the lips. "So," she asked. "Are you adjusting all right?" She had caught him. Philip decided to abandon all pretense of discomfort altogether. "I'm adjusting very well," he answered. "You?" "I've been swimming for over half and hour and I'm not even winded. You are an excellent swimmer." "Yeah, well, you are a 98-pound weakling," Philip replied. June smiled. "Shall we head back into the cottage?" "Already?" said Philip sulkily. "What did you have in mind for us all the way back there?" June nuzzled her chin into Philip's delicate shoulder and placed her mouth beside his small, shell-like ear. "The best fuck of your life, girly girl." Philip blushed immediately. He hugged June, watched as she practically leapt out of the water onto the dock, and gave her his hand as she gallantly lifted him up beside her. Then June carried her tiny husband, still dripping, back into the cottage. * * * They did it in the bathtub. They did it in the living room. They did it on the kitchen table, with June taking her husband from behind. They did it in front of the fireplace. They did it standing up, they did it lying down, and they even did it in the bedroom, like normal people would. Philip was astonished. He couldn't get enough of it. He bit his lip. He screamed out his wife's name at the top of his lungs. He spread his legs and lifted his feet into the air, even while he rolled his eyeballs in disbelief at what he was doing. At one point, although he wasn't sure if he did it out loud, he shouted, "Ram me! Ram me! Fuuuuuck!" He and June got maybe an hour and a half of sleep all night, and when the sun came up, Philip lay there in bed, naked, his long hair in an unruly mess across the pillow, staring up at the ceiling, his body suffused with an afterglow of pleasure the likes of which he had never felt before. His kneecaps were tingling. After a few moments, he propped himself up against a pillow and looked down at himself. His legs ended several inches before the bed did--he laughed at the sight and girlishly curled and uncurled his toes a couple of times. June was still asleep next to him, her hairy legs bent a little at the knee so that she could fit in the bed properly. She was snoring, like he used to do when he wore that body. Philip lit a cigarette--a health nut, he had never smoked before, but June was a nicotine fiend. He breathed in the smoke and silently contemplated his pussy. June had never had much pubic hair--she had the crotch of a teenager. He slipped a finger meditatively into his vagina, and with a free finger on his cigarette hand played idly with his nipples. Such an alien feeling. His skin was subtly darker now, Asian-coloured. The mysterious East. His pussy was getting damp again. He stubbed out his cigarette, rolled next to June in the spoon position, and shook her shoulder. "What?" said June irritably. "Let's go again." * * * After some experimentation, Philip and June discovered how to control the mysterious necklace's effects. Once you were transformed, you could not switch back to normal for twelve hours. When you touched a piece of clothing to it, the necklace would change you into a perfect likeness of the article's owner. A trip to a clothing outlet revealed that if the clothing was new, you would apparently change into a genetic equivalent of yourself perfectly suited to that piece of clothing. For instance, Philip experimented with a plus-size woman's bathing suit, and spent twelve hours as a 230- pound female version of himself. He watched in fascination as his flesh jiggled with every motion he made--the knowledge that he could change back whenever he wanted to made the experience strangely erotic rather than frightening, and he enjoyed the sensation of June (as Philip) stroking his roly-poly breasts and enormous belly. June kept up a steady stream of fat jokes. They also discovered that the transformation also depended on the age the clothing's owner was when he last wore it. After Philip changed out of his fat-woman likeness, June experimented with a young girl's sundress she found in a closet at the cottage. (The place was filled with the family's old summer clothes.) June turned into a white eleven-year-old girl who Philip recognized as his cousin Jennifer. She must have grown out of that sundress years ago. "I'm so skinny!" she squealed when the transformation was complete and she looked at her thin, boyish, prepubescent figure in the mirror. "Look at me--I'm all skin and bones." Philip shielded his eyes--it didn't seem right to be looking at such a young girl in the nude. "Oh, you can look at me," June said impatiently. "I'm still your wife in here. Tell me what you think." "Well, you do look pretty gawky," Philip said at last, and she stuck out her tongue at him. "Jennifer's still a bag of bones even today, but look at her then. Gawd." "I sure do feel full of energy, though," June said, and Philip couldn't help but laugh when she impulsively began jumping on the bed. "What are we going to do today? What are we going to do today?" she chanted as she bounced. "I don't know," Philip said, pondering the situation. "Do you want to get something to eat?" "Ice cream! Ice cream!" chanted June happily. She found herself enjoying playing the role of a hyper kid. Philip chuckled and decided to indulge her. She was having so much fun. "All right. Put your clothes on and we'll get you some ice cream. Fatten you up." "Yay!" shouted June. She jumped to the ground, slipped on the sundress and raced out to the car in her bare feet. Philip shook his head and walked out to the driveway after her. He briefly considered changing himself into a kid as well, but decided that it might be more fun playing June's father for the afternoon. As they drove into town, June so convincingly acted the part of an impatient eleven-year-old that Philip repeatedly had to ask her if she still felt all right. For all he knew, that necklace could affect your mind--maybe it made you too comfortable in your new body. But June responded to each of his inquiries with her own sarcastic, adult personality. She just liked having the opportunity to be a kid again, she explained. When they arrived at the ice cream parlour and Philip handed her her cone--two scoops of tiger tail flavour with chocolate sprinkles on top--she took great delight in smearing the ice cream all over her face as she licked it. Philip watched her sitting on a picnic bench, her skinny little legs swinging back and forth, her hair up in pigtails-- it was hard to believe this thin, giddy girl had been his wife just moments ago. "Boy, honey, you really look like a kid. I can't get over it." "I know. It's wild, isn't it?" Her face was a mess--dirt smudges and ice cream everywhere. "How did your face get so filthy so quickly?" he asked. "I don't know. Just a kid, I guess. Thanks for the ice cream, by the way, Phil." "Oh--my treat. Jeez," he said in alarm. "I almost put my arm around you. We've got to be careful how we act when we're out in public like this." "For heaven's sake, Phil, you can put your arm around me," June said. "You're my daddy, remember? Just keep it innocent." Philip did as June suggested. This eleven-year-old's body was even smaller and bonier than June's normal one. "So," he said, looking at his watch. "What do you want to try next?" * * * "What did I tell you?" June exclaimed. "Isn't it a kick being eleven?" Philip tried to suppress his grin, and failed. Secretly, he was delighted with the change. It was strange--he had always taken such pride in his towering height and his overpowering physique, but now, he discovered that the smaller and weaker he was, the more he enjoyed it. He and June were driving back home to Toronto from the cottage. Usually, Philip was at the wheel, but there was no way he could have performed the job as an eleven- year-old girl. Instead, he was in the passenger seat, his little legs sticking straight out in front of him, his eyes barely able to see over the dashboard. June was calling him "Betty." He was wearing the sundress they'd found in the closet, and it was hard for Philip to get used to sitting with his legs together. The car was packed to capacity--they were bringing boxfuls of old clothes back to Toronto with them. Who knew who they'd turn into next. June had changed herself into a thirty-year-old man with a jet-black mustache and thick, curly hair all over his body. He wasn't very handsome or anything, but June enjoyed the animalistic look and feel of all that hair. They had kissed all morning in these bodies, with Philip sitting happily in June's lap. They had considered the notion of trying something a little more sexual, but decided against it. Even though the urge was there on both sides and it would have been entirely consensual, it still seemed like a creepy idea. Maybe after a few months of using the necklace, they would get used to the thought. "So, Betty." "Mmm?" The rhythm of the car had caused little Philip to doze off. "What would you like to do with the necklace when we get home? Any ideas?" "Well, we'll have to try going to work as each other one of these days, don't you think?" "That sounds like fun. We're also going to have to start scoping out some interesting bodies we can borrow. We should each join a gym, see what we can steal from the locker rooms." "We should find a bodybuilder gym." "Ooooh!" June thrilled inwardly at the idea of turning herself into an Arnold Schwarzenegger type for a couple of nights. "You know, I have some friends I'd love to see you try on." "Men or women?" "Well, you know, both." Philip marvelled at how easily he and his wife had stopped thinking of themselves as one gender or another. If anything, in fact, they each seemed most comfortable as the opposite sex. "Do you think we could stop at a kiddie store on our way home?" he asked. "I want to find something I can change with once we get home." * * * Within a month, Philip and June had amassed a remarkable collection of costumes. Philip's preference was for children's clothes, especially little girls. Once he spotted a pretty ten-year-old Asian girl playing in a park. He watched her climbing the monkey bars and hanging upside down from her legs. She was so cute and carefree that he couldn't resist: he stole her baseball cap when she wasn't looking. As the months went on, the Asian girl had become one of his favourite bodies. On the other hand, he had gone to the gym once disguised as June and had swiped a sweatband from a gym bag while the Amazonian blonde who owned it was in the shower--he had surprised June after work one night by greeting her in bed in her musclebound, six-foot-two female body. June had immediately changed into a skinny fifteen-year-old version of Philip's father, courtesy of the cottage clothes cache: it was a very memorable evening. They loved going out to dinner as each other. It seemed to put them on their best behaviour. They acted with an extreme sense of romantic politeness, and often they danced the night away. They had hardly ever danced before the necklace had come into their lives. Philip had even mastered June's high heels and the art of arranging her long, beautiful hair. But after a year of using the necklace, Philip began spending more and more of his time as the Asian girl. He'd be her for entire weekends, changing back to his normal body just in time to head off to work. He bought the body a complete wardrobe: school uniforms, sundresses, Sunday school outfits, silk pyjamas, T-shirts, bathing suits. He went out for Halloween as the Asian girl, dressed up like a ballerina, and convinced June to transform herself into her "father." He enrolled himself, as the girl, in a gymnastics class at the YWCA. At his first competition, he took second place on the vault and first prize on the balance beam. June, wearing the body of a Japanese bodybuilder, posed for countless photographs as her father, hoisting Philip in his little leotard proudly over her head. June drove Philip home from the competition in silence. Philip was still all wound up with excitement over the event. He had refused to take off his leotard, and he sat in the passenger seat with his enormous trophy--as big as he was--in his lap. He was the very picture of a ten-year-old girl: his hair in a pixie cut, his little ears pierced with golden studs, his fingernails coated with a demure coat of polish, a gap in his smile where a baby tooth had fallen out. June couldn't remember the last time Philip had gone to bed in any form other than this girl, and had come to hate the moment, every evening, when he would put on his nightie, crawl into bed next to her, give her a tiny peck on the cheek, and whisper "Goodnight" in that little girl's voice. Finally, June spoke up. "Listen, Philip. I think you have to stop this." Philip rolled his eyes and gave her a little-girl pout. "Oooohhh..." he whined. "Whhhhyyyy?" "I'm just tired of it, that's all. It's old." "No it isn't," Philip said chirpily. "It's just starting! Didn't you hear coach? He said that this is just the beginning. He said I could be provincial champion one day! The champion! And maybe even the Olympics! Can you imagine? I didn't even get into the Olympics when I was a swimmer!" "But you're not really even a girl!" "Well, you're not really even a bodybuilder." "I'm changing when I get home. I'm going back to June. You're going to stay this way all weekend." Philip paused. She was right--he was planning it in his head even before he got into the car. He was going to put on his comfy flannel PJs and drink hot chocolate and see if he could sit on June's lap while they watched TV. "I don't have to, June," he said, trying to make his voice sound mature. It was a difficult effect to achieve, sitting there in a leotard with his tiny legs bare and hairless, but he pulled it off. "Does this really bother you? I thought you were kind of enjoying it." "I'm tired of it, Philip. I think we're drifting apart. We're playing parts, we're putting on other people's faces. We never even have sex anymore. Sometimes I think we should go back to normal and throw that necklace away." "Well, we can't throw it away," Philip said. "It's too much fun. But listen. I'll tell you what. If it means that much to you, we'll go back to normal like you say. We'll go away on another vacation--anywhere you like, as ourselves for a change. We'll rediscover each other." June's eyes were beginning to fill with tears--she looked a little ridiculous, crying so happily and looking like a gigantic, crewcutted bodybuilder. "Watch where you're going," Philip admonished her. "Here...pull over to the side of the road." She did so. "I love you," she said. "Me too." They hugged. "Oooof! Ease up! Ease up, June! I'm just a delicate little flower here! You big strong man, you're such a meanie." "Oh yeah?" "Yeah--you just wait until we're back to normal. I'll cut you down to size." "I can't wait," said the bodybuilder with a smile. * * * They saw the lights from the police cruiser from three blocks away, and instinctively they knew it was parked in front of their house. A policeman told them that a neighbour had seen a pair of "suspicious characters" lurking in Philip and June's backyard and had called 911. It was too late--almost everything of value had been taken: the TV, the VCR, the home computer...and all their jewelry, including the magical necklace. June sat on the bed, stunned. Philip hopped up next to her, and patted her soothingly on the shoulder. The policeman shook his head at the strange sight of the little girl in the gymnast costume acting so protectively towards her hulking father. "We'll contact you if anything turns up," he told them, and left them to be by themselves. "Well, Daddy," Philip said at long last, "I guess that vacation is off for now." "It looks that way, Princess," said June. "Maybe it's just as well," Philip said. "Coach would have been furious at me for missing practice." There was a long pause, and finally June laughed. "He really thinks you could make the Olympics, eh?" "That's what he told me." June lifted Philip effortlessly off the bed and sat him on her lap. She began jiggling her knee, playing "horsey" with him. Philip let out an involuntary laugh as she picked him up. "June! Watch it-- I'm little! Say, did you ever think of taking up weightlifting?"