Three Generations - Bertha free porn video

Chapter 1 "Whoa?!" Jessie said as she sat by her desk, holding the bundle of papers that she'd just read through, not believing that her grandmother Dannie had been completely crazy. She'd always been a little mysterious and as she'd gotten even older she'd talked mostly in riddles but Jessie would never have guessed that she was crazy-crazy. The reason as to why Jessie was sitting there reading these notes was because my mother, "Granny Dannie" as we called her, had just passed away at the age of 88. Jessie was 17 years old now and it was the spring of 1860. "Mother!" I could hear her call, so I entered the bedroom that she shared with one of her younger sisters, Mabel. "What is it Jess?" I asked my soon-to-be 17-year-old daughter. She asked, "Have you read this insane text written by grandma?" I asked casually, "You mean the text about her medallion?" "Yes. It is complete nonsense isn't it?" she asked me. I replied, "Well, I wouldn't say that it is nonsense, dear." "Do you mean that what she's written is true?!" she asked, her eyes assuming an enormous size. I informed my eldest daughter, "All I know is that the medallion really works, I accidently used it once myself." "No way! Grandma used to be a man?!" she asked. I informed her, "My mother never told me much about her past, other than that she was born on the farm where your uncle Wilbur now lives." Jessie was a smart girl and I could see that she was thinking about what she had just learned about my mother. She asked, "When you say that you 'accidently' used it, does that mean that you too were born a boy?" I informed her, "No, I was born a girl, just like you were." "But you have been a man at one point in your life?" she asked. I told her, "Yes, I was a man, for a shorter period in my life, thanks to the medallion." "Could you tell me about it?" she asked. I replied, "Sure, but not today, we have much to do." My name is Bertha Wallace and, as you've already read, I was the youngest child born to Isaac and Dannie Moats Adams. I was born on the 18 May 1809. I had a happy childhood, even though I was the youngest of seven siblings. My mother was a kind soul, but she did act a little strange at times, just like Jessie just said. My father, Isaac, was a good man too and he spent loads of time with me and my siblings as we grew up. My oldest brother, Wilbur was not the biological son of my father Isaac, mother told us that she'd been violated by a man once when they were away into town, a town I coincidentally now live just outside of, buying supplies for the winter. We'd never seen Wilbur as different from the rest of us, he was my bigger brother and he too did much for us younger siblings. For example, he built a wooden dollhouse for me and my sister Clarabelle, "Clara", for one Christmas. We loved that dollhouse very much and each year until I was ten he would carve a doll each for me and Clara for our birthdays. After that he got too busy with his future wife and started his own family. When Clara was 17 and I was 15 we both took jobs as maids for two different rich families on the countryside. Clara died in Scarlet fever when she was 19 and never had any family of her own. I on the other hand worked until I was 32, which was when I met my future husband, Anthony Wallace. We'll get to all this later, right now I have to get ready for church. Going to church was something mother had always been very keen on, not that I think she was that strong a believer in god. When all my siblings were still living at home, we'd go to church in the old carriage we had standing around outside, all dressed in our Sunday bests. I was like my mother, I didn't really think there was anything controlling our lives or our free will. When I turned 15, mother took me aside and made me read the very same papers that my daughter Jessie just read, only that they were not finished yet at the time. At first I thought she was jesting with me (or crazy) but when she took out the medallion and held it to my dress and started changing, I thought I was the crazy one. Seeing my mother turn into a copy of me was a weird experience and it felt like looking into a living mirror, one where the image had a life of its own. My mother asked, "Do you believe me now?" "Y-yes," I replied. She then proceeded in laying out all the basic information about the medallion and its powers that she and father had learned throughout their 35 years of testing it. You could turn into a copy of anyone if you touched them or touched a piece of clothing belonging to them. If you touched someone, then the two of you would change shapes with each other. You could not change if you were either undergoing your cycle or pregnant and you had to wait at least 12 hours before using the medallion again. With that information given to me, mother entrusted me with the ugly looking object that I would never have kept among my small set of jewelry. At first I was afraid of its powers and didn't dare touch it. I did bring it, and its wooden box, with me as I moved away from home and started working as a maid. For a young woman, travelling for four days to a town you'd never heard of and starting to work for a family you'd never met was a life-changing experience. I did however have to earn my living somehow and father had contacts that set me up with this particular family. Working was pretty much the same as doing everyday chores around home, except that I was now paid for it. The salary was very low but I had no expenses at all, food and clothing were free of charge. I never got along well with the members of the family, they had three sons, all about my age, and like most teenaged boys, they were interested in seeing what I had underneath my clothing. At first there weren't any larger issues, I did my job and helped out to the best of my capability. The hours were long and I had early mornings every single day, all in all it was a very tiresome job. I had Saturdays off and would usually go into town, the family lived less than ten minutes of walking from it. I quickly made all sorts of friends and had the occasional sweetheart for a while but never finding "Mr. Right." I have to admit that not all my friends were on the right side of the law but I was a young, adventurous woman in a big town, so I didn't care about the others' backgrounds or professions. I regularly exchanged letters with my mother and it was in this way that I learned of my father's passing. Mother told me that it would be an unnecessary expense for me to go home to attend his funeral, so I stayed. The only person I could talk to about anything was my fellow maid, Agnes. She was a couple of years older than I was and had worked for the same family since she had been orphaned at the age of 12. I never told her about the medallion that I had stored in the wooden box in my room. I managed to trudge along with the same family until I was 18, after that I had enough of the three young men who were constantly poking fun and peeking underneath my dress. The family wasn't particularly sad to see me go and I wasn't going to miss them either. I found lodging with a group of people that I'd been talking with a lot of times and I used up all the money I had before thinking about my next employment. During my time without employment I had been seeing a man named Ryan. He was a man of many talents such as thievery, lock picking and fraud. I had also told him about the medallion and he had believed that I was telling the truth. He was currently working as a builder and played cards on the side, cheating of course, when he hatched an idea that I would never have imagined. We had heard about a family out on the countryside that was ridiculously rich and sought a couple of servants, preferably a man and a woman. The lady in the family had a rumor about her being overly trusting with her female maids and gave them plenty of free space. Ryan then came up with the idea that he would turn himself into a woman, gain the lady's trust and gradually rob them of everything they had. He wanted me to pose as his female persona's husband and, naive as I was, I agreed. It took lots and lots of planning for us and we had to ask several of our lowlife friends with shady talents for help, but eventually we had everything set and ready to go. Ryan wanted us to spend some time as the opposite sex before our employment began, so that we could get acquainted with our new bodies. So one day in June 1827 we began our heist. I had so far only seen proof of the medallion working once in my life and I could tell that if the medallion for some reason did not work now, I would be in deep trouble. We had discussed back and forth regarding our personas and had decided that it was best to turn into the shapes that we would have had if we'd been born the opposite sex, rather than each other. We did that because we did not want to risk putting each other at risk by posing as them and we also thought that it would be easier to pose as a married pair if we did not have to pretend to be in love with our actual shapes. Ryan used the medallion first and he was soon changing into a petite little woman who was quite well-endowed. "It really did work! This medallion is amazing! Why have you never used it before?" the new Rachel asked me. I answered, "Because I was afraid of it, such an item is unnatural and not something that we can just take lightly." The brown-haired woman gave me a "Come again?" look, so I decided that she wouldn't understand it anyway. She said, "Your turn!" and threw me the clothes we'd stolen from a local tailor's store. I told my female boyfriend, "Alright, alright! Take it easy." My trembling hand held the medallion to my body and my other hand touched the clothing to it. I felt a slight tingle in my entire body, a tingle my mother had told me to expect. I had removed my clothes beforehand and could see how my arms widened and how my hairs were becoming thicker, darker and longer. My chest widened and my fatty mass was replaced by muscle. I grew taller, much taller it felt, and I could see my genitals reshaping and suddenly I sported the same as most other men did. I knew that this was what would happen but I still could not believe that it was happening, especially not to me! The changes took as long as they did for the new Rachel and after about a quarter of an hour the room was once again filled by a man and a woman, except that our roles were now reversed. I looked in the mirror that we possessed and could now see a man, very much alike my father Isaac, staring back at me. "Your clothes," the tiny woman suggested and I put on the first pair of male clothes that I had ever worn in my life. The former Ryan asked, "Now we should begin practicing using our temporary names, don't you think so, Bart?" "Yes, that would be the best" I said, not believing that the deep sounding voice was mine. I measured myself and I stood a good bit over six feet in height, taller than any other man in my family. It was quite a change from the feet shorter that I'd stood just a short while ago. Ryan had probably lost almost as much height as I had gained and he was now not more than 155cm tall, at most. So, with the help of each other, we began practicing on behaving and acting as the opposite sex did. At first we both felt that our plan was impossible to carry out but, as the days passed, we got familiar with our new bodies. It was a strange sensation being as tall as I was but it was even stranger having to aim when I needed to empty my bladder. Rachel thought the same. She asked, "How can women control themselves from not getting wet everywhere?" I answered, "You have to wipe once you're finished." She replied, "Oh." We spent three weeks with this strange preparation. When Rachel started bleeding below, I thought she'd die from embarrassment. "I don't want to do this anymore!" she cried when lying in bed. I said, "I've had one of those every single month since I was 13 and you think it's the end of the world if you have one. Men are such weaklings!" "I'm not a man at the moment!" she cried and threw her pillow at me. Rachel wanted to try out intimacy from the other side immediately but I was insecure about doing something like that. It just felt wrong for me to do so, besides, we did only have to pretend to be intimate for this to work. I never told my mother or any of my siblings about my plans. I didn't want them to know that "the sweet and innocent little Bertha" as father always called me, was capable of thievery and crime in general. On the first of July we travelled by horse and carriage to the mansion that would be our new home for as long as it took for Ryan to get enough trust from the woman in the house to have free access to everything and then plunder them. The day was rainy and our travel clothes got wet. I had worn a simple shirt and a pair of paints that had previously belonged to Ryan. Rachel wore a brown dress and had her hair tied up in a bun on her head. Our letters of recommendation (which had been forged) were however protected by our innermost layers of clothing and were dry when we handed them over to the lady, Mrs. Whitmore. She had already employed us and this was just a formality before we could start working in the house. "Very well," the 50-year old woman with whitening hair said. "You," she said and pointed at me, "may go and join the other men outside. And you," she said and turned to Rachel, "may follow me" she finished and began walking away. I whispered to my pretend-wife, "See you later," before walking out the door and searching for the man in charge. I had taken three steps outside the door before someone called "Hey! New guy!" and threw something right at me. I didn't have time to react properly and got a full sack of potatoes on me, causing me to fall backwards in the dirt. The man who'd thrown the now torn open sack laughed and quickly headed away with a couple of his friends. The family was, as I said, extremely rich and they had plenty of servants. Servants specializing on the garden, servants specializing on the animals, servants for cleaning... They had many servants. I picked up all the potatoes that had fallen on the wet ground and put them back in the sack. I myself was covered in dirt, my already wet clothes were now dirty too. None of the other men around helped me, they just walked on by and pretended to be in a hurry to somewhere else. This was certainly not how I'd expected my job to be. When I worked as a maid we always cooperated but working as a male servant seemed to be very different. I retied the band around the sack and hoisted it over my back, unsure where to take it. "Hey! You!" a man called from one of the buildings and I walked in his direction. He seemed to be around 45, if not older, and had a kind and calm face. He asked, "You're the new servant, Bart?" as I came closer. I replied, "Yes!" still holding the potatoes over my shoulder. "I'm Erwin and I'm the head of servants here, you take orders from me, understand?" he inquired. I answered, "Alright." He continued, "If you ever run into any trouble, come and inform me and I'll see what I can do about it." His jaw was square and his beard was neatly trimmed, his eyes were hazel and his smile was friendly. "Actually..." I began. "There was some guy who threw this sack of potatoes at me as soon as I got outside," I informed him. He asked, "Was he in his 20s, short, freckled and blonde?" I answered, "Yes." "That's Luke, watch out for him. That guy spells trouble wherever he goes. I believe that the only reason they still have him employed here is because the young miss has taken a liking to him. If I'd been able to decide, he'd been sent away a long time ago" Erwin answered me. "I see... Thank you for your advice" I said. "By the way, what am I supposed to help with?" I wondered. He suggested, "If you want to, you can help me move all the hay up on the loft." "Sure!" I said. It was hard work, I?d never done anything like that before. Being a maid never included any heavy lifting, it was mostly about precision and consistency. Working as a male servant was all about the heavy lifting and my muscled body worked hard all day. Erwin was a very gentle man and we quickly began talking about our lives. I told him the faux story that Ryan and I had cooked up and he didn?t seem to question any part of it. As for Erwin, he?d worked at various farms since he was just a young lad, having been sent away by his parents because they had too many children and too little to feed them with. After several places where he?d been mistreated, he?d finally come here 15 years ago and had felt that this was the place where he was supposed to be. "The family is really kind and caring about their servants" he said, getting a dreamy look in his eyes. Erwin looked like the kind of man who always was honest, so I felt a little bad about what Ryan and I had planned to do to this family. If we emptied their safes and stole all their jewelry, their fortune would likely go down to less than half of what it currently was. Such a loss of fortune would mean that they would have to fire many of their servants. One?s loss is the other?s gain, I guessed. After having eaten supper in the servant?s room at seven in the evening, washing my entire body before eating, I retreated back to the room that had been given to me and my partner. She was already there, sitting on the bed we would share, looking sour. "Hi," I said as I joined her on the bed. She replied, "Hi." I asked, "So how was your first day?" "Horrible! It was so stressful and I had to be everywhere at the same time. The lady barely had the time for me, even though I?m supposed to be the one who?s closest to her!" she answered. I replied, "I?m sure that this was just because it was your first day here, she?ll come around soon," hoping that she would for our plan to be achievable. "How about your day?" she asked as I helped her untangle the bun I?d tied her in for her this morning. I answered, "I got a great welcoming! Someone threw a sack of potatoes at me and I fell over in the dirt, it took forever picking up those potatoes. But after that I met the man in charge and helped him for the rest of the day." "At least they don?t seem to suspect a thing" she said and smiled. I asked, "How can they think that we are anything other than the people we appear to be?"? "Did he buy your story?" she wondered. I answered, "Yes. Did she believe yours?" "I?m not that sure, she seems to be incredibly clever and I am sure that she will try to look up a thing or two. Good thing we have the people she?ll write to and ask on our side, isn?t it?" she laughed. Life slowly trudged on and I had already worked there for a week when my accomplice informed me of her first achievement. "Mrs. Whitmore has finally began opening up to me!" she said excitedly. "Great!" my masculine voice sounded. She continued, "Soon enough, she will be trusting me enough to begin giving me access to her more private spaces." I told her, "That?s good, but how long do you think we must continue this farce? I?m already getting tired of being a man!" "These things take time, Bart" she said, using my male name. I asked, "Aren?t you getting irritated about being a woman instead of a man, Ryan?" using his male name. "Err... Why yes, of course!" she said, not sounding convincing at all. I had noticed a slight change in behavior in Ryan/Rachel ever since we started working here, at first I had to help her dress every morning and would have to tie her hair too. After just a few days here she had learned more than she had during the entire three weeks of training back at our place. I took it as a result of that she was now surrounded by women all day and could pick up every piece of information she needed from them. She also seemed to feel at ease in her body now and wasn?t as stiff as she?d been earlier, which I hoped was a good sign. I, on the other hand, was as awkward as ever. I had trouble keeping up with the other men and received several taunts from Luke and his gang of youngsters daily. I spent most of my time working with Erwin and the two of us got along really well. It certainly didn?t hurt that he was pretty handsome either. His pleasant personality and gentle manners made me wonder why he?d never found a woman to settle down with. Of course, I did not ask him about such matters since they were private. I did however think that if I?d been a woman at the moment, I?d fallen for him. Most of the work was hard and drab. Lifting sacks full of whatever, shoveling dirt from one place to another, hammering one nail after another, ugh! I missed working as a maid, at least then I always had roof over my head and was never cold. Here I was showered in rain and slipped in the mud, getting dirty every other day. Luke, my nemesis, came up with a new nickname for me based on my apparent problems with digesting the food that we were served, "Fart." He and his friends thought it was so funny that I was now known as "Bart the Fart", throughout the entire estate. Every morning I?d be greeted by the gang as "Morning, Fart!" then they?d giggle like a bunch of little girls. I wanted to punch that idiot hard. "Just do it then," my accomplice suggested. I looked at the woman who?d been my boyfriend, "I can?t just hit someone, it would be cruel. And what if they hit me back? I won?t stand a chance against other men!" I defended myself with. "Haven?t you looked in the mirror lately? You?re almost two meters tall and weigh at least twice as much as I do. If you took a punch at that numbskull, then you?d hit him into the next week! Try being a man for once!" she encouraged. I wasn?t that sure whether it would be a good idea for me to do so. "If he continues with it, then I?ll do it," I said. He continued taunting me for the entire next week as well, I did not do anything about it. It was now late August and I helped the other men with the harvest. When I?d been a young girl I had accompanied father and my brothers out on the fields and helped gather the straws that had been left after they?d harvested the wheat, rye, corn and oats. The straws we could use in the roost for the hens or as padding in our own beds. Working as a man was entirely different. I had never used a scythe before and was afraid that I would decapitate one of my coworkers. I informed Erwin about my inexperience and he suggested that I would observe at first and then try it out as the other men had a break. I tried it out and, after some initial insecurity, I quickly got the hang of it. I worked along the other men for the rest of the day, a warm day at that. We were soaking in sweat when we saw the housemaids come out and start serving us ale. We all drank one each, it tasted heavenly, before we were ready to continue with our work. As I stood finishing my ale I could see Rachel stand and chat with some of her fellow maids, looking just as natural as the others. Luke came up to them and said something, to which they all giggled. I didn?t have time to bother about my partner perhaps getting too familiar with her new role, at least not now. There were plenty of fields remaining and we had to be done with this before the next rain fell, which looked like it could be any day. I walked alongside Erwin and chatted for the rest of the day as we plowed the fields, meter by meter, ear by ear. I inquired to my now very feminine partner, "What are you up to?!" as we were in our private room. "What?" she wondered and turned around from her small mirror and looked at me. I asked her, "What? What?! What about our plans?" She told me, "I am making progress every day, you know" and gave me a sour look. "Progress in what? Behaving like any other woman? What you?re supposed to make progress in is getting Mrs. Whitmore?s trust so that we can steal everything they have!" I said, lowering my voice to a whisper to avoid someone else hearing this discussion. She sighed, "Steal, steal and steal. Is that all you can think of?" "This was your idea to begin with, missy!" I said as I held my strong hand on her thin jaw. "I am making progress, I swear!" the now scared woman in front of me said before starting to cry. I loosened my grip on her. Even though I was currently a man, I had not forgotten my feminine manners. "I?m sorry, Ryan. It?s just that being this way feels so wrong for me and I want to change back as soon as possible!" I informed the crying woman that had formerly been my boyfriend. "I don?t think it feels wrong at all" she whispered. I asked, "What was that?" not having heard her properly. She said, "I don?t think it?s strange at all." "You like being a woman?" I asked. She nodded, "Yes." "Do you like it better than being a man?" I asked, genuinely concerned about whatever future relationship the two of us would now have. She took some time to answer, probably thinking about how she really felt deep inside before answering me. "Yes," she sighed, "I prefer being like this rather than how I was before I ever encountered the medallion" she informed. "Then you do not want to return to being a man after our job here is done?" I asked. Once again she took some time before answering. "I want to stay this way," she said, starting to cry all over again. I could not recognize anything in this woman that I had adored when I met her as a man one year ago. The once strong, independent and confident man had been replaced by this needy, dependent and insecure woman sitting in front of me. With that I realized that our relationship was now over. "It?s ok," I said in an attempt to calm Rachel. "It?s your choice and if you feel that you can be happier like this, then you should probably stay like this as well" I said before pausing.? "But that does not mean that we can just give up on our plans. I?ve spent three months as a man now and I expect to get something in return for it," I informed her. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for not telling me to go and eat dirt or so for deciding on this. As for our heist, I will still carry it out. I promise." Chapter 2 Somewhat heartbroken that my former boyfriend wanted to spend the rest of her life as a woman, I devoted myself entirely to working harder than anyone else. I made fewer mistakes as time passed and Erwin soon had me promoted to his right hand. The men began trusting me to help with their work and Luke and his gang became more unpopular as the days passed. For whatever reason, Luke didn?t seem to care that nobody other than him was still mocking me. Hopefully it was because he was too dumb to notice. Rachel, or Shelly as she now called herself, seemed to make no progress at all. "Mrs. Whitmore is so kind to me," she said one evening in early October before going to bed. I had told her that if she hadn?t completed her task by the first of November, I would leave. She once again promised that she would complete the job as soon as possible. As you can tell, I did not believe her any longer. I was however a believer that everybody had at least some honesty in them, even if it was about stealing others? property. She also started making advances on me that she wanted to experience what being a woman really was, running her small hands along my back as we lied in bed at night. "Oh, come on! Please!" she said as I turned to the other side. She kept up this behavior until I finally relented and gave in. Intercourse as a man was vastly different from how it had been as a woman. I didn?t really feel that into it but I managed to complete the act, probably due to some primitive desire deep inside of me. Her body was soft and her scent was enticing, her eyes were as inviting as her lips. She seemed to enjoy it to the fullest, smiling the entire time. I did my duty, pumping in and out of her until I felt some strange kind of release. She moaned following each trust, her eyes eventually no longer able to focus on mine. "That was the best thing I?ve ever experienced!" she said and kissed me. I never had intercourse with a woman ever again. I told her that, since she would stay as she was and that I would return to being a woman again, I didn?t want her to make any advances on me again. She said that she understood but I could tell that she was a little disappointed that our breakup was now final. I told her that I couldn?t imagine staying with her even after returning to being a woman again. Two women together in such a way was repulsive to me and I did not want to think about it. I knew that aunt Kitty had a rumor around her for being like that but I had only taken it as hearsay and nothing else. But who knew? A teacher working with many pupils could take advantage of them if she wanted. Not that I believed that she had done this. She was a gentle soul that I would see once or twice a year when I was younger, usually for my mother?s birthday. I had never gone to school, I was the youngest in my family and we were on hard times when I was the proper age. I had learned a little about reading but texts longer than one or two sentences were impossible for me to fully comprehend. Working as a maid meant that there was no reason to learn silly things like that. The same went for me now working as a male servant. My practical abilities were what were important, not whether I was able to recite a piece of the bible or not. It was now mid-October and I had informed Erwin that I would be leaving in two weeks. I had told him that my marriage with my wife was no longer working out and that I wanted to move away, preferably back home, for a while to think things over. The lady of the house was already informed and had allowed me to leave by 1 November 1827. I was already convinced that Shelly wouldn?t steal anything from the lady that "treated her so well" and that there therefore wasn?t any risk in telling about me leaving in advance, I hoped. Erwin and I got along very well during my last two weeks of stay and as my final week was approaching, he invited me to accompany him to town the Sunday before I left, 28 October I believe it was. At first we had a very pleasant evening together, we drank ale and reminisced about our months together. One ale was followed by another and another. Before I knew it I was experiencing something I had never done before in my life, I was drunk. Erwin seemed to handle it a little better and didn?t have as much slur to his voice as I had. "You know" I said as I grabbed him by the shoulder, "You?re the nicest guy I?ve ever met!" I informed and began laughing hysterically over what I had said, completely clueless as to why. He informed me, "You?re a kind friend too, Bart." I kept laughing, the laugh being refueled by him calling me ?Bart?. "My name is not actually Bart... It?s Bertha," I informed him, whispering it like it was a secret. "Hmm, Bertha is it?" he wondered, not believing me. "I think it might be about time we started heading back," he said and checked at the pocket watch he was always wearing. I said, "I?m serious!" trying to make him stay. He looked me in my eyes. "If your name is Bertha, then you are the manliest person I?ve ever known that goes by that name" he answered, thinking I was acting whimsical thanks to my intoxication. "I?m actually a woman and Shelly?s a man! We used this medallion that my mother gave me as a present, it is magical," I said, hoping that this made some sense to him. "A magical body-altering medallion? That?s the first I?ve ever heard of such an object" he hummed, not revealing whether he thought I was insane or telling the truth. He asked, "Would you mind showing me this medallion before you leave?" I informed, "Of course! That?s the reason as to why I am leaving. I can?t stand being a man any longer and I want to become myself again. Shelly wants to stay a woman, so there?s no point in staying here any longer." He wondered, "Why did you come here in the first place, if you don?t mind me asking?"? "Oh, that?s a secret" I told him. He looked a bit disappointed that he wouldn?t get to hear more of my strange story. I decided to let him know anyway, he was such a good friend and wouldn?t betray me. I began, "You have to promise not to tell this to anyone."? He replied, "I promise." "Ryan and I actually came here to rob the family from all their money. Ryan was a thief and we thought that we could use the medallion to turn him into a woman and have him get close to Mrs. Whitmore to earn her trust" I told him. Erwin wondered, "But Shelly is really close to Mrs. Whitmore, so isn?t that just what you planned then?" I took a pause and signaled for the bartender to give me another ale. "Things have changed," I said in a depressed tone. "She?s taken a liking to being a woman and she enjoys her new position as a personal maid of Mrs. Whitmore too much to want to leave now. I don?t want to be a man any longer and I just want to get away from here as soon as I can to go back home and resume being who I am," I told him. "Tough luck," he said and emptied his glass, "I still want to see you use the medallion though." We returned to our building late that night. All people who weren?t spending their night elsewhere were already asleep. We therefore slept in the hayloft, avoiding disrupting someone else?s sleep. "That was a very interesting story you told me yesterday, Bart," I heard Erwin say as I was dressing myself for my last day of work. I remembered every part of it, while it might not have been as fluent as the version I gave just now (probably a lot more slurring and incoherent words than this version). I answered him, "Yeah, it was, wasn?t it?" "Is it really true that you are actually a woman named Bertha?" he asked. Since I had already told him about it while drunk, I figured that I could tell it to him while sober as well. I answered, "It?s true. My name really is Bertha, I?m also only 18 years old." "Are you only 18? You look like a man in his mid-20s!" he said, astonished about my young age. "Magic?" I suggested. The last day of work was rather uneventful until shortly before the workday ended. I was stacking the hay in the stable when Luke passed by. "Oh, if it isn?t the little fart!" he said as his ugly face came into my vision. I told him, "Leave me alone, Luke." "And why exactly would I do that?" he asked. I informed him, "Because it?s annoying and unfair." "Am I hurting your feelings?" he said and grimaced like he was crying. "You are such a sissy!" he said and laughed. That did it for me, he was going down. I threw the hard-pressed hay that I held in my arms right at him. He fell backwards as it landed on him. He arose. "You should not have done that!" he yelled and threw himself at me, punching my face. My reply was to knee him in his stomach. Our fighting was loud and soon the other men started gathering in a circle around the two of us. He tried taunting me by calling me weak and effeminate but I just glared at him, waiting for him to act. He was much shorter than me but he was really adept at fighting, something I?d never done before. I saw Erwin join the other men and hoped that he would break it up, our eyes met and he nodded his head towards Luke, suggesting that it was time for this man to go down. Luke stormed at me, his right hand knuckled to hit my face. In the last minute I moved to the side, which made him hit nothing but air. He yelled in anger at me. "Come on! Attack me!" he screamed. I just waited patiently for him to attack me again. If there was one thing I had learned about being a man, it was that they were extremely sensitive in their groins, one hit and you were rendered incapable of doing anything for quite some time. The next time he tried attacking me I dodged to the side and aimed my right foot right at his groin. At first I thought I had missed, he showed no sign of feeling any pain. That ceded quickly, probably because the adrenaline faded. When I saw him sink to the ground I realized that I couldn?t just leave it at that. I knuckled my own fist and hit him as hard as I could, splitting his upper-lip open. He had probably fainted from the impact before he hit the ground. Luke had never been well-liked by the men and most of them had only agreed with him because they were afraid of being attacked by him. His utter defeat had now removed this fear from them and they all cheered on me as I walked away from the motionless body. "That taught him!" someone yelled. Another one added, "About time!" The men patted my back as I walked away from the stables but soon left me alone, all but Erwin. He accompanied me back to my room. I informed him, "I?m leaving right away," as I entered my room. "After a performance such as that, it would be the best thing. Who knows what that man will do tomorrow? He might use all his savings and hire several men to come at you" he said. I replied, "Exactly, it?s better if the man Bart disappeared for good before then." I quickly packed what little I had, of course taking the medallion and its wooden box with me. "Could you help me carry my things into town?" I asked the kind man who was old enough to be my father. "Of course I will" he answered immediately. We snuck away without anybody seeing us and soon I had seen the last view that I ever would see of the mansion. I told him that once I was back in the safety of the room that I and Shelly had used and rented for an entire year, I would transform myself. The walk back to town went quickly and I was soon walking in familiar areas again. We came to one of the houses in one of the shabbier areas of town and I stopped. I said, "Here!" and directed him to the door. I searched my pockets for the key and eventually found where I?d put it. I opened the door to the tiny room and could immediately see that nobody had been inside this room since Shelly and I had left it several months before. "Well, this is my room" I informed the man carrying the wooden box with the medallion inside. "Close the door and lock it" I told Erwin as I put down my few belongings on one of the empty beds. He immediately followed my request. After locking the door he sat down on the other bed, resting his middle-aged body. "What I wouldn?t give to be young again!" he said as I took out one of the few dresses that I owned and had left in the cupboard for my retransformation when I returned. I asked him, "Are you ready to witness the most incredible thing of your life?" "Yes!" he said, sounding like an excited child and not the almost 50- year-old man he appeared to be. "Alright, behold!" I said as I held the medallion and the dress to my skin. I gave a sigh of relief as I felt the tingle in my body. I sat down on the bed opposite to him and removed the outer of my two shirts, giving him a better view of my changing body. He asked, "How long does the transformation take?" "Mother told me that it took about twelve minutes" I informed him, hearing that my voice had softened slightly. I could feel my entire body tingling, some places more than others. The expression on Erwin?s face was one of complete astonishment. I could feel how the room started appearing bigger, my body shrinking back to its normal size again. The hair on my arms reducing in size and thickness, the toughened skin on my hands from months of hard work once again softening. My nails grew back to the shaped form that I?d kept them in before becoming a man. I held up my shrinking hand to Erwin?s, so that he could witness how it shrank and my fingers became more slender. I saw my hair growing and reentering my vision. I could feel the muscles in my body softening, my percentage of fatty tissue once again increasing. My pectorals started widening, once again becoming the familiar protrusions I had carried around since starting puberty six years earlier. It felt extremely strange having my beard shrink inwards and it tickled a lot, which made me laugh with my now even more female voice. The last part of the tingling was in my crotch, I stood up and stepped out of my pants, only wearing my trousers. I could see how my package slowly faded to nothing and my hips at the same time widening as my pelvis reshaped itself to a broader shape. I felt the tingling coming to an end, I was once again back as the woman I was born to be. I smiled widely as I could feel my long hair falling over my shoulders. I asked my friend, "Could you close your eyes while I dress?" He once again followed my request without commenting. I quickly removed the male vestments and saw my naked female body again. I pulled on the dull dress and felt its softness once again covering me. I quickly brushed through my hair before telling Erwin that it was ok to look again. "This is truly the most fantastical, unbelievable thing I have ever witnessed!" he said as he saw the young woman sitting on the bed opposite to him. I said, "I know. When my mother first told me about this medallion I thought she was completely crazy, but when I saw her change I got the same expression in my face as you now have on yours," happy to hear how my voice was now the familiar singing tone that I had once had before. Erwin asked, "So what will you do now, Bertha?" I asked, "I think that I should probably go back home for a while before trying to settle down and having a family. What about you? How come you?ve never had a family of your own?" "I don?t know, I guess having a family wasn?t really something for me. Don?t get me wrong, but I can?t see what?s so appealing with women anyway," he said. "Do you fancy men?" I asked. "Of course not, I don?t fancy either. I never have and never will, strange isn?t it?" he asked me, the young woman who?d previously been his male workmate. I laughed. "Considering that there exists objects as strange as this one," I said as I picked up the medallion, "then I would not call your lack of attraction for either sex particularly strange," I informed him. "What?s the whole deal about the medallion anyway?" he asked, "Where did it come from?" he wondered. I tried answering him to the best of my knowledge. "It seems like my mother discovered it while being out restocking food with the man that would become my father, god rest his soul. They apparently bought it from a shop somewhere in this town as a present for my late aunt Narcissa. She was slow in mind and mother said that they?d bought it for her to wear because of its childish appearance, which she would have liked. During their travel back, they discovered that the medallion was magical and after that they kept it for themselves until mother gave it to me" I answered him. "I see," he replied. "Exactly how did your parents realize it was magical?" he wondered. "I don?t know," I told him, honestly not knowing how they?d come to learn about the medallion?s powers. "One thing I do know is that mother told me that she was born a man," I informed. His eyes stared at me. "Really?" he asked. I said, "Yes, she told me so herself. She grew up on the farm where she still lives." "So how will you go back home then?" he asked me. I answered, "I?ll use the savings I have and buy a ride with a horse and carriage as soon as I?m used to being a woman again." "So you?ll be staying in town for a few days then?" he wondered. I replied, "Seems so." We had brief moment of silence. I felt his eyes stare all over my body, considering what my body had just underwent and what he had witnessed it was certainly not strange for him to do so. "If you don?t mind, could I stay here for a few days?" he asked me. I replied, "Sure. Why?" "I want to try finding the shop that your parents bought that thing in and see if they have more answers about its origin" he said. I told him, "That is actually a pretty good idea, I?ll join you in searching for this shop." I wondered, "But how will we afford to alive? I don?t have much money saved up and since I left the farm today, I didn?t get my salary for this month." "There is no need to worry," he said, "I?ve got money in the bank." Few people of our standing had money in the bank, so I was a bit surprised to hear him say so. "Is it enough?" I wondered. He answered cryptically, "It?s more than enough." This man that at first sight had seemed so kind and simple was turning out to be less simple than I had first thought. We went to the bank as soon as I had made myself look as proper as a young woman should. "You look very pretty," he told me. It was the first compliment regarding my female body that I had heard in months, which caused me to react by blushing deeply. "Thanks," I said. "Let?s get going." We walked on the streets in town, leaving the poorer area behind us and walking into a more well-kept area, where the upper middleclass lived. "I wonder how many people live there are that live here?" I asked Erwin as we turned on a corner. I had lived here before but had never ventured anywhere in town, so it was just now that I realized how big it actually was. "I believe that there are about 40 000 inhabitants here," the man leading the way answered. I replied, "Wow! That?s a huge number." "The city is growing rapidly, so don?t be surprised if there will be 50 000 people here in a few years," he replied. We eventually arrived at the street where the large bank was. Erwin held the door open for me, signaling that he now saw me as the young woman I was, rather than the young man I had been earlier today. "Your wounds are completely gone," he whispered to me as we made our way up the man sitting by the register. I told him, "I didn?t have them when I transformed in for the first time, so that?s why they?re gone." "That makes sense, I suppose," he said. He stood in front of the man sitting down behind his desk, the whole bank was mysteriously empty and different from how I had imagined one to look inside. "Good day, my name is Erwin McCauley and I am here to make a withdrawal," he said. The two men spoke a little, Erwin provided proof of him having money in the bank and soon the man handed over the amount that Erwin had requested. The amount was more than I earned during all my years of working as a maid, to him it seemed like pocket money. As we were leaving the bank I inquired how he?d saved up so much money. He looked at the clear sky. "When I was younger I spent some of my time travelling along the roads of the country, in one place I found a carriage where the people inside had disappeared, leaving it completely empty. There were no horses bound to it, so I supposed that the people had been killed or abducted. I looked inside and in it I found a smaller sack of gold. I took the sack to the nearest town and sold it to one of the more respectable merchants and got quite a nice sum from it. I had hoped that I could use that money to provide for an eventual future family but it was not to be. Instead I?ve just saved the money so that I will be able to avoid poorhouse when I get too old to work any longer," he told me. I asked, "How much money do you have saved?" "Enough to help you pay for your travel back home and provide you with some savings for the future. It?s the least I can do for you having been the first friend I?ve ever had in my life and for beating that idiot Luke senseless!" he said and laughed. "I am overwhelmed! You don?t have to give me anything!" I said, not believing what he?d offered me. He answered, "You?re just a poor girl in this world and if I give you this, it?ll make your life a little easier until you find a proper husband to settle down with." I wondered, "What about your job at the mansion? Don?t you want to go back to it again?" "I don?t think so, I?ve worked long enough as a servant for others and I think it?s time for me to have my own little place somewhere and enjoy what life has to offer" he replied. He said, "If possible, I would want to go back with you and meet your mother." "Why?" I asked. He said, "Because it would be interesting to talk to her and hear how she reacted to that magic medallion of yours coming into her life. I want to do that no matter whether we find that shop or not." I told him that it would be a pleasure for me to have him accompany me as I went back home to my mother. I saw him as a father figure and had seen him as such ever since I got to know him back at the mansion. We walked back to the little room I had rented with my former lover and Erwin helped me unpack whatever little I had brought back with me. We stopped at the market square and he used a fraction of his money to buy us food to help us last through the next several days. "You seem very calm, Erwin," I said as we were making the last part of the walk back.? He wondered, "Are you referring to me not being more shaken by your change or by the fact that I know have learned that there is magic in the world?" I replied, "Both. You seem to treat me like you?ve always known me as a woman and you are eager to find out more about that medallion." "I guess that the first is a result of your appearance, you are obviously female and I therefore treat you as such. As for the second, I don?t know. I just find it fascinating that there actually exists magic in this world and now that I know of it, I want to find out even more." After having gotten back inside my room I suggested that he could use the medallion on himself. He shook his head, "No thank you, while I might be interested in its powers, I have no desire to use it on myself or experiencing them. I like the way I am and I would prefer being like this for my entire life," he told me. "If that?s what you want..." I said, a little surprised by his reasoning. I soon retreated to bed, tired from being in a fight as a man and then transforming back into a woman. I lied on my bed and looked up at the roof, I could hear that Erwin was already deep asleep, snoring for every breath he took. "I hope this doesn?t change things between us," I said to his silhouette before I too managed to fall asleep. I slept in the next morning and it wasn?t until I hear the clock in the town hall strike ten that I started waking up. I hoped that I hadn?t dreamt about yesterday and that I really was myself again. One quick peek at my body confirmed my hope and a smile spread on my lips. "Good morning!" I heard Erwin call to me. He was already up and dressed, probably since several hours. I yawned, "When did you wake up?" "Five hours or so ago. I spent some time looking around in town before coming back here two hours ago," he answered. I asked, "Alright, did you have any luck?" "None whatsoever," he replied. I suggested, "Maybe it isn?t there any longer?" He answered, "I won?t give up after only a couple of hours, you know." I ate breakfast, having some of the bread that we?d bought yesterday with some butter and smoked meat, it tasted delicious! After eating, doing my morning hygiene, which took a little longer than it had done before since I was not yet used to being smaller and having a shorter reach than I?d had the past several months, and hearing the clock strike eleven, I finally got outside. "Where have you searched and where do you think we should try next?" I asked. He proceeded to tell me that he had searched this and that street and that we should continue searching where he?d stopped before. We walked street up and street down, not even knowing how the shop looked like. All mother had said was that it had looked very suspicious and been full with the strangest "hocus-pocus" stuff that one could find. We didn?t find any stores that resembled the vague description that she had given me. It was soon mid-afternoon and my legs were beginning to hurt, my footwear not being designed for walking around in town all day. We asked around, inquiring in all sorts of shops about a store specializing in magic and occult arts, nobody knew anything about it. I was quickly losing hope that I would ever find it and told Erwin that this was just a waste of time. Even if we eventually did manage to find the store, it wasn?t probable that the previous shopkeeper would still be alive. Father had bought the medallion back in 1788, which was almost 40 years ago. If the woman he bought it from had been very old already then, then she would have to be at least 110 years old now, an age that was so incredibly high that it was twice the age of what an average person lived. Erwin said that if she ran a shop like that and was knowledgeable in the occult, then it was not impossible that she had somehow found out a way to extend her life by decades, or even centuries. We made a break as the clock stroke four, both of us feeling too hungry to continue. We ate a meal at one of the taverns, some of the other patrons found it strange for a woman to visit such places. I had never been very womanly, I?d been tomboyish as a little girl and had kept on acting like that until my body started maturing. I?d always had a more brutish attitude than any of my sisters. Clarabelle, my sister who died when she was 17, had been my opposite in manners. Just because I was a bit boyish in my ways didn?t mean that I wasn?t enjoying being a girl for most of the time. I had loved playing with the dolls that Wilbur gave me and had played house with my younger siblings too. After I came to town and after I quit as a maid, I spent much time in taverns or pubs that were designed for the poverty of the town. This tavern was however one of the more respectable ones and there were no drunkards stumbling around outside as there were with the others. I thought I appeared to be too much of a commoner to come into a place such as this but Erwin just told me that looks didn?t matter, what mattered was whether you had money or not. And since he had just taken out a lot of money (to me at least) he certainly fit in with the other men here, despite not being as well groomed as the other patrons here. He ordered two portions of the stew that was cooking in the kitchen. I had never liked hare but this one tasted very well and had lots of flavors that you would never get to experience at the places I?d frequented. We sat in one of the corners and ate the meal along with a glass of ale each. I?d never had that much liking for beverages before my transformation, but now I enjoyed them. Erwin asked me about my life and what I?d done up to the point where I?d used the medallion on myself. As I?ve already said, my life was nothing out of the ordinary, I had started working early and had never had any ambitions for the future. I just wanted to make my way through life and see wherever it took me. The adventure of being male would certainly turn out to be one of the most memorable events in my life, even though I just wanted to forget all about it at the moment. He had already told me most about his life but I had only told a false story about my childhood and life since I was pretending to be someone else at the time when we first got to know each other. After eating we did the same as we had yesterday. We got back to the small room and took an early night again. We continued searching the next day too but it was completely hopeless. I had already given up and I told him that I would be going home the day after tomorrow. I wanted to see mother and talk to her, preferably staying a month and a half with Wilbur?s family before I came back to town and sought new employment with some other rich family. Erwin agreed that it was pointless, the shop had probably been replaced by a newer one and the lady taking care of it was probably long dead. We made one last try and asked an old hatter, who sat outside his store taking a breather, if he?d ever heard of such a store. "Oh yes! I remember that one, an old lady that kept a shop full of magic books and supposed artefacts. She used to have her store two blocks that way" he said and pointed his old finger in another direction from the one we?d came. "But she?s been dead for at least two decades now, her grandson tried running the business for some time before he gave up and moved away. The old store now belongs to a shoemaker who bought it from him before he left," he said. We thanked him and now knew why we hadn?t found the shop. We walked in the direction he advised and, just as he said, there was a shoemaker?s store here now. I told Erwin that I needed new shoes anyway, the ones I wore barely had any soles left, so we got inside. The shoemaker was a fat man in his 50s, probably a couple of years older than Erwin. I told him that I needed a new pair of shoes that were durable for longer walking and he quickly took my measurements. The man was really good at what he did and he immediately started making a pair of shoes for me, after Erwin had confirmed that we had the money needed. As the man sat and worked on what would eventually be worn on my feet, I asked him whether he remembered the previous owner of this shop. The balding man thought, "Yeah, a gypsy I believe he was. He ran some strange business here and quickly realized that there wasn?t any money in such things. He sold the shop to me for a cheap coin and I?ve been here ever since. How come that you ask this? You were certainly not even born when that happened!" he asked, raising one of his bushy, brown eyebrows. I lied, "It was my mother who visited that shop once when she was younger. She bought a medallion in it and asked me to come and see if the shop still existed and perhaps buy something similar from it." "Do you perhaps know where that man was heading after he?d sold you the shop?" Erwin asked. The man kept hammering on the nails while he thought. "I believe that he went back to Europe. He left in great haste, telling me to keep anything I wanted from the store and throw away the rest. I?ve thrown away most of the stuff but I still have some of the books lying in my basement, I thought it was a shame to destroy them. There was one book about supposedly magic necklaces and medallions among them but I don?t remember if it?s still there. I can check for you and if I still have it, I?ll include it with the shoes," he said. "Oh, thank you so much!" I said. "Your shoes will be ready by noon tomorrow" he informed us and wished us a good evening. We walked along the cobblestoned streets and observed the town as it was being covered in the darkness of the night. Erwin hummed, "Patience is virtue," satisfied that we?d perhaps come a bit closer in finding out where the medallion had come from. Before we turned in for the evening, we visited one of the stables and ordered a horse and carriage to take the two of us back to my home the day after tomorrow. "I?m sorry," the shoemaker said. "It appears that I no longer have this book in my possession. I have no idea where it might?ve gone. My daughter loves books, so maybe she has taken it with her," he informed. The hope I had begun holding vanished.? Erwin asked, "Where does she live?" "Wales" the man replied. Wales was a little too far to go just to see if his daughter had the book or not. I had the shoes fitted on me and we paid the man what we had agreed on. He told us that he was sorry that he wasn?t of any more help and wished us a safe journey back to my home. "At least we tried," Erwin said, trying to hold on to some optimism. I stared at the ground. "We?ve searched for three days and the only thing we?ve learned that the old lady?s been dead since before I was born and that her grandson, alive or not, went to Europe. Talk about successful searching" I said sarcastically. "Now we know that much, it?s better than nothing," he continued with his as always easygoing attitude. I told him, "Yes, thank you so much for having helped me with everything so far." "You?re very welcome, Bertha," he replied. Chapter 3 Having done everything that was in our power to find out about the medallion, we decided that we were now going to head back home to my mother. I did not know what Erwin wanted to do after meeting my mother but I knew that I would have to start working soon again. Even though Erwin had offered to help me financially I could not just leech of him forever. Perhaps a couple more years of working and I would find the man for me? Erwin loaded all the cargo in the carriage. "It?s a man?s job," he joked. I didn?t mind if he wanted to cling on to some old fashioned gender- roles, it saved me the work of lifting heavy items. My loss of strength after returning to being myself again was tremendous. Before turning back I could easily lift more than my own weight, with ease, but now it was impossible. I weighed about 50 kilograms, which was a far cry from the 100-ish I?d weighed as a man. I had a lot of willpower and that made up for some of my lost strength but in instances such as loading all my items in the carriage, I was completely worthless at helping. It was now early November and the weather was getting colder, it had been a warmer than average year so far, so even now it was warmer that other years. Mother told me that when she?d been here in November, it had snowed and been very cold. I couldn?t remember ever having seen snow in November, perhaps it was just a warmer series of years that we were going through at the moment. I wore on of my travel dresses and Erwin had bought some clothes for himself that looked better than the servant?s clothes he?d been wearing so far. The journey back home took four days, with us arriving at the evening. It was a rather uneventful road back home and we got along as well as we ever had. I found it incredible that Erwin could accept that his only friend, one that he?d worked with for several months, was actually a woman in disguise. He treated me like he had before, except that he was now a little gentler while talking to me. He didn?t swear as much, it was improper to do such in the presence of a lady, according to him. I kept talking just like I always had, cursing every now and then. He seemed to be amazed that there existed women such as I that could speak so freely without worrying what others would think about them. Since we arrived late at evening but had paid for five days of transport, we slept in the wagon one last night. I did not want to wake up my mother or Wilbur?s family so late in the evening. It felt a little strange to be so close to the house I?d grown up in but not sleeping in it. I hadn?t been back home since I was 15 and knew little about what had happened here since then. The only information I?d been given had come from the occasional letter communications home to my family. The last time I?d heard from them was when father had passed away earlier this year. Sleeping in a carriage is not the most comfortable lodging you can find for the night but it filled its purpose and I had plenty of energy when I woke up the following morning. I told Erwin to wait in the carriage while I presented myself to my family. I got out and walked up to the familiar wooden house that housed my mother, brother, brother?s wife and four nephews. I knocked on the door and it didn?t take long until the door was opened by my sister-in-law, Henny, carrying an infant child in her arms. "Bertha!" she said and hugged me. "What are you doing here?" she asked after we?d finished hugging. I answered her, "I had a bit of a falling-out with the latest family I worked for and hoped that I could come back here and recuperate for a shorter time before I seek new employment"? "Of course! Come in," she said and let me inside. "Dannie!" she called. "There?s someone here to see you!" she continued.? I heard my mother answer her. "See me? I never have visitors!" she said as she walked out from one of the rooms that had previously belonged to my brothers. She saw me. "Hi, mother," I said as our eyes met. "Oh, Bertha! I?m so glad to see you again," she said while walking w