Games People Play

This part was easy, as they enthusiastically followed her suggestion and practically ran to their own showers. That gave her a chance to shrug on the overcoat and run, barefoot, carrying her other things.

Ten minutes later she was breathing heavily as she sat in the passenger seat of Tricia's car. "Thanks! I saw the fucking dogs as I ran past. They're going in soon. You won't believe what happened."

—

RAY

"Oh my god, he's not talking! And we have plans tonight." Kristi was disappointed as Derek was ignoring her increasingly panicked texts. They were walking back to Ray's apartment. As they entered his parking lot she tried calling him, but no answer.

In Ray's apartment, they ended up on the edge of his well-used futon playing a fighting game when Tricia knocked on the door. "Hey, my friend's home and safe, so it's all good. I better go home, but wanted to, uh, grab that text book you said I could borrow?"

They hadn't mentioned anything like that, but Ray caught on that it was a line to justify why she'd come back to Ray's place. He grabbed a book from his shelves, pushing it at Tricia who clearly wanted to be away from this weirdness.

"Fuck!" Kristi's high voice was frustrated as Tricia and Ray turned to stare at her.

"Derek's been arrested! They searched his dorm for some reason and found a bunch of shit in his room. I knew there was some alcohol, but he's old enough that's legal and all."

Tricia interjected, "Campus rules, though I lived in the dorms for a couple years and they'll kick you out if they find booze, at least if it's a lot."

"No, it wasn't that. They found some drugs... A bunch of different pills according to this girl who lives on the floor down we're friends with. And a couple guns! What the hell?" Her face was twisted in frustration.

Ray hugged his sister, "C'mon, Kristi. Want to see if we can meet Mom for dinner or something? We can talk about it on the way."

—

CHARLOTTE

She'd showered until the hot water run out and a few minutes then, the cold water hitting her soft skin and finally making her stop dwelling on what she'd just done. She'd screwed two guys just to plant evidence to help a guy she barely knew. A guy that was fifty-something one day, twenty-something the next!

She toweled herself off as a series of texts came in from Ray. The plan had worked better than expected, but he just had to let her know they'd found more drugs and a couple guns in Derek's room. Guns were way past anything she'd signed up for. She filled a bag with ice, happy to finally sit down on her couch and ice her sore, swollen ankle. An opened wine cooler sat on the table. She had helped things, at least.

—

TOGETHER

"Well it seems like the two of you had a big day. A bit unusual, I admit." Anna was dressed less formally than she'd been before: She had a long skirt that ran to her ankles and a polka-dotted white and black blouse.

"Charlotte, I admit that was a bit daring and I was on the edge of my seat. And a clever use of some of the curse's effects" Charlotte was dressed as she'd been when she'd entered Derek's dorm. Even her coat was folded over the chair.

"Ray, I can only hope your dinner with you mother went well."

Ray was leaning forward, his hair pushed back. He was dressed casually in shorts and a t-shirt.

"Tonight will be a graduation of sorts, as we wrap up a few things. This will be the first time we meet like this, in fact. I'm sure you'll miss our discussions. But first, a final roll of the dice."

Charlotte and Ray took their dice wordlessly and rolled.

Charlotte's roll was a 13. Ray rolled a 20.

"Charlotte, you'll enjoy being able to say you're six feet tall now, I think. Ray, yours is a bit more complicated. Anything you wish to remove? Or you can make a suggestion."

Ray thought for a minute, then answered, "I have an idea."

"Well?" Anna prodded while Charlotte looked on.

"Make us a couple. Honestly, we're both kind of fucked up and I think it makes sense. I don't know how it ended up this way, but we're already in some sort of codependent thing and I think together we at least aren't messing around with other people. I got something from this whole thing and that was my sister safe and maybe a little wiser."

He shook his head, "Really, we're both likely to go back to our bad habits if there's no big change. Make us a couple! I don't know, married, dating whatever. If you want to make me old Ray and Charlotte's half my age, I still think that might be better than us being separate and hurting other people."

Anna considered, then looked at Charlotte, "Ray has suggested an interesting proposal, and I can see his point. However, it would be unfair to force you into something long term that lingers."

Charlotte interrupted, "You know, unfair like making someone go stupid when they see a cock or smell like spicy pussy all day..."

Anna frowned, "That was in the service of executing the curse. As I said, it would be unreasonable to force you into Ray's final change, so it's your choice.

Charlotte huffed, but answered, "It's nothing permanent, right? Just setting us up for a bit? Go for it."

"I'll admit a bit of surprise. I didn't expect this, but I'll respect your wishes. Honestly there was a maybe 15% chance you'd end up lesbian lovers, but we can't have everything."

—

EPILOG

Anna checked in on the apartment complex one Friday evening a few months later. Charlotte had come home from her job, and immediately thrown herself info her new passion: She'd been rewriting her gaming stories and was closing in on the next draft of her second book. She'd gotten it to a publisher and her agent was optimistic they'd get a small advance for the whole trilogy. It wasn't much, but for a first-time published author it felt like a big deal.

She stopped after a couple hours of writing, showered, and put dinner together while totally naked, her long red hair flowing down her back. The red wave gently fell over her ample ass. Once dinner was in the oven she'd dressed: A somewhat frumpy-looking dress she'd acquired from a thrift shop, but it fit her plans for the night. Ray arrived from an evening of classes and they shared a long kiss in the living room, then she swatted his ass and reminded him to change and that she'd laid an outfit out on the bed.

She was nearly whimpering with her own arousal when he finally came out of the bedroom. They'd built a cache of clothes for nights like this, and the striped shirt and tiny shorts on Ray's short form made him look like a child who'd been dressed by his mother. She hugged him, shoving his head into her luscious chest as she led him to the couch, "So, baby, tell me about your day."

They'd discovered that this somehow worked for them: Ray was turned on by Charlotte's treatment in private, but when they were out of the house or with friends Charlotte enjoyed Ray's flirty and more dominant nature. They fought constantly, but found the make-up sex wiped away the memories of the fights. It was far from a storybook romance, but it somehow worked and, true to his word, Ray found Charlotte enough of a challenge to keep him from straying. Charlotte's newest quirk was making Ray braid her long hair, which almost always led to him fucking her from behind like they had days after they'd met.

Their finances were surprisingly flush: Anna's magic had swung a few things in their favor and they'd awakened to find paperwork that Ray's lease on his old apartment had been terminated due to some sort of mold issue. They'd offered a generous pay-out as they had no apartments available to move him to so the couple had actually come out ahead once Ray'd moved his things into Charlotte's apartment.

They still saw their friends often. Charlotte had ended her long-running role-playing games, but they'd started a weekly game night for board games and such, allowing everyone interested to take a turn hosting. Tricia was over at the apartment constantly as she worked with Ray on a game they were designing, occasionally hearing ideas and criticism from Charlotte as she worked on her own project. She was also dating Tony, who'd drifted off from the group after the threesome with Charlotte and Ken.

They'd had a rough night last month when Amy had stayed after everyone else had left and tried to throw herself at the two. They'd been gentle and gotten her into therapy.

Derek had a record, and was doing several years in prison due to the firearms and drugs found in his room. He'd been kicked out of school as well, of course. Kristi had a new boyfriend, but she'd confessed to Ray that she also had feelings for a girl in one of her classes. Ray found himself encouraging her to experiment, as long as she was safe.

Anna considered Ray and Charlotte an acceptable result, if not one of her prized success stories. They'd learned quite a bit about themselves through the experience. Their relationship was far from traditional and likely unhealthy, but undeniably worked for the two twenty-somethings she left behind.

—

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE 1

Ray returned home, shrugging his GamesPlus jacket free as he entered the door. The couple had decided to move to another city as it seemed awkward from the fifty-three year old man and his late thirties bride to keep running into the twenty-something boy-toys she'd previously cultivated. She still got occasional gifts and smiled at the thoughts of their virgin hands caressing her mature body. Anna had arranged it so Charlotte had gained a bit more than a decade when she'd consented to stay with Ray and the woman was rapidly earning a reputation as the neighborhood's woman who always had a bottle of wine at hand and her cleavage on display. She'd be putting the wine away for a bit once she was carrying Ray's child, as they were currently trying for nightly. Her stepdaughter Kristi had visited last month but seemed hesitant to introduce her college boyfriend David to the wild woman her dad had remarried. They'd visited Amber at Christmas and everyone had been surprisingly cordial. Charlotte was consulting on an MMO that Tricia had gotten involved in and loved being able to write her material at home.

—

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE 2

Charlotte dressed herself in a green nighty she'd secretly purchased, covering it with a white robe she'd been given as a gift. Rachel would be out of class soon, her last final for the semester complete, and they'd celebrate. Tonight would probably just be the two of them, although they might invite Ken or Amy over for a threesome this weekend if things kept going well. Rachel identified as a lesbian while Charlotte had settled on bisexual, but they'd included a man in their playtime every now and then to keep it interesting. Rachel was a beast in bed, aggressive and intense. Her rack seemed bigger than Charlotte's own considerable assets due to Rachel's shorter, more athletic frame. Charlotte laughed at her and Rachel as she saw a picture from Tricia and Tony's wedding a few months earlier. Rachels' short hair and stance was almost masculine, but no one would think a guy would have tits like that or the shapely legs that peeked from the short skirt Charlotte had dressed her in. Charlotte had worn a tux, not that the towering woman and her long braid of crimson hair didn't already stand out in a crowd. Her height had made it trivial to catch the bouquet and they'd decided that night to make their marriage legal once Rachel graduated.