The magic shop is not what you had expected.
When the odd little store popped up in the already dying mall, you imagined it would be little more than some deluded amateur magician's last-ditch effort to make some money selling off all of his old stage props. Nobody practiced that old pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat style magic show anymore, and barely any shops remained open in the old mall anyway. Even worse, the owner apparently thought it prudent to purchase one of the empty holes-in-the-wall in the purely derelict wing nobody had used in years.
Still, you'd had your fill of lunch from the food court, the only reason you bothered coming back to this crumbling temple of hyper-consumerism from a time when people could actually afford to participate in it, and you had some time to kill before your ride picked you up. Thus, with nothing but curiosity to be sated, you double-checked the 'You Are Here' mall sign and strolled into the dark remnants of a bygone age (and no small amount of thick plastic sheets and 'Remodeling!' signs).
Once again, the magic store was not what you had expected -- it was full of dusty old antiques and miscellaneous bric-a-brac of dubious quality. Oddly-shaped snow-globes crowded the shelves next to blank-eyed porcelain dolls, rusty music boxes rubbing flaky shoulders with skulls that had to be plastic Halloween decorations... Right?
"This place looks like it's trying hard to be one of those 'little old shop that wasn't there yesterday'," you mutter to yourself. "Every 80s horror movie and 90s urban fantasy series must be missing their props."
"How astute," chuckled an elderly voice from behind you that you knew was not there a split moment ago. Gasping and whirling around, you come face to face with... Nobody. Just empty air, the open doorway leading out the abandoned wing of the mall. You think you must have imagined it when a gnarled old finger taps your shoulder, causing you to gasp and spin about all over again.
A gap-toothed guffaw greets you, a tiny, hunched figure slapping their knee. Their attire is undoubtedly old and even more undoubtedly bizarre, suspenders embroidered with odd symbols, a thick white suit, and slacks so dark can't make out any ruffles or contours. They're so dark, in fact, then rather than made of fabric, it almost looks as if they were a pants-shaped cutout in the fabric of reality.
"They are," the figure cackles some more, it taking you a moment more to realize they seemed to have responded to your thoughts. "Of course I am, this is a 'creepy old shop,' as you put it, isn't it?"
You nervously start backing away.
"Oh, no you don't," chuckles the shopkeeper, and for the first time you realize you aren't sure if they're male or female, both, neither, or something else entirely. "It's rude to leave a shop without a purchase, don't you know?"
Ruffling about in their pockets, they withdraw the most suspicious item so far, in that of everything here, it looks the least creepy and threatening of all: a tiny plastic kazoo, bright red with yellow lettering spelling out 'Ka-Zoo!'
"Really?" you ask, almost wondering if you should feel disappointed at the anticlimax. With all the surrounding paraphernalia, not to mention the fact this person apparently read your mind, you would have expected a shriveled monkey's paw or a magic eight ball full of eyeballs or something. But, no... Just a cheap plastic rendition of the world's most obnoxious musical instrument.
"Really," the shopkeeper says, shoving it into your hands before you can protest. "Don't worry about the price; it's only ten dollars, and I've already broken your twenty."
"My what?" you echo, your hand rummaging in your pocket, pulling out your wallet, and finding naught but ten dollars inside. The shopkeeper chuckles again when they hold up the other ten dollars, apparently having truly turned your lone twenty dollar bill into disparate halves.
Backing away again, you all but stumble as you about-face and sprint out of the store. You're nearly out of the abandoned wing of the mall when you risk a glance back, cursing yourself as you do so -- of course, the store isn't there anymore. You doubt it's on the map in the food court anymore, either. You'd have hoped you'd simply fallen asleep while munching on your lunch from earlier, but you can still feel the cool plastic of the kazoo in your hand.
Speaking of which...
"No, thanks!" you mutter to yourself, dumping the offending item into the nearest wastebasket on your way out of the mall. Taking a deep breath, you wonder if any of that really happened... Until your phone rings. You pull it out to see you have three missed calls from your ride and seven texts, most of which equate to, "Where are you?" and "You're taking too long" and "Screw this, I'm going home."
"Huh?" you wonder, looking up to see a sky much darker than it should be. "Oh, come on! I was only in that creepy place for five minutes, tops!"
Of course, 'Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday' (or now) rules seem to dictate that the shopkeeper stole more than just ten dollars from you. Several hours have passed, and it's nearly sunset.
"Great, how am I supposed to get home now?" you grumble, feeling an uncomfortable bulge in your pocket, digging into your side after your wallet. "No, no, no... Crap."
Fishing around in your pocket finds the 'Ka-Zoo' once more in your possession, as well as a small piece of paper that definitely wasn't there a moment ago either. You read, "Need some wild changes? Try the kazoo! Come on, humor me. At least give it a go if you want a lift home."
You consider throwing the kazoo away again. You consider it very, very hard... But eventually come to the conclusion that it'd just reappear on your person somewhere again, and some places may be far worse than your pocket. You should probably just call a friend or a cab or a ride sharing service, but... Well, if you're going to be cursed with this thing, shouldn't you at least know what it does?
At least nobody is near enough to hear you trying to play the damn thing. All around you, the mall's last shoppers are slowly filing out of the main doors. Teens meander to their cars, chatting and laughing with their friends or snapping silly faces on their phones. Elderly shoppers amble forward on walkers or canes, a few chatting as well, occasionally erupting into a wheezing laugh at some joke or another that went out of style (and acceptability) decades ago. The mall employees won't be able to leave for a while yet, but a few mill about the entrance nonetheless, a twenty-something man in the semi-casual uniform of the local electronics store catching a smoke break as he browses his phone.
Nervously, you turn away from all of them, put the kazoo's tip to your lips, and blow.
"I just need a ride home," you think. "No creepy curses, please. Just a ride home."
Unsurprisingly, the buzzing snort of sound bursts forth from the instrument's other end. Very surprisingly indeed, though, so too do music notes, inky symbols floating in the air, buzzing about like flies and swirling all around you, then flying out beyond.
"What the hell?!" you gasp, only to repeat said phrase ad nauseam when the music notes fly over towards the crowd of people. You run after them, flailing your arms, wondering if you should yell at them to run (from the scary, cursed, haunted... Music notes?). Regardless, you don't get your chance.
The music notes zero-in on the smoking tech employee, swirling around him faster and faster. Startled by the appearance of something out of his peripheral vision, the young man looks up from his phone, swatting away at the music notes as if they were flies. His eyes widen in confusion as he sees what they really are, uttering a quick "What the hell?!" of his own before the notes slam into his body, grabbing hold of it and pulling in some places while pushing inwards at others. He screams, seemingly more from shocked confusion than pain, though his cry rises higher and higher in pitch the longer it draws.
"Hey, stop!" you call, not sure whether you're addressing the man or the music notes, not that either seem to be listening.
The man's wail climbs the octaves, one music note darting in to shove his Adam's Apple further into his neck while several others rush down his throat. He coughs and splutters, cursing, each syllable shifting in tone and pitch. His voice shifts from disgruntled man with a slight smoking habit to androgynous mumble to a series of increasingly feminine gasps, his cheeks flushing redder with each one. Your own follow suit the more sexually expressive each gasp sounds, not to mention the tent growing in the man's pants -- either this is somehow turning him on, or the music notes are pushing him to the brink of climax!
"What's happening to me?!" the man gasps in an entirely breathy womanly contralto, looking up as if registering your presence for the first time. "Who are you? Did you do this? Why is my voice -Want a ride home, tiger?- Gah! Why did I say that?!"
You flinch as well at the man's brief and sudden shift in tone, batting his thickening, lengthening eyelashes seductively as his plumping lips purse to make a kissing face. A moment later, his shocked expression is back, just as confused at what's happening as you, but decidedly less human and masculine by the moment. His cheeks soften and round out a bit, his neck becoming slender to match his receded throat, all of which sprouts sleek, golden fur with dark spots. The fluff sweeps up around his face as it pushes out into a slight snout, his teeth sharpening and whiskers sprouting, while the rest sinks lower and disappears beneath his shirt.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know what would happen," you stammer, staring in equal shocked amazement. "All I did was blow on some stupid kazoo... A cursed kazoo. I just wanted a ride home!"
"I can give you a ride home, tiger," giggles the man --who looks increasingly less fitting of that pronoun by the moment-- before shaking his head again, as if trying to force out the shifting thoughts, the altering persona you fear is wracking his very mind just as his body transforms.
He keeps looking at you even as he continues to change, that tent in his trousers growing painfully large before his breathing rapidly accelerates, hips bucking as he gasps, a thick, dark wet spot staining his clothes. He growls, then purrs, his erect shaft shrinking the fading, pressing against and then surely into his body as it drops lower, presumably forming something far more internal. Even after blowing the last of his masculine load and fully hopping the fence from male-to-female, the former man's eyes stray to and lock onto you, a deep blush erupting beneath HER golden furred cheeks.
You take a step back nervously, but she only steps forward, losing several inches in height as she does so, her shoulders tightening inwards. Her waist sharply follows suit, eliciting another breathy gasp as cinch pushes the excess mass down to jut her hips apart. The music notes take this opportunity to grab hold of either side and pull them further, creating wide hips that sway with each of her steps towards you.
"What is happening to me?" she asks, sounding both confused and once more already aroused, somehow. "Why does it feel so... Good, tiger?"
You can hear her deep-throated purr, then feel it as the increasingly cheetah-like woman pressed her still-flat chest against your own, gazing up into your eyes with bright green feline peepers. Her thinning, furry arms wrap around you, holding you tight. Even her clothes shrink to become much more form-fitting, the electronics store uniform thinning and lightening to become a pink top, rising up from below to reveal a toned, furry-white midriff on a tight waist and plunging down from the neckline, where fluffy pectorals fatten and swell.
"Look what you're doing to me, tiger," she giggles.
"Uh, that's not really my name," you stammer, unsure whether to flee the sharp-toothed cat woman holding you tightly or try and figure out how to change her back with the kazoo, if that's even possible.
"I know, tiger," she says. "Consider it my pet name for you."
She giggles again at her own joke, each high-pitched bit of laughter causing her chest to expand further, soft, pillowy flesh ballooning past A cup and B, soaring over C and D, all pressing into you, still growing, big, bigger, BIGGER. Her breasts only finish when they've fattened to a truly voluptuous size. Peering over her shoulders reveals her rear swelling softly as well, plumping up as a spotted tail snakes out from the tip of her spine around slacks shortening into a tight mini-skirt, boxers shifting into panties with visible strings. You can even spy the straps of a newly-appeared bra snapping into place around and then digging into her shoulders, her cups straining to contain her massive mammaries.
"My head feels all strange, you know," she says, her face so close to yours you can feel her whiskers tickling your nose. "Why was I wasting my life in an electronics store? Why did I find any of that stuff interesting? I remember all that sales data and whatnot, but who cares about the boring software of beige boxes when you can jack up a hot rod on fat tires with flaming smokestacks? Speaking of 'hot rods'..."
She grabs a paw-full of the front of your jeans, causing you to wince as her claws barely prick through the fabric to your skin.
"Let's get you home, tiger," she says, winking at you. "Come on, we can take my car. Then, I can show you what else I know how to jack up... And off..."
"Who are you?" you ask.
"My old self's name was Max," the cheetah woman says. "But that doesn't sound right anymore. Maybe... Millie?"
"Are you still in there?" you ask with a gulp. "Did I just murder some guy with a kazoo?!"
"I'm still me, you know, and this IS super weird," Millie says. "But I'm a different version of me, now. A new persona. I don't know why I feel like this, or what that music did to my mind, but even though I know it's different, it still is, if that makes any sense. Like, I know I used to have it hot for babes like the new me, perhaps minus the 'cheetah' part, but now I can't feel anything like that. You, on the other hand... Just looking at you is sending my engine revving. 'Same software,' to quote my old self, 'but with plenty of tweaks to the code, and a lot more to the hardware'... If you can call these hard."
She gestures to her ample bosom, causing you to blush fiercely.
"So, tiger," Millie says, grabbing your hand. "I know this is sudden, and I'd understand if you wanted to mull over the existential quandaries of magical kazoo transformations, but do you want a ride home, or not? You can change me back later... Unless I choose to stay this way... Or I choose to change some things myself!"