“So, that’s what this is about? I thought we were going to some water park.” Joel laid a beefy, tanned arm across his head and yawned. He was in the backseat of the car with Jess, his girlfriend.
Jess adjusted her glasses, wiggled her eyebrows, and chimed in, “You thought there’s a water park in the middle of a forest?” In response, Joel gave a quick pout and poked her with his elbow. She poked him back and snorted with a smirk.
In front of them, in the middle seat sat Alyssa and Fiona. Alyssa had been the first of their group to join up and Fiona said she just tagged along because she was bored. Barry had the wheel while Duncan had the copilot seat and explained things.
It was a gorgeous spring day at the start of break. Term papers all complete and testing finally in the rearview mirror. Joel didn’t have any real plans but to chill with Jess as she caught up on all sorts of streaming shows she said she wanted to watch together. He didn’t understand most of them but couldn’t complain about the company. Then Duncan came over and asked if they wanted to visit a “magical lake”.
The guy was an unabashed part of the geek squad, but he had made their Wi-Fi work better on more than one occasion. His roommate Barry activated Joel’s prankster side because he was so willing to believe anything he said. It wasn’t anything too crazy. Made him think there was a girl in his bed and it was actually a sticky poster with some anime chick. He left him stuck to that girl for about an hour.
Another good one was turning all his phone alerts into ladies saying how hot he was. It did cause a little trouble in his math class, but Joel thought shouldn’t have had his phone on anyway. Otherwise, it was just mostly scaring him or getting him to believe they were giving away video games on the other side of campus and it was just a buddy of his who had one dollar titles.
Nothing intended to hurt the guy, was the code Joel kept. And he eased off when it looked like Barry was having a really bad day. All he really wanted to do was toughen him up a bit so he wouldn’t be quite so gullible.
He didn’t really know the girls in front of them. They seemed to be some kind of sociology or psychology majors, but he hadn’t asked. Jess knew both of them better than he did and Duncan apparently knew them pretty well too. Alyssa hadn’t really said much the whole drive. To Joel, she kind of had a horror movie actress thing going on. Pale, thready eyebrows, a massive forehead, and immense, dark eyes. He was sure that Jess could think of some book word for what she looked like, but he understood that asking would leave her annoyed.
Jess was like the Yin to his Yang. At least, he liked to say that to people. She had the smarts. He had the muscles. They did match up in that his pecks were hard chiseled from months straight working out in the college gym. And she had a pretty toned body too and he deeply appreciated the roundness to her boobs even though he knew he shouldn’t draw attention to his focus on that sort of thing. She had the most going on of any of the girls in the car and that gave him a little flash of pride.
She had on a nice khaki top that neither went crazy with all that, nor did it downplay it so much that he couldn’t appreciate it. For him, she was like a young teacher who dressed with flare and who he had no problem taking independent study with. The ink on her arm of the Alaskan wilderness also looked pretty cool. She told him it was based on a painting of where she grew up. He never got any tattoos of his own because he thought his body was fine as it was. His natural bronze tans were the only decoration he needed.
He rubbed his eye and glanced out at the forest passing through the window. Alyssa pretty much only looked out with her head down and her arms crossed. Maybe she was tired too. They woke up for this was around four, before the sun even came up. Joel was definitely feeling the early hour.
For the trip, he knew everyone had packed several tents, a big mess of supplies, GPS, and a satellite phone for emergencies since their regular phones were unlikely to get any kind of coverage out here.
So far, Duncan had been regaling them with the story he heard in his folklore class. Joel knew about the woman who taught it, Miss Clifton. She was truly mysterious. Just applied to be an adjunct one day and then was teaching. A few of the sociology professors vanished and were never heard from again. Naturally, Joel assumed she’d gone black widow and parts of them were buried in her basement. With how she looked, Joel once said that if she invited him over he might actually take the chance.
Joel scrutinized the parts he could understand, against the things that went over his head. Apparently, this lake had special powers to liberate your best self. A transformative experience if you soaked in the waters. It was on public land and had several routes in, but most were inaccessible or closed. Because it was some revitalization thing, Joel surmised, and all the rich folks in the state wanted to keep it for themselves.
Excitedly, Fiona put a finger to her chin and pondered whether they could borrow some of the water and take it with them maybe to sell as like a drop of the fountain of youth. Duncan actually had a similar idea, but he couched it in saying that he wanted to make sure he had a sample to take back with him to analyze so that they could move beyond legends and rumors and native folklore about this place and actually get a firm grasp on what it did. Barry chimed in a little bit about the constellations in the area and how this had actually been the spot of several astronomical rituals. So, aliens.
Joel had to fight the swimming desire to point out the window and yell that he actually saw an alien gray standing in the trees, but he couldn’t be sure that Barry wouldn’t slam on the brakes and potentially roll the car. After about three hours on looping, dipping, rising, and slow curving roads, they came to the right signage that Duncan had discussed.
The entrance was not only blocked but there were several large logs in the way. Fortunately, that was no match for Joel and his muscles. They had just enough space to jog around through the trees on the side through a clearance and then move the other obstacles out of the way.
Barry got a little nervous at this point about how illegal this might be but drove them onward without complaint.
Arriving at the actual lake, they skimmed around the perimeter for privacy. It was about a mile and a half to circle all the way around it. Some areas had been cleared for camping nearby and there was a jetty off into the water but otherwise there didn’t seem to be much in the way of amenities. Generally, Joel wasn’t very impressed at first glance. If this place was supposed to be some sort of special lake then he figured that they would’ve been surrounded by drones and guys in black helicopters and jeeps the moment they got to it. Nothing.
They parked the car a little bit off into the dirt and swung it around to easily unpack their stuff. The girls started taking photos with their phones immediately and Duncan even got a few snaps.
Settling in felt pretty normal as Joel hauled the big items out to put around in a circle for camping. They cleared a pit with some rocks and Barry took the ax out to the treeline to cut away some firewood and whatever else he could find. Joel quipped that he better be back soon and without a hockey mask.
Barry tried to be cool about it, first overreacting that he would never do anything like that and then putting together the joke and making horror movie noises that weren’t quite the ones he intended. Duncan surveyed the water but didn’t get too close to it. He also warned the others not to jump in quite yet because he still had more to reveal. Joel didn’t quite like the sound of that, in fact it sounded exactly like what a serial killer might say, having brought them all here. He kept an eye on Duncan as they set everything up.
Once they had the entire site put together and Barry brought back enough firewood to keep a fire going overnight, Duncan filled in the missing details.
“This is indeed supposed to be a magical lake. All that is true, but here’s the thing. Miss Clifton alluded to this when she gave her presentation and, ultimately, I was able to confirm all of this through the legends and stories of the area as having a historical basis at least. This lake imbues those to dip in it or otherwise partake of it with spiritual energy to invigorate and transform their lives. By changing their sex…”
Joel bent forward and glanced around. The others were doing the same. Even Alyssa seemed to perk up and gaze at Duncan. They all appeared to be waiting for the punchline. Duncan cleared his throat and emphasized, “I wasn’t sure what to believe but that’s just what I’ve been able to piece together. Anyone who takes a dip in the water has their physical sex transformed. I can’t say I’m not curious.“
Getting started before anyone else, Joel gave a chuckle and turned up his hands. “Seriously, dude? Oh man, did you get trolled by a teacher prank? I didn’t know Miss Clifton had that sort of humor. Classic.”
Duncan sighed through his nose and responded, “The events of this location are diligently researched and extensively documented. Miss Clifton‘s own admissions that something strange happens at this place adds reliable credence to all that.“
Slapping his knees, Joel asked, “So, are you gonna prove it with us? Ask for volunteers to take a dip?“
Duncan rubbed his chin and shook his head. “It would be easiest to have a test subject. But I wouldn’t ask that of any of you. I mainly just wanted to take samples and…” He faded off.
Joel rocked his head. “Well, that’s a load. We wouldn’t all be here if you didn’t think one of us might go for a dip.”
Duncan cleared his throat and lightly waved his hands. “Forget it. I don’t want anyone to have to, even for purely scientific reasons.”
Shaking his head, Joel stretched his legs and smiled. “Don’t you worry about it. We’re gonna settle this right now. Hey, Barry… you like science, right? Let’s do an experiment together.”
Barry crouched and looked around. His blonde hair sat in little tufts like a buzz cut on a TV show from decades ago. He appeared balding most of his life with a high forehead and cloaked patterns of fuzz against his pink skin with a slight mustache only visible when the light caught it. His eyebrows looked like uneven punctuation trying to get away from his features. His mottled blue tropical shirt looked rather out of place for the woods. His jeans carried flakes firewood he hadn’t yet shaken off. He was a bit doughy but not much shorter than Joel.
Before Barry could ask what he meant by that, Joel had him in a wrestling hold from behind. He’d got him like this once before and knew that he couldn’t get out of it.
Yelling in confusion, Barry begged him to let him go and he almost did it. Drop him in front of the sand before the water and have a good laugh about the whole thing. Joel‘s main concern, aside from how much he was kicking and struggling, was all the stuff that Jess sometimes warned him about brain parasites in pond water. Plus, he knew the water was sure to be shallow close to the edge, so he had to make sure he threw Barry in where he wouldn’t get a bleeding concussion with no hospital nearby. Fortunately, he had more experience than he would’ve liked to admit roughhousing with his brothers as they each threw each other into basically pond water worse than this.
Barry dragged his feet and tried to get out of his grasp, but Joel gripped him harder. The others seemed like they wanted to interrupt him. That Fiona girl stepped sideways and back a few times but not forward. Jess was flailing with her hands high above her head even though he couldn’t hear her above everyone else. Duncan seemed to be yelling something but not getting close either. To no surprise for Joel, the quiet girl, Alyssa, was being quiet and doing basically nothing but watching.
When he was in position, Joel heaved Barry in a sideways motion instead of chucking him with his head down. To his relief, Barry landed on his legs with a tumble in just a few feet of water. In an instant, he was up and sloshing towards the shore. No limps, wounds, or bruises.
Sliding his hands across his pants, Joel gestured and proclaimed, “Science! Like that Archimedes guy. And myth or folklore or whatever totally busted. So, can we uhh..” Joel scrunched his eyes up and watched as Barry made his way out of the water. Something was weird about him though.
Somehow, Barry no longer had a thin scrabble of balding blonde hair. Instead, thick flowing bands of water slicked locks matted past the middle of his back. His face retained a subtle pinkness, but his large nose receded into a pert slender shape. His bushy eyebrows, with their chaotic texture, became a sharp, groomed oval above his wide eyes. The changes were enough to make Joel wonder if the group had somehow pulled a switcheroo on him and the real Barry was hiding in the shoals while whoever this was took his place.
His pants slid off as he stumbled over the rise onto the shore and his boxers soon followed. From behind, Joel got a pretty darn good look. A supple, curvy posterior shook as she got to her feet. Between her thighs, he could glimpse of a cleft, a softly slopped mound, and absolutely no balls. Walking back around in front, he shook his head in shock as Fiona came over and quickly offered a towel to wrap around the blonde girl. Barry’s top was loose on her otherwise but the drenched cloth clung to her chest. She had a defined, broad rounded slope to challenge Jess.
There was no way for him to deny it. Barry had been turned into this blonde chick. Heck, it was real! He had no idea what to say to that.