~Roughly forty eight hours ago~
It was Saturday and Joe and his wife had just returned from dropping off the items to Alice. Joe just wanted to sit down and have a beer, maybe catch the last half of the ballgame. He certainly did not want to deal with the here and now.
But Jenny had other ideas and right away picked up the argument that had been started last night when they had returned home.
Last night, Joe had stated that he wanted no form of contact with his son, now daughter and the moment Jenny had suggested at least picking something up, he had flown off the wall. What followed then was a five hour argument that ended with Joe at least willing to purchase some clothes for Stephanie so that she had some for the weekend. But Joe absolutely refused to let the abomination, for that was how he viewed Steven, back under his roof.
This launched into a new argument that finally reached a boiling point when Joe had struck Jenny and she had gone to bed crying, while Joe had slept on the couch.
The next day Joe had driven Jenny to the local Walmart, where she had purchase enough clothes to get Stephanie though the weekend. Afterward they dropped off the items and returned home, where Jenny promptly picked the argument up were it had been left off.
"I never wanted a son in the first place! Now I have daughter to deal with?" Jenny screamed at her husband.
"Leave me alone, wench!" Joe retorted. "All I want is a beer and to watch the rest of the ballgame. We'll deal with this later; much, much later."
Joe never got to watch the game as Jenny marched into the room, picked up the remote, strolled to the window and chucked it out. Knowing that this was one of the newer models that required a remote to work, she turned to her husband and gave him a look that said, "No, you and I are going to deal with this now!"
"You stupid cunt!" Joe screamed and backhanded her across the mouth.
Doubling over in pain, Jenny brought her fist up and connected with her husbands testicles. Falling over, all he could do was lie there and gasp like a landed carp.
What followed next was a free for all that ended with both sitting bruised and bloody on the floor and staring at each other, storm clouds forming on each other's face. Without warning, Joe launched himself onto of Jenny and the two spent the next hour making love to each other.
Over dinner, they talked in halted sentences and came eventually to uneasy truce on how to deal with Stephanie; they would move, without her.
By Sunday, everything had been packed. What could not being taken with had been given to neighbors or simply dumped out back. Both knew that what they were doing could get them in trouble, but figured they would cross that bridge when they arrived at that point.
What Joe did not know about, was Jenny leaving a letter and two suitcases for Stephanie. She knew Joe really didn't care and really, neither did she. She had never really wanted a kid and Steven had been an accident, which had stopped her from finishing college and kept Joe from getting the job he had really wanted. Now with Steven changing to Stephanie, it certainly didn't appear that that would happen; unless they abandoned her to Alice.
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~Twenty years later~
Joe had not seen Jenny in nearly fifteen years now. The last he saw of her was when she was still trying to get into a university in Florida.
They had had a huge row about her attempting college and it had ended with him chartering a boat to Bermuda.
From his wife Joe's thoughts then drifted to his son,now his daughter. Shortly after they had left Stephanie, they had been approached be a woman claiming to be part of a cult called The Order of Zulo. She had asked some questions, typed some things into her laptop and then abruptly left, leaving them with the parting words, "Stephanie will be okay and you need not worry about getting in trouble with the local Government or anyone else for that matter.
Now here he was, still in a dead-end job, only with no wife and no child. He looked over the edge his cubicle at Aron, noticed that he had gone on break and decided against asking him if he wanted to go out for a beer after work.
Work for Joe consisted of a office Job in Texas; some telemarketing scheme to get people to by shingles for their houses. Sighing, he punched in the code and his computer ran a check and eventually pulled a number up that wasn't listed on the no-call list.
After work, Joe went home and relaxed a couple of hours. The weekend was here and there would be no work until Tuesday. Something to do with the department heads getting together to discuss profits and other important business items. After awhile, he figured that dinner at the new Asian restaurant would be good tonight. Standing, he grabbed his coat and headed out the door.
Deciding to walk there, Joe just barely glimpsed and object from his peripheral vision. It was a shiny object reflecting of the setting sun. Figuring it to be a can lying in the gutter, he almost passed it by, when a gut feeling made him stop.
Reaching down, he pulled the object out of the gutter and brushed the refuse off. Looking at it, he did a double take when he realized that this was the Amulet of Zulo. The object that changed Steven into Stephanie. He knew what had happened to her, having checked up on her. She and her sister were both in college out in California, Jet Propulsion or something, the last time he had looked. But that had been three years ago.
He knew that Steven had been happy with his transformation. Looking back on his miserable life, Joe wondered if this amulet could bring him happiness.
"I would need to become a child again, thats for sure." He reasoned to himself. "But do I want redo my life as a male or female? Could I become female like Steven. What would people say and who would take care of me?"
Joe pondered all this over. Two years after he had left Jenny, he had changed his last name to Taylor. So there was no hope that his ex would track him down right away. And why would she. He knew now that his behavior had been abusive and that it was something that he had picked up from his father.
"Maybe, if I become a kid again, I can avoid learning the same behavior again?" Joe questioned out loud. "But if I did that, should I become a male child?"
He thought about his childhood. A long history of abuse where he had learned only that woman should be put into their place and men should be big and strong. The bread winners of the family. "If I was female, maybe I could learn something new out of life." He reasoned.
Hanging the amulet around his neck, he slowly made his way to the restaurant. By the end of his meal, he had made up his mind. He would use the amulet to become a child again, but still hadn't decided on the sex. Leaning slightly to female, but still weighing the pros and cons of it all, he entered a department store and made his way toward the clothes section for children between five and seven.
Feeling the amulet beneath his shirt, he made his decision and reached for...