Workman: Chapter One - Part Two

3

I didn’t remember the ring until much later; well after I returned home.

I was procrastinating again, doing anything to put off getting down to work. My latest excuse was a sudden and desperate need to tidy my handbag. I decided that it couldn’t possibly wait and definitely took a higher priority than painting the stair walls.

There was a lot of crap in the bag: old receipts, makeup, cinema tickets, old batteries, shoe laces. It was kind of ridiculous. I made three piles: things I wanted to keep in there, worthwhile items that didn’t deserve to be crammed inside, and shit that needed chucking out as soon as possible.

The bag with the ring in was about to go into the third pile when it came back to me and I ripped it open. The ring dropped out onto my palm.

I stared at it for a minute then flipped it over, tracing the intricate designs. I didn’t know now what possessed me to throw good money away on it, but it was pretty. I held it up between finger and thumb, looking through the hole, then slipped it without ceremony onto the first finger of my left hand.

I held my hand up, admiring it, really loving it actually, then my fingers curled and I frowned, feeling… odd.

In fact I felt very odd suddenly. It was almost… It was painful; like… It reminded me of a wound I’d had as a girl that went septic – the scratching feeling that had spread up my arm until I’d taken antibiotics to clear it.

Like something was in my blood, spreading up my arm from…

“Oh my God.”

The ring.

I held my hand up in front of my face, fingers splayed, staring at it.

It felt cold to the touch but that cold was burning me like ice would. My hand was shaking.

I reached to pull it off with my other hand but gasped, pulling my fingers clear when they got burned too.

The pinched scraping in my blood vessels was most of the way up my arm. I had to do something. I had to take it off!

But then a flicker of light flashed, dazzling me, a free-floating pulse of energy close to eye level. No more than two seconds later I felt a compression all over my body but churning into my stomach, clawing down at it with a terrible weight.

Another flickering flash pop. I closed my eyes.

The pain was in my chest. In my heart.

And then suddenly it was everywhere.

I snatched at the ring, pulling on it, ignoring the burning on my other fingers, gritting my teeth and moaning with the exertion.

It had to come off!

But then another flash came, brighter than the others, accompanied by a deep rumble and then a tearing snap, and instantaneously, all the strange sensations vanished and I fell against the table, breathing erratically, almost wheezing.

All the strength was gone from my limbs. I could barely raise my head. When I managed to eventually I caught sight of my hand resting on the table close to my ear and stopped dead.

It wasn’t my hand.

It wasn’t my hand at all.

It was a man’s hand: big and feathered with hairs! It had thick stubby fingers and blunt nails, the skin tough and leathery.

I jerked upright, raising it to look at, then snapped up the other one. It was the same! Two men’s hands connected to my arms!

And there on my left hand was the ring – the stone ring – and it still fit me perfectly!

 

4

I scrabbled up and back from the table, knocking the kitchen chair over onto the floor.

It wasn’t just my hands. It was my arms and my legs and my torso. I looked down my body in disbelief, clutching at my broad but suddenly flat chest.

“Bloody hell!” My hand went to my mouth as though it were grabbing for the deep masculine syllables that had just come through my lips. There was stubble on my upper lip, on my chin and cheeks. Against my face my fingers scraped, big and clumsy.

My clothes had changed. My clothes had changed too! I wasn’t wearing the gypsy top and skirt anymore. In the flashes of light it had changed to a chequered shirt and jeans, the cuffs of the shirt folded back almost to the elbow.

My forearms were double the thickness that they’d used to be, the skin a lot darker, the same thin web of downy hair down their length. I looked at them, turning them, then touched my face, the suddenly short hair on my head, starting to really panic.

It was the ring. It had to be the ring!

I grabbed at it and pulled, but it was tight. I became even more frantic, yanking so hard it was painful. I thought it was stuck fast but it shifted and I gasped in relief.

Then I stopped. I kept my fingers on it ready to pull but I raised my head, looking away, thinking. I glanced back to the ring then away out the window.

I pushed the ring back into place.

I had to see what this looked like. While it was still happening.

Apart from the odd glistening in the carved grooves, the ring didn’t look magical in the least and it had started to come off. I could take it off in a minute.

I suddenly felt very calm.

There was no hurry. Logic said I would change back to myself when I took it off. I had no intention of putting it back on again once it was off so maybe… I should just take a look in a mirror – see what I looked like.

A slow grin spread across my lips.

This was scary as hell but it was also kind of exciting! Me: looking like a man!

I considered it for a moment longer then went through to the hall, approaching the mirror nervously. And there I was.

I really was a man! There wasn’t anything feminine about me! And I wasn’t bad looking either. I was at least a few inches over six feet, much taller than I had been, even in heels. My new body was big. Very big. My shoulders were broad, arms thick and muscular, thighs like iron. My chest and torso were huge. The body wasn’t skinny there was a lot of mass but it seemed to be mostly muscle; maybe like a heavyweight boxer off-season, just slightly off-prime.

My hair was short round the sides and back but full of body (and product) on top. I had sideburns!

I stepped closer to the mirror to see my face better.

My face.

My head and neck were as big and masculine as my body. My normally slender eyebrows were now bushy. My eyes were squarer, my lips almost skin-coloured. I had strong carven cheekbones and dimple creases.

I chuckled and grinned at myself. This was incredible! It had really happened!

“I’m a man,” I said, surprised again by the voice, so deep that it sounded like it came from the bottom of a well.

This was absolutely crazy! But I loved it!

(As long as I could change back – I definitely didn’t want to stay this way)

I grinned again, picking a name at random. “My name’s Geoff. I’m just visiting my sister, Alison. I’ll be in town for a few days at least.”

I just stared at myself in awe. It was simply incredible. I didn’t just look and sound different because I was a man now, there was a slight difference to the way I was talking. The syllables were more precisely edged. It wasn’t the excessively clipped sounds of a private school man but it was leaning a bit more in that direction than I normally did.

I stepped away from the mirror.

It was truly amazing but the electrification I was feeling was scratching away at me. I’d had my look now and I was anxious I wouldn’t be able to change back to myself. I’d had enough of this. I wanted to go back.

I gripped the ring then paused and got one more look at myself in the mirror. The rugged lumberjack looked back at me with incredulity and wonder.

Just for a second I focused on the ladder and paint through the reflection beyond me. I wondered if… Imagine how much easier it would be to do that as a man…

But no. I’d had enough. More than enough. This was too weird. I wanted to be myself again. What if it didn’t let me change back? I couldn’t waste anymore time.

I tugged on the ring. It didn’t budge. I pulled again, twisting it, and this time it slid up to the middle bend of my finger.

The skin there tingled, the scratching in my veins starting up again. My head felt muzzy, the air in the hallway thickening.

I looked at the paint, considering pushing the ring back down into place. I hung there with it just part way off, then I slid it right off and away from my hand.

The flickers of light came: just a brief flash first, then another broader one. The discomfort ran through my body, concentrating in my bowels as a denseness. I put my hands to my stomach. Then there was a third and final burst of light and I stepped back, myself again; a woman.

The shudders of the change echoed through my body, spiking my heart rate. The tightness in my throat held on for almost a minute, then it subsided.

I looked at myself in the mirror again, oddly surprised by how much smaller and slimmer I was, by the flouncy femininity of my hair and clothes.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “That was amazing!”

I put the ring down on the hall table where I tended to leave my keys and handbag and stepped quickly away in case it reached out and got me again.

I was practically panting, looking back at myself and feeling my body, convincing myself I was a woman again but finding it hard already to believe it had really happened.

I went closer to the table and prodded the ring with the end of my index finger. It nudged back but showed no sign of having magical properties.

I withdrew and closed my arms round my chest, watching it warily.

I didn’t know quite what to think.

The memory of the scratching pain was fresh in my mind but also the incredible sense of strength and calm I’d had.

Part of me wanted to label it as dangerous but the other part had simply enjoyed it.

I wondered what to do with it. I definitely didn’t want to put it on again. No way.

I looked at the painting things.

But it was tempting…