Three Little Wishes 4

The weather had begun to turn on the beach, growing cloudy and cool. Owen was tired of shivering in the water and had turned his attention to treasure hunting. He was sifting through the sand with a plastic trowel in search of pirate gold. Already, he had found an old soda can lid and an odd chunk of red plastic, which signaled to him that the gold was near.

“Owen!” called Ivy. “Mom said we’re leaving now. Come back to the blanket.”

Owen pretended not to hear his big sister and dug a little deeper. Plastic and metal made contact, and he uncovered a tarnished coin in the sand. He was almost too excited to breathe. Buried treasure at last! His fumbling fingers brushed the sand from it, and he tried to determine if it was gold or not.

“Mommy!” he called to their mother, “Mommy, look what I found!” He collected his treasures and tools and ran over to her, seeking her appraisal.

“Just a moment, dear,” their mother said as she placed their baby brother, Milo, in his stroller and began folding the blanket up.

Ivy was watching her work when Owen nudged her.

“Ivy, Look!” he said, holding the coin up.

“What is it, now?” she asked him.

“It’s a coin.”

She squinted at it, reading the words engraved in it. “‘Good for three wishes?’” she said. “Where’d you find that piece of junk.”

“It’s not junk,” he protested. “It’s my buried treasure.”

“It’s just some kind of game token,” she explained. “It’s not worth anything.”

“But, you said it gave you wishes,” he protested, squinting at it, as if he focused enough he could learn to read it.

“It’s not real. Only babies would believe a coin could grant wishes.”

“I’m not a baby,” Owen replied, feeling insulted that his 8-year-old sister would say something so condescending to him. After all, she was only three years older than he was.

“All right, kids,” their mother said, hefting a bag onto her shoulder. “Let’s head back to the hotel.”

Ivy stuck her tongue out at Owen.

He returned the gesture.

As they all left the beach, Owen kept glancing down at the wishing coin in his hand, wondering what wishes he should make.

***

Later on, in their hotel room, the kids were cleaned up and dressed in street clothes, and Owen was very upset.

“This is so unfair,” Owen declared as Ivy smirked at him from behind their mother’s back. “Why can’t I go?”

Their mother sighed and explained it to him, again. “Ivy is going to a diving class at the pool, but it’s only for kids 6 years old or older. I’m sorry, sweetie, but you’ll need to stay here with me.”

Owen crossed his arms, and put on a grumpy expression. “It’s not fair,” he stated. “I’m old enough to swim, too.”

“Don’t worry,” their mother said. “We can play some games together here. And then, we can…”

From the adjacent room of their hotel suite, they heard a baby begin crying.

“Oh,” their mother said. “Hold on. I’m just going to go check on Milo.”

“Can I go down to the pool by myself?” Ivy asked.

“Uh,” their mother said. “I guess so. I did sign you up already. They’ll know you’re coming. Just make sure you head straight there.”

“I will,” Ivy said. “Bye.”

“Bye, dear,” their mother said and left to check on her infant son.

Ivy smirked down at Owen, picked up her towel and bathing suit, and left the hotel room.

Owen just stood there alone in the room for a moment, feeling frustrated by the injustice that had been done to him. In an act of protest, he decided to lay on the bed without taking off his shoes. He pulled the wishing coin out of his pocket and started turning it over and over in his fingers again.

“It isn’t fair,” he reiterated.

Ivy said the coin was fake, but what did she know? It was his coin, which meant the wishes were his to make. Maybe he should wish to make things more fair.

“Honey,” his mother said. “Why don’t you play with your toys? I’m going to need just a moment to change your brother’s diaper.”

“It’s never ‘just a moment,’” Owen grumbled, knowing how much attention his baby brother commanded from his mother. “I wish there was someone else around to take care of Milo.”

Owen was not looking at the coin in his hand, so he did not notice the number change from 3 to 2. He did notice his clothes begin to make him uncomfortable, as if they had become smaller somehow. He wondered if this was the start of another growth spurt. Sitting up on the comforter, he looked over at his feet, which seemed to be sliding further and further away from him. Could it be that his legs were growing longer right before his eyes? His shoes felt painfully tight as did the rest of his clothes. Was he growing all over now? Whatever was happening, if it kept up for much longer, he would…

Rip! His shorts split open, and his toes burst free of the end of his shoes. He sighed in relief as his body tore out the clothing he had outgrown. Now unconstrained by his clothes, his growth seemed to accelerate. Weight accumulated around his hips and thighs, and soon after, two mounds of flesh began to swell on his chest.

Just as Owen felt some dramatic changes happening in his crotch, the remains of his clothes rose up and began to cling around his torso and abdomen. He soon recognized that his old clothes were forming into a woman’s, one-piece swimsuit, just like the one that his mother had worn on the beach. He even noticed a pair of sandals had appeared on his feet that matched his mother’s sandals. With the appearance of his new clothes and the reshaping of his body, Owen realized that he was transforming into a woman, one very much like his mom.

When Owen stopped growing, he looked around in confusion. It seemed that everything had shrunk around him. The bed, the other furniture, the whole room even, it all seemed so much smaller now. Everything but him, that is. Down at the foot of the bed, he saw his sandaled feet hanging over the edge. He had to wiggle his toes to convince himself that something so far away could be part of his body. His eyes followed his long legs up to his broad hips and continued their journey to the weighty breasts on his chest.

“Wow,” whispered Owen in awe. “I’m a mommy, now.” He even sounded like one.

He stood up from the bed and felt a moment of vertigo as he got used to how tall he had become. Then, he walked over to a mirror to get a look at himself. It shocked him to see his own mother’s face reflected back at him.

“I am my mommy!” he declared.

“Owen?” his mother called from the other room. “Did I hear you put the TV on? You know you’re not supposed to put it on without your mommy.”

Owen groaned. He was getting pretty tired of being either ignored or ordered around. If only she could understand what it felt like to be him…

He glanced down at the coin in his palm and said, “I wish she was my son.”

***

Owen’s mother had just finished diapering Milo when a strange sensation overcame her. At first, she thought she was about to faint, as she felt herself starting to fall. However, she realized that, despite her perspective lowering, she was still standing upright. Looking down, she could see the floor getting closer as her feet seemed to rise up with it. A quick glance around the room made her think that everything was growing around her. However, noticing her clothes becoming looser, she realized that she was actually shrinking.

At first she was frightened and confused, but she started to panic when she noticed her breasts deflate, flattening her chest. “No!” she cried, gripping her empty bra cups and looking at her baby. How would she feed Milo now without that ready source of nutrition on her chest? That worried her more than any other changes happening to her, even the strange growth occurring between her legs, which she noticed when her jeans slipped down her narrowed hips.

As she became nearly a perfect double of her son, her clothes caught up to her changing body, shrinking to fit her. Most significantly to her, she noticed her bra disappear, the last trace of her maternity.

“Owen?” she cried, hearing his voice in her mouth. “Where are you?” While she doubted he could help her, she preferred his company to being alone and small.

Turning to walk into the other room, she was confronted by a baffling sight. Her own body was standing in the doorway, dressed in her swimsuit. Seeing her double smiling down at her terrified her.

“W-who are you?” she asked, stepping back to put her little body between her baby and this doppelganger.

The woman giggled and said, “It’s me, mommy.”

After taking a moment to decode that sentence, her eyes went wide. “Owen?”

The woman nodded.

“W-what happened to you. What happened to both of us?” she asked, but hearing her own voice answered her question.

“I’m the mommy, now,” Owen declared. “And, you get to be my son, Owen.”

She looked down at her body, confirming what Owen had said. “I see,” she said. “But, how did this happen?”

Owen hesitated for a suspiciously long time before replying. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging.

She sighed, trying to figure out what to do now. Clearly, Owen knew more than he was letting on, but she worried what might happen if she pressed him too much. She needed to find help. She needed her phone.

“Listen, Honey,” she said, delicately. “I need to get something out of my purse. How about you play with your toys a little longer?”

Owen shook his head and grabbed her purse from the dresser. “This is my purse now,” he declared. “You can go play with your toys,” he added, gesturing towards the other room.

She sighed, realizing she would need to come up with a better plan to get around her overgrown son. “Okay,” she said, walking past Owen, feeling disturbingly small beside him. She grabbed a toy truck from the floor and pretended to play with it on the bed as she kept an eye on Owen in the other room. He was occupied with taking items out of her purse one-by-one and trying to figure out what they were. Somehow she would need to get out of that room and try to get in contact with her husband. In the meantime, she played with the truck and plotted an escape.

***

Owen tried to put on his mother’s lipstick and made a total mess of his mouth as he did. He had been too scared to test her eye makeup, and he had no idea what some of the tools in the purse were meant to do. He had imagined the lipstick would be as simple to use as lip balm, but it had proven much more challenging to handle.

“Owen?” his little-boy mother called to him.

“Call me ‘Mommy,” he corrected her.

She sighed and said, “Mommy, do you want some ice cream?”

Owen liked the idea of getting ice cream, but he felt a little suspicious about being offered a treat so suddenly. “Yeah?” he said, cautiously.

“If you let me take a little money, I can get ice cream for both of us,” she said.

“You will?” Owen asked, his mouth starting to water. “Okay.”

She returned to the room, and Owen found her wallet in the purse and handed over all the cash in it.

“Thanks,” she said, straightening out the bills. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

“Be back faster,” he ordered her.

She hesitated with a nervous look on her face. Then, she put on a smile and said, “Right. I’ll be back very fast.” Then, she ran to the door and rushed out into the hall.

As he waited for her to return, Owen found a tissue, wiped his lips clean, and made another go at putting on the lipstick.

***

After the diving class ended, Ivy returned to the hotel room on her own. She had been expecting her mother and brother to stop by to pick her up, but she was happy to have the chance to return on her own. It made her feel particularly grown up to make the journey there and back without adult supervision. She knocked on the hotel room door. There was a long moment of silence, making her wonder if her mother might have gone out somewhere with the boys.

The sound of the door unlocking was a relief. Then, when it swung open, Ivy was happy to see a woman who she assumed was her mother. Ivy was a little surprised to see that her mother was dressed in her swimsuit again.

“Hi, um, Ivy,” her mother said, sounding oddly nervous. “How was the diving class?”

“It was fun,” she said. “The instructor said I could be a pro diver someday.”

“Oh yeah?” her mother replied, sounding displeased. “Did he?”

Ivy was taken aback. The hostility in her mother’s voice was off-putting. Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “Where did Owen go?”

“Um,” her mother said, sounding like she was uncertain at first. “He went… to a different diving class… a better one, just for the boys.”

“Really?” Ivy asked, sensing again that there was something really off about her mother. “Okay.” She walked into the room past her mother, who she noticed was holding a coin in her hand. Ivy wondered if it might be the same coin Owen had found on the beach. “Can we get something to eat?” she asked. “Please. I’m starving.”

“Don’t you want to wait for your brother?” her mother asked, shutting the door.

Ivy sighed and took a seat on the bed. “Do I have to?” she asked. “I want to get something now.” She gave her mother a conspiratorial look. “We could get some ice cream while he’s out. We don’t even need to tell him.”

Her mother frowned. “You’d get ice cream without him?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

“He’s been such a bratty baby lately,” Ivy whined. “Can’t we just go without him?”

Her mother looked mad, clenching the coin in her fist. “He’s not a baby,” she said, “but I wish you were a baby, just like Milo.”

“What?” Ivy asked, feeling deeply confused.

Before she could get an answer, she sensed something odd happening to her. A subtle tingle passed through her body, as if the hairs were standing up on her skin. Looking down at herself, she noticed her arms and legs appeared to be getting shorter. In fact, her whole body appeared to be losing size everywhere, except for around her belly, which seemed to be gaining back lost baby fat.

“Mom?” Ivy said, her voice sounding squeakier than usual. “What’s happening to me?”

Rather than looking concerned, as Ivy had expected, her mother appeared pleased to see Ivy shrinking. “I don’t know,” her mother said, smirking. “Maybe you're the real bratty baby.”

Ivy checked her body again, finding her swimsuit hanging loosely from her diminishing body. “A baby?” she asked, realizing that she was sounding more babyish each time she spoke. “Help me,” she begged. “I don’t wanna be a baby. Mommy?”

“I’m not Mommy,” the woman said. “I’m Owen.”

“Owen?” Ivy said.

The woman nodded and said, “I’m the grown up now, and you’re going to be my baby.”

Ivy stood up on the bed and realized that she had already become as little as Owen had been. However, she was still getting smaller and younger. Soon, she had regressed to only half her regular age.

“I don’t want to be a baby,” Ivy whined, feeling more babyish with each passing second. “Owen, pwease.”

Owen showed no sympathy, appearing only pleased by his sister’s begging.

Ivy whimpered and looked down at her toddler body just in time to witness her bathing suit turn white and reshape, sliding down her body to reform around her hips and crotch. After thickening up with padding, there was no mistaking that it had become a diaper.

Ivy’s hair thinned out as her legs weakened to the point that standing up became difficult. She looked up to see Owen looking like a giant version of their mother, staring down past their mother’s milk-swollen breasts. The sight of it overwhelmed Ivy, causing her balance to give out. She dropped down onto the bed, landing on her padded behind.

Feeling weak and helpless, Ivy’s vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears. She began to whimper. Then, as she fell onto her back, her little fists balled up, and she began crying. Soon, she was wailing, having become a baby at last.

A satisfied Owen smiled down at his humiliated sister, reduced to a perfect twin of his baby brother Milo.

***

Downstairs in the hotel, their mother was sneaking around. She had become deeply frustrated, having failed at every attempt to contact her husband. She had searched for a pay phone, but they seemed to be a thing of the past. At least, she had found none in the resort. Everyone she had approached had looked past her to see if there was a supervising adult nearby. Realizing that she was alone, they had started treating her like a lost child. At that point, she had excused herself and swiftly left the area to avoid getting caught by security. The only option she had left was to return to the hotel room and try to sneak a message to her husband with her phone.

Somehow, she would need to confront Owen.

She climbed the stairs, stumbling her way up on her unfamiliar little legs. She made it to the door and hesitated to knock, but the sound of a baby crying inside the room woke her maternal instincts. Feeling the instinctual need to help her baby, she knocked on the door.

The door swung open, and she was met by the surreal sight of her comparatively giant body holding a baby in one arm while propping the door open with the other. The baby she thought was Milo was wailing in utter despair.

“Owen,” she said, looking up at her son. “What’s the matter with Milo?”

“Milo?” he asked, seeming confused for a moment. Then, a look of realization appeared on his face, and he said, “Oh yeah, Milo was crying.”

The baby babbled desperately at her.

“Let me in,” she told her son.

Owen took a step back, and their mother walked in, keeping an eye on the baby as she did. Owen let the door swing shut and took a seat on the bed.

“Does he need a diaper change?” she asked.

Owen gave the baby a sniff and shook his head.

“He must be hungry,” she said, subconsciously putting her hand on her flat boy chest. She looked to Owen who now wore her breasts. It felt wrong to ask him to do it, but what other choice did she have? “Owen?”

“Yes?” he replied, cradling the baby in his arms.

“I can’t feed your brother in this body, but you can do it with my body.”

“You mean you want me to…” he glanced down at his ample breasts and continued in a whisper “...use your boobies?”

Their mother nodded. “I’ll tell you how to do it.”

Owen set the baby down on the bed beside him as their mother walked him through pulling down his swimsuit the proper way to support the baby while nursing. Then, when Owen seemed prepared, he picked up his sibling and maneuvered the baby’s mouth toward his breast.

The baby squirmed and babbled in protest.

“He’s being fussy,” their mother said. “Just poke your nipple in his mouth, and he should taste the milk and start sucking.”

Owen did and the suckling began.

“There you go,” their mother said as she stood there, supervising.

With the immediate problem handled, she had a moment to consider their predicament. She and her son had traded places, leaving her feeling disturbingly small and useless beside his mature female body. She knew she needed to contact her husband to help them, but at the moment, she was content to wait while one of her children breastfed the other one. Things felt almost peaceful, until they were interrupted by an unexpected, disturbing sound.

The real Milo had just woken up and started crying in the other room.

***

Ivy had wanted to join her mother in condemning her brother’s recklessness, but her baby mouth was unable to form words. Then, there was the realization that the coin had no wishes remaining, which had spun her into horrified introspection. She lay on the bed beside her baby brother, now her identical twin brother. Her attention alternated from examining her pudgy feet and hands to glancing at her brother. Each time she changed focus, she became more depressed about her fate.

“I’m sorry,” Owen said in the other room, repeating the apology for what must have been the twentieth time. “I really am.”

Meanwhile, their mother, now a little boy, was occupied with trying to explain their situation to their father through a series of unbelievable texts.

Ivy wondered how long it would be before her mouth would be mature enough to do more than bable, drink milk, and puke some of it back up again. She wondered how much longer she would be forced to suck her brother’s tit to stay alive. She wondered if he could ever be forgiven for what he had stolen from them all.

“Ivy?”

She looked over to see Owen in their mother’s body, standing in the doorway. He was looking at Milo, apparently unable to tell the two of them apart.

Ivy cooed and waved her arms at him, and he recognized who was who.

Against her will, Owen lifted her up and cradled her in his arms. She could only whimper in fear at being held in the arms of an overgrown five-year-old.

“Don’t worry,” he said, rocking her gently, which soon became unexpectedly comforting. “Even if we can’t go back to normal, I promise I’ll take good care of you.”

Ivy’s thumb found its way into her toothless mouth, soothing herself despite everything. Her exhausted eyelids began drifting shut.

“I’ll be a good mommy,” Owen promised, but Ivy did not hear it, having drifted off to sleep to dream the impossible, being her old self again.