Cursed: Beijing Hustle(d)

I wanted to try telling a story without too much of the usual setup. For now, unless I think of a sequel hook, it's up to you, the reader, to decide what happens after the text ends.

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The gorgeous young woman blinked in confusion for a moment, wondering why she’d suddenly gone from the interior of a taxi cab to the breezy, cool and slightly damp alleyway. She looked around for her wife of thirty years and saw no one but an ancient looking old woman smoking a wooden pipe in the dimly lit storefront only a few feet away. She brushed long, silky brown hair out of her face, opened her mouth to ask the woman a question when she felt the heaviness of her chest rise, and a high, airy pitch replace her typical guttural rumble when she started to talk. In the reflection of a nearby full length mirror, the gorgeous woman saw her reflection mimic her movements precisely. And that was when her stunning, widening, confused eyes drifted downwards towards the massive orbs having off a torso that no longer possessed the ‘dad bod’ pudge. She…SHE WAS A WOMAN!? Wait, was she the girl from the shady massage parlor down the street from the hotel!?

The old woman gave her a crooked smile and began to cackle.

"Oh god, what did you do to me!?" Ben gasped in his new voice, his words spilling out in a language that, moments ago, he hadn't understood. He stood in front of the wrinkled old woman and the strange curio shop in the alleyway, staring down at the body of a buxom woman many years his junior, pushing long brown hair out of wide, brown eyes that were a far cry from their faded blue they were supposed to be.

The fifty-year-old tourist had NO idea what had happened. He and his wife had come to Beijing for a long overdue vacation and had followed every law the restrictive nation had. It had been a great vacation otherwise, and they were actually a little sad to be leaving! But then one minute he was riding in a cab and nearing the Beijing airport with his wife, the next minute he was standing in here in the alley, as a Chinese woman in a tan colored dress that hugged his new and quite significant curves! The old woman had simply broken into a long chuckle as the former man had begun groping his new body and screaming in shock at his/her reflecting in a large mirror that within the storefront. The old woman in the shop in front of him had been no help, and was, in fact, responsible for what had happened.

"I fulfilled a contract, girl. A curse to change the destiny of the woman that now wears your skin!" The wrinkled crone in front of him crooned, a smile full of broken and missing teeth matching the sinister look in the cataract filled eyes as the old woman broke into a long a spine-chilling cackle.

"CHANGE ME BACK!" Ben screamed in his new, feminine voice, raising a tiny fist in anger, though he found he could not move one of his new equally tiny feet any closer to the old woman or the shop. Almost as if something, or perhaps someone, was holding him, now her, back.

"Oh, but only you can do that! Your soul was not willing, so the curse is incomplete and fragile. If you can touch your old body and whisper 'return' in your own ear, then you'll swap back! Very simple, even a former foreigner like yourself can do it!" The hag crooned again, the store's shopfront shutter rattling noisily to life as it lowered.

"BUT MY BODY IS AT THE AIRPORT! PLEASE, HELP ME!" Ben screamed again out of frustration, fear and simply to be heard, ducking low to keep the hag in sight and trying not to fall over with the new weight on his chest.

"If you fail, 'Mei', come find me! I can always use a young pair of…‘hands’ around my shop! Unless you prefer your day job!" The old woman said with one final cackle before the shutter slammed shut with alarming speed and finality...And more than a little supernatural.

"OH GOD!" Ben turned and sprinted towards the nearest exit of the alley. The large new breasts shook violently, and his tiny new feet couldn't handle the powerful pendulums, and the former Caucasian man fell painfully against the hard and slightly damp pavement with a shriek. He whimpered for a moment, alien body parts throbbing before he pulled himself upright and began running, this time a bit more carefully, out of the alley. And then he was on the mass of people and vehicles that were the Beijing streets, getting dirty looks from the people nearest to him...and more than a few leers. Ben bit as full lip as he scanned the street signs that his brain somehow recognized, but he still had no idea exactly WHERE in the city he was. With time drawing short, he simply grabbed the first person that passed him, tiny, strange hands clawing at the man's business suit.

"PLEASE! YOU HAVE TO HELP ME! I'M AN AMERICAN! A WITCH SWAPPED MY BODY WITH THIS GIRL!" Ben's new throat was already throbbing from the constant screaming and the smog, but he HAD to get help! But the older businessman simply glared down at him with intense disapproval in his eyes. Oh god, he was so short now!

"Get your hands off me!" The man roared and, with a powerful shove, sent Ben tumbling away with a cry before he walked away. The woman behind him that Ben stumbled in front of simple sneered, "Move, girl, get out of the way!" With another forceful shove that sent Ben back to the sidewalk in pain.

"P-please! I just need to g-get to the airport, now!" Ben sobbed hot tears finally flowing down round cheeks as he lay on the concrete.

"Well good luck! It's MILES away!" A cruel, male voice called out from the throng of people moving past him.

"NO!" Ben cried out as he scrambled to his feet again. His flight left in an hour! If he couldn't get there and swap back, he'd be stuck as...whoever 'Mei' was, and in a country where he didn't belong! And whoever was in his body would go back to America and live HIS life as a wealthy white man! Oh god, and his wife! Surely she'd realize something was wrong, but what would she be able to do about it!? Up until just a few minutes ago, the concept of anything like this, magical or technological, was nothing more than fiction! And he’d be stuck as Mei, thousands of miles away, unable to ever see his family again! Not to mention the ‘day job’ that the crone had laughed about? Given how ‘Mei’ was dressed and how she looked, not to mention whatever kind of life she was trying to escape by switching their bodies…Ben didn’t even want to think about what he might end up being if this was his life now!