Boy Sorceress

This story contains a gender-bending element, but it is not your typical transgendered story. If you're looking for that kind of fare, there's plenty of it on this very site.

Edited by Over_Red

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On the day after my twenty-first birthday, I was determined to get shitfaced for real and Greeley's was as good a place as any. Or, so I had thought.

I was sitting at the bar, chasing down my umpteenth double Wild Turkey with my I-don't-know-which draught of Bud, when I heard a vaguely familiar voice across the bar. I looked over and immediately regretted my choice of watering hole. Larry McGill, a prime example of the kind of dweeb from high school that I didn't want to face, was ordering a beer, not twenty feet away from me. Two of his pals were with him. They all looked like they've already had a few.

Just my fucking luck. I faced the floor and muttered a few obscenities under my breath. The universe had a habit of doing this kind of shit to me. Every single time I tried to do anything without thoroughly envisioning and preparing for every single thing that could possibly go wrong, I got a fist up my asshole.

And I'm not the type of guy that goes for that kind of thing.

Back when I was in high school, we used to laugh at the fact that this place's patrons were all over fifty, so I figured no one from my class would be caught dead in here. Unless they were me and trying to avoid everyone else. As usual, the universe snickered at my reasonable assumption, let me relax into it, and only then sprung the trap.

I took another look at the boisterous Larry McGill. There was no fucking way he wasn't going to see me. Aside from the fact that I'm eye-catchingly huge, I had been a minor, local celebrity, particularly amongst high schoolers. Now that Greeley's was ruined for me, I was left with no recourse but to go to the supermarket, buy a six-pack and a fifth of Scotch, and go home.

I took a big sip of my beer and then my departure was rudely preempted by Larry shouting, "Kay-Pee-Aitch!"

I winced and softly cursed again. I put on a neutral expression and faced him and his posse. A few of the older patrons looked over at me, their doubt if I was the fabled kph etched on their grizzled faces.

"Kph! The living legend, himself! It's me! Larry! Larry McGill! From high school, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember you, Larry."

Larry laughed and walked over to plant his bony behind on the stool next to mine. "Imagine seeing you here." His friends ambled over to stand behind me.

I had seen them before. Around the school, I think, but I didn't know who they were. "You don't have to imagine, Larry. It's really happening."

"Oh, man," he said with a smile, "it's so good to see you!"

That made me frown. Larry and I had never been friends. We had never even hung out together. He had always seemed like an asshat to me. I can't really put my finger on why that was, but that's the only thing I had ever put in my mental filing cabinet under his name. Larry McGill, asshat. "Oh, really? Why's that?"

"I haven't seen you since we've graduated high school! The great and mighty kph in the flesh! It's so good to see you! How are you?"

I should clarify that kph is my football nickname. It stands for my initials, Kevin Parker Hewitt, but it also stands for kilometers per hour, a measure of velocity. In my case, it was something of a misnomer. I'm very fast for a guy my size, but I was never the fastest guy on the field. My specialty was acceleration. I could go from a standstill to top speed in a fraction of a second and I could change directions at top speed like it was nothing. Whenever the Riverside Raccoons' end zone was in jeopardy, I was there, a brick wall on omnidirectional wheels. Nobody could get past me. I was pretty good in offense, too.

All that seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Hey, people," Larry called out to the dozen patrons in the bar. "Don't you know who this is? This is kph! This is the guy that tackled that piece of shit All-American wannabe receiver from Springfield in the championship game! This is him! This is the guy!"

While he rambled on about that poor bastard from Springfield I had tackled in my junior year, I sighed and felt my shirt tighten over my gut. I smoothed a hand over it and nodded at the barkeep to give me another round. Most of the other people in the bar didn't seem to care about high school football in the least. The rest didn't care enough to get out of their seats and bother me about it. I felt grateful for that. I looked Larry and his friends over. They were definitely tipsy. I sat up straight when my drink order was placed before me.

"Ah, man," Larry said, when he finally realized no one was actually listening to him, "forget these guys. They're just jealous."

"Whatever you say, Larry."

"Fucking bunch of never-has-beens. All of them." Larry grinned a half-grin that reminded me of what I had in my filing cabinet under his name. "But not you! You're the star. Huh? You the man!" He leaned over and spoke only marginally softer as he said, "I bet you got laid whenever you wanted at that fancy school of yours." He straightened up and that half-grin grew into a full sized one. "Huh? Am I right, or am I right? You fucked all them co-eds, them daddy's little liberal arts majors, huh?"

His two friends laughed, literally behind my back. I decided to turn around on my stool and give them the full might of my glare. Being a three hundred pound, 6'6" beast is a complete bitch whey you're buying clothes, but when you glare at someone, they shut the fuck up and act small. Which was exactly what these two dweebs did at that moment. They went from full-sized to microscopic in two seconds flat.

"What's with the inappropriate interest in my sex life, McGill? You finally coming out of the closet?"

His grin fell. After a moment of glaring at me, he laughed. He raised a finger and shook it at my face. "There you go with that wit, kph. There you go with that wit." He paused and seemed to consider his next words. "Oh, come on, don't be like that. Tell a few stories! Regale me and my fellow...uh, barflies, with tales of your many conquests!" He winked. "Go on!"

"Buzz off, McGill."

"Oh, come on, man. Tell us about them. Tell us how you fucked them. All that might seem boring to you, but none of us here got to get a college experience on account of how big we are, or how fast we could run. To us, this is all...exotic. Tales of the strange and unknown. Titillating and fascinating."

I openly stared at him. "I'm shocked, Larry, honestly shocked that your vocabulary didn't get you into college. What happened? They see your face?"

Now Larry's smile turned truly ugly. "You think you're better than me."

"I hear tell this is a country where everyone is free to think what they like."

"Yeah, there you are. There you go." He pointed at me and addressed his tiny friends. "That's the real kph, arrogant as shit. Always acting like he's better than other people."

I took another look at his two friends. I had no idea why Larry McGill suddenly wanted to pick a fight with me, but neither of his friends looked like they had a move other than falling to their knees and begging me for mercy. They stood in place and looked too fearful to even meet my eye. If this did come to a fight, it would consist of me punching out McGill and telling these two to take him home to sober up. I faced him again. "What's your problem, McGill?"

"My problem? My problem?! Who says I got a problem?" Before I could respond, he continued. "My problem is overprivileged shits like you! That's my problem! You get everything handed to you, while us regular guys got to get...uh, got to work for everything we get. We don't get anything handed to us, like you do."

I sighed. "Go home, McGill! You're drunk and talking out of your ass. Sleep it off!" I addressed his two flunkies. "Take him home!"

They immediately moved to comply. Larry shook their hands off himself. "Get off me, you whiny, little bitches! I'm not done talking at him!"

I took a bill out of my pocket and slammed it down on the bar behind me. "But he is done listening to you."

"Oh, you better listen to me." He gestured at his friends. "Listen to us! We know! You're no better than we are. Not anymore! Your knee's gone! And all that fame and all that college pussy's gone with it!"

I was going to walk away. I was going to be the bigger man, figuratively as well as literally. But then he had to go and mention my knee.

"Yeah," Larry exclaimed with glee. "We know!" He waved at the whole bar. "We all know. Everybody knows you're a failure now." He poked me in the chest. Well, he tried to. There's stone muscle under my fat. "No more free pussy for you." He giggled. "It'll be just like being in high school again for you."

My brow drew down at that last bit. "The fuck did you say?"

He laughed an ugly laugh. "I said that we all know. We knew back then, to tell the truth. Ashley told us!"

Ashley Williams was the one girlfriend I had in high school. She was also a knockout babe that ruled our school. You know how it goes, the girls wanted to be her, the guys wanted to be with her. She was a petite girl, slender with the perfect amount of curves in all the right places. She had a cute, round face and a glorious mane of golden hair.

She had spent the whole sophomore year interrupting me when I was talking to people. She'd just start talking at me, out of the blue, ignoring everyone that had been with me at the time. She'd usually make some observation on the people at school and then walk off without so much as allowing me to get a word in edgewise. I'd always be left gaping at her perfect, retreating form, uncertain if I found her odd behavior to be the most infuriating thing in the world, or the coolest thing in the world. At the time, I honestly had no clue if that had been her way of flirting with me, or if it had been some kind of prank that was very long in the making.

By the end of our sophomore year, I had finally found the courage to grab her arm as she was leaving. The look she had given me was proof positive that she had wanted me to do that since day one. We had our first date the next evening. We dated all through junior year and we were going to lose our virginities together.

If Larry was referring to that night, I was going to literally rip his head off his shoulders, right there for everyone to see. His smarmy smile certainly wasn't making a case for me to do anything but that.

"Ashley told, kph. Ashley told everyone." He laughed.

I fumed, but a part of my mind kept saying he was bluffing. He couldn't have known. No one knew but the two of us. We had both sworn to keep it a secret. "Told what?"

"She told us about how you cut your own dick off trying to get it out of your pants! You had to go to the hospital to get it sown back on!" He laughed as he said, "We all called you Frankendick behind your back!"

"That's total bullshit!"

"Marshall saw you! He was picking up his mom from her shift at the hospital and he saw you wheeled into the OR, crotch soaked with blood! He read the name of your operation on a big board and his mom refused to explain it to him." He looked at his friends. "You guys remember all that, right? Marshall had to look it up on his own and then the whole school knew about it. Ashley told us. She told us what you did to yourself!"

I wanted to murder the asshole where he stood. "None of that's true!"

"Oh? So, you weren't admitted into the hospital one night and a plastic surgeon didn't attach your teeny weenie little tinky back on? I heard the whole thing took less than fifteen minutes." He flashed me a warm smile. "Shame such a big guy has such a small tool. I guess it's from all the steroids, right?"

My temples were throbbing with the exact same beat that was whooshing through my ears. "Where do you get off spreading such lies about me?"

"Hey, man," he said as he put a hand over his chest and feigned innocence, "don't look at me! Marshall and Ashley told the story. I'm just repeating what they said. Ask these two!" He nodded at his flunkies. "Go ahead! They all heard it! We all laughed about it!" He barked out a laugh. "Frankendick!"

I picked him up by the neck and held him aloft. The barkeep instantly piped up with, "Not in here, big fella! You take it outside!"

I just silently glared up at Larry as his face changed color. He seemed to be realizing his predicament at that moment. His mouth worked like that of a fish on dry land. His legs twitched ineffectually and his grasping hands were too short to reach my face.

One of his flunkies put a hand on my shoulder. I instantly turned towards him and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt. "He's not worth it, Kevin! Don't do it!" He held his hands up, palms open towards me. I glanced at the third, who had backed up into a table and looked like he was going to pass out.

The bartender sounded worried as he yelled, "Settle down, boys, or I'm calling the cops!"

I shot another murderous glare at the bug-eyed face of Larry McGill. It was turning purple on the far end of my arm and starting to droop. I opened my hand and he crumpled into a sputtering heap on the tiled floor. I shoved the flunky aside with my other arm and stormed out.

The cold air outside the bar helped the adrenaline to push all the alcohol out of my veins and into my brain. Instead of clearing my head, I got tipsy. I wanted to go back inside and kick Larry's fucking teeth in. I paced around instead.

The flunky I had shoved aside rushed out of the bar. He looked to the left for me, then looked to the right and I clenched my fists, expecting him to try and start a second round with me. He flinched when he saw me emerge from behind a van that was parked right in front of the entrance. He raised his hands in another peaceful gesture and said, "Oh, hey, Kevin! Larry's gonna be fine. Are you alright?"

His concern sounded genuine and that made me frown. "Fuck off!"

He looked pensive for a moment and then he smiled a small, sad smile. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

"No! Should I?" I advanced on him. "Don't worry, I'll remember your face from now on! I'll make sure of that!"

"No, no, Kevin, it's me!"

"Me, who?"

He barked out a soft laugh and shook his head to himself. He stood up straight and barely reached my chin. "Imagine me with piercings in my mouth, nose and eyebrow." I stared at him blankly. "A pink mohawk and no beard and no moustache?"

I was really tipsy and I didn't feel like playing any guessing games. I brandished a fist at him. "I'm gonna put some fucking piercings into your mouth!"

He undid the button on his shirt sleeve and began rolling it up. I smiled. If the jackass wanted to fight, he was going to get a beating before he managed to roll up his other sleeve. Instead of taking a fight stance, he showed me the tattoo on his forearm.

I stared at it dumbly for a few seconds. Then I looked at his smiling face, hidden behind a moustache and goatee. Then the tattoo again. Then I looked up at his hair and said, "Skippy?"

He laughed. "The one and only!"

"Skippy, is that really you?"

"Yes," he said, rolling down his sleeve. "Yes, it's really me."

I held up my hands. "What the fuck, man!? I thought you'd..." I trailed off. Even with a buzz going, I knew better than to finish that sentence. I felt ashamed for even starting to say it out loud.

"You thought I'd be dead by now," he said, finishing my thought for me. I felt my face burn. "You and everybody else in this town." He surprised me by smiling a genuinely warm smile. "But I'm not. What do you say to the two of us taking a walk? We'll clear our heads and sit in this nice café I know on the next street over."

"Um..."

"Come on!" He held his hand out. "Let's catch up on the way there!"

I nodded and we began walking down the street, side-by-side. I took the chance to look him over again. Skippy, or Charles Henderson, as his driver's license will tell you he's really called, stood some 5'9" tall and was no longer the scrawny, little junkie I had known back in my high school days. Instead, he was of average build. He even looked like he was exercising. His ridiculous mohawk and piercings were gone. Regular brown hair and unblemished skin took their places. He looked like just another guy. Average. My gaze kept flicking towards his eyes, checking to see if it was really him. Even his voice was no longer the collection of shrieks and mumbles it had once been.

"So...uh..."

He grinned and finished my question for me. "What happened to me?" He sighed, like he had answered that question often enough to be tired of it, but gave no other sign of discomfort. "I got a chance to see myself for who I was and I decided I was better than that." He looked up at me.

"If you don't want to talk about it, then that's fine with me. Plenty of stuff I don't want to talk about, either."

"I think we should talk, you and I. I'll start! See, back in the day, people kept talking at me about how wrong I was to waste my life on drugs and how ungrateful and stupid I was to do that shit and...well, you remember how it was." I nodded sheepishly. Even I had talked to him like that once. Ashley had asked me to. He was her second cousin. "Anyway, they kept talking at me, but all I heard was the usual bullshit. You're dumb, you're worthless, you're an ungrateful shit, stuff like that.

"My stepdad was saying that shit to me for as long as I could remember, so it just went in one ear and out the other, like all the rest of his crap. Everyone that was saying I was doing anything wrong just sounded like they were out to get me, you know? I felt like the whole world was against me and only the dope gave me the strength to face it. Only my dealer never judged me. Whenever I overdosed and they saved me...I was convinced that was proof positive that everyone was full of shit and that I was going to be ok. You know? And when I stole from my grandma and the family cut all ties from me, I took it as proof that they had never given a shit if I lived or died. I just couldn't see things for what they really were. Everything was fucked."

We turned the corner and Skip shut up. There were two girls walking towards us and chatting animatedly as they both looked at something on their phones. They passed us by without even acknowledging our existence. I had to step aside to keep one of them from bumping into me. Knowing my luck, she'd bounce off my fat and fall over to crack her skull on the pavement and die. I glared after the girls and then resumed walking down the sidewalk with Skip. He didn't look too happy. I was just about to say he didn't have to tell me anything more when he continued his tale.

"Eventually, I had to help my dealer move some of his stash, cause I couldn't pay for my hits any other way, and the cops busted us both. I got charged with possession with the intent to distribute and they threw my ass in jail. That's what got me out of it. I was held here until trial, in Riverside's piddly-ass Sheriff's department's jail, instead of the prison. Overcrowding issues. I couldn't make bail, obviously, so I spent four months in a tiny cell, all alone.

"The deputies didn't want to put anyone in with me, cause I had all those track marks on my arms and they were afraid I'd infect another prisoner with something nasty." He looked up at my face as we turned a corner. "Don't worry, I never picked up anything." He chuckled. "It wasn't for hygienic standards, I'll tell you that. I lent my needle to a girl once and lost it and couldn't get a replacement in this tiny town for what felt like an eternity. I kept my kit to myself after that. Anyway, I spent four months in that cell, with no way to get anything. In prison, you can get dope easier than on the outside, but in our tiny jail, I was fucked.