Beauty and the Vial ~ Ariel Montine

Chapter 7 ~ Dennis and Alex

The Story So Far:

13 year old, Alex comes to live with his Great Aunt Montine in Denver for the summer. With all the teens in the neighborhood being girls in a sorority, Montine suggests that Alex impersonate a girl for the summer. Alex agrees if Montine can make him convincing and they sleep on it. Due to a blessing passed down from ancient times, Alex awakes as Gail, a 17 year old girl. With coaching, Gail admits she's convincing and helps Montine with a pool party where she meets the sorority and college chapter liaison, Jane and becomes a pledge. Jane, who lacks external beauty, helps Gail thru an initiation task of being a life model. Gail is used by a higher power to give Jane external beauty. Gail passes her second initiation stunt trading underwear with Gerald. Gail wishes to be Alex again to herself and admits her inadequacy with men to Montine, who gives Gail more of the blessing and sends her to bed. She awakes a 25 yr old Adella who crushes on Dennis and they have a very adult relationship. Instead of prolonging her time as a woman, Adella appeals to Montine to let her return to being Alex. Adella tells Dennis, Jane and her friends that she has to go back into witness protection to be with her family and it will be a final goodbye.

Will a 13 year old Alex be able to console Dennis after losing Adella?

And now a preview of the seventh chapter of "Beauty and the Vial"

Chapter 7 ~ Dennis and Alex

When I woke the next morning I had returned to be a thirteen year old boy. I was convinced that Gail Adella, indeed had died when I brought out the portrait of her and lusted for her.  I was Alex again. All was normal yet I remembered vividly my experiences as Gail and understood her emotions and desires then even though the ones I had now were different. I went through my old morning routine. I pulled on my a-line t-shirt and boxers and athletic socks and finished with a polo shirt, khaki's and tennis shoes. A lot simpler than my previous morning routine but one that was very comfortable for me. I came down for breakfast and Great Aunt Montine no longer had that look of misgiving.

"Welcome back, Alex. Now that you have what you wanted, are you sure you made the right choice?"

"Aunt Montine, I want to thank you for the wonderful 6 weeks that you have given me. I still wonder how the magic was performed but I don't have a clue of the origin. That's not important now."

"You are welcome, Alex. You have a very adult way of looking at this. That's why it surprises me that you couldn't risk any more time as a woman."

"It was the right choice for now. I know I'm a boy and I'd like to find out what being a man would be like. I would lose a whole lot to be a woman of 25. I don't know now if what I'd be gaining would be worth all of myself that I would lose. When I'm an adult for real, I'd like to have that choice again and I might make the other choice."

"I would never force you into something I could tell you didn't like. I'll do what I can so you can have another chance later if you want it."

Aunt Montine, Thank you with all my heart for all you have done for me and especially for your gift of Gail’s summer."

Great Aunt Montine gave me a big smile and an even bigger hug.

"I love you Alex, just as you are. I promise that one day that you will know the secret of the magic that I used."

"I do miss the closeness. We were like sisters especially when I was Adella. I'm so glad you still love me, Aunt Montine! You mean a lot to me. I love you, too."

"I smiled a big smile at her and gave her a big hug. She returned the hug and gave me a kiss on my forehead. I knew then even though things would never be the same as when I was her niece that everything was okay.

~ ~ { { - O - } } ~ ~

I didn't want to spend the rest of my time in Denver, thinking about my time as Gail and Adella. I knew about the teen club so I decided to go there to see if Alex could make friends with some of the people that Gail had known. I remembered when Gail had first gone there and met Gerald. What surprised me is that a stunningly beautiful woman was making her way over to me. My teen hormones were running wild. As she got closer, I recognized her as Gail.

~ ~ { { - O - } } ~ ~

I knew Jane's schedule over at Olive Garden, so I went to eat lunch there so I could see her. While I had no hope of dating her for real, we would be friends since I was Adella's cousin for her sake.

I became good friends with the Dennis that Adella had fallen in love with and it seemed that my company eased his grief.  I had switched from grieving for Dennis to grieving with him over Adella. 

~ ~ { { - O - } } ~ ~

I became integrated into the social scene there and dated several of Gail’s former sorority sisters.  After a week of grieving , Dennis accepted my offer of double dating a pair of  wonderful girls from the sorority.

~ ~ { { - O - } } ~ ~

After that Dennis seemed to enjoy other girls company again and led a pretty full social life. I was glad for Dennis and in turn he helped me over some of my hurdles as well but I never was to come to the same place with any of the girls that I had dated.  At least I reasoned that if I had not brought any of them that happiness at least I would not bring them the grief.  And I knew that even though we might be separated at the end of the summer at least neither would be entirely impossible to reach.

~ ~ { { - O - } } ~ ~

The story that Adella had to disappear again into the witness protection program and further attempts to find her could put her in danger, made the rounds of Adella and Gail's friends including the sorority.   When the sorority had become convinced that Adella / Gail had indeed disappeared from the face of the earth, they planned a meeting to celebrate their memories of her.

They had permission to hold it in the local Baptist church. Even though it was open to the public the only people that had been invited besides the sorority were myself, Great Aunt Montine, Dennis and Gerald. They held it in the format like a meeting of the sorority, without giving away any secrets.

When the memory portion came up they went around the circle giving warm moments or anecdotes from Adella's & Gail’s time with them.  I knew that I wanted to convey to them again Gail’s feelings toward them all. When the invitation came for those who were not sorority members to speak, I waited to the end and read the entry that Gail had made in her diary that last evening before the change from Adella to Alex had taken place as though it were a personal letter to me from her.

This day was my most important memory of Adella and Gail that was not from being them. 

It also was what convinced me that Dennis had once and for all turned loose of Adella and that was the best for his well being. My conscience was clear, though at the time I knew Gail had resisted all the way for that reason, now that I knew that Dennis subscribed to the idea that it was better to love and lost than not to have loved at all.  .  Were she still living in the present I would not be able to be as certain that she would have put this behind her.

  I spent other summers with Great Aunt Montine but even though we talked of Adella and Gail, the magic never was repeated. We both knew that it would cause more problems than joy for Adella to arrive again. I felt that it would be cruel to resurrect her if she were not back to stay.

-

And now a preview of the eighth chapter of "Beauty and the Vial"

Chapter 8 ~ Great Aunt Montine’s Legacy

It was a replica of the original box that had contained the items in ancient Greece as was the pouch that held the seeds inside and the scroll that contained the instructions.  Etched into the cover of the box was the name Daphne in Greek letters.  This was all I, Alex, knew about the box that had been willed to me from my great Aunt Montine which appeared in the description of the box from the will.

Great Aunt Montine had always been beautiful and even ageless externally though eventually she had died of congestive heart failure when she had reached the age of 120.  Even then just before her death she had looked good enough to appear in a swimsuit issue of a magazine looking about 30 years old. She had been the Dick Clark of our family but as sweet as she was no one made Dorian Grey jokes.

Even now I am unable to decide whether it was real or a dream.  I remembered the miraculous summer when I was 13 that I spent with Great Aunt Montine.

Well I decided to look at the scroll and try to decipher it and I saw a picture of the vial held so that it dropped 2 drops under the tongue.  Well I reasoned if 2 drops worked good then 8 drops would work great. So I took the vial and was going to let 8 drops fall under my tongue.  After the first drop though I stopped and reconsidered.  It had been so impulsive of me to want to experience the vial’s contents to the max.   Fortunately the voice of reason won out and I hoped that the one drop that I had taken would not be enough to do anything to me.

I really wanted to know what the writing on the scroll said so I went back to the box that the replica box had been packed in.  As I suspected I had left something behind hidden in the packing.  I found a sealed large blank envelope which I opened and found inside an envelope in Great Aunt Montine’s handwriting addressed to me.  I began to read parts of the letter.

Dearest Alexander, I want you to know that first last and always I love you and I have felt your love and to know you has given me and I have seen in you great joy.  I have treasured the times that we have spent together and know that each time brought us closer.  Only you in our family could appreciate my uniqueness and see not only the beauty of the body but also of the soul.  I thank you for that and despite our ages I have felt we are kindred spirits.  It has been hard knowing that with my not having daughters or children at all when my parents had only a son and a daughter. 

The son married and had 3 sons one of whom was your father. They all combined to have 7 sons with you being the only son of your father.  I had nothing against the wives but they had joined the family by marriage instead of being born into it as I had been so my condition was especially alien to them and none of them could relate to me as woman to woman.

Not only did having no women in the family except by marriage add to the prejudice against me but also it gave me no one in the family that I felt comfortable confiding in till you turned 6 with your precocious high IQ and your understanding and unconditional acceptance of me. When you gave your permission to become Gail that summer I told myself it was for your good so that you would overcome your shyness and relate to girls your age as you had related to me but I knew that I wanted a daughter and Gail was my daughter for that brief time.  I came to learn the lesson after you returned, Alexander, that I was as guilty as others of prejudice judging a having a daughter or niece or grandniece to be better than having a kindred spirit. Though you are a very masculine person in body and soul you also embrace the feminine and are richer for it.

There was not a lot of property and though as doting a great aunt I have been concerning you I knew that you had no need for the material substance of my estate.  Nevertheless I wished for you to have something of mine as a remembrance of me and of all the time we spent together.  I had a difficult task but an easy decision regarding a special object that had been passed down from mother to daughter or at least from aunt to niece or grandniece in our family that truly dated back to ancient times.  To look at our family now you would never guess that we were all descendants from a Greek woman’s daughter but we were.  The Greek blood in our veins has been diluted to make it almost nonexistent yet it is there.   Let me tell you the story of how the box came to be and of a poor boy named Perseus and his friend Helen.

<The text of chapter 1 appears here in the letter>

As you can tell things work out well for Daphne, Penelope and Helen thanks to the favor of the Goddess Aphrodite in providing the miracle liquid. I as inheritor of the ancient blessing had to decide who would be my successor so that it might be passed on to succeeding generations.  Though I willingly would have shared the secret with the wives in the family their rejection of my condition made it likely that they might betray the secret so I withheld it from them and also the box as an inheritance.  I was confronted with giving it to one of my seven great nephews in trust for the next generation.  Fortunately you made the decision easy by being a kindred spirit I knew I could count on you to see the true value and to keep the secret and pass it on to the right person in the next generation.

I caution you, Alexander, as my mother cautioned me and so on since Penelope and Helen were warned by the goddess herself.  The Goddess Aphrodite has given you for your family a vial of the fluid, a few of the seeds to replenish it, and a scroll to explain it. You must keep the secret of the plants safe because unknowing souls would trample the plants and their greed would bring death. Say no more than you have been blessed by Aphrodite.  This that is given to you is only Aphrodite’s to give so use it only for your family and its descendants.   If your family betrays this trust Aphrodite will take away these gifts of her blessing to you for you and your family.  So that you may know all I will now give you the translation of the scroll.

<The scroll translation appears here in the letter>

As you can see now my magic in changing you to Gail was none other than the beauty fluid.  That first evening I used 2 drops under your tongue to transform you which was a temporary dose that made you a girl for a month.  I began to realize that you were still bound by your male self-image and for you to really experience being a girl I had to intensify your transformation while keeping it well below the 6 drops that would cause a permanent change.  The third drop caused you to finish female puberty and feminized your sex drive so that along with a woman’s body and emotions you had a woman’s desires. I told you that in time I would reveal to you the secret and if you had ever asked again for the magic to be performed on you I would have told you all before proceeding.

Let me make my personal recommendations on how you should use it.  Using it on females is covered well in the scroll and in all the centuries not one of our ancestors have passed on any recommendation to conflict with the scroll’s 2 drop for first application and 1 drop per year thereafter.  There is an oral tradition on using it on males since the scrolls do not say it and we do not know how much absorbed thru the hands by Perseus is equivalent to how much sublingually administered.

Should you desire to become a woman temporarily now I would recommend up to a maximum of 4 drops to become a stunningly beautiful woman.  Should you decide to become a woman permanently use 6 drops for a permanent transformation and a maximum of 2 additional drops to become stunningly beautiful.  The fifth drop administered to a male is in unknown territory. 

It may intensify and prolong a temporary transformation but more likely it may start a permanent transformation to a pre-pubescent girl - like state.

Since you have already been transformed by the drops in your childhood then your transformation will be immediate to the degree of beauty you obtained then.  In other words you will become a “grown up Gail”.  The number of drops will determine how long you will stay as “Gail”.  You will have to experiment and see how long each dose will work for you.

Remember that as long as a dose is in effect and another is administered then the result is the same as though both were given at the same time.

I do not know of by my own experience or by oral tradition any substance to counter or weaken the effects of the liquid.  If you by accident or design take an overdose your only hope is that for you uniquely the limits may really be higher but please do not bet your life on it.  There is an oral tradition of only deaths resulting from females overdosing.  (A big enough overdose by a male is equivalent for a portion of the dosage will result in transformation to female and thereafter the same conditions apply.)  If you find someone in an overdose situation this is different from the action waiting until sleep.  The best method is to not interrupt the sleep cycle and one will either wake extremely beautiful or dead.   Not sleeping causes a chain reaction that consumes the body and results in a horrible death so one can’t avoid the consequences by not sleeping.

<The Letter continues but is omitted here>

I put down the letter at that point and considered my ill-conceived attempted administration of the eight drops of the liquid. Had I followed thru with taking all eight drops, after I slept next I would have become a woman permanently. I would have been a strikingly beautiful woman this year and if I administered one drop each year I would retain undiminished that striking beauty.

Now I would have to live with the consequences of my action of taking the one drop.  A rush of excitement filled me over the prospect of the transformation that would take place while sleeping this very night.  I wondered how long the one drop would last for me now that I was quite grown up.

And I would be one with the persona of ‘Gail’ who I remembered but everything was second hand now.  It would be glorious to be Gail not only for what I experienced as her then but also what I could experience thru her now.

I considered the extreme luck that had prevented me from impulsively taking the 8 drops or more.  I now was the guardian of this treasure and I made a mental note to see if I could avoid my near mishap with the person that I would pass the box to when my time came. I know that Great Aunt Montine was waiting in case a niece was born but I was determined to try to pass it on while I lived and could make the recipient listen before they had been given this fluid which was both medical miracle and poison.

The lateness of the hour began to catch up with me and I began to yawn. I caught myself and realized that I was going to have to make do with what was in the house to get started with tomorrow.  I knew that the rest of Great Aunt Montine’s letter would be touching and valuable but I put it aside to go to the cedar chest at the foot of my bed.  I removed the contents and a false bottom to reveal a number of keepsakes carefully enclosed in boxes of a variety of shapes sizes and colors.

I found just what I wanted, a baby doll nightie and a pair of matching panties that Great Aunt Montine had been so sweet to give me. Prior to that I had been content to sleep in an oversized T-shirt but she told me that when girls become women lingerie is such a treat for the body and soul. 

I changed that night in more than one way for having the experience. I put them on and turned to the mirror.  I seemed a bit ridiculous in appearance but I felt nice and I knew that when I woke up that I would look as nice as I felt now.

I looked thru the chest and found a few more items, peeking inside the boxes, that I thought that I could use tomorrow.  I replaced the false bottom and filled the chest with its former contents and closed it cherishing the aroma that had wafted from inside.   I could no longer fight sleep so I climbed snug into bed wondering what tomorrow would bring. 

And now a preview of the ninth chapter of "Beauty and the Vial"

Chapter 9 ~ Awakening and an Audience

I fell asleep a 60 year old Alexander and woke very much a thirty something voluptuously mature Gail. My female mind had returned and I cursed my male alter ego for being so unthinking in playing with the gift of the vial. Fortunately with my enhanced wisdom also came a woman's emotions . With the grief I was allowed release as I collapsed face down on the bed and erupt into tears. I gave voice with a loud shriek to the sadness that overwhelmed me with Greek words which must have manifest from some genetic memory which I could mentally translate into English.

"Oh my Goddess! I have failed you! Thy handmaiden seeketh thy wisdom and beauty. "

Before I could wonder at my outburst, I felt a hand touch and comfort me.

"Be well my daughter. I have come."

Just the sound of her voice calmed me in spite of the sense of awe that enveloped me. I stopped crying and got up to face her. Before me was the maiden from the field that Perseus met before becoming Penelope. It was Aphrodite herself. I prostrated myself at her feet.

"My Lady! Thy servant listens eager to obey!"

"Child your wisdom does you credit. I bid you rise and we must talk woman to woman, Gail"

I did as she commanded and looking into her eyes, I found peace. All of the many questions fled from my mind and my thoughts were uncluttered as I listened for her next words.

"You are so like that first Penelope so many years ago. It grieved me that there were none found worth in the female line to carry on my purpose for giving her the vial and the seeds so many years ago. I warned of my displeasure if the sacred trust was endangered and so I revealed to her that it was again time to start over. I cursed all the males including Alexander with sterility knowing that you, Gail would come from him."

"My lady, thy handmaiden awaits to do thy bidding."

"I call you to be my priestess and to bring my worship to this present age that has forgotten me. I leave you my gift of the vial and seeds for the female line which you join."

"I have much to learn, My Lady, both of your worship and the ways of women and a life half gone to accomplish such a task.".

"Gail, I know it would cause you grief to reveal yourself to those who grieved you so long ago. You have known too much grief in your life, like the day when you discovered you could not give your beloved, Jenna a child and you adopted your daughter Helen. And the grief that you both suffered when a drunk driver killed Jenna."

"Thank you, My Lady. Beyond the grief there was joy. Alexander was able to be both a father and a Mother to Helen . There was the joy of her growing into a woman and her marriage to a good man, Newton who has given her the child she carries within her . "

"Helen and Newton have received my favor. While I must take Helen's father, Alexander from her, I give to her another older daughter and sister to the daughter she carries within her. When you fulfill what I command, Gail, you shall become Helen's daughter, Penelope.”

"My Lady, in becoming the child, Penelope, will I lose both Gail and Alexander?"

" It is not my will for you to lose yourself for you will need your lives as Alexander and Gail to help give you the wisdom to do my bidding. Doing as I instruct, you shall become a six year old girl and I will use the time of your childhood for you to learn a girl's ways as well as study my ways so you can be my priestess and factor in this world."

"Be it unto me according to thy will. What is your bidding, My Lady?"

"First read the remaining part of your Great Aunt Montine's Letter. It reveals the resources that the sisterhood has accumulated for my bidding from ancient times as well as the records of all which you must know to be my priestess. Second after you have returned to being Alexander, go to your daughter, Helen and reveal to her that both you and her family has been blessed by Aphrodite. You may reveal and let her experience the blessing of beauty that the seeds and vial provide as a way of proving to her that you will at my direction becomes her daughter. Third Alexander must put his affairs in order including leaving your Aunt Montine's house to Helen in trust for her daughter Penelope till she comes of age. Before he leaves Alexander must bring Helen and her family to this house to live and Fourth, Alexander must take five drops and when she wakes in the morning after, she will be Penelope, Helen's six year old daughter."

"I hear and I will obey all that thou hast said, My Lady."

"I leave you now my daughter, knowing that you will serve me well for many years. Go in my good pleasure!"

For the first time since she appeared with me in the house, I felt compelled to take my eyes off her and glance in the mirror. Instead of my image bringing me sadness for what I had lost those many years ago, it brought me joy to think that Aphrodite had blessed and chosen me for such an important undertaking. I quickly turned back to where she had been seconds before and she had vanished.

All I really knew that I had some interesting days as Gail ahead of me to find out the secrets hidden within this house as commanded by Aphrodite. I had faith to know that I could face Helen when I told her the story which most would dismiss as fantasy that my daughter would soon become my mother. No time like the present to be at it so I looked where I left Aunt Montine's Letter. I held it and read it from the beginning to make sure I hadn’t missed anything in the light of today's revelations. I should have been too mind blown to read anything after coming face to face with Aphrodite but the peace the Goddess bestowed remained with me enabling me to read.