Premature Maturation - Part IV

Sorry, but it took me a while to assemble the images for this part. I hope the wait is worth it.



Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Saturday – 2:29 pm.

“Wow…” mumbled Tanya, otherwise speechless. She clutched her head, which was spinning after everything they had just remembered.

“I can’t believe we had forgotten all of that,” said David. “The spell. The metamorphosis itself.”

“Yes. It suddenly came back to me,” said Felicia. “But I still can’t remember everything. I do recall being very drunk, though I don’t think we drank that much. I remember changing and then leaving the house, but that’s it. Sadly there’s nothing about where Joy could be.”

“I kind of remember the taxi ride to Vegas, and buying the clothes after that,” said his brother, struggling with his memories.

“Yeah, I do too,” nodded Tanya. “And Joy was with us all that time. We must have lost her later. Yeah… she was still around when we rented the car, but… but… It’s all a blur after that.”

“Oh, guys, I’m so sorry,” said Felicia guiltily. “It’s all my fucking fault. I did this…”

“We don’t blame you. We all agreed to try the spell. Besides, not even you believed it would work,” said David.

“Plus, the real trouble was drinking the alcohol,” Tanya reminded her.

“Yep… And that was also my idea, by the way,” said Felicia bitterly.

“But you didn’t know it would affect us so much.”

“At least we now know it was the book” remembered David. “We can pronounce the spell before the time is up.”

“No, we can’t,” said Felicia, sitting down with a grim face. “All people who chanted the spell originally must be present to undo it, the book says so. We simply can’t turn back to our original ages without Joy.”

They felt as if something heavy had hit them over their head. Chances of finding Joy before the time was up seemed slim. They would be stuck as adults for at least two years.

“We shouldn’t lose any more time, then,” said David, resolute. “We’ve been here for a while now. It doesn’t look like Joy is returning here. We have to find her. In Vegas.”

“Yeah, but how? The only advantage we now have is that we have finally remembered how she looks as an adult.”

“We should try to think like her,” suggested Felicia. “She’s drunk and gets separated from us, what does she do next?”

The all remained in silence.

“Trouble is we don’t know her that well,” alleged David reasonably.

“Oh! Great idea, brother.”

And Felicia got up and out of the living room.

“What is she doing?”

“No idea,” shrugged Tanya, in turn taking the book of spells and the translated sheet and examining it.

Felicia returned just moments later, carrying a much smaller book with her.

“Joy’s diary! This way I’ll know her very well,” she said, putting on her reading glasses and opening the journal.

It wasn’t much, they knew, but right now, it was the only idea they had. Both women sat for several minutes looking at their respective books. Meanwhile, David tried to tidy up everything he could, from Monica’s wardrobe, to the bottles of wine. The only thing he couldn’t fix was the money they had stolen.

“Uhm… She had the biggest crush on a boy from school,” gossiped Felicia after reading a few pages of the diary. “A Matt fellow. She mentions him a million times…”

But Tanya wasn’t paying any attention, she suddenly gasped.

“You know, this book is actually in English,” she said.

“You’re being such a blonde, Tanya. Those symbols definitely aren’t English.”

“No, no, the signs themselves are probably made up. But the language is English. Look at the translation and at the original page. Each character directly relates to one of the symbols, and the words they spell are in English.”

“Shit, you’re right!” said Felicia. “How didn’t I see this?”

“That’s not all. I noticed there’s one additional line at the end of the original page, which wasn’t translated on this paper at all.”

They looked excited at their little discovery.

“If we use this sheet as a cypher, I can translate the last line. Find me a pencil.”

“Okay.” David ran around the house and came back with a pencil for Tanya, who started to work immediately.

“So this symbol is an ”E”, and this one is a “P”….”

It took her about four minutes to finish the sentence. She looked up at them with a smirk.

“Oh, well, this explains everything. It’s a warning.”

“Just read it!” yelled Felicia trying to look over Tanya’s shoulder.

“Consumption of or alcohol, black pepper or olive oil while the spell is active, will cause reckless behavior and temporary memory loss.”

Tanya finished and her friends looked choked-up.

“Well, they had to translate that too!” protested Felicia. “How were we supposed to know?”

“Yes. But at least we now know exactly what happened. Just a sip of that wine and we went crazy. This is why.”

“And we can translate the rest of the book now that we know how” said David. “Maybe there’s a spell there that will help us somehow!”

But Tanya dismissed his idea.

“It would take us days to translate all of this. We just have a few hours left. Plus, I doubt there’s a spell that adjusts to our particular needs.”

“Okay, okay.”

“This is a great discovery, but it doesn’t help us find Joy,” regretted Felicia. “And her diary wasn’t very useful. All I learned was about her crush, Matt Frakes, who wouldn’t even notice her.”

“Maybe she thought he would notice her when she turned into an adult?” suggested David. “I seem to remember that she was quite pleased about her body after the transformation. And… quite flirty, even before the alcohol. There’s a chance that she believed Matt would find her attractive now, and if she was drunk enough…”

“And would he? Find her attractive?” asked Felicia teasingly.

“Well, yeah. She’s quite hot now,” admitted David avoiding Tanya’s eyes.

“Matt Frakes, you said?” Tanya had been looking for him on Facebook.

“Is that him?” asked Felicia looking at the screen. “He’s kind of cute, I guess.”

“Yeah, if you’re into young boys. He’s just 17,” said Tanya, and she didn’t register what she had said until a few seconds later. She also avoided David this time. “Uhm… Anyway, he lives at Mason Avenue. It’s somewhat far, but we could…”

“Mason Avenue, that’s it! That’s where our crashed rented car was found! Honest Frank told me so.”

They all looked excited this time.

“I bet she’s there!” said Tanya. “I’m calling a taxi!”

Saturday – 3:59 pm.

Despite having instructed their driver to make haste, it was quite late and they still hadn’t arrived to Mason Avenue.

“Do you think maybe your grandmother knows more about that book? Something that could help?,” asked Tanya.

But Felicia dismissed the idea.

“No, the book isn’t hers. She just moved to that house recently. Those old bookshelves were already there when she bought it, along some other things in the attic. And she never looks through them. I’m the only one who does, whenever I go visiting. And the rest of the books are much newer, and seem pretty normal. This one always fascinated me, and I decided to take it with me on this trip.”

“Definitely made it more interesting,” said David.

“Here we are at your address,” announced the taxi driver finally.

They paid him and walked to the right hose, hoping Tanya, or at least Matt was there.

David rang the bell and waited, hoping Matt’s parents would let him see his son, but luckily, it was the boy himself who received them. He looked very sleepy, and the house was even more of a mess than their hotel suite had been.

Matt was quite tall and athletic for his age, but he still looked a bit intimidated when he opened the door to such a big man as David. His interest peaked, though, when he saw the two gorgeous women behind him. Could he have lucked out again?

“Hey, man,” said the boy cautiously. “Do you want something?”

David wasn’t too sure what to ask, so he was direct and clumsy.

“Uhm… Any chance you were with a brown-haired, attractive woman last night?”

Matt panicked immediately. He backed out a little.

“Hey, I swear I didn’t do anything! Are you her boyfriend? I’m sorry, I didn’t know a thing! She just came here, and…”

Tanya immediately understood that a couple of very sexy women would be much more effective to make a teenage boy talk than a towering man, who would only scare him senseless. She smiled at him while playing with her hair, and then put a calming hand over his shoulder.

“Relax, Matt!” she said in her sultriest voice. “He isn’t her boyfriend. We’re just looking for her, that’s all.”

As she talked, she conducted him back into the house and sat him on a couch, then she kneeled next to him.

“So you did see her. Is she still here?” she asked, looking up at the ceiling.

“Uhm. No, she’s not.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” let out Felicia, and Tanya shushed her with a look.

“Ok, tell us everything,” pressed the blonde with a disarming smile.

“Right… Uhm… It was past midnight, I think. Around 1 or so. I was here, partying with a few friends. My parents aren’t in town, you see. Then we heard a smash, and I came out to see. There was a car crashed against that tree out there. And there was a woman in short pants, coming out of the car. I guess she was your friend. She was very, very hot.”

Matt’s eyes lingered on Tanya’s chest. This one was even hotter, and her brunette friend had the biggest knockers he had ever seen.

“Like what you see?” asked Felicia teasingly, a hand over the goods. Matt was back to reality. He suddenly remembered his third visitor was a very big man. He pretended to look to a different direction and continued.

“Er… So, the woman saw me and she recognized me, because she called me by my name. She threw herself over me and started kissing me. I thought it was a joke from one of the guys, because she started saying she had always loved me, and she was very, very hot, as I said. I thought she was one of those hookers and that they had hired her as a prank.”

“She’s not a hooker,” defended her Tanya. “She just was…”

“Yes, she was wild,” said Matt, smiling at the memory, despite himself.

“Drunk?”

“Way past that.”

“I get it. Then?”

“We obviously were quite happy to have her with us at the party. We sat on this very sofa. She sat next to me, and then she climbed over me, and then…”

He was very humiliated.

“Well, I think she wanted to go all the way, but I couldn’t resist. It was very embarrassing,” he lowered his face and didn’t look at any of them directly again. “And she was very disappointed too. Anyway, for the rest of the party, she wasn’t with me anymore. She set her sights on an older guy, one about her age. They left together after a while.”

“Who is he? Do you know where he lives?”

“Uhm... He isn’t a friend of mine, actually. He’s in with a bad crowd. But he gets us booze for the parties. I don’t know where he lives, but I know he works security on a club.”

At first he was reticent about sharing more about the guy, who obviously scared him more than David did. Then one of Felicia’s breasts accidentally popped from her top. She managed to cover it on time, but after that, Matt gave them the name of the guy, Vincent, and his address, and they departed, leaving him a bit shaken.

Saturday – 4:36 pm.

The three friends were riding the bus waiting to arrive to their destination. Travelling by bus as adults was a whole new experience for them.

David was so bulky, he kept bumping into everyone, and when he finally found a seat, it was far too small and uncomfortable for him.

As for Felicia and Tanya, guys kept brushing casually over their backsides and breasts, until Felicia casually punched one of them with a swing of her well-toned arm.

They finally found a few vacant seats apart from the crowd.

“So Joy was alone when she crashed the car,” commented Tanya.

“And now the police is looking for me because of it,” resented David in a murmur.

“Yeah… I guess she took the car when… I feel like I remember something…” Felicia was thinking hard. “Wait… Oh, yes! She took the car at the tattoo parlor.”

“Tattoo parlor?” David seemed very scared. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a tattoo! What if the spell doesn’t take it away? Mom’s going to kill you!”

“Well, Mom’s gonna kill us anyway unless we can undo the spell. I don’t think she’ll be very happy to find she’s just three years older than you are now. How is she going to live with us now? You look more like her husband than her son, and I don’t think she’ll want to pretend that in front of other people.”

David looked even more scared than ever now. He had never seen it like this.

“But no, I did not get a tattoo. We went there because of you, can’t you remember.”

David went pale. He hadn’t seen anything in the shower. Unless… He suddenly pictured a gigantic dragon tattooed all over his muscular back.

“Don’t worry, you didn’t get it in the end. But I pierced my belly, remember?”

He started to recall something. Alcohol running through his brain, he had longed for something manly to do, and after renting the car, he did drive to a tattoo parlor. He wanted to choose the meanest skull they had, and in the meantime his sister had her navel pierced. They were about to start with his tattoo, when they saw Joy driving away on the car. He now remembered this quite clearly.

“Well, at least Joy’s escapade did save me from the tattoo,” he said darkly.

Saturday – 5:02 pm.

The bus pulled on their stop. They had arrived to the club.

“Do you think it’s open?” asked Tanya. “It’s kind of early.”

“Yeah… Hey, look! There’s a queue,” pointed Felicia. “Nightlife lasts all day in Vegas, I guess. Do you think they’ll want to ID us?”

David looked at his chesty sister and knew that wouldn’t be a problem.

“There’s no way any of us can be mistaken for an underage person. Besides, in the movies, bouncers always let hot girls into the clubs, so I’m sure you two will get us in without trouble.”

“Oh, I think the gentleman here just paid us a compliment!” laughed Felicia.

Indeed, after they entered the queue, the bouncer looked at them with satisfaction.

“Ok, babes. You might get in.”

“Thank you!” smiled Felicia. “Any chance your name’s Vincent, big guy?”

“No, he minds the back door, but his shift starts in an hour,” he smiled at her. “But I can help you too.”

“Sorry, I need to see him particularly.” Felicia answered his smile and the three of them got in.

Inside, the music was incredibly loud and everything was dark except for a few colorful spotlights. It was hard to tell it wasn’t night already.

“So what do we do now?” asked David a bit anxious.

“We’ll have to wait here, I don’t think there’s much else to do,” shrugged Tanya.

“Okay, but remember, no alcohol!” warned Felicia. “Though my tongue is kind of asking for it…” she added with a certain longing.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” answered David, who couldn't think of anything more splendid than a good sour whiskey at the moment.

They sat at one of the bars, hoping time would pass quickly. A young man sat next to them and it immediately became obvious he had set his sights on Felicia.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“Uhm, no, I don’t drink. Do you have another cigarette, though?” she asked the guy, who had been smoking.

He lit another one and Felicia took a long drag before puffing out an enormous cloud of smoke, her face relaxed in obvious pleasure.

“So this is what I’ve been craving all day,” she said, smoking again and turning to her friend and brother. The stranger, feeling neglected, went away to try and catch another girl.

“I’m not sure you should be doing that,” said a worried David.

“Oh, don’t worry, I swear I’ll quit smoking as soon as I’m 11 again. But right now I need this.”

Tanya wrinkled her nose at the disgusting smell of tobacco and then she noticed her hips were swaying rhythmically at the sound of the music. She let it take over, and soon she was contorting in very good dance moves.

“Tanya! I didn’t know you could dance!” said an amazed Felicia.

“I’ve never done it before!” said the blonde, even more amazed. “But I love it!”

Felicia finished her cigarette and joined her friend, and both approached the dance floor, dancing in front of each other. Felicia wasn’t as good as Tanya, but the two gorgeous women were still quite a sight. David found himself transfixed, looking at Tanya move. He had never seen something so sexy in his life.

His attention only faltered when another woman sat next to him, her back towards him. Her chestnut hair looked somewhat familiar.

“Joy? Is that you?”

She turned. On a closer inspection, she didn’t look that much like the grown-up Joy, but he could see how he had thought so at first. There was a slight resemblance.

“Oh, sorry! I confused you with my babysitter,” he said automatically.

She obviously thought it was a pickup joke, because she laughed in an obviously flirty way.

“Did you lose her, little boy? Because I’ve had some experience babysitting too.”

He gulped and looked at her. She was very beautiful. He didn’t find her as glorious as Tanya, but he again felt the now familiar stirring on his lower body.

“Wanna dance?” she asked, putting down her glass.

David looked back at his companions. They hadn’t even noticed him. He wished he was dancing with Tanya instead, but this girl was genuinely interested in him, and she was so appealing, and why not?

“Yeah.”

His dance moved were far from refined, but all he was interested in was in her seductive movements around him.

“What’s your name?” he yelled over the music.

She didn’t seem to hear him, and instead she kissed him straight in his mouth. He let his adult hormones take control, and the kiss was long and sensual.

He looked at her eyes, again realizing how attractive she was. Had he really just made out with a real adult woman? Someone way older than he was?

“How old are you?” he asked.

“I just became 18. Don’t worry, I’m legal!”

She didn’t realize he was asking for the opposite reason.

“Wow, she’s old! A real grown-up,” he thought.

Time just flew as he danced with her. He never even thought of looking at the clock, and soon they were kissing long and hard yet again.

“Hey, David, where are you? Have you seen the time?”

He broke the kiss and looked around to find Tanya, looking at him with a shocked, hurt expression. She didn’t look anything like a child at the moment. She was a grown woman filled with jealousy. She turned away and ran in the opposite direction.

“Tanya!”

Without even caring to tell anything to his grown-up siren, David went right behind his old crush. He caught her leaving through the front door and he followed her, but he soon lost her in the multitude outside the place. It was dark already.


THE STORY CONTINUES IN:


Part 5

Part 6

Part 7


Part 8

Epilogue