	        Three Times A Lady
	Merry Christmas to Michael O'Reilly
	            From Mark T!

	"Merry Christmas, Michael!" called Mark as the door opened.  
Michael O'Reilly smiled and welcomed in his old high-school friend, 
shooing him in before the foyer grew cold with the wintry air.
	Mark stomped his feet to shake off the sticky snow, and 
handed the smallish box to his friend as he began to pull off his 
gloves.
	"Geez, Mark!  And I didn't get you anything!" said Michael, 
chagrined.  They hadn't said they would exchange gifts this holiday.  
Heck he barely even saw Mark, now that his new job had him 
commuting over an hour each way.
	"No problem," grinned Mark happily, "I'm sure someone will."
	They chuckled as Mark sloughed his coat and tossed it onto the 
chair in the corner along with his gloves and hat.  Rubbing his hands 
together to recover some warmth, he turned to find Michael setting 
the box down on the table.
	"No, open it!" cried Mark, smiling.
	"What, now?  It's not even Christmas yet," protested Michael.
	"Maybe so, but Hanukkah's over, so it evens out.  Come on, I 
want to see you when you open it."
	"Well, OK..."
	With some hesitancy at his friend's eagerness, he unwrapped 
the box and opened it to find... a ring.
	"A ring?" he asked, puzzled as he pulled it out and examined it.
	"It's an antique!  My Aunt Esther passed away a few months 
ago and willed it to me.  I know you love antiques, so here's a 
genuine article!"
	"Thanks, Mark!" he smiled, feigning a happiness he didn't really 
feel.  Mark had never really gotten it - Michael liked only certain 
kinds of antiques.  Furniture, clothes, the occasional paper antiquity 
like a first edition hardcover.  But not jewelry.  
	Well, it really was the thought that counted, he reflected.  He 
grinned more in earnest and replaced the ring in its box as they 
headed to the den to settle down and watch the game.
	---
	A few days later, Michael was at his workbench magnifier in 
the basement studying the ring.  It was more interesting than he had 
thought at first - perhaps he should look into antique jewelry in 
general.  The craftsmanship on some of the little whorls and arcs was 
simply amazing!  He would have thought it would require 
micrometric laser cuts to make such smooth and detailed lines, but 
somehow a skilled jeweler had managed it a century or more ago.
	Now he had turned his attention to the inscription.  It was 
worn in many places, but he managed to figure out most of it, though 
the lettering was so flowery as to be almost unreadable.
	"With another's wishes three
	Bearer thricefold blessed be"
	At least, he thought that was what it said.  There were symbols 
as well, including a number of pentagrams. He thought it was 
strange, but besides the pentagrams there didn't seem to be any 
demonic or evil symbols.  There were flowers and the sun and moon 
and such.  And what did the phrase mean by wishes?  Was this a 
wishing ring?
	He snickered at himself.  Right.  A wishing ring.  He grinned, 
but couldn't resist popping the ring on his finger and announcing 
(though not too loudly - he still felt a bit foolish):
	"I wish I had a million dollars!"
	He paused.  The silence was deafening, and before long... 
nothing happened.  He chuckled and turned off the workbench light.  
It was getting cold down here in the basement.
	"I wish I was upstairs in a hot bath already, is what I wish," he 
announced to nobody in particular.  Nobody in particular listened, 
either, since nothing happened once again.  He glanced at his ring 
which sat there patiently ignoring him.  He smirked at it and trudged 
up the stairs. 
	"Honey, I'm going to take a bath!" he announced to his wife as 
he checked on her in the den.
	"All right," moaned his wife, who had caught the flu and was 
desperately trying to feel less miserable by snuggling into a few 
blankets.  Michael snuggled up next to her and hugged her close.
	"I wish you were feeling better, hon.  Then maybe we could... 
share that bath."
	She grinned weakly and mouthed a kiss.  He blew one back at 
her and headed up to draw a bath.  On his way up the stairs he 
noticed he was feeling warmer.  His muscles were feeling less achy 
and more lively.  He took the last few steps two at a time and hopped 
into the bathroom.  He started the bath filling and began shucking his 
shoes.
	It was as he was relaxing into the water that he realized he felt 
downright fantastic.  The best he'd felt in years.  Maybe in his whole 
life.  He smiled and sank into the warm water.
	When he got out of the bath and wrapped himself in his robe 
and slippers, he went downstairs and found his wife up and making 
herself a cup of tea.
	"Hey, honey, let me do that.  You rest up," he said, hopping to 
the stove.
	"Actually, I feel fine now," she said.  "It came on kind of 
suddenly as you went upstairs.  I just started feeling better and 
better, and now I feel fine!"
	"Huh!" he said, "Me too!"  He gave her a quick kiss and headed 
into the den, happy she was better now.  It wasn't until a few 
minutes later that he realized: he had wished she would get better, 
and she had!  He looked down at the ring on his finger.
	"Another's wishes?" he mused.  Maybe that meant he had to 
make wishes for someone else!
	"I wish my wife had a thousand more dollars," he wished 
impulsively.  The ring seemed to get warmer on his hand, though he 
didn't see much visible difference.
	"Wow!" came a scream from the kitchen; he leapt up to run out 
there.
	"Look what I found in the coffee can!" his wife was dancing 
around the room waving a slick piece of paper.  She held it out to 
him and he looked at it - an "instant winner" game piece for a 
thousand dollars.
	"Wow," he breathed and stared at the ring on his finger.  He'd 
better think carefully about this.
	---
	With his wife already upstairs in bed, excited, happy and ready 
for him, Michael stood downstairs in the hallway and looked in the 
mirror.  He'd been thinking about this for a few hours, and he 
thought he knew what to wish for.
	"Honey," came a sultry coo from upstairs, "Come on up to bed... 
I'm ready to play..."
	Michael licked his lips anxiously and held the ring-bearing 
hand up to his face.  This was something he and his wife had 
fantasized about a few times - he knew she'd be delighted, and the 
surprise would just make it even more delicious for her.
	"I wish," he began," that when I see her tonight, my wife would 
transform into the most beautiful woman in the world."  The ring felt 
warm on his hand as he started walking up the stairs.  As he got to 
the top, she called again.
	"Are you ready, loverboy?" she husked as he crept towards the 
bedroom door.  He had to pause before entering just to catch his 
breath.  His pulse was racing with the anticipation he usually felt 
when he saw his wife in an especially sexy mood.  He swallowed 
heavily and breathed deeply, trying to stop shaking.
	He looked through the open door and saw his dresser, with his 
razor, cigar box, and wallet on it.  He blinked and looked a little 
closer.  His wallet looked strange.  Bigger.  Curious,  frowning, he 
walked in and took his wallet.
	"Honey?" asked his wife, behind him.
	"Just a sec," he said, opening his wallet to find far too many 
bills in there.  He began to pull them out.  They were fifties, and 
there were a lot of them.  Five, ten, twenty... forty... sixty.  Sixty 50-
dollar bills along with the five and two singles that had been in there 
earlier.  3000 extra dollars.
	He put the money down on the dresser and puzzled for a 
moment.
	"Honey?" asked his wife again, and he turned to see her 
seductively posed on the sheets, the covers artfully spread about the 
bed.  The thoughts of money pushed themselves out of his mind as 
he licked his lips at the sight of his wife.
	And then she began to change.  The ring on his finger pulsed 
with warmth as his wife cooed, "Mmmm... oh Michael... I feel so... 
sexy..."
	She slid her legs along the sheets as they shimmered and 
lengthened, her skin rippling lightly as her legs smoothed and 
stretched.  The glow traveled upwards towards her hips and settled 
there for a moment as her hips swelled, and then the glow suffused 
her stomach.
	Her waist thinned slightly, ever so slightly, making a dramatic 
slope from her now even-wider hips to her now-slimmer waist, and 
then the glow slid up to her chest.  Michael's hand was throbbing 
with the ring's warmth as her breasts swelled.  She rolled her 
shoulders sexily as her burgeoning globes caused some incredibly 
sexy shifting of her teddy.
	"Mmmmm," she purred sexily as her breasts slowed their 
growth at an incredible DD-cup size and the glow spread upwards to 
her face.  Her neck shortened, her chin softened, her lips filled out 
and her nose shrunk slightly into a cute little button-tip.  Her eyes 
widened as her hair flowed out longer and fuller, lightening to the 
gorgeous blonde color she had tried so many times to achieve.
	As the glow faded and the throbbing in the ring waned, 
Michael found his heartbeat racing as he beheld the most beautiful 
woman in the world.  Actually, it was amazing, he thought.  It was 
still his wife - the changes were not so major that she looked 
different from herself.  They were subtle, all of them (well, except 
the breasts, he admitted), but the tiny changes combined to subtly 
alter her appearance and make her drop-dead gorgeous.
	"Come here," she whispered throatily and he began to walk 
towards her when the ring heated up again and began to throb, but 
this time much more insistently.
	He frowned and looked down at the ring, and did a double-
take.  His hand... it was changing!  The hand with the ring on it was 
noticeably stretching and thinning, his fingernails stretching out 
longer, the hair pulling back under the skin and his knuckles 
becoming less knobby.  It didn't hurt at all - it just felt kind of 
stretchy, as though someone were playfully tugging at his hand.  But 
now the change was travelling up his arm, which was even as he 
watched thinning and smoothing, the hair there also pulling back in.
	What was happening?  He wondered for only a moment before 
the glow was filling his vision.  It was like an invisible towel had 
been playfully thrown on his face - a warm sort of motion all over 
his head as his hair lengthened a bit and darkened and his face 
shrunk and smoothed all over.  He couldn't tell what else was 
happening, but he was afraid he had a notion.
	When the glow moved down to his chest, he wasn't incredibly 
surprised, but he was still unhappy when he saw his torso begin to 
shrink even as his pectorals began to swell.
	Breasts, he reminded himself.  He was growing breasts.  They 
bulged a bit, out to A-cup, then the familiar B-cup of his wife's 
previous endowments.  But they didn't stop there.  They kept 
growing, and growing....
	He nearly laughed as he thought of the Energizer bunny, but he 
caught himself.  Was he going insane, he wondered?  How was his 
wish affecting him?  *Why* was it affecting him?  He had wished for 
his wife to change, not for himself.
	As his new mammarian endowments reached the heavy, huge 
DD-cup size and kept going, he began to realize what was going on - 
somehow, the inscription on the ring, the bit about the bearer being 
blessed, must mean the ring-wearer gets the wish reflected back on 
them.
	As his new tits kept growing further and further, he realized 
the other part of the ring's spell was the word "threefold."  That's 
why he had $3000 in his wallet!  It was his part of the spell that had 
given his wife a thousand dollars!
	His breasts had slowed their growth at some unestimable bra-
size.  They were huge, like two big melons hanging off his chest.  The 
glow then drifted down to his waist and he puffed out air as his 
waist and torso contracted.
	As his waist thinned and thinned, he realized that the threefold 
rule was turning him into an even more beautiful woman than his 
wife - he was going to be three times as beautiful, in fact.  Whatever 
that meant, he thought sourly.
	The glow had drifted down even further now, to his crotch.  He 
grabbed forlornly at his bulging underwear but the bulge was 
decreasing even as he grabbed at it.  He briefly wondered why he 
wasn't more panicky but realized that there was no pain and 
virtually no feeling of loss - merely that warm, smothering sensation 
and the tugging, pulling feeling of things changing.  Somehow, his 
mental faculties seemed dulled while the glow was changing him - 
some sort of stasis effect, perhaps?
	He almost absently noted that his penis was gone now and that 
his entire pelvis was rearranging.  His briefs were stretching wider 
and wider to contain his swelling hips and rear, and he was able to 
poke his finger *into* his crotch now and felt quite excited when he 
did so.  He removed his finger and the glow travelled further down.
	The throbbing in the ring had not abated yet as his legs 
throbbed and stretched, the muscles reshaping themselves, the hair 
disappearing beneath the skin as his feet also shrank and smoothed.  
When the glow finally faded and the ring cooled, he looked down at 
himself.  It was hard to tell from this vantage, and hard to see 
around his truly enormous breasts, but he imagined he might very 
well have been transformed into a woman three times more 
beautiful than his wife.
	The panic was beginning to set in now as he grabbed himself, 
hefting his massive frontal adornments in fear.
	"Ahhhh!" he yelled articulately as his wife chimed in nearly 
simultaneously with "What the hell?!?"
	"Oh my god oh my god oh my god," Michael panted, his chest 
heaving sexily, his new breasts bobbing beneath his robe.  He 
reached down and grabbed his crotch and found it all too smooth and 
sexy.
	It was OK, he reminded himself - he could fix this.
	"I wish I were a man again!" he called, but just as before, the 
ring didn't warm or throb.  The panic began to rise again and his 
breathing quickened until he remembered - the ring only works on 
wishes for other people!
	"I wish my *wife* were..." he stopped himself in time.  He 
didn't want his wife to be a man!  Oh, hell.  How could he... ah hah!
	"I wish my wife was back to her normal self!" he called out.  
There, that should fix it.
	"What are you doing?  What's going on?" she asked, but 
Michael was staring at his hand, where the ring stubbornly refused 
to throb, glow, or get hot.  Had he used it up?  Maybe it only granted 
two wishes to each user or something - but shouldn't it be three?  
The panic was making him think in circles.
	"It's this ring, honey," he tried to explain, but his sexy contralto 
voice made him pause.  He gulped and licked his oh-so-sexy lips and 
dove ahead, "it grants wishes - but only wishes made for other 
people.  Here, take it, and wish me back!" He tossed the ring to her 
and she looked at it curiously.
	As she slid it on her finger, Michael suddenly realized he hadn't 
told her the catch!
	"Wait!" he yelled, but it was too late - she was already saying 
it:
	"I wish Michael were a man again - and a really super hunk, 
too!" and she giggled.
	Michael groaned, his huge, heavy breasts heaving as he shook 
and fell to the floor.  He looked up to see the ring on his beautiful 
wife's hand glowing and he felt the warm smothering once again.
	Ah, hell, he thought.  Here we go again.

	- the end? -

