This story is meant to be fairly wholesome and for most viewers. However…
*Numerous LGBTQ characters are in this story, including a transgender main character.
*There are themes of magical transgender transformation (by both “dark” and “light” forces) in this story.
*Mild profane language is used. 

A Sweeter Life (Part 1)

Scarlet quickly wrapped herself with a towel and secured it. Steam fogged up the room. She took careful steps towards the counter. She couldn’t see her reflection in the fogged-up mirror, not that she wanted to. Not yet.

She spotted the little wrapped candy on the counter. She quickly snatched it up and popped the soft chocolate chew into her mouth…

There were two parts to her curse that she hated: what happened when she was soaked with water, and what was about to happen next.

As the taste hit her tongue, she braced herself against the counter and winced. Bones reset themselves, painfully contorting her. Her hips widened, her back arched forward. She shrank slightly, and her face restructured to be softer and rounder. Fat filled into all the right places, pushing her hips further out and her chest forward. Her scalp itched as her hair grew out and changed colors. After a minute of pain and anguish, it was over.

Scarlet wiped the mirror down to gaze upon her reflection. Seeing the pink-eyed, blonde-haired woman starting back at her got her to smile. Painful as it was, it was better than the alternative…

Back when she was young, Scarlet had actually been born a boy. She was seven when she met a strange little girl. She remembered the name of this girl – or maybe more accurately, demonic imp – well: Stacie. Seemingly nice at first, Scarlet took a liking to the girl. Except, one day, Scarlet asked Stacie for a piece of candy.

Had she been anyone else, this would have been a huge mistake. Stacie, even at that young age, was a dark witch, already playing nasty Dark Magic pranks on people who got close to her. And the piece of candy that Scarlet was given was cursed: from now on, if Scarlet ate sweets, she’d become a girl!

… Except, she quickly found out that she liked being a girl! And so did her parents and siblings. They found out that Scarlet’s “cursed” girl form would go away if she was thoroughly soaked with water, be it by a shower, bath, rain, bucket of water, and so on. But after tasting what it was like to be a girl, even that young, Scarlet threw a fit any time she was turned back. It didn’t take them more than a few days to realize Scarlet was a transgender girl.

So, they decided to roll with the curse. They figured out a new name for her, one she kept to this day. She needed to clean herself – never mind the weather – so they made sure she always had some candy around to trigger a transformation back into a girl when she needed it. They moved to another town, where Scarlet could be seen as a girl instead of the cursed boy people saw her as in her hometown. It was difficult at times, for the transformation into a girl was always more painful than the one into a boy. Pranks by others her age sometimes revealed the curse, to Scarlet’s horror, prompting her to always have a bag of candy on herself at all times. And unfortunately, her family had to move several times over her life to protect her after such incidents.

She grew up, spending as much of her life as possible in girl form, experiencing puberty, school, and college as a girl. In tandem, her male form did change to reflect her age, but fortunately for Scarlet, she didn’t have to experience the masculine changes over time. Just in the short-lived moments when the countercurse effect was triggered.

Scarlet was now an adult. It was about twenty years ago since that little devil girl cursed her. But in the greatest irony, for someone trying to cause a lifetime of misery, Stacie actually gave someone the life they would have always wanted. But with the caveat of it not being permanent.

But it was so easy to trigger. Candy was her medicine. Who else could say that?

Scarlet dried and brushed her hair, and she put on her clothes, a loose shirt and slim shorts. Satisfied, she left the bathroom, where she was confronted by a familiar face.

Scarlet smiled. “Hehe, been waiting for me, Connor?”

“Doing alright, Scarlet?” he asked.

“Yup, everything went as smoothly as it could!” she beamed before kissing him on the cheek. He hugged her in response and shared the kiss.

Connor was her boyfriend. They had been dating for a year already, so Connor knew about Scarlet’s curse. Like anyone else, he was confused at first, even a little weirded out. But he quickly saw that no matter what, Scarlet was a woman. It was just a strange situation that Scarlet had to live with.

Even when the “man” came out, all of who Scarlet really was could be seen. Despite all of her efforts, there had been a couple of times when Scarlet had been caught drenched and without candy. He helped her through those dark moments, bonding them ever closer together. They had talked about getting married some day in the future…

“Ready for a movie?” Connor asked.

“With you? Of course!”

They reclined together on the couch, pulling up an animated movie. They both loved the fun, sweet stories as a way to chill out from a day of work. Connor worked construction, while Scarlet worked in an office. She was glad she could get some time to work from home every week; it lessened the potential that someone could see the “other” Scarlet…

They leaned together comfortably in each other’s arms as the movie played.

“So, did you hear about that weird thing that happened a few weeks ago?” Connor asked.

“Comic Con Mermaid?” Scarlet asked. It was the only thing that she could think of that happened “a few weeks ago” that was of any note.

“Yeah, I just heard about that myself earlier today. Crazy stuff, huh?”

“The trans community was going nuts over it when it first happened.”

“Think it’s-“

“Real?”

Connor rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, I sometimes forget what happened to you is magic. Doesn’t seem real, you know?”

Scarlet shrugged. “Been my reality for most of my life now. I sometimes forget it’s not normal. I guess a mermaid COULD be real if my own crazy curse has anything to say about magic being real...”

“Speaking of your curse… Have you ever wanted it… Cured?”

“Cured? Hell no! Because that would mean losing this!” Scarlet growled, gesturing to her body. “We’ve found countless priests, wizards, and witches over the years to see if anything could be done to end the curse. But every time, I was told I would lose the girl transformation, and I… I can’t…” Scarlet started forming tears, clearly emotional from the thought.

Connor leaned over and hugged her. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. I meant finding a way to make this permanent, stopping the transformation you don’t like… I didn’t mean getting rid of the female version of you….” He hugged her tighter. “That’s the real you, curse or not.”

Scarlet sighed and relaxed a little. “Thank you. Sorry I freaked out there a little… I should have known better that you wouldn’t dare suggest I live that life…”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Of course. You’re Scarlet. This is who you are. And I wouldn’t force you to be anything different.”

“Thank you.”

“But that does answer a question I had. Whether you tried to find a way or not.”

Scarlet nodded. “As I settled into my life as a girl all the time, yeah. But I prefer the Dark Magic curse form over my real one, so that apparently complicates things. It seems magicians need a level of skill most regular folks don’t have to be able to undo the curse but make the form it granted permanent.”

“Ouch. What about the girl who did this to you?”

“That’s where it gets weird: she seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth! I went back to my hometown to try to find her, but in asking people who knew her, it’s like they never knew her. Or even that she existed at all. I found her grandparents, and they suggested that her parents – their own kids – didn’t even exist! If – and that’s a BIG if – that girl could have done the deed herself, something tells me I’m never finding her again.”

“I mean, would you have trusted her?”

Scarlet shook her head. “I have ZERO doubts that she would have made things worse, not better. She was a crazy kind of evil.” Scarlet shrugged. “So, I guess I just have to live this way for the foreseeable future.”

Connor reached over and grabbed a handful of chocolate pieces from the end table beside him. He handed them to Scarlet. “Well, it just means we get to keep all this candy around, huh?” he joked.