Double Trouble 6 part 2

Double Trouble 6
The Sixth Excursion
Part Two

By Curious4ever
Based on an illustration and suggestions by Yuni



Lucien shook his head and frowned as he continued to look at me.

"Well I can't leave you like this," he said. "So I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask Mother if she knows of a cure."

He walked out of my line of vision and came back a short time later with a cell phone in his hand.

"Yes Mother," he said into the phone. "I realize that I shouldn't do the 'Dance of Enchantment' without permission. I said that I did it by accident. Can you please tell me how to remove the enchantment from my friend?"

He listened silently for a few seconds and then nodded.

"I see," he said. "And are you sure that there is no other way?"

He listened once more and then shook his head.

"Yes Mother, you are right. Those other ways are far too painful for him. I do not wish to cause him further harm. I shall do as you instructed. Thank you Mother. May your journeys be safe and profitable."

He placed the phone on a small table. He looked at me and sighed.

"I am sorry about this David. I had hoped that there might be another way to break your enchantment. But Mother said that this is the least painful."

He leaned in closer and then he kissed me on the cheek. Suddenly the enchantment was broken and I was able to think and move again on my own.

"What just happened?" I said.

"I do apologize David. It has been many decades since I have done any belly dancing and I am afraid that I performed the wrong one for you. In my excitement to demonstrate my abilities to you I did the 'Dance of Enchantment' by mistake."

"What is the 'Dance of Enchantment'?" I asked.

"It is a dance that immobilizes the audience and makes it impossible for them to move. I am one of a very small group of belly dancers that is able to perform it."

"You immobilized me? Why?"

"It was not intentional," he said. "I promise to be more careful when I perform for you again."

He grabbed his shirt and started to lower it back down until his stomach was no longer showing.

"Well I guess it is okay," I said. "As long as you didn't mean to do it. But why did you kiss me?"

"Mother reminded me that a kiss is the universal antidote for many forms of enchantment. But you have still not told me what you thought of my dance."

"That was so amazing!" I exclaimed. "I have never seen anything like it! And is that something that you do where you come from?"

He nodded. "That and a few other things."

"You never did tell me if Lucien is your real name."

"I have gone by many names over the years but Lucien is the one that I think is my real one. It is so hard to be sure about that since it has been necessary to change names so often over the decades. Now does that answer your question?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"Good then if that is all you have to ask then I would like to make another attempt at the fish dive," he said.

"Okay. But then I have to get ready to leave. Toby and Mark are coming over the house tonight and we have to work on our routine for the upcoming competition."

"Oh? I wasn't expecting that," he said. "I had planned on you being here longer. I had some other fun activities planned for us to do later."

"Yeah, well this all came up suddenly after school today. We really need to practice our routine for the competition."

"I see, and how is that coming along?" he asked.

"Oh, uh, it's uh going good. We are almost done with it."

He looked at me intently and then nodded.

"I see, so you haven't even started it yet."

"No, of course we have. We've done tons of things already."

"David, the first part of trusting one another is learning that you have to tell the truth when answering a question."

"What makes you think that I'm lying?"

"I can see it in your eyes," he said. "When I look into your eyes they tell me many things about you. The eyes are the entryway to the soul."

"I don't know what that means, but, okay you are right. We haven't started yet. Billy and Mark can't agree on a routine that we should do."

"I see," he said. "Well why don't we forget about doing the fish dive. We can save that for another time. In the meantime I have something that I want to show you. I believe that we should do that in the little bit of time that we have left."

"If you say so."

"I just did. Now follow me," he said as he left the room.

We walked through several other rooms and the thing that always amazed me about his house was all the strange stuff that I spotted. In addition to furniture the rooms had a lot of other unusual items. One room that we walked through was filled with many stone statues. Several of the statues were people but they were all strangely dressed. And a few others were strange looking animals. In another room all of the walls were lined from top to bottom with pictures and paintings of various sizes and designs. In addition to the many landscapes that I saw there were also an almost equal amount of people portraits.

We finally came to a stop in his bedroom. I had been in this room several times. The first time was when I had been transformed into a kitten and I almost lived out the rest of my life as a cat.

He walked over to his bed. It was more than twice the size of the bed that I slept in. He grabbed a comic book from the nightstand and handed it to me.

"Here, take a look at this," he said. "Tell me what you think about it."

I looked at it and saw several strange looking people on the cover. Two of the characters in the illustration looked exactly alike. They had long pointed ears and were scantly dressed. One of them was chained while the other one was performing a contortion position.

"What is it?"

"It's a comic book," he said. "Mother gave it to me after she returned home from one of her trips. It's called 'An Elf's Dilemma'."

"Huh?" I said. "The only elves that I ever heard about were Santa's elves and they don't look anything like these guys."

"There are many different tribes of elves and they all have different appearances and skills," he said. "It's possible that you don't know about all of them in this world."  

"I guess," I said as I opened up the book and began to flip through the pages.

Page after page was filled with colorful illustrations of the people that Lucien called elves. Finally I came to a page that featured several tiny colorful people with wings flying around the place.

"What are these things called?" I asked as I pointed to the figures on the page.

"Oh, those are called fairies," he said. "But if you are really interested to learn more about the world that I come from then this will give you a good idea of what it is like. It is filled with many unusual beings that you have probably never heard of before. Some are quite wondrous while others are very dangerous."

I stopped for a moment when I came to a page with a very interesting illustration on it. This one featured two of the elf people. The first one was a very muscular elf sitting on the ground next to an empty basket and a flute. He was bare chested and as he sat he had one leg extended straight up into the air. His left arm was wrapped around the leg while his other arm was raised above his head and gripping the other half of his leg. Balancing on the top of his raised foot was a red haired boy dressed in a green colored snake costume. It looked a lot like a unitard except that it had a head piece just like my monkey costume. The boy was curled up in a very interesting contortion pose. He was lying on his chest with his legs flipped around backwards. His head was nestled in-between his legs right next to his crotch.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "It looks like these elves can do contortion. I've never seen
Santa's elves do that before."

"Each tribe of elves has its own skill of expertise. You have some tribes that are contortionists while others are musicians and then others are lovers."

"Loving is a skill? I thought that love was just how you felt about a person."

"It is much more than that," he said. "There are many different ways that you can show your affection for another and those elves are experts in the various acts of love making."

"Yuck!" I said. "I would rather find out more about the contortion elves."

"I am not surprised that you would find those elves the most interesting," he said. "But as I have told you before David, you need to expand your knowledge of other things. And I can help you do that if you will let me."

"And why do you want to help me do that?"

"Because I see potential in you," he said. "You are unique in this world."

"Gee, that's really nice of you to say so."

"Although there are times when you can be whiney and boring and rather mundane," he added. "And yet there are also times when you can be fun and unpredictable. You are an interesting enigma David and I find that I am not bored when you are around."

"I'm not sure if all of that is a compliment or not."

"Oh, it is a compliment," he said. "I have never taken this much interest in another individual before."

"Oh, okay, then thank you, I guess."

I continued to flip through the book and I became more intrigued by the colorful illustrations.

"I wish that I had more time to look through this more carefully but I've got to be going home now," I said.

"If it interests you that much then you may borrow it."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I don't want to take it from you if you aren't done with it."

"I don't need to read it right now. I already know a lot about the world of elves."

"You do? I would love to have you tell me more about it but I really have to be going."

"No problem," he said. "I will tell you more about it the next time that we get together. In addition to elves there are many other interesting beings that live on that world. There are fairies, goblins, trolls, pixies and also a few dwarfs and gnomes."

"I have never heard of any of those things, I can't wait to find out more about them. They sound so awesome."

"Some are more dangerous than others," he said. "But as I have said you may borrow the comic book."

"Okay, thanks," I said as I headed for the front door.

He followed a little behind me and when I got outside I saw that the sun had already set for the day. I dashed down the street in an effort to get home in time. I was halfway home when I finally slowed down and started to walk at a normal pace. There was a little chill to the air and I wished that I had brought a coat with me.

The moment that I stepped into the house I could hear my brother and Mark arguing in the living room. When I stepped inside I saw the two of them standing in front of the TV while Toby sat on the nearby couch. He was sipping on a drink and watching the two with a bored look on his face.

"Are you two at it already?" I asked.

They turned and when they saw me the expression on their faces changed and they stopped arguing.

"What are you dressed up for?" Mark asked.

I looked down and saw that I was still dressed in the ballet outfit that Lucien had loaned me.

"Oh, this is the ballet outfit that Lucien gave me," I said. "Now that I am his dancing partner he wants us to dress in similar style clothing."

"Dancing partners?" Billy said. "I thought you were just going over there to hang out with him while his mom was away."

"I was and I did," I said. "But then he asked me to be his dancing partner and he said that if I did then he would do a quadruple fold for me."

"A quadruple fold?" Mark exclaimed. "No way! Nobody can do a quadruple fold. It's impossible."

"No it's not," I said shaking my head. "I saw him do it. And I took pictures."

"Let's see them," Mark said.

I patted myself down and realized that I didn't have Lucien's cell phone with me.

"I can't," I said. "I took them with Lucien's phone and I forgot that at his house."

"Seems like you forgot a lot of things back there," Mark said. "First your clothes and then the pictures. Ever since you became his boyfriend you have been acting all different."

"No I haven't," I said. "I'm the same that I've always been."

"Oh yeah? Well then how come you aren't wearing your unitard?" he asked.

"Because I already told you, I forgot it at Lucien's house. We got talking about a comic book and I almost forgot to keep track of the time."

"What comic book?" Mark asked.

"This one," I said as I held up the comic in my hand.

All three rushed over and looked at the cover.

"That looks so cool," Billy said. "What's it about?"

"Lucien said that it's called 'An Elf's Dilemma' and it is all about these beings called elves."

"Those don't look like Santa's elves," Toby said.

"That's what I said but Lucien told me that there are lots of other different kinds of elves. He also told me that this book has things called fairies and pixies and goblins."

"I never heard of any of those things," Billy said.

"Neither have we," Mark said. "Where did Lucien get this book?"

"His mom gave it to him. She travels all over the place and brings him back things."

I neglected to tell them that some of the places that she traveled to weren't on this planet.

I opened the book and quickly flipped the pages until I found the page that I was looking for. On it was the illustration of the two strangely dressed elves doing contortion.

"Wow! That is so amazing!" Billy said. Look at that pose that they are doing."

"And the costumes look so cool," Toby said.

"Yeah, I've never seen anyone do a routine like that before," Mark said.

"Hey, that gives me an idea," Billy said. "Why don't we do something like this for the statewide competition?"

"Hey, that is a good idea," Mark said. "But we have to find some really cool costumes like they got in this book."

"Maybe David's boyfriend can help us find some," Toby said. "After all, he got us those amazing costumes for his party."

"Yeah and he also gave David and me some awesome monkey costumes," Billy said. "David got to wear his in an actual performance with Lucien."

"I keep hearing about that costume but I still haven't seen it," Toby said.

"We have them up in our room if you want to see them," I said.

"Okay, why don't you show them to us?" he asked.

"Sure, just follow me," I said as I headed for our room.

A few minutes later we were in our bedroom. I handed the comic book to my brother as I looked around for the monkey costumes. I finally located them when I opened the closet door and found them lying on the floor.

"My mom must have put them in here when she did her cleaning," I said as I picked them up and brought them out of the closet.

"They don't look like much," Toby said as I held them up.

"That's what I thought at first but then I changed my mind when I wore it."

"Is it okay if I try it on?" he asked.

"Sure, go ahead," I said as I handed one to him.

He quickly took off his unitard and put on the monkey costume. When he was done he walked over to the full-length mirror and looked at his reflection.

"Wow! You are so right!" he exclaimed. "This is an awesome costume. I love how it looks and feels on me."

"That's exactly what Billy and me said," I replied.

"I really love this costume," he said as he gazed at his reflection. "Can you get one for me?"

"I guess so. I will have to ask Lucien."

Mark pulled on his brother's tail.

"Cut it out Mark," Toby said. "You'll rip it."

"No he won't," I said. "That costume is very strong. It won't rip or tear. Believe me, we tried it. You could probably hang from a tree branch with that tail."

"That sounds like fun, I will have to try that," he said with a grin.

"Hey, I want to try one on now," Mark said.

"Okay, here is the other one," I said as I handed him the remaining costume.

As he started to get undressed I heard my brother call out to me.

"Hey David, take a look at this for a minute," Billy said.

I turned and saw him sitting on his bed. He was looking intently at the comic book.

"What do you see?" I asked as I walked over to him.

He held up the page and showed me an illustration of strangely dressed boy with red hair. The boy was wearing a very short green shirt with a green hood. His arms, chest and stomach were completely bare. Around his waist was a green skirt of some kind. It was split along one side and underneath you could see that he was wearing a long pair of orange tights.

"Look at this," he said. "Doesn't this kid look a little bit like Lucien?"

I looked at the figure a little more closely.

"Oh yeah, now that you mention it, he does look a little like him," I said. "It's kind of hard to tell for sure with that hood covering a good part of his head. Let's ask Mark and Toby and see what they think about it."

I turned around to show my friends the comic book but when I did I saw that they were both facing one another and making funny monkey gestures. They both seemed to be having a lot of fun as they made weird monkey sounds.

"Ook, ook, eek, eek," Toby said.

"Eek, eek, ook, ook," Mark replied.

The two of them burst out laughing as they stopped playing around.

"Oh man, this costume is so awesome!" Mark said.

"It so totally is," Toby said. "I never knew how much fun it would be to dress up like a monkey."

"I think it would be so much fun if I could wear mine to school," Mark said.

I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Actually that costume is mine," I said.

He turned and he had a sad look.

"I really love this costume David," he said. "You have so got to get me one. Please David! Will you ask Lucien to get one for me too? Please David. I'm your friend. You've just got to get me one of these."

"I don't know," I said. "What is he going to say when I ask him for another monkey costume?"

"Two more costumes," Toby said. "I want one too."

"Gee, I don't know. I've already asked him for a lot already."

"Come on David," Mark pleaded. "Just ask him. He should do it for you. After all, he is your boyfriend."

"Okay, fine, I'll ask him," I said. "But only if you agree to do the routine for the competition that you and Billy talked about earlier."

"Okay! Deal!" he said as he held out his hand. "Shake."

We shook hands and when we were done he was smiling again.

"Thanks David, you're a real pal," he said. "Would it be all right if I wore this costume for the rest of the evening?"

"Me too!" Toby exclaimed.

"Uh sure, I don't see why not," I said. "But I thought we were going to spend all of our time working on our competition routine."

"Oh, we can do that too," he said. "But first can you show me some of the positions that you did in the monkey dance that you did with Lucien? Billy keeps talking about it and I am really sorry that I didn't get to see you perform."

"Yeah, I would like to see it too," Toby said.

"Okay, I guess that I can do that for you," I said. "But are you sure that you both want me to show you the monkey routine?"

"Of course we do," Mark said as he and Toby sat down on my bed.

The two of them looked a little out of place in our bedroom with those monkey costumes on but they seemed to enjoy them just as much as Billy and I did. I was going to ask Billy if he wanted to watch me perform but he was busy looking through the comic book.

I stood in front of Mark and Toby and assumed the first position from the monkey dance.

"Now you have to remember that I did all of this to music," I said. "There's a lot of music in ballet. In fact I don't think that you can do ballet without music."

"Well why don't we play some for you while you perform," Toby said as he got up from the bed and turned on some music. It wasn't the type of music that was used for ballet but I didn't want to tell him that. I was afraid that I might hurt his feelings.

After I assumed the first position I then began to do the next one. By the time I was doing the next one I found that I was really having a fun time doing these positions again. As I did them I thought about Lucien and about all the time we spent together as he attempted to teach them all to me. I had complained about it at the time but looking back I could see that he was actually a very good instructor.

When I was done doing all the positions they both stood up and applauded and they asked me to do them again. I was more than happy to do my routine again and when I was done I did a few ballet moves for them. I also showed them the ballet pose that Lucien had taught me a short while ago.

"Wow, that was a really amazing pose that you did at the end," Toby said. "I didn't know that you had to stand on your tiptoes to do ballet."

"I didn't know it either until Lucien showed it to me," I said. "He's actually a pretty good teacher."

"It also sounds like he's a pretty good boyfriend too," Toby said.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," I said.

"Well whenever you have free time you are always hanging out with him," Mark said.

"That's right, and whenever you aren't with him you are always talking about him,' Toby added.

"I don't do that," I said. "Do I?"

"Of course you do," Toby said. "Whenever you talk it's always 'Lucien this', or 'Lucien that'."

"That's right," Mark said. "If you aren't talking about Lucien then you are talking about ballet."

"Well I am pretty excited about ballet. It is an advanced class."

"I know," Toby said. "And I'm kind of glad that you are dating Lucien. He's a great guy and you both seem great together. Now why don't you show us some more ballet stuff that you learned."

"Maybe later," I said. "Right now I, uh, I have to go to the bathroom."

I walked out of the room and went into the bathroom. I didn't really have to go but I needed an excuse to get out of the room. I wanted some time to think in quiet about something that they said. I went over to the bathroom sink and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

It was at that moment when I realized that I still hadn't changed out of my ballet clothes and into my unitard. I never thought that I could ever be comfortable wearing anything but a unitard and now it seemed like I was just as comfortable wearing ballet clothes.

As I stared at my reflection I began to think about how everyone thought that Lucien and I made a great couple. It was something that I heard in school all week long. I knew that I wasn't really dating Lucien but a small part of me began to wonder what it would be like if I really were dating him. My feelings about him had certainly changed a bit since I first met him. And if my friends were right then I seemed to be spending an awful lot of time talking about him.

"Could this mean that I really do have feelings for him?" I asked myself.

I thought about the kiss that he gave me to break me free from my spell and I suddenly realized that I hadn't said anything negative about it after he did it. Was that because deep down inside I wanted him to do that?

"No, this can't be right," I said to myself. "Lucien and I are just friends. And I am sure that he feels the same way. Well I am going to prove them all wrong and just stop talking about Lucien for the rest of the night."

I left the bathroom and went back to our bedroom. When I got there I saw that Toby and Mark had joined Billy on the side of the bed and all three were looking at the comic book.

"Looks like you guys are really enjoying that comic book," I said.

"Yeah, it's terrific," Billy said. "I don't understand everything that is going on since I can't read it but so far it looks like it's a great book."

"Hey! David's boyfriend can read," Mark said. "Maybe he can read it for us."

"That's a good idea," Toby said. "And before he does maybe David can ask him for some monkey costumes for us."

"We can all ask him about it tomorrow," I said. "But I think we should all go to bed. It's been a long day and I'm tired."

"Yeah, and then we can get an early start to our competition rehearsals," Billy added.

One by one we went into the bathroom to tinkle and then change into our sleeping unitards. Well Billy and I got changed, Mark and Toby decided to sleep in the monkey costumes.

I was the last one out of the bathroom and when I entered our bedroom Mark and Toby were already in their sleeping bags. Billy was in his bed and he was still looking at the comic book.

"Time to put that down," I said as I walked over to his bed.

He smiled and closed the book.

"Okay, but I can't wait to go over Lucien's house and find out what is happening in this book," he said as he handed it to me. "What did you say the name of it was?"

"It's called 'An Elf's Dilemma', and so far you have seen more of it than I have," I said as I carried it back to my bed.

Before I got into bed I placed the comic book on top of the plastic case that sat on my nightstand. Inside the case was the Janus Talisman although my brother and friends knew it as the trophy that we had won at our recent school competition.

When I placed the comic book on top of the case I thought I saw the talisman glow. It happened so quickly and I guess it must have been my imagination because when I bent down to give it a closer look I didn't notice any sign of glowing.

I got into bed and turned out the light. After saying goodnight to everyone I rolled on my side and looked forward to a good night's sleep.

But my sleep that night was anything but restful. I tossed and turned most of the night and I had some unsettling dreams.

The dream that was the most vivid was the one that involved Lucien. In my dream we were still boyfriends and had been so for several months. I spent almost all of my free time over his house. It had gotten to the point where I was now sleeping at Lucien's house so we could have more time together.

In addition to becoming his dancing partner full time I had also started to dress like him. My wardrobe had gone from colorful unitards to leotards and tights. The only time that I wore a unitard was when he was teaching me to do a quadruple fold. It was an extremely difficult position and I was not having very good luck with it. Finally one day I was able to do it. I was so excited that I had done a quadruple fold and I couldn't wait to show it to everyone. But then when I tried to unbend myself I found that I was unable to. My body seemed to be locked in that position. Lucien tried applying various oils and lotions onto my body but instead of loosening my limbs I could feel them becoming tighter.

I was locked in that position for hours and nothing that Lucien did seemed to work. More hours passed and several adults were called in but they were also unable to get me unbent. The last thing that I remember before waking up was seeing an adult walking towards me with a crowbar. The moment that I saw this I immediately woke up.

I was never so happy to be awake. I threw the covers off of me and got out of bed. I knew that something was wrong the moment my bare feet hit the floor. When I went to bed I was wearing my sleeping unitard but when I looked down I saw that in addition to being bare footed I was also completely naked. I wasn't even wearing a pair of briefs.

As I looked down at my body I saw something very strange. I noticed that I didn't have any boy parts in my crotch area. At first I thought I had been transformed into a girl but when I felt down there I didn't feel a girl part either. It was all completely smooth and completely lacking in any type of sex organ. It reminded me of the time that I saw one of my sister Jenny's dolls naked. Even though her doll was supposed to be a boy it was also completely smooth in the crotch. I rubbed it several times but there was definitely nothing there. I was totally confused. Where had my clothes and boy parts gone to?

Finally I stopped looking down there and that's when I noticed that my room looked totally different. My bed which had once been a twin size mattress was now gone and in its place was a hammock hanging from the ceiling. I looked more closely at the hammock and it seemed to be made out of vines which seemed to be growing out of the ceiling.

The room looked a lot smaller and the walls, floor and ceiling were all made out of wood. But they weren't wooden boards or beams, it looked like it was all one giant piece of wood.

As I looked around I spotted another hammock a few feet away and there was a figure sleeping under the blanket. I walked over and shook the hammock.

"Is that you Billy?" I asked. "Wake up. There's something very weird going on here."

The figure under the blanket began to stir and suddenly the covers came off of the head.

It looked like Billy but he looked a bit different from usual. His ears were long and pointy and his hair was much longer.

Finally he opened his eyes and threw off the covers. As he got out of bed I saw that he was also completely nude and that he was also missing his boy parts. Just like me he was completely smooth down there.

"Greetings of the day dear sibling," he said. "It is time to begin another joyous day."

"Billy? Is that you?" I asked.

"Who else would I be? I do not know of any other elf that is your twin."

"Elf?" I said in alarm. "Oh no, I think we've been transported to the world of the elves!"


The End of Part Two