Objectification Seminar

WARNING: Appealing alternatives to grad school presented in this chapter may not be viable career paths.

Jillian collapsed on a nearby bench, letting the seething mass of people swarm past her. The young lady massaged her neck, trying to work a little feeling back into it from all the double takes that she had been doing today. Everything in this insane building warranted a second look, like the auto show that was displaying engine blocks that resembled a curled up human body, or the gigantic, half eaten sundae near the food court that still carried some obviously feminine curves. Tromping around the packed convention floor alone hadn't been Jillian's plan, but her friend Marco had gotten in line for some kind of 3-D printing demonstration that offered to make you any action figure you wanted, and said he'd probably be there a while. Knowing Marco, he would probably pick some ridiculous anime character or some such.....
Jillian sat up, a wave of realization hitting her. She has seen enough around her to figure out what this place did to people, and the implications of that booth's promise struck home. Her compassionate side told the exhausted young woman to find her friend or at least warn him of what he was in for, but her own legs told her that it was a little too much to ask right now to go running around on behalf of a work friend, who had been the one to invite her in the first place. It had been a pretty lengthy queue last she saw, so she probably had at least ten or so minutes to take for herself and work some feeling back into her toes before she had to go anywhere.  The seat beneath her was, at least, mercifully soft. She actually took the time to crane down and peel her shoes off, flexing her toes in the relatively cool air, which stood in juxtaposition to the dank inside of her sneakers. Her head drifted backwards and her eyelids began to droop

“Tired?” an unfamiliar voice somewhere above her asked.
“Nah, I'm one of the installations” Jillian grunted without opening her eyes. She really didn't feel like engaging a stranger in conversation at the moment. Especially one who seemed compelled to harass people who were clearly trying to nap.
“Sorry” the voice responded, and Jillian felt the cushion underneath her shift slightly as a new source of weight settled on it right next to her. She glanced over in mild annoyance.
The figure was tall and feminine, Jillian barely meeting her shoulder even as they were both sitting. Her dimensions were, however, nothing compared to her complexion. The girl was wearing a t-shirt and pair of capris that looked several sizes too small, exposing wide swathes of bright red skin. A pair of sharp-looking, curving horns emerged from her head, poking out from locks of chesnut brown hair. The red woman was hunched over, fiddling with her shoes. Jill could see both legs ended in hefty cloven hooves that had punched right through the toes of her slip-ons, transforming them into improvised calf-warmers. As the demonic woman tried to work the tattered remains of her footwear off her ankles, Jillian noticed a long, spade-tipped tail protruding from her backside and flopping against the length of the bench in frustration.
“Whoa” she mumbled.
“You should see Kimberly” was all the red woman stated with a hidden grin, then glanced up.
“You know, if you wanna unwind, there's a boutique section east of here that has free massage chairs. They're even offering full massages on site if you're down for it”
“Are they any good?” Jill found herself inquiring.
The devil lady's tail flicked again as she smirked. “They'll make you feel like a brand new person”
Jill saw through the pretty transparent entendre. “Well....thanks for the advice....Lillith. But I'm not sure I really wanna risk it.”
“Oh come onnnnnnn” the temptress urged “ Take a little 'you' time”
“Well, I've really gotta get to my friend and...” Jill's weak protest faded as she felt light on her back and the presence of another weight on the bench's other side.
“Hey Kim” the devil lady remarked.
Jill turned around to take in the tall, lithe figure of a graceful blonde woman, her hair falling in delicate curls around her soft face. Comforting light seemed to emanate in a corona around her head, and most tellingly, a pair of great, dove-white wings sprouted from her back. One wing was stretched out along the length of the bench, sheltering Jill slightly while the other elegantly cupped her shoulder. She smiled down at Jill with a look of sympathy, maternal love and mild judgment. The air around her seemed to sing slightly.
“Do it” the new woman stated flatly “It'll be awesome”

Jill quickly got up from between the two,. “Okay then. Be seeing you.”
She looked around, eager to leave the pair behind, and the aformentioned boutique sounding as good a destination as any. Now what the hell had happened to her shoes?

************************

Jill stalked barefoot amongst the rest of the convention, trying to figure out how a few booths could turn a wide, open hall the size of several football fields into an utter labyrinth. An exhaustive search of the bench's underside, the surrounding area and the devil-woman's purse (just in case) yielded no results. It was as if the building itself had simply...eaten them. It didn't seem like a massive problem, despite the chilly floor. An increasing number of people here were walking around in a lot less than just shoes. This convention seemed to have a laxer dress-code than Burning Man.

The odd stands and occasional storefront gave way to a more softly decorated area. Jill could see tables draped in cloth and sporting stacks of folded towels. She glanced over at a vendors table laden with differently-shaped bottles, each one looking like it contained shampoo or body lotion. She slowed her pace to pick one up. It bore a picture of a nude, showering woman, which would have been downright pornographic if not for the particularly artful cropping that the photo had undergone, anything objectionable in the image lying just beyond the margins. Artful script below the image read “NewSkin Refreshing Body Gel” and a second, simpler looking line of text stamped below it that said “Generously donated by Roxxi Winters”

Jill put the odd bottle down, her gaze drifting over to a vast rack of soaps, displaying packaged bars that were every shade of colour under the sun. The ones she glanced at carried paper labels like: “Lemur Stripes” or “Elephant Hide” or an orange bar titled “Fox Glove”.
Jill could swear that foxglove flowers were purple, but kept her protestations silent. What was she going to do, complain to an attendant?
Her attention strayed over to the next stand. This one seemed to be more focused on bathing products. Sponges, bath bombs, some bubble baths with images similar to the shower gel plastered across them that made Jill blush in spite of herself. At the end of the display there was a small shelf of....bath capsules? They were small gel shapes, sorted by colour and filled to the brim with some thick liquid. They sort of looked like something that would be thrown into a washing machine. Jill understood that it was something to add to a bath, but couldn't remember the last time she had used anything like that. Weren't these banned? She could understand the desire for a child to put one of these candy-like objects in their mouth.
Out of curiousity, Jill picked up a round, slightly silvery one and squeezed it experimentally, feeling the fluid shift under her fingers.
“I wouldn't squeeze that too hard” a female voice resounded behind her. “They're a tad fragile”

Jill turned around to address the speaker, and motioned to return the small bath capsule to her. She faltered when she realized that the woman in front of her had no arms. What she did have was a very prodigious bust that strained against the fabric of the...T-shirt she was wearing? The garment in question was a tube of cloth with no visible sleeves, or arm-holes of any kind. The hem of the shirt extended past her hips and masked the exact point of conversion between the torso of a normal, armless woman, and a tangled mass of thick, purpley-looking tentacles that extended to the ground beneath her. One thinner appendage traced it's way upwards, curling across her chest and adjusting her name tag slightly.
“Names Trudy, can I help you with something?” She swayed slightly as she spoke, weight constantly shifting between the bundle of tentacles below her.

“Ummm, yeah” Jill spoke. “I suppose I was wondering what all this stuff...does”
“They're cosmetics and bathing products mostly” Trudy answered matter of factly.
“I know” Jill replied with a hint of irritation “But what do they actually DO?”

“Ah” Trudy smiled. “Well, it depends on the product”
Another tentacle traced over the lines of soap on display.
“Most of our cosmetic products offer, appropriately enough, surface level changes. Maybe you want to change your hair colour, or have a little more hair to work with. Or your eye colour, get that pair of cat ears you've been after, or maybe even have a tail to wave around. A few baths with one of our special bars, and you'll be well on your way”

“Are they made of...” Jill tried to find the word.

“Oh, no!” The squid-woman laughed. “Not every product that we put out requires volunteer contributions. This stuff is strictly temporary. You would need to keep using our soap in order to maintain the effects, while a product that contains a volunteer would render a more permanent change. People tend to stick with you, not wash away”

She wrapped an “Arm” around one of the lewdly illustrated bottles that Jill had been investigating earlier. Jill still hadn't put down the bath capsule, unconsciously kneading it between her fingers.
“These shower gels” Trudy explained “DO require donations to make. Some people look so good, they just want to share that look with as many folks as they can. Miss...Winters here, made about four dozen bottles. One solid wash with the whole bottle and you get exactly what you see on the label. And everything you don't” She added with a wink.

“I would look like....that?” Jill winced.

“They're limited edition, and a tad pricey, but well worth the investment.” Trudy smiled. “It's a speedy alternative to long-term transmutation therapy, or surgery. If you don't mind 30 or so other people out there looking just like you.”

Jill looked at the label again. Good lord, that woman was sporting a rack that could hold up a tentpole. She giggled. Imagine actually having a pair like that-

SPLURT

Jillian swore as the small capsule suddenly ruptured in her hands, the deceptively large amount of fluid exploding over her shirt, a few drops dripping down to stain her pants.
“Told you not to squeeze it like that” Trudy sighed.
The suddenly stained girl wiped her hands on her sullied top with a grimace, only to realize that a substantial handful of cotton came away in her fingers.
“Wha?” she winced. The pearlescent silver fluid that had splattered her body had seemingly burned straight through her clothing, eating away at the fabric like acid. Already the substance was clinging to her skin through the softball-sized hole it had bored through her shirt and the large patch of her left thigh exposed by the widening hole in her jeans.
“Oh shit!” Jillian yelped in dread, reflexively dabbing at the corrosive substance with her handful of degraded shirt fabric before she suffered the inevitable chemical burn that such an aggressive acid would surely give her. But even as her makeshift rag dissolved away into nothing, her skin didn't hurt in the slightest. If anything, it actually felt like a pleasant, cool tingling that permeated her flesh.
Yeah right, she thought, more like extreme nerve damage.
“No need to panic” Trudy remarked, poking at the ragged edge of the hole in her jeans with the tip of her tentacle, which came apart a few fibers at a time in response to her probing. It seemed as though the sturdy denim was adopting the consistency of damp tissue paper before her eyes.
“It's no friend to fabrics, I'll give you that, but none of our products, bath bombs included, are actually harmful.” Trudy glanced over her shoulder “Well, nothing on the show floor in any case” she grunted to herself.

Jill gaped as her midriff was laid bare and her pants continued to unravel. The skin underneath had taken on a smooth, grey sheen thanks to the fluid in question. She attempted to rub it away, but only succeeding in smearing it across more and more of her leg.

“Alright, we don't have a lot of time” The squid woman declared, wrapping a thick, consoling tentacle around Jill's shoulder. “Come with me, and fast, and we'll be able to help you”

“Please!” Jill yelped as numbness spread across her thigh. “I don't wanna melt or anything!”
“No danger of that” Trudy murmured. She started to “walk” with Jill, her tentacles slithering, shifting and pushing her forward in tandem with one another.

The two awkwardly manoeuvred through the crowd, even as Jill began to unsteadily limp. Her leg had gone partially numb, and the sensation was spreading. They lurched out of one of the main halls and into a thoroughfare, passing by chatting groups and the occasional lost-looking lone soul, double checking a map.

Trudy paused at an intersection, her odd toppling gait coming to a stop that sent her body swaying.
“This is so much easier at the facility” Trudy grunted, eyes bouncing between passageways. Jill could only watch as her left knee stiffened, becoming harder to bend as it took on the same smooth, grey texture. She flexed her toes anxiously. What was happening to her? Was she gonna grow scales or something? Or was this just the first step towards the bottling plant?

The squid-girl looked over at a woman seated on a nearby bench, glumly twirling a long orange lollipop in her hands. She was completely nude, though the grey, striped fur that ran from head to toe seemed to be a decent substitute for clothes. It went well with the triangular ears, whiskers and long, swaying tail that brushed at the ground.

“Pardon me” Trudy asked the contemplative feline “But have you seen a door marked Ward 5? I'm afraid this woman needs a little help. We really need to make the best of this situation.”

“It's been that sort of day” the cat girl said, looking over the odd candy in her hands. It appeared to be cast completely from orange sugar, moulded in the shape of an anthropomorphic fox. The candy was incredibly detailed, clearly conveying the fox's masculine form, seemingly caught in mid-writhe as his body wrapped around the stick, an expression of climax frozen on his sugary face.

“That actually looks kind of good” Julian burbled, trying to take her mind off of the creeping sensation that was reaching up her torso. “Are they giving them out somewhere?”

“Only one of his kind” The cat remarked, bringing the treat up to her mouth “It was a custom job done about an hour or so ago”  She sighed “Supposed to be 'highly-concentrated', whatever that means”
“Are you gonna eat it?” Trudy inquired.
“Might as well” The cat lady winced, bringing the candy up to her mouth “Not much else you can do with a lollipop”
Her tongue furtively extended and she took a lick, nearly dropping the entire candy as a shudder passed through her body.
“ooooh...oh my....hello sweetie” she mumbled, an eager smile reaching her face. Immediately she thrust the entire lollipop into her mouth and moaned at the sensation as her tongue lavished it's sugary form.
She finally pulled it free, the candy now missing one or two details from it's time within her mouth. She licked her lips, recovering from the experience.
Julian took a second to look over the trembling cat girl. She seemed a little...fuller than she had a second before. Her stature seemed slightly broader, her bosom looked as though she had gained half a cup size, and Jill could have sworn that she was half an inch shorter a second ago. A grin split the cat's face as she began to lavish the candy with her dexterous tongue, each lick sending another shiver of alteration through her body.

“Ah right” Trudy exclaimed in recognition “This way!”

The two left the feline to continue fellating her orange treat as they took a hard right and after a brief delay when the entire left leg of Jills pants fell away, they pushed through the “Ward 5” door and into a dimly lit ready room. A few conversing figures looked up at the fresh arrivals.
“Hello everyone!” Trudy waved a tentacle, then paused.
“Ma'am” the tentacled woman said abruptly, bowing, ever so slightly to a statuesque woman sitting in one corner who was wearing a slinky, sequinned blue dress.

The woman stood up, easily towering over both of them and striding forward. Jill honestly felt like she was in the presence of royalty by the way this sizable, dark skinned woman carried herself. She nodded to the squid girl, who squeaked slightly and spoke again.

“I...I wasn't expecting to find you here. We just had a little accident with one of the bath capsules and were hoping to get some professional advice.” Trudy stammered. “Normally if it was dropped in water, there would be a more delayed, subdued reaction, but a concentrated dose like this? Time is of the essence.”

Jill realized her sudden inability to swivel at the waist, and could only turn her head to look over at her tentacled escort. This woman, who could casually discuss growing a tail, melting glamour models and trading skin was actually intimidated by this new, blue-dressed figure.
“You were right to bring her here” The new woman said to Trudy. “Good work. I'll take it from here”
Trudy gave Jill one last pat on the shoulder before ducking out.

Jill felt a chill wash over her as the looming woman's gaze fell on her like a laser. The woman, whom she only knew as Ma'am, stalked around her in a circle, occasionally prodding at the chilly, stiffening areas of her body with her thumb. The numerous gold bangles that she wore jangled against each other as she did so. The dress she was clad in was slit high enough to reveal the winding black tattoo that ran up her left leg, serpentine in construction and covered in a scaly pattern.

Who was she?

“J'hun Krol Davohr” Ma'am replied, as if answering her thoughts. “But if that's too much for your little tongue, call me June. That incorrigible pest Gideon has us all on first name basis anyways.”

Without another word, June's hand darted out and tore at Jill's hips, causing her to yelp in time with the sound of wet tearing fabric. She would have started to backpedal if her entire leg didn't feel so very heavy.

The remains of Jill's pants and underwear came away simultaneously in a thin, half dissolved handful clenched between June's fingers. She swiftly threw it to the ground with a wet slap. Jillian would have blushed at the sudden exposure, if it hadn't revealed something that made her blood run cold.

Her entire leg, and a good deal of her belly, was smooth, marbled grey in colour, and completely immobilized. She tried to bend her knee or flex her toes, but there was nothing, not even the phantom sensation of movement. All she could feel was the coolness of air brushing against her petrified limb.

“I....” She gaped “I'm turning to stone!”

“Yes, and that's why I'm here” June responded. Another grip and tear, another assortment of ruined garments hitting the floor. This time it was her shirt and bra, leaving the girl totally nude.
“I need to see how far it's spread, and how much time we have left” June explained before her subject could protest this treatment.
Jill gulped and nodded, bringing her arms away from her breasts. In this situation, she figured it was best to trust a professional.

“Doyle” June nodded to a muscular wolf-anthro at the other side of the room that she had been conversing with “Has the showcase on stage 5 already begun?”
One of the wolf's pointed ears twitched as if he was listening to some distant sound only audible at this range to him and other canines.
“People are still sitting down” he stated.
“Good” June nodded “Plenty of time”

The wave of stone continued to sweep across Jillian's flesh, spreading from the twin points of contact the chemical had made on her skin. The crater of a bellybutton marked the smooth surface of her midsection, and Jill trembled as the petrification that had overtaken her leg crept towards her crotch, just as the patch of stony skin on her stomach widened downwards.
She let out a gasp, feeling her nethers freeze in place, inert but no less sensitive as her right leg began to feel the effects of the transformation. Whatever this woman was going to do, she had better do it fast.
June had circled behind her.
“Hold on...Take a brief step back, I need you to keep your balance.” She ordered, Jill feeling compelled to obey. Even if she was fully clothed, mobile and not in the grips of a horrifying change, she probably would have listened to this woman's commanding tone and deep, smoky voice.
June knelt down, seemingly inspecting Jillian's backside as the stone overtook it. She reached down, gripping Jill's foot and forcing her to bend her leg, standing on the ball of her foot. Jill felt her flanks freeze in place, completing the transmutation of her pelvis.
“Perfectly callipygian” June purred, placing her hands on Jill's shoulders.

“How...” Jill could only wince as she felt the creeping wave of stone reach the bottom of her breasts “Is this supposed to help me?”
June was occupied with angling and tilting Jill's upper torso even as it continued to freeze. The girl could only focus on the odd sensation of being solid stone below the bust.
She could feel the warmth of her upper body, her heartbeat and her startled breath. But already she was becoming acutely aware of the sheer....stillness that had pervaded her frozen form. It felt absolutely alien. There were no tremors along her muscles, no sensation of rushing blood. Her legs were just THERE. All they could DO was just be there.
She tried to take a deep breath to steady herself, but found that she could not. The process had overtaken her chest and too much of her respiratory system was solid rock. Jill floundered like an airborne fish, panic curling around her brain like a snare as her chest refused her urging to expand and inhale.
It's too late. She thought helplessly I made a stupid mistake and now I'm gonna be a lifeless hunk of rock, forever.
Any second now, she would suffocate. Her vision started to swim. Then, something inside of her just stopped.
Jill paused. Everything had gotten quieter, and a sudden wave of calm had hit her like being slid into a hot tub.
She wasn't dead. At least, she didn't think so. She was still in the room, still being appraised and adjusted by the looming June. But all of a sudden, something had just dropped out of the range of her hearing and the pulse-pounding dread that had overtaken her mind had just evaporated.
“Ah” June remarked, placing a hand on her subject's jaw “Your heart has stopped beating”
That final spark of information drove the situation home, and Jill could recognize the absence of the once ever-present sound of her own pulse.
It was the strangest thing. Not having a heartbeat meant that blood wasn't pumping through her veins. She was effectively just a severed head and a set of arms balancing on a statue. That should terrify her but...it didn't really even bug her that much. She could finally think clearly since spilling that stuff on her. In a way, it actually made perfect sense. Without a heartbeat, there was no force to send blood to her brain, or flood her with adrenaline. She wasn't drowning in flight or flight instincts because her body no longer recognized either as valid options. Jill could almost laugh at that. All she really could do was stand there.
June tilted Jill's head ever so slightly. “Hold that” she requested and the stone girl complied, still wearing that look of recognition and contentment as the wave of stone washed over her face, freezing her lips with a slight, open grin, solidifying her eyes as half-lidded spheres and rendering the tresses of her hair as a single, flowing extension of her marbled body.
Jill's shoulders were beyond her own control, but her arms were still mobile. She couldn't turn her head, or even blink, but she could still see everything. She brought a hand up, rubbing the impossibly smooth surface of her abdomen, cupping at the frozen, hard orb of her breast. Her fingers danced at the slight rise of her clavicle, but she could reach no further upwards. She'd giggle at the sensation, but of course, was incapable of moving the stone mask that her face had become. The delight of her own touch could not express itself, and Jill felt the impulse to laugh rebound back into her core, radiating as a sensation of purest enjoyment.

June guided Jill's arms back downwards as the petrifying wave approached her elbows. She turned the girls hands out, spreading them outwards near her waist. A look of brief consideration crossed the taller woman's face.
“I'm going to need....” June mused as she marched over to Doyle, trailing off when she was within arm's reach of him. To his credit, the wolf flinched for only a second before the statuesque woman grabbed his shirt and belt and gave them both a sharp, hard tug, in a motion usually reserved for removing a tablecloth out from underneath a full dinner display. All at once, every stitch of clothing he was wearing came away from his body in her hands, even his shoes. Somewhere in the blur of movement, the black t-shirt and pants had faded to a dazzling white and seemingly merged into a single bolt of slightly shimmering fabric. Even from her frozen position, Jillian had to admit that it was a very impressive magic trick.
Doyle sighed and leaned back against the curtained wall, seemingly unconcerned with his sudden nudity. His thick, grey furred arms crossed themselves again.
“Why do you people hate clothes so much?”
“One of those silly human things that do nothing but get in the way” June remarked, winding the fabric in her hands. “It's a relic of a quickly retreating age. Give it 10 years, maybe 20, and clothing will have gone completely out of fashion, if I have anything to say about it”

“Then why that little blue number you're wearing?” Doyle inquired, patting down some of the ruffled fur on his broad chest. “Forgive me, but currently you're the only garbed person in the room”

“Because I look absolutely magnificent in it sweetie” June afforded a grin “And if I were wearing my ACTUAL skin, this room wouldn't be able to hold me.”

June returned to Jill, passing the cloth behind her and placing two areas near the end into her hands.
“Hold this” She instructed “Delicately”
Jill wasn't entirely sure what this was supposed to do in her quest to restore herself to animacy, but complied. June hadn't steered her wrong so far. The long cloth fell from between her fingers, the end of either side tickling her thighs ever so slightly, and the middle length of the fabric retained enough slack between her arms to droop low and brush the back of her calves. She felt the material between her fingers even as movement was robbed from them. The last vestiges of her flesh were finally consumed by the marble stone that she had been completely transmuted into.
The unwitting girl had been rendered little more than a statue of herself, posed to perfection by Jh'un Kroll Da'vhor.
Jill tried to move.
Nothing.
She attempted to twitch, to blink. To move her eyes at all.
Still nothing.
It was becoming difficult to even give herself a simple command like “Move your arm” as she didn't really even HAVE an arm anymore. She had a piece of herself that LOOKED like an arm, but the resemblance was simply an aesthetic one. It was actually a solid chunk of stone, like the rest of her. Her awareness of individual limbs was becoming hazier, as though she could no longer differentiate between her separate components. It was all just becoming...her. One single piece. One uniform work.

“Thoughts?” June inquired.
Doyle looked Jill up and down appreciatively. It was the strangest thing, but the statue could actually feel his eyes like the heat of a spotlight, tracing her body, lingering on the smooth expanse of her thighs, her sex, the slopes of her chest and finally her face. She would have writhed under the pleasurable sensation and possibly even called the wolf out for being a bad boy to take such a long look at her exposed breasts, but of course, could do none of these things. She could only helplessly experience all of this and let her mind fold in on itself in excitement, embarrassment and the subtle ecstasy that pervaded her entire body.
“Very nice” Doyle remarked “And the cloth is a nice touch....she kind of looks like she's getting out of the bath”
“Like a nymph from a spring” June nodded, smiling. As her face split into a grin of accomplishment, a thin wisp of smoke curled out from between her lips.
Odd, Jill thought. She hadn't seen a cigarette in the woman's hand.
“Let's get her ready then” June directed to Doyle, who disappeared from sight behind the statue's line of sight. Jill instinctively tried to turn her head and follow his direction, but of course could not. It briefly frustrated her that she her vision had been narrowed down to only what was immediately in front of her, but that feeling subsided after realizing that he'd probably be back in a moment or two.
After all, she mused, I'm not going anywhere.
The slight snicker she would have given off at that thought once again bubbled up inside of her without an outlet, leaving the minor notion to build into an all consuming giddiness as Doyle approached her from behind with a dolly.
Jill felt large, powerful arms wrap around her middle from behind and would have yelped in delight at the sensation of the fur tickling her surface and the hard flesh behind it. Her perspective shifted as she felt herself leaning backwards as behind her, the wolf grunted at the effort. There was something that Jillian found vindicating about being so heavy, like it enhanced her presence.
“Oh here” June responded to Doyle's ministrations, reaching down and grabbing the statue's feet, lifting her clear of the floor entirely with one hand. Doyle sounded close to passing out from handling Jill's stony body for the better part of a minute but June, whoever or whatever she was, simply looked bored.
Another minute of grunting and manoeuvring left Jill firmly strapped to a dolly that was promptly wheeled out of the darkened room, through a short corridor and towards a large set of double doors.
“You're definitely one of my favourites today” Doyle said quietly to the statue he was pushing along. “And while I'm not sure when you'll be able to look into a mirror, rest assured that you look fantastic. I wouldn't expect much else from the company's resident Archmage”

Jill was pushed through the double doors and briefly dazzled by the glare of stage lights as she was escorted into a sizable showroom. Figures were occupying the space already, though none of them seemed to be responding to her sudden arrival.
It took Jill a second, but she swiftly realized that these new people were all statues too.
The long line of pieces was populated by male and female figures, in poses that ranged from heroic to erotic. Jill was carefully deposited at the very end of the line, facing out to a massive crowd. Doyle edged the dolly out from underneath her and withdrew from her earshot.
The idea of standing naked and helpless in front of all of these people should have sent chills up her spine. But she didn't have a spine. And the sensation of all those eyes left her dizzy with the tickling sensation that each one generated. She might have turned away, or nervously laughed. But she couldn't. She could only let the feelings wash over her. There was something crystalline and beautiful, warm and pleasurable about being watched like this. Something utterly fulfilling that robbed her of even the desire to move from her position.
“Ah, thank you Doyle” a magnified male voice called out from somewhere to Jill's right. “And might I add, we're all appreciating the wardrobe change. What's this one's name?” There was a brief, inaudible conversation. “Okay then, please give a hand to Renewal!”
The crowd erupted in applause and the freshly dubbed statue could only glow internally under the appraisal. It was almost overwhelming to be watched like this. To be appreciated.

“Now then” The unseen announcer continued “As we were discussing, what is the POINT of becoming statuary? What makes it such an appealing pursuit?”

Jill would respond if she could, but again, realized that she could simply wait for the speaker to continue.
“We can answer that question with another question” The announcer stated “What is the point of living beings like you and me? To propagate? To reproduce? To continue our lineage? Maybe that's why we think about sex so much, and why the act of it is so much fun”
There was a ripple of laughter from the audience.
“But an object like a chair, or a statue or even a slice of cake, they have completely different purposes. They exist to be sat on, or observed, or eaten. They have been GIVEN purpose, that can only be fulfilled by being acted ON.”
The statue called Renewal was starting to get it.
“And so fulfillment of that basic role that they exist for would be as rewarding and pleasurable for them as a night of hot and heavy romance would be for us!”
Of course, she thought, that explains the eyes, the sensation of being watched and why it teased her to the point of ecstasy. She was a work of art now, and to be analyzed, scrutinized and observed was what she existed for in it's entirety. Jillian had been robbed of movement, but had been gifted with the knowledge and comfort of exactly what her purpose was in the world.
“So, shall we start the bidding?” The voice announced. “Maybe if we raise enough funds, we can afford to buy Doyle a pair of pants!”
So that was it. She was going to be auctioned off.
The thought of being bought and sold like a product didn't seem to bother her as much as it should. It did after all, make sense. She certainly couldn't walk out of her on her own. Jill allowed herself another silent laugh that built within her. Whoever bought her would never know her real name. She would only be known as “Renewal”....
Somewhere at the back of her mind, Jill pondered when or even if that mysterious June woman would ever change her back. It wasn't as though there was any real rush though. She could wait for a while, and just experience this.
After all, the statue mused, she could safely say that she had quickly developed the patience of a stone...