The Auction (Part III)
By Ordos Tsceri

"Our next lot is Valerie Lestatt!" Lynette gestured to a woman dressed in a black tank-top and tight shorts that had seen better days.  She wore her dark hair in long waving strands, highlighted by streaks of bright blue.  Her eyes were surrounded by black shadow and mascara, and her lips were bright scarlet red.  Her toned midriff was adorned with a spiraling black tattoo, with waving arms moving in circles, unwinding and winding across her sides and midriff.  Her ears were studded with a half-dozen or so small silver studs and loops, with a silver ring planted in her right nostril.

She strutted up to the podium at Lynette's request, full of confidence.  

"Would you care to tell your bidders a bit about yourself?" Lynette asked, handing Valerie the mike.  

"My name is Val.  For the last three years I've been in a rock band with some old-time friends.  The music is my life, or was at any rate." She sighed before continuing, "bit by bit the band fell apart.  Friends moved away, started different careers, lost interest… last year we finally split up.

"The band was new, but we'd been playing together for ages.  Without them, well, it just hasn't been the same.  I've tried playing with other bands, experimenting with different sounds, but nothing has matched the basic chemistry I had with my old mates.

"Well, I became kind of listless.  I've been moping around university for almost a year now.  I've tried playing in a half dozen bands, each with their own sound, but nothing's really been able to get to me like the experience I used to have.  I miss the music, more than anything, and I began to doubt that I'd ever be able to get it back.

"Then I heard about this auction.  I'm actually a late arrival to the volunteers, I signed up just three days ago.  I'm more than willing, eager really, to be transformed if I can be at one with music again.  All I ask is that I become something musical, and that I get used.  The more frequently, the better.  Rock is my soul, but for music I'll tolerate almost anything.  Just… please, I draw the line at polka.  I couldn't exist with that."

Most of the audience laughed, somewhat nervously.  

Val smiled.  "Those are my requests, so let's see who's willing to own the most bitchin, unique instrument in the Empire."  

"Thank you Valerie," Lynette said as the parts of the crowd applauded.  "Now let's start the bidding at two-thousand lorins.  Remember, Valerie has stipulated a musical theme and all bidders must honor her request."  Valerie Lestatt was a late-comer in the planning of the auction.  At the time, they were rather uncertain just how much money their unique fundraiser would end up with, and reasoned that they'd need all the lots they could get.  No one involved in the auction's planning expected Valerie to go for much, and some were worried that she'd put off other potential bidders.  

Lynette was rather surprised when a woman in a formal black dress rose her hand and called out, "thirty thousand lorins."

The ball room fell silent.

"Going once, going twice… and we have a potential winter with this good young lady.  Please come up to the stage."

She hurried up to the stage, an eager smile on her lips.  Valerie watched her with interest, and slowly a smile spread onto her scarlet lips as well.

"Susan Stohelit, I remember you.  Still with Nightcharm?"

Susan climbed up the stairs to the podium, shaking her head.  She had to brush her raven hair out of her eyes as she responded, "Nah.  Nightcharm didn't last long after you left.  We never did find a guitarist as good as you.  Alice and I got together with an old drummer friend to try a new one.  We don't have a name yet, but the sound is good.  And I think we could do even better if we played with you."

Grinning, Valerie looked her potential buyer up and down.  "Still metal?"

"You know it."

"Intriguing… and what, pray tell, would I be in this little band?"

Susan put a white-lace gloved finger on Valerie's chest, drawing a line down her chest and cleavage.  "I… see you as a guitar."

Valerie raised an eyebrow, "weren't you a vocalist?"

"I've been practicing, and if I can't cut Alice can do some mean riffs.  We'll find a use for you, one way or another.  What do you say?  Accept the bid?"

Valerie was quiet for only a moment before she answered, "sound's perfect."

With that she began to disrobe, unbuttoning her tight pants and pulling off her tank-top.  Her breasts, though somewhat small, were proud and perky, continuing the spiraling black tattoo that crawled up her side and encircled her navel.  She hadn't worn underwear in anticipation of this event.  She pulled off her black boots while Susan watched approvingly.  

"So, what type of guitar do you want to make her?" Lynette asked Susan, tearing her attention away from her new acquisition.  

"We play metal, so we'll need her to be hooked up to a mana-amplifier… actually, can you arrange for her to be a self-sufficient unit?"  

After a thoughtful pause, the lead magi responded, "I… believe so.  I actually have some theories that may be of use here.  Handling the vibrations would be impossible for normal wood, but since we're already taking some liberties with redistribution of mass…"

Ignoring the conversation, the nude Val stepped to the circle where her fellow volunteers had been transformed.  She half-listened to the discussion the mage was having with Susan, but much of the magic-talk just blew over Valerie's head.  

She stood there naked, thinking about what she'd volunteered for.  She'd be giving up her humanity, her ability to talk, to move, to choose anything.  Just a week ago she'd plan on living out her life, in one way or another, but now… she was going to be spending decades, maybe even centuries if she was well maintained.  

She was terrified.  Of course she wouldn't allow herself to show any of it, but she knew she was taking a terribly gamble.  This was insane.  This was so far beyond anything rational, but it felt right.  Somehow, becoming just an object, an instrument, held some strange appeal she couldn't shake.  Even now, as she stood naked in her own doubts, she couldn't shake her aching curiosity, her unreal desire.  She just prayed it would be worth it.

The elder-mage had some peculiar ideas he enthusiastically shared with his colleagues and Susan, but Susan couldn't really keep up with the high-magical terminology they were using.  She mentioned something about music theory and entanglement.  Susan made sure to convey the basics, but could only nod her head some of the ideas.  She wasn't precisely certain what she would be getting with Val, but she knew it would be amazing

Val's attention snapped back to her buyer and the mages when she heard the head one announce, "we're ready to begin."

Valerie steeled herself and awaited her fate. The three mages took their positions around her and began the spell weaving.

The wave of magic swept over her.  The first thing that struck her was a sensation of lightness, like she'd lost of a lot of weight.  The sensation was strongest in her stomach, moving and growing in a bizarre but not unpleasant way.  It soon spread across her chest, filling her with a strange weightlessness.  

Suddenly she stopped moving.  She had been trying to stay still, but now she found even that effort was beyond her, as no muscle in her body would respond.   A spike of fear shot through her, but she pushed it out of her mind.  Far too late for second thoughts now, she thought.

The emptiness grew inside her as she suddenly saw the ball room get bigger.  A strange, almost ticklish sensation washed through her, focusing along her neck and skin.  She felt her neck grow, stretching far as her body seemed to compress itself and shrink.  The tingling, ticklish sensation intensified along her through, in what she realized where her vocal cords.  They felt alive, strange but powerful.  She wanted to sing, to cry out, to make some sort of noise as they grew and contracted, until she realized they had merged and stretched into seven lines, each one feeling so distinct, so amazing and yet bizarre.  

At this point she realized her arms and legs were almost gone.  They had been melting into her torso as she shrunk, until only her hands and feet remained unabsorbed.  In an instant they were gone too, absorbed into the light hour-glass of her torso.  

The emptiness inside her body finished expanding, opening at her naval and expanding into a cavity across her chest.  Her small breasts had compressed, but remained perceptible mounds, slightly removed along her sides so as not to interfere with her acoustic chamber.  

Then her chords erupted, stretching from her elongated throat and darting down across her diminished torso, anchoring along the raised mound of her womanhood.  She felt her clitoris merge and flow across the seven chords of her voice, racing along her entire length.

Her torso shifted a little more, becoming a thinner yet still rounded hourglass, reminiscent of her former form.  With that, her transformation ended, and the magic gently lowered her on her back.  It was over, with permanent magic she had become an instrument for an old acquaintance.  She felt profoundly odd, and rather worried now that it was all over.

"Wow, she's amazing!" Susan cried as she hurried over and picked up her new guitar.  Valerie had become a thing of beauty.  She was still pale, and the tattoos that had so lovingly caressed her human form remained as an elegant black designed that spiraled around her, around her body, base, and neck.

Atop the neck, Valerie's head had become the guitar's head, her dark hair curved around her face as a hard ornament, blue streaks and all.  Val's face looked out with a removed, amused expression, the piercings along her ears having grown into her tuning heads.  Across her neck and body silver frets and pickups had grown from her various piercings.  

Susan picked her up lovingly, "she's perfect."

"She is a thing of beauty," Lynettte commented.  Valerie certainly appreciated the literalness of her remark, even if Susan didn't notice.  "Care to give us a demonstration?"

"Certainly!  We must see how she sounds, after all.  I've been practicing a new riff for a while now, let's see how she handles it."

Susan held Valerie with a practiced grip, fingering her strings just below her neck.  The sensation for Valerie was strange but delightful.  It played at what she oddly recognized as both her delicate neck and her pussy, even though she didn't exactly have either anymore.  As much as it seemed to play at her familiar feelings, she realized that it was something completely new.  Perhaps being a guitar won't be so bad, she thought hopefully.

The sound came from everywhere around Susan.  Normally, she'd need to plug her guitar into an amplifier or some magical relay device that'd pick up and magnify the sounds.  With Val, on the other hand, the sound just came.  From the air around her, from the guitar the woman had become, it just existed.  She could feel the vibration in her arms and skin.  

After picking a few strings and tweaking her turners (which felt incredibly ticklish to Valerie) she began playing her riff.

It was glorious.  She picked up the implied rhythm and ran with it, almost guiding Susan's fingers with her.  Susan withdrew her hand in surprise and marveled at her new guitar, as Val played on.  The song wasn't one she'd ever known, heavy in tremolo and artificial harmonics.  Each note filled her with an awesome new sensation, no two were the same, and they merged into strange and powerful ways.  She played on, knowing the alien song like she'd been born playing it.

The song went on, flowing through her.  She could feel it building up, sliding low, the thrum of her strings rippling through her, anchored around what had once been her sex.  The vibrations were pleasurable, she was vaguely aware, but were dwarfed by the sheer feeling of the sound.  She rode the song as it crested its high notes, as it plunged the deep ones, as it progressed and grew and spiraled.

Then came the power chord.  She'd never known a sensation so intense.  It filled her with energy, reverberated throughout her being.  She couldn't imagine words to describe what she'd felt, greater than sex, greater than any high. It seemed most like the pure sensation she'd known in the depths of her music, an inner fire that burned when she could live her music.  It made sense, after a fashion.  She didn't need an instrument now, she was the music, closer to it than she ever could have been as a woman, and the sensation was purer, greater, more magnificent than she'd ever imagined.  

The riff finished, leaving Susan surprised and Valerie exhilarated.  Val knew she'd made the right decision now.  All she wanted, all she could think of, was playing more.  More riffs, more songs, practice sessions, honest to the gods concerts!  More music!  

The audience applauded, and Susan took a bow.  

"This, this will be amazing," she said.  

"Glad to hear it!  If you would come with our accountant here, he'll work out your payment plan.  In a few minutes we'll begin our final auction."  Lynette said.  Like the other buyers before her, Susan exited the stage to the waiting accountants, but unlike the other times a well dressed woman walked out from the side stage to urgently whisper to Lynette.  

The hostess looked surprised, "I'll be back in a minute.  The auction will continue, but… well, I'll explain in a bit."  With that she rushed off stage with the woman to the general murmuring of the audience.  


&&&


"Wow, she sounded great," Julie said from her table.  She was sitting with her lover, Emily at a private table for two.  The two University alumni had been enjoying the ball amazingly.  They hadn't bit on any of the lots, but it had made for entertainment the likes of which was well worth the cover charge.  

"I can't believe they got clearance for it," Emily said.

"Shouldn't be all that much difficulty.  If you can find someone willing to undergo to a permanent transformation, have them sign in front of witnesses, and have a reliable record to refute any further claims, and it's as solid as you can get," Julie replied, making good use of her law degree.  "The only hard part would be finding people willing to be transformed and mages good enough to do the job."

"I suppose, it's just so… fascinating.  I mean, just going from a living woman into an object…"

"You sound rather interested in this whole affair," Julie said, smirking at her blushing lover.  True, Emily had always been rather submissive, and that sub/dom play was a big part of their relation, but Julie had never imagined her lover would have a thing for this.

"I… don't know."

"Aww, come on.  You'd make a great dildo," Julie joked.

Emily looked thoughtful for a moment, "you really think so?"

"Heh, of course.  With your bedroom skills, you'd be a blast.  I'd use you every night."

"Hmm…" Emily replied.  She noticed a friend of hers, Aurelia, chatting excitedly with a man wearing the conservative but rich robes of a university.  She knew the petite woman from some bondage parties she'd attended, both in University and out.  Aurelia was an incurable submissive, even by Emily's standards, and after a few quick, seemingly happy words she followed the robed official back, towards the stage and rooms where Lynette was otherwise engaged.

"Maybe…" Emily mused.