Encounter 5 - Dining
I’ll sure as hell have a minute soon, I thought, moving into the kitchen with excitement rife in my brain. Taking a peek over at Rebecca, she retracted her wooden face back into her surface. After seeing this I refocused on cooking a simple meal for my girlfriend and I: waffles n’ jam. I’ve always enjoyed cooking waffles with the waffle iron so it was always out on the counter. I grabbed myself some batter, heated the iron, and proceeded to drizzle the gooey, grain-rich liquid all over the two bumpy plates.
Closing the iron and heading back over to Rebecca, I tapped the corner where her face was. This time, I detected no visual changes, but I heard her say in her own voice, “Ok, watch carefully. I’ve been practicing this trick for a while.” With that I took a step back but she had already begun to modify herself. The midsection of her table top flexed and brightened as a ruby red table runner laid itself out, proceeding to embroider itself with a subtle pattern of roses. Then at one of the ends of the table, a large but even circular indentation was created. Its inside polished itself into what looked like white ceramic before forcing itself upward, revealing a plate. A large black square that camouflaged with the dark wood composing the table emerged beside this plate, and on that square formed two sliver metallic rods. They flattened and reshaped into what I guessed was a fork and knife, but I couldn’t watch it all because as the rods morphed Rebecca folded the square into an elegant roll of cloth with the metal inside.
My jaw fell to the ground, slowly and gradually, as if its hinges were warm taffy.
===
I once again summoned my mouth on my top’s underside. “Mark?” I called out. “How’s this look so far?”
He must have been entranced by my self-furnishing, in a very literal sense, as I had to speak his name an extra time to catch his attention.
“O-oh, yeah Rebecca? This looks beautiful! You’ve dressed yourself all fancy. How’s it feel?”
“It feels wonderful Mark, I’ve been practicing this for a while. Oh, can you check if there are roses on my table runner?” I asked.
“Already saw ‘em. They’re very pretty, my cutie. Just like you.”
“Nooo you’re pretty.”
“Where’s your face this time?”
“I didn’t spawn one. It’s just my mouth underneath.”
“Ah.”
“Okay I need you to watch one more thing. The hardest part. I’ll be attempting to form a glass vase of roses in the center of the runner.”
“Got it!” The iron then beeped as if on cue. Mark let out his adorable, trademark chuckle and proceeded to retrieve our freshly cooked meals.
===
She must have known I wouldn’t be in the room until I had dished our food. Though, seeing the waffles, and then Rebecca, gave me an idea of sorts. Splitting the two of them apart with a spatula I grabbed a plate from the cabinet for Rebecca, though seeing as she arranged such a lovely spot for me to dine, I retrieved the plate she created with the intention of using it for my own breakfast.
“GAH!” she yelled out of nowhere. “A little warning next time?”
“Jeez you scared me!”
“YOU scared ME!”
“Did you not want me to take the plate?”
“You can have the plate, Mark, just... sheesh, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t the one pulling pieces of myself off my body.”
“Uhhh...”
“I’ll explain when I’m not a table.”
“Ohhh-kayyy... I’m assuming you want me to have my breakfast on you?”
“If you want. Seriously like if that’s weird to you you don’t have to.”
“Heh, alright. We’ll see.”
I was certainly about to have breakfast on her. I held my questions for later.
===
I had a hunch Mark would want to enjoy a morning meal on my surface. Which was why when he put the plate back down in its spot, adjacent to the set of utensils I had so meticulously created, I called his name.
“What is it?”
“Let me know when you’re sitting.”
“I’m actually getting a chair right now, honey.”
“Kay,” I finished, diffusing all aspects of my face except for the ear holes I had concealed. He’d have my attention again when he’s ready. In the meantime, down to only two senses instead of four, I began to scheme out how I’d sculpt that vase. It needed elegance, and I wanted the flowers to be living. Both were tasks I could accomplish, though the feats seemed daunting in tandem. After gathering my thoughts however, I had hatched a plan.
I felt a clink of ceramic against my top, but I barely even considered it existed as another five-or-so minutes passed.
Mark tapped me repeatedly. It took me about ten seconds for me to actually acknowledge the feeling, and another three to form ear-holes and a mouth to respond to it. “Sorry. Was kinda deep in thought.”
“Well I was so hungry I forgot to tell you I’d sat down.”
I sighed. “Ready?”
“Always.”
===
It started with a bulge in the center of Rebecca’s rosy table runner. A liquid, in the same color and even pattern as the decorative cloth, extended upward until this newly formed pillar was about a foot high. From here it lost its amorphousness, sharpening its edges to become more of a rectangular prism. Rippling, the surface of this prism hardened and faded into translucency, then transparency once the red tint had cleared. From the bottom of this ‘sculpture,’ water rose to a halfway point before the top face of the prism retracted into the four adjacent vertices.
“That was the easy part,” Rebecca finally sputtered.
“That was easy?!”
“Well, yeah, I-I mean easy in a comparative sense... forming the roses will be much more difficult.”
“How long do you think it’ll take you?”
“I... don’t really know... maybe like five minutes? Ten tops.”
“Here, I can time you if you want sweetie.”
“Oh, good thought. Get your phone; when I say ‘go,’ I’ll melt my face away. Don’t start the stopwatch until five seconds after my go, kay?”
“Youuu got it.” I patted one of her corners.
“Thank you Mark. Alright, just tap me when you have the stopwatch ready.”
===
Being touched as a table wasn’t much different than being touched as a human; the only real difference was that the feeling of such an interaction resonated more, like there was a delay between having the touch removed and having the sense of being touched actually dissipating. Mark reminded me of this once again when he announced he had prepared a stopwatch.
“Go.”
My lips disintegrated into my underside. Then three green dots appeared on the inner foundation of my vase, which elongated through the water, slowly but surely. Within a crude guess of fifteen seconds these newly formed but incomplete stems penetrated the surface of the water, then over the vase’s lip, finally capping with darker green buds that would soon bloom.
I moved my focus to refine the detail of these stems. A small number of thorns extended from the upper half of each stem, and throughout the stems I drew in some lighter streaks as well as bumps to make them appear natural. From here came the hard part.
My buds went red. A very deep red. Amidst the drastic color change they started to increase in size and so I had to slide the bases of the stems apart from one another in order to provide space for my flowers to bloom. Focusing on the most intricate picture possible within my head, the caps zipped open and exploded into abnormally large but still beautiful rose petals. This opening brought about a slight feeling of satisfaction for me... after all the mental strain, things were calm again.
===
“That is truly amazing... they’re so big! A lot like some other features of yours, you sexy little shapeshifter,” I chortled, stopping the stopwatch, but at this corny line I ended up glad she hadn’t replenished her non-touch senses... at least I had hoped. A mental toast to hope!
“Wow Mark, what is this like the third time you’ve used that line?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m not the one here who’s terrible at compliments.”
“That’s right, you’re the one who’s terrible at choosing a meal. Looks like we’ve both got our roles now.”
“Mark.”
“Mmhmm?”
“I want you to know that I can, and have, eaten myself.”
“Well isn’t that some food for thought.”
Suddenly another bulge in the table appeared opposite where I had my breakfast. It rose up and took the shape of a Rebecca made of liquid wood from head to waist, and while its face was lacking detail and its arms were really just smooth tentacles I could tell it was her. She morphed the end of her left arm into an old handset and placed it to the side of her head. “Hello?” she said. “Yes, I’m here to file a report with the Pun Police.”
Wooden Rebecca then melted into a thin puddle on her table’s surface, flattening out into the second dimension and lightening up to take the form of a sheet of copy paper... that inked itself with the necessary format of a police report directed to the Pun Division of our local police department.
I laughed a good amount at this, allowing my girlfriend to lie there. Though I was startled a bit by a sudden request from yet another mouthless voice: “Can you take the plate and utensils off me? And the napkin too? I’ll handle the rest.”
“Yeah I got ya. Anywhere you want me to put them?” I asked.
“The kitchen counter will do for now.”
“You got it. Oh and just to brighten your morning, you completed the roses in only four minutes thirteen.”
===
I was actually really impressed with myself at this even though they weren’t alive, at least I didn’t think. Shapeshifting my entire figure into a plant form is a walk in the park compared to actually creating inhuman living things from... whatever my body is.
So amidst my satisfaction I internally hummed to myself as I relaxed, the extra features and props I’d summoned to my surface slipping back down into the wood of the table top while my facial features dispersed. I shrank as I became fleshy once again with my head slowly emerging from my thickening, yet compressing, edge. Table legs morphed into human legs (and arms) while my chest defined itself with c-cups. My hair extending as I stepped to my feet, I created a new set of underwear, this time in white.
Mark returned from the now-clean kitchen to find me on that couch we shared last night. “Gee, I take it you, uhhh... prefer to be at least semi-natural around the home?” He inquired with a grin.
“Well, sure, if that’s how you wanna put it. But I don’t think we should be home all day... sit down cutie, let’s talk weekend.”