Encounter 14 - Low Fuel
I woke up only an hour or so past dawn. I rustled about in my sleeping bag as my eyes fluttered open, rays of sunlight piercing through my eyelids like needles. Looking around the tent I saw Rebecca zonked out beside me in her previous day’s clothing, just like how I’d slept in my outdoor wear.
Something about her body or pose at that moment though was just... inviting, as if she wanted to cuddle someone. As always my girlfriend was cute but this was a different kind of cute; it was a cuteness that expressed something. Something good.
I couldn’t resist. Worming myself over to her and still in my sleeping bag, I tilted and shifted along the ground until my hips were next to Rebecca’s. My body now at the correct angle I lowered my head onto her chest. I grinned wide at this, loving this intimacy. She’ll have a pleasant surprise when she wakes up, I thought to myself, closing my eyes and beginning to drift back into sleep.
===
The brightness of day knocked on the doors to my eyes as I roused from slumber. I yawned as I came to my senses, inwardly startled to find Mark’s head resting on my bosom. I touched my skin and my left breast; I was certainly soft in the area... not that that’s a bad thing. I chuckled a little at Mark. He probably felt so happy to be here, or even in this tent at all. He loved me and I loved him right back.
At this point I was confident I wouldn’t be falling back to sleep as much as Mark’s body was implicitly encouraging me to, so I began to relax and do with my legs what I did with my cups last night; toying around with their forms absentmindedly. I started by reducing my feet into points and eliminating the human joints in my legs so that from the waist down I’d have two tentacles.
Next I began to twist the tentacles together, their innate pliability allowing them to easily merge. I swelled them up as they fused, the single appendage becoming dull and rough while on the bottom where the tips were I made stringy roots grow out. Solidifying the inner part into wood I’d successfully turned my lower half into a tree trunk.
I was in the process of morphing the trunk into a body pillow when I noticed Mark starting to awaken.
===
“Hi honey...” I groaned, rolling over onto Rebecca’s stomach. I reached my hand up toward her face like a cat.
“Hey boo.” My palm got tickled, then guided back down to the outer side of my sleeping bag.
“Boo? Ooh I like that. That’s cute.”
“Okay boo.”
“What have you been up to?”
“Well, I shifted my legs. Now I’m like a tree below the waist.”
“That’s kinda cool. What led you to doing that?”
She sighed. “Tiredness. I fell asleep last night by squeezing my tits around...” Rolling onto her side, my head fell to the ground and rested on her back.
“So you’re kinda just... squeezing your legs around?”
“Mhm. Can I sleep a little longer...?”
“One more thing...”
“Yeah?”
“If you can do it, turn into a boob sometime... I wanna see that...”
“Okay fine Mark...” She yawned. “I’m dozing off now.”
“Good night... I guess...?”
The conversation ended with another sigh from Rebecca.
===
I didn’t want to think about boobs, god damnit... My tree trunk deflating and unzippering into my legs I attempted again to get some rest. Alas, I couldn’t. Nor could Mark. I heard the whooshes and whiffs of his body against his sleeping bag as he shuffled about. “Mind if I leave the tent real quick?” I finally asked after five minutes of being awake.
“Sure, go ahead...” replied a drowsy, exhausted-sounding Mark. With that I melted down into skin-colored goo, sliding out of my comfy sleeping bag and through the mosquito net, reverting near the picnic table.
My body began to sag as I fell onto my palms in a crab-walk position. With less than a thought I proceeded to slim myself down into the form of a simple lawn chair, embroidering my name on my pink canvas backrest. It was only then I could start getting to sleep.
Setting aside the heat of dawn and my anticipation of my boyfriend’s waking, I began to nod off. I daydreamed about Mark sitting on me and folding me up when he was done. Maybe that’d happen, I thought. Maybe not.
===
I yawned, then stretched in irritation some moments after Rebecca left the tent. I’m not getting back to sleep, I inwardly concluded. May as well accept it.
Pulling my phone from my pocket I began to check my social media... Reddit, Twitter, Discord etcetera. I gave my email a swipe of refresh, in a very literal sense, then I groaned and slipped out of my sleeping bag.
It had only been a few minutes since that and finding a transformed Rebecca to my left. Knowing how she gets when she’s an object, she likely wanted to be used. I figured I may as well, for I had to call the park police about the dead coyote. Jogging to the nearby info board I made note of the number before jogging back and plopping right down on my girlfriend’s non-ergonomic cushion.
Talks over the phone with the rangers were, surprisingly and thankfully, quick. Beginning to pack out, I ate a handful of tortilla chips from the car, then I started getting things organized for the road trip home.
===
When Mark sat himself down on me I was both infuriated and comforted, but mostly infuriated. He was only there for like ten or so minutes and then he just picked himself right back up n’ off me!
I internally groaned as my form drooped, moving from the body of a chair to that of a black Labrador in the span of a few seconds. Feeling some new energy in this shape, I padded around on my paws to get Mark’s attention, and once he saw me I acted all happy and playful like a big dog would at seeing their ‘owner’. Checking my collar he easily spotted the name Rebecca on it, with a little heart at the bottom of the tag with an M in it. For this I was awarded some ear scritches, acting even more joyous now despite the fact I felt like a car running with the needle on E. That canine fuel musta burned pretty quick.
Mark resumed packing up, so I shifted back to provide some assistance. Using stretchy arms we loaded up the car rather quickly, the last item needing to fit being the tent. Unlike setting it up, it was a breeze to deconstruct. We folded up our shelter as we did our sleeping bags, following that with a final sweep of our site. I hobbled into the passenger seat once Mark started the Explorer, hoping for the third time that I can get some rest.
===
As soon as we hit the road my girlfriend pulled the plastic lever at the side of her seat to recline it all the way back. “Sorry you can’t get much rest,” I said to her, taking my right hand off the wheel and resting it on her thigh, knowing she liked it when I did that. She only sighed in response.
“Hey, when we get home, if you need to just be inanimate and grab a nap I’d understand. I’ll even ‘tuck you in’ to wherever you want to be placed.”
“Aw, thank you...”
“No biggie.”
“I think I could really use that, actually. Um, what should I be?”
“I hadn’t really thought about that... maybe a cake or a pie if you want to be in the refrigerator, or a bar of soap on a soap dish. If you can mimic wine maybe turn into some of that. Coffee? A blanket? A box? An alarm clock? I don’t know how you determine which forms are more or less relaxing.”
“It’s the simplicity of the object, Mark, so a bar of soap will be more calming to me than an alarm clock. But now that you’ve jogged my mind, I think I’ve got it.”
===
“I’m gonna go downstairs.”
Upon unloading the car and settling into the house, I meandered out of the kitchen and collapsed into a metal slinky. I proceeded to trudge down the stairs and over to the office, where I melted into a liquid metal puddle. Sliding up the side of the pool table and onto its surface I rounded out and let myself drift, pulling up into the form of a cue ball and setting myself on a course that ensured I never pocketed during my roll around the table. My ride came to an end as I collided with the other balls on the table though, so I again loosened up. Enveloping all 16 of them I darkened my white coloration to a periwinkle as I took the shape of a zipper pouch, closing around the heavy spheres.
Sinking and sagging I made sure my zipper would remain fastened as I assumed the texture of squishy memory foam, only to thin out and become claylike, using the pool balls as a massage against my sensitive inanimate body. This drove me right to sleep, which was all I needed.