Chapter XII

     

    Her feet partially melted, Cecelia cruised along the carpet from the hallway into a living room armchair, where her natural body solidified as she took a seat. She crossed her legs and rested her chin in her hand, silently reflecting.

    Unlike her own naturally voluptuous, curvaceous, perfectly shapely figure, Kahri’s was skinny and slight, but not by any means gaunt or bony. If anything, she looked like a professional runner or tennis player, thanks to her muscles’ gentle exhibitions beneath her milk chocolate skin. The one exception to her slimness was her cup size; proud c’s lounged on her otherwise narrow chest as if they were tanning in the sun. Depending on her outfit, they’d push their way toward Kahri’s neck, hunting for sunlight by overflowing her top...

    Cecelia spun her head full-circle, internally scolding herself for ogling over her best friend’s admittedly stellar shape. The more I shift the weirder my brain gets, she mentally murmured, performing a thorough inspection of herself to ensure she was fully reverted to physical normalcy. Bending into a crescent shape, she stretched off her seat and walked back to the breakfast table to finish her meal.

    As she ate, Cecelia couldn’t help but relax into her chair a little more than usual, her pliable anatomy bulging, compacting and contouring ever-so-slightly around the wooden surfaces she sat on. The crossed truss that made up her seat back imprinted a large X about her spine. The shape of the chair’s base became imprinted in her thighs. Her collar and shoulders spread among the head of the steadfast furniture, consequently constructing for Cecelia a supportive neck pillow. “Ahhhhhh...” she sighed in contentment, once again recalling her ability to imitate the appearances of other humans. She slowed her eating until she cleared her plate.

    Then, as the caboose of her thought train left the station, Cecelia held it up, collecting herself to her standard properties as she sprung to her feet. “Fuck! Work tomorrow!” she cursed under her breath, suddenly rushing to clean the kitchen. Dashing to the cooktop, she grabbed a sponge and a spray bottle of cleaner and wiped the area clean while a second pair of arms sprouted from her shoulders. These arms took hold of her dinner plate, first carefully grasping it from behind, raising it overhead, and finally placing it gently into the sink beside her. The supplemental appendages retracted when Cecelia finished cleaning up the cooktop.

    Into the dishwasher went her silverware, plate and wine glass. Her head swiveled and jointed, her vision panning her surroundings, hunting for any untidiness. Thankfully, there was nothing more to clean, so she swung the wok into the sink and made quick work of disinfecting it thanks to a soap-coated tentacle.

    Cecelia sighed in relief when she checked the clock. Time hadn’t been flying as fast as she thought. “Kitchen... table... tools.” Her subconscious taking control, her body proved itself a step ahead of her conscious mind when her hands softened and bloated into large black balls that rounded out into an identical pair of firm, slim tires.

    “Unh!” yapped Cecelia in a mixture of shock and pleasure, coming to grips with her conversion. Her legs went full split to form her rear axle once her rear wheels swirled into existence from her feet. After that, she relaxed a little more, allowing her torso to swell and contour, detailing itself with windows, doors, taillights and seats. Serving as her engine and hood would be her head; her neck had become her windshield and dashboard by now. Thus, her visage heaved forward, dragging the rest of her head with it and pulling it taut. It set into shape as her hair coagulated into a single engine cover, a luxury sedan’s bonnet growing apparent as her creamy complexion lightened to a pearly white. Her nose and mouth warped into grilles, the only steps left was to repurpose her eyes as headlights, a task she completed promptly. She nearly forgot the petite Mercedes-Benz hood ornament that stood between them, however, but she rectified her mistake. A downscaled E-Class took Cecelia’s place on the sienna tile.

    In metamorphosing to this automotive physique, Cecelia never had to shrink or grow as a whole body — as a car molded from a human, she remained perfectly sized for the features of her house. Her easy pass under the doorframe into the laundry room exhibited this trait, but entering the garage would take some creative thinking. But that was nothing more than a walk in the park for someone like Cecelia.

    Rising on a metal stalk from her hood, the Mercedes-Benz logo stretched to life as a three-fingered rubbery claw. Its leading tendrils wrapped around the circular doorknob with the vigor of a gorilla, allowing Cecelia the torque to twist the knob and crack the self-closing barrier just enough...

    A glistening hummingbird clad in an illustrious white and silver coat launched from the door sill and into the stale garage air. Briefly she hovered over the engine bay of the full-size Benz she was just mimicking, but she was already on her way to her next checkpoint. Cecelia had to focus intensely on controlling her flight, especially as she augmented her beak into a blunt, rigid tool.

    The extra weight necessitated her flapping her wings with ever more vigor. Faster and faster she sped forward, propelling herself into the overhead door opener, and thankfully with success. On impact, she collapsed into a doughy ball and dropped to the concrete with a slap, where she took on a lacrosse ball form and tumbled to her work truck parked on the driveway.

    When Cecelia deemed herself near enough to the GMC’s bed, she became a blob of putty-esque material to cause a widening of her footprint. Her foundation sturdy she boosted up from the ground and sculpted into her native body, this time wearing black Dickies, a white tank, and her blue work top. She took a cursory glance around, ensuring nobody would be viewing the spectacle about to take place.

    Her hand on the bed wall of the gray Sierra, Cecelia forced it to oblige to her abilities and soften beneath her fingertips. Under her hand the layers of metal blocking access to her tool chest creaked and bent, indenting further from her touches before quietly and cleanly shearing into four equal sections. These sections peeled over and away from the shapeshifter’s contact, folding apart to create a square hole leading into the bed.

    Cecelia’s hand letting down, she smirked before backing up and firing her neck outward like a harpoon, her face smashing against the small rift until her skull gave way to her body’s force and melted into a mangled goo. She conformed to the corner beside the opposite wheel well, her slimy cranium anchoring to a nearby loop protruding from the bed wall. She proceeded to reel the rest of her body through the hole which then easily sealed as if it had never been cut.

    Her features and outlines scattered along her now-blobbed state, Cecelia’s eyes whirled around her body as she hunted the Sierra's bed for a form to copy, but identified nothing interesting. Looks like I finally cleaned this place up, she inwardly mused with a grin, briefly focusing on the bed’s surface once again as she spread out overtop of it to become a rugged bedliner mat. Stiffening herself, she extended a single tentacle from one of her ridges, spawning an eye-equipped pylon near its tip before releasing the latches on her tool chest.

    She checked to ensure everything was accounted for, rummaging through with the flexible tentacle to take a thorough inventory. She even added a flashlight pylon to help her vision. When all her tools were accounted for, she shut the toolbox and carefully retracted the tentacle, letting it shrivel up as it assimilated with her rubber material.

    The ubiquitous mat decided against tinkering up an alarm clock for herself since she tended to rise early when she had work. Running a final count of her mental list, Cecelia hardened up one last time, nodding off for a restful inanimate slumber.

     
    Shhh! Cecelia’s sleeping here!