Ben had been working up his confidence for weeks. This would be the day. This would be the day he finally would talk to her.



Since moving to this town, he had not had much of a social life. He didn't know anyone, so he mostly kept to his apartment when not working. In an attempt to get out there and meet people, he began frequenting a small dive bar that was a few blocks away from the apartment. He got along well enough with the people there, but didn't really make any deep connections.



Ben began to wonder if he'd made a mistake by moving. However, there was one thing that kept him coming back to the bar. There was always this woman sitting alone at a table by the window. She was always by herself, reading from a large book with a bored expression on her face. No one else at the bar talked to her. Ben had even heard from another guy there about how another regular hadn't been seen since he approached her one night.



Ben doubted there was any connection, though. He had never seen her do anything except sit at the table and read, only occasionally going to the bar to get her drink. Ben couldn't help wondering about and being attracted to this woman. Something about the bored look on her face felt relatable to him. He wondered if she was in a similar situation to his own. Did she not have any family or friends in this town? Could she possibly be ostracized by the rumors that the other guy was telling?



He had wanted to talk to her, but found his courage faltering each time he was there. He didn't want to seem like a creep approaching a stranger. He had to get over it, though. Otherwise, he would never meet anyone.



For a little courage, he downed his drink. He then began walking toward her table. The walk seemed much longer than it should have been. Ben wondered the whole way whether this was the right way to approach. Before he knew it, he was right by her table. The woman did not look up from her book.



"Hi." Ben said quietly. "Do you need a refill on your drink? I can get that for you."



She finally looked up. Ben braced himself for rejection.



"Come with me." She said.



Ben was dumbfounded. Had he heard her right?



"O-okay." He stammered. She got up from her chair and began walking toward the door. She barely looked at Ben as she moved. Ben wondered if she was actually talking to him when she said that. However, she did not protest as he followed her out the door.



Ben wondered what she wanted from him as she led him down the sidewalk. He wasn't sure whether he should try to talk to her as they walked. She turned into an alleyway and Ben followed. Then, she stopped. She quickly turned around and looked at Ben with a sharp look in her eyes.



"What the hell are you doing?" She asked in a demanding tone.



"Wha-?" Ben was completely taken aback. Why had she led him out here if she was about to reject him?



"What makes you think you can just bother a stranger?" She continued. "I'm studying important stuff you could never understand. I'd like to be left alone."



Ben was too stunned to be angry or hurt. She could have just told him to go away at the bar. Why lead him out here?



"I'm sorry.." he said. His nervousness returned under her icy stare. No longer able to keep eye contact, he looked down.



"Hey, my eyes are up here!" She said coldly. "If you're going to bother me, you could at least not stare at my chest?"



"Wha-" Ben blurted again, stunned at how she had misinterpreted his looking down.



"Well if you're so enamored by them, you can hold them." She said with a malicious smile.



Before Ben could ask what she meant by that, she snapped her fingers. A blinding flash of light made everything disappear. When Ben could see again, he found himself staring up at buildings and the sky. Whatever had happened, it seemed to have knocked him to the ground.



He tried to get up, but found his body unresponsive to his mind's commands. No matter how much he tried to move, he remained utterly still, right where he was. His body also felt oddly shaped. It definitely didn't feel like a human body. What it felt like, he couldn't picture. His immediate thought was that the flash had done this to him. It had happened when that woman had snapped her fingers. Ben had no idea what she had done and had no way to find out. He could only lie there as she came into his line of sight. She looked absurdly tall, as if she had grown, or Ben had shrunk. She had an evil grin on her face as she towered over him.



Finally, she spoke to him.



"Well there you go. If you like my tits so much you can be wrapped around them. I'll try you on tomorrow, so you better fit me well if you don't want to end up in the trash!"



"Try me on? Fit you well? What are you talking about? What did you do!?" Ben was unable to ask all of the questions racing through his mind.



The woman did not address him further. She simply reached out her hand. She grabbed Ben and picked him up with one hand. It was as if he weighed nothing. He felt small being gripped by her hand like that. More disturbing, was how his body seemed to fold under the pressure her hand was applying. She didn't pay any attention to Ben's distress as she roughly tossed him into her bag. Ben's fears that he had been changed in some way were confirmed by the fact that he fit in her bag with room to spare. The bag was zipped shut, leaving a very scared Ben in the dark.



There was no way for Ben to tell how long he had been in that bag. He could see nothing in the pitched-black darkness. He could feel the bag moving, but had no way of knowing what was going on outside. He was helplessly shaken up with the contents of the bag as the woman did whatever she was doing outside. Ben's thoughts were consumed by wondering what she had done to him to make him immobile and able to fit inside a purse. He was becoming uncomfortably aware of how soft, light, and limp his body currently felt. It gave no resistance to the movement the bag and its contents were forcing on him. He couldn't sense any normal human functions: no breath, no heartbeat, no reflexes. He had no idea what the woman had done to him. Whatever it was, Ben knew he was not in a normal situation, and he didn't know whether it would be made better or worse by finding out what had happened.



Eventually, the movement stopped. Ben was left alone in the dark bag with no movement or sounds to distract him from his dread. The wait in the bag seemed endless. The lack of sight and sound, combined with his inability to move created a torturous monotony. Ben desperately wanted out of the bag, but he did not know what would await him once it opened.



The bag did indeed open without warning. Ben was roughly grabbed by what he could only assume was the woman's hand. Sure enough, her face was the first thing he saw when he was pulled out of the bag. She had a bored expression on her face, as if she didn't find anything unusual about this situation. Ben couldn't think much about that though. His attention was instead caught by the fact that she was completely naked. After how angry she seemed to be when approached by him, Ben was shocked to see that she was undisturbed about being naked in front of him. Not only that, they seemed to be in her bedroom! Ben was so shocked and confused, he forgot that he now seemed to be small enough for her to pick him up.



Without speaking to Ben or acknowledging him in any way, she grabbed onto Ben with her other hand and turned him around. She pulled Ben toward herself. He then felt himself get pressed against two warm, soft mounds. Given the direction he was moved, Ben was stunned to realize he had just been pressed against the woman's breasts. What felt like his arms were then pulled over her shoulders, while what felt like his legs were wrapped around her torso and somehow ended up fastened together. None of his limbs felt solid. They easily contorted around her body. The woman's hand let go of him,and he found himself stretched so tightly around her that he could feel her breathe. Ben was utterly bewildered by what he was feeling and seeing. This woman had put him on as if he were a bra.



Meanwhile the woman pulled a shirt over the bra she had just put on. Without even thinking about the encounter from the previous night, she finished getting dressed and left the house.



Soon after, she met up with another woman.



"I was wondering if you would ever get here, Holly. Did you oversleep again?" The second woman asked.



"Oh lay off, Sophie." The first woman replied. "My alarm didn't go off."



"More like you didn't set it again." Sophie clapped back.



"Whatever, I made it, didn't I?" Holly retorted.



Sophie wanted to say more, but didn't see the point in arguing. The two women began walking. After two blocks, a disheveled figure stumbled in front of them.



"What the hell!?" Holly shouted angrily. She glared menacingly as a clearly drunk man slowly got to his feet.



"Oh come on, it's not even noon yet!" Sophie scolded the man. Her face didn't have the anger that Holly's had, but she was still clearly annoyed.



The man turned to Sophie. His eyes were unfocused, but lustful.



"Oh, don't be like that. There's never a wrong time to party!" The man yelled. "Come on, how'd you like to join me? With that rack, you'll be very popular where I'm going."



Sophie recoiled with a disgusted look. Holly, on the other hand, grinned.



"This is the only way you'll ever get near her rack, asshole!" Holly snapped her fingers and a bright light burst from them. Sophie jumped back in surprise. When Sophie got over the shock, she noticed a white lacy bra lying on the ground where the drunkard had been. Holly laughed and picked up the bra.



"Maybe this will teach you respect, not that it matters what a bra learns." Holly said viciously.



"Holly! Did you.....what are you.....HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!" Sophie shouted, looking at her friend in utter disbelief. Holly just continued laughing.



"You have to admit it's a fitting punishment." She argued. "This is the only way you can make guys like that useful."



"You can't just turn someone into a bra!" Sophie shouted.



"Why would you stick up for someone like that? That guy was just a drunk asshole. If he likes your tits so much, they can be his reason for existing from now on!" Holly said.



Sophie shuddered at the thought of wearing a bra that had once been that drunk guy. Nonetheless, she continued to argue.



"That's not the point! This is exactly the kind of thing that got you in trouble before."



"Oh well, I don't see any cameras, do you?" Holly replied. "All we really have to do is make sure no evidence is left behind."



"So you think you can just turn any guy who annoys you into clothing?" Sophie asked, unable to believe Holly's callousness.



"Well there were a few girls too, and I don't always turn them into clothes." Holly said, completely missing the reason for Sophie's objection. "But just last night, there was some guy bothering me and ogling my chest. He made a nice red bra." Holly continued as the bra she was wearing wanted to scream as it realized the full extent of its predicament.



Sophie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had been friends with Holly since they were both kindergarteners. They were both from mage families. Holly had always seemed to get along better with others who had knowledge of magical secrets than with those who did not. However, she used to be able to at least socialize normally with ordinary people when they were kids. Sophie had been concerned as Holly became more disdainful of people not in the know about magic as they became adults. After a few incidents where Holly had missed her magic, Sophie had resolved to keep an eye on her friend.



Sophie had her own incidents where carelessness with her magic had turned people into other things, but those had been accidents. Sophie had done her best to reverse the transformations. Holly on the other hand, now seemed to be making a hobby out of turning people into objects based on what she had just admitted to. Guilt crept into Sophie's mind as she realized how much she had enabled Holly's behavior for fear of getting in trouble herself. How many people were now trapped as objects? Did Holly keep them all? How many other people are noticing the disappearances? Sophie couldn't let this go on. People were having their lives taken away, and the attention the disappearing people would create risked exposing the existence of magic to the rest of the world.



"Change them back." Sophie said softly but firmly.



What?" Holly asked in response.



"Gather up all the people you've turned into things and change them back." Sophie said more forcefully.



"You can't be serious, I don't even know where a lot of them are at this point." Holly said.



"What is wrong with you?! Don't you think about how this is affecting these people and everyone they know?!" Sophie asked, beside herself at how far gone Holly was.



"What does it matter? I'm tired of hiding in the shadows! There's so much we can do with magic, but instead we're always hiding. Just imagine what we could accomplish if we weren't acting like we're scared of our own abilities!" Holly ranted.



"How is that the fault of these people? I can't let this go on, Holly. I'm going to have to tell the council about what you've been doing." Sophie said



Holly's eyes widened with both anger and hurt.



"You wouldn't dare." Holly said with a threatening softness.



"I don't really have a choice." Sophie said steeling her resolve. "I can't let you keep ruining people's lives like this."



"I'm sure they would love to hear about your incidents as well. I've been covering for you too, you know." Holly shot back.



"I'll risk it if it means stopping this." Sophie said firmly. "I can at least say I've never intentionally transformed anyone."



"You won't be stopping anything!" Holly shouted. She waved her hand and Sophie's vision went dark.



Sophie was terrified. Would Holly really resort to transforming her to silence her?  Sophie darkly wondered what she had been turned into.



She slowly opened her eyes to find that she had not been transformed. She was, however, no longer on the street where she and Holly had just been facing each other. Sophie found herself standing outside her own home. She exhaled with relief that Holly hadn't gone that far.



Before she could think about the situation anymore, two tall figures appeared.



Sophie simply sighed.



"Yeah, I know. I'll answer any questions you have."