The Button - Chapter 9A - "The All-Purpose Utility Button"
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As the miles rolled past, a comfortable silence had descended upon the car.  The ancient tape player had eaten Darryl's third-favourite mix tape, so they'd given up on music about 20 miles back.

"So," Yana ventured, "That was nice of Aunt Bea to tell us about her special camping spot."

"M-hm."

"Though the way she built it up I was expecting the box to contain something magic.  Not... this." She held up a portable GPS receiver.

Darryl chuckled.  "She did say magic was very rare.  And by Clarke's Law, that thing's a pretty close approximation.  Are we still on course?"

Yana squinted at the screen, then nodded. "Yup.  87 miles left to the turnoff."

"Hm."

Somewhat later Yana tried again.  "It was nice of her to lend us more camping gear - we left in kind of a hurry.  I still feel we're missing something."

"Clothes?" asked Darryl, archly.

"Hey, the Salvation Army run was harder on me than on you - all you had to do was hide in the car in your coat."

Darryl spared a brief glance in Yana's direction.  "How was it hard to buy an armload of flannel shirts?"

"Hey, you'll appreciate the warmth when we're out there."  Yana gestured expansively at the forest the highway was cutting through.

"We'll see."

"Meanwhile I," Yana declaimed, "had to face my past."

"I thought you didn't remember your past, more than a couple years ago."

"Yeah.  The first thing I remember is waking up, naked, on a sorting table in the back room of a Salvation Army.  That particular Salvation Army."

"Oh, I didn't realize," offered Darryl, apologetically.

"They're good people, but can be a bit..."

"Didn't like having a naked woman in the place?"

"Not a bit.  They threw together the contents of the suitcase I'd apparently sprung out of and shoved me out the door."  Yana sniffed.  "I had no idea where I was, and barely even who I was."

Darryl reached over and took Yana's hand in his.  "You survived, though, and have a good life now.  Did they remember you?"

Yana laughed bitterly.  "Ohh yes.  The same old biddy who pitched me out was there, at the till.  She tried to run me out again, but I got annoyed."

"Oh dear," Darryl intoned, knowing where this tended to go.

"It got a bit loud, and the manager came over.  She'd overheard everything, of course, and asked the old bat if it was true... then took both of us into her office, and lit into her as well.  Between that and hearing what I'd had to do to survive after she punted me...  She broke down crying."  Yana hung her head.  "I didn't want to make her cry, I just wanted her to stop pushing me around."

"At least you got what you wanted in the end, right?"

"I guess.  Though the manager followed me around the rest of the time I was in there.  They didn't let me pay for any of the clothes I got, even the stuff that was obviously for you."

"I bet that was fun to explain," Darryl chuckled.

"Nah.  I just told them I was going camping with my fiance, and he didn't have *any* rough clothes at all."

"Fair enough.  It's even true.  I haven't gone camping since I was a kid."

Yana looked puzzled.  "So why did you have a bedroll and a backpack in the closet?"

"Oh, that's from when I went backpacking in Europe.  Bah, even that was years ago.  I dug it out of storage when you started talking about camping earlier in the summer."

"Ah."

Darryl was the next one to break the silence.  "You mentioned 'what you'd had to do to survive'...  How bad was it?"

Yana looked away from Darryl, staring out the window for most of a mile, absently fidgeting with the ring on her finger.  "I suppose you should know."

She talked slowly, quietly.  About how she'd been taken advantage of in the early days after her 'awakening'.  How she'd been rescued by an older couple who ran a diner, who took her in and gave her a job waiting tables.  How she'd worked there for months, learned something about the world... then her temper caught up with her and she cursed out an obnoxious patron.

She had bounced from diner to diner for a while, until a bunch of people in weird outfits came in one day.  She talked with them a bit, one was almost painfully shy but blushed so cutely.  And so she decided to see what this whole 'convention' thing was about.

"And that's how we met," Darryl added.  "But I have to wonder... why me?"

Yana looked down guiltily at her hands folded in her lap.  "You looked professional.  I was getting tired of just squeaking by and living in broken-down apartments."

"I was hardly the only halfway well-off person there.  There were lots of people richer than me, that's for sure."

Yana laughed.  "True enough.  Somehow, though... I always seemed to keep drifting into you.  So when I ended up behind you in the line for the masquerade, I chatted you up.  When I heard you actually lived in your own townhouse, with a roof that didn't leak... I tried to get myself invited home.  You're not mad, are you?"  She inquired, hopefully.

"Not at all!  I've had more fun in the past year than I can recall.  Even before we got the button."

"Has it really been a year?"  Yana asked, incredibly.

"Yup.  Two weeks to NorEasCon.  I have to go, working for an SF publisher and all.  I've got a pass for you, too - if you want to go."

Yana cheered.  "Yeah!  I had a blast there last year.  Hey... think of the costumes we could make with the button!"

The GPS beeped.  One mile to the turnoff.

The turnoff was the most rutted, overgrown little gravel road that Darryl had ever seen.  But it never quite got so bad that his fears for his car were justified, and a few cautiously driven miles later Yana called out, "Turn here."

"Where?  There's just this road...  That bit to the side isn't much more than a pullout to let someone else pass."

Yana looked around.  "Hey, there's a path leading up from it.  It's only another mile, we can walk that far, right?"

After pulling the car over, Darryl started to unload the car.  Yana fretted at the growing pile as boxes and grocery bags got heaped onto a tarp.  "How are we going to carry all this stuff?"

Darryl smiled, and pulled the Button from his jacket pocket.  "I have an idea, from a story I once read."  He wrapped the tarp over the pile, then touched the little blue button to the lot.  The entire pile vanished, replaced by a beautiful necklace with an inlaid butterfly at its center.  He put it around Yana's neck, and closed the clasp.

"There.  Now you can carry it all yourself."

Yana's eyes went wide.  "Wow.  That's handy."  Then she grinned.  "Oh sure, turn *me* into the packmule."

Darryl laughed. "Lead on, McDuff."

Fortunately, Yana had still been holding the GPS receiver, so it was available to guide them along the path.  She led the way, clambering up the inclined slope like a mountain goat as Darryl puffed gamely along behind her.  Soon enough the path leveled out, and before Darryl had enough breath back to complain about how long it was taking, they emerged from the woods.

A pristine meadow sloped away from the treeline, leading to the shores of a small lake.  The mountains beyond were gilded by the light of the setting sun.

Yana sighed happily, "It's gorgeous."

Darryl took a moment to appreciate the view.  "The setting sun highlights the mountains nicely.  It also highlights the fact that we need to make camp before it's too dark to see what we're doing."

"Spoilsport," Yana grumped, as she walked down toward the lake.

They picked a nice flat spot near the lake to pitch the tent.  A small circle of fire-darkened stones indicated that they weren't the first to have chosen this spot, though little else marked the passage of humans through the glade.  Some cursing and frustration later (most of which was due to Darryl getting knocked over by the reappearing pile of gear) they had a passable little campsite... and it was growing dark.  Dinner was eaten from a single pot cooked over a tiny gas stove.

"Mm.  That was nice."

"Yeah, food always tastes better when cooked out of doors."

"That too."

Yana cuddled up against Darryl.  "I guess we'll have to find some way to amuse ourselves in the dark."

"I've got a flashlight somewhere... but I'd rather look at the stars."

Yana pulled Darryl down onto the soft grass.  She growled sultrily, "Not what I had in mind."

The sounds of kisses and happy murmurings of pleasure drifted on the night breezes.  Followed by a zip, and Darryl's startled yelp.  "Yana!  Out here, where anyone could see us?"

"It's dark.  Nobody can see anything."  Which wasn't entirely true - a waxing moon hung low in the sky.  When Yana stripped off her dress, the moonlight limned her naked  body in silver.

Darryl marveled anew at her beauty, and skimmed a hand over her breast and down to her hip.  In its wake a trail of goosebumps rose, and they weren't alone.

"It's getting chilly out here."

"Then warm me up..."

Darryl did his best, but soon enough Yana had to admit he was right.  She was shivering in the crisp night air, and Darryl wasn't much better off.  "W.w.where's that bedroll?"

Once they'd found the flashlight it was easy enough to set out the insulated mattress pad and bedroll... which was when they discovered that the years had not been kind to it.  Nor had the moths.

"Even if it wasn't full of h.holes," Yana chattered, "I don't think it'd have warmed us up much.  What were you thinking?"

Darryl sighed, "It was warmer than this at night in Greece.  I'm sorry."  He started rummaging about in their gear.  "Ah, this should help."

Yana stared at him incredulously.  "The button?  But if we use that to turn our stuff into a bed, someone's going to have to be changed for half the day tomorrow."

"Which is why I'm going to turn myself into a big cozy sleeping bag for the night."

Yana thought for a moment, then held out her hand commandingly.  "No you're not.  Give it to me."

Darryl knew that tone, and did so.  "But... why?"

Yana gingerly arranged herself on the moth-eaten grey blanket, button in hand.  "It's my turn.  And... I liked being absorbed into our sheets.  I want to know what it feels like to be slept on, to be slept in by you."

The button touched the blanket, and Darryl watched open-mouthed as Yana's body slowly melted into it.  Pink satin flowed out over the blanket, remaking it into a thick, fluffy comforter.  It took him a moment to realize that the changes had stopped, and Yana was still there.  Part of her, anyway.  The good bits - the front of her torso and her face.  The rest blended smoothly into the satin of the comforter so seamlessly it was impossible to say where flesh stopped and satin began. Darryl licked suddenly-dry lips, and asked, "How are you doing this?"

Yana grinned saucily up at him.  "Sheer force of will.  Now ravish my helpless form before I melt away into nothing..."

Darryl eagerly rolled himself up in his transformed fiancee, who was cozy, warm, and purring happily at his touches.  Then he set to with passion, undaunted - more like encouraged - by the strangeness of it all.  Before long, Yana yowled her release to the stars, and was abruptly silenced.  The transfiguration she'd been holding off ran its course, converting the rest of her flesh to satin and fluff.  Darryl took a moment to kiss the stitched face of the 'pillow' underneath him, then continued until he'd found his own release.

As he curled up inside the delightfully soft and warm embrace of the Yana-comforter, Darryl murmured softly, "I love you."