Moonstone - Chapter 27
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Donna looked over Kate's immobile form.  For an inflatable doll, she looked awfully real, perhaps too real.  But the valves were there, and a few pokes at Kate's rubber skin made it pretty clear she was hollow inside.

"We can't keep her like this.  It's not safe."

Gwen looked confused.  "What do you mean?"

"Well... I'm mostly worried about letting her air out.  What if that changes back to her insides, after a week?  Where will it all be?"

"It wouldn't... would it?  Ew."  Gwen started to look a bit queasy.

"I just don't know.  And I'd rather not find out with a friend."

Donna waited for a break in the clouds, and let the Moon's power pour through her as she restored her friend.

"Awww," muttered Kate, as she sat up.  "I was looking forward to that."

"I know.  I'm sorry, but until I know it's safe, it'd be better to do something else."

"Aww, can't I at least have some doll parts?" asked Kate, plaintively.

"You're awfully set on this doll thing," noted Donna.

Kate nodded eagerly.  "It was more fun than I'd imagined.  Letting myself be an object of desire...  Please?"

"Maybe next month.  I'll do some tests when I get home so I know what I can do safely."

Kate sighed, but agreed that it was a good point.

Before Donna could get out the door she got ambushed by Zoey.  After hugging her tight, the younger dancer thanked Donna for fixing her wrists.  She still didn't like her body, but she was feeling a lot better than before.

On the way home, Donna pondered the inflatable issue.  Kate obviously wanted it.  Once she was home, and back in Duncan's form, he grabbed a notepad and started sketching out test protocols.

Duncan considered using oranges for test subjects, but there were only four left and he knew Sidney would fuss if they went missing.  Plus, Courtney had been fond of oranges of late, and he hated to disappoint her.  A bit of digging in the fridge turned up some grapes that were wrinkly but still edible.  Well, by Duncan's standards.  He knew Sidney wouldn't touch them.

In the basement Duncan dug out a bunch of old jars with lids.  Once again, his packrat ways paid off.  Each jar got a post-it, and a transformed grape.  One was turned into a balloon, and popped - outside, he didn't want to leave a mess in the house.  Another was turned into a deflated balloon, and popped.  Duncan found three pieces of rubber, and put them all in the same jar.  Then he popped another one the same way, and put its parts into two different jars.  A fourth got turned into grape juice, and swirled around.  A fifth and sixth got the same treatment, but were both in the same jar.  The seventh grape was put into the seventh jar, and sealed in.  Then Duncan shrunk it until the grape vanished from perception.  He was a little alarmed at just how easy that was.

Duncan peeked in on his jars every night, even though he expected no changes in the first week.  

Grapes weren't Duncan's only pastime.  He was getting into the routine of working days again, and playing with the kids in the evening before dinner.  The work was going well, if slowly - there were lots of features to add before the product could be shipped, and several months left to go before they'd even have prototype hardware.

Duncan tried not to spend too much of his time thinking about the club.  In that, he largely failed.  Snakes populated his dreams.  Sometimes she was the snake, sometimes the snake chased her.  The dreams where she was a snake-girl were the best.  In those ones, she danced at the club, twining around the pole and around Gwen, who was a snake-girl like herself.

Every morning, Duncan had to spend a few minutes getting his head back into male mode.  He was glad he'd used up all his spare charge on the grapes, or he'd be worrying about waking up rather more scaly than he'd gone to sleep.

After the Moon's last quarter, the dreams started to fade, and Duncan got more keen about the grapes.  There were noticeable changes, in particular there seemed to be some kind of restoring force at work.  The two jars with parts of the same grape clung together like magnets, and a small puddle of grape juice had formed around the jar of the first grape.  Duncan put that one into a pan, to reduce the mess.

By the day of the new moon, the changes had stopped.  Even the 'attraction' between the two halves of one grape had stopped.  One jar had a smallish grape in it, the other had a dessicated half-grape.  The first grape was just a shrunken husk, but lying beside the jar was what looked like a slightly reduced copy of the original.  The other grapes were all fine.

As the Moon started to wax again, Duncan kept checking the grapes.  They got a little more wrinkly, but that was it.

Duncan was finally starting to relax about money.  Between a steady income from the day job, and the big chunk of change that had come in the last full Moon, things were looking up.  There was even enough to spare to take Sidney's car in for a very belated oil change and general maintenance.

There was rather more wrong with the car than they'd thought.  No one major thing, it was finally starting to show its age.  And since it was the one carrying the kids, it had to be safe.  Unfortunately, all the little things that needed doing added up to everything he'd made at the club over the past month, and then some.

The next Friday, Donna headed out to the club.  Sidney didn't argue the point, she'd seen the bill, and had agreed that the repairs were necessary.

Gwen pounced on Donna as soon as she came through the door.  After she'd found her footing again, Gwen asked why she was at the club.  "I thought you made a mint last full Moon."

Donna nodded.  "Yeah.  Car repairs."

"Ouch.  Still, I'm glad to see you back.  Everyone else is so boring.  Even 'follow the snake' has gotten old.  Still getting requests for it, but most of 'em have satisfied their curiosity.  Creepy Dave brought me mice, once.  Now it's just hard-boiled eggs."

"And you... eat them?"

Gwen grinned.  "The eggs, sure.  Feels weird, but good.  Not like I'm going to be getting any other action while I'm like this...  C'mon, I'm up soon.  Time to dance!"

So dance they did.  Donna let herself go in the role, not worrying about the money, or why she needed to be here.  The crowd was happy, which made her happy, and that was all that mattered.

Of course, the money wasn't too bad.  Nothing like what she could make on a full Moon, but it would help.  Gwen even dragged Donna into prowling the floor with her between sets, and they had some fun tag-teaming Gwen's regulars.

With a couple nights earnings in the bank, Duncan relaxed a bit at home.  It had been a tight scrape, but it seemed like things had finally turned around.  The next paycheque had shown up just in time to cover the credit card bill.

Then he got a call from Mal, wanting to catch up on old times.  When he proposed going out to shoot some pool Friday night, Duncan had to beg off, claiming that he was working that night.

"But I thought you had a day job," mused Mal.  "Wait, this is your other job?  Hm.  I haven't been to the Blue Vixen in a while, think it'd be a good night to go?"

Duncan laughed.  "Sure, why not.  Buy Donna a drink and we'll chat.  More might be weird."

Sidney quizzed him on his plans after overhearing part of the conversation.  She seemed alarmed that someone knew Duncan was moonlighting as an exotic dancer.

"Oh come on," said Duncan.  "Who's going to believe him if he tries to talk about it?"

Talking with Mal at the bar was fun.  Neither of them made any references to Duncan or his family, instead chatting about mutual friends, gaming, and the like.  Mal had bought some new paintball gear, and was hoping to talk some of the others into going out again.  Donna chuckled at the thought of creating a form with built-in camouflage, then had to share the joke.

"You should totally do that.  We could try to recreate Predator."

"Except without the self-destruct, I think."

Mal stayed at the bar while Gwen was dancing with Donna.  Scooping his money up into her cleavage would have felt odd to both of them.

Later, he asked what it was like to dance up there as a guy.

Donna laughed.  "Frankly, I'm not very much a guy when I'm like this.  I've long since stopped leering at all the pretty girls in the green room.  I just wish..."

"What?"

"Never mind.  Sidney would never."

It was Mal's turn to laugh.  "I bet.  Anyway.  It has been fun.  So can I persuade you to show up at paintball one of these days?"

Donna shrugged.  "Maybe.  Money's still a bit tight.  I should be able to next year."

"Been there.  G'night!"

At the end of the night, Gwen approached Donna with uncharacteristic timidity.  "Doc Brown has an idea he'd like you to consider."

Donna thought about that.  She'd met Gwen's doctor the previous month, and he'd been fascinated by what magic could do.  "What does he have in mind?"

"There's this hospice he sometimes helps at.  He wants you to meet him there at moonrise, so you can try to heal a few people."

"I thought he was worried about the ethics of testing on people." Donna whispered.

"It's at St. Jude's.  Hospice care for those past hope."

Donna winced.  "Oh.  Ugh."

"Yeah.  Do you think you'll do it?"

Donna pursed her lips, then nodded.  "I have to try."


By the time the Moon rose Thursday night, it was clear that the clouds weren't going to give Duncan a break.  He was parked a few blocks from the hospice, with a borrowed nurse's uniform on the seat beside him.  The alley was a nice dim place, he figured that he could hide under a blanket long enough to change without anyone noticing.

Duncan peered at the sky in the direction of the moon, and sighed again.  "Well, if I'm going to do this, best to get it over with."  It wasn't as if it was even very hard to reach the Moon's power any more.  Just the willingness to use his connection with the Moon was enough, he felt the familiar power surge into him.  

Moments later, Nurse Donna emerged from the car.  She'd kept the face about the same, but her body-shape conformed to that of the nurse's uniform.  It had been a while since she'd had breasts this small while female.  Donna grinned.  It was kind of fun to be so different in such a simple way.

Her amusement faded quickly as she approached St. Jude's Hospice.  The building was simple enough, a neatly painted two-story brick structure.  It looked like it was older than Duncan, or even Dr. Brown, but it had aged well.  Despite the innocuous appearance, the place gave Donna the heebie-jeebies.

Dr. Brown met Donna at the entrance, pointedly calling her Nurse Smith as he greeted her.  "I don't usually have anyone with me," he said, "but I have been known to bring an observer along from time to time.  Your job is to take notes as dictated."

Donna nodded.  "Of course, Doctor."

As they walked deeper into the building, Donna shivered.  "I don't like this," she murmured.

Dr. Brown looked at her curiously.  "What's wrong?"

"This place... there's a very bad energy to it."

"I know.  So much death.  It gets to me some days, too.  That's why most of the doctors here are only here a day or so a month.  It's hard to bear.  The chances are, I won't see any of these people the next time I'm here."

"It's that bad?"

He nodded.  "We always lose at least one each night.  Sometimes two or three.  If you're not able to deal with that, you should probably go."

Donna squared her shoulders.  "I'll manage."

Doctor Brown led Donna on his rounds.  Each patient seemed to be worse off than the previous one.  The first few were dying of inoperable cancers.  The next, Doctor Brown just sighed at the chart in dismay.

"What?"

"Oh, we get these.  Nobody's really looked at the case closely, but she's wasting away anyway.  No family, so nobody to advocate for her now."  He shrugged, and moved on.

"But... what will happen to her?" asked Donna, scrambling to keep up.

"She'll die, sooner or later.  Probably sooner.  Like everyone else here.  They've got her on serious analgesics, so she won't suffer.  Or wake up."

"Oh."

The woman in the next room was also thin, frail and old.  As Doctor Brown perused the chart, he frowned.  "She shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"Some patients just... stop trying.  This one's gone from a sore throat to starvation.  They're trying IV nutrition, but..."  He sighed.  "I see too many of these."

"She's... dying from a sore throat?"

"Well, complications from that, and old age, but… yes."

Donna couldn't help herself, she reached out toward the old woman with her hand.  While she stopped short of actually touching her, her power bridged the gap and settled into the woman's neck and chest.  "That... well, hopefully it will help."

"What did you do?" asked Doctor Brown, sharply.

"I tried to heal her throat.  Something was swollen, blocking it.  I shrunk that."

He scrawled some notes on her chart.  "I'll suggest they try her on some thin soup, then.  Hopefully she'll be willing to try it."

As they were leaving the room he asked, "How could you tell something was swollen in her throat?"

Donna paused briefly.  "I can sort of feel the shape of something I'm changing.  I imagined her throat being normal shaped, and I could tell what shifted."

"Hm.  That could be helpful diagnostically, if it's reliable."

The next patient was a haggard looking man.  Unlike the others so far, he was moaning, and struggling to move against the straps holding him down.

"Why is he restrained?" asked Donna.

Doctor Brown scanned the chart, and nodded.  "They're giving him... wow.  That's a lot of morphine.  And he's still in pain.  I'd up his dose, but this is way over what I'd consider a safe dosage already."

Donna winced.  "What's wrong?"

"Cancer...  God, it's everywhere."  He flipped back through the chart, and shook his head.  "Doesn't say where it started.  By now, it hardly matters.  Come on, there's nothing we can do for him now.  The kindest thing would be more morphine."

"Why don't you do that, then?"

"Because it would kill him."

"How is that kind... oh."  Donna stepped up to the bedside, reaching out again.

"What are you...  You can't!"

But Donna had already started.  He was right about the cancer, it was riddled through this frail old body.  She cleared out his torso, but that wasn't enough to stop the thrashing.  There were swollen nodes all up his neck, even in his brain.  Donna had to stop and draw more power before she could touch them.

She frowned.  The power was only flowing reluctantly to her, as if there was something sticky in the way.  Still, it gave her enough to move from her patient's head to his arms.  Then she had to draw again to finish his legs, still feeling that odd stickiness.

The patient's thrashing stopped, as did his moaning.  Doctor Brown rushed to his side to check his pulse and breathing.  "That was...  Well, he's still breathing.  I don't know if I should reduce the morphine or not.  This is an alarmingly heavy dose if he's not in pain."

Donna squeaked in fear, making the doctor look up from his work.  "What is it?"

"Something bad.  It's getting closer.  I can't..."  Donna bolted from the room, nearly knocking over an orderly pushing a large, covered cart.

Doctor Brown apologized to the orderly, noting that she was new, and not used to "all of this".  The orderly shrugged dazedly, and carried on.

Outside, Donna was sitting at the curb and hyperventilating.

"You didn't need to run away.  It's just death."

Donna shook her head frantically.  "Can't go back.  Won't.  There's something really bad there."

"Death is unpleasant, I know, but we all have to face it sooner or later.  Especially in this line of work."

"That's not what..."  Donna trailed off.  Doctor Brown wasn't even paying attention to her any more.  He was already walking back to the hospice.

Donna didn't follow.  After the doctor walked back into the hospice as if it was the most natural place in the world, she shuddered, then ran for her car.

Under her cloak of privacy Donna swapped back into her street clothes.  She skipped the bra, as 'Nurse Smith' didn't really need one.

Gwen was waiting to pounce on Donna as usual.  She laughed when she saw how underendowed her friend was.  "Are you going to do the balloon-boob trick again?"

Donna blinked at her.  "The … oh, right.  No, just forgot to change back from what fit into the nurse uniform."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Gwen brightly.

Donna shrugged, but didn't change.

"Wow, was it that bad?"

Donna told the tale of the hospice.  She ended by complaining, "He treated me like I was some sort of flighty... girl!"

Gwen looked back and forth with exaggerated concern.  "Don't look now... but you sure look like a girl to me."

Donna had to snicker a bit at that.

Gwen dragged her toward the stage.  "Now grow that bust!  Let's go dance like the sexy girls we are!"

Donna's chest expanded as they bounced up to the stage.  She barely even noticed.

Gwen's infectious enthusiasm managed to shake Donna out of her funk, but it wasn't enough to get her to do more than go through the motions of dancing.  Gradually the energy of the crowd soaked in to her.  Once she gave her body over to it and the music, she forgot her worries.  Donna let herself fall into her dancing trance, and didn't come up for air until Gwen was pulling her off the stage.

Immediately thereafter, Donna was mobbed by dancers and pretty much dragged to the Changing Room.

Fortunately, Rowan had anticipated the rush and planned ahead. She organized the girls into shifts, and handed out the bras.  A huge parcel had arrived from Pauline, with dozens of custom bras.  At the bottom of the parcel was a package for Donna.

While the first girls were getting into their bras and letting the Moonstone fill them out, Donna dug through the package.  Most of it consisted of bra cups, labelled by size, and not made into bras.  Donna looked at them in confusion, until the first girl came up to her and asked to have her breasts made slightly asymmetric.  Donna grinned, and handed her an appropriate sized cup.

Under the cups was a note from Pauline.  Months ago, she'd asked Donna not to use her ability to make custom outfits, as that would cut into her business.  The last few months the Moonstone's breast expansions had sent so much work Pauline's way she could barely keep up.  Given that, Pauline felt it was unfair to keep Donna to her word.

Attached to the note was a little bag of safety pins.  According to the note the little pins were silver plated.  Pauline suggested that Donna could use them on a transformed outfit - the silver would keep it from changing back as the Moon's power waned.  Donna took a little while to absorb that. She could make new outfits that would last indefinitely... as long as the supply of pins held out.

Donna was still grinning about how sweet it was as she got inundated with requests to change nipple sizes, shapes, and even colours.  Thankfully, it was a lot easier to do that than it was to
adjust breasts.  Still, it meant yet more staring at varied breasts.  Donna was getting tired of it.

So she swapped her mental state for Duncan's.  He quite enjoyed himself, and tried his best to hide it.

Toward the end he barely even noticed who was asking for their nipples to be changed.  "Do something different with them," the voice attached to the breasts said.  

Donna looked up, then grinned.  "Hey Kate.  Different it is..."

Donna made an unnecessary gesture, cupping her hands over Kate's breasts.  When she pulled them away, they revealed... nothing.  Kate's nipples were gone, leaving her breasts as perfectly smooth orbs.

Kate grinned.  "Ooooh!  That's perfect.  Thanks!"

The very last dancer to approach was Liana.  The petite asian dancer was holding something in a bag and looking contrite.

"Hey, Liana.  I missed you last month, what happened?"

Liana sighed.  "That goop I was using to fill my breasts was... well, not a great idea.  Made me sick as a dog for a few days."  

"I'm sorry to hear that.  I should have lined them better."

"Thanks to Isolde, I have a new idea." Liana pulled two shiny translucent blobs out of the bag.

Donna looked at them in puzzlement.  "And these are..."

Liana laughed.  "Breast implants.  Specifically, Isolde's.  She had already bought a pair, and was saving for surgery.  You gave her real breasts the size she wanted, so she gave these to me."

"Ah... so you want to be able to insert and remove them, right?"

Liana nodded eagerly.  "Can you?"

Donna pondered the problem.  "Well, this is an interesting one.  I'm not sure I can make a seamless opening..."

"Give it your best shot.  If I don't like it, I'm only stuck for a week, right?"

"Not even.  OK, let's see how this works..."  Donna concentrated on Liana's chest, staring at it perhaps a bit too intently.  Faint seams appeared under her breasts.

"OK, try to imagine those opening..."

Liana did so, and giggled as the undersides of her breasts gaped open.  She slid the inserts inside, and closed up again.  "Wow.  Handy."

Liana studied her reflection in the mirror, turning this way and that way.  She sighed, and shook her head.

"What's wrong?"

"They're sitting too low, and the seams look like bad surgery scars."

Donna looked her over with a critical eye and had to agree.   "OK, let 'em out and let's try this again.  I have another idea."

Liana slid the inserts out from under her breasts.  They wiggled and glistened in her hands.  The spectacle distracted Donna.  "May I hold one?" she asked.

Liana handed one over, cautioning Donna that they were a bit slippery.  Donna weighed it in her hand, and squished it to judge its resilience.  "I wonder how small a gap we could get away with..."

Liana squeezed her forefinger and thumb around the middle of the implant she was holding.  It squished down to about the size of a quarter without much effort.  "About this size, maybe smaller?"

Donna nodded, then concentrated on Liana's breasts once more.  The seams under them vanished, then Liana squealed.  "What did you do?  That felt..."

Donna blushed slightly.  "Sorry.  It should feel... well, hopefully good.  Try opening them up, like before."

Liana stared at her breasts as her nipples gaped open like strange little flowers.  She pressed an implant against one, and it started to swallow.  "Oooh, that feels weird."

Donna watched in fascination as the implant slowly disappeared into Liana's breast.  "It looks pretty weird.  Hot, too."  The last bit was only murmured.

Liana was panting softly.  She held out her hand for the other implant.  Donna gently pressed it against the other nipple, holding it in place until it was gone.  "Hey, not my finger!"

They both laughed as Donna wiggled her finger free.  "I may have made the suction a teensy bit too strong."

Liana was already posing in the mirror.  "Oh, this is much better.  Thanks!"

"Just be careful not to suck too many things in by accident."

"Why, what could happen?"

Donna shrugged.  "I made you pretty flexible.  Shouldn't do any harm, but it might look silly if you had a flashlight in there."

Liana snickered.  "Oooh, I need to get some ultra-bright LEDs... This could be so cool!"  She bounced out of the room to go find a bra in her new size.  She was also muttering something about battery packs.

Before Donna could catch her breath, Gwen sat down beside her.  "Did you enjoy the show, Duncan?"

Donna blushed.  "What?  How could you tell?"

Gwen grinned.  "You just confirmed it.  Donna was bored to death of breasts, but you seemed quite interested in Liana's."

"Well, it was an interesting structural problem... I'm not making my case here, am I?"

"Nope," Gwen laughed.  "Bring her back so we can dance."

Donna wobbled a bit.  "Woah.  That was a rush."

"Wait, that worked?  I made you change back?"

Donna nodded.  "Yup.  Back to being 100% girl."

"Cool.  Let's dance!"

Donna didn't protest in the slightest as Gwen dragged her up on stage.  She was in her element, and having a wonderful time.

Which was when she felt her patient at St. Jude's die.  Donna screamed in pain, and crumpled into a heap on the stage.