Moonstone - Chapter 28
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Donna was curled up in the far corner of the Changing Room, arms around her legs, rocking back and forth.  She whimpered and scrabbled further into the corner if anyone approached her.

Gwen shooed everyone else away, and edged through the door.  She picked up a small packet she'd received with the delivery from Pauline, and a small black band slid out into her hand.

"What do you intend to do with that?" asked Rowan, from just outside the door.

Gwen gave her a wry smile.  "Something much less fun than I'd planned when I asked for it.  But it should help.  I think."

Rowan nodded, and closed the door.

A little later, Donna felt something warm, wiggly and soft press against her hands, demanding petting in the way that only cats can.  It took several more minutes before it occurred to her that this thing wasn't a cat.  There were no ears, no fur, and most significantly, no purring.

Donna looked down at the... thing in her lap.  Then she smiled in recognition.  It was a boob-pet.  But how?  She tried giving the pet a mouth and eyes so it could talk, but as soon as the features began to emerge, they faded away again.  After a second attempt failed the same way, Donna sat back and tried to figure out why.

That was enough to let Duncan out to play.  He looked around through Donna's eyes and noted two things.  One, the Moonstone's box was open.  Two, the boob-pet in her lap was wearing a collar.  Scooping the wiggling blob of boobs up, Donna padded over to the box and closed it.  Then she slipped the collar over the pet's 'head', as it proved quite stretchy.  With that done, it was finally possible to give the boob-pet a face.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself.  Cute trick with the collar, where'd you get it?"

"That's your first question?" asked Gwen, incredulously.  Then she laughed. "Hi, Duncan."

Donna managed a weak half grin.  "I'm less emotional like this.  And a bit disconnected from... it."

"Can I ask what happened?"

Donna heaved a sigh, then slowly said,  "One of the patients I tended at the hospice... died.  I felt it as if it was me.  He died in agony, but at least it was brief."

"Oh."  Gwen cuddled against Donna's chest. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault.  But... i can't do that again.  Donna's living in fear of what happens when the other one dies."

"Maybe it won't hurt so much after the full Moon sets?"  Gwen offered hopefully.

"She wasn't in as much pain to start with.  We can only wait and see."  Donna set Gwen on a bra on the counter, and reopened the Moonstone's box.  Soon Gwen was sitting there, human once more.

"Ready to face the world again?"

"No."  Donna followed Gwen out of the Changing Room anyway.  But when Gwen tried to pull her toward the stage, she balked.

Fortunately, Rowan provided distractions.  A small pile of requests for fantasies had come in, and she offered Donna her pick.  Donna flipped through them, and bemoaned the lack of creativity among the patrons.

"These are all celebrity impersonations.  Two more Marilyns, a Jasmine... at least they have taste."

"Can you do them?"

"Of course.  Nissa will want to be Marilyn again, let's start with those."

Nissa was only too happy to be her idol once more.  As she was digging out her reference photos she commented wistfully, "I just wish I had her white dress from 'The Seven Year Itch'."

"That's the one from the air-vent scene?"

Nissa nodded, showing Donna one of the classic pictures from that scene.

"Do you have a dress handy that you'd be willing to sacrifice?  If I turned it into Marilyn's dress, you could use the Moonstone to become her when you wanted."

"Change my street clothes.  I'll go home in just my coat if I have to," Nissa offered excitedly.

In the end they used some cast-off clothes that Rowan had squirreled away, something left behind by one of the many dancers that had passed through the club, and moved on to other things.  Once Donna had tailored it to Nissa's satisfaction, she got Nissa to put one of Pauline's silvered pins through the skirt.  She was careful to put it somewhere that was unobtrusive, and where it wouldn't accidentally touch her skin.  It was one thing to look like Marilyn, but she didn't want to lose herself in the role.  Well, not all the time.

"There.  Now the dress will stay changed. Hopefully it will still change you too. Give it a try!"

Nissa couldn't even come close to fitting into the dress, of course.  She had to settle for wriggling her arms up into it and holding it over her head while the Moonstone did its thing.  The dress slowly slid down Nissa's body as her flesh moulded and reformed.  Slim arms slid out of the sleeves, and shortly thereafter Marilyn's blonde head poked through the neck.  The rest of Nissa's body settled into its new curves swiftly after that.

Nissa hugged Donna tight.  "This is so incredible.  Thank you so much!"

Donna smiled at the back of the departing 'Marilyn'.  Fulfilling fantasies felt good.  She went in search of someone who'd be willing to be a close approximation to a Disney princess.  This time she was able to get quite close in one step, as Donna remembered the restriction from last month, and the form that she'd finally been able to manage.  She could feel that the resistance to going closer to Jasmine's form was still there, and briefly wondered about its source.

Neysa's belly-dancing silks fit the role well, and afterward she reported that her client had been very happy indeed with her dancing.  So much so that there were two more requests for Jasmine later on in the evening.

Kate and Gwen both took turns as famous people, getting into the fun of it.  Gwen commented that it was like having Hallowe'en in May.  Donna was getting better at copying voices with the head and neck changes, too.  Changing just that much took far less of her reserves than a full body change, and nobody was objecting to impersonators that were better endowed than the person they were emulating.

With the rain that was pounding down outside the club, Donna had to draw the Moon's power directly every time she ran out.  Every time she did that she felt the Moon's bond with her get a little stronger, and she wondered if a day would come where she wouldn't be able to let go.

When Zoey approached Donna in the Changing Room, she grinned.  "Have you got something interesting for me?"

"Well," the younger dancer temporized, "Something different, anyway.  I brought someone I want you to meet."

Donna stiffened.  "Not another doctor..."

"Not exactly.  She's my therapist.  She was amazed with how much more cheerful I was this month, and I couldn't explain what you'd done, but I could tell her I wanted her to met you."  Zoey's words all came out in a tumble.  "Is that okay?"

Donna took a moment to digest that.  "A therapist?  Uh, I guess.  She doesn't work with terminal patients, does she?"

"Terminal?  I don't under..."

"Nevermind.  Sure, bring her in."

Zoey skittered out of the room, and was back a moment later with a slim, dark-haired woman who looked to be in her thirties.  Donna figured she'd be fairly pretty if she put her mind to it and if she lost the glasses.  She wasn't dancer material, though Donna knew how easily that a size boost could change that.

"Doctor Arwen, meet Donna.  Donna, Doctor Arwen Sakurai."  

Zoey didn't notice Donna's twitch at the honorific.  Doctor Arwen reached out a hand to shake Donna's.  "Just call me Arwen.  Zoey has told me very little about you, but hinted at a lot."  When their hands touched she startled as if shocked.  "Why is everything going blurry?"

"Crap.  I'm sorry.  You looked a bit like Liv Tyler, and I already did an Arwen earlier tonight."

"I don't understand.  What does that have to do with my glasses?"

"Take them off."

Arwen did so.  "I can see!  That's amaz... wait, is that me?"  She stared at her altered face in the mirror, and reached up to touch a pointed ear.  "This is... real.  Not a hallucination."

"I did worry about that at one point, but no.  You really have elf ears."

"Can I have my face back?" Arwen asked softly.

"Of course."  Donna very carefully trickled out just enough power to restore just her face.  "What about the ears?"

Arwen touched her ear again. "Can I keep them for a bit?  And the eyes?"

"Sure.  They'll go back to normal in a week."

"Ah."

"And you'll need to keep the ears hidden when you're in public."

"Sorry?"

So Donna explained what she knew about the limits of magic, and some of the things she had done with it.  When Arwen asked why Zoey's scarred wrists had stayed healed, Donna explained Moon-trancing as well.

"So you could turn Zoey into..."

"Pretty much anything.  But if she doesn't really want to be that way, it won't stick."

"Interesting.  So what do you want to be, Zoey?"

"Well... I really liked being the big boob.  Could you turn me into that again?"

"No!" said Donna and Arwen together.  They shared a brief smile at the coincidence.

"Aww."

"This is all new to me," said Arwen.  "Give me some time to consider the possibilities, then we can discuss further steps when I see you next week."

"Yes, Doctor Arwen."  Zoey slipped out of the room quietly.

"Now to something I can deal with."

"What?"  Donna looked around in confusion.

"You are quite the puzzle.  You reacted to 'Doctor', yet you have no problem with me specifically.  Do you have a problem with doctors in general?"

Donna snorted.  "No.  That'd be hard, I have a PhD myself."

Arwen studied her more critically.  "Part of me finds that hard to believe.  Another part answers that by noticing you're not acting very female right now."

"Gods, does everyone know?"  Duncan tried to put his Donna self back in charge, but didn't entirely succeed.

"You flip from male to female mannerisms in a way I've never seen before.  What are you?"

"Call it deliberate schizophrenia, perhaps.  Made a bit worse by a recent trauma."

"You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

Donna sighed.  "Not really.  Nor what I'm doing.  I was a normal forty-something guy two years ago.  Well, maybe not normal, but not all this."

At Arwen's prompting Donna told an abbreviated version of how she came to be a shapeshifting exotic dancer, and purveyor of impossible fantasies.  She focussed on her recent discovery that she had some ability to heal with the Moon's power, and her struggle with the morality of it all.  That of course led to the disastrous events earlier that night, at the hospice.

"I just don't know what to do," concluded Donna.  "I want to help people, but healing them isn't working out right."

"There are more wounds than the physical," Arwen mused.  "Take Zoey, for example.  You've done a lot of good for her already.  She's by far the worst case of body dysmorphic disorder I've ever had to deal with, and you've made her … well, hopeful, at least."

"Body dysmorphic... sorry, that sounds vaguely familiar, is that anything like species dysphoria?"

Arwen shook her head.  "Only to the point that the patient doesn't like their body.  The species dysphoric I was treating thought she was really supposed to be some kind of great cat.  I haven't seen her in a while, she sort of disappeared a few months back."

Donna sighed softly.  "Was her name Ana?  Dirty blonde hair, raspy voice..."

"That's her!  Wait, you didn't..."

"Yeah.  I turned her into a catgirl.  I think she might have figured out how to stay that way, too."

"Was she happy?"

Donna smiled broadly at the memory.  "Oh, wow, was she ever.  Over the Moon."

"See.  You can do good this way.  I've got a few other patients that could use a dose of magic to bring their body into line with their mind.  Perhaps we could trade services?  You need someone to talk to about all this."

Donna nodded.  "That actually sounds pretty good."

Arwen handed her a card.  "I'm looking forward to it already.  Try to have some fun, OK?  You're doing good things here.  Spreading happiness is underrated, but very much worthwhile."

Donna tucked the card away with her street clothes, then went out to face Rowan again.  This time the stack of fantasy requests was even bigger.  It was still largely celebrity impersonations, but buried in the pile were a few gems.  It didn't take much to talk Kate into a session as a three-breasted exotic dancer, for one of them.  For the second, Donna sought out Gwen.

"Creepy Dave is back, and wants you to dance with a big snake," Donna said without preamble.

"Really?  That sounds almost... routine.  Are you up for being my snake?"

Donna grinned, and nodded.  "It'ssss fun."  Her body was already slimming down and lengthening, her arms fusing to her side.  She coiled around Gwen's legs, and wound her way up to her shoulders, perching there.  She was longer than Gwen's outstretched arms, but not by much.

Creepy Dave took one look at the two of them, and grinned.  "Oooh, she's back.  But she's far too small.  How much bigger can you get?"

Donna grew longer, doubling her length and girth to perhaps 15 feet long.  Gwen had to sit down, unable to carry the greatly increased weight.  Donna curled over her like a heavy, slithery coat.

"Iss thisss big enough?" hissed Donna, hamming up the snaky voice.

"Hardly.  How much bigger can you get?"

"Let'ss find out, sshall we?"  Donna drew on the Moon again, and started to grow, and grow, and grow.  Soon she'd doubled her length again.  Her body was perhaps a foot thick at the widest, tapering very slowly toward her tail tip.  She overflowed the chair, and covered a fair bit of the floor.

"That's a good start," Dave commented.  "But the room's still half-empty."

Donna threw her head back and laughed, and let the remainder of her power spill out with abandon.  She very nearly doubled in size once again.  Gwen was buried in her coils, and a twisting, writhing mass of snake filled the floor of the room, and covered pretty much every surface.  Except for Dave, though she did slide against him here and there.

"Now that's more like it."

Gwen wriggled out from between Donna's coils, and sat on a conveniently arranged loop of snake.  "Wow.  Is it OK if I stand on you?  There's nowhere to step."

"Sstand?  You can dansse on me if you like."

Gwen twisted to face Donna's head, and her eyes widened.  That mouth was bigger than she was, and the forked, probing tongue was the size of a the biggest normal snake she'd ever seen.  Donna flickered it at Gwen, tickling her, making her giggle.  Suddenly everything was right again, and she began to dance.

Donna's head swayed with Gwen's body, and her tongue tangled and danced with her.  Later, Gwen dared to actually stand in Donna's mouth, dancing with the snake's tongue curled around her body.  When Dave's time was up, and the little red light came on, Donna slowly closed her enormous maw around Gwen, who waved farewell from between a cage of teeth.

Creepy Dave said nothing as the Donna slithered out of the room, but there was a very large tip added to their total at the end of the night.

Gwen hugged Donna's thick neck as best she could once she had been released.  "That was wicked.  I almost thought you were really going to swallow me."

"The thought did crosss my mind."

Gwen stared at the giant snake, and laughed nervously.  "Really?"

"You tasted deliciousss."

Gwen laughed.  "Knock it off, you're creeping me out."

Donna managed to twist her snake's mouth into a pout.  "Spoilsport."

"Hey Gwen, you're free at last.  Time for your turn on the stage," called Heather.

"Want to dance with me this time?"  Gwen asked Donna, carefully.

"Ssure."

Gwen grinned, and led the way to the stage.  As they were waiting in the wings, she asked Donna softly, "Aren't you going to change back?"

Donna shook her head, and grinned her enormous grin.  "This is going to be fun!"

Leo skipped their introduction, instead firing up one of Donna's favourite songs - Union of the Snake, this time.  He amped it up with jungle beats, to add a more primitive feel to the song.  Gwen and Donna emerged after a few measures, and the crowd went silent, staring at the enormous snake on the stage.  

Donna was very aware of her enormous mass, and made sure to spread it out so the stage didn't creak too much.  Her sinuous dancing had to be slow and deliberate, there was too much inertia at play.  She managed to keep her movements graceful, and kept time to the downbeat of the music instead of the beat.  Gwen danced lightly around and over her, using Donna as much as a prop as a partner.

Gwen picked up most of the tips.  When Donna's enormous maw approached the edge of the stage, most of the men pulled back in alarm.  Except for Creepy Dave, of course.  He held up bill after bill for Donna, and she would flick her tongue out to lick them out of his hand.

Afterward, as Donna was slithering off stage, she mused out loud that it really wasn't very practical to dance while quite so large.  Gwen agreed, but also commented that she'd had a lot of fun, and the tips were pretty good.

"Still.  Time to go back, I think."

Gwen muttered, "Plus I am so done with Creepy Dave and his snake fascination.  I wish he'd focus on someone else."

"Funny you should mention that," commented Rowan.  "He's offered to buy Donna.  Well, a 50 foot python, which only describes one person I know..."

"I've told him before," hissed Donna, "He can't afford me."

Rowan just shook her head.  "He can."  She showed Donna the offer, and her eyes widened.  "Wow.  Uh...  I don't think I can swing a one-year term, though.  Even a month would be hard."

"Hm."  Rowan nodded, and left Gwen and Donna alone.

Donna nosed her way into the Changing Room - she couldn't make it all the way in without filling half the room with her coils.  She found her bra as much by scent as by sight, and her tongue scooped it onto her head.  Another flick of her tongue opened up the Moonstone's box, and the change began.  It took several minutes to reel all of Donna's snaky body in that way, but eventually it was done.

Gwen peered at the Moonstone.  "It's getting awfully dim.  Does it need to recharge?"

Donna nodded.  "But without the Moon..."

Gwen pouted. "I know.  Thus sucks, it should be clearer than this in May.  I don't want to go another month with this snake head stuck to me."

"Aw, I thought you found it fun."

"One month was more than enough, thank you."

"There may be a way.  When I draw on the Moon to trance to it, you might be able to come along.  That has sort of worked before."

"Can we do that now?"

Donna shrugged.  "Sure, why not.  Stand beside me, and look out the window at where the Moon is.  Can you feel it?"

Gwen looked out, then nodded.  "I... I think so, yes."  She pointed.  "About there?"

Donna nodded.  "Good.  This might just work."  She took hold of Gwen's hand.  "Now try to feel the way you do in the trance, and I'll see if this..."   Donna looked toward the Moon, and felt the world drop away.  Everything except the hand in hers, that is.

Donna looked around in the trance.  Gwen was standing beside her, and not far away was her Duncan body.  Gwen was looking it over with a smile.

"This is you?" she asked.

Donna nodded.  "Having both selves is... handy.  Now, what to do.  Something other than scales for the mark, I think."

"How about fur... wait, did I do that?"

Donna frowned.  Both Duncan and her had grown a round patch of white fur in the middle of their chests.  And she hadn't thought about that shade at all.  She looked over at Gwen, and imagined her with a winding vine tattoo in place of the snake.

"Looks like it works both ways," Donna grinned, looking at Gwen's legs.

"Wow! I like that.  I think I'll keep it.  And my bits are back!  Yay!"

"My form still needs something, though."

"Cat-eyes?"

Donna looked over at Duncan's bright green, slitted-iris eyes.  "Um.  Hard to explain, unless..."  She blinked her eyes a few times, trying something out.

Gwen stared at her.  "What did you do?"

"Patterned nicit... nictia... third eyelids, anyway.  Like some reptiles and birds have.  Except more transparent, and with the cat-eye pattern."

Donna broke the trance, and stood next to Gwen in the Changing Room once more.  She tried out her new eyelids a few times, checking herself out in the mirror.  With a little practice she could keep the cat-eye pattern in place continuously.  "This is cool."

"I know.  I wish you'd given me time to do my own."

Donna shrugged.  "Next time."

Gwen peeked into her panties, and grinned.  "At least I don't have a visitor down there any more.  Thank goodness.  Being able to see from my crotch was very odd.  Hey, the Moonstone's glowing."

"Yeah, if I trance like that near it, it seems to pick up a pretty good charge."

"Handy."

Rowan stuck her head into the room. "Ah, here you are.  Thanks to your little stunt up there we've had more fantasies come in.  Ready?"

Donna nodded, and looked over the new sheaf of requests.  Celebrity, celebrity... wait, a Vulcan?  Well, that was a little different.  The last one in the stack caught her interest, and she asked Rowan, "Do we do couples sessions?"

"Sometimes.  They can be a little weird, even without someone asking us to turn their girlfriend into a dancer.  Heck, we've had that before once or twice.  Neysa's pretty good at training them, you might want to bring her along."

"OK.  First, let's see if anyone wants to be a Vulcan."

"Oooh, pick me!" said Gwen.

Donna laughed.  "Pointy ears coming right up.  Which uniform?"

"Bah, I'll go with silks and make up something about pon farr."

"Gah, you're at least a much a nerd as I am.  And done."

Gwen reached up to feel her new ears.  "Fascinating.  This needs further investigation."

Donna laughed, and sought out Nissa to see which of the new batch of celebrities she wanted to be.  Christina Hendricks looked like a good match...

Before long, Rowan told Donna that her 'clients' were in Room 3.  Neysa was waiting at the door for her, with an armful of dancing silks.  "These are always fun," she commented.

Donna smiled.  "Let's see what we have to work with."

The couple were sitting quietly on the loveseat when Donna and Neysa entered.   "Hi," ventured the woman hesitantly.  "I'm Kerry, and this is my boyfriend, Jim."

"I'm Donna, and this is Neysa.  So... hm.  Just what did you have in mind, here?"

Kerry stood up, and pirouetted in place.  "I know a little ballet, but... well, my figure isn't exactly a dancer's."

Donna had to agree.  Kerry had a narrow, sharply featured face.  She was quite slim, and had almost no breasts to speak of.  She seemed quite fit, and her balance was excellent.  "I think we can do something about that.  Neysa, can you coach her in our style of dancing while I find something suitable for a top?"

"Sure."

When Donna returned with one of the generic bras in something close to Kerry's band size, Neysa and Kerry were gyrating in front of Kerry's boyfriend, who was watching both with a grin.  Donna noted that Jim's eyes would drift to Neysa's lush figure, then flick back to Kerry guiltily.

"Here."  She handed Kerry the bra, a bright green number with cavernous H-cups.

Kerry made a production of taking her top and bra off, obviously Neysa's coaching had taken root.  But there really wasn't much to show at the end.  The slight breasts she'd appeared to have turned out to be mostly padding.  Donna noticed a faint scar across each breast, and her eyes widened.  "Was that..."

"Double mastectomy, yes."

"But you're so young."

Kerry shrugged.  "My mother got it young, too.  The treatments weren't as good then, and she...  I didn't take any chances."

"I'm sorry to hear that.  Put that on, and... well.  We'll see."

Kerry put the bra on hesitantly.  The hollowness of the bra-cups looked like they would make her cry.  "Now what... yeek!"

As everyone watched, the bra cups slowly inflated.  Donna smiled.  Once the cups were full, she suggested that Kerry try her striptease once more.

Kerry did so with a grin, and Jim's eyes were riveted to her the entire time.  When the bra fell away, revealing two huge, beautiful breasts, his eyes nearly popped out of his head.  Kerry's expression was indescribably happy.  She picked up some of Neysa's silks and started to dance.  At first, it went quite well, then Kerry leaned a bit too far forward and tumbled into Jim's lap with a thud.

Donna winced.  "Your balance has shifted.  Quite a bit, I'm afraid."

Kerry thumped to her rump on the floor, and rubbed her breasts ruefully.  "I noticed.  But I can't seem to adjust enough."

"I could help with that."  Donna suggested softly.

Kerry looked up at her curiously.  "What do you mean?"

"I could... sort of nudge your mind so it finds this more normal."

Kerry bit her lip.  "I... maybe not.  I can manage."  She got to her feet carefully, and resumed dancing.  Donna could tell that she was holding back, being cautious not to push too hard.  But from the look on Jim's face, he didn't mind at all.

Soon, their time was up, and Neysa ducked out of the room.  Kerry handed the borrowed bra back to Donna.  She asked, with a little hitch in her voice, "Do I they have to go back, too?"

"I... no.  They'll stay like that for a little over a week.  Do you want them that big, or perhaps a bit more convenient size?"

Kerry looked over at Jim.  "It's his birthday next week.  I'll keep them like this for now."

Jim beamed.

"Thank you so much."  Kerry hugged Donna tight, squeezing her boobs against Donna's bigger ones.

Donna murmured into Kerry's ear, "Once they shrink back to a size you can manage, start wearing silver.  If you don't take it off, they'll stay."

"Thank you!"

Gwen caught up with Donna afterward.  Donna was still grinning like a fool.

"I heard about what you did.  Feel better, now?"

"She was so happy...  How can this be wrong?"

Gwen shrugged.  "It's not.  You did something wonderful.  And now for your reward - Crazy eights!"