After a bracing dip in the lake to clean up, Yana and Darryl started walking around the perimeter of it.  Darryl was the first to break the silence.  “I think we were close, there.  Just before...”

Yana shook her head.  “I was trying so hard to move.  Nothing worked.  And believe me, if I could have moved, I would have.  That was mean.”

Darryl nodded.  “Yeah.  But my other idea was worse.”

“Worse?”

“I was going to threaten to turn you into a swimsuit.”

Yana flinched away from Darryl, then growled at him.  “Not funny.”

The silence resumed, except this time it was distinctly frosty.

As they circumnavigated the lake, Darryl had to keep pulling Yana away from the water.  Every time she stumbled it was toward the lake.  Eventually, he broke the silence to ask, “Do you really want to go swimming?  That water looks chilly.”

Yana pulled her hand from his and crouched by the lakeside.  She dipped her hand into it, and nodded.  “Too cold for skinny dipping, that’s for sure.  But there’s something about this place, it’s like it’s pulling me toward it. “

“Which direction is the pull?  Can you point to it?”

Yana closed her eyes, then let her arm swing until the feel of the pull was strongest.  “There.”

“Hm.  Let’s head back to the camp and try that again.”

Yana followed him quietly, lost in thought.

“Here, try again,” said Darryl.

Yana pointed out over the lake once more.  Darryl nodded.  “Looks like whatever is pulling you is right in the middle of the lake.”

“Bother.  You didn’t happen to pack an inflatable raft, did you?”

“Funny you should mention that.  I packed the paddles for one, but no raft.  We do have the amazing all-purpose utility button...”

They stacked up the bedroll and a few towels to make sure they had enough mass, then Darryl used the button to change the lot into a small inflatable dinghy.  Boarding was accomplished without anyone getting wet, though it was a close thing.  They rowed unsteadily out to the middle of the lake, and Yana dowsed for the source of the pull once more.

“It’s stronger here... but it’s straight down.”

“It’s on the bottom of the lake?  Uh, I didn’t think to bring SCUBA gear.”

Yana leaned over the side to peer down at the bottom of the lake.  “I don’t see anything.  It’s definitely down... AIUGH!”   With a splash, Yana tumbled into the chilly water.  

Darryl struggled to keep the dinghy stable.  Yana was swearing a blue streak at the cold and the wet and the stupid boat and the stupid button.  Darryl tried to pull her back into the dinghy, but her flailing capsized it, tumbling Darryl in beside her.

Darryl clung on to Yana.  “Calm down!  The cold isn’t going to kill us, it’s not that bad.  Panicking in the water might.”

Yana growled at him, but stopped her thrashing about, and let Darryl support her.  “Now what,” she asked grumpily.

“Hold onto the side of the dinghy to stabilize it, and I’ll try to climb back in.”

The dinghy proved too small and flimsy for such a maneuver, and Darryl soon gave up.  “OK.  I guess it’s either button time, or we both swim for it.”

“B... button,” declared Yana, through chattering teeth.  “What should I do with it?”

“Absorb yourself into the boat and make it bigger.”

Yana easily found the button, and a moment later she was the new figurehead of a substantially larger dinghy.  This time, without Yana to destabilize the boat, Darryl managed to clamber aboard.

“Thanks love, that was much easier.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Wait, you can talk like that?  You look like you’re just as inflated as the boat.”

Yana craned her neck and looked back at Darryl.  “I’m doing the same thing as last night, it takes a little focus to keep the change from finishing.”

Darryl started paddling for shore.  “Too bad you can’t tie a knot in it at that point.”

Yana was silent for most of the trip, then just as Darryl was landing the boat she said, “I think... I think that worked.”

“What worked?”

Yana grinned up at him as he pulled her fully onto the shore.  “I let go of the button.  I stopped the change like this.”

Darryl scooped the prow of the dinghy into his arms, hugging the part where Yana’s torso emerged.  She squeezed just like the doll had, and giggled.  “This is awesome.  I can be your living doll after all.  Take the button off.”

“Can’t you do it?”

Yana giggled, and shrugged in his grip.  “No arms, see?”

Darryl set her down, and tugged at the button.  He frowned in puzzlement.  “Uh...  Yana?”

“Come one, take it off already.”

Darryl showed her the button.  “I did.  You’re still a boat.”

“What?  You’re messing with me.”

“Scout’s honor.  Here, I’ll show you...”

“Not on yourself, dolt!  I need you human to help me get free.”

Darryl nodded, and instead turned one of the paddles into a bouquet of silk roses.   “See?  The button.”

“But... but...”

“Maybe that knot you tied?” suggested Darryl gently.

Yana closed her glass eyes in concentration, then groused.  “I suck at knots.  It’s jammed tight.  Crap!  I’m going to be stuck like this!”

Darryl hugged her again.  “Shh, shh, of course you’re not stuck.  Can you show me the knot?”

Yana shook her head.  “No it’s... sort of an image in my head.  I can see it when I close my eyes.”

“Is it getting any smaller?”

Yana was silent for a while.  “Yes... well, maybe.  I think so.  Not very quickly, anyway.”  She struggled in Darryl’s arms, trying to free herself from the dinghy.  “Bother.  I don’t even have any good bits, or we could have fun like this while we waited.”

Darryl kissed her on the lips, then made a face.  “Bleah.  You taste like neoprene.”

“I know!  Get me outta here!”

“Um...  Have you tried the Gordian approach?”

“The... Oh!  If I just hack it apart...”  Suddenly Yana tumbled onto Darryl, very much human once again.  She didn’t care that she had tumbled him to the cold ground, or that both of them were sopping wet, and soon neither did he.

Of course, the chill made itself known before they were half-way done, and they returned to the guttering campfire.  Darryl fed it wood until it was a roaring blaze once again, and they huddled beside it to warm up.

Once Yana’s teeth had stopped chattering, she sent Darryl to find the button.  Yana was eager to see if she could repeat the trick she’d learned.  It didn’t work very well on turning the blanket into a dress.  The dress only lasted a few minutes after Yana had tied the knot of magic off, and pulled the button away.

Yana held the blanket in her hands and sighed.  “I could feel the knot untangling, something was missing.”

“Maybe it needs to stay changed longer?”

Yana grinned.  “Or maybe it works better with a person, and we’re on the third change now...  Come here.”

Darryl scooted over to sit within easy arm’s reach.  “Going to turn me into another dress?”

“No,” said Yana as she reached out with the button.  “Better.”

Darryl blinked as he felt the changes flow across his body.  What surprised him the most was that he could still see and move.  Speaking proved problematic, as only squeaks came out of his mouth.  He looked down at himself, and he looked... shiny.  When he held his hands up to inspect them, instead of fingers he had mitts, also made of the shiny stuff.  He flexed his hand in wonder, then his eyes widened in realization and he looked up at Yana.  “M mmll?”

“Yes, you’re a doll.  Now for the best part...”   She tugged on the button, and pulled it free.  She waved it in front of Darryl’s face teasingly.  “Now I can change you, and have the button too.  This is great!  We can both be doll...”  Her voice cut off as her body abruptly changed.

Darryl sighed with a soft squeak.  He could see a blue spot on Yana’s hand where the button had merged into her flesh.  Well, not flesh any more.  She had become an inflatable doll, just like she’d said.  He scrabbled at the button, now an inflating stem in the palm of Yana’s hand, but his soft, mitteny hands couldn’t get any purchase.

After a few more tries, Darryl sat back and studied Yana.  She hadn’t moved at all.  It didn’t appear that she could.  So she hadn’t done to herself whatever she’d done to him.  He spent a little while exploring his body, trying to figure out just what she had done.  Unsurprisingly, there was an enormous phallus tenting his pants.  What shocked him, however, was when he tried to explore his occluded mouth.  Sticking out between his lips was something like an enormous tongue, and just touching it sent pleasure sparking through him.

Darryl looked lustfully down at his transformed fiancée.  It was obvious what she had wanted, and he gave it to her good and hard.  His own pleasure peaked impossibly as he plunged into both of her openings, but no matter how hard he tried, he found no release.  He gave it his all, but soon discovered that his muscles weren’t made of rubber.  He pushed himself as hard as he could but before long both exhaustion and heat-stroke set in.  He collapsed beside the still-immobile doll that had once been Yana, and stared up at the sky.  As he wheezed for breath and wished he could sweat, he wondered how long it would be before someone discovered them there.