Moontouched 11

Sidney yawned and stretched.  The kids were still quiet, but she knew they wouldn’t be for much longer.  She could feel that Duncan wasn’t in the bed, so she figured he was up already.  Still, she had a nagging sense that there was something she needed to remember.

When Courtney started asking for Mommy or Daddy and saying she wanted breakfast, Sidney rolled out of bed with a sigh.  Why wasn’t Duncan dealing with it?  She looked back at the bed and then covered her mouth in surprise.  Lying where Duncan usually did was a pretty black bra.  It was much glossier than any of the ones she owned, so she knew at once that it was...

“Duncan?  Oh, man, you really did do it.  Now what do I do?”  Sidney gave the bra a little shake and it started to wriggle in her hands.  She shrieked and dropped it like she would a snake, then giggled when she realized what had happened.  “You’re going to be trouble.  Wait here, I need to deal with the kids.”

The bra was still waiting patiently on the bed when Sidney returned to get dressed, some hours later.  It had started snowing again after lunch, just light flurries to add to what little snow was left from the previous day.  The kids wanted to go outside in it again, and Sidney could hardly say no.

Sidney picked the shiny black bra up cautiously, but it didn’t move.  She wondered if her husband had fallen asleep.  By the time she had it on, though, he’d woken up and started wriggling.  It felt nice, but it was also very distracting.  “Stop that!” she hissed.  “I’ve got stuff to do.”

That just made it worse.  The bra started groping her breasts, squeezing them in turn and teasing at her stiffening nipples.

“I’m serious!” growled Sidney, brandishing her silver necklace.  “Cut that out, or I’ll wear silver under my shirt, so you’re just a bra all bloody day.”

That got the bra to stop, for about five seconds.  Then it started groping even harder.  Sidney just shook her head.  “You asked for it.”

Once the necklace fell against the bra, it quietened down nicely.  She made sure to keep it that way when she put her shirt on, and had peace – from her bra at least – for the rest of the afternoon.

It took longer to bundle the kids up to go outside than they spent outside.  Victor in particular got cold pretty quickly, and fussed to go inside.  Hot chocolate all around raised spirits.

Then the phone rang.  It was Gwen, confirming that they were going to meet for coffee.  Sidney tried to beg off as she had to watch the kids.

Gwen just laughed at that, and offered to come over to Sidney’s house instead.  She wanted to see what had become of Duncan.  Sidney reluctantly agreed, then frantically tidied up around the place while cursing at Duncan for not being able to help.  Still, she managed a passable job by the time Gwen arrived.

“So where is he?” was the first thing Gwen asked when she came through the door.

Sidney blushed and opened her blouse a bit so Gwen could see the glistening black surface of her new bra, and the silver necklace pressed against it.

“Wow, she’s very shiny,” said Gwen.  “You do know what the silver does to her, don’t you?”

Sidney snickered, and told how Duncan has behaved when she put him on.  “I hope he’s happy.”

Gwen grinned, and reached out to pat the slick fabric.  “I’m certain he is.”

Sidney pulled back at Gwen’s advance, then bit her lip and nodded.  “Go ahead.  He does feel amazing.  I wish I had a bra like this for real.”

Gwen shuddered and clutched her arms around herself.  “Oh, don’t say things like that.  Around Donna and me they tend to come true.”

“You too?” gasped Sidney.  “What happened?”

As they settled in with cups of coffee in the living room, Gwen told the whole tale as best she understood it.  She showed Sidney the moon-shaped mark she’d accepted, and told how every time she communed with the Moon her strength grew.  “Donna’s just further along the path than I am, as far as I can tell,” concluded Gwen.  “When I wore her last night I could feel how much more powerful she was, about three times as strong as I am no.”

“You... wore him?”  Sidney’s voice was flinty.

Gwen put up her hands defensively.  “Not as a bra!  I was tempted, and I knew she wanted to be worn like that, but...”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Sidney said, thawing slightly.

“Yeah, she turned into a choker while I dithered.  I’m not sure whose idea that was, really.  So I wore her like that instead.”

Sidney thought about that for a moment.  “Just a choker?  I guess that’s not...”

“Not just.  It contained her power as well.  While I was wearing her I could do everything she did.”

Sidney gasped, and stared down at the bra she was wearing.  “Do you think...  Uh, how long until the Moon rises?”

“It rose shortly after I got here.”

Sidney swore, then covered her mouth.  Victor was napping, but she knew Courtney had the ears of a bat and a tendency to test out new words.  She looked over at where Courtney was quietly reading to herself, and it seemed that she hadn’t noticed.

“So I might start changing things?” Sidney whispered.

“Not with silver touching her, you’re not.”

Sidney breathed a sigh of relief.  “Good.  I don’t think I’m ready for that.  And it’s him.  Why are you getting the pronoun wrong?”

Gwen smiled sadly.  “Sorry.  I don’t really know Duncan, I only see Donna.  And that bra looks more feminine than masculine, if you ask me.”

Sidney snickered.  “The way he was groping me earlier, definitely a guy in there.”

Gwen mock-leered at Sidney.  “There’s plenty of girls at the Blue Vixen that’d do the same.  I swear, at least half of ‘em are bi.”

“Including yourself?”  Sidney asked softly.

Gwen chuckled, and looked away with a faint blush.  “Yeah.  Donna’s a sweetie.  You don’t find a lot of women you can talk to in engineering, you know?”

“So... you’re attracted to Donna, but not to Duncan?”

Gwen stared out the window at the view from the living room without seeing it.  “Yeah.  If only they weren’t the same person...  It’s hard to resist, but she’s... he’s devoted to you.  I’ve seen it in both of you, and I can tell how it would hurt him to mess with that...  Even when she gave me the devil-horns and made me even more impish than usual, I still knew better.  Mostly.”

“Devil... um, what’s with your hair?”

Gwen put her hand to the bright read horns sprouting up from under her hair and laughed.  “Sorry.  Got thinking about them, and... yeah.  Sometimes the power gets away from you.  Donna’s way worse for that, though.”

Sidney perked up, fascinated and worried at the same time.  Gwen told tales from the night before, of how she’d pushed Donna until she learned a little bit of control.

Sidney clutched her silver necklace tight.  “She really turned someone into a spider?  Just because you suggested it?”

“Only half of her, but... yes.  You should have seen the look on Nissa’s face.”

“Terrified?”

Gwen laughed.  “Some of the other girls were.  Nissa was enthralled.  I think she’d have stayed half-spider if she could have.  Going outside like that, though...”

“And he turned someone into a tattoo?  Just ink and paper?”

“In the end... just ink.  She asked to be changed back into a tattoo after Donna restored her.”

Sidney stared down at her bra, and whispered softly, “is there anything he can’t do?”

“Not as far as I can tell.  Well, maybe one thing... stop feeling guilty for changing people with it.”

“That’s my Duncan... oooh!  I think he just woke up.”  She looked down at the necklace in her hand.  By clutching it, she’d pulled it free of her shirt. “Eee!  Stop that!” Sidney shouted.

A wail emerged from a room down the hall.  “And now Victor’s awake, too.”

Gwen smiled ruefully at Sidney.  “That’s my cute to leave.  Tell Donn... Duncan that he’s needed at the Blue Vixen briefly tonight.  Rowan contacted me, there’s someone we forgot to change back.”

Duncan flowed out of Sidney’s shirt and reformed, fully dressed.  “What happened?”

“Thought that might get your attention.  It seems you forgot to mention a certain dancing pole to me...  I changed back everyone I knew about.”

“Ah.  Oops.  I’ll see you later, then.”

“Later!”  Gwen waved jauntily and headed out.

Courtney was glad to see her Daddy again, as was Victor.  So he played with them while Sidney made dinner, and stayed until they were in bed.  Then Duncan gave Sidney a squeeze, and headed for the bedroom.

“Do you have to go?”

Donna appeared in the door.  “Duty calls.  It shouldn’t take long, though I should stay long enough to be sure he’s changed all the way back.  It’ll be a good test of whether or not I can ‘fix’ things after the full Moon is gone.”

Sidney sighed.  “Fine.  But why is Gwen running errands for them, anyway?”

“She’s the only one at the Blue Vixen who knows who ‘Donna’ really is.  Nobody else knows my phone number.  I know how paranoid you are, and felt it would be best if nobody could connect her back to us.  I park a few blocks away and walk, too.”

“Aren’t you afraid someone might...”

Donna laughed, and grinned viciously.  “With the Moon backing me up?  Anyone who tries anything is in for a very nasty surprise.”  She spread the fingers of her right hand, and wicked claws sprung up at her fingertips.  “I’m never unarmed, and I’m way stronger than I look.”

“Oh,” said Sidney weakly, clutching her silver once more.

Donna sighed softly, and the claws went away.  “I’m sorry.  It’s just... don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about any more,” Sidney muttered.

Donna leaned in to kiss Sidney, but her wife skittered back away from her.  She sighed.  “I’d never hurt you, you know that.”

“Not deliberately.  But what you could do just by accident...”  Sidney’s hand crept to her necklace once more.

“I’ll be careful.  As long as you watch your words, anyway.”

Sidney sighed in frustration.  “Just go.  I’ll see you when you get back.”

Donna shook her head, and closed the door behind herself.  She was morose on the drive to the Blue Vixen, but the walk at the end cheered her up, and there was a spring in her step when she knocked on the back door.  Rowan greeted her with a smile, and escorted her quickly to where the spare dancing pole had been stored.

“Is this him?” Rowan asked.

Donna shook her head.  “Unless someone moved him, he’s still up on stage.”  She touched the pole, and shook her head again.  “This one’s definitely just a pole.”

It was quieter than Donna remembered backstage.  Full Moon nights had become boisterous events, but a normal Sunday evening was not remotely as well attended.  She tried to sneak out on the stage once Nissa was done, but Leo started up one of her favourite songs.  So she did as she had the previous night, she danced until the song was over, swapped the pole out quickly, and danced back offstage with it.  She even got a few tips for her novel take on pole-dancing.

“Here we are,” Donna said to nobody in particular.  “One mislaid client.”

But when she pulled at him to retrieve the power holding him to his new form, she realized that she’d yet again made a mistake.  Her pool was full, and here was enough power to fill it once again.  She couldn’t hold that much excess, and glowed brightly for a moment before she redirected it back to her subject.  She was already thinking of restoring him, so that was where the power went, changing his head and torso back to normal.

About a minute later, he looked around, then down at himself.  “Uh... where’s the rest of me?”

Donna giggled.  He looked very much like a dressmaker’s dummy, just a head and torso on a pole.  “It’ll be along.  New technique that lets me restore more people, it’s just... slower.  It should take about an hour.”

He shrugged.  “I guess I can wait.  So... how long was I a pole?  I was starting to think I was going to be stuck all week after all.”

“Just a day.  Sorry about that, there was some confusion at the end of the night.”

The pole guy chuckled.  “Nah, no worries.  I almost wish it had been for the week.”

“Careful what you wish for.  You might get it one day,” cautioned Donna.  “Will you be OK like this while you change back?”

“Sure.  The view’s not half bad.”  He looked around at the green room, where a couple of dancers were getting ready.  One was topless, and when she noticed his gaze, winked at him.

“Yeah, well.  You should see it on a busy night.  I’ll check up on you from time to time to see how it’s going.”

After Donna was done, Gwen sidled up to her.  “Ready to go dance?”

Donna laughed.  “I’ve already been up on stage once tonight.  I guess I can manage a few more.  No silly changes, though, I need to be able to change back.”

“C’mon,” Gwen wheedled.  “You’ve got lots of juice.”

“Just enough to change you once, really.”  Donna looked her friend over, then smiled.  “No, you’re more malleable now, aren’t you?  I could probably give you two full work-overs.  But then I’d have little left for myself.”

“You could get more, if there were more changed people to revert.  Heck, half the dancers last night left with something...”

“Something they wanted,” Donna pointed out.  “I’m not going to steal that away from them just for a little more... hm.”

“What?”

“I changed a bunch of dresses last night so I could test changing things back.  It just occurred to me that makes them like a battery.  Each one represents enough power to change me a few times.”

Gwen’s smile widened.  “So that’s what we’ll do.  Change you for each dance.  How many times can you change yourself before running dry?”

Donna’s gaze grew distant.  “I’m... not sure.  Somewhere between twenty and thirty full-body changes.  Lots more if I shrink and change to different small things.”

“Do it!” exclaimed Gwen.

Donna started shrinking before she could answer.  By the time she’d stopped the reduction, she was barely knee-high on Gwen.

“I could use some sexy boots,” mused Gwen with a grin teasing on her lips.  “Change for me.”

Donna hesitated for a moment.  “What kind of boots?”

“Knee-high black leather ones, with a three inch heel.  Are you... resisting my suggestions?”

Donna grinned.  “A little.  It’s hard, but not as hard as it was last night.  The Moon isn’t egging me on.”

Gwen drew herself up imperiously, and barked, “Change!  Now!”

Donna was boots before the echoes died down.

Gwen had fun stomping around the stage in her new boots.  She kept Donna on until her next dance set, then teased Donna into becoming a long and fluffy feather boa.  Halfway through that set, Donna turned into a real boa constrictor, to scattered applause.  She finished the dance twined around Gwen’s arms exactly as she had been as a feather boa at the start.

Gwen cuddled the snake on her way off the stage, skritching her under the chin until Donna’s eyes closed with pleasure.  “See?” she asked once they were in the green room.  “That was fun.”

“I sshould check on the pole guy,” said Donna reluctantly, flowing back to human form while still in Gwen’s arms.  Gwen set her down as she grew back to full height.

Dancing pole guy, as all the girls were calling him, was mostly back to normal.  His arms and legs still had a brassy hue, and while he could move them, they were quite stiff.

One of the other dancers snickered, “I bet that’s not the only thing that’s stiff.”

He grinned back at her.  “C’mon baby, have you ever tried it with a guy who actually has a rock-hard hard-on?”

She prowled up to him.  “Get your pants and jacket on.  With some gloves, nobody’s going to see.”  A minute later they were out the door, headed to the nearby hotel.

Donna just shook her head in amusement.  “I guess my work here is done.”

“Awww,” pouted Gwen.  “C’mon, one more dance.  No changing, just dancing.”

Donna headed up to the stage with her.  “No promises.”  Gwen’s eyes lit up.  They danced, gathered tips, and halfway through the second set Gwen’s arms turned into tentacles.  When they were done, Donna blew her a kiss and was off.

Gwen looked down at herself and chuckled.  “I think I can work with this.”


Duncan opened the front door, and instead of ditching his jacket and boots near the door, simply let them evaporate, as they were Moon-made clones of his usual.  “Hey sweetie, I’m home.  Sidney?”

He found his wife curled up in a corner of the couch with a book in her lap, snoring softly.  She yelped when he touched her leg.

“Sorry!  I just got in.  You look beat.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Sidney yawned.  “Then I had to deal with kids all day because my husband wanted to be a bra.  I’m done.”

“Was it so bad?  I could turn you into a cat for a day, so you can have a little vacation...”

Sidney bit her lip and whined softly, squirming on the couch.

“What?”

“God, I want to take you up on that so badly.  Just eat and sleep?  Yes.  But... I can’t.  You have to work tomorrow.”

Duncan gestured to the necklace that Sidney was once again clutching.  “And you’re not about to let go of silver while I still have the ability to change you.”

Sidney nodded sadly.  “That you can just casually turn me into a cat scares the crap out of me.”

“Scares like you and spiders, or like a good roller coaster?”

“I...  Look, I just need to sleep, OK?  Can we talk about this later?”

Duncan shrugged. “I’m going to ditch the rest of my power before I go to bed.  Last chance to get a radical makeover until next month.”

“Oh.  Well, that’ll give me more time to think about it.”

Duncan snorted.  “Yeah, sure.  It’s OK, sweetie, really it is.  I know this scares you, and I don’t want it hanging over your head.  Once I’ve emptied the tank, you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

“OK.”

While Sidney was getting ready for bed, Duncan found three mismatched socks, and turned them into six-inch blocks of wood.  He set them on his dresser, and as a further experiment set a silvered pin on top of two of them.  Once that was done, a few quick changes of his fingers into tentacles and back used up the last of his power.  Sidney didn’t find it very funny when he wiggled them at her, so he sighed and tugged, and they went back to normal.

“There.  All done.  You can sleep easy, the madness is over for the next month.”

Sidney let out a huge sigh of relief, then did it again, giggling.  Duncan couldn’t help but laugh with her.  “Was it really so bad?”

“Being turned into things against your will?  How could that not be bad?”

Duncan shrugged.  “Been there, done that.  But I guess knowing that I can change myself back afterward helps.”

Sidney stared into Duncan’s face, reading his expression.  “You actually like being changed against your will.”

Duncan nodded.  “I’d have happily turned into anything you asked, tonight.  Whatever you most wanted, I could be.”

“You’re already exactly what I want,” Sidney said sincerely.

“You could pick anything in the world, anyone you can think of... and you choose this?”  Duncan indicated his over-forty body with its slight roundness in the middle.

“Yes.  Is that so hard to believe?”

Duncan smiled.  “No.  I just... I’d like it if you could have fun with this, too.  Change me like Gwen does, just by asking.”

“I’ll think about it.”  This time, though, Sidney’s tone of voice suggested that she really would.

Duncan smiled.  “Good.  Think about what it might be fun to turn me into, too.”

Sidney laughed.  “Good night, you nut.”