Moontouched 18

“No,” whispered Donna.  “Gwen can’t be dead.”  She looked up at Rowan, readying arguments.  “The arsonist attacks at midnight, she’d have been here.”

“He attacked elsewhere at midnight, then again at about the time she got home from the club,” said Rowan, sadly.

“And she lives outside the pattern.  Though not that far outside it.  I’d wondered why the last few attacks were close in, maybe conserving strength?” Donna mused.

“That doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone.”

“Gwen’s not dead,” interrupted Donna, impatiently.  “I would know.”  She closed her eyes, released a breath, reached out.  “The Moon knows her own, and Gwen is still alive.  Not awake, but alive.  That much I do know.”

Rowan sighed with relief.  “Good.  What are you going to do about it?”

“For now?  Pray she wakes up before the Moon sets.  And see if there’s any kind of distance effect, maybe I can use this sense of her as a direction finder.”

Donna turned around and headed for the door.

“Wait!” called Rowan.

Donna stopped, half turned.  “For?”

“We’re really short on dancers, is there any way...”

“I have to go see.  Sorry.”

“I understand,” said Rowan.  “But could you at least do for me what you did last month?  So I can dance as well?”

Donna waved a hand at her, and was out the door.  For a moment, Rowan thought Donna had ignored her request, then she felt her skin tightening, the wrinkles slowly blending away.  She rushed to a mirror to watch the changes, and smiled at the middle-aged woman she saw in the reflection.  Moments later, her top sprung a button as her breasts started to grow.  By the time Rowan had found something to cover herself up with, the changes had stopped.  Rowan stared at the young woman in the mirror.  Twenty, if that.  She grinned at her reflection, and turned toward the stage.

Donna drove toward the hospice for a few minutes, turning off before she got too close.  Circling roughly around it didn’t change her link to Gwen or tug her in any specific direction.  She tried driving aimlessly for a while, then hammered her fists on the steering wheel in frustration.  Nothing had changed.

When Donna got back to the Blue Vixen she was in a foul mood, and Rowan’s obvious delight at her new form did nothing to lift her spirits.

“No luck?” asked Rowan gently.

Donna shook her head and growled.  She clenched her fist, dismissed the claws that had formed and sighed.  “No.  I still can feel she’s out there, but I have no idea where.  Part of me wants to turn into a giant monster and rampage through the city until I find her but that... would not be constructive.  Or even work.  I’m pretty sure magic censorship wouldn’t like that.”

“So what will you do now?”

“Wait until closer to midnight, then...  Damn it, I don’t know.  Go patrol the city like some stupid superhero, I guess.  Maybe I can spot the next fire, follow the arsonist back to wherever it’s hiding.”

“It?  You don’t think it’s a person?”

Donna shook her head.  “Something evil was at the hospice.  It’s out, killing on its old schedule.  I just... I don’t know how to find it.  Or what to do if I do.”

“Who says it has to be you?” asked Rowan.

“Doesn’t look like the cops are handling it very well, does it?  If it’s something magic, they’d be screwed even worse if they found it.  Unless you happen to have a monster hunter on speed dial, I think it’s up to me.”

Rowan looked up at Donna.  “I see you’ve got the superhero thing down.  No rampaging in the club, OK?”

Donna started, and looked at herself.  She’d grown taller, and more muscular without even thinking about it.  She didn’t look like a dancer, she looked like a seven foot tall muscle-builder.   “Ah... yeah.  I need to calm down before I make things worse.”

“I’ve got just the ticket,” said Rowan, handing Donna a slip of paper.

Donna raised an eyebrow, but Rowan stared her down and she dropped her gaze to the slip of paper.  Reading it, a tiny smile found her lips.  “Oh, I remember these two.  They want to go another round, do they?  OK.”

“I’ll send them to room two.”

Donna nodded, and made her way there.  As she waited she tried to calm herself.  Donna returned herself to her usual stature, as a muscle-bound giantess might prove imposing.  That, and the room was small enough as it was.

“Hi Rachel!” called Donna with a grin as the woman came in, her boyfriend following behind.  “Hey Ronnie.  So what are you guys looking for tonight?  Did you have fun as Ronnie’s bra?”

Rachel laughed.  “It was... a very different sort of week, for sure.  I think Ronnie had a harder time of it than I did.”

“On the plus side, he got a pair of boobs of his own to play with...” said Donna.

Ronnie grinned, but his eyes hadn’t left Donna’s chest since entering.  “There was that.”

Rachel elbowed Ronnie once she noticed where he was looking.  “Stop that!” she hissed.

Donna sighed.  “Still a problem, hm?”

“Yes,” grumped Rachel.  “He doesn’t look at me like that.”

Donna held out a hand to Rachel.  “Touch me.”

Rachel looked at Donna oddly, then shrugged at put her hand in Donna’s.  “Why?”

Donna just smiled, and waited until Rachel figured it out.  With a squeak of surprise, Rachel pulled back, and stared down at her chest.  “I grew?”

“And my chest shrank,” added Donna. “Let’s play mass vampire.”

Rachel reached for Donna’s hand again, and giggled as her chest started to swell once more.  Before very long, Donna was flat and Rachel had breasts fully as big as Donna’s had been.  Ronnie was staring at Rachel as her dress teased at failing, but never quite got there.

Rachel let go of Donna.  “I guess that’s it, then,” she said, regretfully.

“Doesn’t have to be.  You could take height, too...”

Rachel giggled. “Could I?  So if I touched...”  She pulled Ronnie into a hug and kissed him hard on the lips.  As the kiss carried on, Ronnie slowly dwindled, eventually shrinking out of his clothes.  As he was shrinking, Ronnie’s chest continued to expand.  When Ronnie was about three feet tall, the velcro tear-aways Donna had added to Rachel’s dress failed, and her breasts exploded out of it.

Rachel squealed happily, and set Ronnie down to examine her new assets.  Her breasts had almost doubled in size once more, threatening to eclipse her chest.  She stared down at them in wonder, and asked, “how am I even standing with these?”

Donna shrugged.  “Magic.  And they’re partially filled with air.”

“Cool.”

Ronnie was staring up at the fleshy zeppelins that were hovering just above his head.  He reached out to touch them, which only made him shrink further, and soon he couldn’t reach them at all.  Rachel knelt down, setting her breasts on her legs and spilling onto the ground in front of Ronnie.  “Touch all you like.  But... well, what happens if he gets too small?”

Donna shrugged.  “Your call.  Disappear entirely, merge with your breasts, or turn him into something else entirely.”

Ronnie looked up sharply at her at that first.  “What happens if I disappear?”

“Just what it says.  Gone.”

Ronnie’s breath sucked in sharply, as did Rachel’s, though their expressions were a study in contrasts.  “I could erase him with my boobs?” breathed Rachel in wonder.

“Not forever.  I can bring him back early... if you ask.”

“Oh,” said Ronnie softly.  “Okay, then.”

Rachel leaned forward, pressing her breasts against her boyfriend.  As both women watched, he dwindled under their assault, eyes closed in bliss as he was engulfed by growing tit-flesh.

“What a way to go,” murmured Donna, fascinated.

A little later Rachel whispered, “I can’t feel him any more.  Is he?”

“Is who?  There’s just us girls here.”

“Oh!  You haven’t forgotten him, have you?”

Donna laughed.  “No.  Just playing with you.  Like all of this, really.  Did you have fun?”

Rachel answered with a huge grin.  “Yeah.  My boobs were his entire world at the end.  Can I... can I keep them this big?”

“Stand up.”

Rachel did so, but it wasn’t easy.  Her breasts swelled out immensely in front of her, eclipsing her entire torso and the upper third of her legs.  “Oh.  Right.  What am I going to do now?”

“Well... we are short on dancers.  You’d be a hit up there on stage.  If you agree to dance, I’ll make sure you have something that fits.”

“And Ronnie?”

“Who?”  Donna held up her hands at Rachel’s look.  “Kidding, again.  He’s anchored to you, so even if you leave him as he is, he’ll reappear wherever you are in a week or so, and grow back to normal size over the next three days.”

“Oooh.  He did take the next week off...  That sounds like fun.  So does dancing.  Let’s do it!”

Getting Rachel out of the room took a bit of work, she had to push one breast through the door, sidle through it, then pull the other one behind her.  Doing so made her giggle.  The first time.  By the third door, she asked Donna if she could be reduced a bit, after her first dance.

“Of course.  Dancers get free changes.  Though if you approve, you might want to tip the person who made those tits and the tips they garner possible...”

“Really?  I think I’ll be back next month, then.”

Donna spun a hair into an enormous silvery top for Rachel to wear, and helped her put it on.  “There you go.  Knock ‘em dead.”

Rachel sidled through the door to the stage, and waved cheerily at Donna once she was through.

“That’s one way to fix our staffing issues,” mused Rowan, walking up behind Donna.

Donna turned to face her, starting slightly at Rowan’s youthful appearance until she remembered what she’d done on arriving.  “Thought you’d approve.  Got any others that want a turn up on stage?”

“Tawny and Carmen showed up while you were busy.  I think we can squeak by, now.”

Donna looked over and waved at the two who were getting ready at the mirrors.  “Oh, good.  I was worried Tawny had gotten stuck as a tattoo.”

Tawny sighed.  “I did.  But about a month ago, I suddenly just popped out of Carmen’s body about midnight.”

“Yeah!  You said I only had to wear silver around the new moon, not all the time,” grumped Carmen.

“I’m not complaining,” Tawny shot back.  “I only wanted to be your tattoo for a few days, not months.  I could have been stuck forever!”

Donna frowned at that, thinking of others that she’d left changed.  “Rowan,” she started, slowly.  “This isn’t the first time someone has gone missing.”

Rowan shrugged.  “Girls come and go, you know that.”

“But there’s a pattern.  Ana.  I turned her into a catgirl, twice.  The second time I did it she got a long booking, then never came back.  Then Isolde into a succubus, and she got the same.  Haven’t seen her since, either.  I turned Kate into a robot, then there was the mouse-girl, and Nissa last month as a half-spider...  Has she been back?  Have any of them been?”

“No,” said Rowan softly.

“So it could all be connected,” mused Donna.  “These disappearances, and the more recent ones.”

“It’s not.”

Donna turned her gaze back to Rowan.  “How can you be sure?”

“I know the ones you named are safe and happy, is that enough for you?”

Donna frowned.  “Not if that’s all you can tell me.”

Rowan spread her hands.  “I cannot say more.  Save that there is a standing offer for a two hour session with a blue-furred vixen woman.”

Donna was already sprouting fur.  “Set it up.”


Her bushy blue tail swishing behind her, Donna strode with as much confidence as she could muster into private room 3.  The heavyset man sitting there in a tweed coat and comfortable looking slacks didn’t look like an evil mastermind or serial kidnapper.  He had grizzled salt-and-pepper hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and a disarming smile.

Donna’s protruding muzzle curved into a smile, and she twirled into the room in an improvised dance step, dancing silks fluttering around her body.  She knelt before his chair.  “Hello, master.  What can I do for you?”

“Don’t call me master,” came his gentle voice.  “I’m just Ray.”

“So then, Just Ray...  You have your blue vixen girl.  What do you want to do with her?”

“Stand, let me get a look at you.”

Donna stood, close enough that her tail brushed against his legs as she pirouetted slowly to show off her body.  She was proud of her work, and his evaluating gaze made her smile.  “Do you like what you see?”

“Yes, very much so.  You’re beautiful like this.  And yet...”

Donna cocked her head to the side curiously, and returned his regard with an evaluating gaze of her own.  His face was wrinkled, but only a little.  Older than Duncan, then, but not by all that much.  In his fifties, perhaps.  Comfortable in his place, relaxed and even reflective in the presence of something magical.  He wasn’t surprised at magic, he was looking for something more.

“This isn’t you.”

Donna chuckled.  “Well, no.  I’ve never been this before.”

“Not what I meant.  You’ve been many things, though.”  It wasn’t a question.

Donna nodded.  “More than you can imagine.”

That drew a big smile from Ray.  “Oh, I can imagine quite a lot.”

Donna took another slow pirouette, teasing with her silks.  “And isn’t this what you were looking for?  The iconic blue vixen?”

“Yes.  But... I shall have to keep looking.  I want someone who wants to look like this, not just putting on a show.”

Donna stared at him.  “How can you tell?”

Ray shrugged.  “Just good at what I do.  You’ve danced as a snake and a snake-girl pretty often.  Is that how you see yourself?”

“More than this, that’s for sure.”  Donna looked over at the peephole in the ‘secret’ door from the private room into the green room, wondering what Rowan was thinking.  She nodded as she made up her mind, transformation flowing over her again.  She kept it slow, pacing it much like the changes the other dancers usually got.

“So my fairy godmother is watching, hm?  I can see why fantasies have been popular.”

Donna lowered to the floor as her legs wicked away, shifting their mass to her burgeoning tail.  As its grew, she used its coils to prop herself up once more.  “People do seem to like seeing the magic happen.  Watching fantasies become reality right before their eyes.”  She slithered in a slow circle to show off her new scaly curves.  She’d kept some of the blue highlights of the vixen, but the bulk of her scales were her usual green, with a tracery of black for interest.

Ray studied her intently, watching how she moved, how she smiled.  “Yes.  This does suit you better.”

“I’ve always had a fondness for nagas, ever since... nevermind.”

Ray inclined his head.  “Save that you aren’t a proper naga.  The true ones are armless.”

“Oh!  Right.  I just call this naga form because it’s close...  But you’re right, you should fix that.”  Donna slipped off her bra and handed it to Ray.  To her surprise, he took one quick look at her chest, evaluating it much as he had other aspects of her look, then looked back to her face.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

Donna faked a look to the green room door again, and as if she was talking to an observer said, “Push it over my arms to... well, you’ll see.”  She held her hands out to Ray, and he did as she asked.

Ray’s eyes went wide as her arms melted away under the pressure from his hands.  Once he’d pressed each arm into her shoulder, smoothing them away to a breast, he let the bra drop.  “Did I just... make you change?” he asked, eyes alight with wonder.

“Felt like it, didn’t it?  Does it matter how?”

Ray shook his head, then frowned at Donna.  “Not quite right.”  He reached out, smoothed his hands over the breasts that had replaced her shoulders.  Donna got the idea after a moment, and the nipples and breasts smoothed away, her shoulders became simply that once more.

Ray grinned like a little kid at Christmas, then studied the effect.  “Yes.  Very nice.  You make a pretty naga.”

Donna did another turn to show her body off.  “Thank you.”

“But it’s not right.”  At Donna’s look, Ray grinned.  “Oh, you like this form well enough.  Something about the loss of arms... but you wouldn’t be happy like this long term.”

“I don’t know, my tail is pretty flexible,” argued Donna, bringing her tail tip around to waggle it at Ray.

“Am I wrong?”

Donna smiled wryly, and shook her head.  “No.  On both counts.  I get a kick out of this, but... yeah.  Arms are just too handy.”

Ray barked a brief laugh at the pun.  “So.  Put them back, if you please.”

Donna looked over at the door again, then grew her arms back to normal.  She spread her arms wide, showing them off, and held the pose as Ray paced around her.

“Yes... better.  But still something missing.”  Ray placed a hand under each arm, fingertips grazing the sides of Donna’s torso.   She shivered from the surprisingly delicate touch.  “Here and here, more arms.”

Fingers emerged from Donna’s sides, curled with Ray’s, got pulled further out into hands, wrists, then full arms.  Ray watched intently as Donna changed, fascinated.

“The composition is... off.”  Ray poked at her breasts, not ungently.  “These need to be smaller.”

“Wait.  You want my breasts to shrink?  Really?  I can’t say any man has ever asked for that before.”

Ray grinned at her, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling.  “I’m not just any man.”

“Indeed.”  Donna’s breasts diminished under Ray’s watchful gaze, until he gestured for them to stop.

“Yes, much better.  Now there’s room for another pair, just below them.”

“Aha!  I like how you think.”  Once the breasts had grown into place, Donna used her four hands to cup them, finding each to be just slightly more than a handful.  She did a teasing little dance, revealing one then another, covering them again, and finally spinning about and throwing her arms wide for a final reveal.  “What do you think?”

“Perfection.  How do you feel?”

Donna held her arms in front of her, wriggled her upper hands’ fingers, then her lowers.  “I feel... complete.  Like this is the form I’m meant to wear.  Having the right number of limbs is part of it.”

“You have five, though, if you count your tail.”

Donna shrugged, moving both sets of arms in sync.  “I’ve spent a lot of time with a tail of one kind or another, so that seems more normal than you’d think.  Honestly, being a tailless monkey is what feels weird, some days.  I could stay like this.”

Ray grinned hugely.  “That’s what I hoped you’d say.  Come, let’s go upstairs and discuss this in a better setting.”

To Donna’s surprise, there was a second secret door in the private room. This one led to a very narrow corridor running behind the other two private rooms.  Donna was so busy figuring out how to inchworm her way along it that she almost missed the faint glowing spots on the wall.  She hesitated at the last one, looked closer.  “Peepholes?  You have peepholes into all the private rooms?”

Ray chuckled softly from up ahead.  “Yes.”

“Dirty old man,” Donna muttered, but she was grinning, and Ray could hear it.

“Guilty as charged,” he conceded merrily.

The passage emerged from another concealed door near the fire exit, at the base of a set of stairs going up.  Donna slithered up the stairs behind Ray, emerging into a modest sized office complete with filing cabinets and a secretary’s desk.  A window on one side overlooked the club, and she could see Rowan dancing on the stage.  Donna paused, mesmerised.  She’d had no idea that it was possible to dance like that, sophisticated and beautiful while still being somehow carnal as well.

“She’s amazing,” breathed Donna.

Ray stood beside her, watching as well.  “I know.  She’s been here for years and years, got her start long before I bought the place.  Seeing her like this... ah, it’s good for this old soul.”

Donna snorted, turned to smile at him.  “You’re not old.”

“Compared to the young things dancing up on that stage every night?  I sure feel it.”  Ray laughed self-deprecatingly, then smiled back at her.  “But pretty company can make me forget.  Come on.”

He led Donna into an attached office.  It had a similar window onto the club, but that was not the sight that captured Donna’s attention.  On every wall hung drawings or paintings depicting fantastic creatures.  The most dramatic was a life-sized painting of a blue-furred humanoid vixen, rendered in the style of the sign out front, but with much more attention to detail.  It looked as though she could dance right out of the frame.

Donna slowly turned, taking in the others.  There were many species of cat-girl, a few more vixens, a deer-girl.  There was a cluster of aquatic forms, one that looked like an orca mermaid, a dolphin-girl, and another girl with bright red octopus tentacles.  Next to them was what looked like a half-finished transformation into an inflatable pool toy, then a dragon-girl, a winged serpent and a rotund, happy panda girl.

“You have an eye for beauty, Ray.  Did you commission these?”

“Most of ‘em, yeah.  And thanks.”  His eyes were only on her.  “It helps to have excellent clay to work with.”

Donna dimpled at the compliment, her gaze dropping from his and alighting on her perfect serpentine body.  “If the results will be like this, I’ll be your clay any time.”  She felt giddy at the idea of finding someone who could guide her talent, her form, to such things.

Ray’s rich chuckle and possessive touch made her squirm, and she cast about for a distraction.

Five framed pictures on Ray’s desk caught Donna’s eye.  She glanced from them to him, and he nodded.  Donna slithered closer, and her eyes widened.  In each shot was a picture, an actual photograph of one of the missing women.  Ana as a catgirl, lounging beside a large indoor pool.  Isolde posing seductively with her succubus wings on full display.  Kate the robot, holding a tray of drinks.  The mousegirl sitting at the edge of the pool, kicking up a spray of water, grinning at the person taking the picture.  And last, Nissa, posing gracefully by a huge window, her gaze on the grounds outside.  There was an expanse of lawn, and beyond it a lush forest.

“You took pictures of them?  How on earth?”

“It wasn’t easy.  I tried a lot of different things, even an archaic non-silver-based photographic plate.  Then Rowan told me about the silver bottle, and I tried making a sort of silver Faraday cage for a camera, with a fine silver mesh in front.  Bit fiddly to get the exposure right, and you have to set the camera up to just take pictures every second or so... but the results were very much worth the effort.”

“I see.  They’re all wearing the same metal band at their necks.  Why?”

“I made each of them the same offer I’m about to make you.  The pictures are from my private estate, not too far from here.  Seventeen acres, all very private.  You can stay like this, run around outside all you like.  Nobody can see.”

“Oh... wow.  That would be amazing, being able to go outside like this.  How’d you end up with a place like that?”

Ray shrugged, and turned to a wooden cabinet below the vixen painting, working a complex latch on the front of it.  “The usual story.  Engineer moves to Silicon Valley, working stupid hours for startup after startup.  One makes it big, and he decides he’s had enough of hundred hour weeks, so he cashes in to live off his investments.  Turned 40 million into 30 before I realized I sucked at that, and hired a money manager.  Came back here and bought a nice private place to live and relax.  Then bought the club for something fun to do.  Against my manager’s advice, I might add.”

“So... why’d you buy it?”

Ray grinned, carrying something back to the desk.  “Magic had happened here once, or so the rumors went.  I hoped to see it again, and once I did, I knew I wanted more.  Here,” he held out a thick metal torc.  “Wear this, and you can stay as you are for as long as you like.”

Donna stared at what she suddenly realized was a large piece of pure silver, eyes widening in horror.  She swore and swatted the silver neckpiece out of Ray’s hands to get it as far away as possible.  In her panic, she forgot just how much strength she’d given her body.  The blow embedded the torc in the wall, and sent Ray spinning to the floor with a sickening crunch.

Donna rose up above him, riding high on her coils.  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?  What that much silver does to a person who’s changed?”

Ray stared up at her in terror and pain.  “What are you?”

“Do you know what you’ve done?” she thundered.

“It... just lets them stay in the form they wanted.  Ana,” Ray sucked in a pained breath, “Ana wanted so badly to stay a catgirl, and this was the only way.  She loved it.”

“And the others?” asked Donna, voice softer but still full of threat.

Ray tried to sit up, moaned in pain and collapsed to the floor again.  “My arm’s broken.”

“What about the others?” hissed Donna.

Ray closed his eyes.  “Same as I offered you.  Silver to stay as they were.  I asked once they’d had it on for a day or two, they all wanted to stay like that.”

“Idiot.  Silver makes them forget they could be anything else.  Of course they’re happy.”

“What are you talking about?  Ana didn’t change.”

“Ana desperately wanted to be a catgirl.  The others...”  Donna looked around the room.  “Pick a picture.  The one you’d least like to spend your life as.”

“What?”

“Do it!” hissed Donna.

“The vixen.  That was the previous owner’s idea, not mine.”

Donna started the change at Ray’s shattered arm, blue fur blooming as flesh and bone knitted back together, slimming down to a delicate feminine arm.  Ray sighed with relief as the pain went away, then sat up and stared at the changes flowing across his body.  As the fur spread, he shrank down, losing the thick solidity of his male body for a lithe, female dancer’s form.  The only spots to buck the trend were his breasts and hips.  He let out a very feminine yip of alarm when he felt her tail grow in.

Ray stood, and turned to the window, studying her reflection in it.  “My God.  I’m... beautiful.  Thank you.”

Donna growled.  “That wasn’t the point.”  She slithered over to the wall, turned a hair into a crowbar and pried the torc free.  She proffered it to Ray on the end of the crowbar, keeping her distance.  “Put it on.”

Ray did so, and instantly her expression changed, from wonder and wariness to subservience.  The blue vixen dropped to her knees in front of Donna, and lowered her head.  “How may I serve you, Mistress?”

Donna stared at her in surprise.  When she finally found her voice, it was uncertain.  “Tell me your name.”

“I have none, save that you give me.”

“Cobalt, then.  Arise, and look on me.”

Cobalt stood, her shy gaze meeting Donna’s amazed one.  “As you wish.  What can I do for you?”

“Tell me... what do you want in life?”

“To serve you, Mistress.  For you to look at me and say, ‘thank you Cobalt, that was well done’.”

Donna grabbed the desk with her two right hands, steadying herself.  Her grip splintered the wood.  “I...  Who are you?”

“A simple vixen girl, bred to serve.”  Cobalt spread her arms in an innocent gesture.  “There’s little more to tell.”

“Very good, Cobalt.”  The vixen girl smiled so happily at that, it made Donna’s heart ache.  The next words stuck in her throat.  “Take... Take the silver torc off, please, and set it on the desk.”

Cobalt did so without hesitation, then stumbled to her knees.  Shock was written across Ray’s face, shock and terror.  But when her gaze finally turned to Donna’s, wonder and awe had replaced them, and her hand slowly stole toward the torc once more.

“No!” Donna commanded, and Ray stopped.  “What are you thinking?”

“I...  She...  Goddess, being like that was everything I wanted or could conceive of wanting.  Even now, with the echo of it...  She was so simple, yet so pure.  Please?”  The hand snuck forward again.

Donna closed a hand about Ray’s wrist, being careful not to use too much force.  Her grip still felt like an iron manacle.  “Do you see, now, what you’ve done to the others?”

Ray’s eyes widened.  “Oh no.”