Button 13 - Normality Denied

Returning to work after her magical weekend at the convention was a huge letdown for Yana.  Everything seemed so banal and boring.  The job was still a job, mostly involving taking calls and handling shipping of orders.  KK was still hovering over her as if Yana was a hen that laid magic eggs full of pretty dresses.  Yana had to admit it wasn’t too far from the truth, but she still needed more time to figure out how to make dresses that lasted after she'd removed the button.  She didn’t intend to let the magic button go anywhere near her overly enthusiastic studio boss.

The one odd thing was the person that Yana had had much of her fun with at the convention.  Heather was avoiding her, even going so far as to studiously look away from Yana whenever they were in the same room for a brief time.  Yana had no idea what had gotten into the big woman, maybe she shouldn’t have absorbed her into her boobs.  Heather had seemed to like it at the time, but...  It was starting to get on her nerves.

The ride home on the bus didn’t help, either.  Everyone was doing exactly what Heather had been, pretending that she didn’t exist.  (That they were also pretending everybody else on the bus didn’t exist wasn’t really relevant to her stewing.)

As usual, Darryl was home before she was, which served to annoy her even more.  Until he smiled at her and offered a hug.  Yana sighed ruefully, then accepted.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just... gah.  How do you go back to normal after all that?”

Darryl chuckled softly.  “Well, I don’t usually spend my time at the convention turned into toys and clothing... but it’s still a letdown to come home.  I usually binge on my favourite SF movies and books for the next week.”

“Screw that, I want to use the button.”

“That works too,” Darryl said agreeably.  “Dinner first?”

Yana didn’t answer right away, she was looking up the stairs.

“Or we could see if you can eat as a half-doll.”

Yana darted up the stairs before he’d finished speaking.  In less than a minute she was skipping back down with a huge grin on her face.  She twirled in front of Darryl, showing off what she’d done with the button.  Except for her head, feet, and hands, every inch of her body was now made of something shiny and cobalt blue.  It looked like she was made of liquid metal.

Darryl shook his head.  “I thought you’d bring the button down here to play.”

“I did.  As part of me,” Yana said, trailing her fingers over her body and shuddering at how it felt.  “Play with me.”

“You could have gotten stuck,” objected Darryl.

“Bah.  You know I can free myself from the button any time I like,” huffed Yana, disappointment obvious in her voice.  “Come on, let’s play.”  She grabbed his hand and tugged.

“But dinner will be ruined if we don’t...”  Darryl’s objection fell on deaf ears, as Yana started dragging him up the stairs.

He tried again.  “If the kitchen catches fire, it’ll interrupt us.”

“Fine,” Yana sighed.  “I guess I could eat, at that.”

While they ate, Darryl could look at nothing but Yana.  She made sure to wiggle fetchingly between bites.  

“Cat got your tongue?” Yana asked with a grin.

“Uh...  You’re just so shiny.  I feel like a magpie.  Is that clothing, or...”

“All me.  I’ve been sitting here naked the entire time.”

Darryl set his fork down abruptly. “I’m done.”

“Was the experiment a success?” asked Yana with a twinkle in her eye.

“Hm?”

Yana indicated her plate, where she’d eaten most of what was in front of her.  “Half-dolls can indeed eat.  But there are other... appetites... that they’d rather indulge.”

This time, Darryl didn’t resist when Yana drew them up to the bedroom.  By the top of the stairs he’d found his mental footing again, and as he was getting undressed he said, “You’re not finished.”

Yana looked up at him sharply from her spot on the bed.  “What?”

“You can move.  For the test I have in mind you can’t have hands.”

“No hands?”

“True dolls don’t have hands,” he said in a commanding voice.

Yana’s hands melted away, leaving only rounded nubs of shiny blue at her wrists.  She stared at the stumps, and started to grin.  “Yes boss.  Anything else?”

If Darryl was surprised that Yana had erased her hands instead of turning them into mitts, he didn't show it.  “Feet too.”  Darryl dropped his pants on the floor and turned to his bedside table, not even watching as Yana’s feet shared the same fate as her hands.

“Pose your arms and legs, then convert your muscles so you can’t move them.”

Yana had been stroking her chest with her stumps, and the effect of this order made her gasp.  Her arms went to her sides, bending like a doll’s, then stopped moving.  “Ohh...”

Darryl manipulated her arms and legs, grinning.  “Much better.  We’re going to see if you can beat the egg again.”  He held up the gleaming little vibrator that he’d used on her the first night of the convention.  “It has a random pattern mode.”

Yana sucked in her breath.  “Ooooh.  Do it!  Do it!”

“My dolly is being awfully pushy.  It shouldn’t have a human face,” Darryl ordered.

Yana’s eyes went wide as a wave of blue rushed over her face, turning her head into a featureless ovoid.  Darryl waited for a moment longer, then flicked the egg on.  It thrummed in his hands, faster then slower, weaker and stronger.  He grinned, and slowly slid the egg down Yana’s body from her blank face, over her nipple-less breasts, and finally down between her legs.  He tucked it up inside her, then leaned in and kissed her where her lips had been.  “Mmm.  You look wild like this.  I’ll be back after I’ve washed the dishes.”

When Darryl came back upstairs, Yana was in exactly the same pose as he’d left her in.   He kissed her again, trailed fingertips over that wonderfully slick blue sort-of-metal that made up her body now.  It wasn’t as slick as the dresses had been, his fingertips could get some purchase.

After a few more moments admiring her body, he picked up a book, sat down beside her, and started to read.

Every once in a while the doll managed to twitch, when the egg was quietest.  It never moved far.  When Darryl finished the first book from his stack, he leaned close to Yana’s unmoving form and whispered, “I know what you want.  But you have to break free to get it.”  More loudly he added, “Gosh, it's getting late.  I should got to sleep soon.”

Yana hadn’t really been trying to break out of the egg’s influence.  She was struggling against it, trying to use the brief lulls at the end of each pattern cycle to move her limbs, and had gotten pretty good at that.  Still, it wasn’t possible to move very far before the egg kicked in again, breaking her concentration and causing her body to snap back into position.  She loved how it felt, struggling and failing, trying and oooooh.

Then Darryl had to come along and tease her.  She could hear the gloating in his voice, knew it was a put on, but couldn’t help but be inflamed by it even so.  She knew the pattern well by now, knew when the lulls came.  But fighting against her body’s immobility only made matters worse, she ended up frustrated and back exactly where she’d started.

Yana tried to think.  It was just so hard!  The egg buzzing away inside her only allowed her a few seconds of coherent thought at the end of the pattern, about once a minute.  She stopped struggling physically to focus on the mental effort.  One second wasn’t long enough to cut the threads, she knew that.  It was long enough, just, to make minor changes.

Yana tried pushing the egg out by narrowing the passage it was lodged in.  That failed, utterly.  Shifting mass from here to there was impossible in the time she had, it took too much focus.  Removing mass, however...  That was much easier.  So she erased a hole straight down through her pelvis over the course of two more cycles.  The egg fell onto the bed, and away from her most sensitive parts.

Darryl noticed nothing.  

Yana took another cycle to gather her wits and plan, as it was a reflex by now.  On the next lull, she restored her mobility, and pounced.  Darryl just grinned, and hugged her tight.  “You did it!  Now you get your reward.”

Darryl flipped Yana over onto her back with little effort, and made love to her as ferociously as he could.  Yana's ability to move abandoned her once more under the loving assault, and she didn't mind one bit.  She gloried in being used by him.

When Darryl was done, he lay on top of the cobalt-coloured doll, panting.  “'I hope you enjoyed that, sweetie.  Time for hands and feet and face once more.”

Yana reluctantly reformed her extremities, feeling Darryl's weight come off her as she did so.  She looked around for him once she had her face back, and couldn't see him.  “Darryl?  Where'd you go?”

It took a few moments for Yana to realize that she hadn't felt Darryl rolling off of her as she'd changed.  The weight had melted away, just like...  She stared down at her hands, and gave them a wiggle.  “Hey honey.  I bet this feels weird.  I wonder what you can feel...”

Yana reached for her shoulder where the magic button lay submerged within the liquid metal of her skin, then hesitated.  “It is awfully late,” she said with a forced yawn.  “You were right, it's time to sleep.  Sweet dreams.”

* * *

In the morning, Yana showered, dressed, and ate breakfast alone.  As she headed out the door she called out, ''Wake up, sleepyhead, or you'll be late for work.''

It was only as the door closed behind her that she realized she hasn't seen Darryl's sleeping form in the bed.  She racked her memory.  Had she tucked him into her panty drawer again?  Turned him into a pillow?  Then she remembered being Darryl's doll.  She tugged at the collar of her blouse and under it she saw cobalt blue skin gleaming back at her.  “Oops.”

Yana divested herself of the button and Darryl just inside the door then gave him a quick kiss.  “See you tonight.  Does the egg have any better settings?”

“I'll find out.”

* * *

Work was just as boring as it had been on Monday.  Heather was still ignoring her, and it got bad enough that KK noticed.

“What’s going on between you and Heather?” the studio boss asked.

Yana sighed. At least it was a change from being asked about the dresses.  “I really don’t know.  I ran into Heather last weekend, and now she’s acting like I don’t even exist.”

KK raised one expressive eyebrow.  “At the convention?  Well, that must have been interesting.  Are you two going to get us into doing science fiction porn?”

“Uh...”  Yana started to blush.

“Robot girls,” mused KK.  “Any chance we could get a robot girl costume out of you two?”

“The metal’s uncomfortable,” said Yana without thinking.

KK’s predator grin came out.  “Oh, so you have worked on it.  Good.  Good.  I look forward to your results.”  She patted Yana on the cheek and bounced off, humming happily.

“What just happened?” asked Yana, plaintively.

Later that afternoon, after Heather had avoided her several more times, Yana noticed the big woman heading into the storeroom.  Knowing there were no other exits, she followed.

“OK, Heather, what the hell is up?”

Heather yelped, and spun around to face Yana.  Even then, she couldn’t meet the smaller woman’s eyes.  “What did you say to KK?  She’s after me for robot outfits, now.”

“I... uh, might have mentioned the convention.”  At Heather’s astonished look she hastily added, “I didn’t say what we did!  But she jumped from science fiction to robot babes, and I let slip that I’d already tried it...”

“You were a robot?  When?” asked Heather, eyes flicking to Yana then away once more.  She turned away from the smaller woman.

“Right afterward.  Darryl bought me a picture of a sexy robot girl, and I tried being that.  Metal’s no fun, though.  Too cold, too hard.  Something more like last night’s liquid metallic body would work way better.”

Heather was quivering with excitement.  “Can I see?  Please?”

“I thought you didn’t want to look at me,” Yana said sharply, folding her arms across her chest.

“Because I had to.”

“You had to?” asked Yana incredulously.  “Look at me!”

Heather slowly turned to face Yana once more.  “Or else I’d do this.”  She grabbed Yana in her powerful arms, and kissed her soundly.  It wasn’t until Yana ran out of air that she started to struggle.

Heather immediately dropped her.  Yana stumbled against one of the shelves, panting heavily, using it to support her on legs grown quivery and weak.  “Oh goodness.  That was...”

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t...  After last weekend...”  Heather turned her back on Yana once more.  “You should go.  I’ll be OK if I don’t look at you.”

Yana took a hesitant step closer to Heather.  She could hear that the big woman was crying quietly.  “Look at me.”

“No.  If I do I’ll... I’ll...”

“You can’t just leave it at the convention,” said Yana softly.

“Playing with you and Darryl and the button was incredible.  I can’t forget, can’t dream about anything but...”  Heather gripped one of the shelves so hard it creaked.  “I’m so screwed.”

“Darryl seems pretty open-minded.  Want to be my dress tonight?”

Heather whirled around, her grip on the shelf sending the whole unit rocking.  “Could I?”  Her face lit up like a kid’s at Christmas.

There was a knocking at the door.  “Is everyone OK in there?”

Yana and Heather filed out under KK’s watchful gaze, looking sheepish.  “We’re fine,” offered Yana while staring at her feet.  “Just a little...”

KK chuckled softly.  “Not like it’d be the first time in there.  I’m glad you two have made up.  Now figure out those robot babes!  Or the dresses.  Or robot babes in dresses!”  KK dashed off toward her office, muttering about plots and scripts, ignoring the two women standing dumbfounded in her wake.

“What does she think we were...” asked Yana.

Heather snickered.  “You don’t really want to ask that.  You already know.”

Yana’s blush deepened.   “Oh.”

“So.  Shall I give you a ride home tonight?  You don’t live all that far from my place.”

Yana finally looked up, and grinned. “That would be awesome.  Maybe we can beat Darryl home, and surprise him.”

“Now you’re talking!”

The remainder of the day passed in a blur.

Once they were inside Yana and Darryl's townhouse, Heather pounced.  “Where is it?”

Yana laughed.  “You're as bad as I was last night.  Now where is it...”  She looked by the door where she'd put the button after freeing Darryl in the morning, but it wasn't there.  Next she checked the bedroom, and returned downstairs with her prize.

“So what shall we make you?” asked Yana, advancing on Heather with the button out.

“Can I try the robot thing?” Heather asked.  “Maybe we can find a way to get the metal look without the downsides.”

Yana touched Heather, and gold flowed over her skin.  A moment later, she looked like a priceless statue, but one that could still move.  “Oh, wow...” Heather exclaimed.  “So shiny!”

“But you don't look like a proper robot, yet.”  Yana studied Heather, then touched the button again.  The big woman's body slimmed down and acquired obvious joints.  At her elbows, wrists, knees and ankles the workings of her joints became exposed.  Her eyes turned milky white, and started to glow.

“Oooh pretty,” gushed Heather when she saw herself in the mirror.  Then she looked at Yana's reflection beside her.  “Wait a minute.  I look like your robotic twin.”

Yana blinked.  “Oh!  I'd been focussing on the image of myself from two nights ago.  Sorry, I can fix it.”

“No.  I have a better idea,” grinned Heather.

When Darryl arrived he was greeted inside the door by two identical golden robot girls.  They didn't say a word, and he followed them up to the bedroom, grinning hugely.

To Yana's surprise and Heather's disappointment, he only made love to one of the robot girls.  When he was done, lying spent and panting on the bed, Yana asked, “How did you know it was me?”

Darryl waved at Heather.  “Her spell's decay rate is slower than yours.”

“You can tell?” asked Heather.  “How?”

Darryl flumped back on the bed.  “I don't know how it works, but I can feel the flow of magic.  You're good for at least a few more hours.  If I goosed it, you'd be like that until dawn.”

“That's long enough for a day of shooting,” mused Heather.  “Would it work the same  if I was a dress instead of a robot?”

“Dunno.  Worth a test, I guess.”

Yana harrumphed, back in her normal body once more.  “You and your tests.”  Her stomach growled.  “Can we do it after dinner?”

After they'd restored Heather and eaten a hastily prepared repast, Yana turned Heather into a shimmering golden dress.  One thing led to another, and no more experimenting got done that night.

Heather was still a dress come morning, so Darryl rated the experiment a success, despite the chaos that ensued when Yana changed her back.  Luckily, Heather’s car was still nearby, so Yana and Heather didn’t need to rush off the way Yana had to when she was catching the bus.

Yana gave Darryl a kiss before she left with Heather.  “Thanks for being cool with all this.”

Darryl grinned.  “If it’s going to go like last night, she can come over whenever she likes.”

Heather’s squeal of happiness nearly deafened him.

* * *

“Okay,” said Heather as she drove Yana back home.  “That didn’t go too badly.”

“Sure,” answered Yana sarcastically.  “KK thinks we’re lovers now.  And she’s already planning a shoot involving robots.  We really need to work out how to make long-term changes without transforming people.  Unless you’re going to volunteer to be the dress or robot girl or whatever is needed on a given day.”

“Sounds like fun to me,” said Heather with a grin.

Yana snorted.  “Fine.  I’ll turn you into a dress and leave you on KK’s desk.  Then what?  Sneak you back out of the wardrobe at the end of the day, and hope KK doesn’t notice you’re missing?”

“Well, if the dress gets sufficiently... used,” Heather said with a broad smirk, “they tend not to last the day anyway.  So you’d be rescuing me from the trash.”

“Oh, yeah.  That’s a huge improvement.  And if I don’t find you, you change back in the garbage bin.  That’ll be fun,” Yana noted with a snort.

“Got a better idea?” asked Heather.  “I don’t know how much longer I can hold KK off, now that I know there is some kind of answer.”

“I don’t know.  We can work with Darryl, try to find a way to make a dress last as long as you do.  There has to be something.  He can feel the difference between the two... hm.”

“That sounded like a promising sort of ‘hm’.”

Yana laughed, shaking her head.  “It’s just... I’m starting to think like him.  I want to show him two dresses, one made out of you, one made from a normal dress.”

“I like it.  Let’s do it!”

So Darryl arrived home to find two identical black dresses draped over the couch.  He gave them a glance, then looked over at Yana.  “The one on the left is Heather, I take it?”

“I thought you’d know.  Examine them. Why is the one on the right going to change back in another two minutes?”

Darryl watched the spells decaying.  “Heather’s is being fed the slightest trickle from inside.  But it also started with far more magic, too.  But why?”

The dress on the right changed into a towel.  A mental tug from Yana freed Heather, and a moment later the big woman was sprawling on the couch beside it.  “Aww.  Did you have to change me back?”

“If you want to eat dinner, yes.”

“Food!”

Darryl chuckled at Heather’s enthusiasm.  “Fine.  We’ll eat first, and discuss what we know.  Maybe you’ll spot something we haven’t.”

As Darryl explained what he could sense about magic, the flow and level of power involved, Heather asked questions.  Some Darryl couldn’t answer, but the interesting one was to do with the different sorts of threads of magic being used to tie the spells off.

“So was the towel-dress’ thread thinner because it was a smaller change?”

Darryl shook his head.  “I think it has to do with the source material.  The button prefers to work on humans.  Well, living things.  We don’t have any test animals.”

“But you do have a potted plant,” noted Heather.

So after dinner, there were three dresses lined up on the couch.  One was Heather, one was the potted plant, and one was the loveseat, as Heather had later speculated that the size of the object might matter, too.

Darryl checked them over quickly, then put the loveseat-dress back where it belonged so its reversion wouldn’t toss him across the room.  He’d had enough of that with the bed and the camping gear.

“Anything?” asked Yana.

“The plant dress will last a while yet.  Maybe an hour?  It’s not feeding the spell, but the ‘threads’ are thicker.”

Yana set the plant-dress where the potted plant normally sat by the fireplace, then snipped the threads binding Heather’s form.

“Bah.  Still haven’t gotten worn,” mourned Heather.

“Patience will be rewarded,” said Yana with a grin.

They talked about what they’d discovered examining the three dresses, and Heather asked where the thread to tie off spells came from.  Yana explained that she used the threads that the button had already created.  Darryl suggested using stronger threads, but a test of trying to move Heather-threads to the towel dress just broke the spell on Heather, and gave her a sore shoulder to boot.

“You need to find a less painful source for thread,” complained Heather.  “Can't you spin some out of magic directly?”

“No,” said Yana, at the same time Darryl said, “I think so...”

“You can?” asked Yana, turning all her focus on Darryl.  “Show me!”

Darryl touched his fingertips together, then focussed intently on the space between them.  As he drew them apart a glittering strand appeared between them, and even Heather gasped at the sight.  But a moment later it shattered, sending sparks in all directions.  Darryl winced in pain as many of them hit his hands.  Two of the magazines on the coffee table acquired some scorch marks, and one had to be quickly extinguished.

“Well.  That didn’t work,” muttered Darryl, once the crisis was over.

“I don’t know about that.  I could feel what you were making.  Just maybe not quite so big this time.”

Darryl nodded, and moved to the fireplace to try again.  “Let’s make sure the sparks are better contained this time.”

Heather edged away from them.  “It’s getting late.  Good luck not blowing yourselves up.”  Neither of them noticed Heather’s departure.

The next thread was still too heavy for Yana to shape it, but didn’t throw as many sparks when it failed.

Before they could try again, the phone rang.  Aunt Bea was quite concerned about whatever they were doing, as she’d felt the disturbance from miles away.

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” said Darryl.  “Will that draw unwanted attention?”

Aunt Bea just laughed.  “No.  Anyone sane sensing that would be going the other way, trust me.”

“Should I be worried?”

“As long as you don’t blow yourself up, no.”

“We’ll be careful, Aunt Bea.  Honest.  I just... overdid it.”

“You do that.”

By the time Darryl was off the phone, the mood had been quite thoroughly dampened, and they decided to call it a night.

The next evening’s experiments were much more productive.  Darryl was still having trouble producing thread that didn’t self-destruct, even when he made it thin enough that Yana pronounced it serviceable.  The problem was that as soon as he let go of it, it unravelled swiftly from both ends.

Heather was watching the experiments closely, the results were far less explosive than that first attempt.  In fact, after the first few tries there wasn’t anything to see at all, and she was relying entirely on Darryl and Yana’s discussions of what they could sense.

“What if you tried to produce a loop of thread, so that it doesn’t have ends to fray?” Heather asked after listening patiently to the latest dissection.

Darryl shrugged.  “Worth a shot.”  His eyes closed, and nothing appeared to happen for a bit.  This was how all the other attempts had looked, so Heather waited quietly.

“Almost,” muttered Darryl.  “Aw, nuts.  It’s too slippery like that.”

“Damnit,” cursed Yana.  “Just give me some... thread?”  She held her hands up in front of her, working something invisible.  “How?”

“Tie it off!  Quick!”

Darryl and Yana were grinning at each other.  After several seconds, Heather cleared her throat.  “Did something happen?”

“I need to act more like a bobbin than a spider, it seems.  Yana grabbed one end of the thread, and pulled.  Do it again!”

“Yes, it worked!” cried Yana a few moments later.  “Wow, this is heavy stuff.  Are the knots decaying at all?”

Darryl studied the emptiness between them.  “The ends frayed away, but the knot itself seems stable.”  He cupped his hand around one bit of nothingness, and closed his eyes.  “Mmm.  Slight leakage.  Very very slight.  It will fail, but... not any time soon.”

“Days?” asked Heather.

“Probably, yeah.  I’d have to study it as it decays over the next few days to get a better estimate.  And it wouldn’t be hard to refill it to reset the duration.”

“How full can you make them?” asked Heather, curiously.

Darryl stared at the point in space intently, then swallowed.  “Uh...  Can you feel it any more, Yana?  Something weird just happened.”

“Feel what?”

“The knot that was just there.”

Yana shrugged.  “The knot feels normal to me,” she said, gesturing at a point in the air to the right of where Darryl was staring.

“No, the other...”  Darryl frowned.  “Didn’t we make two?”

“It sounded like it,” said Heather.  “But I have no idea what you actually did.”

“I... think overloading threads this thick is bad,” said Darryl after contemplating that for a while.  “Possibly ‘don’t cross the streams’ bad.”

Yana looked confused, but Heather chuckled.  “But not quite ‘all life as you know it stopping instantaneously’?”

“I...  I’m not sure,” said Darryl slowly.  “But it’s best to let it alone.”

Yana looked back and forth between them.  “Never mind that.  Let’s test this stuff!  I want to see if it’ll hold a button change for as long as it seems.”

Soon there was a dress where an old towel had been.  Yana tried to reuse the existing knot, but untying it caused it to fray and fall apart.  “Ooops.  I think with practice I could do that.  Give me another.”

Darryl offered out his hand, and Yana drew off another thread.  A few moments later, she tugged the button free of the dress.  “Well?”

“It looks like it’s holding,” Darryl said, with awe in his voice.  “It’ll hold for hours, maybe days.”

Heather jumped up and down excitedly.  “We can give KK her dresses?  Do me next!”

“What?”

“How long will a person last as a dress?” asked Heather.  “You want to know.  I want to know.”

Darryl looked helplessly between the two women.  “This is not ... you’re not even listening.”

Heather collapsed into a puddle of golden fabric.  Yana didn’t even ask him before drawing another thread off.  She tied the spell off then tugged the button free with a victorious grin.  “This is awesome.”

Darryl sighed, and studied the new dress.  “Thanks for dialing back the super-attractiveness.”

“It’d cause too much chaos at the studio.”

“You’re seriously going to take her there like this?  What if she gets lost?”

Yana shrugged.  “She’ll change back in time.”

Darryl shook his head.  “No.  She won’t.  It’s leaking less than she provides.  She’ll be like this until you pull that knot.”

Yana put her hand to her mouth in shock, then slowly lowered it, revealing a huge grin.  “Oh... wow.  I can curse people?”

Darryl snorted.  “Of course you’d take that from it.  Yes.  Working together, we could.  I’d rather not build a collection of cursed people.”

“Oh come on.  You’ve got to admit that it’s cool.”

“Yeah.”  Darryl picked up Heather, and let the fabric pour through his hands.  “You do impressive work.  Want to make a few more?”

Yana shook her head.  “I want to celebrate.”

Darryl’s expression brightened.  “Oh!  I have the perfect thing, then.  Let me go get it.”

“I’ll be upstairs.”

Darryl found her lying on the bed, looking like the exact same cobalt blue doll as on Monday night.  She still had a face, but her hands and feet were gone.  He held up the shiny metallic egg.  “Did you peek?”

“Maybe.”

“Ready for round three?” asked Darryl as he set up a small box on his dresser beside the bed.  He plugged it in, then the egg’s charging cable plugged into it.

“Stop messing around!” ordered Yana.

“Or?” asked Darryl with a wide grin.  He climbed up onto the bed next to Yana’s immobile form, teasing fingers down her side.

“Or I’ll suck you up like I did with Heather at the con.”

Darryl chuckled, and gave Yana’s breasts a good squeeze.  “Promises, promises.  That looked like fun.  But I have something even more fun in mind.”

He proceeded to tease up and down her immobilized form, drawing all sorts of moans and whimpers from Yana.  She did an admirable job of keeping her focus even so.  Still, she slipped twice, and the button’s influence spread further each time.  The first took her hair and the second coloured most of her head blue, leaving only her face.

Darryl kissed her gently on the lips.  “I should tease you all the way to being a doll... but I want to try something else.”  He turned away to the box on the dresser to press a button.

“Stop fiddling with that!” commanded Yana, in a tone that made it clear she was ready to carry out her earlier threat.

Darryl just laughed, and tucked the egg up inside her.  Yana’s eyes closed as she felt it thrum three times in quick succession, then one deep, longer thrum.  “Mmm.  Better.  Aww, it’s repeating already!”

Darryl laughed.  “Wait for it...”  He cupped her breasts once more, giving them a good squeeze.

The CD player on the dresser launched into the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in all its glory, and Yana’s eyes opened wide as she felt the egg echo every note.  “Oh no!”

Darryl’s eyes widened.  “What?”  Then he stared down at his hands.  They were disappearing slowly but surely into Yana’s burgeoning breasts.  “What have you done?”

“I can’t stop it!  Do something!” Yana begged.  Then the music picked up, and her focus was lost for good.  Her face melted away into a sea of cobalt blue.

Darryl kicked at the egg’s charging cable, but instead his leg hit Yana’s leg and stuck fast.  He struggled to free his hands, but that only made his arms sink further.  “Yana!” he called out.  “Stop this!”

He didn’t stop sinking.  If anything, he was melting away into Yana more swiftly than before.  He watched his arms slip away with fascination and dread.  His legs were already gone, and much of his torso as well.  Once his hips had vanished into Yana, he could feel what the egg was doing to her, and moaned with the pleasure of it.

Darryl’s head was the last to go.  He smiled down at Yana’s blank face.  “It’ll be OK.”  Then, just before his lips disappeared into the consuming blueness he murmured, “What a world, what a world...”

Then there was nothing but an inert doll on the bed, thrumming softly to Beethoven’s 5th.