Tara sighed happily as the apartment door closed behind her.  She tossed her gym bag to the floor, hung up her jacket, and gave her arms a flex and shake to work out the kinks.

“Rough day?” asked Sasha, her roommate.  She was perched at one of the two stools that made the kitchen counter double as an eating nook, and was rolling a small round object from hand to hand across the counter.

Tara winced.  “They stuck me with teaching a mixed kickboxing class.  Guys just don’t respect a girl leading a workout.”

“You mean they ogle you instead of listening,” giggled Sasha.

Tara looked away, and her eyes fell on her gym bag.  She guiltily scooped it up and headed toward the laundry closet.  She caught Sasha’s smile out of the corner of her eye.  Sasha never complained about Tara’s smelly gym stuff... not out loud, anyway.  But the dirty looks and sighs were clear enough.  She kept the apartment neat and clean, so Tara felt that handling her own laundry was the least she could do.

Their apartment wasn’t large, but the perk that had sold them on it was the compact washer and dryer tucked away in a closet near the bedroom doors.  Sasha had waxed enthusiastic about it, and won her over.

Once the load of laundry was churning away, Tara returned to the common room.  “What’s up?  I thought you weren’t due back until Monday.”

“Great-uncle Quentin had a provision in his will to have professional movers deal with all the stuff we didn’t want.  So all we had to do was go around and argue about what we wanted to keep.”

“Nice of him.  And I’m sorry about your loss.”

Sasha waved a hand.  “No, no.  It’s fine.  He was lovely, but he had a long, rich life.  Uncle Peter’s eulogy was really clear on that.  I’ll miss him, but...”  Sasha smiled.  “He went out the way he wanted.”

“Not many nonagenarians die in hang glider accidents,” granted Tara.

“To be honest, I don’t think it was an accident.  Aunt Francine told me his mind was going, and she figured he wanted to go on his terms.”

“I can’t imagine, but... it’s hard to imagine being ninety-seven.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell over them for a time, and Sasha resumed rolling the little green ball back and forth.

“What’s that?” asked Tara.

“Best part of my inheritance,” said Sasha with a big grin.  She scooped it up in one hand, and gave it a couple of squeezes.  When she opened her hand, the ball was glowing.

“Glowy stress ball.  Nice,” said Tara without sincerity.

“Magic stress ball.  Catch!”  Sasha tossed the ball to Tara, who caught it out of the air reflexively.

Tara pouted at the ball in her hand.  “Aww, the glow went away.  It’s all grey now.”  She squeezed it experimentally, finding it stiff and unyielding, then tossed it back to the counter.  Tara frowned as she looked down at her hand.  “Why is my hand glowing?”

The glow spread up her arm, then settled as a gentle warmth in her chest.  “Mmm.  At least it feels nice.  Warm.  Kind of...”  Tara glanced down at her chest.  “Soft...  What the?”

Tara poked at her chest gently.  Normally she could get through the day without a bra.  Her training regimen gave her well-defined muscles, but it had done her chest no favours.  To her amazement, where she once had fried eggs, she now had... what?  Cantaloupe halves?  Her crop top no longer showed defined pectorals, they were hidden under unfamiliar curves.  Curves that wiggled when she poked them.

“I’ve heard you grump about how flat you are, so I thought you might like a boost.”

Tara continued to stare at her chest.  She cupped her hands under her breasts, weighing them.  “This is so strange.”

“It’s temporary,” said Sasha, reassuringly.

Tara glanced up at her, then back down.  She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.  “How long?”  She was pretty sure she hadn’t succeeded.

Sasha shrugged, as if unaware of Tara’s struggle.  “It’s a bit fuzzy.  The more you squish, the brighter it glows, the brighter it glows the longer the change lasts.  I played around with it a bit when I got it, and... you should be good for about an hour.”

“Ah.  I should shower.”

Sasha smirked.  “You do that.  Have fun.”

Tara felt her cheeks warm as she tore her gaze away from the improbable mounds on her chest.  She let go of them, and winced as they bounced.  “It’s not like that!  I’m sweaty and stinky and...”

“And you want to play with your new toys.  I did exactly the same thing in the hotel room last night.”

Tara glowered at Sasha and stomped off to the bathroom.  Once the door was securely locked behind her, Tara stripped off her workout gear, barely registering that it ended up in a Sasha-displeasing heap by the door.

The mirror caught her gaze.  Normally she ignored it, but today was no longer normal.  Today, the muscular figure in the mirror had breasts.  Tara turned from side to side, studying her image in a way she had never done before.  She’d never found her muscles appealing, not the way certain people seemed to, judging by the long looks she’d get from women and men alike at the gym.

But this... curves on top of muscle?  It should have looked out of place.  Ridiculous.  But they weren’t too big for her frame, not quite.  She cupped them again, to push them up as a bra might, and found the idea of cleavage appealing.

Then her thumb found a nipple and her knees nearly buckled.  Tara dropped her hands to the vanity to keep her balance, and stood there, swaying, as the electric tingle reverberated throughout her body.  “What did she do to me?”

Tara hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until she heard Sasha’s voice through the door.  “Nice, sensitive breasts.  That’s all.”

“That’s quite enough,” groused Tara.

“Don’t be like that.  It’s only for an hour or so.  Unwind a bit.  Have a nice bath.”

“In this excuse for a tub?  I barely fit.”

“Oh.  Right.  I’d still recommend it, or at least sit down when you play.  Falling down in the shower sucks.”

Tara turned the shower on so she would not have to hear any more of Sasha’s teasing.  After she’d cleaned the rest of her body, she took her roommate’s advice and sat down in the tub before soaping up her breasts.  It made it difficult to keep them soapy, but when her hands found those absurdly sensitive nipples once more, she no longer cared...

The water ran cold, and shocked Tara out of her blissful reverie.  She scrambled to turn the water off, then again to get out of the tub and a towel wrapped around her.  She scrubbed with it a bit too vigorously to try to get her trembling under control.

“Baths don’t run cold,” was all Sasha said when Tara emerged.  Her smirk said rather more.

“Don’t be so smug.”

“Smug?  Moi?”

Tara sighed.  “Can I go back to normal now?”

Sasha rolled the ball around in her hand.  “Where’s the fun in that?”

“This is fun to you?”

Sasha stepped closer, and booped Tara on the nose.  “Yes.  It’s temporary, you got a new experience and enjoyed it.  Don’t try to deny it.”

“Fine.  I liked how they felt.  A lot.”  Tara tugged at the towel she was wearing around her torso, it had proven trickier to tie than normal and felt like it was slipping.  “They threw off my balance, and I don’t like that at all.”

“Throwing off your towel, too,” giggled Sasha as said towel fell to the floor, revealing that Tara’s chest was once again flat as a pancake.  “Or I guess they were the only things holding it up.”

Tara grabbed the towel from the floor, wrapped it around herself as best she could, then stomped off to her room to throw some more comfortable clothes on.  Ones she hoped would not betray her.

When she returned to their common space, Sasah was still sitting at the counter, and the ball was glowing in her hands.  “Think fast!”

Tara caught the ball before her mind caught up with what she was seeing.  Once again the glow suffused into her, brighter this time, and moving faster.  Her whole body tingled as it dwindled.  Her prized muscles melted away into softness, and a familiar weight grew on her chest.  She stared down at herself and how her comfy sweats were now very snug in some spots, and alarmingly loose in others.  “What did you do?”

Sasha hopped off the stool and stood nose to nose with her friend.  Only then did Tara realize she’d lost the half foot of height advantage she usually had.  “You shrunk me?”

Sasha’s smirk threatened to divide her head in two.  “It worked!  Come, come you have to see...”  She dragged Tara along to her room.

Tara tried to struggle, found it terrifying that Sasha could in fact drag her despite her efforts.  Her balance was completely wrong, and her strength was...  She tried not to think about it, and her preoccupation was cut short when Sasha stopped her in front of a full-length mirror.  Tara didn’t have such a thing in her room, she never needed it.

“Tada!  Twinsies!”

Tara stared at the reflection.  Standing next to the reflection of Sasha was, indeed, her twin.  Every curve below the neck was identical, as were their heights.  Above the neck, Sasha had wavy blonde hair just past her shoulder blades, and piercing blue eyes over pouty lips.  Tara still had her close-cropped black hair, and muddy eyes.  “I’d need a wig and coloured contacts to be your twin.”

“And some makeup.  I’ve got a wig that’d do the trick.”

“Are you serious?  What the hell is all this?”

“I’ve seen the looks you give me when I dress up,” said Sasha.  “I wanted to see what you’d like all prettied up.”

“So you changed me into your doppelganger?”

Sasha chuckled.  “Hardly.  You’d never fool anyone.  But this way we can share clothes.  I’ll lend you my prettiest bra, and that slinky red dress you couldn’t keep your eyes off of.”

“I’m not your dress-up doll,” grated Tara.

“Please?  You might like this if you try it out.  It’s only for tonight, you’ll be normal by midnight.”

“Midnight?  But it’s barely dinnertime.”

“Time to go out and party.  Come dancing with me.  Twins in pretty dresses get all kinds of attention.”

“Wrong kind,” groused Tara.

“I know a girls-only place...” wheedled Sasha.

Tara narrowed her eyes at Sasha.  “What sort of place?”

“You’ll like it.  Loud music, lots of pretty girls dancing.”

Tara tried to look uninterested, but her hips started to sway at the thought of dancing.  “Ugh, my balance is all wrong.”

Sasha grinned.  “C’mon, you can practice dancing in pretty dresses.”

“Who says I want to be pretty?”

“You’re still staring at your reflection.  And still dancing.”

Tara looked down at herself, all curves and wiggles.  “Oh.”

“A proper dancing dress would really show off that body.  Please?”

Tara sighed softly.  “You’re not going to let go of this.”

“Not a chance.”

Tara met her reflection’s gaze, and studied this new body, a body that was starting to feel alarmingly familiar.  She tried a few more dance steps, then transitioned fluidly into some of her judo katas, followed by two of the practice strikes she’d been teaching in her latest kickboxing class.  She bowed to her reflection.  “It’ll do.”

“What was that?”

“Getting used to this body you’ve saddled me with.  Have you got anything that I can really move in?”

“Not like that!  Well... maybe.”  Sasha darted to her closet, and started to dig.  She held up a pair of shiny purple leggings with a cheer.  “Yes!  I still have them.  They’re stretchy, so they should fit...”

Tara resignedly wiggled her way into the spandex leggings, and then returned to the mirror to admire what they did to her new legs.  She failed to remember to protest as Sasha added a little black “dress” that was barely more than a shirt to the outfit, nor when the wig was perched on her head.

Tara did fuss when Sasha dragged her over to her makeup table, but was quickly shushed.  “Do you trust me?”

Tara eyed her roommate suspiciously.  “Not as much as I used to.”

“Okay, do you trust my makeup skills?”

Tara’s gaze lifted from her reflection to Sasha’s.  “You do look pretty most days.  You don’t need much, I’ve seen you without makeup.”

Sasha blushed at the unexpected compliments.  “So close your eyes while I do the same for you.”

Tara did so, but there was a lot of squirming and flinching at the touch of the brushes.  “I swear,” grumbled Sasha.  “You’re as bad as my little brother was.  Hold still!”

“Sorry.  Getting used to it.  Wait, you’d do this to your brother?”

“Mom and Dad said he had to do what I said when they had me babysit.  So if he was a brat, which was often, it was makeup time.”

“Way to traumatize the kid.”

Sasha laughed airilly.  “He’s fine.  Doing better than I am, he’s a highly sought out hairdresser.”

“Did you turn him gay?”

Sasha poked Tara’s shoulder with the butt of one of her brushes.  “No!  It doesn’t work like that.  Besides, all the flamboyance is for show, he’s straight and married. Scored a real hottie of a wife, too.  Lucky ass.”

“Jealous?”

Sasha resumed her work, and was quiet for a time.  Tara held still, waiting for an answer.  Eventually she was rewarded with a sigh.  “Yeah.  His life is so put together, and I’m still stuck in a stupid-ass service job, barely making rent.”

“I meant about the wife.”

Sasha giggled, and then daubed Tara’s lips with something.  “She’s not quite my thing, but... yeah, a little.  OK, open your eyes.”

Tara stared into the mirror for a long time.  “You used that ball thing again.  There’s no way that’s my face.”

“Nope.  Takes half as long to recharge as the change lasts.”  Sasha picked the grey orb up and showed it off.  “It’ll turn green when it can be used again.”

“Good to know.  So this is really me?  Well, me plus makeup?”

“Yup!  C’mon, let’s dance, and make all the pretty girls swoon.”

Tara smiled and agreed.

The music was as loud as promised, and the lack of male leering let Tara slowly relax and have fun.  That she danced more with Sasha than anyone else was hardly surprising.  Sasha had two nearly identical dresses, and was wearing shiny blue leggings to offset Tara’s purple ones.  They were very much the twin act, and got loads of compliments on their look.

So it was inevitable that when a slow dance came up later in the evening Tara found herself with Sasha, pulled into a close grip and swirling across the floor.  When the song ended, Sasha kissed her, just a gentle peck on the lips that still left Tara wide-eyed and staring.

Sasha felt Tara go tense, and pulled away.  “Oh crap, hon.  Not good?”

Tara shook her head, and darted for the door.  Sasha found her outside the club, hyperventilating.  “Talk to me, please?”

“I want my body back.”  Tara said, failing to keep a quaver out of her voice.

“Won’t be much longer,” reassured Sasha.  “Let’s get you home and into comfy clothes.  Maybe a nice bath to calm you down.”

“I don’t fit in the bathtub, remember?” groused Tara.

“You do now.  Live a little.  Come on, lean on me for once.”  Sasha wrapped one arm around Tara, and helped her walk home.

Tara soon found herself in their efficient little bathroom once more.  This time, it seemed larger than before, and the tub... almost inviting.  Tara started it filling, and once there was enough water, she slowly slipped into it, sighing happily as the heat soaked through her.  Except where her hips brushed against the sides, anyway, and even that contact soon faded.  She drifted there, and surprised herself by idly wondering if the ball could make her even smaller, small enough to float properly, maybe even to swim.

“Feeling better?” asked Sasha when Tara emerged.  She nudged a cup of hot cocoa toward her roommate.

Tara took it up, and perched on the other stool at the kitchen counter.  After a slow sip, she sighed.  “The bath was nice.  Thanks.”

“But...”

“Why did you kiss me?”

Sasha looked down at her cup.  “I was caught up in the moment, slow dancing with a pretty girl.  You’re a hell of a dancer, I’d have let you take me home and do whatever you wanted with me.”

“We are home,” grumbled Tara.  “What am I supposed to do with you now?”

“Well, usually...” began Sasha with a smirk.

“Be serious for once!”

“I am!” protested Sasha, meeting Tara’s gaze defiantly.  “You look sexy as hell, and I want to make you scream.”

“Argh!” shouted Tara, drawing another smirk from Sasha.  “Why are you like this?”

“Sex rocks.  You should try it sometime.”

“Fuck you.”  Tara stormed off to her room.

“That was the idea!” called Sasha after her.  She sighed, finished her cocoa, and headed off to her own room and an appointment with the contents of her bedside table drawer.

Tara tossed and turned in bed.  She’d learned to move in her Sasha-shaped body, but actually lying down in it proved far more troublesome.  Bits of her shifted and compressed in ways that just weren’t right, and in the dark and not-quiet-enough, she had a hard time ignoring them.  The noise of Sasha’s vibrator was especially frustrating.

Tara growled and stuffed a pillow over her head, not for the first time cursing the paper-thin walls of their apartment.  Some time after Sasha finally went blissfully quiet, Tara felt her body start to shift against her sheets.  A few experimental gropes showed that her curves were receding and her muscles finally returning.

Tara was so excited to be back to normal she hopped out of bed and ran through a light workout before finally calling it a night.

*** *** ***

“Hey sleepyhead.  No work today?”

Tara shook her head as she made a beeline for the coffee pot.  “Sundays and Mondays off like always.  You?”

“Got a shift Tuesday, then half-days through to Friday.  Wish I could get more hours, but it covers rent and the employee discount is keeping us fed.”

Tara poured herself a cup of coffee, and sighed happily as she took her first sip.  “I hear you.  I get enough shifts, but a regular schedule would be nice.  At least the women-only classes are fun.”

“Like the women-only club was?” smirked Sasha.  “You were enjoying yourself, don’t deny it.  Up until I drove you away, anyway.”

Tara took a longer sip, and sighed again.  “I don’t hate you.  Just... your body went all gooey on me and it freaked me out.”

“Kissing me turned you on?  What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m not gay.”

Sasha stared at Tara in confusion.  “Say what now?”

“I’m not gay.”

Sasha shook her head and turned away.  “If you say so.”

“What does that mean?”

Sasha rubbed her temples.  “Look, it’s not my business.  You don’t seem keen on guys, so I made a stupid assumption.  Can we drop it, now?”

Tara shook her head.  “I need more coffee and maybe some breakfast before dealing with this.”

After breakfast and a leisurely (for Tara) jog, Tara found Sasha dusting her trophy shelf in the common room.  “You don’t need to do that.”

“I like keeping the place clean.  Dust is evil.”  Sasha turned to look at Tara, smiling a bit at the uncertainty on Tara’s face.  “Ready to talk?”

“Not really.  But I don’t think I’ll get any readier.  Why do you think I’m gay?  I’ve had boyfriends.”

Sasha moved over to the kitchen counter, put her dust cloth near the sink, then hopped up to perch on one of the stools.  She studied Tara, who was still standing by the door.  “Did you have fun last night?  Before the slow dance.”

Tara slowly approached the counter, and leaned against the end of it, not meeting Sasha’s intense gaze.  “I... yeah.  Never been to an all-girls club before.  It was nice not to have guys leering at me.”

“There were a lot of girls leering at us.  And flirting with us, dancing with us, wanting to take us home and do unspeakable things with us.  You liked the attention.”

Tara held up a hand.  “Wait, wait.  How do you know they wanted to...”

“Some of them were quite explicit.  And that club is very much a hook-up spot for lesbians.  Everyone there who danced with you would have been more than willing to spend the night.”

“Fuck.”

“That too,” giggled Sasha.  “We disappointed bunches of them by going home alone.  And then not...”

“Sasha!”

Sasha stood up, and sashayed over to face Tara, only able to get face to face with her because Tara was half-collapsed against the counter.  “I would do you in a heartbeat.  Just to make that perfectly clear.”

“Even all sweaty from a run?”

Sasha growled lasciviously.  “Glistening with sweat?  Fuck yes.”

“I thought you gave me curves because you liked, well...”

“Boobs?  Yeah.  Love ‘em.  Big, small, doesn’t matter.  I was hoping you might appreciate yours more if they were more fun?”

Tara blushed, and looked away.  “That bit worked.”

“Cool.  Maybe I’ll eventually be able to persuade you that muscles are sexy, too.”

Tara rolled her eyes.  “That’s not why I work out.”

“Maybe not, but it’s a lovely side effect.  Give me a hand with the lights?  I can’t reach to dust them.”

“You just want to watch me stretch,” groused Tara, but she moved around to where the dust-rag was lying and picked it up.

“Guilty as charged,” said Sasha.  “But not just.  I also want the damn lights cleaned.  They’re vile.”

Tara laughed warmly, and made a show of stretching to reach the flush-mounted fixture in the kitchen.  She carried on to the two matching fixtures in the common room, and the one in the hall, with Sasha tagging along behind her like a puppy.

When Tara carried on into her room to dust the pendant lamps by the bed, Sasha waited in the door.  “You really need to clean this place up,” groused Sasha.  “It’s distracting me from how good you look.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You can’t see the floor!  Do you even use your hamper?”

Tara shrugged.  “Can we not do this today?  I need a lazy day to process all this.”

Sasha sighed, and accepted the dusting cloth from Tara.  “Fine.  Thanks for doing the lights.”

A little later, when Tara was cat-napping on the couch, she felt a small round object bounce off her head.  She sat up to glare at Sasha, but was suddenly overcome with dizziness.  Her ears were moving in a most disturbing fashion, sliding up to perch higher on her head.

Tara shook her head to clear it, triangular ears flipping back and forth as she did so.  She pointed her hand at Sasha accusingly, then yowled in surprise to find that instead of a hand, she had a furry paw.  Her attempt to chew Sasha out for using that damn ball on her again came out as a series of yowls and hisses, making Sasha giggle.

Tara tried to storm over to Sasha threateningly, only to find that her head barely came up to Sasha’s waist.  A moment later she discovered that her legs weren’t really made for walking upright, and she fell to all fours, still hissing in protest.

“Awww, is my poor kitty upset?” giggled Sasha.  She rubbed Tara behind the ears, drawing a half-hearted growl followed by a low, uncertain purr.  “Look at it this way.  Nobody asks a cat to do housework.”

Tara hmphed haughtily, then pranced out of the common room and back into her own.  She kicked the door once she was inside, slamming it shut.  Then she curled up on a pile of laundry and went back to her nap.

Later, when Tara got hungry, she discovered that her paws were dextrous enough to open her door.  She padded into the kitchen, then stared up at the counters.  Everything was out of reach.  She tried jumping up onto the counter, and surprised herself with her success.

“No!  Bad kitten.  Cats do not belong on counters.”  Sasha shooed Tara off again.

Tara meowed up at her imperiously.

“Hungry, are you?”

Tara nodded.

“Dinner will be ready in twenty.  Think you can eat at the counter, or should I put it in a bowl for you on the floor?”

Tara nimbly lept up onto one of the stools, and perched there primly.  She watched avidly as Sasha set to work in the kitchen, and deftly lapped up the occasional scrap that Sasha tossed her way.

Sasha set a plate of spaghetti in front of Tara, and giggled as she watched Tara slurp it up, strand by strand.  “Having fun?”

Tara shot her a dirty look, then went back to eating.  After dinner, she fussed as Sasha cleaned up the sauce from her muzzle.  Once that chore was completed, and Sasha had tidied up in the kitchen, Tara padded over to the TV stand, and batted at the cable box.

“Kitty wants to watch a show with me?  Cool.”

Tara meowed imperiously, and batted at the time display again.

“Oh!  You’ll be like this until sometime tomorrow.”

Tara let out a dissatisfied huff, then scampered over to the couch and hopped up beside Sasha.  After a time, she curled up against the other woman’s warm side, and purred contentedly at the hand that idly scritched her ears.

By the time Sasha was ready to head to bed, Tara was asleep.  She looked so cute and cozy there, Sasha decided to leave her be.

Like most cats, Tara woke in the middle of the night.  She discovered that she was able to use the washroom, and managed to narrowly avoid falling into the toilet.  Afterward, she prowled into Sasha’s room, intending to annoy her awake.  Instead found herself curling up beside Sasha, and dozing back to sleep.

Sasha found her there in the morning, and hugged her tight.  “Oh, I wish I could keep you like this.  I hate the no-pets rules here.”

Tara purriped happily, and trotted into the kitchen.  She hopped up onto her stool, and accepted a bowl of cereal as her rightful due.

“Getting into character, are we?” asked Sasha.

Tara meowed at her cheerfully, and returned to nomming her cereal.

Sasha opened and dusted the blinds after breakfast, creating a lovely sunbeam.  Tara was curled up and napping in it before she was done.  Sasha giggled at the sight, and left the blinds open.  She checked in on Tara through the day, amused that as the sunbeam shifted, so did Tara, though it looked as if she was asleep each time.

In the middle of the afternoon, one of those checks discovered a sleeping human curled up in the sunbeam instead of a mostly-feral catgirl.  “Hey lazybones.  Give me a hand with the couch, will you?”

Tara stirred and sat up.  “Oooh, arms.  Nice.  Sure thing.”

With Tara’s help, Sasha soon had the floor under the couch spotless.  Once she’d set it back down, Sasha asked how she’d found her time as a cat.

Tara growled and tried to glare at Sasha.  “Changing me without my permission is not cool, Sasha.  But... it was very relaxing.  You should try it sometime.”

“What makes you think I haven’t?” asked Sasha with a grin.