I desperately pressed the button on the box several times but the light stayed stubbornly red.  Nothing happened except for the light blinking each time I tried.  I switched targets, trying to restore Angela’s lower half several times to no effect.  I figured that maybe that was too much to ask, so I turned to Janis.  She was mostly pillow – only her breasts were left.  Trying to turn her all the way into a pillow didn’t work any better.  I cursed softly, and set the box aside.  I cupped Janis’ breasts in apology, and felt her nipples crinkle hard against my palms.  At least she was happy.

“What’s wrong?” Angela asked.

“I don’t know.  The box isn’t working.  See?”  I held it out so she could see me press the button and the subsequent flashing.

“Oops.”  She looked down at herself.  We’d used the ‘lower half’ setting on the dial, so her body ended just below the breasts, and below that was the glossy sheen of the vase-like sex toy.  “Going to work like this could be challenging.”

“Yeah.  You’d make a nice display model, though...”

Angela giggled.  “Tempting.  It’d get a lot of attention...”

“Ugh.  How many people would come looking, and to what end?”

“Oh.  Yeah.  And not being able to walk around the shop would make it hard to help customers.  Plus you have your own challenges.  I know you’ve been doing split shifts, male and female... but are they ready for both at once?”

I snickered.  “I could probably cover up enough to pass as Daffodil, if I wore long sleeves.  But David’s the one they’re expecting on Monday.  My face is all wrong.”

“You could call in sick.”

I nodded slowly.  “I could... might be able to do some work from home for a day or two.  Which would work if we knew how to fix the box, and I only needed the day.”

“But you’re into all that technical stuff.  You don’t know how to fix the box?”

I turned it over in my hands, examining it closely.  There were four recessed screws holding the bottom panel in place.  It looked like they required a pentagonal screwdriver bit.  “I don’t have the specialty tool to open it.  It’d probably take a few days just to get one.  Even then, I have absolutely no idea what its operating principles are.  Maybe there would be an obvious battery.  Maybe there’s a failsafe that wipes everything if I try to mess with it.  Or worse, one that turns everyone in the vicinity into panties.”

“Ah.  No service number on the bottom?”

I showed the bottom to her.  “Just the reset button.  I guess I could try that, maybe it’s lower-power than the rest...”  Tapping it produced the same red blinking we’d seen before.  “Bother.”

“So... who should we call?” asked Angela.

I pointed at the boob pillow.  “Janis’ uncle.  I don’t know how to contact him, but she should.”

“And she can’t talk.  Scheisse.”

“I have an emergency reset option, a separate device.  But it turns everyone back to normal.”

Angela frowned at my tone.  “Why are you making that sound like a bad thing?”

“Normal for Janis is male.  She hates it, and I have no idea how long she’ll be stuck.”  As I spoke, I noticed the boob pillow’s nipples softening.  She’d heard what I was saying.

Angela winced.  “Ouch.  Is there any other way?  Can you unlock her phone?”

I considered the option, then shrugged.  “Worth a try.  Lesser of two evils.”

Janis’ phone was on the charger where it usually lived while she was inanimate.  I stared at the lock screen helplessly.  “I have no clue what she’d use for a code.  I don’t even know her birthday.”

“Seriously?  She’s been living with you for months.”

“Most of which she spent as my bra.”

“Still.  Once we fix this, ask.”

I nodded my agreement and then tried a handful of common PINs.  None worked, and I stopped before triggering a lockout.  I considered trying to get Janis to give me the code in binary, but relying on voluntary control of her nipples seemed iffy at best.

“I guess the emergency button will have to do,” I sighed.  “Be extra nice to Janis, please?  This is going to suck.”

“Cuddles armed and ready, captain!”

I chuckled, and went to dig out the retrieval unit.  Just before pressing the button I remembered Katya was on a hanger.  I scooped her out of the closet and laid her on the bed on one side of the Janis-pillow, while Angela was on the other.  I forgot that the world would go wonky for me as well, and nearly lost hold of the unit.  Once I could see straight I put it away, and looked to the bed.  Angela and Katya were already hugging Janis.

“I am so, so sorry,” I said.  “The box isn’t working any more, and I couldn’t figure out another way.”

Janis sighed softly.  “Um... can we get dressed?  You two are turning me on and that’s making this much harder.”

There was some general snickering at her phrasing, but we did as she asked.  Once she was settled again, I asked if she could put me in touch with her uncle, in hopes that we could figure out how to fix the box.

Janis asked for some privacy while she talked to him, as she had some catching up to do.  I joked that she didn’t want to overinflate my ego and she blushed, then shooed us off.

I waited nervously, pacing back and forth in the living room.  Angela and Katya chatted amiably.  After a bit they asked why I was so worried.  I couldn’t readily explain.  Part of it was hating not being able to fix things.

Fortunately before it could become more of an interrogation, Janis emerged.  Her uncle had provisionally accepted that I was okay enough for his niece and was willing to help.

We talked over the design flaw of using the same error pattern for all failures for a bit before he walked me through replacing the battery.  It was important to only slide the rear cover up just enough to expose the battery enclosure.

When I asked if that was a security precaution he laughed.  It wasn’t an intentional one, but touching the crystal at the heart of the device would cause spontaneous random transformations.  Even looking at it without special protective glasses could cause short-term changes.

I thanked him for the advice.  The indicator seemed pretty bright to me, so I asked if there were other ways it could fail through overuse?

He said it was possible that we’d depleted the local ambient magic.  The crystal could store enough for quite a few changes, but in a dead zone it wouldn’t recharge.

I asked where one could get ambient magic maps and he laughed.  To the best of his knowledge, there had never been a comprehensive study done.  Even if he had a local map, it wouldn’t help us in Germany.

He did have some general advice.  More natural settings were more likely to have surplus magic than urbanized areas.

I admitted my apartment was at the edge of an industrial zone, and the nearest plants were some blocks away in a small neighborhood park.  That got him thinking – he lived in a suburban area with lots of lawns, shrubbery, and trees.  Our heavy use in a depleted area could have caused the change in behaviour.

He suggested that we take the box to the most densely wooded area we could find to recharge, and asked me to take notes on how it went.

When I asked what sort of notes he was looking for, that brought on something of a rant.  Apparently he had very little hard data on how his inventions worked, and had hoped that Janis would provide more, but had she sent a single report?  No!  Janis winced when he said that, so I guess he was being a little loud.

I promised we’d do better, and offered up my notes regarding the past few months.  His tone changed immediately, and he promised he’d help us out with our mana-depletion issues if I did so.

We ended the call on that note, and I turned to Janis.  “You still okay?”

She nodded, though she was looking distinctly uncomfortable.  “How soon can we go try to charge it?  I can take this for a while, and I know you need to work tomorrow... but...  Please?”

“I should also change the battery, just to be sure.  Let me talk to Frank on Monday, he’ll know where to get the right tool.  I’ll put in for leave, and we’ll go... well, wherever it takes.”

“Apparitions should know of a good spot,” mused Angela.  “They’re in the same kind of urbanized area, so they’ll have the same problem.”

I nodded.  “Good idea.  Can you talk to them tomorrow night?”

“Sure.  It’s pretty dead on Mondays, but there’ll be someone there.”

“Okay.  Janis?  Can you manage a couple days?”

She sniffed, and Katya pulled her into a hug.  “I’ll survive.  Just promise we’ll be more careful in the future.”

“I promise.  Soon as it goes amber, everyone gets turned into their long-term forms.  Deal?”  I put out my hand, and the others shook it.

“Playing with it was a lot of fun,” mused Angela.  “Will we be able to do that again, or...”

“We’ll see how it goes.  Maybe I need to find a little cottage out in the woods we can rent for a proper shifty party.”

Angela clapped her hands happily.  “Sounds good!”

Katya seemed less enthused.  “As long as I get some good dress time out of it, I guess.”

“You didn’t like being a pillow?  What about you, Janis?”

Janis giggled.  “Being a boob pillow rocked.  If you can figure out how to turn me into just a pair of boobs, I’m in.”

“We have toys like that at Black Velvet,” suggested Angela.  “We could turn you into a soft and squishy silicone boob.  Either a big one, or just a little palm-sized one the right size to use as a stress toy...”

“Both sound fun!” Janis enthused.  “D?”

“I’ll get both.  And Katya?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to be on display at Black Velvet for a while?  I think you’d make a nice addition to the inventory.”

Katya blushed so cutely she didn’t need to answer at all.

*** *** ***

At work on Monday morning, Frank approached me as I headed to my cubicle.  “Did something happen this weekend?”

I nodded, then remembered something critical.  “Did you still have...”  I cupped my hands in front of my chest.

“Yes!” hissed Frank.  “And we both miss them.  What happened?”

“I obviously can’t explain it here.  But if you happen to know where I could find a pentagonal star-headed screwdriver, it might get resolved sooner...”

Frank was eager to loan me his warranty-violating tools, and told me where he’d ordered his set.  I set up the order, and we swung by his place on the way home to pick up the tools.  I apologised to Giselle for the “sudden disappearance” and she laughed.

“Maybe next time we can try Frank as the bra, hmm?”

Frank blushed.  “Maybe.”

“Once I have the charging issue sorted out, I’ll turn both of you into whatever you want.  What you both want.”

“Does that include turning Giselle into something fun for me?” asked Frank plaintively.

Giselle grinned.  “We can take turns choosing something fun.”

Frank hugged her.  “Okay.”

When I got back to my apartment, I found the girls huddled around Janis.  I winced at the sight of her.  “Getting worse?”

“I’ll survive.  I managed twenty years as a guy, what’s a few more days?”

“Everything, when you’re used to being in the right body.  I have the tools, so we can deal with the battery.  If we’re lucky...”

The battery compartment was something of an anticlimax.  It held a perfectly standard looking nine volt battery.  I swapped it out, and nothing changed.  “Well, at least the battery is fresh.  I’ve taken tomorrow off, though I’ll need to work on Saturday to make up the time.  I hope this works.”

“Me too!” exclaimed Janis fervently.  The others chimed in a moment later.

“I miss being a dress, just... not as bad as Janis,” said Katya.  “It feels weird being mobile, but I’m getting used to it.”

“Is there any way I can persuade you to stay longer between times as a dress, then?  Surely there must be nice things about being human.  Eating tasty food...”

Several stomachs growled around then, so I started in on dinner.  Angela helped in her inimitably distracting way...  As we ate, I watched Katya’s expression.  She seemed to be taking my earlier comment quite seriously, and when we were done she sighed softly.  “I do miss food.  Not as much as a dress, but...  I think I could be persuaded to join you all for dinner on a regular basis.  Friday nights, then stay human until after dinner Saturday?”

“Janis?  Is that enough Katya time?”

Janis managed a weak smile.  “You’ll have to distract me when she’s not around.”

“I’m sure I’ll find some way... if Angela’s not distracting you herself.  I see how you’re studying Janis.  Stop undressing her with your eyes.”

Angela blushed beautifully at my comment.  “I wasn’t... not exactly...  I just can’t see a guy sitting across from me.  I’m trying to figure it out.  Your body doesn’t fit you, it’s like you’re wearing a badly tailored suit.”

Janis’ expression brightened.  “That’s it exactly!  I wish I could take the damn suit off, but...”

“No flaying yourself,” I exhorted. “We’ll sort this as soon as we can.”

Janis nodded.  “I know.  Angela, do you know where we can charge the box?”

Angela shrugged.  “I asked my friend at Apparitions, and they have a cabin out in the woods somewhere.  They take used glamers there at the end of each weekend, and they’re good to go the next day.  But... they wouldn’t say where the cabin is, for fear that we’d run it down.  Still, they gave me a good general idea where to go.  There’s a campsite in the nearest national park, it’s about an hour’s drive away.  If that’s not wild enough, there are walking trails through the woods.”

“Then we have a plan.  All we need to figure out now is how to sleep four people comfortably in an apartment intended for one.”

“I’ll head home,” said Angela.  “I think you two can keep Janis stable.  I’ve got to work tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll hear of your grand success tomorrow night.”

There was a fair bit of cuddling after that, though it stayed at cuddling so that Janis wouldn’t get too uncomfortable.  She practically fell asleep on top of me, and Katya and I carried her to bed.  I left Katya with her, and did my best to sleep on the couch.

We got an early start the next day, and found the campsite without much difficulty.  All the camping spots were occupied.  We learned from the park ranger that they’d been booked solid since about four hours after the start of the new year.  Fortunately there were plenty of parking spaces near the campsite, and we found a spot conveniently close to the head of the main trail network.

I had no idea how to tell if we were in a good charging spot or not, so we headed out on the trail with a backpack full of lunch and the box tucked away safely on top of it.  After about an hour of walking we found a lovely glade overlooking a small pond, and took a break there.  Instead of pushing on, we just sat and watched the birds flying about.  A few deer carefully made their way to the pond for a drink, then scattered back into the woods when the wind shifted.

After a while, I started laying out the picnic supplies.  I waved the box at Janis in hopes that something had changed, and the tip lit up amber instead of red.  “I think we’re ready.”

“Yes!” cheered Janis.

I looked around to make sure no other hikers had wandered into our glade, and it seemed private enough.  One tap and some reality-wiggling later, Janis was back to being female.  She winced, and pulled at her sweatpants.  “Stupid underwear’s digging in.”  After a few contortions she sighed happily.  “There.  Better.”

She certainly filled out her shapeless outfit better than she had a minute before.  Both Katya and I offered her a hug, which she gratefully accepted.  After we’d settled down again, Katya pointed out that Janis would look better in a dress.

I laughed, and picked up the box... only to see the indicator had gone red again.  “Dang it.  I think you’re going to have to wait.  We probably want to get it all the way to green before doing much else.  I don’t expect it works exactly like a battery, but discharging it all the way like this is unlikely to do it any good.  What if it only got partway through a change before running out?”

Katya wrinkled her nose.  “I’ve been a half-dress before.  It’s fun for a bit, but I’d rather be one or the other.  Dance or be danced in.”

I stood up and offered them each a hand.  “Then let’s dance.”

There was no music, and the meadow provided uneven footing at best.  We still had fun.  The dancing turned into an impromptu chase around the meadow, followed by a tickle-fight that Katya lost, badly.  That evolved into some hot and heavy snuggling constrained by our awareness that people passed by the glade on a regular basis.

After an hour or so we found the box’s lamp had gone amber once more.  Katya made puppy eyes at me, begging prettily to become a dress once more.  I shook my head.  I took a picture of the lamp in hopes of reverse engineering a charging curve later.  I repeated that every half hour, and scrolling through the images made it clear we were making progress, if slowly.

We sat and talked as we waited.  Katya did her best to describe her month as a dress, though she mostly kept coming back to how peaceful it was.  That, and having a clear purpose.  I nodded along, and talked about how I’d found much the same as a toy.  There’s a clarity to being so simple.  And yet... I decided that the fractious, chaotic nature of being a human had its upsides, too.

Janis and Katya weren’t buying it.  I tried to explain the feeling of discovering a new fact, or of fixing a particularly troublesome bug.

Janis jumped on that, claiming I’d already found my purpose in life.  I had to admit she had a point.  But if they spent all their days as clothing, how could they find out what their human purpose was?

That set them to thinking, and we had a quiet sit for a while.  Katya broke it by declaring her purpose in life was to make other people pretty.

“So you’re going to become a cosmetologist?”

Kata giggled, then her expression turned thoughtful.  “I could give it a try.  I did like doing your makeup.  How about this – I’ll do your makeup Friday and Saturday nights before you go out, and Saturday you wear me dancing.”

“It’s a deal,” I agreed, shaking her hand.  “We’ll get you all dressy soon.”

I took another picture of the indicator’s colour and compared it to the rest.  It was distinctly more green than before, but still a sort of greeny-yellow.  We waited another half hour until it was more of a yellowy-green, and then Katya cheered as she crumpled into fabric once more.  While Janis was putting her on I took another picture of the indicator.  It had yellowed slightly, but not half an hour’s worth.

We stayed in the glade for another two hours, some of which was spent reading, and some napping.  By the end of that time the indicator was mostly green.

Janis and I stopped at a rustic country restaurant for dinner on the way home.  The people there were genuinely warm and welcoming, and I noted the contrast with my first date with Janis.

She grinned.  “Worked out in the end, though, didn’t it?”

I patted the sleeve of her dress.  “Everyone got what they wanted.”

“Did they?” asked Janis after smiling fondly at her dress for a time.  “I’m pretty happy, but you’re still... confusing.”

I chuckled.  “I’m a kid in a candy shop.  Too many choices, too many ideas, so many of them fun. My only disappointment is that we’re going to have to go easy on the box until we get a reliable sense of its charge level, or an easier way to recharge it than a day-trip out to a national park.  There are lots of little parks closer to the city, maybe a picnic in one of those every other weekend will suffice.”

“Or maybe Uncle will come through with a fix.  He’s pretty clever.”

I nodded.  “Why didn’t you send him reports on what you did with the box, anyway?”

“I told him about the mind-fading thing with multiple changes,” Janis said, defensively.  “I just... we were using it for kinky stuff.  I’ve known him since I was just a little kid, it’d be so weird to talk to him about all this.  You have to do it.”

“Sure.  I’ll write up everything we’ve done in lascivious detail.  I’ve been keeping a journal, and there has been so much to write about these past few months.  So much.  I’ll just clean it up, maybe jazz up a few of the more fun bits...”

“Ooh, let me read it when you’re done.”

I chuckled.  “Sure.  C’mon, let’s get going.”

Once we got to the car, Janis leaned in close and murmured.  “Can I be your boob pillow tonight?  I didn’t get nearly enough of that.”

“As the lady wishes.  How much will be enough?”

“Mmm... ask me next weekend.”

“Leaving me lots of time to write up the report for your Uncle?”

“Yup.”

Once we got home, I took yet another picture of the box’s indicator light while Janis squirmed excitedly.  A few bops later and she was back to being a pair of boobs framed by a comfy pillow.  I hugged her to my chest, idly contemplated turning into Daffodil, and decided to wait.  Something about a boob pillow demanded male attention, after all...

After making lewd use of the pillow, I gave it a good hand wash, then turned back to my analysis.  As far as I could tell, the indicator had gone solid green before we left the park.  However, it had spent months of active use while green, so my working theory was that the indicator only covered the bottom few percent of the box’s capacity.

I set up a spreadsheet to track uses of the box.  I had a pretty good idea of the number of changes before the day it ran out, but our orgy of changes on that day included several stretches where I was inanimate or otherwise distracted from its use.

After reviewing my journal and searching my fuzzy (and distracting) memories, I was fairly sure we’d used it more that one day than the previous two months combined.  Small wonder we’d hit a limit.

Since the journal was open anyway, and my usual distractions were too inanimate to drag me away from the computer, I started writing up my experiences.

Angela called after her shift was over, and I told her about the successes of the day and my progress at writing it all up.  She figured she could survive a day or two without seeing me, and went home to sleep instead.

The next day at work Frank demanded to know how my day off had gone.  I smirked.  “Missing them so badly?  I figured a few days without and you’d have felt normal.”

“I do feel normal.  That’s the problem.”

I raised an eyebrow and waited for him to elaborate.

“I liked it.  Giselle liked it even more.  You know how that goes, yes?”

I grinned.  “Of late?  Very much so, yes.  Hell of a ride.”

“So... please?”

I nodded.  “Swing by tonight.”

Once I got back into the right mindset, work went swiftly.  Soon after I got home Frank showed up.  I set to box up to boob him, but must have missed the spot on the dial because he ended up with a weird fabric patch there instead.

Frank looked down at himself in confusion.  “What?”

“The dial’s fiddly.  I turned you part-way into a bra by mistake.”  I said apologetically.  “I can fix it, just a moment.”

Frank brushed a hand over his chest.  “Wait a bit.  This feels odd but not uncomfortable.”

I waited, watching curiously as Frank studied the change.  “Want me to leave you like this?”

“Maybe?  Let me show Giselle.  I might be back later.”

“Have fun.  Think of it as getting your toes wet. We could turn you into a bra a step at a time...”

“I... I’ll think about it.  Giselle would probably be thrilled.”

“I’ll be here.  Lamp still looks full green, so we’re good to go for a while yet.”

I took yet another picture to be sure.  After Frank headed off, I noted the change in my spreadsheet and turned back to the write-up.

It took two more days, but shortly after dinner on Friday night I sent the bundle off to Janis’ uncle.

I got dinner for four going once I was done.  Angela had traded with one of the other girls to get an early shift, and I restored both Janis and Katya shortly after she arrived.  “The gang’s all here.  Let’s eat, and then get ready to hit the clubs.  Is your makeup offer still good, Katya?”

Katya grinned.  “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Oooh, can you do mine too?” asked Angela.

“And mine?” asked Janis.  “You’re so good at it.”

Katya nodded.  “I’ll do my best.”

We ate dinner quickly, excited about the rest of the evening.  Katya did a lovely makeup job on all four of us, then we headed to Apparitions.

As before, we just ended up dancing with each other, everyone seemed to acknowledge that we were some kind of group.  The golden-scaled woman was there again, and danced with us briefly.  “I see what you mean by complicated,” was all she said before dancing off again.

I chuckled.  “Life may be complicated, but it’s also wonderful.”

Angela grinned wickedly.  “Wait until we get you home.”