[TF, F->Inanimate]

"What, you want me to test an invention? Oh, I've got plenty of experience with that!"

The young scientist raised a brow at the girl in front of him. "So… Is that a yes?"

"Yeah. Of course it's a yes! What, you expected me to say no?" The girl in denim shorts and a purple top practically was bouncing with excitement.

"No, I expected to have to tell you what we were testing before you'd even agree, Joanne. But I can see why they recommended you so eagerly after your last experiment."

Joanne fidgeted as she moved about the cramped lab space. There were less clues here about what date might be in store for her than at her previous job. 

She thought fondly on how she was a glass statue on display for over a year, spending time in the main entryway of Pro Scientia Labs. They hadn't realized she'd be aware of her surroundings the entire time, and paid her handsomely for the oversight. Not that she minded, she had her own enjoyment being a piece of art for everyone to look at, even though as time dragged on people became familiar with her presence and paid her less mind.

This new job was a mystery though, and recommended to her as another avenue for easy income testing out some similarly unique experiments. The scientist in front of her was much younger and still had his notions that the impossible was possible.

"Well, I do need to tell you so you can give informed consent, otherwise we'll all be in trouble." Joanne sighed, but let the young man continue on with his speech. "We're looking at putting a man on Mars here soon, but that's a long flight needing a lot of food and water, and we don't even know if someone will be same mentally by the time they get there and back.

"So, we wanted to figure out how to hibernate the crew of these ships so they don't need anything to live. Replace their cells with a metallic alloy, and in a split second solidify them in a block of metal. Then, at the other end of the trip, turn them back to flesh and blood, have them work their experiments, plant the flag and so on, then put them in stasis again to come home."

Joanne perked up. Solid metal, replacing her cells? This was exciting stuff.

"We're looking at 'freezing" you in this alloy for a period of five days to monitor the status of the metal and the structure of your cells in the material before turning you back. Do you have any questions?"

Joanne was already shaking her head, grinning wildly. "Where are we going to do? When can we get started?"

The young scientist chuckled, leading her over to a large room made of plexiglass walls in the middle of their labspace. Inside was a metal frame looking like simple steel, and the scientist told her to in it. It seemed like a doorway, with two vertical sides and a single horizontal beam connecting it at the top.

"The alloy needs something to bind to and give it initial structure, otherwise we would be looking at unpredictable results. So go ahead and just stand in that opening… perfect."

Joanne did as she was told. For a moment, she was nervous, but the flutters in her stomach quickly disappeared. The young scientist stood at his control panel and prepped the appropriate switches. He grinned, looking up at her. "Ready?" She nodded, giving him a smile back. "Say cheese!" He turned a key in the console and pressed a large red button.

Joanne tried to open her mouth to repeat after him, but found it already frozen. The metal had swarmed off the steel framing around her and in a split second ate its way through her body like an intelligent force, replacing all the organic material with more of itself. The entire process was completed in fractions of a second, but to Joanne it felt like an infinite span of time as she was consumed and replaced.

Finally though, it felt like the process ceased. The scientist pulled out a large mirror. "Based on previous subjects, I don't think you'll be conscious, but they told you that at your last job and we both know how that went."

Joanne had to mentally agree, at least this guy knew there was a chance she was a different and would stay awake. She also realized she didn't even remember his name, and made a note to ask him what it was if she remembered.

Her attention was quickly pulled to the mirror as the scientist got it into position. She was a giant rectangular block of metal, and for the most part her surface was rather smooth and featureless. Small parts of her appeared to stick out from the expanse of blank metal. Her toes and fingers peeked out - though any attempts to wriggle them were fruitless. The edge of her chest remained frozen, made of the same metal as all around her and yet shaped to her exact contours. Her face above it also jutted out, standing with the smile she gave the scientist. She was frozen, heck, she wasn't even alive.

The scientist hurriedly rushed over to the block of metal where the girl once stood. Joanne blushed as he stroked and touched the surface of her, and realized with a strange awareness that she could feel the entire block, not just what visually looked like her. It made sense, in a sort of way, that she could feel every inch since there was no difference in the material across the entire block. She was a singular homogenized block of metal, every inch of it her despite nothing being made out of her.

She mentally squealed when the scientist chipped off a piece of the alloy from the edge of the block. It wasn’t that it hurt, but she could feel it! It was such a strange sensation to feel the metal as though it were her skin, but the metal didn’t behave like skin. The strikes of the chisel sent vibrations through her body, and she could feel every atom of her singing as it all resonated. She ended up blacking out, losing consciousness into the massive mental orgasm that swept through her.

 Joanne awoke a few days later, though it really wasn’t like waking up. Her presence more or less drifted back into being as she felt something on her body. She tried to stir, to get up and move around and found she couldn’t. The immediate sense of paralysis struck her with a cold fear, until she looked in the mirror still set up across from her and remembered her fate. She chuckled - mentally, at least - and relaxed.

‘Guess the week hasn’t gone by yet,’ she mused. She noticed in the mirror that the scientist was behind her, and she felt something soft and smooth gliding over her surface. It would give her goosebumps if she was still alive. Instead, she would have to handle the sensations building up through her entire form. Finally, it peeked out from around her edge - it was a feather duster! She was being dusted, like some piece on display. She supposed it made sense, but the scientist really didn’t have to spend so much time going over the shapely curves of her rear. She could feel each pass going up and down her cheeks, and slipping between them. She hadn’t realized her shorts left so little to the imagination, but now that each touch was a spark of life and passion she was acutely aware.

Right as it was getting good and her mind was about to overload on the pleasure again, the dusting stopped, and the scientist went back to work. Joanne suddenly had to fume and stew in her own mental anguish of a ruined orgasm. This became their unspoken daily routine. Joanne relaxed an meditated in a nearly unconscious state until her companion came by to polish or dust her, and then she spent the rest of the day in mental torture unable to climax.

It was that way, until the week was up, and the scientist turned her back to flesh and blood in a blink of an eye. Joanne crumpled to her knees on the floor of the lab, and despite the disorientation from suddenly having limbs that could move, she made her way as quickly as possible to the bathroom despite the scientist calling out after her.

She came back a while later, her eyelids still heavy as she was drunk on pleasure, her clothes seemingly left behind as she didn’t care about her own nudity. She explained everything she had felt during the experiment to the man watching her incredulously, and why she had to go take care of matters. Joanne wouldn’t let him apologize for the touching and torment, and offered her own idea on how he could repay it to her.

“You’re looking at using this long term, right? So a week isn’t going to cut it.”

The scientist shrugged and nodded. “What are you getting at?”

Joanne grinned devilishly. “You’re going to put me back in there, for a year… no, two years! Two years. During that time, you’re going to use me as a display piece for advertising this technology, demonstrating its safety, getting more funding, and making sure as many people see this - no, see me - as possible.”

The scientist was appalled. “What? You’d want to give up two years of your life? To be a block of metal?”

“Oh, not just that. I want to make sure wherever you have me I get regularly polished and dusted. Every day. Extra when you want to be nice.” Joanne bit her lip, making eye contact. “Please? It was so good, and it would help your work…”

With a sigh, he relented, waving her into the booth. He followed her in, and started fiddling with the metal frame. It lifted out of the ground, revealing it was connected on the fourth side as well to create a rectangle form. “Look, if you’re going to be my prime display piece, we have to have as much of you on display as possible. No one will want to look at a solid block of metal with a face. You have to be a girl turned to metal.”

He rotated the frame so that it was parallel to the ground. “On your hands and knees,” he stated plainly. Joanne complied, dutifully getting into position. The scientist gave a few adjustments to the position of her hands and feet, and made sure she was looking up and forward as best she could.

Leaving the booth, the scientist once again started the machine. Joanne didn’t even have time to consider what she was doing when she was frozen again. Her metal body sat perfectly kneeling. The scientist came back into the booth and examined her from every angle before finally nodding his approval.

Using a mirror, he managed to show her the extent of the changes. She almost looked like a coffee table, she realized as she took it all in. The frame had been aligned with her torso, creating a level and flat plane that her head and hips stuck up from. She realized with a blush - a mental blush, despite it being strong enough to nearly heat metal - that her exposed hips meant her most private details were just the details of the art piece she had become. At least she was looking forward and wouldn’t have to look back and see that ever.

A machine descended from the ceiling with a giant claw, lifting and tilting Joanne back so that the block was vertical. The mirrored ceiling worked with the mirror the man was holding, to reveal the underside of the metal slab that had her arms and legs and chest on display. Joanne realized why the scientist had taken the time and effort to adjust and pose her limbs just so. From this angle, all the details of her metal limbs were on display for any prospective investors.

Joanne stared at herself for a long time, even after she was set back on the floor. The scientist had brought some paperwork over and was taking notes about her condition, using her back as a table. Each scratch of the pen, each shuffle of the papers was a small flurry of echoing and vibrating sensations. She knew this would be a long two years, and secretly looked forward to each and every moment.

The scientist was jotting notes, and realized he had never named the alloy that composed the girl he was working on. After a brief moment, he decided the key to his future should be named after the girl making it possible, and circled the new name “Joannite”.

 ===

Joanne quickly settled into her new role. It was rather easy, especially considering she had little choice in the matter. Still though, it filled her with joy each day as her routine began anew.

Bright and early the cleaners would arrive. Joanne loved when the new piece of furniture was introduced to them as just a demonstration piece, with no knowledge of the girl that was frozen in it. They dutifully polished her metal surface every day, removing any smudges or fingerprints from the day before. Considering her size and surface area, the cleaners would often have to stop and lean against her to take breaks. Joanne didn’t mind; she often needed a break herself after having every inch - even her sensitive private bits - scrubbed and shined.

The scientist would arrive only a couple hours later to start his day. When he wasn’t in the lab, he was seated at the corner of the table next to her head. He typically didn’t say much to her or interact a lot, but the scratching of his pencil and the shuffling of papers against Joanne’s surface was plenty of stimulation for her.

The best part of her day was the demonstrations that happened once or twice a week. Loads of professions would sit around her, and inspect her surface. They would conduct their meetings atop her, negotiating and arguing. They would break for lunch, eating a wealth of food atop the blank expanse of her back. Then at the end of the day, they would tour the facility and come back to find the ‘table’ up right, her limbs exposed for the guests to investigate. They did just that, making sure to physically examine every line of groove of the frozen woman.

Joanne enjoyed as they did that. These meetings filled her with a passionate energy, her mind overflowing as it got its only release for the entire week. Then the room would empty, the light would click off, and she would be left alone in silent darkness, with only the air conditioning drafting over her to stir her from meditative slumber. Until the next morning, when it all repeated again.

It was simple, but it wasn’t like she had many other options for herself. For the next two years, it was going to be a relaxing vacation, she figured.