As promised, the fifth installment of Corrie and Roman's adventures below is a compilation of TFs that you all requested. I received so many that I had to split it into two parts. I used as many suggestions as I could (that would make sense in the story). There were a few that I'm saving for future installments as well. So thanks to all who contributed, and, without further ado, the first part of Corrie's "Transform-a-thon"!
The day before college had finally arrived. I woke up before Roman, and grabbed a list that lay on my nighttable. “Things I'd like to be,” was scribbled on the top. I studied the paper, wondering which form to try first. After all these weeks with my new husband, one would think the excitement of his transforming me would have dulled by now. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. He had promised that the day before I started college, he would turn me into as many things as I wanted. I suspected this was partly to get it out of my system so I could pay attention to my schoolwork. But I could never get the rush of transforming out of my system. I craved it. It was in my blood.
“Wait! Wait! Don't move!” Roman's voice shocked me from my thoughts, and I stiffened. Now whether the stiffening was just me or was helped along by Roman's touch was anyone's guess. “You're perfect like that!” he cried, uncovering me. I wore a silky nightshirt that was modest enough, but apparently the way I lay on my side was...inspiring to Roman.
I continued to stiffen until I could not move at all. At one point in my life, the paralysis would have been frightening to me. Now I endured it with delight; my husband was turning me into a statue! The question was, what kind? I had already been marble, gold, crystal...
The list fluttered from my frozen hand to the floor. A coldness came over my figure as I solidified completely into whatever substance Roman had chosen. He passed his fingers over my silent lips, and I wished I could kiss at them. What am I made of this time, Roman? I asked him in my mind. It was always helpful that he could communicate telepathically with those he had transformed.
“Darling, you're one of the hardest substances out there. Pure diamond.” He followed my curves with his finger. “Priceless, and so perfectly formed...”
Feeling quite content as solid diamond, I allowed him to caress me for a few minutes. A full-body massage when you're a statue? Well, that's too good to pass up.
“The light passes through you and makes you glow,” Roman pointed out, rubbing the sole of my foot.
I could feel the sun's warmth, and I could see the bursts of color my prismatic figure was casting on the floor. I'm making rainbows, I added joyfully.
Soon, grudgingly, Roman brought me back to humanity.
“Okay. I had my fun. Now we have to start yours. First of all, is there anything you'd like to be right here in bed with me?” He placed his hand around me in the grip he usually assumed when he was about to force me into a different shape.
I cuddled up against him. “Mmm...where to begin...” Viewing the handsome man that was my life made me want to hug him, to surround him with all of me...
“What are you thinking?” he asked as I embraced him.
I sighed. “I just want to...surround you. This is weird, but I want to be something big and soft so you can just...I don't know, crawl inside of me...I don't really...”
“Nothing's weird, Corrie. Believe me, I have been things that would shock you.”
“Like?”
Roman paused, obviously sorting through decades of experience. “Um, bacteria?”
“That's not weird. In fact, I want that. To be so small...”
“Mosquito?”
“Awesome too.”
He narrowed his eyes. “One of those female inflatable dolls…”
“Oh, Roman!”
“It was totally innocent, and it was on a dare from your father! Now,” dismissing the subject rather quickly, he took the list from my hand and scanned it. “Anything we can use on your list for what you asked for? Oh, here. You want to be a plush snake? How about a big one that I can crawl into?”
He didn't think I was weird? “Would you...like that?” I felt like I was testing the waters here...
“Sure! Why not? It'll be fun for the both of us. Arms to your sides, legs together.”
He was changing me into what could only be described as a giant, thick string. I was becoming wonderfully soft and yet I was growing larger and hollower.
Roman gave me a last swipe and my hollow figure caved in a bit on itself. The tip of me hung off the bed haphazardly, and I was helpless to move it back on.
Opening me up like a coat, my husband crawled into me, pulling my fabric around his body. “You're basically a sleeping bag, Corrie. So very comfy, too.”
I loved the way my plush form enveloped him, and he obviously did too. I actually felt like a costume. Hey – now there was an idea for next Halloween!
“Corrie, I'm falling asleep in you,” he uttered drowsily. “You up for your next change yet?”
Five more minutes, Roman, I said to him in my mind.
“Five more minutes it is!”
In five minutes, Roman was sound asleep. I hated to wake him, but it really was time to start the day.
I stood in front of my closet, selecting the day's outfit. Of course I wouldn't need it too much as I was not going to be human for most of the day, but Roman usually changed me with my clothes too, so I went through the motions.
“I know you like when I wear you as clothes, Roman, but you know, you've never been a dress for me. Shirts, pants – yes, but never a dress.”
Roman pondered this. “And you never had a wedding dress. That might be fun – I'll be one for you!”
I thought about what it was like to be clothes, and was slightly jealous. After all, this was my day. “How about I become a wedding dress? Make me satin, encrusted with sequins, lace, and...diamonds!”
“And I'll model you!”
Before I could ask what he meant, I was falling to the floor, thinning and hollowing out as before. I could feel parts of me harden into diamonds, while other parts threaded into lace. The majority of me was an almost diaphanous satin which Roman ran his hands over appreciatively. Then he melted down to the floor.
I could only watch as he, now a silvery puddle, entered my folds. I felt myself rising up as the metallic mass filled me out and solidified into a dressmaker's form. “Like me like this?” it asked in Roman's voice.
A mannequin? I'm on display! I was jiggling slightly from Roman's movement, and my diamonds clinked together.
“You're quite a heavy dress,” he pointed out.
Can I see me?
“Sure!” the mannequin maneuvered us over to the full-length mirror, and I gasped at Roman's artistry.
You should have been a designer, Roman!
“Oh, I am! I design anything and everything!”
Roman ushered me into the backyard. Both human, we stood in a sandy area. “Now before we go any further on your list, I have one set of changes you'll find breathtaking. First, you are fire!”
I was nothing but heat. I was flapping furiously, and my brightness was blinding. Roman threw a few logs below me, and I found myself drawn to them. I was licking at them, encasing them with my being, and throwing their ashes to the wind. And when I was finished with them, I was still inside of them as brilliant embers, encompassed in the charred remains.
“Next, you're water, Corrie!” Roman demanded, and I fell to the ground as liquid. As I hit the red-hot soil and ash, a nearly-unbearable pressure built up until I was literally boiling. My bubbles grew more and more violent until I was changing to steam, rising into the air, and it was all amazing!
Oh, God, Roman! Turn me into a cloud! That' s on my list! I begged.
I was rising and becoming colder as I became a mix of water droplets and ice crystals. I was floating high in the sky, and the sunbeams felt warm as they radiated through my wisps. Several birds flew through me, scattering me a bit, and one of them spoke to me. “Nice, huh?”
“Roman, I can talk. Am I seriously a cloud with a face?”
The bird chuckled. “Yes. I like turning you into things with your face on them, I admit it.”
“Make me rain,” I demanded.
“Sure!”
I felt myself becoming heavier, expanding, filling with moisture until I could not hold it anymore. And then parts of me were falling. My drops plummeted through the sky, smacking the ground with a satisfying 'whack'.
“If you wait a bit, you'll be absorbed by the greenery and you'll have a whole different outlook.”
But already my view was fragmented and confusing as I was in so many places at once. “What's next, Roman?”
I disintegrated to nothingness. “Next element is air. You're wind, my dear. And I'm going to join you.”
We flowed through the sky together, weaving through the treetops and touching the ground with our drafts. We mingled, twisting together like twine, then coming apart, then rejoining as one.
Eventually we returned to the ground, startlingly human again. “Last one,” Roman said, and my whole body gave way.
Helplessly, I careened to the earth, my body nothing more than sand. And there I lay, a pile of sparkling dirt which Roman began to play with. He let me trickle through his fingers, blowing the remaining bits of me off his hand. He plunged his hand deep into me, pushing and digging until he met my bottom. He attempted to build a sand castle from me, but I wasn't moist enough to stay together. I guess he could have changed me to mud, but it was okay. I didn't need to be a sand castle today. Being an amorphous pile of sand and sliding through his fingers was much more fun.
“I don't know if it's our fault, but it's starting to rain,” Roman pointed out. Suddenly I was human and he was... an umbrella.
I picked him up and stroked him a bit. He made a cooing sound.
“Very gentlemanly of you, Roman, but I want to be the umbrella. That was also on my list.”
And faster than I was accustomed to, I folded in on myself, my legs twisted into a handle, and I fell to the ground. It was a nice form, but I hardly had time to experience getting there. And that was half the fun. “Roman!” I protested. “Too fast!”
I was picked up and opened. It kind of felt like I was exploding...but in a good way. “Sorry, but I needed you. I'm getting wet,” Roman chuckled. The rain pelted my polyester form, and I felt every drop. It was a whole different type of very pleasant massage.
The shower was short-lived, and I was soon ready to become something other than rain protection.
“Okay, Corrie. What's next on the list? 'Mythical'?”
“Yes, can you do that?”
“'Dragon, pegasus, griffin, fusion into hydra'? Oh, I'd be happy to be a hydra with you anyday. You like the fusion stuff, huh?”
I nodded. I truly did. That all stemmed from the time Roman had turned us into one vase. Being the same thing as him was just, I don't know, good for the soul. Good for our marriage too, I would guess.
Roman grabbed me roughly. “Then let's fuse!”
As we transformed, our bodies became one from the head down. Both of us were able to control our limbs and long tail, so moving might entail some teamwork. Nonetheless, it was quite a pleasing transformation, and I loved sharing our body, but... “Roman, a hydra with only two heads?” I looked over at his head attached to our shoulders. It retained his facial features, but was decidedly scaly and reptilian.
“Well,” he said, abashed, “I could do more.”
I was excited to be this mythological creature, and I wondered how far the form could go. “If we chop off our heads, will we grow more? Are we poisonous?”
“Calm, Corrie. Calm.” Roman tried to pat me with our front leg, but he merely succeeded in scratching our body with our claws. “Hydras are not real. Yes, we're real, in a different form. But if we chop off a head, I don't think the outcome would be favorable. However–”
I drew my head close to his.
“We are poisonous.” He winked his scaly eyelid.
We walked around the woods, getting used to sharing our limbs. Roman gave us several more heads, some of which were him, and some were me. The oddity of seeing from several different vantage points again was actually making me dizzy.
Roman picked up on my discomfort. “You need something more straightforward. Pegasus time.”
I split from him, bipedal for only a moment before I came down on all fours and the familiar horse transformation began. I still hoped one day Roman would turn me back into a horse and I could bear him a pony...
My fur was growing in perfectly white, my hands hardened into hooves, and my mane sprouted from my neck. Wings popped from my muscular back with a jolt, and soon I was soaring through the heavens, my husband on my back. “I can't believe I'm letting you ride me,” I commented as I dove through a cloud.
He stroked my mane. “I can answer that in so many ways,” he responded impishly. “And you had no problem riding me when I was a dashing black stallion.”
I headed towards the earth and alighted in a grassy meadow. “I'd love to see that stallion right now.”
“Done,” I watched Roman slowly grow into equine form. He made sure he transformed at a pace that I would enjoy. Viewing him change was almost as titillating as transforming myself. As horse and pegasus, we galloped through the brush with abandon. I allowed myself to surrender to my horse instincts, which first was nice. Then, as we munched at grass, I felt Roman nosing at me, and I was very interested in his advances. Too interested. “Roman, is a horse and a pegasus even...compatible?” I asked slyly.
He tilted his head. “Let's find out.”
“No, not now.” I pushed him away with my wing. “Turn me into a griffin next. Should be easy from this form.”
As I became half-eagle, half lion, I stared down at my body in confusion. “This is just...weird.”
“You don't like it?”
“I don't know. It's like, my body doesn't know what it wants to be. Half this, half that...”
“Then why'd you want me to make you one?”
“I don't know. Curiosity?”
“Well, the next thing on your list is very not-confusing. Grow into a large, scary, dragon!”
“Oh, make me breathe fire, Roman!” I was able to push out before my griffin face grew into a snout. I could feel the sharp teeth erupting in my mouth, and my neck was elongating.
“I'm making you really big,” Roman stated with a yawn, as if watching one's wife transform into a dragon was an everyday occurrence.
I always adored getting big. Right now, every part of me was expanding, and the claws coming from my feet were soon thicker than my human arms had been. I gazed down at Roman, realizing I could crush him if I wanted to. But then I'd be a dragon forever. They probably would not let me attend classes tomorrow like that.
I twisted my scaly neck around so I could look at my long tail. I flicked it back and forth, almost knocking Roman down. He chuckled, moving away. “I don't think it's safe staying human if my wife is a dragon.”
“So turn yourself into a dragon!” I boomed, and fire shot out of my mouth. “Awesome!” I added, and tried to laugh. That only came out as smoke.
“No, I need a little break from all the changing. I need to be something more inanimate and restful. Like a tree.” Roman's feet sank into the earth, and he grew into a towering redwood. “There. Now I'm on your level, and I'm safe.”
Roman truly was a magnificent specimen. His bows were thick, almost muscular-looking, and his leaves were glossy and verdant. “Roman,” I breathed, and more fire came out, “you are...majestic!”
His leaves rustled faintly. “I always, always love turning into a tree. Your father loved it too. We often did that for hours, days...Those 'business trips' your father went on? He really was with me. We'd turn into trees and just...enjoy! It's better than meditation.”
“I'd like to do that again, but I'd love to grow into one. Like starting from a seed all the way into a tree...Can you do that? Like, speed my growth up?”
All my words created a wall of fire which singed Roman's greenery. “Hey, I feel that! You have to control that, Corrie!” he yelped, and the whole redwood collapsed, changing into a pool of water.
“That was even awesomer!” I commented with, unfortunately, more fire aimed into the puddle that was Roman.
“Corrie! Now I'm boiling!” it yelped. “Not that I'm not enjoying it,” it added in a bemused voice.
Roman shrank me down to my human form so quickly that my stomach lurched like I was on a roller coaster. “Oof,” I grabbed at my shrinking midsection. The scales disappeared into my skin with a bizarre puffing sound.
Roman re-formed from the puddle and retrieved the list from his pocket. “Now that we're safe, what's next here? Reptiles? Alligator, python–”
“I haven't done too many reptiles yet. Any cool ideas before we do the ones I wrote?”
“Oh, I have a funny one!” He ran his fingers through my hair, and gently pushed at me. “GO!” he cried.
As my body diminished, I tried to glean what I was becoming from the sensations alone. Scaly again, but littler scales, long thin tail erupting from my spine, clawed feet, and the oddest 'hood' of skin and cartilage that hung from my back and neck... “What the hell am I?”
Roman was emitting peals of laughter. “Raise your frill! Try to run!”
I looked down at the skin hanging from my neck. Frill? Run?
Staggering backward from his laughter, Roman gasped, “Run at me. On two legs!”
I rose up and did as I was told. I was able to lift the strange appendage around my neck, and I seemed to remember something on some nature special I'd seen once...
“Yes! Yes!” Roman tried triumphantly, tears in his eyes. Apparently, my lilting run was highly amusing to him. “Just like on the nature specials! You're a frilled lizard!”
So I was a frilled lizard. Joy. In annoyance, I grew still. “Roman!” I snapped.
“Oh, oh, Corrie. I want to turn back into a tree to rest, but you're just so funny like that, I just can't yet...Oh, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Here. Be an alligator now, okay?”
Good. Just what I wanted. A form that would allow me to take a big chunk out of my husband. Now, if he'd just stay human long enough...
Maybe Roman was a bit off still from the hysteria, so I kind of exploded into alligator form. The change was almost instantaneous, and I felt kind of like a balloon popping in reverse.
And perhaps due to the quick change, the alligator instincts washed through my scaly body quite rapidly. Whacking my thick tail against the sand, I stared up at Roman, and I craved meat. I wanted to sink my teeth, all seventy-whatever of them, into...anything.
Roman tapped at my side with his foot. “Damn, Corrie. You are a solid animal!”
“You made me that way,” I purred, saliva dripping from my mouth. My husband smelled like the sweetest steak, roasting in its juices... “Roman, you smell...so tasty...”
He drew away his leg very swiftly, and shifted into bird form. Though he fluttered onto an overhead branch, his smell was still tantalizing. I was so large, perhaps I could pluck his plump bird body from the twig... “I can still eat you like that, Roman,” I warned half-heartedly. I bet he would taste like chicken...
The bird fluttered to the ground and seemed to cave into it slightly until I realized that Roman was turning back into a tree. When his boughs stretched back into the sky, he responded, “you can't eat me like this!”
I crawled over to his trunk and sank my teeth into his bark.
The tree shook. “Okay, that just tickles,” it said.
I ran my tongue against him, trying to see if I could get any hint of his true, meaty taste.
“Corrie, that's enough. Turn into a python now.”
“Oh, Roman,” I whined, but I was already changing. Changing from an alligator to a snake wasn't that drastic. “Keep me big!” I insisted as my limbs merged into my body. I liked the snake form; without limbs, I felt nearly as powerless as being an object, yet I could slither around. My forked tongue was really cool too.
I coiled myself around Roman's trunk. “Harder,” he requested.
I tightened against him.
“Mm, that's nice,” he moaned. “I'm getting hugged by a snake.”
“Your bark is scratchy against my scales,” I complained.
“So sorry. Would you rather I turn into a pole so you'll be less uncomfortable?”
I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not. “It's fine. I thought you were trying to rest, anyway.”
“I could rest as a pole too. Anything inanimate is restful because you're not moving or...well, living. But a tree is nicer. Yes, it's alive, but on such a low, wonderful level...”
“Roman, I'd like to rest now too. Can you slowly make me grow from a seed to a tree like I asked?”
“Sure. It's a good time for a lunch break. Let's photosynthesize!”
“Okay, little acorn! Let's put you in the ground!”
As a human, I was nervous about Roman planting me and covering me with dirt. It would be dark, I would be helpless, and it would be...well, dirty. But as I changed and hardened into a round (and, in Roman's words, 'very handsome') acorn, I hungered for the earth.
Roman had dug a small hole, and he placed me there. “You still okay with this, Corrie?”
Oh, yes, Roman! Please cover me and water me. I want to drink.
My view of Roman's smile was soon blotted out by the soil he covered me with. Quite happy with the damp moistness, I nestled into the dirt. Its nutrients were nourishing me, and a burst of cool water from above, compliments of my husband, prompted me to crack open and burst my new fragile stem out into the brightness of day.
Joy filled my plant body as I met the sunlight, and the familiar pleasure of being transformed was particularly strong in this form at this time. So, so nice, Roman... Where are you? Being a small plant, I couldn't move, let alone look for my husband. I could only see ahead.
“I'm right beside you, Corrie. I turned back into a tree. Now grow towards the sound of my voice.”
“Grow?”
“Just like you pushed through the ground. I'm focusing a bit of energy on you to speed up your growth, but you need to push too. Grow larger, push out branches, open your leaves...”
I obeyed, twisting my thickening stem until I could see my redwood companion beside me. I wanted to join him, so high up in the clouds! Roman had chosen to turn me into a tree when we had first met, and once again, I totally understood why. Being plant life was so serene, even at the rate I was maturing. I was stretching toward the sky, pushing more and more of my leaves to sprout and open so I could catch the sun. I loved how the warmth coursed through my leaves and the tingle of photosynthesis filled me with energy. It made me feel as if I were super-caffeinated, and I wanted to simply bound through the grass. But alas, trees can't 'bound'.
And that was fine. I was moving in my own way, reaching for Roman's high bows. “Ah, what a cute little sapling you are, Corrie!” He shifted some of his branches so he would not block my light. “A growing tree needs her sun and nutrition!” he joked.
“I'm trying to get as high as you!” I groaned as my bark hardened around my thickening trunk.
The redwood shook with laughter. “Sorry, Corrie. You can't get that high. You're only an oak.”
I was more than a sapling now, really a young tree, I'd say. An irritated one. “Well, you can turn me into anything. Can't you turn me into a huge oak that's the size of my redwood husband?”
He placed one branch back over me as if to protect me. “Stay right here under me, Corrie. I like you just the way you are.”
And we soon grew silent. We stood tall, side-by-side, and let the calmness of our arborial forms take hold of our minds. We were simply nature.
Quite refreshed, we presently resumed human form. “Ah, that was good. I'm all topped off with transformation energy,” said Roman, unfolding the list from his pocket.
“Is that how it works?” I asked with interest. “You have a special energy?”
He chuckled. “Well, who knows? I guess anything's possible. It's not like anyone ever studied me or anything.”
“You'd make a great research subject,” I suggested, half-seriously.
“Hmm.”
“Well, you would! Imagine what it would do for the world if they could learn how you transform people.”
“Or they'd simply use me as a tool to get whatever they want. I can be very dangerous in the wrong hands, Corrie.” Roman was serious now, and I didn't particularly like it.
“Now,” he resumed. “'Dinosaurs: Velociraptor, Stegosaurus, T-Rex, Apatosaurus'. You want to be all of these?”
I gulped. “Yes?”
“Okay. A quick succession of dinosaurs. Let's go. Velociraptor Corrie!”
I shrank down to maybe half Roman's size. “Hee, hee! This time I'm growing feathers!” I looked down at my bird-like body, and held up my greatly truncated wings. “Can I fly with these things?”
“Try it.”
I flapped. All that resulted in was Roman laughing at me. Heck, if I was going to have wings, it would be nice if they actually worked. “Okay, not quite what I was going for here. Next up?”
“I'd like a nice stegosaurus before me!”
My body obeyed Roman's demands, and I was growing. Higher, longer...
“You'll be bigger than my house soon,” Roman pointed out helpfully.
“That's...on my list,” I gasped through my enlarging snout.
“What? Oh, a house. Yes, that can be fun. We'll put you next to ours later, or add you on as an extra room–”
“What is...that?” I felt like points were piercing through the thick hide of my back. And my back was becoming so arched, I felt like I was turning into the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“That, my dear, is your armor! A stegosaurus has pointy 'armor' on its back.” He observed me pacing experimentally back and forth, trying to become accustomed to my new giant form. “Did you know that?”
I snorted. “I'm not so great with dinosaur identification. I just pulled some dino names from my brain and figured I'd try them all. I like this, but I want bigger.” And then I was twisting into a T-Rex.
My head grew much bigger in comparison to the rest of my dinosaur body, but my back was much less arched. I did miss my 'armor' though. It was kind of cute.
At perhaps eighteen feet high, I was big and powerful. But Roman and I looked at each other, or rather, he looked up at me and I looked down at him, and I did not need to say a thing.
“You need to be an apatosaurus,” he stated, and I was growing yet again.
Oh, to grow and expand like this! Absolutely wonderful! I was stamping my feet in bliss, which made the trees shake. Roman drew far back from me for fear of being trampled.
I flipped my growing tail, knocking down several saplings and creating a new clearing in the underbrush. This made me feel guilty; I thought about how hard it had been to grow into such a nice little sapling, and I had just killed or at least hindered the growth of several.
Meanwhile, I was getting larger than some of the smaller trees now! “Am I almost there?” I called down.
“Almost!”
My neck was still lengthening, and I expected this would be somewhat like what it felt to turn into a giraffe. It was growing, growing, and I could feel my transformation reaching its end... “I...am...turning...into...an apatosaurus!” My declaration roared through the forest, and my metamorphosis was complete.
I wasn't quite above the treetops, but I was within maybe the lower canopy, and that was good. I shoved my face into some greenery and began to feast.
“How's the air up there?”
A dinosaur face was coming up towards me from below, and momentarily I paused to strike.
“Oh, God, Roman, I'm really a dinosaur, and...I had the urge to fight you...Do they defend their territory or something?” I set back to chewing the leaves. They tasted pretty good. Who knew?
“Maybe it's because I'm male.” Roman swiveled his long neck around mine, and I had that same attraction to him I felt no matter what forms we were in.
He winked his huge eye at me, and I wondered exactly how big it was. “Would you like to experience some dinosaur coupling?”
The leaves were just too good. “No. Not today. I'm on a transformation roll, and that's it.”
If Roman was upset, he didn't show it. He took a bite from the bark of a tree. “Something for the future. Hmm, this bark tastes good. I wonder if apatosaurus ate bark, or it's just me experimenting?”
“Until we meet a time traveler, I don't think we'll find out,” I commented.
When our meal was complete, I was somewhat loath to change as I really was enjoying being so giant. But Roman could always change me back some other day. “What next?” he asked.
“Bacteria,” I requested without pause. “Really big to really small. And I want it really fast!”
“Well,” he curled his front leg around mine, knocking down a small shrub in the process. “I don't want to lose you in that form, so I'll hold onto you and become one too. You want fast, let's do fast.”
This time I shot down to the ground faster than any roller coaster. And the drastic change in our mass created a small wind and an actual popping sound. For the first time, I felt nausea as I shrank into a microscopic blob. Roman must have been the thing next to me. He was kind of clear and he was attached to me by a tube-like structure. That's a conjugation tube. It's how bacteria like us mate.
I was fascinated and disturbed at the same time. Usually I loved being small things. But being microscopic, well, in essence, I was nothing.
You like our tube? Bacteria exchange genetic info through it...
I remember high school biology, Roman, I snapped. Softening my mind-voice somewhat, I asked, What kind of bacteria are we?
E. Coli, my dear. Good old, trustworthy E. coli.
Roman could sense that I was a little weirded out being a microscopic organism, so he changed me into a spider. I went from a microscopic blob to a bigger blob with legs. Well, sort of. But I wanted to eat again. “Roman, I'm hungry.”
“You have to work for your dinner. Spin a web.”
And I did. After learning not to trip over my eight long legs, I let the spider instincts take over, and soon, I had woven such an intricate work of art that even I could be proud. When a little gnat got entangled, I raced at it, and made it my dinner. As I sucked its bug juices out, a small part of me was horrified. I was the one who saved butterflies from spider webs. I also was the one who saved bugs (and spiders) when they got into the house. I never killed anything, yet here I was drinking a bug like it was a smoothie.
“Now, I prepared myself for your next one.”
I looked down to see Roman, now a flower. And I became a bee.
His pollen was irresistible. I tried to hold myself back, but I needed to drink it. I landed on his petals, folding my wings down on my fuzzy back.
Drink me, Corrie, the flower begged.
“But Roman, you said that eating the person would...well, they'd be digested, and then...dead!” I cried with alarm.
The flower shook back and forth. You're not eating me, you're eating my pollen. It's like, I don't know, eating my hair, or drinking my sweat...
“That's gross, Roman.”
But I didn't need to be told twice. I drank long and deep. He was ambrosia.
“So how fast can you go, Roman? Really?”
“Well, let's see. Can you deal with a quick-change kind of thing? Maybe of these land animals?”
This could be fun, I decided. “Go for it.”
Roman took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, and began. “Lion! Gazelle! Tiger! Cow!” The changes were so rapid, I could barely breathe. I remained a quadruped, but fur shortened and lengthened, my body thinned and fattened, and now, I had...udders... “Ostrich!” He paused here, laughing at my lanky, awkward bird body. “There's another flightless one for you.”
I balanced on one long leg. Just to see if I could. “Keep going, Roman!” I squawked. “You tired yet?”
“Getting there. Okay, pig! Squirrel! Hedgehog! Oh, fennec fox...Look at those huge ears!” he picked up my small furry body, which was quivering from all the changes. I didn't feel sick, but I felt...weird, and...charged. “You are adorable like this, Corrie! Ready for more?” he checked the list, not noticing my increasing shakiness.
“Sure...” he was on a roll. I couldn't stop him.
“What else was there- oh, stag?”
So this was an altogether new situation for me. The deer form was lovely, as was the transformation into it. Except for one difference. I had changed gender.
I knew I wanted to try that at some point, but at first it seemed just too weird for me. So, before trying it as a human, I figured it might be easier to be a male animal.
It wasn't.
There was a strength I felt as a male that I had never experienced as a woman. And there also was this need... for...?
I understood what the need was quite well when Roman turned into a beautiful doe beside me. It was all I could do to get him to make me something else immediately, because...oh, I needed him. Her. Whatever.
Roman was on the ground, and I lay, solid and unmoving, on top of him. Roman, what am I, and why are we on the ground?
“That really tired me out. I'm taking another break. You, on the other hand, are basically a girl made of chocolate. And you are starting to melt from both the sun and my body heat.”
I could feel myself melting against his skin, and I liked it. Leave me like this, I instructed.
“I'm good with that.” As Roman snoozed, my body began to lose its shape. I was melting into a chocolate mass, covering and engulfing Roman. He woke up as I flowed over his face. “Mmm, I like this,” he said. He turned to solid ice so I couldn't smother him, which made me re-solidify into a thin film. I outlined every aspect of Roman's form perfectly.
We were dragonflies, and Roman was leading us to the beach for my aquatic adventures. The afternoon was passing quickly, and I had plenty more to be. “You'll love being a whale,” he was saying. “They are big, plump...just like you like.”
“You'll be one too?” We had alighted on some beach furniture set out on the sand. It was surprisingly empty for a late summer afternoon, and I asked Roman why. Apparently yesterday, there had been shark sightings. And jellyfish. And red tide...
Now human, I walked to the water's edge. “Well, then, with all these sightings, maybe we shouldn't go in the water...”
He walked up behind me. “Corrie, uh, that was all me.”
“What?”
“That's where I went yesterday when I said I was going to the store. I also went here and...well, made sure the beach would be closed. Now it's all ours.”
“You were a jellyfish, huh? And a shark, and...Oh, my God, Roman. Turn me into a jellyfish. How awesome would that be?”
“Very awesome. Get into the water.”
Now this was a cool transformation. Most of the way through, I felt like my head stayed relatively intact, but the rest of me was dissolving into...goo. My arms, legs, and the rest of my body were just separating into thousands of stinging tentacles, which grew longer and longer. Now my head was jellifying and inflating, and I was officially a giant jellyfish.
“Perfect,” I heard Roman's voice far above. “So delicate!”
And I truly felt delicate; my tentacles lazed in the water, the small eddies caressing them. It was odd having feeling in each of thousands of appendages, and even weirder knowing I had no heart, no bones, and...no brain.
Your soul is what inhabits the form. Not your brain, Roman had said once. That was always confusing to me as, coming from a relatively non-religious background, I always understood the soul to simply be a function of the brain. Considering I had been non-living objects, and was now an animal with no brain, I obviously had been quite wrong.
A spectacular jelly floated up to me, and for a moment, I thought I had attracted a suitor. But it was Roman, and he was strikingly beautiful. He was the same off-pink I was, and the sunrays radiated through his fragile, gelatinlike form. His tentacles flowed from him, doing a little dance of their own.
I like this form, don't you? He asked me.
Yes. Totally. We swam off into the depths and ate stuff. God knows what horrible things I engulfed.
We swam back to the beach, and Roman emerged from the water as he grew into human form, slowly coaxing me up beside him.
And then a strange voice rang out.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God. You're...you're a shape-shifter, man!”
Someone had seen us.