Bella’s Big Night

Part 1

Bella propped up her iPad on the mantelpiece and pressed play on the YouTube tutorial. It was only after the video had started that it occurred to her that simply clearing away the coffee table in her living room was not going to give her enough room for what she was about to do.

‘Hi. Welcome to Tricky Changes,’ announced a pale, Nordic man in his thirties. ‘And I am Tricky.’

He had blond hair and a beard to match, and spoke with a Scandi accent. Not a surprise to Bella – part of Tricky’s schtick was that he gave tips on metamorphosis from his barn in the Danish countryside.

Thanks to these tutorials, she had mastered changing into all manner of mammals, birds and reptiles. But it was this latest video she’d been most eager to see: how to change into an animal she’d never managed to become until now.

‘Today we’re going for a big one,’ announced Tricky. ‘Today we’re going to become elephants...’

Twenty minutes later, Bella sat her still-very-much-human backside down on her sofa. It had always been nice and big, like the rest of the plump curvaceous body she enjoyed having, but today she’d had her heart set on making it even bigger. It was no comfort to her that she’d been able to turn her head into an elephant’s - she’d managed that before without a problem. Snuffling the human-proportioned trunk that sprung from her grey, thick-skinned face she reflected upon her disappointment. She’d always considered herself a skilful shapeshifter, had prided herself on the variety of creatures she’d transformed into over the years. But she’d never succeeded in getting big.

Oh, to be an elephant or hippo. Or a bear! She’d be in heaven as a bear. All those huge beasts that had eluded her every time, to the point where she had resigned herself to never being able to change anything from the neck down when she attempted to transform into them.

With none of the enthusiasm that usually accompanied her changes, she tensed her face muscles and began to retract her trunk in defeat. In sympathy, her large, sail-like African elephant ears began to diminish, flapping sadly while they shrank. As her skin softened back to pinkness, she opened her mouth wide and drew her temporary tusks back in, then reformed her lips into an appealing pout. A wrinkle here, a twitch there and eventually her head returned to its usual appearance.

It was typical for shapeshifters to be completely at ease with their body image. It may have been a trunk only seconds ago, but Bella’s regular nose was small and angular, quite pointy from some directions, but she’d never wanted to change it. Or rather, she always wanted to change it, but not because of the way it looked. Similarly, she could’ve given her pale blue eyes a richer colour, or got rid of their short-sightedness, but knowing such a thing was possible meant she didn’t need to do it. It was always reassuring to be greeted with those eyes, her eyes, when she caught her reflection. A reflection that usually wore wire rim glasses and looked good doing so.

She’d been less precious about her hair, though. Once, it had been all copper red and curls down to her shoulders. As soon as she passed her shapeshifting GCSE however, it was the first thing she’d changed and in the 20 years since school it had rarely looked the same way twice. Today, it was blue, tied back into a single long braid that had given her ears plenty of room when they were growing.

Growing.

She loved her full figure, her lethal cleavage and plump belly that today were hidden beneath an old plain t shirt, just as her wide hips and magnificent ass filled out a pair of tatty lounge pants. These were the sort of clothes that wouldn’t have been missed if she had torn through them with her intended elephant transformation. But it had always irked her that the most she had been able to add to her regular five-feet-two of height was an odd few inches if she was lucky. When she attempted to grow any taller, she’d take on ridiculous proportions, all bony and stick-limbed. And any time she wanted to become a large animal, bizarrely, she could only ever change her head. She never envied any other shapeshifters she met, but whenever she was in the company of people who were naturally tall, she couldn’t shake an irrational feeling of inadequacy, that she was being looked down upon. Literally.

So, she didn’t know what to think when she won a ticket to that year’s Bear Ball.

The Bear Ball! The big charity bash held at Bruin Hall where famous shapeshifters – film stars, TF celebrities, morphball players, body artists and songshifters – gathered to, quote, “raise money and awareness” for worthwhile causes. It was questionable how much good it actually did, but it was an undeniable highlight of the shapeshifting calendar.

The hall was named after the famous werebear philanthropist, Lord Bruin of Warwick, and so as a gimmick, everybody who attended the Ball was required to take the form of a bear. Amongst the celebs, a small number of the hoi polloi were also invited. Bella had raised a couple of hundred pounds on a canine fun run as a Golden Labrador back in the spring. Unbeknownst to her, this had got her entered into a draw for a ticket to the Bear Ball. When her number came up, she was delighted and horrified. A chance to hang out with some the country’s most famous shapeshifters!

But how was she going to get as big as a bear?

She’d hoped the elephant tutorial would be a start, would finally give her a handle on getting bigger. But with only a couple of days to go until the ball, she’d run out of ideas.

Tired and fed up, she headed off to bed.