Bella's Big Night

Part 3

Another night, another dream.

Much more peaceful this time round.

In the bath. A huge bath, the size of a lake, full of bubbles and...

A snout, poking above the water line. Then a huge pair of eyes and small pair of ears. The head of a hippo. Not any hippo, though. This one had long red hair that trailed in the water.

Bella.

She plunged beneath the surface. The dream bath was impossibly deep, and she allowed herself to drift gently down. She felt the delicious tension of the pull between her buoyancy and her immense weight.

Why was she so heavy, when she was so small?

But she wasn’t small. Her body was transformed (when had that happened?), a human shape (she was human, wasn’t she?) but the size, the bulk, the features of a hippopotamus (big again! It was glorious to be so huge...)

Bella reached the bottom of the bath (the river? the lake?), and reached out to touch it with limbs that had swelled to enormous size. As she padded along the rock-strewn enamel, she felt the gentle sway of her enlarged breasts beneath her, the pleasant bobbing of her hippo-sized tummy. Then, with a push of her massive hind legs, she began to swim back up to the surface.

Towards the light (is it morning already?), towards the air (am I awake?), towards the waking world...

Somehow, waking this time round was more disorientating for Bella. She had fully expected to be massive again, and, as she started to come round, was disappointed to find she was only her normal short self.

But if her body felt odd to her, her mind was clearer than it had been for a long while. As the final cobwebs of sleep fell away from her senses, she was gripped with an exhilarating certainty.

She knew.

She knew how to hippo.

Lesson learned from yesterday, she got breakfast out of the way. It was never a good idea to

shapeshift after eating. Like with swimming, cramps and indigestion could cause all sorts of problems. But Bella was impatient to get started, and as she wolfed down her last slice of melon, she smiled at the notion that she had already begun to mimic a hippo.

No time for a shower. No time to morph her hairstyle, now remaining red and tied back in a simple ponytail. No time to get dressed.

No, hang on, she had just the thing. Tucked away in an abandoned overnight bag in the bottom of her wardrobe, a pair of extra-large old-fashioned striped pyjamas that had belonged to – well, we didn’t talk about him anymore. Bella put them on, buttoning the shirt and loosely tying the bottoms' drawstring.  Her short stature meant that they still hung off her despite her full figure. She closed the wardrobe, the mirror swinging back round to reveal an image of her dwarfed beneath the fabric of the pyjamas.

Bella smiled at herself and began to change.

She formed her hands into fists and pulled, contracting the muscles along her arms, shoulders and back. Immediately, the soft flesh that padded out her upper body diminished. She breathed in deeply, but instead of her chest expanding, it reduced, her breasts dwindling away in sympathy. Her belly flattened, tightened, a motion echoed by buttocks that were rapidly disappearing. Bella’s pyjama bottoms fell with no hips to keep them up and she absently made an unsuccessful grab for them. Her concentration disturbed, her breasts briefly expanded before she regained her focus and brought them under control.

Now, slim thighs and calves protruded from a striped top which resembled a big, baggy nightshirt. Even her face had thinned out, her chin surprisingly pointed though still recognisably hers. Her hair had come out of its ponytail with the effort and she blew a stray strand of it out of her eye.

Now the real work could begin.

She bent over and pulled up her pyjama bottoms. Then she held out their waistband, like the 'after' picture in a weight loss commercial. And invited her belly to fill it.

Bella released the tension that had reduced her body to a thin, waif-like version of itself. She gasped at the accompanying wave of pleasure as it began to grow back to its usual size. This reversion occurred more rapidly. Bella was soon able to let go of the pyjama bottoms, her midriff swelling sensuously within seconds. Ass, hips and thighs plumped up just as they should. Her smile literally broadened, waving goodbye to that unwelcome angular face. And her breasts...

Feeling them grow and seeing them grow at the same time was incredible. She resisted touching them as she knew what was to come next, contenting herself instead with the way they pressed against the now not-so-loose material of her top.

The gentle brushing of her nipples against that fabric was the signal Bella had been waiting for. Riding the momentum of her expansion, she began to push, asking her body if it wanted to go further.

‘With pleasure,' it replied, popping the top button of her shirt.

She wasn’t doing anything particularly different from her previous failed attempts at growing, but whatever it was that had eluded her before seemed obvious now. Of course, her belly wanted to be bigger, spilling over the waistband of her bottoms and straining the thread of her shirt's lowest button. Why shouldn’t her butt want to escape, the top of its cheeks becoming more and more visible. Fattening thighs sensibly pressed against the material of each leg, just as feet and toes were forming their appropriate hooves. Then more hooves arrived, instead of hands, because what else would make sense at the end of thick, thick arms.

Bella strained to continue transforming, a satisfying ache reassuring her she was doing good work. Her skin grew grey, smoother and less hairy than that of her elephant form. The new colour raced up her body to a face that was at last beginning to extend and shift. Her ears curled and flicked, poking through red locks that had remained unchanged. That hair parted as her head elongated, the eyes separating, the nose broadening to a snout, the mouth gaping wider and wider still. Inside that enormous mouth, most teeth receded, but the canines and incisors grew to alarming size.

Only now did a little doubt enter Bella's thoughts. Would she be able to complete the transformation into a full hippo? She already knew the answer, really. That’s why, without considering it, she had stayed in her bedroom. But it wouldn’t hurt to try.

A deafening hippopotamus grunt issued from her gigantic mouth as she redoubled her efforts.

Her breasts toppled out of her shirt, destroying another button. A seam split somewhere just as a small tail emerged from her magnificent rump.

And that was as far as it went.

Bella bent over and almost losing her balance. She caught her breath in a series of pants and snorts.

All thoughts of failure evaporated as from her crouched position she took in what she had achieved. Although not as large as her anthro elephant form, she was still marvellously massive. With so much of her to go around, even tiny movements caused her body to sway and undulate, her barely-fitting clothes rubbing teasingly against her thick-yet-sensitive skin.

This was much better than limiting yourself to being only an animal. Abandoning the ball tonight didn’t seem so bad compared to exploring the possibilities that this new form offered. But it was also true that compared to how she had felt yesterday, the prospect of successfully transforming entirely didn’t see as impossible as it once had. She would give it one more try tonight. For now, that overdue shower sounded good.

However, once Bella had squeezed into the bathroom, she was confronted with a shower cubicle dwarfed by her towering stature. A half-remembered image of her dream bath raced through her mind, but its real-world counterpart was much, much smaller. Nevertheless, she began to run the water, hooved finger-toes just about managing the taps. She gnashed off the top of a bottle of bubble bath and emptied the contents into the tub. Only partially climbing in, as far as her huge frame would allow, she revelled in the sensation of being far too big. When the tub was half full, she slowly began to transform back to her human proportions, sinking gradually into the fragrant foam as she shrank.

She’d worry about tonight later.