It had always seemed like one of those gags you hear on old sitcoms. Someone hard up for cash would sell themselves to science. Volunteer for medical experimentation, become a test subject for a scientist, something like that. I’d never believed it was something you could actually do. But here I was, trying to focus on the explanation of the fine print of the contract I was being asked to sign. Concentrating on it was difficult for two reasons. The first was the payment. It was more than I’d made in the last six months of my day job. Imagining what I would do with that money was taking up a bunch of my brain. The other reason it was so difficult to focus was the person doing the reading.
She was a doctor, and more or less dressed the part. She had a clipboard and a lab coat. But that was where the traditional “doctor” look ended. She was young to be a doctor, just a few years older than me and still at the very peak of her loveliness. And though she wasn’t blatant about it, she clearly knew how attractive she was. Her lab coat hugged her figure in a tailored sort of way, accentuating her form. She wore leggings that had the smallest hint of lace. It was an outfit that tiptoed to the very edge of professional acceptability without crossing the line. Keeping my eyes off her curves was eating up what few brain cycles I had left. There was simply nothing left for legalese.
“… and all major effects, once observed, will justify analysis for a period of time to be decided upon by the supervising physician,” she said. “Does that sound good?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said.
“And you agree to waive all rights—human, civil, and otherwise—until the administration of the counter-agent, correct?”
“I guess… wait, what rights are we talking about again?”
“Oh, let’s not dig too deep into the lawyer talk,” she said. “This is about medicine and science, not contracts. You trust me, don’t you?”
“But it seemed a little...”
She slid the thick contract in front of me, leaning close enough to hover at the edge of his personal space.
“I promise I’ll be gentle,” she said with a dash of sultriness.
“I… uh… hehehe,” I stammered nervously, fumbling to sign the page.
“Excellent,” she said, dropping the contract in a drawer. “Now, you’ll get your payment at the end, in one lump sum. But I’m going to ask you to be as descriptive as possible about the drug’s effects.”
She produced a pill and a glass of water. I took the pill and downed the water, grateful to have something to counter the fact that her flirtatiousness had made my mouth go dry. The moment the pill went down, I started to feel something. She clicked out a pen and looked at me expectantly.
“Oh, um… I guess I’m getting sort of a fuzzy feeling in my head,” I said.
She jotted something down. “A fuzzy feeling. Where?”
“In my head.”
“Where exactly?” she prompted.
“I… uh… I’m not sure if I can be more specific,” I said.
She stood and approached me, setting her clipboard down. With a slow, deliberate motion, she placed her finger on the top of my head.
“You mean… here? She said.
She gently pressed on my head. The action could not have been more delicate and measured. But like the pill, the effect was immediate. I felt a pressure like she’d placed a sandbag on my head. The sense of subtle but persistent weight went all the way to my feet. It was a dizzying sensation. Not unpleasant, just distractingly potent. So distracting that I didn’t at first notice that I had to fight the pressure a bit to look further and further up to look her in the eye. My clothes started to feel weird, too. Tighter, for some reason.
It wasn’t until she released her finger and the pressure slightly decreased that I realized what had happened. I was gazing up at her from barely knee high. My body felt taut and squeezed. Motion was sluggish and took a lot of effort. I’d been mashed down, now no more than two feet tall. My body had plumped a bit wider to compensate, but I still felt intensely stimulated, like my body didn’t know what to make of these sensations so it was just cranking up the sensitivity. I felt everything as though it was happening harder and faster and more firmly than it had ever happened before.
“Yes, yes,” the doctor said, crouching down to look me in the eye more closely. “Now, can you describe any new sensations?”
“I… uh...” I began, my words thick and sloppy in an almost drunken way as I grappled with the very feelings I was supposed to be describing.
“Mmm… Subject appears disoriented,” she booped me on the nose. “And adorable. Here, I’ll just have to base my notes on observation. And for that, I’ll need a closer look.”
She reached down to slid her hands under my armpits. Somehow, as though my weight had dropped as much as my height, she effortlessly lifted me from the floor. My clothes somehow clung to me, as though they too had been affected by the pill, conforming to my changing shape. I blushed deeply at being handled so easily, and knowing that there really wasn’t much I could do about it. She set me on the chair and smiled down at me in a way that made my heart skip a beat. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more surreal, she turned and flipped up the back of her lab coat with a dramatic flair and… sat.
Her lovely, lacy bottom plopped down onto my face. A single finger had been able to reduce me to a fraction of my height, so against the full weight of her body, I had no hope. It was like a silken car-crusher, the soft, curvy cheeks mashing me into the seat and drenching me brain with impossibly intense sensations. All I could do was squirm as her warm weight pressed away more and more of my depth. Any complaints were reduced to muffled murmurs beneath her weight.
~~~
The doctor grinned and wrote down her notes. It was always so interesting, feeling a while person steadily reduce to a rubbery pancake with just a bit of pressure. Entertaining, too. The twitching and quivering beneath her buns was just starting to settle down. It was two full minutes this time.
“Are you ready for another interview about the sensations?” she asked the unseen—but not unfelt—subject.
His attempt to answer vibrated against her buns. She giggled lightly and wriggled against the seat of the chair. The murmur turned into a high pitched, stifled whimper. She clicked her pen again.
“Subject’s sensitivity is heightened by friction. Fascinating. Just like the others. Now let’s test the limits of that phenomenon.”
A subtle, mischievous smile curved her lips as she thoroughly ground her butt into the flattened subject.
~~~
It felt like hours that I was being assaulted by that soft yet punishing pressure. By the time she lifted herself away, I could practically feel the texture of the seat through my impossibly thin body. For a moment I thought my body might be popping back to shape. I felt the full body shift and tingle of my disked mass inching thicker. But I barely made it to a half inch when the restoration slowed and stopped. I was stuck as a rubbery circle.
I thought I’d gotten used to the heightened sensitivity until she turned and picked me up. Even the touch of her fingers felt like a bolt of lightning through me.
“You know the procedure. What are you feeling?”
“I tried to talk, but all that I could manage was a soft, pent-up moan.
“What’s that? Try to speak distinctly. This is for science. Let me help encourage you.”
She tugged the edges of the pancake that I had become. My moans turned into sharp, stifled yelps as the tension ratcheted up.
“Yes, I think you’ve made your point. Let’s move on.”
She carried me over to the desk, where at some point she’d set up a strange frame. It was tilted forward with a circular hole cut into it that was just a bit smaller than my circular body. She flopped me into it and quickly pressed a cloth backer on top of me, pinning me in place. Once I was properly framed, she tilted it up and I discovered there was a camera set up with its feed piped to a screen with a flashing record icon. I could finally see what had become of me. My body was about the size of a Frisbee, my face perfectly flat on top and my hands laminated to my body on either side of it.
“Phase 2 testing calls for some physical experimentation. The good news is, success will be visually evident. But feel free to attempt to describe the sensation, as before.”
I made one last halfhearted attempt to object, but it only produced a soft MMPH. She clicked open a case which I could barely see out of the corner of my eye. It looked like it contained a set of markers or screwdrivers. I learned a few seconds later, much to my dismay, that they were something much more bizarre. I felt a soft poke on the back of my flattened body It didn’t hurt much, but it made my whole face flinch, contorting it into a cartoonish, embarrassing, cross-eyed wild-take.
The doctor nodded and grinned, marking something on the clipboard.
“Compressed subject’s nerves are extremely accessible for manipulation with acupuncture needles. Facial contortions are delightfully extreme. Must text extent.”
~~~
For several minutes longer than was strictly necessary, the doctor poked and prodded her toy… That is to say, her test subject, though it was obviously a bit of both. That was the best part. She was advancing scientific understanding and also making a portable, malleable plaything, helpless to resist her. She watched as each needle caused eyebrows to waggle, ears to wiggle, and lips to pucker. He made the cutest , most pathetic little meep and oof and mmph each time she poked him. This treatment would prove profoundly entertaining… that is to say, instructive.
~~~
My face had finally reached the proper zany expression to satisfy her scientific curiosity, as the doctor abruptly stopped repositioning pins and picked up the frame to carry me into an adjoining room. If I’d gotten a glimpse of this room before I’d signed the agreement, I might have thought twice about it. The walls were hung with an assortment of other test subjects. Like me, they were neatly framed and were sporting faces twisted and contorted into comical, embarrassing takes. She idly tucked me under her arm, like I was little more than a common object, and browsed the collection. When she found whatever it was she was looking for in a “lab partner” for me, she slipped its frame from the wall and propped it on the table. She set me down so that I was face to face with the person who would be keeping me company.
The other framed subject was a pretty young woman, about my age. At least she seemed pretty. It was hard to tell, because right now she was a pancake with a scrunched up face that had been sculpted via needles to sport two eyes facing away from her nose and a tongue jutting directly to the right like the hand of a clock.
“This has been tremendously educational, but I have some other research to do. This young woman will be working with you for the next phase, which will begin sometime this week. Or next. The scientific community thanks you for your contributions thus far.”
I took one more moment to try to voice my disapproval with this situation, but all that came out was a stifled fweep. The woman I’d been paired with squeaked in solidarity.
~~~
It was a little difficult to tell how much time passed for a while. Every few… hours? … days? … the doctor came in to check on us. Sometimes it would be just to tweak a pin to hike an eyebrow up or yank a lip this way or that. It was… not comfortable, that was for sure. The compression was achingly intense, but never quite unpleasant. It was just frustrating, tingly, and inescapable. But it was nice having company. Even with her embarrassingly contorted face, she was a cute girl. It was a shameful thing, but I kind of liked seeing her twitch and squirm whenever the doctor picked her to adjust instead of me. It was weirdly adorable.
As I sat in the frame, listening to the doctor’s approach, I was hoped the next bit of adjustment would give me a better look at my partner’s eyes. Instead I was surprised and delighted by the feeling of the needles being tugged from the far side of the disk of my body. Without their influence, I could feel my face sluggishly sliding back to neutral. Without my eyes point off at weird angles, I was much more able to see my fellow test subject clearly.
“Thank you so much for your patience. I’ve been marvelously busy. So much so that I was starting to run short of supplies. But I knew I couldn’t let you two finish your contribution without the full tension test. Fortunately, I’ve found a way to do so efficiently. Just sit tight and we’ll get to it.”
The doctor paced off to a nearby room, where I could here her rattling through drawers.
“Hey… I think… I cuh talk ag’n,” remarked my squashed companion in a slurred voice.
“Huh? Uh… yuh… Me too… Sorta...” I sluggishly replied.
“How long yuh been squished?” she asked.
“Dunno. Hard tuh say...”
“There’s a cal’nd’r thing buhind yuh. I been a pancake fer nine days. Startin’ tuh furget whut it wuz like tuh be 3D.”
“Oh, good news!” the doctor said, marking back in, small tray in hand.
She set it down between the pair. I glanced down to see two bottles. One was a pill bottle with a single capsule left in it. The other was unlabeled, with a narrow nozzle.
“Like I said, I’m running a bit short on supplies, so you’ll have to share. Fortunately, it should still provide an adequate PSI.”
“Whadya mean PS—OOMPH!” I said, my question pinched off by the intrusion of a well-positioned needle that puckered my lips up good and tight.
My companion who I’d now realized I’d not used my limited period of vocal freedom to ask her name, got the same treatment. Her face pinched into a lovely, full-lipped pucker.
“Now I realize you two won’t be able to describe what you’re feeling, so this last bit of data will be discerned by auscultation and percussion.”
“I didn’t know what she meant, but that swiftly became the least of my problems, as she grabbed the bottle with the nozzle and squeezed a bead of thick, clear gunk onto my lips. I wondered if she’d do the same to my partner, but instead she pressed the capsule against her glossy, puckered lips until popped through.
“Now I do hope the two of you are as compatible as you appear. Play nice now,” the doctor said.
She clicked open each of the frames and flopped us free. I was treated to the brief, glorious near-freedom of my flattened body flopping through the air, but it came to a sudden and rather embarrassing end when she slapped me face to face with the pancaked girl. A warm, firm rub flattened the two of us against the table, applying me onto the disked girl like I was some sort of decal. I felt the goop on my lips spread against hers and blushed deeply as it struck me that we’d each helplessly been forced into a kiss. Once again, my embarrassment at the sudden intimacy was immediately pushed to the bottom of a growing pile of concerns, because after a moment of involuntary smooch I felt a jet of air rushing into my mouth from hers.
I didn’t think my body could feel any tighter, but the steady flow of air began to add the pressure of inflation within it to the pressure of the compression from the outside. My whole body was swiftly becoming a shiny, creaking membrane. I was little more than a balloon… and I was lip-to-lip with a girl suffering the same fate. Our lips were glued, the pair of us squirming as best we could and blushing beet red as a puff-kiss pumped us tighter and tighter. This was not the way I’d wanted to regain my depth. The two of us wobbled and swelled, becoming more and more spherical until both of us were creaking with tension. It was so full, so tight. I could feel that my skin had been stretched until it was rubber-smooth and shiny. My unwilling partner in the most intense kiss of my life was just as creaky and shiny. Her inflating face filled my vision.
Then, as if it was satisfied with its work, the pill that was inflating us tapered off. I felt the doctor’s fingers lightly press against my forehead. I thought I’d been sensitized before, but with the addition of inflation, even the gentle press made me groan with stimulation.
The careful work of the doctor’s fingers made us pop apart. We were both the size of beach balls now. We bounced lightly on the ground. Our bodies produced hollow sounds like a lazily dribbled basketball, each one reverberating through our bodies with a maddening electric spike of sensation. Me and my balled friend produced muffled whimpers through lips too tightly inflated to let the air—or our complaints—out.
Clearly the “tests” were not over, because the doctor took turns teasing/torturing us by resting her lovely head on us like a pillow, pressing her ear to our stretched-thin bodies, and drumming her fingers on us to hear the thumps and squeals and pops. Between each percussive test, she took notes on her clipboard and murmured something thoughtful to herself.
“Mmm… even higher sensitivity… good surface tension… obvious frustration… highly pent-up… I think that will complete my research nicely. But I really can’t send you on your way without a reward.”
I found myself just barely able to shudder. Considering the sort of things the doctor considered scientific, I found myself simultaneously terrified and oddly eager to find out what she’d consider to be a reward. I spent days as her plaything, riding a roller coaster of intense sensation and… It wasn’t all bad.
“You’ve been such a good test subject,” she said, wrapping her arms around my beach ball body and squeezing me tight.
I groaned, my body creaking as the pressure spiked indie me, causing my eyes to cross and my mind to practically melt.
She released me and I endured another few hollow thumps as I bounced against the floor while she cuddled with my inflated companion and caused the most astonishingly adorable little squeaks and whimpers. When she was through squeezing, she let the inflated girl drop and dusted off her hands.
“Now, I’m afraid I only have one restoration pill left. So one of you will have to wait around for another shipment.”
She playfully ran her finger along my taut surface, once again making me shiver.
I’m joking, of course,” she said, after just enough time to make me fear the opposite. “You can share the pill. And you’ve been such fine test subjects...”
She pulled a business card from her pocket.
“… I’d love it if you’d consider further experiments.”
Rather than granting me the dignity of having her slip the card in my pocket, she slid it into my mouth through my still puckered lips. She then popped the pill into the balled girl’s mouth and pressed the two of us lip to lip once again while she toted us into a clearly labeled “recovery ward.”
The residual glue on my lips left us stuck in a second involuntary kiss as I tasted the medicine seep into my mouth. At first it wasn’t clear if the stuff was doing anything at all. After two hours locking lips, though, we started to feel our limbs popping free of our spherical bodies. After three hours the change started to accelerate, but it was still nearly four hours before we had enough mobility to finally break the kiss and shake ourselves off.
“I… uh.. That was… wow...” I said dumbly as I felt the last of me popping back into shape.
“P-TOO” she spat the card out of her mouth. Apparently the kiss had transferred it across while we were recovering. The card slapped against my shirt and stuck.
With our bodies back to normal, our minds were suddenly clear enough to grapple with the fact the two of us had been helpless and kissing for most of that morning. We instantly blushed anew and turned bashfully aside.
“So… uh… do you think you’ll sign up for another session?” she asked, trying to keep from the obvious point of embarrassment.
I remembered the feelings of the last few days… and wondered if I’d get another glimpse at my lab partner looking so cutely squished and funny-faced…
“… Gotta do our part for science, right?” I said.