Becoming Monsters 2: Ch. 45

Honoka paused, holding up a blouse that wouldn't fit in her dreams at this point and reviewed everything point by point. "Yeah, I think that covers my concerns, though I'm mostly worried about the money, honestly. I can guess and accept the rest." Grumbling, she tossed the shirt and opened a drawer to hunt for something else. "Still want to hear the reasons."

"Pad's the easiest. Remember when she didn't drink those potions and raw dogged you in the bath? Woman already has kids of her own, yet she's more baby hungry than any other wife. No satisfying Mamba Mama until she hatches kids in the double digits. The whole stuffing you in a bag was her idea, said her husband did something similar on their honeymoon and convinced us it would be fun. Cross my shriveled goblin heart, none of us thought anything of it until afterward." Eve grimaced, putting more of it together. "Yeesh, I think we're lucky you didn't kill any of us. You're scary powerful, but you've only been like that for a week or so."

"No worries," Honoka said, distracted as she tossed all the shoes and boots aside and tried to find something other than barefoot. While Honoka did have worries, they weren't important. The last thing Honoka wanted was to burden anyone with her traumas. Besides, bottling up anxiety might as well be a Racial Feature, Honoka had done it for so long.

"Anyway, why do we all want kids now instead of later, well...H, do you want children?"

"Yeah," Honoka replied, pausing and grinning while she ran her hand over a red skirt. "Wasn't something I ever expected, yet just thinking of holding a baby clicks. It completes something inside."

"Ok, how many?" Eve asked, her red eyes intent and unwavering.

"..." Honoka wasn't as perceptive as Eve, but she realized there was more to this conversation than she realized. "I don't know."

"Whatever number you think of, it needs to be divisible by seven. Eight, if Bone Babe joins the harem."

Honoka turned and crouched, reaching eye level with Eve. Didn't help her cock jutted out between them. Oh well, nothing to be done for that, and Honoka asked the important question to her wife. "Why?"

"First, because we love you." Eve didn't back down, reaching out and taking Honoka's hand. "We - all of us - want to share everything with you. However, the real answer is selfish and true: none of us want to become a secondhand wife."

"That isn't...!"

"I know! We know! You love us all the same, you selfless nincompoop!" Eve's green hand was hot and sweaty, goblin sweat more slimy than salty. "Try to see it like we do. If we chip in and do our parts, if we love you, if you want kids, we all want to have those kids. Not having kids doesn't make us less. I'm rambling." She reached out her other hand and gripped tightly to Honoka. "You are doing so much, which means each of us tries hard to be better, to give you all of ourselves." Eve's eyes leaked, pleading for Honoka to understand. "It isn't rational, I know. Babies aren't some kind of scorecard. Doesn't stop us from wanting to be there for you. We need to do this together, if we want to equally be part of your life."

Honoka nearly winced, Eve's worries hitting too close to home. Close enough, in fact, that Honoka decided to sidestep the underlying issue, loosing a hand to wipe away goblin tears. "One of these days I'm going to unlock a truth feature or a mind reading ability. Then everyone - including lovely goblins - will know without a doubt that I love you all the same. There will be enough children running around for everyone to be a mom soon enough. Jaya taught me that: popping a kid out of my hoohaa doesn't make me a mother."

"Random tangent, I call dibs on impregnating you first." Now Eve grinned eagerly, measuring the Beast and looking down at her own crotch, clearly thinking what it would be like. "Just need to figure out how to get your dick."

"Ask nicely," Honoka replied, wiggling her eyebrows. Laughing, Honoka remembered she still needed an outfit. "Brings us to Final Jeopardy: how do any of your expect me to pay for these Legendary children? A week from now and I'll have to design buildings on the side just to feed everyone."

"I'll admit, money is tight right now." Eve jumped up and combed through the clothing, helping to find a proper ensemble. "But you are severely underestimating our earning potentials. We are in startup mode, all startups lose money at first. Banda is a one woman dairy, Diane's potions were top shelf before she boinked you, and Quinn is a force of nature in the Dungeon. We're a bunch of money printers all together. This time next year, we will bank golden toilets and private jets kind of coin. Seriously, I'll go over the numbers with you tonight."

Honoka heard the optimistic pitch before. And despite herself, she believed it. Didn't stop Honoka from worrying, but this wasn't the time. "I'm going to turn all allocations off and read my Status." Frustration of the most feminine kind rose up and smacked Honoka in the face, the growing girl ready to pile abandon whole closet as a lost cause and light a fire. "I give up, nothing fits or looks good. Can you hunt up an outfit that works for first date material? I gotta scoot in twenty minutes."

Honoka was relieved she didn't collapse in pain or exhaustion when sliding everything back to normal. Her HP and MP both stabilized above fifty, measurements reading a healthier 28C-23-30 (71C-58-76) and her weight was up to 128 lbs (58 kg). Breakfast does a body good. More critical, eyeing the mirror, she was still skinny (except for her hips and butt, those looked like she was borrowing them from some twerk queen), but instead of the shapelessness of yesterday, she stretched into the long and disproportionate awkwardness some teenage girls found in puberty. More concerning was her Health stayed at 6, meaning even her OP Ymirian ability to transform food into panacea couldn't overcome a night of bad choices. Honoka didn't know if it was low Health or natural anxiety affecting her more in that moment.

Clothing managed to be simpler than Honoka feared. There was no helping bras, a house full of women and none of them fit Honoka's new size. Eve's solution was simple, running to her room and coming back with a pair of white pasties and a long sleeved neon pink bellyshirt made out of lycra or some other stretchy fabric. It was tiny, but Eve assured her wife it would fit just fine. Honoka didn't argue, having run out of time. Slipping on a clean jockstrap, she sucked in and latched her black and white striped skirt into place. Eve solved that problem with a safety pin, then licked each pasty and slapped them on Honoka's nips, giggling when Honoka yelped less in pain and more in arousal.

"Hey, I got a date to get to," Honoka said as they struggled and stretched to get the pink shirt on, fluffing out her thin black hair down her back and slipping on the only footwear that fit at the moment: a pair of flip flops. "Maybe when I get back I'll show you a good time."

"Don't jinx it, maybe your date will end with a quickie in the bathroom." Eve emphasized her point by slapping Honoka in the butt hard enough to leave a mark through the fabric. "Just in case, you got some potions?"

Honoka walked over to the door, picking up her trusty pink canvas bag and opening it, finding the spare C&A and feeling like a guy keeping a condom in his wallet. "Oh, before I forget, I want to talk with the supplier for Ice Wasp honey and see if we can get a bulk discount. I know they are somewhere in the lower floors, which means I'll need a delving team. Can you talk to Quinn and set up for later today, please?"

"Jawohl!" Eve replied with a sharp salute, causing Honoka to giggle as she jogged out of the complex and arrived a few minutes late at the unnamed chicken restaurant.

Honoka was about to enter, her mouth already watering from the intense and spicy smell of fried meats, when her phone buzzed. Thinking it was Eve, the horny chocolate futa grew irritated discovering text was from an unknown number, asking for a good time to call. Thinking it was spam, Honoka hit the ignore option and walked inside. Never mind she recently finished eating enough food to feed a high school of hungry teenagers during lunch rush, Honoka's appetite knew no limits. And the chicken here was the bee's knees.

"Honoka Jefferson?" a high pitched Hispanic accented voice with oddly familiar echoes asked.

Honoka turned around, finding the mummy from her DoubleD app standing to one side of the door. Startlingly to the flustered woman, she was shorter than Honoka by several inches. Shouldn't surprise Honoka, reality smacking the growing girl in the face: Honoka grew head over her heels in only a week. Back to observing Honoka's date, Julieta's clothing was more casual than her photo with a black spaghetti tank over capri jeans, blond hair in loose ponytail. This left a lot of skin exposed, and Honoka found it enticing and fascinating. Every part of her body wrapped in a strip or looping strap of plain white cloth. What hadn't been apparent from the photo is the fabric molded into minute details throughout Julieta's body. Indents to show fingernails folded on her fingers, tiny ridges of her lips were creased in the fabric, even fluttering eyelash strings wafted slowly above an eye detailed enough to for cornea and iris. Peering closer, Honoka found each detail in Julieta's round face adding depth and lending strong Latin vibes.

"Need to use the bathroom?" Julieta asked, her mouth quirking into a smirk.

"What?" Honoka suddenly straightened, her dark skin reddening in a deep blush. "No, I mean...what?"

"Because you want to borrow some TP?" The mummy said this lazily as she presented herself, all wrapped in white strips, her form a classic Hispanic hourglass.

"I..." Honoka was rendered speechless, glancing away and wondering why she was so nervous. With a bit of clarity, Honoka realized this was the first actual date she had experienced (that first time with Diane didn't count, paying a prostitute for sex isn't a date no matter how serendipitous it turned out). Unconsciously, Honoka was desperate to avoid doing anything wrong.

"No pasa nada," Julieta said, waving a hand effortlessly and stepping into the queue. The place was packed, this particular fifties style diner a favorite in the Lair. "Find us a place to sit?"

Honoka gulped, nodded and went to find a booth. Took a fast minute, having to wait for two burly orc construction workers to finish. When Honoka sat down, Julieta followed shortly holding a tray with two baskets of chicken, fries and two glasses of milk.

"This is one of the only places to find holstaur milk in the dungeon," Julieta said, arranging food for each of them and popping a fry in her mouth. Even her teeth were wrapped in cloth. "I hear the head of that new guild selling the milk used to work here, so Bruno gets a discount."

"I...you don't say," Honoka muttered, smiling a little as she took a gulp of Banda's delectable lactate, unable to repress a sigh of satisfaction for something so creamy and delicious. Honoka polished off thirty gallons (113.5 L) of the nectar earlier this morning, but it never got old.

"You look different than your photo," the mummy said, munching a fried drumstick slowly as she talked, her manners impeccable even with fried fare. "I don't know, older? Whatever it is, you look good."

"I...um...it's a Racial thing." Honoka repressed rolling her eyes, this whole date swirling around the bowl and ready to flush. Which is why she probably forgot herself and stuck an entire fried breast into her mouth and swallowed it whole, her mouth and throat widening inhumanly for a moment as she gulped the entire piece into her gullet without difficulty.

"Madre—!"

Honoka realized her mistake immediately, then reacted quickly by reaching out a hand with one finger up, stopping the blasphemy before it finished. Honoka spent so much time around her family she forgot the rest of the world profaned and blasphemed like they were going out of business. "Sorry, I'll explain my Race in a moment, but I have a hard rule about foul language. Please no blasphemy or profanity around me, this is something I am passionate about."

Julieta stared at the finger for a tense moment, closed her mouth and nodded, though her eyes remained wide. "I can accept that, its a bad habit anyway." Puffing out her cheeks, she let out a long breath and fiddled with one of her fries. "Ok. So, you listed Giant as your Race on your profile. Want to elaborate?"

"I'm a subRace, I think. At least, I have enough in common with other Giant Races I can fake it." The cat out of the bag, Honoka took a handful of wings and shoved them in her mouth all at once, swallowing them in one go. Fortunately, the booths had high backs and lent each customer privacy. Julieta didn't react, but she did twirl that fry faster. "And there's a lot more to it than what I'm willing to share on a first date, but how I eat food is part of it."

"Its called the Gluttony Effect." The hollow echo of her voice became more pronounced, but she recovered and started into another piece of fried chicken. "I've never seen it before, but millions of people suffer it to varying degrees." Honoka was giving the mummy an appreciative glance, which positively nudged Julieta's confidence and posture. "I'm a lawyer specializing in all things Change, I know a bit more than the average person about Racial peculiarities."

"Guess they named it since I last checked, which was a few years ago." Honoka proved the name of the effect and finished her chicken and fries by tipping the rest of the food from the basket into her mouth. Realizing what that must look like to her date, the shy Ymirian ducked her head and stared into Banda's milk, bangs hanging low enough to hide her face. "Sorry, I'm not very good at this and I stress eat and you're very pretty."

Julieta froze, her face gaining an odd expression that Honoka wouldn't have understood if she were looking. All Honoka saw through her hair was the cleavage that pushed up from the table as the mummy woman put elbows down and rested a clothed head in her hands. That bit of casual eroticism, whether the other woman consciously intended it or not, drilled straight into Honoka's brain and activated urgent hormones demanding something be done immediately. In other words, Honoka's semi-erect state went full-blown and contracted hard enough to worry Honoka about what might happen if she kept sitting there.

Well, what would happen.

What was happening.

"I have to take a Change break!" Honoka announced far too loud, throat hitching hard to leave her gasping for air. Stumbling out of the booth and placing her pink bag in front of the hard cock tenting her skirt, Honoka received a surprised and exasperated look from her Undead date before rushing towards the restrooms on the opposite side of the establishment. Honoka drew other odd looks, but there were enough empathetic Racials to go around that Honoka didn't feel bad rushing into the Change room and locking the door.

What followed is described by Bruno Erwin, owner and head cook of the Lair's best fried chicken. As an elephant beastkin, his particularly sharp ears were capable of hearing everything even twenty feet away and with two walls in between. Nothing was hidden about Honoka's experience. So while he would never tell a soul what he heard (especially not about the wife of his favorite former employee), the dirty old man chuckled to himself whenever he remembered that afternoon emergency and what he heard happen in that restroom.

"Oh fudgesickles, how much bigger did I get?"

"This is...ungh...a lot harder than a month ago."

"Come on! How much Strength do I need allocated to point you down?!"

"...almooooost...Ah crap, it sliiiiiiipppOOO!!"

*spurrrt spuuuuurrt*

"Nononono! Go in the toilet, not all over...now the toilet's overflowing!"

*spuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurt!!*

*glop*

"Gah! How did?...great, now I've got it in my hair."

*jangle...janglejanglejangle*

*glurp*

"...where's the plunger?"

*squick-squeck squick-squeck squick-squeck*

"This isn't working, its too thick."

*slllllurrrrrp*

"Dungeon-chan to the rescue! Now I need to see if I can save this...aaaand water makes this shirt translucent. I might as well prance around naked."

When Honoka left the Change restroom, she emerged like she spent the last fifteen minutes in a war zone. Hair slimy, matted and tangled, her pink shirt left nothing to the imagination and clearly showed white pasties along with everything else, skirt having lost safety pins and held up with one hand. And the musk. This sexual funk miasmaed from that restroom and wafted into every corner of the restaurant, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind what went on in there. With a loud click to the much quieter eatery, Honoka locked the door from the inside, hoping whatever time it took to fetch a key would be enough to let Dungeon-chan clean up.

Shuffling awkwardly back (getting an odd wink from the elephant beastkin frying up another order of chicken), Honoka slumped into her seat and the polite residents returned to minding their own business, the noise in the room normal in seconds. Knowing a failed date when it ejaculated into a toilet, Honoka planted her head on the table, lightly banging the laminate wood with her forehead and decided to put it all out there. "I also have a huge penis and an uncontrollable sex drive."

"Uh-huh," Julieta echoed without commitment. She pushed the mostly unfinished chicken and fries to the side and instead worked on finishing her milk, maybe to give the mummy enough time to think of a better response. "Ok, nothing wrong with that, I guess: plenty of hermaphrodite Races out there. I don't think its for me is all. Sorry."

"I'm the one who should apologize," Honoka mumbled, reaching to her bag and searching for her new valise holding a modest collection of dungeon coins. "This disaster was my fault, I'll pay you back for..."

"No." The mummy leaned across the table and put her hands over Honoka's. "This was fun. A little short, definitely unexpected, but fun. And it helps you're very pretty." Julieta pointedly peered down to Honoka's transparent shirt and gave an appreciative nod. "Maybe I'll change my mind in the future."

Honoka smiled radiantly. It was a tiny thing, yet Honoka couldn't remember the last time someone told her she was pretty (well, there was that one guy from Carnival, but she didn't count awkward bus stop flirting). Even her wives all loved her as a person. It didn't bother Honoka, for someone who could change into anything it was all so superficial. A better love existed beyond the surface, a stronger bond. Yet what woman didn't want to be told they were beautiful?

Pulling out her phone, the mummy clicked her tongue (which actually sounded like a wet slap) and got out of the booth. "Sorry to cut it short, a client settlement just pushed up their meeting by an hour."

"It's ok," Honoka replied, remembering her own busy schedule and deciding to at least put a dent in her own pile of projects, pulling out the folder Eve presented earlier and flipping it open. "I've got my own homework to take care of."

Julieta twisted in curiosity - likely taking the comment on homework literally and wondering about the class subjects - then paused as she leaned over to get a better look. "Audit...FDR...wait, you're with Becoming Monsters?" The mummy lightly punched Honoka's arm. "You probably drink holstaur milk by the gallon! Hmmm..." The mummy checked her phone again and then reached into her cleavage, producing a business card from inside her boobs. "I might not want to be your girlfriend, but I can definitely be your lawyer. Consider this date my confidentiality retainer. Call me on Monday and we'll set up terms."