Stretching Your Luck Ch. 03: Suppression is Futile

The text cursor at the head of the document blinked in and out of existence hypnotically, dutifully marking where the next words would manifest themselves into being just as soon as they were typed. It patiently did its job, ready at any point to scream down the page at the 90 WPM it was accustomed to as it's master input page after page of legal findings into the document. Were the cursor a sentient being of some kind, capable of anticipation and eagerness, it would likely be feeling quite frustrated at the moment, as it didn't appear there was any input at all. Type, it would try to shout. Type!

Alas, the hands that rested upon the keyboard were still, motionless paperweights with two index fingers resting on idle F and J keys, as the arms they rested at the end of hung limply from two sunken shoulders. Those shoulders connected to a body that draped itself almost fluidlike over the lumbar-supporting back of the office chair with no posture to speak up, legs splayed out under the desk before them and opened to an unseemly angle.

Atop this portrait of sloth sat the head of a rather haggard man, albeit admittedly whipped into the imitation of professional appearance. His hair was combed, his teeth were sparkling, and his beard was trimmed appropriately. The bags under his eyes betrayed his principled morning routine, however, and the bloodshot eyeballs just over them stared blankly at the screen, their heavy lids drooping slightly more by the moment. Sleep. That's what they wanted. That's what they needed.

"You alright there, champ?"

Maybe a nap in the parking lot at lunch, the eyes requested politely of his scattered brain. Maybe we could swing an early bedtime, even. If we just could convince Alic-

"Nate! You there buddy?"

Nathan snapped back into reality and righted his seating posture into a more professional position, jumping to attention at the sound of his boss' voice. "Uh, yes, good morning Mr. Kimura." His voice was slightly hoarse, and he cleared it as he whipped up a weary smile, coughing into his hand. "My apologies, sir, I was somewhere else for a second."

His boss smiled. "Late night?" he asked knowingly. "On a Sunday, even! You kids these days, I don't know how you manage it."

Nathan laughed, glad to bend to his assumption. "Haha, yeah, my uh folks were in town, they just left this morning." He stretched his legs covertly under the desk, willing some circulation into them to wake them up. "We were out to dinner last night and we had a few drinks more than we should have." He studied his boss' face as he spoke, hoping he hadn't used that excuse a few weeks ago when they were actually in town.

Mr. Kimura nodded. "Ahhh. Your folks like to party huh? Good for them, as long as they were buying." He pointed at Nathan in that way that suggested he was trying to relate to the young judicial clerk, despite making seven times his salary at a conservative estimate. Nathan graciously pointed back jovially.

"Haha, yeahhh," he said, lowering his hand and rubbing one eye. "What else are moms and dads for!"

Mr Kimura laughed back at the young man. "Well, perk up! It's Monday morning now, and I need you sharp today. The briefing with Judge Gates is at 3, and it's a big one. Can't miss a beat, alright bud?"

Nathan nodded, his face straightening back into a professional blank slate bordering on a grimace. "Yes sir, I'll be ready."

"That's more like it. Grab a coffee and get to it, let's crush this Monday!"

Nathan's boss pumped his fist as he finished the middling motivational speech and walked away towards his office. Nathan thought to nod or call out after him, but Mr. Kimura was already long gone, on his way to buddy up to another clerk. He rubbed his eyes once more, and stood up, allowing for the fact that his boss had at least given him one good piece of advice: he really should grab a coffee.

What's he so passionate about this job for anyway, the young clerk thought to himself as he walked toward the elevator down to the cafeteria. This wasn't that exciting a field of work.

His own thoughts took him by surprise, and he paused as he went to press the down button in the elevator bank. He used to love this job, he thought. He was passionate, eager, and driven about the work not five days ago. And that all seemed to change over the course of the weekend. He shook away the intrusive thought and pressed the button. After all, he knew what had sucked away the passion for his job. It was a passion at home, one that had also changed dramatically over the weekend. He smiled as his weary thighs led him into the opening elevator doors, and rested against the back wall as the doors slid closed once more, the car lurching downwards.

What had changed over the weekend was his fiancee. She had changed quite a lot, actually. She had become a little more confident, a little more bold, and a little more flexible. She had also become the flirty secretary from his Christmas party a few years ago, as well as about four dozen supermodels and Hollywood actresses. She had become a towering pillar of infinitely shiftable protoplasm, then a foot deep sea that sloshed around their bedroom and oozed out into the hallway beyond. She had become eleven feet tall, and she had become half a foot small. She had become rubber, she had become water, she had become creation itself. And she had become indescribably horny.

Nathan winced as his tight calves protested against his exit from the elevator. He nodded at familiar faces as he wearily made his way into the cafeteria and got in line for a coffee. Each passing face was another person who didn't know that his fiancee had become a seemingly infinitely-abled shapeshifter that weekend, and that for a nominally-priced ebay purchase, their spouses, or they themselves, could become one too. He stared blankly at the floor as he shuffled forward in line while each person ahead of him ordered and moved aside. All that power, he thought, just ready for the taking on ebay, for anybody dumb enough to believe it worked. It did, of course, work. The things Nathan had seen and felt that weekend were proof enough of that.

"Your order, sir?" the barista chimed. Nathan's eyes bolted back up and met hers. She was a cute twenty something, not much younger than him. Her caramel skin glowed in the fluorescent lighting from above, and her brown doe-eyes shone at him from beneath her company-branded cap. He smiled and gave his usual order, latte with oat milk and a croissant, and paid for his drink. As he stepped aside, he glanced as casually as he could at the young woman, watching as she turned around to grab his croissant from the display case behind the register. The apron she wore around her front betrayed a toned, well maintained figure, curved in the right places, not too thin. Exactly the kind of person Nate might have flirted with in college. She was a good candidate, he thought. But of course, Alicia had never met her, she wouldn't be able to do the barista justice.

He grimaced at the thought. This was a real person, he thought, just somebody going about their days, unaware of the wonders that Nathan had become almost accustomed to over the past three days. Alicia had, of course, asked him to "keep an open mind" and brainstorm a few ideas for new things to try, people to play as, but he was sure she'd meant things more along the lines of movie characters, public figures, that sort of thing. He forgave himself the errant thought, it was after all so new to him, he couldn't blame himself for letting his mind run wild when that was exactly what Alicia wanted of him.

He barely met the barista's eyeline for the duration of his wait for his drink and breakfast, politely taking them from her hands with little more than a glance and a gentle grin as he turned back towards the elevator banks. He shook his head, marveling at the fun new ways he was able to scold himself, before taking his phone from his pocket as he headed down the cafeteria hallway. He opened his text message with his fiancee, curious as to how her first morning without him around was going, especially with the challenge she had set for himself. He composed a short message, and hit "Send".

Alicia's phone buzzed, chiming with the familiar tone of a text message from her fiance. She picked it up gracefully and brought it to her hand. Going to swipe the lock screen open with her thumb, she paused. Looking down past her phone, she grimaced and groaned to herself.

"Ugh. Come on." she muttered, as she followed her wrist down to her arm, then further down the limb, which curved bonelessly where there should have been a joint, her elbow replaced by a smooth, arcing pole of skin that resembled macaroni more than a human limb, extending out from one side of her tank top. Focusing, she flexed her arm, and the familiar point of an elbow joint firmed itself into existence at the apex of the curve, and the gentle bending of the limb on both sides of the joint firming into straight lines that resembled something that actually had bones in it. Shaking her head, she scolded herself. This hadn't been the dream start to her self-imposed challenge that she would have hoped for.

After a weekend of indulging herself and her hubby in effectively infinite stretching, shifting, and even exploding, testing her newly acquired abilities out in every conceivable way upon the slightest whim of either of them, she had sat upright in bed the previous night, wondering how the hell she was going to go to work and keep herself "in shape" the next day. To say she had sat up was even a slight mischaracterization, as in that moment she didn't have a waist to bend, a torso to raise, or even a butt to rest upon, naturally, as she had taken the form of a flesh toned blanket with a head on the end nearest Nathan's, whom she had wrapped up cozily in her soft, fuzzy expanse. It was at that moment she knew that she was going to have to take a little time re-learning to live her life in a regular human body, at least in the 8 hours a day she was expected to be in that body at work.

She'd woken up the next morning and composed a quick email to her boss on her phone in bed, sprouting an arm from one end of her comforter form to let him know that she was feeling very under the weather and would have to remain home that day, possibly the next, as she rested up and got better again. When Nathan did awake a little while later, she told him her plan: she was going to make herself stay in regular ol' Alicia form for the full 8 hours of the day that would comprise a normal workday. No stretching, no shifting, no polymorphic debauchery or fun at all. If she was ever going to keep herself from public discovery, she had to know she could get through the day without giving into her abilities. Imagine if she was at work, eating a sandwich at her desk, when she suddenly answered the ringing phone with a third arm that burst from the side of her torso and through her dress shirt. She couldn't risk it, not just yet.

Happy with her arm's appearance after gently turning it over once or twice, she opened the phone, Nathan's text sitting on the screen and awaiting a response.

"How's it going over there? Sick of being you?"

She grinned, and composed a text back to him, thankfully still proficient with ten fingers on two hands as she had discovered she was with forty on eight.

"Not gonna lie, it's a bit tough lol. I'm doing little things without even thinking about them. Gotta keep reminding myself 'people have bones' lmao."

She sent the text, and watched as a few seconds later the thought bubble indicating that Nathan was composing a reply popped up onto the screen. The message followed a moment after.

"Well, keep that thought in mind. I'm going to give you an extra bone tonight to help you remember ;)"

Alicia groaned at the joke, but simultaneously felt her thighs tense up, her pleasure switch threatening to turn on all on its own at the mere thought of another night in bed with her willing, able, and creative loverboy. The things they'd done that weekend, the things she'd been. As much as the thought of being a thirty foot long snake woman, with rubber arms that assisted her tail in wrapping her fiance up helplessly, would have squicked her out even a week ago, she had found that particular experience relatively exhilarating, and even reminded her of the little dominant streak of hers that she'd forgotten about. As strange and surreal and downright insane as this whole experience was, it was, in a word, intoxicating. She could try anything. Be anything. Anyone.

She snapped back into the moment at the sound of her shaky breath, and looked down to see her legs rippling, trembling, pulsating. They were thickening within her athletic shorts, her thighs bulging as her posterior inflated with gurgling flesh, lifting her centimeters higher off the couch cushion she sat upon. She felt her toes curl as her feet threatened to wrap downwards around themselves, her soles straining upwards and extending a full inch in length. Her legs, her whole body, begged her to let loose, let it stretch across the room and tie itself in a knot, to melt into an amorphous blob of erogenous flesh, to let her consciousness swim around inside herself as her whole body became one giant sensitive zone for Nathan to play with and penetrate, his firmness inserting itself into her formlessness.

She closed her eyes, steadying her breathing as she commanded her body to relax, sternly reversing her legs' transformation. She felt her quickened pulse slow once more, and opened her eyes to a pair of deflating thighs, no longer straining against the mesh legs of her shorts. She exhaled deeply, and realized she was digging her fingers into the sides of the couch cushion. She let go and shifted in her seat, trying to remain casual, as if she was at work and people were nearby. Her body seemed still, calm, in shape. She grimaced as brought the phone back to her face.

"Oof, no more of those texts today." she typed.

"Really? Even a dumb little joke like that is a trigger?" Nate texted back.

"Yeeeeeeep. I'm in for a toughie, I think." she texted back. She sighed. She was really hoping this wouldn't be as much of a problem as it seemed like it would be. As great as being a limitless polymorph was turning out to be, she really didn't want to have to quit her job on account of having a transformational hair-trigger. Her phone buzzed again.

"Hey, you got this. I promise. I'll be good, no more texts. Do what you need to do, let me know if you need anything, alright?"

She smiled at the text from Nathan. She wasn't surprised he was supportive of whatever she needed, considering she was now his living breathing impossible fetish come to life, but she was still comforted at the support.

"You got it. Thanks babe."

"Love you." he messaged back.

"Love you too."

She put the phone down and sighed, looking at the clock. 10:43 AM. An hour had elapsed, and she'd mostly succeeded in keeping her shifting at bay. She wouldn't count that last lapse in control, she thought to herself. In her cubicle at work, with her legs beneath her desk, she would hardly be noticed giving herself an instagram baddie body from the waist down, but she couldn't allow herself that without knowing she could stop herself from going further. She snatched up the TV remote from the side table next to her, carefully leaning to the side in order to grab the slightly-out-of-reach device without extending any part of herself, and flipped the set on.

She browsed the cable channels for a few minutes, before accepting that there was absolutely nothing good on TV on Monday mornings. Mostly it was crummy court shows, soap operas, and financial news programs. Switching the input to her streaming box, she browsed the movies and shows on offer for a while, finally settling on her favorite comedy, a multi-camera workplace sitcom that she'd rewatched a half dozen times. It was almost a ritual on her days off, and she was surprised she hadn't decided on it earlier as she settled back into the couch, the first episode of what she was fairly sure would turn into a full-season binge starting on the couch.

She watched calmly, kicking her legs up on the coffee table in front of her as the episodes blended together. She laughed aloud as jokes she'd forgotten about since her last re-watch replayed themselves on the screen. She was about an hour and a half into the viewing session when one of her all time favorite episodes came on. She smiled and giggled quietly to herself, sure she would remember almost every word having seen this particular one more than any other episode. The plot revolved around the company's boss and his lowly mentee both exploring new personal relationships, and it won the show an award the year it premiered for it's witty writing. Alicia faithfully recounted each of her favorite jokes to herself quietly as she watched.

"Look at us!" the mentee said to her boss, tossing her brown hair behind her back. "Being all sexy and adulty! I even bought a new pair of underwear-"

"-that isn't gray!" Alicia spoke along with the show's audio, completing the joke and matching the character's tone. She giggled, unable to see her own hair turning a dark shade of chestnut brown, the color oozing down her dirty blonde strands as they themselves lengthened and curled ever so slightly to match the character on screen. Her lips thinned as her smile curled across her face, and her nose and eyes shifted into mentee's mirror image, both of them pulling inward subtly to match.

Back on the TV, the mentor responded. "Please, save me the grisly low grade erotica details." Alicia beamed, this was one of her favorite jokes on the show. She sat up, almost as if to prepare herself to echo the coming line. As she did so, her jawline pushed out at the bottom of her head, strengthening into a chiseled silhouette that could cut marble. Her newly brunette locks pulled up rapidly, losing nearly all volume and pitching their hue to a near-inky black color, her sideburns turning a slightly greyer shade. The dainty nose and gentle eyes she'd just shortly before adopted burst out into masculine, aquiline nose and icy, dark eyes. From the neck down, she was still the Alicia she had always been, albeit with a few minor cosmetic adjustments to her silhouette that she had permitted herself in the morning. But her head and face was the absolute picture of the man on screen, a dead ringer for the award winning performer known the world around.

"If I wanted to hear about your love life," he said, winding up for the punchline.

"I'd read a Cathy comic book!" Alicia shouted along, her voice suddenly a 100% match for the cool, raspy, male lothario on screen. She clasped her hands to her mouth in shock, and bolted upright on the couch. She felt across her face, feeling not only a pair of prominent cheekbones under her fingers, but a slight stubble bristling beneath them.

"Oh my god", she muttered, her voice still mimicking the actor, and grabbed her phone from the table in front of her. She flipped open her camera, pressed the button to turn on the front facing view, and gasped a husky breath as her face was met with the spitting image of the man on screen.

"What the hell!" she cried, her voice shifting from deep and masculine back to her normal higher pitched feminine voice. Alicia slapped her own face in anger, watching as it rippled and shook languidly like a bag of silicone, and groaned in frustration. She shook her head, her hair bursting back out into her shoulder length blonde locks, and closed her eyes, shaking her head aggressively back and forth, picturing her own face, feeling it shift and pop and suck back inwards. Cautiously, she stopped, opening her eyes back up, and met her own eyeline once more, her face once again the Alicia she knew, albeit with her hair messy and tousled.