Stretching Your Luck Ch. 03: Suppression is Futile

She grunted in frustration and tossed her phone to the side, sitting back on the couch and burying her hands in her face. She had much less control over this than she thought, her body was so infinitely malleable and suggestive that even mimicking lines from a tv show caused her to subconsciously shift into the characters she was playing. Her face was hot, and she was growing more frustrated by the second.

She dropped her hands back to her lap and sighed, calming herself. Okay, so TV wasn't a great idea just yet. How else would she occupy her time? What could she do that wasn't at risk of causing an unwilling shift? Well, there was always her laundry, which she really should have done over the weekend, but was, of course, occupied. Happy for the mundane task all of a sudden, she went down the hallway and up her stairs into the bedroom.

In her closet, she bent over to pick up her laundry basket, overflowing with work clothing and loungewear, and made her way back towards the laundry room. There were numerous moments where her body wanted to modify itself to ease the journey. As she made her way down the stairs, a sock slipped out of the basket and fell to the floor on one of the middle steps. As she rounded the corner to head to the laundry room, she spotted it out of the corner of her eye, halfway up the stairs, about 11 feet away. Her arm could make that distance up with a flick of her wrist. However, she willed the thought away, turning back and climbing the stairs once more, setting down the laundry basket and picking up the errant item of clothing, before heading back once more. At the closed door to the laundry room, she approached as both hands were still full, and in the back of her mind, a voice whispered to her to just let herself go a little, pop a third arm out from under one of her shoulders, open the door for herself without having to slow or stop. Again, she held back the urge, and propping the basket of laundry up on her hip with one arm, she opened the door a little shakily, just as she always did before, before bringing the basket back down into a two handed carry, and walking around the corner into the room.

See? I can do this, she thought to herself with a small amount of pride as she placed the basket on top of her dryer and opened the top of her washing machine. She loaded the clothing piece by piece, deciding that first she would do a dark load. As she sorted through the fabric, her mind drifted back to the main room, where she had shifted her face into a man's. Ick, she thought. That was a little uncomfortable. No matter how many people she had transformed into, and even considered doing so in the future, so far they'd all been women. Soft faces, feminine curves, smooth skin. The vision of her own face with stubble, a strong square jaw, prominent nose, etc, felt like an even stranger shift to her than becoming a twelve armed goddess or a sea of her own liquid form. At least it was just my face, she thought, I'm not sure I'm really interested in completing the whole set just yet. The thought of a masculine, muscular body was fine enough, but having that bit between the legs, ehhh, not so much. She was fine with Nate's being the only one in the room for the time being.

Shame his can't get any bigger, she thought to herself as stuck her hands deep into the piles of laundry to grab some hopefully dark pieces at the bottom. He's not small by any means, but I mean, I took my own fist into me when it was the size of a beach ball this weekend. Her hands continued to search through the basket as she reminisced fondly on that first stretchy, expandy journey of discovery, the pile of clothes beginning to form into a small mound in the middle that grew by the second. I bet it would feel about ten times better if it was just him. She smiled hazily as the mound of clothing began to grow even higher up, her thoughts now almost entirely anchored on the vision of her beau with a truly gargantuan member, splitting her yielding body apart with ease.

Coming back to her senses, she grabbed a handful of clothing with her left hand, pulling it out to see if any darks were within her grasp. Her right arm attempted to clasp around a number of pieces, but she couldn't quite get them to stick. Her grip felt funny, weak, and her hand was fuzzy altogether. She lifted it up, and out of a now bulging sea of clothing, erupted an enormous, throbbing cockhead at the end of her arm, sending pieces of clothing tumbling to the ground around her.

"SHIT" she cried aloud, stumbling backwards and catching herself against the wall, holding her arm as far out in front of her as she could without stretching it away from her body. She stared at the mammoth glans in horror. The head was about the size of a basketball, and it throbbed visibly in the air, the daylight from the window next to her glinting off the swollen purple skin. Beneath it, a thick vein extended downwards, disappearing into her arm where the elbow should be, but was once again a smooth curve, her arm having thickened a few inches in circumference to nearly match the proportions of the head atop it. She attempted to flex her fingers, but only watched as the opening atop the colossal dome opened and closed tentatively, almost as if it were trying to breathe.

She grunted in deep anger, shaking her arm and closing her eyes. Her cock-limb thrashed about in the air, whipping and rollicking through the air as the head quickly shrunk, and sectioned itself into five extremities that shrunk back into her fingers and hand, her arm thinning back out to its normal proportions. She stopped the wild lashing just long enough to flex what she hoped was her hand again, feeling the fingers bend and fist ball up, before she opened her eyes to see the limb reformed once more. "Fuck!" she whispered under her breath. That was absolutely not okay, not the subconscious shift nor the cock itself that she had created. She scolded her subconscious, which was apparently having no part in her little experiment today.

Haughtily, she loaded the last piece of laundry she cared to wash at that point into the half full washer, and pressed the start button with her left hand, letting its offending partner stay out of sight at her side. She wasn't just mad about the shift, but she was equally upset with how she had immediately become wet between her legs at the sight of it, still feeling her sex clench and flex reflexively at the mere thought of her faux-member entering her. The thought that she could be out in public, and at the slightest thought of sex her body would shift into some giant dick-topus in the hopes of distending her own stomach for all to see, was just about the last straw. She glared angrily at the clock atop the washing machine. 1:24 PM. She knew one thing that could distract her, at least. This was around when she normally ate lunch at work. With a heavy exhale, she put the thought of the annoyingly appealing transformation out of her mind, and headed into the kitchen.

This was another thing she had to get used to. She hadn't really gotten "hungry" since Nathan's wish, but she'd still wanted to eat. It wasn't out of a desire for sustenance, in fact, she wasn't even sure if she needed food anymore, or if her body had some sort of way of generating energy for itself. There was a lot she didn't know, but she did know that when Nate heated up some leftover pasta from a few nights before that previous Saturday afternoon, she had smelled it and thought "boy I could eat that", and did, stopping when it was gone, not feeling hungry nor full.

Right now, she needed a distraction, bluntly, and also, if she all of a sudden just stopped eating food at work, people might get concerned or even suspicious. People eat, she thought to herself as she grabbed a spoon from the kitchen drawer and sat at her table. Humans eat.

Human. That word stuck in her mind as she removed the lid of her yogurt and stirred it, the liquid that had settled on top folding back into the soft white stuff as she mixed the berries from the bottom up to the top. Was she even human anymore? Well, she was right now. She was Alicia, Alicia the human, flesh and blood. Well, probably blood, at least. She couldn't even be sure if there were veins beneath her skin right now without opening them up to look, which was not something a human could do without seriously risking death. It was something she could do. One point for non-human.

She ate the yogurt uncomfortably as the question continued to penetrate her mind. She couldn't think of a way to prove that what was inside her right now was what was inside a normal human body. Organs, muscles, all the various goops and biles. Considering that she took on the appearance of whatever she wanted to, but never scored higher than a B in high school biology, she couldn't imagine that every time she shifted, she was generating within her the proper biological works and structures that would keep whatever she was in the moment alive. When she stretched her arm, were there still bones in there? When she chewed the berries in her yogurt, did her teeth actually extend up into her mouth into their roots? Or were they superficial, no more an iceberg than the tip? What was happening to the food when she swallowed it?

She stared off into space now, deeply unsettled. I'm just... not human. She rolled the words over in her head. I'm everything, and I'm anything, except the one thing I've always been. Her body felt slightly numb. The infinite freedom she'd felt due to her powers all weekend long had shifted uncomfortably. Her body was a universe of her own, completely mutable to any whim of her own, and swimming around it were the infinite possibilities of what she could become, how she could look, what she could do. Though the universe had no limit, there was still a small room off in one corner, a tiny cell with a locked door, and inside the room sat the Alicia she had always known. She was unreachable, and the door's lock could not be opened or broken. She could study everything there was to know about the human body, learn every nook and cranny of what was once her vessel, and duplicate it down to a near molecular level, but it would never be the same Alicia. Just a copy.

She had set the yogurt down on the table now as she rolled the concept around in her head. She couldn't control herself, she couldn't define herself, she couldn't even call herself "herself". The subconscious urges to change were quiet for the moment. She wondered if she could simply shift into something brainless for a while, maybe become a pile of bricks and sit quietly on the floor until Nathan came home and woke her up. She just wanted to forget about everything for the day. Leaving the open container on the counter, she stood up, and made her way upstairs slowly, shuffling into the bedroom and curling up in bed as much as her current no-shifting rules would allow. Hugging her knees to her chest and closing her eyes, she allowed herself to fall into a somber sleep quickly.

"Great work Nathan!" Mr. Kimura said with a slightly-too-aggressive slap on the back as he walked up behind his young report in the hallway. "The judge was impressed with you in there, just told me he sees promise in you. That's what I'm talking about!"

Nathan smiled uncomfortably, rubbing his shoulder blades tenderly where he'd been slapped. "Uh, thanks Mr. Kimura. It's an interesting case, and I feel ready to dive right in."

His boss nodded and gave him a big thumbs up. "That's what I like to hear. Don't stay too late tonight, I need you here bright and early tomorrow, and I want you to bring that same energy!" He turned and walked away before Nathan could respond. Nathan grimaced, having nothing more to thank for that "energy" in his meeting than the latte and a subsequent bitter green energy drink he'd followed it up with. He smacked his tongue at the sour aftertaste, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went back to his desk. He frowned as the screen lit up without displaying a notification from Alicia. He'd texted her a few times throughout the day since their chat in the morning, sending a few words of encouragement to her for her no-shift challenge, and asking her if she wanted him to pick up dinner on the way home. She hadn't responded, and opening the thread, he saw that she'd read them.

He checked his watch. 4:34 PM. That had been such a long meeting, and all he wanted to do was get out of work, whether or not there was a polymorphic nymphomaniac waiting for him at home or not. He made his way back to his desk and sat down, dropping the mountain of case materials he'd been provided in the meeting on his desk with a thud. He resolved to slipping out the door a little early that day, not by much, maybe ten minutes. He pulled the text conversation back up on his phone again, and composed another text to Alicia.

Alicia woke to the view of her bedroom soaked in an evening glow, bisected by shadows of their venetian blinds cutting off the light in horizontal shafts. She groggily blinked herself awake, and pulled her phone out of her shorts pocket from under the covers. The screen lit up with four missed messages from Nathan.

"How's it goin' over there, babe? You give up yet?"

"Sorry, that wasn't funny, I know you're trying really hard on this. You can do it! Already 2:30, you're so close!"

"I'm about to head into my meeting, but lmk how it's going, love you!"

"Hey, hope you're alright. I'm gonna head out in a second. Just let me know if you're good. I'll probably be home at around 5:45 with traffic, I can pick something up if you want to eat. Just tell me if you're planning to cut loose after 5 and I should plan on walking into a McDonald's playplace of your body when I get there. (Jk, please don't let a little kid pee in you.)"

Alicia smiled, Nathan's texts bringing a bit of levity to what had been a less than inspiring day of attempted self-control. She shot him a response.

"Hey, sorry, all good over here. Just napped a little. Pick up whatever you're hungry for, I'm good. Love you."

She closed the text message app, and looked at the clock atop her phone. 5:08 PM. She'd made it past the finish line, although technically not within her guidelines. She had been unable to keep herself within the confines of her normal body, and it's not like she could take a four hour bummer nap at work. She sat up in bed, straightening her legs and raising her arms over her head, and wondered if she should push the experiment a few hours longer, make herself hold off even longer to build her self control.

The thought was short lived, as she felt cold air on her toes, looking down to see them poking out the end of the comforter six feet away, connected to twin mounds of her elongated legs under the covers. Glancing up, she saw her arms mid-stretch, extending towards the ceiling and coiling around one another like dual snakes. She sighed.

"Fuck it."

For the first time that day, she let loose. She gave into the gentle push she felt every inch of her body requesting of her, and sighed as the still-novel feeling of the first good stretch of the day overtook both her neck and stomach. Her head telescoped into the air, her face gently beaming as that glorious internal tug alighted to the liberating feeling of foot after foot of herself spouted into existence. Her shoulders raised beneath them, all parts of her extending at various speeds depending on how freeing each of them felt to stretch. Her head was the first to nearly hit the ceiling, and as she paused it's ascent seeing that upper barrier come into view, she looked down, seeing her torso stretching up beneath her, and her legs coiling into floppy piles at the end of her bed. Her arms, now each as long as her mattress, uncoiled from one another and gently ran themselves down her side, eliciting a purr from her throat. She felt them drag over her skin, pulling it and watching it ripple beneath their pressure, before both of them dragged over the curve of her rear and planted themselves on the mattress.

All at once, she let every part of her upper body go limp, and smiled gleefully as her torso, arms, neck and head tumbled down over one another, landing in loops and coils atop the mattress. Her head thudded against a swatch of her back, which firmly rebounded the noggin back into the air a foot and a half, before it came back down upon the skin, bouncing once again, each subsequent rebound growing smaller and less severe until her head came to a rest on the warm elastic trunk. She giggled, nuzzling her face into her own soft, rippling form. She wasn't even turned on, she had learned to find the simple platonic pleasure of a good stretch almost as satisfying as anything else in her life, and after a day like today, that combined with the comfort of herself was more than enough relief.

She laid like that for a few moments, before gradually beginning to pull herself together. Her neck shrunk back into her shoulders, which were slipping along the mattress back into shape as her arms pulled back towards a normal length, and her legs were roped back up into her hips, disappearing under the covers until her feet slipped back within their warm confines, and her body was back to normal. She stood from the bedframe, scratching a small itch on her butt, and yawned deeply, her mouth opening an inch or two wider than it should have before slowly snapping shut.

That was a nice start, she thought to herself, looking back at the clock. She had a little over a half hour before Nathan got home, and not a lot of idea what to do to pass the time. Cooking didn't interest her, plus Nathan was picking up something. She didn't want to put on the TV again, not even a girl-forward show. She slowly made her way downstairs and back into the kitchen. Looking over the surfaces, she surmised it had probably been a good week since either of them had wiped her down. If she didn't do it now, and maybe a quick clean of the rest of the main level, it might be a long time before she got the motivation to get out of bed with Nathan and get that done. Besides, with her powers, she assumed cleaning was about to be a whole lot easier.

Deciding this was the move, she strolled back into the living room, figuring it would be nice to have a little music. Opening up their old record player, she blew some dust off the disc plate cover, and bent down to pick out a record, extending an arm an extra foot or so to flip on the nearby speakers. After a minute of browsing, she selected one of their old favorites, a disc of jazz ballad standards from the 50's and 60's, sung by one of the couple's favorite lady crooners. They'd discovered the music when they were going through a selection of records Nathan's grandmother had left behind, and surprised themselves with how pleasant a listen it was. Sliding the wax out of it's sleeve, Alicia dropped the record onto the turntable, turned on the belt, and dropped the needle on the black disc.

The gentle, warm horns filled her ears as she made her way back into the kitchen and tried to decide what was to be cleaned first. The counters glinted against the overhead lights, showing a few spots that were sticky or stained with some sort of leftover liquid film. The floors could have used a sweeping, and there were dishes in the sink. It took her all of four seconds to realize that not only did she not have to choose which of these to do first, she could likely start and finish each task at the same time.

She took a slightly wider stance, and readied herself before the thought crossed her mind: Am I really about to become the Fantastic Elastic Housewife? Is there really no better, or less stereotypical, use of my powers right now? She considered this for a moment, her arms held out to her sides in preparation, before she shrugged. She was literally just sitting at home, not using her infinitely powerful and mutable body at all, and this stuff needed to get done. It would be a waste not to maximize her efficiency, no?