Stretching Your Luck Ch. 03: Suppression is Futile

Making a mental note to tell Nathan this wouldn't imbalance their split of the chores, she looked down her left arm. Flicking her wrist, she watched as her hand both lifted and stayed in the same place, as a second, identical hand pulled up out of her flesh above the first, hovering over it attached to the same wrist. Flexing her arm, she watched the limb bisect, a crease forming down the center of the arm from where her two hands met, before the crease suddenly split, a fully formed second arm wrenching itself free from the first, meeting at her shoulder. Flexing both her left hands to get her control back down, she looked down her right arm and repeated the modification. It too duplicated itself, and she stood in the room with four arms, balling and releasing their fists independently of one another.

Satisfied, she shot her upper left arm over to the sink, the limb extending through the air and dipping her hand into the metal bowl, plugging up the sink and flipping on the hot water. Her lower left arm stretched into the laundry room at its side, fumbling against the wall until she felt it dip inside the closet door, where it again clumsily searched, before grasping the long shaft of what she sure hoped was a broom. Pulling her arm back, she smiled satisfactorily seeing the rough bristles of the instrument travel around the corner, instead of the mop she feared she would have retrieved. Focusing on her upper right arm now, she sent it in the same direction of her upper right, but dipped it low as it approached the sink, pulling the cupboard beneath open and feeling around for a rag, which she pulled up and dipped into the hot water just as soon as she felt it under fingers.

Her final right arm she gave special attention to, bringing it in front of her face. Furrowing her brow, she flexed her fingers in as specific a way as she could for her intended outcome. She had tried some simple shifts like this with Nate the previous days, turning her hands into oversized hammers and ping pong paddles and such, the latter of which she used to great spanking effect shortly thereafter. However, now, she watched as her hand flattened in midair, spreading out, her fingers merging from the knuckles upward and widening out, and flared upwards at the edges. She nodded, her hand now the spitting image of a dustpan.

Okay.... She thought to herself tentatively. ...Go?

All at once the limbs whipped into action. The washcloth arm jaunted back up into the air and landed back down on the countertop behind it with a plop, beginning to scrub away at the sticky surface. Her broom hand began dragging and shuffling the instrument across the floor, her dustpan hand following close behind, corralling crumbs and dust balls alike within its bounds. The hand that remained by the sink fumbled for the sponge next to it, and once it was within its grasp, it dove back into the hot soapy water, scrubbing away at the dishes that sat at the bottom of the murky enclosure. She watched, her own eyebrow raised in pleasant surprise, as with just a few mental flicks of her wrist, she was watching her kitchen be cleaned before her very eyes, without moving an inch.

Glancing behind her, she leaned backwards, resting her back against the bar on her side of the kitchen. Oooh, you know what? It's past five isn't it? She thought to herself, sprouting two more arms from under her dutifully cleaning pairs with no more than a twitch of her lip, which dove behind her as she gently extended her neck, and rotated it a full 180 degrees to look behind her back for a bottle of wine and an opener. Finding them, she continued sending the signals to her worker arms to scrub, sweep, and wipe, as her newest hands went to work twisting the corkscrew into the cork atop her wine bottle, and with a grunt from her watching face, pulled it out. Dropping the corkscrew, her now free sixth arm swooped down beneath the bar to the cabinet below, producing a tall glass, into which she poured a few hefty glugs of Cabernet. Satisfied, she put the wine bottle down, lifted her wine glass, and brought her head back forward, letting her neck slink back down into her frame. She sipped the beverage with a smile, crossing her free arm over her chest as she watched the room before her, enjoying the sounds of jazz wafting in from the other room.

After about thirty seconds of luxurious sipping, she decided she would see how she fared. Propping the broom up against one corner of the room, and dropping the sponge and washcloth back into the sink, she neatly deposited her dustpan's contents into the trash can beneath the sink, before pulling all four limbs back into herself, leaving only the wine glass arm and the one that sat across her chest. Not bad, she thought, as she began to walk around the room to admire her handiwork. She looked at the countertop, checked under her feet for any missed sweepings, and picked a dish up out of the soapy water.

Frankly, she had done an absolutely terrible job. Not only had she missed every bit of dirt on the countertop, she had dripped water everywhere. It trailed across the floor where she had carried the washcloth through the air, and as she wiped down the counter, she had only served to wring the liquid out of it and push it onto the wood below, where it mixed with little gathered piles of crumbs, hair, and dust that her broom had swept directly past her dustpan hand. The dish that she had been scrubbing inside the sink was now in two pieces, the forceful pressure of her elastic arms pushing back and forth against it having snapped the ceramic plate in two.

Well, she thought with a sigh as she took a heady sip of vino, it was worth a shot. She couldn't help but smile. She wasn't sure why she thought it would be so easy to control six limbs to do four separate tasks when she still only had one brain, especially considering she had been looking away from the tasks for a good half minute. With a shrug, she walked over to the broom, fetched the real dustpan from the laundry room closet, and began to sweep. One by one, she re-completed the tasks she had attempted to complete simultaneously, although her powers did come in handy when she realized she could wipe down the entire kitchen counter while standing still with one stretchy arm. Five minutes later, she tossed out the broken plate and looked over the kitchen, which now gleamed a little brighter than it had before, although the floors were still a little wet, moreso now with her footprints having tracked the water around the countertop.

Good enough, she thought to herself as she picked her wine glass back up, and walked back into the living room to relax until Nate got home. Walking by the record player, she glanced down at the wax to see that there was dust gathered onto the record itself. Must have been a lot longer than she remembered since they played that one, she surmised as she placed one finger lightly on the spinning disc to drag some of the dust away.

-I DREAMT OF YOU LAST NIGHT-

She jolted backwards as the music suddenly crescendoed twice as loud, jumping back and clasping her ears in surprise while the singer's voice echoed in her head. Looking over at the speakers, the display on the receiver still showed the same volume she had set before. She glanced back at the record curiously, stepping forward again, and gingerly placed her finger back on the same spot.

-SINCE YOU LEFT, MY NIGHTS ARE EMPTY-

She winced as the sound filled her head again, but paused as she realized the distinction. She wasn't hearing the music louder with her ears, the increased volume wasn't coming from outside her head. It was inside. As her finger made contact with the record, it must have molded into the groove and begun to pick up the vibrations of the track, much like a regular record needle might. She guffawed, how cool was that! She let her finger sit on the track a while longer, feeling the subtle hum of the vibration travel up her hand, her arm, and into her head, where she could hear the music in perfect stereo surround sound. After a minute or so, she lifted her finger back up off the record, and brought it to her face, watching as the shape of the groove and it's tiny variations stayed impressed upon the digit for a moment, before fading back into the shape of her normal fingertip.

Wait... she thought to herself. If I can be the needle, why not...

Eagerly, she lifted the actual needle off the record, stopped the belt, and lifted the disc off of the plate. Turning to the coffee table behind her, she placed the record down, before bringing her right hand to her face. Furrowing her brow as she did before when making a dustpan out of her hand, she watched instead as this time, her hand ballooned outwards in width, her fingers again merging together, but curving out, rounding off, becoming circular. After a moment, she was looking at a perfectly circular disc of her own flesh, which just about matched the record in size. Turning it to the side, she again focused her thoughts, and watched as her hand record reduced in thickness, dropping from the actual thickness of her usual hand, to the approximate dimensions of the record itself. Looking back to her other hand, she repeated the process, modifying each hand with little tweaks until they perfectly resembled one another in shape and size.

Satisfied, she looked back down at the real record, and maneuvering her right hand over it, she gently laid it down atop the disc, making sure she covered it evenly. She then placed her other circular hand atop it, and pressed downwards. She grinned as she felt her hand mold to the grooves of the record, allowing herself to push the most subtle of expansive commands to the extremity, making sure she filled every single nook and cranny of the thing. Gently, she then lifted her hand off the wax, which graciously did not stick to her flesh, and turned it over in front of her.

She could see the perfect imprint of the record before her, jutting out from the skin as opposed to being impressed down upon it, although she had already accounted for that of course. With one more mental whim, she watched as the molded hand took on a duller sheen, hardening into something like stone before her, though she couldn't be sure that's what it was. She just needed it to be hard, she thought, as she then laid that hand down on the table, facing up, and with as precise aim as she could muster, slammed her still soft left disc hand down upon it. She let it sit for a second before pulling them apart sharply, and holding the left one out before her again. It was a perfect copy of the record she had tried to imitate. At least she thought it was. There was only one way to check, naturally.

Shaking her hardened disc hand out as it re-softened, and separated back out into fingers as it shrunk back into a normal hand shape and size, she walked over to the player, and gently placed her hand down upon the disc plate, making sure she could see the spindle poking directly up through the center. Gingerly, she lifted the needle with her free hand, and placed it on the outside of the fleshy disc, and with a hopeful grin, she turned the belt on.

She giggled at the ticklish sensation as the needle began to drag across her glossy skin, and watched as her arm began to pull outward rapidly with the rotation of the record player. With a quick adjustment, she made it so that every inch of her arm that was pulled out of her arm as the record spun would disappear directly back into it in the end. She wasn't sure how her body broke or followed the laws of conservation of matter, although she was almost positive it smashed them, but still she marveled as she watched the record remain at an equal thickness, her arm spooling out of her shoulder slowly and disappearing right back into the spinning record. After a few seconds, the needle locked itself into the first groove.

-I DREAMT OF YOU LAST NIGHT-

Alicia laughed aloud this time as she heard the singer's voice twice, once in her head, and another coming through the speakers. It worked! She pumped her free fist with pride, once again enjoying a stereo mix that even the wealthiest audiophiles could only dream of. The tickling of the needle quickly alighted into a deeply satisfying scratch, almost like Nathan was scratching her back, but endlessly in the same direction, never stopping, even pressure and the perfect sharpness digging into her skin.

"Oh..." she whispered. This was rather relaxing, she had to admit. Keeping her arm in place, she leaned up against the media console that the record sat upon and closed her eyes, luxuriating in the delight of her senses of touch and smell. If only she could have this be her whole body and not just her hand, she thought to herself.

But of course, it could be that, and she smiled at her own naivety as she felt herself pull inwards, head shrinking into her shoulders and legs pulling up into her torso, leaving her athletic shorts falling to the ground. Her whole body shrunk into itself, all her extremities pulling up into her trunk, which too thinned out and began to slip out the armhole of her tank top, gradually absorbing itself into the record spinning before it. After a few moments, the last of her serpentine form coursed into the disc, which remained at it's same uniform thickness and width, her entire form encased in the volume of a 120 gram vinyl disc.

Although Alicia had let her eyes fall away somewhere inside herself, and the world around her was a spinning, hazy picture of their living room, she no longer simply felt the needle digging into her hand. She felt it everywhere. It simultaneously scratched her back, her arms, her neck, everything. The music no longer existed in her head, it echoed through her entire form, the wonderful warm voice of the singer overtaking her every thought. The deep scratch of the record needle began to shift. It dug deeper into her, dragging through a part of her she wasn't able to see but could sure as hell feel.

The speakers continued to play the song nearly perfectly, if not with a bit of a warble here and there as the record began to shudder upon the plate.

-SINCE YOU LEFT, OOOOH, MY NIGHTS ARE SOOOOOO EMMMPPPTTYYYYY-

Alicia's mind was going blank as the deep satisfaction of the burrowing needle became a deep, plunging pleasure, as if she was being pierced between her legs continuously, the point entering her a billion times without ever pulling back out.

-AND MY HEARRRRRTT, OH, OHHHHH, MY HEARTTT ISSSS HEAVVYYY, OHHHH GOD, OHHH MY GOOODDDDDDD-

The singer's voice was warping, changing, losing it's rich, husky timbre, and shifting into a higher pitched voice, that of a 24 year old midwestern woman who, despite having a hundred new experiences that weekend, was now having her most intense one yet. The tan wax began to drip a milky liquid from the sides, as the shape pulsated and trembled while rotating. The voice continued to crescendo as the horns and strings behind it sputtered and faded into non-existence.

-OH, OHHHHH FUCK, YES! YES! OHHH YEEEESSSSSSS!-

Nathan pulled into the driveway of his home, sighing in relief. Traffic was always a bear on Mondays, but sneaking out ten minutes early saved him at least twenty on the road. Shutting off the engine and stepping out of the car, he grabbed the grease-stained bag of Mediterranean food off the passenger seat and walked towards his front door, his dense leather portfolio bag bumping heavily against his hip with every languid step. At this point, he was almost more interested in simply laying down with Alicia for a while than immediately jumping back into their routine of power perversion fueled discovery. Almost, he thought, feeling his faithful instrument beginning to twitch warmly against his leg at the very thought of what he would walk into this time. Maybe he would meet with a stretchy amazonian woman, eager to toss him around the bed like a rag doll. Maybe he'd come face to face with his high school health teacher, the one he'd told Alicia he'd been in love with the whole of tenth grade. She was getting pretty good at finding people on social media, after all. Walking up to the front door, he braced for the "worst", and swung the door open.

The front hallway was quiet, still, no signs of movement. He was almost disappointed, but his aching muscles un-tensed, seemingly in reprieve of their recent over-use for the time being. He ambled toward the kitchen, dropping his bag near the door and slipping his shoes off one by one as he made his way down the front hall.

"Alicia? I'm back." he called out as he rounded the corner. "I got shawarma, if you want it." No response. Curious, he thought, setting the food down on the table and turning back towards the cupboard to grab a glass. Maybe she fell back asleep? As he spun back around to go to the fridge and grab water, he paused, a familiar hissing and popping coming from the next room. He exhaled deeply and shook his head, placing his glass on the counter and making his way towards the main room. If he'd told her once, he'd told her a hundred times not to leave the record player spinning unless she wanted to pay for the replacement needle.

The closer he got to the room, however, another sound started to become clear. It was a low, drowning, warbling hum, deep and bass-filled. It ran for a few seconds, then skipped back, looping over itself again and again. It was almost as familiar to him as the record hiss. As he entered the room and looked over at the record player, he stopped dead in his tracks. On the plate, he saw a peachy tan disc, spinning under the needle, and apparently, melting. It oozed over the sides of the turntable, the parts of it still on the plate oozing and bubbling around the needle, which shook and trembled along with the vibrations apparently emanating from within the barely shaped ooze. A milky, opaque liquid trickled down the side of the media console, a thin stream of the stuff dripping down from above, dribbling out of the thick spinning mess.

"No way," he whispered aloud, taking a few tentative steps towards the record player. Approaching the messy scene, he bent down, eye level with the turntable. The sound was crystal clear now. It wasn't a hum. It was a groan, a deep, throaty moan that looped again and again as the record needle appeared unable to escape from this particular divot in the wax, which Nathan knew at this point wasn't wax. After all, the groaning was all too familiar, he would know it anywhere. Without making a sound, he gently brought his finger up to the needle, and lifted it gently off of the table, placing the arm back into its holder on the side. The sound cut out sharply, and he watched as it silently spun on the table for a second or two, before it shivered, twitched, and after a long pause, exploded upwards.

The tan drooping disc burst towards the ceiling like a snake, a seemingly endless amount of it streaming forth from an unseen font within, and it arced high above his head, pausing for a split second, before diving back down, and eagerly coiling around him, pinning his arms to his side, twisting around his legs and over his groin, then all the way back up, stopping in front of his face. He watched in wonder as the face he knew was going to emerge at some point did just that, the rotund end of the warm, squirming tentacle forming three slits, which blossomed and opened up into two eyes and a mouth, all pouting at him desperately, as dirty blonde hair poured out of the top and down the back. He could hardly register Alicia's entirely formed face as her nose came forth from within before she dove towards him, kissing him deeply and passionately, the same moan he'd heard from the hi-fi speakers vibrating through her entire coiling form.