She brought the casserole to the table and he sniffed at it
greedily. "Smells delicious," he said. "Now where's
Timmy?"
"He's in there," she said, gesturing towards the casserole.
He laughed nervously. "Very funny. Seriously, now."
"I'm serious," she said. "Not all of him, just the meat
and
some internal organs. But don't worry, he's really just my cat."
"And I suppose I'm not really your husband, either?" he asked.
"You're just my dog," she said, and he changed into a bull
terrier. She shooed him off of the chair and put a helping of casserole
into his food dish.
"Please," chittered the lobster. "If I'm lying, cook
me."
"All right," he said. He took it in both hands and kissed its
head. Its exoskeleton softened; it grew and altered.
"Again!" it said, in a woman's voice; he held it close, kissed
its human mouth. Claws became arms, tail buttocks, two legs human legs.
Soon a young redhead, naked and lovely, sat on the table. She crushed
her mouth against his. Before he could resist, he was small, weak, too
clumsy even to nip with his claws. When the change was complete, she
laughed and pitched him into the pot.
"No prom for you, young lady, and that's final," he said.
"Roger's
going as you."
Jennifer burst into tears. "I never get to live the fun parts of
my life," she sobbed.
"Awww, Mom," whined Roger, "I don't wanna be her
again!"
"You'll be a good boy and become your sister," he said,
"and
don't call me Mom when I'm being your Dad."
They stripped Jennifer of her face, larynx, hair, genitals, and
breasts. With those parts, Roger made a convincing Jennifer who fitted
perfectly into Jennifer's prom clothes. Jennifer's date arrived, and
Roger minced out to the waiting limousine.
"Hold still," he said, and she held Miss February's pose as
the apparatus sculpted her flesh. Presently she was the woman in
the photograph, only better: such skin, such a face, come only from
airbrushing. She rose and admired herself in the mirror; he could
barely contain his lust.
"I feel strange," she said in her sexy new contralto, once
they had made love.
"It's the metamorphosis," he said, and left the bed to use
the bathroom. "Lie back. Relax."
He returned to find the bed apparently empty. Then he saw
the cutout, large as life, of Miss February screaming.
"It's wonderful, waking up with you in my bed," he said.
"I love men who work with money," she said, and covered his
mouth with hers. At their climax she liquefied and flowed into his
nostrils and mouth; he choked and sputtered and tried to fight back,
but in minutes her entire substance was inside him.
He laughed her laugh, got up and shaved what he now considered
his stupid face, showered his weedy body, and dressed. He needed no
breakfast. As he sat on the toilet and excreted his excess mass, he
worked out the details of the embezzlement.
"Look at me!" she cried. "How could you be so cruel?"
Her
hair was straw blond and impossibly coarse. Deep circular scars made a
pattern on her scalp. Her face looked caved in; she had enormous blue
eyes, bushy black lashes, a nose impossibly retrousse', a rosebud mouth,
a pointy chin. Her breasts were huge, her waist tiny, her hips and legs
somehow unnatural. Her rough dress fitted badly.
"I'm sorry, Barbie," he said.
"Make me a doll again," she pleaded. "I have to pee, and
there's
no hole!"
"I can't!" he said.
She struck him, then collasped in agony.
She took the envelope from her coat. Thirty dollars. For
that I'll play anyone's girlfriend, she thought, though really he's
kind of sweet.
In the bedroom she pulled at her long black wig. It seemed
rooted to her scalp: tugging proved futile. She whipped off her sham
glasses: the world was a blur. In the bathroom she scoured off her
pale makeup: underneath, her skin was the same color. Of course the
bra and panty pads had become part of her.
A few minutes later, she was reading with enthusiasm the
poetry laboriously studied for her role as his girlfriend.
"The mask!" she cried. "It's stuck!" Her eyes, now
blue, filled
with tears.
"Pretend you love me," he said, "just for this evening, and
I'll
take it off."
"After you've done this to me?" she asked.
"If the mask stays on for another six hours," he said, "the
changes
will become permanent. You'll have become a gorgeous young blonde, and
nobody will believe you're really Velma."
She wiped her tears. "Velma? Who's Velma?" she said.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "The mask doesn't affect
memory."
"Who said that it does?" she said, and was gone before he could
stop her.
The skin of a young woman, slit from forehead to crotch and down
its limbs, floated in the tank. It slurped towards Sandra and aimed its
eye holes at her. "It desires your flesh," the Professor told her.
"No! Not mine!" she cried.
"The symbiosis is pleasant," he said. "Beauty,
intelligence,
personality, adoration from every man -- all yours!"
Sandra crumpled as if fainting, but rammed her head into the
Professor's groin. He staggered back and fell, striking his head
against the tank.
The Professor's daughter, home after years abroad, was
considered the most beautiful, charming debutante of the season.
She was pink: strawberry blonde hair with matching brows and
eyelashes, skin the even pink of the painted wall of a little girl's
room, darker nails and lipstick, frilly pink dress. Her long, slender
fingers worked the keyboard at incredible speed. "Where's Sandra?"
he
asked her.
She stopped typing. "Sandra?" she asked, voice affectedly
cute.
"My secretary," he said.
"Oh, they've all been recycled," she said. "They pulped
them
together and molded them into us."
"That's monstrous!" he said. "Inhuman!"
"Managers get recycled today," she said, and before he could
say anything she fired the tranquilizer dart into his neck.
The Mickey and the Minnie recognized each other by the tiny,
unauthorized variations in their clothing, embraced as best they could,
and rode the same elevator down to the Service Center. At Food and
Waste they joined dozens of others, peeled back patches of neck skin
and connected the food tubes; they plugged their tails into the waste
sockets in the floor. Their tubes and tails bulged slightly as food
flowed in and waste out.
"I hope they're taking good care of our real bodies," signed
the
Mickey.
The Minnie hung her head. "They'll never let us be people
again."
"Glad I talked you into having breakfast?" she asked.
"Cheryl," he said, "I'll probably just get indigestion.
But
yeah, you're right."
"Another disappearance?" she asked.
"Looks like it," he said, finishing his coffee. "Another
old
maid vanished without a trace, one Elvira Simpkins." She flinched.
"What's wrong?"
"The name's familiar, somehow," she said.
He shrugged. "I'd better get going." He got up, and they
kissed on the lips for a full half-minute before he left.
Elvira, lips still moist from the kiss, walked to the bedroom
mirror and admired her fine young body. Until last week it had been
Cheryl's.