An Original Transformation

Part 3

The lunch group receded, splintering into their own factions which we sometimes visited. We kept constant to one another. At times, high school had all the desolation of an arctic tundra with feral wind gnashing across the wilderness. Days came and went with new confusions and stresses like needle pricks till we could only lay our heads down next to one another and rub our eyes.

The years passed as steady as breath. We looked back on each day with a grimace for the silly things with a snicker of distance.

My parents regarded this all without suspicion and often praised me for cultivating a girlfriend as they drifted between prying questions about how close we were and pressing statements about how we should be closer.

For me, the time when I could opt-in to transformations was soon coming. I tracked the date like the grandfather of all Christmases. When it finally came, I found myself frozen at the prospects. I hovered over the website options now open to me but still beyond my meager charge card account.

My random conversations with Fleur about transformations continued as steadily as her own breathless ones about each new prospect for Transformers, though sometimes dimmed by hollow adaptations.

Her clothing often shifted rapidly. I even accompanied her on a particular buying spree. A lot of her fashion choices came across as amateurish, even with my uninformed gaze. A lot of what she wore that first year was an orgy of random choices never before afforded her.

I delighted when she held a skirt against herself and then pressed it to me with a raise of her lips. She didn’t go further than that, but it was enough for me with everything else I learned.

I found from her journal that the actual change wasn’t as eventful as I hoped. None of the theatricality I remembered from the old videos was to be found in her writings. A lot of it was more complaints, pointing out shortcomings and concerns. Breasts lost some of their mystique in the depths of her notes. Other portions felt no different than something I might jot down on an average day.

Still, the moments of those first days clung to me. The girl with the crown of pink in her hair, even as she tested frosty-blue and a bee-like yellow. She was still the contradiction even once her actions had long made sense to me. I needed it as I needed my opt-in for transformation.

For a time, I hoped to be struck from a random, unmoderated change even as I trembled at the prospect. However, classroom changes had been regulated to the point that they no longer happened by chance.

At the end of a week of testing and trying not to think about the fact I was wide open for transformation, Fleur watched me with her dense gaze and said, “Let’s find you one this weekend.” Before I could ask her what she meant, she added, “An original transformation. One just for you. It’s what you want, right?”

I curled my lips a bit. “I guess. I don’t have too much preference.”

She leaned towards me with a soft snort. “Oh? You sort videos of changes by five factors of quality and have written extensively about your favorites and their flaws and yet you’re willing to roll the dice for yourself?”

I couldn’t sell a nod. I did a little rubbing of my arm but with more of a scratch at my elbow. I offered, “You didn’t really have a method.”

“Method never mattered to me. They could’ve dunked me in water or put me inside a giant monster to be excreted so long as the result was the same. You’re about method though. And I know it would bore you to be tapped by a prop wand or drink a pink beverage. Soooo…this weekend, let’s go find your first.”

Her words weren’t the sort I imagined might thrust me into a world of transformation but they were also words I wouldn’t have imagined the day I met her.

Our weekend resolved around an extended pilgrimage to the sprawling, cresting orgy of strip malls on the other side of town. We passed restaurants with specialty items and ignored black-windowed smoke shops which traded in more than just tobacco and nanites.  

Fleur’s pink had been extra-bright for the last few weeks. Her fingerless gloves were constant, but I noticed her nails hadn’t lingered on them with a rough motion for a long time.

We took the bus because neither of us had our unrestricted licenses yet. My parents had taken to giving me the silent treatment with slow, steady headshakes ever since I opted-in, so a car ride was out of the question. Fleur’s parents offered to drive us, but she insisted on the bus.

Our first stop was a shop near a bookstore where bath products and fragrances were sold. I marveled at an area of the store where an older man sprayed his woven, tan hair and it fell in blond waves across his shoulders. He tried a few others, his feminine shape showing through his jeans and t-shirt before a special spritz shifted his clothes into a slinky red dress. I inspected it carefully.

Fleur scooted close and smirked at me before noting, “That could be you.”

A twitch went down my spine as she held onto the smirk. I changed the subject, asking, “Uh…how about you?”

“No interest in blond hair.”

I fussed with my fingers, adding, “I mean, about, trying a switch.”

I could predict what words Fleur would use. I’d heard her recite them so many times.

“Been there, done that. I’m happy.” Her words were a little softer than usual. It was my special evening, after all.

Smiling at her with a familiar shoulder bump, I answered with a whisper we shared, “I know that well. You’re beautiful. You’re a girl for life. This is just for fun. Be something you’re not for a little bit.”

My words struck, though she tried to shrug them off. She glanced away but, instead of rubbing her hands, she fanned them and concluded, “I’m just an observer. Your chaperone.”

I confirmed this with a nod, “Still, feel free…”

She focused on the items and the blond with a cleared throat. “So…this is our first…how about it?”

The blond toyed with her outfit, shifting it with a tester till her time ran out and her clothes reverted. The rest of her stayed for a moment longer. I’d seen many transformations like it. Every cosmetics company ran at least one niche social media ad explaining the benefits for couples, roleplay, all that.

It wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t what I had in mind. A bit too random but also too controlled. Fleur made a little X in the air to show this one was crossed off our list. The end of the road was the specialty store, Newid’s Wares, inhabiting the old electronics and music wholesaler which shut down when I was a kid. If nothing else worked out for me, then they were sure to have something I could settle on.

But I didn’t want to settle if I didn’t have to and Fleur’s eyes glinted with shared eagerness. I stopped by a full mirror to examine myself. I had my navy trilby on with the Decepticon button I kept for Fleur to the back end. It was the only hat I ever enjoyed wearing. Every other one I picked up off the shelves and tried on felt weirdly snug, even grotesquely large hats more suitable for clowns. My full, curly brunette hair certainly didn’t help. During the short time I was a part of a science fiction club with Fleur, several members insisted I was destined to dress up as the fourth version of a time-traveling alien from a TV show not even Fleur had seen.

I brushed at my lime shirt and posed a bit. Fleur gave faint applause. I never really thought much of my body, certainly never to the degree that Fleur’s older journal entries spoke with bitterness and venom about herself. Sure, I could frown at the weird texture of my blue eyes. I could gripe about the lean droop of my shoulders and how Fleur didn’t have much trouble dressing me up in convincing drag one very odd November ago. But I didn’t turn away from the mirror in revulsion at what boyish to manly aspects I had.

Fleur led the way onward to a coffee shop. She pointed out a special Irish crème which would leave me with a foreign accent and shimmering red hair, along with more obvious changes. I hadn’t really seen that kind of change documented before or even written about on the forums. That said, I knew that accent changes would mean some mental nanites and that was a bit deeper than I was prepared to go on a first time, despite the barista’s assurances there wouldn’t be any lasting effects beyond an hour.

Ultimately, we debated it back and forth and even got a few other cultural options before we both decided on normal warm tea and sat on the couch in the back.

Sipping, Fleur noted, “Could’ve been fun.” Her eyebrow wiggle and smirk were always a relief when I looked back on the early days. I’d watch how red her wrists got when I fanboyed over some new option or style. Eventually, it all came to a head when she broke down crying during a late lunch.

I tried to comfort her. I tried to recant my offerings, but she vigorously shook her head and stared at me with bright eyes.

“I would never want to deny who you are. Because…” While we were alone, people still passed along from time to time. She left the rest of her words to a nod and a glance. She slipped into mentions of the things she loved and added, “…I would be a hypocrite. But it’s still raw.”

We were left without words and without sight of the path ahead. We spent time apart without really intending to. The solution came from Fleur. She happened to join my forum and tracked down some new finds before even I could see them. And then she ‘turned’ them on me.

She detailed her own imagining of a bow tie transformation, manipulating her hands with a smirk. From that point on, I didn’t really have to follow the forums because I knew Fleur would catch any scraps. Along with a varied diet of classic cartoons and transforming robots, transforming humans became part of Fleur’s language.

Soon she was talking about Nakagawa Katsumi, the animated mascot of the Nuhaizi Corporation's Japanese branch, like she was an old friend. She even had a collection of super-deformed Katsumi plushies. I often joked that she took on her characteristics from time to time with her fervent imaginings of how to change me, as the character did in commercials which we found fan-translated.

Truly, Fleur had become the perfect guide for my journey. But I had thus far ignored her advice. Though she wore a playful smile as we sipped our drinks, I could tell she was looking around the room with more anxiety than normal.

Softly, I assured her, “If it doesn’t happen tonight, then that’s fine.”