The next morning I woke up to find Jada extricating herself from me and Britt so she could go to the restroom.

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

Jada took off the oversized T-shirt she’d slept in and put on her doll-sling blouse I’d venned her with, then put me in one of the slings and walked down the hall to the bathroom. I waited in the outer area while she used the toilet, and then she helped me with the toilet — I was big enough to sit on the edge of the seat, but I needed a little help from her not to fall in. By the time we got back to the room, Poppy and Steph were awake too.

“You guys are so adorable like that,” Steph gushed. “Is it okay if I give you a hug, Lydia?”

“It’s Lauren when there’s only one of me,” I said.

“Oh, right, sorry.”

“But yes, you can have a hug.”

Jada took me out of the sling and handed me to Steph, who hugged me very gently. After Jada had helped Britt, Lisette and Poppy in the restroom, we were about to go to the Venn machine and change into regular-size forms before going out for breakfast when Steph spoke up.

“Is it okay if I come with you?”

“Sure,” Jada said. “Do you want to help carry some of them?”

“Okay,” Steph said. She got her purse and put Lisette and Poppy in it, while Britt and I rode in Jada’s doll-sling.

“So how was your date with Greg last night?” Jada asked as we headed down the stairs.

“It was pretty nice,” Steph said. “We went to a club and he showed me how to dance.”

“We did a lot of dancing last night too,” Jada said. “And there was a contest to see who could identify the most people in their costume forms...”

We talked about what we’d done last night as Steph and Jada walked across campus. When we were getting close to the Venn machine, Steph changed the subject.

“So... Lauren, would you mind venning me into a plushie? And then you could change me back before you go home?”

“Sure,” I said, a little surprised but not entirely. “What kind of plushie? I’m not as good at venning people into living dolls as my friend Sophia, but I’ve gotten some practice at it lately.”

“Maybe a kitten? But whatever kind of critter you want to snuggle, I guess.”

“Okay. You can pick out the form from my history where I’m two dragon plushies, one a lot bigger than the other.”

So when we got to the machine, Lisette and Poppy venned each other into their everyday forms. Then, as nobody else was using the machine at that time of morning, Jada venned Britt into her everyday body, while Britt venned Jada into two plush triceratopses from her history. Then Britt went in the machine again with the larger triceratops plushie and venned Jada into her everyday body.

Steph and I went into the machine and I started navigating through the interface, looking for living kitten plushies, and picked one that looked cute. Steph meanwhile had said, “History,” and picked the form I’d asked for.

“Ready?” I asked. “You should push your green button first in case I’ve got this wrong.”

“Okay,” she said, and split me into two dragon plushies. I pushed the green button with a foreclaw of my larger body, and she turned into a little kitten plushie, about life-size for a kitten a few weeks old. I watched anxiously for a moment as the doors opened to see if she could move and talk.

“I think it worked,” she said, bending her head to look back at herself.

“Cool!”

We waddled out of the machine and Steph looked up in awe at Jada, Britt, Lisette and Poppy. “They’re all so big,” she whispered.

“Yeah, turning into something really small for the first time is a trip,” I agreed, speaking with my smaller plushie form. “Maybe Britt can snuggle you and me while Jada splits my big plushie body off as a dragon-girl?”

“Is that okay with you?” Britt asked Steph, bending down so she was not too far above eye level.

Desiree, who was snuggling in Britt’s arms, mewled, “Join the cute side, we have cuddles!”

“Okay,” Steph said, and Britt picked up her and my smaller body, while Jada set up the machine for another venn and went in with my larger plushie. She selected a practical everyday dragon-girl from my history, a little taller than average girl height, with small wings and only one head.

Britt handed Steph over to me when we came out of the machine. I cradled her in my hands, and we continued to the freshman parking lot and Jada’s car. We went to a Waffle House for breakfast; Lydia sat on the table between Britt and Jada’s plates, and Steph sat on my shoulder, while Desiree sat between me and Britt. Lydia got some syrup spilled on her, but Britt went and rinsed her off in the ladies’ room; it didn’t take long due to how stain-proof venned plushies typically were.

Toward the end of breakfast, we talked about what to do until Britt, Lisette, Poppy and I had to leave. We decided to watch another old horror movie and hang out in the common room at Jada’s dorm for the rest of the time. Jada checked the showtimes and we saw that Creature from the Black Lagoon would be playing in a little over an hour.

“Do you want to watch it with us?” I asked Steph.

“Maybe? It’s an old movie, so it won’t have a lot of jump cuts and stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I think it’s from the forties or fifties...” I looked it up on my phone. “1954. I haven’t seen it in several years; it’s scary, but not gross like modern slasher movies.”

“Okay, I’d like to see it.”

So we ordered more tea and coffee and sat there talking at the Waffle House (which was past the breakfast rush by then; we’d slept a bit late) until it was about time to go. The plushies sat on our shoulders during the movie. I was glad I hadn’t venned Steph into a real kitten, because I think her claws would have come out involuntarily at scary moments; I felt her kneading her soft paws against my shoulder scales anyway. Jada and I snuggled Britt on either side, with Desiree on Britt’s right shoulder and Lydia on Jada’s.

After the movie, we went back to Jada’s dorm and hung out in the common room, talking at first about the movie and then about various other things. At last, it was time to go. I gave Steph another good hug and handed her over to Jada to take back to the Venn machine, then kissed Jada goodbye and let Britt hug her. Lydia stayed with Jada too, of course, and Desiree came home with me.

The drive home was less frenetic than the drive down there had been; we were all a bit worn out, and Britt allowed Lisette to take a turn driving toward the end. Desiree was there to perk us up, though, singing along with the music with her squeaky voice and making up silly lyrics to the instrumental pieces.

After we dropped off Lisette and Poppy at their homes, Britt took me and Desiree home, getting out of the car for a few moments to hug us goodnight. We’d talked tentatively about our next date after dropping Poppy off; we were leaning toward venning into little kids at the mall playground again. Bianca was the only one home when I let myself into the house; Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and Sophia were at their church’s Trunk or Treat. I reheated some leftovers for supper, and Bianca and Desiree sat at the table with me and kept me company.

 

* * *

 

The next day was Halloween. I got Genevieve to venn me into the Maleficent-dragon form that Sophia and I had worked out a few days earlier, and worked an eight-hour shift. A fair number of people recognized who I was supposed to be, even though we hadn’t gotten the colors or proportions quite right — you rarely can when you’re trying to match an animated character.

My shift ended not too long before Joy’s Halloween party was supposed to start, and I got a ride to the Venn machine, and then to Joy’s house, with Anna and Genevieve, who were getting off around the same time. Sophia would be joining us after she got off work, and though I was a little worried about an anxiety attack such as I’d had during the queer group’s Halloween party, I figured I could get Sophia or Anna to run me home early if I had to.

For this party, I’d gotten Anna to venn me into a little naga, with my human part looking about six or seven years old and wearing a cute frilly dress that extended a couple of feet over my snake part. I’d enjoyed slithering around campus a couple of days earlier and I wanted to try being a naga again. Anna and Genevieve venned each other into panther-girls, with black fur all over and catlike features with whiskers. On the way to the party, we talked about the way Mr. Buckholtz was running things.

“I don’t like the way he’s pushing everyone to change bodies so often,” Anna said. “I don’t mind changing several times a week myself, but some people had a hard time finding a body that they’re comfortable with and that looks far enough from basic human, and making them change again and again is just gonna drive them away.”

“He’s let me be more insectoid at work than Mr. Paget did, so that’s one good thing about him,” Genevieve said, “but I see what you mean.”

“He told me I should try different forms besides dragons more often,” I said. “Which is okay, I guess? I did tell Mr. Paget I’d be fine wearing just about any female body, but after a while I wound up being a dragon pretty much all the time except for Furry Fridays. Getting out of that rut is probably a good thing.”

Joy and her boyfriend lived on the north side of town, not too far from Lisette and Poppy. The house was slightly smaller than Lisette’s house, and they shared the house with another couple, who had also invited their friends, so it turned out the party was more crowded than I’d expected. It seemed like Joy had invited more people than any of the other three hosts, but only about half of those were people I knew from Metamorphoses. And of course most people were venned into something different from their usual bodies, so I couldn’t recognize the people I did know unless I was close enough to read their nametags. All that contributed to making my anxiety get worse faster than it had at the queer group’s party at East Carolina, and having venned into a younger body didn’t help. (As a naga I was a lot bulkier than a human six-year-old girl, but most of it was trailing out along the floor, tripping people up when I wasn’t careful; I spent most of the party in a corner, resting on my coiled-up tail, so it wouldn’t get in people’s way.)

I was determined to push through my anxiety and enjoy as much of it as I could before I had to leave. I made myself talk to people, and got to know some of my co-workers better as well as making the acquaintance of some new people. But before long, it got to be too much.

Sophia had come in earlier — I’d recognized her because I’d helped her refine the venn she was going to use for the party a week earlier, a living doll whose torso was a transparent jar and whose head worked as a lid for said jar. Her torso was filled about a quarter full with candy and cheap party favors, and she kept inviting people to sample them. When I felt like I couldn’t stand the crowded atmosphere much longer, I went to look for her, starting where I’d seen her last. I looked all over the house and got my tail tangled up with people’s legs more than once before I finally found her coming back in from the back porch.

“Hey,” I said, “could I get you to take me home? You could come back here afterward.”

“Sure,” she said, picking up on my anxious expression. “I’m parked just down the street. Let me tell a couple of people where I’m going.”

She talked to several people on our way toward the front door, including Joy, Genevieve, and a guy I didn’t recognize. As we walked and slithered down the street toward where she’d parked her car, we passed some little trick-or-treaters with their parents going from house to house.

“Happy Halloween,” I said to them. The kids were young enough that the parents might be as young as they appeared, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were venned slightly younger and better-looking than their natural bodies. All four were dressed as superheroes, though they were an eclectic mix from DC, Marvel, and My Hero Academia.

“Happy Halloween, Miss Snake!” the little Squirrel Girl said.

“Twick o’ Tweet,” the tiny Batman said, holding out his candy bag.

“No, Oliver,” the daddy said, “you say that when people open their doors.”

“Is it okay if I open my lid instead?” Sophia said, and lifted her head off her shoulders. The little kids gasped as Sophia bent down to let them rummage in her torso and pull out handfuls of candy. I’m guessing the adults hadn’t clearly seen what Sophia was venned into in the dark, but the little boy had.

“Those were some cute kids,” Sophia said as we continued on toward her car.

“Yeah,” I said with a happy sigh. “I’m glad they’ve got such cool parents. My parents didn’t believe in trick-or-treating.”

“Oh, that sucks,” she said. “I know a lot of the people at Crossroads don’t do Halloween; I’m glad Mom and Dad weren’t too influenced by that. Hey, maybe next year we can venn you into a little girl and take you trick-or-treating?”

“Next Halloween, we’ll be at different colleges a hundred miles apart.” We’d reached her car; she unlocked the doors and we got in. “But maybe Jada and I can venn into little girls and go trick-or-treating. We’d need somebody to pretend to be our mom, though. Or one of us could split and be both our mom and a little girl.”

“I hope that works out.”

We got to talking about the playground at the mall and our experiences venning into little kids there and elsewhere on the way home, and the residual tension from my anxiety attack at the party gradually gave way to a relaxed tiredness. As we passed through downtown on the way to Sophia’s house, she asked me if I wanted to go by the Venn machine to change into the body I’d work in tomorrow or go straight home.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I guess I should. Any suggestions?”

After we talked about it for a couple of minutes, I remembered a girl I’d seen at the party, who had fractal arms with little arms in place of her fingers, and decided to try something similar but weirder. And after two or three tries, Sophia venned me into a mostly-human girl with fractal heads. I had two smaller heads on either side of my main head, and my shoulders weren’t much wider than those of a normal girl of my height. Then there were smaller heads on either side of the little ones, and smaller ones again. The next day after work, Sophia looked at me with a magnifying glass and found seven levels before they got too small to see, though with the naked eye you could only see four or five. Seeing out of that many eyes was confusing at first, but I learned to close all the eyes of the smaller heads (below about level three or four), which were too small to contribute much visual acuity anyway, and make sense of the visual input from the higher-level heads.

I ate supper with Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey after Sophia returned to the party. They took turns getting up and going to the door to greet trick-or-treaters, sometimes returning with a photo of cute kids in elaborate costumes. Then I snuggled into my futon with Desiree, telling her about work and Joy’s party until I was sleepy enough to doze off.