FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

There was a fire in Jolene's swamp, and she couldn't be happier.

A fire meant change. A fire meant excitement. A fire meant something different was happening, something interesting in the least interesting place in the western hemisphere. A sodden bog of filth and decay doesn't usually turn into a blazing inferno, and Jolene very much wanted to discover what caused the conflagration. There had been lightning the night before, and while uncommon it wasn't impossible to have caused some sort of brushfire for the square foot or so of land that wasn't soaked by mud and brackish water. Or perhaps it had been a campfire that had gotten out of control. Or perhaps it was an accident caused by people that couldn't conceive that literally no one cared about the gender of their newborn.

The important thing was that it would alleviate Jolene's boredom, and this was an event that hadn't happened for months. The last time she had been this excited it was because she had seen a heron.

"A fucking heron." Jolene stepped over a particularly termite-infected log. "Not literally a fucking heron, of course. Not sure when the heron mating season begins. Or whether or not they have a mating season. Or if they migrate to or away from this swamp in order to mate, or ... I'm doing it again."

It was entirely possible that Jolene's mind was suffering from intense lack of social contact. The only person she'd seen since ... since coming here was Joey Hopkins, and he was the only one she'd want to see. "Only one you want to drag into the bushes and fuck his brains out. If you weren't too chicken shit. Hi, weird bird! My name is Jolene, and I live in a swamp." Jolene waved enthusiastically to a large blue bird she couldn't begin to identify. The only blue birds she recognized were bluebirds, and she was fairly certain that this blue bird was not a bluebird. "Unless all blue birds are bluebirds, but that's probably me being presumptuous."

The whole point of her coming here had been to get away from everything and everyone. Everyone that made fun of the quiet, odd girl back in school. Everyone that had ever whispered behind their breath unkind comparisons between her and a telekinetic character from a Stephen King movie. Everyone at home that turned her refuge from her bullying classmates into a stress-filled routine of hiding in her room and praying not to hear the sound of her father's truck approaching the driveway.

She wanted as little to do with humanity as possible. And the Florida everglades were a perfect spot to do just that. It just wasn't a good spot to do anything else. "Malaria. It's good for that. And alligators." She giggled. "And malariagators. The most dangerous game."

Jolene's grandmother had owned a small dwelling--more of a shack, really--on a piece of property as useless to human beings as it was perfect for Jolene. No roads. No social media. No horrible news reports of a world that made less sense to Jolene the longer she spent in it. Jolene was an 80-year-old hermit trapped in the body of a 21-year-old highschool dropout.

And she couldn't be happier. Aside from the boredom, anyway.

There were sacrifices that she had to make, of course. The remoteness meant no electricity. No central heating or cooling either. The former wasn't much of an issue in the year-round humid heat of the Everglades. Jolene thought she had seen a patch of ice once a few months ago, although it could just as easily have been some sort of algae or chemical spill. That was the biggest event since she had moved out here, only being surpassed during the Heron Incident, which was her name for the incident involving the heron. It was a working title. Drinking water was another problem, but Jolene had devised a simple method for maintaining potable water involving letting the sun dry logs on her roof to use as kindling for boiling water. It was an absolutely foolproof system, except that it didn't work.

In truth, Jolene's water supplies were kept up in the same way her food supplies were--Joey Hopkins and his backpack. Twice a week, Joey would bring food and supplies to her. This was probably because he wanted to get into her pants. The fact that they were likely at the very least third cousins didn't seem to dissuade him and it certainly wouldn't have dissuaded Jolene. It was Florida, after all. He was nice enough, but he was a person and even though Jolene wanted to shag him until his brains were literally lying on the floor, her lust was overridden by her need to have nothing to do with people. "People who are persons," she audibly clarified. "If a person wasn't a person that would probably be okay." Jolene wasn't sure what she'd do if he decided she wasn't worth the time anymore, but so far he'd been content to bring supplies from Dollar Tree (or General or Store or one of the Dollars) in exchange for her letting him ramble for a few hours about his disdain for Formula 1 management. Jolene was confused about why he was so interested in the corporate practices of all-purpose cleaning liquid makers. It was about as interesting to Jolene as anything else from the world outside her swamp, but it was a small price to pay for toothpaste and Fruit Roll-Ups.

Jolene fucking loved Fruit Roll-Ups.

A life devoid of showers and Amazon Prime was an adjustment, but it was a life that Jolene wouldn't trade for anything. She had forgone society for the serenity of solitude in squalor. Her nights were filled with the croaks of bullfrogs. Her mornings were spent watching the deer retreat into the hazy swamp fog. Foxfire was her reading lamp and the rays of sunlight that pierced through the mangrove canopy was her connection with the Divine. It had only been two years, but as long as the Fruit Roll-Ups kept coming she would last another sixty. There was nothing to bother her here. Nothing to make fun of her. Nothing to hurt her. Nothing to surprise her.

Nothing that is except for the thirty foot long avian snake monster roasting marshmallows in the blazing inferno of a large building.

"There's something romantic about a bonfire," the horror from the depths of Jolene's fractured sanity said as it stared serenely into the inferno of a large poorly-placed garage.

"Absolutely," replied a rather normal looking human being. Jolene hadn't noticed him due to her attention being focused on the aforementioned thirty foot long avian snake monster.

"Wow, really?!" asked the monster.

"What?"

"I just didn't expect you to agree. I thought you'd be telling me about man's fascination with fire being a leftover from a primitive part of our early existence, something we had to huddle around while teaching our children to beware of sabertooth tigers."

"Um, no? I can occasionally appreciate life's simple pleasures."

"Since when?! Who are you and what have you done with my dorky husband?" The creature extended something into the flames, like it was trying to catch something alight.

"That can't be good for you," the strange man replied. "Chemicals and stuff. And the place is probably filled with asbestos. And now you're going to eat that?"

The creature seemed to shrug, although it was hard to tell given its three pairs of arms. "Not like it's gonna hurt me. I'm me, remember?" The creature bounced back and forth, shifting her weight from one large hoof to another, although the majority of her weight was probably leaning against her massive serpentine tail. "Oooooh, burn you fuckerrrrr!" She seemed to be addressing her flaming marshmallow. "I haven't had smores in so long!"

"That's another thing," the human continued. "We have--had--twenty bucks, and now we've spent most of it on graham crackers, Hershey's, and chicken-feather-filled gelatin balls. We really should've bought some canned goods or--"

"Mark. Mark!" The creature interrupted him, holding the flaming stick towards him using a long, slimy tentacle, her charred marshmallow displayed before the human man as if for inspection. "Smores!"

He shook his head. "Smores," he reluctantly agreed before fishing a marshmallow of his own from a plastic bag. "Pass me a stick?"

The monster gave a very non-threatening squeal of delight, evidently quite pleased with itself that its companion was going to partake in the consumption of smores. She--Jolene now assumed it was a she--reached with another slimy appendage into the nearby trees, twisting a branch loose before slicing a smaller stick off with a rather wicked looking green scythelike arm. As she passed the stick to the human she leaned towards him, pursing the lips on the end of her long snout. Jolene wasn't sure what was happening--of course she wasn't sure what was happening--until the man placed an affectionate kiss on the creature's nose in exchange for the stick.

"Love you," purred the creature. "Even though you're so undeservingly mean to me."

"What'd I do now?" The answer was calm, reserved, as if he was acknowledging that he must indeed have done something wrong.

"Oh, let's see, I dunno, maybe it was you forgot my FUCKING birthday?!"

The man's hand froze as he was in the process of skewering the marshmallow. "Oh come on! We were on an island! And we didn't have a burner phone! And I pawned my watch because YOU wanted new board games. How was I supposed to know it was your birthday?!"

The creature made a hmphing noise, although she seemed to be merely feigning indignation. "The findings still lend credence to the scientific theory, doctor. You? Check. Asshole? Check. Mean to me? Double check."

"That totally wasn't my fault!"

"You forgot your wife's birthday!" The creature blew the flame off of her now-blackened marshmallow. "If you forget your wife's birthday, it's always your fault. Again: science."

"I got you smores," the man replied hopefully. "Smores are recompense, right?"

"I still want a divorce." She closed four pairs of eyes, turning her serpentine-leonine snout into the air in indignation. "Right after I'm finished eating this ... three or four times. I wonder what marshmallow tastes like when it's regurgitated? Probably not too bad, actually. Can you get the chocolate wrapper, you horrid little man? Also I'm keeping half of everything we own."

The man shrugged. "That's fine. What's half of seven dollars and twenty-three cents?" For a moment, Jolene thought the man was suddenly falling backwards, however the creature slid her tail underneath him, creating a seat. The motion had been done so casually that neither seemed to be really aware of their actions, like this was a regular occurrence. "You already got your revenge anyway, remember?" He began to unwrap the chocolate bar.

"What'd I do?!" Now it was the creature's turn to be outraged.

"Gee, I dunno." The man rubbed the back of his head several times in rapid succession, almost like he was drawing attention to his hair for some reason. "Does it seem extra breezy out here today? Is that just me?"

"The ponytail?!" The monster screeched, growled, and hissed simultaneously, although with the way the udders on her chest shook Jolene could almost mistake it for a laugh. "You're still mad about the ponytail? That was in NO way my fault."

"The shearing of my hair with a mantis appendage attached to your body wasn't your fault?" He placed half the chocolate between two graham crackers and held it toward the creature as she slid her marshmallow in between them. "That wasn't your fault?"

"It wasn't!" the monster whined. "I have these strange, uncontrollable animal instincts and urges, remember? I can't be held responsible for my mantis bits. Some primitive, insectile part of my subconscious must have decided entirely on its own and without my input that you looked like a total asshole and decided to rid the world of your coiffure atrocity."

The human was laughing now as he finished cooking his own treat and began to assemble it.

"Curse these feral brain chemicals of mine! Alas! Roar, hiss, growl, etc." She popped the entire smore into a maw that seemed capable of tearing a gazelle in two before tossing her head back and moaning in ecstasy. "Oh dear Christ."

"Good?"

The creature seemed like she was only capable of making pleased mooing noises.

"Catch." He suddenly tossed his own smore into the air.

A confused sound came from the creature's full mouth even as she instinctively caught the smore in midair, snatching at it with a snout more or less resembling Jolene's alligator neighbors. "Mwoo dint wannit?" it barely managed to ask around the two sticky treats.

"Figured you wanted it more. And maybe you'll call the divorce off?"

The monster placed a muzzle almost as long as the man's torso on his shoulder. "Fugginn wuv you."

"Fuggin wuv you too, dear."

It was safe to say that the time spent battling mosquitos and vitamin C deficiency had evidently done a number on Jolene's sanity. "Hello, my name is Jolene and I'm crazy," she whispered. The scene before her had to have been something conjured in the maddened recesses of her subconscious mind, perhaps some manifestation of her own feelings of romantic inadequacy. Perhaps the monster was symbolic of her own self-loathing. There was simply no way what she was seeing was real. Some small part of her felt like she should be proud that she was capable of hallucinating such a strange creature and so oddly affectionate of a scene. Maybe she just really needed to get laid.

Regardless, the mystery of the swamp inferno had been solved and it was time for Jolene to be anywhere other than standing here. The best case scenario was that the cops would show up and interrogate her. The worst case scenario is that the monster before her would decide not to be a hallucination after all and devour her.

Taking a step away from the confirmation of her insanity, Jolene's foot sank into a deceptively deep part of muck and she was thrown off balance. The poor young woman stumbled for a few steps before she came crashing down, her ass landing roughly on something far too jagged to be natural.

"Did you hear something?" inquired the man.

"Yeah, but don't worry about it." The creature coughed and began chewing again, like it had partially coughed up its meal. "I'll tell you later. Just keep being sweet for a few more minutes."

Jolene grit her teeth, trying to remain silent despite being in a surprising amount of pain. She rolled to her side, feeling along the seat of her now mud-caked jeans before swiftly pulling her hand away as her fingers were pricked by shards of glass. Twisting onto her hands and knees in the muck, she saw that out of all the endless expanse of natural decay she could have fallen, she had managed to land on the bit containing some sort of vial of green liquid. Her weight had been enough to shatter the glass and tear through the seat of her pants enough that it had barely pierced her backside.

"Deal," the man yawned. "What do you think about the cow mutants?"

"Haley will take good care of them," the creature answered with a mouthful of smore. "Sad for the girl, but she seems like she'll come through it okay. Or, wait, did you mean how long do I think it'll be before they're giving each other the business?"

"The latter."

"Five days."

"That long?"

"She's been through a lot and he's deceptively shy for a three hundred pound minotaur. They'll be banging like rabbits, but she'll have to shake her ass around him for a few days."

The man shook his head. "You're high. They've already banged. No question. Twenty-four hours tops."

"Bet?" A long tentacle slithered in the man's direction.

"Bet." He took the appendage and shook it lightly, sealing the deal to whatever it was they were talking about.

"God, you're terrible at this, baby."

"What? Why?"

"If it's over five then I win. Price is Right rules."

"When did we agree on Price is Right rules?!"

She shook her head, using the motion to snuggle closer into the man's shoulder. "It's always Price is Right rules. Unless otherwise specified. How do you not know this? Aren't you a scientist?"

Jolene started to carefully rise to her feet, although she stopped when her eyes caught a glint of something shiny. Sunlight was reflecting off of a gently glowing viscous liquid which seemed to shimmer in a kaleidoscope of color as it sank into the muddy earth. Had this been what was in the vial? Was it toxic? Nuclear waste? Her heart sank as she realized that whatever it was, it had been contained inside the vial she had landed on. Sliding her hand underneath the back of her jeans, she extracted it to find her fingers dripping with greenish goo and a few drops of her own blood. Was this shit inside of her now?

The frightened young woman turned her attention back to the strange couple as the man fought off another yawn.

"Sleepy?" asked the monster, and the man returned a nod. "It's been a busy couple of days. We should find somewhere dry to set up camp." She lifted her head and nodded sideways in the direction that Jolene was cowering. "Besides, we've got an eavesdropper. Also I want to get outta here before the cops show up and start shooting at us for burning down their chateau d'if."

Jolene's breath caught in her lungs as she realized the creature knew she was there.

"Oh fuck," the man whispered as his eyes swept across the treeline searching for Jolene.

"It's fine," the monster replied nonchalantly. "She smells like she's lived out here for a long time. I doubt anyone would believe her story about the beautiful swamp monster and her handsome, ponytail-bereft inamorato. Don't forget the graham crackers."

Jolene spun on her feet, darting into the gloom of the swamp as fast as she could.

---

The fever had set in before she had made it halfway to her shack. Cold sweat was pouring from her forehead, seeping into her filthy shirt, trailing its frigid fingers down her back. She stumbled, reaching out with a shaking hand for a nearby dead tree. As she leaned against it the single tree turned into two as her vision swam. Then it was four. Jolene prayed it wouldn't become eight.

She also prayed she wasn't going to die. "God," she whispered. "I hate you. You know that. But please, please don't let me die. Not like this. Please, not like this."

As if in answer to her prayers, the Divine saw fit to drop a water moccasin directly onto her shoulders.

Jolene screamed, recoiling in terror as the venomous snake sank its fangs deep into her shoulder. She fell to the ground, clasping the serpent around its head in an effort to dislodge it. Between the toxic goo invading her system and the poison now coursing through her veins, it was becoming apparent that Jolene would have been better off being devoured by the pleasantly cheerful chimera hallucination.

Landing in the muck of the swamp for the second time in as many hours, Jolene opened her mouth to shriek, but soon found the vocalization was quite impossible. Rather than the swelling of her esophagus or hyperventilation, she was surprised to find the reason she couldn't scream was because her teeth had sunk into the flesh of the snake assaulting her.

"Hmm?" Jolene hmm'd. She was as surprised as the snake likely was in finding herself countering its bite with one of her own. The snake writhed in torment, pulling its fangs from her skin as it did. Rather than tossing the serpent aside, Jolene again bit into the creature, her teeth pressing into its spine as she twisted the beast until with a sickening crunch she had torn it completely in two.

Breath again returned to Jolene's lungs as she sat in the mud, the blood of the serpent dripping down her chin as it continued to writhe in its death throes. Jolene could only stare at her hands, the blurry image of the white-mouthed serpent slowly coming into focus even as it ceased its thrashing. Jolene thought she was about to sob, but was surprised when she instead screamed in frustration to the heavens above. "I didn't want to die that way either, asshole!" The young woman found herself erupting into bouts of insane laughter even as she began to feel sorry for her attacker. Her immediate concern, however, was for her own survival, especially now that her blood contained equal parts venom from a poisonous asp and what was almost certainly some sort of nuclear waste material. Jolene sat the bisected serpent in her lap and held her trembling hand to the wound on her shoulder. She didn't know how much time she had, but she knew that the symptoms of the bite would begin to be felt almost immediately. Her only chance was to make it back to the shack and hope that Joey hadn't arrived with her resupply of Fruit Roll-Ups and other necessities that now seemed so unnecessary. He was due today, and it wasn't quite noon yet. He'd help her limp back to the nearest town, and from there she could hopefully get medical help before her airways were completely closed. If he had already deposited the supplies and left, well then at least she'd die with high fructose candy in her stomach.

"Stupid," she hissed. "Stupid, stupid, silly, stupid idiot." She'd been lucky to not have had a run-in with any sort of dangerous animal during her time in the swamp, but given the nature of the place it was an eventuality. "Should've had something, anti-venom or whatever, something, anything. How can you be so stupid?" She was fighting back tears as she rocked herself back and forth. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Jolene barely realized the refrain was one she'd heard thrown at her over the years, whether by her classmates, her mother, or her loathsome homeroom teacher. "Fuck you, Mrs. Ellington. All your fault. Somehow. Now I'm still stupid and I'm stuck here and about to die and-and nobody will ever care or know or-or ..."

No, she thought. Stop. Now. Feel sorry for yourself later. You've got a slim chance at survival, but you've no chance at all if you spend precious seconds literally wallowing in the muck. "Get up," she ordered herself. "Get up and fight."

Jolene sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. "Okay. You're right. I'm right. Whatever. Hello my name is Jolene and I am going to live through a snakebite. Hi. We can do this." She picked the twin pieces of the snake up as she stood, her eyes set upon the faint path that would lead her back home. "We can do this. We can." Jolene took a deep breath, stealing herself for the critical choices ahead of her and took a quick bite of one half of the snake as she slid the other half into her pocket. She was well into her third bite before she realized she had swallowed the first two.

"What the fuck?!" The half-carcass slid from her fingers to the soggy ground, the lifeless eyes of the serpent as confused as she was by her own behavior. "D-Did I just ...?!" She shook her head. "Hallucinating," she told herself. "You're hallucinating. Have been since this morning." Was she bitten before or after she'd seen the flying snake monster? Was the flying snake monster what had bit her? "Had to be," she confirmed to herself. "Only thing that makes sense." Reality seemed to twist in on itself, the day's troubling events jumbling around in her weary mind until she was lucky she could remember her own name.

"Jolene. My name's Jolene," she clarified to absolutely no one. "It's my name. Pleased to meet you." She sighed as she started tromping through the muck. "My name is Jolene and I got bit by a snake and I'm not gonna die from being bitten by a snake. Hello."

---

Jolene's thirteen square foot hovel was the most welcome sight she'd ever beheld as she pressed through the brush into the clearing. "Home," she whispered, and the word had never sounded so sweet. Her shack was just where she'd left it, and her tiny garden by the front door, and the spooky rat skull collection she'd arranged meticulously just above the door. She'd combed through several owl pellets to find them, and had hoped that anyone stumbling through the area would see the odd fetishes and assume the person living in the shack to be a mad swamp witch to be avoided at all cost.

"Which I am," she muttered, pulling the rickety door open. "Which I am! I am a witch. I need a nap." The shack sat a few feet off the ground on poles that had been sunk into the swamp decades ago. In truth it was probably built originally as a hunting blind, but Jolene's grandmother wasn't entirely certain and Jolene herself didn't need to care. It was far away from everyone else and it was home. That's all that mattered.

That and the snake venom and nuclear waste still coursing through her body.

Jolene sat in the doorway, pulling her boots off and hanging them on a peg just inside the room after knocking as much mud off of them as she could. A small tarp lay on the ground just underneath them, soaking up any dripping water or mud before it could stain the ground of her lair. It was important to maintain a clean home, particularly when the home was a hovel in the middle of a festering marsh.

With a yawn, Jolene stretched her arms above her head before removing her shirt, wincing at the smell of sweat and stagnant water that clung to her. She wanted nothing more than to get out of her clothes, crawl under the dirty blankets, and sleep the day's strange events away. She brushed from her skin a few errant bits of leaves and sticks that had somehow made it past her shirt, her fingers lingering on her belly for a moment. With a gasp, she realized she had several small terminal hairs growing in a horizontal line from one side of her midriff to the other. Worst, the hair seemed to be surrounding an indentation in her skin, almost like a bloodless wound that felt strangely pleasant as she rubbed her finger across it.

"No way that's natural." Jolene couldn't help but poke at the skin, whining in worry as she noticed the bottom part of the "crease" was raised higher than the top portion. "Fuck me, what was in that stuff? And also, y'know, why am I not hemorrhaging on the floor right now?" In truth, aside from feeling tired and a little hungry, she had never felt better. Her fever had entirely broken and objects that had previously existed in duplicate were now back to singular. Was it possible something in the assuredly alien-space-goo was keeping the snake's venom from affecting her? Was she just immune to the venom?

"CAN people be immune to your venom?" Jolene realized she was directing the inquiry to the lower half of a bisected adder. She had to suppress a chill of disgust when her stomach rumbled loudly while looking at the body. "Least I can take care of one thing," she muttered as she picked up the body and retrieved a small knife from a sack near her bed. Jolene had eaten snake before. It wasn't exactly her favorite meal--a little gamey and too chewy. It reminded her of alligator, which was another taste she imagined sane people wouldn't be familiar with.

Jolene sat in the open doorway, shivering slightly as a breeze caressed her naked upper body. She smiled as she began to dig into the snake's back with her knife, repressing a giggle as she imagined the look on Joey's face if he were to approach and find her topless outside of her small home. "Be worth it. Worth the bite and the snake and the goo vial and the monster and the--" She stopped as a string of spit slid from her lips to land on her fingers. Wiping her lips with the back of her hand, she was surprised to find an abundance of saliva covering them. "Must be hungrier than I thought." Shrugging, she returned to cleaning her kill, removing the snake's spine, careful to pull each individual rib from the stringy flesh. When she had extracted the bone she began to set them aside, although her hand seemed reluctant to drop the bloody mess for some reason. Jolene's eyes went wide as she stared at the bones. If her mouth was watering before, it was pouring drool like a Saint Bernard now. "Why the fuck does that look so good? It's bones." She shrugged, returning inside to retrieve her skillet.

After grabbing the heavy black pan and a piece of flint she stepped outside, turning to a rickety ladder leading to the top of the shack where she cooked all of her meals. Normally she hated climbing the old thing, always afraid that its wet steps would cause her to slip and land in the muck. She'd had enough muck-landing for one day. Instead, she hopped easily halfway up the ladder, her bare foot lingering on the step for only an instant before she pulled herself onto the roof.

"O ... kay?" She had never been an athletic person, but perhaps the years of eating lean and trodding around the most wretched spot in existence had done her some good in that regard. Jolene scratched again at the line of white hairs on her belly as she dropped the meat into the pan and retrieved some more-or-less dry wood from a covered box nearby. She was still feeling fine after the bite, but perhaps that was just her adrenaline giving her a few moments of respite before she fell into coughing, heaving seizures. At least she could do that on a full stomach.

Jolene found herself cooing softly as she continued tracing the line on her belly. More than once she glanced around to make sure her friend hadn't appeared. In truth, the crease was more than pleasant to touch. Every time she ran her finger along it she would feel a tingle in her belly. More concerning were the small red bumps that seemed to have developed underneatht he skin around her navel. But Jolene was no stranger to mosquito bites, and didn't pay them any great deal of attention.

Her attention was focused entirely on the stirring she felt between her legs as she continued playing with the crease. That and the smell of the cooking meat from her skillet. To say her mouth was watering was like saying Niagara Falls was wet. She had given up on wiping the saliva away, content to try to merely try to keep it from dripping onto her body. She was wet and smelly enough without drooling all over herself. Was that a symptom of snake bites? Rabies certainly caused reactions like the one she was experiencing, but didn't that take days to set in?

"Do snakes have rabies?" she asked her dinner. "Do you--did you--have rabies? Ah, fuck." Jolene grumbled to herself as she used her knife to flip the strips of meat over. She could count the number of times on one hand when she'd managed to cook anything without burning it. "Shit shit shit," she hissed before settling in to allow the food to continue cooking. Bringing her hand to her lips, she wiped away more drool than she thought her mouth capable of producing, accidentally flinging a handful of the sticky stuff on the leg of her dirty jeans.

As she did so, she noticed her fingernails were in desperate need of a manicure. Jolene giggled. "Have to run to the salon. In my GMC Suburban. Won't do for a pretty lady like myself to look ungroomed with all the handsome suitors surrounding me. Easy to afford with my six figure job of walking through mud and ... walking through more mud." Normally, Jolene kept her nails trimmed by chewing on them. It was a habit she'd developed as a child while she hid from her mother under her bed, so it wasn't much of an adjustment when she'd lost her clippers a year ago. She'd tried filing her toenails away with her small knife, but gave up the tactic and merely chewed them as well. It was a disgusting habit, and one she'd never heard of anyone else doing, but she'd never heard of anyone willingly living the rest of their lives in a fetid swamp either.

Her toenails seemed much the same as her hands, long, filthy, and almost grown to a sharp point. Strangely, the nail on her large toe seemed to be barely hanging on. She thought that perhaps she'd stubbed it on something until she noticed the nail of her other large toe had completely fallen off at some point without her noticing. "Is THAT a symptom of venomous snake bites? Along with ... dying?" Jolene shrugged. At least her food was nearly done.

Jolene had never been what anyone would call an attractive person, and living in the swamp for two years had certainly not improved upon her features. She was short, topping out at a half an inch short of an even five feet. Her long, messy black hair hadn't won her any sideways glances. It always struck her as stringy, no matter what product she used in it. Her nose was far too large for her face, her lips always chapped, her clothing always hand-me-downs from relatives she never interacted with. Her breasts were basically nonexistent, although her mother had been overendowed in that department. She wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps she hadn't been adopted. Strangely enough, there was a slight bounce to her chest that she wasn't used to. Perhaps she was hitting a second growth spurt.

She smiled. Maybe that was what she needed to draw the attention of her suitor. Not like he'd need any kind of encouragement. Maybe she should stop dragging the poor boy along--especially if she was going to die of snakebite any minute. Joey had been wanting to get into her pants for years. Maybe she should let him. Drag him into her shack. Throw him on her lumpy mattress and wrap her lips around his--

Jolene blinked. "Where the fuck did that come from?" In answer, a loud crackle came from her makeshift bonfire as gray smoke rose into the air. Jolene muttered a curse as she picked up a rag to wrap around the pot's handle, sliding it off of the fire quickly before placing it onto a cement block that also served to hold part of her roof in place. She reached for a cup nearby that she kept filled with rainwater, using it to douse the flames. Sliding to the edge of the roof, she let her feet dangle off of the side as she waited for her meal to cool. She hummed a simple tune she made up on the spot.

"I got ... bit by a snake today

"And saw ... a different snake-bird-cat thing

"And then I ... ate the first snake

"And sang this song. La la."

Jolene rolled her neck in a circle to loosen it after finishing her song. Again she had to wipe the drool from her mouth. "Pretty safe to say I'm not going to die from water moccasin spit. Maybe me-spit, but not water moccasin spit." She stifled a yawn as she stretched her arms into the air, wincing again at her own body odor. She'd long ago stopped shaving her pits, or anywhere for that matter, but she didn't remember the downy hair being quite so thick.

"Not like anyone's gonna notice," she murmured before grinning widely, a string of drool using the opportunity to slip past her lips. "Joey certainly won't mind. Not when I pull his--OW!" Jolene rubbed the small of her back, noticing another mosquito bump had formed just above the crack of her ass. Scratching it felt almost as nice as touching her weird hairy belly as she resumed kicking her feet for another few minutes until her meal was ready. She'd burnt it--again--but hardly seemed to care as she devoured the strips of white meat as if it were the best dinner of her life.

When she had finished, she made one final check to confirm the fire was completely extinguished before she stood. Her head swam a bit, although whether because of the venom or her general tiredness she couldn't begin to guess. Turning her back to the edge, she began to climb down the ladder, but was surprised when her hands and feet seemed to push themselves away from the ladder and into midair entirely on their own. Jolene gave a small "meep" before landing on the soggy ground, her bare feet sinking up to her lower shins in the muck. She fought to maintain her balance, but other than needing to rinse her feet off she was none the worse for wear from the ten foot drop.

"Okay. Yeah. Not dealing with whatever that was right now. Sleepy." Jolene trekked through the grime a few steps, but hesitated just before she pulled herself through her doorway. She sniffed the air and was surprised to find herself identifying parts of her environment she seemed unaware of a few moments ago. Birds were nesting nearby, which caused her stomach to rumble once more for some reason. The sweet earthy smell of decay that was ever-present, but now seemed much stronger and, oddly enough, less of a bother. In truth, the swamp smelled ... cleaner? Was that the word? She shook her head. Lastly she smelled a snake in the distance, which earned it a quick "Fuck you very much" from the exhausted young woman. Her hands braced on either side of the door as she pulled herself up, but she stood on her tiptoes on the threshold just before entering.

The snake bastard's bones were still lying on the floor of the entryway to her shack. Jolene started to say something, but the sound of her voice was interrupted by the gurgle of an avalanche of foamy spit gurgling past her lips. Something about the bones captured all of her attention, screaming at her, demanding that she ...

That she what? Eat them, her subconscious roared incredulously, as if it were explaining the sky was blue. The urge wasn't a want so much as it was a need, a deeply-ingrained instinct that had to be followed if she wanted to remain alive. It was like she was instantly dying of thirst or the lack of some particular vitamin. Jolene barely noticed her fingernails seemed even sharper as she scooped up what was left of the serpent's skeleton before plopping down on her dirty mattress, heedless of the muck she had tracked into her home.

"It's fine, right? 'Suck the marrow from the bones.' Isn't that how the saying goes?" Jolene turned the bones over, examining them. "That's a good thing, right? It means, like, 'enjoy everything around you or ...' Or something?" With no further rationalization needed, she began to nibble on one of the tiny, soft ribs of the creature, her eyes rolling back into her head as if it were the most wonderful dessert she'd ever savored. The bone was so soft it was almost chewy, and without another moment of hesitation she pulled a few more of them away from the spine with her teeth.

"Ohhhhh Jesus, that's better than sex." She frowned for just a moment as a recurring, depressing thought made its presence known. "I assume." Jolene swallowed, and was relieved when the bones slid down her throat easily. "Almost like it's a perfectly normal part of a balanced breakfast." She giggled as she began to gnaw on the spine itself. "What could be more normal than a woman living in a shack eating snake bones and OH MY GOD!"

Jolene squeaked as she tossed the bones aside. It wasn't the act of devouring another creature's skeleton that was so alarming. Rather, it felt like every part of her hands and feet were covered in spiders, small tickling sensations coming from her fingers and toes, her wrists and ankles, even from her ass. She held her hands to her face, her breath coming in high pitched gasps as she saw her skin start to become rough, almost coarse as her tanned skin gave way to an almost shiny pink, every millimeter becoming covered in small plates almost resembling ...

"Th-The snake?! I ate a snake and I'm turning into one? Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck." Her hypothesis seemed a little off as her fingernails continued to lengthen, the nails joining with the sharp keratin pressing from her fingertips. Her nails continued growing until they were at least an inch and a half long, her fingers looking almost sinewy as she instinctively grasped at her bed, her knees, anything within reach. "Okay, what?! Snakes don't have claws and ... I have claws?! Why the fuck do I have claws?!" A quick glance at her feet showed the same change was occurring, the mud from her earlier landing being pushed aside as her new talons grew. Jolene groaned as her large toe twisted eerily, wiggling as it slid back further away from the rest of her toes, looking almost simian, thumblike. Her big toes seemed to be growing more and more prehensile, and strangely enough it wasn't growing a claw like the others.

"Oh God what in the fuck is happening to me?" The goo. It obviously had to be the goo. "Why in the hell do you have to be so curious? So the swamp was on fire, who cares? Why do you always have to--" Jolene shivered, her skin feeling momentarily cold as she observed grayish-white dirty hairs slipping from her forearms. "Okay, not a snake. Obviously. Some sort of monkey? Do monkeys eat bones? Or--oh shit, am I gonna change into a-a-a .... a whatever the hell that thing was? The thing with the smores?" Sighing, Jolene dug her clawed fingers underneath the waistband of her jeans as she forced them off of her waist. She'd foregone underwear long ago, finding it more cumbersome than it was worth and really only using it during that most annoying time of the month. As she slid her jeans off she whined in disgust as she saw her pubic hair seemed to have grown, creeping up her belly until it joined the hair lining the strange horizontal crease across her belly. Another ridge of skin seemed to be growing perpendicular to the top of her slit, like she was growing an additional set of sideways labia.

"Nothing is right about this," she moaned. "Nothing is right or okay about this. Oh Jesus, it's everywhere!" Jolene ran her scute-covered hands over her legs, feeling the grimy hairs growing along her shins. Her feet seemed almost indistinguishable from her hands now, the scaly pink flesh stopping just beyond her wrists and ankles. She slid one trembling hand lower, between her legs, pulling it away when she felt a sticky wetness there. Bringing it to her nose, she took a sniff and immediately retched. The smell was horrendous, not just unclean but almost rancid, like something had died nearby.

Jolene waited for the next horror her body would see fit to bestow upon her, but the changes seemed to be finished for the moment, although she had no doubt they were just beginning. Wrapping her arms around herself in a hug, she rocked herself back and forth on her tiny mattress. Even the touch of her own skin seemed alien now, like she was touching something filthy. The smell soon permeated her shack and with a groan she fell onto her side, shoving her face into her pillow to try to keep it at bay. She took the opportunity to scream into her pillow until she felt her frustration empty itself from her tired lungs, only to be replaced by laughter at the sheer lunacy of the situation.

Rolling onto her back, she couldn't help but gag again at the smell as she stared at her ceiling. "Maybe I'm turning into a rat? Or a-a zombie rat? That doesn't sound fun. Some sort of ape? Would be fun to climb trees. But then what's up with the weird skin flaps? And why do I smell like roadkill and pussy?" Again her thoughts drifted back to the monster she had seen earlier, the strange amalgamation of too many animals for any rational mind to identify. "It--she--seemed ... happy? Like she didn't mind being ... whatever she was." She smiled even as her eyes were filled with tears as a new thought began to form. "And-And it had wings. If I had wings, I could fly away. Away from everything. Maybe live by a lake somewhere. Or a glacier. Nobody would ever have to see me. To see wh-what a freak I am." It was the same story as it had always been, more or less. Even prior to turning into a ... whatever she was becoming, she'd never had a place among other people. Flying off would just be another way of running away from a world that she wanted no part of. She giggled as she made a flapping motion with her arms. "Flap flap. Maybe this is gonna be the best thing to ever happen to me."

---

Jolene was screeching in fear and slinking into the corner even before she was aware that she was no longer asleep. The banging coming from her door was loud, so horribly loud it shook her eardrums and rattled her skull. What in the hell was happening?

"Joe?!" came a terrified voice from the other side of the door.

Oh.

"Jesus Christ, Joe?!" The door rattled slightly as Joey continued tugging on it. Jolene must have locked it as she ...

As she picked up snake bones off of the floor and ate them. Jolene suddenly remembered her recent changes, holding her hands up and turning them over as she examined herself. Her body seemed the same as it had when she had fallen asleep: oily hair dusting her arms and legs, clammy scaled hands and feet, a bit of dried drool plastered against her chin, the smell of ...

Oh God, the smell was even worse now. Jolene's eyes drifted to her mattress from where she stood, a distinct wet spot in the middle immediately standing out. Had she pissed herself in her sleep? Despite standing a few feet away, she could smell that it didn't smell like urine, just fully concentrated fleshy decay.

"Oh God, Joe, please be okay." The banging had finally stopped at least. "If you can hear me, I-I'm gonna get a-a shovel or something. A pry bar. I'll get the door open. Just lay there and ... and please, please, please be okay!"

The concern in her friend's deep voice touched something deep inside of Jolene, pushing aside even the worry of whatever was happening to her. Jolene could count on one finger the number of people that cared about her, and the one and only was currently standing outside her door scared that she had died. It certainly smelled like she had. "Joey." She had to stop and cough to clear her throat. Her voice was harsh, almost feral. "Joey, it's okay--I'm okay."

Silence from the other side of the door. Jolene fiddled with her ear, accidentally scratching herself in the process. When she brought her hand away, she saw the dirty gray-ish white hair was growing longer while it visibly began creeping higher up her arms. Somehow she had known that she wasn't finished changing, but had hoped the transformation would've given her more time to figure out her next move. "Oh fuck," she hissed. "Fuck!" She rubbed her scaly hands across her knees, watching the hair on her shins growing further up her thighs. "N-Now's not a good time ..." She swallowed, feeling embarrassed even as she prepared to ask the next question. "Did you bring any Fruit Roll-Ups?"

"Fruit ... Fruit-fucking-Roll-Ups?! Jolene, I thought you were dead! What the fuck is that smell? Are-Are you making meth or something in there? Did you drag a dead possum inside or something?"

"No, you asshole, I--Eeep!" Jolene tripped as she took a step towards the door, her balance thrown off by the unexpected size of her largest toe. She sank to the mattress, gagging as her nose came dangerously close to the atrocious wet spot. Despite the rank odor, she couldn't help dip her finger into the sticky liquid, bringing it closer to her nose as if to confirm that, yes, it did really smell like a decaying ...

"No. Oh no." Her heart sank. "No no no, no fucking way no." An opossum. A fucking possum. Jolene reached for her midsection, running a clawed stubby finger against the horizontal indentation. Even as she slid her finger from one side to the other she could feel her finger start to slide lower as a flap of skin dislodged itself from her belly with a sickeningly pleasant sensation. She couldn't help but coo as her hand slid further inside her pouch--her pouch for Christ's sake! "Oh Jesus, what the fuck is THAT?" With growing horror, Jolene realized the bumps she had felt earlier along her stomach were definitely not mosquito bites as she rubbed her fingers across the swelling nubs. "Are those ...?" Jolene glanced at her breasts, taking notice with another groan that they were definitely swelling, going from barely noticeable to a decent handful. Her nipples were leading the charge as they visibly swelled alongside the ones inside of her new pouch. "How many are even ...?" Two, four, five, six, nine. "Jesus Fucking Christ ... eleven?!" Jolene was sweating now, another rank odor adding to the inescapable smell of decay permeating the stuffy room.

"Fuck the Fruit Roll-Ups, we need to get you to a doctor!" Again the door rattled, although this time less frantically.

Jolene flopped onto her side as her hand kept exploring the confines of her fleshy pocket, her tongue slipping past her sharper teeth as she felt a slick warmness build between her legs. Jolene's other hand left her D-cup breasts, slipping her hand between her legs as she felt her slit. There was a pressure there, not just of desire, although that was certainly present. It was a pinching sensation, the exact opposite of what was happening as her pouch finished separating from the rest of her skin, pale soft pink flesh caressing her scaly hand warmly as she played with her abundance of hidden teats. Jolene pulled her hand from between her legs, gasping as the sensation grew. "Don't need a doctor, Joey. Just need ..."

God, she knew exactly what she needed, and it was right outside the door. What would be the harm in letting him in? Pulling him inside, tugging his pants down as she wrapped her mouth around ... Jolene was suddenly reminded she was mutating into a large marsupial as the hair--fur!--started to climb up to her shoulders. She reluctantly pulled her hand from her pouch, wincing and nearly stumbling as her hand brushed across just shy of a dozen teats. "Y-You need to go," she moaned as her tongue ran across her now sharper teeth. "Joey, please, I'm fine but you need to GO!"

Silence was the response from the other side of the door, finally followed by a sigh of resignation. "You're sure you're okay?"

No, but I will be, she thought as she clenched her pink hands into fists and beat lightly against the top of her leg. She'd never felt this way before, an almost incessant need to touch herself radiating painfully through every part of her warped body. She just couldn't let Joey see her like this. "Yyyyesssshh," she responded, praying he wouldn't notice the lingering feral hiss in her voice.

"Okay." Joey's response indicated that in his estimation the current events were the opposite of okay. "I brought ..." Another sigh. "I brought some Fruit Roll-Ups. And other stuff. Cereal bars, some bologna. I'll leave them on the ... hell, you know where I'm going to fucking leave them." Heavy mud-laden boots stomped into the muck, swiftly followed by the sound of a growl of frustration and annoyed steps retreating down the muddy path back to a world that made sense.

Jolene waited as long as possible until she was certain he was gone. "As long as possible" ended up being precisely four seconds. Jolene fell onto her mattress, oblivious of the rancid wet spot that was likely becoming a permanent part of its upholstery. Her fingers immediately found her slit, rubbing again at the strange ridge that lay above and below her womanhood. Jolene wasn't sure what exactly they were for, but they felt good to rub and at the moment that was all she was concerned about. Odors assaulted her twitching pink nose from everywhere at once: the smell of decay, her own unwashed body, the sweat soaking her greasy fur, and now the river of wetness dripping from her cunt. Worse, she simultaneously loved and despised the smells, even the rotten scent she must have conjured while she was unconscious. A stray concern entered her mind, intruding upon the waves of ecstatic oblivion that radiated through every part of her body as she slid her fingers in and out of her sopping pussy. As she continued sliding her stubby fingers inside herself, she began to feel herself growing tighter, the walls of her tunnel gripping her two fingers harder and harder. Reluctantly, she pulled her fingers from her rancid possum cunt and gasped in growing dread as she felt something strange happening to her vagina. Strange, she thought. As if that word held any meaning any longer.

Her insides seemed to be twisting, cramping like she was in her time of the month, until a sudden relief caused her to sigh in pleasure. Slowly inserting her scaly finger past her deformed labia, she screeched in alarm as she felt another startling development: she was now in the possession of not one but two separate vaginal canals. Whining, Jolene hesitated but a few moments more until, fumbling unfamiliarly with her strange new anatomy she slid a finger down either vagina. Slowly growing more comfortable with the new addition, she began to relish the new sensations as she slid her fingers deeper, gently pinching and twisting the smooth wet flesh that separated the two.

"Okay," she choked out in between drooling pants. "Okay, yeah, can get used to this." She was surprised at how raspy her voice had become, harsh while also reaching a much higher octave. "Fuckkkkk," she chittered, thrusting her hips from her filthy bed as she felt a pinching sensation coming from her ass. "Yeah, that checks out," she groaned, rolling onto her side to continue touching herself as a long, scaly tail slid from just above the crack of her ass. "Of course I'll get a tail. A fucking disgusting rat-tail to go with my pouch and my drool and my-my--Jesus!" Jolene reached an orgasm, screeching like a rodent as pleasure surged from her dual holes, radiating throughout her quivering, mutating body. Her eyes rolled backwards as her tongue slipped past wet lips to lap at her bed, her subconscious mind trying in vain to remain aware of her surroundings as her vision filled with pink stars.

Jolene continued thrusting her fingers into her vaginas until another soft pinching sensation came from the strange ridge above her labia, another similar feeling developing just beneath her tail. Even as she rode the crest of another orgasm, her hand was shifted into an odd angle as her womanhood began to shift closer to her rear. "W-Whah ... No!" The angle was becoming less conductive to her own ministrations, but would be much more suited to her life as a rutting, fucking, dirty animal. Jolene smiled, the putrid thoughts invading her mind becoming more and more alluring. She was already a dirty hermit living in the squalor of a desolate mire; if anything, this would suit her strange life just fine.

Slipping her hand around her hairy ass, Jolene struggled for a moment to find her opening. She knew it was on her backside, but her stubby clawed fingers were having trouble finding it. Running her claws through her crack, they reached her still developing hairless tail, unable to even locate her anus. Puzzled, Jolene shifted, moving her legs further apart but still couldn't find her slit. The sensation of pinching had increased, however, like a wound in her body being sealed up. Focusing on the feeling, Jolene found the odd ridges were growing closer together now, almost forming another pouch on her backside. "Do possums have ... ass-pouches?" Jolene couldn't help but giggle, although she let out a shriek when her fingers slipped inside the new indentation, the two ridges that had finally moved close enough together that they formed another crevice.

Poking the odd line carefully, Jolene sneered in revulsion as her fingers slipped past the horizontal opening and she immediately felt a more familiar sensation of touching her labia--or at least what used to be her labia. Her entire reproductive system was different now, her dual vaginas present just above her anus with one horizontal "pouch" serving as a covering for both. "What the fuck what the fuck what the FUCK." Jolene whined, feeling more and more disgusted by her mutated body and even more concerned by how little she was beginning to care. The changes seemed to be slowing now, judging by how her tail was no longer growing, although she was certain the nightmare was not yet over.

Slipping her fingers from her new anatomy, Jolene lethargically crawled to her feet, wincing at the scratching sound her claws made on the soft bare wood as she padded to her small satchel lying in the corner. Digging through her knicknacks--a spool of fishing wire, a packet of Bubalicious she was saving for Thanksgiving, a rotten Clementine orange she forgot she had squirreled away--she finally found what she was looking for. Slowly extracting the small hand mirror, she closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself against the upcoming shock of her new reflection. Jolene opened a single eye and almost immediately closed it. She tossed the mirror back into the satchel; she'd seen all she needed to see. Her black, beady eyes revealed a visage almost entirely inhuman. Sparse white hair covered her cheeks, chin, and forehead--not quite fur, but well on its way to becoming it. Her nose was now a whitish-pink, her teeth sharp and almost yellow, her fleshy ears hairless and round.

Jolene started to bury her face in her hands, but pulled them away at the last second when she saw the pink scales covering them. Every part of her was different now, less than human, and she still wasn't finished transforming. She leaned against the wall of the tiny shack, bumping the back of her head repeatedly against it. "Why possum? Why the fuck did it have to be an opossum?" Jolene sniffed, wiping a string of snot on her gray-white furry arm. "Why not a tiger or-or a dinosaur or something cool? Why not an eagle? Then I could've ..."

Flown away, she didn't say. Flown away from all of this. Now she was more trapped than ever.

---

Jolene's replenished supply of Fruit Roll-Ups did not survive the hour. After recent events in her life, she needed as much comfort food as she could get her hands on. Jolene giggled. "Paws on. Because I have paws. Because opossums have paws and I am an opossum. Hello." The mutations had likely caused a calorie deficit in her body that not even her favorite parchment-shaped high fructose corn syrup treats could replenish. The rest of the evening was spent digging into the supplies Joey had brought, devouring dried jerky, an entire loaf of bread, and gallons of bottled water. Normally Jolene tried to ration her supplies as much as possible, just in case something happened to Joey that would prevent him from returning for a few days. Now she was draining through a week's supplies in a few hours.

Finding herself still thirsty even after tossing aside her last plastic bottle, Jolene found herself on her hands and knees in the muck without a second thought, filling her mouth with water so brackish she could taste bits of dirt. Her mutations were so severe that she doubted the water could cause her any harm. After all, she was a fucking marsupial pest, what else was she supposed to drink?

Jolene crawled atop her house, scrambling up the side and using her clawed feet to push herself onto the roof. She usually watched the sun set from the vantage point, and felt that she could use any return to routine that she could get. Anything to make her life seem less insane. She idly scratched at her neck, hissing as she felt a small bump hanging like a tag before tearing a tick from her skin. "Fucker," she mumbled as she tossed the parasite into her mouth. She had swallowed the creature before she even realized what had happened. The next several moments were spent gagging and spitting strings of foamy saliva off of her roof, culminating in lightly clawing at her tongue to scrape away any of the parasite's remains that may remain in her mouth.

"No no no. Nope. Nuh-uh. Noooo-fucking-nope." Jolene hugged herself with her scaly hands, rocking back and forth slightly. "I'm not going to start eating ticks. I am not. Pouches and teats and drooling and weird-asshole-vaginas. Sure. Whatever. Roll with the punches. But I am drawing a line at eating parasites. Hello, my name is Jolene and I do not eat parasites." She sighed, resisting the urge for the seventh time in the past five minutes to slip her hands into her pouch like it was her own personal hoodie pocket. "Even though it kinda tasted like raisins. I like raisins." Another itch in her left armpit had her groaning as she knew what it signaled. "God, you're gonna do it anyway ... Fuck it." Jolene lifted her arm, picking at the tick with her claws before simply biting it away from her flesh with her almost jagged teeth. This time she chewed slowly, hating herself for enjoying the flavor the horrible creature provided. "Hello, my name is Jolene and I eat parasites. This sucks."

After the sun had set and seemingly all bloodsucking little monsters had been removed from her person, Jolene slid off of her roof, twisting as she dangled from its side and swinging herself through her open doorway effortlessly. "Climbing is easy now. That's good, right? Maybe tomorrow I'll climb some trees? Probably lots of shit to eat up there ... God, this is so far from right." The room still reeked off sweat and her own unique odor, although thankfully the lingering smell of death had almost evaporated. She kicked the door closed with her foot, throwing the latch down and allowing herself to fall onto her mattress. She lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to think of anything other than her recent species change. Stretching her arms, she propped her head on her hairless hands, wincing at the odor emanating from her pits. "Why'd it have to be a fucking ... Argh!" Jolene found herself becoming angry, which for some reason only made her more sleepy.

"Probably call it an early night." She giggled. "No 'Peaky Blinders' or 'Game of Thrones' tonight on my bigass plasma TV. Just fall asleep thinking about climbing trees and eating more raisin-bugs." She stretched her legs and spread her toes, surprised to find herself unconsciously pulling her blanket closer with her almost simian feet. "Maybe Joey'll come back tomorrow with more junk food. I guess I can't put off showing him what happened to me forever. He'll probably run away and I'll never see him again." Somehow she knew he wouldn't, although she couldn't begin to imagine how he would react. It certainly wouldn't be how she'd want him to react: namely, pinning her against the wall and fucking her tight possum-cunt until she was a screaming, sweaty mess. "Not like that would take long," she admitted. "God, are possums like this normally? Just horny all the time, or is it mating season, or am I in heat, or ..."

Her hand slid into her pouch without her noticing it, caressing the thick teats absentmindedly. "Whatever. Just jill yourself off and pass out, you disgusting fucking ..." Jolene suddenly burst into laughter. "'Jill' off. Aren't lady possums called 'jills?'" She couldn't stop herself from giggling like a madwoman as she slid her other hand into her cloaca. It was either that or break into hysterics. "Hello, my name is Jolene, not Jill but I am a jill. Hi."

---

Jolene woke atop her slightly wet mattress, the perspiration of an hour of "exploring" her new body still lingering in the fabric and the humid air of her lair. At first she was slightly alarmed to find herself halfway into becoming a marsupial abomination, but the concern soon waned as her stomach began to grumble. Jolene groaned, wincing at the pleasant sensation of rubbing her clawed, scaly hand over her pouch and the stomach hidden underneath. "I just fed you candy," she whined piteously. "Shut up and let me sleep for another--"

More grumbling caused Jolene to let out an exasperated hiss before pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her long tongue slipped from her lips, lapping at the back of her hand as she unthinkingly began to groom herself, pushing at the dirty off-white fur on her neck and face as if that would somehow make it clean.

It was then that the poor young woman became aware of a rather pressing concern: she had no food. She had food four hours ago, but was bereft of all sustenance until Joey made his next trip. "If he makes his next trip," she whispered, now rubbing her own saliva into her furry shoulders. "He's probably done with me. Who wouldn't be? Why would he want to stick around this sodden hellhole with someone who was certifiable even before she got turned into a fucking ... whatever-I-am." Jolene realized she was directing the questions towards the tick she had pulled out of her armpit at some point. The wiggling, disgusting creature seemed bereft of any sort of answer, and so was promptly disposed of down her gullet. "Raisins," she mumbled to herself, hoping that if she kept thinking of her brunch as something other than anything repulsive maybe her warped mind would eventually be tricked into thinking they were just another normal snack. "They're just raisins. Raisins are nice."

Jolene stumbled as she tried to rise to her feet, her balance thrown off simultaneously by her foot-long tail and her pendulous tits. It was going to take some time getting used to her new bits. "Obvious," she whispered, scratching the back of her head with one paw while unlatching her door with the other. She was immediately surprised to find that it wasn't morning at all, but still night, the full moon peeking past stringy clouds like a pearl being unraveled from soiled rags. Jolene yawned, brushing an errant twig from her left hip as she decided what to do with herself.

"Not sleepy." She shrugged, smiling up at the moon. Jolene found herself in a strangely upbeat mood, despite her life being ripped into a million shredded pieces. "Hello, moon. Are possums nocturnal?" With a grumble of "whatever," she dropped to the muddy earth, her recent attempts at cleaning herself entirely forgotten as she began to rifle through the box of goods Joey had provided. She knew without even looking that she'd find nothing within, just discarded silver plastic wrappers and a few pieces of uncooked Ramen that she had missed. "Still hungry." Jolene sighed and pushed herself upright.

"Okay. Ticks are tasty--even though that sounds absolutely abhorrent to say--but I'm gonna need more than tiny vampire bugs. So what the fuck do possums eat? Grubs? That sounds even worse." Her stomach grumbled in disagreement, and she was only slightly disgusted with herself at wanting to turn over a few logs to see what she could find. "Snake tastes ... about how snake always tastes. Could use more bones to chew on ... like some kind of Tolkien monster, because that's what I am now, thanks." She resisted the urge to curl up into a small ball and indulge in a panic attack. "Hate this hate this hate this. Not a creature, I'm a person, not a creature. What do people eat? Other than Fruit Roll-Ups. People don't eat bugs, that's gross, they eat ..."

An owl chose that moment to depart from a nearby tree, its silent vigil disturbed by the strange complaining rat-thing. "Eggs!" Jolene exclaimed, perhaps a bit too loudly as she heard the rustle of several of her fellow nocturnal creatures scurrying away. "People eat eggs! And I'm a people, not a ..." She forced a lump down her throat. "I'm a people." Sighing resignedly, Jolene pulled her foot-paw from the muck and shambled towards a large, slightly spooky tree. Reaching the base of the leafless monstrosity, she peered up into the thick boughs and forced herself into a smile. "Omelet time! Shame I ate all the cheese, but maybe I can mix it with some poisonous mushrooms and maggots and pretend I'm a human fucking being." Jolene reached for a low branch, testing its weight while digging her claws into the soggy trunk. "Yeppers. Human fucking being."

Climbing was surprisingly--and disturbingly--easy as Jolene scrambled from limb to limb. When there was no limb upon which to scramble, she found her claws automatically digging into the tree's blackened skin, wiggling their way into the healthy wood underneath and giving her enough stability and leverage to reach the next large branch. As she was nearing what she assumed to be the nest of some sort of bird, she was alarmed to find a strong tug from her backside kept her from climbing higher. Confused, Jolene looked over her shoulder, momentarily dizzying herself as her feet-paws dangled in the open air. She was even more confused to find that her tail had seen fit to wrap itself around one branch, slowly releasing its grip as she pulled herself into a more stable perch. "Oooookay, didn't know you could do that. Hello, tail. How come I can't move the damn thing, except when I can move the damn thing?"

Jolene soon found herself dangling upside down, her legs and tail supporting herself as she began picking at the nest with her hands. "Whatever. Omelets." The strange creature squealed in delight at finding herself presented with a trio of small blue eggs. She tried not to think about whether or not she was devouring a still-living creature as she plopped the first into her mouth. "Okay," she mumbled matter-of-factly as she felt bits of broken eggshell sliding down her throat. "Not an animal. Not! So don't eat like an animal. Right? Right." Jolene pitched another egg into her mouth, moaning in contentment as she allowed herself to playfully sway back and forth from where she was dangling. "And don't eat like an animal. Take eggs down. Boil water. Cook eggs. Eat eggs--with a fork, thank-you-very-much. A people-fork. And a plate. And read the newspaper. Or something. Something normal. Check Facebook." She decided to forgo chewing for her last pre-infant victim in favor of swallowing the egg whole. "Something people do. And people don't hang upside down from trees eating eggs like a goddammit I just ate the eggs." Jolene examined her open palms before peering into the now empty nest. "God DAMN it, I ate the eggs!" She cast her beady eyes at the nearby branches, hoping to find another nest. "I ate the eggs like a creature would eat the eggs. Okay. New plan." Jolene dangled upside down now, supporting herself entirely on a tail that seemed slightly longer and thicker than she remembered from just a moment ago. "Plan B. Bravo. Plan Bravo." Jolene pressed on one finger as she swayed back and forth thirty feet above the ground. "Find new nest. Two: don't eat the eggs. Like a creature. Don't eat the eggs like a creature. Most important part of the plan. Three: omelets! The other most important part of the plan." She smiled, her pink lips revealing her almost fishlike teeth. "See? Planning. Still planning, still a human." Jolene smiled as she looked up at the moon. "You're doing it, girl. You're still a--"

Jolene's reverie was interrupted when she suddenly plummeted from the tree and landed dead amidst the uncaring swamp.

---

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as Jolene lay sprawled across her roof, fighting to keep her eyes open after a day spent feasting on eggs, ticks, and things even she didn't want to admit to consuming. Though her skin was mostly covered by white and gray fur, the morning sun still felt wonderful. The urge to pass out atop her roof was great, though she knew she'd be burned alive as the sun began to warm her tin rooftop. Jolene slipped her paw into her pouch for the thirtieth time in the past half hour, lazily tweaking her teats one by one. She propped her head up with her other hand, occasionally gnawing at a flea or two as she sighed in strange contentment. "Not bad. Not. As far as transforming into a disgusting monster goes." She giggled as she slipped a nipple in between each of her scaly fingers. "Horny. Always horny. Is that a ... possum thing? Or rodents--even though I don't think I am a rodent. Like bunnies or mice, fucking all the time? That sounds nice." Jolene chittered to herself, giggling like she was inebriated. Perhaps she was, high or drunk or just driven insane by a host of chemicals running through her mind entirely alien to her previous Homo sapien brain matter.

Reluctantly pulling her hand from her pouch, she gave it a lick before sitting up. "Daytime. Time for sleep. Because that makes sense." She rose to her flat feet, scratching the back of her head with one hand and her cloaca with the other. "Time to curl up, 'jill' myself off, then fall asleep weeping. Can't wait. She extracted her clawed hand from her horizontal slit in order to grasp the edge of the roof with both hands, swinging herself into her open doorway as she was quickly becoming accustomed to doing. "No ladder needed. Ladders are for people. No people here, only us rat-things live--oh Jesus Christ, that is a people."

The man's shovel gave a soft thud as it fell onto the soggy ground. Jolene's feral instincts were giving her three simultaneous and altogether dissimilar commands as he approached, his lazy gait speeding up until he was coming towards her at a fair trot. "Run the fuck away," screamed part of her mind, while another instructed her to attack the intruder. Yet another part oddly offered the unhelp advice that she should simply fall over dead, but she was fairly sure that advice was the least helpful.

Jolene settled on the middle option, leaping towards the attacker just as he was within arms reach. Drool was spilling from her lips like a faucet as she opened her mouth, dozens of jagged teeth preparing to sink into the throat of her assailant. She'd never heard of an opossum defending itself in this manner, although she supposed it must have been an option available to them. One wouldn't get very far up the evolutionary ladder by dying every time a problem was presented. Her claws began to bury into the man's back, her teeth nearly piercing the fleshy part of his throat before she felt his strong arms wrap around her in a ...

"Hug? Why hug?"

"Jolene, holy fuck, you're alive!" The voice belonged to Joey, the only person crazy enough to still be her friend even after all of this insanity. "Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck you're alive. What happened?"

The wretch pushed herself away from the human, slinking away on all fours and hopping up into her still open doorway. "Um ... I think you're gonna have to be more specific. Why aren't you running away or shooting me or-or-or ...?" Jolene turned her head to the side like a dog as Joey climbed to his feet. "Um ... Hello. Why do you have a shovel?"

"I-I came up the path earlier to check on you. You scared the shit out of me yesterday. Didn't know if I'd find you still locked in your house or dead in the bushes or something." Only Joey was kind enough to refer to her tiny hovel as a house, as if she was anything other than a gray-furred sex-mutant. "Instead I find you'd turned into a rat and ... and you were also dead. I thought you must've fallen out of a tree and broken your neck or something and I was gonna give you a proper burial and-and-and ... Jolene, why the fuck are you a rat?"

Jolene shook her head. "Not rat. Possum. See?" She plopped onto her wide, furry ass and used both hands to pull her pouch slightly open as if to demonstrate her newfound marsupial-ness. "Possum." She closed her pouch quickly, suddenly bashful of him seeing what lay inside. "Possum--I was dead?"

The young man nodded and gestured in the direction of where Jolene's first tree-climbing adventure had taken place. "You were dead at the foot of the tree. Figured you must have fallen. Like maybe you'd turned into a rat--a possum, whatever--and fallen." Joey rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. "Wow, I just said that like it's a normal thing that happens to folks. You smelled like you had been dead for a week, even though I talked to you yesterday."

"Yyyyyeah, I think I do that now." Jolene shrugged as if she wasn't concerned with her body's new defense mechanism. "Like I play possum--because I'm a possum, hello--and secrete some kind of ... goo. From my ... um, you probably don't want to know all of this.." She wiped an abundance of drool from her lips, shaking her hand rapidly to try to disconnect the syrupy strings of saliva. "And I drool a lot. Aren't possums supposed to have rabies or something? Or is that raccoons? Shouldve turned into one of those, then I'd at least be cute. Did you bring any Fruit Roll-Ups?"

"Jolene, I brought a fucking shovel. I thought you were dead!"

"Sorry. Sorry-sorry."

"Are you ..." Suddenly Joey's eyes stared into space, as if he was trying to give his brain time to catch up to recent events. "God, I haven't had a cigarette in six years and I really want a cigarette. Other than being a-a possum, are you okay? Did you fall?"

"Guess so." Jolene licked her hand and began grooming the light dusting of fur on her chin. "I guess you must have come up the path to check on me and my possum-brain did the whole play-dead thing. Playing possum. O-playing o-possum. Rather inconsiderate. Bad brain. This kinda sucks."

"How the hell did this happen? Was there like ... a witch or something?"

Jolene blinked. Apparently it was her brain's turn to reboot. "A witch? Joey, I didn't get cursed if that's what you mean."

"Then what happened?" Joey looked around for something to sit on, although the only other objects surrounding them were his unused shovel and an empty cardboard box. "Holy shit," he whispered. "You're actually a possum."

"Joey, I ..." Jolene's lip was suddenly trembling, the events of the recent days finally crashing upon her as the unreal reality began to dawn on her. "Th-There was a giant flying snake cow eating smores and a scientist she was in love with near a burning building and-and I fell on a vial of green goo and got bitten by a snake--a regular snake, not the flying smore kind--and I ate its bones and I-I started to turn and I ate worms and I'm not me and I don't know what's going to happen to-to--"

Joey's hand was on her shoulder before she realized he had stepped closer. "Hey, Joe, hey hey. It's okay. Okay? It's okay." He was close enough now, so close she could smell his scent, Irish Spring mixed with sweat tinged with worry and sympathy. Jolene licked her lips, her eyelids fluttering as she sniffed at his neck. Her pink nose followed the scent, leaning closer to him as she placed her hand on his leg. She closed her eyes, her lips now close to his as her mouth opened ever so slightly.

"Jolene?"

The creature's eyes bolted open as she leaned away. "Shit. Sorry-sorry. I'm not me anymore and-and I'm even weirder than usual. You should just go."

"Hey."

Jolene looked up at him sheepishly, her eyes able to meet his own for only a moment. "Sorry," she repeated. She slowly became aware that he was leaning closer to her now.

"It's okay, you goof. You don't ... gotta apologize."

She slowly drew her eyes upward until she was looking into a face that seemed as nervous as she was. "I ... don't gotta?"

He smiled. "You don't gotta." He hesitated, his eyes capturing her face as if looking for any sign of reluctance. When they found none, he leaned closer and their lips met.

The pair shared the kiss for a few heartbeats that stretched into infinity, the timeless expanse of the lonely swamp giving them all the time they needed. Jolene finally pulled away, ashamed to find that she was giggling. "Not how I always imagined this."

Joey smiled. God, she loved that smile. "You didn't imagine kissing me after you'd turned into a giant marsupi--hey!" His jest was interrupted as Jolene hopped into his arms, her legs wrapping around his back and soon joined by her still growing tail. She clasped his jeans with her prehensile feet, pulling herself as close to his chest as possible as she planted kiss after kiss on his lips, his neck, his forehead, her hands unsure of just where they should hold onto him. The young man spun in place as he lost his balance, but was conscious of his surroundings just enough that he allowed himself to fall into a sitting position in the open doorway. Jolene leaned away, chirping like a bird before she began licking his neck.

"Didn't bite you earlier?" she inquired as she continued lapping at his skin. He tasted even better than ticks, which in her estimation was saying a lot.

Joey shook his head, his arms wrapping around her in a more natural embrace. "Nah, you didn't--wait, did you get smaller?"

The opossum monster shrugged. "Think so. Maybe think so."

"Fuck, are you going to turn all the way?" The concern in his voice was strangely touching.

Jolene simply shook her head. "Nope. Not done changing yet, but it's not gonna be all the way."

"Are you sure? Jolene, how can you be sure?"

Her response was another laugh as she took his hand and placed it over her right breast. "Possums don't have titties, Joey."

Joey swallowed, and Jolene was happy to see him spreading his legs a bit wider. "That's ... Wow, that's not even the strangest sentence I've heard today."

The strange creature chittered as she felt his thumb begin to encircle her more or less human teat. "If you're gonna run away scared or go get a mob to burn my house down or something you should probably go now."

"What? I wasn't exactly planning on doing that. Jesus, you're even harder to follow than before."

She giggled. "I know! I think it suits me, though. This is ... Jesus, Joey I've wanted to do this for a long time."

He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, me too. I was just always too chickenshit to ask you out on a--"

"Date!" Her voice echoed in the confines of the shack. "We should go on a date. After, I mean. First I'm going to fuck your brains out ... Is that okay?"

"No objections."

"Good! I mean, I'm kinda ... somewhat gnarly now." She slid a slick scaly hand down her front, her claws idly fiddling with her pouch opening as if to heighten her odd new form. "You have NO idea how weird this all is for me."

He cleared his throat nervously. "Um ... Do you want to talk about it?" There was an awkward pause shared between the two. "That probably sounded as weird to you as it did to me, huh?"

"I think I have a new bar set for what is considered weird in my life at this point." She nervously glanced behind her. "Sooo ... do you want to come insi--" Jolene's knees suddenly became shaky as she tried to form the last two words. The combination of "come" and "inside" brought a warmth to her deformed sex that had her struggling to maintain her balance.

"Yeah," Joey squeaked in a manner not dissimilar to the noises Jolene seemed to be making more and more lately. "Yeah, that sounds nice."

---

"You're insane," Jolene grumbled as she alternated between tugging at Joey's shirt and trying to drag him onto the mattress with her simian feet. "Why the fuck can I not be still? Completely insane. You are. You. I may be a talking vermin monster but you're the crazy one."

"Duly noted." The young man looked nervously about. It occurred to Jolene that Joey had never actually been inside her meager home. "So, nice, uh ... place you have here?"

"No, it's not. It's not. It's a shack in a swamp. I live like Shrek." She pointed with a stubby clawed finger towards one upper corner of the ceiling. "I used to have a spider that lived there. His name was Lewis. I think he died one day. I cried. Sit down!" Joey started to sit in a corner of the room before Jolene grabbed his trousers with her feet and pulled him closer, forcing him to sit on the dirty mattress. "Here! Dumbass. Sit down here."

Joey played nervously with his thumbs while the creature nuzzled into his neck. Jolene leaned away, sensing something must have been amiss.

His hands were actually trembling.

Jolene's ears drooped slightly, the whiskers she barely remembered she had lowering along with them. "We don't have to do this. I mean ... I'd understand if you didn't want to." She sniffed, wincing at the odor lingering inside her small room. "I'd really understand if you didn't want to."

"No no no!" he stammered. "I want to, I just ... y'know, didn't picture this the hundred of so times I imagined it happening while I was doing double shifts at the shitty Dollar General." Joey's voice was suddenly calmer. Jolene hoped it wasn't because they were talking about something other than him riding her for the remainder of the week.

"You do double shifts to afford junk food for me? That's so sweet. Let's copulate."

"I mean, sort of. I don't really buy them."

"You ... wait, do you steal Fruit Roll-Ups?"

He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, I don't get paid worth a damn and I have to feed your addiction somehow."

"That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard." The creature shook her head even as she plopped down next to him on her dirty mattress. "Joeeeey. Think. About this. About me."

"Come on, what's to think about?" He wrapped a strong arm around her shoulder and for a moment she couldn't remember what they were discussing as her tongue again lapped at his neck, her sharp claws tugging at his shirt.

She had to force herself to lean away. "But, I mean, just ..." She gestured at her strange body. "Just ew. Like, really, really ew."

Another damnably nonchalant shrug. "I think you're cute like this."

"I'm ew!"

"You're not 'ew.'"

She allowed herself to be tugged toward him again. "Flatterer. Am ew."

"You were cute before, and you're cute now."

"Never figured you for a furry."

"What's a furry?"

It was her turn to shrug. "Me. I guess. Joey, I eat bugs now. And worms, and raw eggs, and fucking anything really. Sometimes I smell like roadkill and I drool and holy FUCK you have no idea how many nipples I have in here." She patted her belly.

Joey raised a brow. "You have nipples in your ... pouch-thing?"

"Like a hundred of them!"

There it was again, that god-damn smile. "Can I see?"

Jolene chirped again, pressing her legs together as she fought off the urge to merely tackle him to the mattress and screw him. "How'd you go from the guy that brings me junk food to wanting to be with me, the mutant freak thing?"

"I guess the opportunity never presented itself. Now it has." His hand pressed against her belly, fumbling awkwardly for her opening. "A hundred? Seriously?"

Another squeak while she forced herself to behave. "God, men are all the same. And my cunt, it's ... like, really, really messed up now."

"Really?" Reluctance was creeping back into his voice.

She nodded frantically. "Really. It's not even just a pussy anymore, it's like ... an asshole-pussy."

"Really?" And just like that, the interest had returned. "So, like, I don't even have to convince you to try anal?"

Jolene hissed, wiping a string of drool from her chin and resisted the urge to wipe it across his face. "You're gross. I eat ticks, but you're gross." She pulled away for one second, then wrapped her arms and legs around him in the next. "God, I fucking want you so bad, you gross, gross boy."

His lips met hers again, her tongue fighting its way past his teeth like she was trying to invade his mouth. When he pulled away he was panting. Looking down he saw her feet were tugging at his boots, clumps of mud getting between her toes as they seemed to swell before his eyes. Sinuous webbing was forming between her stubby digits, her large toe oddly bereft of a nail as she became even more primitive.

"Off," she hissed at his footwear. Joey moved to assist her before with a tug and another shout of "Off!" she managed to dislodge both shoes at the same time. The strange creature squealed in happiness as she swiftly pulled both of his socks off as well, tossing one aside while pulling the other closer to her body.

"What exactly are you doing?"

Jolene dangled the sock before him like she was presenting a dog with a treat. "Want your sock back?" She smiled wickedly, her every tooth a jagged thorn, although her canines seemed to outpace them, giving her a vampiric grin. "Want it?"

A furrowed brow was his first response. "Um ... not particularly?"

"Of course you do!" A long tongue slipped past her lips as she pulled her pouch open with one foot and slipped the sock part way inside with the other, leaving most of the garment barely dangling above her white-furred belly. "Come get it." Jagged teeth bit into her bottom lip as she reclined.

"Uh ... I thought the general idea was for me to take my clothes off? Isn't that kinda--"

"Play with my pouch, you dumb asshole!"

"Oh!" Joey gave a stupid smile. "I didn't get ... I mean ... Guess I should've ..."

"Pouch!"

Joey nodded. "Pouch." He leaned towards the creature, wincing slightly as her odor became stronger as he lowered his head to her waist. The stench of decay was thankfully not present, but there was a lingering animal scent this close to her body that he hoped he'd be able to get used to. Joey gently tugged the sock from her crease, slowly probing her opening. "This is okay? Doesn't hurt to tug on it?"

"Nuh-uh. It's like a pocket. I have my own built-in purse." She slid her fingers next to his, encouraging the hesitant young man to continue exploring her strange body. "But just for nipples. And flowers sometimes maybe, that'd be nice. I have a flowery nipple-purse. See?" She took his hand, sliding it inside of her pouch, hissing slightly at his cold fingers.

"Are you okay?"

"Need to warm your hands up next time."

"Sorry." Slowly, Joey spread his fingers wider, and Jolene slid to the mattress as she sighed in pleasure. "Holy shit, you weren't joking. How many do you have?"

"Dunno. You'd better count."

He chuckled as he began to gently rub her multiple teats.

"Fuuuuck."

"How, uh, far does this thing stretch?"

"You're not putting your head in my nipple-purse. Weirdo."

"Okay."

"Why are you still wearing your clothes?"

"That's a pretty good question." Joey leaned away from her belly and began unbuttoning his flannel shirt. Jolene found herself relieved that he had reacted so positively to such a strange part of her transformed anatomy, but frustrated in the methodical way in which he was disrobing.

"God damnit, OFF!" Eighteen claws began tearing at the young man's shirt. The jill let out a screech of annoyance at finding her mate was wearing an undershirt, and so refocused on undoing her belt. She was pleased that, despite her lengthening nails, she was rather easily able to undo his belt with her scaly feet. Parts of the mutation, at least, were surprisingly helpful.

The battle in removing her mate's shirt finally won, Jolene pulled him on top of her, lightly clawing and nipping at him with fangs far longer than she ever knew an opossum had.

"Little rough, don't you think?" he whispered meekly.

"Less talking ..." Another nip. " ... more ..." And another. "... taking clothes off." Joey began wiggling out of his pants, and the marsupial woman aided the process of tugging them away, grasping and pulling at the bottom hems with both her feet-paws.

"Those are ..." His speech kept being interrupted by her attempts to force her tongue down his throat. "... pretty useful, huh?"

"Off!"

Joey laughed as he slipped the rest of his clothing off, aided by his partner in the strangest way he could have imagined. He grasped his member, lining it up for penetration before suddenly coming to a realization he hadn't felt since high school. "Um ... How do I ...?"

"You put it inssshhhide!" she slobbered.

"Yeah, I know that, but I mean ... where is 'inside' now exactly?"

Jolene felt his fingers probing at her strange opening, her second pouch that was becoming far more of a hindrance than she had expected. "Oh. That's, yeah, a great question." Another vampiric smile as she pushed gently down on his shoulders. "Guess you'd better get a closer look to figure it out?" She ran her wet tongue across her lips, lapping at the abundance of drool she could never seem to get away from.

Joey returned her conspiratorial smile with one of his own as he crawled backwards, lowering his head between her furry thighs. "Yeah, that seems like a good course of action." Gazing at her odd genitals, Joey seemed to feel genuine confusion as he attempted to work out the secret mechanics of his mate's nethers. She still had an ass, that was very obvious. But where one would expect to find the usual set of orifices, Joey was instead confronted with another horizontal pouch very similar to the one on her belly. Sliding his fingers between the folds, he marveled at the wetness contained within the flap. He had expected her to be wet, but hadn't expected a discharge of this size, fluid cascading down her crotch like the gate of a dam had been lowered. Joey recoiled at both the scent and the volume of liquid even as Jolene raised her hips off of the mattress, a high pitched scream escaping her mouth as it began to stretch forth into a muzzle. She brought one scaly paw to a breast, the other slipping into her pouch to fondle at the eleven nubs hidden within. Jolene continued to screech, thrashing her head from side to side, even biting at the yellow-brown mattress in an effort to keep herself grounded in this plane of reality. When she finally lowered her hips she was panting, tongue lolling from her fangs as her eyelids began to flicker, her pink lips slowly curling into a stupified grin.

"Jesus," Joey whispered. "Kind've a hair trigger on you, huh?"

"Again." Jolene hissed. "Please and thank you." She pressed on his bare ass with her foot-hands, urging him to continue his exploration. "Again and again and again. What is it?"

"Nothing," Joey poorly lied. "Just kinda ... ripe down here."

"It's an ass-pussy, Joey." Another hiss, this one bordering on annoyance. "It's not going to smell like a tulip. Don't badmouth my ass-pussy."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Again he parted the folds with his fingers, pausing only to ask her, "This is okay?"

A rapid nod as she bit into her bottom lip. "Yes. Very okay."

Joey nodded. "Just wanting to make sure. I'm kinda pulling part of you apart right now." Inside the flap, the young man found plumbing he was more familiar with. There was the absence of labia, the wet pink skin level with her vaginal opening. Feeling more sure of himself, he began to trail a finger across it, flicking her openly exposed clit and smiling as her tail twitched.

"Not fingerssshh. I have fingers. Ten--twenty--of them." She slipped her hand from her pouch, wiggling them as if to demonstrate that she did, indeed, possess fingers. "Don't need fingers right now, need--"

Joey cut her off by running his tongue along her opening, slipping it inside of her tunnel as he continued rubbing his fingers along the inside of her cloaca. He hoped that would feel good to his mate, and judging by the chittering noises coming from her expanding maw he was fairly certain that it did. As he slid his tongue further inside of her, he noticed yet another odd feature. There was a tightness to her vagina, but it also seemed to lead into her at an odd angle. He had little time to ponder the discovery further as the creature wrapped her surprisingly strong thighs around his head and let loose another ear-splitting scream.

When he could pull away, Joey saw his mate playing with breasts that seemed larger than they had a moment ago, her mounds more like volleyballs capped by thick teats being rolled between her webbed, scaly fingers. "Rat titties," she squeaked, and Joey felt fairly sure her mind was no longer firing on all cylinders. Her hands alternated between her breasts, her pouch, and the back of Joey's head, unsure where they should be placed as she was presented with so many options. Slowly her eyes rolled towards her mate and with a girlish giggle she pulled him closer. "C'mere."

Happy he had apparently done a good job, despite the fact that he felt he had done very little, Joey crawled towards her, his lips meeting hers. Joey winced as he cut his tongue a bit on one of her fifty sharp teeth, her skull cracking sickeningly as her forehead and jaw seemed to slide into place. Jolene gave a sorrowful whine, shutting her eyes in pain as her skull finished rearranging itself, slowly opening them as the shifting finally abated.

"That doesn't seem like it felt good."

Jolene shook her head feebly. "Like the worst ice cream headache ever." She raised her paw, turning her arm over and running her other paw through the off-white fur along her face and neck. "I think I'm done. Wait ..." Joey shifted off of her at her urging as she ran her hand across her tail, tugging it with her footpaws as it stopped extending, now almost five feet long, slightly longer than her own height. She tried to move it, but it only seemed to twitch a bit before coming to a rest on the floor. "Okay ... Now I'm done." Tears were suddenly in her eyes as her lip trembled. Joey searched for some sort of words of comfort, but he was entirely unsure what he could say. Instead, he remained silent, simply running his hands affectionately through the fur on her arm and belly until his lover sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. This is me now. I'm done. Hello, my name is Jolene and I'm a possum." The two embraced, taking comfort in the warmth of their bodies, their heartbeats slowly seeming to beat in union. Joey wasn't sure how long they lay there simply drawing comfort from one another, but it was she who finally broke the silence with a whisper in his ears. "I'm done," she repeated. "But you're not."

Even someone as simple as Joey always felt himself to be could take her meaning. Again he lined his still-hard member with her opening, now using both hands to part her folds.

"No, silly," she moaned, pushing him away softly as she turned her body, rolling onto her hands and knees and presenting her odd sex to her mate. "Possums fuck like this." She tried to lift her tail out of the way, squeaking softly as she felt him helping her lift it off her still-human posterior. She grasped his knees with her bottom feet as he slid closer, helping him to pull her lower pouch open.

"Ready?" he whispered.

She nodded, the slight gesture the only encouragement he needed. Jolene moaned as she felt him enter her. She had wanted this for so long, and now it was finally happening. It was certainly not in the way she would've expected or chosen, but she could almost take all the weird changes if it meant feeling his hardness sliding further inside her. "Godddddd," she hissed as he continued to enter her. "How are you this fucking big?"

Joey chuckled. "Thanks, but I think that it's more that ... Jesus, you're so tight!"

"Shut up and bite my tail." She motioned weakly towards her new appendage. "And my neck. And ... fuck it, just bite everything." Jolene moaned as he began to weakly thrust, his cock sliding back and forward in only frustratingly short bursts. "Joey?"

"Yeah, sorry, it's just ..." Joey tried to push further, stopping when she gave a sharp yelp of pain. "Sorry sorry sorry, it's just really, really fucking tight. Like starting-to-hurt tight. Hang on, maybe if I ..." He extracted himself, leaving Jolene simultaneously feeling relieved and yearning in his absence. "I dunno, it's like the angle is off or-or--Jesus!"

Jolene chirped questioningly, looking over her shaggy shoulders as Joey fell back on the bed in alarm. "Joey?"

"What in the fuck is happening to my ... um, baby? You sure that stuff didn't make you contagious or something?"

"I don't know!" She snapped at her mate more harshly than she'd meant to, frustrated at her needs being left unfulfilled. "This is the first time I've been turned into a fucking marsupial! What's the ... oh."

The pair stared at the pink organ standing at attention between Joey's legs. His cock was losing its definitions, stretching longer while turning a sickly shade of grayish pink, its tip losing its flared ridge as it grew to a tapered point. "Holy fuck," he sagely offered before hissing in pain as the top of the organ began to split, the growth in his shaft stopping while the twin prongs of his bifurcated rod slid forward inch after inch. By the time it finished growing to an impressive ten inches, it barely resembled the equipment he had been born with. Stranger still, the young man's testicles seemed to wrap closer to his bizarre new shaft, wrapping themselves around his penis as they enveloped it in a fuzzy shaft until they came to rest on top of it.

"Your balls are upside down," Jolene whispered, her need once again flaring almost painfully as she stared mesmerized at the deformed shaft. "I guess we really are made for each now?"

"W-What does that mean?" Joey was sweating profusely, especially on his broadening chest as the scant hairs there began to thicken. Bringing a hand to his chest, he wiped a finger across the slick surface, bringing it to his nose to sniff at a yellow liquid film that he seemed to be secreting. "Okay, that's really fucking ... I don't even know what that is."

"Joeyyyy," his fellow rodent squeaked as she spread her legs and raised her ass as high as she could, all in an effort to attract her mate. "Inshhhide?"

The young man's hesitation lasted a few seconds longer before he actually pounced onto his mate, the female letting out a sharp chitter of surprised delight as he again tried to line himself up with her cunt. He was still curious about what she meant by being "made for each other now" until, with a gasp like the wind had been knocked out of him, he felt his bifurcated cock slide into her twin canals. Both let out groans of ecstasy, his a gasping squeak, hers a low growl of contentment. He immediately began thrusting in earnest, their bizarre genitals working in strange tandem, billions of years of evolution creating the forms of creatures as absurd as they were endearing. Joey wrapped his progressively more scaly hands around her waist before pawing at her breasts as she clasped her paws over his. With a snap of her jaws she demanded he fulfill her more and more, and like a good mate he was more than happy to comply. The smell inside the small boxlike hovel was now permeating everything around them, the stench of their copulation seeping into the walls, the floors, the mattress. This was their world now, a curse and a blessing that neither would trade for anything in the world.

Jolene screeched as she came, her trembling, squeezing cunts pushing Joey--her joey!--over the edge as she felt his twin bursts join together deeper inside of her womb. His thrusts slowed only long enough to lick affectionately at the back of her neck and to considerately wipe away some of the brownish-yellow secretions dripping from his chest onto the thick gray fur on her back. They shared a kiss, his teeth sharpening as their tongues met. And then she pushed back against him, urging on as with a giggling squeak he resumed his thrusting. The sun would be rising soon and she intended to have him as many times as she could before sleep claimed them, and a hundred times more when it began to set. It would take a few days for him to fully change, just as it had for her. But they'd be together forever, two filthy wild creatures rutting in the dark burrows and shadows of the world, the hidden places sane, clean beings would never enter.

She didn't want to fly away now. She didn't want to run. She never would. She had everything she'd ever want right here.

"I hope you like raisins," she chirped. He chittered in confusion for just a moment before his sharp teeth sank into the scruff of her neck and she laughed in joy.