Finding a New Self, Chapter 15: Axolotl
#16 of Finding A New Self
Famir tries on the axolotl-woman body, gets all dressed up, and surprises Renna at work. She approves. Vigorously.
I rented the strange body after dinner the evening of the 4th, as having it on rest-day would let me avoid having to bring it in to work. Instead of bringing a lock and key, I brought the grocery cart to coil myself up on. I also recalled how scantily dressed this body was, and borrowed some of Renna's clothing, including her suncloak.
The fox lady greeted me again and arranged the transfer. The process was completely different from the refitters in Fazo - I coiled up in a bag in the cart, and they put a thin collar on, and I seemed to be entirely transferred instantly, with no sensation of my own body remaining. They assured me, however, that at first I was based in my own body; over a period of several hours, I would be based more and more in the other.
Left alone, I got dressed. The previous time, when I'd been trying out this body, I hadn't really experienced it very much. Now, using it, pulling cloth across it... I felt really strange. Part of that was the body - I no longer could feel my own, which was different from before, when I'd been able to largely ignore it if I wanted. Part of that was just getting dressed as a woman. And part of it was that these were really the wrong clothes. They fit quite well, but they didn't work. I had brought a green embroidered dress; it clashed with my peach skin. White or off-white should do better... or a red, perhaps? Maybe a light blue, or lavender. Not green, anyway. That had mainly worked to set off Renna's long black hair. The pink frond things just clashed against it.
I didn't have anything else to wear, so I pulled on the sun-cloak, and set out for home.
The cart was very heavy, and I was not particularly strong, so I was struggling. A young naga man in human form came up alongside and pulled it up ahead. I was perplexed for a moment, but realized I was a woman in need.
Once we were up to fifth terrace, I stopped. "Thanks a lot."
"No, thank you!" He bowed, and grabbed my ass.
I was so shocked it took me a moment to grasp what had just happened - he had already turned to go when I grabbed his hand. I couldn't even think of words to say, but my snarl got it across.
He freed his arm with an idle twist and spat out, "See if you get help next time, bitch." He slouched off, back down the slope.
I was stunned. I glanced around to see if anyone else had seen. Witnesses, to take my side, or... suddenly, I felt I should be moving on.
A few minutes later, I pulled up to the apartment. I wasn't looking forward to dragging myself up the steps, but fortunately Aresh was home. She came down to my knock, dressed up in some of Renna's nicest clothes - that didn't fit her in her current body. Aresh took a glance at me through the window, and asked, "Who is it?"
"Famir. How's your eyesight?"
She opened the door and said, "Fine - why do you... Oh, right. I guess we should have some way to be sure who you really are."
We hauled my inert snake form up the steps and gently dumped it next to my bed. I then asked, "So, what's the occasion?"
"Oh... meeting that doctor again. Renna wanted to give me some advantages." She gestured to the borrowed clothing she wore. "It doesn't quite fit, but I think it works better overall."
"Good luck with that! Speaking of working better... do you think this matches?" I doffed the suncloak and turned around.
"Hmm. Maybe... I saw one that would go well on you..." We went to Renna's clothes, and she found a red sari in a box. "Isn't this such an exotic design?"
"Yes... It was a gift from her sister-in-law, Salma, who's an originist. This is in the style worn by the first people of this land at the creation."
"Wow. Try it on!"
"Well, that's the problem, isn't it? I'm not sure how it goes."
I hesitated a little before stripping down to get re-dressed - but Aresh was a woman, and this body I was in was female, so I went ahead. We tried wrapping every which way. Each method we tried was worse than the last one. After half an hour, we finally gave up.
I sighed. "It's really not clear how to use this, is it?"
She unwrapped me, carefully folded the sari up, and prepared to put it back in its box - but - "Hey." she put the sari down, plucked a letter out of the box. "Dear Renna... blah blah... since you don't know, here are detailed instructions on how to put on a sari. Well. That would have been helpful."
It still took us fifteen minutes, but this time, it worked.
"And a dot on the middle of the forehead, too." I wasn't sure where it came from, but Aresh got that on while I was admiring myself. This was beautiful, if a bit revealing.
The bell rang, and Aresh jumped up. "Oh my, I'm late!" She jumped up, and I waddled after her as best I could in the restrictive garment.
"Have a nice night!" I called after her as she took the entire flight of stairs in one leap - so very ferretish - and called "You too!"
Now that I was dressed, of course, I still had nowhere to go. Renna was at work. But... I could go anyway, just a little. I prepared a lunch/midnight snack for Renna - bread, mango, a melon, and a medium-hot pepper paste (she loved sweet-hot mixes). I put it in a basket, threw on her suncloak over the sari (I felt a bit self-conscious about the head-fronds, still), and, forgetting my own body altogether (which turned out to be okay, but I really should have remembered), stepped out the door.
The streets were empty, but I felt like everyone was watching. Partly over being a woman, partly over my uncertain animal form. The suncloak felt stifling, so I pulled it off and stuffed it in the basket. I set out a bit more confidently. But...
I suddenly realized I wasn't walking right. I stopped, closed my eyes, and tried again. I made it two steps before analyzing it kept me from being able to keep on doing it. But after a few more seconds of seeming paralysis, I got going. it didn't help that it felt like if I went too fast, the sari would fall apart and I'd be standing naked in the street. We had secured it, but the sensation was persistent.
It was a good thing no one had been watching, after all, just from the stopping and starting.
The telegraphy office was dead as an empty coffin. Mezo was in front again, playing with his wish-thingy. When he saw me, he dismissed it hurriedly and came to the door. "Good evening. How can I help you, miss?" He was certainly looking me over carefully!
"Oh, I have something for Renna."
He shrugged. "Renna! Something for you!"
I walked back as she came out. She stopped dead in her tracks. "Is it... you? Oh... wow. Seriously?"
I didn't really feel like Mezo knowing just who I was, so I replied, "Of course" in Weldi. It wasn't that he couldn't understand, of course, but that I would sound foreign.
Renna glanced to Mezo, then to me. "Come on." I followed her to the switching room, then the suspension room, the transmission room, and finally out the back, to the walkway along the edge of the terrace.
She reached up and ran a finger along my face, examining closely, her eyes easily picking up the dim light, while I could barely make out her mask-fur. She took my hand and pulled to the side - I turned; she reached high, raising our hands above my head, and I slowly turned all the way around.
"You're" - she paused to kiss my hand - "Not sure how to say this."
"Worthy of being you? This is the first one I've seen that stands up to who you used to be."
She looked down at herself. "Well, I guess so, but..." She looked up again, ran her hand up my arm, gently teased it under my fronds to my neck, and pulled me down for a long kiss. Her ringed tail curled around my left ankle, and rubbed up and down. Her right hand reached up my left arm, under the last drape of the sari, and to the side of my chest. "Famir... this is supposed to be worn with a blouse."
"Oh." We had been wondering how it was supposed to enclose my breasts reliably.
"Didn't you ever look at Salma? Well. As long as you're careful, you'll be okay, I guess. And... do you have a skirt on?"
"I'm supposed to have a skirt on?"
"Yes - what did you tuck it into?"
"The instructions didn't mention tucking into a skirt, just itself. We used a pin to be on the safe side."
"At that rate..." she reached down my bare side, across the front to find the pin... and down. She encountered skin. "... you're crazy."
"You mean it could fall apart? As I said, we used a pin. It's secure."
Her hand remained in place. I barely breathed as it shifted a bit. "... Too secure. You're such concentrated sexiness that the goat I once was probably just came and is wondering why."
She kissed me again, then my neck, and worked her kisses down the edge of the drape to my hip, and skipped to my knee.
I wasn't really quite ready, but I allowed her to raise my leg anyway - I leaned on the cool clean stone barrier, too surprised and overwhelmed to do anything else as she kissed her way back up, on the inside.
Now, the sari had been up to that point quite cool, but having a hot furry woman between my legs, it began getting uncomfortably hot. I opened up as wide as the wrap permitted (with Renna hiking it up, that was considerably more than it had been with it down), but as she got closer to her destination she slowed - agonizingly drawing it out. But only so long.
She kissed the highest point of my inner thigh, and nuzzled - the right half of her mouth pressing into my vulva. Simply being aware of it was such a novel sensation it was collossally ticklish and unnerving, a bit like having something suddenly moving around between my heart and my lungs. But, at the same time, I couldn't react, except to push her away, and there was no way I was doing that - so I held still and pursed my lips.
I let the lunch basket hit the ground.
She licked me in the middle. I reflexively clamped my legs - just a moment - but she noticed. "Too much?"
I just panted. She moved a little aside, and tongue-danced around the labia. It was still entirely novel, but less overwhelmingly so. Soon, she intensified, pressing with her tongue and sucking. I gripped the rim of the barrier, and let myself lie down along it. Renna tracked the roll of my hip, and took full advantage of the improved access as I raised a leg fully, the sari all bunched up above my hips.
I couldn't even understand what I was feeling in moments, as waves of energy rolled and reflected and, finally, crashed. I'm no screamer, but the bucking and breathing, and then change in breathing, conveyed enough - she slowed, and stopped. She pulled the sari down, came back up, and kissed me. She smelled... horrible. "Like it?"
"Uh, actually, no."
"Really? That's... huh." She took my hand and sat alongside. "So. I hope I didn't convince you to stay a woman forever."
"Nearly."
"That would be a shame. We can swap sometimes."
"Good. Very. Good."
She reached down and took the basket. "Ah. Thanks for the thought. I did bring something, but this is better."
"Oh? What did you have?"
She laughed. "Same thing, actually, but you brought this one."
I was surprised at my not wanting to go to sleep. I got up and sat, and we kissed from time to time as she ate and occasionally fed me a bit despite my protests that I wasn't hungry.