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Letting the Ape-Woman Through

Part one of two

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Harlock 27

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Michelle laid back on her bed, her hand resting on her lower stomach. She knew she was imagining that there was a bump there, because it was still early days in her pregnancy, though “Shelly," that ape-hybrid part of her, had known right from the start. Maybe it was to do with Shelly's more animalistic instincts, even though Shelly, of course, was not fully an animal either.

They didn't honestly know quite what Shelly was, considering that she had just appeared, one day, Michelle blacking out and not remembering the times that she transformed into a hybrid ape-woman, not one or the other, though she was starting to remember more and more of her “ape" moments, which was a bit of a relief. All those black spaces, where there really was “nothing" to her, had frightened her.

But Shelly was not something to be frightened of. With her new partner – well, not so new anymore – Oliver, she had worked out that it had been the vitamin tablet, when interacting with banana or banana flavouring, that had transformed her. They had tried to investigate and experiment but, as her transformations kept coming and coming, even shifting into ape-woman form right in the middle of a supermarket, they had just decided to stop triggering them. Still, Shelly came out increasingly, making herself known, even as Michelle slowly accepted that they were both a part of each other.

“What do you think about all this, Shelly?" Michelle breathed, her brown hair fanned out across the pillow as she idly traced patterns on her stomach. “Hm? What do you think? It's all a bit crazy, isn't it?"

To be pregnant, so randomly, though she hadn't been completely on top of her birth control when she'd been sleeping with Oliver. Regardless of it being a surprise, it was very much a wanted pregnancy and she had already been for a doctor's appointment, even though it was only a month into her pregnancy. He had expressed, with eyebrows raised, surprise over how she had realised that she was pregnant so quickly, especially with how busy Michelle had said she had been with work.

Of course, different women experienced pregnancy differently, though she had known, really, before she had even taken the pregnancy test. Everything was normal on the check-up, which was just fine by her, though it was too early for an ultrasound. That would come later and she would make sure that Oliver was there for that too, for he had been adamant about supporting her through it. They were a team and both she and Shelly, even if they were one person, were head over heels for him. A man that loved them exactly as they were was worth hanging onto, even if she would have gone full ape-woman just to keep him close to her.

Well, it was a good thing that Oliver wanted to be close to her too. Their relationship wasn't standard, but it was as close to normal as they could manage. With them supporting one another, it was at the very least healthy, which was sometimes all that someone could hope for.

But they had plenty to hope for and look forward to, even though things were not progressing as standard for Michelle.

Her hunger, of course, had shot up drastically. She had a vague sense of self when she transformed into Shelly, muscle bulging and hair covering her body thickly, but she had no will to control herself when Shelly wanted to savage the fridge and devour everything that she could find within. She'd had to keep the house even better stocked than usual to make sure there was enough, cheaper food too, to satisfy her ravenous appetite.

That was something that she had expected, however, if only slightly, because it made sense. However, she had not expected that a sense of anxiety and concern over herself, over her baby's wellbeing, as if she was guarding from other things.

She shook her head, trying to go about her daily business, though even the bathroom felt tight and claustrophobic as she stepped into the shower cubicle. The bath had been more appealing to her of late, but she had taken to transforming into Shelly in there too and there was only so much she could do about getting the long, dark, thick Shelly hair out of the drain. The shower had already been modified, after they had both realised that she was going to keep transforming into Shelly, with a more open drain and pipes. She still had to pour special chemicals, bought more often for zoos and veterinary practices down the drain to make sure that the hair disintegrated. As soon as they had the pipework ready for the new back (it was on order), that would be back on the table too.

“Oof…"

Michelle sighed as she stepped into the shower, her hair slicked back and soaked, wet against her skull and coming down to her shoulders. It was a lighter blonde again after her holiday with Oliver, though Shelly's hair was darker, coating her shoulders and arms too in a darker shade still.

The transformation came quickly and, once again, it reminded her of just why she wasn't keen on using the shower cubicle, the changes rippling down through her body from head to toe.

First, her hair thickened up, even while wet, the curls trying to define themselves even with the weight of the water in them. It was untameable, when she was Shelly, but there was no denying how it slipped down into a rich, deep, dark brown shade, a little curling down across her eye, plastered to her face. Michelle gasped, her sense of self wavering as she melded, not for the first time, with Shelly, both Michelle and Shelly at the same time – although she had kept the name “Shelly" for her ape-woman form. In her mind, it was just one small thing that helped differentiate one from the other.

The sensation of hair slicking wetly down her body was different when she was in the shower, not fluffing up at all to trap a layer of air, protectively, down against her skin. She groaned, her head falling back, her jugular prominent, dark hair racing down her arms, covering the back of her neck and her shoulder blades like a mantle. It was thick and soaked swiftly with water, coming down between her breasts too, though her breasts were still bare, despite the hair framing them.

Even though Michelle had no way to control the transformations, not yet, she rather liked how her breasts looked; Oliver had snapped a photo once when she had transformed. That time, however, as always, had ended up with the two of them in raunchy sex, so it had just been the one photo. The thick hair came down between her breasts in a soft dip and point, framing them nicely, though she was still hairier around the nipples, even if it was not thick, ape-woman hair.

More hair layered her back, coming down her spine and spreading out thickly there, covering both the middle of her back and her lower back. Her glutes were treated to a thick layer – though her muscle bulged out too. It was more easily noticed as it pushed and grew, bubbling and rippling as her flesh settled more nicely over the top of it. Few knew that gaining muscle also gave the body more definition when there was fat held in certain parts of the body, though she had been going to the gym and familiar with that little trick for some time already before her very first transformation. Hitting thirty, for Michelle, had certainly been a revelation…

“Mmph… Shelly…like…water…"

She grunted, not quite knowing what she was doing, her mind softening, allowing Shelly to take control. Michelle, however, knew that there was nothing that Shelly would do to hurt her, not as her shoulders bulked up into cannonball-like rounds, thick and dominating, her breasts even swelling a little bigger, despite them still being very perky for their size. Nothing was outside the realm of what would have looked natural and inviting on her ape-woman body, of course, hair covering her hips and the tops of her thighs on the upper side. Not all of her body was hairy, of course, leaving some humanity behind in her hybrid body.

Her stomach, however, was not flat anymore, no, not with the abdominals and obliques showing through in smooth lines. There was a greater softness there that was not like when she gorged herself on every food item in the house that she could find, even though she was only, roughly, one month pregnant.

“Unff… Yes… Mmmph…"

Shelly groaned, leaning back against the wall of the shower, though her elbow came up against the side, rattling it. She grunted, eyeing it as if it had done something to offend her as she widened her stance, the muscle in her thighs smoothing down to a narrower point above her knee, squatting a little as her centre of balance changed. It was right as it was, of course, her calves throbbing while they pulsed up to their correct size, her toes thick and covered with a good layer of bristling hair.

As Shelly, she groaned, turning in the shower – but it was too small! The ape-woman groaned, frustration boiling through, though it was not as if she couldn't do anything about it, of course. Even if the ape-woman's attitude was sharper and more abrupt than what she would have done as Michelle, of course, slamming the cubicle door open as steam wafted out and she bellowed.

“Unff… Too…small!"

Frustration snarled through her – and yet she was much shorter-tempered than she had been before. She slammed back against the walls, jolting them with her elbow and knocking one straight off its tracks. Her hand was down between her thighs, grunting, shifting, prodding and probing – and yet Shelly didn't quite seem able to please herself as she had done before.

Which wasn't good at all for the ape-woman, no, not in any way. She grunted and hopped and slipped on the bottom of the shower, as Michelle had forgotten to put a mat down to offer some grip, though it was too late for her to remedy that issue. Truthfully, Shelly was more than capable of finding the sticky-bottomed shower mat to pop down, but it was actually doing it that was a problem.

When the shower was too small for her, she pushed back, shoving the second wall of the cubicle off, where it crashed into the wall and slid down to the sink with a resounding bang that echoed through the still small confines of the bathroom. Shelly moaned and shot it a glare, though, at the very least, she had some space in which to please herself in the shower after that, leaning back heavily against the exterior wall and masturbating.

“Unff… Ohhhh…"

Now that the space issue was taken care of, the ape-woman focused solely on relieving her frustrations. Yes, yes, that was much better, very much better, her fingers more easily finding her folds and sliding into herself, shoving two straight up into her pussy and curling them into her G-spot.

“Mmph… Shelly…horny…" She groaned, eyelids fluttering, her eyes half-closed. “Need…this…"

She knew what she craved, how it bundled and twisted in the pit of her stomach, though it was fortunate that the nuances of her body understood that too, masturbating furiously. Her fingers drove into her pussy as she rubbed her clit with her thumb, working her hand back and forth so much that her thumb was not in contact the whole time. She just wasn't able to consider the finer details like that, not when lust and desire were snapping at her, irritable even while she was building to climax.

And orgasm, when it came, did not soothe her shortness and sharpness of temper as much as either Michelle or Shelly, together, would have liked, a burning high of a climax that soaked her hand in her juices. It was all swiftly washed away, of course, as if it had never been, with the momentary wash of ecstasy and relief softening too swiftly. It left her blinking at the shower room with a strange look in her eyes, glassy and faraway, the mirror on the wall tilted askew.

Shelly didn't know why the mirror was like that, but Michelle understood that something had happened when she had changed. When she reverted to Shelly, having left the shower running and gone into her bedroom, frustration still heaved inside her, like a storm that her body was doing its best to contain. And yet that was not the sort of thing at all that a body was designed to cover, even if she was doing as well as she could.

She gulped and blinked, looking around her in the bedroom, pulling her bare hands over the thick, dark layer of hair that had erupted from her body when she had reverted to Shelly. The reversion transformations, back to human form, were not ones that had stuck with her in the slightest and, still, she only had impressions and some memories of what happened when Shelly was in control. They worked more as a team than they had before, but it was not an infallible arrangement.

Michelle wasn't sure at all that it had ever been one.

“What the heck?"

She murmured softly, picking up a chunk of hair and rubbing it between her fingers, her body naked – though that in itself was not all that unusual. She had gotten used to coming back to herself again, usually after Shelly crashed out asleep, and wondering what was around her, what had happened, where her clothes were. That time, at least, she did remember going into the shower.

Her hand rested protectively on her stomach as she padded, barefoot, back to the shower room, her eyes widening as she took in the wreckage, everything that didn't feel intentional and yet was born from the simmering worry and fret in her stomach, winding its way around the core of her being. The shower was still on, steam wafting and filling up the room on too high of a setting, and Michelle stepped into the cubicle without thinking, turning the water off.

And then her lips parted and something tightened in the line of her jaw, as if her muscles were all contracting at once in a sudden flashing of roaring adrenalin and urgency.

“Slippery!" She bellowed. “No!"

Squeaking, for she did not have the breath in her lungs for another word to break free, she startled back out of the cubicle, the water sputtering to a stop, for she had just about managed to switch it off. Yet how had that snarl even come from her own lips? She had not intended to say anything, no, not at all. And yet she had slid a bit on the floor of the shower cubicle, the lightly raised sections, which were made from smooth plastic, not enough on their own to give her the grip that she'd needed.

Retreating to the bedroom again and making a mental note to ask Oliver to help her set the bathroom to rights, for it did look somewhat fixable, she tried to relax for the rest of the afternoon she had off. It was the best she could do, in that moment and, of course, for the baby she was carrying.

One thought, however, lingered in her mind.

Had Shelly been trying to protect her…them?

It wasn't something that she could just figure out in an evening and neither could Oliver, even though they were both sure that it had something to do with the pregnancy. Still, she could still mostly go about her daily life and making things around the house just a bit safer did seem to help a little. The things deemed risks for her and the baby were taken care of, even if Michelle had to take the stairs carefully to avoid the rumblings of Shelly from once again rising in the back of her mind.

“I don't mind letting you out," Michelle said softly, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to let the knots and twists of nerves in her body settle, Shelly threatening to take over. “But…we've still got to live. There are always going to be stairs and stuff, things that we have to get around."

She dressed comfortably in a pair of jeans with a generous stretch at the waist (thank god for elasticised waistbands) and a long, flowing shirt with poppies on it, before heading down to the bank. It was a relief just to be out and Michelle leaned into the movement a little more, striding out as she walked down the street, even though it was a bit of a walk for her. It was fortunate, of course, that her bank was open for some slightly later hours on a Wednesday evening, which meant that she didn't have to rush there straight from the lab, where she was still working on safe projects, just to get her business done.

Maybe I should add another gym workout in every week, she reflected, musing over just how relieved and good she felt simply to be walking, using her body, her trainers smoothing over the tarmacked pavement with every step. It might help with feeling so stressed. It's not as if I can do my usual loads and workouts, of course, with who I'm carrying.

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And that was something that Michelle was more than happy to give up, for it would only be for a time. She would never stop looking after her health, no, but she had swapped her workouts also to safer ones, even though, before she had gotten the positive pregnancy test, she had found an aptitude for swinging across the bars of the gym, the bars fitted between racks to test upper body strength. That she looked just like a confident, powerful ape flying between the bars and swapping her grip was not lost on Michelle. It was that strength and ease that she sought to emulate.

She wanted to bring the best parts of Shelly into the life that she had with Michelle as much as she wondered if the best parts of Michelle could be brought into her transformations, when Shelly “took the wheel," as she had taken to thinking of the shift. But that was something a little deeper that could only come out when the transformations came and, undoubtedly, as time passed too. As always, Michelle would be a scientist at heart.

The bank was unusually busy that day and she sighed as she waited in line, wishing that she could just skip to the front. She wasn't usually all that impatient and yet she knew that there were other things that she would much rather be doing. Walking was definitely much better than standing there, hopping and shifting her weight from foot to foot, not knowing what to do with herself. Even the soft fabric of her long shirt, with a couple of buttons for decoration between the neckline and the chest, seemed too annoying them, itching and catching at her skin in all the wrong places. Since when had it even been that tight under her arms?

The air in there was hot and sticky and she grumbled, red in the face and fanning herself with her hand. It didn't do much good but made her feel like she was, at the very least, doing something, even if it was not true. Her nerves rumbled, frazzled and frayed, a muscle jumping at the corner of her eye.

“Everyone get down on the ground! Get down on the ground!"

The man roared and time seemed to slow down as she whipped around, fear clawing at her, chilling, as if she'd gulped down an entire glass of ice-cold water all at once and the whole thing had dropped straight into her stomach. It no longer even felt as if her feet were connected with the ground anymore, everything floaty, shifting, turning slowly, so very slowly, adrenaline gripping her.

Yet it was that adrenaline that Michelle so sorely needed as she took in, in a split-second, the robbers lunging into the bank, firearms levelled and ready, though she could not have said what guns they were. She didn't need to, not as the masked men with thick balaclavas, despite the heat, pulled over their faces charged through the bank, swinging guns about and shouting.

It sounded like she was hearing them from a very long way away, one hand on her stomach, yet there was nothing Michelle could have possibly done about what happened next.

As the robbers herded up people, some going for the bank tellers, she shifted. It happened in slow-motion, at least for her, her flesh bubbling and rippling as muscle bulked out – muscle and power that she was very much familiar with by that point. It was her and not her, both at the same time, grunting thickly in the back of her throat as a bellowing roar ripped from her throat.

“No!"

Shelly burst free, her muscles popping out, from her shoulders down to her triceps and biceps, her forearms too. Her breasts perked up a little more, purely from the muscle layering across her pectoral muscles, which helped them sit on her body a little differently, her abdominal muscles not defined even though the strength in them made her stand up a little straighter and taller still. Her back thickened up, the sheer volume of muscle she packed on bursting her body straight through her blouse, popping the seams over the shoulders and under the arms, though only the right side ripped down. It meant, even though Michelle was not at all worried about such things, that her modesty was at least mostly maintained.

Her jeans did not fair quite as well, her stomach filling out softly with a little more plumpness there, though no one, whether she was woman or ape-woman, would have realised that she was pregnant yet. There was no one there, not in the slightest, who had eyes on her in that moment, no one who cared who she was or what she was doing, not even as a savage, throaty growl tore itself from her lips like a wild animal breaking free.

“Rrrrraaaaaaagggghhhh!"

Time slowed, panting, rasping, Shelly's hands clenching. Her feet braced, toes curling down and scrunching into her shoes, though she had to hold on, the bursting bulge of her transformation pulling at her form taking every ounce of her energy and strength just to hold through it, so swiftly. Her thighs thickened up and her jeans tightened, pulling in around her buttocks, though her glutes rounded out too with functional muscle.

Still, it was the hair spreading over her body, thick and wild and untamed, that did it for her jeans, bulking up around her hips and across the top side of her thighs to such a point that the jeans swelled out with lumps from it. The seams popped, one stitch after the other, bursting free down her hips and thighs and between the legs.

Thankfully for her, as her feet swelled and thickened up, all to better support her ape-woman body, within her trainers, no one there was at all interested in looking between her legs. And it was not as if anyone would have recognised Michelle amongst the chaos anyway, not as her hair tangled darkly around her face, curling and bobbing with the merest sway or tilt of her head.

The robbers turned to her, the jaws of some with holes in the masks over the mouth agape, slack as if they simply could not believe what they were seeing.

“What the fuck is that?"

Shelly roared, shaking off the shreds of her transformation, feeling the weight of her ape-woman form settle over her, her heart pounding ravenously, blood pumping. Those puny humans dared threaten her and her baby? She roared, beating on her chest briefly in a more gorilla-like action than anything she had ever performed before. She was not any kind of ape in particular in her ape-woman hybrid form, though she drew from what behaviours she needed to get what she wanted.

And that was to send the robbers scurrying away like the filthy, squirming little ants they were!

She roared, the pregnancy hormones, stress and fear getting the better of her. Michelle could have tried to tell Shelly that there was likely no real danger to them, that the robbers were after the money and didn't really have any interest in shooting anyone…but even she didn't believe that. There was an inherent fear there and strain over the situation, her heart pounding much harder than it should have been to send blood around her body, to all her organs, even as her body prioritised her vital organs.

Michelle or Shelly… Well, perhaps it did not matter what name she used anymore?

Shelly bellowed, swelling further, bigger and more powerful than she had ever been before. She lunged towards the nearest robber even as he jolted the gun up into her face – but she'd swatted it away in the next breath, turning dry his attempt at defending herself. As her muscle grew further, bulging through her shirt as her shoulders rounded out bigger than they had ever been before, she split her shirt further, leaving it hanging, loosely, from her shoulders, flapping around her chest and stomach.

“Rrrrrraaaaaawwwwwwrrrrr!"

She grabbed the robber, his gun falling aside, launching him across the room into a glass wall. She didn't care for the glass shattering down like rain, like the riches that the robbers had sought, only charging straight at her next target, a bestial aura surrounding her. Her hair thickened up, bristling down her back, rougher and coarser than it had been before – yet her feral transformation was not supposed to be anything that it had been.

No… That version of Shelly was defending her young, caring for her own. Her fingers curled into claws, her nails shooting out to form the hooks, and she roared as she smashed through a desk, not caring for how it flung wide – though there was a small part of her, the influence of Michelle still lingering faintly and decisively in the back of her mind, that made sure she didn't harm the innocent. They were as innocent as the babe in her womb and didn't deserve the harm of those that sought ill-intent on them and nothing else.

Her thighs bulked out more like tree-trunks than they had ever been before, her underwear just about containing her even though her poor jeans, which she had liked rather a lot, thank you, ripped straight through the whole crotch and done the thighs and buttocks. They clung tenaciously to her calves, as if that was the part of her body that required the most protection, which made it a little more difficult for her to move. At least, that was, until Shelly merely ripped through them, shredding the denim with her fingers.

She didn't realise, not right away, that her fingernails were much sharper than usual. Then again, not all that much was normal for Shelly, or Michelle, anymore.

Everything was a blur, teeth sharpened, claws flashing, grabbing and throwing, even cutting up some of the robbers, though she was sure she held back just enough to stop herself from deeply harming them. No, that wasn't in Michelle's nature and, truly, it wasn't in Shelly's nature either. Not even as she hunkered down, walking on all fours with the backs of her knuckles on the ground, whooping and bellowing as she leapt up the wall, hanging off a shelf that held plaques of excellence and accreditations that the bank had accumulated.

“Aaaahhhhhooooooo!"

She howled, dropping heavily, bringing both fists into the stomach of a robber, though not even his thick clothing was enough to protect him. And neither did either Shelly or Michelle want to stop herself, not as she beat them back, bruises rising, some even crying out for mercy. And yet could there even be any sense of mercy there at all, up to the limits of what Shelly was willing to do, when they had not cared one bit about the people within the bank that they were set on traumatising?

No… No, she had no reason to hold back, not as the bank tellers hid under desks and important persons, those working in less customer-facing financial roles, hid in the offices, until the wail of sirens hammered the air. Her head jerked up, though did not come with conscious understanding of the sirens, her whole body still throbbing and aching with rage, huffing and grunting and panting, her lips pulled back from the suddenly sharp points of her teeth with rage.

“Unff… Hurff… Unff…"

The robbers were silenced, groaning and whimpering either in that one big heap on the floor, away from everyone else, or scattered further back, where she had hurled them in her rage. A couple might have well had broken bones, though they would survive. Even in Shelly's rage, she had never, not even for a moment, intended to kill them.

“Aaaaawwwwwrrrraaaawwwwrrrrr!"

Again, she bellowed – and made good her exit. Leaping straight through the glass window of the bank, reinforced, of course, and higher than any human would have been able to jump, she sailed through the air, shattered glass joining her in her flight. Shelly wasn't concerned about that, however, not at all, running flat out the very moment that she landed, hunkered down and running on her knuckles, the skin there rougher and tougher than it had been at any time when she had transformed into Shelly before.

The anger, red hot and blistering, melted somewhat, chilling to a curl and a lick of fear that sent tendrils of hyper alertness into her mind. Something had been wrong! The robbers had come! They had threatened her – her and her baby!

And yet even Shelly, in such a state, knew that what had happened was not like anything that had come before, her muscles contracting with fear even as she willed her body to keep going. She just had to keep going, to keep running, lumbering at great speeds into alleyways and avoiding people – threats! – climbing up with ease onto rooftops just to get home more quickly.

Back to home. Back to safety. Back to Oliver.

Once she was back home, everything would be okay. So, she only had to keep going.

Adrenaline pumped as her new muscles bunched and stretched, leaping between rooftops, ignorant of the damage she caused, her heavy feet crunching into concrete as if it was nothing at all. The impact damage that she left behind would later be put down to structural faults in buildings, or natural causes, though no one would ever suspect that an ape-woman had charged over the roofs and scaled brick walls in steep alleyways. It was not exactly the kind of conclusion that anyone, without due cause, would jump to, in all fairness.

She managed to control herself enough, just about, to drop into her back garden, a wave of relief washing over her as she tucked herself back into her den, back into safety. The back door was unlocked but she wasn't quite able to stop the door from slamming and bouncing off the door as she charged inside. It was minor damage, in all fairness, where Shelly was concerned and it really was not anything that she was going to worry all that much about.

“Unff… Rrrrrrggghhhh?"

Shelly trembled, hunkering down, though that didn't seem to make her body any smaller. Was she bigger than usual? There was definitely thicker hair covering her, the shreds of her jeans hanging from her waist and hips, a light breeze flitting over her crotch. She still seemed to be covered up down there, but her shirt flapped and her bra had pinged free at some point, merely dangling from her shoulders and only somewhat covering her breasts.

Shelly shook herself, digging her fingers down – and then stopping when she took note, fully, of the black, sharp claws. That wasn't right. That wasn't right at all.

She concentrated. Words.

“Oll… Oll… Ol…iv…er?"

She grunted, raising her voice, though his name still rumbled out in a growl.

“Oliver?"

It didn't sound like her voice, not at all, much deeper than it had been before, as either Shelly or Michelle. It sounded like a scared voice, the voice of an animal that had been trapped and cornered, caged up and raring to get out.

“Michelle? Shelly?"

He used both of her names and she picked up her head a little, eyes shining with tears. It was him! He was there! Oliver was there!

“Michelle? Oh…hell…"

He ran to her, though fluttered his hands for a moment before resting them on her, standing slightly to the side as if he was trying to stay out of the way of something. Oliver still drew her as much into his arms as he could, however, and she leaned into that touch, puffing, panting and rasping as every breath dragged its way through her lungs and windpipe. Nothing felt easy, but it was better, just a little, when Oliver was there with her.

Sometimes, that was enough.

“It's okay, Shelly, it's okay… Everything's going to be okay…"

Slowly but surely, everything eased. The muscles on her body softened and the hair lightened, puffing off her body as the teeth retracted too, becoming more like the Shelly that they both knew and had come to love too. Yet the de-transformation did not stop there, not as her clothes hung more loosely on her, the seams ripped without anything to be fit around anymore, her muzzles smoothing down to Michelle's usual fit form, the hair falling away in great, dark swathes, pooling on the floor around her feet.

Somehow, she was down on her knees, huddling there, her chest heaving, wracked with sobs, Oliver closing in to wrap his arms even more tightly around her. He comforted her and soothed her, though neither of them honestly knew just how much time passed, all as he held her and helped her come back to herself, her jaw aching furiously from the presence of those extra teeth. In all honesty, they had felt as if they were too large for her mouth anyway and she was better able to lick her lips when they had reverted to human teeth, the canines a much better size again.

But Michelle, as Shelly retreated, exhausted, was not herself still. She blinked, though didn't feel present in her own reality, as if something rooted her in the ground. Something was wrong there, something was different – and there didn't at all feel like anything she could do about it.

Dimly, she was aware, without having the energy with which to raise her hand, that her hair was matted and tangled. Yet she didn't have the strength to look after herself, not even as Oliver, a shape that she recognised even through the tears still blurring her vision, guided her upstairs to the bathroom. She was so shaky on her own two feet that he had to take a lot of her weight as he helped her up the stairs, aiding her even in the mere notion of lifting her foot from one step to the next, higher and higher.

“Come on now, everything's okay, let's get you cleaned up and to bed. Everything's okay, sweetie, I promise."

And she believed him, even as he helped her into the (fixed) bathtub and washed her hair for her, even though Michelle had become passive in her own body. There was no one in charge there, no one in control, just allowing Oliver to help. That was everything that she needed.

Part one of two.