Going Nuts

A girl working at a TransCo gas station starts craving nuts, then turns into an eager squirrel girl. Mature.

Julie worked at the last gas station this side of the Nevada border. Three hours' drive west to the next pump. Nothing quite like the ‘No Services For 200 Miles’ sign to remind her she was in the literal middle of nowhere. The desert sun glared in through the windows in its daily battle against the rattling AC unit on the roof.

At nineteen, she was insanely ready to get out of town. But if she wanted to move out, she needed money, which meant she needed to work, which meant stuffing the TransCo ballcap on top of her messy hair, pulling on the flannel shirt that protected her from the air vent right behind the cash register, and going to work at the least interesting gas station in the state. It was enough to drive a girl...

Nuts.

The Dragons Womb

An adventurer becomes host to a parasitic worm that turns her into an egg-laying dragon-insect hybrid. Explicit.

Talia walked through the ribcage of a dragon. Ten feet above her, its spine jutted from the rock ceiling. Its ribs were like curled pillars embedded in the rock walls. A tiny stream ran down the middle of the floor, fed by the trickle of water dripping over the ancient bones. With one eye on the floor and another ahead of her, she followed the slow incline of the tunnel. Up. Up to the mines, and then up out of the Dragons' Tomb.

A bag of drake scales rustled inside her pack. She'd plucked them fresh off a centipede drake's hide: her prize for braving the Tomb. Eline had said it wasn't worth the risk, but a suit of scale armor was a precious thing to have. Talia had found enough scales to make gloves for her roguish friend, too.

Her torch cast a flickering light over the damp. It lit her body: her banded steel armor, her short, dark hair, her young but stern face, and the muddy grit smeared on her cheeks. The centipede drake was still fresh in her mind; wet chittering, hundreds of scuttling claws, and a head that bulged with far too many eyes. She had only nearly bested it.

A flicker of movement caught her eye, shifting in the shadow beyond her torch. Her heart quickened. She gripped her mace. Torch low, she advanced step by step.

The Pitch

A pitch for an advertisement for Cougr-Lite cigarettes. They'll bring out the cougar in anyone. Mature.

The cloakroom doors swing shut behind him. It's the most important party of the year, and he's young, strapping, and anxious to the point of shivering. He watches the door as he draws a handkerchief from his pocket and drags it across his brow. His nervous breathing fills the room. He tugs at his tie for air.

"You look like you could use a light."

He didn't think there was anyone in the room. He turns, startled, then freezes as he drinks her in. She's a lioness with a heavy gaze and a black velvet dress. Her hips are ready to tear free from her clothes. The way she's perched on her heels, she's ready to pounce. With her hair tucked behind her ears, long and straight, she wouldn't even spoil her hairdo if she did. Some part of him enjoys how intimidating she is, all curves and confidence and sly experience.

"Oh, that's fine, miss," he says, searching for words while his heart hammers. "I've got my own matches."

Her lips glisten, a patronizing smile. "No, not ‘a light'. A Cougr-Lite." She pushes the cigarette pack into his hands. He looks down at the silhouetted cougar, the fine lettering, the silver trim. He raises his head to speak, but she's already at the door.

"Whenever I need a bit more pride," the lioness says, "I reach for a Cougr-Lite."

With a flick of her tail, she slides her magnificent body out of the cloakroom. It's just him and the box of Cougr-Lites. Beyond the door, there's the buzz of conversation. He needs to be out there, but without his courage, that door might as well be a wall.

The Treasury of the Sphinx

An Egyptologist and her partner discover a vast store of riches, then become its guardians. Mature.

To my esteemed colleagues, Victoria began. It was the third draft of her letter asking for more time and funding, and she still sounded desperate. Cambridge wanted another Tutankhamun, but all that the workers had uncovered was sand and stone.

"Ma'am? One of the boys thinks he may have found something."

William stood under the tent flap, surrounded by the glare of the desert sun. Victoria squinted up at her fellow archaeologist like he was a mirage. Then her blue eyes widened.

Victoria slapped on her hat and stuffed her feet into her boots and was still twisting her hair back into a ponytail as she followed William across the camp.

The young Egyptian man still clung to his pickaxe. He beamed brightly, standing next to the apple-sized hole into some deeper darkness behind the rock. William lifted his lantern to the hole. There was a flash of something beyond, but the hole was too small to see through properly.

In her best Arabic, Victoria asked the young man for the pickaxe.

Your Collar

Your collar's transforming you. Mature.

It's so heavy, so thick, and so large that it's more a belt than a collar. The studded strap is tall enough to reach from the bottom of your ear to your shoulder, and long enough to hang down to your chest. If you could, you'd be able to slip the collar off easily.

But you can't. It's already started.

It's indistinguishable from your own embarrassment at first. Heat on your cheeks, sweat that makes every motion come with a chill, and your stomach curling up into a ball. Your heart beats faster and your breath grows shallow. You can't tell what's your own anxiety and what's the change. You can't wait any longer. You don't want this, but drawing this out forever is even worse.

Your joints lock first. You fall to the ground on your knees, your toes curled back against the ground and your fingers bending inward. You hold onto the collar itself for support and try to straighten your fingers, but the tendons along your arm sear with pain. With a cry of pain, you drop your hand to the floor.

The heat across your body rises. You break out in a fresh sweat, but your chest is dry. Your chest is prickling. You fight with the collar for an easy way to scratch that bristling feeling. It's like a hair brush against your bare skin. You shove your curled fingers under the collar and start scratching, but it barely helps. You're still sweating.

Then a pulse goes through you. It starts between your shoulders and rolls down over your spine, jumping from bone to bone, to the tips of your fingers and toes. The first creak of bone makes you shudder. As your spine is pulled from both ends, it stretches muscle and pulls skin tight. But at the same time, it's a small release. Your joints crack as they settle into their new shape. You curl your back. As each joint pops, the pain of growing bone diffuses into your skin.

Striped Success

A TransCo subsidiary motel chain turns a young woman into a confident business-skunk. Explicit. A young woman staying at a hotel before a business conference turns into a confident, professional skunk-girl. Explicit.

It was the end of her New York-to-Chicago car drive. Tori just wanted to fall asleep, but every hotel near the conference center was booked up tight, and the closest hotel she'd been able to find on short notice was the one-star Come On Inn. Carrying her suit for the conference tomorrow and her backpack, she stepped into her room. It smelled like cigarette smoke. They didn't have any non-smoking; she'd asked.

'Welcome to the Come On Inn, a TransCo subsidiary!' a typo-laden note on the bedside stand began. Tori sat on the edge of the bed and read the note between groggy blinks. It offered her to 'Please make use of the complementary hair freshener.' She looked back at the stand, where a small, blank, white box sat. She popped it open, tore open the plastic wrap, and pulled out the cone-shaped air freshener.

It gave off a pleasantly clean scent, cool and almost floral. It was refreshing after the dry, tarry smell of cigarette smoke. She set the freshener down by the floor AC unit and turned the fan up to high. The fresh smell rolled through the air, starting to permeate the room. While the room freshened itself up, she grabbed the bag with her toothpaste and toothbrush from her pack.

Tori watched herself in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth. She looked worn down and strung out from the car ride. Her face was bleary, eyes baggy, brown hair mussed from being pushed up against the headrest for hours on end. In her casual clothes, she looked even more young and scrawny than usual. And here she was, only a junior associate, about to represent her whole company tomorrow.

Something about her face didn't seem entirely right. Tori squinted into the mirror and pressed a finger to her nose. The skin on the tip was darkened and purple. The whole thing seemed oddly swollen, the tip broader and more bulbous. She sniffed, but didn't smell anything out of place. She tapped on the tip of her nose, then squeezed both fingers around it, trying to see if it was tender, but no. She tried rubbing at the bottom, but the color didn't come off. She twisted her mouth to one side, then the other. It looked kind of like a little snout.