Original Fic
Sep. 16th, 2004 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamjarI realised that I hadn't actually posted this to lj. The first complete original story I've finished since-- GCSEs, maybe? Which kind of shows, but eh.
Comments, suggestions and criticisms would be much appreciated.
Ben served the customers at his new job in the part bakery, part patisserie, part tea room and tried to avoid his boss. It wasn't a great job, but it wasn't a bad one either, and he needed the money right now. Better still, one of the others had said he could bunk at her place for a couple of weeks, until he got enough money to pay the deposit on a place of his own. The money wasn't great, but food wouldn't be a problem, so long as he didn't mind day-old bread and Tarte Normandie. Frankly, it was a lot better than the Instant Ramen and can o'spam that had been making up his dinners lately.
But his boss... It wasn't so much a case of keeping his temper so he could keep his job, as keeping his temper so he could keep from killing her.
Nan, which could have been her last name, her first or her only for all he knew, had mid-brown skin, though he could see regular darker shapes at the back and disappearing under her hairline, like a tattoo. Her eyes were barely visible behind the thickest lenses Ben had ever seen, outside of the geek-revenge movie genre. She was taller than she looked, but the stocky build and curves made her seem shorter. Her hair spread out like a dark brown halo, giving her a good few inches more height. It was held down at the front by a red scarf that matched the dress that swished when she moved dancer-like, all boneless grace and smooth, eye-catching twists of her hips and torso. There was something about the way she moved, winding through the obstacles for tables and customers like an adder through a hayfield, that made her attractive, despite not being at her best. Ben had more sisters than could possibly be healthy, and had to bite down the urge to pass on second-hand information about good cleansers and moisturisers and face masks to get rid of the stressed look of her skin. She was obviously tired and frazzled, and took it out on staff and customers, but mostly on Ben.
It didn't help that every time she said something, he got flashbacks to a high school crush on a particularly strict Lit and Drama teacher. The sinuous way she moved, serpentine grace even when she was only heading towards him to say that he needed to tidy up the bouchette display again, and how many times did she need to tell him, before he got it...
... well, it brought back memories of watching Ms Morrisey walk up between the desks, slamming people for their persistent comma splicing and apparent inability to realise that a simile was more than a yellow circle with two dots and a curve. Everyone in the room would watch her utterly natural, confident swish as she stalked the aisles with envy, lust or both. Absolutely stunning. At a time when everyone else was still dealing with sudden extra inches and bodies that just didn't quite fit any more, she had been graceful and completely in command of her own body. If she'd been thirty years older, everyone would have hated her. As it was, they just developed major Strict Headmistress fetishes.
He could swear Nan smelt it on him, because she just kept singling him out, criticising him for taking too long with one customer, spilling another's soup, not being able to tell the difference between Assam tea and Kenyan.
She had been bitching on and off for an hour, endless criticisms and Ben knew it was a stupid thing to say -he had sisters, he had a mother, he'd had girlfriends- but the words came out anyway. "Why are you being such a fucking bitch? That time of the month, is it?"
The moment he'd said the words, he regretted them. Before he'd said them, he regretted them. They just came out of his mouth anyway. He held up his hands in a futile gesture of apology.
"Oh, you fucking... What is with males, you all so fucking hormonally ruled, you think any female has to be in thrall to some uteral drive?"
"No! I didn't mean... I'm really sorry, I just..."
She hissed and threw a damp tea towel in his face before walking away.
Well, that was a good start. Ben sighed and wondered if it was even worth putting this job on his CV.
The last of the evening customers disappeared, triumphantly carrying the end-of-the-day discounted Normandy tarts and leaving Ben to finish cleaning up behind the counter. Most of the other staff disappeared after the afternoon rush, cleaning the empty counters before they left, leaving only the newest grunt and the owner to finish up at the end of the day. Ben was grateful there would be no witnesses to his being torn to shreds. He could feel his boss walk up to stand next to him. He deliberately avoided looking at her, keeping his gaze firmly on the counter he was scrubbing.
When he'd finished, he straightened up and braced himself for the inevitable firing.
"If you're finished there, then we can lock up for the night," she said.
That-- didn't sound like a firing. "Uh, okay. I've just got to finish with the trays and then I'm done," he said.
She nodded. "Good. Don't take too long." He made a gesture that was less agreement and more ducking his head in submission, and started to pick up the pastry trays.
"Hey, boy?" Her voice stopped him.
He froze and turned back to face her. She had her arms crossed and looked vaguely angry.
"I-- want to apologise," she said grudgingly. "I have been out of sorts the past few days." She crossed her arms and glared at him, obviously annoyed at making the apology. "I'm not so bad normally and it wasn't your fault, so... Sorry."
"Really?" Ben said, and then kicked himself. He hadn't meant to sound so surprised, but the thought that she was normally less grumpy was actually kind of shocking.
"Yes, really." She smiled, a sudden wide grin. "Don't look so shocked, boy. I'm not normally such a bitch."
"No, I believe you." And he did, if only because he didn't see how she could constantly be such a bitch and keep her staff and customers. She smiled like she knew what he was thinking.
"So, if you want, I was thinking you could maybe come back to my place and help me shed my bad mood."
He blinked. He wasn't expecting that, but he looked at her again and smiling, she was kind of pretty and he'd thought she was attractive when she was being a bitch.
"I'd like that," he said.
"Good." She gave a sharp decisive nod. "Always easier working it off with someone else."
And that was kind of-brisk, but not in a bad way.
She had a flat above the bakery, so the smell of fresh bread and cooking hovered around him as he watched her walk up the stairs, hips swinging. The flat was dark and she didn't bother to put the lights on, but the windows were large and there was a streetlight right outside that gave the room enough light for him to avoid tripping over the coffee table.
She turned to face him and pulled off her red dress , kicking off her shoes at the same time. She gestured at him to do the same before taking off her glasses and putting them on the coffee table. "You want something to drink first?boy?" She said, walking over to the drinks cabinet. Ben wondered if he should object to the "boy", but there didn't seem to be anything demeaning in it, and her little-bit-of-everywhere accent made it sound like just a verbal tic. And she was mostly naked. At least, she had a vest on and knickers that didn't match it, but she didn't act undressed.
"What do you have?" He asked, wondering whether he should pull off his sweater, if it would seem pushy if he did or prudish if he didn't, because she was in her underwear (definitely underwear, even if it covered about as much as a swimsuit), but she wasn't acting like it. Just like changing out of her work clothes into civvies, which for her was-nothing.
"I've got a little of everything here," she said, bending over. "Beer in the fridge, wine in the cupboard, too. And milk, apple-juice, tea."
"Uh..." he said intelligently. It was hard to think when she was bent over like that, navy-blue cotton knickers and black vest riding up a little to show her back and... Wait, what was that? He moved a bit close for a better look. "You've, uh, you've got something on your back," he said. He moved closer, curiosity temporarily overriding other concerns and raised his hand, stopping when he realised maybe he shouldn't touch it. He stepped back, frowning. "There's a... like a crack or something here." Actually, it reminded him of being a kid and putting glue on the back of his hand, so he could peel it off when it dried.
"Already?" She said, straightening up.
Already? Already what? "Can I...?" He stretched out his hand and put it on the mark. She didn't flinch. "Is it a scar?"
"The opposite, pretty much." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Yeah, so, I got you up here under false pretences. Not that I don't want to have sex with you, just that there's something I want you to do for me first."
O-kay... This was starting to sound like one of those movies where the married woman got her teenage lover to kill her husband, or the femme fatale got her husband to run drugs. He took his hand off her back and started eyeing the door.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't look so panicked, boy. Nothing illegal. I just need some help changing into something more comfortable. Now, your hands aren't doing much good hanging by your side like that, so why don't you put them back on me? You feel that line on my back. I'm guessing it goes up quite a way."
He put his hand on her back cautiously and felt that bump-groove again. "Yeah."
"Okay, just dig your fingers in under it and pull."
He looked at her, shocked. Her eyes were misty, unfocussed. "I'm not playing with you, boy. Not yet, anyway. Just put your nails under and tug, yes?"
Perhaps it was the sisters thing, or the stint in the military, but even though she looked nothing like Debbie or Jess or any of his commanding officers, he felt a familiar obedience and he just-tugged.
It was thick and dry and it came off easily, lifting away from the skin underneath. Like peeling an onion, but-not. She moved underneath it, against it, helping him pull it loose. The layer went on, above her vest and she stripped out of it awkwardly. A long strip came off with the vest and she dropped it on to the pile.
He tried not to think as he pulled down the skin over her hips and thighs. It came off in long, thin, dry strips, crackling almost. The body underneath didn't match the body that had invited him upstairs.
When he looked up he saw her doing the same on her arms. She was pulling that thing off, that whatever-it-was, like pulling off one of those long evening gloves. She dropped it the floor. He looked at it for a moment and wondered why he wasn't screaming. That'd be the normal reaction to this, right? Except no, there was no normal reaction, because this was the opposite of normal. Utterly separate from anything that actually happened in real life. She'd pulled off her skin, and he'd helped her and she was still doing it and he was still helping her. His body was repulsed and his hands itched to just stop peeling away at her skin, but a perverse curiosity kept him there. This was like nothing else that had ever happened to him, had ever happened to anyone, and he didn't know what to do except-stay. He pulled the skin off her ribs, and let go when it go to her hips, not sure what to do next. It hung there, flat and empty and the wrong shape for the body it had been stripped from.
She was rubbing at her mouth with the back of her hand, then seemed to give up and fuck! He jumped back, because she was pulling the skin off, away, pulling it back from her face and her hair, her fucking scalp was just hanging on the back, like a hood or a wig or something. And then she was wriggling out of it, pulling it over her shoulder, letting it tear and tugging it down over legs over her hips and he didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop. Car crash and looking over a cliff and he just couldn't drag his eyes away. Could barely blink. Fascinated, moth to a flame and pedestrian at a car crash, cobra and mongoose and he wanted, really wanted to be anywhere else but here, but part of him also wished he had a camera or something, some way of recording this because he'd never believe it afterwards, never be able to remember the exact look and feel of it, and never see anything like this again.
And then she was stepping out of it, out of her skin, tugging at it where it was still attached to her left foot. She stretched her head and he could see the bones of her back press against the skin. "Oh, that feels good," she said. Her voice was different as well, lower, almost purring. "Hey, switch the light on, will you?" She said, without looking at him. "It's by the door."
The perfect moment to escape, but he didn't. He couldn't. Not without knowing, not without getting a better look, so he let the door stay shut, switched the light on and turned around to see her.
She didn't look human. Which was a stupid thought, but he couldn't stop thinking it. Like something from a movie or a cartoon, except 3D and real and there. She was completely flat-chested, slim, hipless and hairless. Her skin was black with bright blue stripes. She looked androgynous, almost, thin enough that he should have been able to see her ribs. She could have looked like a child, obscenely young, her body without any of the visual cues of adulthood, but she didn't move like a child.
In fact, he realised, that was the only thing that looked the same. She moved with the same perfect grace, the muscle control of a belly dancer or a ballerina, and the complete lack of jerkiness in her movements, as if she'd never suffered a moment's awkwardness. Her body wasn't angular, in spite of its slimness, but smooth and with the slightest of curves, on her thighs, her ribcage. Not bony either, and there was muscle there, but it was smooth and even and all part of the alien look of her.
"Sorry again, for the way I've been all day. I get in such a mood before I shed."
"I want to thank you," she said. Her eyes were dark, and he couldn't tell the pupil from the iris. There was a pale band around her neck, he realised, going around the base of her skull and under her jaw-line. She smiled, a beautiful, wide grin that didn't show her teeth. "It was really good of you to stay, when you were so frightened. It can take me ages to crawl out of my old skin on my own." She straightened her arms above her head and pirouetted. "What do you think? It's been, oh, decades since I chose a form this colourful. It's all been forest floor varieties for me for a good century."
"It's beautiful," he said, meaning it. Inhuman and bizarre and breathtaking. He was disturbed to find he was still attracted to her. It made him feel uncomfortable, creepy even, and there was only her words and height to say she was adult, none of the normal signs to show her as a woman, but she moved so nicely and... He swallowed against the lump in his throat. Disconcerting, to see something so sexual on a body that wasn't.
"Thanks." She patted her torso, breastbone down to hips. "It'll take a few days for my bones to settle in and for me to fill out properly. A few days, a good meal and a little exercise." She looked up at him, catching his eye. "I meant what I said about sex, you know. If you're still interested. I have muscle control like you would not believe, boy, and there's no better way to break in a new skin. You see my glasses anywhere? You know how it is. I can't see 'em unless I've got them on, and if I've got them on, I don't need to look for them."
He searched the table, found them and passed them over. She put them on and walked over to the mirror, looking at her self, rubbing her scalp. "I'll be glad to wear contacts again." She put a finger under the left lens and pulled the skin slightly, rolling her eyes. "Can't do that for a few weeks before I shed. Skin's too dry or something."
"Boy, you made up your mind yet? I can smell your desire, but if your head says no, you can just have a cup of coffee or something." She turned around and walked over to him, snake-hipped walk that worked even when she looked pretty hipless. "You have really nice hair," she said, raising one hand to brush it back. "Hair's the last thing to grow on me. Eyelashes by the morning, most likely, but it'll be a good few weeks for the rest to come in." She went up on her toes to smell him, her tongue flicking out to taste his neck. "You decided to stay yet? I could do with someone to help me get breakfast in the morning."
This close, he could see her features, sharper then before, her chin more blunt. If he looked over the top of her glasses he could see her eyes, strangely naked without protective lashes, but mostly just strange. Alien.
He shouldn't be there. No-one should be there. This was not something that happened to people. "I..."
She smiled at him. He could see the contours of her mouth, the rise and fall and the thin line where they pressed together, but there was no difference in the colour of her lips and the skin around it.
She was looking at him, waiting patiently for an answer. He closed his eyes and stepped back. When he opened them, she was standing in the same place. He wondered what she'd do if he said no, if he could make it to the door, if he could grab some of her skin as proof that this actually happened.
Wondered why his mouth wasn't letting him say any of the polite, practised excuses his mind was kindly supplying.
Stopped thinking when she held her hand out, palm up and let it hover in the air between them.
Comments, suggestions and criticisms would be much appreciated.
Ben served the customers at his new job in the part bakery, part patisserie, part tea room and tried to avoid his boss. It wasn't a great job, but it wasn't a bad one either, and he needed the money right now. Better still, one of the others had said he could bunk at her place for a couple of weeks, until he got enough money to pay the deposit on a place of his own. The money wasn't great, but food wouldn't be a problem, so long as he didn't mind day-old bread and Tarte Normandie. Frankly, it was a lot better than the Instant Ramen and can o'spam that had been making up his dinners lately.
But his boss... It wasn't so much a case of keeping his temper so he could keep his job, as keeping his temper so he could keep from killing her.
Nan, which could have been her last name, her first or her only for all he knew, had mid-brown skin, though he could see regular darker shapes at the back and disappearing under her hairline, like a tattoo. Her eyes were barely visible behind the thickest lenses Ben had ever seen, outside of the geek-revenge movie genre. She was taller than she looked, but the stocky build and curves made her seem shorter. Her hair spread out like a dark brown halo, giving her a good few inches more height. It was held down at the front by a red scarf that matched the dress that swished when she moved dancer-like, all boneless grace and smooth, eye-catching twists of her hips and torso. There was something about the way she moved, winding through the obstacles for tables and customers like an adder through a hayfield, that made her attractive, despite not being at her best. Ben had more sisters than could possibly be healthy, and had to bite down the urge to pass on second-hand information about good cleansers and moisturisers and face masks to get rid of the stressed look of her skin. She was obviously tired and frazzled, and took it out on staff and customers, but mostly on Ben.
It didn't help that every time she said something, he got flashbacks to a high school crush on a particularly strict Lit and Drama teacher. The sinuous way she moved, serpentine grace even when she was only heading towards him to say that he needed to tidy up the bouchette display again, and how many times did she need to tell him, before he got it...
... well, it brought back memories of watching Ms Morrisey walk up between the desks, slamming people for their persistent comma splicing and apparent inability to realise that a simile was more than a yellow circle with two dots and a curve. Everyone in the room would watch her utterly natural, confident swish as she stalked the aisles with envy, lust or both. Absolutely stunning. At a time when everyone else was still dealing with sudden extra inches and bodies that just didn't quite fit any more, she had been graceful and completely in command of her own body. If she'd been thirty years older, everyone would have hated her. As it was, they just developed major Strict Headmistress fetishes.
He could swear Nan smelt it on him, because she just kept singling him out, criticising him for taking too long with one customer, spilling another's soup, not being able to tell the difference between Assam tea and Kenyan.
She had been bitching on and off for an hour, endless criticisms and Ben knew it was a stupid thing to say -he had sisters, he had a mother, he'd had girlfriends- but the words came out anyway. "Why are you being such a fucking bitch? That time of the month, is it?"
The moment he'd said the words, he regretted them. Before he'd said them, he regretted them. They just came out of his mouth anyway. He held up his hands in a futile gesture of apology.
"Oh, you fucking... What is with males, you all so fucking hormonally ruled, you think any female has to be in thrall to some uteral drive?"
"No! I didn't mean... I'm really sorry, I just..."
She hissed and threw a damp tea towel in his face before walking away.
Well, that was a good start. Ben sighed and wondered if it was even worth putting this job on his CV.
The last of the evening customers disappeared, triumphantly carrying the end-of-the-day discounted Normandy tarts and leaving Ben to finish cleaning up behind the counter. Most of the other staff disappeared after the afternoon rush, cleaning the empty counters before they left, leaving only the newest grunt and the owner to finish up at the end of the day. Ben was grateful there would be no witnesses to his being torn to shreds. He could feel his boss walk up to stand next to him. He deliberately avoided looking at her, keeping his gaze firmly on the counter he was scrubbing.
When he'd finished, he straightened up and braced himself for the inevitable firing.
"If you're finished there, then we can lock up for the night," she said.
That-- didn't sound like a firing. "Uh, okay. I've just got to finish with the trays and then I'm done," he said.
She nodded. "Good. Don't take too long." He made a gesture that was less agreement and more ducking his head in submission, and started to pick up the pastry trays.
"Hey, boy?" Her voice stopped him.
He froze and turned back to face her. She had her arms crossed and looked vaguely angry.
"I-- want to apologise," she said grudgingly. "I have been out of sorts the past few days." She crossed her arms and glared at him, obviously annoyed at making the apology. "I'm not so bad normally and it wasn't your fault, so... Sorry."
"Really?" Ben said, and then kicked himself. He hadn't meant to sound so surprised, but the thought that she was normally less grumpy was actually kind of shocking.
"Yes, really." She smiled, a sudden wide grin. "Don't look so shocked, boy. I'm not normally such a bitch."
"No, I believe you." And he did, if only because he didn't see how she could constantly be such a bitch and keep her staff and customers. She smiled like she knew what he was thinking.
"So, if you want, I was thinking you could maybe come back to my place and help me shed my bad mood."
He blinked. He wasn't expecting that, but he looked at her again and smiling, she was kind of pretty and he'd thought she was attractive when she was being a bitch.
"I'd like that," he said.
"Good." She gave a sharp decisive nod. "Always easier working it off with someone else."
And that was kind of-brisk, but not in a bad way.
She had a flat above the bakery, so the smell of fresh bread and cooking hovered around him as he watched her walk up the stairs, hips swinging. The flat was dark and she didn't bother to put the lights on, but the windows were large and there was a streetlight right outside that gave the room enough light for him to avoid tripping over the coffee table.
She turned to face him and pulled off her red dress , kicking off her shoes at the same time. She gestured at him to do the same before taking off her glasses and putting them on the coffee table. "You want something to drink first?boy?" She said, walking over to the drinks cabinet. Ben wondered if he should object to the "boy", but there didn't seem to be anything demeaning in it, and her little-bit-of-everywhere accent made it sound like just a verbal tic. And she was mostly naked. At least, she had a vest on and knickers that didn't match it, but she didn't act undressed.
"What do you have?" He asked, wondering whether he should pull off his sweater, if it would seem pushy if he did or prudish if he didn't, because she was in her underwear (definitely underwear, even if it covered about as much as a swimsuit), but she wasn't acting like it. Just like changing out of her work clothes into civvies, which for her was-nothing.
"I've got a little of everything here," she said, bending over. "Beer in the fridge, wine in the cupboard, too. And milk, apple-juice, tea."
"Uh..." he said intelligently. It was hard to think when she was bent over like that, navy-blue cotton knickers and black vest riding up a little to show her back and... Wait, what was that? He moved a bit close for a better look. "You've, uh, you've got something on your back," he said. He moved closer, curiosity temporarily overriding other concerns and raised his hand, stopping when he realised maybe he shouldn't touch it. He stepped back, frowning. "There's a... like a crack or something here." Actually, it reminded him of being a kid and putting glue on the back of his hand, so he could peel it off when it dried.
"Already?" She said, straightening up.
Already? Already what? "Can I...?" He stretched out his hand and put it on the mark. She didn't flinch. "Is it a scar?"
"The opposite, pretty much." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Yeah, so, I got you up here under false pretences. Not that I don't want to have sex with you, just that there's something I want you to do for me first."
O-kay... This was starting to sound like one of those movies where the married woman got her teenage lover to kill her husband, or the femme fatale got her husband to run drugs. He took his hand off her back and started eyeing the door.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't look so panicked, boy. Nothing illegal. I just need some help changing into something more comfortable. Now, your hands aren't doing much good hanging by your side like that, so why don't you put them back on me? You feel that line on my back. I'm guessing it goes up quite a way."
He put his hand on her back cautiously and felt that bump-groove again. "Yeah."
"Okay, just dig your fingers in under it and pull."
He looked at her, shocked. Her eyes were misty, unfocussed. "I'm not playing with you, boy. Not yet, anyway. Just put your nails under and tug, yes?"
Perhaps it was the sisters thing, or the stint in the military, but even though she looked nothing like Debbie or Jess or any of his commanding officers, he felt a familiar obedience and he just-tugged.
It was thick and dry and it came off easily, lifting away from the skin underneath. Like peeling an onion, but-not. She moved underneath it, against it, helping him pull it loose. The layer went on, above her vest and she stripped out of it awkwardly. A long strip came off with the vest and she dropped it on to the pile.
He tried not to think as he pulled down the skin over her hips and thighs. It came off in long, thin, dry strips, crackling almost. The body underneath didn't match the body that had invited him upstairs.
When he looked up he saw her doing the same on her arms. She was pulling that thing off, that whatever-it-was, like pulling off one of those long evening gloves. She dropped it the floor. He looked at it for a moment and wondered why he wasn't screaming. That'd be the normal reaction to this, right? Except no, there was no normal reaction, because this was the opposite of normal. Utterly separate from anything that actually happened in real life. She'd pulled off her skin, and he'd helped her and she was still doing it and he was still helping her. His body was repulsed and his hands itched to just stop peeling away at her skin, but a perverse curiosity kept him there. This was like nothing else that had ever happened to him, had ever happened to anyone, and he didn't know what to do except-stay. He pulled the skin off her ribs, and let go when it go to her hips, not sure what to do next. It hung there, flat and empty and the wrong shape for the body it had been stripped from.
She was rubbing at her mouth with the back of her hand, then seemed to give up and fuck! He jumped back, because she was pulling the skin off, away, pulling it back from her face and her hair, her fucking scalp was just hanging on the back, like a hood or a wig or something. And then she was wriggling out of it, pulling it over her shoulder, letting it tear and tugging it down over legs over her hips and he didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop. Car crash and looking over a cliff and he just couldn't drag his eyes away. Could barely blink. Fascinated, moth to a flame and pedestrian at a car crash, cobra and mongoose and he wanted, really wanted to be anywhere else but here, but part of him also wished he had a camera or something, some way of recording this because he'd never believe it afterwards, never be able to remember the exact look and feel of it, and never see anything like this again.
And then she was stepping out of it, out of her skin, tugging at it where it was still attached to her left foot. She stretched her head and he could see the bones of her back press against the skin. "Oh, that feels good," she said. Her voice was different as well, lower, almost purring. "Hey, switch the light on, will you?" She said, without looking at him. "It's by the door."
The perfect moment to escape, but he didn't. He couldn't. Not without knowing, not without getting a better look, so he let the door stay shut, switched the light on and turned around to see her.
She didn't look human. Which was a stupid thought, but he couldn't stop thinking it. Like something from a movie or a cartoon, except 3D and real and there. She was completely flat-chested, slim, hipless and hairless. Her skin was black with bright blue stripes. She looked androgynous, almost, thin enough that he should have been able to see her ribs. She could have looked like a child, obscenely young, her body without any of the visual cues of adulthood, but she didn't move like a child.
In fact, he realised, that was the only thing that looked the same. She moved with the same perfect grace, the muscle control of a belly dancer or a ballerina, and the complete lack of jerkiness in her movements, as if she'd never suffered a moment's awkwardness. Her body wasn't angular, in spite of its slimness, but smooth and with the slightest of curves, on her thighs, her ribcage. Not bony either, and there was muscle there, but it was smooth and even and all part of the alien look of her.
"Sorry again, for the way I've been all day. I get in such a mood before I shed."
"I want to thank you," she said. Her eyes were dark, and he couldn't tell the pupil from the iris. There was a pale band around her neck, he realised, going around the base of her skull and under her jaw-line. She smiled, a beautiful, wide grin that didn't show her teeth. "It was really good of you to stay, when you were so frightened. It can take me ages to crawl out of my old skin on my own." She straightened her arms above her head and pirouetted. "What do you think? It's been, oh, decades since I chose a form this colourful. It's all been forest floor varieties for me for a good century."
"It's beautiful," he said, meaning it. Inhuman and bizarre and breathtaking. He was disturbed to find he was still attracted to her. It made him feel uncomfortable, creepy even, and there was only her words and height to say she was adult, none of the normal signs to show her as a woman, but she moved so nicely and... He swallowed against the lump in his throat. Disconcerting, to see something so sexual on a body that wasn't.
"Thanks." She patted her torso, breastbone down to hips. "It'll take a few days for my bones to settle in and for me to fill out properly. A few days, a good meal and a little exercise." She looked up at him, catching his eye. "I meant what I said about sex, you know. If you're still interested. I have muscle control like you would not believe, boy, and there's no better way to break in a new skin. You see my glasses anywhere? You know how it is. I can't see 'em unless I've got them on, and if I've got them on, I don't need to look for them."
He searched the table, found them and passed them over. She put them on and walked over to the mirror, looking at her self, rubbing her scalp. "I'll be glad to wear contacts again." She put a finger under the left lens and pulled the skin slightly, rolling her eyes. "Can't do that for a few weeks before I shed. Skin's too dry or something."
"Boy, you made up your mind yet? I can smell your desire, but if your head says no, you can just have a cup of coffee or something." She turned around and walked over to him, snake-hipped walk that worked even when she looked pretty hipless. "You have really nice hair," she said, raising one hand to brush it back. "Hair's the last thing to grow on me. Eyelashes by the morning, most likely, but it'll be a good few weeks for the rest to come in." She went up on her toes to smell him, her tongue flicking out to taste his neck. "You decided to stay yet? I could do with someone to help me get breakfast in the morning."
This close, he could see her features, sharper then before, her chin more blunt. If he looked over the top of her glasses he could see her eyes, strangely naked without protective lashes, but mostly just strange. Alien.
He shouldn't be there. No-one should be there. This was not something that happened to people. "I..."
She smiled at him. He could see the contours of her mouth, the rise and fall and the thin line where they pressed together, but there was no difference in the colour of her lips and the skin around it.
She was looking at him, waiting patiently for an answer. He closed his eyes and stepped back. When he opened them, she was standing in the same place. He wondered what she'd do if he said no, if he could make it to the door, if he could grab some of her skin as proof that this actually happened.
Wondered why his mouth wasn't letting him say any of the polite, practised excuses his mind was kindly supplying.
Stopped thinking when she held her hand out, palm up and let it hover in the air between them.
