"This...this brings back some memories," the woman said, wheeling her chair up to the table where Jon sat. "That was...oh, ten years ago already. I was in college, and my brother was about your age. I came home for the weekend, and David and I spent the afternoon hanging out together. I didn't realize it, but I'd picked up the change virus at school."
Jon nodded; it was odd having a random stranger in the mall share her life story based on their similar transformations, but she couldn't think of a polite way to end the conversation. The woman continued. "So I went to bed, and when I woke up the next morning, I was this. Dave was even more freaked out than I was, but we knew that by that point he'd probably already contracted it, and it was just a question of whether he'd change or not. So he helped me into the pool, and then we waited for my parents to come home."
She smiled. "I can still see the looks on their faces when they saw what I'd become. But they took it well enough, after the initial shock. The bigger issue was Dave; he was pretty frightened at the prospect. After two days with no sign of anything, we were eating supper when all of a sudden he started to change. He completely lost it, and we had one hell of an evening, trying to get him to calm down in the middle of his transformation, then trying to cheer her up when she turned out to be a female harpy. And after that, we had to help her learn to live with her new body. Some days, I wasn't even sure what was going to happen to her, she was so depressed."
Jon was trying to figure out exactly what the octopus-woman was getting at, a fact she seemed to pick up on. "You're wondering where I'm going with this, right?" she asked. Jon nodded. "Well," she said, "it's like this. See, Dave hated her new form. For the first month or so, she couldn't even look at herself in a mirror; it was like she was trying to deny that it had even happened. I couldn't blame her; I was going through a bit of the same thing myself, only I hadn't lost my hands and my gender as well as my humanity."
She sighed, shifting her tentacles around to a more comfortable position. "Well, after about a month, Dave got the shock of her life; she laid a clutch of eggs. Just a couple, but still. I was sure it was going to drive her deeper into her funk, but somehow it actually helped her pull herself together. It was like it forced her to come to terms with what had happened, I think. After that, she was still upset about her change, but she wasn't so completely out of it, and gradually she started getting used to life in her new body. Slowly, granted, but a lot better than she had been before."
Both Jon and her mom were staring at the woman now. "Oh, right," she laughed. "I'm rambling again, aren't I? Sorry, it's kind of a bad habit of mine. I guess my point here is, a change like yours probably looks like the worst thing in the world right now, but if you let yourself, you'll see that it isn't really as bad as you thought. You can accept pretty much anything, if you really let yourself. I just saw the look on your face and thought that that was something you needed to hear."
"U-um, thanks," Jon said, still rather boggled by the conversation. The woman smiled. "Name's Cathy, by the way. Cathy Taylor. If you ever need to know anything about your new body, or if you need someone to talk to, look me up."
"We'll keep that in mind," Mrs. Madison said. "Thanks for offering your help."
"Any time. But I'd better be going; I have some things I need to get done before this evening." Cathy scribbled down a phone numbeer on a piece of paper and handed it to Jon. "There. Just in case you can't find it in the phone book." She wheeled back from the table, getting ready to go.
"Thanks," Jon said. "Um...can I ask, what happened to your brother? Sister?"
Cathy smiled. "Danielle's married, with three kids," she said. "I asked her a while back, and she said she's come to love her body, and that she wouldn't go back to her old self if she could." She turned and wheeled away, waving goodbye with one tentacle as she went.
Jon really didn't know what to say. Certainly, it was nice of this Cathy woman to want to help, although it was weird for some random stranger in the mall to just walk up and offer advice to someone, but none of that really applied to her. After all, while she was having to deal with some temporary unease at being in this body, she was going back to normal as soon as she got back, just as soon as she could find the stone. She certainly wasn't going to be like this for the rest of her life, and while it was nice that this woman's sister had found happiness with a family, Jon had no plans to be a mother, that was for sure.
