Anneza sighed as she sat in mid-air in the employment office. Judging by what Ellen was telling her, the man had agreed to put her application for unemployment benefits through, but she wasn't sure if that was a guarantee of anything; she'd never even had to do this before. Probably they'd have to review it first; she wondered if her fiscal assets would bar her from eligibility? It wasn't that she was destitute, it was just that the mortgage on the house would start adding up pretty quick with nothing but severance pay...
She wondered, should she just move? She didn't particularily want to, but that was more out of an objection to resigning herself to this than any particular fondness for the place. It was a nice enough house, but it had no real memories for her, no sense of attachment. Just like so much else in her adult life, it was empty spectacle...she sighed, remembering her freakout, the bonfire in which so much meaningless stuff was burned, her feeling of trying to take the destruction of her old life into her own hands...at least she hadn't gone so far as to burn the pictures with her parents.
Turning her attention back to the little doll-woman, she found that the civil-service worker was saying something else. Apparently...oh. They'd try and help her look for a job, but without basic verbal fluency in...her old language, he wasn't optimistic. She sighed. He had her contact information, she'd filled out her paperwork, there probably wasn't anything more to do here. She tensed her legs and swept towards the door, then had to slide downwards a bit to place herself in front of the motion sensor. Will and Ellen followed her out.
She looked around the downtown area, trying to remember if there was anything she needed to get while she was here. There was something, right? Something from...Thursday? Friday? She couldn't quite rememb...oh! The tailor! That was only about eight blocks from here, not too far even to walk. She signed a brief explanation to Ellen and turned to go; if she hadn't felt obligated to wait for the wolf-girl and her interpreter and friend, she would've covered the distance in all of a few seconds.
She swished into the shop in one smooth motion, eager to get her wardrobe deficiency addressed. The wolf receptionist definitely recognized her, and called back to someone else. The gynoid tailor who had assisted her last time came out, visibly worked up about something. Anneza hoped that didn't mean she had some snappy dress she wanted her to try on, she'd requested pants as specifically as she knew how...
The tailor produced multiple pieces of material and motioned her over to a dressing room. She entered and undressed at the tailor's direction, staring at the pieces of fabric. They didn't seem to be garments, rather they looked liked component pieces of garments. Did she not sew them beforehand? But, encouragingly, they did look to be made of the same silvery material as her dress, the one fabric she'd worn since her change that didn't weigh her down and drag her to the ground...
The tailor took two pieces of fabric and held them together to form what looked like a shirt-sleeve. She approached Anneza, floating in a standing position just barely off the floor, and touched it to her. To Anneza's surprise, the fabric appeared to knit itself together without any intervention. The tailor was almost as stunned, and completely elated. She fairly tore through the rest of the pieces, assembling in short order a shirt, pants, and set of underwear, completely without needle or thread.
Anneza could hardly believe what she'd seen, but her mind was more taken up by the fact that she had pants! She grabbed the panties and pulled them on, not even caring, and put the pants so fast she was afraid she'd tear right through them. The brassiere took some assistance, but presently she was fully dressed and staring at herself in a mirror.
It could have been better. She'd had no way to really communicate her preference for un-styled, gender-neutral clothing, so the tailor had...taken some liberties in styling it. Really, the whole outfit was consciously (though tastefully) modelled on the style of her dress, that same sort of loose, spacey silvery kind of look, with slightly flared cuffs for the sleeves and pantlegs scrunched around her ankles, all held together by a loose sash in the middle. It was more than a bit embarassing, although it was at least as tastefully done as possible, considering.
What bothered her more was that it was, in fact, tailored for her new body, and in her opinion fit too well. It was loose and comfortable, but not enough to hide her curves, there was still more cleavage than she'd like showing through the V-shaped neck hole (though not as much as her dress showed,) and the seat of the pants conformed entirely too well to her butt. Still, she was wearing pants again, and that was something.
She zoomed out to the lobby, grinning wildly. Ellen was leafing through a magazine larger than she was, and Will and the receptionist were eyeing each other warily, the way that dogs do when confronted by strange dogs. Both were, at least, well enough in control of their feelings to remain civil. Will was more concerned with the receptionist's chest, anyway, and the multiple rows of breasts upon it; she wondered if that was in her own future...?
The tailor wasn't far behind. She began excitedly talking to Ellen, and Anneza watched and wondered what was going on. Finally the doll-woman turned to her. She wants your help, she signed. You can make things from - there were signs here Anneza didn't know, something about small tubes? Huh? - very well. She wants to pay you to provide that.
Andy sat on the living-room couch, staring off into space. Her husband sat down next to her, or at least as close to sitting as he could manage with a snake's tail in place of his lower body. "You feeling okay?" he asked.
The rabbit-woman sighed. "I...don't know, Sue. I should be looking forward to this, I really need it, it's just...God, what if I screw it up? I haven't even had an interview for months, and anyway, how likely are they to hire someone who hasn't worked in four years?"
He kissed her gently on the cheek, and she leaned into his touch. "I know you're worried," Susan said. "But Andy, love, you'll do fine. You're clean, you're sober, and you're professional, and that could make all the difference over previous interviews. Besides, didn't he say he was interested in seeing your work? That's a pretty good sign right there."
Andy cringed; it hurt to be reminded of...of her old life. But...it was true, and she couldn't pretend it wasn't. And Sue was right, she was going to be in better condition for this one. She'd never gone so far as to show up for an interview drunk (thanks in no small part to her wife,) but this time she wouldn't be in need of a drink and distracted.
"Yeah, he did," she said. "But like I told him, I've been out of practice for four years, I don't even know if I'm any good at this stuff any more."
Her husband put his arm around her and drew her in close; she didn't resist. "You'll do fine, honey, I know you will," he said. "Ten years of experience doesn't just vanish like that. I think you're underestimating yourself."
She smiled. "Th-thanks," she said. "I...I'll try."
The naga-man smiled. "Attagirl." Something in Andy still found that odd, but she didn't feel like making a fuss over it.
They sat there for a bit, not saying much. "So, uh," the rabbit-woman said, finally, "what brings you back here so early?"
"Oh, I took a half day today," Susan said. "I figured you'd need some support with this. Besides, we have to find you something to wear for it."
Andy looked down at herself, still dressed in hand-me-downs that had never fit her wife in the first place. "Oh, uh, yeah," she said. "I suppose so...probably business casual, something that's not going to be ruined by me working in it. I suppose we need to get some new clothes anyway..."
"We do," her husband said. "Not so much for me, I can get by with only shirts, but you're going to need new everything."
Andy nodded; a peculiarity of his new form was that his genitals were hidden behind a pair of scales when not in use - most be-tailed male transformees seemed to have that - and with the anal opening in the standard snake position, down towards the end of the tail, he didn't even need a waist-covering. She, though, was definitely in need of new clothes; nobody else in the family was built like her, before or after their change. She didn't want anything particularily frilly or feminine, but there was no need to say so; Susan knew her well enough for that.
"I suppose so," she said. "But if we have all afternoon, there's no hurry..."
He looked at her. "Huh?"
"Well, the kids are in school," she smiled, tugging at her shirt, "you've got the afternoon off, and I don't have anywhere to be..."
Her husband grinned. "I suppose we don't have to leave just yet."
Keith sat in the bar, pulling at cheap whiskey and trying to forget about...well, everything. Yesterday had started off just damn fine and gone so completely wrong in ways he'd never expected...he'd gotten arrested, escaped only to be near choked to death by the spray of some freakish skunk-thing, escaped that capture only to be plagued by dreams that he wasn't even sure were dreams anymore, and finally been captured by Indians because he was too damn distracted by everything else that had happened over the course of the day! And if that wasn't bad enough, they'd given him some mumbo-jumbo about cracking...
He shook it off. That was crazy talk. That was them trying to scare him. This was all in his head, just an after-effect of that damned spray burning into his eyes or something. He wasn't really shorter because people just didn't get shorter. And maybe his hair was a little long, but how long had it been since he'd cut it, anyway? It was all in his head, it was all in his head...
"Friend?" the old-timer seated next to him said. "Pieces is comin' offa ya." He picked curiously at Keith's arm and came away with a large flake of skin. Keith lurched away from the crazy old man, nearly falling off his stool; he would've torn into the stupid old coot right then and there if he wasn't so shaken by this whole thing. He stood up and turned to the bartender.
"Give me the bottle," he said, then nearly fainted when he heard his own voice. It was higher than before; it would've sounded like a woman's if it didn't still have all the gravel of his own voice in it. As it was, it didn't sound natural at all.
The bartender handed it to him. "That'll be four dollars," he said. Keith twitched, slapped the money on the counter, and stormed out to look for a hotel room to hole up in.
