Adam walked down to the bus stop, feeling strange. For one, she could feel her breasts bump and jiggle with every step; smaller and perkier though they were, she was a grown woman, not a pubescent girl. She supposed her mother would tell her that she needed a bra; she wasn't sure what she thought about that idea. She didn't have any desire to enhance her bust, and it would be one more thing to put on in the morning and take off at night. On the other hand, it would be nice to have something to hold them in place...and her mother would say that if she didn't, they'd start to sag. Again, she wasn't exactly invested in the idea of having nice breasts, but if she was stuck with this body, she ought to take care of it, right?
Even the thought of...of being this way for the rest of her life was strange. More immediately unsettling, though, was the idea of being out in public with nothing on below her waist. Okay, the sweater hung down to just above her pubic area, but that was hardly any comfort. It felt...transgressory, in a way. This was something you just weren't supposed to do, yet here she was doing it. But she didn't mean to be pushing boundaries or anything, she was just trying to get to work on time!
And...well, she didn't know that she was even right. Her privates were invisible from her perspective, and she felt downy on the underside, so it seemed like a fair assumption. But she could also just see a little divot in the down where the cleft of her mound started...maybe it was more visible than she thought, from some angles...she hoped not. She took a deep breath as she boarded the bus, using a wingtip to hold out her transit pass, which was on a lanyard around her neck with her employee ID. (She didn't have to wear that on her shift, which was nice, but it got her into the mall's employee entrances, and before normal operating hours, which was convenient.)
Adam walked to the back of the bus and sprawled out into the corner, a little exhausted from the frustration of trying to get dressed on her own, and a little tired from waking up every hour to think about wishing her problems away. It was quieter back here, a little ways from the wheel-wells, and the only other person was some guy idly browsing his newspaper. Right now, she just wanted to get to work and maybe get a little rest on the way...
Her thoughts, however, went back to the question of whether this was even going to work. What if people did see something? What if...
"Eep!" She muffled her yelp with her wing as she quickly scooched back up into a proper sitting position, clamping her knees together tightly. Her slouch had left her crotch angled forward a bit, and the way her legs were spread...would that pull things open down there? Okay, they weren't spread that wide, and if newspaper guy had seen anything untoward, he gave no indication, but still...she blushed. If she went out like this again, she'd have to be careful of how she sat...
Adam spent the rest of the ride hunched forward and hopped off the bus as soon as it got to the mall. She made a beeline for the employee entrance nearest the game store and went inside. Her boss was there, waiting. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "And, uh...sorry I'm dressed like this, I couldn't find anything I could put on..."
The alligator-man chuckled. "Don't sweat it," he said. "You're fine."
She blinked in surprise. "E-excuse me?"
"I said your attire is fine, Adam. Lots of harpies don't bother with pants or equivalent. Actually, you've been one of the more fully-dressed ones I've seen. More than a few of them just go naked, I'm told."
She frowned. "What, really?" How could you just...just switch into a completely different mode of thought like that? She hoped that wasn't some new instinct...it didn't feel that way, at least. "I...I'm not planning on that!" she said.
He nodded. "Yes, well, I think I'd have to draw the line there anyway, while you're on the clock. This, though, that's plenty good enough."
Adam still couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "You're...you're sure? I mean, what if someone-"
Her boss held up his hand. "Adam," he said, "this is a game store. We get outraged 'customers' three or four times a week. Doesn't matter much to me if they're complaining about their inability to read the ratings on the games they buy for their kids, or how one of my employees is dressed; it's all so much white noise, to me."
The harpy smiled in spite of herself. "O-okay."
"You know," Karyn said, pulling her shirt off, "I suppose this is something a lot of guys spend their time fantasizing about." She began to unclasp her bra.
Jon looked around the locker room. She supposed that was true enough. Here were over a dozen girls in their mid-to-late teens, most of them fairly full-figured, in various states of undress, and acting completely casual about it. If that wasn't fantasy material, what was? But...
"I guess," she said quietly, shrugging. She tried not to stare as Karyn's wish-enhanced breasts fell free. She felt...a little disappointed; this wasn't a scenario that was near and dear to her, but still...she sighed and began to take her own top off.
The cecaelia-girl gave her a quizzical look, as she put her sports bra on. "You don't sound all that excited. Something wrong?"
Jon frowned as she took her bra off, still slightly weirded out by the feeling of her breasts hanging loose. They weren't as hefty as Karyn's, but they were pretty ample (something she got from her mother, she supposed,) and to her they felt enormous. "Do you want me to be getting worked up over this?" she asked.
Karyn scowled. "No. But excuse me, I'm just a little worried about my best friend."
The slug-girl sighed. "I'm...I'm sorry," she said. "It's just...well, no, I'm not. And I don't know what to make of it. Maybe six weeks ago this would've been something, but right now...I mean, there's nothing here that I don't see in the mirror every day. And it's...there's no..." She lowered her voice further. "There's no context, okay?" she said. "This is not a sexually-charged situation, it's a bunch of girls getting dressed for P.E."
"Mm."
Jon nodded, antennae bobbing. "I dunno. Am I feeling nothing because there's no novelty in it, and there's no implications that it's that kind of situation? Or am I feeling nothing because...because..." She trailed off. She hoped that wasn't the case. "...There's just no way to tell, from this evidence," she said. "And either way, yeah, it's a bit of a letdown."
"Ah," Karyn said. "Well, I'm sorry reality doesn't live up to the collective imagination of generations of adolescent boys." She smirked slightly.
Jon couldn't help being a bit amused by that. "It's...it's okay," she said. "I mean, it's hardly the first time that's happened."
Karyn nodded and wheeled herself out to the pool, while Jon pulled her P.E. top on. Most of the other girls had normal gym clothes, but those with non-humanoid lower halves (Michael the raptor-girl was the only other one in her class) had skirts in place of shorts. She didn't mind terribly; she had to live with skirts anyway, as she didn't want to go around flashing everybody, and these were just as plain and un-frilled as the ones she wore normally. She slipped hers on over her head, settled it around her waist, and went out into the gym.
Tiffany waited for everyone else to leave...the last thing she needed right now was to have people mocking her for having glowy tattoos. She couldn't hide everything; the P.E. clothes didn't cover her shoulders or quite enough of her cleavage to leave none of it visible, but still, the less the better. Leave, leave, dammit!
She looked around the locker room. Everyone was gone...except for Sarah, who was leaning against the opposite wall. She scowled. "Why are you even here?" she asked. "You're a nudist!"
The harpy shrugged. "I'm more just someone who can't be bothered with clothes," she said. "I'm here because I like the camaraderie, if you must know."
"Well, you can go now. All the 'comrades' are already out there."
"I'll go when I'm ready," Sarah said.
Tiffany scowled. "Leave!" she snapped.
Sarah flinched slightly. She was taken back a bit by that, though she couldn't quite understand why, and for a moment she actually seemed like she was contemplating it. But...no. She frowned, sat down on one of the benches, and folded her wings. "Not if you're going to be like that," she said forcefully.
The two of them spent a long moment staring each other down. Tiffany wanted her to leave, she wanted to be alone...but she could see that however strongly she felt about it, this stupid bird was just plain stubborn.
"...fine," she said, undoing the neck clasp and pulling off the sash, stepping out of her robes. She'd felt stupid coming to school in them, but she couldn't deal with any further discomfort. She stood, now completely naked, and stared at the harpy. "Fine," she snapped. "Go ahead! Laugh!"
Sarah eyed her curiously, taking in the gently-illuminated lines that covered her body. "Why?" she asked. "That's actually not a bad look for you."
Somehow that caught Tiffany completely off guard. "Wh-what!?" she yelped. "Shut up! Wh-what do you know? I was...I was..."
For some reason, the further away she got from that time in her life...the harder she found it to reassure herself of what she'd had. She was a goddess! She had everything - power, looks, strength, attitude - so why was it getting so hard to make herself believe it anymore? She was...she was...
She was thrown off, as if a physical blow had been struck, when Sarah snorted derisively. "Are you still telling yourself that?" she asked. "Look, you want to know the truth? I think everybody else in your life is too nice to say it to your face. Tiff, you looked like a sex doll. An evil sex doll."
That hit her like a punch to the gut. "You bitch!" she hissed.
Sarah sighed and shrugged. "Yeah? Maybe I am kind of a bitch sometimes," she said. "But that's the truth. It wasn't cool, it was freaky, and when it wasn't freaky it was ridiculous. You could've turned back into a gawky flat-chested nerd with stringy hair and pimples and that'd still probably be closer to being anything attractive. This, though, this is actually kind of neat, so I don't know what you think you're complaining about. Just so's you know." She turned and left.
Tiffany stood there, muscles tensed, quivering with anger. How dare she? Couldn't she see it? It was like her dad, or her teacher - why couldn't anybody see it? When she had had her first change, she was...she was...
...she was...completely unable to convince even herself anymore. She was beginning to wonder, entirely against her will, if they weren't right. She was especially starting to feel...feel sorry that...she'd treated her dad the way she had...
Still unclothed, she sat down on the bench, huddled up, and started to cry.
