It was lucky for Ricky that Jeff's imagination wasn't as devious as his analytical mind. For the moment, she'd been stuck with tasks that, while there was no good reason she should have to do them, weren't really all that terrible: finishing the homework she'd taken off in the middle of when she'd noticed her changes, then cleaning up his room. All the same, she was in a bit of a panic. How could this be happening to her!? Somehow her change had left her with this new instinct to serve whoever had her keys, a drive so strong that it overrode her own good judgement...how was that fair? Other changed didn't get stuck with things like this, did they?
And now she was under the control of...of him, of all people, and...who knew what he would do? Who knew what would become of her? She tried to keep herself from imagining any possibilities...frustratingly, the easiest way to do that seemed to be to keep her mind on her work, and given that her work was a symptom of her biggest problem at the moment, it didn't do anything to alleviate her tension.
By now, Ricky was beginning to recognize the signs of running down before she was completely out of energy, and she stopped in surprise when she realized that it was happening to her. It hadn't been that long since she'd rested, had it? As she thought about it, she realized that it probably had to do with her emotional state - her tension had tangible manifestations in the operations of her mechanisms, with multiple things running faster than normal. That must have run her down faster than usual...normally, this would've been annoying to learn, but she had bigger concerns right now. Her bigger concern turned to her with an expression of annoyance. "Why'd you stop?" he said, irritated.
"I...my mainspring's winding down," Ricky said, a bit of a nervous, metallic shimmer in her voice. Like this, she was even more helpless...if he should decide to...to...but she'd told herself she wasn't going to think about that. Besides...if there was one small mercy in this, it was that so far, he didn't even seem to have thought about that kind of thing, let alone decided to try anything.
Jeff scowled. "What? That's lame, dude. Jeez, don't tell me I gotta...like, wind you or something." Was that going to be some kind of freaky...metaphor thing? Like, would she get all worked up and...ugh. And she'd been a guy just yesterday...that would just be goddamn weird. If that was how it was, but he really didn't have any idea.
Ricky had an inkling as to what he was thinking, and was simultaneously relieved that he was apparently as freaked out as she was by the idea, and a bit hopeful - she had the upper hand here! She knew perfectly well that it wasn't like that at all; he didn't. She felt compelled to answer him, even more than she generally found herself voluntarily telling people what they wanted to know now, but she realized for the first time that she wasn't particularly constrained in how she delivered that information.
It would probably have been most effective for her to play it up and intentionally freak him out. But she couldn't do that; not only because she had no idea how to play that kind of part - sultry? Sleazy? Animalistic? - and wasn't much of an actress to begin with, but because she simply wasn't going to. The idea made her feel ambiguously unwell; had she still had a flesh-and-blood stomach, it would've made her nauseous. She had at least that much self-respect that she sure as hell wasn't going to abandon.
But, if nothing else, Ricky knew her smut tropes well enough to see an alternate angle - shyness, embarassment, over-modesty, nervousness. Not too different from how she was feeling now, actually. Indeed, had she had the capacity, she would've been blushing just from considering all this. She cringed. "Uh, um...y-yeah," she stammered, not having to play it up very much. "Th-that's...that's how it goes...but, um, it's...um..." She didn't actually say anything to imply that it was a sexual thing; lying was a lot harder for her than just saying nothing and letting him assume.
Judging by his expression, that was working perfectly well, anyway. "Razor" was visibly skeezed out. God, had Ricky always been this much of a freak? Had the Sun just made him outwardly the kind of freak he was inside? He didn't know whether that would be worse than the idea that it had introduced this into him. But...that wasn't the problem here. Or rather, it wasn't his problem, it was Ricky's. His problem was that his new gofer apparently was useless unless he did something she considered...he had to repress a shudder. He couldn't do something like that with another guy! But then, she was a girl now...but then, she hadn't been...jeez, this was way too confusing. He started to resent her just for making him even have to think about this.
But...gah, this wasn't going to get him anywhere. He wasn't keen on giving up his new lackey... "Sheez, is that the only way?" he asked, snappishly.
"W-well," the clockwork girl, part of the stutter coming from the fact that she was reaching her limit and still had tension putting an extra drain on her power source, "I...could just r-rest...my k-key r-re-w-winds itself when I do that..." She tried to look disappointed at the prospect.
"How long's that take?" Jeff tried not to meet her gaze.
"Hours," she said languidly. She really was running down, now...
He huffed. "Fine. Take your stupid nap then. But take out the garbage when you wake up." This sucked. Every time he got something cool, there was all this work that he suddenly had to do, or some other gotcha...his new time-saver only worked for a little while and then had to sit around for hours, the naked mermaid that lived in his pool needed him to get food and crap for her, the dog that his parents had finally just given away because he'd gotten tired of having to take it out to poop...why did everything have to be so much damn work?
The clockwork girl nodded slowly as her mainspring finally petered out, and let herself drop into a motionless state, feeling her key reverse its direction and begin to re-wind her. Jeff stared uneasily at the diminutive female figure standing motionless in the middle of his room, then edged out the door and went downstairs to play video games.
Ricky didn't feel like dropping into a dream-state. If her feelings on her present circumstances had any effect on the content of her dreams, she knew she wouldn't want them, and even before that...it'd been disturbing. Besides, she wanted to keep an eye out for her best chance when it came, and she couldn't do that if she wasn't conscious. So she remained there, not moving, just thinking, slowly, as time lapsed around her.
She felt upset and a little dirty. She hadn't had to do anything and thank God it seemed like Razor didn't want that, but she hated having even given the impression that being wound was anything like that for her. It wasn't! It was...there was a kind of physical intimacy, being helped by someone she trusted, who wanted to help her, but it was a different kind of thing - like getting a hug from her parents or something. She felt ashamed of herself for having let on that that - something perfectly wholesome - was something dirty, or that she was...if it hadn't been an obvious way to get him to leave her alone for a while so she could think...
...but now she was thinking, only thinking, and now she was wishing she could go back to absent-mindedly focusing on her work. Now all the thoughts she'd been putting off came back to her...memories of her dream, and the question: am I a bad person?
Was she? Ricky hadn't ever thought of himself as being particularly bad...at least, she didn't think he had. He rarely thought about it at all, really. But that dream...the way he was looking at her...was that what it was like? Was that what he had really been like, and was that how it felt to be on the other end of it? She thought about that crazy angel-woman, ranting and raving at her...had she been right?
It wasn't supposed to be like that! He was just sating his urges...wasn't it only natural? Why should he even have those instincts, if he wasn't supposed to respond to them? How was that fair?
But...even the crazy angel hadn't suggested that he shouldn't have those urges. Just that...that he shouldn't just do things to scratch that itch that he knew were wrong...and as much as she hated to admit it, deep down, she did know. He wouldn't have been so afraid of being found out, if he hadn't known that he was doing something he shouldn't have been... Those women in the pictures...it didn't take a genius to figure out that Julian hadn't gotten their okay for those shots. Probably they didn't even know... In the dream, with her doppelganger trying to take advantage of her while she was immobile...was that how they would feel, if they knew? She thought again of the grotesque expression on his face...
...and then she thought of what had happened to him. A horrible thought struck her: was this punishment? Was...was she doomed to live the rest of her life being punished for...for that? It couldn't have been that bad a thing, could it have?
No...no, that couldn't be right. For one thing, she didn't think the Sun worked that way. At least, she'd never heard of the Sun working that way...and Anne, who knew more than her about this stuff, hadn't suggested anything of the sort. And...well, there was also the fact that...it didn't seem like a punishment. Ricky was still figuring out what she thought about all this, but she hadn't really been that upset by her change. It was just this awful turn of events that was the problem...was it only dumb luck, then?
She didn't know. She didn't want to think about it anymore right now. She wanted to think about...about getting out of here. Getting out of this situation. When she was wound enough, if Jeff was still downstairs, she could try to sneak out...she could run home and get help...
...but she hadn't made it home the last time she'd tried to sprint there from Jeff's house, had she? And he still had her key...he'd tell her to come back as soon as he noticed she was gone, and she'd be completely compelled...
...or...would she? Part of her wanted to dwell on the unfairness of it some more, but another part of her reminded her that she hadn't immediately gone along with it at first. She'd felt the urge, but she'd taken the time to make sure she was dressed to go out and everything, not just taken off... Was it possible that...that she could resist? That she could control her impulse to comply? If she could do that...if she could get safely home, and get help, then they could get her key back, and she could give it to someone she could trust...
But that would have to be after the sun went down, wouldn't it? Her mom and dad, and Anne...they were all un-changed. They couldn't just head over to Jeff's house to take her key back, not in broad daylight. But she had the advantage here, again - she knew when she was fully wound, but Jeff didn't. It was counterintuitive and a little uncomfortable to sit around with her clutch slipping instead of putting that energy to use, but she could just kill time until sundown...
...she just wished it would hurry up and get here.
Adam was reading up on some datasheets she'd gathered for the marine-computing project, but her heart wasn't really in it. Not only because it was Sunday and her only real excuse for spending time on a work project was that she didn't have anything else on her plate, but because she was thinking about her morning. She'd done it...she'd flown. And she'd returned to the earthbound world safely...and she'd met another person like her - and advised her, no less! How different things were from a week ago...
She felt a little afraid, honestly. She thought about that girl in the mall, who'd openly admitted that she thought of herself as a harpy and not a human...would she ever be like that? Was that just a natural consequence of becoming accustomed to this new body? But...well, she could hardly not get used to this new life, and...even if that did happen, the girl in the mall didn't seem to dislike humans, she just didn't think of herself as one...maybe that didn't have to imply some kind of total disconnect. Still...
Adam heard her mother enter the living room and turned to her. The human woman smiled. "You looked a bit chilly when you came in," she said. "So I thought some nice hot soup would be the thing for lunch."
Adam smiled back. "It wasn't that cold," she said. "But...thanks." Setting down her reading material, she followed her mother into the kitchen. It was a cozy little space, a relic of the place's farmhouse origins, but considering that the dining area proper was still taken up by boxes of her grandmother's stuff, it was easier for the two of them to eat at the counter. She pulled out one of the stools and hopped up onto it, grateful that it gave her tail room in the back, as opposed to the chairs out in the dining room.
Her mom brought over a bowl of tomato soup. She didn't say anything, but Adam noticed that she'd used one of the broad, low-rimmed bowls so that she could sip out of it using only her mouth. She appreciated the gesture, but...well, she didn't really want to be stuck not being able to do anything human-like. And with her experiment at Hannah's house this morning, she thought that maybe it wouldn't be too much trouble...
"Mom?" she asked. "Could I have a spoon, please?"
Her mother eyed her curiously, then nodded. "Sure," she said. "Just a sec." She went over to the silverware drawer and got one. Adam braced herself against the stool with one talon and clutched the spoon in the other, feeling her own rough, scaly skin against her mother's soft, slightly wrinkled human skin. The soup spoons were large and shallow, and the handle was chunky enough that the harpy could easily keep a grip on it in her talon. She leaned over the bowl and lifted her leg up above the counter, carefully dipping the spoon into the creamy red liquid and bringing it up to her mouth.
It took some practice, and it wasn't exactly fast, but she managed to finish her meal without making a mess of things. Her mom looked on, smiling proudly as she ate her own soup. "Not bad for someone who's only been this way less than a week," she said, when Adam had finished.
Adam nodded and sighed contentedly. She still wasn't sure what the future held, but...maybe she wasn't so helpless, so unable to retain at least some degree of civilized humanity, as she'd thought. Maybe...maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
