The Process Forum - New TF Story

"Not a terrible idea," Katie said, nodding as she scraped the sides of the cottage cheese tub with her spoon. "Well, that's enough of a midnight snack for me. I should probably get to bed." She stood up from the table, wobbling a bit as she re-found her center of gravity. "Damn," she said, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head as she looked down on her expansive bosom. "Do you need blankets or anything?"
"No, I think I'll be fine," Mary said, leaning down with her elbows on her knees. "Just leave the heater on for me."
"Sure thing," Katie said as she wobbled into her bathroom. While she got herself ready for bed, Katie tried to contort herself into a laying position without breaking anything, her giant hands and feet easily if gently pushing aside chairs and tables until she had a clear swatch of floor going from one end of the apartment to the other. Mary lay down on her stomach, crossing her arms under her head for a pillow.

As Mary lay there in the dark, she reflected on what a strange day it had been. She was, for all intents and purposes, a carrier of a deadly disease, a parasite that could consume anything, feed off of anything, and grow from whatever it fed on. The Body had spoken of consuming entire worlds before, but it also said it had never encountered a species as intelligent as humans. Mary had managed to talk The Body out of eating Katie- perhaps with some time and effort it could be convinced to ceas its "Great purpose", at least enough so that no one else would share the repairman's fate.

Mary suddenly found herself high above the ground, staring out across a vast green plain. She could feel the ground, feel her feet worked around it and through it like the roots of a tree. Taking a look around, Mary realized she was enormous, the size of a tall building. She could feel things inside of her- walking on her skin, moving through her organs, hundreds of strange and inhuman creatures all working to ensure her well-being. She could feel herself eating and growing and expanding with every breath, the limits of her senses creeping ever outwards as the green plain enveloped the land, foot by foot. She felt at peace, serene, touching with a thought their feelings of unity and purpose. She could feel her arms- no, tentacles- throughous every inch of the organic plains, dozens, hundreds of them, able to do anything, make anything, anywhere. She felt connected to the land, to the creatures inside her, like they were her children and she cared for them as a mother. She realized now what her purpose in the world was- to care for and nurture her children, that they might grow strong and have children of their own some day, all of them connected as a family. It was a great purpose, indeed.

Mary woke with a start at the sound of Katie screaming. She rolled over, noticing that she was back to her normal size, and that she had reverted back to the form she had taken after she had eaten the repairman. Mary lurchedn upright on her tentacles, noting that she had apparently grown another set; now six tentacles made up her legs, and six more for her arms, as opposed to the four each it had been previously.
"Katie?" Mary called as she willed herself back to human, heading slowly for Katie's bedroom. She was just rounding the dinner table when Katie appears in the doorway, or at least part of her did. Katie's breasts surged into the doorway and stopped, their girth being too wide to accomodate the doorway. Mary reached the doorway and saw Katie at the threshold, scowling.
"Bigger! Why on earth would they need to be bigger?!" She spat, trying unsuccessfully to push her breasts through the doorway. Mary noted that they did seem noticably larger. They hung nearly to her crotch, and were noticably fuller.
"And they're leaking!" Katie continued as she pulled herself out of the doorway backwards and tried again, this time sliding through the door sideways. This attempt was successful, but Mary noticed a smear of liquid appearing on the doorjamb where she'd squeezed her nipples past. "Just ruined all my sheets!" Katie tromped over to the sink, her swinging breasts knocking aside a kitchen chair as she rounded the corner. Mary followed, seeing Mary heft her breasts onto the counter by the sink and begin wiping them off with a dishrag.
"...Sorry," Mary finally said, thinking she should say something about her friend's predicament but not knowing what exactly.
"It's not you..." Mary said as she rinsed the dishrag off. "But lord have mercy, if The Body was really a man I'd kick his janglies clear into his throat for this..."
Mary had to smile at her friend's frustration in spite of herself.
"Good grief, they're still leaking!" Mary said as she hefted one of her breasts to the edge of the sink and squeezed it, sending a jet of milky liquid into the sink.
"Katie, wait!" Mary said, diving for the sink and stretching one of her arms to cup a hand over the drain before the milk went in.
"You lost your head, girl?" Katie asked. "Look at me!" She had a fist clamped over each nipple, milk seeping through her fingers and dribbling onto the countertop.
"Katie, this place drains to the ocean. Whatever's coming out of you, The Flesh made it. Think what it could do to the wildlife in the ocean! We could have mutant fish and whales and who knows what else!"
Katie blinked. "Damn, you're right. But then what? I feel like I'm gonna burst here!"
"Ummm..." Mary said, looking around. "Here," she said, opening one of the lower cupboards and fishing out a large cooking pot. "Put it in here for now, and I'll figure something out while you're at school." She put the pot in the sink, and Katie began squeezing her breasts in earnest, jets of milk collecting in the pot.
"This ain't gonna be enough, honey," Katie said. "I can tell just from how these feel that I've got a lot left in me."
"I know, I know..." Mary said, looking around for any more pots she hadn't chewed on the day before. After lining up a few backup containers, Mary quickly threw some clothes on and ran down to her apartment, grabbing a few pots of her own and carrying them back up to Katie's. When she came through the door, she was startled at the sight of her tentacle-mat in the corner. Apparently when she had shrunk back to normal size last night, she had shed the excess mass as tentacles, because her "lair" was now easily twice what it had been before. The tentacles had crawled about four feet up the wall, providing an entire little alcove completely engulfed in tentacles, and the mat on the floor was larger still, enough that Mary could make a bed from it without any danger of her feet hanging off the edges.
"Oh boy..." Mary said as she hurried to the kitchen, where Katie had filled all but the last pot with milk.
"Thank goodness," She said as Mary returned. "I feel like Niagra Falls here..."
Mary set the pots down, lifting one of the larger filled ones out of the sink while Katie pinched her nipples in her fists. Mary slid one of her large pots into the sink and Katie continued milking herself, pushing each breast between her hands.
"Good grief," Katie said, "Where is it all coming from?"
"The Flesh sort of plays by its own rules," Mary shrugged, moving the full pots from the counter and replacing them with empty ones.
"I sure hope you can change me back for good, sister," Katie said as she switched breasts. "Because the huge knockers was one thing, but this, *this* is just not acceptable."
"I'm sorry," Mary said again as she finished putting all the pots on the table and marveled at the amount. Katie must have expressed nearly a dozen gallons of milk.
"It's not your fault, honey," Katie said as she moved to a new pot. "It's not your fault you wound up the cosmic bull's-eye for that bastard's dart." She gave a few more squeezes and stood up. "Finally, I think I'm empty," She said, and indeed her breasts had shrunk somewhat; they were by no means small, but at least they were back to a more manageable degree of huge.

"Okay, you ready?" Katie asked, standing in front of Mary.
"I guess..." Mary said. "I'll try as hard as I can, Katie, but I just can't promise anything. I just don't know."
"I know, honey, I know," Katie said, taking a deep breath. "Just... just give it your all, I can't ask nothin' more from you."
Mary furrowed her brow, concentrating the transformative liquid into her finger again. She felt the digit positively swell with fluid as she tried with all her mental might to program the fluid for a permanent change, to make it as powerful and potent as she could muster. Mary looked at Katie, hesitating for a second before plunging her hand into Katie's cleavage, punching the needle-fang directly into Katie's heart.
"Wh-hurk!" Katie choked out, startled, as Mary injected the fluid right into Katie's bloodstream.
The change was nearly instantaneous. Within seconds Katie had shrunk back down to her normal self. Mary pulled the needle out and said a silent prayer to herself that it would stick this time.
"Whoo..." Katie said, patting herself down. "Man, after lugging all that extra weight around, I feel light as a feather now!"
Mary smiled. "I gave you all I had. If it *can* work, it will work."
"Aw, thanks honey," Katie said, giving her friend a hug before pulling away, seemingly realizing for the first time that she was naked. "Er, suppose I should get dressed now that my clothes fit again..."
"I don't know, I think the other students might like it!" Mary called after her as she escaped to her room.
"Shush, you!" Katie called back as she got dressed. "Dammit, I didn't get any work done last night..."
"I don't know that you have even reached the keyboard last night," Mary said, laughing as she pictured her friend trying to reach over her expansive green bosom to type at her computer desk.
"Lord only knows, honey..." Katie said as she emerged from her room, shaking her head as she finished buttoning her blouse up. "So," She said, smoothing down the tails of her jacket, "how do I look?"
"Normal," Mary replied.
Katie flashed a smile and two thumbs-ups, turning and heading for the front door. "WHoa!" She said, stopping when she rounded the corner. "You weren't kidding about The Body moving his furniture in already. I think we'd better start moving my stuff before he turns them into a topiary." She hefted her bag up onto her shoulder, then turned back to Mary as she opened the door. "Bye! I've got my cell, call me if you've got any trouble!"
"You too!" Mary said as Katie shut the door, leaving her once again alone in the apartment.

Mary let out a deep breath, allowing herself to catch up after being in a rush since waking up. She recalled the strange dream, the odd images and sensations returning vividly to her. She shuddered at the sensation of people- all of them transformed into The Flesh like Katie had been- moving around inside of her, like an ant hill where all the tunnels and chambers were made out of her guts. She had felt happy and content, she recalled, but intellectually she couldn't abide by it. There had to be some way, some other way to keep herself alive while avoiding a worldwide biological disaster. The "unity" The Body described was a sham, a lie; bending others to her will the way she had inadvertantly done to Katie was the mental equivalent of rape.
Mary looked at the mat of tentacles, the start of what The Body had called its "Lair". She walked over to it and put a foot down on it, a shiver creeping up between her shoulderblades as the odd double-sensation registered in her mind. She looked at the mat of tentacles, noticing that a few of them had pooled under and twined themselves around one of Katie's living-room chairs.
"Oh geeze," Mary said as she went over to the chair, "If these things start to eat Katie's furniture I'll never hear the end of it..." Mary bent down to pull the leg free of the tentacles, and was surprised when they moved away from her approaching hand, scurrying into a little lump at the edge of the mat. Mary arched an eyebrow at this newest development, 'pushing' with both hands and seeing the tentacle mat react to her command.
"Hmm..." Mary mused, a hand on her hip and the other under her chin as she straightened up. She held her hands out in front of her, like a conductor at an orchestra. She pulled towards herself, and the tentacles slid towards her, coming down off the walls. She pushed back, and they retreated, sliding up the walls until hardly any tentacles remained on the floor. She brought her hands together, and the tentacles gathered in a pile on the floor. She raised her cupped ands, and they rose into a narrow column, a writing, wobbly pillar nearly as tall as she was. She pulled forward quickly, and they crashed to the ground, flowing past her feet like a slipper ocean wave. Mary lost her balance momentariy as she felt one of the tentacles slide under her bare feet, waving her arms and making the tentacles reverse direction. As Mary regained her balance, an idea came to her, and couldn't keep from grinning in spite of herself. She pulled the tentacles around her feet and ankles, wrapping them tightly around her feet until she had formed a kind of tentacle-boot around each foot. She then pulled the rest of the tentacles underneath her, gatherin them beneath her feet until she was lifted entirely off the ground, floating on a puddle of tentacle.
"Okay then," Mary said, arms out at her sides to keep her balance, "Mush!"
Mary wheeled her arms as the tentacles slid across the floor, her 'boots' acting like a pair of roller skates. Mary managed to regain her balance without falling, the tentacles slowing to a stop without her further guidance. She turned around, the tentacle-boots sliding around to accomodate her, and she pushed again, this time managing her balance much better. After a little practice, Mary was able to slide back and forth with ease, skating around the apartment as easily as walking.

"We are pleased to see you communing with your lair," The Body said, the sudden interruption causing Mary to abruptly halt the tentacles and pitch forward.
"What do you want?" Mary huffed as she rose to her feet, the tentacles retreating back to their corner and re-forming the mat.
"We must feed and grow," The Body said.
"Okay, okay, there's still plenty of food-" Mary started.
"No!" The Body said. "It is insufficient. "While your food is nourishing, The Flesh cannot grow without the seeds of others. We require the knowledge of new meat."
Mary gulped. The Body apparently had an appetite for something living, and Mary knew well enough that if she didn't provide it, The Body would just take over and do it himself.
"What kind of new 'meat'?" Mary asked.
"It matters not, so long as it will help to enhance the brilliance of our majesty."
Mary thought a little bit, looking around the room. Above one of the pots of milk, she saw a buzzing fly, and an idea struck her. "Does the kind of meat matter?"
"No," The Body replied. "All life will come to know the glory of The Flesh eventually- order matters not."
"Then I think I know a great place for you," Mary said, putting on her shoes and heading for the door.

The forest behind Katie and Mary's building was a place Mary often looked at but seldom ventured into; From where they lived, it was nnothing but forest for a good twenty miles north, no developments or even roads for miles in every direction. Much of the area was like that- civilization dropped into a sea of trees like a cookie-cutter of asphalt and metal. Mary jogged into the forest, weaving between trees until she could only just see her apartment complex between the pine needles. Mary held her arm up over her head, lengthening it into a tentacle until she could coil it up behind her back. With a mental nudge she felt the tentacle-arm sweat, not normal sweat but a thick, sticky glue. After figuring that she'd properly constructed the appendage, she whipped it forward, the long, loose limb unfurling through the air and landing with a thud against the forest floor. Mary curled the appendage back up, leaves and roots and insects being rolled up with it, held fast to the flesht tube by the sticky, slimy sweat. Mary felt her arm tingle, and knew that was The Body taking over, absording and processing the DNA of whatever living thing she had picked up.
"These are small, but adequate," The Body said. "We require more tastes in order to fuly gain the knowledge of their flesh."
And so Mary repeated the strange gathering, each time sticking a swatch of undergrowth to her arm and reeling it in for The Body to pick and choose what it wanted from it.
"Are you about done?" Mary asked after the sixth repetition.
"Yes, this should do," The Body said as it finished absorbing the stuck objects into itself. "We have learned much, and now must think on it."

As Mary returned to her apartment, she came across her landlord, who was walking away from Mary's door.
"Mary?" she asked as she came up the walkway. "Mary Carver?"
"Yes?" Mary returned, already getting an anxious feeling.
"Did you have a repairman come by yesterday? Marcus?"
"No, not at all," Mary lied. "We asked for one, because we've both got a hole in our roof, but no one's showed up yet." Mary paused, trying to put together how she would have normally acted in response to such a situation. As hard as it seemed to be to believe, her life was perfectly ordinary a mere two days ago. "Why, was he supposed to? It's gonna start getting into the rainy season soon..."
"Your apartment was on his schedule yesterday," the landlord said, putting her hands on her hips. "But you and everyone else except the two jobs in Buildning D has said he never showed up."
"Huh," Mary said, feigning peplexion.
"And he didn't just go home, either," She continued. "His family's been calling me since last night asking where he is, and I don't have anything to tell them."
"Really..." Mary said, her throat tightening. She had a good idea of where the conversation was going, but didn't want to admit it to herself. "Please don't say the police are getting involved, please don't say the police..." Mary throught to herself.
"They said if they don't hear from him by tonight they're calling the police and filing a missing persons report."
Dammit.
"Well, geeze," Mary said, hoping the fear creeping into her features would be construed as concern. "I hope they find him."
"Yeah," The landlord said, tossing her arms in exasperation. "If you see him, let me know, okay?"
"Sure thing," may nodded as they parted ways, Mary heading quickly into Katie's apartment, slamming and locking the door behind her.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap..." Mary repeated as she sat against the door, sliding down to the floor with a hand over her face.
"What is the cause of this distress?" The Body asked, causing Mary to roll here eyes.
"Great," she thought to herself, "Like this wasn't bad enough."
Mary sighed. "The police are getting involved. They're going to come looking for that man you ate."
"He has become part of the glory of The Flesh," The Body said.
"Yes, I know that, but if the police know that we're going to be in a lot of trouble."
"What are police? Is it a kind of predator?"
"Yes," Mary said, wrapping her arms around her knees. "They are the first level of predator you should be really worried about."
"And they are coming here?" The body asked. Mary could feel her skin hardening, like The Body was preparing for a fight.
"No, no! Not right now, at least," Mary replied, trying to counteract The Body's changes with her own. "But they might."
"What must we do?" The Body asked. "We would have you tell us how to avoid these predators."
"Your best bet right now is to jst act natural," Mary said. "We left no evidence of the repairman ever being here, so if we cooperate there shouldn't be any problems. I hope."
"Act submissive and docile, and the predators... will not attack? Such strange predators on this planet."
"Don't I know it," Mary said as she stood up, wandering over to the kitchen table. "Now, what to do with these...?" She mused aloud as she looked at the pots full of Katie's milk.