Heather was feeling nervous as she and Cam approached his loft. They'd had a fine time with their friends, grilling and volleyball and Heather listening to Cam and his bicycle buddies going all deeply nerdy, talking about their favorite vehicles. Both she and Cam had consumed some edibles early in the party, but it had been a long afternoon and evening and the mellow had mostly gone away. And now, she knew, she had to woman up and face the questions she'd been putting off, of what was happening to her when the lights were out. But her stomach felt like it was twisting in her gut, and she was not sure how she should begin, or what would happen when she did.
As they stepped inside and Cam flipped on the lights, Heather noticed gratefully that the evening air had brought the little rooftop loft back down to bearable temperatures. A little stir of air came through the open windows, rustling through the colorful curtains she and Cam had hung last year.
Cam turned to her and asked, "You staying over, babe?"
"I'd like to," Heather said, and then uncomfortably went on, "Though I do have something serious to talk to you about." She crossed her arms and felt her thumping heart.
"Okay," he said, frowning slightly, "Did something happen at the party?"
"No, no." She paused, then said, "It's nothing like that, really. It's something going on with me. But also, I guess, with you somehow."
"Hold on," he said, "I'm getting myself some water, and I'll bet you need some too."
Heather nodded, glad enough for the delay, and stood there awkwardly. She thanked him for the water when he brought it, drank a bit, and contemplated all the stupid-sounding ways that she could start to talk about her problem. All of it sounded insane, in any case, and maybe she was in fact insane.
She must have been thinking for a rather lengthy time, because she found laid-back Cam actually speaking up to prompt things, "So, yeah, if you don't want to talk we won't, but if you do?"
"I do," she said, and frowned again, "I'm just having a hard time starting this. I don't even know if it's real or if it's in my head."
"I don't know what's on your mind, but it sure is getting to you, isn't it?" His open face was innocently sympathetic.
She just had to take the plunge. "Cam, I'm worried because I think I'm turning into a monster around you." There, it was out, and on the table.
Cam didn't seem to get it, though. He was saying, "Naw, babe, that's not so. I don't know what you think you're doing that's so bad, but..."
"No, Cam!" Heather's tone was sharp. "I mean literally and physically a monster."
"I, um, I don't think I see it really." He seemed just more confused than anything, and really she couldn't blame him for it.
She had to try better with her explanation. "Just listen. You remember the other night when we were having sex at my place? Remember how everything got real weird?" He was nodding along as she continued, "It happened this afternoon again, in your bathroom, when I was cleaning up. I think I'm turning into some sort of monster, but only in the dark and only when I'm near you."
He looked incredulous. "I'm sorry, babe, but what the shit?"
"It's crazy, right?" she shook her head, "And maybe it is just crazy too. Maybe I'm going crazy and it's all hallucinations. In which case, that's pretty bad as well, isn't it?" She shivered. "I don't like it, Cam, because either one's no good. Either I'm turning into a monster or I'm crazy and I just think I am."
She stopped and took a deep breath. "So I want to find out. With you."
"Well, shit," he said, running his hands back through his shaggy blonde hair, "I guess there's just one thing to do, huh? I mean, you gotta know, right?" He blew out a breath and straightened up a bit. "So, how do you wanna do this, babe?"
Heather thought about his question. She hadn't expected him to agree to this so easily, but in retrospect she should have. He probably wasn't worried that she would actually turn into a monster because, well, why would he be? And he was caring and supportive, and she knew he'd dealt with mental health problems in his friends before. But she was pretty sure that it was real, and she had not thought through what she would do. But she knew where to start at least.
"First, I'm going to get naked. I've been naked every time before, and even if it still happens when I'm dressed, I don't want to mess my clothes up." Cam nodded at her and she went on, "And I want you to be naked too with me."
His face looked quizzical, so she explained, "I want to cuddle up, before. I could use some reassuring touch. I don't want to get sexual right now. I just want to hold you, and if I'm going to be naked, I want you to be as well."
He nodded, looking satisfied, and echoed back, "OK, get naked and cuddle up. Then just switch off the light?"
"That's right," she said, "let's lay down on your futon and just have your lamp on. We'll turn off everything else, even my night light." She looked over wistfully at the little red airplane-shaped light in the kitchenette that she'd brought over the first time she had stayed the night.
"And then?" asked Cam.
"And then we'll know," she said, "When we switch off the light, it'll be damned obvious if it happens."
"Rock on." He threw a little head-banging metal devil-horns gesture, then took their glasses to the sink.
Heather looked down unhappily at the futon lying on the floor. It just felt wrong to her somehow, and she wished it were a proper bed, with a nice dark space beneath for her to crawl under. Not that she knew why she felt that way, and yet she did, almost instinctively. If I'm a monster, she thought, am I a monster under the bed? Is that what's going on?
She shivered at the thought, but started taking off her clothes in any case. First her white linen shirt, popping the buttons one by one down from the top. Then her little shorts as well. Then bra and panties, leaving herself fully naked and open and vulnerable, a short and skinny blonde girl standing by the futon with her hair still in its messy pony-tail. She waited, standing awkwardly, while Cam came over and undressed as well, watching him even though she was in no mood to appreciate his body properly. Then, when he turned to her, she stepped up to bring their bodies close together, letting him wrap her in his embrace. She held him tightly back, tucking the top of her head beneath his chin and letting him surround her. She smelled his healthy, manly body and his sweat, felt his heat against her own slightly sticky skin. His breath was ruffling her hair, and she turned her face up for a gentle kiss, then drew them both down to the futon next to them.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she lay there. She didn't want to do this, and was scared of what she might find. She turned on her side and held Cam tight, clutching at him like a life raft in a stormy sea. His arm reached calmly around her shoulder and held on too. Lying on his left with her head against him, she could hear his heart was slow and steady, still calm despite her shallow breathing up against him.
Heather lay there listening to Cam's heart, and slowly her own began to settle down as well. She felt their sweat-daubed skin sticking together. Releasing him, she lay back and stared at the ceiling up above, her foot and thigh still pressed comfortingly against his. Cam's hand was still around her shoulder.
"OK," said Heather, "Can you please switch it off?"
"Right on." Cam pulled his arm out so he could lean to reach the lamp, and before Heather knew it, the light was out and darkness fell across them both.
Just as before, that indescribably strange sensation swept out through her body, from somewhere deep in her center through her arms and legs, and she felt herself grow and stretch out slimily on the futon, head pushing the pillow up against the wall and legs and arms stretching out and down. Her legs were not just two but more, many, and flexible. Where her right leg had been pressing up against Cam's left before, she felt several of her legs, or maybe they were tentacles, beginning to wrap themselves lithely around his thigh and calf, bringing a liquid, wet, and silken pleasurable sensation, their inner surfaces sucking and grasping lightly at his skin. On the other side, she felt expanding, grasping legs exploring the edges of the futon, wrapping themselves along its side and holding on to anchor her. Her mouth was filling up with rows and rows of needle teeth again, her swollen tongue pressing up against them from behind as she felt her mouth begin to open slightly and her breath begin to come in and out with a low and rumbling sort of noise.
Her legs. Or tentacles? The fact that she was touching Cam down there drew her attention to them. They felt like her legs to her, except that there were many now and they were all bending around so flexibly like tentacles, like there weren't any bones inside at all. She hadn't been aroused when this had started, but the sensual feeling of having several warm and silky legs, all writhing and wrapping around her lover's leg, was getting to her. Her cunt was soaking anyway, in whatever slimy substance seemed to cover her body's surface now, but now she felt it start to swell and ache, a growing need for being filled. And Cam was speaking next to her, asking, "So, uh, you want to tell me what I'm feeling?" He wasn't tense, that she could tell, he wasn't recoiling from her monstrous body yet. In fact, he sounded mostly curious.
She wasn't sure if she could speak. She tried. It came out thick and low, a monstrous sound that was somewhat mangled by her transformed teeth and tongue but clear enough to understand. "I think that I've got slimy tentacles instead of legs, and I guess I'm wrapping three of them around your leg."