This story contains a portrayal of a character who is shapeshifter that grows to larger than average sizes. If that is something that you are not interested in, I would advise reading something else.
*****
"Oh! Oh! Do Katy Perry!"
Kristi googled the pop star and then closed her eyes. The tingling and crawling feeling of her face and skin shifting to match a picture of someone else was unnerving each time she did it, even after doing a few celebrity transformations. As with the others she had done that night, she stopped the transformation as it reached her choker, but that did not stop her hair for continuing to change to match the long flowing curls from the photo.
"That's, like, so cool!" Her roommate Linda cooed. The blonde played up a persona that matched her bimbo-like appearance, but she honestly sharper than Kristi. That did not stop her from being a social butterfly and managing to be the contact point for many outings. In this case, it was her parent's lodge that was hosting their Halloween bash. "Can you do another one?"
A chorus of "Yeah, do someone else!" went around the ring of eight or nine people watching. It made her feel warm or maybe that was the vodka. Either way, she was glad it was going well.
When she had first decided to come out as a shapeshifter at a the party, Kristi expected people to be freaked out and that was mercifully not the case. Perhaps it was the holiday which helped to smooth the creepiness factor. Maybe it was bravery from the three bottles of Smirnoff it had taken to feel up to it. It might have even been that her close friends already knew, but had no idea what her secret meant. Whatever the reason, those standing around felt like they were actually enjoying themselves.
"Who should I do next?" She asked as she shifted back to her normal appearance and took a swig of her fourth green apple Smirnoff. As her audience debated, her mind wandered. It was still fascinating how her body seemed to know what it should look like. She never had to visualize her broad nose or her fat bottom lip. Her cheekbones rose of their own accord as her jaw line narrowed and tilted up to reform her pointed chin. Her dimples returned without prompting. Her skin tingled as her darker complexion reasserted itself and she had to blink a couple times when her eyes reverted to black from blue. Her hair shrinking back was by far the weirdest feeling out of everything though. She was keenly aware of how it felt like each strand was telescoping inwards as her style went from long, black, and curly to short, straight, and blue-green.
"Can you become a man?" It was a question seemingly from left field. She glanced over and locked eyes with Kitty, her older sister's best friend. The Filipino woman was smiling nervously, her thin eyebrows raised in a questioning way. "I mean, if you can't that makes sense, I just was thinking-"
"I've never tried actually," Kristi said to break up her awkward stammering. "I don't see why not...Have anyone in mind?"
"Idris Elba," she responded after a moment's pause, naming her crush after all his sci-fi appearances. The phrase DILF was thrown around a lot by both her and Steff, Kristi's older sister.
"Of course you'd name him."
Kitty giggled and Kristi guzzled the rest of her flavored vodka and slammed the bottle down on the table. A Google search confirmed what her target face looked like and she closed her eyes once more. The crawling feeling of her face stretching to match the British actor's was expected. What she did not count on was the sensation of facial hair sprouting from her skin.
As she itched at the stubble, she forgot to stop the transformation from spreading past her neck. The feeling of her shoulders and chest growing against her shirt as they bulked up was enough to remind her and she halted the changes. She had bulked up numerous times before, only she was alone in front of the mirror. Doing it where people could see gave her an odd thrill.
"Aw...I was hoping for more once you let it reach your shoulders."
"Hey now," Kristi said, he actor's gravelly voice issuing from her lips. "Don't make me cancel this party like I canceled the apocalypse."
The group around her laughed and Kristi joined them as she changed back.
"So, can you change just yourself?" The question was posed by Marcus, a bi-racial guy who lived a floor up in the dorms and was someone she wished she got to talk to more. She had long since admitted her crush on him. He was just so cute in that nerdy awkward way, like that guy from IT Crowd. That was probably why Linda included him, come to think of it. She was always trying to play matchmaker.
"I don't follow," she said, cracking open another bottle as she looked at him. He was wearing his glasses today instead of the contacts he wore to class and the slim-fit, Pumpkin King t-shirt he was wearing looked loads better on him than his usual oversized button downs. She never realized he had a Deathly Hallows tattoo on his forearm.
Marcus wiggled his fingers like he always did when trying to figure out the right words. "Can you...can you change your appearance without becoming someone else?"
"Oh! Yeah that's cake. I first realized I was a shapeshifter because I changed myself."
Her best friend Peggy raised her hand, as if waiting to be acknowledged. She was such a loveable dork even if she did swear like a sailor in private. They had grown up together, Peggy the voice of reason when Kristi went of the handle. She had been the first to know her secret, but still did not really know much else. "Can has story time?"
"Might as well," she said with a smile that had a surprisingly strong effect on her freckled friend. Maybe the booze was doing more than just making her brave and her friends laid back. "It was during gym class in middle school when I first realized. I was racing another girl to do more sit-ups. I wanted to go faster, willed myself to go faster and then suddenly my stomach and back were throbbing and each time I hit the mat, I got more athletic."
"More athletic how?" Marcus asked.
"Like I had been fitness training all my life, heck longer than my life. With each rep, I became faster and faster until I was doing two sit-ups for each of the other girl's one...then I was back to normal. And everything burned like I had run far beyond my endurance. I threw up a lot that night..."
Linda put a finger to her plush lips. "So, like, did you transform all the time after that?" she asked, obviously going hard on the bimbo persona since she did know the story and was half the reason she had even bother to try transforming again at all.
"No, actually. The experience was honestly kind of traumatising. It was months before I transformed again and even then it was another moment similar to that gym class. I've only been able to control it like this for a couple months-six tops." You know, since we moved in together, she added silently. Linda winked as if she heard.
"So what about just making yourself taller?" Peggy asked. "Is that possible?"
"Sure, that's easy." Kristi exhaled, letting her mind center. When she inhaled, she visualized her body stretching and her ability activated. Inch by inch, her pant legs rode up while her frame stretched from five-two to pass five-five.
Unlike becoming someone else, growing as herself felt very enjoyable-like she was being massaged all over. It was so relaxing she had started to do it to unwind from the day. It was hard to stop sometimes, there was one time she had nearly destroyed the bathtub.
