Prologue

Frank wandered around the mall, doing his usual duties for the holidays....

   You know, getting the cards for a dozen different people, getting some small presents for the few friends and family he felt close to, that sort of thing. Going through the motions, following the crowds doing the frenzied, "buy, buy, buy" thing.  But his heart wasn't in it. Everything felt empty, pointless....he had had this problem before, and it seemed to worsen each year. First the days would shorten, and get dimmer with the winter. Then the holidays would hit...

   And he always ended up alone. This year was particularly frustrating, however, for 2 reasons. First...he had got _so_ close to having a girlfriend, one who understood his odd passions. But she had lied to him all along, making him promise to keep her "forever and always" while keeping another guy on the side that she ended up liking better. And this really hurt...

   Second....his friends got really tired of hearing him *bitch* and *whine* every damned winter. Most of the people who liked him before just gave up on him, gave him nothing but a cold shoulder, figuring out that maybe he was the only one who could fix himself. And the few who remained, reacted out of their discomfort, and gave him the "tough love" treatment...

   All in all....it looked like a nasty time coming up. It really looked like a "put up _and_ shut up" scenario....

   And then he heard them, sweet and cloying, sounding at once like his sweetest dream and a vicious mockery of the same....

   Two giggly, stiff little-girl voices...

   "He.llo...myee name.iis An.nee,"

   "And myee name is Daf.nee,"

   "And we're Dol.lees!! Heehee!" together in unison, as Frank turned around to see a display case featuring two animated Amazing Dolls, plastic faces creaking and clicking as the blonde and brunette went through their pre-programmed chatter...

   Frank stood there. briefly entranced. For deep down, he was a doller. Sure, he was too big and old to do costume play, but he still had dreams, of plastic, walking, talking playmates that _played_ like real women...

   Then reality came back to him. "Damn toys. With all the computers and stuff in 'em now, eventually we'll start losing track of who's the doll and who's the kid..."

   And to himself, "And I'll get my cherished toy when? When pigs fly..." He was about to settle into a pissy, bitter mood when...

   He saw a little girl, maybe six years old. Crying, desperately, because she had spent her quarters on getting a raspberry ice cream cone...and it fell down on the floor. So without even thinking about it really, Frank went to the ice cream parlor in the food court, and got a small raspberry cone, with sprinkles -- kids love sprinkles -- and brought it over to the little girl...

   "Hey...hey, it's ok...no really," Frank said, looking at her parents, to see if it's ok. They looked a bit poorer than he was and willing to do just about anything to quiet the child, even though they didn't have the money to do the right thing...

   After the mom, who was cleaning up the mess, gave a quick, approving nod, Frank bent down and gave the girl her new cone..."here you go dear, it's gonna be alll better...." he said.

   The girl took the cone from his hand, eyes wide.

   The mom simply said, "God bless you sir, god bless you..." and took the girl by the shoulder as she held the ice cream cone by both hands this time...

   And the girl turned around, saying, "ooo, sparkles! happyhappy *nice* sparkles! here's some back, mister, ooo thank you thankyou!" and she blew him a clumsy, little girl kiss before walking away...

   Aww, Frank thought, that *was* special. Nothing like giving to someone on a day like this. It seems to be the one thing I can do, Frank mused, that makes me feel good without making me guilty....thing is, I give and nobody seems to ever give back.

   As Frank thought about the situation, a young woman with glasses and mousy brown hair watched him carefully and took notes...

Ch.1

   Shortly after getting home and dropping all the boxes and bags he _could_ drop--the stemware for his sister Jeanette went on the table, gently -- Frank checked his answering machine for messages...there was only one, and that one was rather odd...

   "Frank E. Allan? This is Miss Naomi Smith...I'm from the National Security Administration, UGE division...you don't know me, but trust me, we NEED to talk, within the next 24 hours...I've already arranged things with regards to your job, and I know you have no pressing family or social committments."

   Her voice, which was stern, softened a bit, "Look, I know this sounds completely disturbing, and I know you're having a rough go of things. You are _not_ in any kind of legal or federal trouble...I need to contact you to offer you assistance in fact. I am not calling to try to press any kind of charges...this is all about information, what I have to offer you, and what you can offer me. And trust me, please, you *need* to know what I know about you. Please return my call as soon as humanly possible, so we can arrange a time and place to talk."

   "Oh, hell....the Feds..." Frank muttered, slapping his hand to his head, "Now what the fuck...?" As he played the message back again, two things occurred to him...

   One, this message sounded absolutely sincere.

   Two, he wasn't in any trouble...but could be if he didn't comply. And the memories of his last IRS audit were still too fresh for him to try to buck the system....

   So he called her back.

Within two hours, Frank was out wandering around on the top floor of a hospital parking garage, looking for a teal minivan...

   One pulled up, with a short, slender, brown-haired young woman inside. Between the color of her hair and the round granny glasses perched on her nose, she looked rather like what you'd expect a woman would look like if she was *pretending* to be a librarian...

   And the odd part? She actually was one of sorts...an archivist, in a bit over her head with the cloak and dagger stuff, and having a ball. She rolled down the window on the passenger side, and said, "Get in, Frank..." Which he did. She continued, in hushed tones, "First off, we're doing this here because the van is mobile and soundproof, and has countermeasures...could you roll up the window, please?" she asked, then as Frank complied, "Thank you, and second...what we are about to discuss, while it isn't classified...the Pentagon does consider it _sensitive_. So if you try blabbing to the press or anyone, we will have field agents out there to both discredit you and watch your movements....got that?"

   "Um, sure..." Frank moaned, feeling a bit queasy, "umm...just what exactly have I gotten myself into?"

   "That's why you're here Frank..." the woman said. "I'm to tell you what's going on in what little time you have left..."

   "Wha...what little time...? What the fuck? Naomi? *Naomi!* What do you mean, what little time....am I dying?" Frank shouted.

   "No, no...calm down...it's nothing like that," the woman said. "As you might have guessed...that isn't my real name....it's my grandmother's but you can call me that for our purposes..."

   "Let me tell you a bit about what I do, Frank," the agent started. "I am an archivist, and a researcher of sorts...I wanted to be a bio-chemist growing up, but couldn't afford going to a good enough school to get the degree...while raising a daughter as a really young mom...and dealing with some nasty dysgraphia too, trying to make my writing comprehensible..." she shook her head, "anyway, after getting an associate's from a junior college as a library tech, the feds noticed my interest in a rash of strange illnesses that were breaking out at the time..."

   "I was the first one to suggest that the problems weren't an illness, but the result of a mutation..."

   "Whoa, so you're saying...I'm a mutant?" Frank asked, a hint of a smart-ass grin forming on his face...

   "Technically yes." she continued. "But it's not going to make you any kind of a hero, so get that grin off your face...after a few years of research with the best science the top brass could offer, my peers finally coined the term, Unexpected Genetic Expression, to describe what happens. It isn't good...most of the people who suffer these end up disabled in some way, and everybody ends up....different."

   "My job," the woman finished, "is to both inform you of what's going to happen to you in roughly 18 hours, and give you some options, and also to maintain contact with you and record what happens. Understand me so far Frank?"

   Oh Frank understood all right...cancer was a mutation after all.

   "Okay. Let's say you're right, and not a conspiracy theorist." Frank started. "If it's unexpected, how do you know *when* it's going to hit?"

   "Oh, that. The changes are unexpected, not the timing...no two people turn out the same, not even identical twins. We can find out the timing by carefully following folks around, looking for mutagens in hair samples, any trash or sweaty clothes left behind....you'd be surprised..." she trailed off. "We do profile, because we have an idea how this happens..."

   "Okay, shoot. What is it, this new Agent Orange shit I've been fucked up by?" Frank asked, getting more unnerved by this agent's softening up than by her harshness earlier.

   "It's really gonzo technical...are you sure you can keep up?" she asked, no hint of a taunt in her voice, only in her eyes.

   "Sure. I'm not stupid. I have a degree too." Frank retorted.

   "Well, it's basically a chain reaction, a food-drug-drug-environment interaction that messes with your nervous system first, then causes a whole-body metamorphosis..." the agent said. "But in the end, it all boils down to the French Fries." she finished, with a hint of mischief in her smile.

   "And the other stuff?" Frank asked, half not wanting to know.

   "There's a catalyst, oxy-metazoline hydrochloride, which is found in eye-drops and nasal spray...it causes cranial-facial changes in local blood pressure that make the process quicker...then there's any one of a number of atypical anti-depressants, which allow the mutagens to travel directly along the nerves themselves, rather like the rabies virus does...and then there's the prior alteration in reverse transcriptase production caused by exposure to low-level electromagnetic radiation from cathode ray tubes--TV's and computer monitors. But you see why I had to contact you so abruptly...once the mutagens exceed a certain thresh-hold, the changes occur, and the emotional disturbances the mutagen travel causes can literally drive you crazy..."she finished, almost apologizing.

   "But you said the French Fries were _key_??" Frank asked, puzzled.

   "Yep. Without the mutagens, nothing happens." Naomi said, "but _you_ try telling that to Burger King and Mickey D's and all the others. Remember, this is the same government that can't stand up to Big Tobacco, no matter how many dead bodies pile up..."

   "And the kicker is," Naomi concluded, "the mutagens take their orders, in a roundabout way, from the nervous system of the afflicted parties themselves. In a way, people become, whatever emotionally engages them."

   "What, you mean folks become whatever they want?" Frank asked, his jaw dropping a bit.

   "No...it's more involved than that. The mutagen travel causes hallucinations, sensory input...this in turn creates intense emotional states, which in turn select for mutagens that _intensify_ the sensory input. It's a feedback loop, but it's random and indirect to a large degree." the agent stated.

   "People are as likely to become whatever makes them angry, or terrified, or sad as they are to become what they like or what makes them feel good. It's like the difference between living a daydream and a _real_ dream...so few people have control in the latter that most folks are rightly afraid of being caught in even a pleasant dream, unable to awaken to a normal state. Which is what happens....almost nobody dies, but many go insane, from being unable to get away from the feelings their altered form provokes." Naomi said, a bit sadly.

   After a long silence, Frank asks, "So what do you need from me, exactly? Co-operation? You'll get that any damned way. Control? What?"

   "Information. While we are together, I want to know what makes you tick, what turns you on, what scares you to death...anything that might give a clue as to what _your_ change might be before it begins. Knowing what to expect in this case helps a _lot_ as regards to keeping your sanity. And having a form you can accept."

   And so, the questions began....with Miss Naomi prying into nearly everything Frank could remember, going all the way back...

   But strangely enough, the question, "So what turns you on?" came last.

   "Dolls." Frank blurted out, lulled into a daze by eight hours straight of interrogation. "umm....like girl dolls, plastic ones. It's pervy, I know, but..."

   Naomi laughed for a good solid minute, loudly in the van, at the bewildered look on Frank's face. And then she saw that he was getting upset, so she stifled her merriment to clue him in....

   "It's just....the preliminary research we did on you, your internet aliases and such...it was absolutely correct. How...how on earth can you be so trusting, so...so naive that you put your sex life _out_ there for all to see?" Naomi asked out of breath from her giggles.

   "I don't know," Frank said, smiling loosely, like a boy almost, "my friends tell me I give too much away, even when it hurts. When folks ask, I tell, I guess. But having a wimpy computer with no security doesn't help...besides....I dream of being a _doll_, a plaything sometimes..."

   "Aren't we supposed to play nice?" Frank finished.

   "I...I guess so." Naomi said, a bit more respectfully. "Well, I think we're both dog tired. Hitting a motel is too risky....are you okay with a rest stop? It's about as private and remote as we're going to get, in the time we have..."

   "Sure. But what about my job? My family and friends?" Frank asks, with some dread in his voice...

   "Our department can and will assist you in whatever ways needed to get you going in your new life...after not having the spine to stand up and say something to the corporations spewing out the tainted fries, we owe you all a most terrible apology....my department exists to keep all this quiet basically, so the bigots and the haters don't start lynching..." Naomi trailed...

   "...and so the freaks don't start suing, I understand...if folks knew there were mutants out and about....I guess we're just not ready for it.

   Skin color and accents cause enough hell for folks, they don't need to know about this." Frank completed.

   Half an hour passed, as the two found a quiet rest stop, got snacks and junk food....and got as ready as they could.

   Yep, I made the chapter more than a page long, just like in real life. Call me lazy...I was more interested in setting the story up.
 I'm stopping for now, but will add more tomorrow. I think you'll like what's coming next, now that some of the nit-picky stuff is out of the way.

   Brad

Ch.2

As Frank and the agent got out, stretched, and got some grub, Frank really began to get a good solid look at this woman for the first time....it was fairly dim in the van, and the questions and answers had kept him distracted, to say the least...

   "Naomi" was a fairly young Caucasian woman, in her 20s, with nearly shoulder length, slightly curly brown hair that seemed to like being in a mess...she was wearing some manner of dress and hose and heels, he could barely make out that much from under her rather large trenchcoat. She had these odd eyes...not blue so much as a coral shade, one that seemed to glow almost. And Frank had no idea why her coat was so big, because it seemed like she was barely five feet tall without her heels...

   Then the agent bent over at the water fountain to get a quick drink....as she did, a leg kicked up a bit. The heels were a bit higher than Frank had thought, a good six inches at least...which would put her right at five feet exactly. And the contour of her bottom, even though it was hidden under the trench, seemed oddly shaped. Almost too round...

   Frank walked up to her, listening carefully for anything odd...and as she wiped her hand across her lips, to dry them...a small, squeaking noise chirped out...

   Frank then asked, "So...what's it like to change? Don't tell me you don't know either...you've been through something, but I'm not sure quite what..."

   "Naomi" stood up slowly to her full height, turned around, and for the first time showed Frank what was under her trench...

   At first glance, she seemed like a perfectly normal, if voluptuous, young Caucasian woman. But a trained eye could pick out some things, some oddities, especially under the rest stop's harsh flourescent lighting. She was wearing a tight red dress, a peplum skirt and matching blouse. It was the kind of outfit made to show off a tiny waist by being sung...and yet her waist was too small even for the blouse's fitted waist, while her hips pressed against the cloth of the dress rather tightly.

   Her breasts...just floated there, large but looking lighter than they seemed. The skin of her legs was unnaturally shiny, and so would have been the skin of her face if not for a generous amount of makeup to tone it down. In fact, the lipstick that had come off on her hand was to make her lips look _lighter_...the natural color underneath was a dark, candy apple red. Where her lips, and the back of her hand were still wet...the skin was very glossy, almost like wet rubber.

   "Honestly, the changes really are different for each person..." she started, "a lot of it depends on things special to each person, like diet and size, for instance. I have always been a small person, with a very high-strung metabolism, I could eat like a horse and still lose weight. These two things made my change more subtle than most folk's...my threshhold for mutagens was already low to start with, and my metabolism had scoured out a lot of the stuff during the change. That's the one bit of good news; mutagens may be bad ass, but they're still _calories_ that can be burned out, at least before the change hits. Which is why you see mostly adults, late teens at the *very* youngest, getting changed, because the kids burn it off too quickly..."

   "But that isn't what I want to know. Don't change the subject...what was it like for you?" Frank insisted.

   "Can we talk in the van? Please? It's more private there...." the agent said, looking a bit embarrassed.

   Frank agreed, and the woman spoke up.

   "It hit me when I was in community college, and out on my own the first time. I had a reaction to the classic "freshman fifteen", the weight you put on when you eat *whatever* whenever. I was struggling with classes, but socially I was doing quite well. Everyone knew me as the party girl, the one who would do anything once. Well, one time...one of the guys in a class threw a big party, which in the late hours had degenerated into a huge game of truth or dare. Needless to say, I started taking dares...one of which was to dress up as a blow-up lovedoll. One of the guys had taken such a doll, slit it up to almost make it wearable...and somehow I fit into it. And wore that thing like a second skin all night, proud to show up that perv, and kinda scared of how much I looked like the real thing."

   "And it hit you then?" Frank asked.

   "No, that was a month earlier. I had a good 30 days to let the feelings and images from the party soak into my head...and become an obssession. Then it hit." she replied. "The one thing I can say, however, that applies to nearly everyone...the eyes almost always change first. That's what happened to me, my eyes became unnaturally bright and stayed that way. My pupils dilated and wouldn't stop. And I got this tune going in my head, the "Rubber Ducky" song from Sesame Street, of all the damn things!" and "Naomi" paused.... Should I go on? Frank, you look terrified..."

   "Umm, no," Frank said, swallowing a big lump, "Remember, I _like_ dolls...I'm just not used to talking about this stuff with...well, in real time with a live person..." and with that a slight sweat broke out on Frank's head, even though the window was cracked in the dead of winter.

   The woman paused, thought, and then took out a small tissue, and began slowly wiping the makeup off her face. And as she did, her cheeks grew redder, as did her lips, her face became pale and featureless and shiny, and it also became apparent that her eyebrows were _pigment_ not hair. Then she licked her lips, the friction making a slight chirp...

   "If it helps any, I can be less real, Frank," this woman said, who now had the face of a sex toy, and was shrugging off her coat to show off her unreal curves. And then she relaxed her face, letting it go blank, with her mouth drifting into a tight little "o"...

   "Umm...fwank?" she paused to straighten out her lips briefly, "Frank? By the way...if you need to know...my real name is Maureen. But my friends call me Molly. You can call me Molly Dolly if it helps..." she said, cooing a bit and letting the round, babyish "w" sounds crawl back into her speech.

   "Okaayyy...." Frank said, surprised that he could get horny in this situation, and also that it actually did calm him down quite a bit....

   And then Molly bit her lip and closed her eyes...as a hissing noise could be heard under her breath....and her body began to puff out, blowing up like a balloon, as her legs spread out, stopped only by the dress, just barely...and her breasts swelled to nearly volleyball-like size, and her head got rounder...and her hands stuck out, forced open as her arms popped up, elbows bent exactly 90 degrees.

When Miss Molly opened her eyes again, they *popped* wide open, forced open by raw pressure...but her eyes stayed moist anyway, somehow, in spite of her not even blinking again.

   And her voice was higher, airier, like a little girl's, with rounded words coming out from her tight stiff lips...

   "Anyway....for a day straight, I was actively changing...my lips got big and tight, so talking was hard and embarrassing, then my skin got so smooth and slick I could barely stand up barefoot on a smooth surface...but rough ones hurt too much then. Everything not as smooth as glass or rubber hurt back then...I was sooo scared...and sooo turned on too. That's not a good combination...as I got more aroused, I inflated more, with hydrogen split off from the water in my body...I grew lighter, more floaty, but I also nearly dehydrated myself too..."

   "I went through this all alone. And I shouldn't have...it nearly drove me nuts, I ran away, lived out on the street for three months, hiding by day in the sewers under the streets...if it hadn't been for this drag queen I met, some druggie who was sharp as a whip with makeup, I would have never come out...but after a while, I realized I could *force* myself to pass for normal, and that I didn't want to be out there where drugs and exposure might make my body do *god only knows* what. So I slowly got myself back into the swing of things....I told a doctor I could trust enough of the truth that he was able to convince folks I had a stress-induced fugue state, but that I was going to be better now."

   "so..." Frank said, stammering, half in awe of the story, half in agony over how hot and bothered this talking fuck toy was making him, "did the Feds know right away? and do I have a chance of getting off as easily as you did?"

   "Actuallly? No, they didn't know for at least a year...the NSA does high tech stuff with phones and radio and computers, but as far as real-time actual subterfuge goes, they are mostly clueless. It took a guy transferring from the CIA to suspect anything...and a young lady who had been in the field to confirm anything." Molly squealed, "Although one director I had, I really had a mind-blowing time with him, I do admit. He had a penile implant, so he got the balloon thing implicitly and we got along great for a while."

   "So do you think I'll get as easy a change as you did?" Frank asked, finding it really hard to think with Molly twittering like a bird.

   "Of course not, silly boy...ooo, you're too big!" Molly mewed, and giggled.

   Which brought Frank over the edge completely, ripping the juices from his manhood...which remained rock-steady even as he groaned...

   Molly laughed as she deflated herself a little bit, and pressed her lips together to speak a bit more normally. "You know, that could be part of the itinerary...one of my job requirements is to give clients any last requests I can...and quite frankly, I like soft, chubby guys. But really...you are too big. You weight 270. Your mutagen threshhold as of last month was _triple_ of what mine was when I was set off...and your metabolism is a turtle to my rabbit...sorry," Molly said as the gases built up again...

   "What? Haven't you tortured me enough for one night?" Frank asked, amazed that he was still hard and ready to go....

   "naah weewweee fwwaannkee heehee, wee woo pwaaay wee mee?" she mewed, her arousal literally rendering her a helpless object.

   "Well...what the hell? This may be the last time I get to use my natural equipment..." Frank muttered, as he fumbled his clothes down, wiped off as best he could, slapped a condom on...and played more than a little doctor.

Ch.3

"oooo...OOOO....OOOO....oooooo....heeheehee..." Molly squealed, as Frank quite literally finished fucking her into the minivan's ceiling.

   It took nearly an hour for Frank's arousal to diminish, during which time he had physically climaxed one more time, and had blown his own mind about a dozen times....

   As Molly deflated a bit, she purred, "You know...I lied a little bit about my job..."

   "wha...what do you mean?" Frank groaned out, exhausted.

   "While it was part of my job to give clients their last requests...I actually wanted to do this. After watching you from afar for the past three months, I could barely stand it, not knowing what you were like....I mean, really," she continued, almost deflating enough to speak normally, "I've been like this for four years now. Don't you think I know how to move without squeaking? I _wanted_ you to know...and for it to go like this..."

   "Why?" Frank moaned, halfway not even caring, even though a dry, rational part of his mind kept pestering him to pay attention.

   "Because...I'm a bit of a renegade. If my superiors had their way, I'd be quietly...erased." Molly revealed.

   "Then, how do you keep on..." Frank mused, flat on his back.

   "It's the way the whole thing was set up. My division was _so_ secret even the rest of the NSA didn't know....CIA sure as hell didn't have a clue....Pentagon heard rumors, but..." Molly drifted off.

   "But what?" Frank prodded.

   "Nobody knew. Because of the controversial stuff we did. We were finding mutants like you and I, rounding them up....the ones who could pass for normal, light changers like me, were allowed to be free, but only under surveillance. The heavy changers....were sent off to Montana. There is a walled village there, halfway between a ghetto and a psych ward at a hopsital. At first I went along with the plan. I mean, most of the deep, heavy changers were quite crazy, and it seemed like the only way to keep things under control. Y'know, to keep the bigots from lynching people, and the mutants and their families from raising holy hell." Molly said, drifting down, her weight finally coming back to her.

   "But there was a problem. I found out, in the field...the heavy changers had more control over their destiny than what was believed, and that in a supportive environment...they usually didn't go crazy adapting to their new flesh. My superiors didn't like this....it fucked with their plans, and their experiments..." Molly finished, letting Frank come to his own conclusions.

   "So the village...was more like a concentration camp...and they haven't got to you yet because?" Frank asked.

   "They're still trying to figure out how to do it quietly...keeping the press out of this. But I roam, and have enough contacts to raise hell if anything should happen. So it's a waiting game, seeing who fucks up first." Molly said.

   "But you need rest," she said, "tomorrow will be a rough day."

Finally, the dry, rational part of Frank's mind relented and let him drift off to sleep, held in the warm, slick organic rubber arms of Miss Molly...

   Well, Frank thought to himself, at least I had a doll to love before all hell breaks loose...

   Frank slept...
 

   A while later, from the darkness, Frank heard music...one of his favorite tunes, the slow, tiptoe creeping nocturne from the _Nutcracker_....dink da dink dink, dinkdinkdink, dinkdinkdink, dinkdink dinkdink *dink*...

   And as he slowly drifted into something that felt like being awake....the music kept playing, even after he opened his eyes....it was close to dawn, and yet his eyes...felt strange. Dilated, and swelled up...he was wet in a cold sweat, and his throat felt not just sore, but raw, turned inside out practically...

   "Molly?" Frank said, startled. HIs voice sounded like he had a thick layer of syrup over his vocal folds...there was a stickiness there, and his pitch was off. It so startled Frank that he didn't even notice that his beard had fallen out, along with most of the rest of his body's hair.

   "Molly...M-moll...llyy...," Frank stammered, turning over to face her in spite of a numbness that didn't *want* him to move, "...iiit's....star...ted."

   "Oh, ok...it's ok..." Molly said, reaching out to hold him...

   "NO!! Don't...touch...me!" Frank shouted, trying to force out the cloying, twisting film on his vocal chords, only to succeed in sounding like a four-year old little girl, "d-don't...touch..me. p-please...wh-what's hap..pen..ning teww..me..? Iiis...iiit...wh-what...Ieee...thiiink..."

   "Yes, Frank...yes it is..." Molly confirmed, "it looks like you're becoming some sort of doll. But it's too early to tell..."

   "nonono..." Frank moaned softly, trying not to shriek again, "aamm....iieee..." and in frustration, he flails his stiffening arms downward, trying to hit his crotch and missing, "aaa...aaa..."

   Molly looked down after turning on the inside light up front, and covering Frank's eyes...Frank was growing breasts, after a fashion, though they lacked nipples, and...

   "A girl? Umm, yes Frank....sort of. I don't remember too much from the early Internet stuff I did...what kind of doll was it you were infatuated with again...?" Molly asked, dreading the answer her eyes were giving her.

   "b-b-bar...bees...plas...tic...bar..bees...oh...no... god...nooo...." Frank groaned, and then his mouth clamped shut as the first of a series of muscle spasms racked every joint in his body.
 

From Frank's point of view...

   As the spasms hit, the music changed, becoming *much* louder, and distorted. And *every* doll song he had ever heard, from Tchaikovsky to No Doubt to Aqua to the theme from Rainbow Brite...everything, all at once, a deafening roar, as he could feel his body crunching into itself, first the soft stuff, his face, ears, muscles....

   Oh god, he thought to himself...my penis is *gone*, it's gone...

   And it only got worse, as it felt like his body was slowly turning into it's own vice and crushing itself, while he could do nothing but try to shout over the noise, although he couldn't even hear the soft, fey moans that crept from his hard, frozen lips...

   "Frank...FRANK!! I'm still here...I'm still here...it's ok, hold on to something, hold on....don't give in to it, not totally....find something of yours you still have..." he could barely hear Molly shout to him, as the light became a big unbearable yellow fog, washing over him...and he couldn't even blink, not at all....

   So Frank did the only thing he could do...hide. Pull away from his body, go inside his own head, and try to do what Molly said....

   Molly...molly. The name....so familiar. Yes, yes, third grade...the prettiest little girl in school...

   Molly, the little girl Molly....

   She always managed to sneak one of her dollies into school. She seemed to like them better than the other kids even....

   After all, the dolls didn't tease her about her mom and dad....or about how many times she got caught with boys playing doctor....they didn't call her a slut, a hooker...they played nice...

   And for a while...Frank was nice enough to play with her. He was still young, and plain enough and small enough that nobody had _got_ to him yet, teasing him for being fat, for not being _manly_....the only teasing that took place was of the "kissing/girlfriend/cooties" variety...

   Spring and summer, Frank had spent with her, just listening to her when nobody else would, keeping her secrets, helping her set up tea parties, helping her with the clothes she'd bring.

   Then autumn came...and Frank had heard that Molly was going to move away with her mom and dad right after Hallowe'en...

   "So, um, Molly...what are you gonna dress up as?" Frank asked, blushing a little as he tried to figure out a way to get to go with her....

   "Why one of my dolls, silly, heehee...I think I'll go as Josie Mae, yeah, she's *real* pretty..." Molly sing-songed...

   "Umm, can I go with you? Pretty please, with sugar on top? I know you're moving away soon, but...I like you. You like me. I'll even dress up as one of your dolls..." Frank started.
 

From the older Molly's point of view, in the van, in the present...

   Frank was definitely turning into a living Barbie doll...his skin was the candy-coated pink you'd expect, stiff and shiny top to bottom....all of Frank's old hair had fallen out, replaced only at the scalp and at the eyelashes by fluffy golden strands...

   He had shrank to roughly Molly's size in height, but was more slender in stature...he had an absurdly cone-shaped wasp waist, topped by round, rigid, featureless breasts, and held underneath by an almost equally round, rigid, featureless bottom, as his?...no her, cracks front and back became smaller and smaller, and his fever dream struggles grew weaker and weaker, and his breaths more and more shallow...

   Molly knew she had to do more than just keep him comfortable....so she shouted again....

   "Damn it, Frank, damn it!" Molly took another breath, trying to get louder still, praying the van held the noise back, "Stop being SO LITERAL!! It is going to KILL you. You CAN'T be all plastic and still LIVE...."

   And somehow, she got through...
 

From Frank's point of view...

   Frank was adrift, withdrawn...

   Dreaming, reliving his Third, going on Fourth grade Hallowe'en preparations with his good friend Molly....

   ...she was going to talk him out of being a doll with her this time, out trick-or-treating, because dolls are helpless, and the boys would *hurt* him or worse...

   For some sick reason, Frank felt the urge to blurt out, "but I'm turning _into_ a doll already, I can't stop..."

   And then the girl shouted, in the other Molly's voice, "Damn it, Frank, damnit! Stop being SO LITERAL..." and Frank heard the message...but it hurt...

   "But Miss Molly...." Frank said, to both girls at once..."I...I want to be a doll...and I can't stop...and it's the only way girls will love meee,"

   Frank broke down into sobs, the tears sticking like glue to his face, "you're sooo...pretty and....special, not rough and ugly and mean like me, I wanna be like you, I wanna be with you, forever and always...always....d-don't leave m-me...hold me, please hold me...."

   "I...I'll hold you, Frank," both Mollies seemed to promise, "I won't leave...but you *have* to promise not to leave me either...you *have* to make yourself move enough to hold me *too*."

   "But...." Frank stammered, "how am I gonna go on, being a *girl* doll? I don't....know how to do it....and I'll be helpless, and people will hurt me if they ever find out..."

   And inside and out, Frank stiffly twitched into place, bending his arms into right angles, and flopping onto Molly, trying his best to hold on, hold on....

   And slowly....the waves of crushing pain began to subside....the music began to die down, and Frank could breathe somewhat again....it was dark now, and it felt sooo gooood to collapse and just sleep....

   Molly woke up the next day hearing what at first sounded like the chirping of a small bird, caught in the van somehow....

   Then as the fog of sleep drifted away....Molly realized who was talking to her...

   "Mol.ly? Miss Mol.ly? Iee.made.it, Miss Mol.ly, Heehee..." a blonde, plastic doll said, leaning stiffly over the young woman, moving like an animatronic machine, "but i.have a.pro.blem, heehee..."

   "i can't.be frank.an.y.more. i'm.a.dol.lee.now. a.lit.tle.gir.lee.doll, too, heehee...what.is.my.name?"

   Damn...Molly thought, if this keeps up, I'll be too inflated to talk...too horny too.

   Just then, the loud tapping of a flashlight, turned off, banged into the van as a State Trooper said, "Hello? Hello in there....it's been two days, is anyone there?"

   Molly quickly yanked on some clothes, reached for the window switch, grateful for variable tinting...

   "Hello, officer...how may I help you?" Molly asked, hoping that this would just be a "move-along" kind of thing....

   And then the doll that was Frank spoke up, blissfully unaware of her nakedness, stiff plastic limbs creaking as she plopped into the passenger's seat, "hel.lo, of.fic.er....i'm a dol.ly"  Molly's jaw dropped. The officer _stared_ at the doll...what looked like an actual plastic blonde, but she...moved, and talked....

   "Umm...ummm...umm," the officer stammered, "I've been up *waayyy* too long, I've gotta be seeing things...d-dolls, dolls d-don't *do* that!"

   He said as he all but *ran* to his squad car, slammed the door, and peeled out like he had seen the Devil herself...

   "i felt.like it. Miss Mol.ly, heehee," the doll chirped.

   "Ok, ok, hold it right there...I want to talk to *Frank* okay? Get the hell *out* of character and tell me what's going on in your head," Molly asserted, the stern "agent" voice kicking in.

   "o.kay..." the doll started, "i...i was just.try.ing to ad.apt to this.new.bo.dy. i'm.not a.guy an.y.more, so i have.to fig.ure out.how.to act." and as the doll said this, a small sticky tear trailed down her cheek, betraying the lie of the smile stuck on her face, "be.sides, is.n't this.what i've al.ways wan.ted? and...and.i can.not go.back ev.er..." and another tear flows behind the first.

   "ohhh, it's gonna get better, really..." Molly tried to reassure, as she embraced the tight, nearly rigid plastic torso of the doll, "it really is, just you wait..."

   "be.sides," the doll continued, in a voice stuck in happy/chirpy mode forever, "i tell.the truth. i don't.lie, if.some.one asks, i.tell...and it's.not.gon.na be.bet.ter for.a long.time."

   "But...but you have to admit, you are adorable, and...it was *hilarious* seeing that policeman turn and *run* like that...and, you're still *you*, still candid and honest, to a fault..." Molly said, really trying to find the right words, but knowing that _no_ words could ever make _this_ feel good.

   But on the inside...something happened. The words _did_ make the doll feel better about herself....it was as if she was completely new and innocent again, and everything felt warm and welcome, not dark and painful like it did. And the word, "candid", was an inspiration...

   "Can.dy," the doll chirped, actually sounding happy this time, "my.name is Can.dy, heehee."

   In fact, they were just talking about this very thing...

   "so make.up would.n't be en.nough," Candy chirped.

   "No, because you move and talk too much like a wind-up, animatronic toy...in fact, I'd say the only thing you have working for you are the pheromones..." Molly stated.

   "huh? Fear-o-what?" Candy cooed, "sor.ry, the big.words don't.come out an.y.more ve.ry.well. it.is hard.to think.too. like.my brain.is stiff.like my.voice...but.i'm not.a bim.bo..." she finished, sniffling a bit.

   "No," Molly said. "You're just becoming a toy, that's all, with a simpler, more innocent and straightforward personality. But you were already close to having that in the first place, you know. I want you to keep trying to find ways to work around the stiffness...if we could get you to sound ordinary long enough for a phone call, even, that would help..."

   "But those hormones, that scent you put out...it gets people horny y'know....it makes them want to play with you..." Molly explained. "As opposed to hurting you, which is good..."

   "it.is un.til i.say *no*.to some.one," Candy pointed out.

   "umm. be.cause Can.dy comes.from can.did, and.i tell.the truth. it.is an.oth.er way.of be.ing frank. but.i ne.ver liked that.name an.y.way..." she twittered.

   "Why?" Molly asked, the answer on the tip of her tongue, but just out of reach.

   "spel.ling. my mom.my spelled my.name wrong. it.was Fran.ces with.an "e" like.the girl's.way of spel.ling it. i nev.er did.use my.full name.once peo.ple star.ted mak.ing fun.of me.for hav.ing a.girl's name." Candy said.

   "I'm so sorry....it must really hurt to bring all this up...." Molly murmured to her in apology.

   "it.is o.kay. i.kin.da like be.ing a.toy an.y.way. i'm pret.ty now, heehee. and mom.my's gone, and.i'm grown-up, and..." Candy faded off.

   "What?" Molly asked.

   "i real.ly nev.er was.that good.at be.ing a boy in.the first.place. nev.er loud or big or strong en.ough..." Candy said, struggling to use emphasis in spite of the cloying cuteness of her voice and the smile stuck on her face. "i.was named.for a girl. it.stuck. i.turned in.to one ev.entual.ly. i'm stuck smil.ing now, and gigg.ling. i will mean.it some.day, it.will be.real too." Candy said, trying to reassure Molly.

   "i love.to be.a toy," Candy giggled, "i.just nev.er dreamed it.would be.real." And after a pause...

   "speak.ing of hor.ny...i want.to go.play with some.one. let's.find a.cute guy.to.play.with.us doll.eees, heehee.heehee...." Candy said, a sparkle in her eyes
 

   Hi,

   Okay, before I go on....

   I'd like some feedback, so I know which direction to go. They're both dolls, Molly and Candy....and the rest of the story could be happy, with them quietly playing and never found. Or they could be caught and tortured. Or they could be pursued, escape, maybe win a struggle or two.

   Question is, what would you like to see? A happy quiet ending--since they've been through enough for a while? A dark, evil ending? Or a struggle to overcome the darkness, followed by whatever comes? I'm inclined to go the third way, but...

   Some folks might want less plot and more play, so to speak. Or they might not be satisfied with anything but a flat-out morality tale/torture fantasy. And I'm writing this as a Christmas present....so what good is a present without an element of surprise?

   Any takers? Any ideas? I'm open to suggestions. If you don't want to clutter the board, feel free to email and/or Instant Message me. All I ask is, if an Instant Messenger session becomes a roleplay session, _please_ don't put the raw content on the board and say it's another chapter. Stuff that makes perfect sense in the context of a Mesenger chat just sounds flat out incoherent sometimes in a post, especially without proper editing. If you want to try something like that, save a log of the chat, send that file to me, and let me tweak it first, please.

   Anyway, I'm rambling...sorry. I just need to take a break. I'll write more soon.

   Brad

Hi,

   First off, thanks so far for the compliments, I really appreciate them, I love it when folks understand what I'm doing...I'll probably wait 'til Monday evening, to give more folks a chance to have their say, then go on...

   So far, it looks like people want both conflict and a good ending, so far...and I aim to please.

   To Denari (sp?)--thanks for the reply. And yes, Candy will get more doll-like as she gets aroused, that was what triggered the change to go in that direction. :) In addition...it may feed on itself, and become harder to shake off as Molly and Candy play together. I'll figure something nifty out, really :).

   To JMD--Thanks again, you've been a boon. I'm seriously taking your advice under advisement. As a side note...I think I should do this first, before I move on to the Chronicles/Addventure. I seem to do better focused on less than a dozen things at once (I also have work, a role-playing game or two online to keep up with, and my own personal quests...it doesn't leave a lot for the stories, but I manage :) ).

   Thanks for your input,

   Brad Poe

Ch.4

   After a long embrace, Molly calmed down and put on her makeup and sealant, so she could look passably real, threw on some baggy jeans, a top and a coat for the cold, and wandered around, first in the van, then after parking the van, looking around...

   She would need a guy, in fairly decent shape, but not bright enough to screw them over...so she looked around at the small-town bars and road houses.

   And she used the walks to clear her head. She needed to...

   "Damn pheromones..." Molly muttered, "mine get most men, even some women, really hot and bothered, but Candy's...damn. She puts out the olfactory version of MDMA if I ever saw it. Everyone gets just giggly happy...or scared. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say this was feeding on itself, that she's getting hooked on me, and I her..."

   And then, in the small hours, Molly found him.

   James had that look about him. Big, strong, reliable....probably a bouncer or a bodyguard. And not dumb as much as just unreflective...not used to having to think his way through things instead of acting...

   But he looked like he had the night off...and was drowning his lonliness in a pint of brew.

   So they talked. Molly gave him the usual story that she reserved for herself, when she needed company....how she and a friend needed a "big, strong man," to help them find their way from this small town to somewhere near Denver, a 'burb called Lakewood or something....

   Of course, Molly's altered metabolism helped. Not just the pheromones, but also the tendency alcohol had of blowing her up _just slightly_ without arousing her too much...between the breathy voice and the subtly swollen curves, most men were putty in her hands.

   Molly took the chance to casually test the protien levels he left behind in his mug...

   "Interesting...he has some mutagens in his body. A very low level, but they're there nonetheless. He might do something....in about a year or so." Molly mused, feeling a bit buzzed...

   And in the men's room...one tall, light-skinned, lean young man of African heritage was doing a lot more than taking a beer piss...he was on what looked like a cell phone, but those in the know would find out what frequency it operated on exactly. "Yep, it sure looks like her. She's not quite as dressed up as usual, but she did swell slightly, and I could tell about the makeup....I'll see what's up, and report back if she's the one. Yeah, if...people ain't that different, there might well be another one just like her, but not involved...or maybe she's a decoy. Watson out."

   And James walked out of the restroom, phone put away, and said to Molly, "Hey, what's up...we gonna meet this Candy girl or what?" and then more quietly, "I've never hung with bondage chicks that much...I hope she's not too scary."

   Molly and James took their time walking back to the van, James trying to put the moves on her, Molly backing off....it was odd. Molly _knew_ her pheromones normally didn't hit that hard that quickly...it was almost as if he was trying to arouse her in public _on purpose_.

   But...but between the alcohol and the lingering buzz of Candy's pheromones, it was all she could do not to give in....why be so paranoid over some _dude_ out in the middle of nowhere?

   There was something, however...he moved a little oddly sometimes...twitchy. Revved up. He didn't look like he was on speed or anything....if Molly hadn't been distracted, she would have recognized this twitchiness as a by-product of certain elite military training and neuro-steroid programs....

   As it was, things went smoothly. Molly led James to the van....got him in, rolled up the windows, and let him see Candy under the lights.

   "Whoa...that's just a big *doll* you've got back there...is Mattell in the love-toy business these days?" James asked jokingly. And then all thoughts of joking died as Candy's naked, appparently plastic body started to move, and crawl over to Jim....

   "hel.lo, mis.ter. my.name is Can.dy, *hee*hee. will.you.play with.me? i'm.just a dol.lee, *hee*hee..." the plastic blonde chirped.

   And as James' jaw dropped, Molly quickly stripped the makeup off her tightening face, and crawled up behind him, squeaking as the wetness between her legs made them chirp even through the jeans...

   "ooo, hheewwwooo....weee aawww wwuubb dollees, heehee..." Molly purred...

   Before Jim even knew what hit him, both him and the ladies were naked....he was on his back, letting the Candy doll grind her tight, slick plastic into him, while Molly dolly ground her tight, rubber tits into his side, and wrapped her rubber lips around his ear....

   Oh, god, Jim thought....these women really are *dolls* and sooo pretty...and with that thought he drifted off into a ravaging fever dream of him just pumping and grinding on and on and on, and wave after wave of raw....he didn't have words for it, how good his climaxes felt. And still, the ladies weren't stopping, though it was harder and harder for them to move and talk...

   So he began to lick and kiss and slurp on the plastic tightness of each one of them....and their juices tasted odd, almost oily and fruity...but he couldn't stop at this point, the air he breathed was their sex, their hunger....
 

From Candy's point of view...

   Ooooh, Candy thought, I never *thought* I'd *want* a man in me....but if it *can* work, I guess there's no good reason for it not tooo..... ooohh. m-my toes....a-are stuck. poin.ting down and to.get.her...ooo.nooo i'm *think.ing* like.a dol.ly now, ooooo...hard...to...move.... hands...won't...move....can't....move....or, oooo, or, oooo, stopp.....

   oooo...ooooo....iieee....ieeee.....oooooo

   And Candy slowly drifted off, lost in a haze of unending, unrelenting joy and release as her body ground itself nearly to a halt, only twitching slightly at her hips, her breathing not even visible to the outside....she looked and felt like one big plastic love toy, and felt too good to have a single thought in her hollow widdle head, heehee...

   And as he turned his attention away from Candy, who was nearly but not quite there, Molly began to undergo a similar sensation....

   oooo...she thought, i'm....sooo tiiight. can't move, heehee, feels sooo airy and light and good....feel hollow, nothin' inside but how it feeels.....

   oooo....oooo....ooooo.....

   Molly slowly faded out into her own daydream of drifting away, floating around, every touch a climax, making her sooo slick and wet and shiny alll oooverrr.....

   "c-caann't thiii-iink a-aannyy mooor-r-ree," Molly struggled out as she drifted off...

   And after James came for the sixth time, his anti-arousal agents kicked in even harder. They had almost been overwhelmed, but in the end, he was able to do the job....

   Which was to bring the ladies to the edge, where they were utterly helpless, unable to move or speak, like perfect dolls...and no further, so they wouldn't recover before he delivered them to the fellows from the Village...it served them right, the freaks, for running around disturbing the hell out of normal folks...

   Then, as he slipped away from the near-coital ladies, one stiff as a board, the other a rubber balloon, James noticed two things...

   He saw the mutagen test that Molly had taken of him in the bar, and its positive results....

   And he saw, in a file folder marked, "candy", some Polaroids of a man...and his driver's license...and finally, some pictures taken of...the man turning into....that plastic blonde.

   Suddenly, James needed air...

   James violently opened the door of the van like he was suffocating, and lunged outside, falling to his knees, as he nearly flipped out...

   "I just fucked *what* !?!" he blurted out, astounded and nauseated....what the hell did that mean? he wanted to know, especially now that the fruity, oily taste of the doll's juices tried to rise in his gorge...

   And then it occurred to him....he hadn't seen much of the mutagen tests, but he knew enough of them to know how to read a positive result....

   He had maybe a year left before he was going... to be a freak himself. And he didn't know what to make of that either. For about half an hour, he just sat there, on his knees, just outside the van door, breathing, trying to get his mind together....what was he doing? What was going to happen to him in a year? Did he just screw a *man*?? He was so lost in thought he didn't hear the moans of relief inside that occurred as the cold air hit smooth, rigid, overheated skin...

   Shortly after that, James felt a tap on his shoulder....it was the blonde, on high tiptoe, her toes fused together like a mannequin's, wobbling to balance herself...himself...itself, whatever....

   "are.you ok.ay? you.don't.look so.good," the doll chirped out...

   And James fainted right there, in spite of all his training and modification....

   "Stow it, Watson, we're doing the driving," Molly said, 110% in her agent voice. "I went through your pockets while you were out...and your hotel room. So you wanted to _screw_ us, huh?"

   "jim.mee did.n't play so.nice," Candy said, almost pouting, as she practiced speaking a bit more slowly in order to be smoother, " why did you want.to be.so mean any way? now my toe.sies are messed all.up. and my hands.are real.ly stiff. i can bare.ly hold on.to any.thing."

   "It's ok, Candy...you don't need to ask this asshole anything..." Molly blurted out defensively, "he's Pentagon. And definitely wants us put away...maybe even shot." And as Molly said that, a truly bizzare thought came to her mind, of the Montana "village" turning into a gigantic, toy-box themed amusement park, with her and Candy living in one of the toy boxes, still and air-headed, waiting for someone to play with them...

   And the bizzare part....this notion appealed to her...she *loved* to be a toy, where before, the blow-up doll thing was an annoyance. A useful one, but an annoyance nonetheless.

   "Candy...we need to talk. Away from *him*, as soon as we find an empty rest stop, so look for one, ok?" Molly asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

   "ok. sure thing. Miss Molly." Candy said, putting all her will into sounding normal...and succeeding. Well, normal for a little girl, anyway.

   "Candy," Molly started, " we have a problem. Somehow...our changes are feeding into each other's. When we're horny....erm, aroused, around each other, we become more toylike. You get barbie feet and hands, and even *bigger* plastic breasts...and I get, umm...."

   "air.headed? spac.ey? diz.zy?" Candy started, a slight edge in her voice.

   "Well, yeah, that....it has been hard to concentrate lately. But I was thinking more about my body. The skin's getting harder to hide, it's tighter now. I'm more likely to squeak when I move...and I get horny more easily, and my voice...I have to make an effort not to sound like a bimbo. I look and sound more like a fuck-toy come to life now, don't I?" Molly asked, hoping she was wrong....

   "Umm...yes. You do." Candy said. "Sor.ry I was angry ear.lier. I just could.n't be.lieve he was do.ing what he did."

   "Oh....it's not your fault, not really. I was just the wrong person for you to be with when you changed...and now we have a feedback loop going," Molly said, then drifted off as she saw a bit of fear creep into Candy's eyes.

   "don't leave.me. you.said you.would be.here with.me for.ev.er and al.ways," Candy said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears...

   "Ooohhh, don't cryyy..." Molly said, forgetting her tough act for a moment, "I'm not gonna leave you....I'm gonna come up with something for my little dollie, just you wait..." And to Molly's own concern, she realized that she *meant* both what she said and how she said it.

   "Umm, wow...I *am* a doll, aren't I?" Molly asked, blushing.
 

Ch.5

   Just before the trio got to traveling again, Molly took another tissue sample--using some extra duct tape to remove some fresh skin, then scraping the sample off--and ran another mutagen test, just to double check her theory about the feedback loop thing. If they really were altering each other...then they might be changing James too.

   Not that it wouldn't serve him right.

   But the results startled even Molly, who had been observing all sorts of weirdness in the field for the past 2 1/2 years...

   "Oh. My. Gawd. He was roughly a _year_ away from changing last night...now he's less than a _month_ away. Granted, with the neuro-steroids and endocrine mods the Pentagon used to rev him up--I can't *believe* I didn't pick up on that first thing--it could really throw things off...or he could be more sensitive to what's already there." Molly finished.

   Then, one could almost see the lightbulb go off over her head...

   "Wait a minute....if our hormones mixed together can act as an accelerant, and an amplifier of mutation...then there ought to be a chemical that does the exact opposite, turning _down_ the more radical changes and muting them," Molly squealed with delight as she turned toward Candy, "Y'know...it might be possible to cure this thing...or weaken it enough to let you live a more normal life. It would most certainly help me."

   "but i.love to.be a.toy. be.sides, it is just a theo.ry. you still have to prove.it. and.who needs nor.mal an.y.way?" Candy murmured.

   "Hmm....you have a point, Miss Doll....definitely have a point. I _was_ wondering just what we were going to _do_ with this guy....now I know," Molly said, smiling a tight, round-lipped smile as the fear welled up in James' eyes.

   "We need to test a theory....and it looks like we have a guinea pig."

   The rules were simple enough...

   1) Don't *hurt* him. Any physical pain would cause his endocrine mods to kick in an adrenaline surge....in addition to letting him escape, it would ruin the experiment.

   2) Take turns. This way, one doll stayed moblie and aware long enough to take samples and notes--this in spite of Candy's persistently numb and stiff hands -- and didn't end up making things worse for the other.

   3) Keep him blindfolded, bound and gagged as much as possible. This not only kept him captive, but it also kept him from being aware of anything but the fact that *dolls* were playing with *him* and not vice versa. Likewise, they also made sure to keep all conversation with him as in-character and ditzy as possible, so as not to break his train of thought. Or clue him in.
 

   And after a while...it started to do something.

   On the inside, James could feel something happening....not just the dreams of slick, plastic mounds grinding into his face, or of sugar-coated voices teasing him....or of oily fruity mists rising up and smothering him. It was that the dreams began to blur into the reality...his waking life as a toy for these two, a literal suck-me Elmo was becoming impossible to tell from his dreams....dreams of his modifications turning against him, hardening his flesh into metal...then something else, something that terrified him into wakefulness...

   And when he tried his Emergency training, an attempt to use psi to Remote Message for help to his allies, the same thing came through....an image of Molly....apparently turning him over to the other agents. But he couldn't move, or speak...all he could do was look down at his tight, rigid, featureless breasts...

   "ooooOOOO!!"

   "ooo-OOOO!!"

   "OOO-oooo...heeheehee..."

   "Candy, girl, aren't you *done* *yet*??" Molly shouted in the window of the van, doing her best not to inhale those intoxicating, maddening scents that rose from Candy's resinous flesh. "I swear...it's almost enough to make a girl join the convent...you really enjoy this too much," Molly finished, readying her tubes, test strips, and portable forensics lab....

   "o.kay, Miss Mol.ly Dol.ly, hee*hee*, i'm *alll* done now, hee*hee*..." Candy said as she stiffy clicked her way out of the van, nearly falling out, but somehow keeping her balance on 7-inch heels that seemed made for her feet, and then slowly twilring and grinding in place, swishing her pantyhose together, and giggling as her flounced baby-doll skirt bounced up and down, showing off her bloomers and pettis...

   *click* *click* *click* her feet went as she spun around, with an air-brushed blush in her shiny cheeks and a rigid smile on her face, "ooo, Mol.ly, are you so sure you.don't want to play.with me....ooooh pret.ty please? hee*hee*" Candy begged.

   "Umm..." Molly stammered. Good god. Frank's a total *doll* now, and *sooo* loving it, she thought. She really ought not to give in, though, since she's so close to both proving the feedback loop and making a counter-agent that might even help the deep changers...

   But we've been at it three *weeks*, Molly mused, and my body is *sooo* hot and smooth and tiiiight...."Ohhh....wh-wh-whyyy nooot?" Molly purred as her skin tightened and inflated so much she barely had time to get in the van before she started to float...

   And in the deeply reclined front seats, in the dark of the night, James got to see the two dolls play endlessly with each other, plastic slowly grinding on plastic, as the double-ended vibrator spaced them out further and further from their normal selves....

   They're gonna be helpless soon, for a little while...starting right...now, Jim thought, now's the time to get out...but I can't....move.

   But in all honestly, both dolls were so tired. They had been up all night for several days now, Molly trying to do chemistry without succumbing to it, so to speak, while Candy found new and creative ways to torture James, and learn to speak more smoothly in the process.

   So as they collapsed into each other's glossy arms, neither of them had the presence of mind yet to notice how James was trembling, and twitching...if he could have spoke, he would have been screaming, ranting, anything to try to get away from the rabid terror and arousal and delirium that seared his mind now...

   As it was, he suffered in near-total silence, as his body collapsed in upon itself, growing cold and hard and smooth in the dark.

   As it was, he suffered all alone.

Ch.6

   As consciousness drifted back to Molly and Candy, they first began to notice how warm it was in the van...almost suffocatingly so. And as it took a minute or two for full movement to return after waking up, they had just enough time to ponder if maybe they had pushed James, or God forbid one another, too far, and maybe given someone a fatal heart attack in the process....

   Neither of the dolls were so lucky.

   Molly came to full movement and sensation first, slowly gliding around the van as she felt her body slowly grow heavier, and more like flesh and blood--it took longer each time now, to return to normal, this alone wasn't good--and she saw what remained of James, curled up in the corner, in a ball, with something odd stuck in his back.

   At first Molly thought someone had killed him in the night...maybe as a set-up. But the object in his back, which was familiar in the dark, became obvious in the light...

   It was a wind-up key. And James had become, at least physically, even more doll-like than Candy....his feet had become absurdly small and pointed, toes fused into a generic flap...the hands were posed in a pretty yet useless grip. Seams had sprouted at many of the joints of his body, and his skin had become a light beige, rendered in a glazed, enamel-like surface, with his hair rendered a dark, brassy blonde, in contrast to Candy's ethereal, nearly white blonde.

   "oh.no. he.was a deep.er chang.er than I was." Candy murmured, stating the obvious. "is he a.wake yet?"

   "But seriously," Molly continued, "it's kind of like asking someone, 'are you asleep?'...if you get an answer at all, it means they're awake usually. Likewise, it looks like we're going to have to wind him up to find out anything, and if we do that...he changed *alone*, and we didn't see it coming. Not only did we *not* help him, we probably made it worse, much worse..."

   "so he could.be a total psy.cho by now," Candy said. "what.ev.er are we go.ing to do now?" she asked.

   "Umm...lemme think a minute, okay?" Molly mumbled. She looked around the van, trying to gather her thoughts. This was becoming harder and harder to do lately, especially as she and Candy had been getting closer. Now she couldn't tell anymore if it was just hormones...or maybe if it really *was* love. 'After all,' Molly thought to herself, 'Candy *was* a guy in a past life...it's not an entirely gay thing...like I care if it is anymore.'

   Then an idea came to mind. A dangerous one, but if it worked...

   "So Candy...nobody's really *seen* you, have they? Aside from one tripped-out State Trooper who really looked like he wanted to forget when he peeled out getting away..." Molly asked...

   "so what are.you up to, Miss Mol.ly?" Candy asked, a trace of a natural grin working its way into her fake, stuck-on smile.

   "Just this....nobody's seen you. And in cases like his..." Molly said, pointing to Jim, "I would normally use a memory fragmenter drug to ease his suffering...it helps some of the worse changers if they can't remember who they used to be, if it's *too* radically different from who they are now...some short-term memory loss is worth it if it preserves sanity long-term. So what if I used a large enough dose to whack his memory really good, convinced him he was *you*, took the real you to a friend's hideout for a month or so, and dropped off 'Candy' with the other agents, looking like a good little girl, just long enough to get this theoretical inhibitor serum made and tested...and to get us out of the woods?" Molly asked....and to herself thought, 'and also for both of us to normalize a bit and not become total bimbos?'

   Candy looked at Molly with a stare that seemed made for reading minds...or at least hearts. "so we have.to be....ap.art?" And at first it looked like she was going to cry again, but she didn't. "ok.ay. i un.der.stand. i'm not hurt. i know you've been scared late.ly, of be.ing too.much like a dol.ly, of be.com.ing too.dumb. and.your plan would.work bet.ter if you did.n't have.to hide me on the way."

   "ohhh, Candy..." Molly said, hearing the hurt in her partner's voice in spite of her efforts to hide it, "I know this is going to be rough...it's not going to be a picnic for me either. But I really can't figure out another way to get out from under all this, so we can be together...you, you know I do love you, right?" Molly said, stunning herself in her candor. "I'll be back for you, I promise....three months tops, from the day we get to San Francisco. And that's a good week away, plenty of time to come up with something else, something better if there is another way..."

   "uh-huh. o.kay. let's.do.it. what.ev.er you need to.do," Candy said, the pain obvious in her voice now...because this sure looked like another rejection, or at least a 'give me my space' maneuver...
 

   So this would be the plan, as Molly figured it out.

   Jim's mind would be kept zonked on the fragmenter, enough so he had no clue from one day to the next what was going on....after Candy was dropped off in Frisco, with a friend of hers, she would brainwash Jim into believing he was Candy, doctor the files to make it look like he was, and turn him in to her former colleagues, along with her research and everything, in exchange for her freedom and a chance to just "drop out" and vanish...if she did it right, it would take the agents up to a year to figure out what happened, and in that time, Molly could get back to Candy, take off out of the country, and *hide* for good...

   "so who's this 'friend' of.yours?" Candy asked, still wincing a bit with each word of this plan.

   "Jeffery's a wannabe fashion designer, wants to get his clothes on models all over the world, but only seems to get them on the wax and plastic kind, so in the meantime, he works on the side as a tutor of sorts. He teaches people how to be mannequin models...at least that's the official story. Unofficially, he runs an underground of sorts, helping folks hide and escape from unusual circumstances...in the beginning he helped battered women and children escape otherwise impossible situations, and helped folks get out when bondage scenes degenerated into actual _slave trade_ problems. But now he concentrates more on helping the changed...it's easier for him, since the average mutant has fewer people in pursuit than the average abuse survivor...he'll be really helpful, I promise." Molly said, then added, "and he's one of two men on the face of this earth I'd trust my life to."

   "You were the other one, Frances...just so you know. I love you, no matter what happens...never forget that. Never stop beleiving that...I'm not doing this to hurt you." Molly finished.

   But she couldn't tell, from Candy's rigid face, whether or not anything sank in....

Ch.7a

   The week en route to San Francisco had passed in almost total silence, at least as far as Candy was concerned...

   More and more, everything Molly said sounded like a preparation for a good-bye...maybe one that lasted forever.

   'After all,' Candy thought to herself, 'feds don't play around...if they don't just kill her, they'll probably make damned sure she never gets back. I mean...she was serious enough to call me Frances again...that isn't good.'

   So after a silent, thoughtful ride, Molly dropped Candy off at a humble apartment in an older part of town, one that was built over an old department store...the two barely said 2 words to each other, and Candy didn't shed a single tear.

   But then and there, Candy knew it was going to be forever...

   Of course, Jeffery made Candy's plan so easy. He hardly knew the first thing about the changed, how they still needed to eat, sleep and the like, maybe not just like anyone, but close enough. He was too busy gushing and fawning over how great a natural mannequin artist she'd be to notice....

   That after the first couple of days, Candy stopped eating...talking just a bare minimum, not moving much...not sleeping. Just staying on her stand, locked in a pose that was all the easier to hold with a vibrator clandestinely hidden in the stand, and a powerful deodorizer hidden in the cap over her crotch as well....

   And Candy wondered....how long would it be? After she died, how long would it take for people to notice? Would she smell right away, or would the plastic hide it for weeks and months?

   Jeffery could tell something was up...even though Molly hardly said a word to the plastic blonde she left behind, he wasn't a total putz. He knew the two were in love...and he could see the pain grow, the light fade, every day in Candy's eyes....

   And he wondered...is that even her real name? Who was this girl before she changed?

   And eventually, signs of strain began to show....Candy's hair grew dull, her breathing, though very slow, was occasionally audible, and her eyes lost their plastic shine, and grew very dry and bloodshot...

   One day, Jeff didn't even bother opening the store...the pain Candy was obviously in was affecting the other girls, changed and otherwise, under his wing, and he needed to straighten this out...

   He walked up to Candy, and before she could respond to the mist squirted in her eyes, he pulled the stand from under her, yanked off the cap, and watched in some trepidation as she clattered to the floor, just like the real thing....

   "oh, no," he muttered. "Of course she'd be too weak to catch herself, and it must take effort for her to move at all...oh, dear..." he said, fretting until Candy slowly *creaked* to her feet, shocked and humiliated, but not hurt it seemed.

   "why...did.you....do.that?" she croaked, a small sticky tear welling up in her right eye...

   "You haven't eaten. Or rested. Or anything. And Molly would *kill* me if I let her beloved kill herself right under my nose. Come on....we can discuss this in private," Jeff said as he plucked a robe from an actual mannequin--there for camoflague--wrapped her in it, and carried her into a back room.

   And then the questions began, ranging from what Candy could eat--anything if she had time, but only soft, baby foods digested well -- to what her real name was and who she was before. And Jeff would not let up, partly out of fear that she'd pass out, partly out of the curiousity of a very focused, intense mind...

   "Oh, dear...so it seems Molly found her match finally..." Jeff chuckled, "and lost her bet too."

   "her bet?" Candy coughed out between small bites of strained peas, and sips of flat lemon-lime soda.

   "Yes...she didn't tell you? Oh, mymymy..." Jeff spurted out in laughs, "oh dear, this is going to be fun when she gets back..."

   "if...if.she gets.back," Candy stuttered.

   "Oh, she'll get back, don't sweat it...she has half of those spooks wrapped around her finger...and those fellows don't even know she was supposed to be *gay*...that was the bet. She could lay with men, but not get feelings for them, fall in love with them...it was all physical, she insisted, and she would never find a man she could fall for..." Jeff stated, a spark of intrigue and just-between-us intimacy in his eyes.

   "but...but i was on.ly male.with her for.one night." Candy said, uncertainly, "and i'm.not like.that any.more."

   "Well...maybe not, but I don't think you've changed *that* much, Miss Frances...your body's different, but in *here*," Jeffery said, putting an open hand over his heart, fluttering it, miming a beat, "you are pretty much the same. Molly usually doesn't *watch* folks for three months at a time, or sleep with anyone the first night, *especially* not a man. And I saw the look in her eyes....she is *sooo* in love with you. She wouldn't have left you unless she was *desperate*, really..."

   "then why.don't i be.lieve it my.self?" Candy asked.

   Jeff looked at Candy Frances...and was amazed that she could have ever made it for *five minutes* as a man, never mind thirty-some odd years. She must have been so bitter and lonely, her innocence so thwarted....

   "Maybe it's because you don't yet believe *in* yourself...have you ever been in love before? No, truly, with someone who also loves you? I didn't think so....crushes are one thing, and it does hurt when you fall and get lied to, but..." Jeff paused, to get his breath as much as for effect," when it's mutual, when it goes both ways...everything is shared. Molly wasn't lying to you, and she also misses you dearly. But it's a good thing she has something to do, to keep her from pining away, and withering away. You need something too...." Jeff said, an idea forming in his mind.

   "Did you know I'm a stutterer? I had it bad once, I could hardly put 2 words together. Teachers all wrote me off as hopeless...except for my music teacher. She knew I could sing just fine...all I had to do was work that fluency into my natural speech. And it worked." Jeff stated, smiling.

   "so.what does.this have.to do with.me?" Candy clunked out, stating the obvious...

   And so that was how it went...by day Candy posed, and by night Jeff put her through her paces, making her sing, and then slowly working a more natural rhythm into her speech...

   It kept her busy for a good three weeks. In spite of a young woman, recently changed herself into a plastic, doll-like form, who kept approaching Candy, even though the woman struck Candy as way too butch....

Ch.7b

   During the three weeks, Molly was on the road, taking a slow trip up to Seattle...both the weather and the holiday traffic conspired to slow her down, but all things considered, she was in no hurry...

   Every day for the first week, she had to go through the same painful routine, winding up the doll in the back, after squirting memory  fragmenter up each nostril....

   "hel.lo....i'm hav.ing trou.ble mov.ing. help.me...where am.i? who...whooo am.i? what's my.name?" the dazed, drugged-out doll asked, pleading....

   And the pain came in the answer. "Hello...you're a *dolly* now, my *special* dolly...your name is Candy, and you *love* to be a toy..."

   Molly said, every day, pounding it into the doll's brain, as she drifted up the coast, going into photo labs and copy shops late at night at towns along the way, cutting and pasting away bits and pieces of her Frances's life, swapping them into this doll's life, to make a passable copy, a good enough fake...

   And every night she would cry herself to sleep...it was so hard, training, brain-washing this poor soul into being a parody of the one she loved...it only made her miss...

   But no, the cold, dry, agent part of her railed, this is no time to be soft, to be an air-head...if you truly want out it has to be this way.

   Besides, this "poor soul" nearly sold you both out, remember? that agent part of her ranted...

   Still, her task barely got more tolerable as she "accidentally" left out photos and file note of "Frances" out in the open, while the doll was wound...

   "so what.was i like, Miss.Mol.ly?" the wind-up doll would ask, again and again, forgetting everything the next day, as planned. For there couldn't be _any_ risk that his old personality would show up. As it was, Molly had already used enough of the fragmenter to wipe his long-term memories out for a full year, but she just couldn't take any chances....

   And every day, Molly told the same story, one of the few that kept the scatter-brained doll's attention and made any sense to her...

   "Once upon a time, there was a young man. His name was Frances, spelled like a girl's name, because his mommy was mean like that. And he had to fight against a lot in his life...bad parents, mean kids at school, teachers who wanted to shut him up more than anything." Molly started...

   "And for most of his life he was all alone. for as long and far back as he could remember, nobody would hold him. For some reason, nobody wanted to touch him. He was always "too ugly, too fat, too smart" too *something* that made people stay away....when all he ever wanted from people was someone to hold him, and maybe tell him it was gonna be okay, that it wasn't *all* about hurting and being scared and wanting without ever having..."

   "And the one dream he had, the one impossible wish he had that he knew would never happen, was that he wanted to be a toy...a pretty little doll that some precious little girl would hold and dress up and play with and care for...he wanted to be an object of someone's undivided attention and affection. It haunted him that he wanted something so un-manly, so sick and weird, but...as long as it was just a dream, and nobody knew, it didn't matter much."

   Molly continued, "But one day...Frances was exposed to some weird chemicals, drugs, bad foods, lots of different things that made his body act funny...."

   "and that's.how i.changed?" the doll always asked, "it.was some.thing i.ate?"

   "Uh-huh," Molly answered, "sure was."

   And with that, Molly would lay the doll out, stroke her forehead gently until she went stiff, and wound down--until she was fairly sure the lights were out--and pray each night before she went to sleep herself....

   "Lord in Heaven....I've failed. I should have been there for this one too, while the change happened, to offer comfort...as it was, I got so caught up in my own feelings, so messed up in my own games with the agency, that now....I have to take one of my worst mistakes, and make it worse. Have mercy on my soul, please have mercy....I'm only doing this for the one I love, and to protect us from a grave threat to our lives. I'm sorry...so sorry..."

   Molly should have been more discreet in her prayers...but then again, she couldn't have known...

   "Hello, Mr. Rogers?" Molly asked, voice trembling into the pay phone's receiver, "This is Miss Naomi....I have some research archives and materials to submit to you for my _final_ thesis...and I would like to set an appointment for an exit interview..."

   "Naomi? Is that you?" the voice on the other end asked, amazed, sounding almost fatherly in his concern, "I've been worried sick about you, I haven't heard from you in weeks...you had that death, your aunt's, to tend to and then you just disappeared off the face of the earth...."

   'holy mother of shit,' Molly thought to herself, 'could it be that i'm not in as much trouble as i thought i was? i coughed up that excuse at the last minute, right after i saw the Village in Montana...and then i started running, assuming they would follow...maybe...they didn't?? could they have been too busy, too distracted?'

   After a brief pause, Molly asked, "Okay Rogers, is that really *you* or is that the Prozac talking?" amazed that she still had the hard, tough old "agent" mode in her...even though it had only been a few weeks since Frank's change into Candy, the love of her life...

   Molly heard a long laugh at the other end, then, "Yes it's me...I've just had a lot of work to do. Turns out the rest of the Agency doesn't like being in the dark, completely, about our job, so the request went through to re-classify us from a black org to a dark-grey org...which involves a lot of paperwork and even *more* shredding, of course...I think I have a buzzing in my ears now, permanently, from the damn shredder. So you got back to work and finished up, without even telling me...how sweet. When and where?"

   "Seattle. The usual, one week from tonight," Molly said, smiling brightly, hanging up as per protocol, making it look like the call was cut off.

   And at the other end, in a harder, more agentlike voice, "Excellent....just excellent. Just as we planned...and she has no clue," Rogers said.

Ch.7c

   Oh. god. no.

   oh. god. no.

   oh. god. no.

   The thoughts, and the terror behind them, raced through the tatters of Jim Watson's mind, over and over again...there really was nothing else he could do, but relive the fear and terror of the last few minutes of that...that change, that left him cold and smooth and numb and bare and...

   oh. god. no.

   oh. god. no.

   And there was no relief. His body never woke up from the dreams...so his mind could never go to sleep. The only relief came when the mists passed up his nose and he went as numb and hollow inside as he felt inside, and everything faded away... and.then.all.was.soo.stiff.and.smooth.and.hard.to.do.

   And the hours would pass like that, every thought, every action hanging on the twitchy tick-tock clicking that racked his mind every other second....

   Tick....utter pleasure, ravaging, so so happy to move and feel and talk and be *alive* again...

   Tock...utter terror, contempt hatred for all he had become, so empty, so hollow....

   'She's the one,' it dawned on him, as he wound down into another night of lucid, paralytic terror, 'she's the one who took....who took my things...my stuff. my stuff that made me *me*...and not a toy.'

   And after the first week....the fear seared its way into the hollow space where he once felt a heart beating, and in its own caustic time, became hatred....

   Rogers was to be the point man, the first one to make contact and id the renegade and the altered Pentagon agent, who was still traceable, after a sporadic fashion, through the cerebral pacemaker that was implanted inside him to keep his neural modifications from making him epileptic....

   Agent Dermis was to stay at his side, as an obvious--distracting--bodyguard....

   Agent Gossamer was to infiltrate the area behind the van, and make sure the rogue agent had no backup coming....

   While Agent Deinonychus was to hang back and provide backup, in the event that whatever Watson had become had been brainwashed to act physically to protect the one who fucked him up....if anyone provided any resistance, both Molly and the Pentagon's agent were disposable. With prejudice...the damn fool from Colorado nearly cost us everything...

   But if Molly was a good little girl....she might still have a use...as bait. Because there was still the question of *how* Watson was subdued and changed so abruptly....he knew Molly couldn't have pulled it off alone...

   And Rogers had heard the rumors, about Molly's rather Mattell-toy-esque accomplice...that State Trooper had turned out to be quite helpful. It was a pity he was resistant to our use of the fragmenter....

   Oh, well, people lapse into permanent vegetative states all the time, for little to no reason....at least the Trooper was in no pain as the last bit of his mind drifted away. And the fragmenter is *always* a temporary drug....it just may take him 30 years he doesn't *have* to recover his senses...

Ch.8a

   "Hel.lo, my.name is Mis.sy..."

   "and my.name is Can.dy...."

   And then together, "and we.are dol.lies, hee*hee*!"

   And then the two broke up laughing, after their own somewhat halting fashion...

   Melissa had been on Candy's case for days, trying to get the doll to sleep with her...after all, she too had changed into a plastic, doll-like state. And at first she wouldn't take Candy's "no" for an answer...

   It took Jeffery's revealing Candy's masculine past to Melissa to get her to back down...then after a weekend of pouting and sulking, Missy got down to the business of being Candy's friend and fellow student, in learning a more natural rhythm of speech.

   And right now, they were playing their favorite game, pretending to be animatronic dolls in an effort to seriously distract the men there. After all, was it their fault they were *good* at this?

   Jeffery seemed to think so...at first he couldn't wait for things to get platonic between Candy and Missy...but now he was regretting every minute of it, because their games and pranks were getting so distracting.

   "Look, ladies...if you're gonna putz around on *my* time, at least try something original today, you've been doing the Amazing Ally thing for the past week. I swear, sometimes I think your *brains* have become plastic too..." Jeffery vented.

   'okay,' Candy thought, 'let's see about this for originality...'

   And she started to *work* her outfit, her shiny body making squeaky noises as her heels *clicked* just so, as she minced and writhed and tiptoed her way toward Jeff....and she sang a bit, in her cutest little-girl voice...

   " i wanna be loved by you/ by you/ an' nobody else but you/ i wanna be loved by you/ alone..."

   and Candy waited until her tight, round breasts were almost on top of Jeff before finishing...

   "boo boo bee do," she squealed. Jeff was actually in a bit of a sweat as she did this, so to lighten the mood a bit, she asked, "so is that a pen.cil in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

   Jeff answered, "umm...you'd better be thankful I'm not entirely straight, or else I would probably have to change my shorts right about now. But to answer your question...yes, I am happy to see you, both in such a good mood, and in such good voice. You hardly clunk at all anymore when you speak, dear...congratulations." Jeff smiled warmly at that last bit, because he knew Candy would need some kind of good news after what he had to say next.

   "thank you Jeff," Candy murmured breathily, "thing is, I have to totally concentrate to do it, which leaves me with the IQ of toast hee*hee*, so I can either speak smooth.ly and sound dumb, or I can clunk and sound a lit.tle bit smarter..." and she returned his warm, but tense smile. "what's up?" she asked.

   "It's Molly. She's been gone too long. She left me a letter, with notes about everything that had happened, where she was going...but she should have been back by now," Jeff moaned.

   "then we have.to find her," Candy asserted, matter of factly.

Ch.8b

   Molly had to test the firmness of her hold on the wind-up doll, so there was really only one thing left to do....

   With a feeling of some dread, she wound the doll up, and slowly began to seduce it. For that was what the doll had become in her mind, a thing, an obstacle to be overcome, that was a cruel mockery of her true love....

   But nonetheless, she had to admit, the change had made the doll quite sexy, in a strictly fuck-toy manner...the doll's lips were perfect. So without further ado, Molly caressed and kissed the doll, first with tiny, breathy pecks, then with longer, lingering, slurping, licking kisses as her body began to warm up, swell up, and tighten...

   And the doll went through its routine...doing the same thing to Molly, after its own mechanical fashion...just like the way Candy would tease and play with her...

   But something was wrong. The doll wasn't slowing down...but rather speeding up. This made her arousal all the more difficult to cope with, as she grew lighter and tighter, it became more and more difficult to move and speak as the wind-up's pantomime of sex became more and more frenzied....

   Then Molly's slick, shiny hand grazed the doll's crotch...and she finally understood. There would never be any satisfying this doll's need...

   For there was nothing down there. Aside from a tiny hole up front for peeing, and a slightly larger one in back for shitting...nothing. No trace that there ever had been a pubic area, or genitalia of any kind. It simply had smooth, flat skin there, no more sensitive than any other stretch of enameled skin on its body...

   And all Molly could do was sit there and twitch her hips, half carried away in a pounding, intense coital cloud, but also more than a little bit scared of the sheer ferocity with which the doll tried in vain to reach that climactic state....

   Molly could only truly relax when the doll's frenzied motion had wound it down several hours ahead of time. But at least then she could sleep and prepare for tomorrow, the big day.

   After one last hour of driving past a thick snarl of traffic, Molly finally made it to a lonely old bridge, crossing a small brook, half frozen at this time of year, which was isolated deep in the woods on a winding gravel road, a logger's leftover from decades ago...

   At first Molly was nearly spooked out of going to the meeting...she had nearly seen a face, watching her out of the fog a mile or two back.

   But after pulling over and taking a good look around, she decided that she had hallucinated, from the stress...

   Besides, the only way Molly had heard of that an agent could do _that_ was if the agent had been modified with nano-technology...and the changes that wrought were even more maddening than what the mutagens did. You may as well pick an agent from death row or skid row as send out a nano-modded nutjob out to do field work.

   Still, the image had spooked her...so she had got on the CB radio in her van, and called up a trucker she knew around here. The big-rig driver owed Molly a favor or two, so it wasn't that hard to talk him into showing up at the bridge, if she didn't call him back in fifteen minutes...

   So she was somewhat calm when she pulled in, halfway across, with the bridge shrouded in thick fog, and stepped out of the van, leading "candy" out by the arm...while holding a thick, heavy briefcase in the other...

   "Rogers? I'm here....I've got the files, the van, and...a most fascinating subject for you...her name is Candy, and her changes have been quite fascinating..." Molly started.

   And prayed silently to herself that the training would hold, and the doll wouldn't flip out and do anything stupid...

   Agent Rogers stepped out of a black, full-sized panel van, one rather old and beat-up looking, for better cover...and he had another agent, who looked like a body-guard, standing silently at his side...

   "Hello, Naomi, we meet again?" Rogers shouted, his voice muffled by the thick, obscuring mists...

   "Yes, we do...I have brought you everything you could have wanted...even a subject for you to study...I'll even leave the van here, I have a ride to catch a half mile away. All I want is to drop out of this awhile, lie low for a bit..." Molly explained, but was cut off by a sharp chill in the fog. And then Molly got a good look at the guard. At how his skin had a slight metallic sheen to it...at how unnaturally his flesh shifted around, almost liquidly, under his clothes...

   "Umm...you have backup." Molly stated. "And they're nano-modded? Why? I'm unarmed, and no threat to you..."

   "Ah, but I beg to differ...you are armed, with the most dangerous weapon of all...knowledge. Don't be frightened...my agents are using a refined iteration of the nanites, and are quite sane. But you really *don't* need to know that...or half of what you already know. Gossamer, solidify around her, protocol alpha...Dein', stay back, keep an eye out for traffic...Dermis, get out the fragmenter mask..."

   "Please, don't..." Molly begged, "you don't know what you're doing..."

   "Ah, child, but I do." Rogers stated, using as soothing a voice as he could--for he owed her at least that dignity--"I know exactly what I'm doing. And more to the point...I know exactly what you're doing as well...use a three-month dose, and let her loose half a mile up the road, Dermis..."

   "Noo....nooo...Iiii....uhhh..." was all Molly had time to say as the guard *oozed* up to her and slipped the mask over her face.

   When Molly woke up, she knew something fucked up had happened, but what it was she had no idea. All she knew was that she had just slept with this trucker, Dennis, maybe a week ago, and now....She was in his cab again, being told it was three months later??

   "Wait a minute, wait....what happened? How could 3 months go by without my knowing it, and what the hell happened to my gear, my van...?" Molly babbled, feeling her life sink completely out of her control. "And wasn't I going to Illinois? What am I doing in Seattle?"

   "I don't know," Dennis replied, staying calm, "You have a habit of telling folks as little as you can get away with, remember? All I know is, today you called in a favor, asking me to pick you up at a bridge in 15 if you didn't call back...you didn't. Looks like shit happened...some weird looking fella came walking up the road, carrying you passed out, and told me to take you away, which is what I did...especially after I saw that camoflagued _thing_ hanging out behind you two...it had _claws_ fer Pete's sake..."

   For a moment, something *clicked* inside Molly's head, "Thank god you're color-blind, and sensitive to camo, you saw....damn it *all*, I *lost* it." Molly said as her train of thought fell apart, and she started to cry...

   "Well, don't worry about it...you also gave me instructions to get you to Frisco...I *am* hauling a load there soon, so we'll get there in good time. By then you'll get your memory back..." Dennis reassured.

   "Memory! Fragmenter! Damnit, that's it! That's what they...." Molly said, fading out again.

   "Yeah, thought so...you told me a little about that nose spray shit...but they must have given ya a weak dose, or maybe you got immune to it, 'cause you told me folks don't even remember getting *whacked* on the stuff...and you just did." Dennis said, trying to comfort her.

Ch.8c

   After Dein' and Dermis came back, they saw Agent Gossamer briefly materialize long enough to pick up the mask and toss it back to Rogers. She became a nebulous vapor before the mask hit his hands...

   "Hey, boss...what are we gonna do now? Especially with the wind-up toy here..." Dermis asked, his skin tighening and attempting to resume a more normal shape...

   "Yeah, boss, yeahyeah...what're we gonna do huhuhuh?" Dein' chimed in as he faded back into visibility, showing a lean, wiry fella who might have been Irish once, but now...had the recurved spine and dew-claws of a velociraptor. And the twitchy, hyper-active nature to match the raw, metallo-protein edges of said claws...

   "We," Rogers said, annoyed that Dein' even had the chance to open his yap, "are going to wait...until Miss Molly leads us to her *real* subject. Then we will capture and...terminate them both. _I_, on the other hand, am going to take what's left of agent Watson...and try to make something useful out of him. He's pretty badly fucked up as it is...the nanites can't possibly do him any more harm..."

   And deep down inside...

   If anyone could have heard the scream ripping up from the bottom of Jim's mind, they would have been given pause. But any show of fear was stopped cold at the rigid, blank smile on the enameled face of the doll...

   And so the last shred of Jim Watson's sanity died.

Ch.9

   Jeff and Candy had started slowly, moving up the highway and checking every last rest stop, truck stop, and wide spot in the road looking for Molly...

   And in the meantime, some plans had changed. It turned out that Dennis's run had been altered at the last minute, with him going to Sacramento instead, and that was a ways off...

   So it was after 2 weeks of futile searching that Jeff and Candy had come to Sacramento...and they got lucky. For the first place they had dragged themselves to, a motel not far from an old high school that was being re-modeled, was exactly where Molly was...

   And Dennis was right, Molly's repeated exposure to the fragmenter had given her a lot of resistance to it's effects...enough so that her memories came back in weeks not months...

   Besides, you never truly forget the one true love in your life...

   Candy looked at Molly, standing in the doorway of her room, looking around, and without even paying attention, shouted, "Molly! I'm over here!"

   And for a split second, Molly was stunned. It sure looked like Candy over there, across the covered-up swimming pool, but she sounded so normal...

   "C-candy? Is that _you_??" Molly shouted back.

   "No, duh, it's Fran.ces, what you were ex.pecting Bar.bie or something?" Candy snapped back, clunking her speech on purpose. "Like, get *ov.er* here al.rea.dy!!"

   Shortly after that, Dennis and Jeffery agreed to take a powder, get a bite to eat or something...

   Because back in Candy's room....

   The two dolls held each other and cried, smiling rapturously at finding each other again. And as the pheromones built up and plastic skin squeaked, grinding against rubber, they began to kiss, tiny, light feathery stroking kisses that were just made to send clothes to the floor.

   Then they wobbled, both on tiptoe, to the bed. Candy got on top, because she didn't *float* when she was turned on...well, not physically anyway. And then they began to glide each other's stiffening hands, pushing them over their breasts, looking for the round, hard dots that were their nipples, and finding nothing visible. Oh, but there were renmants they could feel, and they were sooo tender and sensitive.

   And as Molly felt herself tighten like a living balloon, squeaking and chirping with every movement, she saw out of the corner of her eye a vibrator dildo on the nightstand. But she couldn't move her arm enough to reach over, nor close her hand to grab it...so she asked as best she could....

   "ooo...ooo....wooo c-caahhnnyy geeeh weee tooyyy oooonnn d-d-dwwessseehh? pweeese?" and then she was overcome with a giggling fit as she sounded like *such* a fuck-toy, such a baby fuck-toy...

   "ooo...m-mooommmeee...pweeese pwaaay wiiff meee...." Molly murmured, unable to smile, except with her shiny eyes.

   Candy responded by twitching her hard little hand over to the dresser, knocking the vibrator onto the bed and turning it on in one clumsy motion, and replying....

   "ooo.ooo...is.that what.myyee wid.dle bee.bee wan.na pway.wiff?" in slight mockery of her voice.

   "oooo, Mol.ly is.a good wid.dle bee.bee dol.lee, heehee*hee*!" Candy murmured as she ground and stroked her slick, rigid mound against Molly's leg, and started to fumble the vibrator around, teasing Molly's airy, squeaky legs with the humming wand....

   And then finally, Candy creaked open her mouth and wrapped her hard, shiny lips around the one end of the sex toy, and plunged it directly into the round tube between Molly's legs....and as she did, she rolled over so Molly's back was to the window....

   Dermis was lost, completely in heaven, hardly caring if his inflatable disguise held or not, when the real Molly shot a full tranquilizer dart into the nano-modded agent's writhing back.

   "you should.have lost.weight for.the dis.guise," Candy remarked as she pulled out of the rapidly loosening body, going slack and collapsing into a metallic grey lump of baggy flesh.

   "And wore contact lenses," Molly cracked as she lowered the dart gun, still visibly tense, "My eyes are brown, not blue. Only a _real_ sex toy has eyes _that_ fake a blue..."

   "one down, two to go," Candy murmured, as she wriggled over to Molly and gave her a peck on the cheek.

It was a good thing Dennis and Jeff knew each other from high school, and kept in touch. Jeff had kept shipments of Mannequins and other items going for Dennis during times of few runs. They were still buds, in spite of their lifestyle differences. Jeff had recieved a phone call the next day after the trucker had picked up Molly....so all Jeff had to do, much to Candy's dismay, was to fake a long grueling search and buy Molly enough time to recover most of her memories...

   They had met earlier, Jeff and Dennis, at an old diner miles outside of Sacramento, exchanged a note and between that and a hurried phone call, Molly and Candy were able to co-ordinate their actions...

   So right after Molly and Candy, working together because they had to to handle all that rolliing skin, stuffed Dermis into a trash bag, tied that up, then locked him up in a trunk, they dropped him off by the hotel's dumpster.

   In the meantime, Jeffery and Dennis were having some burgers and fries, talking about the time Jeff had all but collapsed in panic at the prom after being named Homecoming King, and making him sweat through dancing with not just a girl, but one of the dumbest cheerleaders who ever lived...

   When Dennis caught sight of a camoflagued figure...with claws. One sent to dispose of witnesses, apparently.

   Dennis barely had time to lunge at Jeff over the table and knock him out of harm's way before that..._thing_ twitched itself at them, dew-claws out, at break-neck speed...

   "Oh, Denny, I didn't know you cared..." Jeff mocked, getting it out _just_ before feeling a stabbing, sharp pain in his now bleeding leg.

   "OW! Holy shit! Dennis, what the fuck..." he said, then passed out from seeing so much blood.

   Dennis rolled over and out of the way, thanking the Army Reserves for teaching him to properly run like a _bitch_. As he got to his feet...he saw the thing become visible briefly, as it wiped the blood off his claw onto the inert Jeff's shirt...

   "Damn faggot," Deinonychus said, "blood's fucked up....why can't men be fucking men these days, huhhuhhuh? An' I wanted to taste that shit too..." and then he faded out...

   Only now, Dennis knew what to look for. And could see the Agent, the _human_ agent, quite clearly....

   "Hey punk....I got yer blood _right_ _here_," Dennis said, grabbing his crotch and spitting at the agent, hoping to draw him away from Jeff.

   Dennis barely had time to turn and start running before the thing was ahead of him, cutting off the door leading outside to his rig.

   "Nope, yer not hittin' me with *that*, butt-buddy," Dein' growled, cracking a smile, "Semis _hurt_."

   "Besides...I wanna see how good ya really are," Deinonychus finished, his grin twitching into a leer as his dewclaws slid out of his forearms and shins.

   Dennis did what any sane man would do at this point, as people in the fast-food joint screamed and ran, doing their best to get out, get to a phone, anything...

   He did the only thing he felt he could do as that clawed punk ran, feet jackhammering into the tiles of the floor, and dropped everybody else in the place, lopping off heads and generally relishing in the terror he caused...

   He slowly, discreetly pulled out his cell phone and started to dial 911...he needed backup, and there were gonna have to be a lot of ambulances to clean all this up.

   And just as the tip of his thumb started to kiss the keypad of the phone...

   "Ah! Last one!" the agent crowed, as he held an infant boy in his arms. The baby was screaming and crying from all the noise...

   Dennis had heard in the movies that the best way out of situations like these was to shoot the hostage...but in spite of every rational idea he had...his heart compelled him to put the phone down.

   "Let the baby go," Dennis said, "what threat does he pose to you? He's not telling anyone anything...he's not even a challenge to you."

   "No, but ya know what? He's a damn *nuisance*!" Dein said as he pricked a claw's tip into the boy's hand, making a small scratch...

   "Ok, now ya got a time limit. He'll bleed to death inside of an hour...let's see what ya got." the agent whispered.

   Dennis ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife...

   Only to have a dew-claw slice it in half in Dennis's hand.

   "Nope...I'm the only one doin' any cutting here. Try again, loser," the agent mocked.

   Dennis ran to the prep table, hoping to stall him...only to see it cut in half *instantly*.

   He ran to the fry vats, waiting...

   "Okay, I'll play, to prove something..." the agent said, sounding almost bored. And he slashed at Dennis, deliberately missing and putting his hand into the boiling oil...

   The agent pulled his burnt, crackling hand out, staring at it fiercely. And as he stared, the blood he was bleeding was swiftly replaced by a metallic fluid, which soaked into his hand, repairing it as it went....

   Thing was, Dennis was a step ahead this time. He figured the damned thing had a healing thing, seeing as how he's already been hit by a truck and lived...

   Dein' took his time looking for Dennis, working his hand as he went. "Hmmm....smells like chicken here...queer chicken." he quipped as he lunged into the manager's office slashing away....

   And at the last second, Dennis stepped away from one wild swing....

   That caught a _metallic_ claw in a circuit breaker, the one for the whole building. Maybe, just maybe, the voltage would short him out.  Dennis didn't stick around to see if the claw-boy was still breathing when he hit the ground...just the fact that he had fallen to the floor, a crispy critter, was good enough, and Dennis had plenty of time to walk to his rig, calling the cops and the ambulances, after scooping the baby up and bandaging his hand.

   He got in his rig, after checking it for the punk. He fired up the engine after setting the baby aside and closing the door....

   And out of the corner of his eye, he saw the punk, screaming, running for the truck.

   "Fuck this!" Dennis shouted as he put the rig in gear, and rammed it straight into a post, one that held up a power line. The post collapsed, and the lines and transformer struck the agent...who had a brief seizure, and then promptly exploded.
 

   In the meantime, Candy and Molly had left the motel, paying the clerk for his silence...and they hailed a taxi...

   They were set to head out to the airport, after calling Dennis and Jeff, when the phone smoked and started to melt in Molly's hand. And immediately after that, the cab flipped over, as if tossed by an unseen hand...

   The cabbie crawled out first, screamed, and turned tail to run, only to be blasted by what looked like a bolt of lightning. Then Molly and Candy crawled out...
 

   The fisrt thing the two dolls saw was frightening enough...a thick opaque cloud of fog swirled and twisted until it took the shape of a ghostly young woman...

   "I am Gossamer. You will be dead soon regardless, so you may as well give up. My vaporous body can travel along any electrical current or E.M. transmission, so I can be anywhere..." and with that she disintegrated again into a swirling cloud.

   And behind Gossamer....floated a doll, coated from head to toe in an enamel finish, this one a dark brown. That color did a much better job of hiding the seams...

   And in the doll's delicate hands, there was a sceptre, that strangely looked like a wind-up key.

   "I am Coronatus-w," it said, pulling back part of it's robes to reveal a metallic tattoo of a seahorse trailing down her neck, the tail wrapping itself about its right breast.

   "You have been judged," it shouted.

   "You have been found unworthy of life."

   "Normality WILL be enforced."

   "Deviancy WILL BE ERASED!"

   It hardly needs to be said that Molly and Candy ran screaming for their lives.

It wasn't until Molly had to pause and catch her breath that the two dolls realized where they had ran to....

   They had ran and jumped through a window to get into the old high school...the building was a graceful old place, with expansive, ambitious woodwork and architecture that had an Edwardian, almost a Jules Verne feel to it...

   Until one realized just how creaky and nearly rotten the floors were.

   "Oh, hell...there's not much of a way to hide in here," Molly groaned, "the layout is much too straight-forward, and there's damned little cover."

   "so...so what do we *do*?" Candy asked.

   "The only thing we can do," Molly said, "wait for them to catch up, and try to split them up...I think that flying monstrosity *was* Jim at one point, but they nano-modded him until he's damn near a Saiyan...anyway, it might have a grudge against me." Molly said, recalling through a haze how she tortured him.

   Right then, the two heard a loud *thump* and then a crash as the old front door flew from it's hinges....

   "theeeyyy're heeeeerrre," Candy said, taking off down the hall to the left.

   Which left Molly to go right.

   As Molly walked--which was the best she could do on some of those floors, she realized they would be down her throat in seconds, being able to fly and all...

   So she dived into the first classroom with an unlocked door. It was a science lab, with materials set up for chemistry, physics, and other classes. Apparently the floor business had scared poeple out so fast that nobody ever put anything away.

   'I pity the remodeling crew that does *this* room,' Molly thought to herself.

   And then she saw the canister...of liquid nitrogen.....and got an idea. Trying desperately to calm herself, Molly tried to remember her times with Candy, all that grinding and squeaking as their bodies locked up.

   But all she could do was think about the way Frances was...and how she had to hold him as he swerved from climax to teeth-clenched terror as his body crunched down, distorting and contorting, until his skin was dense and hard and featureless, like plastic. And she thought of all he had lost...

   And in spite of herself....the memory of Frank's lost manhood turned her on as much as it made her guilty. Which was, after all, what she needed as she reached under her pants and began grinding her nether lips into her hand...

   And as she started to rise, floating up, she wobbled over to the table and *just* barely gripped the canister.

   Of course, the agents cheated...as they are trained to do whenever necessary.

   The nano-modded ones shifted their vision into the infrared, heat-sensing mode, and scanned the heat signatures of the walls, looking for bodies.

   Gossamer went after Molly, after a brief, heated argument about Coronatus's grudges, sanity, and the likelihood that _nobody_ would live through the property damage that Coronatus would unleash if it ever got to Molly...

   So Gossamer knew Molly was floating around somewhere near the old science lab....and that she was hiding against the ceiling, holding something...chemicals? a weapon? She couldn't tell....

   So it was only a matter of minutes before Gossamer drifted in, looked up, and saw Molly on the ceiling, floating, one hand holding an open container, the other masturbating in an attempt to keep herself aloft...

   And that was the last thing Gossamer saw. She didn't even have time to scream as the cryogenic cold of the liquid nitrogen froze her solid from above, freezing her brain to death first.

   Molly desperately scrambled along the ceiling, the cold draft killing the buzz that kept her aloft, and out of harms way...she finally drifted down to ground level as she reached the end of the hallway, turning to see through the dissapating mists a ghostly young woman, mouth locked open to scream, forever looking up.

   "Hmmm...she _might_ be dead. But I'd have to thaw her out to be sure, and she's as likely to recover and dissipate as anything. I had better make damn sure..." Molly said as she threw the canister at the fragile, super-chilled body of Gossamer. She didn't stick around to see the woman implode into a million blood red specks of dust...

   In the meantime, Candy ran...which stunned her. She was surprised that the adrenaline was enough to force her body to move quickly, even if it was on tiptoes....

   And as she heard the sound of crashing doors and splitting walls, Candy walked into the darkened gym...and saw how frail and dilapidated the parquet floor had become. So she slowed her pace, climbed the bleachers to get to the other side of the gym, and just made it over when Coronatus showed up....

   "Make peace with your god...and prepare for death," Coronatus said, floating over the floor, and hovering in the exact center of the gym.

   "Jim? Is that you??" Candy shouted. "Mymymy, you've become such a pretty dollie, heehee*hee*, " she twittered, trying to buy time.

   Coronatus stopped, staying perfectly still for a brief moment. Then it screamed, "I am NOT A GODDAMN DOLL!!"

   "are too. where's your prick if you aren't a doll?" Candy asked. "And you let them change you _again_...just like you let us. Admit it....you love to be a toy. You're such a little priss it's pathetic. Come on, rip off your cute wid.dle DRESS, and look at yourself....you're a toy.

   Nothing more. And you love being played with....you love not having to think or decide anything for yourself, that's what got you in.to this mess in the first place." Candy shouted for all the world to hear.

   "I hate to say it...but she's right. You're more of a helpless plaything than she'll ever be," Molly said as she entered the gym.

   Coronatus got a wild, bewildered look on its face. Its _orders_ were to hunt down and kill _Candy_ but more than anything else.... it wanted Molly dead.  But try as it might, it couldn't go against orders. It had to do what it was told.... which meant Candy, the one it tried to be, the pretty, harmless one.... was dead right.

   "My...m-my g-god....I ammm a d-d-dooollleeee," it said, looking at it's smooth featureless enamel skin. "I...ieee... ammm aahhh plllaaayythiiinnnggg," the floating doll said, its voice slowly dropping in pitch, almost to a man's timbre...

   Coronatus had a wild, terrified look in its eyes, the look of a child finally awake from a nightmare, just realizing that he *has* to go back to sleep.

   "I've....beenn....used....alllll....myyy....life." it said, eyes opening wide....and then... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" it screamed, and as it did, a reaction took place. The sceptre in its hands fell apart, as chunks of its body became flesh again, only to become rigid again...and slowly, so slowly, it began to fall apart, body fluids oozing out carrying disintegrating bones and organs with them....

   Until finally, after the last drop leaked out of the doll's body, it collapsed in a clatter to the floor, splattering fluids and causing the floor to collapse entirely.

   It took Molly a few minutes to clamber over the bleachers and get to Candy's side. Which was all the time they had, as the whole rest of the building began to sink and collapse around them. They barely got out intact...

   And Rogers was standing outside the door, gun in hand, waiting...

   Suddenly, the horn of a big rig sounded off....

   Along with the sound of police sirens, helicopter blades, and camera vans rolling up...

   Because Dennis went to the press, first thing, with everything...and when Jeffery woke up at the hospital, post-transfusion, he verified the story, at least enough to get attention instead of a straitjacket.

   "Game's over, asshole," Dennis shouted from the window of his rig, "all the cloak and dagger shit ends right here. Now put the gun down, and smile for the camera..." he said, clicking a quick picture.

   "Not quite. It's not over...just passed on to those even more ruthless than I." Rogers said, after which he took his gun, wedged the barrel behind his ear, into the joint of his jaw, and pulled the trigger.

   Molly buried her head into Candy's chest, not wanting to see any more...and Candy obliged, saying, "it's okay....it's okay, everything's going to be all better soon...it's okay..."

   'now if only _I_ could believe that,' Candy thought to herself.

Epilogue

   After it was all said and done, Jeffery returned from the hospital with some stitches and a spiffy cane to walk with....

   And wouldn't you know it, that was the last accessory he needed...when he finally adjusted his wardrobe to match the walking stick, he looked distinguished and professsional -- if a bit eccentric -- and was able to get more of his clothes on real, breathing women...

   It also turned out that the agent, Deinonychus, had actually been an escaped mass murderer in a past life (pre-modification) and that there was a substantial reward check in the mail from none other than the FBI for Dennis, for nailing the guy. It was quite enough for Dennis to fix his rig, pay for the repairs to the power lines, cover the taxes, and still allow him to take a month's vacation....

   The baby turned out ok, or as ok as a baby can be, with his hurt hand and, later on, finding out how he lost his mother...but for now, he was doing ok, especially since Candy adopted him.

  Candy's life changed for the better too, which was a good thing. That run back there had loosened her up enough to let her walk and do simple things like a normal person, and less like a rigid cripple...

   And of course, Molly stayed with her, staying at home more or less, where she felt safe...Molly never thought she'd admit this, but she honestly felt better having someone else take care of her, and make decisions for her for a while. For the first week after Candy and Molly made it through the in-your-face suicide of Rogers, Candy did nothing but take care of Molly....bathing her, dressing her, feeding her when she wouldn't eat, and just plain holding her when she'd cry, rocking on the floor and staring into space.

   Because this is what dolls do, they're there no matter what, with kindness and smiles...and because Molly truly didn't want any more of the traveling, intrigue and action-filled life anymore. But the loss of that way of life hurt, the way it happened and all...

   Besides, Candy needed the practice for her baby boy...
 

   One day, shortly after St. Patrick's day, weeks later, Candy was shocked to find Molly at work, doing paperwork, and filling out forms...

   "Oh, hi Candy...I was just seeing if I could get a business loan...I wanna start a photo studio, I think I'd be good at it. I can develop pictures and take them really well....and I know some folks who would like their pictures altered...by computer, y'know...." Molly murmured as she sighed.

   Candy stared at Molly for a few seconds....and then the smile on her face regained some warmth.

   "ooohhh, that's *sooo* cool! i'm so proud of you! you're finally *back* Miss Mol.ly..." Candy said, relieved that her friend and lover hadn't completely faded into being a total child about things.

   "I have.good news too, Mol.ly," Candy said. "A ma.jor toy com.pany wants to spon.sor a talk show for me. It's kin.da a kid's show, called "Talk to the Doll," but I get to be.out and ab.out, and free to be *me* in public..." Candy warbled, clearly in a state of glee.

   "Ohh, that's *wonderful*," Molly purred, "you're gonna be a star, I just know it." As she said that, Molly was surprised herself to hear the old edge come back to her voice....

   Because she hadn't realized how much of a baby she had been, how much like a little girl she had spoken, until now...

   "Umm...is the *real* baby okay?" Molly asked, blushing a little bit, a little bit ashamed of herself for being such a...a wuss? a bimbo? who knows?

   "Sure...he's a.sleep right now..." Candy chirped softly.

   "Umm..." Molly started, pouting her lips a little as she looked up, "I'm sorry for being such a mess lately....can I make it up to you?"

   That was the last question Molly needed to ask, as Candy literally bent her wiry shiny arms and literally swept her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom....

   Where for hours, they dressed each other up in pink and yellow little girl's clothes, and had a big messy tea party, getting cherries and chocolate and whipped cream alll over their shiny tight breasts....

   Which of course meant tiny squeaking noises as they licked and kissed the food off of each others round bosoms. And as the messy food trailed down...so did their eager mouths, making all manner of interesting chirps and creaks as hard, shiny lips trailed down hard, cone-shaped tummies, licking the dimples that remained of their belly-buttons...and then down further, where fine glossy floss almost invisibly covered tight, hot, rock-hard mounds, glistening with a musky dew as a hard, pink pearl of ecstatic plastic throbbed and bobbled inside slick, firm, glossy nether lips....

   Neither of them could, or wanted to, talk anymore....they both were chirping and twittering, giggling like school-girls, singing like birds as thick heavy plastic ground again and again upon light, airy rubber....the girlie clothes slid off as their bodies tightened and shivered and twitched, their minds floating away...

   Candy thought, 'oooo....iieee wub yoo soo much mollleee dollleeee...'

   And in surprise, Candy heard, in her heart, or in her head, a breathy, squek-toy response, 'oooo...ooooo, iieee w-wwuuuvv yoooo tooooo....oooo...oohhh!'

   And in time, the grinding slowed down, first to a crawl, and then to a halt, as both girls passed out in rapture, finally becoming true dolls, happy, smiling, and utterly helpless playthings.

   "Wha--what the hell happened?" agent Dermis demanded, as his new boss, Mr. Evans, sat down with him in a non-descript office *somewhere* highly classified.

   "They gave Watson bio-magnetic power that would give a *comic book* mutant a heart attack...and he just fucking *melted*??? What. The fuck. Happened." Dermis pressed, his skin darkening and curdling under his rage.

   "Calm your ass down," Evans said, "yes, he melted....apparently we pushed both his mind and his DNA too far over the edge. From what we could excavate from the rubble without having a press conference to do it, his mutagen-addled auto-immune system reacted against his own insanity, by attacking his nano-modded brain...and from there all hell broke loose. You should be *happy* that you're even alive at all, that we got to you before you suffocated, and that we didn't kill you for being with those losers..." Evans ranted in clear disgust.

   "And now," he continued to dress-down Dermis, " to put the icing on the cake, Candy's gone public, has her own talk show...people out there just plain *adore* what they've seen of those two...and public regard for mutants couldn't possibly be higher. And folks in Montana have found the Village. Just how the hell are we to do our work *now*?"

   Dermis smiled a feral grin on his fluid face, "Close the Village down. Unleash the hounds. Let the sickest, most violent mutants out _first_ and get every move they make caught on TV."

   Evans paused, jaw dropped for a full minute. Then he said, "You, sir, are one *sick* bastard. But I *like* it...." and trailed off into laughter as the next phase was planned.
 

   Candy and Molly awoke standing up, with their eyes wide open...for several minutes, these facts didn't dawn on them as they just held each other, comfy as could be, relaxing and utterly still.

   Then it occurred to Molly first....here we are, standing up when we were lying in bed, and now we're helpless, and it's dark.

   The raw, unadulterate fear completely let the air out of Molly, allowing her to move again, although it took some doing to keep from falling to the floor...it felt like she had stood there for days...

   Did she?

   Candy slowly turned, stiffly coming to, rubbing her eyes as if waking up from a long, happy dream....

   "ooo....that was won.der.ful, heehee*hee*," Candy clunked out.

   And then the lights turned on, to one big yell of "Surprise!!" as Molly started and stared around at the gathered friends, who promptly began singing Christmas carols and tossing fake snow around....

   "What the hell?" Molly said as a twisted smile crossed her lips, "but it's late _March_ already people."

   "i know," Candy said, "but i want.ed to give you a pre.sent an.y.way....since we had no chance ear.lier. to make.up for lost.time."

   "How long were we like that?" Molly asked.

   "two days," Candy said, "we did a worst-case scene, with our hormones. and we _made.it_ anyway. you're not a *bim.bo* Mol.ly, no more than i.am. you're just.a girl in.the world."

   And with that, the caroling stopped, the hired band began to rock the house, and the party really began.
 
 
 

   End