Nathan sat across from me with remarkable self control. Five minutes ago he had been his tall and lanky self with a face like a pizza wearing his signature Attack on Titan shirt, people usually turned their view away from him. Now he had lost a few inches and gained a remarkably few pounds in his chest, that his new body was not afriad to flaunt, but that was to be expected. People, men and women a like, were sneaking looks out of the cornors of their eyes in order to not be rude to stare at the bust blonde woman I had been enjoying a Big Mac with.
"How are you not freaking out?" I asked. "My cat couldn't even handle being Natalia."
"I can't really place it," Nathan said with the familiar Russian accent others had spoken with before, "but something about this feels right. Like when you find a shirt that fits just right. You know what I mean?" He took a fry and popped it in his mouth. "Plus it's nice to have people looking at you, not avoid eye contact like the plague." He said eyeing a McDonalds employee who had drifted her gaze from the register to him. He smiled and gave her a wink. She blushed and pretended not to notice.
"I'm glad you're liking it, I was begining to lose my mind watching Thor in Natalia's body all week," I said taking a bite from my burger.
"But you said you could turn anybody into Natalia. Why didn't you just change yourself into her?" He asked.
"I think I can turn anybody into her, I've only ever done it to my cat, my mom and my dad. I can't seem to change myself into her."
"Wait," he said his face twisted in disgust, "you parents have been inside this body?"
"Only for like five minutes. It was an accident, I ended up changing Thor back into her. So far you and Thor's second transformation are the only two times I've done it on purpose."
"How about you try it again?" He said. "She seems to really like Natalia." He pointed at the cashire who had brought her gaze to back to Nathan.
"What if she freaks out?" I asked.
"Did you parents freak out?" He asked.
"No, well kinda. My mom just asked me why she looks like Natalia and then scolled me about changing people's bodies without their permission first."
"And your dad?"
"He just said he needed his body back to do some yard work, then I shifted Thor back."
"And I didn't freak out, go ahead and try it, you can shift me right back," Nathan said.
"Alright fine," I got up and went to the cashire.
"Excuse me miss, can I have another cup?" I asked.
"Sure," she said grabbing a cup from behind the counter. She extended her hand over the counter, I thanked her and made a slight touch to her index finger. I blinked and the body of Natalia's stood behind the counter smiling at me, wearing a deep cut McDonald's uniform with a push-up bra. I looked over to Nathan and I's booth and saw my pale and skinny friend look back at me. He winked and took a bite of his burger. Nobody but him and I seemed to notice the change.
The Cashire-as-Natalia continued to go about her business as usual, taking orders and calling out numbers.
"Do you want to change back?" I asked Nathan.
"Give me a second, I want to admire the view first," he said staring at the cashire.
"You could literally look at yourself naked back at home," I said.
"Yeah I know," he said, "but there's something about watching that body from afar that's mezmerizing. After a moment of silence, without breaking his gaze he asked me how I figured out I could change anybody into Natalia. And so I told him everything I knew about my reality bending powers.
Natalia first entered my life the week before summer break. Mom and dad were out on a date night leaving me alone with Thor, my family's orange tabby. It wasn't unlike any night alone before: I played games, binged netflix, and borrowed from my parent's liqour collection. It wasn't until I got up from the couch to use the restroom that things got weird. After taking a piss I returned to the living room and walked into the sight of a blonde girl in her early twenties in a tight fitting white tank top and sweats licking the back of her wrists.
I tried asking her who she was and how she got in the house, but she kept on giving my blank looks and went about licking her hands. It wasn't until I realized that Thor was missing that I begun to figure it out. I called out to Thor and that's when she got up and walked over to me. She placed her cheek against mine and made a strange humming sound. That's when I realized what had happened. Somehow Thor's mind had wounded up within the body of this woman.
The next hour I scrambled to figure out what was going on, all the while struggling to keep Thor in control. He was already a pain in the ass when he was a twelve pound cat, being a hundred and twenty pound woman made it way worse. I chased him off the book shelf, stopped him from scratching off the paint on the walls, and chased him around the kitchen after he figured out he could now reach the cat food. The kitchen was in shambles, my cat had become a busty woman and my parents could be home any minute.
After mom and dad got back things got weirder. Yeah they were pissed off at the mess, as you'd expect, but what they were even more surprised by was the unexpect arrival of Natalia. They were so happy to see her, despite keeping Thor's behavior. They asked her how the flight from Moscow went, and when Thor continued to ignore them they took that as a sign of her being jet lagged. I asked them who Natalia is, to which my mom seemed offened. How could have I forgotten about Natalia Sokolov, my Russian cousin who had flown to the midwest every summer to visit us? She is the daugther of her oldest brother, my uncle Alexi. Here's the thing: my mom's an only child from Canada, and her maiden name is Bose. As far as I know she had never set foot in Russia. After my mom chastised me for being so forgetful about her brother's daughter she asked me to show Natalia to her room. Again, I had no clue what she was talking about.
She rolled her eyes and made some rude comment about teenage boys being so oblivous then took Thor-as-Natalia's hand and guided the former cat upstairs to the spare bedroom next to mine. On the bed lied a large suitcase and a purse, as if "Natalia" had stopped by earlier to drop off her very things before grooming herself down in the living room. I thought I either was going insane or my mom had a lot of secrets she had been keeping from me. We let "Natalia" go to sleep as my mom scolleded me once again about how I need to be learn how to be a gentleman, especially around Natalia. After the half hour of harsh words from her I was finally told to go to my room and get some rest.
I tried my best to sleep that night, but it is surprisingly difficult to sleep when you're questioning your very own sanity. I ended up crashing around four in the morning that night. The next day I woke up to my mom calling me down for lunch. Her and dad were getting everything together, no sign of Thor. I asked them if they'd seen Thor recently, and my dad just shurgged it off that he's a cat and he probably went out for a little neighborhood exploration. My mom asked me to get Natalia from the backyard, and like a good boy I did. Out in the backyard sitting on his new human knees and palms on the ground was Thor drinking straight from the pool. That was to be expected from a cat's mind in a human body, what I couldn't wrap my mind around for the life of me was the white bikini he had been dressed in.
I called out to Thor, first trying the name Natalia, but he didn't listen, not until I called his name. He gazed up from the pool and looked at me, but the look didn't last long before a bird flew to the other side of the pool. His attention shifted from me to the bird instantly. Scrambling with his human limbs he dashed into the pool and doggy paddled halfway across before the bird saw the mad cat-woman. The bird flew out of the backyard leaving Thor all alone in the middle of the pool.
He looked around eargly for the missing bird, but it was nowhere to be found. I called out to him again and he swam back to the edge of the pool. Still unsure how to use his new human hands he struggled with getting his body out of the water, I had to help the poor cat out.
Soaking wet I escorted my estranged cat-cousin back to the house as he tried to shake the water off of him.
My mom rushed to get some towels when she saw us at the door. She dried Thor off then asked us what happened. Thor, unable to comprehend human languages stayed silent so my mom turned her attention to me. She immediatly took "Natalia's" silence as an acusation of me pushing her into the pool. I told her that Thor jumped in willingly, which she refused to take as the truth. I then asked her how Thor managed to get changed. She yelled at me saying that I shouldn't ask how a woman decides to dress herself. I rolled my eyes, my parents were going crazy. I reached out to touch my mom on her arm to calm her down, Natalia on my mind and then the second transformation happened.
Standing before me in blue dress with the deep v and push bra that is standard for Natalia's wardrobe, was Natalia. I looked back at the chair Thor-as-Natalia had be sitting on and saw the old orange tabby sitting atop it. She continued scolding me about not being a gentleman again, each word spoken with a Russian accent. When she raised her voice she spoke in a language I couldn't understand, my best gues was that it as Russian and she had cursed at me.
My dad must have heard the commotion and came into the kitchen. He addressed my mom as Natalia and that's when my mom realized something wasn't right. She looked down and noticed the size of her breasts then looked at me and sighed. She stood akimbo and looked me in the eye. That was when she told me it wasn't nice to change people's bodies without asking them first, plus what would Natalia think about somebody else prancing around in her skin. As if this were as commonplace. My dad seemed to pay no attention to the comment and asked where mom was, before either of us could answer he suddenly "remembered" that she had left to grab something from the garage fridge.
He began to leave the kitchen, but I tried to stop him. Again I held the thought of Natalia in my mind and touched him. Another blink later my mom had returned to her usual self but before me, in a skimpier version of my dad's signature red flannel stood the body of Natalia.
Next it was my turn to hear my dad's words come from the face of Natalia. He simply said he didn't think his diet could sustain Natalia's figure and asked to be returned to normal. I had no time to think before my mom looked at us and invited Dad-as-Natalia for lunch. She said it looks like it will just be us three since "dad" left to go to the store to get supplies for his yard work later today.
We sat down, my dad gorging at the meatloaf my mother had cooked up. He kept on making jokes about how Natalia must starve herself because he could eat the entire table. My mom responded with complements and kind remarks about Natalia's figure. Once my dad had eaten most of the food on the table he looked at me and simply said that he would like his body back to do yard work.
I still had no idea how I was changing people in the first place so I told him that I'll have to get back to him on that. He said oh well and began with the yardwork anyways. My mom made a comment on how nice Natalia was for helping out around the house despite being jetlagged, and then again chastized me for not being as perfect as she is.
I rolled my eyes and left the table and retreated to my room.
As Dad-as-Natalia pushed the lawnmower back and forth outside I sat in my room in silence, trying to process the strange world I so happened to have found myself in. I heard a stratching at the door and let Thor into the room. He purred against my ankle and I reached down to pet him, the strangeness of Natalia still on my mind. It was then that I realized how this power worked. Thor-as-Natalia rubbed his cheek against my leg as I continued petting him. Natalia seemed to manifest herself whenever I thought about her and touched somebody.
I tried using the powers on myself, thinking that at least I could get my parents to like me as her, but it was to no avail. Instead I baby sat Thor-as-Natalia all week, wondering every morning how he managed to change his clothes.
"So it was after the headache of watching Thor all week that I decided to reach out to you," I said finishing my story to Nathan.
"Why did you think I was a good fit?" Nathan asked.
"I don't know," I shrugged, "I just can trust you is all."
"Makes sense," Nathan said, "so what does this mean about my family?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I decide to take on the form of Natalia for the summer, they're going to worry right?"
"I don't think so," I said. "It seems that people just make up reasons why that person isn't present. Your parents might just think you're at summer camp or something. Do we have a deal?"
He looked up at the Cashire-as-Natalia then back at me. She had moved from the register and had begun bussing tables. Her ass was facing us as she scrubbed the table across the resturant.
"Fuck her ass is pefect," he said. "I couldn't look at my own ass as her."
"Please," I begged. "I need your help, at least until I figure this all out."
"You know me," he said, "I'm an ass guy."
"Think about having that ass!" I said.
He gave it a moment then looked at me. "Alright fine," he said, "just for the summer then I'm back in this body."
"Deal," I extended my arm.
"I'm not shaking your hand yet," he said, "before I leave this skin I'm going to piss standing up one last time." He stood up and walked to the bathroom. I sat at the table watching the body of Natalia clean the store as if nothing had changed for her. If only I was so lucky to not notice any change.