Bethany Feels 'Horse'
Maybe if I act like that
That guy will call me back
--Pink's "Stupid Girls"
Bethany opened her eyes. She was staring at a heating vent.
She blinked. Raising her head, she winced. Lying with your head on the back of the couch--instead of your nice, warm bed--made your neck really stiff. A tube top and miniskirt weren't exactly comfortable sleepwear, either, and nor was the platform shoe still on her right foot. One arm was over the back of the couch. All in all, she gave the impression of a girl who had come home too drunk to make it all the way to her bedroom.
Oh, right.
"Morning."
Bethany turned. Slowly.
Her roommate, Lillian, was in the kitchen of their apartment, making tea. Bethany never quite "got" tea. What was the point, when you could just make instant coffee? Or just cut out the middleman entirely and buy a Red Bull?
"Morning," she replied. She tucked a few strands of blond hair behind her ear, and burped. It tasted like schnapps.
The left platform, in defiance of all physics, was over by the breakfast island. Her purse was on the floor, spilled over on its side. Something gleamed within.
Bethany got up. And fell down. Her legs clearly hadn't woken up yet. While she waited for them to regain feeling, she reached over and got the mysterious object out of her bag.
It was a horse. A bronze horse, with a naked woman on it. Both looked awfully smug.
"I bought this thing?" the young woman asked no one in particular. "With, like, real money? How drunk was I?"
"Pretty drunk," said the younger blonde. " And how come you never get hungover? I take, like, one appletini and my head kills me in the morning." Lillian downed the tea in one gulp, and chased it with some little white pills from a little orange bottle.
Oh, right. Now she remembered why Lillian drank tea.
Bethany set the horse upright on the carpet and made her way onto a stool. "So where did I buy it? Because I will totally take it back for a refund."
"Not so loud."
"Sorry."
Lillian looked confused. "I don't remember. I know we were, like, walking down the street 'cause no cabs were coming, and you leaned against the wall, and it was really a door, and you fell in, and it was this weird shop, and this old lady sold you the statue, and then we left, and there was a cab, and we went to Taco Bell, and you had Beef Nachos Bell Grande, and I had a Chicken Burrito Supreme, and then we took another cab home. That's all I remember."
Bethany's sleep-addled mind seized upon the one part of it she could come to grips with. "Why would we go to Taco Bell?"
"We were really drunk."
Bethany got her shoe off, picked up the other one from beneath her stool, and tossed both in the general direction of Behind Her. "What time is it?"
"Like, nine-something."
Both girls glanced at the microwave, which was flashing 12:00. They had never figured out how to set it.
"Let me get my cell." Bethany swivelled on her stool. She had a very special phone, able to stand up to spilled drinks, drops, keys jangling around in the bag with it, bouncing off foreheads, and though she didn't know it, light small-arms fire.
"Huh?"
Lillian looked over the older blonde's shoulder. Slowly. The flying shoes had apparently knocked the rider off of her horse, and some gooey stuff was coming out of it. Brown gooey stuff, with a texture not unlike an oil slick, or coffee before the cream had been swirled in.
"Lillian..." Bethany's eyes widened. "Did I buy a statue full of chocolate?"
With the mental capacity available to her, Lillian considered the question. She weighed the possibilities against the psychology of herself and her roommate, and her knowledge of which businesses had likely been open at that time of night and were in staggering distance of their preferred nightclubs.
Presently she answered. "I don't...think so? And that brown stuff is getting on your shoes."
For Bethany, time slowed down.
She spun on her stool and dove toward the puddle, landing on one hand as the other grabbed for the shoes and clutched them to her chest.
"It's okay babies. Mama's gonna make it all better," Lillian said, rocking back and forth.
"Bethany?" Lillian said, crossing to her roommate's side.
"All we need is a toothbrush, that's all. That's all, honeys. Maybe Lillian's. She won't mind--"
"It's not so bad, Bethany."
"Really?" the older blonde sniffled.
"Really," Lillian assured her. She picked up the sandals and offered them to her roommate. "They just look brown, that's all, like leather. The soles are black, but it's not like they were dipped in acid or anything."
"You're right." Bethany took them from her roommate's hand. Neither girl noticed that the whole of the shoe was covered, not just the parts that had landed in the brown grunge.
Bethany slid into the shoes, and walked around a bit. The shoes seemed like the same as they were before, except, as the blonde reported, they had a little more give.
"But the worst part," said Bethany, lip quivering, "the worst part is that I don't have any brown belts!"
"It's all right; we can go shopping! As soon as I can take, like, sunlight."
"How long will that be."
"If it's like last time? Tuesday."
One of Bethany's feet landed in the goo, and she stumbled.
"What happened?"
"I don't know; it just got squishy!" Bethany knelt down and examined the shoe. It seemed normal enough, right until tendrils extended from the sides of it and wrapped themselves around Bethany's leg.
Both girls, quite understandably, began to scream.
"It's crawling up my leeegggsss!"
"What if it's like that sewer thing on Youtube?! What it eats your legs?"
"Do something, Lillian! I like my legs!"
Lillian scrambled for the cordless, hit Talk, and dialed 911. It rang twice, while the girls gave occasional whimpers of terror and the goo squished its way up Bethany's calves.
"Hello, 911 Emergency," a woman's voice said.
"Hold on," Lillian said, and tossed the phone to her roommate. Bethany glared at her before putting the handset to her slightly pointed ear.
"Hello? 911? I think I'm turning into a horse."
Beat.
"Ma'am, have you taken any psychoactive substances?"
"No, not this week! And what does this have to do with me turning into a horse?"
"I don't think you're taking this seriously!" Lilian chimed in.
"We are taking this seriously, ma'am. In fact, we're sending a car around right now."
"Thank you. And I am not high!" Click.
"How did you know you were turning into a horse?"
"Because it was a horse statue, duh. It's was either a horse or a statue."
"Couldn't it just turn you into a naked lady?"
Bethany considered. "No. That would be silly."
The girls waited, noticeably calmed down now that Authourity was on the way. Bethany's hands fluttered around the brown encroachment like it was a pot she thought might burn her.
She finally got up the nerve to tap it, quickly, and it didn't burn or stick. It inched past her knees as the younger blonde ventured a question.
"So...now what?"
"Yeah, maybe I should sit down."
"No, not that. I mean, shouldn't we get this on tape?"
"Ooh, good idea! We can put it on Youtube and make, like, a million bucks!"
Lillian was back with her camcorder in seconds. Her parents had spent several hundred dollars on it as her present last Christmas. It was High-Def, captured 5.1 stereo sound, shot in both infrared and low-light modes, and used GPS positioning to automatically Geotag its photos. Lillian used it mostly as a webcam.
"Hi, I'm Lillian!"
"And I'm Bethany!"
"And weeee're--what are we again?"
"Two roommates, one of whom is tuning into a horse," Bethany said calmly.
"Right. 'Two roomma--'"
"I think they heard me, Lillian."
The girls sketched out the situation to the viewing audience. More like fingerpaints, really.
"I think what our watchers want to know is, 'does it hurt?'"
"Ah, no, not really. It's weird, y'know, I can still feel myself, but I can feel the outside too. The goo."
"Any ideas about what it is, Bethany?"
"Well, I've spent almost five whole minutes Googling 'goo transformation'--"she flashed her phone at the camera--"and I can't find anything. By the way, do you know what 'furries' are?"
"I think it's people who like, like Bugs Bunny and stuff."
"Oh. Okay." Bethany's brow crinkled in confusion. "What does that have to do with 'knots'?"
"I dunno. Can you still walk?
Bethany took a few experimental steps. "'S weird. It's still my legs, but the goo is, like, horse muscles or something."
"Really? Think you'll grow a tail?"
The older girl shuddered. "I hope not. None of my clothes can fit a tail in them." She poked at her phone some more. "Who's 'Doug Winger'?"
"Some pilot or something? A restaurant that sells chicken? Come to think of it, I think our audience would really like to know what 3G network you use."
"Well, it's--gah!"
"What happened? What's wrong?"
"It just reached my b--my girly parts!" Bethany hissed, bent over.
"Can we see?"
"No! What is wrong with you?"
"I was just kidding!"
"This isn't--whoa. Whoaaa."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just...I think it's stopped."
"Where?"
"Under my belly button on the front, and above my butt in the back."
"Your butt doesn't look any bigger."
"Thank you so much."
"No, I mean, aside from the goo on it--wait a second--"
"What? What's going on?"
"It's growing!"
"What, a tail?"
"No, it's...I dunno!"
Lillian circled around to her friend's rear.
"Your butt's bigger now."
"What? Really?" Bethany tried to turn around to see, and made a few circles before realizing what she was doing. She hurried to the mirror in the hall closet, turning around so she could look over her shoulder and see her--
"Are those hooves? Do I have hooves coming out of my butt? I'm not supposed to have hooves coming out of my butt!"
Lillian zoomed in. The two protrusions strained against the back of the older blonde's miniskirt. They were kicking, and she was suddenly reminded of a video she had seen of a cow giving birth.
"Bethany-I-think-you're-gonna-be-a-mommy!" she blurted.
"What?"
"It looks like you're giving birth to a little horsie!" She paused. "And if you are, I don't think we can keep it. I am not paying to have it spayed."
"I can't fit a horse through my vagina!" Bethany screamed.
"Well, it would be a magical goo-horsie." Lillian pointed out.
"I don't want one of those coming out of me either!"
The skirt suddenly gave way, the translucent hooves punching through it like a chopstick through rice paper.
"And that was my favorite club skirt!" Bethany cried.
"No, wait, I was wrong," said Lillian, not for the first time. "You're just growing horse legs, that's all."
"I don't wanna grow horse legs!"
"That brown stuff already makes your front legs look like horse legs," Lillian pointed out. "All the new legs would do is make you look like a cen...cent...Nissan Sentra? No, that's not it."
The legs reached their full length, gently touching the floor, then putting weight on it. Bethany felt her center of balance subtly shift, and leaned forward to compensate.
"It...doesn't look right," Lillian said, her brow furrowed. "Like it's mostly a skeleton, without all the muscles and stuff."
The legs started walking themselves backward, drooping strands of the gunk connecting them to Bethany's rear. Since they weren't actually supporting her anymore, Bethany adjusted herself again, her arms windmilling back and forth, and toppled over.
"This is really weiiird," she complained from the floor. "I can feel the back legs, and I can feel the front horse-legs over my real legs and it confused me and I fell down!"
Both girls waited in silence as the legs continued to walk, Bethany panicking just a little.
"Maybe," Lillian said slowly. "Maybe we should get a reality show."
Bethany stopped panicking to consider it. "On which network? 'E!'?"
Lillian shook her head. "'E!' would make us look stupid."
"Yeah, we're not stupid! But that guy with the, like, skinny ties who smiles too much would still make fun of us, and that's not fair!"
The skeletal goo, having reached a certain length from Bethany's body, suddenly started to thicken, contours filling out to a proper horse shape, "muscles" and "tissues" forming from the muck. The tail, in particular, went from a skinny, ratlike thing to a lush, chestnut brush.
The cords connecting the rear legs to Bethany suddenly drew taut, hardening into knobby structures that formed something like a string of pearls, leading to a point right above Bethany's tailbone.
Lillian got some excellent close-ups.
"Oh. Oh wow. I can feel the horse-spine, Lillian."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like a horse's spine."
Ribs curved down from the spine, and the enclosed area they formed started to fill with the brown substance.
"VH1 would have one of those dating shows," Bethany continued. "I don't know what the name would be--"
"Ooh, ooh, 'Ride of Love'!"
"That's it! But I'm kind of worried. What if the guys on the show are the type of guys who, I dunno, like horses?"
"Why are you whispering?"
"I'm serious, Lilian! What if I end up dating one of those freaky horse-likers?"
"Eww! What if you get some kind of horse-disease?"
"Do horse ever have diseases?"
"I dunno! It'd probably be, like, horse-pimples with horse-pus coming out when you pop 'em!"
"Eww!" the girls said in unison.
As the horse's torso gained definition, it laid down next to Bethany. The blonde found she could make the legs twitch. Not much now, but more with each passing second.
"Ooh, ooh," said Lillian. "What about TLC?"
"Who?"
"TLC. Y'know, they're the ones show with those shows about, like, septuplets and midgets and people so fat they need a crane to get out of their bed and that lady with the streak in her hair and the gay guy making fun of people's ugly clothes."
"Oh yeah, I love that show!"
The "skin" of the horse grew to cover it's muscles, leaving an almost velveteen surface for Lillian to run her hand along. She stroked her friend's flank, and then, in an impulse, slapped Bethany's butt.
Bethany was on her feet--all four of them--in seconds, and glared at her roommate.
"Sorry," giggled Lillian. "Anyway, I think it's stopped."
"Really?" Bethany turned in a circle, getting a good look at herself in the mirror. She seemed to be more or less a full centaur; a human girl neatly slotted into the body of a horse.
She wriggled her toes, lifted her hooves, one after another, swished her tail, and flicked her pointed ears. Her coat felt like a real horse's, except it still had the same swirling, oily sheen the grunge had.
"Anything different?" said Lillian, missing the obvious.
"...I want carrots."
"Because you're a horse?"
"No, it's this new diet I'm on; I'm starving."
"Well, I think we have some in the cri--hey, there's still some of that goo over there!" Lillian noted.
"Is it just me, or is it blue?"
"It is! It's totally blue now!"
"Don't touch it! Use gloves or something! You don't wanna be tuned into a snake or a bug or a Texan or something."
"I think we have some of those latex cleaning gloves under the sink."
"Why?"
"I dunno. Maybe the last guys who rented this place used them."
"So, how do we get it out of the carpet."
"White wine, salt, and Oxy-Clean?"
"No, that's for grape juice. And besides, we're out out white wine."
"Can we use Goldschlager?"
When the two patrolmen knocked on the door to the apartment a short time later, they were greeted by a young woman who was covered from the waist down by a swirling, brownish goo that made her look like a centaur. Another blonde wearing bright yellow latex cleaning gloves pointed a digital camcorder over her shoulder. The cops looked from the centaur, to the camera, back to the centaur.
Bethany took a carrot out of her mouth. "See!" she said. "I'm totally not high!"
ENDF
"Bethany Feels Horse"
2009 Eulalie "Nequ" Quentin
Creative Commons By-SA-NC