FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Pushing Buttons

By Zatarra L. Vulpe

Marilyn's car was still smoking when she stepped out of the side door. She sighed, popped the hood and glanced over the interior. She knew nothing about cars. She did know they weren't supposed to be smoking.

She pushed the hood down and sat on the curb. She looked at her claws. Clean. She didn't have a cellphone on her. She hated the thing. It felt like a ball and chain in her pocket, something to obsess over. She pushed her long hair out of her face and slipped a stick of gum into her thin muzzle. She'd just have to wait and hope for the kindness of strangers. She didn't hold her breath.

She adjusted her jacket. It was a little tight to her but she chose it more for looks than style. It had a few small rounded studs along the collar and pockets, they matched her fingerless gloves. She had a few buttons on the lapels, small ones: a rainbow, a set of pastel blue and pink stripes bordering a long, crème colored line, and one with a four leaf clover that said 'kiss me ass.' It wasn't a small jacket, but Marilyn's shoulders rather drew them taut. Her black jeans and old metal band shirt were a different story, fitting easily around slightly boxy hips and her minute chest. She didn't like to think about it.

Her thick, bushy tail was just resting on the curb, ears drooped. There wasn't much she wanted to think about at the moment. She didn't even bring her iwhatever. The silence was broken by the snaps of persecution of trees by the wind.

She didn't know how long she looked up at the stars. It was dark out, the only light for as far as she could see were her own turn signals and those tiny points in the sky. Now that she thought of it they'd never been so clear to her. Even the space between them that she could see seemed vast, like they barely existed in that expanse of blackness. She could empathize.

Until, of course, she heard something in the distance. She stood and saw what looked like a single light heading up the road. A motorcycle. Marilyn went to sit back down until she saw the bike was slowing.

"Crap."

When it came to a halt she was a little tense, her hands deep in her jacket pockets and trying to cover over the buttons on her jacket.

The bike was beautiful. There were no brand labels and all of the hard lines of the bike were perfectly formed. No transfers, just smooth, practically oil black paint. There were long, blue stripes along the fuel tank, which was shaped like some sort of aerodynamic diamond, art deco hard edges with a modern finish. The metal on the bike was matte black as well, it was almost like the rider would dare someone to hit him at night, No way though, the large wheels and the low profile made this thing look fast.

Of course, the rider himself wasn't terrible either. He was nearly as tall as she was, smoothly sculpted into a form fitting riding suit with tightly laced boots. It looked like real leather, but it surely couldn't have, it was all practically one piece, with hardly so much padding. His helmet was close to his muzzle, and when he took it off she could tell it was shaped to his leonine profile. His mane spilled out over his shoulders and chest, eyes a gentle amber. He smiled at her.

"Hey man, looks like you're in trouble."

Marilyn winced. "Uh, yeah, dunno what's wrong with it."

"Jeeze. Well I know a little something about cars, mind if I take a look at it?"

"Uh, no, that's alright, though, if you had a cell or something so I could call up somebody that'd be nice."

"Aw, sorry man, I don't carry cellphones, I kinda think they're annoying."

She looked down a little and tried not to look hurt. "Yeah, I get you."

"Hey, tell you what, how about I drive you back to my place for the night and I come get this tomorrow morning? I mean it's not going anywhere."

She looked down at the bike. The seat wasn't very large. She'd be right up against him the whole way. It didn't look safe to her.

"Uh, nah, it's okay, I don't think-"

"Aw come on, I don't have cooties or anything. You even get to ride one of my bikes."

"Oh no, it's just, it's not safe-"

"I'll drive slowly for you, it's okay, I've never crashed."

She was about to speak, but something in his expression, lit up by flashes of red on one side, kept her mouth shut. He shifts forward a little to expose the seat. Oddly enough it did look comfortable.

"Okay."

"Alright, what's your name man?"

"Mare-"

She froze and cleared her throat a bit.

"Mark."

"Ah, well, nice meeting you, Mare-Mark. I'm Gage. Hop on and put your hands around my waist, okay?"

She felt tense, but something in her head said she was committed. That and she admitted it did feel really nice to wrap her arms around him. She could feel the soft contours of muscles under his suit, like she was just touching his bare skin. When he got rolling she could practically feel the road below her. He wasn't going very fast, but it still felt far too quick for her. She held him tightly and it still felt like she would fly off, but that was probably just the wind around her. He slipped his helmet onto her head and she felt a little safer, but the way his mane blew at her she could even smell him, something like fresh oil and cinnamon. She tried to look away, but she was practically smashed against him. She couldn't like him. She kept telling that to herself over and over. She couldn't. She felt him shift, a little loose on the handles as they slowed and did a little turn.

"We're here."

There were no other houses around it, just this place. It had a huge front garage, nearly half the building. The back end was just as long but not as tall. There were scuffs on the walls and large tags along the white brick surface, but nothing vulgar, just names of artists leaving their mark or small murals of automotive prowess. She couldn't fault the style.

He stepped off for a moment just to open the door. For some reason she didn't move while he did, he didn't comment on it. The bike was idling as he maneuvered it into the garage floor. The place was a mess of tools and parts, but she could see a weird order in it. The floors were clean and the lights that came on first were soft, almost flickering, like candles. The bike purred to a stop and he set up the kick stand. He helped her off with one hand. His grip was gentle, but he could have easily carried her. His muzzle was curled into a perfectly feline smile.

"What's that on your jacket?"

"Oh, uh, just some studs and pins."

"Oh cool, what do the buttons mean?"

"Huh?"

"Those buttons, what do they mean?"

She froze for a second. She kind of hoped he wouldn't notice, but she glanced down, as though not sure herself. "Uh, they're just there, you know?"

"Uh huh. So they don't mean anything?"

"Maybe they don't, alright?"

"Okay, jeeze, just thought I'd ask man."

She felt irritated all the sudden. That was the third time he'd done that. If he'd noticed at all she couldn't tell.

"It's a little late to try to do the whole hitching up thing tonight, but if you can wait 'till tomorrow I can probably get it back here in the morning and see what I can do with it. That sound alright to you?"

"Well, I can call somebody if you've got a phone I can use."

"Hmm, I don't think I do."

He wandered into a door between two stacks of slightly rusty tool boxes. He looked around and she heard a slight clatter before he came back with a simple 'nope' that echoed through the room.

"I guess you can try to find someone else, but I don't really have any neighbors if you know what I mean. If you did they'd probably just send you to me anyway."

His tail bobbed a bit behind him in a lazy way. He held up his hands in a little shrug that lifted the shoulders of his body suit. The thing was practically seamless. Her eyes kept wandering over the way it hugged him around the thighs.

"I mean if you want to stay it's no trouble. It's not a five star hotel but it's not bad."

"Well, doesn't sound like I have much choice otherwise."

"You've always got a choice, man, it's a free country."

Her jaw tightened a little at that. "Is there anywhere I could sleep?"

"Oh yeah, I've got a guest room over there. Everything's clean, no one uses it. If you need me I'm probably just gonna be back there after I do a little organizing out here."

"Thanks a lot, I think I'll just head to bed then."

"No prob dude, mi casa su casa."

She walked through the parts lying around quietly, as though they'd spring out at her. She had the door open when she looked back to the lion.

His suit was around his waist. His pectorals and abdomen were chiseled out of stone. The fur on his chest was a bit light. It fluffed up out of the suit. His hands looked soft, with pinkish paw pads. He fluffed his mane a little and it spilled over his bare shoulders, biceps naturally flexing on both arms. He wasn't too thick, not freakishly so, but in the flesh he glowed.

She was frozen in place. She watched him reach down and grab the suit, slipping it lower. She could tell he wasn't wearing anything under it.

She practically slammed the door behind her, parts be damned.

Gage smirked a little as he pulled the suit down to the boots and unlaced those. Once his paws were free he padded back between the tool boxes and left the suit and helmet together on a chair.

The suit wasn't totally black. It had a few light spots here and there, small rosettes that only popped out in the right sort of light. It had a strange form, seams along the middle and sides, but the hands and boots were seamless, totally, one solid leather shape.

When a clatter signaled Gage's activities, it twitched. It was slow, but it was the legs that started to move first. The knees slid forward slightly and the fingers slid over the chair leg limply. The helmet tumbled and bounced on the garage floor. The suit's neck shifted, something pushing from the shoulders. The fingers wrapped around the left table leg and tugged in that direction. There was a wet sound, almost like a cough. The suit managed to get off of the chair, trying to tug it's fingers off of the table leg. It twitched it's thighs in an attempt to pull the legs out of the boots, but they flopped like wet noodles. There was a soft groaning noise and a spot in the middle of the shoulders bubbled out under the neck.

The helmet watched impassively as the suit tried to crawl. It looked like it was trying to fill out, it's insides clamping down on air billowing inside of it. It kept making vulgar little noises, wet and warm, soft and desperate. It was losing form, the shoulders tightening a little, the arms growing thinner, softer. Its left arm flopped out with a grunt and finally tipped over the boots. The suit's fingers balled and flailed bonelessly, as though trying to figure out how to be part of a solid hand. The right hand moved to it's neck hole, a finger slipping in and a muffled moaning accompanying it as the neck of the suit moved, changed in front of the growing bubble of cured skin.

"Aauuwuh... Muuhh!"

It kept pushing back into itself, but then gave up and started crawling. The skin kept pulsing, filling and warming, gaining solidity as it tried to close itself over something. The mouth opened too wide before something pinkish grew out of where the zipper should end. A hand came back and began to stretch the growing face, smoothing out of some of the features as it curled and uncurled, flopped and tried to move. It's normally uniform feet were twitching at several small points, as though toes were inside of them.

Gage walked back into the room and his eyes widened. He sprinted over to the contorting and growing suit and felt his right foot come down on it's hand.

"Natalie?"

The suit stopped thrashing, it's arm caught. The bulbous head looked up at him, the mouth opening and shutting nervously. It took a few moments to carefully move itself, air sliding out of it as the words formed:

"Weeeaaarrrr.... Mmmmeeee...."

"Natalie, hey, are you sure that's what-"

"W-weear.... M-meee...."

"Natalie, if I do you might not come back next time, I mean you're already-"

The suit sprung onto his legs and he couldn't help but jump a little in shock. His feet landed on it and it fell flat, the head squishing wetly under his right paw and the crotch under his left. The shape was reverting back to a totally flat masculine form, the mobility reduced to little twitches and quivers as it's form was practically two dimensional.

"Dammit!"

His foot slipped and slid over the neck and up the torso as he tried to backpedal. When he moved away it fluttered after him and tried to wrap around his legs. He stepped on it with his right leg and moved back with his left, but the suit's zipper was drawn down. It wrapped around him from the knee down until all of his arch and ankle, the heel and ball of the foot were totally coated in warm, slightly moist leather.

He frowned, reached down and pulled it off by the legs with a wet 'snap.' He quickly folded the thing and walked over to a locker in the far corner. When he opened it he sighed. He placed the suit onto a light, giraffe patterned nylon suit and a green one that looked like latex except for the tiny scale indentations. The bike helmet was still sitting there, but the boots were starting to wiggle.

"Not you too Bill, are you gonna come back this time?"

"Wwweearrr..."

"Guess not."

He sighed and slipped his paws into the boots. The toes that were budding out of the rubbery surface were squeaking and squishing in the language only soft, pliable rubber can speak. They trod gently to another locker and he slipped them in, stuffed alongside a pair that was bright red.

He turned and spotted Marilyn. Her jacket was on. She wasn't wearing anything else. She was shivering and curled up next to the bike.

"Mark?"

"N-no."

Gage padded over. Marilyn's eyes were red rimmed.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"N-no. I..."

She wiped her eyes and looked at the ground. Gage knelt beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"I don't know you yet, but, maybe I could help, huh?"

She looked up at him and sniffed.

"I... I'm not... I'm n-not..."

"Your name isn't Mark."

"Y-yeah.... It's Marilyn."

Gage nodded gently. "Like Marilyn Monroe."

"Y-yeah, that's why I chose it."

"That's a pretty name, it sounds nice."

She looked up at him. She wiped her eyes a little. "Really?"

"Yeah, I think it fits for you. I should know, I'm a pretty good judge of names, I tend to remember those before faces."

She chuckled. "That's really weird."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

She sat back and sniffed, her legs crossing, hiding her male equipment. "S-so... Umm..."

"You want to let me know what's bothering you."

"Yeah... I had a dream, it wasn't great."

Gage nodded. He winced a little, but didn't look away from her.

"I was... You know... I was on the road and I was moving really fast, like when we were on the bike. I wanted to stop but I wasn't riding a bike, it was like I was flying along and the road way too fast. Then I ended up turning a corner too sharp and falling somehow and then some men came out of the woods and said 'he's only good for scrap.' They started taking parts of me, but they were bike parts, but I could tell they were mine, they were ripping me apart and breaking me! I tried to stop them but I couldn't do anything. I felt like I was dying, I was so sad even though..."

"...You don't know anything about bikes?"

"Y-yeah. And... And I... I..." She sniffed. "They called me a 'he'..."

Gage wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "Shhh, it's okay. I'm sorry I called you 'man' and 'dude' earlier, I just saw your button and kind of assumed, you know? I didn't mean anything by it."

Marilyn blinked. "Y-you thought I was a girl?"

"Well... Yeah, I mean I was pretty sure you were. I've... Uh... This is gonna sound weird but I've been there, you know?"

Marilyn sat back and stared at him. Gage sighed.

"I was going in the other direction."

She looked down between his legs. "But you're-"

"Yeah, I know."

"How?"

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Well, try, I mean, please?"

Gage looked into her eyes. They were steady, but he could see it sitting behind them, all those hopes and dreams he used to have. He stood up and held out his paw.

"Alright, how about I show you?"

She nodded and took his paw. When they were both at full height was when she realized both of them weren't wearing clothing. She blushed, but Gage didn't even seem to notice. He lead her into his back room, between the tool boxes.

It was fairly average, all things considered: a kitchen, bathroom, bed, closet, magazines and posters of pop singers and famous athletes, nothing really unusual. Then he reached down and pulled a tab in the floor. The carpeting pulled up and the trap door fell back on its hinges. He padded down one step at a time. He licked his lips slightly, but his tail was low, not moving very much. Marilyn's was twitching nervously.

When she made it to the bottom of the stairs, her eyes widened.

The basement walls were entirely pasted with pictures of lions. Huge, athletic, with thick manes and heavy jaws, some with claws out and roaring, others reclining on faux veldts for modeling shots. They could have been related to Gage.

"I wasn't at all like I am now. I mean I was mentally, you know? Like my brain knew exactly how my body should be, but the body didn't follow through 'cause of, I dunno, genetics or something."

Gage sat in the center of the room. Marilyn realized the walls formed the room into an exact cube. Somewhere deep inside of her this felt wrong, but she didn't exactly know how.

"So where a lot of others might quit or settle for something else I... Became obsessed. I needed myself to be myself, what I knew I had to be. I was going to focus on nothing else until it was real. All these are... I dunno how many years in the making. I had the image, this perfect image of myself, and I kept collecting things that were close right? I needed it, every day, I needed it to be real."

Marilyn nodded numbly.

"Well... It happened. I dunno how I found this place, but... It was just this hole in the ground, this perfect square just sitting here. I don't know what guided me but... I... Well... I did this. I stayed in here for a week, doing nothing but thinking about me, I mean really me, just every physical sensation I would feel, everything in my head had to be perfect before it would actually happen right?"

Marilyn didn't know what to say. It sounded completely insane.

"I know it sounds crazy but... I did. My changes happened. My body finally followed through. For the longest time I didn't know what to do. I felt perfect for the first time, you know? Everything about me was right for once. But then..."

Gage pointed to something in the far right hand corner. Sitting there was what looked like an old box full of blankets.

"... He happened."

Marilyn stared at him. "He."

"He. I don't even know his name. The first thing that happened when I walked out of here was him running into me. He'd been trying to get at my bike. He was old, grey fur, looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks. It wasn't his fault, he was hungry, I didn't blame him."

"For what?"

"For attacking me. I fended him off pretty easily. But he kept saying something. He wanted to be warm. He just wanted warmth."

Gage took a deep breath. "Well, now he's warm, all the time. The blankets in there are always clean and always like they just came out of a drier. Try it if you don't believe me."

Marilyn reached in and pulled out a plain, white blanked. She held it against herself. She could smell some kind of heavily flower scented detergent. It was tingly, warm. A few minutes passed. It was still warm. She held it up against the cold ground of the basement, then back to herself. Clean and warm. When she felt a corner of it crawling up her shoulder she dropped it and jumped back.

"He's harmless."

"This is a person?!"

"Part of one, yes."

"How?!"

"I don't know. I..."

He drew a deep breath and sighed.

"I change people. I don't know how or why, I just do."

Marilyn stared at him.

"I don't mean to, I never want to change someone, I just do, just by being around them."

Marilyn shivered a little. Gage stood and walked up to her. Her hands were against the stairs.

"I think... Yes."

His paw pointed to her chest. It was normally flat, as she did her best to stay in shape. It was pushing forward slightly now, as though she were going through puberty. She had to look up to him now. The change was minute but her muzzle fell open.

"I... I'm sorry I didn't tell you before but, I mean, would you have believed me?"

She shook her head. She swore she could see it happening before her eyes, the flesh swelling, the areolar flesh growing sensitive to small air movements from the trap door.

"My problem is... I don't know what people change into. Usually it's something they want, but, sometimes, I mean... I dunno, stuff just happens, sometimes people just keep changing until they're something like he is and..."

She looks up to him. He wasn't smiling for once.

"I get lonely, you know? I'm surrounded by people, but they all want to be objects, they all want to be used."

He turned around, looking at a near full body spread of another of his ideal selves. He looked like he was bracing for her response. She could feel it too, somewhere in the back of her mind, welling with fear and jealousy and desire. But something else was there too, something that outshined those base impulses.

He turned toward her as her hand laced with his.

"Thanks."

His eyes widened.

"For sharing this with me."

He turned to her. She was blushing a little. Her body was practically female, her figure forming out. He felt something in the back of his mind screaming that this was wrong, that he'd been here before.

"I... I don't know that I'll be different from the rest... But... I'm gonna try, okay? I know how you feel."

He smiled. His chest tightened even as the words left her lips. He was even sure she meant those words.

Gage had automatically suited up, forgetting that Kim was out of commission again. Poor girl, she'd seen a lot of road time since things were getting better. He gave a little sigh and tightened Nate onto his hands and was zipping him up. He didn't know why. They wouldn't be going anywhere tonight.

"What's up? Did you fix Kim?"

Gage sighed.

"Aw, she probably needs a rest anyway. So when does the movie start?"

"It'll probably be midway into it if we take your car, with the condition it's in right now. I'm really sorry about this babe, I've just been finding it harder to th-"

"Hey."

Her hand rest on his shoulder.

"It's okay."

Gage stood there for a moment longer as she padded away. He heard a strange sound behind him, like metal bending.

Gage whirled around. Marilyn was on her knees, arms solidifying around a wheel her hands had become. The suspension coils holding them rigid even as they bent slightly. She moaned gently.

"No, wait, don't do th-"

"Gage, trust me."

He frowned, but it was one of her stares. He couldn't say no to those blue eyes. Her feet groaned and stretched, ankles giving a gentle metal whine as the feet came loose, stretching their spokes into a long wheel. She was matte black along the metal work, exactly how he liked at night. She stretched between the wheels. Her still organic torso was glossed over, her red-orange deepening to a candy red, fur flattened into a glossy finish. Even Gage had to admit, with how many bike persons he'd seen, the sight of her well painted flesh still soft and in motion was beautiful.

"Mmmrrrrrhhh."

Her purr graduated into one of the smoothest engine idles he'd ever heard. Her chest expanded with her shoulder blades into a heart shaped fuel tank with matte gas gage, her legs tightening as her tail stretched and hollowed with a spine tingling rev into a gently curving exhaust pipe. Her stomach slipped and gently formed into an engine, forming a nice little chrome 'v' next to her kick stand and pedals. She glanced at him one last time, her lips puckering into a kiss as her neck slowly rotated her face between her handle bars. Her ears had stretched, twitching gently before the hand brakes popped out of them and the grips solidified near the tips. Her mouth was kept open, extended, hardened. Her eyes blinked, light sparking inside of them, they congealed and blinked one last time as they became a large, round headlight. She was modern, classic, beautiful. Everything Gage loved about bikes, everything he loved about the woman who became one.

The engine idled patiently for him. He approached her and settled onto the seat that had formed just above her engine. He righted her kick stand. He sat there for a moment in silence, wondering if this would be the last time he'd see her animate.

Then the seat pinched him. He jumped a little and looked down at the bike. A little speaker popped up on the handle bars. Her voice was tinny, but purred sensuously:

"Time's a wasting big boy. Ride me."

Not one to keep her waiting, he drew down on the throttle and slipped out onto the road. She was fast, responsive, it was hard to tell who was really driving. They thought they'd be ten minutes late. They ended up ten minutes early.

When Gage had looked away from her to take off his helmet, he felt a soft, rubbery hand on his shoulder. She still had a wheel between her legs, but it was reforming into her feet by the time he'd found his wallet. Gage's mouth opened to give her a compliment before she leaned in, her plastic muzzle reforming, tongue dancing onto his lips as it slid back into being. They held that pose, his arms around her warm, fresh body, the lights framing them until their two profiles became one.

They didn't really remember the movie, they were too busy with each other.