Beach Day

By Nomdreserv

An idyllic scene at the seashore. A sunny, hot day with wide expanses of sand, just enough breeze to keep from overheating, a moderate surf to enjoy playing in the water, children laughing, young people showing off, and older and more committed couples just enjoying the leisure of not needing to show off. Sun, sand and leisure – the perfect combination for a seemingly perfect day.

Perhaps too perfect. Just as nature seems to abhor a vacuum, so it appears to be biased against perfection. There can be no complete good, without…

Well, in this case, Richard and Natalie.

For those who noticed their arrival, it almost seemed they stepped out of the air itself. There was a shimmer in the air, and suddenly a handsome man and beautiful woman were standing on the sand. Their beachwear was of the highest quality, and they were almost impossibly perfect in their physical forms, and yet most people who looked at them immediately looked away. Part of it was a cruel set to the mouth and face that was unpleasant, but there was much more in the eyes. Even hidden behind their dark glasses, there was a something chilling there, utterly contemptuous and yet still predatory. Something almost … well, let’s face it. Inhuman.

“That looks like a good spot,” Natalie suggested, nodding at a blanket and set of chairs set a safe distance from the tide-line but still commanding a prime location near the water.

Of course, being such a nice spot, it had been staked out quite early and was currently occupied by a young married couple who seemed to have no inclination for leaving. But then again, anyone who knew Richard or Natalie also knew that hardly presented a problem. Richard approached the couple know and looked down at them through his mirrored shades, his mouth turned down in distaste.

“Tell you what,” he said without preamble. “If you leave right now, we’ll let you go. You’ll have to leave all your things here, of course. Don’t want to be bothered conjuring on a day like this, after all. Even so, I think you’ll consider yourselves very lucky.”

They just looked at him in disbelief, and then the man started to laugh in disbelief. He looked quite fit and able to take care of himself, and he was already sizing himself up favorably against Richard.

“Oh, do hurry,” Natalie complained, coming to stand next to him. “Turn them into hermit crabs or something and be done with it.”

“You know how I hate to repeat myself,” Richard complained before turning back to the couple. “Tell you what. You two look like nice people, and I can tell you’re completely devoted to each other. How about if you both go off and spend the day seducing as many partners as possible? But …” He paused, looking off as if considering. “You’re both feeling your age and want to make sure you’re still youthful and attractive. No one over 18, and the younger the better. You’ll do anything to tempt them into sex – money, presents, even your car. Let’s see who can score the youngest. Then tonight, you go back home and tell each other about every detail, every excruciating, embarrassing, even illegal detail, the more sordid the better. Have sex while you’re doing it, and make sure your partner knows just how inadequate they are compared to your new conquests. And then, when you both come while screaming out your most degrading moment of all – only then – can you go back to normal.”

Natalie snorted in amusement. “As if they could ever go back to normal after that.”

“Well, that is the point, isn’t it?” Richard asked archly.

Even behind the mirrored glasses, the hapless couple could see the glow that had replaced his eyes. A chill moved through their bodies. They exchanged helpless and horrified looks.

And then, with only one last backward, pleading glance at each other, they both stood up and walked away in opposite directions, already scanning the beach for possible partners.

Richard sighed and sat down in the chair. He reached over and opened the cooler the couple had brought, pulling out a beer.

“Domestic,” he said in disgust, examining the label. “I shouldn’t have been so nice to them.”

“Oh, let them go,” Natalie sighed, sinking into the other chair. “I’m just glad to get a rest.”

“Tough morning?”

“Awful. Got carried away with some transformations. I always forget how tiring they are, especially inter-species.” She leaned back in the chair and sighed again.

“Do tell,” Richard insisted, holding up his hand. Natalie reached out and touched one finger to his. Immediately, his eyes went wide. “Darling! You’ve outdone yourself!”

“Well, it’s the artist in me.” She looked at him slyly, glad at his reaction, then settled back again with a smile on her face. “And it should keep them busy for a while cleaning up, maybe even the rest of the day. We can finally relax for a while to recharge, don’t you think?”

“I do hope so.” He shuddered slightly as he accessed another of her memories. “I see they showed up again.”

“I told you they would.”

He frowned. “Damn them! Don’t they have anything better to do? It’s not like we actually kill any of them.” A pause. “Not that I’d mind. You’re too cautious.”

She sighed in disgust. “How many times do I have to tell you? If you kill them, they will find you. They consider us an annoyance now, maybe even a danger, but they can still undo what we do. Once you start killing … well, what we’ve experienced is nothing compared to what would happen if we were considered lethal. Believe me.” An uncomfortable wince. “I know.”

“Hmmph,” he said uncertainly, confident in his own strength. “Well, you certainly should have killed the redhead when we had her. Then we’d at least be rid of her.”

“Without knowing where her partner was? Hardly. She’s dangerous, but the smart one is even more of a threat. I still don’t know how she tracked us.” A disbelieving shake of her head. “It was close enough when she showed up as it was. If she hadn’t needed to tend to her friend, do you think we’d have gotten away?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Besides,” she smiled in memory. “If you eat them all at once, the flavor’s gone. It’s much more fun to savor them while they’re alive. Do you remember how she tasted? Especially when…”

She didn’t even have to finish the sentence before Richard was sighing happily at the memory.

“Ahhh, yes. The strong ones are always the best, aren’t they?” he agreed.

“Absolutely. And we’ll have our chance at them both soon enough. He’ll see to that. And then, we can do what we want. No holds barred.”

“Not that we hold much back as it is.” He began to look around with more interest, tasting the air. “I do enjoy the beach. People showing themselves off, inhibitions put aside, so proud and happy. Such displays and variety. It’s like hunting in a wildlife preserve.”

“Something you know quite well,” she pointed out.

He grinned, showing off pointed teeth. “Animals don’t provide the same sport. People are so proud of themselves, and never more so than when nature has blessed them more than their fellows. Somehow they come to believe they truly are better.”

“You know,” Natalie said thoughtfully. “It’s their fixation on physical appearance that causes so many of their problems.”

“As opposed to inner beauty such as ours,” Richard laughed, adding a rather unsightly 30 pounds to a young teen who had braved out in her first bikini.

“Of course,” she agreed, giving the girl a few prominent warts as well. “Absolutely consumes them. And they pay so much to preserve their precious looks.” She aged a twenty-something woman into her mid forties, watching in satisfaction as the woman’s breasts and butt sagged, stretching her suit, her skin becoming thinner and slightly wrinkled. “I understand they even mutilate themselves for it. The women especially. What do they call it? Plastic surgery?”

“That’s it.”

“Barbaric.”

“Well, of course, they don’t have magic.”

“No excuse. I think it just ruins them as victims. I mean, if they’re willing to do that to themselves, what chance do we have?”

“Let’s find out.”

“Hmm. Interesting and different. An excellent idea.” She peered around for a suitable subject. “Such as her, for example?” Natalie asked. She pointed to a woman in a small, tight bikini that helped push her oversized breasts up and out. Although obviously enlarged by implants, they were drawing generally appreciative stares from the surrounding men.

“Oh yes,” Richard agreed. “An obvious ploy for attention. But really overdone. They’re much too large. Ridiculous, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely. And a blatant case of false advertising. I wonder what she’d look like without them?”

A wave of her hand, and the girl’s chest literally deflated, the implants shriveling to nothing. She shrieked as her suddenly loose bikini top simply slid down off her imploded chest, the empty cups left hanging in mid air. She reached to preserve her modesty, then gasped in horror as her hands clutched at her suddenly bared breasts.

She shrieked again as her fingers moved in disbelief over her breasts. They were much smaller, it was true. That was bad enough. But it was even worse than that. Natalie had removed the implants, but hadn’t changed her body to adapt. The skin and little natural breast tissue she had was all stretched out from them, and now collapsed into loose folds, again literally like balloons without air. Instead of going back to the small but pert breasts she’d had before surgery, she now had two loose sacs that sagged mockingly empty across her chest, the nipples misplaced and hanging straight down. She ran sobbing towards the parking lot, not even noticing how tight her suit bottom had become, or wondering why her gait had altered.

But Richard did. He looked at her suddenly super-wide and full ass, barely contained by her bikini bottom and laughed, then peeked over his glasses to Natalie. “You didn’t!”

“It seemed a shame to waste them entirely. Why not use them somewhere else?”

“I wonder how long it will be before she realizes where they are?”

“Can’t you just picture her always looking for those ‘pillows’ she keeps feeling when she sits down until she does?”

“These are more fun than I thought,” Richard decided. “What else can you do? Find another one!”

“How about that one?” Natalie asked. She pointed at a large-breasted blonde.

“Obviously enhanced,” Richard decided. “And so young. What do you think she is, 20?”

“Surely not,” Natalie replied. “18 at the most.”

The woman, who had actually been 22 years old, shivered as a tingle moved through her body. Her legs slimmed slightly, and her face became fresher.

“Tsk. Who would do surgery on someone that young?”

“Girls these days are chasing impossible standards. Why, she could even be 16 and it wouldn’t shock me.”

The woman slimmed some more and lost a half inch of height. Her hair and face were those of a mid high school girl. Her legs were now noticeably thinner, and her breasts became increasingly disproportional to her body, oversized and unmistakably fake. She stopped to talk with one of the college student lifeguards, deciding to flirt a bit since he was cute, but was shocked to find him looking at her with an expression halfway between amusement and disgust. Put off, she continued back to her towel.

“She shouldn’t flaunt herself that way. It’s really shocking what some 14 year olds will try to get away with.”

“14? I’d say 12. Her parents should be ashamed.”

She shrank into her girlhood, losing several inches in height as she passed backwards through her adolescent growth spurt. Her legs slimmed and straightened, and her ass trimmed down to a boyish size. The girl tugged at her bikini bottom, which had become unaccountably loose, but didn’t guess the cause as yet. She tugged and adjusted it as best she could, but it still began to sag. She would have been even more shocked if she had noticed how bare her briefly exposed pubic area had become.

Her bikini top seemed as tight as ever, but for some reason, her breasts felt uncomfortable, almost tighter. She’d had a few second thoughts about getting the implants, but the impressive sight she made afterwards in her bikini, and the appreciative looks she’d been receiving so far had put those to rest. Weird that she suddenly started having symptoms from them now. They seemed heavier on her, and ached, as though the skin was stretching around them.

“10,” Natalie whispered.

The girl had now moved almost all the way back through puberty. Her legs were thin and shorter, with almost no curves to her hips. Long hair framed a childish face, and her body took on the straight lines of a younger girl.

Except for her breasts, of course. The implants now bulged out absurdly on her youthful frame, distorting the underdeveloped breasts and pink nipples behind the bikini top. The suit top still covered her pretty well, but was also loosening due to a combination of the loss of her original breasts and overall smaller body size. Her suit bottom perched much more precariously across her boyish behind, just exposing the top of her cleft.

She held thin arms across her chest, wondering why her breasts felt so tight and tender. They were aching awfully now, and felt very odd underneath her smaller hands. They looked bigger to her when she looked down, extending well past her chest on either side.

“6,” Richard finally added.

They watched the girl regress four more years, immediately losing whatever was left of her womanly development and then shrinking dramatically. Her legs shortened and became chubbier as she acquired the build and baby fat of a younger girl. Her bikini bottom simply dropped past her small, childish hips, revealing the underdeveloped body of a six year old. Her face became all childish innocence, complete with a gap-toothed smile.

And now, her fake breasts completely dominated and mocked her small, squat body – obscene and ridiculous at the same time. She was literally top-heavy now, and pitched forward in the sand before her smaller, weaker muscles could compensate.

She came up dazed and confused, not the least at feeling the sand on her naked behind. She looked down…

And screamed.

It was the high-pitched squeal of a little girl, but in this case, a girl who found herself staring at obscenely large breasts that weren’t hers. It wasn’t quite true of course – all she saw at first was that somehow her breasts had more than doubled in size – they were twice as wide as her chest beneath, and the skin covering them was stretched and thin. They also ached terribly, both from their excessive weight and the stretching. Strangest of all, despite her breasts’ sudden increase in size, her bikini top actually seemed loose, the straps refusing to stay on her shoulders, and had nearly slipped enough to uncover her nipples. These also looked strange – pale pink, flat and all stretched out - but it was still her overall size that amazed and frightened her. She could barely see past her breasts to…

This elicited a second scream, and the few surrounding gazes that hadn’t already fixed on her now did so. As she tried to peer around and finally between the mammoth mounds that pulled at her too small chest, she finally saw her lower body – the short, stocky legs, still tangled in a mysteriously oversized swimsuit bottom, and even more impossibly, the bare mound and narrow hips of a very young girl. She tried to stand, though she had to struggle to get her body to balance and support the huge weight in front.

By this time, a few women bystanders had finally overcome their horrified shock at the girl’s appearance to hurry over with towels to help cover her. They found her babbling and crying, something about “impossible” and “nightmare.” They looked around to see if her mother was nearby to help (and also to turn her in for child abuse for allowing her daughter to actually get implants at such an age), but saw no one, finally just easing the girl over to the lifeguard station.

“Do you think anyone will believe her?” Natalie asked without concern.

“Eventually,” Richard shrugged. “Unless you want to change her fingerprints or something.”

“No, it might be fun to check in and see how she does. Should be quite difficult to try to live her old life with that new body. It’s positively obscene! I wonder how her coworkers or potential boyfriends will react when they see her?”

“Definitely worth following up,” Richard agreed, making a mental note. “We may come up with some other changes if she adapts too well. Let’s at least change her emotional maturity to match her body. That will make things rocky.”

“Splendid. Maybe let her knowledge and vocabulary regress when she’s upset too?”

“Of course.” He waved. Suddenly, the girl’s crying took on a whole new tone and volume as she cried the desperate tears of an unhappy child, unrestrained by adult sensibilities. Richard seemed to savor the air. “Much better.”

Natalie was watching another preteen girl play happily in the waves. She was dressed in a bikini style that was really inappropriate for her age, since her childish body was devoid of normal sexuality.

“Here’s a thought. Do you think our subject’s absurd appearance was solely based on the fact that she had implants, or would any breasts have looked ridiculous at that age?”

Richard followed her gaze and nodded. “By all means. Let’s find out.”

The girl was sitting in the water’s edge, letting the waves rock her back and forth. Suddenly, she felt a strange pressure on her chest. She looked down to see that her nipples were sticking out, clearly outlined by the tight line of her top. They seemed bigger as well as stiff, and felt more sensitive than normal. She figured it must be the effect of the cold water and went back to playing.

A minute later, however, the strange feeling was back and magnified. She looked down and was surprised to find that her chest seemed to be swelling up around the stiff nipples. The nascent mounds looked puffy and soft, and she wondered if she had been stung by something. Except, they didn’t hurt when she reached to touch one experimentally. They actually felt…sort of nice.

Another wave rocked her back, and by the time she got settled, the swellings were more pronounced. Her suit top was beginning to get really tight as her early breasts hit their post-adolescent growth spurt. The nipples became even more defined, and touching them was even more pleasant, and she now openly rubbed her new breasts through the increasingly tight top she sported. By now, they were actually rounding up and out, though there was still the puffiness around the nipples that marked their continued rapid growth.

She made a remarkable sight – a girl under four feet in height, with the skinny legs and body of someone barely out of kindergarten, now rubbing a pair of comparatively huge B-cup breasts. They loomed large and inappropriate on her small chest, lifting the child’s bikini top clear off, so that both their tops and bottoms peeked out simultaneously. They also extended to her arms on either side, but whereas the regressed woman’s implants had stood out impossibly high and hard, these began to follow the natural course of gravity, hanging slightly despite their firmness, and trying to conform to her suit.

As they continued to enlarge, the girl grew worried and forgot her early fascination. She stood rather uncertainly, put off both by the new weight on her chest and their tendency to jiggle as she moved. Her new assets continued to enlarge, passing C cup stage and threatening to rip the undersized top off at any second. As it was, most of her breasts hung exposed now, the suit top looking more like a sweatband stretched across the nipples. She was drawing a number of stares and comments as she tried unsuccessfully to cover up.

The top gave up when she hit D-cup size. Suddenly, her massive breasts burst forth in all their unnatural splendor, they would have looked huge on a normal woman, but were even more astounding and incongruous on her tiny, pink body, reaching to her waist and out past her arms. They hung increasingly low and heavy as gravity took its toll despite her youth, and the nipples started to turn down even as they darkened into full maturity.

She started crying and ran uncertainly, her crying worsening as she felt the unnaturally heavy breasts bobble and swing like a pair of huge water balloons, tugging at her weak chest muscles beneath. An answering scream came from her mother who instantly wrapped her in a towel, even as the sound of the ocean waves was replaced by a wave of murmurs and outcries from the spectators.

“Bigger than her mother,” Richard commented.

“That should make an interesting family dynamic,” Natalie agreed.

They watched the girl being covered with an adult shirt, as the family relapsed into shock.

“The mother’s concern is nice,” Richard suggested, tasting the air. “Maybe we should make her chest smaller? Symmetry and all that.” Then he looked puzzled as he sensed a disturbance in the ether around them. “You’ve added another spell?”

Natalie smiled. “I thought it might be interesting to let her breasts slowly grow back to normal.”

“Oh?” He seemed vaguely disappointed.

“Richard, really!” she snorted. “I’m talking about what’s normal for her now, not then. They’re going to age backwards. It will happen when she hits puberty. In a few years, as the rest of her body begins to blossom into womanhood, and she’s finally ready to accept having breasts, she’ll find them regressing - slowly getting smaller and smaller, less and less developed with each month. Completely normal growth, but in reverse. By the time she’s in college, they’ll be gone. She’ll be flat as a board, with nipples smaller than a boy’s.”

“Wonderful!” he laughed. “I should have known better.”

“Yes, you should,” she agreed with a snort. She leaned back to drink in the girl’s intense embarrassment and her family’s more diffuse distress. This sort of refreshing afternoon on the beach was just what she needed to recharge her batteries. Life on the run was beginning to leave her more and more drained.

“Ha! Excellent.” Richard watched another well-endowed woman walk by. A brief moment of disappointment when he realized her large breasts were entirely natural and not prone to his new fascination for implants, and then he allowed his natural lusts to take hold. She was statuesque, with the unnaturally perfect body of a centerfold, including full, firm D-cups which were well shown off by her tankini, and she walked with the confidence of a beach goddess. “Mmm. Nice,” he commented.

Natalie stared a bit frostily. “She seems rather taken with herself.”

“No wonder,” he replied. “Nature has blessed her.”

“Then I certainly won’t,” Natalie decided, pointing a finger.

The woman paused. Something didn’t feel right. Her chest seemed…heavier. And tight. Almost uncomfortable. And it didn’t move right as she walked, like her breasts were stuck on something. She looked down to see if her suit had shifted.

She frowned at what she saw. Her suit looked too tight – squeezing her breasts. But for some reason, instead of flattening them, they stood out even farther and higher than normal, unnaturally high and round, and with almost absurd, cartoonish cleavage.

Unnatural. The thought made her stomach flip. It was impossible – they almost looked like….

But that was absurd! She had always been the envy of all her friends, with her gorgeous breasts, as large as any Playboy model’s, yet still perfectly shaped and firm. Yet somehow they now reminded her of the sort of third-rate surgery jobs that adorned cheap strippers. She reached with a shaking hand to adjust her suit – that had to be where the problem was.

She froze as her hand grazed her chest. Then she began openly – indeed frantically - feeling her breasts in mounting horror and disbelief. They were gone, replaced by these…things. It was like touching a mannequin - they actually felt artificial. And in every sense. The skin was thickened and had a plastic quality that was very unpleasant. And underneath, her probing fingers encountered a rock-hardness that repulsed her, as well as making it even more obvious that almost none of her size was organic. Her skin seemed numb, as though the nerves had been damaged, yet underneath, there was an aching from the oversized weights that had been placed into her body. The skin was scarred and dimpled around the sides, as though from many surgeries.

She felt her alien body in disbelief, somehow knowing no doctor could undo the damage that had been done. She panicked and started to walk away anyway, determined to seek help. While she walked, her hair changed from a natural, lustrous chestnut to a horribly-died platinum blonde, with dark roots showing – both colors immutable to any attempts to change them. Heavy mascara lines, rouge and lipstick appeared on her face, as though permanently etched into the skin. Her feet started to hurt as the bones shifted, arching into an unnatural shape that would force her to wear stiletto heels for relief. Several poorly rendered tattoos appeared.

Men who had stared lustfully at her on the way down stared in surprise as she minced back on her toes – if they even recognized her. They must have fallen victim to the sun to have admired such a trashy skank. Instead of lust, there was revulsion – she was really pitiful in her misguided attempts to make herself look sexy. Such a shame.

“Nasty,” Richard said admiringly.

“Thank you.”

“I assume you made some mental changes?”

“Of course. Dropped her intelligence and speech ability a little. Tweaked her judgment skills – for the worse, I’m afraid. Oh, and a tenfold increase in her libido. Unfortunately, I think she may have to look for a new class of suitors. Shall we say…a less fashionable or discerning sort of man?”

“May cause her some problems,” Richard speculated. “What was her job?”

“Does it matter?” Natalie paused and laughed. “What am I saying? Of course it does!” A moment’s concentration. “Oh, just a standard business drone. I was hoping she might have been a teacher or something. Now, that would have been interesting. Still, she had ambition. Maybe a vice presidency down the road. And her eye on the regional sales manager. I believe there was also a semi-serious boyfriend. Executive type.”

“He’ll be surprised.”

“Maybe he’ll like the new her.”

Another moment’s pause before they burst out laughing.

They lay motionless for a few seconds and drank in the echoes of anguish around them, but soon couldn’t resist looking for fresh game. Natalie, tiring a little of Richard’s breast obsession and still stinging a bit from his obvious admiration of the woman’s former body, deliberately looked for a male target this time. She smiled as she looked to her right.

“Someone’s proud of themselves.” She nodded at a couple of well-built men walking by in Speedos which helped emphasize their large cocks and full scrotums. They were obviously trolling for attention.

Unfortunately, they got it.

“Oh, please!” Richard glared. “I think men in those things look so gay!” He waved a hand at them.

Suddenly, the two show-offs lost interest in the women who were checking them out. To the surprise and despair of at least one smitten lady who had been scoping them out, they proceeded to put their arms around each other while they walked.

The woman would have been even more surprised, however, if she had seen the looks of shock and horror that filled their eyes, but were somehow otherwise suppressed beneath the men’s serene expressions.

Jim tried to shout a protest at Bill’s sudden embrace. He thought, “Dude, get your fucking hands off me!”

But what came out was, “Isn’t this beach divine?”

Bill looked at him with what he thought was real anger, but which looked to everyone else like a flirting smirk.

“Simply wonderful, Jimmy. So many hunks.”

His eyes actually widened. He had meant to say, “What the shit? Get off me, man!” How had the other words come out instead?

“But none of them can compare with your package,” Jim added, patting the bulge in his friend’s swimwear. His eyes protested his actions, desperately hoping Bill knew it wasn’t him. Even worse, he felt his cock rebelliously stiffen under his friend’s touch. This was a nightmare! If only he could control it like a dream.

Suddenly, each man felt a surge of power move through him. Without knowing how or why, each knew that somehow, he had limited control over his friend’s body, and could affect it merely by thinking. Even as they somehow forgot their own bizarre behavior, or the implication that they weren’t responsible, and fixed on the other as the possible source, their thoughts turned dark. Angry at Jim’s actions, Bill decided to teach him a lesson.

“Yes, I guess it is quite a bit bigger than yours,” he agreed.

Jim felt a sickening shrinking feeling at his groin. He looked down, and saw that his once proud package had been reduced to at best average. He looked up angrily.

“At least I don’t pad. You are so obsessed with looking big, but I suppose that’s to be expected when you’re only 4 inches.”

Bill’s cock seemed to melt away in the hot sun, the crotch of his suit deflating before his eyes. It shrank and thinned until it was just that. He looked daggers at Jim.

“At least I’m a man. Yours looks like a little boy’s.”

Jim’s cock wilted to about two thin, soft inches, and he felt his balls shrink back into his body with his scrotum. The line of hair that pointed towards his crotch disappeared.

“I’m surprised you can even see yours over that gut.”

Bill’s defined abs disappeared under a thickening layer of fat. It quickly spread, leaving him soft everywhere, but concentrated into a roll around his middle that soon hung over the strained waistband, his new paunch all but engulfing the tiny suit.

“I’d rather be fat than scrawny and weak like you. What little muscle you have is like a girl’s.”

Jim’s weight training and sculpted body immediately began to evaporate. His broad chest shrank and hollowed, while his legs became scrawny and straight. He desperately felt his arms, flexing his briefly taut biceps, only to feel the muscles in his upper arms soften and shrink beneath his fingers. Soon, he could feel bone underneath the tiny, soft muscles that remained.

“Oh yeah…”

Richard and Natalie lost interest about the time Jim had dwindled to under 5 feet in height and Bill was talking in a whiny little girl’s voice, complete with an exasperating lisp. Unfortunately, this meant that the changes they had willed on each other became permanent as the power was withdrawn, something that became sickeningly obvious to the two guys a few minutes later.

“I don’t think they enjoyed that at all, do you?” Natalie asked.

“Some people just can’t be trusted,” Richard agreed. “I think someone with a more defined agenda might be more interesting as a proxy.”

“Let’s find out.”

Joanne Summers was watching her daughter being watched, and was not happy. Her daughter, Melissa, was just 18, the age where her gangly youth had finally blossomed into full, sensual perfection. She had well-developed curves for a teenager, glowing skin, firm, round breasts (proudly displayed in a rather skimpy bikini), toned legs without a hint of dimpling, and lustrous hair.

Joanne hated her.

Not really, of course. Well, perhaps she was a little peeved at the way Melissa flaunted her body in such a small suit, but she loved her daughter just as she always had. It was just that Melissa’s perfection seemed to highlight all of her own fading charms.

Joanne was still quite a handsome woman, but no one would have confused her as Melissa’s sister. Her skin had the drier, slightly lax appearance that came with age and a touch of the leathery texture that came from many years of sun exposure. (She now resorted to SPF 45 for last-ditch protection, though Melissa had ostentatiously chosen a “Max Tanning Formula” goop for herself.) Her face was lightly lined, though mostly “laugh lines” that she found far from humorous. She dyed her hair, of course, and had since she was 39 and the first lines of gray began to show through, and envied Melissa’s lustrous, youthful hair. Her own breasts were still full, but sagged noticeably, forcing her to wear suits with extra support, and it had been many years since she’d wanted to bare her tummy publicly. At least she hadn’t resorted to skirt-suits yet to cover her widening behind.

The contrast was obvious, as was the response of the males around them. All eyes, regardless of their owner’s ages, fixed openly or covertly on Melissa, sitting Venus-like on her towel in pretended ignorance of the attention. It was natural that anyone under 30 would ignore her and concentrate on the teen, but it was disgusting (and annoying) that even men her own age did the same.

She sighed. Maybe if she hadn’t had so much sun exposure, her skin would have held up better. She gazed at the wrinkles that came whenever she flexed her legs and arms. If only she could still have skin like Melissa’s.

She felt a strange tingle and a … tightening sensation. To her astonishment, the wrinkles she’d just been looking at so wistfully began to smooth out. Her skin became smooth, the blemishes and leathery texture completely disappearing into an almost glowing silkiness.

She gasped in surprise, and a touch of fear, and started to call to Melissa to see what was happening. But then, she looked at her daughter and froze.

Melissa’s skin seemed to be drying out before her eyes in the hot sun. Interestingly, it tanned slightly, but also freckled. Several larger freckles coalesced into blotches that looked disturbingly like age spots. It also seemed to thin and stretch out slightly, producing wrinkles and sags on her arms and legs, except around her joints where it thickened into calluses. A network of fine lines became noticeable around her eyes and mouth.

Joanne probably held her breath for half a minute before her burning lungs reminded her to breathe. She looked at her own smooth hands, then at the wrinkled ones propping Melissa on her towel.

She had Melissa’s hands.

Well, not her hands. There was her ring, and the size and length of her fingers and nails were unchanged, but her slightly saggy skin had been replaced with the tight, smooth skin of youth. Melissa’s youth.

A wave of panic and guilt was almost immediately replaced by confusion and wonder. How had it happened? It was impossible, wasn’t it? And … could it happen again?

She pretended the last was borne of worry rather than anything else. No reason to immediately point out what had happened to Melissa. It would just worry the poor girl, especially until they knew how it had happened and whether it could be reversed. She would reverse it, she told herself. Of course she would. Probably, all she had to do was wish it back.

But she didn’t. Not yet. Besides, intellectually, it was a fascinating situation. Was it some trick of the light? Had they really traded skin health and beauty? They looked unchanged otherwise. Melissa’s breasts, for example. They still rode high, gloriously round and firm, even if the skin over them had become a bit leathery. It would be so wonderful to have young breasts that pert.

Again the tingle, and she suppressed the cry that was more a fulfilled hope than alarm. She felt her breasts lift beneath her suit, filling in and pulling tight, scorning the support bra built into her suit. Her cleavage became delightful.

But that wasn’t the word for Melissa’s. Her breasts seemed to soften, then drooped, thinning and stretching the skin above as they sagged into her bikini top, dragging it lower onto her chest. Her cleavage became shallower as they moved farther apart, like two magnets misaligned. Soon, they lay at tummy level, soft and saggy, like two half-filled water balloons.

Somehow, Melissa remained blissfully unaware of the changes, though she did tug at her bikini top as the sagging cups dug the straps into her shoulder. She picked up a book, and Joanne held her breath, waiting for her to notice her lined, wrinkled hands, but somehow her daughter showed no sign, and simply lay down on her stomach to read.

Joanne couldn’t help noticing that the bikini top was too small and flimsy for Melissa’s new breasts, letting them sag sadly with the shift in gravity and swing perilously close to spilling out. Someone with breasts that droopy really had no business wearing a bikini. She’d have to have a talk with her daughter about more modesty and support in her suits.

She shook her head, trying to clear the malicious thoughts. Of course she’d never have to have that talk. After all, she’d make sure to undo all the changes before whatever it was that was allowing them to happen stopped working, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had no idea why or how long they would work. Instead, she admired Melissa’s tight little ass.

It was hard to say which gave her more of a thrill: feeling her own buns shrink and tighten into trim perfection, or watching Melissa’s own ass soften and spread until the cheeks sagged out beneath the undersized triangle covering them. Melissa now had the tired, wide ass of a middle-aged mother, while Joanne’s own suit felt almost too big around her tight, little teenaged bottom.

She thought about how perfectly lined Melissa’s strong, young legs were and watched while they flattened against the towel as they lost tone and gained fat. Melissa’s thighs became matronly, with dimples of fat and cellulite, while her own tightened into perfect lines. The prominent veins on her calves and spidery ones in the thighs disappeared, only to reappear on her daughter.

Melissa now had the lower body and breasts of a middle-aged woman, looking rather disproportionate to her trim torso. Well, no reason for that. Joanne watched in fascination as Melissa’s bra strap bit into her softening, widening back and love handles appeared at her hips as her bikini became increasingly tight against her middle-aged spread. She shifted a little in discomfort, and Joanne saw a new bulge from her tummy when she lifted up.

Joanne’s own suit, of course, loosened noticeably. She looked at her new “borrowed” body in delight, especially her smooth, toned legs. Too bad she hadn’t worn something more revealing to admire her new abs.

There really wasn’t much left for poor Melissa to donate, and Joanne noticed that there weren’t many covetous stares left directed in her daughter’s direction. There were a few at her, she realized happily, but not enough given her modest attire and older face.

Well, a second later, at least one problem had been taken care of. Melissa’s nose and chin grew as her face aged, and the lines around the mouth and eyes became obvious. Joanne felt her own nose shrink to button-cute, and her lips filled in lusciously. Another minute, and she was luxuriating in her lustrous, full hair, even though she felt a little guilty as Melissa’s hair thinned. Even worse, prominent streaks of gray appeared since Melissa hadn’t needed to dye her hair as her mother had.

Well, she’d probably want to reconsider that after today.

What was left? Joanne considered, then made a wish. A moment later, she felt youthful power and health suffuse her limbs, giving her an energy and enthusiasm she hadn’t felt in years. The knobbiness of her knees and fingers disappeared, as did the mild aches and pains she’d grown to accept over the years, while Melissa's joints swelled and degenerated. Joanne was supercharged – she felt like she could run a marathon without breathing hard. It was all she could do to keep from jumping up and joining in with the volleyball game down the beach. She was ready for fun, sun and playing. Melissa, meanwhile, shifted to ease her aching limbs, then closed her book.

“Gosh, I feel really tired all of a sudden,” she admitted. “Think I’ll just take a nap for a while.” She didn’t notice as her voice shifted a little, losing its youthful lilt.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Joanne admitted, looking at her daughter’s transformed body with a mix of guilt, revulsion and amazement. Of course, she’d give it all back. Maybe. Eventually. But for now… “You know, I think I’ll take a walk,” she decided, remembering that Melissa kept a second bikini in her bag, she casually picked it up, then paused. She looked at her daughter several seconds as an inner debate raged, then quickly, almost angrily, she took off her wedding ring and dropped it into her own bag, leaving it symbolically behind. She took her own wallet and credit cards, dropped them into Melissa's bag, and then walked off into the crowd.

“You know, I don’t think she’s coming back,” Richard mused.

“Do you think she feels guilty? After all, this is her daughter she’s stealing from.”

They watched Joanne pick up her pace after a backward glance, fearful that Melissa might discover what had happened and try to stop her from leaving.

“I think she just answered that for us.”

Natalie laughed. “She should enjoy herself, at least until she runs into someone as envious as she was. I do love sequential transference, don’t you? Just keeps messing up that whole predator-victim cycle.”

“Going to take a hit from the daughter there?” Richard nodded at Melissa's drowsing form.

“Not just yet. Thought it might be more fun to leave her fogged a little until she meets someone she knows. Maybe that hot boy she was planning on seeing tonight? Then let it hit her all at once.”

“Excellent. Hope he likes older women.”

Natalie laughed. “Oh, we could take care of that. How about we give his grandmother a surprise?”

“Natalie, you are totally and completely beyond redemption.”

“Flatterer.”

Three young women in bikinis sat at a nearby blanket. They were extremely fit, as their extensively bared bodies bore out, but seemed a little too aware of the fact. Indeed, they had already spent a good part of the day expressing various degrees of shock or amusement at the less fortunate women around them. Such as now, when an older, heavier mother walked by, leading her two children by the hands. They stared in apparent revulsion at the width of her hips and thighs, the slight bulge her stomach made in the front of the suit, and the way her suit bottom couldn’t quite contain her slightly sagging ass cheeks.

“Oh God,” the first muttered. “If I ever let myself go like that, just shoot me.”

“And they always like to pretend that it’s having children that makes them fat,” the second agreed. “As if. I mean, I don’t think I’d, like, even gain weight if I was pregnant, you know? And I certainly wouldn’t let myself get one of those huge bellies. It’s all mind over matter. All they’d have to do is a little exercise like me.”

“And stop being such pigs,” the third cut in. She made a snorting sound to reinforce her point.

“True,” the first giggled. “And even then it’s, like, ‘Oh, it’s my metabolism. If I even look at food I gain weight’.”

“She must have looked a lot,” the second said, also laughing.

They all enjoyed their cutting remarks, and then settled back to survey the beach, looking for more figures to trash and decide if there were any men worth investigating. The one who had made the comment about heavier women being pigs made another snorting sound.

“What?” the others asked. “See another porker?”

“What?” she came back, confused.

“You made your piggy sound again.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No way,” she said, a little worried. “I was just, um, smelling food.” She sniffed the air again, far more loudly than she intended. “Can you guys smell it?”

They each tested the air but smelled nothing except the salt air.

“Well, I can,” she insisted. “Mmm. I can smell the burgers and fries at the stand from here.” She felt her stomach rumbling urgently, a hunger far more insistent than any she’d felt before coming over her. She opened her bag desperately. “I’m gonna eat my sandwich.”

“Already? But we just got here.”

She was already stuffing the sandwich into her mouth. “Tho? Mm hungthy.”

“Ugh,” the second one commented, tugging at her bikini bottom. “I think my suit must have shrunk or something. It feels tight.”

The others looked at her, and the first woman noticed with some surprise that her friend had developed a slight tummy bulge she’d never noticed before. Of course, she noted it with some degree of satisfaction, since she’d only look better in comparison. With a smile of superiority, she looked once more at the disgusting way the third girl was cramming her sandwich into her mouth, then looked around the beach again.

Several other people were eating as well, and most of it was high calorie comfort food: chips, overstuffed sandwiches and endless sweets, a veritable sea of calories to match the nearby ocean. With a look of revulsion, she saw an overweight man drinking beer with a Polish sausage sandwich and an open bag of pork rinds next to him.

And she no sooner looked at the six-pack of beer and fat-laden foods, then her thighs swelled ever so slightly.

A family nearby was chowing down on burgers, sugary soft drinks, and the famous (or infamous) onion rings offered by the snack bar. They were undeniably tasty, but also undeniably greasy and salty to the extreme. (Which, of course, was why they were so tasty.)

And now, as she turned away, a thin layer of fat softened her once defined abs. Her breasts swelled and softened slightly, just a touch too large for her sporty bikini top.

“Mmmph.” The third woman mumbled, finishing her sandwich and making satisfied smacking sounds. Once more, a couple of nasal grunts escaped as well. Now that she looked closely, her friend noticed that her nose was slightly upturned, and a little more prominent than she remembered. She looked heavier too, and she had also developed a slight tummy to match the second woman’s. She also looked like she might have forgotten her sunscreen, since her skin was becoming pink-tinged.

“You guys have anything ex * TRORT *?” she asked, the last syllable coming out with a heavy snort through her nose.

“What?” they asked, surprised at how rough her voice sounded.

“Ex-trorrrt!” she repeated impatiently, speaking more slowly to enunciate, which she found oddly difficult. “Extr-ORT food?”

“Um, extra? You can have mine,” the second said, looking at her friend strangely. Her face was rounder, and her hair seemed shorter and sparser. Her stomach was becoming more pronounced, apparently from having gulped her meal so fast.

“Good,” she grumbled, rifling clumsily through her friend’s bag. Her hands didn’t seem to grasp things quite right, and she dropped the food when she found it, pushing at it angrily until she scooped it back up.

“Ugh, I need to diet or something anyway,” the second announced. She felt the increasing tightness of her bikini bottom, and saw the way it dug into her skin. Or she would have seen it, if the swell of her larger stomach hadn’t blocked it. My God! When had she gotten so fat? She did her best to such her stomach in, but still couldn’t hide the increasingly noticeable paunch.

What was weird, though, was that her stomach seemed to be the only place she had gotten fat – her toned thighs and arms looked just the same. She looked like she had swallowed a balloon or something. She looked around guiltily, all too aware of her friends’ intolerance and fault finding, then turned to lie on her stomach, ostensibly for tanning, but really to disguise her sudden bulging.

Her swelling hadn’t gone unnoticed, however. The first woman was suddenly feeling uncomfortable about being seen with either of her friends. They literally seemed to be ballooning in front of her eyes, and – horror of horrors – other people might associate her with the fat group. She slowly stood up, feeling just a little logy herself.

“I’m going to take a walk,” she announced. She tried to tug her bikini bottom back into place. It seemed a little tighter than it should, and she could swear her ass felt bigger. Probably from all this sitting. A walk was just what she needed.

The woman lying down mumbled a reply, and the one eating merely grunted. She walked away quickly, idly noticing that food seemed to be everywhere now that lunchtime was here. Sandwiches and chips.

Her stomach bulged slightly.

Burgers and hot dogs.

Her thighs thickened, and the space between them disappeared.

A whole chocolate cake!

Her breasts swelled and softened again, beginning to overflow her bikini top. Her suit was beginning to look decidedly undersized. Her face had rounded and softened, and she had the first signs of a second chin.

As she walked along, glancing at the people and towels around her, she couldn’t help occasionally catching glimpses of food, even when she stopped even registering the fact. And as she walked, her ass swelled ever larger, now jiggling and creeping round the confines of her suit. Together with the increasing friction as her thighs began to rub together more and more, it began to suck in the triangle of cloth, producing an increasingly unsightly thong effect. Her stomach began to droop over the front, and her love handles bulged over the side. Her breasts became huge, heavy and very soft, sagging lower and lower and threatening to take the overstrained bikini top with them. Her footprints sank deeper and deeper into the sand with each step.

Meanwhile, back at their blanket, the hungry woman had finished off the second girl’s food. Her suit was also increasingly strained, as it seemed as if somehow she had gained at least 50 pounds from her double lunch. But the weight looked different on her. Her stomach bulged noticeably, and her thighs were thick with both muscle and fat, but her lower arms and legs actually looked thinner, almost smaller if that was possible. Her fingers especially seemed shorter, and she was finding it hard to flex and use them like she should. Her t