What if the most dangerous thing a woman can do is refuse to stay in one shape?

The stories in Woman Unbound Stories II are love stories, mystery stories, and science fiction. But underneath, they are all asking the same question: what happens when a woman outgrows the form she was given?

An old shape-shifter spends decades as a wheel and a telephone pole, watching humans mistake her for trash. A detective’s assistant of fifty years plays three different women in one night to show her partner what he’s been afraid to want. A young Indian scientist builds a machine with a hidden female personality, and when she dies, that machine becomes the moral center of a planet that has forgotten how to talk to itself.

These are stories about dialogue over war, experience over safety, and love that outlasts the bodies it arrives in. They are funny, sly, occasionally filthy, and deeply human — even when the characters aren’t.

Woman Unbound Stories II. She was never one thing. She was always becoming.

Modern Shape-Shifters StoryTime by Cupideros

© December 14, 2010 by Cupideros

(1,709 words)

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” shouted the smooth wheel as it was rolled by three boys down the central boulevard sidewalk.

“My turn!”

“My turn!”

“It’s mine!”

The boys kept petting and pushing the smooth black car wheel fast along the street. Each one argued and reached their hand in to slap the wheel and push it faster and faster.

The toughest boy felt spurned because everyone played and pushed the wheel along. He gave it one last shove. “There! Take your old useless bald hole for all I care.”

The remaining two boys fought a while longer, and finally, the owner slapped the wheel one last time, and all three boys watched it majestically roll and roll.

In amazement the boy’s useless bald black car wheel rolled across two streets, dodged a frightened golden retriever, bumped a wine bottle out of traffic’s way, once again crossed the street when the light shone green, and gently came to a staggering halt and leaned almost humanly against an out-of-date telephone pole plastered with rock-concert posters, whose superstar performer departed years ago.

After catching her breath, the smooth bald wheel said, “I feel you, fellow shape-shifter. Don’t try to hide.”

“You’re one crazy bitch letting those boys treat you that way.”

“I’m a bald smooth wheel,” she replied cheerfully. “I had my fun driving all over this city and a couple of states too.”

“SW—a show-off as well.”

“TP, often wisdom is wasted on the young.” She paused.

“You wanted me to speak to the boys. Hey! I’m a shape-shifter. I can assume any shape for as long as I want. Let’s go have some fun?”

“I wasn’t always a telephone pole, you know,” he said.

SW said, “It’s disheartening explaining to the young that they’re nothing.”

TP agreed, “They’re so desperate to be something, anything. They get locked into this shape or that for hundreds of years.”

“I tell them, you are water.”

“They don’t want to hear all that mystical talk, SW.”

“TP, it is the only truth—”

“There is,” agreed TP. “I know. I met a young fellow shaped into a coat rack in an abandoned house.”

“Tragic. Preference over performance is not the way I try to explain to them.”

“You may like being a twig, but you’ll have better performance as a clock tower.”

“They want to be safe, safe, safe, TP.”

“They do not miss all those rich experiences if they choose performance over preference—”

“Even with the risk in performance choices.”

They paused and listened to the traffic and people walking by with groceries. People discussing their lives and whether to choose preference over performance.

“I can’t remember the circumstances, how it came about, SW. All I remember is this guy holding me; I’m a lance in one of those Renaissance festivals. The horse is galloping fast; dirt is flying up everywhere. Wind flying, hitting my face. I’m bobbing up and down, and this metal shield is moving fast in my direction. I panicked and shifted from the tip of the lance in time before it snapped off. Dazed, I regained consciousness on the second charge. Apparently, lances were in short supply. I’m facing this angry eagle, two yellow birds, and roses with thorns—a second time. I shifted back again before the next third of the lance broke and fell to the ground. I hoped my valiant knight might toss down his lance in defeat, but he did not.

“TP!”

“I shape-shifted to his wooden sword.”

“Whew.”

“This idiot then drops the lance at the last second and tries to fight a lance with a sword!”

“What did you do?”

“I shifted to the feather in his cap.”

SW started giggling and rolling around half the telephone pole.

“His feather was just man-enough of a shape for my taste.”

SW said, “My worst shape-shift occurred when I was a commode seat, accidentally ejected from an airplane going down in flames.”

“Gee. What did you do?”

“First, I let out a loud long weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I’m flyinggggggggggggggggggggggg. Then I panicked something awful.”

“I’ve never flown before. Why didn’t I shape myself into an airplane wing or something? I’m a dull boy.”

“We have plenty of time left, TP. Anyway . . . I’m falling at twenty-five miles per hour, and after the excitement, I see the ground fast approaching. I panicked—”

“No other parachutes around, SW?”

“Not a single parachute, plane, or any object, but a flock of geese flying south to Brazil, I think.”

“SW—you didn’t crash into them!”

“I may be a bitch in emergencies, TP,” she said, smiling after pausing. “But not this time. I looked around three hundred and sixty degrees.”

TP began laughing. The telephone pole was shaking and wobbling in a sudden strong wind gust.

“I see this pregnant goose. I shifted into her lower belly. It was the warmest trip to Brazil I ever made.”

TP couldn’t stop laughing. “Women Shape-Shifters have it easy.”

The construction truck drove up next to SW and TP.

“Isn’t this the decommissioned telephone pole, Frank?”

A heavy-set man looked up from his dog-eared paperwork. He scratched an X on a map. “Yep.”

Chubby Druianna leaned out the battered white truck window, her heavy breasts held by her checkered shirt and yellow caution bib, and spray-painted a huge yellow X on the pole.

“We’ll take that old bald car wheel away, too,” Frank said, folding his notepad of crumpled papers over onto the dashboard.

“People don’t know where to throw their trash these days.” Druianna flashed her always cheerful smile and looked at the smooth black car wheel leaning up against the aging telephone pole. “Ha! They kinda go together.”

“What?”

“That old wheel bag and oversized cane.” Druianna pulled on her messy blonde ponytail and pointed a strong arm toward the still art scene.

“You’ve been drinking too much afternoon espresso, Dru.”

“Where’s your imagination?” Druianna slapped Frank on the back.

“Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. What are you getting, Suzie?” she said. Then laughing, Druianna drove away from the curb down the street.

“SW! What are we going to do?”

“I won’t let them break you and cart you away, TP.”

“Wait!” They both realized. “This is ridiculous—we’re shape-shifters!” They reassured each other.

“Hey, I got to ask you—” they both blurted.

TP said, “Ladies first.”

SW hesitated for a second. “Okay. Have. I mean, have you ever thought about shifting into a man?”

He laughed. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Quickly she said, “Never.”

“No. No. I didn’t mean I was going to ask if you ever thought about shifting into a woman.”

“That’s better,” she said, relaxing.

“I thought—”

“Don’t go there.”

“I’m really, really liking you even more now,” she offered.

He smiled. “Me too.”

“Well, how about it?” he said.

“Here! Now!”

“Scared you’ll be nude. You can make your tool any size you want, remember, TP?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right?” He would have rubbed his chin, but it’d have given him away to an old lady practically crawling on three legs across the street. “What’s a good size, do you think?”

“That’s gross to ask me. How would I know?”

“You’d feel guilty—”

“I would if I asked you to be any size but the perfect one.”

“I decided.”

“Surprise me.”

“How uhm deep will—”

“TP, you can’t ask a woman such a thing.”

“I guess you’d feel guilty too—adjusting to my depth choices.”

“It’s performance over preference for me.”

“Let’s just say preference over performance.”

“You’re going to be a monster.”

“You’re going to be a loose hole.”

“Gosh, this is complicat—” they both said, then laughed.

“Let’s wait until dark,” she said.

“Why? I can shift into a telephone, a pillar, or a parking meter until we reach the alley.”

“True.” She pouted. “People have sex at night, though; it’s more romantic.”

“Romantic? Probably more difficult. How can they see?”

“We’re not having sex right away, TP.”

He answered, “It is not as if we haven’t already gone to first base and second base, SW.”

“Mentally, TP, as shape-shifters,” SW cautioned TP.

“And theoretically according to our preferences,” TP said. “We are ready.”

SW replied, “In reality, we’ll feel like teenagers.”

TP quickly answered, “But we will be adults!”

They chatted quietly and waited until dusk, then darkness fell.

“The moon is full, TP.”

“SW, it is perfect timing—fate. Let’s go.”

TP shifted from one telephone pole to another as SW rolled along. They felt naughty. Like children playing a game on their parents, the Goddess and God. They reached the alley and shifted into human form.

“Oh, it feels just like I thought it would. I’m all emotional and caring, TP.”

“And I’m so mental and detached. Let’s do it?”

“We need clothes first, TP!”

They looked around, and luckily, a clothing shop for men and women around the corner was closing shop. They shifted back into the wheel and telephone meter.

“See you tomorrow, Martha.”

“I hope we sell more for Valentine’s Day tomorrow.”

“Gosh, I forgot all about that. I need to buy Bill something.”

“I’m getting Jake peppermint bark candy again,” she laughed. “Men are easy on Valentine’s Day.”

SW and TP shifted into various objects: sidewalk for him.

She shifted into Martha’s skirt, then the shop’s keyhole.

TP shifted into the doorknob, and they were in and scrambled into various shapes into their respective clothing department sections.

“SW! My valentine!” He pranced around like a peacock in his blue business suit, black shoes, white shirt, and red tie combo. “Where are you, honey?”

“TP,” she sang out. “Over here beside the lacy underthings. Don’t come a step closer,” she cooed. “It’s a surprise. My, my, you look handsome.”

SW shimmied a pair of black lace panties under her black business skirt. She weaved, then hooked a matching bra under her tight white blouse. She slipped on black pumps. She came out from behind the Victoria’s Secret pajama section. “Ta-da!”

“Sweet. We’re ready for a night on the town.”

“All we need is money.”

They both exclaimed, “We’re shape-shifters; that shouldn’t be any problem!”

He shaped a bit of himself into two hundred dollars.

“This is going to be the most fun ever, TP!”

—THE END—