"It's Bloat's," said David warily. "And very expensive." Bloat laughed in shrieking delight, however, entertained by the spectacle as Giggle dropped the packet on the floor and stripped off her bulky sweater and the blue T-shirt under it. She knelt and began desperately rubbing the rapture all over her bare arms, shoulders, breasts, and stomach.
"You won't stop feeling tickled," said David. He leered at her obvious pleasure, idly rubbing the blue stain on his finger with his thumb. "But you'll love it now"
As everyone watched Giggle, Ben glanced around carefully. He couldn't get out without help.
Giggle had stripped naked and was squatting on the floor, smearing rapture on her thighs. She giggled at the sensation, but no longer looked tortured. Now her face had a dreamy glow.
Ben watched her in a kind of detached horror. Rapture was a nasty drug and she was drenched in it. Still, he was in too tight a spot to worry about some stranger.
Bloat was laughing louder than ever and his joker followers imitated him. David watched Giggle with rapturous enjoyment. The young woman who had entered behind him was now standing alongside him, looking at Giggle with wistful amusement in her pretty blue eyes. "David," she said softly, twisting a finger around one of her black curls of hair. "Who's the polar bear?"
"You got me, Sarah," said David, his eyes still glowing at Giggle.
"I want to jump him," said Sarah. "I wonder what rapture feels like to a bear."
Ben's ursine ears caught her words even through the riot of other voices. No one else had heard her.
Ben backed away a step, wondering what she meant. If she just wanted a ride, Ben could do that. If she meant sex, she was really crazy. Ben looked around quickly, sure that he was physically stronger than anyone he could see. That told him nothing about what ace abilities might be present here.
Giggle was dancing, naked and smeared with blue, inside a circle of jokers. They were clapping in rhythmic unison, still laughing and shouting encouragement as the rest of the packet of rapture was passed around. Bloat hooted and laughed and wiggled his stubby appendages helplessly.
Suddenly Giggle spotted Ben. Swaying from side to side and giggling, she pranced toward him, her smile white inside her blue face. The circle around her parted, still clapping, and she came to Ben, still dancing and twirling.
The circle re-formed to surround both of them. Someone started a chant to go with the rhythmic clapping: "Bear! Bear! Bear!" Giggle laughed and grabbed Beds ears, dancing from side to side.
David and Sarah were now in the front of the circle, still within Ben's hearing. The blond youth studied Ben with his watery, bloodshot eyes. Then he put his arm around Sarah and shrugged. "Go ahead, for all I care."
Ben tensed, watching Sarah, ready to leap forward to attack or to dodge away, as necessary.
She didn't move. Suddenly a force struck Ben's mind, sending him reeling-shoving him out of the polar bear. In his vision, the swaying blue shape of Giggle rippled and blurred. The clapping and chant of "Bear!" overwhelmed him.
Disoriented, he pushed back, growling almost without meaning to. He was hot now beneath his fur and fat inside this place and he did not understand what the force was. The room suddenly seemed to tilt as the mysterious force pushed him away from the sight, hearing, and tactile feeling of the bear.
Ben was lost in a blur of closing darkness, just barely able to make out Sarah seeming to grow larger in his mind. Panicked, unable to hang on to the bear, he focused his concentration on his human body back in Chinatown. He pictured his room, his bed, his nude body in the bed next to Sally. He concentrated harder and finally, belatedly, spun dizzily back into familiar darkness.
Vivian felt Ben's confusion. She had been sleeping in the dark room, grateful for the rare solitude, but her mind came awake suddenly. Ben's mind, disoriented and not present, was no longer controlling their body. The feeling was intuitive, but reliable.
Vivian's mind came instantly awake. She eagerly hurried to blink their eyelids, move their arms and legs, to make them hers, not theirs-or his. She came awake, took control of their body, and felt the change once again.
It didn't hurt at first, exactly, but her adrenaline flowed into her bloodstream and the shifting of blood from the change caused throbbing in her head, her chest, and her pelvis. Her bones ached as their shape and size altered, her pelvis growing and her shoulders and rib cage narrowing. Her head and face hurt sharply as their shape changed. She felt some of the sensation of an elevator dropping suddenly or a roller coaster suddenly starting a steep downgrade.
The shifting of soft tissue was less intense, but it rippled and moved on her chest, between her legs, on her face, through all of her muscles. Then the physical changes stopped and left her breathing hard on the bed in Ben's room. She opened her eyes. The layer of ice on the window softened the glow of light from outside.
Carefully, as she always did after changing from rider to driver in their body, she slid one hand to her chest. Her breasts were small but certainly female. At the same time, her other hand moved between her legs, where she found what she expected. She was Vivian, as Ben still called her from childhood-or Tienyu, as she called herself now.
She cleared her throat softly. It was her voice.
She could feel Ben's presence now, too. He had probably been killed in his animal, she guessed, and his mind was reeling from the surprise. That's what would have caused him to lose control of their body momentarily.
For an indefinite period, however, he would now be riding in their body while she did what she wanted. Like she had done as a rider, he could communicate conscious, direct thoughts to her, but they could not read each other's minds unless the message was deliberate and willful on the part of the sender.
Right now Ben apparently had nothing to say.
Next to her, Sally stirred languorously and turned on her side toward Vivian. Vivian remained motionless, not wanting to wake her. Sally's hand eased across her waist, however, in a casual caress and slid down between her legs.
Vivian tensed, then gently moved to get out of bed, away from Sally's hand. She was hoping Sally was still mostly asleep. However, as Vivian sat up and put her feet on the floor. Sally raised up one elbow.
"Who are you?" she said sleepily. "Where's Ben?" Vivian got up and moved away from the bed. "I'm Ben's sister. Ben's gone."
"Gone? Jeez, why didn't hey, what were you doing in bed with me?"
For a moment Vivian stood uncertainly in the steamy room, naked except for the coin on her neck chain. She toyed nervously with it. Then she switched on the lamp.
Sally flinched, squinting in the sudden light, and pushed herself up into a sitting position.
"Get out," said Vivian.
"What? Come on, Ben said he didn't care if I spent the night. What time is it, anyway?"
"I said get out." Vivian glanced around for Sally's clothes and snatched up her big flesh-toned bra, stiff with its underwire. "Here." She threw it at Sally.
Sally pulled it away from her face, fumbling for something to say and not thinking of anything.
Then, as Sally began putting it on, Vivian picked up Ben's pouched briefs and looked at them, making a mental note to buy something that would fit better tomorrow. At least he had kept to their basic bargain; the jeans were baggy on him, but would fit snugly around her pelvis. The thermal undershirt, turtleneck, and heavy winter socks, of course, were gender neutral, and she had never bothered to own a bra. Ben's boots were always a little loose on her, but not much; their feet only altered a little during the change and the socks made up some of the difference.