Starting the Day Right

BING BING BOOONNG

THE TIME AT THE TONE WILL BE 7 AM ON SET. A REMINDER THAT BREAKFAST IS SERVED UNTIL 8 AM. ADDITIONALLY, TODAY’S DATE WITH THE MASTRESS WILL BE… ITZEL RAMIREZ. CONTESTANT RAMIREZ WILL MEET THE MASTRESS AT THEIR SUITE BY 3 PM AT THE LATEST. OTHER ARRANGEMENTS MAY BE MADE AS LONG AS THE DATE COMMENCES BY THAT TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

BONG

The tannoy served as an alarm clock for everyone who had not already risen from their beds in the early hours. Beverly, unfortunately, was not familiar with the concept of either a tannoy or an alarm clock and so she reacted to the loud, artificial tones that disturbed her sleep with panicked flailing and angry hissing. Fortunately though, Beverly was also not very familiar with the concept of a bed after many years of wild living, so her swinging limbs impacted the sides of the closet she was curled up in rather than her significantly older roommate.

Eleana blinked her bleary eyes, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling as she returned to the waking world midway through the announcement. Confusion reigned, and she slowly extracted an arm from beneath the covers to rub the sleep from her eyes with the heel of her palm.

“Goodness me, I’m tired,” she yawned to herself, then tried to sit up only to be halted by a twinge in her back, “Ach! Tired and stiff!” she groaned, falling back onto the pillow. She blinked several times, soaking in the feelings, and then a joyous smile slowly spread across her face. “Oh how exciting! It must have been centuries since I last had a bad night’s sleep.” She laughed joyously, and looked over to the corner of the room. “How about you, deary? Did you sleep well?”

A head slowly peered out through the partially-open closet door, topped with messy hair and draped in what seemed to be a pair of neon-pink hot pants. Beverly looked around suspiciously, checking for predators, but the apex predator she shared the room with had been thoroughly defanged and no other dangers presented themselves.

“Beverly sleep okay,” the young woman grunted, “Nest soft, but nest smell funny.”

“Come now, deary, remember last night’s lessons?” Eleana gently chastised her, “Do we speak about ourselves in third person?”

Beverly’s face scrunched up in concentration. “...I sleep okay?” she tried.

“Very good! Now, what about if it happened in the past?”

“I... sleeped okay,” she said with a little more confidence.

“Not quite, but I don’t blame you for getting that one wrong,” the teacher explained in a soft tone, “The past tense of sleep is slept.”

“I slept okay,” Beverly said this time, her blue eyes wide and seeking approval.

“Excellent work! I’m so proud of you!” Eleana beamed, delivering that approval in spades, “Shall we get ready to start our day then?”

“Beverly ready!” exclaimed the eager beaver, still riding the high of passing her first test even as she immediately forgot the lessons it was supposed to teach her. She tumbled out of the closet into a low crouch in the middle of the floor, hot pink hot pants still dangling from her head but otherwise unclothed, unwashed, and utterly unprepared.

Eleana gingerly propped herself up on her elbows and pursed her lips as she looked her roommate over. “Perhaps our next lesson should be in human bathing practices,” she suggested, “Followed by the concept of modesty, such as it is on Harem Hotel, and why it’s sometimes better to conceal in order to later reveal...”

BING BING BOOONNG

THE TIME AT THE TONE WILL BE 7 AM ON SET. A REMINDER THAT BREAKFAST IS SERVED UNTIL 8 AM. ADDITIONALLY, TODAY’S DATE WITH THE MASTRESS WILL BE… ITZEL RAMIREZ. CONTESTANT RAMIREZ WILL MEET THE MASTRESS AT THEIR SUITE BY 3 PM AT THE LATEST. OTHER ARRANGEMENTS MAY BE MADE AS LONG AS THE DATE COMMENCES BY THAT TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

BONG

Itzel woke in a tangle. That wasn’t that unusual, it was pretty common for her to find a knot or ten in her body first thing in the morning, but she found that when she tried to work the knots loose her tentacles weren’t smoothly sliding past each other like normal. She scrunched up her face in frustration, her eyes still closed, trying to tug against the obstacle. A bunch of her upper left tendrils seemed to be stuck underneath something warm and soft, and a central column of her body was lying on top of a hard, angular object. She grunted with effort and pulled as hard as she could.

Ipheara was wide awake and staring at the ceiling when her roommate suddenly fell out of bed with a shriek and crashed to the ground. The moth woman sat up in alarm, but before she could panic a hand slapped down onto the edge of the mattress, and Itzel’s frustrated face was hauled into view.

“Ow,” she groaned, “What’s even the point of all these... bones? All they do is get caught on things and hurt.”

“I don’t really know,” the moth woman said awkwardly, tapping a finger on the fuzzy exoskeleton of one of her lower forearms, “It never made sense to me to have the squishy parts on the outside. Aside from these.” She hefted her massive breasts with all four hands (which she definitely always had even if they hadn’t been appearing on screen since her introduction), and the soft orbs shifted beneath her night gown.

“Squishy I can deal with, it’s being rigid that sucks. Who decided a body should have hinges?” Itzel grumbled, pulling her other arm onto the bed and then heaving her torso back onto the mattress. She rolled over, looking up at Ipheara from below, then frowned thoughtfully. “And aren’t you an insect? Why do you have boobs anyway?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” The moth woman cocked her head to one side, her black eyes wide in naive confusion.

Itzel realised she didn’t really have any arguments against that point, so decided it would be easier to just accept the moth titties as a fact of life and move on. “What was the announcement, by the way? I think I slept through most of it. Something about a date?”

“Oh, that was announcing your date with Robin,” Ipheara cheerfully explained, “3pm today.”

“Today?!” Itzel nearly fell out of the bed again as she bolted upright, only saved from toppling over by the wide and stable foundation provided by her plush ass and thick thighs, “I barely even know how my legs work, nevermind how to date someone!”

“It’s not that difficult, either dating or walking,” Ipheara said reassuringly, swinging herself out of bed, standing up, and walking back and forth a few paces, “See?”

“You’re balancing on two rigid poles with a bend in the middle,” she pointed out with a scowl, “And lifting one of them up every time you want to move so you’re balancing on only one rigid pole, while having to keep the bend from bending too much. How is that easy? If I lose focus for a second then I just end up on the floor again!”

“Sorry,” the moth’s antennae drooped, and so did the rest of her body, “I just wanted to help.”

The alien girl’s expression softened into a grimace. “Dammit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just don’t know what to do.”

“That’s okay, I understand,” Ipheara chirped, her antenna straightening out as she perked up again, “Maybe you could try turning back, if this body is too difficult for you for now? You can do that, right? I’m sure Robin wouldn’t mind.”

Itzel blushed hard at the suggestion but seriously considered the idea for a moment, looking down at the place below her waist. She slowly shook her head. “I barely even understand how my legs work, I don’t know if I can work out what happens between them before the date. I need to... orgasm to change.”

“That part really is easy,” Ipheara said brightly, looking extremely pleased to be able to provide some actual help at last, “All you have to do is go to bed with someone you love, then everything goes black, and when you wake up you have children!” She beamed at Itzel, but then her smile slowly faded as she thought it through some more. “Oh, but I guess you’d need to be married first...”

Itzel stared at the woman from the E-rated videogame for several long seconds with an utterly blank expression, then exhaled a long, quiet sigh and turned her orange eyes back down towards her new and confusing genitals. They were already sending her warm signals of want due to the other effect of her transformation, but what did they want? She knew in theory, but only in theory, and the idea of putting that theory into practice was more than a little intimidating.

“This might be a problem,” she muttered to herself.

BING BING BOOONNG

THE TIME AT THE TONE WILL BE 7 AM ON SET. A REMINDER THAT BREAKFAST IS SERVED UNTIL 8 AM. ADDITIONALLY, TODAY’S DATE WITH THE MASTRESS WILL BE… ITZEL RAMIREZ. CONTESTANT RAMIREZ WILL MEET THE MASTRESS AT THEIR SUITE BY 3 PM AT THE LATEST. OTHER ARRANGEMENTS MAY BE MADE AS LONG AS THE DATE COMMENCES BY THAT TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

BONG

Leanne let out a sudden loud snort and rolled over onto her other side before falling silent once more, and that was the closest she would come to waking up for another half an hour at least.

BING BING BOOONNG

THE TIME AT THE TONE WILL BE 7 AM ON SET. A REMINDER THAT BREAKFAST IS SERVED UNTIL 8 AM. ADDITIONALLY, TODAY’S DATE WITH THE MASTRESS WILL BE… ITZEL RAMIREZ. CONTESTANT RAMIREZ WILL MEET THE MASTRESS AT THEIR SUITE BY 3 PM AT THE LATEST. OTHER ARRANGEMENTS MAY BE MADE AS LONG AS THE DATE COMMENCES BY THAT TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

BONG

The announcement was the only obvious sign that it hadn’t all been a dream, as Robin woke up in a nearly-perfect copy of his perfectly ordinary bedroom. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched, spreading his arms wide and pointing his toes, until they brushed against the foot of the bedframe and he suddenly stopped. That didn’t normally happen. He very slowly lifted his head and looked down. Sure enough, his feet were touching the foot of the bed. He looked up next. His head was in its normal position, with the pillow hanging slightly off the edge of the mattress but pushed all the way up to the headboard. Had the small twin bed gotten smaller?

He peeled back the covers, and carefully extracted himself from the bed, watching it suspiciously the whole time he was standing. It didn’t look any smaller in relation to the rest of the room, but he’d seen the whole space grow when Jack had stepped into it last night. Could it shrink as well? Why would it have shrunk? Then he caught sight of himself in the mirrored door of his wardrobe and realised what had actually changed.

Robin was taller, to begin with. His shoulders were also a little broader and his chest wider and flatter - not by any huge amount, and he hadn't gained any extra muscle, but it was enough to strain the buttons on his pyjama top. The lower half of the pyjamas were sagging instead from his narrower hips, and coupled with his slightly longer torso that left a band of exposed midriff with a trail of dark hairs leading down from his belly button. With an irrepressible curiosity, he stuck a thumb into the waistband and pulled it out, allowing his gaze to follow the trail downward. A blush rose in his cheeks. That looked a bit different too.

He looked, in summary, masculine. He hadn’t been expecting that, but today, for the time being, it felt correct. And if it didn’t, he could always change it. The thought brought a smile to his face.

The inside of the wardrobe held more differences. As Jack had described last night, it was split into three sections. The middle held everything that had been in the original wardrobe it was copying, somehow occupying only a third of the space it once had. On the left were a selection of clothes in slightly smaller sizes, while the clothes on the right were obviously a little larger to better fit his current frame.

The larger clothes were not, as he had expected, entirely shirts and pants. The sizes may have been fit to his masculine body, but the styles ran the full range. In addition to t-shirts, jeans and suits were tops with low necklines, frilly blouses, skirts, leggings, and even a couple of dresses. He considered a cornflower-blue sundress for a moment before realising he wasn’t anywhere near brave enough to wear something like that on a masculine body. Not yet at least. It didn't really match the gender he was feeling today anyway, but it did give him thoughts for the future.

It was Itzel’s date this afternoon, according to the announcement. Maybe it was better to stick to what she knew. Robin picked out a pair of jeans, a plain t-shirt, and one of the nicer hoodies, then went off to shower and get ready for his first true day of Harem Hotel.

The perfectly poached egg wobbled slightly atop the thick slice of toast and smashed avocado as Itzel examined it carefully from all angles, decided it was probably safe, then switched her attention to the suspicious strawberry and banana smoothie. She pressed the button for the cafetorium intercom again.

“There’s definitely no dairy in this, right?” she said into the microphone, “This smoothie looks milky, and I’m allergic to dairy.”

Exactly 57 incredibly awkward seconds passed before a muffled voice responded through the intercom. “Oat-based milk,” Chef Grothendeick said in a warbling tone that could have been due to either a low-quality speaker or a mouth that wasn’t quite equipped for human language, “All allergens accounted for. May I please take your order please?”

Itzel left the request hanging and picked up the plate and glass, then took a deep breath and focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she made her way over to the table where her roommate was already sitting. Ipheara had been incredibly helpful as she struggled through putting pants on and getting down the stairs, but she needed to learn to do stuff on her own. This time she at least managed to deposit her things on the table before she forgot to straighten one of her knees at the right time and collapsed sideways onto the chair.

“Are you alright?” Ipheara asked, peering over the table.

“Just peachy, thanks,” Itzel grumbled as she wriggled herself upright to sit in the seat instead of lying across it, “Gotta seduce my roommate today, apparently, and I can’t even figure out walking.”

“Do you not want to... seduce Robin?” the moth woman peered at her with those big, black, curious eyes.

“I didn’t say that,” she mumbled, blushing fiercely and stabbing her egg with a fork. She cut a slice of the avocado toast, mopped up some of the spilled yolk, chewed, and swallowed. Eating wasn’t so bad, at least. Arms and hands weren’t that different from her tentacles, if a bit limited in both quality and quantity, and her mouth worked the same way it used to. It was only a little disconcerting feeling the food go down and down and down into an entirely new set of digestive organs.

Ipheara nodded, accepting the response, and lowered her head toward her own breakfast, picking up the bowl with her upper two hands while the lower two were tucked casually into the straps of her overalls. Itzel hadn’t heard her order, but she seemed quite happy with the liquid that smelled like an entire field of flowers had been blended into a soup. She extended a long tongue and dipped it into the bowl, but rather than lapping it up the tongue just seemed to pulse slightly. Itzel watched in fascination as the bowl began to slowly empty.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do stuff with Robin,” she clarified her earlier answer, even though nobody had asked, “I just don’t know what to do. I’ve never dated before. I thought I never would, until my parents got us off this planet, because anyone who got too intimate would realise I wasn’t human.”

“Dating is really easy though!” Ipheara said cheerfully after slurping her tongue back into her mouth, “I’ve never done it myself, but I’ve seen it happen. You just talk to someone every day, find out what they like, and then give them those things as gifts until their relationship meter has filled up and you can get married.”

“...that’s not quite how it works here,” Itzel said with a pained expression. It was getting a little frustrating how many things the videogame woman thought were much easier than they were in the real world, but her annoyance was tempered with the knowledge that Ipheara would be in for even more of a learning curve than she was herself.

“Good morning everyone!” Eleana announced as she strode into the cafetorium, followed closely by Beverly.

The teacher had bags under her eyes but was smiling widely and warmly, and she was dressed in a long skirt, neat blouse, and a loose cardigan. Itzel and Ipheara were too busy staring at Beverly. The small woman looked a very different kind of wild wearing a pair of violently pink and incredibly short shorts that were a few sizes too big and cinched tight with a belt, and a baggy tank top that she was fidgeting with uncomfortably. Her hair, previously lank and greasy, was fluffy and clean, and her skin held none of the grime it had yesterday. She didn’t look happy about any of these developments.

“Are those the clothes the Hotel gives you if you don’t have any of your own?” Itzel asked sympathetically, “At least I got normal pants that matched my old disguise.”

“Oh, no dear. Those are mine,” Eleana said with a slight chuckle, “Beverly here is just borrowing them for a while until she decides what kind of clothes she wants to buy for herself.”

Itzel blinked and tried to shake the image of those skimpy clothes on their original, much older and curvier, owner. She shuffled about in her seat as the sense of need, which had never really gone away, made itself known again.

“Clothes stupid,” Beverly grumbled, tugging at the top until her boobs were in danger of slipping free through the arm holes.

“Come now, deary, try again,” the former eldritch being gently chastised her.

“Clothes are stupid,” the small woman said, rolling her eyes, “And so is shampoo.”

“Much better! Now, was this the place to order breakfast?”

Eleana made her way over to the opaque window with Beverly trailing behind her like a kit after its mother. The intercom crackled into life as soon as they approached.

“May I please take your order please?”

“Lovely to work with you again Grothendeick. Tea, earl grey, hot, and a plate of buttered brown toast if that’s not too much trouble,” she enunciated clearly into the microphone, then turned towards Beverly, “And for yourself?”

“Fish,” Beverly said simply, with a vigorous nod.

Eleana smiled patiently. “I’m sure Chef Grothendeick can manage fish, if that’s what you want, but this may be a good time to expand your culinary horizons. You have all that knowledge of food now, why not test it out?”

“Beverly want...” Her eyes glazed over as she pondered her breakfast and an entire encyclopedia of Perdue family (and subsidiary companies) products spun through her brain. Not just the products themselves, but everything that went into them, and everything they could go into, and everything they could be served alongside. Thousands of recipes. Millions of dishes. But she really did want fish. She approached the microphone just as a cup of steaming tea and a plate of toast slid out of the panel on the far side of the countertop.

“May I please take your order please?” the speaker warbled.

“Beverly want...” she picked a fish dish more or less at random, “Salmon kedgeree!”

57 seconds later, a bowl appeared from the serving hatch. Piled high with curry-flavoured rice, slices of boiled egg, fresh parsley, and of course topped with generous flakes of North Coast Seafoods (proud partner of Perdue Farms) sustainably-sourced Norwegian salmon. Beverly examined the dish with wide, disbelieving eyes. The smell of pungent spices filled a nose more used to sniffing for scent markings. She stuck her fingers into the bowl, not caring about the heat, and lifted a handful into her watering mouth.

“I see cutlery needs to be added to your lesson plan,” Eleana said tiredly, “I had hoped that might have been included in your transformation, but I suppose not.”

Beverly ignored her as she chewed thoughtfully. Flavours utterly unknown to beaver-kind exploded across her tongue, but she found she could place every single one of them. She knew exactly what ingredients went into this dish, how they were combined, and how they should be cooked. She swallowed, frowned, then stormed back over to the intercom.

“May I please take your order please?” the chef’s voice oscillated out of the speakers.

“Rice under-seasoned and fish overcooked!” Beverly angrily shouted over him, “Parsley ratio way off, and who teach you slice egg that way?! Use vertical wedges for even yolk distribution!”

Eleana sighed, and left her to it. The argument could end up lasting for a while with a 57 second delay between rebuttals. She took her toast and tea to the table where Itzel and Ipheara were sitting staring at Beverly, and pulled up a seat next to the moth woman.

“So how are we all doing then?” she asked cheerfully, “Excited for your date, Miss Ramirez?”

“More nervous than excited,” Itzel admitted quietly, poking at a lump of avocado that had fallen from the toast, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Oh, but that’s one of life’s greatest pleasures!” Eleana said with an excitable grin much younger than the face it was attached to, “If you go into something not knowing what’s going to happen, then you either learn something new, experience something new, or both, and isn’t that thrilling?”

“But what if it’s a disaster?” the dejected alien pleaded, though she wasn’t sure who she was pleading with.

“Then you’ll look back on it later and laugh,” she replied reassuringly, “Don’t worry, I'm certain none of them would let anything truly awful happen to you. This isn’t a darkside season.”

“Who do you mean by ‘them’?” Ipheara asked, turning her huge eyes to the teacher, “The people running this game?”

Before Eleana could begin to try explaining the idea of a multi-author improv season, or as close to the concept as mortal minds could comprehend, the conversation was interrupted by Beverly arriving at the table carrying a replacement bowl of salmon kedgeree. The small woman was flushed and breathing heavily, and not just from the argument. Her eyes betrayed a transformation-driven arousal similar to the one that had been slowly growing in Itzel the longer she stayed in her human form.

“Chef Grothendeick ego too big for him saucepans,” Beverly growled, climbing onto a chair to crouch at table height, then proceeding to shovel handful after handful of the British-Indian brunch dish into her hungry mouth.

Itzel looked around at her three dining companions with a confused kind of acceptance. As an alien on earth she’d always been the weirdest person in any given room, apart from when she was spending time with her parents, but there was some stiff competition for that position in this Hotel. It felt oddly comforting. It also felt like someone was rubbing her new pussy.

Itzel looked down sharply, but the only thing she saw was the chair and her own thighs with nothing at all between them. Ipheara stiffened and sat up straight. Beverly took longer to notice, but as soon as she did she dropped her current handful of rice and salmon on the floor and frantically scrabbled at her private place to try and find what was touching her. Eleana simply smiled.

“It seems dear Leanne is having some morning fun,” she said softly, a slight flush rising up her neck as she nonchalantly sipped at her tea.

“That feels weird,” Itzel mumbled, wriggling in her seat. It was a faint sensation, Leanne’s transformation only transmitting a tenth of what the woman herself was feeling, but it was hard to ignore. Especially when she had no control over it.

“Of course, this must also be a new experience,” Eleana realised happily, “Good for you. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I always had a soft spot for human genitalia. I’m glad it was this form I ended up in for this show.”

“Yes, it’s new,” the alien grumbled and blushed, “That’s part of the problem. I need to use it to change back to my normal body.”

“Ah, to experience those first few fumbling explorations again,” she sighed wistfully, “I’m envious.”

Beverly was now spinning around in her chair, searching for the invader in her pants. Ipheara was staring blankly at the ceiling lights with a dazed expression.

“I don’t have time for fumbling explorations,” Itzel complained, “I have a date with my roommate today and I don’t know how this body works. I can only just manage to walk!”

“Have you considered that the date may be the solution to changing forms, if you’re uncertain?” Eleana suggested, her ancient eyes sparkling, “I’m sure Robin will have at least some passing knowledge of what to do with a clitoris.”

“You mean Robin could...?”

Itzel’s blush spread across her entire body at the thought, but seemed especially focused between her legs as Leanne’s rubbing increased in speed and pressure. Still faint, but stacking on top of the arousal from her own transformation and relentlessly building towards a climax. A breath caught in her throat. Could that work?

The room was mostly silent aside from the sounds of breathing and of Beverly climbing all over her chair. Ipheara was still staring at the lights. Eleana had her eyes closed now, a blissful smile on her face as she enjoyed the sensation while simultaneously enjoying her tea. Itzel took her cue and focused inwards, letting the feelings grow. And grow. And grow.

The peak arrived with a quiet whimper from Ipheara. Eleana sighed contentedly. Beverly squeaked and chattered something in beaver. Itzel tensed. As the pleasure crested she could feel it pushing against her transformation. Her body wanted to unravel, limbs wanted to split back into tentacles. She felt her rigid joints begin to loosen. Then Leanne’s transmission suddenly faded and Itzel snapped back to fully human. A tenth of an orgasm wasn’t enough.

“Nooo!” she groaned, and slumped forward until her forehead banged down on the table.

The doors to the cafetorium opened again, and Robin sidled into the room.

“Hi everyone,” he called out to the four women at the table, giving them a shy wave.

Four sets of eyes in four flushed faces turned towards him, taking in the slightly taller and broader frame of his masculine form. Eleana wore a warm and welcoming expression, Itzel was mortified, but Ipheara and Beverly looked at him with hungry interest that neither of them fully understood. Nobody said anything.

“...so what did I miss?” Robin asked, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

Itzel let her head fall back down onto the table. She still had no idea what she was doing.