Transmutation

The fear finally died down enough for Delilah's brain to reconnect the wires.

That was when she registered two facts, in order. One: she was now even more lost than before. Two: she was completely, absolutely naked.

"Okay. This is only the most common nightmare in the world," Delilah said, and scuttled behind a vendor's stall as though it might hide her—even though a great many people had already seen her in this vulnerable state of dress and none of them had thought it worth mentioning.

She needed clothes. She had no clothes. She had, however, a funnel cake sign.

She ripped it off its post and wrapped it around herself, and the result looked less like makeshift clothing and more like a costume you'd find in the clearance section under a generic name like Sexy Billboard.

She kept her head down and her arms crossed over the plastic shest, cutting against the current of the crowd like a salmon with regrets. Nobody looked at her. Everybody looked at her. She had just about convinced herself she could make it to the gate invisible when someone clipped her shoulder at a full clip, spun her halfway around, and stopped dead in front of her—with the particular delight of a person who had just found the one interesting thing in the room. Delilah's first instinct was to bolt. Her second instinct was to notice that the woman was wearing an expression of pure uncomplicated unstoppable joy, so pure it was disarming.

"Oh, are you new? We haven't had anyone new in ages, my name is Molly, what's your—"

The pitch climbed. And climbed. And kept climbing, one long escalator of syllables with no breath taken anywhere in between.

"Hi, Molly. I'm Delilah—breathe, please."

Delilah watched with relief as Molly took one big breath in.

"Thanks. Sometimes I get so excited I forget to breathe. One time I was talking so much I passed out, and the Ringmaster had to spank me." She stopped, took another breath, and smiled with a small flush of embarrassment. "Sorry."

Her cheeks went a tiny bit crimson. From where Delilah was standing, it was rather hard to see. Molly's outfit was nothing more than a collar. Her face had dark circles painted around her eyes and dark cheeks beneath them, and Delilah's mind went straight to the Welcome to the Black Parade music video, to the eyeshadow the band members wore—except Molly's wasn't nearly as clean or focused. It didn't look so much like she'd put it on herself as like her face had been attacked by a lethargic eyeshadow palette that got bored halfway through and wandered off to attack a different clown.

Molly talked. A lot. Too much, by most standards. Delilah didn't find it bad, though. Other people's small talk tended to scrape her nerves raw—the petty drama, the insignificant details blown out of all proportion, so much unnecessary noise. But Molly's noise had a rhythm to it, like sitting near a fountain.

"—and then Pickles got mad, because Cibil was spending too much time down at Sol's stables again—"

The name snagged. Sol's stable. The pony girls. Who seemed to be more pony then girl did apparently have some moments of permitted humanity. But Delilah would have preferred a different ending. Pickles Cibil and Sol all getting whipped by the Ringmaster made her face go flush in a way she wasn't equipped to interrogate at the moment.

They walked into a massive tent that groaned and moaned in ways Delilah wasn't sure were haunting or rousing. The entrance was shaped like a gaping clown's mouth—extremely accurate grey teeth, pink lips, weird greenish-yellow eyes that followed her all the way inside—and it would certainly be in her nightmares for the next week.

"Oh good, dinner time! Come on."

Molly took her by the hand and pulled her toward the massive trough in the center of the room. Delilah had to do a double take. It was slop in the most literal sense, eaten in the same place where pigs are fed. And yet, as the scent wandered over her nose, she suddenly felt very hungry, like a wandering girl finding a house made of gingerbread.

There were no knives, no forks, no spoons with which to eat this fine paste. And as she looked around, she saw no tables and no chairs either—no furniture at all, aside from some very sticky-looking cages. Still, with her stomach growling, she dug her hand into the trough and pulled out some gruel. She gulped the mush down while Molly went in face first.

That gave Delilah a moment to look around.

Like she'd imagined, there were clowns. Oh, so many clowns. Each done up with dark eyeshadow and a collar, like Molly—rubbing against each other, sleeping together in big piles, generally looking like a before-and-after photo for a monochrome Pennywise-themed orgy. As surreal as it all was, Delilah felt her own cheeks go red and her nipples begin to harden as arousal built somewhere in the back of her unconscious mind.

In that haze, she felt her mouth move and agreed to help Molly with her tasks for the carnival. Something about working on the urinals. "Sure, no problem, I just need some clothes—"

Somewhere between getting inside and now, she'd lost the plastic banner she was using to cover herself. But, "No problem, Delilah. It's so boring without someone to talk to."

With Molly's assurances, Delilah left the clown corral for the bathrooms. The tent rising and falling with the moans of its residents, its massive eyes following her as she walked away.

---

Afterwards, Delilah found herself talking freely."John thought he was so big with that new truck," she offered, pushing out her chest and raising her arms in a mocking flex while Molly laughed at the angry-gorilla impression.

"A big strong man showing off with mommy and daddy's money? That's so embarrassing," said Molly as they went down the path.

"I know, and he talked about it everywhere we went. God, I wish I'd broken up with him sooner." Delilah asked casually between the good conversation and the surprisingly filling slop she'd just ate—drank? consumed? "What about you? Any exes?"

She was not feeling as tense as she had been while running between carnival tents wearing a funnel cake sign for a dress.

Molly shook her head. "An ex-husband. All the boys back home were more interested in their tractors than their wives." She chuckled to herself. "If I wanted something hard between my legs, I went out to the fields. At least the corn was home for dinner on time."

They laughed until they arrived in front of the restroom building—a grand and surprisingly massive thing, not the line of porta-potties or grey concrete bunker she'd had in mind.

"So where are the cleaning supplies?" Delilah asked, looking for a mop or a bucket, maybe some soap, or at the very least bleach wipes.

"Ooooohhh." Molly conked her own noggin. "I should've been more specific."

Delilah's eyebrow rose. "So you aren't here to clean the urinals?"

"No, *silly*," Molly replied, like Delilah had made some freshman mistake. "We are the urinals."

Delilah made a point to run. But the magic of the carnival, and the chains it enchanted, hooked her back anyway—her fingers leaving a trail through the dirt as she was leashed next to Molly in a tiled room that looked straight out of the 1920s. Red and gold art decor decor that looked way too heavy

"Molly, what the fuck was that?" Delilah cried. Molly shrugged her shoulders as a tourist walked in. She was causal with an I heart NY t shirt and jean shorts that were already hallway down her legs in haste

The woman flexed her legs slightly. Then a hot, steaming golden stream flowed from between her legs. She guided it, aiming so that it started by splashing down across Delilah's face. “Ah gross” Delilah cried while Molly fruitlessly tried to give Delilah advice “ok next time try and keep your mouth open” Delilah shot back “ what am i supposed to do swallow?” fruitlessly trying to pull at the glowing bindings that were holding her in this position.

Delilah and Molly squatted on the cold, uncomfortable enamel, and waited for the next customer. It seemed all the bathrooms were co-ed—a crowd mixed with men and women pushed through the door together. Delilah groaned but wasn't fighting it anymore the haze from the tent was starting to return.

"The more the merrier!" Molly observed, as a young jock settled into position, legs astride either side of Molly's harlequinesque face, and crouched down. Molly felt the jock's hands grip her dark hair and shift her until her tender lips nearly enveloped his cock. Then he relaxed… and the acid rain fell freely into Molly's open mouth. While Delilah was continuing her education in golden showers. When to move and when to swallow. When one finished another was right behind with a tank to empty.

By the twenty minute mark Muffled grunts could be heard as the monochrome struggled to swallow the ample streams of bitter liquid, which seemed to go on for minutes at a time. As the visitor stood up, bow-legged, and reached for the toilet paper, his chained victims gasped and panted for breath. Being as popular as the carnival was and how much food and drinks flowed Delilah was lucky that they were only really busy.

A big, busty blonde in a getup that made her look like a corporate executive was next—the ladies had unconsciously ordered themselves by status. Delilah remembered to take a deep breath before the blonde's urethra opened. She noted the different taste of the two women's waste as she swallowed all she could of the warm acid. As the relentless waterfall continued, it was sadly inevitable that it would outstrip the young woman's capacity to swallow. With a splutter, Delilah was already face to face with a hairy cock, locked and loaded with golden rain. She would vaguely remember Molly saying they would be there for at least two hours.

Four hours later

Delilah was wiped off and perfumed—the closest thing she'd get to a bath. Two clowns pushed her toward the stage while, from the back, Molly called out, "I'll see you later!" Disappearing into the sea of rides and people that was the carnival.

The spotlights went up like a Hollywood premiere. The tent was huge, but in the distance the big top loomed large and imposing. It was the flashiest one yet, decorated in silver and purple inside and out, and the interior, already packed,

was laid out like a movie theater, just with a stage where the screen should have been. It created a more upscale atmosphere that other tents didn't have

The Great Vaati was a pale, greenish stick of a man who had more facial hair than fat and oozed self-satisfaction. He dressed like a traditional magician, top hat and wand cleaned with pinpoint accuracy. He smelled vaguely of a funeral parlor, and he gave Delilah a look that painted a hundred pictures—all of them objectifying in some nature.

"Well, I never needed you for your brains anyway," Vaati said, elongating the word in a way that made her uncomfortable. But the verbal degradation didn't stop him from inspecting his assistant for the night. "Hmmm. Those could be bigger." He tugged at Delilah's breasts in a way that sent a shiver down her spine. Shoving two fingers up her holes, he made her cry out with confused arousal. "Well, you spent some time with those meatheads, but not the worst I've seen" ending his assessment with “your certainly durable I'll give you that”

Stage magicians build their routines around a core set of plot types—most famously transformation, teleportation or transposition, apparition, vanishing, levitation, penetration, and restoration, alongside mentalism and prediction. To execute these effects, performers rely on technical methods: sleight of hand, specially engineered props and hidden compartments, optical illusions, and psychological tactics like misdirection and suggestion. All the tools of the trade to separate the easily amused from their money. This crowd or this routine was anymore different than when she would see magic on tv, crowd applause, and ego getting fed.

But as bowling balls bent through the air like fluid, mere inches from her head, Delilah kept her snarks to herself. She could still put it down to some kind of illusion—if she really tried. If she tried to pretend that everything that had happened tonight hadn't.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Vaati announced, "for my next trick, not only will I turn my assistant into a raccoon I will also pull her out of a hat!"

His extremely curly mustache danced along with each word like a backup dancer for the King of Pop. Its various hairy branches danced in sync like it was alive.

"That's not possible," she said—but Delilah didn't dare finish that sentence, because everything she'd been through that night told her magic was, in fact, real. The crowd murmured. Delilah stood at the edge of the light, dripping, collared, and stared at the stage.

The Great Vaati had barely finished his flourish—wand twirling, grin already tasting the applause—when his wand came down on her shoulder with a theatrical thwip. Delilah's spine folded each vertebrae making a horrifying crack. Her ribs shrank under her flesh. Her pale skin bloomed into coarse grey-brown fur, and where an unimpressed emo girl had stood, there was now a very small, very round raccoon wearing the same collar and somehow the same winged eyeliner, mask-marks and all.

Vaati scooped her up before she could bite him and jammed her headfirst into the waiting box, which—from the raccoon's vision—was a pure void. While Delilah floated in the infinite nothingness, Vaati gave his hat three brisk shakes and one smug little tap, then reached in elbow-deep and hauled her back out by the scruff: the raccoon dangling, blinking, furious, little black claws flexing at the audience. Vaati bowed low, oozing self-satisfaction, while Delilah the raccoon hung there and radiated pure spite.

The transformation back was just as unpleasant. Raccoon bones stretched and grew until they were human-sized. The fur burned off her skin until she was back to her normal self—physically, at least; her mental state, following these revelations, would require some time to process.

The crowd rose and cheered. The Great Vaati took a bow. As the crowd departed, he checked his pocket watch. Tapping it with the energy of a running white rabbit.

"Well, my brainless little bimbo, off you go—you're going to be late for a very important date."

He wiggled his wand, and Delilah's vision was lost in the void again. Her body paradoxically moving and not moving from the great Vaati's stage to the location of this so called date.

---

When her vision returned, she was at the big top.

She stood at its threshold, and from somewhere deep inside, a voice she now knew too well rolled out across the sawdust floor,warm as boiling oil, sharp as wolf's teeth.

"Step right up."