Double From Nothing

Not even 2 days after my brand-new clothes arrived, I awoke to disturbing brand-new sensations, understandably annoyed.

{Criminy crackerjacks!} I cursed inside my mind, aiming my bleary eyes down at the sight of four more tentacles, each one in between each of my previous four.

Overwhelmed to a whole new level, I did what any reasonable person would: pulled a pillow over my head, and tried to go back to sleep, hoping things would somehow change a whole other way such that I would never again have to think about any of this.

When I next awoke, it was nearly noon. Sleeping my troubles away had not worked, the day was far too sunny and warm for more sleeping, and my body had food input and other stuff output needs to be addressed forthwith. Merely getting out of bed was its own “fun”: either I didn’t get a good enough look at them before, or all of my tentacles doubled in length during the time I slept in—not only my “original” four, but also my new four. With a loud groan I got up and worked my way to the bathroom.

I’ll spare you the details of my output session: I worked it out.

Once in the shower and with the water running at a comfortable warm temperature, I felt brief moments of relief from tension. My mind was anything but relieved, struggling with the realization that I had an immediate need to learn how to operate with eight tentacles. Everything I’d learned how to do—walking, taking a shower, washing the dishes, to name a few—with four tentacles might possibly now be harder and soon possibly much harder. Or would it somehow be easier, as long as I remained isolated from the rest of humanity? I did not know.

On the way into the kitchen, I looked at the calendar. It was exactly one and one half months after I visited the doctor. The profundity of all that had happened to me in just one and a half months which felt to me like at least two if not nearly three entire months weighed heavily on my mind as I made breakfast at lunchtime (as if the names of meals even mattered any more).

I poured myself a celebratory cup of coffee, and sarcastically toasted to the thing that looked back at me in the mirror-like reflection of the stainless steel refrigerator—same beast that looked back to me with a much clearer image from the bathroom mirror.

During midday breakfast, I reflected further upon the past whirlwind month and a half. Born without legs, I’d been used to going around in a wheelchair my entire life, until mere weeks ago. Now, not only could I stand kinda sorta almost like a normal person and certainly within that height range, I had far more usable appendages than most people, able to do many more things all at the same time—when my brain could handle the coordination! It was easy for me to appreciate the advantages—potential advantages, until I re-learned how to operate with 8 tentacles. The fact that in the eyes of most of the world and even myself I was a heretofore unknown hybrid human-octopus monster took away any vestige of elegance from the situation.

The following day I strove for yet another fresh start, relieved to have had no further obvious changes overnight. Not in any way ready to be discovered by others, I obviously could not call a cleaning service as before. (Yes, I was arguably a privileged spoiled student, being able to spend grant money on housekeeping services. But hey: med students need time to study to learn how to properly heal!).

With plenty of time on my hands and tentacles, the obvious thing to do was to bag the boobage, wrap the hair, and get busy doing the housecleaning myself.

It took a little while to coordinate my new set of lower appendages, and the housework provided excellent, repeated opportunities. Hours into the cleaning, it became relatively easy. My 4 eldest, biggest tentacles worked great as very stable legs, and occasional furniture-pushers and so on. The 4 new ones I learned on this day to control well enough to hold cleaning liquids/pastes/etc. and the water bucket. Water being heavy and these tentacles being young, I did need two of them working together to hold the bucket.

The bagged breasts were another matter. Slightly less than half the time they annoyed to infuriated me: blocking my view, getting in the way, being big sensitive things (at least around my nipples and areolae) all too readily targets for broom handles and other hard objects. The rest of the time they were anywhere from neutral to… I can’t believe I’m about to type this, though it was and remains true… wonderful. I’d be lying to say that I did not enjoy resting one or both arms atop my warm built-in upper body pillows as I worked away.

I wound up spending the whole day cleaning my house thoroughly, not because it was dirty, but for something to do and a valid excuse to avoid having to think about my situation.

After an exhausting day, both from all the cleaning work and learning how to operate my ever-changing body anew, I gave myself the pleasure of taking a nice relaxing bath.

This was pure Me Time: all about relaxing in the warm water, letting my bodily tensions melt away and my mind float peacefully. Every time my mind started to get upset about how all of me couldn’t fit at once into this nice-sized modern bathtub, I gently reminded it that my left rear mature tentacle was currently serving as an outstanding neck pillow, with no especial discomfort I felt on itself, and that it was so very easy for my right rear mature tentacle to comfortably hold my iced and diluted tangerine juice with virtually no conscious thought nor ongoing effort on its (my mind’s) part.

I did take a moment well into the relaxing soak to decide that the next day I would begin to seek help, but only after I researched my situation thoroughly. I did not think it possible that I was the only one to whom these radical bodily changes had happened.

{Well, tomorrow is another day} I very reasonably concluded, letting all this go for some more soaking and sipping.

Tappeta tappeta tippy tippy type type tap

Early the next morning I was ready to start my new day, motivated at the thought of finding some meaningful resolution to my situation, or if not resolution, at least understanding. It didn’t even truly bother me that my 4 new tentacles had again grown dramatically overnight, now already very close in size to my 4 originals.

After a quick power breakfast including strong coffee, I started looking for some information about what was happening to me. With not all that much difficulty I found some details on spontaneous mutations. Due to so much air, water, soil, and other forms of pollution, humanity had begun suffering these kinds of mutations: extra fingers, oversized appendages, genitalia, etc. To my dismay, nothing I found so far revealed anyone else with spontaneous mutations anywhere near as severe as mine: nothing so extensive that the end result suggested hybridization with some other phylum.

Discouraged, I took a break from that line of inquiry, instead using Duck Duck Go to search on:

They did exist, and there was even a chapter not all that far away—delightful! The problem persisted that I remained terrified to expose what had happened to me to the outer world—even at an association meant to protect the mutated. Recalling what all had happened when I went in for the initial testing and got the “lay off the pizza, chubby!” diagnosis, I shuddered to think what might happen during and after a new round of testing.

I tried to find a smaller, lesser-known protection association near enough for me to visit, in hopes that its lesser public visibility would enhance my odds of remaining anonymous. To my dismay (this was a day for disappointment, over and over), very few such entities existed anywhere in the U.S., with the few bigger well-known ones apparently serving all. There certainly were no smaller associations within over 500 miles.

Tippy tap tap tippy tap type. Scroll scroll tap

Relentlessly I researched all day, all evening, and well into the night, only taking occasional breaks to use the bathroom and snack myself through semblances of proper meals.

{I’m doing what I do best, and I’m exhausted! But I wouldn’t be in med school on a research track if I wasn’t born to research like this. No wonder I already need computer screen glasses at 23!}

Finding nothing new, returns diminishing, after midnight I began winding things down. I didn’t get to bed until nearly 1:30 in the morning.

Over the remainder of this night something happened with my transformation. Maybe it had been going on when I was still awake and I was too tired to notice, or maybe whatever is changing me stomped its accelerator during my truncated sleeping time. Whatever the case, my body grew quite aggressively.

Indeed, as soon as I woke up, the magnitude of the growth was there for me to see. My tentacles—which I had to call them because more than ever no other term fit so clearly—had doubled in size. And incredibly, so had my breasts. I did not at all understand what relationship could exist between my breasts and my tentacles’ significant size increase. From my hidden waist up I looked like a woman with gigantomastia.

This was the morning that I decided I’d better start taking notes of my exact physical condition and especially changes thereto, tracking my evolution, for comparison later. It proved difficult to retain my neutral fact-finding scientific detachment when this was my body that I have to live in! that I was now carefully documenting.

{When will this ever end?!} I thought. {How will this ever end?! How can I make this stop?!}

As if I didn’t already have enough problems before this most recent set of changes, my newly-expanded size was already starting to become a major problem. Even though I could move around the house, I practically took up half a room each time I entered. Half a room! Even the very fat people they’re now calling infinifats don’t take up half a room!… unless maybe it‘s a small one.

At least every time I moved any of them I felt more skilled controlling my own tentacles, which, amongst the bad was a nice bonus.

I kept trying to lead a normal life, and whatever was causing me to change kept throwing me new curve balls. The space problem was becoming problematic moving between rooms as well as occupying any one of them: I almost did not pass through the doors! Perambulating had become an exercise in choreography: having to move eight enormous tentacles everywhere, and also my huge breasts hanging below my waist and way out yonder in front. At this new larger size of massive, they were always in the middle of everything, everywhere. I had to invent something to keep them restrained to minimize these problems, since even my newest bras that I had at home would not suffice, and these pontoons already were beyond containment in even my newest biggest top.

My meager sewing skills barely allowed me to stitch together a custom bra. Even with this, manipulating these giant bags of fat, water, lobules, ducts, blood vessels, and whatever the hell else was in these massive meatsacks was quite complicated. The weight was huge, and in truth, all the pressure on my shoulders made them ache just as my back did.

“Grrrrrr! Arrre Rerr Rerr Rerr Rerr Rerr Rerrrr!” I growled aloud, to no one other than myself.

Ordering custom shorts for my eight tentacles from fitzallweguaranteeitohyeah.com had seemed like such a good idea at the time—10% off for the first order! But once they arrived and I saw them in place on my body, I realized they were ridiculous: bad fit, cheap material, badly made. Nothing to recommend them, other than I could (barely) slip into them. That’s what I get for being lazy and using Google and trusting their reviews.

Hopes of finally having vestiges of being dressed and at least some sense of humanity when I had practically nothing of the sort were dashed by this clothing disaster.

“Fuck it! I’m a nasty nudie busty beauty brainy octo-bitch!” I screamed in emotional torment, ripping the shitty worthless overpriced shorts made of fabric that wasn’t even good as an absorbent rag (being mostly synthetic) off my bulging tentacle near-roots, followed by (barely) more carefully removing my homemade bra, which I might have to wear again later.

Still raging, I slither-stormed my way out to the kitchen, breaking into my Emergency Mental And Emotional Health Pack: a small box of wonderfully decadent chocolates and a single-serve bottle of merlot.

The chocolates and wine were doing it for me, but not so much the random romcom I’d chosen. Turned it off, closed my notebook and my eyes, imagining with all my might a searingly sexy sea captain with a thing for profoundly busty octopus-women falling under my spell as we made out and passionately ravaged one another.

This fantasy moment was great. Too bad I didn’t find a way to make it last longer and further delay my inevitable return to reality.