Before you, a woman walks out from the shadows. At first, all you can make out is her silhouette, but as she emerges into the light of the clearing, it's immediately obvious that she isn't human.
Her “skin” is a deep indigo, shifting in shades and peppered with white dots and splashes of light, giving the impression of a night sky. It's finished with a gloss that confirms that she's one of the latex creatures you seek, if there was any doubt to begin with. Her head is devoid of hair, and from where you can see, her heart-shaped face is pretty, although somewhat off-putting, as if her eyes are just barely too large for her head. Her body is of somewhat average build, not particularly thick or thin, but has a definitive hourglass figure. Though she doesn't wear any clothes, she doesn't appear to have nipples or genitals either.
As she enters the glade, her eyes only dart around momentarily before she spots you and smiles. She promptly heads in your direction. Tex hides behind you to offer some quick tips while you still have time.
“I'll be honest, I have no clue who this is,” She tells you frankly.
“Oh, good. So I get to start off stumbling in blindly,” You reply.
“Come on, you aren't completely blind. I can at least give you general guidelines. First, be respectful. Let them know you know your place and that it is clearly beneath them. Second, don't be too direct. You have to ease them into getting what you want. You'll do well to not come out a straight loss from some of these exchanges, so don't expect too much. Settle for subtle victories and try to get out with your skin. Literally. And third-- Oh! She's close! That one should be obvious anyway. GoodLuckSeeYouSoonBye!” She stumbled the last bit out in one breath before you heard the faint woosh of her darting off into hiding somewhere behind you.
Before you could respond, you knew it was already too late, as the strange woman had stopped a few yards away and begun examining you, face only revealing mild curiosity. She was about the same height as you, perhaps a couple inches taller at most, yet her presence felt looming. You shuffle awkwardly, unsure if you should break the silence, but decided to wait and watch her warily. Your discomfort must have been visible, as she smiles again as you meet her gaze.
“Don't worry, human,” she begins, her voice a pleasant alto, “I won't hurt you. You appear to have already come into contact with some of my kind, but I'm not like them.” She slowly took a few steps closer. You tried to resist the alarms going off in your head, reminding yourself again and again that running would probably not improve your situation. She stops within arm's reach.
“You don't seem to have been fed upon in the normal manner. Hmm... Tell me, how did you end up in such a curious state?”
The question hangs in the air for a moment as you try to gather yourself. Eventually, you manage to flounder, “Well, uh, I was walking through the forest, and then there were these rubber monsters attacking people, and I thought I was going crazy, so I went the other way. Then there was a black latex elephant and it attacked me and I managed to pull free and run here but it did this to me first,” you say, gesturing vaguely toward your head.
“Interesting. You must have managed to start resisting just as it began to feed in earnest. It's the only time the lesser ones are truly vulnerable, as their essence is purely linked with that of their prey. I think it underestimated you. May I?” She asked, extending a hand toward your trunk. You don't really want her poking at you, and you're a bit embarrassed by your current visage, but you don't think you're quite in any position to decline, so you nod your head in acceptance.
She steps closer, taking your trunk into her left hand and lifting it nearer to her face as she runs the fingers of her right hand up and down it. You just awkwardly cross your eyes and watch as she examines your animalian proboscis.
“Yes, you seem to have walked away with pieces of each other, though I'd say purely value-wise, you came out ahead. You were fortunate enough just to escape at all. Your lucky star must really be shining on you this evening, because after all that, you even managed to run into me. I am Caelestis, granter of wishes and boons. Not all of us latex beings are flesh hungry beasts. Some of us enjoy humans and our interactions with them. After several feasting cycles, I've found that I get the most joy from helping lesser creatures like yourself, especially those who have found themselves on troubled times. Ask of me what you will, and I will do what I can to make it so.”
You stare back at her in stunned silence. She waits patiently for an answer, smiling in amusement as she continues idly stroking your trunk. You've heard a spiel like this before from your last new acquaintance, and that hasn't seemed to go too wrong yet. Maybe this Caelestis is genuine? Though if she isn't, you aren't totally sure what will happen if you turn her down. She interrupts your inner conflict.
“Surely you at least want to get back to being a normal human. I've heard that your kind doesn't typically enjoy trying on new forms like ours." She pauses for a moment in thought, mouth pursed as she considered you. "Well, for starters, you seemed embarrassed of this nose and these ears of yours when I wanted to examine them. Was I mistaken, do you actually like them?”
“Uh, well, no... I...”
“Then all you have to do is ask, and I can grant it.”
Could this be your chance? Is it really going to be this easy? You try to temper your hope, but you can't help get excited at the prospect.
“Ok then!” You answer.
“You have to be specific. Just a precaution, as I've inadvertently let down those I've tried to help in the past when they seemed to ask for something else. Tell me, 'I wish for you to free me of these elephantine features.'”
Caught up in your excitement, you repeat “I wish for you to free me of these elephantine features.” Her eyes light up and her face splits into a toothy grin. You realize you may have made a mistake.
“Granted.”
The hand on your trunk begins to melt. Caelestis continues moving her arm up and down, now moving along the full length to to your eyes, coating the appendage in deep blue latex. The latex seems to sink into your skin, which tingles intensely wherever the liquid settles. You feel her other arm reach around to your right ear and begin coating it with warm liquid. Once it's covered, she swaps hands, moving her right off your trunk to your left ear, her left continuing to move up and down your nose.
As the latex sinks in, you feel your features starting to melt. It feels completely different than when the elephant was changing you. Intimate. The tingling becomes more and more pleasant, crossing the threshold into erotic. You shift uncomfortably, trying not to become aroused.
The woman notices and laughs. “It's a bit different with us. I would be lying if I didn't admit that changing you gives me very... pleasant feelings. But the least I can do is try to make sure you enjoy it, as well. I hope it isn't too much. Better if we get moving.”
The latex began to spread further. It started by creeping from your ears across your scalp and from your trunk up towards your forehead and across your cheeks. You felt the advance and looked up to Caelestis in alarm, but the latex covered your mouth before you could ask what was happening. Her eyes shined with amusement as she seemed to recognize your worry.
“You know, I never really liked elephants either. I guess the trunks are fun and all, but the creatures themselves are just big, ugly and lumbering. I think we should go with something prettier, don't you? Graceful, maybe? Ooh, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking avian.”
Now fully recognizing your predicament, you try to pull back. However, your features seem to be fully melded with her arms, which she yanks back towards her chest in response. They fully deform and wrap your head in blue, liquid rubber, trapping you tight against her.
The amorphous mass swirls all around you. You feel vibrations as if Caelestis is talking, but all you can hear is the sloshing and rubbery squeaks of the torrent of latex around you. You feel parts of your face and head melt and deform in the tide, being pulled this way and that. You'd feel like you were suffocating, but you can't even attempt to breathe, as if you've forgotten how. The latex begins to creep further down your neck.
Adrenaline courses through you as your heart pounds in your chest. You flail in panic, beating your fists against the woman as you're forced to hunch down into her torso. You feel what you think is a laugh against your head. Changing strategy, you try to just pull yourself free of the liquid.
Planting both feet, you push your hands against the monster and try to take a step backward. Eventually, through your strain, you feel yourself begin to make progress. You manage a step back, then another. Your arms begin to extend. The latex stops its progress at the base of your neck, further encouraging you to strain harder.
Soon, your arms are straight, and all you have are your slow plodding steps backwards to continue towards freedom. The latex strains and stretches around your head, pulling back fiercely as she struggles to hold on to you. She's no longer within arm's reach, apparently only managing to keep her outstretched arms around you as the two of you are locked in your strange tug-of-war.
After an agonizing standstill, you feel air against your scalp. Bit by bit, the top of your head comes loose of the rubber prison surrounding you. Partially solidified, the latex peels off you as you pull free, down your forehead, over your eyebrows, and finally releasing your eyes. You open them, only to see a deep indigo chest inches in front of you.
Your brain struggles to process what's going on. You falter in shock and stop pulling away, before you can catch yourself. However, instead of being thrust forward by the counter force, you just stand still, as if no one was pulling you back. Without resisting, the latex continues peeling back, freeing your ears.
“What's wrong, lost your fight that quick?” Caelestis asks with a laugh. “Well, there's not much left to fight. But you definitely were a big help in moving things along. I got to just stand here and do my thing.”
The latex continued pulling back off your head until it only covered your nose and mouth. As it regressed, instead of revealing your human nose, it kept extending further and further outward, revealing a solid blue conic structure beneath. The strange feature easily extended at least nine inches out from your face, where it ended in a slight point. It glistened with the same rubbery sheen as the woman standing before you.
You tried to reach your hands up to your head, but were shocked as they touched your neck instead. You moved them further up. They continued up your neck, feeling a distinct rubbery texture beneath them. You finally yanked backwards and stood up straight. You felt a moment of nausea as your vision moved far higher than you were used to. You could tell that your neck felt wrong.
You looked down in panic to confirm your suspicions, as beneath your head you saw a neck covered in small, blue feathers extend down several feet. It met your familiar, human torso, where the color and texture abruptly changed back to your skin around your collarbone. You reached a hand up to feel your head, having to turn it slightly and bend your neck to make contact. You hesitantly attempted to lower your head further to examine yourself with your hands.
Your cheeks felt familiar, other than the distinctly rubber texture that squeaked as you rubbed your hands across it. But as they moved forward, they met the beak that expanded out from between your eyes and back up along your jaw. You opened and closed it experimentally, rubbing your hands up and down it in disbelief. You continued your examinations further, to your eye sockets and forehead, which still felt human, as far as you could tell. But when your hands met your hairline, they found latex feathers replacing the hair that once occupied the space, extending down to blend with the smaller feathers along your neck. Your hands moved to the sides of your head, finding no indication of ears along their flat surface, though you could still hear.
You try to speak, the rubbery consistency of your bill allowing it to warp slightly into a strange facsimile of lips. Many of the consonants that come out are a bit distorted, but it's intelligible.
“Whad. Did. Yuh do... dtho me?” You ask, struggling to form the words.
“What do you mean? I granted your wish, silly. You said you didn't want to be an elephant, so I made you a pretty swan. Well, kind of. I took some liberties, fudging the anatomy and leaving some bits that you didn't ask to change, so you're a bit cartoonish on the whole. Or, your head is at least. But we can do more if you'd like,” she answers with a knowing smile.
You shake your head, taking a step backward. You look back down at yourself in horror.
“What's wrong? Are you not happy with the boon I granted?”
“No, of course I'm not happy,” you reply in anger, beginning to get the hang of your new mouth. “I'm even less human than before, and you've made part of me rubbery like you!”
“Well, I told you that you needed to be specific, didn't I? If you wanted human features specifically, all you had to do was ask. Otherwise, I'm left to what I think would be good, which apparently doesn't align well with you humans' desires. We could just try again, though. Do you want me to grant you another wish?” She asked, eyes twinkling in anticipation.
After a moment of thought, you reply,