Steve Herrons was feeling a pit in his stomach these past few days. He had been going to the bathroom at the party when the whole... incident started, and as they frantically evacuated the building, they wouldn't let him back inside. The rumors spread like wildfire in this small town, but it wasn't until he saw the pictures on the news that he knew it was all real. Staring at the shot of the two giant elephant-women dressed only in hastily provided tarps, he could barely even tell which one was supposed to be Chrissy. Only the curly blonde hair that parted around those big gray ears still looked anything like her.
Obviously, he was devastated when he found out what happened. And more than that, he was afraid that he might get infected too, either by getting too close to Christina or picking it up somewhere else. But at the same time, his mind churned with more complicated feelings, which made him contemplate everything he knew about those Animalians...
He had been 9 years old when they first came into the world during that original outbreak. Most of the adults in his life, including his mom and dad, had thought it was just plain weird, but he was young enough to see them with a sense of childlike wonder, which had never completely left Steve's head even in the angsty teenage years. In the half of his life since then, he'd seen Animalians in real life from time to time, as it wasn't too rare for them to come from the next town over, or for his school to take field trips to the suddenly bustling city of Lyre. And yes, there had even been a few times that he'd stroked himself to pictures of some of the more "conventionally" attractive furry women, the shapely vixens and literal Playboy bunnies. What guy his age hadn't? His equally horny friends loved arguing about which of the Animalia Ambassadoria girls would make the best lay.
Those had always been silly little fantasies, though, nothing more. He knew that those women were all much too old for him and way out of his league, not to mention already taken. He had never seriously imagined himself trying to date an Animalian, let alone having his current girlfriend suddenly become one. But now it had suddenly happened, and that put new, stranger fantasies into his head. There was something awfully appealing, deep down somewhere, about a body filled with that much raw power and strength. He hadn't seen or heard from her since the incident, so all he had to go off of was the news pictures, but he imagined Chrissy picking him up and carrying him around with ease. And those gigantic breasts...
He had to stop himself before that train of thought took him too far. What on earth was he thinking? His girlfriend's life had just been permanently ruined. It ashamed him that there was anything to be turned on by about that. And those idle thoughts didn't even make sense. If the two of them were going to stay together, it seemed inevitable that he was going to become an elephant himself, and then there would be no picking up and carrying around. He would end up just as big and probably even stronger than her. No, stop it, he said to himself. You can't seriously be thinking about doing this. But he was.
Steve knew he had to go see her. Not just to put those crazy thoughts to rest, but because there was no other way to get in touch with her. She hadn't responded to any of his texts since last night, but he figured she probably couldn't use her phone anymore with those thick fingers. Maybe she'd crushed it to pieces in all the confusion. That thought was enough to let him work up the courage to go stand on her porch as he rang the doorbell, which is where he was now. He had no idea what to expect. Maybe she'd already been forced to move to Animalia?
But then the door opened and revealed the same elephant with blonde curls that he'd seen on TV. The body of the Animalian in front of him nearly filled the whole doorframe, and she had to bend down just to see who was standing there below. It was hard for him to believe that what he was looking at was even real, let alone that this was Christina Moore of all people, his girlfriend. Only the look in her hazel eyes, which were now set deeply back in a completely alien face, had any familiarity to it. She didn't wait for him, as awestruck as he was, to start explaining why he was here. "Come inside," she beckoned, and started to stomp her way back into the living room. When he hesitated to follow along, she turned back to him. "It's okay, they gave me the vaccine," she said. "I can't spread it to you anymore."
Nervously, he walked behind her, watching a thin ropey tail sway from a butt that was nearly five feet off the ground. She returned to her spot in the middle of the floor, and Steve quickly realized that the furniture in this house must not be able to support her new weight. He wondered if casually plopping himself down on the couch would offend her in some way. He decided to remain standing there. Even now, with her seated and him fully upright, he still had to look up a little bit to make eye contact with her.
"I know why you're here," Chrissy said slowly, starting to tear up a little bit as she broke the awkward silence. She seemed to realize all of a sudden that she was instinctively wiping a tear away with the tip of her trunk, and quickly stopped herself, letting the appendage fall back into its downward position. "You're going to break up with me!" The sentence had started coming out of her mouth with a cold and serious tone, but by the end of it she was trying not to start sobbing uncontrollably.
"Uh..." Steve's mouth hung open. The thought had crossed his mind repeatedly that their relationship was going to have to come to an end now, but he'd just assumed that Chrissy was going to be the one letting him down easy when she found some handsome Animalian bodybuilder - that is, if they didn't just stop talking altogether. But seeing and hearing this huge, intimidating figure, with a booming voice that was almost as deep in pitch as his own, sound so scared and vulnerable... That made it perfectly plain to him. She was still the same Christina on the inside. And he couldn't abandon her now.
"No, no!" He quickly tried to fill in the silence that was only making Chrissy feel worse with every millisecond of hesitation that passed. "I'm not gonna just leave you because you look different!" For a moment, he considered adding that the way she looked now really wasn't half-bad, either, but he figured that probably wasn't what she wanted to hear right now. "I just thought... you know... you might not be in town for much longer, with everything that's happened. Honestly, I was worried you might have already moved out. You have to go to their school now and all, right?"
Chrissy sighed deeply, letting her heavy head hang down as she shook it from side to side. "I don't know," she said. "The house is obviously not built for all of this. And the school here isn't sure they can do much to accommodate me, either. I don't really want to leave Desert Flats before I graduate, but if I can't go back to normal, I might have to. They've been trying to encourage more Animalians to live outside their little cities lately, get them to integrate with the human world more - like those girls who were on the web show years ago. Which might work better for me, if I wasn't so goddamn huge!" She swung her arms out in a grand, sweeping gesture, though Steve already got the point. "And I don't know what I'm supposed to do now if I want to get into a nursing program someday, like I always wanted to..."
Their conversation made Steve think about his own future, which was almost as uncertain as hers. He might not be able to get infected with the virus right here and now, but he could easily convert if he wanted to. He wasn't sure if his parents would approve of the idea, but he didn't need them to sign off - he'd turned 18 a couple months ago. But did he want to become an Animalian just to be with Christina? Their relationship had only been going for a couple months, too - things could easily come apart at the seams before too much longer, and then he'd also be stuck with the annoyances of being a giant elephant-person for the rest of his life for no good reason.
But then again... if he did decide to become an Animalian, did he necessarily have to be an elephant? He remembered conversations on the playground back in fifth grade, where kids excitedly asked each other what species they would want to be if they became an Animalian. Steve's answers had always been something impressive, masculine-sounding, but much closer to human-size - the phrase "lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!" came to mind as he thought about his childhood fantasies. Those were only ever just fantasies, not to be taken seriously as he got older. But that, too, could become a reality with just one glass of milk.
Sure, if he became any species other than an elephant, he would never be able to have children with Chrissy. But he had heard that interspecies relationships were very much allowed, as long as they remembered that breeding was off the table. And their relationship was nowhere near the "talking about future children" stage anyway. If they did get married and settle down someday, they could always just adopt.
He wasn't ready to announce any of this to his girlfriend just yet, but it seemed like he might get the best of both worlds this way. Get turned into whatever animal species he decided was truly his favorite, and then they could stay together even if Chrissy had to leave town. He could even still have that "giantess" experience he'd recently started fantasizing about. And maybe with three Animalians to deal with instead of two, the local high school might be more cooperative about accommodations. It was a small town, after all - three seniors made up a pretty substantial percentage of the student body.
All these possibilities that Steve daydreamed about were distracting him from the conversation at hand, but the two topics aligned pretty easily. "Look," he said, trying to sound reassuring, "I don't know what's going to happen to us - either of us. But whatever you have to do, wherever you might have to go... we can find a way to make it work. I'll find a way to make it work. I... I love you, Chrissy." He reached out to hold her hand, but soon realized that there was no easy way to do that when a single one of her fingers was almost as wide as his entire hand. He settled for holding her ring finger. He could see that her cheeks turned a slightly redder shade of gray.
After that, Christina grew comfortable enough to start telling him the whole story of what she experienced that night at the bar - Steve admitted that he hadn't wanted to watch the videos that were circulating all over social media. But one particular part of her story surprised him, and he stood up a little straighter and interrupted her. "Wait," he said, stunned. "Marcy had a crush on me all these years? And this whole thing with the virus... she did it because of me?"
"Well, not just because of you," Chrissy explained. "She was jealous about a lot of other things, too. But yeah, you were a big part of it. She wanted you so bad," she giggled.
Steve's mind was reeling again. Another fantastical image came to his mind: two giant elephant-women playing tug-of-war with him - at first figuratively, then literally. No matter what he chose, if he was going to become an Animalian or not, that could be his life. Even though he already knew which one of them he wanted - or at least, he thought he knew. And that was the most bizarre thing he'd imagined yet.