Christine soon allowed herself to flop back down onto Bronwyn's bed, bored out of her mind. She felt like how she imagined a dog must feel when it has to wait around the house all day for its owner to come home from work - although she really didn't want to think about the concept of having an "owner" right now. She mentally rephrased her metaphor. It was like being a leopard in a zoo exhibit, waiting for the zookeepers to come around for the next feeding. There - she actually knew exactly how that felt.
Either way, though, it was mind-numbing to lie around with absolutely nothing to do. She was tempted to take out her phone, and then idly started to wonder where her phone was right now. Was it getting frantic messages from people who were worried about her? Or did it simply not exist anymore? The same thing had to apply to her entire human body, didn't it? She wished she could feel it. Even if she wasn't getting out of this "costume" anytime soon, it would be so much easier to take this if it felt like she was wearing a stupid costume rather than living a whole new existence.
It was a great relief when she heard muffled footsteps just outside the bedroom door, shaking Christine away from those philosophical questions that led nowhere. And it was almost thrilling when Bronwyn's face appeared again as the door swung open. There she was, the girl Christine desperately wanted to avoid thinking of as her "owner", as much as that accurately described the power Bronwyn held over her right now. The girl could just choose to leave Christine this way, after all, and there would be nothing she could do about it. She'd already gotten a glimpse of what it might be like to try and escape in her current form - it seemed hopeless. She needed Bronwyn to do anything at all.
But what drew her attention to Bronwyn right now was more than that. It was the boredom, really, she thought. Anyone would come off looking like the most interesting person in the world if the only other available conversation partner was the inside of your own head. She was just going through a really crazy situation and needed to not feel alone right now. That was all it was. It had to be. The alternative was to consider that she might actually be, for some strange reason, attracted to the very person who had caused this crazy situation to begin with.
Bronwyn came into the room timidly, flinching a little the moment she noticed the pillow's printed-on eyes turning toward her. "Uh, hey, Christine," she said slowly. "It's getting pretty late, and I guess we should both try to be ready to get to the Magic Shop as soon as they open tomorrow morning, right? So, if you want to stay there on the bed for now, maybe I can just sleep on the couch and you can have th-"
"Oh!" Christine interrupted, realizing that the girl was offering to make another sacrifice for her sake. "No, it's okay! You can sleep in your own bed, I don't want to take that from you..." Why was she bending over backwards to make Bronwyn a little more comfortable all of a sudden? Christine realized that she no longer felt like the girl owed her something, besides the obvious one of helping her change back to normal. They had both used each other - they were sort of even now.
Bronwyn looked more puzzled than grateful for Christine's counter-offer. "Okay, so, where do you want to sleep for tonight?"
Christine hadn't really thought of that. "I, uh, I guess I can stay right here?", she said, before realizing how that could be taken the wrong way. Immediately, she sought to explain herself. "I mean, it's only for one night, and there's not really anywhere else for me to go right now, and-" She stopped when she realized how out-of-breath she sounded. Particularly weird, given that she didn't actually have any lungs right now. "We've already been a lot closer than this, haven't we?"
Both of them were too uncomfortable to say much more to each other than that. Bronwyn carefully got into the bed, keeping herself as far over to one side as she could without tumbling over the edge. Christine, with her limited mobility, scooched herself over and tried to do the same on the opposite side of the narrow, one-person mattress. Then Bronwyn switched off the light on her bedside table and the room went dark. They both shut their eyes and tried to let this bizarre day slip away from them. But Bronwyn made it out of consciousness first.
Christine soon learned why she shouldn't have been so polite. Bronwyn, apparently, tossed and turned quite a lot in her sleep. Maybe she only did this when she was distressed - Christine wouldn't know. But it was constant tonight, and Christine could hardly relax for long enough to even figure out whether she could fall asleep in her current state. She laid there, wondering how hard it would be to just roll off the edge of the bed and quietly hop over to some other part of the apartment without waking Bronwyn up. But she stayed put, trying not to pay too much attention to the motions just a few feet - sometimes only a few inches - from her face.
She figured that the girl would settle down into a comfortable position before long, and then everything would be peaceful. And she was right - but not in quite the way she was expecting. In retrospect, she should have seen this coming the moment she agreed to be stuffed into this body. Subconsciously, Bronwyn's stirring arms found what they were looking for - the anime girl body pillow that she always clutched as she slept. She wrapped her arms around Christine's pliable, plush form and held onto her tight, her hands sinking in and making deep impressions that Christine could feel carving into her torso.
This was more than Christine could take. She had to do something to wake the girl up and put a stop to this now. Didn't she? All she had to do was start trying to wriggle out of Bronwyn's grasp or speak up with a couple words of reproachment - the girl clearly wasn't that deeply asleep. But... then again... it felt awfully good to be held this way. The heat radiating off of Bronwyn's body warmed up Christine's pillow body, which she hadn't realized was so cold. And, she knew very well, the cold surface of her own body would feel just as nice as it cooled Bronwyn down. They were exchanging heat - given enough time, they'd both be the same temperature.
But Christine didn't want to accept this just because it felt good. She'd been used by this girl more than enough already - she couldn't let herself be just an object anymore. All she had to do was muster the strength to shake Bronwyn awake, and she'd profusely apologize and put Christine a safe distance away from the bed. Any second now... she would do it. This was so... relaxing, though. Couldn't she just lie here for a few more minutes... and let her eyes fall closed again... and admit that maybe this wasn't so bad?