He stood there in the doorway gaping at Lydia. He was damp from the rain and he looked sweaty from his rush to her room. But even though he had made a mad dash to get to her, he paused at the doorway. The last few feet held too many possibilities of things going wrong.
"Lydia?" His voice cracked a little as he spoke. Out of breath, he wheezed loudly.
Lydia pulled herself into a seated position, her back against her bed. Out from Lydia, her legs stretched, bound down to the knees with her shins spread slightly they were part of the insurmountable space between the two.
"I'm so glad you're here," Lydia said. She did not reach out for him but did not want him to leave. "I'm so scared right now. I don't know what is going on."
"Holy!" he exclaimed taking in her altered form. He had seen her in swimsuits before. Lydia always preferred the full suit to a bikini and would spend many hours walking about is little else. He had loved her body in the slick lines of spandex and had often found excuses to run his finger-tips about the soft material. Now she appeared dressed in full cover dress of spandex. Her toned muscled legs bent into a shy-seeming posture added to Lydia's vulnerability. His eyes roamed up past her hips to find the slick body, her slim mid-drift tightly bound. Her larger breasts swayed a little as she shivered her broad shoulders. Her noticed her hair seemed brighter red than before and it fell in messy lumps around her face. Her face that held large, frightened eyes that held his own and conveyed the fear she felt.
"Lydia," he said again, this time his voice was filled with the sorrow of what he felt. "I'm sorry, Lydia. I never meant for this to happen."
"You never meant for what to happen?" She shivered again and became slowly aware of the chilly air in the room. Humid from the rain and cooled by the air-conditioning, Lydia felt the stress welling up as her adrenalin fell. She was starting to shake. Her lip quivered.
"I didn't think you would get it so fast. I was only thinking of myself. And there was no time. I'm sorry. I was an idiot. I'm so sorry." He finally stepped through the door and made to embrace her.
"No! Don't!" Lydia yelled, raising her arms to fend him off. "You're wet! Stay back." Lydia folded her lower body up tight to breasts. She wrapped her arms around her legs hugging tight trying to stop the shakes that wanted to overwhelm her.
"I just want to help," he said slumping to his knees before her.
"Then tell me what you mean by not wanting to hurt me?" If she had wanted him to make everything alright now she was less sure if he could.
"I found this thing. And there was this genie. And I had to make this wish. And the only thing I could think of was you. And I don't know what I was thinking but I wished you would become a mermaid. Then I couldn't find you or call you to warn you that I had made a mistake and I ... Oh, Lydia, I'm so sorry." He was almost crying when he finished and looked pale and wain.
Lydia was silent while she thought. She shivered and her hands started rubbing her arms and legs trying to revive their warmth. Her hands slid over the spandex that had taken over her arms. The spandex of her arms slid against the spandex of her breasts reminding her that they had grown a great deal in the past hour. Lydia looked about the room and saw the towel she had dropped and the sopping skirt she had fallen out of. A thought occurred to her that if her skin was now effectively spandex she was actually naked right now.
"Umm ... listen," she said slowly, "could you ... uh ... toss me a sweater from the closet?"
He nodded and stood up moving to fill her wish. He did not know if this meant she had accepted his apology but she had not shouted and forced him out. That was a start. He selected the soft, green, hooded-shirt he liked so much and tossed it to her. He tried to look away as she slipped it over her head but he peeked anyway. Her breasts were larger now. For the longest time he had wondered what she would look like with huge breasts. He wanted something to hold and play with while they made out and now she had them. Though they were not yet as big as he wanted. He looked at her feet and realized that she actually was not completely a mermaid yet.
Warm once again, Lydia managed a smile from under the hood as she looked up at him. It felt odd to her the way the clothing seemed to sit on the spandex skin; her body slipped around inside of the clothing almost frictionless like when she swam. "What was the genie like?"
"He was ..." and he stopped. Now that he thought about it he could not remember. It had been right in front of him but remained indistinct, like an image projected on mist. "He was magical. He said he was a transformation genie and was limited in power. He could only grant one wish on one person and ..."
"And what?" Lydia prodded scared to find her life ruined by the answer.
"And it was either permanent or temporary," he finished.
"You did pick temporary, right?"
"Yes," he said.
"So I will be OK, right? This won't last forever?"