Becky glanced at the clock on the wall of the fast food joint, and let out a little squeak.
"Oh, no, I have to dash or I'll be late for my next class!"
The starry-night rubber cat balloon girl stuffed the rest of her foam 'fries' into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, then gathered her tray and got up.
"It was great to have lunch together, you two, see you around!"
She waved as she deposited her tray in the appropriate location, and then turned to hurry out the door to her next class.
Casper's latex ram's tail twitched as he turned to Ashley, "Do you have any other classes today?"
"Actually, no," the neon rubber lizard girl replied.
"I do," Casper said, "Do you want to go do something after, to celebrate number 500?"
Ashley giggled, "Sure, what did you have in mind?"
"Well, I'm curious about something." he said, "We know that Synthetics eat, but don't really need to except in, ahem, special cases, and we know that we eat plastics and rubbers, other petrochemical derived materials. We've ordered drinks at places, and received a sort of liquid polymer, but can we drink alcohol? Would it even affect us? Or, like the liquid polymer, is there a Synthetic analogue to the substance?"
Ashley thought on this for a moment, "Hmm, that is a good question," she said, "I guess we have a date for a drink tonight."
Casper smiled, "Okay, see you in the quad later this afternoon?" he asked.
"Sure thing," she replied.
They gathered up their trays and deposited them in the appropriate spaces, then turned and made their way out of the fast food restaurant. They walked back towards the campus, Ashley's four-fingered latex hand clasped in Casper's tri-digit rubbery one.
While they walked, enjoying each other's company, and the sounds of each other's rubbery balloon bodies as they moved, Casper thought. He knew that he liked Ashley, liked her quite a bit. Whether this was the doing of the ring, or they had some natural chemistry that the ring just 'helped' along, he didn't know. He decided that it didn't really matter, he was who he was, and liked who he liked. He hoped that Ashley felt the same way, but he was pretty confident that she did, seeing as they've been "dating" for quite a while now, at least in this reality.
He wasn't worried about the prospect of becoming 'pregnant' should he and Ashley procreate, and he did worry about losing his outwardly male appearance. He wasn't sure that would actually happen though. The ring had informed him that if he changed the sex of anyone who had already had offspring, the other parent would change sex as well. The ring had also told him that Synthetics of any sex could procreate. He reasoned that this did not necessarily mean that the parents would spontaneously change sex if they 'mated' and the one who carried the offspring was the opposite gender (in organic terms).
He had made assumptions about the rubber anthros the ring created, and was proven wrong before. He had no real way of knowing, unless he found the two parents of the first 'absolute' Synthetic, the first one who was created wholly as a Synthetic, not a human transformed via the magic of the ring...or if he and Ashley 'took the plunge' as it were.
He also had no idea what the fertility rate of Synthetics was, either. He didn't know if an offspring would be produced every time Synthetics mated, or if like humans, it wasn't always a sure thing. If it was the former, he would think that the number of Synthetics would have grown quite a bit more quickly than it had.
Again, he felt a great desire to connect his and Ashley's nozzles together, to feel their air intermingle, and his mind's eye was treated to an image of he and Ashley, in bed, limbs entangled, nozzles pressed together. This was followed by an image of Ashley and himself, both of them with stomachs large with child. He saw that he still sported a bulge, and she still had breasts. He marveled that this thought did not disturb him, as it surely would have, were he still human.
Another thought occurred to him, Synthetics ate synthetic materials, would that make condoms a sort of aphrodesiac for his kind? The thought made him chuckle.
"What's up?" Ashley asked.
"Oh, nothing, I was just thinking about the things we eat, like I was wondering what condoms would taste like, er, uh..." he stammered, blushing though he knew it was probably difficult to see with his red latex skin.
Ashley smiled, "Perhaps we could find out later?"
This just made Casper blush more, and Ashley giggled.
He squeezed her hand, and they hugged again, lips meeting in a quick kiss, and Casper went off to his next class, Statistics. He promised Ashley that he would meet her after and they could go get their drink.
Statistics was as boring for Casper now as it had been when he was human. He was having trouble focusing on the material, so wrapped up in his thoughts about this evening. He was also distracted by his classmates, whom he transformed into more of his kind. He made them into a deer, forest green in color, with blue antlers and hooves, another pair of gazelles, one colored white, the other black, a ruddy brown aligator, a poison dart frog anthro, female, and a bright crimson cardinal bird-boy.
There was a girl in this class, Casper did not know her very well, but he was kind to her and helped her carry her books sometimes. She paid no attention to her classmates's transformations, her eyes on the teacher. Casper knew that she had trouble sometimes getting around campus due to her legs not working correctly. She had a pair of crutches leaning against the desk she sat at. He sent a thought to the ring, asking that she be granted a shape of her desire, and that matched her intelligence. He watched in wonder as the change washed over her. Her skin darkened to a golden yellow color, taking on the sheen of polished latex, as her face morphed into a reptilian snout, ears merging into her head. Her fingers changed next, combining into tri-fingered appendages, like Casper's, and her breasts lost their nipples, but seemed to swell slightly as they became air filled. Her legs were the most intriguing, and as he watched, they merged and melded, lengthening into a snake tail. Her crutches blurred and vanished, as did the chair she was sitting on, replaced by the growing coils of her tail. Her nozzle came in, as did her barcode, right where her butt would be.
The rest of the class passed by with Casper barely paying attention. Finally, the class was dismissed, and Casper rushed out the door to meet up with Ashley.
She was waiting for him in the quad, like they agreed a few hours prior.
They hugged again, Casper squeezing her gently, feeling her rubber body squeak against his.
She giggled, "Hey, did you miss me or what?"
He chuckled "Kinda, class was really boring."
"Want to go get that drink?" she asked.
"Let's!" was his answer.
The two of them set off, this time heading for a bar nearby campus.
The place was called The Great Dane, and was a local brewery and pub. It was a very popular spot for students, at least the ones of legal age to drink. They went in, and immediately saw that the place was about half full, with a little under half of the clientele being Synthetics. A server greeted them and they took a seat at the bar. The bartender came up and greeted them, asking them what they'll have. Not knowing anything about Synthetic libations, Casper asked him what he recommended.
"For the two of you, I'd wager you'd like our Red Tincture 'Ale,' the bartender said, "specially formulated for Synthetics such as yourselves, full flavored so I'm told, with a smooth finish."
"Sounds good," he said, looking to Ashley, who nodded, "we'll have two of those."
"Excellent," the bartender said, and moved off to get their drinks.
A few minutes later, he came back with two drinks, each a translucent reddish brown, with a small amount of froth on top. As he set them down, Casper could detect the faint odor of ammonia from the drinks. He picked up his glass, and Ashley picked up hers. They clinked the drinks together gently, as Casper said "500 down, 500 to go."
They both took a swallow of their drinks, the ammonia odor becoming a blooming taste in their mouths. Casper reflected that if he was still human, this drink would most likely kill him, if not poison him severely. Now, though, he found the taste intriguing, a bit bitter, but with a tingle that spoke of carbonation. He could grow to like this drink.