Madame Illusia eyed the remaining members of the audience. There were about forty of them left, men and boys of all ages and sizes. She knew that none of them would be leaving the show tent in their original shapes. But they didn’t yet realise this. Even though many of their brother townsfolk stood as dumb animals in Stephan’s gated enclosure - gazing vacantly, pulling at grass, and trying to hump each other - these males were convinced that they would soon be going home.
Another excited surge in the audience, and the one remaining boy on the front row were pushed forward up to the stage. Before the lad had had time to jump back, Stephan reached out his hands and yanked him up. As he did so, the crowd roared as spotlights turned onto the new victim. His face, which moments before had been cheering along as each men had become a beast, had gone pale.
“Not so cocky now, are you?” snarled Madame Illusia. “What’s happened to your voice… cat got your tongue?”
The poor boy whimpered with fright as the evil old witch glared down at him.
“What’s wrong boy? Are you in pain?” she asked. The boy mumbled something incomprehensible, then started to open his belt and jeans. His legs thrashed round once released, but still his facial features were twisted in agony as he kicked off his shoes and socks and wriggled out of his jeans.
“Aren’t you going to tell us your name son, before you finish your strip-tease act?” The crowd laughed in appreciation, as the boy said “Dan” in a small voice.
“Well, Dan the man, you’re not much of a man are you? You can laugh at others being humiliated, but when it happens to you, you’re just a… chicken.”
Dan’s body seemed to be racked with a new wave of pain. He collapsed face down, clutching at his stomach, as Stephan moved over and ripped the shirt from his back. Now Dan was lying there, almost naked, wearing only his boxer shorts.
The boy got up, and stood bowlegged with his back to the audience. The crowd jeered and hooted when they saw a plump shape emerge from his bottom and sag the material of his boxers. He continued to clutch his front, but his face settled into an expression of relief as the shape grew in his shorts.
“Now my boy, the pain will stop in a few minutes. It’ll soon be over. But first, let us all see what you’ve done down there,” she chuckled. As Dan’s boxers were pulled off, the audience gave a gasp of surprise.
“Look,” she said, “you’re becoming a real chicken now. This is your first egg! Good boy…”, then spinning him round so the audience could see his crotch, she added “although, you were hardly a man before, and now you’re not even a boy.” The audience soon understood what she meant as they gazed up at the smooth and hairless skin between Dan’s legs, where presumably his cock and balls had once been.
Dan started to cry, but then felt himself shrinking. He stared at his own body. The hair on his head began to fall out and his spine adjusted itself to a new shape. He felt strange, becoming smaller and smaller every minute.
Madame Illusia cackled as the boy’s hips rotated and his legs became thinner and more orange. The skin on his feet disappeared, leaving a bony white skeleton that re-formed itself into dark claws. His ass pushed back more as his back changed and his chest and stomach swelled out. The arms lifted out to the sides, revealing feathered wings rising out from his shrunken body.
Dan’s face was changing, His ears disappeared and the ears moved to the side of his head. He was trying to make noises again, but all that could be heard was the sound of clucking. He couldn’t talk anymore. He was almost a real chicken now. When his head finished changing, he lifted up his wings and tried to brush them against his body. The crowd realised that his skin must be itching painfully. Little white feathers grew out of his skin together with bigger brown ones. The itching was clearly driving him crazy, but he couldn’t scratch.
In less than ten minutes from being pulled up to the stage, the boy that was Dan had become a Rhode Island Red hen. He scratched at the dirt on the stage. Madame Illusia stopped him and lifted him up from the floor.
“You are now one of my beautiful hens, Dan. You will serve me well and produce lots of eggs.”
The old lady sighed. She had got a new chicken for the start of her next act at a new town tomorrow night. Last night’s chicken, a pretty white hen that not long ago had been a burly farmworker called Pete, had already been strangled and was waiting to be plucked.
“Should we keep Dan for eggs?” she murmured to Stephan.
He shook his head. “I feel like chicken tonight,” was his reply.
Madame Illusia stood back up and eyed the audience. Only another thirty nine to go.