Fiona meets someone who's just been through a similar experience to hers and has a fun, horny chat. Things soon take a turn for the worse when difficult training afterwards brings Fiona's insecurities to the surface. Ghosting Through Life - Chapter 9 -> Partial Ghosting by Zmeydros (Edited by UBA and WolfLeah formerly WolfJacobs) Clarissa's bed had seen a few too many guests in its time. Her hefty bovine form made the bed sag enough that I sunk in next to her. I was perfectly happy with this as we cuddled through the night. In the morning, however, I had to climb out of a gravity well to get out of bed. By the time I was standing beside the bed, we were both giggling. After I got back from the restroom, Clarissa was still in bed, lazily looking at me with one eye while half her face was being swallowed by a plush feather pillow. Thin strips of light that had made it through the edges of the curtain were bouncing off picture frames on the walls and covering our fur in random bright lines. Clarissa's cow tail flicked with annoyance. "Come back to bed." "I'm not sure I'd ever make it out again." I chuckled and then my canine nose sampled the air. Clarissa's caramel scent was strong. "Plus, I want to be fully awake when I start training with Rinny again." "Okay, fine, I'll get up." She rolled to the edge of the bed and then got her feet under her. Pulling me into a hug that pressed her udder against my belly, she groped my ass. "Hey, no making me hard or we'll never make it to breakfast." She let me go. "I woke up wanting you inside me." I bit my lip and blushed as my tail swished behind me. "Dang it, I don't want to deny you." She grabbed my hand and shoved it under her balls, pushing two of my fingers into her hot, wet mare pussy. As I gasped and shuddered, my prick swelled in my sheath. "NGH!" Gripping my fingers with the muscular walls of her snatch, she whispered in my ear. "Since you didn't stuff me before I got out of bed like a good girl, you're going to have to wait to be in here until after your training." Feeling my fingers surrounded by her heat made my whole body smolder. My prick shoved its way out of my sheath and my nipples tingled. She moved my wrist, making me finger her and her prick came out far enough it started rubbing against the fur on my forearm. That's when she pulled my fingers out of her and pushed me up against the wall so I was pinned by her dick, breasts, and udder. My prick throbbed against her udder as she licked into my muzzle, making out with me until I was lightheaded. Pulling away, she grabbed a fresh pair of panties out of my suitcase and tossed them at my face. "Time to get dressed." I caught the panties in my paw-padded hands as they fell off my muzzle. "They're not gonna fit right if I try to put them on now." She grinned. "Exactly." Then she pulled her own pair of panties up, trapping her half-hard stallion prick between the waistband and her udder. I got my own, much harder, prick trapped by the waistband of my panties as well. They weren't actually my panties, she'd lent me some of her herm-friendly ones because my old ones didn't work at all when I was sporting a dick and rather large balls. The waistband was tickling the bumps and ridges on the underside of my shaft and I moaned as I put on the shirt and overalls I'd worn yesterday. They weren't that dirty since I'd spent half the day naked and I didn't want to create more laundry than necessary. Especially since we were sharing her clothes. "Let's get some breakfast." Clarissa hooked our arms and started ushering me out of the room. I looked down at the obvious outline of my shaft running up my front and dug my heels into the carpet to stop us. "Shouldn't we wait for it to go down some?" "Everyone on this farm is used to seeing girls like us." She tugged me toward the door. "They'll enjoy the eye candy." I let her pull me down the hallway to the large dining room with five round, red-stained wooden tables and a collection of plates from all over the world on the walls. Once there, I spotted a hybrid skunk girl with an incredible floofy tail who was wearing jean shorts so tight that her package looked ready to burst the seam in the crotch. She grinned as she ogled my clothed stiffy and then gave me a thumbs up, before taking her plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast to the table in the back corner. My prick got harder, pushing up into my cleavage and throbbed while a curvy goat hybrid in only an apron started piling hashbrowns on my breakfast plate. "Bacon or sausage?" Looking at the sausages and seeing how plump they were, I licked my lips. "Sausage." Her eyes darted to my clothed prick and then she raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Seems like you have plenty of sausage already." I gasped as my pussy twitched, my nipples ached, and my prick spurted pre up between my breasts. My embarrassment was there, but there was also this other feeling, like being on top of the fucking world. "You're going to have to take your turn, Glenda. I have dibs on her sausage." "Well, it's about time you had dibs on someone's sausage. You were long overdue to have a plus one." She put one of those glorious bratwurst-like links on my plate and then handed it to me. "Glad you think so, but we're not quite official yet. It's only been a few days." Clarissa rubbed my back, soothingly. "That said, things are clicking quite naturally between us." What Clarissa said made complete sense, but my dumb brain treated it like she'd just tossed me out of an airplane full of puppies and chocolate into the cold, unfriendly, stratosphere. I glanced down at the counter and my tail curled up between my legs as my ears flattened against my head. It was silly to think she'd just randomly want to be my girlfriend, wasn't it? We'd just kinda ended up together. Sure, we had a lot in common, but who knew if our personalities were compatible over time? Whether she'd end up hating me like everyone else I'd dated. "I wish you both the best of luck. Everyone deserves someone like my Thomas." Glenda worked on Clarissa's plate while she spoke. "Bacon or sausage?" "I think I'll be full up on sausage later today. I'll have the bacon." Clarissa groped my ass. I was still lost in thought and jumped a bit. Then my tail wagged and my hand tipped as I groaned, sending my sausage rolling across my plate. "Oh dear!" Glenda was quick with her serving tongs, putting them under the edge of my plate and tilting it to stop my sausage from rolling off. After that inspiring show of dexterity, she put bacon on Clarissa's plate and handed it to her. "Good catch!" Clarissa took her hand off my ass. "Thanks!" I smiled at Glenda. "You should see me with a fencing foil." She smiled brightly. "After seeing that, I kinda want to." It's in that moment that I realized her apron had a nice bump in the groin. Was almost every girl here like me? I was a bit dizzy from Clarissa's sudden groping and the idea that there were oodles of herms here I hadn't met yet. "Same here. Have a great day!" Clarissa grabbed a glass of orange juice and turned toward the tables. "You too!" Glenda waved. I grabbed a glass of chocolate milk and followed Clarissa to the table next to the one the skunk girl was sitting at. The skunk looked at us, ate another bite, and then bit her lip. "Why don't you come sit with us?" Clarissa made a "come here" motion with one of her thick-fingered hands. The skunk got this adorable toothy grin that reminded me of a girl who just got handed an infinite tub of chocolate fudge ice cream. Getting up and extracting her gorgeous tail from the back of her chair, she sat across from us. "Hello, I'm Dixie." She reached out with one hand, but then realized there were two of us and reached out toward us with both of her paw-padded hands. "I'm Clarissa," Clarissa said as she grabbed the skunk's left hand and shook it. She was still holding her fork, so the handshake looked super awkward. "And I'm Fiona." I reached out with my left hand, avoiding the fork problem. Her paw pads were so soft that I ended up holding her hand a bit after we shook, making things awkward despite myself. Taking her hands back, Dixie situated herself on her chair, making sure her thick tail was threaded through the back of it properly. "Nice to meet you both." While Clarissa chewed some bacon and hashbrowns, I poked at some of the cheesy scrambled eggs, getting them on my fork. As I brought the eggs up to my mouth, I smiled at Dixie. "Nice to meet you too. Where are you from?" "Baltimore area, near Cockeysville." She smirked. The white stripe of fur that ran along the top of her muzzle practically glowed in the daylight filtering through the tall window on the south side of the room. "I didn't know there was a perfect town name until now." Clarissa chuckled. I struggled to swallow my mouthful of scrambled eggs before laughing so hard I hit my knee on the underside of the table. This situation probably didn't deserve that much laughter, but my nerves were on edge with my dick still poking into my cleavage and my balls having gotten so big I was worried about my panties. Clarissa and Dixie laughed with me and kinda at me because I snorted a couple times through my canine nose. When I recovered, I asked, "So, have you always looked like that?" "Did you see how tight my shorts are? No, I wasn't like this until yesterday afternoon." She sliced some of the thick-cut bacon with her knife. "When did you two go under the lantern?" "Five years, for me." Clarissa sipped her orange juice. "Only a few days." I cut off a piece of sausage and ate it. My tail curled at the wonderful mapley fatty goodness. She leaned in, blushing deeply. "Are you two, uhm... fully equipped like me?" My tail wagged. "Yep!" Clarissa nodded while chewing some hash browns. Dixie whispered. "Do the urges I'm getting calm down eventually?" "A little, after the first couple weeks." Clarissa shrugged. "I still crave doing something at least twice a day, though." "I haven't had it long enough to know for certain, but I'm a hundred times more interested in..." I blushed. "Stuff than I was before." "Same here." Dixie licked off a bit of hash brown that was stuck to her fork. Her tongue was long and flexible and I squirmed seeing it. After that, it was like someone had hit pause on a video tape. She just stopped, her eyes looking past us for a moment while she thought. Then she leaned even more forward. "What do you two do about the urges? Is there anything that satisfies them for a longer period of time?" "Fucking anyone willing to help like a bunny in heat." Clarissa chuckled. Dixie bit her lip and shifted in her chair. I gasped, remembering being inside Rinny while Clarissa was drinking her cum. Needing to change the subject, I said, "Are you bummed that you're going to have to transform back when you go home?" "Transform back?" She raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it complicate things a lot to suddenly come home as an anthro skunk when you signed paperwork that forbids you from talking about how?" "I already told my friends and family I opted into a genetic hybridization experiment for a pharmaceutical company." She spoke quietly. "Maria gave me some very convincing fake paperwork." "Wish I'd thought of that." I frowned. "I'm sure she'll let you use the same story if you ask." She chomped on a big piece of bacon. "Being like this all the time?" My heart started racing. She chewed her mouthful and then had a sip of her water. "I'm gonna take my chances. I don't ever want to be in my human body again." "You could do the same if you wanted, Fiona. I'm sure Maria would back you up." Clarissa patted my shoulder. "Nah, my workplace is full of nosy and slightly-paranoid people. I'd get asked a lot of questions." I blushed, remembering another big reason. One I was embarrassed to admit aloud. "Plus, the feeling of transforming...I definitely like it too much." "I think your second reason is the real reason." Clarissa nudged me with her elbow. "Okay, fine, it *might* be the biggest reason." My tail flicked as I got the urge to hide my face. "No need to be embarrassed, it's the main reason I'm not always in cow mode. Well, that and whenever I'm alone and bored in this form, I can't keep my hands off myself." She caressed her udder through the fabric. Not able to meet their eyes, I stared at my plate as I said, "We're so much alike." "Yes, we are." She threw an arm over my shoulders and gave me a little hug. I squirmed, my heart fluttering from feeling like her girlfriend yet again. "I'm sure I'd enjoy transforming if one end of it wasn't something I never wanted to experience again." Dixie was working on cutting up the rest of her bacon. "My dysphoria was a bitch and a half, sucking the joy from everything like some sort of megalomaniacal, emotional vampire." Clarissa nodded. "Yeah, dysphoria is the worst." "I think I'm still working through mine." I ate another piece of sausage. "True, it's not an on-off switch. Took me a long time to unlearn habits I formed when I hated myself." Clarissa gave me a squeeze, her free arm still hooked around me. "Until yesterday, I didn't fully understand the degree to which starting estrogen changed my mate for the better. It's like she's a different person now, someone with a much bigger heart." She was smiling softly while looking out the window. "But right now, it makes complete sense." My tail wagged from seeing her so happy and we all shared a silent, reflective moment. "Would your girlfriend want to become a hybrid herm like us?" I asked. "Oh, absolutely, she would've come here in a heartbeat if she knew girls that come here often end up like us. We just thought this would be a much-needed vacation and the reviews were incredible. We thought the magic that would happen was extreme relaxation, not literal magic!" She bounced excitedly. "We're gonna have to get her out here ASAP." Clarissa swallowed the last bit of her breakfast with the rest of her orange juice. "You should both come so you can have a newly-hermified honeymoon." She laughed. "Oh, that's perfect." After giggling, I scooped up the last of my breakfast with my fork and ate it. Clarissa was so awesome and I hoped I'd be talking about her the way Dixie talked about her girlfriend someday. It was probably way too soon to talk to Clarissa about our relationship, though. "Fiona and I better get going. It was nice chatting with you." Clarissa grabbed her plate and got up. "We should exchange numbers and stay in touch." I stood up, pulling my phone out of my pocket. It was hoping for too much, but I wanted me and Clarissa to meet Dixie and her GF as a couple. It would feel so cozy and nice. At this rate, I was going to end up so clingy that I pushed Clarissa away. "Yes! I'd love that!" Dixie's tail swished as she pulled out her phone. * * * * * Rinny was sitting in midair with her legs crossed while looking into her crystal ball. The moment she saw me, she put her legs down and stood up as if sitting on air was completely normal. I couldn't help but notice her bulge and skirt interacting as she did so. Following my gaze, she grinned. "Be a good girl and work hard and I'll give you every inch of what's under my skirt." I bit my lip as my pussy clenched. My prick was still pretty hard and running up my belly. Clarissa clapped me on the shoulder and then whispered in my ear. "No using your dick until you cum in me. Understood?" I nodded, blood rushing to my dick. "Good, I'll be back later to see how you're doing." Clarissa walked up to Rinny, cupped Rinny's balls, and then gave her a deep kiss that gave me just a hint of jealousy. Rinny was fondling Clarissa's package right back as they kissed and they both just looked so beautiful. The hesitation I felt in expressing myself just wasn't there for either of them. What did it feel like to be that free, that unconcerned about what others might think? As they broke the kiss, Clarissa tugged on Rinny's balls. "You got me good yesterday." "You're welcome." Rinny chuckled. "I think you owe me a round with your pussy before you tuck it away again." Clarissa reached behind Rinny's balls. "Mmm, well I think you owe me some milk." Rinny rubbed Clarissa's udder. "I don't owe you anything, but I've always got milk to share." "Nope, you definitely owe me." Rinny's orange tabby cat tail flicked playfully. "I think we'll need to have some heated trade negotiations to sort this out. Come to my room tonight after you're done with Fiona." "I don't know, it's a lot to work through. Might take us hours." Clarissa leaned in, using her height to her advantage. "Can't wait to see which one of us tires out first." Rinny stared Clarissa down, looking quite predatory. It was fucking hot. They locked eyes, each sporting a tent in her clothing, before Rinny licked Clarissa's nose and they both broke out laughing. I laughed with them, having not expected that at all. Then Clarissa smacked Rinny's ass and trotted off, holding her head high, as if she'd won their little stubborn battle. My eyes followed her big, round ass and swaying tail until Rinny cleared her throat. Blushing, I turned my attention to her. "Sorry, do you want to start with what we were doing yesterday?" She pulled a lock of her curly black hair out of her face and then repositioned her witch hat to keep her hair further back. "Sure, see if you still have the hang of it." Closing my eyes, I envisioned being hit by the lantern's light and felt tingles spread from my extremities into my core. My clothes fell to the ground as if I wasn't there and my cock dropped free, pointing directly ahead of me. The world faded from view as I sunk into the ground. I tapped out the beat to some eighties song I couldn't remember the name of to keep myself calm. Then, when I was in up to my knees, I followed the beat of the song to slowly rematerialize from my abdomen out to my extremities. I rose out of the ground at about the speed an elevator goes when it's just starting out. Then I was there, completely naked, with my shaft pointing at Rinny. I resisted the urge to hide it because I knew that would only make it even more obvious. Glancing at my dick and then at my muzzle, Rinny clapped her hands excitedly. "Very well done! That was your smoothest one yet. Next, why don't you try to only make part of your body go immaterial? It'll make the next thing I try to teach you easier since you'll be able to see the results yourself." "How?" I titled my head as one ear flopped down in confusion. She thought for a moment, one of her ears twitching. "I'm not actually sure. Maybe remember the sensation you get when you're going immaterial, but try to focus on one of your arms?" I closed my eyes and tried to follow her directions, but nothing happened. Then I imagined the lantern's light and the sensation and my whole body started dematerializing. I got myself to come back to reality, but it wasn't really progress. I even stumbled a bit because I'd come back too fast. A few more times trying it, I was getting nowhere. Maybe her faith in me had been misplaced? I could hardly control my love of chocolate. How was I going to control something that felt this automatic? My tail hung between my legs as my ears drooped. "It seems to start on all my limbs at the same time and I think it worked better when you were shining light on me. If I'm trying to imagine the lantern's light and control my dematerialization at the same time, it's too many things at once." "That's a good point." Speaking her magic words and holding her crystal ball out, she got bright, pink-hued light shining at me. It was way easier to control the speed of my dematerialization, but not the location of it. Perhaps my success yesterday had been a fluke. After a few more tries, I stopped, not wanting to cry in frustration in front of her. "Maybe we should give up on this." "You've only been at it for forty-five minutes, you have lots more time to experiment with it." "This is way harder than what we were doing before, like something I might not actually be able to do." I looked at the grass that was lightly tickling my canine footpads. "Struggling to do something doesn't mean you can't do it. It just means you have more to figure out." "Okay, but I have no idea what to do. It goes the same every time I try." I sighed. "Does the tingling start everywhere at the same time?" "It's the strongest on the places furthest from the rest of my body and moves inwards. Fingers and toes and then inwards." "Every limb is the same?" "Yeah, as far as I can tell." I fought back tears. I wasn't sure why I was suddenly so emotional, but in the back of my mind a familiar thought had reared its ugly head: How long would it take Rinny and Clarissa to learn that I wasn't nearly as cool as they thought I was? "Well, maybe we should try something else for a bit. You've made a lot of headway already." "Not enough. I probably can't do any of what I just did under pressure. If I go intangible or transform at work, I'm screwed." She shrugged. "I have another week before I have to be anywhere." I shook my head. "I don't. My work's going to find an excuse to fire me if I wait too long." "There's plenty of other things we can focus on." "Yeah, maybe we should do something else." While she thought, she wasn't pointing the beam of her crystal ball at my center anymore and the light was hitting my right hand. As I stared at it, an idea hit me. I focused on where the light was touching my skin and my hand got familiar spicy tingles as it disappeared. "Hey! Look!" My tail thumped against my leg as I watched my arm slowly disappear. "There you go!" She came closer. "Now see if you can bring it back." My shoulder and chest started disappearing, but then I focused on pushing out from my center and my shoulder came back. Soon after, my hand was back too. "Okay, maybe I'm good at this." "Maybe? You're incredible!" She hugged me tight. I hugged back, a couple tears escaping the corners of my eyes. After giving my back a couple solid pats, she released me. "Do that several more times and we'll try with each arm." She proceeded to shine light at each hand alternately and I managed, with effort, to only phase out each arm and then phase them back in. "It'll take practice to do that without the light. Let's not worry about that today. I want you to try something that'll be very useful once you master it." "Taking something with me when I phase?" My chest was tight, but I felt like I'd probably be able to do it. I'd done so well already. "Yep." Out of a pouch on her belt, she pulled out a sheet of gold stars. Just like the ones a homeroom teacher might give out. She peeled a star off and then stuck it to the paw pad on the end of my pointer finger. "Just focus on extending your phasing to the sticker and be patient." She shined the beam of light at my hand. "I can't even feel it." The moment my hand started to phase, the sticker fell to the ground. She stuck it back on me. "All you can do is keep trying. There might be a trick to it, but I have no idea what it is just yet." I tried five more times. "It's like the moment I start phasing it's not even there." "Try closing your eyes and only paying attention to the end of your finger as your hand phases out." The moment I felt tingles in my hand, I closed my eyes. One second later, I opened them to see Rinny catch the sticker with her feline reflexes. "Did you feel anything at all?" "I could feel the adhesive sticking to my paw pad, but the moment my hand started phasing out, I stopped feeling anything." She paused for a moment. "Being able to feel the adhesive is a start. You're probably going to have to center your mind a lot to pull this off. Shall we keep going?" "I guess so." I closed my eyes and tried so many times that I lost track. My chest tightened as I kept trying and getting nowhere. With a slight frown tugging at the edges of her muzzle, she shrugged. "Maybe we should stop for now. We've made plenty of progress for one day." "If I can't phase with this tiny sticker, what hope do I have of taking my clothes or even a single sheet of paper with me?" I sniffled, my eyes and canine nose wet. "You've only been at this for an hour and it might take days to make headway on this. When I tried to learn how to float in place, I ended up bruising my knees a lot, but I eventually pulled it off." "But you're different, you're actually good at stuff. I screw up everything I touch. I could've gotten Clarissa killed when I phased out of the car." I tried to hold back the tears, but then I sputtered as a muffled cry came out of my mouth. "We've spent the last few days together, had a wonderful time, but she couldn't even tell a girl we met at breakfast that we were girlfriends. I know there's something wrong with me. Some reason no one wants me, some reason I keep fucking things up." Rinny hugged me and just let me cry for a bit. She even put her head atop mine and stroked my hair. My chest gradually relaxed as I hugged her back tightly. When I was no longer sobbing, she spoke. "Clarissa's complicated. She really likes being independent and she's got damage from previous relationships, just like you do. I know patience is hard, but it's the one thing you need the most right now." "Patience is too hard, though, especially now. It feels like all the things I wanted in life are right in front of me and I want to grab them all before they disappear." "I know what it's like to suddenly be a lot more invested in your life. Just remember to take a breath now and then. Like, if you're getting this frustrated with training, you need to tell me that you need a break. I'm not gonna think less of you if you do." She put her hand on my cheek. "Okay?" "I feel like I've been waiting so long for everything already. Stopping feels like failure." I sighed. "But I know that's not a helpful way to think about it." "Exactly. You need to push back against the fear that the rug's going to get pulled out from under you the moment you stop moving." "Oof, it's like you read my mind. I think I've felt like that ever since I transformed." Rinny just hugged me and held me while I cried into her shoulder, having way more emotion to express than I knew what to do with. Through the tears in my eyes, I could barely make out Clarissa hurriedly making her way toward us. END OF CHAPTER 9 I’d like to acknowledge my $20+ patrons: AJ, Arkona Kothe, Navajo Demar, Tiliquain, Warialinth, and Xaziana Tenebris for helping make all this possible. Thank you! Thanks to all my other patrons as well. Every one of you rocks!