Chapter 6

Sunday, January 9th, 2022
Colorado Springs, Colorado

The alarm was going off. Jan rolled off my shoulder and leaned over to deal with it. She quickly came back and snuggled back in. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her tighter against me. I kissed her on that hair, and a gentle sigh escaped her.

Jan said, “I hate waking up this early. You don’t have to get up, but I’ll be useless all morning if I don’t get moving.”

I asked her, “Do you usually eat this early in the morning?”

She replied, “No, coffee only. I’ll snag something at work a bit later before the morning rush really starts.” With that, she rolled away, climbed out of bed, and headed for the bathroom.

I gave her a minute and sat up on my side of the bed. I heard the water start in the shower. After rubbing some of the crust out of my eyes, I stood and headed her way. She flushed the toilet just as I made it into the room, and I got to watch her butt as she stepped into the shower and closed the curtain.

I said, “Thanks for warming the seat for me, but I prefer to stand most mornings.”

She said, “Unless you are planning to buy your own toilet, I expect that seat to be down at all times when you aren’t actively peeing in it, mister.”

I smiled and replied, “Aye aye, Captain.”

After finishing my business and lowering the seat (I’m not stupid), I joined her in the shower. She had her eyes closed and was lathering her hair. I reached past her and grabbed the bar of soap. I quickly worked up a lather and proceeded to help her get clean. Some parts ended up cleaner than others, and we soon took a break from washing to handle something else that came up. She ended up leaving the shower before I did. Well, she did have a head start, so I suppose it’s understandable.

As we sat drinking coffee, Jan said, “Have you got any more errands left to run?”

I thought about it and replied, “Yeah, there are a few things. To start with, I need to check out of the hotel. I probably need to get my hands on some other electronics too.”

Jan finished off her coffee and said, “You are welcome to borrow my car and do what you need to do this morning. Now that you have a phone, I can reach you if something comes up.”

I replied, “Thanks, I’ll take you up on that. I might have to wait for the rest of the world to wake up, but I’ll be back long before you’re done work.”

We finished getting dressed for the day and left for her work about 10 minutes before 5 am. I was mildly surprised to see that she lived only a couple of miles away from the diner. Jan handed me the keys, gave me a kiss, and headed into Denny’s. I walked over to my hotel room and cleaned it out. All I had really left was the robe and slippers which I threw into the backpack.

While I was there, I sat down at the little table and started working on a mental list of things to do. I sent, [Hey Carl, you’ve been pretty quiet this morning.]

[Good Morning, Paul. I just haven’t had anything to say. Most of my time is spent looking over your shoulder and listening to what’s happening around you. I have put in some effort experimenting in here. Nothing too exciting, though.]

I reviewed my memories and found that Carl had indeed been busy yesterday. Until I wanted to speak to him, he really hadn’t been on my mind, so it hadn’t occurred to me to review the day from his side.

I sent, [Wow, I totally missed all of that. I know I can experience what you do by reviewing my past memories each morning, but I’d like to be involved in your successes as they happen too. I love how you managed to put a border around and consolidate the power source. Now there is at least the hope that we can measure it.]

He replied, [I get it, but you were pretty busy setting up housekeeping with Jan yesterday. If I had found anything groundbreaking, I would have let you know. It feels like we made some progress in expanding our range along the way, but it’s tough to quantify. We need to get that tape measure today and get back to trial and error testing.]

[I bet there is a Walmart or something else that’s open 24/7 near here. Let’s see what google maps says.] I dug out my phone and quickly found there was one that should be open about 5 miles away. I hopped into the car and headed over to the store.

Walmart was practically empty, but I did see a huge (as in obese) man who was about a foot shorter than me pushing a cart loaded with food through the sporting goods section. I spent a little time considering what he might have been looking for there, but I gave up and continued my search.

After finding a 25-foot tape measure that I liked, I had a thought and headed back towards the big guy I had seen earlier. I positioned myself, so he would pass me by while I pretended to be fascinated by the bicycle pumps in front of me.

[Hey Carl, get a good look at this guy. I want us to try to change into him later. We should be able to exercise our powers by just swapping back and forth between bodies, right? What do you think?]

[I like the plan. Let me get a good look at him.]

[Maybe plan on changing the face, so our version of him is unique.]

The guy passed us, and Carl replied, [Yeah, I think I can do that. I’m all set.]

I paid for the tape measure and drove back to the hotel room.

When I got into the room, I sent, [You know. It might be worth holding on to this place in case we want some privacy. I see no benefit from checking out early, so I’m going to just hold onto this keycard for a while. Now, how do you want to set up for testing?]

Carl said, [I think it is best to stretch the tape out on the floor in the longest straight line you can make in the room. Maybe we want to pull the comforter off the bed to lay on and set up by the window.]

That looked like the best idea to me, too, so I made it happen. I took off all of my clothes and got situated with the end of the tape right by the top of my head.

I asked, [How’s that look?]

Carl replied, [This should be good. Right now, the edge is right about 6’10” away. I’m going to change you to the big guy now.]

I felt the changes as tingles and watched as my chest and stomach grew. Lifting my arms, I could see the extra weight on them too. I didn’t feel as strong as I was before, but moving wasn’t difficult.

[Okay, that is interesting. The edge is now right around the 7-foot mark. So the difference was roughly 2 inches of movement from the changes. I can sense a change in the available power, but I need to find a way to mark and measure that. Let me see what I can set up, hold on.]

After a few minutes, Carl sent, [Okay, if I have this worked out correctly, on the next change, I think I will be able to better measure how much power was used. Are you ready to go back to Paul’s body?]

I sent, [Ready, ] and soon felt things revert to the way they were.

[Range is almost 7’3”, maybe a little short of that. The increase seems to be around 2.25 to 2.5 inches for the number of changes we are making. If my measurement is right, and remember it’s a rough guess as I don’t have a ruler to measure with, I would say from a full tank, you have enough power to change like this seven times before it runs out. Maybe just a bit more than seven times?]

I gave it some thought and sent, [So the next big questions I can think of are: What do lesser changes cost in power? Are they proportional? How quickly do we get power back? Maybe what happens when we run out of power?]

Carl replied, [We can do testing of lesser changes. I don’t think we want to know what happens when we run out until after we know more about how we get it back. Uncle James mentioned that “you can restore your power faster by having sex,” which implies that it comes back at some slower rate on its own. But that will be some fun data to gather, don’t you think?]

I agreed, [It certainly will be. In the meantime, let’s test a minor change and then cycle a few more times. I think it would be wise to leave us in Paul’s body with at least enough for one more change if we can.]

I felt a tingling in my right hand and held it up. [Okay, that’s weird.] He had given me an extra pinkie finger. Out of curiosity I opened and shut the hand, and it worked fine. I could feel through it when I used my other hand to touch it. [Could you see any movement in the power storage?]

Carl said, [Maybe a little, it’s really hard to tell, let me get rid of it.] It shrunk off and disappeared as I watched.

He continued, [Yeah, I can see that the power level dropped slightly from when we added the finger. There is probably a direct relationship between the amount of mass changed to the amount of power used. I don’t know how precise I will be able to get, but it looks like I will eventually be able to guestimate how much power something will cost.]

My hand felt as completely normal as it looked. I just kept expecting it to feel odd. I asked, [I bet the range didn’t move much either.]

[Yeah, not much movement at all. Do you want to try changing between body shapes now?]

I sent, [Sounds like a plan.]

We shifted back and forth between the big guy and Paul’s body. I was starting to think of Paul’s body as my own. Who wouldn’t want to imagine themselves as the more physically fit version? I suppose that is normal enough.

While in the middle of transitioning, I sent, [I think we should give the big body a name, what do you think of Max?]

I felt Carl sending me a grin. [I see what you did there. Cute.]

We eventually stopped cycling in Paul’s body. Counting from the beginning of this session, I had changed from one shape and back again six times. Carl sent, [We should have enough power left for a one-way transformation into Max plus a few minor changes.]

I replied, [Good, let’s hold up there. You know, at some point, we will have to rub one out to see if self-service counts as having sex as far as power recovery goes.]

He responded, [For that matter, we will also have to see if it is orgasm related or just requires touching someone else, or if feelings have to be involved ... I can see a lot of testing in the future.]

[Sounds like fun. Where did the range end up at?]

[We’re sitting at around 8’3”, which is a little more growth than expected but not enough to challenge our working premise. We’ll take better notes next time.]

Looking at the clock, it was only around 6 am. I decided to get dressed and maybe get some breakfast next door. After packing up everything and making a halfhearted attempt to put the comforter back on the bed, I drove back to Denny’s and headed inside.

Jen waved me to her section, and I was back in the same booth as last time. I was pretty hungry, so I ordered the Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs. When Jan brought it by, I thanked her and asked how her morning was going.

She smirked and said, “It’s been pretty good. I got to bed early last night, and it really improved my mood.”

I grinned back at her and said, “That’s good to know. Hey, when do you take your ‘lunch’ break on these morning shifts?”

She replied, “Usually around 9 o’clock. Why?”

I said, “Well, I don’t see any reason to waste a perfectly good hotel room that I’ve already paid for. I can think of a few things you could help me with over there.”

She smiled, “Oh really, what kind of things are you thinking?”

I smiled back and said, “If nothing else, I can guarantee you a chance to get off your feet.”

Jan said, “I think I might take you up on that offer.”

I said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

She ran a hand down my arm as she headed back to the kitchen, and I had to smile as I dug into breakfast. I slowly finished the food and we took the time to do some further flirting whenever she could swing by. I paid for my meal and headed back to the room.

The clock showed that I’d been gone for about an hour and a half, and I was curious about power regen.

I asked, [Hey Carl, have you seen any movement on the power pool?]

He replied, [Yes, it is slowly refilling. In another hour or so, I would guess you would be able to do another transform.]

I sent, [Can you quantify that better? Is it fair to say that it costs the same amount of power to change from Max to Paul and vice versa?]

[Yes, it appears to cost a consistent amount in either direction.]

I replied, [Okay, until we have a better unit of measure, let’s call the amount of power used to manipulate that much mass one unit. Is it fair to say that our total pool seems to hold 7.5 units?]

[As I said earlier, it’s hard to judge, but that guess might be a little high. I think we would be better served to call it somewhere around 7.2 or 7.3 units]

I nodded, [Didn’t Uncle James say something about efficiency related to the powers?]

[He said, ‘You will get more efficient as you get more experience at it.’ which is an excellent point. Good catch.]

I smiled, [So a week, or a month, or something down the road, if we use the powers a lot, we might effectively have 10 or 15 units in our pool. Not because the pool got bigger, but because the same changes will use less than a unit of power.]

[As a concept, that’s how I understand it too. Only time will tell us how quickly we’ll improve. Also, it is unknown if we can find a way to make the pool larger at some point.]

I said, [While we’re looking at this stuff anyway. Let’s measure the range again too.] I stretched out the tape measure and laid down with my head on the floor by the end, just like before.