That's Not a Pet...

Huh. Belle wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but… whatever had been in her head, this definitely wasn’t it.

Belle had ordered a very special something that she’d wanted for a long time, and it was supposedly here. It was just several sizes smaller than she’d thought it’d be. It should’ve been in a decently sized box, or maybe even some kind of bag (do delivery bags exist? That’d be a google question for later…), but this was… a tiny little plastic package like the type you get little plastic pill bottles and junk delivered in. Not even a big one, either - this plastic thing was tiny. This was… lackluster, to put it simply.

A quick slash of a kitchen knife across the top of the package let Belle take a peek at the contents of her anticipated order. Inside was… a thermos. She pulled it out of the packaging. Ok, it wasn’t a thermos, but it looked like one - just with a weird lock on the lid. Oh, and there was a little note dealie in the package with the thermos thing. Let’s take a look-see…

Valued customer, thank you for your purchase! We appreciate your support of our local ranch!

Enclosed in our Absolute Containment Carrier (ACC) is your soft new friend. Make sure that your home is ready for your purchased pal before you release the seal! All drains should be covered, vents shut, and doors and windows temporarily sealed until the proper contract has been established. The procedures of this contract should have been sent to you electronically shortly after your purchase.

If you did not receive a contract, or cannot perform your contract for more than 6-8 hours after delivery, then please put the ACC inside of your freezer. Don’t worry - your new friend is a hardy one and will be perfectly fine after an hour of thawing! Please do not put the ACC and/or your new friend into a microwave, oven, deep-fryer, air fryer, or any other heating device to accelerate the thawing process.

We at Mythic Ranch are not responsible for any damages caused by your bought buddy prior to establishing a contract. We are also not liable should a contract fail to form.

We hope you come to love your new friend as much as we did and continue to support us here at Mythic Ranch in the future!

Oh, so this was it, then? Belle looked back at the thermos thing, which was supposedly this ACC thing. She swallowed hard. Ok, Belle. You’ve got the contract circle here on the table along with a medium-quality catalyst, which should be more than enough for a creature of this rank. Just in case, there’s duct tape all along the bottom of the door and the windows, plus all the other stuff the note recommended that Belle had already done. Everything would go fine. Totally, one-hundred percent fine. You’ve got this!

Nervously, Belle undid the series of clasps keeping the lock of the ACC sealed, opened it up, and oh-so-carefully tipped the container over until… a thick, nearly black purple liquid started to pour out onto her table. It wasn’t really a liquid, though. It was congealed and wobbly, and as more and more of it plopped out onto the table, it began to quiver and move. It was a slime. A small and precious slime that Belle would be keeping as her very first pet.

She was so nervous, but even more excited! She’d never had a pet before, let alone a mythical one! Heck, before last year when Mythic Ranch started up and paved the way for legalizing the private ownership of low-rank, sub-intelligent mythics, owning even something like a slime was just a pipe dream, yet here Belle was! About to form a magical contract with one! She just couldn’t get over how amazing this was!

Oh, right, the contract! Her little purple friend was all out on the table now and was starting to explore. Belle had opted for one of the Ranch’s ‘problem children’ slimes that were mutations and couldn’t be properly classified, so she had no idea how fast it would be. Some might see a slime with unknown capabilities as a danger to sell, but according to the Ranch, they had at least confirmed that it wasn’t conventionally dangerous, so Belle should be safe pre-contract. Also, she got fifty percent off thanks to taking in a ‘problem child’, which was the only reason she could afford this little critter in the first place on her salary, so…

Belle, with her heart thumping in her chest, put her hand on the designated spot on the contract she’d drawn on her table (with a clay pencil). She held the mid-tier essence crystal she’d ‘borrowed’ from work in her other hand and bit her lip, praying that nothing would go wrong. The lines of the contract circle began to glow a faint white and the crystal started to feel hot in her hand. Please work, please work, please work, please work…!

The crystal shattered. Belle yelped and stumbled back. Oh, shoot, her hand - was fine? Belle turned her hand around, examining every bit of it. No injuries from the crystal shards… Belle looked around. Actually, there were no crystal shards at all. It hadn’t shattered. It’d been used up. Weird. Essence crystals were only supposed to dissipate like that once they were empty, but she was pretty sure that one had been fresh, so why-

The contract! Thoughts of the crystal zipped out of Belle’s mind as she looked back at the table Had the contract failed? Oh please, let it have worked! Belle didn’t have another essence crystal on hand! How was she supposed to tell if it had worked or not? The slime didn’t look any different, though it had stopped moving and was gently wobbling in place. What had the guide said to do after the contract was formed? She was supposed to… uh… supposed to…

Her eyes widened. A name! The name she had prepared! Belle cleared her throat and knelt down, getting on ‘eye level’ with the slime. “Your name from now on will be ‘Gelica’. Do you understand?”

For a second, nothing happened. Belle started to feel her heart drop when the contract circle lit up brightly one more time. An ethereal collar formed around the slime, audibly clicking shut before turning into a mass of bright white particles. These particles streamed towards Belle, or more specifically, towards the hand that she’d put on the table earlier. A very faint heat formed around Belle’s wrist as the light’s obscured her hand, then it all started to fade. Once the light was gone, Belle inspected her wrist. She had a new tattoo of sorts, a thin chain that went all the way around.

Huh. The guide for doing the contract hadn’t mentioned this. She was pretty sure she was supposed to get a mark on the back of her hand, not a chain on her wrist. Weird. Oh well. It didn’t hurt and she kinda liked how it looked, so she would take it! Especially since it seemed like the contract had worked!

Belle squealed and stomped her feet in place a few times before crouching back down again to look at Gelica. “Gel-i-ca~! Welcome to your new home! What should we do first? There are so many things I always wanted to do with a pet! Oh, I’m so excited!”

Gelica, naturally, didn’t respond. It was a slime with no mouth or vocal cords. It had, however, started to move again, moving along the table in a slow but deliberate manner. Belle smiled wide as she watched Gelica move. Slimes were so cool~. The way they moved, the way they ate, their ability to squish and mold into just about any shape or space-

Right, right! Before Gelica got to exploring, there was something to do! “Ok, Gelica! First rule!” Belle declared. The slime stopped moving just as it was about to go off the edge of the table and seemed to shift its mass towards Belle. It was listening! So cute! “No going outside the apartment- oh wait, you wouldn’t know what an apartment is, would you?” Belle frowned, thinking, then nodded. “You can keep exploring, but when you reach somewhere you’re not allowed, I’ll tell you. From then on, you aren’t allowed to go anywhere I’ve said you can’t go. Do you understand?”

Well… Gelica sort of jiggled in a weird way before starting to glorp off the edge of the table and down the table leg, so… maybe it understood? Belle had read a lot of warnings that low-intelligence mythics like slimes wouldn’t be able to follow complicated instructions without training, so she was a bit worried, but… it was fine! She had the contract, so even if Gelica ignored her and went outside, she could use a Command to force it to stop! As for the drains… uh…

Belle would figure out the drains later. They’d all just stay plugged for… the foreseeable future. Heh.

Gelica made its way safely down to the floor and started to slide along the kitchen tile. Belle giggled and squatted down to better watch. The slime really was smaller than she’d been expecting. A few clients of hers had slimes and they were big, meaty bois that could fill up whole sinks. She’d even seen a slime that could fill an entire bathtub! Her little Gelica was so tiny, though! It could maybe fill a water bottle! It really wasn’t what Belle had expected, but it was still awesome and adorable!

The purple slime explored most of the kitchen floor before starting to climb up one of Belle’s kitchen cabinets. She’d been expecting the little thing to wander around the floors for a while, especially since it had already turned away from the wall a few times. Maybe it smelled the food on her counters? She had a few apples and a half-eaten banana up there…

Food! Aww, the little devil was probably starving! Thirsty, too! Belle could fix that! Gelica wasn’t too fast, and she had the drain plugged, so Belle felt comfortable looking away from the tiny slime to start getting some food ready. Slimes could eat just about anything, but certain slimes preferred certain foods. The Ranch had sent over some details on Gelica, but from what they’d said, it didn’t seem to have a favorite food. Since that was the case, Belle just unpeeled the rest of the banana and set it on the counter along with an apple. Gelica was apparently a healthy drinker, though, so Belle filled a whole cereal bowl with water and set it next to the fruit.

By the time Belle finished, Gelica had reached the counter. She watched as Gelica made a straight line to the food. Aww, they really were hungry-

Ah, scratch that. It was ignoring the food. It was instead climbing up the side of the bowl and into the bowl of water. Well, it had still been desperately needing something and Belle had caught onto that and provided, so… She was being a great slime mom! Yes! First pet feeding successful!

Gelica was really going to town on that water. It had dipped half its mass into the water and was just sitting there while the water level got lower and lower. As it did, Gelica was visibly growing. Maybe Gelica wasn’t a little squirt after all. Maybe it was just shriveled up from transit! A few people online had mentioned that their slimes had gotten ‘pudgy’ after arriving, but maybe that was just them returning to their normal size!

In no time flat, the bowl was empty. Gelica slid fully into the bowl, filling it up entirely and muffining over the edges, before sliding out the other side. Belle figured that it would go for the fruit after its drink, but it was still ignoring the food entirely. Instead, it was…

“Awww, are you still thirsty?” Belle crooned as Gelica went straight towards the sink. “Here, I’ll just do this and you can drink your fill!”

Belle turned the faucet handle a smidge until a thin trickle of water started coming out. Gelica seemed to visibly perk up and picked up the pace as much as it could. Belle giggled again. How could something with no defined characteristics still be so cute~?

Within thirty seconds, Gelica had made it to the bottom of the sink and was sopping up the thin pool of water that had built up. Then it settled into the plugged-up drain, directly under the trickle of water, and jiggled contentedly. Belle leaned on the counter and watched for a little bit before something struck her.

Was Gelica harmful? And by that, Belle meant acidic or toxic. It had been cleared by the Ranch for being ‘conventionally dangerous’, but that just meant life-threateningly dangerous and the like. Some ‘non-dangerous’ slimes still caused skin irritation from acidity or indigestion from traces of slime that they left on food. Belle couldn’t really test the toxicity thing without, like, licking Gelica or something (which was tempting since it looked like delicious grape jelly, but… nah), but she could test for acidity by…

Biting her lip, Belle slowly moved a finger towards Gelica. She gingerly put her finger on Gelica. It was… warm and slick. Its membrane was thick, firmly rejecting Belle’s touch, much to her surprise. But no irritation. That didn’t mean Gelica was totally clear, but at the very least, it wasn’t highly acidic. That meant…

Belle ran her finger along Gelica’s side, petting it. She smiled happily, then smiled even wider as Gelica started to wobble. It had been mostly still before, but had started grooving once Belle started petting! EEEEEEE! So cute!

Belle happily continued petting Gelica while the little slime drank. Time seemed to lose its meaning in this glorious moment until she snapped out of her happiness-born fugue and realized something.

“Wow, you’re… really thirsty, huh?”

Gelica had quadrupled in size compared to when it had first slid into the sink, but it also showed no signs of wanting to leave. Its little jiggles were turning into little bounces as it grew bigger and bigger. Also, unless Belle was seeing things, its color was also starting to lighten. Was… Was this normal? There had been nothing online about this, but… Slimes were supposedly extremely self-sufficient and could survive with little to no direct care so long as food and water were made available, so… it should be fine, right? It's not like slimes could drink too much…

Right?

Belle, in a moment of mild anxiety, turned off the water. Gelica’s happy bounces quickly stopped. The slime stayed still for several moments. Then it started to stretch upwards. A smaller tendril of slime rose up, reaching towards the handle. Belle watched, frozen, as the tendril of slime turned the faucet back on - and at a much faster speed.

This… There was NO way this was normal, right? Belle had no idea what to do. She couldn’t just leave Gelica here doing whatever it was doing to go look up what was happening! What was she supposed to do in this scenario?

Oh, jeez. Now that the water was on full blast, Gelica was swelling at an incredible speed. It was already filling half the sink! Belle watched in a state of moderate panic and indecision as the sink went from being half-full to overfull. Gelica started to overflow the sink, spilling out onto the counter. Also, Belle certainly hadn’t been imagining things before. Gelica was turning from the thick, blackish purple it’d been before to a lighter, more opaque purple.

Belle was frozen in her indecision. She could force Gelica to stop with a Command, but what if Gelica needed this? It still wasn’t an abnormal size for a slime and the Ranch had specifically noted that it was a heavy drinker, so this might be normal? Maybe Gelica had just been dehydrated for easier transportation and it was so obvious and expected that no one online had thought to mention this part? Belle didn’t want to leave her precious new friend thirsty, but also, she was concerned with just how fast Gelica was growing and how it had already learned to use the faucet. Slimes weren’t supposed to be that intelligent.

Oh boy. Belle was realizing why the ‘problem children’ were half-price.

Belle held her wrist with the chain mark on it while warily watching Gelica drink its fill. It had started to rise up from the sink now instead of just spilling over it. In fact, it seemed to be… molding itself… into… into… uh…

“What the hell…?”

Gelica was wobbling violently as more and more of its mass rose from the sink, shaping itself into… something resembling a person. The first thing that formed was an arm, then a second one. A stout torso followed the arms, rising out of the slime-filled sink like food-colored foam from a middle school volcano experiment. Then, from the top of the torso, came a head - a blank, bald, featureless head. The head developed the vague shape of a nose and two flat, blank eyes with what could be called eyelids, but nothing else. For all intents and purposes, it… looked like a freaky opaque mannequin.

Ok. Yup. This was too much. Slimes didn’t do this. It wasn’t a thing. This wasn’t right. This was creepy. Creepy and weird and gross and Belle didn’t like it. She didn’t like it ONE bit.

Belle quickly stepped closer and reached around the slime to turn off the water. The slime’s blank face seemed to frown. It turned the water back on with a wobbly arm. Nope! Belle was NOT having that! “Gelica, stop! No more water!” Belle turned off the water again, and while the featureless slime frowned again, it didn’t turn the water back on.

Ok. Ok. Belle started to pace, talking aloud to herself. “Alright, so I… I have a slime that can look like a person. An intelligent slime that can easily locate water and can operate simple devices after briefly seeing them. And it can turn into a person. Just… a person. Slimes don’t look like people. They don’t. They don’t! If slimes looked like people and had intelligence, they wouldn’t be mythicals! They’d be demi-humans! They wouldn’t be pets! They’d be-”

Belle looked up and happened to glimpse Gelica. It hadn’t turned the water back on, but it had begun shaping the rest of it into a person’s lower half. Legs were starting to take shape over the edge of the sink, loosely dangling down. Feet formed, then toes. Then Gelica… it looked at Belle. As if waiting for… something.

Belle shook her head. Ok, ok, calm down. This… This was… manageable. Her slime was a little different from other slimes. That was fine! It was a little smarter and had limbs. And blank, soulless eyes that stared into her soul… She looked back at Gelica, then quickly looked away and shuddered. Her cute little slime… where had it gone…?

“So… uh… G-Gelica…” Belle started. She swallowed hard. “You, uh… do you understand me…?”

It nodded. Belle continued, “Uh… can you… speak…?”

This time, Gelica shook its head. Belle felt part relieved, part terrified. Relieved because it would scare her skin off if Gelicas suddenly started speaking, but terrified because… it was really understanding her. Comprehending simple things like ‘stop’ and ‘water or food here’ was easy and expected. However… slimes should have no understanding of speaking - or nodding or shaking their heads, for that matter, considering that slimes weren’t supposed to have freaking HEADS.

“O-Ok, so, uh… W-Well… Uh… I-I really don’t know what to do here… uh…”

While Belle fought inside her own head, trying desperately to get her brain to put together a coherent plan of action, Gelica had started to look around. Then it climbed out of the sink and onto the counter, the faucet leaving its back with a schlorp. It went over to the edge of the counter and carefully crawled off, lowering itself to the ground. It stared up at Belle and Belle stared down at it. It… It was still small, reaching only up to a bit above Belle’s knees, but now… now it looked… human. Freaky and featureless and purple and misproportioned in places, but… human.

The little… thing started to wander around. Belle just leaned against the counter and watched. Then she looked down at the chain marking around her wrist. Belle was starting to piece together what had happened with the contract and why it had needed a whole mid-tier catalyst to work. The contract had been meant for a high-intellect with low-intellect bond, but this thing… uh, Gelica was NOT low-intellect. This wasn’t a pet contract. This was… something else entirely.

Gelica returned to the counter and stood on its toes. It reached up and scrounged around the counter until it found the apple Belle had put out back when the slime had been cute. A slit appeared on its face and it opened its ‘mouth’ wide - too wide for a person. It put the apple into its ‘mouth’ and ‘swallowed’, sending the whole thing down its ‘throat’. Now that Gelica was semi-opaque, Belle could vaguely see the apple sink through Gelica until it settled around where its stomach would be. It was pointless for food to be there for a slime since its entire body was technically a stomach, but… there it was. Pretending like it had a stomach. The purple slime reached up for the banana too. It couldn’t quite reach…

Belle sighed heavily. She picked up the half of banana and handed it to Gelica. The little slime person seemed to smile as it took the banana. Just what was Belle supposed to do here…?

Fine. You know what? Whatever. Belle was tired of trying to figure out what to do. No matter how she looked at this, there was no precedent for this. She would know - she worked for the Demi Social Services. There had never been a publicly noted demi-human slime. Even if Belle brought Gelica to work and tried to ask around about what to do, no one would know. So… She would just figure it out as she went. Whatever. Whatever!

Belle rubbed her temple, then looked down at Gelica. The little thing had eaten its banana and was now staring longingly at where the sink was. Belle sighed again. “Still thirsty, huh?”

Gelica whipped its head back to Belle. It nodded its head vigorously. Belle chuckled. “Yeah, ok, fine. You can start drinking again. Just don’t… pop or anything, ok?”

The purple slime nodded so forcibly that its whole body jiggled, then quickly scaled the cabinet to reach the counter again. Belle noted that it still seemed to be able to stick to things even though it was now so much bigger and… human. What did that information do for her? Jack squat. At this point though, any information might be useful, so she’d tuck it away in her brain vault anyways.

Gelica sat back down in the sink with the faucet impaling it through the chest, which looked painful as heck but was apparently perfectly fine. It turned on the faucet and seemed to visibly relax as the water started flowing into it. Belle watched for a second, then sighed one more time and went to go find her phone. She’d look some things up while keeping an eye on Gelica. Maybe someone, somewhere, had found a slime like Gelica…

After five minutes of googling after bringing her phone back to the kitchen, Belle found absolutely nothing even vaguely related to what was happening. Also, Gelica was getting huge. Like, actually person-sized instead of being some little purple munchkin. It still looked like a featureless mannequin, though. Actually…

Belle did a quick image search, then got up. Gelica was still sitting in the sink, though now only its ‘butt’ fit inside. Interestingly enough, Gelica seemed to be pretending it had bones. Its legs only bent at the knees even though its knees were now well above the edge of the sink. As it had grown, it had continued to lighten in color. Now it was a beautiful shade of light purple that was almost clear enough to see through.  As it was, Belle could easily see the apple and banana suspended inside of its stomach, which was… kinda cool now that Belle was in a state of total panic, actually.

Gelica turned its head to look at Belle as she approached. Belle flinched slightly at the piercing, soulless, eyes, but steeled herself and got closer. “Uh, hey, Gelica… if it's possible, could you, uh… make yourself look more like this?”

Belle turned her phone screen to show Gelica the picture of the generic-looking drawn woman she had used in her late teens to learn how to draw. It was a reference sheet with all angles and some proportions and stuff listed, but it was also in 2D, so she wouldn’t be surprised at all if-

Gelica nodded. Then it started to jiggle heartily. Belle watched with muted fascination as the slime’s featureless human body began to become… curvy. The lady on the reference sheet wasn’t super busty by any stretch, but she had c-cups, and now… so did Gelica. A semi-slim waist and hips well-proportioned to match the bust developed soon after. The legs molded themselves to actually look like legs instead of purple tubes and its toes and fingers developed nails.

Finally, the face. Gelica’s blank eyes molded pupils, the nose grew more distinct, and a full-lipped mouth formed. Tendrils of purple grew from its head, slimming down until they were just strands before clumping up into a full head of shoulder-length hair.

“Oh, wow, you, uh… actually did it,” Belle said in amazement. She took a few steps back and looked Gelica up and down. It… looked a lot better, actually. Before, Gelica had had this sort of ‘uncanny valley’ feel, but now… it just looked kind of blank instead, like an anatomically absent android. No nips, no body hair, no privates, and no expression, but still certainly human in appearance. It wasn’t perfect, and the eyes were still weird since they were all purple, but… it was miles better than the living mannequin look.

Belle nodded. “Yeah, you look good. Good job, Gelica.”

Gelica smiled, showing weird purple teeth. Ok, maybe not miles better after all. Belle sighed. “Ok, so, uh… I do have to ask… How much more are you planning on drinking?”

Gelica shrugged. Its body seemed to grow and slip a bit more out of the sink. Belle continued, “It's just that it might be problematic if you’re too tall. Humans are only so tall on average and our buildings are built to match. Sure, you’re still shorter than I am right now, but if you keep drinking at this pace…”

The slime blinked. Why? Why did it feel the need to blink? Then it just nodded. It didn’t get up or stop the water, though. It-

Ok, actually, calling Gelica an ‘it’ was starting to feel weird. It’d been fine when Gelica was a little amorphous ball of purple gel, but now that it- they were close to Belle’s height and looked like an adult woman, it just felt… inhumane. Calling them ‘she’ might be weird too since… well, actually, there was an easy way to settle this, wasn’t there?

“Hey, Gelica - do you like being called ‘it’, ‘they’, or ‘she’? Or ‘he’ too, actually, or like, anything else you might want to be called. I’m the one that asked you to look like that, after all.”

Gelica cocked their head to the side. Belle pursed her lips. “Oh. Right. You can’t talk. Uuuh… ok, yes or no - do you want to be called ‘it’?”

Again, Gelica just cocked their head to the side. Belle sighed. “I guess even if you are hyper-intelligent for a slime, you still don’t have a concept of gender or pronouns, do you…?” Belle thought for a moment. “Well… I guess ‘she’ is fine for the time being since it’ll be easiest with how you look right now and since you literally don’t care one way or the other. If you ever, uh, figure out what gender is and decide that you want to be called something else, you can just let me know then somehow, alright?”

Gelica shrugged and nodded. A bubble ran up the length of her body and settled around where her brain would be. Belle frowned. The water has still been running this whole time, but Gelica had stopped growing, true to her word- or, uh, nod. Where was all that water going…?

Oh. Belle got her answer soon enough when the red apple in her body bobbed upwards slightly. Gelica’s stomach area was rounding out like a balloon, filling with water at a relentless pace. Gelica was mimicking a human’s body in every other way, so Belle supposed that it made sense that the water she was ‘drinking’ would start going to her stomach, but also…

“H-Hey, do you really need to drink that much? You’re definitely not going to pop, right?”

Gelica nodded then shook her head. She rested her hands on her swelling stomach and pressed down heavily on it, sinking her hands deep into her own gut before releasing. The big orb FLOOMPED back out and wobbled violently. Then Gelica gave Belle a thumbs up.

Belle bit her lip. If her membrane still had so much give left, then it was probably fine for her to keep drinking, right? Also, what was with the thumbs up? Where had Gelica learned how about body language like that - and language in general, actually? Belle had so many questions…

With no answers to her many questions in sight, Belle settled for observing Gelica while she drank her fill. Luckily, Gelica had arrived on one of Belle’s days off, so as long as no emergency cases came in, Belle would be able to keep an eye on Gelica all day as she got settled in. Seriously though, Belle had been hoping for a pet, not a new roommate. At least she’d be easy to feed-

Belle’s heart stopped. Her roommate. Crap. Her freaking ROOMMATE! What was her roommate going to say about having an anomaly of a slime living with them from now on!? Oh God, how was she going to explain this? She’d barely gotten Branwen to agree to a normal slime! There was no way she would agree to- to- to- THIS!

*Ga-LUNK!*

Belle’s frazzled brain refocused. What had that sound been? Gelica had spread her legs apart, letting her stomach fall down and settle on the edge of the counter. Jesus, her belly was getting huge. It was wobbling something fierce from the sudden movement too, sloshing around like a mini water bed. It looked oddly inviting, actually…

Without really thinking, Belle stepped forward and put her hand on Gelica’s sloshing belly. Unlike how she had felt earlier when she’d still been just a little hunk of gunk, Gelica now felt sleek and springy. She still felt slick from the thin layer of ooze wetting her membrane, but now said membrane felt malleable instead of resistant. Belle grabbed at Gelica’s belly and her eyes widened from how easily she could just grab a handful of the giant gut. The belly looked tight and full from just how round it was, but it was still so sloshy! How could such a tiny slime manage to fit so much water inside of it like this? It was insanity!

Suddenly, Belle realized what she was doing. Her cheeks warmed up as she shot a look at Gelica. The slime was watching her with what looked like interest. She mimicked Belle, grabbing a handful of her stomach and letting go. Then, to Belle’s surprise, Gelica’s cheeks seemed to darken - just as if she was blushing.

“Y-You really don’t need to be copying what I’m doing right now!”

Gelica blinked. Then she reached out between her legs with both arms, grabbed her whole stomach, hefted it up, and let it fall back down. The heavy sloshing that resulted sounded like someone trying to make waves in a full bathtub. For some reason, that sound was absolutely amazing and made Belle want to move Gelica’s gut again to make the sound repeat. Her cheeks grew even warmer and she glared at Gelica. “S-Stop that!”

Gelica’s cheeks grew even darker. The slime woman put a hand to her mouth and started to jiggle. Was she… no… she wasn’t… but she was…!

“Hey! Don’t you laugh at me!”

The purple woman just ‘laughed’ more. Then she reached out and grabbed Belle’s arm, who tensed up with shock. Her hands were so warm and soft, but surprisingly strong. “What are you-”

Belle’s question was cut short as Gelica pulled Belle against her gut, pushing her face into her soft yet firm skin. Belle gasped and tried to push away, but her arms just pushed into the malleable slime and slipped on the slick, ultra-smooth surface.

Her face was right up against the giant orb of purple slime. Belle struggled again and a cacophony of sloshes and bubbling filled her ears as Gelica’s massive gut wobbled around. So close! It was so warm and comfortable, but- too close! GAH!

“Th-That’s enough! Let go!” Belle managed to cry out. Then… Gelica let go.

Belle stumbled back, her face and arms feeling squicky from Gelica’s slime. The purple woman was doing her silent laughter again, changing the shade of her cheeks from dark to opaque again and again. Belle couldn’t freaking BELIEVE this. She was being teased by a slime! A freaking SLIME!

Eugh. Belle was ticked about Gelica’s actions, but more so than that, she felt gross from the ooze that had been forced out of Gelica’s membrane that was now coating Belle’s front. She started to go towards her paper towels, but even as she walked, her arms and face started to feel drier. She stopped. Oh yeah, that was actually something normal about slimes. Their slick residue didn’t last long when separated from their main bodies and would evaporate within seconds, which was why they weren’t disgusting pets to own in the first place. At least something about Gelica was normal…

With her body feeling clean, Belle turned her attention back to Gelica. The slime was still doing her little laugh and was now leaning back, resting her arms on the counter while her gut continued to balloon outward over the edge of the counter. Belle eyed the tempting purple orb for a second, but… she shook her head.

“Ok, that’s enough water. Turn it off.”

Gelica’s laughing stopped. She frowned and shook her head. Belle crossed her arms. “That’s enough and I mean it. It’s not about you popping this time. It’s fine if you want to play around sometimes, but if you’re going to live here, I do need you to respect me, alright? And that means when I say water off…”

Gelica scowled but ended up relenting. She reached around and twisted the faucet off. Then she mimicked Belle’s crossed arms, though with her loose breasts and giant, bloated gut in the way, it just kinda squished her chest in all the right… uh… well…

Belle coughed and looked away. “R-Right, so… You haven’t seen the rest of the apartment yet, right? Can you stand? Get up and I’ll show the rest to you.”

Gelica stayed scowling for a moment, then relaxed her face and nodded. She slid her butt up and over the edge of the sink, landing on the floor with a massive *GLORP*. Belle’s brow twitched as her eyes tracked the violent bouncing of Gelica’s gut. Holy crap, that thing was HUGE! It was the same size as a golden retriever and it looked as tense and tight as an overstressed pufferfish, but it still wobbled around so heavily whenever Gelica moved! And she moved so EASILY, even with that giant orb of a gut making her so top-heavy!

It also didn’t help that Belle’d had Gelica turn into a woman. Sure, this might look good on a man too (Belle wasn’t picky with her eye candy), but something about those smooth breasts getting pushed up by and bouncing around on that massive gut, and those wide hips that jiggled around so freely (unrelated to the gut at all) just made Belle want to look constantly. Belle herself wasn’t unattractive in the least, being five-six with some decent curves and a great face, but even with the still slightly unnerving expressions, Gelica just looked-

Crap, there was that silent laugh again. Gelica had caught Belle staring again. The human woman sighed and looked away. This whole thing was going to take some getting used to… a LOT of getting used to… Hooo boy. Belle just hoped that her roommate Branwen would take this better than Belle did. Bran was a demi-human too, after all…

======================================================

Well, this is certainly a fic I've now written, heh. I really like this fic in terms of actual writing, but as far as tum content goes... I can't blame anyone for not being too excited. Every dynamic has to start somewhere tho, and I'm excited to write more of Gelica and her new roomies in the future~.

Also, while y'all can get mad about maybe less tum focus in this one, you can't get mad about me going all-in on the monster girl focus. Y'all were cool with me being a monster nerd on the poll. You asked for this, dorks. Now you reap what you sow!

The next fic this month will be human, tho. It'll either be the Edelyth fic or the second part of the Mindy fic. The one after that will probably be the other one, and after that... we'll see~.