========================================= Put together ========================================= Chapter 11: Collecting the pieces ========================================= "Uncle Joe?" Amy held the telephone to her ear. Jack could feel her holding it, he was pretty sure if he wanted to he could have dropped the phone or hung up. They shared control over the same body after all. "Yes, it's me Amy. Yeah, I'm fine. Mostly that is..." Jack heard the concerned voice on the other end of the line but he couldn't understand the words Amy's uncle spoke on the other end.. "Yeah, funny that you should ask that, yes we had some..." she was interrupted. "It fell apart. It's completely in pieces." Amy admitted with her eyes cast to the floor, although it was not like her uncle could see that gesture. "No, I'm whole, well... mostly. It wasn't connected to me at that point, but I hoped you knew if it can be repaired." "Yes, please, that would be great, I'll send you the address. Do you have something to write?" Amy gave him the address of Lydia's place, then gave him a brief but embarrassing summary of what had happened. She left out a few details, much to Jack's relief, and mostly blamed Lydia and her webcam spying for everything. Amy blushed deeply as she talked. She tried hard to avoid mentioning the fact that she had shown Jack the cube and what it could do in the first place. Uncle Joe had mentioned repeatedly that she wasn't supposed to include anyone in that secret. Then again Lydia had found out by spying on both of them, so that wasn't technically her fault, was it? But then how would she explain their shared body later? Originally she had wanted to overcome Lydia by taking her apart, then force her to reveal where she had put Amy's missing pieces. Then reassemble Lydia, or just leave her, and use the cube again on themselves to fix the damage Lydia's actions had caused. But now the cube was in fragments and she had no clue if they could ever be reassembled, or how. Lydia was even worse off. Amy and Jack had collected the terrier together as good as they could. They had searched all the pieces that had spread out across her bedroom into a large plastic wastebasket. Some of the pieces had wriggled or twitched on their own, so it was obvious that Lydia was still alive, and maybe conscious, but there was no face to talk to. They couldn't even tell for sure which of the odd-shaped bits had been part of her head or her face. Lydia had become like a living one thousand piece 3d-puzzle, and neither Amy nor Jack had had the nerve to try and reassemble her. Not that one would have been able to do anything without the other, considering they currently had one shared body with two heads. "Ok, Joe said to make sure we have all bits of both the cube and Lydia. If there's nothing missing he might be able to do something, but it's gonna take him at least till afternoon to get here." Amy summarized the phone call. "So what do we do now?" Jack asked, sounding defeated. They were sitting on Lydia's bed, Lydia's bucket in front of them. The pieces of the cube were gathered on the table. Amy turned her head to face Jack's, right next to her on their shared bodies shoulders. "Well he said not to touch the cube until he's there. Wanna try to solve your Ex-puzzle?" They both glanced at the bucket full of furry bits. There was no way of telling if the terrier could still hear them. Although both Amy and Jack had been dispersed before, never to such a degree. Imagining how it must feel was - intriguing. But nothing Amy wanted to feel for herself. "Naaah, not really." Jack answered as he turned towards her, his muzzle right next to hers. For a second they looked into each other's faces. Jack was still 'wearing' Amy's antlers, while she looked like an ordinary doe, having none. They looked good on him though, she had to admit. She opened her muzzle slightly and met his. Their tongues started exploring each other's muzzles and they both closed their eyes. Amy lifted her left arm, then gently embraced Jacks head from behind and pressed him closer into their kiss. At the same time they felt their right hand in her neck as Jack did the same. It was wonderful. They both felt the same, everywhere and they both shared each other's motions. And both their sexes responded to their emotions at the same time, too. Each of them felt this slightly embarrassing, exciting, twitching sensation as his cock sprung to life. Each of them felt the pleasant and similar warmth that spread from her vulva as her labia puffed up and her nethers filled with moisture. "Wow." Jack said, as he stared down at his emerging stag penis. Amy followed his gaze with a shy smile. She bit her lips in excitement, and directed her, no *their* left hand to her chest to gently play with her single female nipple. She would have preferred if she had had all of her breast, but the last time she had seen her boob was inside a plastic bag that Jack's ex now had dumped somewhere unknown. It didn't matter for the moment. Jack inhaled audibly as he felt their fingers on their nipple. "We might be stuck like this," Amy said with a slight bitterness, eyeing that twitching cock of theirs. Would she mind? She wasn't sure, It felt so nice... "If your uncle can't fix the cube..." Jack answered but didn't finish the sentence. Instead he reached down to take his cock into their right hand. Amy could feel the sensation on both their shared hand and the erect stag cock, and opened her muzzle for a shivering gasp. "I guess we could live like this, for a while. We'd have to take the same lectures though," Jack added, biting his lips. Amy closed her eyes once more as she felt Jack's slow strokes on his cock and sucked in air, audibly. She couldn't even tell for sure if it was her who was stroking his erect cock, or if it was him who was doing the movement. It was the same hand, the same muscles. It felt the same and she felt like she could have stopped it at any time, but it felt so good. They were so... close! "We..." she stopped to take a deep shivering breath. She had had no idea these slow strokes would feel so good on him. "...we'd need to find an explanation how we ended up in the same body. We can't tell them the truth." Amy clenched their hand around that shaft tighter and squeezed their cock as they both continued the gentle strokes. Jack increased the pace and a grunt escaped his throat. Amy's left hand had played with her nipple, but on Jack's muscular chest it was just not the same. Instead she now reached down between their legs and touched her own urging sex. The very moment he felt their left hand on her clit, Jack let out a moan, and paced his strokes with increased gusto. His voice was joined by Amy's much brighter melodic moan as she, too started rubbing her clit, spreading slippery moisture over her sensitive flesh and between her labia. The orgasm that suddenly rocked them both came as a surprise to them. Without any warning, sudden joined waves of pleasure erupted from their loins and rocked over them. Male and female climax combined, Amy and Jack arched back, together and dropped down on Lydia's bed, just as the muscles in Jack's loins tensed and propelled a sizeable squirt of cum, both out of his cock and out of Amy's vagina. Her juices were a lot lighter, almost like water, his a thick white, but both squirted out the same and made stains on Lydia's blankets. But it didn't just end there, Amy's orgasm had just begun and they both rode it out. Bleating, Amy rolled her eyes back and let wave after wave of shivering pleasure wash over her, until it finally ended in a final, weak shudder. Jack's knuckles were almost white from holding on to his cock as for dear life. He, too took a while to catch his breath. "Wow!" was all he said. Amy took a few deep breaths, as she rode out the last lingering shivers through their shared body. Then her head turned towards his and she smirked. "Not bad for round one, huh? Let me show you something!" "Round 'one'?" Jack asked surprised. He already noticed how his left hand crept down over his belly and back between their legs. Their fingers slid over Amy's tingling agitated clit, but went further beyond, between her wet swollen folds. Another gasp escaped him at the sensation, and his cock, already in the process of shrinking and deflating, made a sudden excited twitch again. "I'll show you something nice, enjoy the ride." she whispered in his ear and gave him a gentle nibble on its ear tip. He closed his eyes to those sensations, and just a moment later he felt her longest finger squeeze in between her labia, as it forced itself into the tight sensitive tunnel inside them. ... By the time of early afternoon, and several exhaustive 'rounds' later, Jack and Amy finally had gone to work. The had emptied the bucket of Lydia and had began sorting the pieces. Most of them they had little to no clue what to do with. It was all different shades of beige fur. Some of the pieces had stuck together in the bucket, but not in their natural shape or order and they had to pluck them back apart. A few had features they could recognize. Digits of a finger, half a toe, a piece of tail. A black lip, that could have been from her face, or possibly from another, moister place. All those bits they put aside, as they were easier to distinguish. At some point the phone had rung. They had ignored it until the answering machine took it and the voice of the tiger who was Lydia's boss had announced that, if she wouldn't be there in ten minutes from now, she could consider herself fired. There was no visible reaction or twitch from the pile of Lydia, maybe she hadn't heard it, maybe she didn't care. When there was a knock on the door, Jack and Amy jumped up. In a second they had crossed the distance to look out the window. How they instinctively managed to do the same thing at the same time without having to discuss it first was a mystery to both, but through their body they seemed to somehow just know, to feel, what sort of movement the other wanted to make, even before it happened. Uncle Joe's pickup was parked in the driveway, and the adult stag stood in front of the door. Jack hesitated, it was Amy's initiative to reach for the door knob and she opened it. "Uncle Joe!!!" she was so glad to see him. Uncle Joe studied the creature in front of him with a weak smile. "You are Jack?" he asked the stag face underneath Amy's antlers. Jack nodded. "Let's go inside. I hope no one saw you like this." Inside his first glance fell on the pile of Lydia on the floor. He scratched his head, then followed Amy and Jack to the bedroom where the cube's debris were arranged. He stared at them for a while. "Can it be repaired?" Jack asked. "Its just mechanical damage. Of course it *can* be repaired." he answered cryptically. "Can you repair it Uncle Joe? We don't want to be stuck like this." Uncle Joe sighed. "You'd deserve to be stuck like that." he said, but when they both gave him puppy eyes, he continued "I guess people would ask too many questions, though. I don't know, I'll get some tools and treat it as if it were just a broken tin toy. That worked before, maybe it works again. Until then you two go and fix that dog over there. At least get her face back together so she can speak. Make sure you got her tongue, those pieces should be squishy and red. Doesn't matter if a few pieces of lips are improvised and her eyes are one above the other, she can fix that herself later, but find her throat. It must be split apart, otherwise you'd hear breathing and moaning from her. I bet the girl is pretty uncomfortable right now. Serves her right!" "Yes sir!" Jack answered, visibly relieved that the stag didn't leave them stuck. He and Amy went to do as ordered. The pile of Lydia however didn't seem any more manageable. But at least they had a plan now. "How can we even find her throat? It's all just bits of beige fur." Amy threw another identically looking bit back into the pile, while Jack seemed to be in thoughts. "Search for a white spot." Jack suggested. "Lydia had this white spot on the front of her neck. Her belly fur is also lighter, but that's the only white spot with beige all around it I think." Once Jack had found one of Lydia's eyes and stuck it the sculpture that was to become her new face, things turned creepy. The eye kept following them around and glaring in a accusing way until Amy had enough. "Stop staring at me!" She plucked it back out and placed it under another piece of beige fur. "That's it!" Jack's sudden shout was almost too loud in Amy's closest ear. He pointed right at the very piece she had just used as eye cover. It was indeed beige with a white bit on one corner. "That must be from her neck. It feels like from her neck too." he added as Amy took it up again and twisted it, which he of course felt in their shared fingers. Half an hour later, Uncle Joe came from the bedroom, looking tired. He had a beer can in his hand. "How's it going?" "I think we found most of the important bits, we're just having problems bringing it together." Jack gave report. "Let me see." The stag knelt down next to them and picked up what was going to be Lydia's head. "Do you have some piece of ear yet?" he asked. Amy showed him a thin furry piece with a tip on it. "No, not the tip, We need the base. Here, this one." her uncle answered and picked a seemingly random piece from the large pile of Lydia bits, then placed it on top of Lydia's head. It twitched. He then took two pieces of Lydia's neck that they had found and pressed them together against the underside of the crooked makeshift snout that Amy and Jack had so far constructed. Indeed, the pieces merged together, and to Amy and Jack's surprise a sudden, ragged, wheezing sound came out of the crooked, mostly toothless dog mouth. A desperate breath, as if someone hadn't been able to get air for, well, it had been around 8 hours since Lydia had fallen apart. After a number more desperate, deep, shivering breaths, Lydia's breathing calmed. And then they heard her voice, although it sounded off, a groaning unarticulated sound, like a long whine. "She wants to speak, where's her tongue?" Uncle Joe asked in a commanding voice. The incompletely assembled wet and red slippery thing twitched and flexed like a worm. Joe grabbed it without a second thought and stuck it, base first, deep into Lydia's throat. He also placed her eye on top of her muzzle. Amy and Jack hadn't managed to find her eye socket yet, but she apparently could see like that quite fine. "Well done." he said to Amy and Jack, even though it felt a bit like he had done all the important work in the last half minute. Then he focused on the one-eyed monster head. "Lydia, can you hear us?" Lydia's eye dashed back and forth, then focused on Joe. Parts of her face flexed, but it was impossible to read a facial expression from that. It was just too incomplete. Then she tried to articulate words. "uuuugh" "foooo..." "fuuuhk youuuuu" It took her three attempts until the three deer managed to decipher the two words she had to say. Uncle Joe gave her a disappointed, disapproving frown. "I'm sorry my lady, I think it's quite possibly you who is properly fucked here. I came to understand that you have misplaced certain pieces of my niece somewhere. Maybe you'd like to enlighten us where you put them?" He was overly polite. With a dangerous undertone that Amy didn't like at all, it sent shivers down her spine. Well, down Jack's spine to be completely accurate. Lydia flexed her tongue and her mouth a few times before she answered. "Whhha" "Whay... " "Why the fuuhk should I tell you... now!? How about... you put me back together... first." Jack glared at her, he was about to say something. He opened his mouth for speech, but Amy held his breath back and the words never left his throat. He shared a glance with her and she shook her head almost unnoticably. Amy trusted Uncle Joe to deal with this. Lydia's one eye hadn't noticed the exchange. By the time she glanced over at them, Jack had gone back to just glaring at her. "You misunderstand the situation you are in," Amy's uncle explained, patiently, as if he was speaking to a child that needed to be told how to correctly bind it's shoes. "Let me show you something." He placed Lydia's head on the table, then went out of the room for a few second. Amy and Jack's heads turned after him, curious what he would get. Her came back with the cube. And it was whole! No, just almost whole. One corner piece was missing, at the top. "As you might guess, Lydia, this is the device that made you like you are now, when you broke it. I worked all day to do some makeshift repairs, but it's not stable. We can use it only once. When I put this piece back in its place, for one single time It will turn your flesh back to normal. But it won't put you back together - you would have to stay like you are then, for the rest of your miserable life. Now, you can decide to help us, then in turn we might help you put yourself together first. Or you could say 'Fuck you' again, and then I stick this very piece in right now, and you are stuck like this. Do you understand?" Lydia glared at him. At least that's what the face expression looked like. Jack threw a desperate look at Amy. If the cube would work only one time, then how could they go back to normal? Amy gave no response, she just looked at Joe and Lydia, wondering how the terrier would react. Uncle Joe held the missing corner a little bit closer to the rest of the cube. His expression did not look like he was bluffing. Lydia must have come to the same conclusion. "Fine! I threw them off the bridge!" she spurted out. Amy's uncle held his hands where they were and looked at her like with a pleased smile. "Which bridge?" She told him. Reluctantly, he had to drag out every single detail out of her, but soon enough Amy had a reasonably decent idea where she could find the rest of herself. In a dry levy underneath a highway overpass, about halfway between Lydia's place and the old paper mill where the rest of her had been dumped. Jack nodded, to him that sounded quite plausible, just like something he could totally see Lydia do. "See? that wasn't so hard, was it?" Joe asked the terrier with a friendly, almost forgiving smile, as if he was about to pet her on her makeshift doggy head. Instead he plucked the corner of the cube back into the rest of it. It made a clicking sound, and it stuck where it belonged. "You fucking bastard!" Lydia's head screamed, staring with wide open eye. "Ooops, guess I must have lied about the cube." Uncle Joe grinned. Then he held the device in front of Amy and Jack, but looked at Amy as he spoke. "Use it, make yourself presentable so you can go outside without raising suspicion, then check that levy. You know how to drive my pickup, right?" "I think so." Amy answered. She had never driven a car that huge. Her mom's car, yes, but that was a lot smaller. "Don't ruin the clutch. I'll have a nice long talk with your boyfriend and miss in-pieces here until you are back. Make sure you got everything." Amy nodded and they took the cube and went back to the other room, leaving Joe alone with Lydia. They could hear her swear, but Uncle Joe didn't seem to mind being insulted by a head on a pile and started to throw her pieces back into the bucket despite her protests. Amy twisted the cube. It seemed to work perfectly, there was the usual sensation of a spring getting unwound on the first movement, and the symbols realigned. Almost immediately it glowed blue, and both Amy and Jack felt a tingling in their body. Soon after, Amy managed to pull of a finger on her left hand and stuck it back. From the other room, they could still hear Joe and Lydia's discussion. Apparently he made her tell her variant of the story. She didn't sound happy and it seemed like his patience was being tested. "I'm just gonna leave your head here, right? Then you can talk to Uncle Joe until I'm back." Amy suggested. Jack nodded. He wasn't particularly keen on staying behind and talking with Joe. Amy's uncle was - scary. Yet Jack fondled for his own neck, then pulled himself off their shared shoulders. Amy helped him place himself on the bed, then rearranged her own head to a more center position. He could still feel all of their joined body, and move it too. But without his sense of balance on top he doubted he'd have managed to stand, or even walk, without Amy taking over. "Please hold still while I'm driving, OK? I'm not used to manual gear," she asked him. Jack nodded, which looked weird. His head remained almost motionless, only his neck twitched. "Yeah, no problem." It felt strange when he spoke. His voice came from his head, but he still shared Amy's breath and she felt herself exhale without any air coming out her own mouth and nose. It was weird. Amy had to put on some clothes. She couldn't really go out on the street like she was, naked and equipped with both types of privates. That wouldn't do. Lydia's clothes however were at least roughly her size. Or actually Jack's size. Close enough anyway. She didn't bother with undies, but she pulled on jeans and a shirt which she found in a drawer. Then she took the cube, still scrambled, in one hand, and Jack's head under her other arm, and went back to her uncle. "Place them on the table, I'm almost done here," Joe said with barely a glance at her. He was still sorting Lydia bits into the bucket. It seemed like he had some method in the order he placed her in. The bucket was about half full. "The car keys are in my jacket." Lydia just glared at Amy with her one eye but didn't say anything now. ... Twenty minutes later, Amy parked the pickup on the side of the highway and turned the engine off. Driving like this hadn't been too hard. But she knew that Jack somehow had helped her shift the gears. After a few embarrassing first attempts had ended in audible scratch noises she was sure had made Uncle Joe cringe. But then the coordination of clutch and gear-handle suddenly worked almost like magic. Jack was driving a manual gear, so it was only likely that he had been subtly helping her. He felt everything she did after all. On the other hand, it was quite unsettling when he spoke to Uncle Joe. She could feel him operate her lungs to speak, she could even sort of still feel his neck move and feel the vibrations in his throat even though his neck was no longer on her shoulders. Yet she couldn't hear what he said. Amy left the car and went down to the levy. Fallen tree branches, old car tires and other junk had accumulated under the overpass, jammed against the bridge supports during the last flood. She had to climb over some of them in the slightly muddy bed to get to the other side. And there, it was. She instantly recognized Jack's sports bag, still in the same place on the bank of the levy where it must have landed. Dimly Amy remembered the sensation of the impact and apparently it hadn't moved since. As she got closer, a rat squeaked and ran away from behind the bag and towards a crack in the bridge foundation. A cold fear suddenly overcame Amy. She hadn't felt her torso in over a day. And since she used the cube last night, it would no longer have been protected from harm, just a big junk of deer meat, laying in a plastic bag under a bridge. What if the rats had gotten to it and started eating? They could have gnawed her down to a skeleton and she wouldn't even have felt it! She opened the sports bags zipper, fearing the worst. Dim light fell in from a hole in the back, where the rats seemed to have dug a hole in the plastic. Inside she saw the translucent garbage bag and inside her own brown fur. Hastily, Amy ripped the plastic open, then pulled her chest out. If felt like an object. Like the torso of a doll or a mannequin. She had zero sensation on it, and to her hands it felt - lifeless. There was no breath, no heartbeat. Carefully, and with shivers in her hands, she inspected the torso from all sides. To her big relief, there was no injury. No damage, no hole. Although there was no natural orifice either, the bottom was fur covered and so was the part between her collarbones where a neck should have been. There were no breasts, no nipples. But there was still something else in the plastic bag. Gently she placed her bust on the ground, then took the squishy furry blob from the bag that she now recognized as one of her breasts. It too was unharmed. It had no nipple, and even after she turned it around a few times she still didn't know if it was her left or her right boob. Those too felt like squishy lumps with no sensation whatsoever. She tried to place one of them on the chest of her torso, but nothing happened. It didn't stick, it just got squashed flat, flexible as it was. Amy didn't really know what to do. Of course she could have just packed everything back into the sports bag and brought it back, but this lifeless feeling of her bits was unsettling. It creeped her out, and maybe it turned her on a bit. She wasn't exactly sure about that yet. A quick glance confirmed that she couldn't possibly be seen from the cars occasionally passing over the levy. She took off her shirt, then held her boob against Jack's shared chest. Again It felt like the touch of a foreign object, not unlike it felt against her fingers. 'Please, stick, or I don't know what else I could do...' she thought, and pressed it tighter, almost desperate. And then, reluctantly, her flesh finally warped and incorporated this foreign piece of furry meat. There was still no sensation in it, at first, but now it was part of her again, at least physically. The sensation would come back, so she hoped. Eagerly, Amy peeled off her nipple that still covered Jack's on her left side. There she attached her second boob. But she still wasn't sure if she had them the right way around. The fur pattern didn't fit Jack's chest either way, her hairs were slightly softer and her fur a bit lighter. But with her nipple on top of it, now at least it looked like a breast was supposed to look again. She sat herself down on the concrete bank and kept touching her breasts, desperate to feel something, anything. And then, finally, ever so slowly, her sensation did come back. As if her breasts were warming up to her, the flesh came awake, tingling, like a limb that had fallen asleep, when your skin feels like crawling ants. But there it was! And it was hers, and she had it back! She could have cried with tears of joy as she kept fondling herself, and promptly Jack's member sprung to life in her pants. Had he felt that too, or was it her own arousal that made it respond? Amy's glance fell back on her own torso, still motionless and lifeless on the floor. She just had to try. Right here and now! First she plucked off her breasts again, those that she had just now brought back to life. Then she squeezed them against her own chest. Again, that warping effect as the flesh fused seemed a bit reluctant, but this time it finally worked. Her breasts fit in their natural position, and although one was still missing its nipple, she could now tell which way they belonged. Next... next was her hip. Well, Jack's hip, for now. Laying down on her back on the floor Amy pressed her hands into their hips and wriggled and pushed. She flexed and arched her back, until finally she felt that squeezing, pulling sensation of her own flesh oozing apart. And then *pop* she was separated at the waist. She rearranged Jack's hips, placed one hand between their legs, and one around the shoulders of her torso next to herself then pressed them together tightly. Once again she felt the fusing sensation and the pieces connected. But still there were no sensations in her own chest. "OK, lets see... " she whispered, just carrying on. Next was her left arm. She plucked it out of Jack's shoulder and into the matching socket of her own. She felt the arm, she could move it, but the shoulder itself she felt not. She grabbed her right arm with her hand and yanked and reached across her chest to plug it in her other shoulder. Now only her head was left to be moved. Amy hesitated a bit, then she pulled Jack's torso on top of herself and wrapped her hands around her neck and pulled. A weird sensation, it tickled a bit as her neck oozed free, just to be pressed down on her own shoulders where she let it fuse. Amy took a deep breath, and felt for her heartbeat. But her chest didn't move, it was Jack's chest on top of her that heaved with her breath, and his heart that beat. "This is weird," she mumbled. Moving Jack's torso aside, she placed her hand between her own breasts and felt for a heartbeat, anything. There was nothing. This was slightly unsettling. Was her own chest dead? Would she be, too, the moment it came back to her? Could she quickly switch over and keep using Jack's or would she suddenly fall unconscious? Nagging doubts crept in her head. But before she could second guess her decision, the weird tingling sensation started once more. It crept around her back and through her belly, and soon the sensations from Jack's chest got overlayed with the new ones from her own. It came back to life! Suddenly there was a faint heaving, air entered her lungs, in sync with Jack's breathing. And then her fingertips picked up a weak rhythm inside her chest. It hadn't been dead, she realized, it had just been dormant, waiting for her to come back to her own body! Amy took a deep breath and filled her lungs with the fresh air. After a while of just laying there, happily, she picked up Jack's chest once more, now separate and isolated like her own had been a few minutes ago. Weirdly enough she still felt her touch on Jack's chest as well. She now had the same body part twice, an odd sensation. Amy assumed it would stop soon. Already the sensations in her own chest were more pronounced than those in Jack's, in a few minutes or maybe hours, he'd be alone in there again. She placed his torso in the sports bag and closed the zipper. Then she dressed herself again in Lydia's borrowed clothes. It was time to move back and reassemble herself. And Jack. They'd finally be complete again! Well, almost... But now there were so many things they could do! ... Chapter 12: Epilogue ========================================= Jack held his hands together and winced, as Amy placed her hoof in his palms and reached up for the tree branch. She wasn't too heavy, but her hoof was sharp. Luckily she also had quite strong arms and had no problems to pull herself all the way up into the tree. The magpie screamed and cawed, flew circles around the tree and repeatedly went into dives and attacks at both Amy and Jack. Luckily they managed to scare the bird off every time by waving their arms, or on case of Amy, kicking her legs at the bird that was darting around and under her branch. 'Please don't let my arms or legs come off now, that'd be so embarrassing,' she thought. Although it would likely have been OK, Jack was there to catch her and put her back together before anyone would see. Amy pulled herself on top of the branch she held on to, then crawled further out towards the black birds-nest made from little twigs. The magpie flew around and screamed, and so apparently did its partner. There were two of them now. Amy simply ignored them and reached out. Carefully she shifted one of the eggs, and there indeed, right next to some glittery shiny silver paper and a brass key, she spotted her nipple! Safe, and whole, it had just been used as padding for the nest all the time. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. From the eggs she could hear faint chirps, the little ones must be close to hatching. Quickly she snatched the nipple and reached under her shirt to attach it back where it belonged. She couldn't feel it yet, but she knew now, it would only be a matter of time. "Hey you! Did the bloody bird steal something from you too? Or are you after the eggs? You better don't damage any of those eggs, or I'm gonna call the police!" It was the old wolf lady from the apartment block. She had opened her window and yelled over, watching Amy and Jack. "It's OK Mrs. Sterling, it's just me from 4th floor!" Jack yelled up to her, trying to outyell the screaming magpies. "The bird stole something from my girlfriend." Amy blushed, if the lady would have any idea how literally true that sentence had been. "It does that all the time. Say, can you see my key anywhere in there? I think the magpie got it, I can't find it anywhere!" "Sure, Mrs. Sterling, no problem!" Amy picked up the key and held it up so the wolf could see it. The face of the old wolf beamed with joy. "Oh, you are so nice kids, thank you so much. I could never have climbed up there anymore. In the old days I went up trees like that all the time, but you know, my bad hip." Amy threw the key down for Jack to catch, then climbed back down herself. As soon as she had left the branch the birds descended back on their own nest and kept yelling at the intruders from there. Amy had the impression the magpies were just happy no eggs were missing. There were no more attacks on them. "Thats it, isn't it? You're complete again!" Jack smiled, as he helped Amy down the tree. Amy gave him a little kiss, and grinned at him. "Almost. You're still wearing my antlers, remember? I want those back!" *** "But I don't have hands, how could I possibly do that?!" Lydia wailed her complaint at the stag who stood over her. "You have that great canine lapping tongue of yours, don't you? That should be enough. And a nose, and two eyes, too. That's more than yesterday. Besides my bathroom is not that dirty, it's only the sink and the shower. If they are spotless I'll give you ten more pieces from your bucket. Who knows, maybe you're lucky and your palm is among them, then you can finally put your hand back together. Either way, tomorrow you clean the toilet bowl with whatever you have. And the day after, the kitchen." "But..." Lydia bit her lips. Lips that she now had since she had finally found them the other day. "No buts," Joe answered. "You work for me now. If you are complete by the end of summer, maybe you can apply for a job in town, but as long as you get your food and money and a place to sleep from me, I decide what work you do!" Lydia frowned, but there was nothing she could do if she wanted to progress. Eventually she gave up. "If I make it really clean, can I at least have my clit back? I found it fair and square!" Joe laughed. "If it's spotless! Then maybe. But only if you search for *useful* pieces tonight. If you keep searching only for bits that bring you pleasure, I'm gonna make you Lydia gulash for lunch again." He left her there with the memory how it felt to have pieces of herself fed to her. He also left her with a bucket of warm water and a rag - although she couldn't really use those except to wash out her mouth with. On the way down the stairs Uncle Joe smiled. The girl made surprising progress. If she kept developing like that, maybe there were some rewards he could give her that, offering to Amy in a similar situation had simply been out of question. He smirked. No matter how much Amy had secretly longed for that, he was her uncle after all, and he had his principles. And after all, that Jack guy was quite alright for her, at least after he had talked some sense into him. Joe figured, at some point he'd have to teach those kids a few more secrets about how that cube he had given them worked, but they weren't ready for that yet. His eyes went back to the almost identical but much shinier toy on his table. It's shape was already complete, with fine, delicate reliefs on each of its tiles, but it was still missing paint on some of them. Next to it waited an old fine brush and a little stone bowl with yellow and red lead paint. So much work to do... The end :-)