This week her skin is porcelain white.

 

Not "pale white” like some Terrans would become if hidden away from the sun for too long, as many Terrans would think of when hearing the term, but literally the white color of glazed pottery, with an ethereally blue tint that suggests she's cold.

 

She's not, but if you offered to warm her up she'd blush until she was quite warm, thank you.  Not that you could see her blush this week, instead, her blush is expressed by the ever growing scent of a fresh spring rain surrounding her.

 

Removing a blush is one thing, but is a scent cosmetic?  She thinks so, and her Affini agreed.  She had already a dozen ideas for emotions expressing themselves through scents for the upcoming weeks.

 

The Ferals had better look out, as someday soon their hidden feelings of love and submission and comfort and need may literally smell like fresh baked gingerbread cookies.

 

She called them cosmods, and the name stuck.  “Cosmetic body modifications,” but honestly that was a mouthful and frankly some of the florets had trouble with that many syllables.  They were modifications to a Terran body that didn’t modify the body.  An injection, permanent once applied, unless another injection overruled or removed them.

 

Walking around covered in “hypertech bodypaint and hair dye,” one of the ferals had said, meaning it to be an insult.  That feral was dragged in the next day by her Affini, and left with nipples that permanently glowed faintly pink.  Both her Affini and the feral’s Affini thought it was very cute.  It was.

 

She did have to admit “bodypaint and hair dye” summed it up well, though.  There was more to it than that, but the technical details escaped her slightly.  She suggested ideas, and her Affini helped her figure out how to do them.

 

This week, starting at her cute little porcelain-white toes, she has built-in navy blue socks to her ankles, which break away into blue hearts of various "opacity" floating up her legs like embers from a fire.  Unseen, but she'll (have to) show them off if you ask, the soles of her feet have hearts on the bottom and on each toe, like a cat's paw pads, where the navy blue is missing and only the unnatural-white remains.

 

It's just cosmetic.  Her feet aren’t different at all. This is key to her boutique.  Every single inch of her is the same Terran canvas, unchanged, week to week.  She only looks different, like she stepped off of the pages of a coloring book given to the most creative -- and possibly quite mad -- Affini artist imaginable.

 

The line art never changes, just the colors.  This is the rule.  This is why the Affini think it’s so endearing.  This is why it’s so hot.

 

The real trick is there is no mad Affini artist.  Oh, her master helps her, and he's quite the artist himself.  But every one of these changes comes from her own (possibly quite mad) Terran mind, to be applied to her own Terran canvas.  She wishes she had never had the idea to joke about giving someone green skin that one week, that week that sparked this nightmare of inhuman colors and unwanted attention and horrific, constant exposure.

 

 

Her hands are the same as her feet, looking like she had dipped them in navy-blue ceramic paint before the kiln burned it into her skin forever, the embers turning into blue-hearts as they floated up her arms.  But unlike her feet, no heart-cutouts on the palms of her hands or fingers.  Instead, her hands -- and the modified sweat glands on them -- leave navy-blue trails on any Terran flesh they touch.  A temporary tattoo, of sorts, vanishing after an hour or so, just long enough to make it impossible to hide just where her hands had been.

 

Speaking of where her hands had been...

 

Her nethers are striking, with her downy hair a translucent ice blue this time, with her... excitement being the same ice blue color as it runs unbidden down her thigh.  Subdued, hidden, if you explored down there you'd discover the same ice blue was inside her, but even this would be a bit much for the poor lass to show off if asked.

 

She still would.  She'd have to.  She's a good floret who shows off her cosmods whenever asked.  It's such a solid thought she hasn’t been able to not-think for months now, no matter how hard she tries.  But she'd be oh so cross afterwards!  ... Not really, depending on if she knew you, and how gentle you were.

 

But that's her little secret.  A girl has to have a few, even if everyone on the ship has seen every single inch of her canvas.

 

Her face is eerily blank, partially because her usual near-permanent blush is missing.  It's such a part of her expressiveness, but she didn't realize it until it was gone.  She's starting to worry that the smell of spring rain may cause her to squirm from now on, merely by accident.

 

Her eyes are the same navy blue color as her not-socks and not-gloves.  Not her irises.  Not the whites of her eyes.  Not even the pupils.  Everything.  Each eye looks like a flawless navy blue sphere of pottery inlaid in her porcelain face.  Her lips, her hair -- clay scented, but it's subtle, all things considered, all the same navy-blue.  The only thing breaking up her face is her tongue and saliva -- ice blue, the same as... elsewhere.

 

She looks like a walking, talking, leaking statuette, one that someone had splashed red-stripes all over.

 

Yes, red stripes.  Stripes of strawberry red, glittering faintly like it's painted on body-glitter, criss cross her legs, torso, and arms.  On some parts, like her right thigh, it forms a lazy circle, on others, like her left leg, it forms an unbroken trail from her ankle to her thigh.

 

Her torso and arms, even her face -- they all have these red trails and dots and circles, with her right cheek having a cute little O shape on it.  All told it looks every bit like a lover took a brush and teased her with glittery red paint until she begged them to stop.

 

Not far from the truth, to be fair.

 

They taste like strawberries from old Terra.  But they're a little prank, you see -- because the glitter reacts to Terran saliva and breaks away, dying your tongue the same strawberry red for days and leaving glitter going everywhere.

 

She won't tell anyone, but the mathematics of the semi-fractal pattern of her strawberry-red-glitter-trap tribal "tattoo" was seeded by the muscle spasms the last time she... enjoyed herself.  Frozen in time on her body.

 

Oh, who is she kidding -- if you asked, she'd tell you.  She'd have to.  She's a good floret who shows off her cosmods whenever asked.  Please don't.  The smell of the spring rain is already so wonderful her two assistants have had to open a window.

 

Her nipples this week are another little joke.  Pure white, the same color as her skin, her areola are all but missing on her body.  But instead, navy spirals spin away from each nipple, out to the base of her breasts.  Hypno-boobs, she giggled to herself as she explained the idea to her Affini, who laughed a belly laugh and dutifully helped her program the idea into the computer.

 

Every time someone sees them, she's filled with the urge to pretend to try and hypnotize the onlooker by bouncing and shaking them at them.  It's part of showing off her cosmods, you see.  Can't be helped.

 

And lots of people have seen them today.  It occurred to her some time this month that her cosmods were, at least on some level, not unlike a uniform.  And you wear your uniform to work, yeah?  But if you're wearing a uniform you don't wear anything else, because that would just be silly, right?

 

There was something terrifying about this train of thought.  Something horrifically wrong.  She trembled with arousal every time it replayed in her mind.  But even as she recoiled from it, every time she thought it it became harder and harder to not-think it.

 

She explained this strange train of thought to her Affini, who ruffled her hair, gave her a cookie, and refused to correct her in any way.  In fact, he said her body was a beautiful work of art, even before she turned it into her canvas.  And thus, the idea started to solidify in her mind.  That while she's wearing her cosmods, she shouldn't wear anything else.  After all, they're so much more visible that way.  And she's a good floret who shows off her cosmods whenever asked.

 

Her solid thoughts are always there, because she’s constantly failing to not-think them.  And can’t.  never never never never never

 

The fact that she cannot imagine a second of her life in which she won't be wearing cosmods escapes her for a moment.  It's a thought, and an important one, with very very important implications, and if she could hold onto it for just a second the next few years of her life would be much different and definitely less embarrassing... But ultimately it's not a solid thought like the other two.  She can not-think it, unlike the solid ones, and it slips away, to be remembered later in a horrified, agonizingly arousing future cuddle-session, no doubt.

 

So today, she was at the boutique as normal.  However, this time instead of waiting for some Terran or Floret or Affini or literally anyone to ask to see her body, which she always obliged no matter how much she hated doing it because she’s a good floret who shows off her cosmods whenever asked… she had silently handed over her companion outfit to her Affini, who smiled and ruffled her clay-scented-navy-blue hair.

 

Because while she’s wearing her cosmods, she doesn’t wear anything else.  It's becoming quite the solid thought.  She can't not-think it.  The rest of her mind just has to think around it.

 

She hoped she could shape this particular thought somewhat before it solidified, leaving her trapped thinking it forever.

 

Maybe she could wear her companion outfit when not at the boutique?  At least until someone asked to see her canvas, of course.  She’d ask her Affini about it, later, if she remembered in time.

 

Regardless, today every single cosmod, every single inch of her canvas, is visible to every single visitor.  And they’re all coming around to see.  She wants to die from the shame.  She keeps breaking out into giggle fits.  She'll never forget the smell of fresh spring rain.

 

She won't realize it for a very, very long time, but she'll never think of her canvas as a body again.  She can't.  It's not her body.  It's her canvas.  She's an artist and her canvas is a work of art.  And works of art are meant to be displayed, and viewed, and enjoyed by everyone.  When she finally realizes this, there will be screams, tears, laughter, and cuddles.

 

And a sense of pride that few Terrans ever experience.  But that's a story for many months in the future.

 

On some level she blames the two knucklehead boys that are her new assistants for this.  Independant Terrans, as if that wasn't an oxymoron.  Or was it a paradox?  She'd have to ask her Affini about it, later.  She had become quite the hardliner in the past year or so.  The idea of a Terran not having an Affini offended her on some level.

 

They had flirted with her a month or two back, a hamfisted but very cute affair, cute enough that she felt she might finally grasp why the Affini feel Terrans are so cute.  Now they were desperately volunteering their time here in hope of earning a coupon from her Affini.  But they were boys, and thus the rules weren't quite the same, and they tended to wander around the boutique without shirts on, which made it easier to show off their bodies and the cosmods she had picked out for them.

 

Well, the rules before.  After all, from now on, while she's wearing her cosmods, she doesn't wear anything else.

 

Honestly, she wasn't quite certain those were the rules in the first place.  Even before her new solid thought she can’t not-think, her canvas did end up on display.  A lot.

 

But them not wearing shirts at work had seeded the thought, and once seeded, it had grown and expanded and became so, so solid.

 

It was their fault, is what she would no doubt explain, even as she studied her canvas in a mirror later, trying to think of more exotic, more wonderful ways to display it and draw attention to it and make it look more attractive but still distinctly Terran, that Affinis could borrow and use on their florets, that happy Terrans could pick out and use on themselves, at least until they met their Affinis and let them pick out for them.

 

Her work is beyond a mere solid thought.  She hates every second of every kinky fantasy of changing her body to ever better catch the eye of every onlooker she ever encounters, but the fantasies and dreams and thoughts never stop.  But at the same time it fills her with a meaning and purpose that she can’t even explain to her Affini.

 

When she tried, she knew he understood, and as she realized that he understood she herself understood that he understood more than she could ever know, and this terrifying loving terrifying realization was only interrupted when he told her he was very proud of her.

 

She’s not proud.  In fact, every waking moment is an agonizing, humiliating nightmare which she prays every evening she wakes up from.  And every night she sleeps more comfortably and soundly and fulfilled than she’s ever slept before.

 

The screaming orgasms help, mind you.

 

These types of tortured thoughts don’t seem to bother her assistants, who blush so cutely when she thinks of some new way to display them, but seem to not care a wit about their skin being on display.

 

This week, one of the boys was red with blue hair.  The other blue with red hair.  She liked giving them contrasting colors, so she did.  They were both blushing purple today, trying not to look at her canvas.  Failing utterly.  A ice-blue droplet ran down her leg.  The smell of fresh spring rain grew ever more.

 

Meanwhile, they kept humming the same 6-note pattern.

 

She knew that pattern.  She dreamed of that pattern.  She could feel it in her bones.  They knew it too, but didn't know how or why.  They were starting to get scared, even as they were becoming comfortable and soft and oh god, so, so obedient around the boutique.

 

They had started skinship.  Hugging each other occasionally.  Leaning against each other when talking to visitors.  Finding excuses to hang out with her (their) Affini, as much as they could, each time going home humming the same pattern a little more confidently.  Teasing and hugging and flirting with her every so often -- but not today, for some reason.

 

She felt so powerful, making the two stammer and forget what they were talking about every time she walked by.  Would they ever get used to her canvas being on display?  She knew she wouldn’t.  The idea of stopping was impossible.

 

She so, so, so wanted to tell them the secret of the pattern they kept humming, then stopping, then humming again, then trying to look up on their tablets, then trying to hum other terran songs only to fail and go back to the Same. 6. Notes.  It made her giddy with anticipation, like a friend in on the world's biggest secret, but their Affini had told her no.

 

Why ruin the surprise, after all?  And, wouldn't it be so much fun to have two assistants and fresh canvases?  And, the idea of the tall and muscular red, and the short and slightly curvy blue, in an loving but confused embrace, maybe with her joining later, trembling with fear and love and shame and need, all while she thought of amazing new cosmods that a pair of canvases or even three could wear at the same time, playing off of each other, and, and, and...

 

And now you know where the red-stripe-seed came from.

 

She's not proud.  She doesn't have time to be.

She's a good floret, and there are so, so many colors out there to play with.