On any other day, the comedy movie playing on the tv would have brightened Taylor’s spirits. Her occasional peels of laughter would have echoed down the hall, or through the closed door if her mother and sister were home. Had they been home, either or both might have pounded on her door to tell her, in vain, to keep it down.

But not today. Today was high school graduation. Taylor’s thoughts had raced ahead of her, pouring down dark pathways. Images of her ex-friends happy and smiling. They would be posing for pictures. She could just picture Brandy embracing her own, whole, family with tears flowing down her face. Even if her mother and sister didn’t hate her, it was an experience she couldn’t share; she’d dropped out two years ago. Pathetic. What kind of loser couldn’t finish high school? Daddy would be so disappointed. And that thought led to even worse places.

The whole experience left her exhausted and praying for something, anything, to lift the crushing malaise beating her into the ground. As if her worries had physical weight, she sank deeper into the kiddie pool that sat in the middle of her room.

Or rather, the solid parts of her sank deeper. At the moment, she was just a head, shoulders, and two droopy, half-melted arms. The rest of her was a thick, syrupy purple ooze. For the moment, anyway. It was a state Taylor called her ‘goopy phase’. She lifted an arm, and watched the streams of ooze stop mid-drip and then reverse direction. The streams pulled into something that could be mistaken for a normal human girl’s arm, if only painted deep purple and unnaturally smooth. Poreless and hairless, lacking even the normal wrinkles that would form at the joints. She dropped her arm again, and the pseudo-flesh relaxed into its half-melted state again.

Taylor leaned her head back against the pool’s rim. Her eyes tracked the spinning blades of her ceiling fan until she began to get dizzy. Then she returned her attention to the movie. It was the best part, too; the scene where the shy catgirl gets her brazen hellhound friend to help out her confidence. The visual gags in the montage never failed to put a smile on Taylor’s face. But this time, her smile felt false on her face. Like a mask. That thought started another spiral. Sighing, Taylor closed her eyes and waited for the movie to end. Waited for the day to end. Waited for the world to end.

Eventually, the movie did end. The disc spun back to the main menu. The soundtrack and effects looped over and over again. It looped for what felt to Taylor like hours, until she finally grew irritated at the sound. With some effort, she formed a tentacle out of her ooze-self and snaked it up to switch off the tv. Darkened silence flooded the room. Taylor retracted her tentacle and dissolved it.

The ceiling fan continued to spin. The light in the room shifted and then slowly died as the sun made its way across the sky before sinking beneath the horizon. After several eternities, the tedium of staring at the ceiling managed to pierce even Taylor’s malaise. The patch of ooze-flesh that corresponded to her chest inflated with a deep sigh and then deflated.

Placing her arms on either side of the kiddie pool, Taylor hefted herself up. Her body stiffened and congealed, sloughing together like a snowman melting in reverse. First her arms fully solidified, then her chest, then stomach and hips. Starting there, her command over her own ooze-flesh wavered as it usually did; she’d long ago learned keeping a pair of humanoid legs formed took far too much concentration. The longest she’d been able to maintain humanoid legs was about 15 minutes and the act of walking required more focus than she had. So instead, she settled for a column of ooze supporting herself. The act of writhing this column and pulling herself forward along with pseudopods, while seemingly impossible when she’d first attempted it, had long ago become second nature.

So writhing and pulling, she moved herself to the door. She edged open the door and stuck her head out, looking forward down the hall and to the right down the stairs. Neither mother nor sister were apparent, though her sister’s door was closed and Taylor could hear muted music coming through. Deciding to risk it, Taylor slid her way out into the hall and closer to he other end. Halfway there, she ducked into the bathroom and shut herself in. Sitting on the toilet, she tried not to think too much about the false anatomy the mere act of using the bathroom required her to generate. But, as a horrid experience years ago that ruined a mattress had taught her, it was this or slosh it out through her “skin” in her sleep.

Done with her business, she flushed, washed her hands, and flung wide the door. And there was Emma, her sister.

Taylor and Emma stared at each other. Then a look of shear terror erupted on Emma’s face. She screamed, staggered back and dropped to the ground while clutching at her eyes.

“Ia! Ia! Cthulhu ftagn!” she shouted. “Ia! Ia!”

Taylor’s nonexistent heart sank. Tears (or something like them) welled up in her eyes. But she’d be damned if she let Emma see her stale, over-used joke had actually hurt. “Shut up! It’s not funny!” she shouted back with all the venom she could manage.

From downstairs, the her mother’s voice floated up at her. “Taylor! Don’t pick fights with your sister.” Said sister had stopped screaming and was now rolling on the ground, holding her stomach as she laughed uproariously.

“Emma’s the one who,” she started, then gave up. Mother would be on Emma’s side. Mother was always on Emma’s side.

Instead, Taylor moped her way back to her bedroom. Slamming the door, she sagged against it. A few deep, hitching breaths steadied her. Then her eyes lit on her computer sitting in the corner. She made her way over, eyes still threatening to brim over with tears, sat down and began to browse the internet.

Upon checking her email, she saw a newsletter from a local bookstore. She’d signed up years ago and then hardly ever paid attention. They advertised for other local businesses; this one was for a local nightclub. She was going to simply delete it, but then opened it despite herself. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

The ad was for the club Lilith’s. Even though Taylor had never been, the place was infamous for catering to the rowdier set. Hellhounds, oni, that sort. Tonight, apparently, they were hosting a live music night. Just before she backed out, she saw the last line of the ad:

ALL OOZES DRINK FREE! TONIGHT ONLY!

Taylor sat there and mused. Loud music, alcohol, and crowds weren’t her thing. They were, in fact, the opposite of her ‘thing’. But on the other hand…. The fresh memory of Emma’s face, twisted in mocking laughter, raced to the front of her mind.

Fuck it. Loud music and crowds it was.

Chapter - 01:
The club sat in the middle of a string of shops and bars in the historic part of town. ‘Historic’ in this case meaning ‘right near the local college’. A line of about a dozen people snaked out the door, chatting among themselves in threes and fours. Taylor slid herself to the end of the line. Ahead of her, a lamia with gorgeous blonde hair laughed uproariously at a joke told by her friend, sending her many necklaces and bracelets chiming. Taylor felt a stab of pain in her heart, feeling exposed and alone.

The lamia wore a daringly revealing top and a short denim skirt, making Taylor feel frumpy in her floor-length dress. Two years ago, she’d thought the lacy black and white dress was cute; now, she realized now how resembled a flower-themed French maid. She hadn’t had blood in eight years, but felt her face heat anyway.

The bouncers were a pair of massive oni; one red, one blue. Each stood at least seven feet tall, with wide birthing hips and impossible tits.. The blue one remained by the door and scowled at patrons passing through the door while the red one patrolled the line and scowled at patrons who got too rowdy.

Just inside the front door was a bored-looking golem. At least, Taylor thought she looked bored; the half-stone girl barely blinked as she collected the door fee from each patron. The store was clearly a former clothing boutique, divested of textiles, furnishings, or even shelving. In the middle of the floor was a large staircase leading down, pulsing music radiating from it.

It would be stairs, Taylor grumbled to herself. But she made her way down the stairs, moving her column one step at a time. The slow oozing would unbalance her with each step; she was forced to slide forward horizontally until too much weight was over the ledge, when she would drop to the lower step. She felt like a bobblehead on wheels.

Finally at the bottom, she was greeted by the press of the crowd. Men, women, and monster girls of every type. A blue-lipped yuki-onna, her chest covered only by a fishnet top and strategic black tape, sauntered past. She caught Taylor’s eyes and threw up her arm in a “rock on” gesture. Taylor waved back weakly, but the yuki-onna had already moved on. Looking to where the other monster girl was headed, Taylor could see a raucous band playing a devastating, loud, set. Not watching where she was going, she bumped into a small but surprisingly solid form. Turning, she saw a scowling human-looking woman with pink pseudopods coming out of her ears. The pseudopod woman cursed at Taylor, then turned back to making out with her boyfriend.

Taylor hustled over to the bar, making sure to keep an eye on where she was going. “One, uh, one beer, please,” she asked the bartender. The bartender, a fiery-eyed hellhound looked back with a scowl.

“What kind?” she asked.

Taylor, who’d never had a beer before in her life, froze. What kind of beer did she want? What the fuck did it even taste like? Weren’t there like a billion different brands? With no familiarity, she seized on the kind she remembered her father drinking all the time.

“Uh, St. Pauli’s Catgirl?” she ventured.

The hellhound rolled her eyes and grabbed a chilled glass mug from underneath the bar. She stormed over to the tap and poured the tall glass full of yellowish, bubbling liquid. She slid it over to Taylor with a disinterested “Enjoy” and wandered off to go refill an oni’s shot glass.

Cautiously picking up the tall mug, Taylor examined the drink. Carbonation bubbled up from the bottom, filtering in neat-looking lines to the frothy top. Raising it up, she took a deep sniff of the drink and coughed. It had a distinct smell; not anything she could really put her finger (or psuedopod, as the case may be) on. With trembling hands, she brought the mug to her lips.

The heavy, bitter flavor rushed into her mouth. She wanted to spit it out, but the feel of hundreds of eyes on her threw that idea out the window. Suppressing her natural inclination, she swallowed. The fluid tickled her throat all the way down. Coughing, she lowered the mug and looked at it. How did people drink this? She raised the glass again, and took another experimental sip. The second sip wasn’t nearly as bad, but it was still bitter. She found, however, that a few more sips helped with that.

Sipping her drink, she meandered about the crowd, wondering what was supposed to happen now. Looking around, people were dancing to the music, talking over the music, howling with approval at the music, and making out while ignoring the music. Was she supposed to just be dancing? Find people to chat with? Find a cute boy to make out with? She blushed at the thought. Instead, she settled on the safer alternative of just drinking her beer.

Her beer ran out before she could formulate a plan for socializing. Staring despondently at the bottom of her empty mug, she shuffled over to the bar. She got another and began sipping that. This one didn’t taste nearly as bitter. Maybe she’d gotten a different kind by mistake. Oh well.

Eventually, that beer ran out as well. Returning to the bar this time, the crowd seemed rowdier; she kept bumping into people. Damn discourteous people. She got a third beer, and retreated to what she was starting to think of as her corner. It was a nice corner. It was isolated and kind of dark. She liked that. She felt like a big purple spider, or perhaps an arachne, safe and patient and letting the raucous crowd perform in front of her. Idly, she wondered how alcohol affected her ooze anatomy. It must be very different from a normal human; she didn’t feel that much different. Except for sweating, but then again it was getting pretty hot in here.

Fanning herself and undoing first her top button and then the next one, she finished her beer with in one big swig. She got up for another beer, feeling oddly off-balance. As she made her way to the bar for the fourth time, she noted that crowd had gotten even rowdier since she’d last been up. She muttered and cursed as a catgirl bumped into her, and got an ugly look from the catgirl in question. When she asked the bartender from another beer, the hellhound made a face and took her damn time getting Taylor’s beer. Taylor was about to shout something, maybe even make a scene, but settled for just trying to stare down the bartender. After far too long, she got her beer and then turned around to head back to her corner.

That was when she connected with someone to her left. The impact rattled her arm, splashing beer all over her, her dress, and the floor.

“What the fuck, you bitch!” Taylor shrieked. Without thinking, she shoved back as hard as her slight frame could muster. Only then did she actually look at who she’d bumped into.

The massive green ogre recovered from Taylor’s meager shove. The ogre stood up to her full, nearly-eight-foot-tall height. Never before had Taylor so keenly felt her own 5’4” stature. She didn’t even come up to the ogre’s chest.

The ogre stared her down. Panic flared in Taylor’s pseudo-guts. She spun on her ooze-flesh column, only vaguely noticing how her torso and hips pivoted 180 degrees while her column didn’t so much as twitch. Until she started moving, that was. Hand-like pseudopods disgorged from the column through toothy maws that hadn’t been there an instant ago. They gripped and snatched at the ground, pulling her forward at startling speeds. Some of the club-goers in her path saw this and scrambled to get away from Taylor. A few screamed. One elf girl threw up.

Behind her, the ogre wasn’t idle. The green woman bellowed “GET BACK HERE, SLUT!!!” Taylor felt the ooze-flesh mass that had once been her hair shift and twist and then suddenly she was looking behind her, back at the ogre, through new eyes while her old ones held a panicked focus on the back of the club, all in time to see the ogre give chase.

She was fast. Taylor quailed at the idea of such a massive woman being able to run so fast. The ogress’s face was twisted in a snarl of hate. Taylor’s felt something flowing out of her pseudo-flesh. It smelled vinegar-y. Taylor, racing through the crowd as she was, had little time to appreciate that her vision became clearer as the vinegar-smelling substance escaped her. She simply ran.

She rounded the corner to the short hallway that led to the back of the club. Her eyes, those facing forward and arguably the ones she’d been born with, fixed on the bright red “EXIT” sign. Fixed on them, she wrapped her hands around the doorknob and pushed.

The door stuck.

Taylor screamed. Her new eyes, the ones on the ends of tentacles growing out of her not-hair, showed her the rapidly approaching ogre.

Taylor reared back on her column of ooze-flesh and shoved. The door obediently opened, screaming with the sound of wood on wood as the it scraped against the doorframe. Then Taylor bodyslammed the alp on the other side of the door and they both went down in a tangle of limbs, pseudopods, and cursing.

Raking all about her with her eyes, new and old, Taylor dazedly puzzled out what was happening. She was on top of an enraged alp who was trying to wrestle her up from where Taylor had her pinned. A kobold was shrieking at her to get off the alp, and an orc was coming out of one of the stalls behind the kobold. Somehow, in her panic and confusion, Taylor had managed to find the women’s bathroom instead of the exit. She tried to get up, back to the door and hopefully out the club, but now the kobold was ineffectually striking her. The efforts of the kobold and the alp were completely countering each other, pushing her back down onto the alp instead of helping her off the floor as the three of them wanted.

Then the kobold stepped on the alp’s wing. The alp howled in pain and flailed, knocking the kobold in the back of her knees and the other girl went down, crashing on top of Taylor.

It was this scene that the ogre found Taylor in. She paused for just a moment, then grumbled “That’s forbidden love, you dykes.” So saying, she seized the three of them up in a giant bear-hug and stomped to the exit door. With a kick, the door was open and then the trio were tossed out into the alley. The door swung closed.
Then opened again to emit the orc who’d watched the three-way scuffle between Taylor, the alp and the kobold. She took her bookish glasses from her piggish nose and cleaned them on her prim skirt.

“Mind explaining what that was all about?” the orc said.

Chapter - 02:
“I still think it’s messed up that that ogre just tossed us out like that,” the alp, Kelsie, grumbled around a mouthful of waffle. Charlotte, the orc--who only let Kelsie call her Lotti--made a disinterested noise as she watched Maria the kobold stare holes into Charlotte’s strips of bacon. She finally caved and pushed the bacon onto Maria’s plate who did a perfect double-take before shoving the food into her mouth at the speed of sound.

“So you’ve told us,” said Charlotte, “And told us. And told us. And told us.”

“We didn’t even get to see the band!” shouted Kelsie, which earned her a glare from the diner’s grill monkey. She had the good grace to duck her head and look embarrassed.

Taylor looked at the three of her new…acquaintances; Maria’s dejected look, Charlotte’s passive frustration, and Kelsie’s angry sulking. “But there was a band playing when I came in…” she started to say and then ran out of courage to finish.

“Bah!” Kelsie scoffed. “They were just the opening act. Since you were only there for free drinks,” and at this, Taylor flushed, “you probably didn’t know, but the headliners were Bitch Tits.”

“I don’t know much about music,” demured Taylor.

Maria, who’d thankfully finished her bacon, which was actually her second helping if you counted what had come with her own order, piped up. “They’re the best! I own all their albums, even Live in Detroit!”

Kelsie shot the kobold a look and then gave Taylor a conspiratorial smile. “Maria’s only saying that because Bitch Tits is an all-hellhound band.”

“And what’s your excuse?” shot back Maria. Taylor was suddenly afraid that the two girls might actually have it out, right here in a cheap greasy spoon in the middle of the night. Charlotte, however, didn’t seem concerned. In fact, she looked more bored and tired than anything. Kelsie made a face and flipped Maria the double-bird. Maria returned the favor.

“Anyway,” Charlotte said slowly, resting her chin on her fist and rolling her eyes. She continued, “Do you have a favorite band, Taylor?”

“I don’t really know much about music,” Taylor repeated.

Charlotte gave a dismissive snort--which Taylor thought was far too appropriate given Charlotte’s pig-like features--and said, “Oh come on, everyone has a favorite musician.”

“I, uh, I like, eh, Frogsy!” Taylor started to trail off before seizing on the last musician she’d actually looked up online. She realized this was the wrong answer immediately. The other girls stopped what they were doing. They stared at her, eyes bulging. Kelsie’s jaw dangled.

The alp girl was the first to recover. “Oh Maoh-sama! It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?” she cackled. Maria fell backwards in her booth, laughing out loud until she was literally howling and pounding the table with her fist. Charlotte hid her laughter behind a paper napkin, but not very well. The grill monkey shouted at them again to shut up.

Shame and outrage flushed on Taylor’s face. Sure, Frogsy was electronica, and what music-enthusiasts usually called ‘experimental’, but it sure didn’t deserve this. “What? What’s so wrong with Frogsy?”

Kelsie leaned forward, trying to bit back her laughter. “Oh no, nothing’s wrong with Frogsy. It’s perfectly natural for a healthy young woman like yourself. But you really should only listen to it with someone you really love.”

Taylor’s fury deflated into confusion. “What?”

“Taylor, sweetie,” Charlotte said once she’d recovered from her own guffaws, “Frogsy adds the sounds of sex into her music.”

“What?” Taylor blanched.

“She records her and her husband having sex and then adds it to all her songs.”

Kelsie burst in. “What did you think those frog croaking sounds were?” The alp’s grin was the definition of ‘ear-to-ear’.

Taylor wanted to die. She settled for sinking into her seat; much more so than most other girls would have been able to. “I thought she was just making a joke.” Even to her ears, that sounded pathetic.

“Nope!” barked Maria, before dissolving into giggles again.

“Those are the dulcet tones of Frogsy getting her eggs fertilized,” Kelsie added.

“Or at least that’s what she says in all the interviews,” finished Charlotte.

Their peels of laughter renewed. Taylor sank deeper into herself; she was, at this point, little more than a purple puddle with arms and a head slowly oozing from booth to floor, taking her embarrassing floral French maid outfit with her. Charlotte patted what was left of Taylor’s shoulder. It was meant as a friendly gesture, Taylor thought. Probably.

It was the grill-monkey who stopped their fun again. This time, he stomped right up to their table and with a gruff “Pay your bill and get out,” he kicked them back out into the night. Taylor resumed something resembling humanoid corporeality to shuffle toward the register.

That was when she found the other girls weren’t about to let her pay for her food. “It’s on us,” proclaimed Kelsie. Charlotte followed that up with “Think of it as repayment for teasing you.”

“Even if you did get us kicked out of the bar,” said Maria, smiling and wagging her tail to show she meant it as a joke.

Once they were on the sidewalk, they stood around staring at each other for about half a minute before Maria asked, “Well, where now?”

Kelsie shrugged. “We did the bar thing, we did the sketchy diner thing. What else is there to do at--” she pulled out her phone “--midnight-thirty?”

“Poker?” offered Charlotte.

“I don’t even know her,” said Kelsie around a grin.

Maria’s face lit up. “Oh, I know!” she said, sticking her hand up like a student waiting to be recognized by her teacher. “How about a movie night? I’ve got popcorn and snacks at my place.”

Kelsie used her tail to rub her tail thoughtfully. “What about your folks?”

“They’re cool, as long as we use the entertainment system in the basement,” said Maria. “And Daddy’s fridge in the garage is off-limits.”

Kelsie gave another shrug. “Your dad drinks shitty beer anyway.” Ignoring the light slap Maria gave her, the alp looked at Taylor. “You live with your folks? They okay with you staying out late?”

Taylor, never having had to consider what her mother might think of her staying out late, had to think about it. She shuddered; no, Mother probably wouldn’t care at all. If Taylor was being honest, her mother would probably be glad she wasn’t at home.
Instead of saying all that, she just told the others it was fine if she stayed out. Charlotte said something similar, clarifying with “I’m already way ahead of schedule on my studying anyway.”

“I bet you are,” grumbled Kelsie, which earned her a “Be nice!” from Maria.

The kobold’s place turned out to be none-too-close, but Kelsie piled everyone into her beat up clunker of a Nissan so they didn’t have to walk. They chatted on the way, which turned out to mean that Kelsie and Maria joked and bickered while Charlotte make opportunistic snipes from the sidelines.

Just as they were pulling into a rather upscale neighborhood, Maria spun around in her seat in front of Taylor to look at her in the eye. “So, Taylor, what kind of ooze are you exactly?”

Blinking, Taylor said the only thing she could. “You know, I don’t really know.”