Shawn’s nose peeked out above a literal ocean of coils that shifted needily around his body, a swarm of pale patterned scales and ringed yellow ones, occasionally interspersed with small streams of pink that shifted and streamed between them.
  The sound of them moving was a constant, vibrating around his body, clad in nothing to better facility skin to scale contact. The human squirmed, having spent the night like this, his body teased beyond measure by the continual caress of those thick bands of muscle.
  Seria and Serena had been particularly possessive of him as of late. The weather was getting colder by the day, with November almost out and December on the horizon. The pair had been slightly more grabby the moment the thermometers had dropped below seventy. Now that things were heading to the low end of the sixties, he found himself with hardly a moment’s reprieve from their coils even while the sun was up.
  Caresse, the newest addition to their strange little unit, wasn’t as affected by the cold, but it did make the strange pink goo that made up her body a bit slower to move, more the consistency of molasses than any sort of thinner liquid. Still, she’d done her best to mitigate the cold and take a bit of the pressure from their living heater, stretching herself quite thin on particularly cold nights to cover the less malleable serpents in her body, acting as insulation.
  In reality, Serena and Seria would have most likely been fine even without these measures, but when predators big enough to swallow one whole request something, they usually get it.
  Still, it had been quite a while since Shawn had been out of their grasp, and the need to eat was growing more pressing, particularly after using more calories than he would like to admit…’Enjoying’ their touch. There was really nothing for it, the smooth motions of air chilled scale needily pressing against his warmed skin, the warmest of which lay below the belt, was more than enough to ensure that those lengths had a bit more lubricant than they perhaps needed…
  Shawn couldn’t move in any way shape or form to alert them of this, but with the way their bodies were twined about his, they felt his stomach’s growls growing more urgent by the hour, and eventually relented.
  Caresse’s goo slithered between the gaps in their coils, and he felt the cool ooze flow over his chest. It formed a makeshift harness that perhaps spent a little too much time flowing over his pectoral muscles, before the coils, with a reluctance bordering on obsessive, loosened. He was hoisted with a gasp from that tight embrace, momentarily blinded by the late morning sun.
  “Ooooohhh, it’s so cooollldddd!” Serena whined, the gap in the coils under Shawn’s legs immediately closing to preserve heat.
  Shawn’s eyes adjusted to find Serena resting her chin on a thick length of Seria’s body, with Seria doing the same, looking considerably more perturbed, to balance out Serena’s pitiful expression.
  “Indeed.” She said shortly. “Hurry and fill your belly, you have another long day ahead of you.”
  With a final goose of his chest and back, Caresse’s goo flowed away, leaving Shawn standing a bit shakily on a rather large branch. Another puddle of it slid up next to his feet, lifting up to present him with clothes and a wallet.
  Serena and Seria’s eating habits had actually left them with quite a bit of money. Wallets and the contents thereof apparently weren’t the easiest thing on the stomach, and since the park was in a rather nice neighborhood, their stash of wallets and other money containing items meant that Shawn never wanted for food, or anything else he should need to pick up.
  “Now, now,” Caresse’s head slithered down from the higher branches. “Don’t rush him, dears. He’s been in your coils for longer than most humans are awake.” She tisked. “I must say you’re being a bit demanding.”
  “We’re demanding because it’s cooold!” Serena continued to whine, pouting.
  “Indeed, you are one to talk. Being made of...whatever it is you’re made of, you don’t have to suffer the injustice of the seasons.” Seria added ruefully.
  Caresse turned her nose up. “I’ll have you know that I am also suffering. Do you have any idea how hard it is to reform one’s body when it’s component parts are moving at a 30% slower molecular rate than usual?”
  There was a general pause in the tree at large.
  “What? I know things. And I’ll have you know it is very hard indeed!” She huffed, before slithering her massive head over to Shawn’s side, nuzzling his cheek with her cool, malleable scales as she settled it on his shoulders. “And besides, having a pet means tending to its needs after all. You must let him go for walks.”
  Shawn thought about making a comment about that statement, but opted not to. He instead attempted to keep his blush to a minimum when Caresse’s gentle nuzzling turned into a kiss that dominated the side of his face with the startlingly soft touch of her lips. It disconnected with an audible smack as she slithered off his shoulder, though not before dragging a good portion of her hefty form across his bare skin.
  “Go, find some food, and take your time.” Caresse nodded to him. “I’ll do my best to keep these two warm in your absence.” She shot him a little wink. “And I’ll do my best to keep you warm on your return.”
  Shawn was already feeling quite warm in the face as she said this, but nodded. “A-alright, thanks…” He turned to the two snakes huddled together for warmth. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, there’s a sandwich shop just down the street.”
  With that, he set about getting dressed and, as usual, none of the serpents by which he was kept made any effort to avert their eyes. Caresse even made an approving little noise as he bent over to pull up his pants.
  Shawn was well used to this by this point, though that didn’t help the slight lingering embarrassment as he pulled on a jacket they’d gotten from a jogger, and lifted his arms.
  Serena was the quickest, giving a little sound of relief as her tail cinched around his middle, his warmth flowing into her wind chilled scales. He was lifted from the branch and slowly lowered to the ground. Her coil stayed around his chest, tightening a wee bit more, before a few leaf-muffled whispers convinced her to release her hold, her tail slithering back up into the foliage and away.
  More so than ever, Shawn felt a bit odd with nothing around him. The slight chill in the air didn’t help matters either. As much as Caresse had made about how long Serena and Seria were keeping him in their coils these days, Shawn missed them dearly when they were gone. Thus he wasted no time heading to the sandwich shop.
  The shop in question was across the street from the park and a few doors down, a place that generally made subs. More often than not this was where he went to eat in his rare moments out of the tree.
  On the way however, he noticed a new addition to the assortment of shops and businesses that made up the small strip. It was a quaint little store by the looks of it, with various little sweaters and garments in the windows. “Animal Apparel.” Read the sign in large friendly letters. “Custom Clothes for pets of all kinds.”
  Shawn paused. He felt the money in his wallet weighing heavily inside his pocket. Serena and Seria had been more needy as of late, but what little warmth he provided didn’t seem to do the trick anymore...perhaps…
  Figuring he had nothing to lose, he diverted his course and walked inside.
  The shop’s door made a little jangle as he entered. The place had a slight smell of fabric, a mix of mothballs and the warm dense sort of smell that comes when a very large amount of cloth is stored in any space for a long time. Various sweaters for dogs, cats, and even hamsters hung on tiny custom hangers at every possible place one could hang something. The shop looked a bit bigger from the inside, stretching back beyond what Shawn could immediately see in the rather cosily lit shop.
  A woman popped up from behind the counter when he was about five steps in, seeming to materialize from nothing. She grinned at him the way a panther might grin at a mouse when it hasn’t eaten for a few days.
  “Hi! Interested in buying something? What kind of pet do you have? We have sweaters for dogs, cats, parrots, hamsters, gila monsters, capybaras, snakes, and fish.”
  Shawn blinked. “Fish-”
  “It’s a new endeavor.” She produced a sopping wet tiny little Christmas sweater done up in candy canes. “They look cute, but they don’t last long.” She offered a hand. “I’m Sarah, nice to meet you. Now, you look like a man who’s looking for a capybara sweater, yes? I know a capybara man when I see one.”
  “Uh...no…” Shawn shook his head. “I was a bit curious about the snake option actually.” He looked around. “Uh...what’s the biggest snake you’ve ever made a sweater for?”
  Sarah shrugged. “Boa constrictor.” Her grin grew a hair more manic, which Shawn wasn’t sure was possible. “Fifteen feet long, can you believe it?”
  There was a pause.
  “Yes,” Shawn opted to say. “Uh...what if I had something a bit bigger?”
  Sarah’s glasses took on a disconcerting gleam. “Well then...In that case I do make custom orders...but it’ll cost you. It’s a pretty easy knit, since it’s basically just doing a sleeve, but there’s a lot of yarn going into such a garment. What are your pet’s measurements?”
  Shawn paused again. He was pretty sure if any of the serpents waiting for him back up in that tree heard themselves referred to as ‘Pet’ instead of him, breathing would become a thing of the past. Still, for the sake of conversation he thought up a quick story. “Uh...actually I work for the….zoo! Yes, the zoo, and we just got in two never before seen pythons, biggest in the world, bar none. At least a foot and a half wide?”
  It was Sarah’s turn to blink. “A foot and a half wide?...” She picked up a pencil and paper and jotted that down before tapping the eraser on the counter. “Is this some kind of prank? That’s a little hard to believe.”
  Shawn stiffened. “No! Not a prank. I mean...I can pay you if you’ll give me a quote.” He fished the wallet out of his pocket, money was literally bursting over the top of the much beleaguered casing.
  Sarah’s eyes shot wide behind her glasses, the effect made her look a bit like an owl who was choking on a particularly large mouse. The pencil fell from her hand before she reconstructed herself and that manic grin returned. “Well then, uh…”
  “Shawn,” Shawn supplied.
  “Shawn! I think you’ve come to the right place!” She bent down to pick up the pencil. “So a foot and a half wide, how long?”
  Shawn came up short in what he was about to say. He’d been with the pair of them for quite a while now, but they were always moving, always shifting. He really had no earthly idea how long they were. “Uhhhh….”
  Sarah frowned. “You don’t know?” She tilted her head. “Well, that’s kind of important.” Her smile returned shortly however. “How about this: give me a deposit, and I’ll start working with the width in mind. Go home, or to this ‘Zoo’, measure them, and come back with a full payment, hmm?”
  Shawn nodded. “That sounds good,” he replied, wondering how in the world he was going to get such measurements. “Any tips for measuring snakes?”
  She nodded. “Oh yeah, if we’re talking pythons the easiest way is to count the segments along their belly. They tend to increase by an inch every four. Count them all then, do a bit of basic math. If you can’t get that close, you can always give them a preything, measure by coil circumference.”
  Shawn’s cheeks heated up a bit. “Oh.”
  “Something wrong with that?” Sarah tilted her head. “You look a bit strange.”
  “N-no...nothing..” He reached into the wallet and tossed a few large bills on the table. “I’ll go do that. Thanks for the advice!”
  Sarah was about to say something, but when she noticed just how large the bills on the desk were the words stayed on her tongue and she set about rounding them up into her cash register like her life depended on it.
 
 
  ----
 
 
  Shawn got his sandwich, eating it quickly before leaving the sub shop and heading back across the street, thinking. He contemplated bringing up his plan to Serena and Seria, but out loud it did sound a bit ridiculous. He, however, had the feeling that if he simply showed up with such cold protection, they could hardly turn it down. He’d have to be stealthy, covert, secret-
  He was about 10 feet away from the base of the tree where he was normally picked up when a mix of yellow and white patterned scales thick enough to knock him off his feet physically fell ontop of him, curling and coiling needily. He was coiled from his calves to his neck before he hit the ground, hoisted high into the trees.
  “Woa-Mmmmphh!” A yellow banded tail tip curled over his mouth, circling around the back of his head as his nose vanished too under a turn of scales.
  “Don’t talk. Just be warm.” Seria promoted as Serena’s tail tangled about his legs. They quickly vanished entirely under alternating yellow and white.
  Shawn let out a slight wheeze through his nose as the coils compressed inwards, constantly shifting. The scales were cooler than usual for his absence, each and every inch of the massive snakes wanting to get a bit of his warmth for themselves before shifting down along the branches to let another section feel him.
“Girls! Control yourselves!” Caresse formed herself from various places around the tree, looking at the pair of the reproachfully. “At least let our pet give a proper greeting before you persist with molesting him.”
Shawn squirmed a bit as Seria’s tail curled over his eyes, the segments of her underbelly pressing against his forehead as her tail tip snaked through his hair.
“Greetings are platitudes, warmth is tangible.” Serena hissed, her voice taking on a slightly softer tone as she squeezed him. “Yesssss….”
“I am inclined to agree with Seria,” Serena chimed in, her body twined about the albino python’s for what small measure of warmth that provided. “It is too cold to engage in the usual pleasantries.”
“Mmmphhh...mmmphh mmmphh,” Shawn muffled.
“Well at the very least uncoil his mouth.” Caresse huffed.
The coils twined about his body flexed visibly, muscles standing out under scales as they seemed to try and wring the warmth from his form. “The struggling exhales of preythings are some of the warmest. I am not inclined to do that.” Seria commented flatly.
Serena, on the other hand, looked a little ashamed and nosed her partner’s cheek. “Well perhaps we should let him speak. He has put up with a lot since the weather turned cold.”
Seria scoffed. “You say that as though he’s had a choice in the matter.”
The colorful snake shot the python a look. “Still.”
“Fine….” Serena gave a weary sigh. “Bleeding hearts.” While most of Shawn’s head was still coiled, only a few tufts of the human’s hair sticking out, she shifted either coil around his mouth in opposite directions, allowing him to speak.
“Well...good to know I was missed,” Shawn deadpanned between gasps.
Caresse gave a chuckle from the sidelines, but Seria’s coils cinched inwards cutting off any further sarcasm.
“You were 10 minutes later than usual getting back. What were you up to? Since I’m letting you talk, you might as well say something useful.”
“I stopped off…..at a…” He was cut off into wheezes.
“I think he’d have an easier time talking if you slackened your grip dear,” Caresse commented.
“I’m not the one squeezing.” Both snakes looked towards Serena. “I loosened my coils a moment ago.”
Serena chuckled sheepishly. “What? It’s very cold…” Her coils relaxed their grip and Shawn gasped, filling his lungs as much as he could.
“As….I was….saying…” He managed. “I thought it was a new food place, I decided to check it out….but I….got a sub in the end.”
Seria flicked her tongue in distaste. “I still say you should learn to eat live prey. It’s really the only way to go.” She tilted her head. “Plus you would have to leave the tree less. If you would like we could capture a mouse or two and try-”
“N-no thanks…” Shawn cut that particular line of thought short. “Uh...random question however. Would either of you be aware o-” He was cut short as Serena’s tail caressed his cheek, almost delving into his mouth for a moment in its blind search for warmth. This earned her a glare from the other two snakes present.
“Sorry…” She apologized, her tail diverting its course to join Seria’s snuggly around his chin. “Your question, Shawn?”
“Well...this may sound strange, but...do you have any idea how many segments there are along your underbellies?”
Though Shawn was blind from the coils shifting over his eyelids, he could tell every serpent among the branches was giving him an odd look.
“Do you know how many hairs there are on your head?” Serena asked.
“Or how many ribs you possessssss?” Seria continued. “I do, but that’s only because I’ve gotten to feel them quite...intimately.”
Shawn would have nodded if he had the agency, but he did so internally. That made sense, who kept track of their own bodies in that level of detail? “I see…”
“Why do you ask?” Serena inquired. Shawn began to spin slightly as they spoke, the warmed coils moving outwards as the ones exposed to the cold moved to embrace him, the temperature within that embrace shifting.
“J-just curious….” Shawn’s voice shuddered slightly. The cool oozing of scale across skin made his skin tingle, the thin clothing he had worn out to get food offering very little in the way of a barrier.
“Are you?...” Though he was still blind he could feel the python’s warm breath on the side of his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d ssssay you were up to ssssomething….”
She was lisping, that was never a good sign.
“Up to something? No...It’s just….” His cheeks heated up, this was not exactly a lie. “You know how fascinated I am by your coils….I just want to know everything I can…”
There was silence for a beat, before she spoke again, her breath was closer this time. “Ah...sssso cute, the interest of preythings in their predators.”
Serena chuckled from nearby. “Indeed. I know that look though, Seria, no eating him for now. It’s far too cold to train another one. Besides, admittedly I’ve grown a bit fond.”
“Fine….” Shawn felt Seria nod, blushing quite badly now as their scales tightened in twain. “Though I do look forwards to the day I will embrace you truly~” She purred gently in his ear. “For now though, be warm, pet, heat my scales and adore my body as you do. You will be within our embrace for some time…”
  ----
 
 
  Seria was correct. Shawn spent the majority of that night utterly buried in coils, the same way he had spent the previous night and the night before that. He’d thought he might have some time to work out a way and get a proper measurement before being basically consumed in scale, but Serena and Seria were needier than ever. Unfortunately, Caresse’s tempering influence could only do so much to dissuade them into letting him go even for the shortest amounts of time. Still, when he went to eat they tended to leave him to his own devices, so perhaps he could use this to his advantage.
  The next morning Caresse plucked him, blinking and with scale patterns pressed into the sides of his torso, from his strange, cool, smooth bed, much to the consternation of her treemates.
  “He has to eat again!?” Serena lamented, her coils shifting irritably.
  “I told you,” Seria hissed. “We must teach him to eat his meals live and whole. Then he would be sated for weeks at a time, and we would not have to suffer this injustice for the sake of ‘Well Being’.”
  Caresse huffed. “Look at you two old maids, fretting away like a few minutes of cold will shake your bones apart.” She rolled her eyes. “Mon Dieu. How on earth you managed the winter before this I haven’t the foggiest of ideas.”
  “My previous winters have all been in more tropical climates.” Seria grumbled.
  “And mine as well were in far less hostile conditions.”
  The malleable snake deadpanned “The biometrics along my form show that it is hardly in the mid sixties. This is hardly, how you say, ‘Hostile’.”
  Serena blinked. “Your ‘Biometrics’? Are you a thermometer now?”
  “I am lots of things.” Caresse replied plainly. “In anycase, we must let Shawn eat once a day, or his caloric intake will not be enough to sustain the calorie expenditure forced upon his body by the continual stress of extramural pressure to his bodice.”
  Serena and Seria shared a look, before Seria replied. “Aren’t you just supposed to be seductive? No one asked for scientific input.”
  Caresse turned her nose up. “Just because I am beautiful, it does not mean I cannot also be smart. It is La plupart insensitive of you to assume otherwise. In anycase we shall send him o-”
  “Um…” Shawn chimed in.
  All three snakes turned to him, as though they had forgotten, for a moment, that he had the power of speech. “Yes?” they said in unison.
  “Well…” He hoped they wouldn’t hear his stomach growling. “I’m not all that hungry. I was thinking...while I spend a bit of time out of your coils, they must be terribly sore from holding on so tight night after night...perhaps I could use my lunch time to give a massage? I haven’t been able to in a while...usually I can’t move my arms.”
  Both Seria and Serena’s eye ridges raised.
  “You know… He makes a fair point…” Seria’s coils gave a little shudder, and she grumbled at the slowness of the waves that undulated down the muscular bands of her body. “This cold is not playing well with my coils in any respect.”
  Serena nodded, pouting pitifully. The tip of her tail came into view, it was ever so slightly kinked. “You’re telling me….”
  “Though now...one question occurs…” Seria slithered forwards, her massive head leveling itself with Shawn’s on the left, while Serena took up the right. Twin tongues tickled either cheek as they contemplated him. “Your hands are so ssssmall, by the time you have tended to one of us fully, there will not be time for the other. We will have to take turns, today and tomorrow. So...Sssshawn, who firssst?”
  Shawn was caught off guard. It had admittedly been a bit hard to plan thoroughly. The constant silken caress of scales was a fairly solid distraction from forming any particular strategy. Now it seemed they were using this moment to tease him just slightly. It was quite obvious they could have decided themselves. There would have been no way they could enforce a different opinion on the matter, but by leaving the choice to him, they got to watch him blush, watch him squirm, and learn about about his thoughts towards either in the process.
“You sssshould choose me, Ssssshawn….” Serena purred in his ear. Oh no. She was lisping. Her forked tongue’s touch became more lavish against the rim of his ears. “You know my sssscales are softer. More plaint…”
“Nonssssense….” Seria’s tongue tickled against the gentle slope of his neck, a continual warm, wet fluttering against his skin. “My ssscales are perfectly wonderful, as I’m sure you are well aware...and they are stronger. They can hold you tighter. A flex at the tip of my tail could delve and press into places five feet of her couldn’t reach…”
The warm gust of Serena’s huffing breath ruffled Shawn’s hair. “That’s an exaggeration…” She mumbled, before her voice returned to that sultry purr. “But who needs strength when you have sweetness? Ssssoftness, the snug and sssmooth embrace of gentle scale, not brute strength, but loving attentionsss….”
“Shhhh….” Seria shushed her competition. “You ssssay that as though strength cannot be loving.” The end of the albino python’s snout was almost pushing against his skin now, her warm breath like the soft torrent of water from a warm bath as she spoke. “What is more indicative of a lover than to embrace fully?...Passsionately….Inessscapably…” The sound of creaking wood brushed Shawn’s ears as she tightened her grip on the tree around him. He could hear leaves falling from her strength. “The tightness, pressing in ever closer, wringing out every affection, until sound is lost along with breath...No...softness is not the measure of scale...it is ssstrength…”
Shawn was blushing like a beetroot by this point in the impromptu debate. Even though he was currently free of coils, he felt quite thoroughly pinned in by them. Serena in his ear and Seria at his neck, each serpent’s gentle breath warming his wind chilled skin.
“Choosssse.” The word hit him from both sides, and he was struck dumb by options before him.
“I-I...I…”He stammered.
Shawn was suddenly spared the weight of his choice as he felt a familiar cool ooze wrap around his ankles. He was yanked backwards, falling a short ways before his world became immersed in pink. Shawn was surprised for a moment, before he gathered that he was immersed inside Caresse. Though she pressed in on him from all sides- and the goo around his more intimate areas was distinctly firmer than it probably had to be- he could hear the conversation outside of her body. The pink around him remained opaque, and with it’s ever changing density and shifting form, his touch was only her, hearing was his only sense.
“Hey!” Serena had a frown in her voice. “What’s this about? You don’t even technically have scales to massage. Trying to steal him?”
“Madame Serena, you offend me.” Caresse’s voice vibrated around Shawn’s body. “I am simply shortening the process. You see, normally I make accommodations for those within my body. But for now I’ve taken away the air. When Shawn grows desperate, he will find his way to the surface. The snake he is looking at when he comes up, will be the subject of today’s attentions.”
Shawn realized she was right. He’d been so distracted by Serena and Seria’s teasing, and his sudden plunge, that he hadn’t attempted to breathe yet. Normally Caresse’s goo flowed into his mouth and lungs with no problem, as though it were a kind of oxygen in itself. He felt a little...loopy, afterwards, but he’d never had a problem before. Now as he attempted, the ooze he was suspended in wouldn’t even enter his mouth. He couldn’t draw breath.
He began to struggle a bit, and found that the goo wasn’t holding him as tightly as usual either. It was a bit like swimming in molasses, but with the cool, shifting ooze, pink on all sides, he couldn’t tell which way was up or down, or even how deep the malleable snake had managed to make herself.
Shawn hadn’t even drawn a breath before he’d been immersed. He realized now that his lungs were already starting to demand oxygen. He thrashed around, trying to feel an edge, a border to Caresse’s body, but finding none. The sensation in his lungs grew worse by the moment, until he began to genuinely worry. He thrashed harder, trying to move up, down, sideways, any direction that would bring him out. He was starting to feel faint as he gave a final push…
Light blinded him as his head broke the surface, his eyes having to adjust. His head was sticking out of Caresse’s trunk, a pile of coils bigger than he was tall piled up behind him. As he looked forwards however, he saw that his choice had been made.
Shawn’s eyes focused on the pale patterned scales of Serena, who wore a triumphant little smile.
“Well now…” Her tongue tickled his nose. “Looks like we have a date~”
----
 
 
It was decided that Shawn would be most efficient without Seria urging from the sidelines for him to hurry so he could resume heating her scales as well. Caresse placated the massive albino python by wrapping a bit of her mass over her yellow scales like a living blanket. While Caresse wasn’t naturally warm herself, it would keep ambient heat from escaping as Shawn did his work, so the pair left them alone for the time being.
Serena smiled at Shawn, her coils shifting about the tree branches. “So, shall we begin?” She hissed gently, snaking forwards, ready to rest her chin in his lap in the usual way she did when such a massage was prompted, though as her snout pressed against his thigh, he lifted a hand, blushing.
“Hmm?” Serena tilted her head.
“N-nothing, it’s just I figured we’d change it up a bit. How about I go from your tail to your head rather than the other way around?” Shawn figured it would be easier to count from smallest to largest rather than the opposite.
The colorful serpent smirked. “Oh? Saving the best for last?” Her tongue tickled his thigh, making him fidget slightly. “As you wish…”
From his left, he felt a light tickle. Shawn shifted his gaze to see the tip of Serena’s tail slithering upwards into his lap. He felt his cheeks flush at the muscular weight of it. Even the end of her tail was thicker around than all of his fingers pressed together.
It crept across his legs, the thin material of his pants offering little barrier between his more intimate places and the slightly plaint scaled mass slithering into his lap. Two feet of it coiled in on itself in his lap, shifting and moving gently against him as Serena looked on expectantly. “Well?”
Shawn tried to chase away his blush, lifting his hands. “R-right...let’s get started.”
Serena’s tail was quite obedient to his touches as he lifted it to rub and knead between his fingers. He could feel the muscle waiting under those scales, giving a slight squish in their resting state, but he knew full well that if she didn’t want him to move it in this way, getting it to do what he liked would have been more than impossible.
He kept the advice he’d gotten yesterday in mind, paying special attention to her tail’s underbelly. Serena had no complaints about this. From his time with them, Shawn had long ago learned that the underbelly scales of a snake were some of their most sensitive.
He ran his hand along the underside of her tail feeling along the little grooves between the segments, counting off four immediately as his fingers began to apply pressure in small kneading waves. Serena gave a hiss of approval, more of her body slithering forwards for similar treatment. Already the segments along her tail were growing from one or two inches wide to nearly the width of Shawn’s hand.
  Serena’s head settled nearby on a branch, her eyes closed as she murmured and enjoyed his gentle touches. As Shawn rubbed along her scales, a thought occurred to him. Serena’s tail poured through his fingers, growing heavier by the moment as he decided to voice it.
  “Hey, Serena…”
  The lounging snake opened an eye, the slitted iris of it contracting to focus on Shawn. “Hmmm?”
  Shawn stiffened a bit as he felt the tip of her tail curl around to his back, gently rubbing at the small of it as she eyed him.
  “Well…” He said, keeping an internal count of the segments along her tail, though the distracting, ever growing touch to his back made it a little hard to focus on that. “You said, along with Seria, that this was your first winter in weather like this...where were you for the last few?”
  The question had never really occurred to Shawn before now, but he really had no idea how either snake had come to be in the park. He supposed the question had always been in the back of his head, but now, as he tried to get a thorough count of Serena’s scales, he figured it was as good a time as any.
  Serena blinked a few times, the patterns along the sides of her eyes, like eyelashes, shifting slightly as her face crinkled just a bit in memory. “Oh...oh well I haven’t thought about that in a very long time…”
  Shawn tried to squirm a little as her tail curled forwards again, circling around to the front of his body and tickling along his belly with its gentle weight as he began to massage portions of her scales thicker around than his arms. “Haven’t thought about what?”
  “Well…” She looked away for a moment. “It’s not terribly flattering.” Her tail completed its loop, cinching around Shawn’s middle with a hair of self-consciousness.
  “I’d still like to hear…” Shawn said, keeping a count under his breath. He was into the thirties already, it was going to be no easy task to keep a thorough count.
  “Well….if you’re all that interested.” Serena gave a roll of her coils, a serpentine shrug. “If you must know, as far as I can remember I was raised in captivity.”
  Shawn blinked. “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed…”
  Serena lifted an eye ridge. “You wouldn’t have? You must have noticed I have a slightly gentler manner with humans than my other half.” She chuckled. “I have been around them since the word ‘go’. I find your species rather adorable in its way…” The gentle undulations of her tail slithered along his back once again, becoming a bit more lingering, a fond touch. It was a slow stroke along the trail of his spine which sent a flush tingling through his cheeks.
  He managed to stutter through it, almost losing count, but managing to keep hold. “S-so...you were born in a zoo?...Or something like that?”
  “Yes...something like that, perhaps more of a research center. I do not recall.” Another roll of her coils showed her relative indifference. “My earliest memories, hardly bigger than a shoelace, are of twining my body among the warm fingers of my keepers.” Her eyes got a little distant. “They spoke, cooed, baby talk really, but I understood after a little while. That is probably why my ‘English’ is so proper. Or ‘Stuck up’ as Seria likes to say.”
  As she told her story, Shawn felt another roll of muscular scaled flesh roll under his arms, keeping them free for the time being to rub and tend to her scales. Her tail’s tip sandwiched his shoulders between twin coils, starting to trickle along his neck. “So...how did you get from there to here?” Shawn asked.
  “Oh, you know, they said I was special and all those kinds of things. ‘New species’, ‘Highly intelligent’, and a lot of other flattering words. But I think I was getting a bit...bigger than they expected. My tank went from the size of a breadbox to the size of a car within months. Then that was too small, so it grew to be a whole room...then an entire greenhouse…” She got that odd serpentine blush she somehow managed. “A growing lady puts on a bit of weight you see.” She flicked her tongue. “But, over time I grew tired of babytalk. I yearned for more than brought food, and patronizing attentions…”
  Shawn felt her tail tickle his chin as it flowed underneath. The sections of scale in his lap were feet apart now, thicker around than his thighs. His attempts not to squirm were made all the harder by the sensation of it tickling along his throat, trailing to the back of his neck…
  “S-so you escaped?” He prompted.
  “Well….” She looked off to the left. “Not...immediately...I was young you see, not as large as I am now by any stretch, but sizable...There was a certain young human to whom I’d taken a shine. Though after I’d gotten larger than any snake or record the handlers were forbidden from extended interaction, he ignored those rules, and when no one was looking he would visit me…”
Serena looked a hair flustered, and Shawn gave a wheeze as her coils contracted inwards. Her tail completed a loop around his throat and tightened on impulse.
“He’d rub my coils...not unlike you’re doing now, and tell me how pretty I was in the lights of the greenhouse...I don’t think he had any idea I could understand him, but...you know how a young heart can be…” She cleared her throat. “I’d experimented beforehand. They’d bring me live food, probably to study my eating habits. But I discovered that my eyes had a certain...allure to them.” Her purple eyes flashed as she looked at Shawn.
Even that slight exercise of her hypnotic powers made her a little less self-conscious and a bit more commanding. Just from the slight wave of purple, Shawn felt a bit hazy. Her coils tightened slightly more and he could draw a little less breath than he could before, but he found it hard to mind. Somehow he managed to keep count.
“Rats were easy. Goats were harder, stubborn creatures, goats, but I’d never tried it out on a human before...Hypnosis is more than you know, Shawn…” Her eyes flashed again. “It is not a simple trick of light, lulling a preything into a thrall...no...it’s looking into what they are, just a little...wrapping your essence around that epitomal piece of their being, and pressing so close they cannot tell where you end and they begin…” She chuckled, her tongue tickling his nose. He hadn’t even noticed her getting that close.
“The minds of lesser animals are like clay. I could shape them like nothing. Even the goats were the same. They’re simply cold, cold clay is harder to mold, but if you know how to warm it up and where to presssss…” She was lisping. Shawn was having a very hard time keeping count now. Her coils were kneading, shifting. He was getting just as much of a massage as her, his own hands growing clumsy as her eyes flashed again. “Then even the coldest clay can be shaped.”
Shawn made a noise. He couldn’t think of any words.
Serena relented just slightly, her coils loosening a bit, allowing him to breath. Those pulses of purple grew a little farther apart as she fell back into memory. “In anycase, I’d never tried a human before. But, as always, before the facility closed, he came to call. He smiled, and stroked me, and even let me lay around his shoulders. I was quite big, even though I’d call myself small by my current standards. He could barely stand while doing it, even when I supported the vast majority of myself among the branches.” Her tongue tasted the air. “He wasn't afraid, even as I leveled my head with his, and looked into his eyes. They were green. I thought about not doing it for a moment, but I wanted more than what I had, and I knew he would understand...so I spoke to him.”
She paused for a moment, to see if Shawn would interject, but he was murmuring something, numbers. She looked curious as to why he was doing that, but did not press, continuing her story.
“He was shocked, but I expected that. I don’t even remember what I said, but I tried my hypnosis shortly afterwards. I didn’t want him to run, or be afraid. It seemed the best way to calm him down, and let him know I meant no harm...Human minds are quite different.”
Her coils tensed again with memory. Shawn was lifted from the branch as thicker coils spiraled along his legs with the force of the thought, spinning him like a top in reverse within the curls and loops of her body.
“It’s not like clay...no, you don’t have to bargain with clay.” She chuckled. “I almost wasn’t prepared for it. With an animal, really all you have to do is stare and touch...with humans...you have to talk, you have to lull….you have to…” She smirked. “Woo, perhaps?” She let out a sigh. “Human minds are like...liquid, and solid. Always shifting, trying to ferret their way out of being contained, or enthralled. They’re a challenge.” Her eyes gleamed again. “And I adored it.”
Her coils gave another roll. “The dear shouldn’t have let me coil around his shoulders. I flexed and kneaded and slid over his form when I realized how hard it would be, spoke of how my scales would hold him. How much he very much wanted for me to never let him go, how my coils were his life….” She frowned. “Admittedly I probably went a weeeeeeee bit overboard. But I was young, and theatrical…”
“You still are…” Murmured a voice from beyond the leaves. Serena shot it a look and it fell silent.
“As I was saying,” she continued. “It was my first time...I was eager, lush with my treatment...lavish...I took my time, winding around him slowly, making him yearn for my touch and rewarding every time he admitted as much.” A shiver ran down her coils, across Shawn’s body as he vanished down to his toes. “Humans have such a pleasant feel to the scales...Furless, warm, pliant and straight. Almost made to fit between loops of serpentine flesh…”
The tree creaked with her power as Shawn let out another little wheeze. He’d utterly lost count now somewhere in the low hundreds, but he could hardly focus on that now.
She eased again as she settled back into her story. “I was so caught up in the feel of him, the shape of his body and the feel of his mind, that I didn’t notice the janitor….”
Through his coil, and swirl induced haze, Shawn managed a question. “H-he saw the two of you?”
“Yes...yes he did…” Serena nodded. “Of course...I was also quick back then, maybe quicker than I am now. He was bound with far less ceremony…” She licked her lips. “In fact, the sudden rush of fear...a slight adrenaline at being discovered made me feel rather...predatory…”
“W-what happened next?...” Shawn asked, as wrapped up in the story as he was by her body.
“Well I’m sure you can connect the dots, Shawn, dear.” Her tongue flicked out again. “I did not get my taste for humans from goats and rats...My hypnosis is very good these days, but even now a command given can only exist in a mind for three days without renewal. Back then it was less than 24 hours. Couldn’t very well have witnesses to my little midnight soiree...So I devoured him, of course. But he enjoyed every moment...I made sure of that…”
She slithered forwards, her breath warm suddenly against Shawn’s ear. “My tongue sssearched out every little crevice of his form...lathering rather intimately I’m not ashamed to admit. It was a first time, I’m sure I was rather clumsy, but he squirmed beautifully all the same. Humans are also very different as prey. You wriggle so much longer. No sharp claws, or fangs to worry about. Just the tight press of my throat over the whole of you, and you’re part of me, a bulge under my scales, sinking until hardly visible…” She slithered up to rest her head atop his. “Of course, the handler saw the whole thing, but he didn’t mind either. I let him go after that...but I worked my charms on him well enough. He came back, every night, without fail. We got to know each other very...very well.”
Even though he couldn’t see Serena’s expression with her massive head resting atop his own, he could hear the smirk in her voice.
“I learned a lot of my tricks there, now enthralling humans is often easy. Some are harder than others...but still…” She sighed. “Nothing could last forever. The janitor had set my tastes, I craved to embrace another human in the folds of my throat, and I knew my craving would be looked down upon by my handlers...So I picked the obvious solution.”
“W-what was the…” Shawn paused to catch what little breath he could as her coils closed in again. “Obvious...solution?”
“On one of our many nights together, I lulled my handler into letting me go.” Her warm breath rustled Shawn’s hair. “It was really quite harrowing, avoiding cameras, a few of the night staff, but eventually we made it outside. I’d never been properly outside….seen the moon, or the lake outside the facility. It was all beautiful. And in that pristine moment, I gave my handler a final gift.”
Shawn wanted to ask what it was, but in that moment, she squeezed again, stealing his breath completely. Those powerful bands flexed, muscle showing through scale.
“The gift of being with me forever. I sated my hunger on the edge of that lake in the moonlight. Giving him the kindest of entrances, my tongue a welcome mat into his eternity among my ssscales…” She leaned down, her tongue tickling Shawn’s breathless cheek as her snout brushed his ear. “One day you’ll feel the same. By me or Seria.” She chuckled. “I can feel your eagerness, but you’ll have to wait...we are not done with you yet…”
Shawn made a breathless sound, bound completely in her winding coils. Her tail was thick around his neck and forced his cheeks upwards. Everything below his face a mass of smooth, gently flowing scale. She held on a few moments more, before finally relenting.
“Now...with my story done, I believe we’ve gotten off topic...continue your massage…”
----
 
 
Serena was quiet for the rest of Shawn’s attentions, her coils relenting in their hold of him to allow for his ministrations. While she said no further words, his hands did draw little coos and murmurs from the massive serpent as they always did. Shawn had totally and completely lost count of how many segments were along Serena’s tail. That meant that this whole exercise had been pointless. His stomach complained loudly at him for having given up one of his rare lunch opportunities for it, but still, despite the failure to gain the data he’d wanted, Shawn felt as though he had gained a little something as well.
He looked at Serena with a new respect. It was true, what she’d said when he’d been asked to choose, her scales were softer than Seria’s, and now that he knew the reason, it explained quite a few other things about her. She’d grown up in captivity, where as he assumed Seria must have been wild. She’d learned to speak from the language of learned humans, hence why she spoke almost like royalty half the time. Her tale also explained why she liked to hypnotize her prey, her general love and affection for humans, and even her odd coloring, considering there was no known snake like her anywhere. He had a more full picture of the colorful serpent now, why she was often so much gentler than Seria.
Even though he had lost count, he still did his best in massaging the whole of Serena’s scales. It did take the entirety of the day, and by the time her head rested in his lap, the sun was setting, and the cold was rising. She nestled against his chest for warmth, causing him to blush for what must have been the hundredth time that day.
Seria had been more patient than either of them had expected, but when the sun did fall beyond the horizon, she slithered from the leaves, everything from her neck down covered in pink.
“Massage time is up. I am very cold. My heater is needed.” She said in clipped language, obviously quite put out by a day without Shawn’s warmth.
“Alright, alright, don’t worry, we’re done.” Serena assured, lifting her weight away from Shawn for the first time since they’d started that morning. That light feeling he’d become accustomed to when not in either snake’s grip didn’t last long. Seria moved so fast she left her pink coating hanging in the air like a shed jacket. Shawn was immediately set upon by quickly forming yellow banded coils as it reformed itself into Caresse’s vaguely miffed looking form.
“You’re welcome,” she huffed.
Serena joined in. Though she had been in contact with Shawn for the whole of the day, the night was even colder than the previous, and the human quickly vanished under twin coils of yellow and white patterned scale. The audible shifting and grinding of serpentine flesh filled the air, hitting Shawn’s ears before they were muffled under that snug hold.
“While your assistance was appreciated, you are not exactly warm blooded, Caresse.” Seria commented irritably. “You are no replacement for a squirming, warm preything to hold.”
The malleable snake gave an annoyed huff. “Your gratitude is thoroughly noted.”
“In any case, do cheer up, dear,” Serena chimed in. “Tomorrow it is your turn, and I am sure it will brighten your mood.”
Seria didn’t look extremely happy as a cold breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees, but her expression did lighten slightly. She wasn’t the type for outward expressions of happiness to start with however, and though Shawn couldn’t see anything besides the occasional bit of light that peaked between the scales holding him as he sank so completely that, to any outside viewer, there were no humans in the tree at all, he could tell she had the slightest smirk on her face.
“Indeed...it should be...most interessssting,” Seria lisped.
----
 
 
 
 
Shawn spent the night immersed in coils once again. It was becoming a more and more familiar thing. It was getting to the point where he doubted he could sleep any other way. Being swaddled in blankets and sheets was nice, but there was something about the sheer encompassing nature of coils that couldn’t be replicated by anything else. The slight rise and fall of every length of living muscles as the snakes breathed in their sleep, the flexes and twitches kneading around his body.
Despite the tightness of their embrace, he found himself drifting off. Soon he was asleep inside his scaley bed, breathing as they alternated between almost unbearably tight, and a snug grip across the whole of his body.
The sun peeked through a few gaps in his coccoon of scales as the morning came. It was even colder than it had been the previous day, so Serena and Seria were slow to wake up, occasionally shifting and murmuring, coils holding him more tightly to wring the warmth from him as what little heat the sun offered heated their naturally cool bodies.
Shortly after the sun rose fully however, Shawn heard a voice that roused him from his coil-induced sleep.
“Bon matin, Shawn.”
The human opened his eyes, his nose and one eye were peeking out from the sea of coils shifting around him. From above, Caresse looked down at him, tilting her head curiously. He attempted to reply, but found his voice quite thoroughly muffled by a sleepy yellow length of scale that had pressed itself against his mouth for the warmth of his exhales.
“No need to speak…” She chuckled. “I can see that you are quite busy. In any case, I am well aware of your little long game.” She noticed the change in what little expression she could see from him. “If you’re trying to ask how, I sent a bit of myself with you to ‘Lunch’. I have to keep an eye on what’s mine…” She paused. “Well “Ours’’” I suppose.” She gave a roll of her coils. “In anycase, your attempts to measure Serena were admirable. But there is a much easier way.”
Shawn muffled something.
“Oh, it is qutie easy. Simply take the tip of the tail, and compare its width to the base of the neck, then multiply the difference in width by the difference in circumference and divide by a factor of three. That will give you roughly the length of any given serpent.”
His confusion apparently registered quite clearly on his face.
“Or…” She rolled eyes. “You could tell me how wide they are at tip and neck and I’ll do it for you for your little ‘Project’.”
Shawn attempted to nod, but he couldn’t do that either. Still, Caresse seemed to get his sentiment.
“Good. For now, enjoy the rest of your morning.” She shot him a wink. “Au Revoir.”
With that she slithered away, leaving him awake, and immersed in the sleepy, clingy coils of their tree-mates.
It took several hours more for Serena and Seria to heat up enough to get around to moving, running every scale they could over Shawn’s warm body as the sun became less and less efficient at warming them. Eventually though, Shawn found himself plucked, reluctantly, from their grip, much to Serena’s chagrin.
Before she could complain too much, Seria cut her off with a hiss. “None of that. You had your day with him, and now it’s my turn.”
Serena pouted, but gave a nod. She couldn’t argue with the albino python at the best of times, let alone when she had such a point. So, with a great show of how much her coils were shaking from the cold- which very nearly knocked the tree over- Serena slithered off into the foliage, with Caresse winding her body around those white patterned scales to keep her warm, leaving Shawn and Seria alone in the trees.
“Well now…” Shawn stiffened as Seria’s head slithered past his legs. He found himself tripped as her neck swung forwards, knocking him back onto a thick coil, which broke his fall, placing him in a sitting position on a particularly thick branch. Seria’s head plopped heavily into the smaller human’s lap as she gave a little flex to get comfy. “See that your attentions are thorough, and pleasant, or we shall be here for some time….Not that I would complain…”
Shawn blushed. With her chin resting heftily against his thighs, he could feel the bass of her deep voice vibrating across his less-than-subtle excitement at her presence. If she noticed it, she didn’t comment, but then Seria hardly did. If she wanted something, she tended to simply take it.
“Well?” She asked, an eye-ridge arcing in his direction as she noticed his pause. “What are you waiting for?” She shifted again, the motion of her belly scales through the thin jogging clothes Shawn had managed to wear enough to draw a hitch in his breath.
“S-sorry, a bit distracted I suppose.” Shawn lifted his hands from his sides, starting the massage along the sides of Seria’s head, feeling the sensitive muscles along either curve of her skull.
Seria gave a pleased little sound, a roll flowing down along her coils as she allowed Shawn to do this for some time. She slithered, like ink across paper, over his lap to give him access to more of her body. Unlike Serena, who had started with her tail’s tip, as Seria curled around his back, Shawn let out a high pitched sound as her forked tongue tickled the small of it. He realized he was going to be overwhelmed far quicker if things progressed in this manner, a single coil of Seria’s thick neck was enough to cover him from his belly button to a few inches under his armpits. His arms were already forced away from his torso by her girth as he attempted to keep his composure in massaging her.
It occurred to him, as Seria came around to the opposite side, that while he had heard Serena’s story about where she had spent her previous winters, he knew just as little about Seria as he’d had about her treemate before they’d started talking. He internally made an eyeballed measurement of the width of Seria’s neck as the question graced his lips. Before he could let it out though, she cut him off.
“You are about to ask me about my past, yesssss?” She hissed, tilting her head up a bit as she came around to his front, the forked end of her tongue tickling the tender skin of his throat.
“W-well yes…” Shawn admitted, blushing brightly.
“I heard you and Serena talking. You do realize that these leaves are far from soundproof, correct?” She smirked, continuing her slow advance, another thick curl of her body placing her head just behind his shoulder. The humid gust of her breath trickled over the back of his ear as her presence settled in behind him like a scaled shroud. “She can be so….theatrical.” She chuckled. “There is not much to tell really, in a predator’s history.” Shawn felt the end of her snout nestle against his hair. “It is more something shown... Particularly with snakes. We are a tapestry of our pasts, don’t you agree?”
Her coils flexed around him. Two loops of her neck, and already his massage was growing quite inefficient. His arms were forced out to the sides between two turns of her body as she came around again, forcing his chin up as she dragged herself over the front of his neck, applying just enough pressure to his throat to hint at how easy it would be to stop him breathing entirely.
“I...I…” Shawn gulped, his tongue feeling a bit gluey in his mouth from the attention. “I’m not sure what you mean…”
“Well now...everyone I’ve ever consumed is part of me. The muscles that bind you are, every inch of them, a testament to a former guesssst of mine…” She purred. “I hardly need say more with such evidence on disssplay.” She squeezed, and Shawn’s hands ceased their ministrations from the tightness of it. “You know...Serena and I have been talking while you’re immersed within the twining of our bodies…” She whispered, her voice low and soft, like black silk slipping over marble. “And I heard what she said yesterday...you, joining with one of us forever...I look forwards to that...In fact I’m tempted to hurry it…”
Though he couldn’t see, the warm air hitting the side of his head grew. He could hear the slick sounds of Seria’s maw opening wide, a slight view of a yawning pink chasm just out of his range of sight as he squirmed a bit within her grip.
Seria relented however, chuckling. “But perhaps another time...though I suppose, while you are here to tell, I will let you in on the oral version of my history.” Her coils tightened further and Shawn let out a wheeze as he began to worry for his ribs ever so slightly.
She eased back, her coils giving him a snug hold as opposed to a crushing one. Her snout aligned with his ear, every smooth, slithering syllable a purred note across his perception.
“If you must know, I did not begin my life on this continent. It was some other one. I do not know your human name for it.” She made a complicative little sound. “It was far more suited for my tastes, warm, a bit damp, and teeming with life…”
  Shawn could hear a slight nostalgia in her voice as she continued, but it didn’t last long as she shifted to her more leveled tone. “Like Serena, I was not always large. I was quite small to start with really, but unlike her, I am no special breed, no particular discovery. I earned my size the old fashioned way…” Her words took on a slightly more breathy tone. “Preything by preything, conquest by conquest.” She smirked.
“Some of my brethren never stop growing as long as they live, Shawn. I am not sure if that is true of me, but it would make sense…” Her scales shifted again and Shawn was lifted entirely from that branch. Her coils started to spool around his legs, a casual dominance laying itself across his body. “Because, while Serena is young...I am very...very old.” She smirked. “Don’t judge.”
Shawn vanished down to his calves within her coils, a few loops more than enough to bury him in her grip. “H-how old?” He managed.
A roll of her coils gave a flexing squeeze down Shawn’s body. “I only learned what a human ‘Year’ is in recent times. Not to mention it changed a lot from what I can gather. This whole ‘Gregorian’ business seems more like humans attempting to add meaning to what little life they possesssss….” She chuckled darkly. “In anycase, mine was a fairly regular life. I hid among the trees, eating what I could, taking what I wished, avoiding larger creatures...until I was large enough that they had to avoid me of course…”
Shawn became aware of a spinning sensation. Rather than coiling around him in the usual way, he was being pushed down along her body by slow gyrations of her scales, shifted from loop to loop as Seria continued her tale.
“I wasn’t even big enough to truly eat a man, at least not without some effort, when I was found by them.” She shrugged again. “Some king or another. ‘I rule all that falls under the sun and above the sea’, that type. There have been many, but none speak the truth. In anycase, he thought this gave him dominion over me.” A chuckle vibrated across those yellow banded scales. “I had a few legends at the time. This is not to mention that, in my hunger, which grew by the day as my body did, I had devoured a goat or three, which belonged to the king. It was his own fault really, he should know that no serpent obeys the law of fencessss…”
Shawn would have prompted her to continue if another turn of her coils didn’t flow over his mouth, muffling him quite efficiently as most of him vanished under her scales.
“I was only a few feet longer than your larger snakes. So, as much as I might not have wanted to, I could not avoid men forever. I was taken, though not without struggle to his court…” Shawn was facing away from Seria’s coils as he continued to spin. She was taking her time, but already he was up to his nose, each complete revolution sinking him deeper into the press of her coils. “More than one of his men met the strength of my coils In the attempt. As I said, I was not terribly large….but you don’t have to be if you know where to press…”
“In anycase, when they want to be, humans are like rodents, large in number and shockingly tenacious. I was brought in a cage of strong jungle wood to the king’s massive palace. He was a hard man, not one who suffered fools lightly, but yet, he was a fool himself. I could tell because he thought he could hold me.”
Her coils tensed again and Shawn let out a muffled breath. He could hardly inhale, his nose had vanished under the tide of yellow rising to meet his features. His eyes and hair peeked out, along with his arms on either side, long having given up their attempts to massage as the girth of her coils encompassed them well past his elbows.
“But, stories of what it had taken to cage me had spread, even to the neighboring lands of men. He saw me as an asset, and had me confined to a sheer pit, nothing with which to wind myself over and pull myself out, too deep for me to stretch upwards and escape.” She slithered around, her eyes looking at what little she could see of Shawn’s as he was forced to watch every scale slowly spool around him to encompass the last of his legs, a river of living muscle just below her gaze. “He used me then. Though I suppose I also used him. He would send men who had done wrong in the kingdom’s eyes to my pit, and then they would be mine to do with as I wished.” She let out a hissing chuckle that shook Shawn’s scaly bonds. “Sometimes I kept them for days. I would try new things, sometimes I would lull them into loving me, in their way, visit pleasures upon their small, helpless little forms….I had my moods though, other times would be quick and oh so squirmy…” Her tongue flicked, remembering the taste. “Of course, as I said, a serpent’s scales are a roadmap of their history. They became a part of me, and so, after a long while, I learned to talk as their bulk was added to mine. Every meal made me larger, stronger and a bit more cruel, and kind all at once.”
The sound of Seria’s body all around him was both soft and deafening all at once.
“It’s hard to tell how long a serpent is when it’s curled in on itself, as you’re probably aware.” She shot Shawn a look he couldn’t quite read. “So the king didn’t notice. He just kept sending me little playthings...So I just kept growing...and growing...and growing…” Her eyes glinted. “He would visit me sometimes. He liked to flaunt his power, he was that sort of king, arrogant, always in control...or so he thought. When he was in a particular mood, he would sit at the edge of my pit and swing his legs as he spoke of the problems of being a ruler.” She rolled her eyes. “I listened, a captive audience if there ever was one. He’d even watch me as I played with my toys, he seemed to be a bit of a kindred spirit in that regard. We both enjoyed power, holding what we desired in our grasp, to crush when we wished. He’d compliment me, jeer me on, but, as ever, arrogance leads to a fall…”
Shawn’s stomach dropped slightly as Seria’s coils lurched to the side. He suddenly found himself upside down, another thick coil looping over his forehead, leaving a small space for his eyes to look out at the word at large. That view was taken up by Seria’s predatory profile as soon as his eyes had adjusted to it.
“He visited me at night. That was a mistake. The guards were lazy, no one dared enter the realm of the ‘Serpent king’ as he’d come to be known at the time. The stories were legend now, who would attack such a ruler in his own garden, right next to his ‘Loyal’ beasssst?”
The slick red of Seria’s tongue flicked through that opening in her coils. Shawn’s eyes closed for a moment as it left a hot, wet trail across his eyelids.
“He did what he always did, sitting on the edge of my pit, looking up at the moon as he spoke of his power, which I had enhanced, and of what was to come under his new empire.” She made a slightly complicative sound, though her gaze never left Shawn’s. “I’m not sure if he was a good ruler. He may have been a despot, he may have been beloved. It didn’t matter in the end. I put his gifts to use. I was many, many times longer than the pit was deep when I wound my coils around his legs and pulled him into the dark…” She shivered at the memory, leaves falling all around her. Shawn’s body was almost completely hidden besides his fidgeting wrists at either side.
“He squirmed more than any of his men combined. The ego of a king, and it was delicioussss….” She cooed the word. “I held him close in my coils as long as I dared, his cries muffled by the body he had helped to grow to encompass him then, every inch of his final reward his own fault.” Her voice was breathy now, her coils cinching closer inwards as Shawn’s own breath became more labored. “I took my time...but yes...yes I swallowed him down just as I had the others before him. All preythings are equal before their predator, and as I took him into the embrace of my throat, I slithered free of that pit, a serpent made large and beautiful by the greed of men, a king as much a part of her scales as the rabbits and mice she had hunted before his rule had even begun…”
There was a slight pause then as Seria came out of the memory, blinking a few times. “Oh my….I fear Serena has rubbed off on me a little…” She looked at Shawn, taking a moment to enjoy his helplessness, as she always did, her coils not lightening their embrace, in fact, they tightened. “But I’m allowed to indulge every now and again…” She looked around for a moment, scanning the foliage surrounding them. “And...telling you about my past had given me a bit of an...urge...to make good on my earlier promises, to make you a part of me…” Shawn was starting to feel lightheaded. “Perhaps Serena would forgive me...she knows how I get when I’m hungry…”
Serena’s coils moved again. Shawn was shifted from upside down to sideways, a few coils falling away to reveal his head, looking up at Seria’s muzzle, slick sounds hitting his ears as she spoke.
“You’ll join the king I suppose....one with royalty…” She murmured, before her jaw opened wide. He could see the gentle contours of her maw, slick with saliva, strands of it stretched between her lips as that toothless warmth grew closer by the moment.
“Wait a minute!” Serena’s familiar voice called from the trees.
Seria’s maw closed, and the albino python rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, just having some fun. I knew you were watching.” She turned to find herself face to face with Serena’s huffing glare. She took the wind out of the pale serpent’s sails by booping her nose with her own yellow one. “As I always say, you’re cute when you’re flustered.”
Serena stiffened, still pink from the neck down with Caresse’s goo to keep out the cold. She shot Seria another look. “Don’t you think for a minute I don’t believe that if I hadn’t intervened you wouldn’t have eaten him.”
“I never said I wouldn’t have~” Seria said in her gentle, confident tones, before slithering forwards, dragging herself under Serena’s chin. She curled around her neck in a gentle, snug coil, before she flicked that pale cheek with her forked tongue. “But I knew you would. You’re predictable.”
Caresse pulled herself away from Serena’s body, reforming herself from the sleeve, a bit more slowly than she might have in warmer climates. When she finished taking on her usual shape, she gave her body a shake. “Will you two cease your flirting?”
Both snakes paused, looking at their malleable companion. “You’re complaining about flirting?” asked Seria, raising an eye ridge. “Isn’t that like a butterfly complaining about flying?”
Caresse turned her nose up. “Well, perhaps you’re not the only ones made irritable by the cold. I told you my body’s molecular movement was slowing from the weather, I’m down to 50% of my usual speed and it’s making me, how you say, ‘Cranky’.”
“Well then,” Serena said, shaking off her slight embarrassment from Seria’s attentions. “The sun is going down, I suppose we should prepare to rest in anycase.” All three sets of eyes turned to Shawn, smirks slipping across serpentine snouts.
 
 
----
 
 
Shawn had gotten to spend all of half a minute out of Seria’s coils before being immersed in both her’s and Serena’s again. This time there was an added sensation. Caresse had threaded herself far more fully than ever before through the pairs of multicolored coils binding him, filling any portion of his skin not touched by either Serena or Seria.The human was very nearly vacuum sealed in coils, his nose peeking out above the churning waves of scale like a submarine’s periscope.
When Serena and Seria’s breathing had slowed to the point she was sure they were sleeping, Caresse’s head formed from the goo threaded throughout their coils. Shawn knew she was there when he heard her muffled chuckle. “So...did you get the measurements?”
Shawn couldn’t even shake his head, but after she let him attempt for a moment, she continued.
“I thought not. Not to worry however, I know them by heart.”
Shawn’s sound of surprise was so loud it managed to make it through the thick loop of Serena’s body sliding across his mouth.
Caresse gave an amused laugh. “Shawn, my dear, I have been wrapped around either of them for the last two days. Do you really think need to do any math to know how long they are? No. It is simply cute to watch you try.” A bit of goo rose near his nose and he could hear the muffled sound of paper crinkling. “Their measurements will be waiting for you in the hollow at the bottom of the tree tomorrow evening. Give them to your lady friend and your gift will be made with no issue assuming she does not think you are insane.”
Shawn made a sound of protest at the term ‘Lady-friend’ but he was quieted as he felt Caresse’s smooth lips press against his nose with a light smack.
“Goodnight, Shawn, do sleep well~” A particular strand of go shifted against his bare groin. What little Shawn could move was used to squirm as she teased him, before she vanished back into those coils, sealing in his heat for the night as he lay suspended in their grip.
 
 
----
 
 
The following morning Shawn was plucked from the mass of shifting coils as he always was. The night had been particularly cold, so Caresse actually had to tug a bit to get Serena to let him go
There was much complaining and debate about how much Shawn ‘needed’ food, but Caresse pointed out that he had given up his lunch for two days running, and that if he wasn’t allowed to have some kind of food soon, his ability to provide heat would be compromised due to malnutrition.
This argument seemed to work, and Serena and Seria reluctantly let Shawn down out of the tree to get something to eat.
As Shawn was placed, he felt even more weightless than usual for his empty stomach. Caresse had mostly used the hunger excuse to give him enough free time to give the measurements she’d left to the shop across the street, he had to admit, he was starving.
Shawn walked across the street, actually stopping by that sandwich shop he was supposed to first, nabbing a turkey sandwich with the works to go before heading next door. He’d grabbed the measurements Caresse had given him from the hollow in the bottom of the tree. Even though the malleable snake lacked hands...most of the time, her handwriting was immaculate and pink. Shawn briefly wondered if it was ink, or if it was in fact just a bit of herself along for the ride.
Just in case, as he walked through the door, he whispered to the paper, “Behave.”
The door’s bell jingled softly as he found Sara sitting behind the counter with her chin in her palms, looking bored. As she noticed him however she quickly perked up, looking surprised.
“There you are! I thought you’d lost interest.”
“O-oh, no. Not at all…” Shaw chuckled. “I just got….uh….wrapped up in something.” He nodded to himself.
Sarah shrugged. “Well, either way, while you were gone I made up a few test sleeves!” She bent down behind the counter, vanishing for a moment. When she resurfaced, she hoisted a massive collection of fabric with some strain, plopping it onto the countertop with a dull thud. “You said it was a pretty massive snake, so I was thinking at least seven feet. I don’t think there’s been a recorded instance of a reptile much longer than that. Still, just for the sake of it I went ahead and did eight, I can make alterations.”
Shawn looked at the sleeve Sarah had come up with. It was bright red and covered in Reindeer with green wreaths around their necks. He lifted it, and got a phantom pain in his ribs imagining what Seria’s reaction might be…
“Oh...well...this is very nice, but…” He sat it back down, passing Caress’s note across the counter. “I was thinking something a little….bigger.”
The shopkeeper frowned, taking the note and looking at it. Even with her eyes made far larger than usual by her glasses, Shawn was surprised at how wide they got when they saw the numbers.
“B-but this...no snake could be this….this must be a jo-”
Shawn had expected this response, he quieted her shock by reaching into his pocket and laying a wad of cash as big around as a golf ball on the countertop.
“By which I mean of course! I can certainly do something with these measurements.” She reached behind her to grab something, but as she did her elbow bumped a portable radio knocking it to the ground with a clatter. “Oops.”
It crackled and fizzed to life from the impact, a professorial voice entering the shop. “And I dare say that tonight will be the coldest of the year, in fact, the coldest of the last five years. I would bundle up for certain, and be in before dark.”
Sarah bent down and grabbed the fallen radio, shutting it off with a click. “Sorry about that, I like to listen to the weather reports sometimes. It’s a bit of a drive to get to the shop so I like to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Yeah...yeah that make sense…” Shawn said distantly, before meeting her eyes again. “Say...how much extra would I have to pay you to have this done before sundown?”
Sarah made a sound a bit like a surprised owl and a sputtering car engine. “Before sundown!? That’s in….a bit less than 12 hours!”
Shawn reached into his pocket and sat another wad of cash on the counter with an audible thump. Sarah’s eyes looked very nearly too big for her head as she stared at it.
“By which I mean it is perfectly doable!” She put on a manic grin, her glasses flashing with what Shawn thought was either dreams of what she could buy with such money, or a sign of her giving into the madness of accepting such a project. “Twelve hours, can do!”
Shawn nodded, smiling. “Good, I’ll be back before sundown then.”
“Yes!” She paused for a moment, before eyeing her yarn stores. “Alrightgottagogetstartedbye!” She vanished from behind the counter in what Shawn could have sworn was a cloud in the shape of her outline.
“Alright then...Uh….see you then.” He said to the empty air in her wake, before heading out into the cold again. He felt the weight of his turkey sandwich in his hand, and his stomach gave a low growl of complaint that he hadn’t eaten it yet. He knew that if he went back to the tree that he would be immediately set upon by Serena and Seria and he’d never get a chance to eat. Instead, he opted to stay just outside the park’s borders, and sit down on a bench to enjoy his ‘Breakfast’.
The oddness of this struck him. He hadn’t done anything this certifiably….normal...in quite a long time. In fact it felt rather odd to sit on anything that wasn’t either living, or a tree branch. Still, the turkey sandwich was calling to him, and he didn’t dwell for too long on the general oddness of his life.
The turkey sandwich was quickly unwrapped as Shawn set about devouring it with gusto, quieting his stomach with every consecutive bite. This is why his mouth was full to the point of bursting when a familiar voice spoke.
“Is this seat taken?”
He looked up, surprised. It was so early in the morning that there was hardly anyone around.
“Mnhoh,” Shawn said in an attempt to speak around the mass of food stuffed in his mouth, an impulsive reaction to answer the person and avoid embarrassment, he blinked however as he saw who it was.
She could have passed for human if it weren’t for the pallor of her skin. She wore a skirt of dark pink that fell down to her knees, a french style that was modest, yet gave a rather alluring view of her knees and calves. It flowed upwards in a gentle suggestion of her hips, before giving way to a lighter pink of a blouse which hid a sizable bust. Above that, she smiled, her skin the lightest of pinks, almost enough to pass for normal, but there was a slight tinge that marked her for what she was, that and the beret she wore above long flowing curls of dark pink hair.
“Mahresse?” Shawn mumbled around his sandwich.
The woman frowned. “Awww, I thought I could fool you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to alter what wavelengths a mass of bio-organics absorbs and reflects to alter color?” She gave a huff. Shawn had to admit that the shape she had taken was fairly adorable, a classic modern french woman if there ever was one, if a different shade than usual. “And don’t talk with your mouth full, dear.”
Shawn chewed the rest of the food in his mouth, swallowing it down. “What are you doing here?”
Caresse tilted her head. “I can’t come down for a chat? You got to hear Seria and Serena’s stories, I thought that you might like to hear mine.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “Unless of course you are...not interested.” She turned and started to walk dejectedly away.
“Wait!” Shawn put up a hand. As he did, he saw the slight smirk at the corner of her lips. He knew she was just being dramatic, but he was genuinely interested.
“Grand.” She turned on her heel, any trace of sadness gone. A purse manifested from nowhere, and she used it to sweep any debris from the bench before sitting down.
Shawn yelped as the cement side on the left of the bench was ripped from its housing, the whole thing tipping lengthwise in her direction. He clung to the armrest to avoid being flung to the sidewalk.
“Oops,” her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink. “Apologies, let me...adjust…” She looked down at her shoes, little black strapped ones with light designs along the sides. They rippled visibly, reminding Shawn she was composed of liquid, and slowly the bench lowered back to the ground.
Shawn stared at her for several moments.
Caresse put her hands on her hips, glaring right back. “What? I can change my shape, not my mass, dear. I still weigh just as much as I usually do, and it’s very rude of you to point that out.” She nodded down to her feet, and Shawn noticed a single crack in the sidewalk tile they were situated on. “I’ve moved a bit of my density to the ground, balanced things out, but putting that much weight on such a small point of space can have adverse effects.”
Shawn nodded slowly. “I….see…” He cleared his throat, trying to slow his heart down from nearly being catapulted like a kid on the wrong side of a seesaw.
She rolled her eyes. “No manners these days, I swear.”
“I’m sorry,” Shawn apologized. “Just a surprise is all.” He settled back into a more comfortable position on the bench, looking her over. “You wanted to tell me about your past?”
She nodded, still a bit miffed. “Yes, I did, though now I’m wondering if you deserve to know.” She turned her nose up again. She did that a lot as a snake, it was rather endearing that the gesture persisted no matter what form she happened to be in.
Shawn, however, knew how to placate the offended goosnake. “I really do apologize. I was just so struck by your beauty that I forgot my manners for a moment.” He gave a little bow, or at least the sitting equivalent. “I implore your forgiveness.”
It was impossible for her to hide how pleased she was with his admittance of a social faux pas. She looked back at him with an eye, a smile creeping across her pink features. “Well, if you are so genuinely penitent..” She turned to face him again. He had to try extra hard not to crack his facade as her excited motion caused another crack to splinter through the sidewalk tile under her feet. “Then I will tell you since you insist.”
 Shawn nodded, every inch the gentleman. “Thank you, Madame.”
Caresse gave a pleased coo at this, before clearing her throat. “Alright then, allow me to...how you say, set the scene.” Shawn blinked, not sure if she was even aware she was doing it, but as the words left her mouth her skin rippled slightly. She suddenly had freckles of pink along her cheeks. They moved and shifted, joining together to form the outline of a building. “As you may have guessed, mine was not a normal birth...I was created in a laboratory.”
The dots shifted, little speckles of lighter shades giving the outlines more detail, scientists milled about a room filled with vats of pink, using beakers and eye-droppers adjusting mixtures and taking readings.
“It was a project trying to expound and understand the true chemical nature of love. A noble pursuit of course, as what else could be the cause of my birth?” She chuckled. “There were many attempts, some more successful than others. There were the occasional explosions and accidental mixtures, but nothing so interesting as me for some time.”
She gave a wistful sigh. “Oh they really had no idea what they were doing. Trying to brew love. It’s really no wonder I was the end result….I learned later that it was supposed to have military applications. Can you imagine? Battlefields of love, shame it didn’t work out really, but they tried everything. The first few experiments were olfactory based. Scents are densely tied to memory you know, a kind of self-adapting mist that would remind those who smelled it of loved ones and favorite passions.” She shrugged, her freckles shifting about to show a man being besieged by the outlines of dogs. “It didn’t work of course…But they did take the self-adapting aspect in moving to the next project.”
Her freckles shifted again, changing to show a massive vat of pink with a man stirring, a paddle in hand.
“The next attempt was far closer to the mark, something that when ingested, could lull the person who took it into an enamored state akin to true love. This one worked, but only for a short time, useless without consistent re-dosing...that’s when they decided to try something to make it a bit more...useful…”
The image changed slightly, Shawn could see a tendril of pink rising from the vat and winding around the man’s arm. “A certain cocktail of ingredients to provide a bit more...agency.” Several more tentacles shot from the vat, winding around either arm, his torso, his neck and dragging him bodily into the vat. The surface churned and shook, Shawn was sure it was a subconscious touch Caresse added, but little cartoon hearts floated from the mixture as it stilled. “That one had the best result in my humble opinion…”
The image flowed away, replaced with an outline of the man, but he was pinker now, with a little heart in the center of his head. “Being new to the world, I only knew one thing, that I needed love, and to be moved. I wanted, more than anything, to be around someone always, to feel their warmth within my own...But I was intelligent already, so I used what they had given me to bring them all into my hold…” She smiled, her freckles unforming and reforming. The man with the heart on his head lured another man close to the vat, where he was quickly wrapped up in gooey tendrils and dragged in just as he had been.
“I took my time...and one by one I gave them the gift of my love.” She chuckled, the sound musical in Shawn’s ears. “Of course that’s not all I did. I wanted more than to simply be amorphous ooze in a tub, so I practiced...I made shapes of myself, rudimentary things of course, circles, squares, triangles were the hardest, but I learned very fast. Humans are composed of simple shapes really, lots of tubes and circles.”
She looked down at herself. “The hardest part’s the clothes really, getting them the right density to flutter and move like fabric instead of some facsimile is incredibly tricky business.” She leaned in closer to Shawn, the bench creaked with her weight. Her freckles were dancing now, changing into various shapes, getting progressively more human like. He could see she was very skilled at it now.
If it weren’t for her color he’d have thought she was just as human as he was, only incredibly more feminine, all soft curves and gentle lines. There hadn’t been much room on the bench between them to start with, with her leaning in he could see how soft her lips looked as she continued. “I began to challenge myself. At times I would give my lovers a rest, luring new ones in on my own. It was easy things to start, a strange puddle, an odd dripping noise...then I got more advanced. I thought I could try a housecat, but….” She took a moment to let her eyes drift towards her feet. She shifted her weight slightly and cracks spider webbed out from around her toes. “You can imagine how well that went.”
Shawn nodded. If she was heavy enough to give the sidewalk trouble by shifting all of her mass into something as large as a woman, he couldn’t imagine what trying to fit all that into a cat would do. As he pondered this, however, a question occurred.
“Wait. You can split yourself up can’t you?”
Caresse shrugged. “Well, now I can yes, why?”
“Well…” Shawn gestured. “Couldn’t you have just made a little bit of yourself a cat? Or a woman, like right now.”
Caresse deadpanned. “Shawn, think about something you love. Snakes for instance.”
Shawn blushed. “O-oh...alri-”
“Now think about bears.”
Shawn faltered. “Wha?-”
“Now, all at the same time, think about how to put together a 1983 Volkswagen Beetle from scratch.”
“I...uh….”
“Exactly.” Caresse nodded. “I can do small things with bits of myself not attached to the main mass, but doing something as complex as guise, without using the majority of my mass, would be like you trying to build a ship in a bottle with only your left pinkie toe while at the same time taking tap dancing lessons with the rest of yourself.”
“Oh.”
Caresse nodded. “Oh indeed.” She lifted a finger and lightly tapped his nose, the sensation was smooth, slightly cool, and had a pliable weight to it that belied her human appearance. “Now shoosh, let me finish my story, yes?”
“Sorry, “He apologised with a nod. “Continue, Madame.”
Caresse made a pleased sound and nodded. “Thank you. In any case, I tried a slightly larger shape. There was a woman who worked at the lab. She’d noticed a few odd things going on, the occasional dazed...slightly pinkened scientist wandering about the halls mumbling about love and tender touches…” She looked off to the left slightly, tapping her chin with a slender pink finger. “I saw how those not under my thrall already looked at her. I knew that if I wanted to lure the more clever of them into accepting my love I’d have to learn a more...endearing shape.” She smirked at Shawn, turning a lidded gaze back in his direction. “You boys do love your curves, yes?” As she said this, Shawn’s cheeks flushed. The malleable woman gave her hips a playful shake, the bench complaining lightly despite her slender form. Still, she paused her tease and continued. “I asked one of my lovers to lure her in, and she came, she was helpful that way.”
The freckles along Caresse’s face shifted, showing the outline of a woman walking towards the vat, led by a man with a heart inside the outline of his head. Tentacles shot from the vat, winding around the woman. Shawn’s blush was not helped by the way the facsimile was wrapped up in Caresse’s grip. “I needed to get a good feel for the forms of course...I am not shy.”
The outline of the woman was dragged into the vat, where the ooze wound its way around her body until she vanished all together. The surface of the vat rippled for a moment, before a similar outline pulled itself from the goo, but the vat seemed to empty as it came. The new outline of the woman took a moment to examine itself, running its hands over its various curves. She looked at her breasts for a moment before giving a shrug. They expanded by at least a cup size, as her hips similarly pressed outwards, and she set about strutting through the lab.
“Men are easy when you know what they like…” She leaned a bit closer still to Shawn. “Of course, that’s what I like about you, Shawn.” He stiffened as she trailed a finger up his thigh, trailing up to his beltline with a soft, insistent pressure. “You seem to like me no matter what shape I happen to take…” She continued her story, but she was no longer looking directly at him. “In anycase…” She continued, making no effort to move her finger from his thigh as it continued to make gentle continuous circles through the thin fabric of his tracksuit. “The lab was mine in short order…”
Her freckles shifted, growing in number until the newly woman-shaped Caresse was surrounded by male admirers with hearts in their heads, each fawning over her. “It was my purpose, to spread love, and to be loved. I was quite happy. But of course…” She frowned, her voice turning into a bit of a grouse as she continued. “Those men had ‘Families’ and ‘Friends’. They could have joined me too, but no, they had to raise a stink. I might have been a little...bad…”
The image shifted again, showing various men walking into the lab only to be met with a woman whose body suddenly sprouted malleable tentacles, before they were dragged into her form.
“A small secret grows large with time, Shawn…” The freckles shifted and spread down her cheeks and across her neck, vanishing into the slope of her…
Shawn blushed immensely as he saw the silhouettes of men crowded between her breasts. Caresse smirked.
“I had a lot of fans…” Her entire body became flush with outlines. Her clothes seemed to hide none of them as they outlined the curves of her body under the manifested garments. “But eventually it became too much...and there was a woman I couldn’t control...an odd quirk really…” She gave a little shift on the bench, one that was entirely too suggestive. “Usually I go both ways…” She paused to clear her throat. “But, I suppose statistically speaking, I am not magic, I am science, and the genetic probability of someone being immune to my charms is far from entirely remote. She bided her time…”
The outlines of men vanished, to show one woman next to a lever on her cheek. She walked up, and pulled it as far as she could, causing little droplets to fall all over Caresse’s skin. “And she found my weakness…”
Caresse frowned deeply. “Shame. I liked it there…” She gave a shift of her shoulder. Shawn might have called it a shrug, but she made the motion look far too appealing for such a slothful word. “But the rest is history. I slithered my way into the night, got lonely, and decided to try on a new ssssshape, to appeal.” As she spoke, a forked tongue flicked from her perfectly human lips and tickled Shawn’s nose. He very nearly fell off the bench.
Caresse gave a chuckle, hidden behind her hand as her skin went back to normal. The light freckles along her cheek were now simply that and nothing more. It was only then that Shawn noticed that there was an odd dripping sensation along his thigh.
He looked down to find her hand had turned to ooze, dripping across both his inner and outer thigh, acting as no liquid ever would. She leaned closer to him, her dress loosing its shape, clinging to her body a bit more tightly as the fabric of her dress melted onto the bench and snaked towards him. “That’s my story…”
“C-Caresse…” Shawn stiffened as some of her form oozed under his rump and pressed upwards, curling between his legs. It found the lip of his track shirt, and he gave a shocked sound as it slipped under to press its cool, rubbery texture against his bare belly.
“We’ve been gone a while, Shawn, our two nursemaids will start to worry if I don’t get you home...You’ll excuse me for adding a bit of my own flare to this escort.” She leaned closer still, the definition on her clothes faded, leaving her with a lovely feminine shape, curves and softness across the board. Shawn’s cheeks got warmer as the soft sensation of her breasts and hips pressed against his chest. The ooze that had once been her dress crept up to feel across his chest and abdominal muscles as bits of it split off to twine about his bare arms. He could see it shifting up from his lap under the shirt, the lines of it moving and making it appear as though the garment were full of snakes.
“I-I could j-just walk…” Shawn offered half-heartedly.
“You could…” Caresse cooed. “But what’s the fun in that?”
With that she pressed against his side with what, to Shawn, seemed like her full weight, but was probably more like one tenth considering her true size. Her body molded around his, shifting and curling around his form to draw him inwards, tendrils of ooze wrapping around arms, curling between fingers...sneaking under waistbands…
“Gah!” Shawn turned cherry red.
“Shhhh…” Her hand, still in human shape, rose from the ooze and pressed against his lips. “Like I said, dear, fun.”
Her hand shifted down, along with its opposite and wrapped around his back, melding into the rest of her. Shawn looked down to find his body cocooned in the sliding shifting goo that made up Caresse’s body. Her head remained to the side, slipping up to his ear as strands of ooze gently undulated up along his neck, setting up rhythmic changes in pressure that rippled down across his trapped body.
“Come now, just let me hold you while we return.” Her lips pressed against his ear. They were soft and cool against his senses as the rising ooze began to threaten his chin. Shawn couldn’t fight against her, she knew that from the moment she sat down on the bench, and her knowledge proved true as her grip rose further. Soon only his face peeked out of the goo, Caresse’s human form having melted away completely to wrap itself around him as her head took on a more serpentine shape, the one he’d come to know over the past few days.
He opened his mouth to say something, but any final words were smothered with a kiss as her lips pressed softly against him, giving that last little push to submerge him utterly.
There was a bubble as she disconnected with a small smack. She murmured affectionately at the slight impressions of his squirming she could see inside her form, taking a moment to watch and enjoy the feel of holding him all over. The river of living ooze that was her body flowed off the bench and into the park proper, carrying him along effortlessly up and into the tree from which he had come.
 
 
------
 
 
Serena and Seria had many questions upon his return. Most of which Caresse had to field because, as per usual the last couple of days, the moment she let him out of her grip- which took some convincing, since she hadn’t had a lengthy hold on him in some time because of the cold- he found himself out of the gooey frying pan and into the scale laden fire. Though before they managed to cover his mouth in needy coils, a small war breaking out for the privilege of feeling his warm exhales against their belly scales, Shawn managed to request a reprieve twelve hours from when he’d left.
All motion around his body, of which there had been much, paused. Both snakes stopped their argument about the various reasons why they should get their favorite section of his body to coil- which he was thankful for as they hadn’t started talking about particularly warm areas south of the border yet- as they looked at him in unison.
“And jusssst what do you need to be out so sssssooon for?” Seria was lisping quite a lot. That didn’t bode well for his freedom, nor did the fact she considered twelve hours ‘Soon’.
“Yessss….” Serena added. “Jussst where do you have to be?”
Shawn gulped, feeling the coils they’d gotten around his body in the interim begin to move again. However, now they weren’t just sliding around his body to find warmth, they were pressing inwards at a slow continuous rate. The possessiveness of it was humbling as he felt the tip of Seria’s tail trickle up his cheek, tightening around his neck, leaving only enough pressure off that he could answer.
Shawn quickly tried to think of a reason that would satisfy the two snakes, but the amount of falsities already spinning around his head was already starting to become too much. Thankfully, Caresse intervened.
“Now girls. I’m sure Shawn has his reasons. For all we know, he could be looking for a more efficient way to bring prey items into the park, since fewer of them are coming because of the cold.” She shot him a meaningful look out of the corner of her eye.
“O-Oh! Y-yes…” He managed around the coils currently squeezing steadily more air from his lungs.
The two looked suspicious at this, looking between the human and the malleable snake for several seconds. There was a tense moment as Shawn gave a little wheeze, the steadily ramping pressure of Serena and Seria’s ‘Hug’ starting to make breathing less and less of a reality. Though, Shawn felt a slight rumbling from somewhere within the mass of living bonds currently winding around his form.
“Well...I have been rather peckish lately….” Serena admittedly.
Seria cast a glance at her companion. She looked as though she were about to admonish her, before a similar rumble issued from her own yellow banded scales. She stiffened noticeably, and turned her gaze away with a grumble. “I suppose that might be a good plan...If I am forced to admit.” She turned her gaze back to Shawn. “Though, it is not assss though we have a clock up here. How do you expect me not to lossssse myself in the warmth of you…” She paused, a ‘Glck’ sound issuing from Shawn’s mouth as his breathing was cut off entirely by the pressure of her body. “And let the time pass a bit too far?”
“About that.” Caresse chimed in again, slithering forwards and rubbing against Seria’s neck in a gentle flow until she settled atop the albino python’s head. “The current time is 8:45 AM EST, 7:45AM CST and 1:45 in UTC Coordinated Universal Time.”
Silence reigned throughout the tree again as everyone, even the breathless Shawn stared at Caresse for a good length of time.
“What….are you?” Serena said dumbfoundedly.
Caresse giggled. “I’m Caresse.”
More silence, until Seria slumped a bit, shrugging the grinning goo snake from atop her head with a reluctant grumble. “Fine...since this one,” she regarded Caresse with a snort through her nose. “Will be keeping us to our word, we shall only hold you for twelve hours hence, after which you are free to go about your errands.”
They both stared at him for a moment to hear his answer before they realized he was starting to look a little blue.
“Oh. Right.”
They both loosened in unison, Shawn gave a deep gasp, filling his lungs as much as he was able. “Thank….you….” He managed.
“You’re welcome…” Serena turned to Seria. “Though, in the meantime, we do have twelve hours.
“That we do…” Seria smirked, leaning down to Shawn’s level, her forked tongue tickling his nose. “So, we’ll have to be very, very thorough. Get a good look at the world above our scales, Shawn. You will not be seeing it for some time…”
The coil around Shawn’s neck surged forwards and his reply was muffled as Seria used this opportunity to gain that covetous coil over his mouth, curling across the whole of his face, blinding him as it rushed over his eyes in a smooth flow of movement.
The last thing he heard before everything was muffled by scales slithering across every inch of his skin, Serena making up for her lack of winning the contest to coil across his mouth by sneaking the tip of her own tail into the neck of his shirt and making short work of the thin fabric with its girth was,
“Hey! I was distracted, that’s cheating!”
 
 
---
 
 
Time became meaningless once again as every sense became the serpents twined about his body. Serena wriggled and wormed her way through every bit of fabric that offered even the slightest barrier between him and their touch. Usually they were careful with those as there were few items of clothings in their stores that were in Shawn’s size. However, their neediness precluded any caution as the garments he wore were rendered to shreds, quickly ferried away and loss among the endless shifting bands of cool muscle hoping to warm themselves against his heated skin.
The intimacy of their touch drove him to hardness in a matter of moments, and it took little longer for his first orgasm to rock his body. That was the whole of his day, a wash of pleasure and kneading scale as Serena and Seria used their coils to make him as warm as possible…
 
 
------
 
 
The bell above the shop door rang and Sarah blinked as Shawn stumbled through in a suit that was obviously too little for him. The sleeves ended several inches above his wrists, and his ankles out for all the world to see as his pants didn’t even attempt to cover them. Beyond this, he had an odd redness around each of these exposed parts, along with his neck.
“Wow….” She looked him up and down. “Rough day?”
“Uh….” He offered, still a bit unsteady. “A bit….not too bad though.”
She nodded. “Oh, I know how that can be, I’m into the bondage scene myself, so I feel you.”
Shawn sputtered and nearly choked on his own tongue. “E-excuse me?”
Sarah smirked, her glasses shining in the light from the shop door. “Can’t fool me. I’ve caused a bruise or two like that, I know the type. Tell me, are you a leather or silk kind of guy?”
Shawn looked like a goldfish as his mouth opened and closed in surprise, not knowing how to even begin to respond to that.
“Fine, fine….” Sarah put her hands up. “Don’t tell me, your business is your business.” She looked him up and down. “Personally you look like a silk guy. Soft touch and all that, maybe a bit of suspension play.”
She didn’t bother giving him time to respond to that as she bent down behind the counter, coming back up with one massive box, then another and, to Shawn’s surprise, a third. “Here you go!”
Shawn blinked. “B-but I only ordered two…”
Sarah shrugged. “I know, but by the end of it I had so much extra fabric cut into long tubes that I figured I’d put together a third option just in case.” She grinned. “On the house.”
“Um….thanks….” Shawn nodded, smiling with surprise. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, grabbing a large wad of bills and plopping them on the counter.
Normally Sarah would have reacted with shock, but at this point she just made continuous eye contact with him as she reached up and slowly slid the money into the register, grinning in a way that was frankly disconcerting. “You’re welcome! Hope you enjoy, feel absolutely free to come back any time!”
“I will! Uhhh….” He looked at the three boxes, reaching out and attempting to lift one. However, the amount of fabric inside made it weighty. He might have been able to lift one, but all three wasn’t going to work. “I don’t suppose you’ve got something t-”
She produced a hand truck, scootching it from behind the counter. “I thought you’d ask.” She offered him some bungie cords. “Take these two, for balance. Or fun depending on if you’re planning to have another rough night.” She winked.
Shawn’s blush returned with a fiercity. He quickly loaded up the boxes onto the provided hand truck and wheeled it out the the store as quickly as he dared with Sarah waving him off with an expression that was altogether too suggestive.
Shawn took the boxes across the street, wheeling them into the park, the suit pressing against his skin uncomfortably as he moved. He couldn’t wait to get out of it and into something more comfortable.
He reached the base of the tree and, the park being empty from the cold, Serena’s head was poking out from the treeline curiously to see him returning with such a hefty load.
“What’s all this?” She asked, tilting her head curiously.
“A surprise.” Shawn smirked. “Bring me up.”
Serena’s curiosity brought Seria down for a look. After a similar line of questioning, a colorful band of scales wrapped around Shawn’s middle, hoisting him into the tree as Seria’s tail curled around one of the boxes. Caresse oozed down to wrap her form around the remaining two and hoist them up crane style. Serena’s tail remained cinched around Shawn’s belly as she sat him down on a branch, the three snakes looking the boxes over.
“So this is what you’ve been up to the past few days.” Seria arched an eye ridge. “I knew something was afoot, you’re a terrible liar.”
“Well yes…” Shawn admitted. “But you’ll like my reasoning.” He allowed himself a little grin. “Open them.”
Serena took the initiative first, slithering forwards and nosing the lid off the box nearest to her. Inside was fabric of a deep, royal purple. She made a curious sound and nosed into the box slightly, coming up with a bit of it looped over her nose. This revealed what was obviously a collar...lined with candy canes.
“A sock?” Seria said incredulously. “A giant sock?”
Shawn put up his hands. “Wait, don’t knock it till you try it!” He waved Serena over to him. “Come on, try it on, there’s a reason humans wear clothes.”
Serena looked a bit unsure, but she slithered forwards and offered what appeared to be the tail end of the garment to Shawn, who held it open diligently. “In you go.”
Serena looked from the opening to Shawn. “Well...if you’re sure about this…” She huffed. “I don’t approve of the candy canes though. This must be made clear.”
With that Serena pressed her weight forwards, her head pressing into the fabric, outlined for a moment by its tightness. Shawn was momentarily transfixed by the sight of her scales pouring inside, filling it out, her body pressing across him before passing onwards to fill out the rest.
He could see every scale as it slipped past him, pressing across his chest. It made him shiver as her body shifted fluidly, occasionally wriggling to get past a kink or twist in the fabric, seemingly endless. It had been impressed upon him before when these very scales had been curled around his body, but as he sat there, watching every inch and feeling as it squirmed across his chest, the true size of her was more obvious than ever.
He wasn’t sure how long it took, but by the time the end of her tail finally slipped into the garment, he was fidgeting against the branch he sat on. Serena’s head came into view on the opposite side of him, a ring of candy canes around her neck in a sweater-like ruffle.
She blinked a few times.
“You look ridiculous.” Seria scoffed.
“I….Will agree with you there….” Serena mumbled, but Shawn knew the way she was moving, it was the way she moved when he massaged her, a slow wave of motion like waves at a beach when the weather was calm. “But….it’s so soft….and I’m not that cold anymore...I’m kind of...warm.” Her voice took on a more pleased tone.
Seria looked skeptical, but a cold breath wafted across the leaves surrounding them and Shawn saw a shiver pass along the python’s coils. Serena remained comfortably undulating against the branches, that was enough to convince her.
“Fine….” She leaned in and nosed the lid off of the second box. It was positioned away from Shawn so he couldn’t see what was in it. He was suddenly breathless though as the tip of Seria’s tail snuck around his neck and tightened immediately.
“You. Are not going to have full lungs for a very...very long time.”
“What is it?” asked Serena coming out of her warmth induced haze from the sudden shift in Seria’s demeanor.
Seria groaned and flicked the end of the garment from the box with a slight air of contempt.
It was dark green, and patterned all over with hundreds and hundreds of little bananas.
The silence that followed was broken by a sputtering sort of sound. This eventually proved to be Serena holding in her laughter. When she finally let it out Caresse was caught up in it, and the trees around the group lost at least a third of their leaves from the shaking of their coils.
Shawn had never seen Seria approximate a blush the way Serena had been known to, she probably wasn’t capable. If she could have however, he was fairly certain she would have then. It became hard to focus on that, however, as spots began to appear in the corner of his vision.
Caresse was the first to notice. She quickly looped her neck around Seria’s and gave a mollifying nuzzle. “Come now dear, it is the thought that counts, no?” She looked from Seria to Shawn with a slight hint of worry. “Plus, I do worry that humans probably shouldn’t be that color…”
Seria held out a second or two more before relenting. Shawn gasped as his neck was released from that cool scaley bond and Seria turned the ire of her glare away from him for a moment, turning her nose up. “Well I refuse to wear such a thing.”
Serena rolled her eyes, curling around Seria’s neck in the opposite direction to Caresse, coming up to her opposite cheek. “Now, I thought I was supposed to be the impractical one? Shawn needs to eat sometimes, and when he’s not here, you’re the one who complains the most.”
  Seria gave a displeased hiss. “Nonsense. I suffer with dignity.”
  “‘Why can’t he learn to metabolize slower?’” Serena groused in her best approximation of Seria’s voice. “We obviously haven’t trained him well enough.”
  “We should keep him for three days at a time instead of one to make up for this indiscretion.” Caresse chimed in, her Seria impression literally perfect.
  The moment of silent surprise that this brought on was a bit shorter than in previous moments of shock. While there was no getting used to Caresse, there was deciding to save time in being shocked by the things she could do.
  Seria huffed. “I still refuse t-” Another cold gust of wind washed through the trees. All of Seria’s coils reflexively bunched towards Shawn, only to find themselves blocked at every turn by thick lengths of Serena’s own body.
  “Nah-ah~” The pale serpent sing-songed.
  “This is extortion.” Seria’s eyes narrowed.
  “No, this is us getting you to try something new.” The tip of Serena’s tail held up the end of the sweater and shook it expectantly.
  There was a tense moment between the two. Shawn could practically sense the clash of wills between the pair as he continued trying to catch his breath from Seria’s ‘Enthusiasm’ about her new gift. Eventually a winner was clear however. Seria rolled her eyes in such a way as to make it seem like she wasn’t really losing this battle, but letting Serena think she was winning, and begrudgingly slithered forth.
  Shawn once again watched as scale poured against fabric. From farther away he was able to watch Seria’s sinuous movements across the length of her body as she vanished further and further into the sweater. While Serena had enjoyed the sensation of the fabric against her scales, Seria was all business, efficient sinuous movements, muscles rippling and shifting like water as she flowed through that tube of fabric.
  He traced the lines of her body as they moved in effortless elegant fashion until the green fabric finally gave way to smooth yellow scale as her snout popped out from the other end...and only her snout.
  The rest of the tree’s occupants stared at her for several moments as her more subtle efficient movements gave way to frustrated ones, grunting and hissing consternation as the neck of the sweater refused to pull over her eyes.
  “What foul trap have you stuck me with?!” She writhed a bit, shaking leaves from the branches as she wriggled about blindly.
  “Oh hold still, you drama queen.” Serena’s tail snaked forwards, the tip hooking neatly into the neck of the fabric and hoisting it up just so to allow Seria to slip forwards until the sweater’s cozy neck could snuggly fit just behind her jaw.
  The albino python shook herself with a grumble, looking down at her lengthy body clad fully now in the banana riddled garment.
  “I look ridiculousss….” She mumbled, her lisp coming out in annoyance.
  “I think you look cuuuuuute,” Serena cooed, the tip of her tail feeling along the fabric. “And I’m wearing the same thing, so if you tell me it doesn’t feel nice to have something between you and the wind I’ll call you a liar.”
  Seria gave an exasperated sigh, refusing to answer for several moments. Though, in the momentary silence another gust of wind cut through the branches. This time, Seria didn’t shiver. Serena noticed this, and pressed the tip of her snout to the python’s cheek.
  “Seeeeeeeee~?” She singsonged. “Now you look adorable and you’re warm. A fine outcome if you ask me.”
  “I concur,” Caresse chimed in, nodding in approval. “Though personally I think you both would look better with me flowing over your scales.”
  Seria glared at the malleable serpent. “You think that about everything.”
  Caresse formed too little hills of mass on either side of her head, a literal shrug. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”
  “In any case,” Seria said, still not mollified. “I am a predator. I have eaten kings and paupers, jungle cats and cowering beasts. I am older than this continent’s name. I. Am not. Supposed to be. Cute.”
  “Well, you can be a menacing goddess of the jungle, or you can be cute and warm, your choice.” Serena smirked, nosing her partner’s cheek lightly.
  This earned yet more hissing grumbles, but the python made no attempt to stop the nuzzles, nor did she try to remove her sweater.
  “And what is in the third box, Shawn?” Caresse asked, looking away from the begrudgingly accepted display of affection.
  Shawn turned towards the third box in question. “I….actually don’t know...I didn’t order that one…”
  “Well then...there’s only one way to find out isn’t there?”
  The tip of Caresse’s tail came down from somewhere up in the treeline. Shawn arched a brow as it took on the shape and gleam of a crowbar, but didn’t question it overly much. The tip jammed itself between the lid of the box and it’s walls, levering upwards and hefting it open as though it were little more than a sticker to be peeled off.
  Inside was fabric, deep, purple fabric.
  “Oh my….” Caresse said, her tail dipping into the soft material, revealing that it had a slight shimmery silky sort of quality to it. It wasn’t quite the best for keeping one warm, but for aesthetics it was rather beautiful. She eyed it the way a cat might a laser dot on the floor.
  “Oh wow...Sarah goes all out when she gives something away….” Shawn murmured.
  “What was that?” Caresse asked, turning to him.
  “Uhhh nothing! I mean, I uh….Got you one too! Try it!”
  She didn’t need to be told twice. Unlike Serena or Seria, who only figuratively poured into their new outfits, Caresse did it literally. Her mass lost its definition for a moment as it slipped forwards.
  She filled the shimmering fabric perfectly with the kind of truly fluid grace only she could manage. Her body curved and arched to fill out any kinks that occurred until it was perfectly spherical, a perfect tube slowly undulating back and forth as it was filled out. Being what she was, Caresse had a far easier time of it. A flow of ooze trickled from the neck of the sweater like honey from a jar before it took on the shape of her face once more.
  “Oooh, so silky….a good choice for my form….more...absorbent fabrics can be trouble if my density falls below a certain measure…” She gave a little coo, letting the fabric run across the ooze that made up her form, now firm enough to fill it entirely. “Not to mention it will be less effort to keep my shape with something holding it in place….quite practical really.”
  Seria scoffed. “If you needed something to hold you, we could have sent Shawn out for a truckload of water balloons.”
  The two shared a glare before Serena came between them. “Now, now, this is a happy time, we’ve all been graced with lovely-” She ignored the grunt that came from Seria at that comment. “lovely gifts from our little pet. I think we should reward him, hmmm?” The colorful snake slithered forwards until the wide arc of her snout was less than an inch away from Shawn’s. “He’s been held so tightly for so many nights, we’ve been so rough with him....perhaps we should try something a little gentler….”
  Seria’s eyes flashed with interest for the first time since they’d opened that box. She joined her counterpart with Caresse taking up the far side as they surrounded him. Lengths of scale, offset by soft fabric hiding dense muscle just underneath, came quite close to his body, invading his personal space, though ‘Personal space’ had long become a dream. It was something that happened to other people, not Shawn. Shawn’s space was their space and they knew it.
  “Yes...let us have a night without marksss….” Shawn stiffened as the tip of Seria’s tail lathered along the side of his neck, tracing where her scales had left a diamond imprint the previous night. “So many nights of strength...perhaps it is time for softnessss….” She smirked. “As much as I do not care for your gift’s aesthetics, I will admit to its functionality...Utility earns reward…”
  Caresse slithered around to his back, the cool press of silk pressing him closer towards the smirking serpents surrounding him as she laid her head on his shoulder, whispering into his ear. “Now, this is my kind of talk….with these two being less needy, we can have some, how you ssssay…”Her forked tongue tickled along Shawn’s ear. “Real fun….”
  Shawn was about to protest, but all that came out was an embarrassing little sound as Serena’s tail flowed down across his front to press against the growing bulge along the front of his pants. “I believe it is closing in on Christmas...I suppose you are a bit of a ‘Gift’....Would you all not agree?”
  “Oh yes….” Seria purred, a coil draping itself heavily across Shawn’s thigh.
  “Quite so….” Caresse nodded, starting to lose her form a bit, dripping under his ill-fitting clothes.
“And I believe humans have a tradition when it comes to gifts, don’t they, Shawn?”
Shawn made a needy little sound, squirming as more of him vanished between the three of them. Bodies worked in tandem to softly touch him all over, caresses and undulations, kneading motions and massages across his skin, tail-tips and ooze-drips sneaking under his clothes, straining the fabric.
“So...if you’re to be a proper Christmas gift.” Her voice was purring now, deeply, a rumble of bass that vibrated around him. “We’ll have to wrap you properly~”
At that, any semblance of holding back was lost. Shawn was washed under a tide of scales, but unlike in previous days, they didn’t choke or squeeze the breath from him. They held him there, gentle in the strength and touches, consuming him until there was little to be seen of the human. The snakes were warm in their gifts from their pet, and they gave their most special present it’s proper wrapping.
 
 
End