Emerald: The Body Shop

Emerald: The Body Shop
By fastbreak333

  Esmeralda is a sweet arctic fox, in more ways than one, as her candy store named The Sweet Spot has had moderate success in her town. As she drives in her powder blue Hudson, she finds a spot at the parking lot and stops, facing the south side of her store. It would be strange to see her there as her store is open from Monday to Friday at 11:00 to 5:00, but the clock tower shows it's ten minutes until seven. As she gets out her car, she grabs her purse, locks the door and walks down a staircase on the west side of her store. She takes out a white card with a black strip and slides it in the card swiper above the doorknob. A couple of beeps and the door unlocks.

  Emerald enters, revealing another store with much odder merchandise: on the shelves, the counters, and the pedestals lay body parts. There were arranged neatly by which part they are and come in all kinds of furs, scales, or skins. Arms are laid down on the shelves, legs are stood up on their feet, and heads are resting on their stumps with their eyes closed and their mouth clamped shut. There were even a few bodies posing in a static position on the platforms, wearing nothing but plain undergarments. Despite them not making any movement, they were certainly made of flesh and bone.

  Secretly, Emerald was a modular: a being that can pull her body parts away from their joints without blood or pain. There are many ways one could be a modular, but Emerald got hers by genetics, her ability manifested during puberty. Although she doesn't mind it, she has only told a select few people about it, preferring to keep her ability private.

  During college, she met another person that was a born modular as well and as they talked, she found out he was part of a group called FAN, short for Fall Apart Nation. It was a group of all kinds of creatures with modular abilities. Even people with only one cut on their body can be accepted. Curious, she decided to join. As she settled in over the years, one of the club's leaders noticed she was getting a degree in business. She offered a building for her to lease, free of charge, if she devoted part of it to FAN.

  Now a couple of years after that, she has that building with the basement being a part of FAN's secret body part emporiums, opening from 7:00 to 10:00 on weeknights. As she settles in behind the counter, she already hears two beeps.

  As she looks to her left, she sees a rather thin looking gray wolf enter the door. His appearance is rather scrawny and as he nervously smiles a bit, his braces are clearly shining in the fluorescent lights. He was wearing a green-and-white plaid t-shirt and black slacks with a belt. He adjusts his glasses some as he shyly sees the arctic fox and coughs a bit in nervousness.

  "Um… um, uh…" He swallows and sighs, "A-are you the m-manager?"
  The arctic fox giggles quietly and nods, "I sure am, call me Emerald."
  "Yeah, okay," he shows the card he used to get inside the room. It shows some basic information: name, sex, birth date, joining date, and expiration date. Emerald noticed that he got in FAN two months ago.

  "So, you're a new member, huh?"
  "Yeah, um, I just h-heard about your store and was wondering…"
  "Yes?"
  "I was thinking that maybe you could… order me a new body?"
  "Certainly, sir," she says as she stands up, "If you follow me, we'll see what we can find for you."

  The wolf sheepishly follows the arctic fox as her tail lightly swishes in the wind, her hips moving back and forth a bit. The walk makes the wolf all flustered, but he tries his best to hide it. They come to a stop at a computer monitor attached to an arcade cabinet of sorts, the keyboard and track pad integrated into the cabinet. A program seems to already be running in full-screen. Emerald sits on the stool in front of it and motions the wolf to look over her shoulder.

  As the program runs, Emerald clicks on a button marked "Body" and suddenly, a wireframe model of a body appears on screen. Right now, it seems to be a plain human. Emerald goes to a drop down menu for species and clicks on canis. Another drop down menu appears, letting Emerald click on that to search for a specific part of the genus. As she finds the one for wolf, the wireframe changes to a wolf body.

  "Alright," she says, "Now what would you like with your body, Peter? Or do you prefer Mr. Reech?"
  The wolf was nervous on saying what he wanted, feeling his mouth get a bit dry, but he finally spoke, "Peter is f-fine. I was hoping for… a strong body."
  "Strong? As in a buff body?"
  "Yeah, I was thinking a change in appearance could bring me more confidence… and less bullying."
  "Oh, I understand. Just give me a minute."

  Emerald fiddles around with the sliders as she keeps on asking questions. He makes the model on screen be as tall as him and gives it a lot of beefiness. As she finishes the design, she clicks on Search and the computer hums for a few minutes. It brings up a match, giving her an ID on the product and a few pictures of what it looks like. Peter appears astounded by the result. Yes, he definitely would prefer this one!

  "Well, you're in luck, Peter," she says, "We have a body like that for you and it's on sale for 20% off the retail price!" She stands up, seeming pleased.
  "Oh, th-that's great!" Peter says as he follows her to the body, standing on a pedestal and flexing his right bicep.

  Emerald goes to the east side of the store and grabs a large pushcart. She carefully picks up the wolf body and places it on the cart. She then wheels it to the south side of the room where there are two doors. She opens one, revealing only a mirror and a small bench inside a closet-sized room. She picks up the body and places it inside the room.

  Peter looks inside, seeing the wolf body standing there in the same pose. He seems a bit confused by all this, but figures this is where he can put on the body in private. Well, he's already gotten this far…

  "Alright," she speaks as she moves the pushcart out of the way, "Feel free to try it on in there. Just remember, once you place your head on the new body, your old one will fall over limp, so catch it quickly!"

  Peter meekly nods and enters the room, closing the door behind him. He looks over the huge wolf body standing before him. Since they are the same height, he can see the smooth neck stump that's just over his chin. He touches it, feeling how soft and luxurious it is as the body doesn't react a bit.

  Peter takes a deep breath and then grabs the sides of his head, pulling as hard as he can. With one huge tug and a slight pop, his head comes off. It always feels weird to him when he knows he's holding himself. As he turns himself around, looking straight at his body, he places the head on the strong body.

  As it connects, a rush of feeling overcomes him as he shivers a bit. Suddenly, he feels a lot more agile and way beefier than before! He looks at his new hands, flexing them. Suddenly, he notices his body starting to tip over and he quickly catches it before it hit's the ground, nearly panicking. He was surprised that as he picked it up, he did it rather easily, as if his body weighed like a feather! His new tail starts to wag in excitement, very happy with his future purchase.

  Suddenly, he hears a knock. "So, how's the body?" Asks Emerald, "Is it alright if I see?"
  He ponders about it and then replies, "Yeah, come on in."
  Emerald opens the door and as she takes a good look at him, she whistles twice. She definitely found the wolf rather masculine in his new look and her reaction made him blush as red as a tomato.

  "So," she speaks, "Will you be trading in your old buy or just plain buying?"
  "Buying, please."
  "Fair enough, if you would follow me, please…"
  The wolf walks with his old body cradled in his arms, not moving in the slightest. Emerald goes back behind the register and types in a few numbers.

  "Okay, your total will be $800 with $56 tax."
  "Alright, but what will I do with two bodies?" He queries.
  "It's not a problem, Peter; we're going to ship your new body to your address. You'll get it very soon, I promise."
  As Peter feels his arms in wonder, making Emerald giggle in her mind, he snaps out of it and nods quickly, taking off his head and placing it on his original body. As he does, he feels his original body once more and the body just stands there. Peter found it odd that the body he's purchasing is standing there while his had to fall over, but he figures it was a store secret.

  "Oh, I know what you're wondering," she smirks, "And it's really simple. There's a spot between the shoulder blades you press firmly at the spine. Hold it there for 10 seconds and the body goes completely stiff. It's a natural ability for us modulars."
  "Wow, I never knew that," he says as he's writing the check, finishing it off with his signature, "Well, I'll definitely keep that in mind."
  "Thank you very much!" She takes the check and places it in the register. "Don't worry, we know your address and we'll send it to you soon. Do you have a phone number I can reach?"

  Peter nods and gives out his number before leaving with his receipt. He gives a wave and a thank you as he shuts the door. As he goes up the stairs, giddy to teach those bullies at work a thing or two, Emerald gets out the pushcart again and places the body on it. She figures she might as well get started on mailing this body.

  She goes all the way to the other side of the store, finding the cardboard boxes she uses. Inside, the boxes are coated with bubble wrap for protection. As she sets up the box so it's completely open, she carefully gets the body to lie down, getting his feet into the box. She slides the box up with a lot of effort, tipping it upward as the body slowly slides in until it stands inside the box. She closes it up with some package tape and takes a blank sticker. She goes to the computer to look up the address and writes on the sticker before slapping it right on the box.

  "Hopefully the mail carrier will be here a lot sooner," she says to herself, "He's a great guy, but he really takes his time and I want to take a bubble bath soon."
  As she flips her hair a bit, she walks right back to the counter and picks up a magazine, perusing the contents as she waits for another customer. Another day and another night at both her stores and she couldn't be any happier making customers satisfied.