Curiosity (Patreon)

It was a day like any other at Emerald, a small gift shop near the big mall. The only two people working that day were Joel, the new hire, and Ariel, a tomboyish mutant with a punk side. Ariel clearly worked out as her four arms were quite buff. Sometimes Joel caught himself staring at them and the way they attached to her shoulder blades. He tried his best to keep his mind on the task at hand, which currently was straightening up the home office aisles. Luckily, Ariel was up at the front of the store ringing out customers, so not causing too much of a distraction.

Overhead the lights flickered, and then went out completely dark. It was the middle of the day and the sun was out, so there was plenty of natural light to get around by. But the nearby large mall cast such a shadow into their store that it gave it an eerily creepy vibe.

“Ugh. I wish the emergency lights had been installed sooner. Why couldn’t this have happened Thursday after they’re installed?” Ariel said. She couldn’t ring out customers with no electricity, so she apologized to the customer at the register then sent them on their way.

“We won't be able to keep working like this,” Joel said as she switched on his phone’s flashlight.

Ariel was already on her cell calling the power company. A message explaining there was an outage in the area greeted her before she could even speak to a person. “Well apparently this is going to take two hours to fix. Let’s close up for now. No use sitting around here doing nothing.”

Across the parking lot there were a few picnic benches where employees sometimes ate lunch. They decided to hang out there for awhile to see if the power came back any sooner. Ariel stretched back on one of the benches, sunning herself.

The pair had never hung out outside of work. They hadn’t really even discussed anything beyond shop talk. Joel sat on the other side of the picnic table and pretended to be absorbed in something on his phone though he kept stealing small glances at Ariel. He found her as intimidating as she was beautiful, and while he wanted to ask about her mutations, he wasn’t quite sure if it was appropriate to do. But the silence was killing him.

“Hey, I noticed that you have different colored eyes. They are very pretty,” he mentioned.

Ariel sat up and looked at him a bit surprised. "Really? Well, heterochromia is pretty common in fusions."

“Wait. Fusion?” Joel asked, a bit surprised. He’d heard of fusions before but to his knowledge had never met one and didn’t know much about them.

"Well, as the word says, I used to be two different people," she said.

“A-Are you serious?” Joel asked, eyes wide.

His genuine ignorance was so cute Ariel couldn’t help but chuckle a little. "Yeah, it's not that rare. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of it before. There are even some well known celebrities that are fusions. Some fusions are just less noticeable than others.”

"I-I’m sorry. I just had never met a fusion before. And I’ve never really been able to ask anyone some of my questions. Though I admit I’m really curious about mutants and fusions.”

Ariel crossed her legs as she leaned forward on the picnic table. “Well, you can ask me if you want. I don’t mind.”

"Well, ok.” Joel blushed. He didn’t want to offend her. “Did the people who merged into you know each other?"

“Oh, they sure did. Danielle and Eric were a couple and a very horny one I must say," said Ariel.

“Wait, you were a boy and a girl?!?!”

“Yep!”

"That's possible?"

“Danielle must have had a very strong fusion gene. During one of their wild nights together they started merging together. And not just in a sexual sense. It was an interesting time to be born, so to speak. My first individual thoughts were trapped under a 5 minute orgasm,” Ariel said matter-of-factly.

"And how is that?"

"An orgasm?"

“No!” Joel was ignorant but not that ignorant. “I mean your thoughts. They must be confusing?”

Ariel looked at the sky for a few seconds before speaking. “It is much more than confusing. I panicked when the orgasm stopped. It’s exhausting to have two points of view, two sets of memories, etc. When you fuse you know everything about the people who became you and when you are the fusion of a couple let's say you get very angry when you analyze the times they lied and even cheated on each other.”

“Is it like getting angry and justifying yourself?” Joel asked.

"Yeah, kind of. But the feeling of anger is stronger, which is silly considering that you are angry with a part of yourself."

"So that's why your back arms are more muscular?"

“Yes, although the dominant side due to the fusion is the feminine part. That’s why my arms maintain all their muscle definition but look more feminine, especially the hands. I also retained my penis despite the feminine side being more dominant.”

"W-Wait, did you say penis?"

Ariel laughed loudly as she spread her legs a little, revealing the bulge in her crotch. "Of course, there is the best of both worlds down there."

“Oh wow, so you are…?” Joel wasn’t quite sure how to ask his next question without accidentally offending her.

“What? Just spit it out."

“A-are you a boy or a girl?” Joel stammered.

“Oh, I’m nothing so binary,” Ariel said. “I'm gender fluid. Though most people automatically use she/her given my appearance, but I don’t mind too much. These two years since I merged have been a real journey."

“You must have gone through a lot.”

"The first month I was desperately looking for a way to reverse it. Then as I got used to being a fusion, I became terrified that it would somehow be reversed. For a long time, I tried to present as male, but it's easier to hide a penis than size E boobs,” Ariel said as she stretched out her four arms deliberately pushing her chest forward a bit. “I don't even want to talk about the family thing, that has been hell the whole time.”

“I see,” Joel said and nodded. For a moment he was silent as he tried to absorb everything Ariel had told him. “Hey, if you fused two years ago, then you are just two years old?”

"It doesn't work like that, silly," Ariel said a bit annoyed. If there’s one thing she hated, it’s when people tried to treat her like a child. "I'm two years old as a fusion but it adds to the average age of my… components, if you will."

“I see, I see. That makes sense. So, when… no, never mind I shouldn’t ask that."

"Come on, don't be shy if you want to ask something," Ariel encouraged him.

Joel blushed deeply. “Ok, so if someone sleeps with you… is that the equivalent of being in a threesome?”

"No, of course not. I'm just one person," Ariel said. "Why? Are you interested?"

"What? No! No, no it’s not… I mean…” he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence.

Ariel leaned her head on two of her arms as his eyes looked directly into his, a smirk stretching across her face. "Oh? Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you look at me while we’re working.”

At that moment, the store lights flickered on drawing their attention. Joel was more than happy to have a distraction. “Well, that was quick. Does this mean we have to open again though?”

“Yeah, sadly. I kind of wanted to have the rest of the day off myself.” Ariel stretched all four arms high above her head as she stood up. She couldn’t help noticing the bulge in Joel’s pants. “Haha seems like you really are into me.”

“W-what do you mean?”

Ariel leaned over to Joel and whispered in his ear. "It’s not hard to spot a boner.” Joel turned the deepest shade of crimson he’d ever been. "Don’t worry. You’re not the only one it’s happened to.” They walked back into the store and started turning on the registers and backroom computers. “You know. If you have a free evening, maybe we could grab a couple beer and I could continue to educate you on life as a fusion.”

“Yeah, a beer would be great!” Joel replied a little too enthusiastically.

"Great! And hey. Maybe I’ll let you fulfill all your curiosities,” Ariel winked at him, a playful smile on her face.

Before Joel could respond customers started flooding back into the store making them unable to continue their conversation. It sounded like there would be other opportunities to do so though.