Transformation Story: All That Glitters

This story is an amplification of a story/image sequence that I did for the Hypnotics Collective also called ‘All That Glitters’. In turn that was influenced by the images I found on www.Goldfinger2000.de This story was originally planned as a simple transformation fantasy but in writing it has also become quite an allegory of a lesbian woman coming out.

All That Glitters

Diane had been working for Marlborough’s gallery in East London for about a year. She was keen to make it as an artist in her own right, but recognised that she needed to eat too. Working for the gallery was a good compromise: it kept her close to art and allowed her to pursue her own interests in the evenings and at weekends. In fact, it had made Diane quite ambitious and some days she indulged in fantasies of her being the manager and travelling the world organising shows to come here. The gallery’s staff was comparatively small which meant Diane had already gained quite a good deal of responsibility. With Abigail Soames, the current manager, away pretty often, she could very much set her own agenda on a daily basis.

The task Diane liked most was encouraging artists to come and exhibit. Like all galleries, Marlborough’s was always being approached by artists keen to show their work there, but Nicholas Marlborough, the owner, had always been eager to get established names to show their work too. It was a view shared by Abigail, with both of them being acutely aware of the attention and interest such shows generated for a gallery in an area of London, which whilst it had come a long way since the 1990s, still had quite a distance to travel before it was the natural stamping ground for collectors.

Diane had taken the unilateral decision for the summer months to focus on sculpture. They had had some very successful painting shows in the last few weeks and now she felt a focus on another field of art would widen the clientele and also tempt some of the regulars who came down from Hoxton to maybe branch out into collecting something different. Diane was thrilled that morning because she had received a call back from one of the artists she had approached, Eva Khrysos. Eva was a half-German, half-Greek artist now working in Brighton. Her sculptures seemed to mix Classical references with a modern outlook, plus a good dose of sexuality so appeared ideal for the style that Marlborough’s fostered.

Sarah, Sarah Daniels who worked alongside Diane at the gallery, had said Eva was an ardent lesbian and seemed to worry that Diane would be somehow be debauched by Eva if she got her to exhibit at the gallery. Diane had no worries; she knew artists came from all across the sexual spectrum. The golden female nudes that she had been rumoured to be working on, seemed perfect and Diane was delighted when it was Eva herself who called back and quickly agreed to bring a selection of them to Marlborough’s, because, so she said ‘they like to get out and about in new settings every once in a while’, whatever that meant. Diane expected eccentric statements from artists and thought nothing more of it.


It had been three weeks since Eva had confirmed she would exhibit at the gallery and those weeks had been hectic for Diane with getting everything organised. For some reason, more than ever before, Diane felt this was her exhibition and she put all that she could into ensuring it passed off smoothly. It was to be entitled ‘Party of Gold’. There were to be six statues exhibited along with some furniture items Eva had also produced and which she felt would fit the theme. Long curtains, some velvet, some clear vinyl, were hung as a backdrop to what would be a circular exhibition space. Set up in front of a couple of the curtains were to be two of the gold-framed mirrors Eva had made and which would allowed visitors to catch different angles of the statues. At the heart of the exhibit was to stand a grand golden chair, a throne almost, carved with lions heads and heraldic fish, upholstered between with claret red velvet. It was positioned in the centre of the room, almost as if it was awaiting the lord or the lady, Diane guessed, of the party; the one that the sculpted women had come to entertain.

The sculptures themselves arrived last. Of course Diane had seen photographs of them, but the images did not really capture their beauty. Each one of them was life-sized, a woman so lifelike it was astounding; nude bar high-heeled shoes and covered in gold that gave them a glistening skin without a blemish. Even their hair was gold and like their flesh caught the beams from the lights carefully placed around the room. The age of the women depicted stretched over twenty years from a couple that resembled Diane’s age to one or two coming into their forties. Diane found them stunning. They somehow at the same time looked like real women she might meet passing in the street and yet magically transformed into these exotic golden creatures.

Diane wondered how Eva had made the statues. The men who had installed them said they were heavier than resin but far lighter than bronze. Like them, Diane guessed at some kind of plastic or a wax even, with a density deliberately made to be as heavy as human flesh. Diane could not resist running her hands over their shiny skin. To the touch they were neither hot nor cold, but certainly slippery and smooth, attributes she assumed came from the paint that covered them.

Having seen the statues, Diane had so many questions she wanted to ask their maker. However, she knew she had to be patient. Eva had insisted that, whilst she was happy for people to see the statues, she would only come to an event on the night before they were removed back to her studio. She argued, and Diane thought this was reasonable, that she got a genuine interest and a far higher standard of questions once people had had a chance to see and appreciate her work, rather than the sort of queries they came up with on first seeing it and feeling obliged to ask something of the artist just because she was there.


Now the exhibition was up and she had answered the questions from art journalists in the first few hours, Diane settled into overseeing the display on a day-to-day basis. She made sure that she took time each evening, after all her colleagues had gone home, to walk around the exhibit. The security guard never came in here. The procedure was that whoever oversaw a particular exhibition securely locked the room and switched on the electronic security before they left the building. Cameras covered the corridors but it was felt unnecessary to have them in the exhibition room itself. At the moment anyway, they would not have seen much beyond the long curtains.

Diane walked around looking at the full set of statues, the mirrors and the chair too, each evening. She felt she always discovered something new about the statues and would have sworn that they were in slightly different positions each evening: a finger or even a hand somewhere slightly different in relation to the rest of the body compared the evening before. Not knowing what they were made of, she had no idea whether that material somehow altered, even though the temperature in the room was kept constant.

Though she had come to know the statues well, walking around them, she always felt a frisson as if one of those in the circle that she had her back to was making faces at her. She guessed that it was because they were so life-like; she imagined she would not feel the same if they were amorphous blobs of clay or stone. Diane could not deny that there was a strange sensation about being in the room with them, something that made her tingle, something almost like an ache you might have felt when you child as Christmas got closer and you anticipated the presents. Diane found she was staying later, making excuses to be around these statues when no-one was there to disturb her. The long Summer days meant she could leave quite late and still go home in daylight.


As Diane walked into her bedroom with the towel draped around her she felt a little peculiar. She had slept so deeply well into this Sunday after a busy time at the gallery the day before. Diane had not had a boyfriend since she had split with Jake at the end of art school and she guessed working late on Saturdays was not going to help that situation. She did always hope, though, that she would encounter some rich collector or artist at the gallery who would sweep her away for dinner. However, all of them she met there were married, some to women, but most to their collections or the art they produced.

Diane did not know if it was the colour she caught in the corner of her eye, or feeling the same sensation as she had done on evenings among the statues, but she turned slowly towards the mirror, letting the towel drop as she did. Diane blinked at the reflection, if she could call it that, well, at the image, she saw before her. It was herself but gone were the pale skin, the blonded hair, the red lips, the odd freckle and blemish on her body, instead, all distinction of colour was replaced by gold. From the top of her gold hair down to her feet was the uniform, glistening, smooth shade that she knew so well from the statues. Nervously she ran her tongue between her lips and saw that even it matched. Only her eyes, brown on their whites, retained any other colour and, of course, she remembered that each of the statues at the gallery had their eyelids closed.

Diane stood, shifting a little apprehensively as each moment passed and the hallucination, after all that was what it had to be, did not pass. Yet, part of her did not want it to go. Fantasies of positioning a mirror in the gallery, even this mirror if it was the only one that would do it, to show her like this, came to her mind. That would be something so stunning, she laughed hesitantly. Now she drank in every sight she could, running her eyes repeatedly over her golden body, thinking it such a joke to go from being the one who oversaw the exhibition to being one who could be part of it. That thought brought back the present-anticipation sensation with such a force that Diane felt she could almost step through the mirror into a world where this golden form was her truth.

Unable to take it any longer, Diane glanced down at her body and saw her pale skin, flushed from the heat of the bath water; not gold, not with that metallic shine, just the normal Diane: not unattractive but certainly nothing from some fantastical dream. She looked back to the mirror and it just showed her as she was. Diane shook her head as if it could dislodge the visions and the fantasies. Dressing quickly she headed back to the bathroom where she was sure she had some of those calming tablets which had helped her get through the final assessed pieces of work at college.


Throughout the week Diane had foregone her previous habit she had had overseeing her charges, her angels, as she had viewed them once, and made sure she was out of the gallery minutes after her last colleague had left. She made sure she got good sleep, aided by some herbal remedies, replenished from the health food shop. This evening, however, was different, and there was no way she was going to leave early. Tomorrow was the day Eva Khrysos was coming and the day after that the exhibits would be packed up and on their way back to Brighton. Diane could not leave the display alone and then she fussed over the catalogues which had only, finally, arrived from the printers late that afternoon. She sat at the table close to the entrance way where the catalogues would be dished out and where those who had been invited would get their wine and cheese. She ran her eyes over the check list again and could sense the worry piling in on her. Thoughts of everything going wrong, the exhibits getting knocked over domino-style by some collector expounding too vigorously with his hands or Diane finding she had had the wrong date or time printed on the invitations or Eva getting stranded in a severe traffic jam on the road from Brighton all preyed on her thoughts. Diane fumbled for the herbal remedy and the bottle of water in her bag. Washing down the small tablets, she heaved a big sigh of relief. At least she was not being spooked by hallucinations, though she thought one more glimpse of herself in gold would be quite nice.


Diane’s eyes snapped open. Her head was lying flat on the table, the skin of her cheek uncomfortably sticking to its surface. She glanced at her watch but for some reason the battery seemed dead. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. From the darkness that she could see through the skylight it appeared to have been quite a while; the sun had certainly set. Diane jumped up, scrabbling for her bag. She still had the keys which meant no-one would have turned on the security system and she could get out without triggering any alarms.

Diane hurried for the door and glanced up as she did. The statue nearest the door was the tallest of the set, but even with her up on her pedestal, Diane noticed when her eyelids opened and not an unkind smile came to her lips. Diane shrieked and jumped back, her heart thumping in her chest. This had to be some joke. Someone had painted some woman who resembled the statue, and Diane knew their features well, so that she could jump out and give Diane the scare of her life. Diane’s mind coursed with rational explanations like that, as, in turn, each of the statues began to move further disproving her theories. Two quickly came together embracing and kissing as the lovers they were; another began moving rhythmically, sinuously as if dancing to some erotic tune only she could hear. Two others just stood talking, but the one nearest to Diane stepped down from her pedestal and came closer.

Though her pulse was pumping, Diane was frozen. She feared that the hallucination had reached a new intensity. All thoughts that this was a complex practical joke ran farther from her mind with every moment that passed and no-one came through the door or sprang from behind the curtain laughing.

“Nicole.”

The woman, Diane wondered if she could call her that, said. Her voice was soft but had a richness that felt as if it was sliding deep into Diane through the top of her head, the small of her back; the tips of her fingers.

Nicole waved her hand towards the kissing couple, “Kathy, Elizabeth”, then round to the dancer, “Linda”, and the remaining two, “Natasha, Sonia”. Then she looked back at Diane. Diane remained speechless, astounded now, how quickly she had accepted what was happening: “oh yes, well you know, at night they come alive” she seemed to be saying quite rationally to herself. Nicole stood in front of Diane, her eyes looking into Diane’s as if seeking an answer. Diane assumed Nicole wanted her name, but strangely she felt if she told her that then she would have given up something, some kind of defence: what was then to stop Nicole listing her with the others. Then Diane realised that that outcome was so tempting. Was it not what she had wanted all along to be in the sisterhood with these women? Was she not being offered the chance? They had revealed their secret to her, when if for a few moments more they had remained still, they could have kept it secret.

Nicole turned away and strode back to her pedestal. Diane wondered if she had lost patience with the lack of response, but then as she crouched on her haunches, she seemed to be settling down as if proving she had an infinite patience. For someone who spent half her time as a statue, Diane guessed she should not be surprised of that characteristic from Nicole. Diane wondered now if she should make a break for it, run as fast as she could, pretend she had not witnessed any of this, call in sick the following day and take herself off on holiday as soon as she could. She glanced over at Nicole crouching with her legs splayed as if inviting her to slide between them. Then it felt as if a void had opened up beneath Diane and she staggered a little. It made sense that if these golden women were the products of a lesbian artist, living they would be imbued with her characteristics. Diane wondered if they were partnered off, but then it dawned on her that whilst they might find pleasure from each other’s bodies, it was their mistress who they truly loved.

Nervously, Diane stepped away from the wall she had sought as refuge. She wondered how much she truly knew about her own sexuality. Was it odd that she had preferred to spend evenings among this collection of beautiful naked women rather than heading to bars and clubs to find a new boyfriend? Was that why Nicole and the others had revealed themselves: with only one night of their time here left did they feel they had to stop her from walking away from discovering what she had been unconsciously finding out while they were here. Diane’s memory reminded her of the occasions when she had run her hands across the smooth thighs and even the breasts of these statues; unashamedly because she thought they were only statues. Was she really ashamed of such touches now she saw them as women?

Diane looked over at Nicole as if she would provide the answers but the woman of gold remained crouched with her hands grasping her knees. It was a welcoming pose but at the same time somehow challenging. There was no hostility there, nor really an immediate welcome, neither did it appear to be a curiosity: these women knew more than enough about humans for that to arise. No, it was an air of challenge; laying down something before Diane and seeing if she had the courage to go with it, to believe the signals she had been getting in these days, to keep on shaking them off and denying them, or to go with them and grasp all that that meant. Diane stepped closer to Nicole, still very hesitant, almost not believing what was being offered was true, not because the thought of it felt so fantastical, but because the belief in it was so exciting. Sensing what was occurring the others gathered around, not in a tight circle, but certainly in something that made it look like the start of a ritual.

Diane’s chest felt constricted and her skin was aflame. She tried to speak, but it would not come. “Diane, Diane.” She persisted.

Smiles came to every face. Nicole stepped down from her pedestal and came slowly to Diane, gently stroking her face with those glistening, slippery fingers. She let her arms subside and again looked deep into Diane’s eyes. Then she turned away and faced the chair. The ring broke with Sonia stepping aside and also looking towards the chair; the others gazed at Diane. Diane could not believe it as, without her commanding them, her legs began walking her towards the chair. Sonia swept aside the sign that had stopped anyone sitting on it, something Eva had not requested. Diane realised that Eva did literally create these women, but in a way she could never have envisaged.

Then Diane was sitting. Her bum had barely come to rest on the velvet when she felt a force shoot through her, sending her writhing pleasurably in her seat and pushing her to stand once again as if she was going to burst with orgasm. However, somehow she knew she had done enough and there was now no way she could reverse what was happening to her. Sonia, Natasha, Linda clawed at her clothes as Diane twisted in their grasp. Soon she was naked and she gasped at the sight of the gold that already covered her feet and ankles. It was the smooth, shiny colour that she now knew so well. It was rising quickly up her body and Diane understood that in moments at most she would be as the golden woman she had seen in the mirror. As her thighs and her pussy and her midriff then her breasts and her arms all were rendered in gold, Diane was taut with the ecstasy and she knew now how Linda could entertain herself just indulging the pleasures of the flesh that her body was endowed with. Diane could not take her hands off herself and delighted in the sensations that fired off wherever she touched.

Then Diane felt Kathy beside her, then her hand on her shoulder gently turning Diane to face the mirror. Diane gasped at her appearance. Her hair glistened, its colour matching the flawless shade that covered her entire body; that displayed that body as the treasure it truly was. Now Diane genuinely understood how wonderful it was to be a work of art by day and a sensuous sexual creature by night.

Slowly her fellow golden women stepped forward and gently ran their hands across her body almost as if testing to see if the gold had taken: it had and for good. Diane realised she felt no shame, no discomfort in these touches. In fact as the moments passed and she really understood the consequences of choice she had made, if indeed there ever been a choice rather than simply a destiny, Diane began to drink in the sensations of gold skin across gold skin. Each electric response her body gave to every single contact fired her deeper and deeper into what she had become. She may have yielded her freedom but she now recognised that what she had received in return was infinitely more desirable. Soon Diane was an integral part of the cavorting, flailing, many-limbed golden creature, every part of which had a distinct identity but together created something so much more powerful, so much more pleasurable. Fingers and arms, thighs, nipples and tongues were brushed across each other. Now Diane found herself accepting Nicole’s offer and sliding between the slippery thighs to lap at the golden pussy lips. As she did, she felt dextrous fingers treating her sex the same, showing her that she could be served the way she served another.


Time had no meaning until Diane, her body senseless from the repeated orgasms which had crashed over it, began to feel a stiffness, a strange, unfamiliar urge. She was now concerned that she had only be granted one night of this existence, but each in turn her new sisters kissed her and touched her softly, telling her that this was the other wonderful side to their existence. While daylight was here she was a gleaming shadow, her perfect body on show, admired, envied and desired, never tiring, never ageing, forever in her golden beauty. Diane walked to where she knew there was space for her and stood, her eyes closed, her lips pursed her arms not concealing any part of her naked body, but with palms facing the floor, a little out from her sides. As daylight froze Diane’s golden pose it was of a beautiful, nude young woman, seeming to simper as she lowered herself into the stimulation of chill water, sending delightful tingles right through her forever.

XXXX

“Where’s Diane?” Abigail asked, though not unkindly, as she strode into the exhibition space.

“She must be around. The door’s unlocked. The catalogues are all set out. There’s her bag, and those look like the clothes she was wearing yesterday.” Sarah said as she tried to decipher the evidence. “Knowing how wound up she’s been about this exhibition, it wouldn’t surprise me if she slept here all night. I bet she’s popped out for a quadruple espresso.”

“Sounds likely. I always admire how much effort she puts into these things. Getting Eva Khrysos to bring her collection here was a coup. I only saw the attachment she emailed on the flight back from New York. Well, these are impressive. They looked good on the computer, but that did them no justice.”

Abigail walked around the ring of golden women turned in towards the throne at the centre. A couple were on pedestals others stood on the floor. Around her Sarah scurried about picking up the stray items that Diane seemed to have abandoned; she put the sign back on the chair.

“They’re incredibly life-like, very beautiful. I wonder who she gets to model for them. That one even looks a little like Diane.”

“Do you think so?” Sarah looked a little uncertain, she seemed to have difficulty imaging her colleague as someone so beautiful, but she would have to confess she had never seen her naked.

“Well, if her hair was gold rather than blonde, of course, and on the statue it’s static rather than alive. Maybe I’ll persuade Nicholas to buy one for the foyer. I wonder what Diane would think to see a golden, nude replica of herself.” Abigail walked up to it and ran her hand over the smooth gold surface. “I suppose it might embarrass her, people might say she didn’t match up, but maybe one of these others, there’s another six to choose from.”

“Six in total.” Sarah said looking up from the desk.

“No, seven in total.”

“Okay, I just thought Diane said there were six. Maybe that’s what Eva promised and then slipped in an extra one.”

“Well, all the better for us. I’m looking forward to this. It’s rare to get such good life sculptures these days.”

“Mmm, yes. Well, according to these notes of Diane’s Eva is expected in thirty-five minutes and it’s an hour until the event kicks off. I don’t know why she wouldn’t have it in the evening.”

“Well, that’s an artist’s prerogative and when she’s as good as this at her work, no-one’s going to protest.”

“No, I suppose not. Now, I wonder where Diane’s got to…”

XXXX

Diane opened her golden eyelids. She was no longer in the gallery and she realised that the exhibition had ended today and that she and the others had been packed up and shipped back to Eva’s gallery. Diane moved a little and looked around. She seemed to be stood on a low pedestal in a room with symbols like hieroglyphs around the walls. There was no sign of the others and Diane felt a moment of disappointment.

“Don’t worry; you can join them in a minute.” The voice was familiar.

Diane turned quickly to see the woman she knew to be Eva Khrysos.

“I just wanted some time alone with you to really admire you; you are something very special and I’m so pleased that you decided to become one of my golden women.”

“Did I have a choice or was I chosen?” Diane’s voice came softly, it seemed strange to speak given how so much of the previous night’s conversation had been by touch.

Diane walked forward and let Eva’s arm snake around her waist and her lips press so softly against her own golden pair. This was a much better way to communicate.

“We all have a choice. I may be your owner for now but that is because I have always lacked the courage to sit in the chair; to become a true part of the sisterhood. You, all of you, own me as much as I own you. Maybe it takes an artist of true courage to become art in the way you have done; and you are a stunning piece.”

In that instant, Diane realised that Eva had only provided the catalyst: the golden women and the chair, it had been what Diane had been before that made her what she was now. She lent forward and kissed Eva forcefully as a signal of her decision and of her thanks.

“Come, the others will be expecting you. These Summer nights are so short. Wait until we go to Rovaniemi in the Winter: darkness around the clock, so much to be enjoyed that you’ll be glad to be back in an exhibition for a rest.”

Diane smiled, thinking about the pleasures ahead. As they passed from Eva’s private exhibition space into a smaller lounge area, Diane caught sight of glistening gold beyond and knew that she was going to enjoy the next few hours to the full.

THE END.