*When I turn my feelings on I turn my feelings on inside Yeah Feel like I'm gonna ignite* **"I Turn My Camera On" by Spoon** The young man made sure ChattiBunch was running correctly. Then he checked his disk space. Then he turned on his screen recorder. Then, and only then, did he hit CONNECT. As he watched the buffering graphic spin round and round, he wasn't sure if he should lean back in his seat or lean forward. He tried for a sort of, y'know, casual neutrality. The first thing to appear was the grid. Three squares wide, three squares high. The cameras came up at different times; their users had different processing speeds, internet connections, camera software, connection speeds. A random 3 by 3 grid of different camera resolutions, lighting, brightness. The young man's camera, as it happened, was in the bottom right corner. With a bright green square around it, just in case he had face blindness or something. As the webcam feeds loaded, the various participants did that thing where you try to make eye contact by looking at the screen, then look at the camera, then back to the screen. The black guy in the top right presented an interesting contrast to the asian in the bottom left. They were both non-white, and had dark vests, but that was where it ended. Top Right had a shaved head, a plain black tank top, and a plain black baseball cap perched at a jaunty angle. The red label on the front said SOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR in white, sans-serif text. The tank top was clearly chosen to show off every bit of his impressive musculature, and the young man could see the man's biceps bulge as he stroked his bearded chin. The Asian dude? If you turned him sideways you'd lose him behind a lamp post. He wasn't really wearing the vest, it was more hanging off him, like a clothesline. His long, dark, straight hair hunt in front of his face, and as he scratched his nose, pov could see the rings on the other man's fingers. The beard was thin and scraggly too. The bearded, long-haired hippie type in the top-center wore a loose cotton - or hemp - shirt. There was a doorway with living room barely visible behind him, so he was probably at a kitchen or dining room table. He had green eyes, and his right fist pistoned frantically up and down, and the young man leaned forward in anticipation. *Wait for it. Wait for it...* And then he bought his hand up. With a Shake Weight. Several of the other participants groaned, and sat back. The young man just smirked. *Predictable. there's more fake pervs on here than real pervs. At least I got enough Content for Twitter. Or even a short video.* He twisted, let the chair squeak under him. *Maybe I could include it in a compilation?* Hippie guy smirked at them. "I'm sorry, what were you expecting? If you thought it was something naughty of mine, you'd need a much higher-res camera." A chubby girl in the center left waved shyly. She wore a yellow hoodie with a surprised electric rat's face on it. From the meme. Anime posters on the wall behind her. Center was a dark square. There was some suggestion of a human figure, lit by the glow of the screen, but just barely enough to tell he or she was wearing a hoodie. Center Right was a bald white dude in a purple tunic, with crossed bandoliers over his chest. He looked like - He smiled. "I'd like to call this meeting of the Injustice Society to order." Top Right shook his head. "Nah, man, I'm pretty sure it was the League of Injustice." "Nope," Bottom Center said. "The Legion of Doom." She was black too, but darker than Top Right, with her hair loose, curly, and natural. The light of the screen bounced off her glasses, and her lip gloss. The young man would've given her a solid 7 out of 10. "Also," he said, "the line was something like-" He dropped his voice half-an-octave. "'*This meeting of the Legion of Doom will now come to order*.'" "Lex" nodded. "Got it. I'll remember that for next time." And that left- Top Left was a grey square, with one of those 'buffering' GIFs over it. Top Center crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Anyone know who our final guest is? And-" He pointed down, toward the dark center square, and his dreads shifted a little. "-our next-to-final guest?" Center Left shrugged. The electric rat's face rose and fell. "Honestly, I'm waiting for a jump scare." The goth underneath her smirked. "Honestly, I'm *hoping* for a jump scare." Top Left went black, then lightened up slightly. Lex said "Finally." The top half of the image loaded a second or two before the rest. enough time for the pretty, feminine face to register. *Nice cheekbones.* Along with the bare, full breasts, one of which was held in the woman's left hand. Some of the other gents in the grid pricked up their metaphorical ears, and started to grin. Then the bottom half loaded. The woman had her hand around her cock. The head was a bright, Day-Glo red. Same as her lips. It faded from the head toward the base, into a normal, Caucasian skin color. There was an awkward silence. The young man had two thoughts in quick succession. He had seen, well, he had seen GIFs. And a few videos. There were usually tiny flaws. The waist usually wasn't quite narrow enough, the hips weren't quite wide enough, the breasts too round, not bouncy enough. But this lady...she was flawless. Completely and utterly indistinguishable from a regular woman. Except, of course, for the penis. His second thought was, *Youtube would demonetize this in a heartbeat.* His third was *Those surgeries must've been expensive.* Top Center broke the silence. "Well, now I feel *completely* inadequate." Center Left smirked, and looked down at her own admittedly generous chest. The rest of her was rather generous too. "Not me!" "Is this live?" said the young man. "*I'm* live," Bottom Center said. She tapped the bridge of her glasses, pushed them up her nose. "I don't know about *her*." The lady in the top left just kept staring, a vacant, half-absent smile on her lips. "Yo, you there?" The black guy in top-right waved his hand in front of the camera. "Ground control to Major Long Tom!" The woman's eyes focused. She blinked. She waved with her left hand. She wasn't actually doing anything with her right. She just had her pinkie and index around the base. Then she shifted her junk to her left. And then her right. Left. Right. When the young man had been a young boy, he had gone to music lessons. He didn't know an A-Sharp from a Sharp copier, but he did remember the little triangle that rested on top of the piano. Tick, tock. A metronome. Nome. Nom. Omnomno- The young man blinked, shook his head. When he looked back at the screen again, Top-Center and Center-Left both stared at their screens. "Guys?" someone said. Top Center flinched. Then he looked down, jumped in his seat, and knocked the webcam off his monitor, which gave the audience a nice close up of the keyboard. Center-left hunched over her desk, one hand beneath it. She breathed faster and faster, groaning a little. Looked up, looked at the camera, absently smiled. The young man thought *What the-* "When did you put on lipstick?" The chubby girl blinked. "Lipstick?" She touched her lips with her free hand, her left hand, looked at it. Nothing came off. She looked at the screen, leaned into the camera, pursed her lips. "Huh. I don't even like orange. Much less Day-Glo Orange." She was calm. *Way* too calm. The young man said. "Hey. Hey! Listen to me. Focus. Why are you doing that?" "Doing what?" "With your chest. Why are you-" He looked up. At the top-left square. Where the woman still swung her cock in those lazy arcs, still held herself with her left hand. And a light dawned on the young man. "Oh." The black guy in the top-right said "Oh, *what*? You know what this is?" "It's a prank." The young man crossed his arms. "I don't know how they did it, but I'm guessing she's going to reveal her equipment next." Beat. Center-left blinked, focused on the camera. "Hmm?" "I said, this is the part where you check your pants and realize you have man-bits." "I will?" "Yeah." "Huh." Chubby girl scooted her chair back. Reached for the band of her sweatpants with her right hand. They could already see the bulge. She shoved the pants down, and there it was. Cockhead colored the same as her lips. She didn't seem particularly concerned. "Huh." "That's it?" the Asian Goth said. "A cute little 'Huh'? You need a better script." The girl didn't seem to notice. First she tried to pull the dick off. But - The young man's cheeks flushed. -it didn't exactly succeed. Somehow, she ended up with her index and thumb around the base, her other fingers on her fat balls- Lex said "Is this real?" Top Right shook his head so hard his hat nearly fell off. "Can't be!" Bottom Center said "It's supposed to be random!" "Then how are they doing it?" Bottom Center did the blade-handed thing. "I don't...understand...when she put the orange lipstick on. We were watching her *the whole time*." The Asian dude in the Lower Left shrugged. "Maybe it's color-changing makeup. They make color-changing toy cars, why can't they do it with lipstick? Top Center's camera twitched. He flipped it around, to show his cock. With the bright magenta head. There was general consternation from the audience. 5/9ths of the audience. The camera panned up. The face had the same same green eyes, same hair. The lips were magenta too. *A wig. It has to be a wig. And contacts.* The goth boy shook his head, like he was disappointed. "These effects aren't as good. You obviously switched out the actors off-camera." He started clapping sarcastically. "5/10, good effort." Top Center smiled, placed the webcam back on the computer screen. Rolled back so they could see more of him. Her? The new actor was a her, right? Were the cocks even real? If they weren't, the makeup was very realistic. Veins and all. Bottom Left reached offscreen, took a drink of water. "Sorry. I'm...I'm really hot, all of a sudden. I think...I think I need to..." His gaze went loose and unfocused. His mouth drifted open. "I-" He licked his lips. "I-" He passed his hand over his face. When it got clear, his beard seemed...thinner? Was there something wrong with his jaw? "I-" That one was different, somehow. The asian dude passed his hand over his face again. His face was definitely changing, and - had he been wearing lipstick before? Dark lipstick. "I-" He looked down. His left hand reached for his shirt, squeezed the left side of his chest through his tank top. Then he reached down, slipped that hand under his shirt, and pulled it up so everyone could see his new, well, tit. And the flatness on the other side of his chest. The black girl to his right blinked. "Ex-cuse me?" she said, to no one in particular. "What *is* this?" She looked at the other unaffected people, who looked just as confused. "No, seriously, what *is* this?" The Asian man looked up. His jawline was different. Softer. And completely hair free. His lips were full and dark. Feminine. His tongue darted out, and he leaned back in his chair. The black girl took off her glasses. Her hand shook. Asian guy pushed his chair back, and back, until everyone watching had a better view, until they could see his shorts. See him reach down with his right hand, and pull them down, until his cock bobbed into the air. The head was black. His fingers - with their black, stylishly chipped nail polish - wrapped around the base. He didn't look down, he just looked at the camera, and flopped his dick to the right. Then the left. Then the right. This time, the "I..." sound a lot more like a woman's breathy moan. The young man blinked, looked up one square, then back down. Not quite on the same beat. His gaze eyes flicked to center square - still in the dark - and then, naturally, proceeded to the top right- The black guy there had been wearing a shirt. Now it was rolled up, off his sleeves, hanging off his neck like a scarf. He still had the muscle definition, but there was an additional, y'know, *something*. Fat, maybe, padding. The Asian guy in the bottom left? He filled his shirt a lot better now. Just seemed more *present*, generally speaking. It was impossible. All completely impossible. Unless there was a top-notch Hollywood VFX team working to trick him. Hundreds, *thousands* of *(heh)* man-hours. Of course, they could use it to trick other people, but- The young man bit his lip. No. Didn't work. They had responded to him, real time. The mo-cap tech for that didn't *exist* yet. The black guy scooted his chair back, his lips an attention-grabbing purple against his hazelnut-colored skin. Nice contrast. In the background, a dog sat up. Maybe he smelt something. And if it did exist, if it *did*, why use it on an elaborate porn prank? Did some freaky venture capitalist demand a proof of concept? Top-Right's tits were fantastic. More than enough to distract from the steady right-left-right motion of his dick. The young man blinked, a shiver ran down from his head to his core, and his back hit the back of his chair. He ran his hand over his head, and stared at the ceiling. "Dude, what the f-" On the center right, Lex moaned, in a decidedly non-masculine way. He worked his slimming fingers across twin bandoliers, found the releases, and let them fall to the floor. His chest poked out, and he took a second to grab himself before he tore open the purple shirt. The young man turned away, like someone who had just been flashed. Without even meaning to, he looked at bottom center. At the girl whose lips and cockhead were a brash, unmissable, safety-yellow contrast to her dark skin. Back to Lex- She bit her bright blue - almost aqua - lips, then they relaxed into a smile. Her new, full tits bounced on his chest, above his shrinking waist- Wait. Bouncing. *Why didn't I see it before?* *(did you want to?)* The virus or spell or prank or whatever was moving in a predictable pattern. It started with the top left, then it moved to top center and center left, the adjacent cams. Then the top right and bottom left, then center right and bottom center. Maybe dead center was changing too - His eyes flicked up. The square was still mostly dark. -but he couldn't see anything. The bottom line? Bottom right was next. *Me.* He squeezed his eyes shut as he ripped off the headset. It landed somewhere irrelevant. He just pushed away from the table, turned his chair away, stood up, turned around- There was a mirror behind him. He had completely forgotten. And in the mirror, he saw something terrible. Something wonderful. He couldn't actually see the person in the center square. Not properly. Just a vague, ghostly white almond shape, glowing in the dark, floating above a similarly glowing- He didn't actually mean to turn around. It just happened. -another glowing cockhead. Like the person on the other end of the camera was under a blacklight. The dick swung from side to side, left to right to left to right. He could almost - *almost* - see the fist at the base, could imagine the empty eyes, the left hand- But he didn't have to imagine, did she? He could see it with the other girls. There was a video he had seen once. A dozen, two dozen metronomes on a suspended platform. They were off-sync at first, then they'd all, gradually, gotten in line. Including one last pink rebel on the right. The hair, the skin color, the faces, even the bodies, might've been different, but they all looked the same. *Flop.* the same brightly colored lips *Flop.* the same cocks, with different colored tips. the same right-handed grip that flapped those cocks in eerie, metronomic synchronization *Flop.* the same half-vacant smile, on every face *Right.* the same left hand clutched to a full breast *Left.* There was something wrong. He looked down. His left hand clutched the soft curve on the left side of his chest. His right hand was around the base of his cock. Right. Left. He stood up, pulled off his shirt and pants, tossed them...somewhere that didn't matter, sat down again. *I'm the last metronome.* At some point, some point in a far off future, they would all stop. The screen recorder would stop. The video would be exported, posted to as many sites as possible. Youtube. Liveleak. Twitter. Pornhub. *But I'm not pink.* A tongue tipped in flourescent green traced over lips of the same shade. Right. Left. Especially Pornhub. *Right. Left. Right. Left.* and then...well, she'd see what *else* she could do with ChattiBunch. ENDF #The Metronome 2020 Nequ CC By-SA-NC Fan Stories/Fanart welcome. Part of my never-ending quest to write out new forms of needlessly-complex TF smut. Probably Reddit's fault somehow. *Potential alternate titles: * 3x3 3 By 3 The Power of Three The Futa Bunch The Changey Bunch Smile and Wave Don't Get Hypnococky I wonder what the SCP page for THIS one would be? Definitely a memetic cognitohazard. And a...genitohazard? How would you even contain it? No, seriously, I saw a gif on Reddit. 9 gifs of a trans lady...actress, arranged in a grid. (I still have the Gfycat link, but the image won't display.) There was also that one hypnocock gif I saw either on Reddit or Tumblr, with a caption story underneath. I think the actress was Bailey Jay? Speaking of which, I'm still not sure if she chose her new name so it would have the same initials as Blow Job. My stylistic inspiration? Glad you asked. Jack Reacher and the Clifton Chronicles. And as is my wont, I went out of my way to introduce several minor writing style errors that would hopefully make you feel a little uncomfortable, such as violating "show don't tell" by showing AND telling, and not consistently hyphenating the labels. Writing music? Graham Plowman's Lovecraftian music on Youtube. And, of course, Color Theory. Y'all know how I love color theory. I knew I wanted to start with red, and have the POV end up green, but I couldn't get it the numbers straight. Until I realized I could just make the goth guy's color black. And, of course, the artificial colors emphasize how artificial the transformations are. It's like poetry. It rhymes. Metronome icon by Freepik from https://www.flaticon.com.