Kurt finished brushing off the surface of the low white marble pedestal with a feather-duster. He stood up and walked over to the full-length mirror that they'd rolled into the living room, adjusting its angle so that it reflected the space above the empty pedestal. "I think everything's ready," he said, turning to Sara. "Are you?"

        "More than ready," she replied with a grin. Sara was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, dressed in denim cut-offs and a frayed sports bra. Her long auburn hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and she was eating Pringles from the can while she watched him work -- sour cream and onion, her favorite. "Did you make all the phone calls?" She sealed up the can and brushed the salt off her fingers.

        "Yep. And not only is everyone we invited gonna show up, most of them are bringing several guests of their own. I think we're gonna have a full house tonight for our little exhibit. I just hope we made enough snacks and hors d'oevres and stuff."

        "If not, it's too late now." Sara grinned again. "Go get the stuff while I get undressed." She hopped up lightly, ponytail bouncing, and ran back into their bedroom with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl.

        Kurt walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, retrieving two small bottles from behind a tupperware of leftover potato salad. Both bottles were wrapped in non-descript brown paper. He closed the fridge door quickly, trying to control his excitement.

        "If everything goes as planned," he said aloud to himself, "this is going to be an extremely interesting evening." He chuckled mischeviously.

        About two weeks ago, Kurt and Sara had celebrated their second anniversary as a couple. Most of their close friends had given them gifts, but the most interesting present had been from Sara's friend Kristin. Both women were graduate students at the local university. Sara was working on her masters degree in sculpture, doing figurative works in the classical tradition. Her pieces were like classical Greek and Roman nudes, only much more explicit, and often very strange. Kurt had met her at one of her openings in the school's gallery and the two had fallen in love almost immediately. They soon discovered that they shared not just a mutual interest in sculpture, but a fetish for turning people into living statues as well. The two of them played lots of sexual games along these lines, but always shared a wish that there was some way to make these fantasies real.

        That was where Kristin had come in. After their anniversary party, she had approached the two of them in a very conspiratorial way, saying she wanted to give them "a little something" that she'd "cooked up in the lab." Kristin was doing graduate work in advanced biochemistry, working on methods of preserving tissue samples for later laboratory analysis. She explained that in the course of this research she'd stumbled onto a discovery with much broader and more interesting applications: a liquid with the power to transform living tissue into solid stone, specifically white marble. After petrifying a few lab rats, she'd managed to create a second liquid, an antidote that returned the stone tissue to life with no lingering effects she could find. Kristin said that she had thought of Kurt and Sara immediately. It was then that she'd presented them with the two paper-wrapped bottles, gleefully exclaiming "Surprise, you statue-lovin' perverts!"

        Kurt walked back into the living room with the bottles. Sara stood gloriously nude on the pedestal in the center of the room, underneath the ceiling fan and lights. Her clothes lay in a pile on the couch. Even after two years, Kurt was still in awe of her beauty. Sara was tall, about five eleven, with a long slender figure. Her skin was tanned to a honey-gold with only the barest hint of tan lines. Her long auburn-brown hair, a little wavy, cascaded from her smooth clear forehead to between her shoulder-blades. She had large clear brown eyes, a small pert nose, high cheekbones, and a finely pointed chin. Her shoulders were broad and her arms muscular from long hours in the studio chiseling raw stone into works of art. Her breasts were large and taut and round, with dark nipples standing tight and erect now in her excitement. Her torso was slender, her stomach toned, and her wide curvaceous hips slid down into long sleek legs. Kurt shivered a little, his eyes drawn to the dark brown triangle between her leg
.
        "Wow," he breathed. "You look gorgeous. You sure seem anxious to get started."

        "I am," she said eagerly. "I've been wondering for so long what it would feel like to be one of my statues, I can't believe its actually going to happen. We're gonna have to do something really nice for Kristin if this works."

        "Of course it's gonna work! Kristin tested it, and we tested it." Shortly after receiving their gift, they had decided to try the formula on their housecat, Asterix. Kristin had told them to use the little eyedropper built into the caps of the bottles to place a single drop of the fluid onto whomever or whatever they wanted to turn into stone. They transformed Asterix while he played with a rubber mouse on a string. Kurt placed the marble tomcat in the garden birdbath for a few days and watched the neighborhood sparrows splash in the water just inches from his immovable stone claws. A few even took to perching atop his fossilized ears. Asterix seemed fine when they reanimated him, but had spent most of his time since then catching and killing sparrows. Kurt suspected a revenge motive, but on the other hand Asterix had been pretty sadistic before, even for a cat.

        "Hey, quit daydreaming and lets get going!"

        Kurt realized he'd been staring glazedly at Sara's body while his mind wandered. He grinned wolfishly at her and unwrapped the bottles. Kristin had said to keep them in a cool dry place, away from light. Kurt thought that sounded like instructions for Parmesan cheese. He selected the bottle marked "Medusa" and put the other one on the coffee table.

        Sara felt butterflies of anticipation dancing in her stomach as Kurt walked over to her perch on the pedestal. This still seemed far too good to be true. To actually become a work of art! The idea made her nipples even harder and she felt a delightful tingling moistness in her sex. She tossed her hair back and arranged it carefully with her fingers, then let her arms fall loosely to her sides. She planted her feet about shoulder-width apart and stood with her best posture, thrusting her chest out just a little so that her breasts looked larger. She rolled her head and shoulders and shook the tension out of her arms. "How do I look?" she asked hesitantly.

        "I told you, honey. You look gorgeous."

        "Are you sure?" she frowned. She looked herself over carefully in the full-length mirror. "Is my hair okay? I want to look my best for this. Tell me the absolute truth."

        Kurt stepped up onto the edge of the pedestal, his face just inches from hers, and looked into those liquid brown eyes. He kissed her gently. "Honey, you look incredible. You're a goddess. You're going to make a beautiful statue."

        Sara smiled radiantly at these last words. "I can't believe I'm really going to do this. This is amazing." She was so full of excitement and anticipation that she felt like she might explode. "Okay then," she declared, as Kurt ever so carefully drew a single droplet of the fluid into the eyedropper. "I think I'm ready to be stoned."

        Kurt stepped up onto her pedestal and kissed her, pressing his lips passionately against her own, their tongues entwining sensuously. With the hand that was free of the dropper, he danced his fingers down the turn of her muscular shoulder to cup her breast in his hand. He fondled and kneaded it, before moving his mouth down to suckle the tight nipple, his tongue teasing it expertly. Sara struggled to keep her chosen pose, her eyes widening and her lips spreading into an ecstatic smile. She fluttered her fingers as they hung at her sides, the only expression of her pleasure she allowed herself as she fought to stay in her chosen pose. Kurt stepped away from her, and waited for the space of a breath.

        Then he let a single drop of the liquid fall between her breasts.

        Sara gasped suddenly at the unexpected splash of the ice-cold liquid, which rolled a few inches down her soft skin before being absorbed. Sara's eyes widened as she felt a tingle spread through her body. Her skin felt electrified. Then she froze, her body suddenly rigid, her eyes wide and her lips spread in a smile of surprise and delight. Her breasts no longer rose and fell with her breath, her fingers were motionless in mid-flutter at her sides, and even her hair was unstirred by the breeze from the ceiling fan. Sara realized that she was still fully conscious. She could feel that her heart and breath had ceased their rhythms, but she felt no fear. In fact, she felt a warm pleasant sensation spreading through her paralyzed body, followed by more of that peculiar tingling. It must be the transformation beginning, she thought.

        A crackling sound filled the quiet room. Sara felt her skin stiffen and her muscles harden, making her body feel dense and cold and solid. Her feet began to tingle intensely, and she was able to see in the mirror that the skin there was fading, turning from its normal honey-brown color to that of old parchment and then a greyish hue. Finally her feet became pure white and took on the glossy shine of alabaster. In the mirror she could see that the petrified flesh preserved every detail of her living body. The lines and wrinkles of her soles, her petite toenails, even the filigree of delicate veins crisscrossing the top of her feet were now sculpted in stone. Her marble feet were so intensely detailed and life-like that they were like entire sculptures in and of themselves. As Sara watched, the tingling and the transformation moved upward, passing through her slender ankles and then turning her slim calves into polished white marble. The wave of stone moved past her locked knees and began to petrify the voluptuous contours of her thighs. Sara could feel the skin there cooling and hardening as it was suffused with the tingling sensation.

        Kurt stepped closer to Sara's petrifying figure and placed a hand on the warm smooth skin of her thigh. As the transformation moved toward his hand, he felt her skin cool rapidly until it felt icy to the touch. As the color began to fade it seemed to stiffen, the skin feeling rubbery. As her flesh turned white it felt as though he were touching a piece of molded plastic. And as the change was complete, and her thighs were a glossy white, Kurt felt her skin grow as hard as stone. He was stunned.

        Kurt stepped back and watched the wave of transformation continue to flow upwards, like a liquid whose very strangeness allowed it to defy the law of gravity. The stony tide lapped over her sex, turning the lovely brown pubic hair into a faux fig-leaf, each tiny hair modeled perfectly in marble. The sensuous lips below became a frozen carving, a perfect likeness of her warm moist pussy, preserved in polished white stone. And then the wave moved onwards, converting the slender hourglass of her torso into that of a Greek goddess.

        Sara felt the transformation move up the smooth curve of her belly, leaving only unmoving white stone behind it. She wanted to groan in pleasure, but her body remained rigid and still. At the same time, the stone moved up her arms. Her fluttering fingers were fixed in place, her hands turned into slender sculptures, and the lean elongated muscles in her arms became sleek curves as her limbs turned into stone. She had expected her petrified skin to become cold and numb, utterly unfeeling, but instead the transformation seemed to increase her sense of touch. She could feel her body changing into marble with excruciating clarity, and after it was changed she could feel even the slightest breeze on her fossilized skin. Kurt's hand on her thigh had been heavenly, his simple touch erotic. Sara wondered at this for a moment, until the sensation of her breasts turning to stone jolted her back to reality. Almost all at once, the stony color and hardness engulfed the plump mounds, hardening them into polished marble globes. She wanted to scream with pleasure as she felt her erect nipples grow tighter and harder, tighter and harder, until they became sculpted pebbles. But she could only stand fixed in that final pose as the slow wave of transformation turned her into a living statue.

        The lean musculature of her wide shoulders and upper chest turned a glossy white and froze into sculpted curves of marble. The transformation spread up her neck, stiffening its long graceful length into a stone pillar. She felt the wave of delightful stony sensation flow up her neck muscles and around the back of her head, and she felt the roots of her hair coarsen and stiffen. Her long mane of auburn hair transformed into a flowing waterfall of white marble, each individual strand perfectly sculpted into the solid mass that fell down her shoulders and fused to the smooth stone between her shoulderblades. Sara felt her smiling lips freeze and fuse together, and then felt the skin of her forehead, nose, and cheekbones stiffen up as her face glazed over, becoming a rigid mask of her frozen features. She felt her eyes dry and harden into smooth white orbs in their sockets, but she discovered she could still see perfectly. Every inch of her gorgeous body was now turned entirely to stone. She could feel her whole body held frozen in that delighted pose. Her skin felt supernaturally sensitive and exquisitely smooth, and her muscles felt solid as rock. It took no effort at all to maintain her motionless pose. She felt somehow suspended, weightless, as if she were floating or flying. She realized that she was made out of stone now, turned into a living marble statue. It felt wonderful. The crackling sound that had accompanied her petrification slowly faded away.

        For a moment, Sara felt as if she were in a dream. She had fantasized about becoming a statue for so many years, it was hard to believe it had actually happened. She tried to wiggle her fingers, but found they wouldn't budge. She tried to move her arms from their positions at her sides, but they wouldn't move. She tried to take a step, to turn her head, to speak to Kurt, but found that this was all now impossible. Her body was rigid, immobile, statue-still. The motionlessness was very arousing, as she felt the air blow gently across her hardened nipples and between her fluttering fingers, as her body stood frozen solidly in place. Her eyes were fixed in place, but she could see her unmoving figure in the full-length mirror. The statue that she had become was a perfect image of her living body, captured and preserved perfectly in solid marble. Her skin was smooth and white, gleaming in the late afternoon light. Her petrified flesh was hard and cold, smooth as glass, and polished to a lustrous glow. Her lean muscles were captured in stone, preserved as elegant slopes and curves in the shape of her marble figure. Yes, it had finally happened and it was very real. Her body was turned into stone. My god, she thought. It's incredible! She stood transfixed in that last pose, smiling and wide-eyed as she stood frozen in pure white marble. Inside her fossilized figure, Sara became both joyful and aroused. Here she was, standing nude, motionless, and white as a statue of herself in the middle of her own living room. She was sculpted stone. Her dream had come true.

        For several long minutes, she just stood there as a sculpture, feeling Kurt's wide eyes wandering over the curves of her newly-petrified body. The sunlight gleamed on the sleek contours of her carven muscles as he walked around and around her sculpture, appraising it from all sides as a knowledgeable art patron would peruse the nuances of a Greek masterpiece. Kurt reached out his hand and stroked a finger along the polished hemisphere of one of her marble buttocks. Sara just stood motionless, a beautiful work of art on display for his appreciation. Thrills of pleasure raced through her rigid body. She was in bliss, standing naked and petrified, on exhibit as a living statue. It was another fantasy come true.

        Kurt moved back around in front of her, where she could see him with her fixed marble eyes. "You're a statue!" he exclaimed. "You're really turned into stone!"

        Of course, Sara thought. Isn't this great? She wanted to reply but she couldn't, since her lips were sealed together and fixed in a carven smile. Her petrified face was a silent white mask of permanent surprise and delight. Besides, the answer to his statement was obvious as she stood before him turned into a marble female nude.

        Kurt stood up slowly and stepped close to her statue. He looked into her frozen face, his breath fogging the glistening polished planes of her carven features. He looked at the detail in her petrified skin. The slight wrinkles developing in her twenty-four-year-old face were visible, as were her pores as tiny pits in the stone. The lines were visible in her stony lips as they formed a sculpted smile. Her carven nose stood like a Roman arch from the marble mask of her face. Her smiling cheeks were rounded and gleaming, and the rough lines of her eyebrows were arched in surprise. Her brown hair was now a flowing white wave of stone drifting back from her brow and down her shoulders. Kurt looked into her eyes, expecting to find them as life-like as the rest of her face, but was confronted by a stare that was literally blank. Sara's eyebrows were rough ridges, the folds of her eye sockets and eyelids were etched delicately in the marble, and each eyelash was turned into a tiny stone shaft along the curve of her open eyes. But the wide eyes themselves were blank marble orbs, smooth and polished. Unbroken crescents of gleaming white stone staring fixedly at the living world. No life -- in fact, no iris or pupils carved into the white curves. Just blank orbs, like the eyes of a Renaissance nude. The frozen mask of her face stayed passive and unchanging as Kurt gently stroked his fingers along her smooth white cheek. He brushed her carven mouth, feeling the soft lips now hardened into unresponding stone. He waved his hand in front of her eyes, but they continued to stare fixedly into the mirror. The full reality of Sara's petrification was beginning to sink in. She was really, completely turned into stone.

        "You're beautiful, Sara. You're a work of art." Kurt swallowed hard. "You have no idea just how wonderful you look right now! You're even more exquisite in marble than I ever dreamed." Sara felt a thrill of excitement as he teased her, saying, "You're just a statue now, a display piece! Something to be put into a museum for people to look at!"

        He ran his hands over the smooth curves of her muscular marble shoulders and down the length of her arms, feeling the shapes of her muscles, now turned into solid contours of stone. Kurt noticed that Sara's slim white chest was permanently expanded in the midst of a breath, accentuating the sensuality of her lovely sculpted figure. Her marble breasts were large and full, and the tips of the two stony globes were decorated with the cold pebbles that were formerly her erect nipples. He briefly fondled the cold white stone of her frozen nipples, and cupped her hard marble breasts in his hands, before running his palms down the gentle curves of her torso. Her tight abdomen was a graceful stone hourglass, her marble stomach was adorned by subtle swells of muscle, and her sculpted hips flared sensuously wide around the solidified patch of hair that covered her stone vagina. Her elegant marble torso was perfect enough to be that of a carefully carven monument.

        Kurt moved around behind her stationary form to examined her voluptuous marble anatomy from the rear. Her slender shoulders and lustrous white arms were just as admirable from that vantage, and her shoulderblades were visible fixed among the carven muscles of her strong back. He placed a finger on her neck and slowly moved down the ridge of her rodlike spine, from the base of her long neck down her frozen torso to her slim waist. Her polished marble buttocks were firm and round, as tight with muscle as her sensual stone hips. He walked around in front of her unmoving figure once more.

        Her white marble legs were long and curvaceous, and Kurt admired her wide hips and rounded calves as they lay immobilized in polished stone. Her arms and legs held elegant curves that suggested the lean stone muscles just below the smooth white skin, and even fixed in cold stone her sleek figure had an elegant grace. She made a perfect marble statue.

        Kurt bent down slightly until his face was level with her chest, and took one of her stone nipples into his mouth. He licked, sucked, and carressed it with his tongue, feeling with pleasure the sensation of his rough wet tongue sliding over the smooth contours of the marble nipple. He released it and gave her other fossilized nipple the same treatment before licking and fondling the rest of her large white stone breasts. Sara felt waves of intense pleasure wash through her stone body as Kurt touched her. It seemed as if the transformation had made her skin even more sensitive than it had been in life. Desperately, she wanted to move or respond to the touch of her lover, or at least to scream out her ecstasy to the world. But she remained frozen, completely motionless in marble as a statue, her sensual body rigid and inflexible in lustrous white stone.

        "Oh, Sara," Kurt breathed, stepping away from her. Sara felt the waves of intense sensation slowly fade away. "You don't know how much I want to truly make love to you. You're so beautiful like this, so gorgeous as a statue. But I don't think there's time." He checked his watch, and unfortunately he was right.

        Sara stood impassive on her pedestal as Kurt moved around her, walking in and out of the room. First, he put the eyedropper back in the bottle, then wrapped both containers in their brown paper and stashed them back in the fridge. Then he walked past her statue and back into her studio, where he retrieved several of her studio lights. He set these up around the base of her pedestal, carefully angling them to highlight and accentuate the best features of her nude marble body. He set up three long tables around the room and then covered them with wine glasses and bottles, and trays of snacks and hors d'oevres. He rolled the full-length mirror back into their bedroom, then returned to move the furniture around to create an open area around Sara's statue and the tables, adjusting every seat to face her living sculpture. Sara simply waited, enjoying the erotic feeling of being turned to stone. She could do nothing in her petrified state. Finally, Kurt took a moment to look everything over before he was satisfied. He checked his watch again.

        "Well, everything's ready," he said, collapsing onto the couch. "I hope you're ready to be the centerpiece, Sara. It's too bad your friends won't know that it's really you." He grinned. Sara simply stared forward, frozen in stone, unable to respond to his tease.

        Kurt had just enough time to slip into a casual jacket and tie before the doorbell rang and guests started to arrive. Just a few at first, then more and more, until finally their living room was packed. Kurt greeted every new arrival warmly, welcoming them to their little private opening to show Sara's latest sculpture. He made the excuse for her absence that they'd worked out earlier: that she'd been called unexpectedly to New York to talk with some wealthy buyers who were interested in purchasing some of her other work. Everybody seemed to buy the excuse, even her closest friends. Pretty soon music started up and people were helping themselves to the wine and snacks. A good time seemed to be going on. Everyone wandered around, talking, laughing, and admiring her statue.

        As the crowd around her sculpture steadily thickened, Sara started to feel people sneaking a feel of her stone flesh. First a hand curled around the carven nub of her petrified nipple, teasing and then pinching its hardness. A few sets of hands stroked across the taut marble globes of her perfect, petrified ass. Someone tickled her sculpted navel. Someone else traced a finger around the shapes of her stone shoulderblades. Numerous people cupped their hands around her frozen breasts. Sara couldn't tell who was enjoying her rigid body. The crowd moved and flowed around her pedestal constantly, and the questing hands seemed to emerge anonymously from the mass of shifting people. She didn't know who was touching her, but she did know that it felt wonderful. It was thrilling to feel the hands and fingers fondling her motionless stone body, enjoying the sexy contours of what they thought was just a normal figure of stone. None of them had any idea that there was a living woman in the marble, aching to cry out at each passing touch.

        Sara looked around at the crowd with her blank stone eyes, noticing lots of her friends and lots of Kurt's, as well as a large number of people she'd never seen before. Just then Kurt brought two well-dressed women up to her pedestal, leading the pair with a gentle hand at their elbows and doing his best art-dealer schmooze. Kurt pointed at Sara's petrified body.

        "This is Sara's latest work. It's a self-portrait. She wanted to portray herself in marble, but she wanted to do something a little different than traditional portraiture, so she chose this pose. You'll notice the wide eyes, the expression of surprise and pleasure, the obvious arousal of her body. She wanted it to look almost like a stone snapshot, as if she'd been suddenly and unexpectedly captured in marble. Like a candid photograph -- a bedroom photograph of one's lover, if you will."

        The well-dressed pair blushed, and chuckled politely. Their eyes skimmed expertly over the sleek marble contours of Sara's living statue, judging her figure's workmanship and possible value. Sara felt the pressure of their appraising stares like a physical pressure or touch as she stood there frozen and completely nude in front of these two strangers. It was a kick! She felt a little shiver of delight in her stony figure. She was a living work of art posed nude and motionless in the midst of this crowd of strangers, none of whom had any idea that she was a real woman turned to stone and simply put on display for their amusement. Talk about exhibitionism, she thought wryly.

        "It's exquisite," said the first woman, a shapely blonde in a red satin dress. She ran her fingers absently down the smooth white skin of Sara's stone arm. "And the detail is incredible. How does she do it?"

        Kurt smiled, doing his best to look mysterious. He put his own hand on the elegant curve of the statue's shoulder and rubbed it absently. "Well, obviously I can't tell you that, even if I knew the answer. Trade secret, you know." The well-dressed pair chuckled politely again.

        The other woman, a brunette in slinky black, was more forward. She put her hand on Sara's sculpted breast, rubbing and fondling the gleaming marble flesh, her warm palm sliding across the alabaster pebble of Sara's hardened nipple. Sara felt the pleasure wash through her again, and again her inability to move or cry out or respond in way only made the feeling stronger and more intoxicating. She'd never guessed that being a living statue would be quite this much fun. The brunette kept teasing Sara's marble tit as she turned to Kurt. "It's a shame that she couldn't be here tonight. I'd love to compare this portrait to the real thing, you know, get an idea of just how talented she is. And if this sculpture is true to life, I'd certainly like to meet your girlfriend!" The woman's hand slid down the polished white skin of Sara's marble stomach to lightly finger the petrified pubic hair, which looked like the artistically whorled curls that decorate ancient Roman nudes.

        "It's very much true to life, let me assure you," Kurt smiled. The group talked a bit more among themselves, ignoring Sara like the inanimate object she had now become, their voices too low for her to hear over the music and the murmur of the crowd. Finally, the well-dressed pair moved off toward the wine and hors d'oevres. Kurt soon followed them, circulating through the crowd shaking hands and making introductions and small talk. Sara simply stood there naked and petrified, as people crossed her field of vision, eating and laughing and talking.

        People continued to touch and carress her living statue. It seemed she was too beautiful, too life-like, to be enjoyed simply by sight. Sara felt a pair of hands -- large, a man's -- touch the smooth white curves of her buttocks, running across the polished white skin of her tight marble ass. She couldn't move her hands to brush them away, or turn her head to see who it was feeling her up. The hands kept roaming, straying down to her upper thighs and up to the small of her back. She heard a few murmured comments before the hands and the voice disappeared back into the crowd.

        Another pair of hands stroked her muscular stone shoulders, fondling the sleek motionless musculature of her shoulders and upper arms. The fingers slipped around to tickle her armpit, and there came a delighted squeal. "Oh, look," came another unseen voice, "A little bit of armpit hair! This is just too accurate!" When the tickling sensation faded from her polished skin, Sara wished to herself that she'd remembered to shave under there before her transformation.

        A hand curled around the carven nub of her petrified nipple, teasing and then pinching its hardness. A few sets of hands stroked across the taut marble globes of her perfect, petrified ass. Someone tickled her sculpted navel, then rubbed the smooth surface of her stone belly. Someone else gently traced their finger around the shapes of her stone shoulderblades. Numerous people cupped their hands around her frozen breasts. Sara still couldn't tell who was enjoying her rigid body. It was thrilling to feel the hands and fingers fondling her motionless stone body, enjoying the sexy contours of her petrified figure. She wanted to giggle, but could only stand motionless and enjoy the unexpectedly pleasant sensations of being a living exhibit.

        Kurt emerged from the crowd in front of her pedestal, looking more relaxed, and winked up at Sara's unchanging marble face. This is fantastic, darling, he thought to himself. I don't think anybody here has any idea.

        "Hey, Kurt, man."

        He turned. It was their friend Janine, a butch-looking short-haired blonde in a white t-shirt and a paint-smeared pair of blue overalls. Her feet were encased in a big clunky pair of work boots, and she was holding her wineglass like it was one of Asterix's dead sparrows. Janine was a painter at the university. Kurt liked her a lot -- she was one of those people who just don't give a damn.

        "Hey, Janine," he grinned. "Nice of you to dress up for the party."

        "Eat me, Kurt," she laughed, taking a long drag on her cigarette followed by a hefty gulp of wine. Janine looked over the statue as it stood motionless and glowing in the studio spotlights. The lights gleamed on the glossy white stone of Sara's lovely face, glistened on her polished stone breasts, made bright crescents on her frozen nipples, and highlighted the shapely curves of her slender motionless legs. "This is Sara's latest piece, huh? It's fuckin' nice. When did she sculpt it? She never mentioned she was working on a self-portrait."

        Kurt cleared his throat nervously. "Uh, well, she was pretty secretive about it. I think she was embarrassed about sculpting herself nude, especially in such a, um, sensual pose. She did it out in the garden shed." Kurt hoped Janine was buying this. "In fact, she didn't even tell me until she was done." Kurt's hand unconsciously moved to hold his girlfriend's inflexible marble fingers, stiffly posed as they fluttered with her earlier pleasure. He needed the reassurance of her touch, even if it was now the touch of a cold stone statue.

        Janine took a long drag on her cigarette, eyeing him through the curling blue smoke. Finally, she nodded and swiveled her head to look slowly over the curvaceous marble body of Sara's living statue. "It's beautiful. And its so detailed I could almost swear it's really Sara," she mused. "But what's up with the pose? Sara never seemed the type to do a nude self-portrait at all, much less one this aroused-looking." Kurt cleared his throat nervously. Janine knew of he and Sara's statue fetish. "If it wasn't so well carved, so sophisticated, this thing would look like a big stone sex-toy or something. Jesus." Another drag. "It's the kinda thing only Sara can pull off without looking vulgar. She's so fucking talented I hate her."

        Sara knew she'd be grinning from ear to ear if her lips weren't sealed in marble. Janine's bluntness always made her laugh, especially when it was aimed at Kurt. And she was delighted that Janine liked her living statue, that she approved of the look of her body in stone. She wondered if she could talk Janine into becoming a living statue herself, maybe the two of them frozen together as an erotic monument...

        Janine was still talking. "It just seems out of character for her to do so sexy of a self-portrait. She's such a strong feminist, I can't believe she would want to be objectified like this."

        Objectified? You have no idea, Kurt thought to himself, stifling a smile. "Well, you never really know what's going on inside someone's head." He glanced up at Sara's frozen marble face, then back at Janine. "Right?"

        "Right," Janine nodded, finishing the last gulp of her wine. "Well, I gotta get a refill. Tell Sara how much I like the piece when she gets back from New York."

        "I'll make sure she knows," Kurt said after her as Janine disappeared into the laughing, talking crowd of people. He stroked his fingers lightly over the perfect curve of Sara's polished belly, and then disappeared himself.

        As the evening wore on and bottle after bottle of wine was consumed by the party-goers, inhibitions began to disappear. Much of the crowd took to ignoring the statue that had been the center of their attention for several hours, choosing instead to pair off into couples and dance between Sara's pedestal and the tables of refreshments. But it soon became obvious that the effects of the drinks were making more than a few people even more interested in Sara's statue than before.

        Sara had drifted off into a bemused state of half-attention as the party raged around her. She was enjoying her new existence as a marble sculpture so much that she was starting to think about how much fun it would be to remain petrified for more than just one short evening. Kurt could place her in her studio among her real statues for a few days, or perhaps out in their little backyard garden as a lawn ornament. Or maybe they could work out a short-term exhibition with one of the galleries that handled her work, and she could stand frozen on a pedestal in a proper museum for a few weeks. These thoughts filled her with a strange but considerable pleasure, a daydream of statueness, until she felt a warm wet sensation surround her stony left nipple.

        Startled back to attention, she looked down through her blank white eyes to see that a lithe, muscular woman in a short black party dress had wrapped her plump lips around her nipple. The woman was furiously teasing her marble nub, her lips suckling wetly against the pebbly stone of her carven aureole while her tongue tickled the erect stone nub of the nipple itself. Sara felt like a rocket had gone off inside her, catapulting her to stratospheric heights of ecstasy at this nameless woman's attentions. When the woman wrapped her arms around Sara's slender motionless waist and began to run her fingers up and down the sleek muscles carven in Sara's back, the ecstasy increased to an almost unbearable level. And the woman had no idea she was a living statue! She was simply overcome by her petrified beauty!

        Moments later, Sara watched through a haze of pleasure as a handsome brown-haired man stepped from the dancing crowd and pressed himself against her statue. The man dropped to his knees and placed his mouth against her sculpted groin. Sara wanted to groan at the sensation of the man's warm stubbled face rubbing against the cold stone of her inner thighs, and then he placed his lips against the carven lips of her petrified sex. He teased up and down with his soft lips as though she were still a living woman, then finally slipped his tongue as far as he could into the sculpted crevice of her statuesque pussy. For long minutes, Sara reveled in incredible pleasure as he teased and excited her with his mouth, his lips and tongue exploring the marble folds of her petrified sex, while the woman in the black dress continued her attentions on her stone breasts. She could not believe that she was being made love to -- and so well -- by a pair of perfect strangers, as she stood frozen as a living marble statue. She tried to move, to scream out her pleasure or wrap her arms around her two anonymous lovers, but she could only stand motionless in that same pose as a rigid stone statue. Sara felt this ecstasy might drive her mad.

        The unlikely scene went on for long, long minutes. Most of the crowd that jostled and danced around her pedestal was oblivious to what was going on, and the few who noticed only laughed nervously or drunkenly, a few making enthusiastic catcalls. Sara was only half-aware of the reaction of the crowd. Her universe had narrowed to the intense sensations of sexual stimulation that this pair of strangers were lavishing on the super-sensitive marble flesh of her frozen figure. Her body stood unmoving, gleaming and white under the spotlights, as they made love to her rigid marble body. Orgasms exploded through her mind like a symphony of roman-candles, the bright explosions of pleasure obliterating her consciousness, leaving only an awareness of the sensations on her sensitive stone skin and a deep conviction that nothing could equal this petrified ecstasy. She wished she could be statue forever.

        Suddenly there was a commotion, a jostling of bodies and cries of suprise and outrage as someone forced their way through the crowd up to her pedestal. A slightly disheveled-looking Kurt burst from among the dancing figures, his jacket rumpled and his tie askew. His face was twisted in an expression of jealous outrage. Without a word, he grabbed the man at her marble pussy by the shoulders and heaved him backward and away from her statue, sending the man sprawling into the surprised party-goers. Then he grabbed the woman at her petrified breast, and hauled her away as well, though slightly more gently. Despite her disappointment and shock, Sara could only watch as the jealous drama played out.

        "What the hell is going on here?" Kurt shouted. "I thought I made it clear that the same rules apply tonight as at any gallery or museum -- no one is allowed to touch the artwork! Much less make love to it! This is fucking unbelievable! Sara and I are hosting an art opening, not an orgy, godammit!" Kurt grabbed the man and the woman again, pulling them to their feet and toward the door. The shocked crowd parted before him, and within moments the two guests had been thrown out. Kurt dusted his hands and turned to face the silent, staring crowd.

        "Okay, it's late and I think we've all had a little too much to drink. This party is over." There were boos and muttered remarks throughout the crowd. "Yeah, I know, I know. I'm sorry, and I'm sorry it had to end with this little scene. Apparently, Sara's work is a little too realistic for some people." This last comment provoked a chorus of laughter. "Really... I thank you all for coming, and for being so complimentary of tonight's work. We'll give you all a call when we next have some new works to debut. But for now, goodnight! Goodnight!"

        It was clear that the crowd was disappointed but understanding as they gathered their jackets, purses, and coats and made their way toward the door. Kurt was charming and apologetic. Sara watched from her pedestal while he said goodnight to the guests as they filed out into the night. After a few minutes, the apartment was cleared of people. It now seemed empty and hollow after the chaos that had filled it this evening. Kurt shut off the stereo and collapsed to the couch, loosening his tie. He sighed heavily and looked up at Sara's statue.

        "A successful evening over all, I think, Sara. You and I both got to play out our fantasy of putting you on display for the public as a statue, and everyone who came tonight left with a new respect for your ability to carve portrait statues and a new interest in your work." He grinned. "I'll take your silence for agreement, my lovely sculpture."

        Kurt stood with a small groan, and walked over to Sara's pedestal. Her petrified body was unchanged from the moment she'd been turned to stone so many hours ago. Her eyes were still wide with surprise, her lips still frozen in a smile, and her arms and legs remained fixed and motionless in the exact same position. Kurt gently traced circles around the alabaster pebble of her nipple with his index finger, slowly and teasingly, as he looked contemplatively over her glossy white skin. Sara felt her mind again reel with the pleasure of his touch, and her own erotic inability to move. She'd been stimulated as a statue so many times this night, but the sublime pleasure of it had yet to diminish. For long minutes, she felt Kurt explore her marble figure -- fondling the white globes of her breasts, rubbing the sleek curve of her stomach, gently rubbing the cold stone hemispheres of her taut buttocks, running his hands up and down her muscular back and the long elegant shapes of her lithe arms and slender legs. Kurt found it strange to be touching her as she stood turned into solid stone. The familiar, pleasing contours of her body felt exactly as they always had beneath his fingertips, except that they were now motionless and sculpted of marble. It was a surreal, erotic experience. He kissed her unresponding lips for long minutes, then moved his questing mouth down her long neck, over her breasts, down the taut marble belly to her marble pussy. He unzipped his trousers and was about to enter her, to consummate their stony pleasure, when he discovered with dismay that the stony folds of her sex would not part to allow him entrance.

        He was speechless with shock, and then burst into laughter. This was one drawback to Sara's being turned to stone that they had not counted on! He laughed and laughed and laughed, leaning against the cold surfaces of Sara's torso.

        Sara watched Kurt disappear into the kitchen, returning with the two paper-wrapped bottles that Kristin had given them. He peered at the labels, then unwrapped the antidote to the transformation potion. He gently drew a droplet of the formula into the eye-dropper in the cap, and returned to stand before her statue.

        "Well, Sara, you make a beautiful marble nude, and I think we'd probably both like to keep you frozen and on display like this. But I think there's something both of us want to do even more than that."

        "Prepare to draw your first breath of life, fair Galatea!" Kurt grinned. He let the fluid drop onto the polished marble curve of one of her breasts.

        As before, the droplet was instantly absorbed. Sara felt a sudden flush of warmth spread outward from where the fluid had touched her breast. The warmth was comforting and pleasing, and as it spread outward the tingling sensation of transformation again suffused her body. She watched as the glossy white hue of marble faded from her skin, her flesh darkening slightly to a grayish color and then gaining the honey-gold color of her tanned living skin. She watched Kurt's eyes widen as he witnessed her transformation, and then he stepped close to touch her.

        As he touched Sara's golden flesh, she still felt as hard and cold as stone. Her hair was again a deep auburn, and had changed from a solid wavy mass back into a waterfall of individual reddish-brown strands. Her delicate pubic hairs were similarly changed, as was her eyelashs and eyelids. The fine downy hairs on her forearms and the nape of her neck were no longer delicate ridges in her marble body. Her smooth skin was once again a golden tan, her nails were pink and white, and her wide eyes were no longer blank white orbs but again possessed liquid brown irises and dark pupils. She looked alive, but was as frozen as before. Her skin was rock-hard and cold to the touch, and when he attempted to shift the position of her arms or even her fingers, he discovered that she was as rigid as when she'd been solid stone. Her eyes stared fixed and glassy in the same direction they had all night, her face remained unmoving in that same surprised smile, and not even her auburn strands of hair shifted in the slight breeze of the room. It was as if she was now a plastic mannequin, or one of those ultra-realistic painted statues he'd seen in some of Sara's art books.

        "Sara?" he whispered, stepping back from her pedestal. She didn't respond, and Kurt felt a chill of rising horror shiver up his spine. "Sara? Can you hear me?"

        For long moments, Sara remained frozen. Then finally her fingers fluttered at her sides. She opened her long-smiling lips and gave a long, shuddering moan. Her wide eyes blinked rapidly, then looked around the room, at Kurt, and finally down at her again-living body. She relaxed from her statuesque pose and drew a ragged breath. "I'm... I'm me again..."

        Kurt stepped up to her pedestal, encircled her soft waist, and helped her step down onto the floor. "You certainly are, but I was a little worried for a minute there. How was it?"

        "W-Wonderful..." She smiled, looking a little sheepish. "Everything I dreamed, and more. Incredible."

        Kurt smiled and kissed her long and passionately on her rosy lips, once again soft and responsive flesh. Sara returned his kiss with passion, her hands slipping inside his shirt as she felt his arms embrace her warm body. Kurt picked her up and carried her back into their bedroom, where they made love for several hours. It was the best sex they'd ever had. Afterwards, Kurt fetched some red wine from the refrigerator, and they basked in the afterglow, excitedly discussing the night's events. Finally their conversation turned to the future.

        "Well, as much as I loved being a statue," Sara purred, "we agreed we'd take turns with Kristin's potion."

        "I don't mind giving up my turn to see you on a pedestal again," Kurt smiled.

        "Oh no, I don't want that!" Sara exclaimed.

        "And why not? Do you have something particular in mind, my marble maiden?"

        "Mm-hmm," Sara said, running her slender fingers through the hair on Kurt's chest, looking deep into his eyes. "I've always wanted to see what you would look like as Michelangelo's 'David'...."