9.1.2002

I well remember that night.

I had accepted a dinner invitation at the apartment of a lady friend of mine I was dating, who was named Emily Shannon. I had actually met her at a furry artists’ convention. I, a writer, was a guest of someone else, but I met her there. I got a chance to take a look at her artwork (no jokes please), and I was quite pleased with its quality – very lifelike. It was so good that I said I wouldn’t mind being part of them.

Anyway, as I said, I showed up at Emily’s apartment, dressed nicely in dark pants and a jacket. Sure, I was hoping for something more interesting after dinner, but I wasn’t really expecting it.

I knocked on the door with my free hand; the other held a white rose that I had carefully trimmed from the bush in front of a friend’s house (with his permission). She opened the door, and I smiled and tipped my hat to her. She smiled in return and invited me in. I stepped through the door, and presented her with the rose. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw it, but she grinned in appreciation and took it, being careful of the thorns. She placed it in a slender glass vase and put that up on the table in the dining room.

The lights were low, so that was when I got a good look at her this evening. She was a large woman – not fat, but tall and broad of shoulder, with a broad face and a head of white hair. I thought that it had to be dyed – no other way for a young woman to have white hair so light that it was almost a pale blue.

Her eyes had always seemed odd – as if they reflected more light than they should have – but they were blue, and deep. She was wearing a long dress this evening, one that made her look thinner somehow. It was a work of art, just like her paintings.

Emily sat me down at the small table, across from her. Our knees were touching, and when she leaned forward, her hair covered her face, shading it from the light above. On the table were a pair of glasses, a tiny bowl with a pair of olives, and a small bottle of champagne. It was a brand I didn’t recognize.

She stood up and poured for the two of us. She sat back down, and then looked at me – that penetrating stare – and said, “To us.”

I responded. “To us – L’haim.” To life. We clinked our glasses, and then drained them. She told me what dishes she had prepared, but said that we would wait before eating. “So you’ll appreciate my cooking more,” she said with a smile.

We sat and talked, had a second glass of champagne each, and then a third. By this time, the bottle was nearly empty. Neither of us had touched the olives.

I suggested to her that we share the last glass of champagne: she agreed. I poured it into her glass, and she sipped half of it and handed it to me.

As I was taking the glass, I realized that I was a bit lightheaded. Drunk on three glasses of champagne? Unlikely. Nonetheless, I drank the fourth half-glass carefully, and then ate one olive to balance the effect of the alcohol.

She saw me waver a bit while drinking, and then she seemed to smile slightly. It might have been my imagination, but I thought she smelled satisfied…

She insisted that she be the one to serve the food at that point, and so I allowed her to do it. It was delicious – a small salad on top of a piece of melon, followed by small slices of beef artfully arranged to make a hexagram over a piece of bread, with mustard on the side. The beef was spiked slightly with a pepper that made it sharp, and the bread was so soft and good that it had to be fresh. I ate all of mine, trying to restrain myself against a large appetite. I was surprised to be so hungry. Emily, though, ate hers slowly, with relish, and seemed to take pleasure from my taking pleasure in her food.

I was pleased by that, rather greatly pleased indeed.

Then, when we were both done, I insisted on clearing the plates she had served on and gave them a quick rinse, then placed them in the dishwasher.

“What a gentleman,” murmured Emily. I turned to her and smiled, and said, “My parents taught me well.” She smiled too, then, and then beckoned for me to follow her back to the table.

She leaned forward across the table, once we were both seated; her hair fell, leaving her face in shadow.

“Joseph,” she breathed softly, “there is something I would like to show you.”

My attention was completely focused by that, and I perked up in all senses of that phrase. Perhaps that something more I had hoped for…

I realized that I could smell her from where I was sittingnot a strong smell, but actually a very soft one. It put me in mind of a warm cat. She wasn’t wearing any perfume. I was surprised to be smelling her: either she had suddenly started blowing out pheremones, or my nose was getting better.

She chuckled, and it was an odd sound, coming from an invisible face framed by that silvery hair… “It’s not what you think.” She ran her hand up under her hairline, and then drew it down to her eyes, and then put it back down on the table.

My spirits flagged momentarily, but Emily continued to speak. “I know what you think… but it’s not really that… It’s this.”

She lifted her head, bringing her face into the light again. My heart skipped a beat when I saw her.

She had a broad, stubby muzzle tipped by a pink triangular nose. Her whiskers were long enough that they extended out past her cheekbones, which were covered in fur. In fact, all of her face was covered in grey fur. Her human mask was on the table now. Except for her perfectly human hands, she looked like something out of her paintings.

A moment later, I lost even that small comfort. She reached to the shoulders of her sleeveless dress and pulled. What I had seen as soft human skin slid off like a long glove, now showing the same grey fur – but longer, and with pale blue streaks and spots in it.

A shake of her head made two triangular ears pop out of her hair. They, too, were grey and furry, except for their pink linings.

She blinked her eyes, which were still blue, but now the pupils were different. Because of the low light, they were wide open… but I could still see that when they were contracted, they would be vertical slits. The light reflected off the tapeta at the back of her eyes, raising the hair on the back of my neck and sending chills down my spine…

And then I felt better, almost immediately, and knew why: I had always had a thing for catgirls. I think a combination of the forms of human and cat – God’s most graceful creations – is the most graceful and elegant form possible. It’s also incredibly sexy.

She still looked odd, though, until she slid a clawed fingertip down her chest – which still showed human skin. The woman-suit she had been wearing fell away, and I now saw that she was a good bit smaller now than she had been at the start of the evening. She must have been wearing pads to fill out the form of the large human she had wanted to look like.

The dress she was wearing was similar to the one she had been wearing… over the suit. She was actually quite slender, with a matching figure, and she had a tail. That only added to the effect, of course.

“Remember,” she said, “when you met me, you said you’d like to be part of my world?”

She slinked over to me (slinked is the best verb I can use to describe that kind of movement) and sat in my lap. She smelled the same now as she had before, but stronger. She looked into my eyes, and I felt a twinge at the base of my spine as her weight settled.

She smiled when she leaned back against me. I felt slightly ashamed – but what shame is it to be attracted to your female friends? Especially the catgirls. I got over that quickly, and put my arms around her. She lay calmly in my arms and purred, flicking at my face with her tail, and smiling pleasantly without showing any teeth. One of her arms was draped about my shoulders.

I paused at that moment to scratch my neck, which was itching. As I moved, I noticed that the fine dark-golden hairs on my arm – the same color as those on my head – were much longer and denser than I had remembered. I thought it might just be a trick of the light, but then I felt the twinge at the base of my spine again. It then turned into a constant pressure, changing slowly to pain.

I excused myself to her and stood, and then staggered as a wave of dizziness hit me. It was the same feeling I’d had while drinking with her before, but multiplied ten-fold. I grabbed for my behind, where most of the pain was coming from now, while I tried to steady myself against the chair.

As soon as I touched the seat of my pants, I felt the seam stretch tight, and then tear. Out burst… a tail. Similar to hers, only scaled up for my body, and with dark golden fur on it.

I tried to rub my eyes to make sure that they were working right, and my fingers bumped into my nose. It was farther out than I had remembered. I tried to cross my eyes and see, and it showed me only a blurry image. Then I tried feeling my face instead.

Now I, too, had a muzzle, and whiskers (though mine were shorter and thicker than hers, while my muzzle was longer), and pointy ears, and fur on my face, and pads on my hands, and fur on my body…

I screamed in terror and confusion. It came out as a howling, barking shout of fear. Whatever she was, I was too… but where she was a cat, I was…

A dog. A big, smart, talking dog?

“What have you done!”

Emily smiled, the tips of her teeth showing now. They were needle-points in my improved vision. “I know how you feel about me as a woman, and I saw your reaction to my catgirl paintings. I thought you would enjoy this experience.” She snagged her claws in the fabric of my shirt and started to pull.

I tore away from her. “What are you… How? How did you do this to me?”

She was still grinning, but she was showing more tooth by the moment. It was a predatory grin now. “I slipped a little something into the champagne. It won’t affect me – but it works fine on humans.” She took a step towards me, tail lashing. She was excited, her scent told me, in all ways possible.

But then my mood shifted. I was furious! How dare she…

“I don’t want this! Get me back, I don’t want it, I liked it that way, I want to be back to the start…”

I saw the fear creep into her eyes now. She had needle-sharp claws, but I was bigger and much, much stronger than her.

“It… I can’t. It’s only once… It just works – “

She was cut off by my hitting her. I didn’t mean to do it – not really – but I was just so angry, and… It was automatic. Like your knee jerks when you hit it, I lashed out. My fist caught her right at the bottom of her breastbone. Her ears went flat back, her tail fell, and her eyes went wide as she gasped for breath against the blow. She crumpled to the floor, still gasping, eyes wide with panicky fear as she struggled to breathe, and struggled to understand.

“How could you?” I screamed at her. “How could you? I hate you! It’s permanent, isn’t it? I know it! It just has to be!”

She nodded dumbly, unable to make any other move. I howled again and turned, running into the other room, towards the door of the apartment. As I struggled with it, tears burst from my eyes, obscuring my vision, as I began sobbing in despair. I would never lose this… this nightmare… this canine form that I never wanted.

But as soon as I gave up, I ran to the largest window instead. Intending to throw myself out to my death, I ran towards it. As I passed Emily on the floor, I heard her weeping.

“Wait,” she was saying, “Please, wait! I love you! Come baaaack!”

But all I could do was scream “NOOOOO!” as I leaped through the window.

It was not what I expected. Instead of a sixty-foot drop with oblivion at the bottom, I fell two inches amid a hail of broken glass and hit the fire escape’s floor. Raging at the cruel god of Fate that had just saved my life, I ignored Emily’s cries of “Wait!” and rushed up the ladders.

I came to the roof, and there I stopped. It was lit with a bluish-white light whose source I didn’t notice at first. I looked around at the city: at the streetlamps; at the countless offices where men and women still worked; at windows lit by the nightlights of a myriad children afraid of the dark; at an airliner, cruising far overhead, its passengers asleep and the pilots drinking coffee; at myself, a walking, talking dog. I had left Emily, weeping, struggling to breathe, and crying out my name in a hurricane of pain and shame and grief.

Then I looked up. The moon was full. I could see the craters and the plains, the mountains and the ridges, in the glare that came from the sun. It reflected that light down on me, on the jet, on the children and office workers and yes, even Emily.

The moon did not care. The moon was ageless, a spectator to all our events here, and yet not caring about anything. It had been there for countless millions of years. I was twenty-two. My problem had lasted less than fifteen minutes.

It was, in effect, nothing worth noticing… yet it tore my soul apart.

All my anger, pain, despair, and, yes, fear, burst out of me then. As I lifted my head to stare at the moon, I howled. It tore at my throat, and it felt good, though the human part of me knew the sound differently: as the call of a predator. Doubtless many children would never get over their fear of the dark now.

With my howl ringing in my ears, I slumped off in despair, to begin my new life as a werewolf.