By the time the movie is over, Cat and I are cuddled up with each other on the couch and I haven’t turned into a cat. It isn’t super late, just a little after 9pm, and I can tell she’s just about to burst with how many questions seem to have bubbled up inside of her during the last stretch of the movie.
The movie was actually really good. It gendered a little bit (in my eyes at least), there were murders, violence, vampires—what’s not to like?
We disentangle ourselves and sit on opposite sides of the couch, our backs to the armrests and our legs interlocked.
And then, the questions begin.
“Are you turning into a cat?”
“Maybe? Probably? I dunno.” But probably.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Since last Friday. I kinda woke up in the morning as a cat. No idea how or why.” Maybe getting absolutely fucked on weed and alcohol the night before… somehow…? No, that’s dumb.
“Do you like being a cat?”
“Yes.” I love it.
“Were you taller before?”
“Yes.” And I do not miss the height at all, though I am upset about my clothing situation.
“I knew it! I didn’t wanna say anything, but I absolutely knew it. Also, sorry for throwing chicken at you in the alley.”
“You’re fine. It was really good. I like the food I can still eat best when it has little to no seasoning, though. Which is chicken, I think all types of fish, and milk. I think cream would be fine, I’m not sure about butter, and I don’t think cheese is a good idea.”
“Have you eaten any birds or rats?”
“No!” Though I don’t think I’d be opposed if I did it in cat form. I haven’t really had much opportunity to play beyond that first morning with Gwen, and the time I spent running around outside before discovering outside is bad and scary. Chasing something… gosh, that sounds really nice. Maybe I’d have had more opportunities to play and run around if I wasn’t busy being an anxious mess for the last few days.
“Do you wear wigs?”
“Uh, what? No?”
“Have you worn wigs?”
“Cat, what the hell are—” And then I get it. “Really???”
She bursts out laughing. I can’t help but smile a little as well. It’s not even that funny, but she insists it would have been even better if I let her get to the fourth wig question.
When she calms, I get The Question.
“Can you turn into a cat right now?”
Yes, I want to say.
But the answer is no, because I feel safe.
I shake my head. “I can switch between being a cat and human—well, not human, I’m not sure what to call the form I’m in right now… maybe half-cat? Demihuman? No, I’d sound like I’m from a D&D game if I said that.”
“Humanish?” she suggests, and sure, why not.
“Sure. Anyways, I can switch between being humanish and being a cat, but it’s based on my emotions and how I’m feeling at the time.” Why am I telling her this? I don’t want her to see me turning into a cat as a bad thing. I don’t think that’s how Gwen really sees me, but I still feel like it is at least some of the time.
“Like, you turn into a cat when you’re happy? Oh god, does that mean you’re not happy right now?”
“No, no! I’m very happy right now. I promise! I was having an anxious meltdown on the way here and maybe a little bit while I was waiting on the couch, but it’s fine. Hanging out with you is nice. I feel… I feel special? You made me feel special tonight. I’m not sure what the plan is for… whatever this is, but I come with a lot of trauma, just as a heads up,” I say, injecting false cheer into my voice.
“I mean, it’s a little fast to start dating or anything.” Is it? “I just wanted to make the cute girl with the freaky contacts feel good and maybe possibly hook up with her if… if, y’know, if she was down for that.”
“But… you suggested going out first?”
“Um… y-yeah? Take a girl to dinner and, if it goes well, then you maybe take her to bed?”
Is that a thing people do?
I guess so.
But…
“About that… I’m… not sure how to explain it, or if I should have said something before coming over, but I didn’t want to assume your intentions and maybe make you feel bad. Crap, what I’m trying to say is that I’m… I’m ace. I… I would like to kiss you, maybe, but… but not sex. It’s… not for me. I mean, I used to do it, but whatever’s happening to me has made me not want it anymore.”
Why is explaining this so difficult?
What is she going to say? That she doesn’t want to have me in her dorm anymore? That I wasted her time and should have said something first?
But she doesn’t say anything like that.
Instead, she says:
“You want to kiss me?”
“M-Maybe!”
“Why haven’t you already?”
“I—you—you! You literally thought I was going to eat you two hours ago! And then you cuddled up to me and we watched a movie!”
“Hrm,” she says conspiratorily, “I seem to recall it was you who cuddled up to me. You purring is adorable, by the way.”
Huh. Wha—huhhh??
When did I do that???
“Alice?” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Goddamn that needs to stop happening.
“When did I do t-that?”
“You mean when did you purr?” she asks smugly.
“Yes!!!”
“Right after one of the murdery bits, actually. Should I be worried about that, by the way? You’re not finding comfort and joy at the sight of blood, right?”
“No!!!”
Her grin is as wide as I’ve ever seen it. The little shit, she’s enjoying teasing me over this.
…not that I’m complaining all that much, I suppose.
“Sooo?”
“So… what?”
“Soooo, why haven’t you kissed me yet?”
I glare at her, frowning, but my involuntary smile is giving away the fact that I’m not actually upset, just supremely flustered.
“B-Because!”
Why isn’t this letting me turn into a cat? Why do I feel so safe right now?
“Becaaauuuse?”
Because I haven’t done the whole romance thing in years. Because I’m not completely sure I want to. Because intimacy is scary. Because kissing can lead to sex, and I don’t want to have sex, and although part of me knows Cat isn’t the kind of person Octavia turned out to be, it’s still scary.
I decide I don’t want to kiss her right now. That’s okay. She’ll be okay with it.
“I don’t want to right now,” I tell her.
“That’s okay,” she assures me immediately. “We can call it here, we can cuddle, we can watch another movie, we can chat some more. It’s up to you.”
Oh thank gosh. I knew she’d be cool with it, but actually knowing she is cool with it is a different feeling and it is amazing and incredible and so is she.
All right then. What do I want to do right now?
Go back to my dorm? No.
Cuddle with Cat some more? Yes, but also no.
Chow down on some tuna? Yes, but as a cat. I haven’t tried it as a cat yet. I wonder how much better it’ll be than it is when I’m humanish. Probably a lot, if the chicken is anything to go by.
Another movie? Mmm, tempting, but no.
I start trying to figure out why I both do and don’t want to cuddle Cat some more and, moments later, discover I do want to, but only if it’s as my cat self. I want to… reciprocate what she’s given me tonight. I want to give her comfort and joy and all the melty feel-good feelings. I won’t be able to talk, but I’ll be a really good listener, and she’ll absolutely love it if she gets some kitty cuddles.
Bad news is that I feel safe right now. I don’t have a reason to turn into a cat.
I could give myself a reason.
I could give myself a lot of reasons. It would suck for a bit, but then I’d be a cat and it’d all be okay again and Cat would be happy and I would be happy.
“I want to switch for you,” I tell her.
“Like… you’re fine topping or bottoming?”
“What—no, geez. I mean, I wanna turn into a cat for you. If you still want that, I mean. I mean, I’d like to—I’d like to be a cat. For you. If you’d like.”
“I would love that, if you’re comfortable with it,” she says. Her tone is serious, is letting me know she wants me to prioritize my own comfort, but her vibe is lit up with hope and joy and she smells like wonder.
(And cinnamon and fresh linen and sweat and spices).
I capitalize on my mild discomfort and make a spontaneous decision.
“I am… but I need to tell you how I switch. I don’t want to, but I think I need to. I don’t want to lie to you anymore or hide anything from you.” I don’t. If I’m going to keep hanging out with her, I want her to know all of me. I want her to accept all of me. People do maybe-unhealthy things to feel good all the time, right? Besides, it’s not like I’m taking drugs or something—I’m turning into a cat. I’m becoming cozy, small and safe, fluffy and just a little suspicious-looking, but what black cat doesn’t look at least a little suspicious?
Her face falls a bit, just a smidge. “Is it bad?”
“It’s… not good?” I hedge.
She ponders that for a minute, screws her face up in thought. Her fingers do this little dance with each other that I find adorable and fixate on while she thinks. One finger on the left hand interlocks with two on the right, and then two more on the left sort of walk to the side, and then more interlock, disconnect, and she repeats it enough that I’m confident in assuming it’s a practiced and frequent thing for her.
“Mmk,” she eventually says. “I promise I won’t judge you for it, but you also don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I might also ask about it in the future, and I would want an answer then, if that’s okay.”
Is it? She’s giving me a free pass to get away with not telling her how turning into a cat works. It’s kind of perfect for me, but it also means I’m hiding part of myself. The whole point of not bothering to conceal any of my changes when I went to class today was that I’m tired of hiding myself.
That’s physical stuff, though. That’s how people who don’t know me perceive me.
Personal stuff, emotional stuff, that’s how I really am. If people know personal things about me, they can perceive me on a deeper level and can use that to hurt me if they want to. They can use it to really, really hurt me.
I remind myself Cat isn’t like that.
I want to be accepted.
I want to be accepted so fucking bad.
Baring all of my shit to someone I’ve only just met feels like it should feel wrong, but it doesn’t actually feel wrong. Am I up for telling her how fucked up my “childhood” was? Hell no. But, can I share that feeling bad turns me into a cat? Yeah, I think I can. Who knows, she’s an animals girl, maybe she can help me figure out a way to switch that doesn’t involve going down a rabbit hole of bad memories and awful feelings. Read the latest chapters at novelping(.)com.
“No,” I decide. “I want to tell you.”
She smiles and nods.
I suck in a breath, and I tell her everything—and I mean everything.
She listens with rapt attention while I detail how switching requires me to feel nervous/anxious/unsafe or, really, pretty much any kind of emotion I perceive as negative. I tell her that turning into a cat (or possibly spending time as a cat) is transforming my once-human body (possibly towards “full cat”), but that I don’t mind the changes (even though I still don’t know what I want as far as becoming a cat or staying humanish goes) other than feeling conflicted about the food situation, and even then, that’s largely because cooking for other people is a way I show affection—it’s a skill. I’m a good cook. I like showing off. I like making people happy.
I tell her about my aspirations and how they (obviously) conflict with my love for being a cat.
I tell her more about how food has changed for me, definitely not hoping she’ll have canned salmon if I ever come over again.
I also tell her the only way I can switch back to being humanish is to feel safe.
When I finish, she has a thoughtful expression on her face and she’s doing the thing with her fingers again.
“So… I’m still not judging you, and no notes on the other stuff, I think that’s up to you, but the way you switch to being a cat doesn’t necessarily sound good,” she tells me.
Big sigh. “I know.”
“Well… does being a cat really make up for the way you turn into one? Like, you really do just stop feeling the bad feels when you switch?”
Absolutely.
“Alice?”
“I said, absolutely?”
“Er… no you didn’t? Or I didn’t hear you. Sorry.”
“Nah, you’re good,” I say, arching my back over the arm of the couch. It cracks in a really satisfying way. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Meh, okay—so it makes up for it. That’s good. However, I would also be worried about you becoming addicted to using your ability to switch to get out of uncomfortable situations or conversations that you would normally not be able to get out of. Uncomfortable conversations are just a part of life.”
Human life, but I don’t say that out loud.
“I know,” I tell her, because deep down, I do. “I almost switched earlier, you know? Before you discovered me.”
“‘Discovered me’,” she snorts.
“Whatever—you know what I mean,” I grumble. “I almost switched when I got here and we were talking about movies, but I didn’t. I don’t want to say I fought it off, because I’m not fighting it—I’m… I’m resisting it. The metaphor I’ve been going with is that it’s like a dam. It’ll burst eventually, but I can keep fixing cracks until there’re too many to deal with. Or…” I say, trailing off, realizing something. “Or! Someone else is there to help me, and we do manage to patch it up, together. We make me feel safe, together.”
“That… is a lazy metaphor. It also falls apart because if you didn’t switch, then you’re not still resisting it. You did fight it off.”
“Hey, frick you!”
“Did you really just say ‘frick you’?”
…
“…mayyyybe…”
She giggles, smiles, shakes her head. “You’re adorable. But if it works for you, it works. I’m happy I could help.”
“Me too.”
She didn’t kick me out. She didn’t try to get me to stop being a cat. She pointed a few things out, asked some questions, took a crap on my metaphor, and called me adorable.
How am I ever going to turn into a cat for this girl?
Dumb question, Alice. Dumb. Question.
“Do… do you still want me to turn into a cat?”
“I’m… hesitant about it,” she responds thoughtfully. “If you want to, if you’re totally comfortable with it, if you promise me that any bad feelings will go away as soon as you switch, I would be okay with it.”
“But you don’t want me to,” I note.
She lets out a gigantic sigh. Whoa.
“Alice, you are the most interesting person I’ve ever met—but I don’t think I can want you to turn into a cat without being a bad person. I can’t ask you to put yourself into a headspace so awful that retreating from the world entirely becomes a good thing. It wouldn’t be right. But, I also don’t want you to feel like I prefer you in one way or another. From what I’ve seen, Humanish Alice and Cat Alice are both wonderful. I think it’s up to you, and all I can really say without having your lived experience is to be careful, watch your headspace, and try not to hurt yourself. No matter what, I won’t judge you. The way you talk about being a cat, how it feels, how good chicken tastes, all of it… If it really is that good, I’m pretty sure I’d also relive some good ol’ traumatizing memories to become a cat.”
I nod.
I know, if I asked, that she would tell me getting cuddles from me when I’m humanish would be just as good as getting cuddles from me when I’m a cat, but I can’t seriously believe that when I’ve felt how soft my fur is.
Also: cat. Cats are infinitely cuter than humans, and I will die on that hill.
I think I’m going to switch for her.
I’ll cook for her sometime as well. Something simple that I don’t have to taste test. Salmon and rice, maybe? No, I never used to like fish, I have no idea how to cook it. Fine. It’ll be something to show her her effort tonight is appreciated.
All the effort… it could just be that she really wanted to get in my pants, but she doesn’t give off those vibes. I think she’s just that kind of person. Plus, she relented immediately when I said I didn’t want sex or kissing, like any decent person would.
Plus, I want to be a cat again. It really does feel like it’s been ages since I was one.
“Okay. Here goes,” I tell her.
And then I think about the night I ran away from what had once been a home, crying, covered in bruises, mourning all the things I had to leave behind, and wondering if I would ever see my sister again.