I sat in the antique chair (clearly in need of some upholstery) seated in front of a large oak desk covered in what appeared to be old tomes, occult paraphernalia, and a set of bottles of unknown content strewn about. I checked my watch; the desk’s owner had rushed out several minutes ago right after I had sat down, and I was starting to get a bit uncomfortable. My eyes glanced across various oddities in the wood panel room around me: a taxidermied raven, some sort of incomprehensible device with lenses and gears, and a mini fridge sitting against the back wall, desperately in need of a cleaning, and clearly having trouble performing its function based on the sounds emitting from it.
There was a flush from the next room, and shortly after a young woman came out, looking slightly queasy but better than when she went in. She had long raven hair pulled into a thick braid, a pair of bookish glasses, and was wearing some sort of sleeveless purple top I didn’t know the proper name for. She didn’t seem much older than me, though she had a fairly mature air about her. “Are you alright, Miss Ward?”
She sat down in her office chair behind the desk - incongruously modern and normal compared to the surrounding antiques and oddities. “Ugh, just a little hung over, not a problem. Now, uh, mister… Morgan Owens was it? Yeah, so you’re here about the part-time assistant job… what is it you do?”
I straightened up once it was clear business was back on, despite my illusions about her maturity being shattered. “I’m a sophomore at the university, I found your posting in the student union. I’m a computer science student.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Computer science, huh? Not the type I’d usually expect to see here. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I enjoy that stuff of course, but your posting said you needed someone to do foraging and wildlife management on your property. How much property do you have?”
“Oh, like, three hundred acres or something? Got a whole mountain back there. Grandma left it to me, but it’s a bit much for me to manage alone.”
My face lit up. “Really? That much? I’m into hiking and survivalism, that kind of thing. Being in the outdoors.”
Miss Ward chuckled. “That’s your angle, huh? Okay, but it’s more than just rustic property management. I’d need you to help me organize my texts, do household chores, and assist in experiments. Maybe some mild home improvement.”
“Yeah, and that’s all fine. What really drew me besides the outdoors stuff is the room and board. I don’t want to go home for summer break and I can’t afford an apartment right now.”
“Ah, I see, you need a summer job and lodgings. Historically this house and its staff have a strict ‘no male residents’ policy but if it’s just the two of us for now I think I can make it work. I should also mention that this position is a bit of a long term commitment even though it’s listed as part time. You can do it alongside school once the fall semester starts up, but if you’re not taking classes over the summer I’d like you to work full time until the next semester starts. You’d be paid accordingly, of course.”
“Really? Hmm, that sounds fine. I could use a job through college, and working full time through summer break should be okay by me. I’m not taking classes during the summer semester.”
Miss Ward smiled. “Good, you seem enthusiastic about at least part of the work, and the kind of mind that can handle a computer science degree could be a nice change of pace from what I’m used to.”
”Oh yeah, like for your research? I’d be happy to apply a bit of that if need be. What kind of research do you do?”
”Uh… a bit of this and that really. Mostly just doing some work related to my thesis. It’s not procrastination and you can’t prove otherwise.”
”Oh, you’re a grad student?”
”Something like that. I’m studying… well, it’ll take a while to explain. I’ll tell you later once you’re settled. On that note, ready to commit? The listed hourly rate okay?”
“Sure, I kinda dig the aesthetics of this old house, living here for a while sounds pretty neat.”
She got a thoughtful look on her face for a moment.
”How do you feel about cat?”
I hadn’t seen any cats in the house so far, but that wasn’t really the issue with that sentence I should have focused on. “Uh, yeah, I like animals in general, and cats are pretty cool. A cat would be fine.”
”Great, great, cat it is. Alright, I’ll get the actual paperwork together later, but consider yourself hired!”
She stuck out her hand across the desk to shake hands, or so I thought. I took her hand and gave it a shake before she pulled closer across the desk, awkwardly leaning over it.
”Welcome aboard, now hold still for a bit, this is kind of an initiation thing. Sorry if this is a bit overly familiar,” she said with a glint in her eye, pulling what appeared to be a temporary tattoo marker out of a pocket and popping the cap off with one hand.
I was too surprised to really protest, and I was a little too flustered to think too hard about what she was drawing; the contact was firm but gentle and unexpected, and gave me a bit of a warm — what was it called? ASMR response in my scalp. An attractive woman wanted to draw some kind of henna pattern on my arm before hiring me to live in her house? Sure lady, draw whatever kinda circuit diagram you… circuit diagram?
I passed out.
I felt like I’d gotten a full night’s sleep, but I was still a bit groggy. I registered movement above me: a ceiling fan slowly circulating air. It was night out, though enough moonlight came in through the window to dimly illuminate my surroundings. I tried moving and felt a bit sluggish and disoriented. I was… naked?
I remembered what I was doing last… a job interview… Miss Ward drawing on my arm… I brought my arm up to look at what she was drawing. Yep, still there, that wasn’t a dream. I started studying the pattern. It wasn’t actually a circuit diagram, but something felt kind of similar about it along those lines… something about the intent, the underlying organization. I barely noticed how thin my arm looked, how small my hand looked, how sharp my fingernails… wait.
With a burst of movement I sat bolt upright in the bed, the adrenaline clearing up my head enough to focus on the apparent issue. I turned my hand and arm over and around, trying to figure out why it looked wrong. Was it just a trick of the moonlight? Was I on some kind of drug? My muscle definition wasn’t anything to write home about to begin with but I had to have more than… I reached up and felt my weird arm, confirming that my other arm looked about the same (though lacking the odd temporary tattoo), but confusingly, my arm felt even more unexpected than it looked. The skin was smooth and softer than I remembered, but also, I could feel taut, lean muscles just under the surface, harder than what I had remembered having.
My still slightly drowsy brain processed this for a moment before working out its next priority: I looked down, and saw soft shapes I really wasn’t expecting.
”AHHHHHHH!”
I tumbled out of the bed, my center of balance feeling off as I stumbled towards an antique full-length mirror in the corner. I regained my balance long enough to get a look. The dim lighting made it hard to see the details, but I definitely got the overall gist: my proportions and overall distribution of muscle and fat seemed wildly off in a way that I wasn’t wholly willing to acknowledge just yet. I tried to focus on some other anomalies when I heard the door open and the fan’s lights clicked on, distracting me for the moment.
Miss Ward was standing in the doorway, looking somewhat amused, but concerned. I was unable to immediately engage the language center of my brain before she spoke.
”Well I just heard a high-pitched scream so sorry about bursting in on you in a state of undress, Morgan. I left you some clothes, but it seems like you didn’t get there yet.”
I stared at her incredulously for a moment. That was not remotely the problem here, and she knew it. She had a slight smirk on her face that told me all I needed to know, at least to start with.
”You—“
The sound of my voice startled me and I covered my mouth reflexively. It had, as she mentioned, been high pitched.
”What did you do to me!?”
She put up her hands in a calming manner. “It’s okay hun, it’s nothing permanent,”
”Wha? How can this not be—”
I had turned back to the mirror mid-sentence. The overhead light made everything very clear. First off, my facial structure had definitely changed. Combined with the rest of the changes, and the lack of certain appendages, it was very clear that I wasn’t a guy anymore. However, somehow more surprising than that was what else I had. My hair had lengthened a bit and turned black, a fact that I hadn’t really been able to note in the low light. A pair of cat-like ears sat on top of my head, and between and behind my legs I could see a long, sinuous, black appendage thrashing about. A tail.
“What the hell”
“Morgan, please calm-“
”No, YOU calm down!”
She grabbed me by the shoulders, no longer as broad as before, and stared me in the eyes, and I felt an unusual calm come over me. She guided me backward and sat me on the bed behind me.
”Now Morgan, I’m going to calmly explain the situation, and I want you to hold your questions until the end. Understood?”
Whatever was affecting my head gave me a bit of a fuzzy feeling, and I nodded compliantly, unsure what else I could do in this scenario.
”Good. Now, as I’m sure you’re very aware by now, you’re a catgirl at the moment. I want to be very clear that this is not permanent. I just need you to bear with it for a bit.”
I slowly nodded, getting her implication. She could change me back. But might only be able, or willing, to do so at some point in the future.
”Alright, good. Now, you’re a smart girl, so you’ve probably figured a bit of this out already, but I’m going to go over it anyway since I know you’re probably still a bit disoriented. First, yes, I’m what you might call a witch, and it was in fact me who did this to you, and can undo it. No, I won’t be doing so tonight.”
I had in fact already pieced that together, but confirmation was good.
”Second, you are currently under contract as my familiar. Do you know what a familiar is, Morgan?”
”Uh… a magical pet that a wizard or witch or something uses to do tasks for them?”
”Right, more or less. Though I want to emphasize that you’re not a pet, and any activities that might resemble pet play are wholly voluntary, got it?”
“I… what?”
”No questions yet, moving on. Third, you are a cat person because familiars need to be some sort of magical creatures — the bond wouldn’t work if you were a normal human.”
I felt a part of my psyche drop out. “I’m no longer human…”
“Hey, don’t emphasize the wrong thing. I said you weren’t a normal human. Your humanity is more or less intact, though somewhat suppressed.”
“So am I human or not?”
“If you got a blood test it would come out normal, and a DNA test would show you as a normal girl. Now, moving on, let’s talk about the bond. I can use your enhanced senses remotely if I want, though that leaves me kind of vulnerable while I’m doing so.”
I was oddly intrigued by that point, and blurted out, “Enhanced senses? Like what?”
”I did say no questions yet, but fine. Yes, like a cat you can see well in low-light circumstances, hear well, you’ve got heightened sensitivity and sense of smell relative to a human.”
”See well in low-light circumstances? I could only see a little in this room despite the moonlight.”
”Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Morgan. It’s a new moon. That’s starlight.”
The revelation struck me. Yeah, it was a new moon today. The faint starlight filtering in the window had been enough to almost see myself clearly in the mirror.
”May I continue, kitty cat?”
I didn’t appreciate that mode of address but I couldn’t find any flaws with it at the moment so I nodded instead of complaining.
”Alright, let’s see, what number are we on, four? Five? Doesn’t matter. Anyway, as long as you are in my employ, you’ll be my familiar. That’s what I hired you for. The contract can still be broken, so if you want out I can do that, though I’ll need you to try it out for a while before you make a hasty decision.”
“A hasty decision like turning me into a catgirl?”
”I’ve been looking for someone for this role for a while now, so no, it wasn’t hasty on my part. I have need of familiar services soon so I needed to get you onboarded ASAP.”
“This is all a lot to take in… but why a catgirl!?”
“Didn’t I tell you? This house has a strict ‘no male residents’ policy.”
“And this is what you meant by ‘I can make it work’!?”
She smirked. “Exactly. Now get some rest and work out your hangups, I’ve got work for you in the morning.”
And with that she closed the door, leaving me standing naked in the bedroom.