3 Cats

This is more or less a heavily extended caption. I've always liked the idea of a slow change, and this was an effort to write a story about something like that. I've been alternating between working on and ignoring this story for quite a while now. I don't think I'm entirely happy with it, but I think I've done all I can with it, and it's time to put it there and move on.

---

3 Cats

“Oof!”

Summer had just begun, and Russell was on his way to buy some more games on his birthday money when he ran into another guy. Admittedly, he was paying more attention to his handheld than the sidewalk in front of him, but he still felt like it wasn't his fault he ran into the guy, and he had decided on that before he even recovered from the loss of balance. “Hey, what are you doing?” he said, glaring at the other guy. Glaring up, specifically. Russell was a bit short for his age, and this guy..well, his height was average, but his stomach wasn't.

“Oh, sorry,” said the guy. “I thought I saw somethin' in these bushes here.” It was someone from Russell's school..he'd had a couple of classes with him, but he didn't exactly keep tabs on his classmates, so he didn't know the guy's name for sure.

“Something..like what?” Russell was calmed somewhat that the other guy had accepted the blame. He was curious enough to even put up his game for a moment.

“I dunno, some motion?” The other guy bent over and pushed some of the bushes aside. “Whoa,” he said.

“What? Wha'd you find?” said Russell, bending over to get a better look.

“It's a cat!” the bigger guy scooped something up in his arms and stood up, and indeed it was a small housecat. Its fur was a pattern of white, black, and red colors, and it lay in his arms looking up, apparently terrified. “Huh..never seen one with fur like this before.”
“Me either. You sure you should hold it like that? It might have rabies or something.”

“Well, ya asked what it is. You wanna hold it?” Russell backed away from the guy offering him a cat.

“No thanks. And, you could've just told—whoa!” The cat suddenly stood up and jumped at Russell, landing neatly on his shoulder. He didn't take the impact of the jump so well, and stumbled back a few steps before finally getting stable again. “What the heck?!” he said, looking over at the cat. It just purred and rubbed its fur against his cheek, before dropping down to the ground again and walking back over to the big guy.

“I guess it likes ya,” said the other guy, bending over. The cat was rubbing against his ankle, so he pet it a couple of times. “D'ya like me too, fella?”

“That is not a normal way to display affection,” said Russell.

Zander was out for his morning jog when he saw a couple of guys from his school on the sidewalk out ahead of him. He slowed down, eventually coming to a stop a couple of feet away and taking out his headphones. While he was catching his breath, he got a better look: They were playing with a cat. “Hey, is that a stray cat? You know that might have rabies or something,” he said.

“That's what I said,” answered the short one, halfway turning around. “Oh, hey! You're..”
“Zander, yeah. Nice to meet you.”
“Right. My name's Russell.”

“Kale,” said the overweight one, still bent over petting the cat and using his free hand to wave. “Anyway, don't rabies make animals crazy? This one's perfec'ly affectionate. See?” He offered his arms, and the cat climbed up one of them to his shoulder, holding its balance there while he stood back up. “You wanna pet it, man?”

“..Sure, I guess. I can just be careful,” said Zander, walking around Russell to get to the cat and holding out a hand. The cat sniffed at his hand and then rubbed its face against it. Then he pet its head a couple of times, and drew his hand back. “What're you gonna do with it, then? It is a stray, isn't it?”
“I dunno, maybe,” said Kale. “It mighta just lost its collar.” The cat hopped off of his shoulder and walked over to Zander, rubbing against his ankle and purring. “We ain't allowed pets at my house. Maybe I'll just visit every once in a while.”
“Are you planning to feed it?” asked Russell.

“Uh, maybe. I mean, it's pretty healthy, so it's gettin' food from somewhere already, right?”

“It'd be pretty mean to come visit and not bring something to eat,” said Zander, grinning.

“I guess so. Ain't got anything now, though...huh?”

“What is it?” said Russell.

“Where'd the cat go?”
The three guys looked around, and there was no cat anywhere in view. “That's weird, it was rubbing my leg a minute ago,” said Zander.

“Maybe it just hid somewhere. Or ran off when it heard we didn't have any food,” said Russell. “Oh well. Anyway, I've got somewhere to go. See ya.” He started off on his way again.

“Um, see ya later!” said Kale. “He ain't too friendly, is he?”
Zander shrugged. “I have a jog to get back to. Good luck finding your cat.”
“Well, he ain't strictly mine..ah, whatever.”

With that, Zander put his phones back in and started jogging away. Kale spent a good half hour trying to find the cat, and wound up with no signs of it. He gave up after that and went back home.

---

A few days later, Zander woke up to find his bangs getting in the way of his eyes. He got up and took a look in the mirror to find that his hair's length had indeed snuck up on him, reaching about halfway to his shoulders on the sides and back. After getting a shower and breakfast, he went out to get a haircut. He was walking down the sidewalk and came across Kale. His hair had been about average length the other day, but it was visibly down to his shoulders today.

“Hey. Kale, isn't it?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! Zander. Nice to see ya again.”

“Did you ever find that cat?”

“Nah. Looked all over, too.”

Kale seemed to be walking in the same direction as Zander once they both started moving again. “So..you getting a haircut?”
“Yeah. I dunno what's up with it, it just started growin' up a storm lately.”

They walked for a minute or so in silence, before something occurred to Zander. “Hey, uh..have you been exercising lately or something?”

“Uhm..not more than usual, no. Why?”

“Well, you look more fit than the other day, is all. Thinner, I mean.”

“Wow, really? That's great. I always wanted to, ya know, look better. Maybe my metabolism's started catchin' up or somethin'.”

Just outside of the barber shop, the pair found Russell sitting on a bench playing a game. His hair was normal, except..Kale could've sworn it was darker before. He thought about it, and figured maybe the lighting was different and didn't catch the reddish highlights before. He paused outside, while Zander went on in. “Hey.”

“What?” Russell looked up to see the overweight guy who'd been with the cat before standing in front of him. “Oh. What do you want? And what happened to your hair? You get extensions or something?”
“No..it just kinda grew out this way. I dunno. Um..I was just wonderin' what game you were playin'?”
Russell sighed. “Well, you can look if you want.”

Kale managed to go around to where he wouldn't block the light, and looked at the handheld screen, watching quietly for a short moment. Then he said, “by the way, did you dye your hair or somethin'?”
“No. That'd be a pretty huge waste of money. I did just get a haircut, though. I was overdue for it. Almost as much as you are.”

“Heh, yeah. It's just I thought your hair looked like it was a different color than it was before, is all. Must've just been the light.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Kale straightened back up and walked into the barber shop.

Russell stood up just as Zander was walking out of the barbership, his hair now cleanly trimmed back to its usual length. Zander paused, looking at Russell for a few seconds. “..What?”

“Uh, nevermind, it's nothing. I just thought you were shorter, is all. Maybe you got taller.”

“Oh. Maybe I did.” Then they walked away, going their separate ways.

---

Now that he'd had attention called to it, Kale paid attention to his waistline. The day after he got a haircut it was definitely, noticeably thinner than before; his shirt even looked loose. The hem hung down an inch or so, too. The odd thing was that the leggings of his jeans were trailing a little bit, so he had to roll them up to walk without tripping. He couldn't help but notice that his hair hadn't slowed down its growing since getting it cut; it was already halfway to his shoulders again.

Two days after getting his hair cut, Zander found himself trying to reach the top shelf on a bookshelf, and paused. He stood back, looking at the shelf. He was certain that shelf had been easier to reach before, and the shelf two below it had been about head height..right? He walked up to the shelf and put a hand up to the top of his head, running it over to the shelf, and found his hand almost at three shelves down from the top. His hair was getting out of hand again, too, already down to where it had been when he woke up two days earlier.

Russell looked at his hair when he got home from the barber shop, and again the next day, and the day after that. It was growing long, already near his shoulders on the second day, and each time he looked at it the color was a little bit brighter. By the morning of the third day, his hair was decidedly a dark red instead of brown. He took a shower, and couldn't help but notice just how little hair his arms, legs, and chest had. He knew he'd been hairier before..right? And when he put on his clothes, his shirt was very loose around his stomach, and his pants were slightly tight at the hips, but loose below there.

Somehow, the three of them all found themselves drawn back to the bush by the sidewalk where they had found the cat nearly a week ago. They all paused to look at each other. Russell noticed that both of the other guys were now the same height, even though Zander had definitely been taller than Kale before, and both of them were definitely shorter than they had originally been compared to him. Kale noticed that Russell's hair was down to his shoulders, just like his own, but Zander's hair was still slightly short of his shoulders. Zander noticed that everyone's clothes looked slightly baggy around the stomach, legs, and arms. And they all just stood there, looking at each other, for a couple of minutes, before finally Russell said something.

“What is going on?” he said; when he put emphasis on the first and last words his voice cracked slightly. “Something's happening to all three of us. What is it? And..Why?”

“I dunno,” said Kale. “I mean..seems like we're all gettin' shorter, 'cept for you..and our hair's growin' out.”

“Your voice sounds..different,” said Zander. “I think..mine does too, doesn't it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Kale.

“Well, you had kind of a deep voice before, right? The pitch of your voice has gone up. Are you just talking different on purpose?”

“No..not on purpose. So..”

“We're not just getting shorter with longer hair,” said Russell, interrupting whatever Kale's next thought was. “Look at how your shirt is on your stomach.” Both of them looked. “And..look at this.” He held out an arm to both of them.

“That's an arm,” said Zander.

“No, I mean look at it. There's practically no hair. I don't shave my arms. Do you?”

Zander looked down at his arm, and noticed for the first time that it was just as devoid of hair as Russell's. Kale was doing much the same thing when he looked over at him.

“So..what d'you think all this means?” said Kale.

“Well..oh. Oh, no,” said Russell.

“What?” Zander asked.

“I..okay, look. What has long hair, high-pitched voices, small stomachs and is short?”

“Um..well, it's kinda a broad gen'ralization, but uh..girls?” said Kale.

“Yes! Exactly. We..we must be, somehow, turning into..m-members of the opposite sex,” said Russell.

“Well, that's kind of an extreme conclusion,” said Zander. “I mean, maybe we're just..turning more feminine?”
“Yeah, and if we are, the logical end is that we actually do turn into girls,” said Russell. “But..why?”

“I..I dunno,” said Kale. “We didn't even really meet 'till the other day. Ain't much in common between us.”

“The only thing I can think of is that cat,” said Zander. “But that wouldn't make any sense. There's no such thing as a cat that has that kind of effect on people. Besides, why would it take so long to happen?”

“All good points,” said Russell, “but..d..do you have any better ideas? I mean, not that it would even help to know for sure.”

“Maybe we can look for somethin' on this? Do some research?” said Kale.

“Yeah..I don't think the internet's gonna have much about this,” said Zander. “It's pretty bizarre.”
“It wouldn't hurt to try, though,” said Russell. “I mean..either way, we're gonna keep changing..so we might as well try and figure out why.”

“Okay then. So..we'll meet back..here, a couple of days from now?” said Zander.

“Sure. And if we find anything in the meantime, we can text.” Russell got out his phone, and everyone exchanged numbers. Then they left.

---

That afternoon, Zander started checking himself every couple of hours. He began by looking in a mirror. The second time he looked, his hair had grown to just where it was brushing against his shoulders on the side and back, and after that it seemed to stop altogether..or at least go back to normal speed. Now that he was really looking, he could see that his face looked a bit smaller and rounder..softer, in a way. After that, he would check his height against a point of reference—usually the top of the mirror. Again, he could tell it was just a little bit higher each time. And he tried to speak, as deeply as he could, just a short “Hm.” He always felt like he should be able to get a lower pitch, but each time he found his voice cracking a little bit more, and he could never quite speak as low as he had the time before.

When he got home, Kale took off his shirt and pants, leaving on his underwear, and really looked at himself for the first time in a while. His stomach had a slight bit of pudge to it, but it was definitely way smaller than before. And..it seemed like the sides were sloped inward. His hips were slightly wider, making his underwear stretch on the sides. And his body was missing a lot of hair, just like Russell had said. His hair was tickling his shoulders, and as he got a closer look at it, he couldn't help but think it had been a little..darker before. It was as if the color had faded slightly, like old clothing.

Russell tried to ignore what was happening to him, instead lying on the couch and playing a game. But he had to keep brushing his hair out of his eyes, and when he shifted position his shirt would always drape a little bit more loosely across his stomach, and his pants slowly got less comfortable as the afternoon went on. He'd said that it wouldn't hurt to try research..but he just couldn't bring himself to go to a computer and start typing. He really, deeply wanted to just not think about it, as if that would make it go away.

The three young men went to bed, none having found any clues to their common predicament, each dreading what the next morning would bring.

---

Russell woke up the next morning to the sound of his phone ringing. He sat up and turned to the side of the bed to answer it, and found bright red hair falling all the way down to sheets and covers. He picked it up, and heard what sounded like a younger boy's voice from the speaker. “Hey Russell, it's me, Zander.”

“Hey,” he answered, and heard a voice naturally coming out that didn't sound much deeper than the one on the other end of the line. “Did you find anything?”
“No..you?”

“Um..n-no.” Russell was just now looking down at his body to see just how drastically its shape had been altered. He thought he had been scrawny before, but now his stomach and arms were positively tiny. His hips and upper legs looked strangely wide, and pushing his legs together still left quite a bit of room between their tops, the still-intact bulge in his underwear notwithstanding.

“So why are you calling?” said the recently redheaded boy, looking forward.

“Well..I was just thinking this morning..maybe..maybe this won't be so bad?”
“Won't be so bad?”
“Like, you know..it could be interesting. A new experience and all. Seeing the world from a different perspective.”

“Are you kidding? Being a girl sucks. You have to deal with periods, and having weights dangling from your chest all the time, and..and..” Russell could feel some heat in his cheeks just thinking about it. But he was more angry than embarrassed. “Are you..are you giving up?”
“No, no..it's not like that. It's just..I mean, it seems pretty hopeless. Unless Kale found something, and I don't think he did, we might be stuck as girls. And..if we are..it'd be good to have a positive attitude about it. I mean..would you rather be stuck as a girl and angry about it all your life, or..?”

“I'd rather not be stuck as a girl!” said Russell, barely keeping himself from actually shouting. “I have hair down to my freaking hips. I can't deal with this.”

“Okay, man, sorry. I didn't mean to make you upset.”

“Upset!?”

“I mean, you're so sour about everything. I don't think I've ever seen you smile.”
“Well I haven't exactly had a lot to smile about lately, have I?”
“I meant before last week. Like, I'd see you in the halls and wonder what happened to make you so angry.”

Russell sighed, trying to calm down. “Look. I'm not angry, I just don't like dealing with people. It's always way too complicated.”

“Well, you can't help but run into some people, though. Would it hurt to have a more positive attitude about it?”
“I don't know. Maybe. Probably, actually. Yeah. You act nice around people and they all think you're a sucker.”

“Has that actually happened to you, Russell?”
“I..I don't want to talk about it. Especially not now! Look, if you don't find anything, just..don't call me, okay? I'll meet with you guys in a couple of days or whatever.”
“Okay then. I'm sorry...I really was just trying to help.”

He sighed again. “..I know.” And then hung up, and started getting ready for a shower, dreading what he might see this time.

Zander was thinking of calling Russell back when he got another call, from Kale. So he answered it. “Yeah?”
“Um..h-heyyy, Zander.” Kale's voice still sounded like a guy's, but maybe a high tenor kind of tone.

“What's up?”
“Um, I was just wonderin', did your hair ever stop growin'?”

“Uh-huh. It actually stopped right at shoulder length. The bangs are kinda in my way a little bit, but it's tolerable.”
“Well, uh, mine got down to the tops of my legs last night. I dunno how to deal with this.”

“I'd suggest cutting it, but..it'll probably just grow back again, based on what's happened so far.”

“Yeah. And it's also changin' colors. Kinda..looks bright gray now.”

“That is pretty odd. Mine's still all the same color.”
“Uh, I think Russell's hair is turnin' red. You might be the exception. But, um..”

“What is it?”
“Well, that's not exactly what I was callin' about. Um..how should I put this..is your, uh, are your ears lookin' kinda..pointy?”
Zander reached a hand up into his hair to find one of his own ears almost unconsciously. “Pointy? How do you mean?”

“Well, uh, my ears are lookin' kinda bigger than normal, and they're pointy at the end. And..kinda..fuzzy.” By now Zander had found his right ear, and as he ran his hand over it he found that it was being scratched by little short hairs all over it. And the ear itself was indeed bigger.

“Oh..yeah..I hadn't noticed, but mine's kinda weird that way too.”

“Do you know any girls with pointy fuzzy ears?”
“Um, no. This doesn't really make any sense based on what's happened to us so far.”

“Maybe we should call Russell about it..?”

“No, we probably shouldn't. He told me not to bother him unless we'd found something on how to turn back or stop changing.” And he wouldn't appreciate finding out something else weird is going on, I bet, thought Zander.

“Well okay, if ya say so.”

Russell's chest felt strangely sensitive, and it looked slightly..puffy. He glared at it in the mirror after his shower, thinking something along the lines of What do you think you're doing? I'm still a guy! You're not allowed to show up until I'm not a guy anymore! After a little while, he had to stop and shake his head, trying to clear it and forget about this development, too, but this had the unfortunate effect of making his hair swish around all over the place.

“I've got to get this under control,” he said, tugging at one of the strands. “It'll just grow back if I cut it..hm..” He had an idea, and within a few minutes he was dressed and off to the barber's again.

Zander resumed his usual occasional checkup from the day before. He noticed on the second look that he wasn't getting shorter anymore, which was somewhat of a relief, as he was having some trouble adjusting to all of the height he'd already lost. The way his legs and hips looked was very girly, and he couldn't help but notice that there was getting to be less and less down there. He could feel the hair brushing across the fuzz on his ears more as time went by, and he occasionally felt them wiggling around a little, almost involuntarily. Around noon he noticed two odd little protrusions poking out from his hair on the top part of the sides of his head, and had to brush back his hair to see that they were actually his ears, their fuzz having grown into thick, short, black hair all over them. His voice didn't stop going up either; by lunchtime his pitch had risen almost past alto range.

Russell walked out of the barbershop and back toward home, his hair now bundled together into two big, long locks in the back. It was still annoying, but not as bad, at least. The ribbons holding it were a little strange-looking, he thought. He tried to ignore the way his hips moved as he walked, and concentrate on other things. About halfway home, however, he noticed an odd feeling coming from somewhere past his lower back..yet above his hips. Like..something thin moving around, brushing against his pants and shirt. He paused, made sure nobody was looking, and turned around, rolling up the back of his shirt some to try and see what it was. What he saw made him run the rest of the way home.

Kale sighed at the mirror image of his shirtless self. He'd wanted to be thinner for a while now, but just couldn't put up the effort..and now that his stomach was perfectly flat, it was really hard to enjoy it. His hair had turned purely white, but now it was getting a little bit of reddish color to it. His hips and legs looked all wrong, he was short, and his ears were huge triangles covered in white fur with black near the tips. Actually, the fur was changing color, too. “Well..I guess you gotta be careful what you wish for,” he muttered, in a girly voice. His ears stood up, and he jumped slightly, at the sound of his phone ringing in his bedroom. He quickly put on his baggy shirt, which now draped all the way down to his thighs, and ran out to pick it up.

“Hello?”
“This is all your fault!” It sounded like an upset woman on the phone. Lower in pitch than Kale's voice was now, but definitely female.

“Um..is this Russell?”

“Yes! This is Russell with a freaking tail growing out of my back!”
“Oh. U-um..that sounds pretty weird.”

“No, you think?! Why am I getting a tail? This has nothing to do with turning into a girl!”

“I dunno, but, uh..well, I have big fuzzy ears, so you're not alone in that either.”

“Great. So now we're not just turning into girls, but freaks, too.”

“Aw, come on..it's not..well, it ain't that much worse, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well..you make it sound like bein' a girl is just like bein' a freak to you anyhow, so..”

“It's definitely worse.”

“Um..well, maybe this is the last surprise at least? That'd be..sorta good, right?”
“I..I just..what even is this? Why is this happening to me?”

“Why's it happenin' to any of us? If I could answer that, I'd love to tell ya.”

Russell sighed. “I know. I just..rrrrRRRgh! You know—Zander called me this morning, and he said—he said 'oh, well, maybe being a girl isn't all that bad. Maybe it could be fun'. Can you believe it?”

“Well, he's just tryin' to stay positive. He's a stay-positive kinda guy.”

“He's gonna be a stay-positive kind of girl soon.”

“Well, yeah. That's kinda old news by now though, right?”

“I can't..I just can't deal with this. Maybe..I could go to sleep, and forget about this for a while.”

“You know you'd wake up more different than ya remember. You're not curious how it's all gonna happen?”

“No. I don't want to think about it. I just..I..look, I'm not happy I'm turning into a girl. At all. But it's so drawn out—I just want it to be over, and then I can start to deal with it.”

“Well, uh..if ya put off dealin' with it until it's all over, that's gonna be an awful lot of dealin' with.”

“I..I guess you're right.”

Zander couldn't sleep. His last checkup before bed confirmed that his ears had grown into big, black triangles, but with white tufts of fur on the inside, and they were moving around nonstop and picking up way more sound than he remembered being able to hear before...and that he wasn't going to be the same downstairs for much longer. He lay in bed for an hour or so, and as he did he could actually feel something moving around, shifting in his lower stomach. It didn't hurt, but it was sort of uncomfortable. He began to go numb between his legs, and then he couldn't resist getting up, sitting on the side of the bed and looking. After a little while, the discomfort in his lower stomach subsided, and he was completely changed down below, definitely a young woman.

“Well..” she said, “I guess..I guess I'm gonna have to sit down in the bathroom from now on. Haha..” It was hard to make any better than a weak joke in light of the strangeness before her. She lay back down in bed and tried to sleep, but couldn't get comfortable. Her chest was more sensitive all of a sudden, and itched a little bit, but more than that, sleeping on her back, side, or front just felt uncomfortable. After a while she instinctively curled up into a ball under the covers, and then, despite the slight discomfort of her chest, drifted off at last.

Kale found himself growing a tail just slightly after sunset. He could feel something like a very flexible appendage coming from his back, and when he checked he saw a little mass of white fur with a black tip..just like the fur on his ears had originally been. It was definitely fur, he'd decided, and his hair and the non-black parts of his ears were definitely pink now. Within the space of just a few hours, that tail kept on growing out until it was almost as long as one of his arms, but much thinner. As it got longer, he could see thin black stripes breaking up the white of the rest of the fur. It stopped right around bedtime, and as he got into bed he found that he felt incredibly exhausted for some reason. He slowly curled up into a ball as he fell asleep, and thought he could hear at the last moment a soft purr coming from inside his own throat.

Russell's chest continued to feel weird all evening, and he could feel his shirt hanging off of the pair of bumps on it no matter which way he positioned himself, sitting, standing, or lying down. It was always there, and it kept getting a little bit bigger at a time. And that tail, too! It kept getting longer, making it hard to sit like he was used to sitting (as if the widened hips didn't make that hard enough already). It was all covered in red fur, the same color as his hair, but with a tiny bit of white at the rounded tip.

He went to bed dreading waking up the next morning, but then found going to sleep no easy feat. He couldn't lie on his back without getting in the way of the tail, he couldn't lie on his front or sides without the weights on his chest feeling all wrong. As he tossed and turned, his tired mind raced around in angry loops, never really letting any thought go. The harder he tried not to think, the more thoughts would come. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, he felt too physically exhausted to continue, and found his head up against his knees, which were themselves up at his chest. He felt his hair brushing across his ears strangely, but couldn't quite process it before falling asleep.

---

It was morning the next day when the three of them met at what was becoming their usual spot. Zander had woken up to find her chest fully developed into breasts, small but seemingly fitting for her small build, and as she looked at the other two she noticed that Kale still seemed to be flat, but Russell's chest looked to be about the same size as her own. Then she noticed something else. “Whoa..you grew tails?” Her voice was high and almost squeaky, sounding like a somehow more mature version of a cheerful child.
“Yeah,” said Russell, awkwardly crossing his arms under his chest, “and if there's any justice in this world you'll get them too.” His ears were lying flat backwards against his head.

“Um..did you, uh..are you girls now?” said Kale.

“No,” said Russell, “my chest just decided to start early. Ugh.”
“Well, I am..” said Zander, her face turning slightly red. “It uh, it happened last night.”

“What is it like?” said Kale. “I mean, uh..what's it feel like when it's..when you're..does it hurt?”

“No, it didn't hurt,” said Zander. “I just felt kinda weird at the pit of my stomach for a while, and then I went numb down there, and..next thing I knew I wasn't a guy anymore.”

“Oh..uh, um..” This time Kale's face reddened a bit.

“What is it?”

“I m-might be..it might be happening to me, now. I started feelin' weird when I was walking over...” He pulled the tops of his legs together, which didn't clarify much since there was now a gap between his thighs either way.

“..Did you notice your eyes turned pink?” said Zander.

“Um..nope. They were brown, l-last time I checked..”

“And..” She turned toward Russell. “..yours were definitely a darker color before.”
“Blue.”
“They're bright green now. Are mine the same color?”

“I don't know. Whatever, there's something more important to talk about than our freaking eye colors.”

“I think they've always been blue,” said Kale. “Wh-what's so important?” The discomfort in his lower stomach was getting stronger, and there was starting to be a feeling like a limb going to sleep.

“What are we gonna do about this? When it's all over. How are we gonna..do..anything? None of my clothes fit me anymore, except in a stupid comical kid-wearing-dad's-clothes kind of way. I mean, this is supposed to be a t-shirt and it goes past my elbows!”

Zander put a finger to her lower lip. “Well, I guess we'll just have to buy some new clothes. Underwear for sure, and jeans and shirts that fit. Maybe..we could try on some skirts or something?”

“No way,” said Russell.

“Oh come on, it might be fun. Aren't you curious what wearing one feels like?”

“M-maybe a little. But..not enough to actually put one on.”

“N-not as a guy, maybe,” said Kale, “but if you're a girl, what's the..the..” he trailed off.

“Oh, great,” said Russell. All of a sudden, the numbness between Kale's legs had been replaced by a very different feeling. “You just crossed over, didn't you?”

“Um..” She drew her legs together again. “Y-yes. This feels really weeiird..”

“Yeah, it kinda does,” said Zander. “I guess we'll get used to it eventually. What's so bad, Russell?”

“I..now I have to deal with turning into a girl by myself, after everyone else already has,” he said.

“Well..you don't have to go through it by yourself. I mean..I can be there, for moral support..if you want.”

“M-me too,” added Kale.

“What're you gonna do, sit around at my house waiting for it to happen?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, it'll probably be today, right? You play games all the time, at least one of them is multiplayer, right?”

“Y-yeah..” Russell's ears moved slightly away from their post up against the top of his head.

“Well, we can play it together for a while, and maybe you won't even notice.”

“I.really doubt that. Based on how she's acting,” said Russell, pointing a thumb at Kale.

“It's just weird..I'll g-get better.”

So the three of them walked to Russell's house, and wound up all sitting on the front edge of the couch. When Zander sat down, she turned around and looked at her back.

“What?” said Russell.

“I just felt something brushing against my..shirt?” she said, watching as a short stub of black fur pushed the back of her shirt aside a little bit.

“Yess! Welcome to the inconvenient appendage club,” said Russell.

“I dunno, it probably isn't that bad. I mean, tails help with balance, right?”

“Well, sitting and lying down is w-weird,” said Kale. “Umm, my chest feels funny..”

“Kinda sensitive and itchy?” said Zander.

“Puffy?” said Russell.

“Y-yeah, kinda..”

“You're getting boobs,” said both of them together.

As they played the game, Zander's tail slowly snaked its way out from her back, growing longer and longer until it was about the same length as the others' tails, its black fur slightly thicker. And Kale's voice slowly inched upward in pitch, her chest slowly pushing out into bumps, the bumps into breasts, which finally settled their size about when Zander's tail stopped growing at slightly smaller than the other girls, but definitely fitting for her slim, short frame. By then her voice had risen to the same high tone as Zander's, but it had slowly become breathier, her speech seeming shyer and quieter than the more excited black-haired girl.

It was then that Russell began to feel just slightly strange in his lower stomach. He looked over at the two catgirls sitting on either side of him on the couch. “Um..I'm curious..are you guys..when you turned into girls, are you attracted to girls still?”

“Um..no, I don't think so,” said Kale.

“Pretty sure I like guys now,” said Zander.

“Oh..g-great..w-well, I just want to say, while I'm still a guy, you're both adorable. I mean..I, you guys are great. And you look good. You're both so cute..um..I'd ask either of you out in a heartbeat.”

“Aw..” said Zander. “Russell, are you..are you changing?”

The feeling in his stomach got stronger. “Y-yeah. I..I still can't believe this. I don't..” He could feel tears coming out of his eyes all of a sudden, and he bent forward. “I don't want to be a girl..” he said, and then started sobbing uncontrollably.

“I..whoa..Russell, it..” Zander patted him on the back of the head a couple of times. “It'll be okay. It's just..a new perspective, is all. A new way to experience life.”

“I've always been so short, you know,” he said, sniffing. “I just..I always thought I'd grow up and be bigger, look like an actual man. But I know..once this is over..that'll never happen.”
Zander said, “Well, never's a pretty long time. I mean, if there's something that can make us go this way, there's something that can go the other way, too...”

“I k-know you mean well, but it's..not likely. I mean, nobody's ever heard of something like this happening. If it happens again, it won't be to us. No way.” He began to go numb. “We're gonna be stuck like this forever..” The sobbing eased off some. He felt drained, like there wasn't much left to let out.

“R-Russell..” He turned to see Kale's face, bent over to look him in the eyes. She looked so cute, he thought, but he didn't feel attracted to her. Not anymore. “You may not be able to be a real man..but at least you c-can be..a real woman, right?”

“I...I guess so,” said Russell, as he felt the numbness and discomfort fade off, completing his transformation into a teenage girl. With cat ears and a tail.

She sat up.

“Are you okay?” said Zander.

“I'm done. It's over,” she said. “I feel okay, I guess. Really weird, like you said...”

“..Hey,” she said, getting up. “I'm gonna wash my face. You guys want to go..get the clothes thing over with after that?”
“You really want to try on a bunch of outfits, don't you?” said Zander, grinning.

“Don't push it. I'd just rather do it now than put it off 'till later.” Her voice had kept a lower tone than the other girls', lending her voice a somewhat more serious tone.

“Heehee, okay. We'll 'get it over with' with you, then. Right, Kale?”

“S-sure!”

---

The three girls were walking toward the mall within a few minutes. “So..” said Zander. “We're gonna need some new names..don't you think?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Russell with a resigned sigh.

“So..what's yours gonna be? I'm thinking mabe Zandra or Alex..you know, since my old name is kind of short for Alexander..”

Kale said, “Umm...maybe..Kiara?”

“Ohh, could I call you Ki for short?” said Zander.

“I-if you want, I guess..”

“My gosh, you're so adorable, Ki..”

“Uh..th-thanks. What about you..?”

“I have no idea..” said Russell.

“Well, what about Rayna? Or, um, Rae? Rina? Rosa?”

“..I don't know. I don't think I like any of those...”

“What about Rell?” said Kiara.

“That..isn't too bad. It's almost Russell..but doesn't sound as much like a guy's name. So which one are you going with..Zandra or Alex?”

“Hmm...Zandra. It's more unusual, don't you think?”

Rell nodded. “Yeah. So..what's the plan for once we get there?”

“Well, I think we should go from the inside out. I mean..start with underwear. 'Cause girl clothes aren't really made to be worn with no bras and boy boxers.”

“I was afraid you'd say something like that. What if people start staring at us because of our tails?”

“Oh..I hadn't thought of that. But hey, there's three of us. Maybe they'll think it's normal wherever we're from.”

“There isn't a country where having cat ears is normal,” said Rell.

Zandra shrugged. “Well, we gotta buy clothes one way or another. It's a progressive world; I'm sure they won't refuse us service at least.”

---

The three girls met outside of the store. Zandra said, “So, did it go okay?”

“Yeah. It was..weird..having someone measure my chest..having a chest to measure,” said Rell. “But I guess nothing really went wrong.”

“A-are you guys, um..wearing what you bought?” said Kiara.

“Sure, Ki. It actually feels better.”

“Yes,” said Rell. “It's nice having something to help with my chest, but I don't like how close the underpants are..I even bought some boxers, thinking they would be like guy boxers..they're not.”

“Y-yeah..it's so weird to think how I'm wearing something that would've been too tight down there this mornin'..but now it feels kinda comfy..”

“By the way..did anyone mention your tails?” said Rell. “Nobody said anything about me being part cat..no one's even given me a second look.”

“Yeah,” said Zandra, “it's like they can't even see them. Pretty convenient, I think. So anyway...now we just need to get clothes. Meet back here in an hour?”

“Sounds fine,” said Rell, “should be enough time.”

“Yeah,” said Kiara.

Zandra was surprised how excited she was at the idea of trying on a bunch of new clothes. Sure, it was strange and interesting, but she felt an unfamiliar kind of eagerness to see what this or that outfit would look like on her. It didn't take her very long to try on a skirt, and before long she had bought five or six of them, along with pants and various kinds of tops. Every time she tried on a new outfit, she would see her own reflection in the dressing-room mirror. The cute, slim, petite catgirl in a bra and panties seemed like a strange sight at first, like it wasn't quite her..but after the first few times she started to get used to it, and barely paused at all on seeing it.

Kiara felt so small around all of these other people. She hadn't really appreciated just how much height she'd lost in the past week before now; she was looking up at the store clerks and nearly everyone else, for that matter! She picked clothes out at random and tried them on until something she liked showed up in the mirror, and before long had a bunch of outfits already, just coming out of the first store. She chose to wear one of the new outfits out rather than the old, baggy boy-clothes: A pair of shorts, a pink stripey long-sleeved top, a sweater (well, she thought it was a sweater, but it wasn't very thick) so long it hid the shorts, some black-and-white stripey stockings, and a hat. It wasn't clear to her why she needed the hat indoors, but it didn't look right without the hat, she thought, and that was enough to justify wearing it.

Rell bought a t-shirt and a pair of jeans right away, and wore them out of the store, keeping her old clothes in a bag. The girl-clothes, despite being equivalent to what she would usually wear as..well, wouldn't be able to wear as a guy anymore, fit very differently. They were so snug, and the shirt seemed custom designed to remind her she had a slight figure now. But it wasn't uncomfortable at all—it felt okay, maybe even better than what she'd exchanged them for. She went and bought more of the same sort of things, but something caught her eye. A red skirt, a black pair of stockings..she shook her head. She didn't want to try that. But as she went back and forth from the changing room, making sure the new clothes she was getting fit, she kept seeing them, and a little voice in her head kept wondering how she would look in them, and maybe a top to go with it, and how the skirt matched her hair and fur pretty well...

After she had bought everything she thought she wanted, and was on her way out, she looked at them one more time and sighed at herself before picking them up. Her curiosity for how it would feel was too great, even if Zander was probably going to tease her about it.

---

Zandra looked at her phone and realized she was half an hour late. She ran toward where the three of them were supposed to meet, a short blue skirt swishing around her thighs the whole way, but when she got there, slightly out of breath, the others were not present. She wondered whether the others had left without her, but thought that unlikely, so she waited. It was a good ten minutes before Kiara showed up.

The dark-haired girl waved her over. “Wow, you look so cute, Ki~,” she said.

“Th-thanks..” The pink-haired girl's cheeks went slightly red, which only made Zandra grin a little wider. “You, uh, you look good too. Um..sorry I'm late.”
“Hey, I was late too! And Rell still hasn't shown up, either.”

“I thought she'd be done first,” said Ki, “what with not wantin' to try on anything different..”

Zandra nodded. “Me too...oh, look!” She raised her arm over her head and waved at Rell, who was walking up in a tan long-sleeved top, black stockings, and..a skirt!

As she came closer, the dark-haired girl said, “Hey Rell! You look really cute in that.”

“Whatever...look, I was just curious what it felt like is all.”

“And you weren't curious at all how you'd look?”
“M-maybe a little.”

“So, uh, we're all set to leave then?” asked Kiara.

Zandra nodded again. “Looks like it.”

Zandra started leading the way out, but stopped abruptly near the doors. “Hey, look! It's one of those photo booth things,” she said, going over to it.

“If you want to take a picture, I have a camera..” said Rell.

“Why don't we take a picture together?”

“Why do you want to?” countered the redhead.
“I dunno, kind of to commemorate. Like, a celebration. To new friends, new experinces..?”
“I don't really think this is something to celebrate,” said Rell, crossing her arms and frowning.

“Come on, pleeaase?”

Zandra pulled gently at the other girls' arms. Kiara let herself be led, while Rell got her arm loose. She only stopped for a moment, seeing Zandra's pleading face, before sighing. “Okay, okay..you're paying, though.” With that, she followed the others into the booth and they lined up together for a few pictures.

The three boys-turned-girls then walked out of the booth, out of the mall, and into something a little bit like a brand new life.