Honeymoon Suite 2: Messages

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Under almost any other circumstances, a beautiful woman throwing herself at him would've been amazing. A dream come true, even! Alex had admitted right out the gate that the...catgirl the man trapped in this strange little penthouse with him had turned into was hot. Her hair was amazing, her face was adorable, her figure was unbelievable! Even the ears and tail, as odd as they were at first, were sort of captivating in their own way. He caught himself staring at her mouth occasionally when she was talking, noticing the long, sharp fangs her canines had turned into.

But..as attractive as she was, they didn't know each other. He wasn't even sure that her...attraction to him, was real. By all indications, it was possibly against her will—or at least, against the will of the man she'd been before that night. They had...started to meet each other now, but that only made him feel worse about feeling attracted to her. Cole was supposed to be a guy living his own life out there, not...some kind of attachment to him!

He lay in bed still thinking about it. What had happened to them? How? Had it really just been because they both volunteered "anything" or "whatever" to some..wish-granting website?! That just seemed impossible. But, with one part of his mind turned to this topic, and another still remembering the beautiful woman he'd spent the better part of the evening with...it hit him.

When Alex had requested something of that website, his exact words had been...'a sexy kitten'. Cole had literally said that she felt "sexy"—and, honestly, she was—and...he certainly hadn't meant a catgirl when he'd typed out his wish, but it was certainly an available, overly literal interpretation of that wish. Was this...his fault? He'd thought of a woman in the abstract, not at all seriously, and somehow this had resulted in a guy he didn't even know turning into her?! Some unknown, impossible power or being going out of its way to force her to be..that, for him? If this was supposed to be his wish, though...it wasn't what he wanted. Not really.

Sure—if he'd met a woman like that out in the open..if she'd seemed attracted to him in a normal way, brainwashing-free...if they'd gotten to know each other over some normal dates...then living with her was the kind of thing that Alex definitely would've wanted! But...seeing something like that happen to an actual person, with a mind and desires of his own, completely ruined the fantasy. A woman like that, just for him, didn't exist. Couldn't, shouldn't. Not because he was a bad person and didn't deserve love, but because nobody deserved to be forced into such a role. If he ever really got with someone...he would honestly want her to be her own person, even if it was in ways that he didn't think he wanted. Those surprises, good or bad, were...meant to be part of being in love with someone. This way was...wrong, all wrong.

A part of him still remembered that kiss, the feeling of her soft body pressed against his, her arms wrapped closely around him and a hand holding the back of his head tightly, desperately, to keep it going. That part of him wanted to know why he hadn't caught her in his arms, reciprocated, asked for another...but he knew the answer to all of those questions. It was...wrong, to do that to her. To him, to Cole—who'd she'd been for the entire rest of her life. He should leave here now, get far away from her, to keep things from going any farther down that road.

But...they were trapped here together. They had to find a way out before this got any worse! At least Cole still seemed sincere about coming up with ideas about what exactly had happened, and ideas to escape. It gave him...some hope, at least, that the person he was talking to was mostly the same as the man before. Not—him replaced by the catgirl, but somehow...the 'being a catgirl' and 'attracted to him' stacked on top of the person she'd been before. It was something she could fight against, if not always entirely resist.

With his thoughts in such turmoil, it took Alex a while to get to sleep. But, exhausted as he was from the stress of their situation, and from trying hopelessly to get them out of it with physical force..he did eventually fall asleep. It was even a quite restful sleep at that; he woke up to the very first of the sun's rays feeling completely refreshed, despite the fact that he usually slept in until noon or so on his days off.

In fact, even though he felt like he'd slept enough, Alex wasn't sure he was quite ready yet to get up and face the situation they were in. No sooner had he remembered what was going on than he turned away from the window, putting his arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight. This was usually enough to get himself back to sleep, but...not this morning. If anything, the warmth of the rising sun on his back was making him feel sort of restless. It was...a nice, pleasant warmth; it made him feel a little excited. Somehow...there was a part of him that just wanted to jump out of bed. He felt his heartbeat pick up a little bit as the sunlight became impossible to ignore, its brightness visible even through his shut eyelids and his elbow. It was time...!

That thought—that it was time—struck Alex as strange. It was time for..what? To wake up? To get up? Maybe, but why'd he feel so...sure about that? Why did it feel so inevitable; why did it seem to be..exciting him so much? But the rising sun's brightness, its warmth across his body only seemed to reinforce the thought, with no further explanation.

He shuddered slightly, but not because he felt cold. Rather, the warmth on his body seemed to have suddenly caused a rush of tingling, starting on his back—down the center, along his spine—and making its way forward, upward and downward to cover every inch of his skin. It felt so..nice, and when it reached up to his scalp he was surprised..yet strangely happy...to feel the movement of hair as it fell down along his face and his back, and across the front of the arm still held up against his eyes. Moving that arm a little, he found that both the arm and his face felt oddly soft and smooth to the other, like his body and facial hair had all gone missing at once. How strange..!

"H-heheh..." A soft chuckle came out of Alex's mouth. It didn't make sense for him to be feeling these things: For his skin to be so soft, or his hair so long. And something about it struck him as...funny? A part of him knew he should be worried instead, but it didn't have much say right now.

He had the curious feeling, as the tingling subsided, that the sun's warmth was..melting him? Bizarrely, it wasn't unpleasant—just the opposite. He drew his arm down away from his face to his side, turning over onto his back, and wriggled around a little under the covers, feeling it happen: His body pulling itself inward, becoming shorter and slimmer—smaller in every way. A curious feeling came to his arms, his legs, his abs—all the muscles he'd worked so long to attain and maintain; it felt like a long-held tension relaxing. The sun's warmth was...melting away his strength, the stress of keeping it—of being a big, strong man. He could be..small, and soft, instead!

"H-heheheh...!" The voice that chuckled..or more giggled, from Alex's mouth at this point, no longer sounded like a man's. It was still fairly low in pitch, but strangely..soft and cute at the same time. The sun had taken the hardness from his voice, too, it seemed—and he kind of liked the new sound. "H-hahah..heeheehee~..!" A full-on giggle came out next, his voice suddenly expressing quite a range as it came out awfully high, adorably cute—and this was in response to a strange sort of tickly feeling...down there. Between his legs.

"Mm~mmnh.." Feeling a little confused, Alex sat up and gently tossed the covers away from himself. He felt long locks of soft brown hair falling down his cheeks and across his shoulders, and most of the way down his back. His boxers seemed much tighter than he remembered, and his top had shifted into a long-sleeved dress shirt with all of its buttons undone. Looking down, he was faced with the sight of a slim, slight body—soft and smooth skin, not a hint of muscle anywhere! "H-hahah..!" All he could do in response to this strange sight was softly, cutely chuckle again, even as the more rational part of his mind struggled to comprehend if this was real.

The tickly feeling 'down there' progressed into a sort of slipping, tugging feeling. He was...melting in the sun's warmth...in that way, too. It was only fitting for all of this softness to belong to...a girl, after all, rather than a boy. "Heehee, I-I'm..mm~mmh..." he murmured softly, still feeling oddly happy about what was happening. Was this...how Cole had felt, when it happened to her? His shrinking manhood felt awfully excited for its own extinction, too, which was making his heart beat pretty fast and his face even warmer than the sun had already made it—thanks to a blush.

Tug, tug, tug...Alex found himself enjoying something he should have hated! He moaned quietly, a girlish "Aa~aaah, oo~oooh..!" coming out as it came closer and closer, until finally, with one final movement, his manhood disappeared completely! "Aa~aahnn...!" she let out a low, yet very feminine sound as the new womanhood came in, bringing with it a burst of girly pleasure.

A tingling raced across her ears at this point, and made its way down from there, racing along her spine to its base. She felt..happy, and excited to see what was coming next! How curvy was she going to be? An answer started to come to her right away, as her hips started to spread themselves out. She could feel her butt getting bigger, her thighs plumper, and at the same time—the tingling on her ears gave way to a pulling, stretching sensation, as though they were stiff limbs in need of relaxation. The feeling of new curves growing in was unexpectedly stimulating to her new..'down there', too, drawing some giggling and then a helpless "MmmMM~Mmmnh...!" from her throat.

"Aa-aa~aah..!" As her ears, now grown up into a pair of big fluffy triangles, flicked around excitedly, she felt a rush of tingling across her chest, radiating out from her nipples. This was followed immediately by a push as a pair of little bumps rose up, becoming a pair of prepubescent bumps. At the same time, Alex could feel something stretching its way out from her back—from the base of her spine, rapidly growing longer and longer and whipping back and forth through the air as it came out. A...tail!

"Mnnh, mrr~rrRFh..!" She surprised herself by letting out a sort of..puppy-like barking noise in response to another push from her chest—which signaled the growth of the tiny breasts into something more substantial. It startled her a little bit, but on reflection it wasn't so surprising. Her new tail was rapidly growing thicker and fluffier, and she could feel some of her teeth becoming fangs, her tongue lengthening ever so slightly—as not only was she becoming a girl, but also a...dog? Or maybe...a wolf!

"Mnh, rr~Rfh..!" She was leaning down on her hands now, helplessly wriggling around as she felt her breasts push out bigger and bigger, their weight hanging down from her front. Her tail was wagging excitedly behind her as she enjoyed being a girl more and more...! She giggled, feeling the globes tingle once again, and then let out a low, satisfied "Ooo~o~OOOOhhh..." as they pressed themselves out one last time, growing to a full, enormous size—bigger than Cole's, even!

"Haa~aah..rrfh...! Heheh..." Alex slowly pushed herself most of the way upright, still rather enjoying the results of...all of that! She was still slowly huffing air in and out when...surprisingly...a male voice called to her from the living room.

"Alex! Are you okay in there?"
"Uhhm...I guess?" she said, starting to feel already like the deep, mature alto tone that rang out from her lips was how she was supposed to sound. "Something..uh, happened, though! Heehee..." she giggled softly. "Come uh...see!"

The door to the bedroom opened, and Cole was standing there. Not Cole the catgirl, but the same man he'd been the night before, when they'd first met. Well..not exactly the same; he still had bright yellow eyes with slitted pupils, and cat ears, and a tail. He looked..pretty cute!

"Uh, hey—wow you're cute!" she blurted, hopping down onto her feet. She'd shrunk so much that...even though Cole was a little on the short side for a boy, her eye level was about at his chin. It was kind of nice! "L-looks like there's more to the..the thing that's happened to us...th-than we thought.." What was coming over her? She felt...warm, and excited, and she was shuffling closer to him..! Wait, this was...just like what Cole had done the night before, wasn't it?

"Uhm, really? I don't think I'm—I mean, wait!" he said, putting out his hands. "You..wouldn't be feeling um..a nearly-uncontrollable urge to uh.."
"To kiss you?" she finished for him, her tone teasing—her body already just a foot and a half away from him. His nervousness, his hesitancy about this, was just..adorable. She couldn't help herself! "Y-yeah, pretty much! What's wrong, aren't I cute enough?"
"Th-that's really not the problem here. I mean..look, I was able to control myself better after...after that happened, s-so if you really need to..—"

He was probably going to say something like 'I understand', but at this point the wolf-girl seized the opportunity to step up, lifting herself onto her tiptoes to pull him into an embrace, and in the very same motion press her lips against his.

Kissing him felt...wonderful. Unbelievably so! The pleasure she'd felt while turning into a girl lit back up all at once, feeling even better than before. He didn't resist, instead gently holding her in his arms and letting her passionate kiss play itself out—all of which made it even better! When she finally came up for air, she didn't stop hugging him—and he didn't let go, though the gentleness of his embrace made it clear she was free to break out of it. "Hhheheh, enjoying yourself?" she teased in between huffs of air.
"I..just thought you'd like it better if I didn't try to pull out," he said nervously.
"Tell you the truth?" she said, letting go of him and dancing back a couple of steps. "I totally did."

"S-still. I'm uh..not entirely sure, this counts as consensual?" Cole said, crossing his arms. "I mean, like, you know exactly what I'm concerned about, don't you?" His ears were folded down and his tail flicking around behind him—both of which were just as cute as Alex had thought they were when their sexes were the other way around. Plus he still had those fangs!

"I do, I do! It's pretty hard to explain, huh? I still feel like me, even though I'm also very much a girl who wants to kiss you again! Super weird!"

"Y-yeah.."
"Hey, I'm hungry!" she interrupted suddenly. "Can you still cook?"
"Can I—?" he started, confused, before seeming to remember his previous admission that he hadn't known how to before becoming a catgirl. "Strangely uh..yes? I feel..about as confident about that as last night."
"And that turned out great!" the wolf-girl said encouragingly. "I want bacon and sausage!" she declared excitedly. "Eggs, can we have eggs too?"

"Uh..sure, I guess..? You seem a lot more..energetic?"
"Ooh yeah, I feel it, too. Like a little puppy or something! It's..kind of a nice feeling, liberating in a way? I dunno!" she concluded. "Anyway, I guess I'll get a little more dressed while I wait, so you don't have to stare at me topless all morning~!" He had turned his gaze down toward her chest a few times, maybe without really meaning to. Her teasing declaration had the intended effect of making him blush and look away.

"Uh—y-yeah, sorry. I guess I was a little more..decent than uh, that, last night. We didn't really check what was in the dressers, though—maybe there's nothing?"
"I'll let you know!" she said, then put her hands on his shoulders to gently turn him around and push him out the door (as much as she wanted to pull him into another kiss instead!) "Now go, go! I'm not getting any less hungry!"
"Okay, okay—!" he seemingly couldn't help chuckling at her behavior as he left. It seemed her happy excitement was infectious—at least to him, which was all that mattered!

Once the boy was out of the room, she took a moment take a long deep breath and let it out. She'd gotten...a little too excited there. Maybe way too excited. It had short-circuited any semblance of self-control. Was all of that even her? That is...was it the person she'd been before the sun...or the sunrise, or whatever, had changed him? Well—it was true that she was hungry, and bacon, eggs, and sausage sounded really good...

Alex took a small mental step back as she went to rifle through the dresser drawers. Had the change...or whatever effected the change, messed with her mind? It must have...but how much? She felt very much like a girl right now, for one thing. Was that why she felt so attracted to Cole, all of a sudden? Just because she was female, assaulted with all of that sex's hormones, and he was the only male in the vicinity?

The drawers contained a variety of clothing, fit for either sex. She eventually settled on a t-shirt that looked like it would've fit her pre-transformation and tossed off the dress shirt she'd had on until now to slip that on in its place. Sure, there were bras and other clothes that would fit a girl's body better...but this just seemed more comfortable, for the moment. Anyway, it was just the two of them.

While she did this, she tried picturing some people and gauging her current opinion of them, attractiveness-wise. Male friends she knew to be fit and attractive, or even male celebrities? Meh. She was..vaguely aware that they were supposed to be attractive, and why, but none of them seemed to appeal to her much more than when she'd been a boy. The girls she'd dated recently? Them she still felt sort of attracted to, and yet..she couldn't seem to help comparing them to Cole as a catgirl, with the distinct opinion that their hotness paled in comparison to hers.

Overall, it was like her sense of attraction had only been nudged ever so slightly toward how a girl should feel when it came to everyone else except for her unwilling roommate. That either meant that her attraction was genuine somehow, not based on his/her appearance so much as who she/he was...or that whatever had affected her mostly had a very specific target in mind. Given the way Cole had acted last night, if the catgirl had been affected by something similar...it was too easy to believe the more worrying option. And yet—she couldn't prove things one way or the other. If Cole was...as attracted her way as she was to him...or the catgirl was as attracted to male-Alex as he was to her...it wasn't impossible that it was natural. But...it would still be wrong to take advantage of their situation...right?

Well...she had sort of made puppy-dog eyes at him to get him to make food for her. But..he was the one who knew how to cook. She..well, back when she was male, at least, she'd had the brawn to try to get them out of this situation. And—if Cole had eventually turned back into a guy, then maybe...so would she? And she could..try to be more useful then, to make it up to him.

It didn't really occur to her until she walked out toward the dining room that her big, mobile tail would be constantly lifting up the back of the shirt. However, it didn't bother her enough to go back for some pants. Cole's response to her new outfit was to raise an eyebrow (and the ear on that side) and go "Soo, you found some more clothes, I assume—and that's what you went with?"
"It covers everything important," she huffed. "Not like you have a lot of room to criticize after prancing around in a frilly gown all last night!"

"I wasn't—" he cut himself off with a sigh. "Either way, I guess that's fair. Anyway, uh.." he gestured toward where he'd set out a plate of food and a cup of juice for her.

"Yeah! Thanks, really," she said, giving him a genuine, bright smile before heading for her chair. If he'd been blushing a little because of her state of dress, that made him blush a lot more. Ugh, she was still teasing him like that, even after deciding not to!

It took a conscious effort for her to display normal table manners, instead of scarfing down the meat like a rabid animal. Evidently, the changes that made her wolf-like were more than skin deep. After finishing about half of it, she remembered something. "Oh, right! Um.."
Cole looked up from his plate, which he'd been carefully, slowly-yet-steadily picking through. "Yeah?"

"I-I realized something last night, after we went to bed. I was gonna bring it up, but then um...well.."
"You turned into a dog-girl?"
"Wolf-girl!" she snapped immediately. "I mean um, I think. I don't know why that felt so...a-anyway. You know that, weird wishing website that's maybe our only explanation for how we wound up in this place.."
"Our only lead so far, at least," Cole said, nodding.

"W-well um, do you remember what I said I'd 'wished for'?"

"You said: 'a sexy kitten to come home to at night'," he recited, seemingly remembering it better than she did.

"Yeah. S-so what I realized was that..." She paused, wringing her hands around each other nervously. "While I obviously didn't actually imagine a cat when I said 'kitten', 'cause I was just kinda playing around anyway...w-well, if you take that literally...alongside the actual intent..."
"..Then a catgirl isn't an unreasonable result. Huh."
"S-so, if that's the case, then maybe it's my fault you wound up like that, last night. A-and so, I'm sorry about that."

He looked away slightly, looking more apologetic than upset. "That's..well." Then, suddenly, his ears popped upright and his eyes wide open. "Waitaminute.

"You.." He pointed at her. "Would you say you feel more like a wolf than a dog, basically?"

"Uh-huh?"

"And the way you've been acting...well, I wouldn't—necessarily be inclined to put it that way, but it could be described as 'wild'."

"I guess..?"
He gave a small sigh, realizing that she either didn't remember or hadn't made the connection—both of which were pretty much true. Putting a hand to his own chest, he said, "My wish was, I quote, 'a wild woman to wake up to in the morning'. Which is, uh—that matches. Along with both of us basically giving the website, or whatever is behind it, carte blanche with our answers to what we'd be willing pay for it..."

"Ohh, I see. So...I guess this is pretty much both our faults. More or less equally."
"That seems to be the case."

"...Is it bad that that makes me feel a little better?" the wolf-girl asked, before going for another bite of bacon.

"I guess not. I'd rather that than have you feel guilty, since..my own stupid desperation got me into this situation. Oh, wait.."

She paused with a piece of sausage in her hand, her mouth open and just about to bite into it. "What?"

"Sorry—I don't mean you have to stop eating. It's just—besides what kind of girl we both basically wished for, the rest of our wishes..I mean, specifically the way they were worded...uh, at night and in the morning?"

"Whmm about it?" Alex said with her mouth full—her efforts to eat with some manners lapsing.

Cole didn't seem to mind, just continuing the conversation (which was sweet of him): "Well, I turned into a girl when the sun set...and turned back when it rose. And, would you say you turned into, uh, that at the same time? Sunrise?"
She made herself swallow before replying: "Seems like it..oh. I get it.

"So—your theory is that, because of our wishes, both of us 'turn' when the sun rises or sets. In which case—I'd be a dude again when the sun sets, but you'd.."
"Be a catgirl again, yeah."
"Given what we know so far, I think that's a good guess, at least," she admitted. "I kinda hope so—as I am now, um, well I'm not very strong. So if we need to force our way out or break something...it'd be better if I could go back to normal first. Or—at least mostly back to normal? Given that you've still got kitty ears.."
"I...agree," he nodded slowly. "I'm not...much use when it comes to brute force either way. In that case, we need to plan on how to break out during the day, and then enact those plans at night. After, probably, sleeping some of the afternoon so we're rested enough to stay up as late as needed."
"Yeah, that's a good idea!" Alex agreed. Her response was so eager, perhaps, because a small part of her just liked the idea of taking a nap in the afternoon sun.

She was finished with her food—full and satisfied—before Cole was, and waited patiently for him to finish. She tried not to stare at his plate or him eating, which seemed to be yet another strange new instinct that being part-canine had hit her with. "I'll, get the dishes," she offered as he finished. "I mean—since you cooked. And there is a dishwasher, and we don't want this place to stink."
"True..." Cole nodded while she reached across to take his plate. "Thanks, I guess." He stayed sitting at the table for a couple of minutes, then followed her into the kitchen. She got to work on everything that had been used for preparing and eating not only that morning's breakfast, but their supper together the night before.

"Messages," he announced without much context.
"Huh?"
"We should be trying to send messages. To the outside world. I mean—the water you're running through the sink right now, it's coming from outside, and it's going into a sewer outside, right? And the electricity is coming from somewhere too..."

"You think we should try to flush a message-in-a-bottle down a toilet or something?"

"That's not a bad idea...we'd have to find a way to make something compact enough to get through the pipes. Working with the electricity is even harder. I guess we could try to cause some kind of fault so a fuse blows somewhere outside of here, and maybe someone would..come check on the room?"

"There's a fuse box in the washroom," Alex pointed out. "You didn't notice?"
"I..did not."

"'S the kind of thing I notice first, going through an unfamiliar house or whatever. I've lived lots of places, had to throw the breakers plenty."
"I see..."
"Anyway, it'd suck to cut our own power and not be able to fix it!"

"True. I guess trying to break something upstream of that box should be a last resort, if anything. I'll..go look for something we can flush and have a message survive, then."

Alex felt a bit frustrated with herself, that she hadn't paused her work to go peck him on the cheek or ruffle his ear-fur or something—either when he'd come in, or before he left. She tried to clamp down on that kind of thinking, reminding herself that Cole-the-catgirl had been able to exercise better self-control than this after only one, very-resisted kiss. The desire to show some sort of physical affection persisted anyway—even after he left the room.

After her wolfish ears picked up the sound of him walking around through their living space for a bit—opening a door or two, shuffling some items around—he returned just about as she was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. "I found some games in an upper shelf in one of the closets," he said, holding up an example. It was...a relatively obscure game Alex and her friends had tried out once a year or so back, and enjoyed enough to add to their regular rotation. "This one has a score sheet and some pens inside."

"That's...relevant?" she asked cluelessly after turning his way. She was looking up at him with her ears lowered and her tail wagging, the urge to do...something still coming on strong.

"We can write our message on the paper?" he said, as though it was obvious. "So we just need a 'bottle' water-tight and small enough to store the paper in, we've got what we need."

"Oh! Right." That entire topic had slipped her mind somehow. "So you...saw some other games, in that closet? Can you show me?" Forcing herself to focus on that made the desire to go pet his ears a little easier to ignore.

"Sure..." He turned around and led the way to the closet in question. Alex felt partially mesmerized by the constant motion of his tail, but fought to keep it together.

As they came into the closet, she realized that both of them should've remembered all the clothes hanging up in the closets when the subject of her finding something more decent to wear had come up. Like the dressers, there was a mixture of male and female garments all around; Cole had shoved some of the hangers apart to reach the shelf of games. He gestured at it and moved aside; there wasn't much room in this closet, so he shoved his way in between some dresses.

Alex stood up on the balls of her feet to see what was there more easily. While her heart beat a little faster from the thought that the two of them were sharing..such a small space together, she tried to concentrate on whether she recognized any of the games, and whether any of them might have something they could use in its components. Looking through the titles on display, she realized something...interesting.

She let herself back down onto her heels. "I recognize...all of these," she said slowly.

"Is that..unusual?"

She turned to face him, wringing her hands to keep herself from reaching over to pet his ears. "A little? I mean—some of them, like the one you were showing me earlier, are kind of pretty obscure. Not only are these all games our, uh, group has played recently or regularly enough for me to know the rules without looking at them, but they're all..uh, appropriate—you could say—for two players?"
Cole sighed. "I guess whoever stuck us here, doesn't want us to be bored. And knows an uncomfortable amount about you, at least. But, I'd guess they know just as much about me..."

"Y-yeah. Anyway, um..." She turned her head back to the games, pointing at one near the top of the stack. "That one's got a sand-timer. We...might be able to pop that open and put a folded-up piece of paper inside. I'm not..so sure about how to make it completely water-tight, though. I uh...don't think I can reach it without it falling on my head though, 'cause of how uh..s-short I am. Right now."
Cole nodded. "Yeah, I'll get it."

Seeming to have momentarily forgotten about the wolf-girl's...condition, the cat-eared boy just came right up next to her—inches away—to reach up and get the game. Alex's face instantly flushed, her heart racing..she wanted so badly to pet his ears or, or something! While she tried her best to keep it under control, her traitor of a tail acted without permission, flitting over to curl across the base of his. He let out an unexpectedly high-pitched "Mrowh!?" in surprise, turning to face her in a way that yanked his tail out from the reach of hers immediately.

"Uh—sorry sorry!" she said immediately, at the same time as thinking how cute that surprised noise, and his present, blushing expression were. "It uh, m-my tail kinda has a mind of its own. But also I, I r-really wanna know what your, hff, wh-what your ears would feel like...b-between my hands..." she confessed helplessly, getting slightly out of breath from how excited she was feeling. After all, while he'd turned away, he was still standing quite close...!

"You're uh..h-having some trouble controlling those urges, huh?" he said.
"Yes! You m-made it look soo easy, hff, l-last night.."
"I'm starting to think it was easier for me for some reason." Alex couldn't help but think it was because she (he at the time) hadn't been giving so many positive signals! Cole was still standing so close to her, his face alight with a blush, his ears low and his tail flicking around so excitedly that it audibly thwapped across the hanging clothes behind him.

She inched a bit closer still, lifting her hands. "J-just a little touch?"
Cole sighed and frowned, expressing reluctance—but this felt insincere to her, like he was just playing hard to get. "F-fine.."

Alex slid her fingers around the feline ears, and found them just as soft as they looked. And they were warm, too! Besides that, Cole's face flushed even brighter from her touch, and as her slender fingers brushed through his fur, rubbing the bases of the ears, the low, deep rumbling of a feline purr became audible from his throat.

"Mrr~rrrh..." He leaned forward, downward, into the petting. It was so, so, so cute! Alex couldn't help herself...! She shuffled closer still, got on her tiptoes again, wrapped her arms around him in a hug—continuing to pet his ears the whole time. His arms slowly lifted and closed around her small, soft body, making her heart skip a beat! And now..his face was so close...!

"Mmnh~!" The wolf-girl pushed her lips into his, her body and mind all-at-once demanding another kiss. When this happened, Cole's arms wrapped around her held on tight, and to her intensely delighted surprise, he didn't just submit to her passionate kiss this time—he returned it! She felt a rush of girly pleasure and excitement coursing through her...! It was only five or six seconds, but it felt like it lasted much longer!

The end of the kiss was the only disappointing part. Cole broke it off what felt like way too early, yanking his head back away from hers and letting go of her—making her stumble slightly from the sudden loss of support—before staggering back far enough himself to bump his back against the closet wall, knocking a couple of dresses off onto the floor in the process. He was looking at her wide-eyed when she opened her eyes from the kiss.

"Um.." Alex's tail was still wagging behind her, her face wearing what felt like the goofiest grin; she wasn't feeling very coherent right now.

"Sorry!" Cole said. "I—I lost control! Something just, came over me..!"

"It's...it's okay!" she said, hesitating to gasp in some air.

"No, nonono, it's—!" He pulled himself up off of the wall and hurried to the door, practically bolting out of the closet.

It took the wolf-girl a moment to get steady on her feet, and by that point it sounded like he'd made it clear to the opposite end of their "apartment". She went out into the bedroom and called out: "Coooole, it's okay! Really!"

"No! Th-that was not okay!"

Her legs were..still a little weak, so she went and sat on the bed. "Seriously! I know what you're thinking. This...thing, that's happened to us—made me kiss you? So it's not like I really wanted to?"

"So that wasn't consensual!" he finished for her.

"But I..I think it was! I think I might..actually like you. And even if I don't, I'm not angry! I definitely won't be, even after I turn back to normal. I mean, were you?"
"No, because—I mean—whatever turned me into a girl, also screwed with my head! A-and, apparently I didn't go all the way back! Not even mentally!"
"Cole, will you at least come into the living room so we don't have to yell for this entire conversation? I'm sitting on the bed, and I'm not gonna get up! Promise!"

"Okay...okay." He came into view a moment later, standing a good few feet away from the doorway.

"Look," She crossed her arms. "If you'd been 'mentally altered' and not gone back, why wouldn't it be in a way that would keep you from worrying about it?"

"W-well how do you explain me, purring and..grabbing you like that?!" he demanded, his voice cracking a little when he shouted the first 'you'.

"I think you just have some 'feline instincts'. Just like how I wound up with some definite 'canine' ones. And you were a boy in close proximity to a pretty girl who was obviously giving you some serious signals," Alex said. "Plus...you're not just any boy, either, right?"

"What do you mean?"
"Well, you said you were 'desperate' before, and that you don't have a lot of friends?" she said, lowering her ears a little bit in sympathy. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you seem pretty lonely."

"Yeah..." Cole sighed. "Yeah. That's, the right word for me. It still doesn't excuse me doing...that."

"I'm gonna keep telling you not to worry about it," Alex said. "I happened to enjoy it. Wish it had lasted a little longer, even. Maybe it'll convince you if I say it again after turning back?"

"I dunno..it'd help, I guess—if you weren't just saying it because you felt like you had to, because we're stuck here together and we need to work together and get along and not be at each other's throats to survive to have any chance of escaping," he rattled off with increasing panic, each word coming out faster than the previous one.

This time, Alex sighed. "Look, just—go get that game with the hourglass in it, 'kay? I'll be sitting right here, so you can keep as much distance as you want." And the next time you want a kiss as a catgirl, I'll give it to you! she thought.

"Okay...right..." Cole nodded slowly, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. "Okay..." He slowly stepped into the bedroom, crab-walking along the wall opposite her while she watched, until he got to the bathroom door, then backed his way through the bathroom to the closet.

Alex felt..a sharp pain at seeing him that upset, and especially at feeling like he was afraid to get close to her again. But she kept it in; trying to go comfort him would only make it worse right now. Instead, she stood up and announced: "I'm gonna go check if there's some, like, glue or something in the washroom, okay?" Along the way, she went and picked up the broom she'd left on the floor the night before to take it with her.

"Okay. I'll see if I can get the hourglass open."

---

Now and then, I've expressed my distaste for TG, or really transformation stories in general, being "character A is entirely replaced, in both body and mind, by new character B". It morally grosses me out because it amounts to character A just plain dying (and if another character was responsible then that person basically committed murder); there's also a tendency for that situation to quickly turn into something that seems very..let's say, not consensual for character A. However, it's also disappointing to me as a storyteller/reader because you leave such interesting options for character development and interaction on the table when you throw away that tension of who the person was pre-transformation being in conflict with how they wind up. Not to shame you if you enjoy, or even write, things in that vein, but it's just not something you'll see me write or enjoy. I bring all that up more to say: I very much wanted to play around with that tension in this particular story.