There was only one problem. She didn’t know exactly how Maddie felt about the whole thing, in terms of, well, sexuality. Somehow she’d never had the courage to bring it up. Every time she started to, she either ran out of steam and changed the subject quickly, or something interrupted them. She didn’t want to just blurt it out, and she didn’t want to come on to Maddie too strong and put her off if she wanted nothing to do with her while she looked just like Lassie. Sure, the idea gave her a little pain but she couldn’t exactly blame her. Who’d want to make love to someone with dog breath and a snout to match? It’s not like Trish could exactly keep up on brushing her teeth on her own now, and Maddie was good about doing it for her but that sort of powerlessness wasn’t exactly confidence-inspiring. Trish positively worried she was freeloading, even if she was making enough money off this contract that they’d be covered for a good while, (Variable residuals notwithstanding).
Trish could afford to take it easy between shoots. Things were going swell. She figured out how to use the toilet pretty quickly so any walks or park playdates were recreational and not utilitarian. She and Maddie had a great time just lounging around at the park last weekend, and for the first time Trish remembered she actually had the energy to bounce and run around.
However, the new Lassie actress was feeling cooped up in her full-time costume. She longed for more but didn’t know how to get it. Maybe it was just the lazy afternoon, or her pounding heart, but she found herself increasingly distracted from looking over her lines. Increasingly she wondered about how it would feel to kiss Maddie like this. Not just lick her face like instinct had compelled her to, but actually kiss her, passionately, on the lips. Maybe push a little tongue in. Maybe to hold her and run her hands, no, paws over her familiar curves.
Maddie looked up as if she could feel those amber eyes on her. “What’s up, babe?” she said. Trish felt her ears get hot.
“Just thinkin’ about, you know, us” she responded. They’d both noticed early on that her voice was a little deeper and huskier but it was hardly a bad change. Maddie had enjoyed thinking about it a lot during private time.
“Yeah?” Maddie’s hopes were rising. Maybe Trish was thinking the same thing she’d been, she figured. About kissing her. About those hands running through her long fur, not for scritches, but for something better.
“Yeah…” Trish let it trail off with a little growl to punctuate it. She turned in her spot and stood up on her four legs and walked up the couch a little, over Maddie’s legs and the fur-covered athleisure wear she sported for lounging. Halfway up she laid down, her hips turned to the side and her legs folded the way dogs did, resting her chest on her belly and holding her head up.
Maddie put her phone on the end table and put her arms around Trish’s shoulders. Honey-amber eyes looked back at her from a coat that was softly colored like caramel, coffee, and cream in an unstirred macchiato. Even though that was her wife she still felt a little guilt at her attraction to her form, just for how easily she could’ve been mistaken for an especially attentive pet asking for scratches and a snack. It wasn’t even attraction to the form, per se, which she could take or leave. It was to the woman within it. Maddie would love and lust after Trish no matter what she was. She was new-fashioned like that. That was a conversation they had earlier on while discussing the possibility of this role.
“Do you, you know… still love me?” Trish asked, looking away. Bashful, for a dog. She was usually brazen and outgoing, except for when she wanted to act the wallflower. But this was genuine, even if she asked this a thousand times and the answer was always the same.
“As long as you’re Trish inside I’ll love you whether you’re a sea anemone or a space ship,” Maddie said with a smirk. She meant it, as cheesy as it was.
“Who wrote this script?” Trish sighed and put her paw over her snout to accompany an overdramatic faux groan.
“We had to throw the writer a bone on this one”
“Oh ha ha, Captain Punsalot.”
Maddie’s arms closed tighter and Trish laid her head on her wife’s chest. She could feel her heartbeat. It was a little bit fast. Was she thinking the same thing she was?
A moment passed between them. Just silence and each other. Just hands buried deep in soft fur and warm dog breath and a big fluffy pillow laying on her wife’s body. Maddie looked away. She was thinking about it. She was thinking about going in for… something. A kiss? Every time she told herself ‘now’ she hesitated, until finally she turned back.
She slid one of her hands up from Trish’s narrow sloped shoulders and up her wide neck and down her long slender jaw. It was quite a journey for her fingertips to get to the collie’s chin, and when she did, she lifted her head up with just one finger, as Trish was so enraptured by the sudden change.
It was what she’d been dreaming of, after all.
Maddie leaned forward. Her eyes fluttered closed. Trish’s were wide open. Her nose bumped Lassie’s cold wet nose pad first, then, with a minor adjustment from both of them, they kissed. Full soft human lips to thinner, dark canine lips. The first real kiss like this since the change. Maddie pulled back for a second to catch her breath and Trish shifted her weight and pushed her front half up. Maddie’s hands went up to run through her wife’s scruff and grip her smart-looking folded-over ears. They kissed again, longer this time. Trish dared to dream of slipping a little tongue into it but Maddie did it first. Everything was so familiar to Trish but through the lens of her quadrupedal animal body it was excitingly changed. Maddie’s taste and texture was familiar but different. Her scent was familiar and comforting but it was also like Trish had unlocked hidden depths. It was the equivalent of hearing a beloved song on a hi-fidelity sound system after so many years of only hearing it through tinny smart phone speakers.
They stopped to catch their breath and Trish tried not to pant too hard.
“So uh…” Maddie stammered. It was easy to see the blush on her face and smell the telltale signs of how she felt about that sudden burst of passion.
With a dog.
Even if the dog was also fully sapient, spoke English (and high school Spanish), and was her wife.
That is to say, Maddie felt it was a complicated issue.
“So uh, what do you want for dinner?” She finally finished her thought.