"Oh you're here already. Did you find it?" Lucy asked Nicola who had dressed casually and made her way down to the garden quickly, wanting to pack as much magic remote related fun into the day as possible.
"Found what?" Nicola asked momentarily confused.
"Your missing rabbit?" Lucy replied with a hint of dismay at her friends scattyness.
"Oh yeah, she's fine" Nicola remembered suddenly "she's up in my room, but don't worry, I'll be taking her back round to her owner soon"
"Good, we really don't have space for any more pets" Lucy bent down, scooped James up and passed him to Nicola as if he were an object "paricularly this one. He hasn't been desexed you know? You ought to warn your friend about what might happen if he is left alone with a doe. Can you imagine?"
"I think I can" Nicola replied with a knowing smirk before heading back upstairs with her previous evening's sleeping partner.
"Ok, I hope you behaved yourself last night with all those tempting lady rabbits" Nicola told James in a jokingly stern tone, enjoying her guilty little secret, as he sat on her desk "I've got a busy day planned for us so hopefully you conserved plenty of energy. Now, for the morning I thought you might enjoy a bit of exercise in the park"
---
"Ok James, fetch!" Nicola laughed gleefully as she tossed another stick as far as she was able and, for the tenth time in a row, her transformed colleague scampered away to receive it.
Nicola had no way of knowing if James was enjoying this experience as much as she was. She had made her newly canine friend fully obedient to her commands as, if she was going to be a dog owner, even for only a short while, she wanted her pet to be perfectly trained.
Nicola again let her mind wander down a troublesome but tempting path. It might be quite fun being a dog for a while, she figured. She briefly fantasised herself as a cute puppy, running naked and free on the soft grass without anyone knowing who she really was or what her responsibilties were. But she wasn't about to fall into that trap again. For a start, transforming in public was a no go. Secondly, she was still feeling a little guilty about what happened last night. Though nobody would ever know, or believe her even if she tried to tell them, it had been undeniably wrong.
To avoid any possibility of the innocent trip to the park descending into doggy sex with James she had made him a cute, white female poodle - a transformation that had greatly amused her when she first thought of it. Having lost herself in her daydream , Nicola didn't notice for some time how long James was taking with his simple task.
James wandered into some bushes to dutifully but unhappily retrieve the stick Nicola had thrown at her when she suddenly felt the presence of something moving towards her. Spinning round, James was faced with a large, panting dalmatian around twice the size she was. The dalmation began to sniff excitedly at James' rear and made an ominous grunting sound. James was hardly a dog expert but she had a pretty good idea of what was coming next and quickly made a dash for it as fast as her little legs could carry her. The male dog made a playful but terrifying series of yelps before following. James ran as fast as she could but, unless she found somewhere to hide or fate intervened kindly for her, she knew it was only a matter of time before she was caught. To make matters worse, James quickly realised she was running in a direction that was taking her further away from Nicola and into somewhere completely unfamiliar.