As Christina the cat continued to adjust to her new body and get her head around what had just happened to her, she became aware of a pair of footsteps moving up the stairs towards her. Jenkins walked over to open his door and soon the feline could see a second pair of feet in the room. The two humans made polite conversation above her head for a while before she was spotted.
"Oh, is that Christina?" Ethel asked with excitement.
"Indeed. Christina is my newest employee. This will actually be her first day as a pet so please treat her kindly" Jenkins asked jovially.
"Oh, you've no need to worry about that, she's perfect!" Ethel enthused before kneeling down in front of Christina so her face could be seen for the first time by her reluctant pet.
Ethel seemed younger to Christina than Jenkins had made her sound - perhaps the age of someone who might recently have retired. She had clearly quickly become besotted with Christina which was a very peculiar situatiom for the young woman turned cat to take in.
"Well aren't you a beautiful little creature?" Ethel enthused as she stroked Christina's back, incorrectly interpreting the mewing that followed as approval rather than annoyance at being manhandled by a stranger "Come on, lets get you home dear!"
Ethel stood up and placed a cat carrier in front of Christina. It looked like a kind of cross between a cage and a picnic container and the door had been opened for her to get in.
"Well, hurry along Christina, you'll miss your bus!" Jenkins instructed and, not seeing any other option than to comply, she trotted slowly into her feline prison which was quickly shut and bolted behind her. Like it or not, Christina's first day as a rented pet had begun.
Christina rode the same bus from Jenkins office as she had taken to get there, the only difference being that this time she was riding on a pensioners lap inside a cat carrier. At least she hadn't had to pay. A small child in the seat opposite had taken a shine to Christina during the journey and she, her mother and Ethel spent much of the journey cooing over Ethel's new pet, the old woman proudly acting as if Christina was her most prized posession.
Eventually they reached Ethel's stop and, a few minutes later, Christina was released from her cage and allowed to run out onto the carpeted floor of Ethel's living room. It felt like a largish house, or maybe it seemed moreso that way from the body of a cat, but it felt strangely empty and lonely to Christina.
At that moment Christina began to change her view of her owner. Ethel couldn't have known she had been transformed against her will and she seemed like a nice, caring person in need of company. Christina decided she may as well make the effort to play her role properly for the few hours she was here, even if she wasn't completely sure what a pet cat was supposed to do. But she vowed this would be the only time she would demean herself in this way.