What business does this little snack have flaunting such a bright crimson feather coat as that? Surely not for the purpose of camouflage, as the surrounding woodlands were replete with quite the chromatically opposite colors of green and brown. Thus if not to be discreet, it must be the inverse! To allure, or even taunt the wandering eye had to be its sole intent.
A quick snap of a brown blur crested momentarily over the top of a lush bush, the only conspicuous giveaway of the ostensibly stealthy occupant within. That stealth however ebbed away as a restless impatience slowly encroached, a pair of glimmering eyes gradually emerging from the more matte surface of the green foliage. The vividly hued piece of eye candy remained blissfully unaware, even further sealing its fate by filling its breast with the swell of a calling song, until suddenly the hitherto inert bush burst open violently. Outstretched claws and barred fangs in flight spelled the swift inescapable end for the little cardinal with hardly a note of its inadvertent requiem having escaped its tender throat.
Jessica squirmed in her sleep, a mischievous grin twitching at either end of her mouth as her lips pursed together tightly in concentration. Her fledgling cat ears were similarly taut, their numerous muscles connecting them to her head acting to pull them flat. However, by far the least asleep part of her was her new tail.
Formerly having laid flush with the back of her bare thighs, all the way down over the inward crook of her knees, and the rest of the way draped over her calves, in the climax of her hunt it had awoken with a start. It’s impressive length loomed over the still slumbering frame of its owner, swaying down lazily as if to fall back to the mattress but instead whipping back up to its peak height before this time sleepily teetering over now to the other side threatening to succumb to its own weight and then just as vigorously snapping up once again. On occasion a twitch of its irate tip broke the smooth hypnotizing oscillation, but its effect was soon dampened away by the overpowering momentum of the rest of the tail’s length. In the real world, several minutes passed of this tranquil repetition with only a light groan or mewl to pepper the entrancing scene.
Jessica jerked awake, eyes wide open to find her prey had all but disintegrated in front of her, along with all of the surrounding forest, to reveal that her familiar old bedroom was in the backdrop the whole time. In that dreamed pounce, her tail had slapped back down onto the bed giving the rest of her body an upward spring fully awake and alert. Taking a moment to blink a few times to land back in the waking world, Jessica let a smile creep onto her face.
“Well that was something… I guess that’s what it would be like to become a catgirl…”
She laid her head back down onto her pillow to savor the embers of those recollections. Her nap took her from the late afternoon well into the evening, which consequently left her room quite dark apart from the light milky glow of a rising moon mingled with the stray golden rays of sodium vapor street lights outside.
“I don’t know what came over me with that little bird though. I never would have been drawn to doing something so brutal but in that moment I really couldn’t help myself. Could just be that I got too caught up with experiencing my feline body, but maybe…”
Jessica shook her head to dispel that unsettling notion. The very fact she is just now so repulsed by the act redounded to contradict the idea that somehow she inextricably assumed into herself a kind of untamable feline instinct.
The whole thing was just an uncanny dream. Likely only a product of her apprehension at visiting the CYOC store tomorrow to pick out a costume for Halloween. The only sensible thing to do would be to fall back asleep as soon as possible so that she doesn’t miss out on the eve’s last minute rush. She reached to pull what was surely her soft blanket up to her chin that had down fallen over her bosom but as much as she could try, she couldn’t find it’s edge. Assuming it must have stuck to her somehow due to her sweating, as particularly intense naps tend to induce that, she curled her fingers just the right way to her misfortune and pinched the seeming fabric.
With a piercing yowl Jessica shot up, back straight as a rod and her still unnoticed tail no less rigidly poised.
“AH! What the HELL!”
The worst case she could think of in her fear-addled mind was that some large venomous spider had become a bedfellow of hers and summarily bit her after she unwittingly prodded it. She leaped out of bed, unfazed that somehow her blanket had dematerialized from her body, and frantically skipped to the other end of her bedroom before flicking on her room light.
It didn’t reveal any intruder anywhere on her bare bed, nor anywhere on the surrounding carpet. Her eyes kept scanning outwards until she met the figure in her closet mirror.
A second shriek not long after the first reverberated off her bedroom’s thick walls, this time at a volume painfully loud enough for her ears to instinctively fold down. Her body frozen still with wide eyes stared back at itself, and it wasn’t long before Jessica put together all the pieces to come to the same understanding of events the rest of us are at.
Her outstretched arms falling down to her sides, she let out a tense breath not without a few trembling hitches. Her claws also visibly sheathed themselves, making a quick explanation to her for the thin trickle of blood running down through her left breast’s fur. She wiped it off with the fur on the back of her forepaw.
“It was…it was all real… Well at least until my hunt… I hope.”
Jessica closed her eyes and let the rolling breaths calm her. While recuperating, she concentrated her sense of bodily awareness over her new features. As expected she felt the familiar weight on her lower back of her long tail, now with the deescalation of threat, start leisurely swaying side to side behind her and her pointed ears atop her head resume gently swiveling around.
Jessica opened her eyes to look down at her hands, or rather forepaws now, palms upturned and pink pads fully exposed. Tensing her fingers just as she had learned earlier, she plodded over to her bed transfixed on the viciously sharp claws popping in and out of the ends of her furred digits. With good sense, she lifted her tail up before letting her rear fall onto the edge of the mattress.
Extending out a claw of her index finger, she grazed it over the pad covering the palm of her other hand to find it was tougher than it seemed, quite effectively repelling the pointed tip. The pads adorning the tips of each digit and at their base were no different apart from their smaller size. Furthering her downward gaze, the outline of her feet, now hind paws, became clearer to reveal their still overtly human shape but with stouter digits that, as confirmed by her inspection, housed even longer claws within. Grounding them into her carpet made apparent they possessed similarly arranged tough pads, if not even harder.
Jessica felt some quells of anxiety surface once again in her chest, worries of how to fare in life as some absurd cat creature and what that would mean for her family and friends. She steeled herself, reminding herself that it is supposedly possible to unbind her furred augmentations by just concentrating on her human form, but at the moment she felt far too beside herself to hold any kind of clear thought in her mind let alone an image.
“What was I thinking? To get so swept up, changing one part of myself right after the other and not even thinking to see if I could revert them? What interest does CYOC even have in ensuring that’d work? It could all be a ruse, damn it! Yeah like I can just take them to civil court looking like this, get some meager payout after all the lawyer fees and just get back to normal life? That’s not gonna happen! It’ll be everywhere… ‘Local cat girl couldn’t help herself…’”
Those words again.
Jessica’s bitter rumination trailed off into silence. She felt her brow unfurl its frown and her tense shoulders ease their imaginary weight. Just hearing herself described as a ‘cat girl’ yanked away all the prickling thorns. The calm that washed away her distress was like awakening in a panic at having overslept an alarm for school, but to realize it was a Saturday after all. The release was so palpable that shivers ran down her spine, whisking away any last clinging dregs of worry. With the emotional canvas now blank, a gentle smile slowly found itself to her lips.
Jessica wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the soft fur and smooth pads of her paws press into the supple bare skin of her navel. The comfort was so cathartic that even a couple unbidden whimpers fell out. This conciliatory union of human flesh and feline fur made concrete a peace within her; that there wasn’t a disjoint pair of Jessica and her changes, but simply Jessica as she was in and of herself. No endless strive and pursuit of becoming, but simply being as is.
Jessica lifted up her head and looked at herself in the mirror. There she was. Who she is in her heart of hearts.
The severity of her previous mood had left her tail frozen stiff behind her, as if scared to bring attention to itself by its motion and subsequently earning her wrath. But with the lightening of her mood it stirred to life and playfully swished behind her, passing from one shoulder to the other, happy to be greeting an old friend. Or at least the friend of a few hours ago. The affectionate furry serpent elicited a smirk from Jessica and though her conscious control of it was still tenuous, she managed to curl it around herself and plop its latter half onto her lap where it relaxed its motion for the most part minus a sporadic flick of its tip or two.
It’s soft fur was soothing as it rested on her bare thighs, sometimes ticklish when a twitch sprung out. Jessica giggled with levity at how cute it was, especially how despite in general being able to take her directives, it largely had a mind of its own following her emotions more closely than her rational will. She kind of liked that. Unwrapping her arms from herself, she laid them onto her tail and gently grasped its presented length.
How pleasant it was to feel her touch through such a sensitive appendage. Shivers ran up her spine, every little hair of its fur acting to titillate the follicle underneath and each send small sparks into its nerves that compounded into the overwhelming current of sensation she now found herself delightfully immersed in. With the pads of her thumbs she smoothed and pressed down its glossy fur, surprised at how quickly the fluffy exterior turned into hard strong muscle within. It was to be expected though, as quite some strength is required to so deftly maneuver it’s hefty weight.
As far as Jessica’s thoughts in this moment there isn’t much to say. Her mind was largely blank as if she were possessed by her own tail. Anyone observing would certainly say the cute cat girl, her eyes glazed over and mouth slightly agape, was steeped in the revelry the petting of her tail was granting and to wish her serenity be disrupted with anything would take a very cold heart. Whatever wish regardless, an erroneous stroke of her thumb averse to the natural direction of her tail’s fur did just that.
A flicker of a grimace passed over her face and Jessica snapped out of her stupor. Conscious thought becoming audible again, she chuckled to herself lightly.
“Note to self. Do not stroke against the grain.”
Still with a warm buzz in her core, Jessica swung her tail out of her lap and to the side where it laid with only its tip flicking, proud of the service it did for its master. Straightening her back and regarding herself in the mirror once again, only one thought showed up in her refreshed mind.
What’s next?
As if magnetized, her eyes turned right toward the box with the remaining pieces of the costume. As luscious as the fur of the corset was, it was that little small case on top of it that most caught her attention. As far as all her changes went, both existing and prospective, this one was obviously the most trivial. She could have passed by any number of people on the street and she wagered that only a small fraction would grant her enough attention to see that her pupils were more vertically slanted than they ought to be. The same could not be said for her ears and tail. It was like the free space on a bingo board and she had no reason to hesitate on making her eyes fit the whole package. And besides, their dull hue and smooth round shape just didn’t jive with the sharp and pointed nature of her other features.
Jessica stood up on her paws and resolutely snatched up the contacts case. The latch was a bit stiff, but with a deft poke of a claw it readily yielded its contents. Inside were two contacts and a small solution bottle. Jessica put the bottle on her bedside table and inspected the contacts more closely. They were translucent around the edges but the centers were filled with a brilliantly opalescent emerald green iris so rich and saturated in hue she could hardly believe they weren’t being lit up somehow. In their center their color poured off totally into the void of the black pupil, very sharp and threatening as intended for a feline as herself. However since they purported to be mere costume props, the very center of the pupils were clear so that the wearer didn’t have their vision completely obstructed.
Wasting no time, Jessica popped open the cap of the solution bottle and moisturized them before carrying one perched precariously on the top of her index finger over to the mirror. Her nose nearly touching the glass, she used the other hand to pull down her bottom eyelid and gently dropped the contact onto her cornea. Once it landed her eye reflexively shut, feeling that there was clearly something foreign on it but after a handful of blinks, the feeling of the outside edge of the contact dissipated. Now able to keep her eyelid open Jessica stared into her, for now, heterochromatic eyes.
It was just what she needed. The vivid green color was all the necessary contrast her face, and for that matter the rest of her body, needed to break up the prior homogenous dominance of brown.
Due to her being in a fully lit and enclosed room her feline pupil noticeably contracted itself, thinning itself to such a slit that it could hardly be more than half the width of her other human pupil. However Jessica didn’t expect the change to advance further inside her eyeball as well, and with that now finishing she felt off-put as her vision became somewhat lopsided. One part of her sight seemed not only far too sharp, being able to readily make out all the edges of the furniture in the reflection of her room that in the past were a blur, but also too saturated, with the colors of her surroundings looking so much more defined and intense than before. It was annoying to say the least, as if she were wearing a monocle and using both eyes, so Jessica took the necessary measure to correct that. Getting the second contact in went even quicker. Now with both eyes in balance, she could really take in the improvement.
Everything looked so much better. All the details in texture and rich hues that had passed unnoticed with her old eyes now sprung out so prominently. To be fair her vision in the past wasn’t exactly 20-20, but with having become feline it more than corrected for it. It looks like it was either get glasses or become a cat girl, Jessica mused to herself. With her ears excitedly twitching and tail occasionally flicking, she scanned around her room drinking it all in. There was one more thing she really wanted to see in a new light.
Turning to her bedroom window, she pulled down the tassel to orient the blinds flat. The big saucer of milk in the sky poured out onto the curious cat. How could she have missed out on such beauty her whole life? Its white almost blueish light was so pure that Jessica felt herself being almost cleansed by bathing in it. In addition, all the textural features such as its multitudinous craters and ridges popped out so plainly to her now, something she would have needed a telescope to notice before. So enthralled was she with the sublime, it utterly escaped her that she was putting on her own display of natural beauty for anyone who happened to be outside her window at the time.
“Maybe a little foray into the night? I feel so pent up in here and I could get such a better view out there…”
The prospect to really stretch her legs and test the full extent of her body was far too tempting. Fortunately living in a temperate zone and tonight being pleasantly warm meant there wasn’t much need to layer up further, or fur up further in Jessica’s case. An eager grin spreading on her face and her tail flicking restlessly, she had made her mind up.
She turned away from the window and left her room, flipping her light off and skipping over steps on her way downstairs. Maybe it was just her frenetic excitement, but she couldn’t remember ever feeling so light and agile. Landing on the tile beyond the last step she noticed how much grip her hind paw pads had on the smooth surface, letting her turn the corner with ease. Her paws silently padding along she headed into the dining room adjacent to the glass sliding doors leading onto the patio. Since she was leaving the house she turned off the rest of the lights behind her as well. With the house enshrouded in darkness, the shimmering night opened itself up to her.
Having minimal light pollution now the full potential of her feline eyes presented itself. What before was an impenetrable darkness now divulged the full expanse of what she knew her backyard to be, only with a light blue overcast on all its features. She surmised the color must be from her pupils taking in all they could of the reflected moonlight and as a result painting over everything its hue. But what really transfixed her was noticing so many fine details in the darkness, even small droplets of moisture clinging to blades of grass. It would not have been a surprise to know her pupils were near fully dilated to accomplish that. They were widened to the point of taking up the vast majority of her irises and have become quite circular in shape as a result.
Jessica unlatched the lock and pulled open the door. The fresh night air filled her nostrils with a tinge of the earthiness that usually follows after rain has fallen. During her nap a light downpour must’ve taken place. Stepping onto the moist textured concrete of the patio she felt the ambient temperature might be a bit too cool for bikini weather, which was essentially what her fur coat granted for coverage, but somehow it didn’t feel like it was bothering her. Maybe enough heat was being held under her furred bits that it helped warm up the skin that was still bare.
Narrowing her eyes, Jessica looked to both sides before gazing out in front of her. Her house’s backyard joined all those of the other nearby homes into a big field that bordered on the municipal nature park. Most of the terrain was strictly smooth grass as maintained by the town’s landscapers, but further into the expanse trees and bushes began popping up until a dense woodlands formed. Many nights when Jessica was far younger, she found the dark depths of the far forest forbidding and quite ominous, swearing that in her periphery there were glowing eyes watching her that disappeared just as she centered her sight on them. So for that reason whenever she would be playing outside she would rarely let herself venture out further than the first formations of brush, in fact using them tactfully as cover to frightfully observe the forest as if her supervision alone was keeping all the creatures within at bay. The irony that on this night she became the prime adversary of her childhood self was not lost on her.
Jessica’s body seemed to have decided to set off before she did, her tail impatiently swishing and her ears folding down lightly to brunt the imminent air stream. She took off into the grass with a brisk jog. Moving fast enough to be swiftly out of view of the handful of still lit household windows but not too fast to garner attention, she got her first taste of her physique in more sustained action. Her hard hind paw pads were quite numb to the ordinary tickling feeling that running barefoot on grass would induce, with only faint glimmers of that sensation occurring when a particularly resilient stalk got between her digits.
The boundary of joint backyards formed a somewhat convex arc, so as she ran Jessica had the chance to peer into some resident windows to see the general assortment of evening preoccupations. The bright glow of televisions, the flashing screens of computer monitors, and the all-too-common downturned faces illuminated by handheld devices seemed to all be on show tonight. Just considering the vast contrast of her evening with theirs was enough to fill Jessica with an audacious thrill, strengthening the bounds of her gait.
The smooth leveled grass gave way to the more unkempt variety that bore among it various weeds and ferns. Jessica found that her running was not exhausting her at all but in fact the opposite, invigorating her to make leaps over the obstructing flora in her path. It was not long before trees joined her passing surroundings, their canopies scattering the moonlight into a shining patchwork beneath her paws. Despite having lost all the open space lighting, her view ahead into the forest didn’t seemed dulled at all. Thanks to what was readily revealing itself as her night-vision, it was merely as if she were out during the late afternoon.
Jessica skipped and hopped over jutting roots and felled trunks, each passing feat of grace making the smile on her face and warmth in her chest grow stronger. The wind in her ears, the bristling of her fur, and feeling her tail whipping behind her innervated some part of her she didn’t know until now existed. A more careful version of herself would be glancing behind to make sure she didn’t wander too far, but the Jessica of this moment felt that she was dashing into something as comfortable as a second home. At a certain point, the other residents of the woodlands began appearing, most of them nestled above in branches. Squirrels with their beady eyes froze and suspiciously regarded her, seeing something that had half the body of those who would toss them food and half the body of those that would of them make food. Though not certain, she swore she even also saw the curiously crooked neck of a fox peering around a trunk at her. On occasion she turned her gaze upwards to the lunar firmament, its dotting of winking specks and grand central fixture flitting through the gradually more dense leaf cover above.
Jessica wasn’t sure how long she’d been running. Originally she planned to stop once out of breath but with that not looking to be an eventuality she decided to keep going until she came across what could serve as a landmark. And whether by fortune or fate, she stumbled upon just that. A bit ahead of her the trees seemed to thin out and just barely discernible from the rush of wind was a gentle trickling of water. Breaking out past the last pair of trees, she found herself in a small picturesque forest glade.
Jessica giggled gleefully at what a present she found for herself. First of notice, to her right was the source of the intriguing sound. She followed the hint to the crest of a hill and not far down the slope, tucked into a rocky outcropping, was a miniature creek. The adjoining portion of it wrapped itself into the open space with both its incoming and outgoing ends emerging from the dense woods beyond. It was as if purely out of generosity that the stream contorted itself to dote on the glade with its clear flow, shimmering silver only rippled by a handful of smooth water-sheened stones.
By sweet serendipity, Jessica’s time in Girl Scouts taught her well enough to know when she spotted prime drinking water. Kneeling down at it’s edge, she cupped her forepaws and submerged them into the cool depths. Not bothered by the temperature as much as just having her fur wet, she nonetheless took a gulp. As refreshing as it was, she didn’t quite enjoy sucking the liquid through her fur as she drank. Adjusting her strategy, she opted to dip her mouth into her hands but found herself repelled by her whiskers being bent. Wait whiskers?
She didn’t remember having whiskers earlier. Maybe in all the drama and consternation she just didn’t notice. But then again she did look herself over pretty thoroughly while putting in the contacts. Well either way it wasn’t important as they’re just a costume prop and surely will come off as long as she just thinks of herself without them, as weird as an image of a cat girl without whiskers would be. Self-assured, the matter of hydration resumed.
Out of other options, Jessica was left with simply using her tongue. Entertaining in her mind how a normal cat drinks she felt a tinge of embarrassment at considering acting so much like an animal, but after realizing she already ran “naked” into the woods in the middle of the night, it dissipated rather quickly. She let its thin form unfurl from her mouth into the held water and the moment it hit the cool liquid, by sheer reflex, it cupped its end and whipped back inside her mouth with an audible lap.
Jessica’s eye widened in shock, dropping her hands and falling back onto her haunches with a wobble. Spitting out the water she gasped before summarily falling onto her rump, at least having the fortune of not crushing her tail. Having made the least graceful display of the night, she knew for certain her tongue was not normal. Well looking at the rest of her body it could be argued on the contrary, but to Jessica right now something was definitely amiss.
Sticking her tongue out she hesitantly pinched it between two digits. Even through their pads she felt that the roughness on the topside of her tongue was nearly that of a fine grain sandpaper. Pulling it all the way out she stifled a gag at seeing its length easily went down past her chin. Thoroughly unsettled, she let it go for it to furl back up and land neatly in her mouth. But that wasn’t it.
Upon closing her mouth the inside of her lips felt something unfamiliar. Feeling like a few of her teeth bulged out further than they ought to, Jessica slacked her jaw and swirled her tongue around her mouth to check the extent of the development. A series of pinpricks teased its surface and it became quite obvious to her their new nature. Huffing out a vexed breath, she opened her mouth and poked her new fangs with the pad of a forepaw’s digit. It seemed that the dull stumps of her former incisors had decided to grow longer, thinning as they went until their points were like wicked daggers. An upside that understandably wasn’t fully appreciated by her at the time was that at least their dangerous lengths fit flush and comfortably in her mouth. Just as sharp as her claws and all of them extending a good inch beyond her gum line, they were the marked feature of a predator.
She shook her head in disbelief and tucked her knees up to her chest to wrap her arms around them. Her tail, as if in consolation, similarly followed suit by tenderly entwining itself around her thighs and over her shins. Laying her head onto her knees, ears folded down dolefully, and with a growing pit in her stomach, Jessica tried to digest the reality of what was happening to her.
“This costume… What the hell is it doing to me! I even sound different! I’m supposed to be human under all this but I- I feel I can’t even prove that to myself now. Think about my human form, think about my human form…”
Jessica mumbled off the costume’s instructions on reversion, pressing her forehead even more firmly to her knees whilst rocking back and forth. After a few motions, each growing more jagged and tense than the last, she lifted her head up and groaned loudly in frustration. With a balled up paw she struck the ground, wracking out an anguished sob to follow.
She couldn’t do it.
When thinking about herself, all Jessica saw was herself as she was now. All the feline parts of hers included: ears, eyes, fur, forepaws, tail, hind paws, whiskers, and even the fangs now! She couldn’t mentally extricate herself from any of them. The concept of a Jessica without those features exists in theory, but to her that is the one which is augmented. A Jessica with rounded ears and eyes, bare skin, a retracted tail, bare paws- Wait no, not paws! Hands and feet!
As much as she tried to rationalize it, her intuition rebuffed it all. Simply, it was not her in essence. The Jessica of merely several hours ago has not only dissolved, but has been subsumed. A ruthless coalescing of her deepest self with something external, all having taken place so perniciously unbeknownst.
And that is the fact, slumped over in this wretched forest with the sardonic moon above, solely left for her.
Seconds and then minutes passed. Jessica had hardly moved. The former warmth in her body generated by buzzing excitement and vigorous motion has all but been sapped away by the biting tithe of the cold night wind. Soon she was shivering.
The last vestige of heat was that within her head. Her mind felt like it was in an oven, anxious dreadful thoughts like particles bouncing around and colliding to no end raising the unbearable temperature within higher and higher. The sheer humiliation she felt now at so wantonly having stripping her humanity away for that of a contemptible beast manifested in the stinging burn spreading over her reddened face that streaming tears did little to soothe. Still clutching her knees, tensed claws piercing into her legs and drawing blood, she threw her head back and yowled in anguish.
It swirled around her, filling the glade and then winding around the surrounding trees, their unfeeling bark lending no commiseration. It poured out of her lungs on and on, gradually turning more shrill and grating, and then thinning into a weak hiss. Having taken with it her composure, she limply fell over to her side and curled up into a ball to await the inevitable.
At least there was no more tension. Even the feverish heat was beginning to peter out to the unyielding cold that already had the rest of her body within its grip. Convulsing sobs grew fewer and weaker. The drumming of her thumping heart was leaving her ears and letting the whistle of the wind and trickle of the creek coax their way back in. The blades of grass poking the bare parts of her skin became soothing, beckoning her to the dirt beneath. It was irresistible.
But it wasn’t her time yet.
A voice spoke up behind her.