Shorts: The Furry Years (3 page)

"Nobody knows. His wife called this morning, seems he hasn't been home."

"So what happened then? How'd they do it?" I think I knew, I only had to look in a mirror to figure it out, but I wanted to hear somebody else say it.

"Magic, what else? I guess Derek figured out how to do it on his computer and Howard just improved on it. In either case I don't expect either of them to stay here. I'm glad we got the project finished, at least."

"Anything else happen while I was gone?"

"Just a lot of reports about people changing like you have. You still working here?"

"I guess so, but until things settle down I was hoping to telecommute most of the time." I didn't want to say it out loud, but laying low sure seemed like a good idea right now.

"Sure, the heat's off for now. I can't see the owners getting upset, either. Rumor has it one of them grew wings."

"Sheesh! This really sounds a lot more widespread then I thought."

"Didn't you watch the news last night at all?"

I noticed Rasha looking a little embarrassed when he asked that. "No, TV's out."

"Oh. Well there are strange things going on everywhere, and while it's not epidemic, there's enough going around everywhere that people are nervous."

I thought about that and nodded absentmindedly. I'm sure glad that my change didn't affect my ability to work. This wouldn't be a good time to have to go job hunting. "Well, I need to get a few things then I guess I'll go."

"So who's your friend?"

"Kurt, Susan, Bill, this is Rasha." They all shook her hand.

"Hi," she said shyly.

"Where'd you come from?" asked Kurt.

"I though John told you." She looked embarrassed again.

"He said you were his tiger."

"Yes, I was."

"Oh come on, how could ..." He stopped for a moment. "I should talk after yesterday. Well, nice meeting you, I have to go back to work." And he quickly shuffled off.

The others weren't so quick, and a few more drifted over as we headed for my cubicle.

"What was it like being a tiger?" seemed to be the question they wanted to ask Rasha the most.

"What's it like John?" was the question I was getting.

"I couldn't even begin to explain," I told them, while Rasha tried unsuccessfully to give a little more detail herself.

It wasn't far to my desk. Once there I gathered up the stuff I needed and quickly stuffed it in my bag. I had to admit that the smells of so many different people were making me a little nervous. Maybe because they smelled nervous too.

"Hey, that's me!" Rasha blurted out surprised.

"Huh?" I turned and saw her pointing at the five by six photo I had tacked above my computer.

"Oh, yeah." I grinned, pulled if off and handed it to her. "Have to get a new one now, I guess."

"Wow, it is you isn't it?" Susan said looking at the picture then Rasha. "I can even match the stripes on your face!"

The others started to crowd around and look too. I could see Rasha was getting nervous from all the attention. So I grabbed my stuff, and grabbed her too.

"Sorry guys, we gotta go. Send me E-mail. I'll be home for the next few days. Bye."

"Brrr," Rasha put her arm around me as we walked outside. "That was a little much. It's gonna take some getting used to -- all those people, that is."

"Yeah, I'm a little nervous myself. The smells and the sounds are like a constant assault." I hugged her with my free arm. "I want to take a quick trip to the vet's, okay?"

"The vet's? Why?"

"Just a check up, I sure don't trust any 'Human' doctors with this new bod!"

Once on the road I headed straight to my veterinarian's office.

Walking in came as a rather large surprise -- to me.

"Hello! Who are you, or rather were you?" Was the first thing the receptionist said.

"John Bayellis, this is Rasha."

"Yes, and you were?" she asked again.

"I was human, she was my tiger. You know me, or rather knew me, Randell's been my vet for six years now and I've had Rasha here before."

"Okay, just a second." She turned and went through the files. "Ah, Rasha Bayellis. Should I pull Sheena's or Raj's files too?"

"No, they're okay." I looked around, the unusually empty office. The place always had a few customers. "What's up anyway? Why aren't you surprised and why's the place so empty?"

"We cancelled all normal visits after yesterday. So far twenty of our regular customers like yourself have been in with some rather interesting changes." She looked at Rasha, "But you're the first one to go the other way. Congratulations Rasha, are you two...?"

"Yes," I brumped. "She's mine alright."

"And he's mine," she brumped back at me. "Strange isn't it?"

"Not really. I'm just surprised we haven't seen more of it. Maybe some of the other cat owners will show up in the next day or two. Only three have been here so far."

"Really? Who?"

She rattled off their names, I only knew one from memory. One was now a cougarmorph, another was a lynxmorph and a third was a panthermorph -- female too.

"Watch it bub," Rasha hissed in my ear, "I know you like leopards and if I see you nosing around I just might cut you up again."

"Hmmm," I whispered back teasing. "But we male cats are notorious for having multiple females."

"I'm not ready to share yet," she nipped my cheek. "So just watch it."

We waited about ten minutes in one of the examination rooms. There weren't any chairs, which was normal of course, so we sat on the floor and waited.

"Hello John, Rasha!" Randell said as he came in. "Look at you two! Wow!" He looked us both over. "Could you strip please?"

"Oh sure, Randy," I said and removed my things.

"Hi Randy," Rasha said while quickly shedding her clothes. Then she stepped up to him and gave him a great big hug. "I've always wanted to do that!" She smiled.

He smiled back. Randell was always great with animals. Now that I was one, well partially at least, I could tell why. He smelled good. He also sounded good, and just plain felt good. I couldn't explain it more if you wanted me to.

"Thanks Rasha! Well let's have a look at the both of you."

He then spent the next hour giving us both a basic physical. He checked my puncture and tisked at Rasha for it. She tried to blush and looked embarrassed. Then he took urine and blood samples from each of us.

"I'll compare this with what I've got on file from Rasha, of course. Using that I should be able to work up a baseline. I'll need your medical records, too." He looked up at me.

"Sure, I'll give my doctor's name to your assistant. I'm sure he'll be interested in helping out."

"Fine, with all the calls I've made since yesterday I don't expect any problems."

"So what can you tell us?" Rasha asked.

"It would seem that you have a combination of both human and tiger anatomy. But combined beneficially. On the outside you're mostly tiger, with human form. On the inside you're about split. Musculature is more animal than human, your digestive system has the stronger acids and tolerances of the tiger. But it appears you can metabolize vegetable matter pretty much as a human. Just not as efficiently. So it would still be better for you to stick to more of a meat diet to get the amino acids you need.

"The parts which are most human about you are your heads; they are more human than tiger, even if they look otherwise. Your hands, feet, and your sexual characteristics are more human too. Rasha now has two breasts instead of six, and both of your genitals are more of human proportions. Also I don't think Rasha's going to cycle like a tiger anymore, but I suspect she's still going to be an induced ovulator."

"What does that mean?" she asked, looking at me as I gave a sigh of relief.

"That you won't go into heat and spend a week giving me no rest at all."

"What's so bad about that?" She grinned, "sounds like fun if you ask me!" Then she leered at me.

"I didn't say she wouldn't go into heat, John," Randell said with a chuckle. "Only time will tell on that. But I think her cycles will be more regular and not dependent on breeding."

"Oh well," I sighed. "I just hope I don't go ballistic when she does."

"Anyway, your tails seem to be the same as a tiger's. I'm not exactly sure how you're managing to talk; your muzzle's are more flexible and a little shorter then a regular tiger's would be. From the throaty sounds of your voices I suspect some interesting changes to your vocal cords. I don't see any reason to worry about it though.

"Oh, and if I had to pick, I'd say you're both about sixteen years old on a human scale, and in perfect health."

"Could we get something that says I'm about twenty one?" Rasha asked.

"Why?"

"Well, I think I'm going to need some kind of I.D., and I don't want to be considered a child."

"Good point," I added.

"Sure, mentally you're old enough. I don't know what good it will do you though, I'm only a vet. I think a doctor will have to handle this."

"We'll see." We said together then looked at each other and grinned.

We left after that. I could smell some pretty interesting people, one was a dog of some sort, Rasha said a doberman. The other was a rabbit. I could understand why they didn't want us to run into one another. The rabbit made our mouths water.

So we stopped at a drive-through and got a dozen burgers. The girl at the window flipped when she saw us, but we left before anything could develop.

Next stop was the Sheriff's office.

"Why there?"

"I don't want to get shot by some deputy. That's all."

"I hadn’t thought about that, hon!" she sighed, "I wonder how long it will take for the world to adjust to us."

"Don’t you mean 'for us to adjust’?"

"Hell no!" She grinned, "I’m not changing again!"

I laughed with her and tried not to notice the looks we got as we walked in.

That also went fairly quick. They went to great pains to act like it was no big deal and even gave Rasha an official ID. I though it was because I had been a contributor to the Sheriff's last re-election campaign. Rasha had other ideas.

"You smell that in there?" she giggled as we drove off.

"What, the dogs? They have a canine unit here, that's all."

"That wasn't a dog, hon, that was a wolf!"  She grinned and licked my ear.

"Hey, watch it, I'm driving!" I protested weakly. "So it was a wolf, how do you know that anyway?"

"I met your friend's wolf last year remember? It means that somebody at the Sheriff's office has changed, too! I wonder if this many people have changed all over the world?"

"Good question, Hon, good question."

The next couple of days, we stayed home and kept a low profile. I took care of some tasks around the farm I'd been putting off. Rasha dug out one of my old monitors -- Seems she knew all of my hiding places!-- and hooked it up to the VCR to watch the news. I did go trade in the car early one morning and got a late model Mercury Cougar.

I couldn't resist, I admit. Also I wanted something with a big engine and dark glass.

"Well here's how it looks Hon." We were sitting around Sunday evening thinking about doing a little shopping early the next day and Rasha was summing up the news. "Throughout most of the country about two percent of the population has undergone some kind of change.

"Here in
Oregon
, it seems to have gone a little higher than that, maybe four percent. But several other rural areas seem to have had the same rates, so there's nothing really unusual about it. Magic is a fact of life now, and I for
one am
going to start practicing!"