Meteorologist

  discussion of accidental self-imposed conditioning (ie maniputing hormones/dopamine to influence behaviour)

  [colpse]

  "Mmph,” I moaned, smming my hips down onto my right hand from above the bed.

  My free hand desperately wanted to scratch and pinch the furry ears sticking out of the top of my head, but my left arm was pinned by my face to my sheets and even a moment of hesitation would mean slowing the wave of pleasure flowing through me.

  Above my writhing hips was my tail, the thin furry appendage swirling in the cool air above not yet tainted by my sweaty warmth, jerking and twisting to express my growing tension.

  Even if I could get myself to come, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I was in heat, and the only way that was going to be fixed was if my wife came home and fucked me into submission, putting a kid inside me in the process.

  I whimpered – or was it a mewl? – as my pleasure began to crest, euphoria filling me as I finally realised that–

  “Greg!” Luna yelled, shaking my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Wha–” I groaned, spinning onto my back and blinking at my roommate. The sheets surrounding me were pstered to my skin by my sweat, and everything had twisted around itself, me, and my clothes. I began thrashing, trying to get out of the muggy mess.

  Luna helped me, standing by my side of the bed with a concerned expression. Once I’d been freed, she repeated herself, “Are you okay?”

  I huffed hot breaths at the ceiling, trying to pce myself in space and time. It was dark and I was – I brushed my hand up my chest and cupped my chin, running my fingers over my spiky stubble – a human man.

  I turned my attention to Luna, looking for any sign that she knew what I’d been dreaming about. Seeing only concern, I finally responded, “Bad dream…”

  She stared for a moment, waiting, before rexing and walking back to her side of the bed. “Must’ve been one hell of a nightmare. Let me know if you want to talk about it.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m good.” I paused for a moment. “Actually, I think I’m going to go grab some water and sleep on the couch, sorry for waking you up.”

  “No problem,” she murmured, almost asleep again.

  I tiptoed across the room, puffing quick, shallow breaths as quietly as I could. Before heading to the couch and my water, however, I took a quick detour to the bathroom, wincing and squinting when I turned on the lights.

  I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths, feeling my body shift around me as I counted down from three. On ‘one’ I opened my eyes, and was greeted by…

  Sarah was already a caricature, a gay man’s idea of what an supernaturally attractive harlot would look like: one part succubus, one part siren, one part dryad… etc. Catgirls, at least when it came to anime culture, were their own caricature, often used as a submissive-in-a-gross-way technically-not-a-sex-sve for straight men.

  So, what happened when you spped these two facsimiles of people together without thought?

  Well, I was a sex object. I looked into the mirror, examining the curves of my body, the twitching ginger ears atop my head, the tail wrapping itself around my thigh – what did it mean that every part of my body had been manufactured with the context of sex and sex appeal in mind?

  Did I have some deeply rooted misogyny that needed fixing?

  My own sceptical, light-blue eyes stared back at me, unconvinced. I probably had at least a little deep-rooted misogyny somewhere inside me, but at the same time, I had no delusions that Sarah was a real woman or had any bearing on real women, and even if my internal misogyny was part of the expnation for what was going on, it didn’t expin why I was having dreams as Sarah, or why the discomfort of this body was fading.

  It could just be a sex thing, a new sick fetish that I’d inadvertently awakened and now I was stuck chasing highs until my rational mind intervened?

  But why then was I thinking about women so often? Why was Sarah – in my dream – waiting for her wife to get home?

  Could my shapeshifting alter my brain, change something as fundamental as my sexuality?

  Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I thought no. While it may be the case that I could affect the hormones that influenced my decision making, I had no reason to think that my mind was altered while I was shapeshifted – even now, I was having a rational continuation of the thoughts I’d had as Greg.

  But the hormones… Now that was something interesting. How far could conditioning and hormones go towards mimicking attraction and pleasure, especially if the target was unaware? Could I have been accidentally filling my brain with horny chemicals whenever I thought about women as Sarah? Would that work to mimic bisexuality? What was even the difference between that and true sexual attraction?

  Did I even care, if it brought me pleasure without hurting anyone?

  I shut off the lights and wandered out to the kitchen, filling up a gss of water and watching Snuffles sleep on her little round bed.

  So, I might be brainwashing myself into being a bisexual woman… But on the other hand, it’s really fun?

  —

  I awoke to a thump from the bedroom, followed a moment ter by the bathroom door closing. A minute ter, the shower turned on, and my mind had finally caught up with where I was.

  I gnced down at my body, jolting when I realised I’d never changed back the previous night.

  If Luna had come out here before going to the bathroom…

  Well, it honestly would probably be more awkward than bad – Luna of all people wouldn't hate me for shapeshifting into a girly body – but I’d have to expin everything that'd been going on, which might include what I was doing for work, which… there was no way I was going to admit that, so it was a good thing I didn't have to.

  Even if I didn’t tell her what I was doing for work myself, eventually just seeing Sarah might be enough for Luna to recognise me, given the non-zero chance there was of her watching a video of mine when they went up. I had no delusions that Luna watched every lesbian porn video ever made, but a local, trans-centric studio? The chance was there that she was already a fan of my pce of work.

  A shiver went down my body, although I wasn’t sure if it was from the flimsy bnket I’d been sleeping under not being enough to keep me warm or the thoughts I’d just been having. Regardless, I wasn’t ready to examine the possibility that I wanted Luna to see my work, even if I was extremely uncomfortable with her knowing I was Sarah.

  By the time Luna came out of the bathroom, I’d fried up a couple of eggs and finally switched my body back.

  She stopped for a second upon entering the room, almost tripping over herself in her bck pencil skirt. “Oh, morning Greg. Is that…?” She looked at the eggs.

  “Yeah, I wanted to say sorry for waking you up st night, so if you’re hungry…” I said, rubbing my hand on the back of my head.

  She nodded, taking careful steps as she grabbed the pte that had a slice of cheese on the egg and sat down at the table. “Thank you, you didn’t have to do that. Did you end up sleeping okay?” she asked, gncing at me with concern before grabbing a corner of her egg and taking a bite out of it, not bothering with getting a fork.

  I shook my head, sitting across from her with my own pte. “I wanted to,” I said, squirting ketchup all over my egg. “And yeah, I got back to sleep pretty quick – no idea what that was about.”

  She stared at me for a moment, but I couldn’t tell if her deep gaze was going inside me or past me.

  “Alright,” she finally said.

  We ate the rest of our meal in comfortable silence, her finishing quickly and grabbing my pte as soon as I was done, washing them both in the sink before going back to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  Once it was finally time for her to go to work, she stopped at the door, shoes already on. “You said I could just ask for a hug whenever, right…?”

  I nodded, an intrusive thought floating by: ‘Luna sure is pretty…’

  She spread her arms out wide, beckoning me in and wrapping around me when I stepped forwards. I instinctually kept our chests apart, going for a loose, almost familial hug, but her arms squeezed, pulling me in for something more intimate. Before I could decide how I felt about it, however, she let go, taking a step back and giving me a shy wave before leaving.

  I stood in the entryway for another minute, mind tracing back to the beginning of the morning, wondering if I’d ever actually woken up.

  —

  For the rest of the morning, I was holed up in bed, recreating the dream I’d had the night before – minus the wife about to come home of course. It turned out that it felt even better in reality than in my imagination, and once I started pinching and scratching my fuzzy ears, wanton moans began spilling out of my open mouth. It felt like a bit of a waste, given that I wasn’t recording, but I was too focused on myself to bother with setting up my equipment.

  I also switched from ‘cat’ to ‘fox’, liking the longer, pointier ears, and the fluffier tail. I’d probably find it annoying in the summer, but for now, the floof won easily in terms of fun factor, and even after I’d fingered myself to my fourth orgasm of the day and finally colpsed, I stayed in the body, only using my powers to tidy myself before moving on to undry.

  “I really need to stop getting the sheets wet,” I grumbled, heaving them into the communal washer for the third time this week, more irritated that I’d had to get rid of my ears and tail temporarily while I walked down the hall than I was about doing undry five times a week.

  I also looked through my clothes, searching for something that Sarah could wear to go shopping, because if I was going to be using the body to do anything besides record at home, I needed some casual clothes – and even recording sometimes required starting clothed.

  I couldn’t wear my jeans, because of the length and the narrowness of the waistband, and I didn’t like the way my boxy shorts looked on Sarah, not to mention that putting them on would mean I had to get rid of my tail – yes, I knew I would have to get rid of it before going outside anyways, but let me have my fun.

  Anyways, I tore through my wardrobe for a while, getting more and more frustrated, before finally giving up and grabbing one of Luna’s skirts – a short white one with pleats and a stretchy waistband. I pulled it up to my waist, tucking in a bck shirt with the words ‘love is love’ in rainbow text and throwing a pair of Luna’s thigh-high bck socks on my legs for warmth. I ended up grabbing a pair of her shoes – a pair of converse with the colours of the lesbian fg spttered across the white canvas in bold smears – and my own backpack to carry my stuff, since I didn’t have pockets.

  Right before leaving, I gnced down at myself, remembering something important I needed to take care of.

  Would be really embarrassing if I went outside like this, forgetting to put on a bra…

  Another raid of Luna’s drawers sufficed, and after getting re-dressed, I was ready to go.

  Leaving my apartment, I felt a bit guilty about borrowing Luna’s clothes. I knew that if I asked, she would be happy to share, but doing it behind her back didn’t feel great. Thankfully, after today, I could at least get enough clothes for myself to go out again, if not enough to st forever.

  Once I made it out onto the street, I remembered what I looked like, and that strangers would see me. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining the stares I was getting or not, but after a woman getting into her car on the side of the street stopped and stared at me as I walked by, not averting her gaze even as I gred back angrily, I knew something was up.

  My ears fttened against my head, embarrassment flooding me as I noticed more and more people taking long looks at me – like jeez, I know I made Sarah hot, but chill out…

  It wasn’t until I sat down on the subway – or tried to sit down – that I figured out why everyone was so interested in me.

  “Ah!” I yelped as my weight pinched my tail against the seat. The few gazes from passengers that weren't already on me darted to my cry, watching as I stared at the bench I’d tried to sit on, first looking for whatever pin I’d sat on, before my mind started to piece together my mistake.

  Oh no.

  I curled my fluffy fox tail around my side and sat down again, crimson face fixed on the floor as my cheeks threatened to steam.

  Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

  I resisted the urge to shift, knowing that letting people know I was a shapeshifter was a greater danger than people thinking I was a weirdo fox-girl. Instead, I took a few deep breaths, pulled out my phone, and snapped a picture of my embarrassed smile, pnning on posting it to my account ter to advertise for the inevitable video I’d make featuring the ears and tail.

  At least people won’t trace Sarah back to my real identity. Besides, who cares if some girl wants to go shopping wearing cospy, even if it looks oddly realistic…

  I finally gathered the courage to look around, checking to see if anyone was still staring. Only one person was, an older man who held my stare for a moment before he grew a sense of shame and turned away. I sighed, one hand brushing through my orange tail to the white tip.

  How stressful…

  —

  I swayed my hips back and forth in front of the mirror, trying to pin down what I didn’t like about the skirt I was wearing. It was short and leather, and seemed like it should be really cool, like it would be really cool on someone else, but I just wasn’t vibing with it. I threw it – after carefully reattaching it to the hanger – onto the growing pile of rejects. I didn’t yet have a pile for things I wanted to buy.

  Really I just wanted a couple of basics, the most generic and versatile options – a pin white top, a dark coloured skirt – but the skirts were cheap looking or didn’t feel right, and the tops were see-through, uncomfortable, or stretched over my bust in an unfttering way. It felt like I was in a prank store where everything had a little trick hidden in it to make it unwearable, whereas other women – real women – had some secret other store they shopped from where everything was perfect and cool and effortlessly pretty.

  And that wasn’t even mentioning the articles of clothing I didn’t understand. What use does anyone have for a semi-transparent olive shawl? Surely that’s a piece so niche as to be relegated to a costume store, right?

  But no, there it was, right across from the white blouses with less opacity than scotch tape and beside the dress with inexplicable holes around the waist.

  I could see, in the photos the store had scattered around, that if you had a team of stylists and were a literal model, you could make these things look good – although even then sometimes there were misses – but even as a shapeshifter, I could not find a single set of garments to match my body.

  The most frustrating thing was that I’d thought I looked okay after just throwing something together out of Luna’s closet. But after every round of failures, my ears would twitch with frustration and my original outfit would somehow look and feel that much worse.

  And, adding to my frustration, was the way the store workers stared at me. I didn’t want to shift back, never having found a opportunity that would've completely hidden my powers, and my obvious ck of belonging as well as my strange body were painting me as an outsider, meaning every turn through the aisles ran the chance of running into another polo-wearing, dead-eyed person looking at me like I was the most interesting thing to ever happen in a department store.

  And it wasn’t like I didn’t want to show off! Sarah loved attention, loved the feeling of posting one of her videos and watching as the views slowly rose, enjoying the feeling that people were studying every one of my movements. But what, then, was the difference between then and now?

  Was it the fact that on camera I was performing, whereas now I was just existing? Was it the ck of control? The inability to edit things out or decide not to post?

  I really didn’t know. All I knew was that every time I caught a store attendant watching me, it made me curl in on myself further and further.

  After I piled one st round of clothes, this one even more haphazardly selected than the rest, into my arms and scurried back to the privacy of the changing rooms, I stared into the mirror, wondering. Maybe these stores expect you to be a shapeshifter, and you’re supposed to change your body to fit the garment, not choose the garment to fit your body…

  I ughed at the thought, pulling the first thing off of my pile. It was another blouse, this one dark red – I’d already given up on trying to match the white on the tip of my tail and the inside of my ears – but even without putting it on, I could see that I’d chosen a few sizes too small.

  A sigh escaped me. Whatever, I don’t even need a top that badly – I can just tuck in my old shirts or something…

  Next up was yet another skirt. I’d been choosing them over shorts or pants because it seemed like what Sarah would prefer, and it would be more versatile, assuming I was interested in keeping the tail around for now, at least some of the time; it wasn’t like I’d be going in to work with a tail.

  At this point I was resigned to giving up, and either accepting I wasn’t capable of even pretending to be a girl, or somehow finding someone to take me shopping. Another sigh escaped me. If only there was someone…

  I held up the skirt in front of me. Like many of the others I’d tried, it was short – Sarah thought the idea of not showing off her legs was criminal – and pleated, but this one differed in being symmetrical, there not being any unnecessary accessories or slits that I didn’t know how to handle, and in the fact that it was dark green.

  I’d picked it up haphazardly – it wasn’t like I particurly liked the colour green – but pulling it up, I felt a strange sense of hope. I looked into the mirror, tracing up the long socks on my legs and up past the skirt to my bck shirt. It wasn’t perfect – it felt like the shirt and socks didn’t really go together with the green – but even before I’d had a chance to decide how I felt, I saw the smile splitting my face and knew I’d finally found something.

  The rest of my shopping was completed in a rush, grabbing a pack of sports bras and panties and another of tights before going up to the register with my meagre haul, given how long I’d spent in the store.

  The cashier was just as bored looking as her coworkers, absent-mindedly scanning my items with her gaze fixed downwards, but she was set apart from the others by her appearance. I watched, studying her for clues as to how she’d accomplished being so strikingly pretty in the cklustre uniform – what makeup techniques had she used? What witchcraft was hidden in the little crescent moons hanging from her ears?

  Mel – going off of her name tag – was taller and broader than I was, but the way she carried herself was self-assuredly feminine in a way that I could never hope to match. I watched as her carefully trimmed bck nails pinched each of my items with a delicate motion, swung it across her confident posture, and pced it on the other side. As she repeated the action, I tried to get a glimpse at her eyes past her curly, chin-length hair. I could see that her eyes – much like her hair – were dark, but I couldn’t make out the exact shape of her eyeliner or eyeshadow until she finally looked up at me.

  One of us gasped – maybe both. I was still staring into her eyes, now seeing the beautiful wings going outwards on her face, the thick bck eyeliner topped by a thin silver line, with sparkling brown behind that. The rest of her face was pretty, sure, but there was very little makeup there, making her eyes stand out. I couldn’t help but think that I would’ve never had the confidence to do something so bold – the ‘makeup’ I’d given Sarah had always been minimal, conventional, and, hopefully, invisible – but it worked on Mel, making my heart pound with the possibilities

  “Oh my goddess,” she let out, still returning my stare.

  I hesitated in responding, conflicting feelings bubbling up. What would it be like to interact with strangers – outside of work – in this body? What was it about her stare that was so terrifying and electric all at once?

  My hesitation ended when I remembered the character I was supposed to be pying; Sarah would be friendly and approachable – and maybe a bit flirty.

  I gnced around performatively, knowing there was no one else around. “Who, me?” I finally said.

  Mel blushed, gncing down and shuffling in pce.

  I didn’t give her a chance to regather herself, going straight for the kill. “There must be something those beautiful eyes can see that mine can’t,” I mented, leaning over the counter slightly and continuing in a conspiratorial whisper, “Can you see into the future with your magic eyes? How will the date I’m about to ask you on go for us?”

  Mel gasped again, and this time I knew– Sarah knew that she needed to keep hearing that sound.

  She looked up, smiling with red cheeks, “But, you… I…” her finger pointed at each of us in turn.

  I blinked, betedly remembering that straight women existed. “Oh, I’m bi, by the way,” I stammered, quickly losing the confidence I’d pretended to have, “If you’re like straight or whatever…”

  “No! That’s not… I’d love to,” she finished, blinking and straightening when she remembered where we were. She tapped at the buttons on the cash register and the card reader in front of me fshed with text.

  “Why don’t you let me borrow a pen,” I said, inserting my card and hoping she didn’t look at the name it had, “and I’ll scribble my info down for you?”

  She nodded energetically and began her search, head whipping around like she was afraid if she took too long I would change my mind. When she finally found a pen in the back of one of the cubbies under the counter, she handed it to me along with my receipt.

  I scribbled on the paper and tore off a piece, handing it back to her. “Text me,” I told her, smiling as I picked up my purchases.

  Mel stared down at the note with a goofy smile on her face, gncing up and waving at me as I walked away.

  It was only once I’d left and I felt the tail excitedly waving behind my back, that I remembered that I wasn’t just Sarah right then, but fox-girl Sarah. Huh.

  Did I just get a date with a woman… as a woman? What is going on with me?

  I couldn’t find the answers, even after searching for them all the way home.