6. Who Goes There?

Nothing. I shut the fridge. Damnation.

I'd woken up ravenously hungry, for some reason; it took three bagels and copious quantities of schmear just to stave it off enough for me to get through the morning. Now it was lunchtime, and I was only just realizing that the fridge was completely devoid of animal protein. I'd meant to make a grocery run on Sunday, after working on the Bug, but then that whole business with the neighbors'd driven me indoors, and…well, I hadn't left the house all week.

It wasn't like I was afraid – I knew there was no way they were still infectious – but something within me just wasn't ready for that…wasn't prepared to see them as they now were, and remember them as they had been. I didn't really know why; it wasn't like I was attached to them, we hardly interacted beyond basic neighborly greetings and chit-chat about the weather…but for some reason, I just couldn't do it, and so I'd remained holed up inside…

…and now I had nothing to eat. Okay, that wasn't actually true; I had ramen, I had more bagels, I could make a PBJ…but I wanted meat, damn it, and currently I didn't have so much as an egg to add to the ramen. Hell, I was hungry enough that I was starting to get light-headed…no, not quite. I felt off somehow, but not like I was starving. I couldn't quite put my finger on it…

With a shrug of resignation, I made a bowl of ramen and brought it back to my desk; but I couldn't make myself finish it. It was all wrong, like somehow it was exactly calculated to tantalize someone else's tastebuds and not mine. Granted, instant ramen isn't haute cuisine in any case, and this was the ultra-cheap kind that wasn't shy about piling on the MSG, but I'd been fine with it before; had I just gotten a bad packet?

It was funny, too, that it smelled so strongly, much more than usual. I dumped it down the sink and had another bagel instead; it didn't sate my craving for animal flesh, but it was filling, at least. I thought idly about trying them with lox; that'd always seemed weird to me, but maybe there was something to it…?

The rest of my break was spent in restless fidgeting, as I failed to focus on one activity after the next. It was strange, I reflected, as I picked around randomly on the guitar, that I was so funny in the head; aside from that and the cravings, I felt like the proverbial million bucks. A twitchy, distractable million bucks, but still. That was also a little weird; I rarely felt this good, even on good days. Normally I'd still be waking up about now, but my whole body felt like a coiled spring, thrumming with potential energy. What was I doing cooped up in here? Some unfamiliar part of me wanted to explode out the door, run down the street, and…and…

…and then I was distracted; what was that I'd just plucked out? Some quietly trilling figure that I knew from somewhere…that was it, it was the intro to an old Simon & Garfunkel number, but I couldn't remember the title. Was I thinking of it earlier, or had I just stumbled onto it out of nowhere? I wasn't sure…

Suddenly, the timer on my phone went off, and I almost jumped. Right, that was the end of my break; it took me a moment to de-scramble my thoughts enough to remember what came next. It was Thursday afternoon, which meant the weekly review meeting, and I hadn't showered and was still in my pajamas; I'd left the camera off during the morning stand-up, since Bryce'd called in voice-only from the road on the way into Rancho,^° but he'd definitely say something now.

^° (Every couple months he insisted on driving over the pass to visit our office, under the impression that this helped with team-building, and he was apparently going to keep doing so even though none of us were in the office. It contributed nothing at all to our actual work, but at least the stand-up tended to run shorter.)

Still restless and energetic, I put on coffee, went to the bathroom, shucked off my pajamas, and threw on one of my assorted "business casual" shirts and a pair of slacks. God, my hair was a total snarl; I sat down on the toilet and spent the next few minutes combing out tangles until it was reasonably straight again, but I kept getting distracted by the way my bangs dangled into my field of vision…

I was just finishing when I noticed the toilet-paper roll. Heh, I thought with a grin, that's dangly, too. I batted gently at it, unrolling it a bit. Heheh. Then a bit more. Heh. Wait, if I used both hands… Heheheh, heheh, heh! Pretty soon the whole thing was unravelling all over the—

—the meeting! God…! I sprang up, whipped out my phone, and glanced at the clock. Okay, thankfully, I still had a few minutes. I took a quick glance in the mirror, licked the back of my hand, ran it through my hair – there, that looked about right – and went to the kitchen to grab coffee before we started. It smelled stronger than usual, too; was this a fresh can? I couldn't remember. It was nice, anyway; I got lost in the aroma for a bit, but my stomach was grumbling again, and I still had no…

…no, wait, I did have meat, it just wasn't in the fridge! I flung the pantry door open; yes, I still had a couple cans of tuna. I fished out the can opener, popped the lid…

Even processed and preserved, the pungent smell of fish hit me like a ton of bricks. My stomach rumbled again, and it was all I could do to keep my wits about me long enough to drain it and get back to my desk, tuna and coffee in hand. I dropped into the meeting, hit the mute button, and began shoveling bits of canned fish into my mouth with abandon. Yes – this was what I was after…!

I wasn't normally a seafood freak – tuna casserole was just childhood comfort food that was also dead simple to make – but this hit the spot to such a degree that I found myself thinking about other kinds of fish I'd had over the years, and to my surprise I started drooling a bit, even as I ate. Something wasn't quite right, though; none of the smells I remembered were as potent as what was in front of me right now. It was like they'd been recorded with a metaphorical finger over the lens; I'd have to revisit them…

I finished the whole can before my attention drifted back to what was going on around me. "—getting to a critical point," Bryce was saying, as I licked my fingers. "We've got servers that are coming up on eight months overdue for a refresh, and we've got to figure out how to get those scheduled. Now, they're supposed to have test kits for the virus available by the end of the quarter, and if we can arrange to have one of our techs and a client representative meet on-site after testing negative…"

I growled audibly; thankfully, I was still muted. Were we still on about this? Our official policy was that servers should be replaced when the warranty expired, but I knew both of the machines he was talking about, and neither really needed it. CBDA's Exchange server was a bit long in the tooth, but still running fine, and Tate-Lyman's file server was only a few years old. The RAIDs were healthy, and we had some older spares we could swap in, in a pinch. But, well, that was "best practices" for—

Hey, is that a bird? Distracted by a brief flash of color in the corner of my eye, I glanced outside. Yes, there it was; a scrub jay was nosing around in the bushes outside, in the little patch of "green space" between my bedroom window and the pavement. I watched it, mesmerized, for a long moment; I knew we had a bunch of different species in the area, but I'd never paid close attention before. We must be coming into the spring rainy season, too; I wondered when I'd see a—

"—inson? Mr. Robinson? …Kit? You with us?"

I jumped. "Mya! Uh, I, uh—" I blinked and shook my head; something there'd seemed out of place, but I couldn't think of what. "Uh, sorry," I said, unmuting myself, "got a little distrrracted…" Well now I felt like a dolt; why was I so addled today, if I felt so good otherwise…? I hadn't even touched my coffee, I realized; maybe I was just going through caffeine withdrawal. I took a long sip, let it settle, then frowned; it was missing something.

"Uh, just a sec," I said, getting up to hit the kitchen while my coworkers looked on in confusion. I returned with the carton of half-and-half and added a generous splash to my mug, watching intently as it bloomed up towards the surface. Was that enough? Maybe just a little more…a liiittle more…

"Uh, Kit?" Giles snickered. "D'you normally take coffee with your cream…?"

I snapped back to reality with a start, and nearly sloshed the half-and-half right out of the carton; I glanced down to find that I'd filled the cup almost to the brim. The coffee was almost white, and I couldn't even pick it up without spilling; I hunched over it and carefully sipped it down. Whole cream, I realized, that's what I need; I'd have to get some when I made a grocery run this afternoon.

There was a brief, awkward silence before Bryce resumed his gripe, satisfied that we were all paying attention.^° I felt a bit embarrassed; what was with me today…? But the cream tasted so good, even diluted, and I was still savoring the fish; maybe I could go for the other can after I finished my coffee…

^° (We weren't.)

Then my IM client pinged.

Michael: You okay, man?
Michael: You seem kinda out of it.

I considered that for a moment. Was I okay? I felt…strangely nice. Nicely strange? The words tumbled around in my brain for a bit as I tried to break them into components I could re-order so as to properly reflect the state of my mind. I felt abnormally good, and it made me want to run outside and do other things I normally wouldn't. Sensations I was normally neutral on were suddenly intoxicating, and stuff I'd been fine with tasted bad. Things I'd never paid attention to before were completely absorbing, but I couldn't focus on the basic daily grind. It was all so strange…

…so strange that, honestly, it was a little unsettling. I did feel good, but a little nagging voice in the back of my mind reminded me that this was all very Not Normal; but it was getting quieter, muffled by a growing pleasant haze that seemed to be filling my whole brain…

---

It was just as well that the meeting ran for a typical minor eternity, because I hardly got a thing done for the remainder of my shift. I simply couldn't stay focused on work; my brain was too fogged, and I was so twitchy and addled that it was a wonder I didn't just bolt. Maybe adding caffeine to…whatever this was had been a mistake? But I felt so nice, and there was that wonderful energy coiled up inside of me, thrumming in my chest…

I didn't understand it, but I'd stopped worrying about that; there were so many other things to catch my attention, starting with the smells. Familiar odors had become heady aromas, telling me things I never knew could be discerned by scent before. It was like stepping out of the farmhouse and into Oz; I was smelling in three-strip Technicolor. God, imagine what it must be like outside…!

That was right, I needed to go out, didn't I? I'd demolished the other can of tuna already, I wanted cream, and I just…needed contact. I'd been isolated for so long…much longer than the month and a half the lockdown had dragged on for now. When was the last time I'd had real, honest-to-God human contact with anyone? I struggled to articulate it to myself, through the mental haze. I wanted…I wanted…

…I wanted someone to scratch me behind the ears. I wanted to nuzzle up against them and rub my head all over them until they smelled like me. I wanted us to be friends so we could groom each other. I wanted them to feel as nice as I felt right now. I…I wanted to help them be like me. And none of that seemed weird and all of it was totally normal – healthy, even! – no matter what the little voice said. If they were like me, they could accept me…

I had enough presence of mind to grab my keys and wallet. Part of me did want to just burst out the door and bound down the street – I had the energy for it – but it'd be so much easier to find people, to find meat, if I took the car instead; I couldn't focus on boring stuff, but I was sure I could drive just fine. I went out and quietly locked the door behind me. The smells were indescribable; I didn't even know what half of these scents were. How had I never noticed them before…?

It took me a moment just to come to my senses. The Indian guy who ran the corner store, I thought to myself, when I'd recovered. Older fellow, very friendly, kept a deli counter with lots of interesting meat. Did he stock fish? I couldn't remember. I'd get meat there, and then maybe…maybe I could get him to—

I was just about to hop in the Bug when Nicole caught me on her way back from the dumpster. "Well, look who it is!" she called, moseying on over. She was an olfactory smörgåsbord, carrying her own scent (a strange one, cat and yet not-cat,) each of her cats', various essential oils, and more around with her, suffusing her fur. "I wonderrred when nyew'd show your face again. What brrrings you back outside?"

I paused for a moment, reeling from the smell of her, then looked her in the eye. "I ran out of tunya fish."

She stopped and stared at me; her tail puffed out just a little. She smelled different, too; suddenly she was giving off vibes of serious concern. I wondered what was the matter; was it something I said? "You okay, man?" she said, her tone of voice as worried as her scent. "Nyew seem kinda out of it."

I was a little confused; why would she think that? I felt fine, didn't I? Sure, it was a little hard to focus right now, but that was only because I was surrounded by so many interesting new stimuli, and full of that pleasant energy that wanted to go out and do things instead of holing up inside all day. It wasn't like there was something wrong with me…

I regarded her warily, and I wasn't sure why. Maybe if I could show her that I felt fine, she'd let me go? I felt the energy thrumming in my chest again, and to my surprise I saw her ears twitch and re-orient towards me. Haha, wow, was it audible? I hadn't realized…!

She thought for a moment before speaking. "Hey, listen, Kit," she said. "You wannya come overrr to my place? I think it'd be good for you to hang out with me and the kitties for a while. Whaddya say?"

Even through the fog, I could tell that something wasn't right here. She wasn't a very good liar; she still smelled worried, and while she was smiling with her mouth, eyes, and tone, her ears and tail told a different story. I didn't understand why she'd prevaricate; everything was fine here. We were both fine. Was she up to something? Did she think I was…?

"I, uh…dunniaow," I said, trying to pull my thoughts together long enough to come up with a plausible alibi. "I've gotta pick up groceries, and, uh, I wanted…" I trailed off; it'd be weird to admit that I just wanted personal attention, wouldn't it? And then she'd get all suspicious…

Her smell got more nervous, and I saw her whiskers twitch and her ears go back slightly. "Nyo, listen," she said hurriedly, moving around so that she was right next to the car door with me, "you, uh…well, gonnya be honest, your hairrr's kind of a mess. We could get it all grrroomed out nice…?" She paused, seemingly waiting for a reaction: and I had to admit, that did sound kind of pleasant. Wasn't that what I'd wanted anyway…?

But something in my head said it'd be even nicer with other people, and I was still wary of her mixed messages. She must've read it in my face – or did I smell as uneasy as she did? I couldn't tell – because she nodded to herself, sighed, and continued. "And, well…I was gonnya make fish tonight."

"…Fish?" My ears perked at that, metaphorically, but my brain felt funny – like there should've been more of a physical response from them, and it didn't understand why there wasn't. I found myself strangely tantalized, but that something in my head was trying to remind me that I could get fish at the corner store, or from the meat counter at Safeway, or anywhere else I could interact with—

She took a deep breath. "Grrrilled tilapia in crrream sauce."

Any objections were obliterated as I processed that. To be honest, I couldn't remember if I'd even had tilapia, let alone what it tasted like, but the smells of grilled meat danced through my mind as I tried to extrapolate. If the muted scents in my memories were that good, then the real thing must…must…!

She nodded to herself again. "C'mon," she said with a fangy grin, extending a paw-hand to me. I didn't even say "okay;" it hardly seemed necessary. I simply took it – marvelling through the brain-fog at how strange it was to feel something so like a human hand, but covered in soft fur, lined with thick, squishy pads of bare skin, and tipped with velveted claws – and she led me into her apartment.

It wasn't the first time I'd been over to Nicole's, but it was like I'd walked into a whole other-side to the place that I'd never known about. I could discern so many individuals; Nicole and each of her four cats (were there traces left of the ill-fated number five, or was I imagining that?) plus a man and a boy; a woman and a girl who smelled suspiciously like them, but had that cat-yet-not scent; traces of deliverymen, tinged with carboard and packing tape; a dead bird the cats must've brought in…

Something stirred in the corner of my vision. I whirled around to find one of the cats – a sleek blue-grey tabby, female by the scent – regarding me warily, as if she couldn't figure out what to make of me. I bent down and extended my hand, thinking that it'd be kinda nice if we got to know each other well enough that we could do that thing where a cat will try to groom you once they're done with themselves, but she drew up against the wall and hissed at me.

"Snickerrrs!" Nicole scolded, with just a hint of a hiss herself. "You be nice. Sorrry," she added to me, "they're not used to dealing with…um, people in your situation, yet. I kinda frrreaked them out that firrrst coupla days."

I frowned, wondering what she meant by that, but it was hard to stay focused on it through the pleasant haze; plus, it was more interesting to think about how I could connect Snickers here with one of the scents I'd noticed on Nicole outside, and still more when I'd entered the apartment. In fact, I realized that I'd smelled her coming before I'd even glimpsed her.

Snickers slunk around me and slipped beneath the couch, eyeing me suspiciously from under it. Meanwhile, the other cats had assembled from elsewhere in the apartment to see what all the fuss was about, staking out their own vantage points at a safe distance with that typical feline air of affected-indifference-definitely-not- masking-curiosity. I didn't recall them showing much interest in me at all when I'd visited previously; I felt uncomfortably like I'd become some kind of spectacle to them, but I wasn't sure why.

"Mya, Kit?" Nicole said, as she locked the door behind us. Snickers darted out from under the couch and hid behind her leg. "What's your worrrk numberrr?"

Work? I frowned. I thought there was gonna be…y'know, grooming and fish…! "What forrr?" I said, the words coming out a little funny. Was there something the matter with my tongue? I ran it over my teeth; no, it felt normal…

"I was gonnya call you in sick." She twitched one ear back and glanced down at her skirt, which the cat was clawing at. "Patience, Snickerrrs."

"…I feel fine," I said, confused. More than fine, in fact; why would she think I was sick?

"Yeah, I know," she said, which puzzled me all the more. "Shouldn't be for long, anyaway; just wannya make surrre you're coverrred." She motioned to the couch. "Herrre, lemme see your phone; nyew can make yourself at home."

I was still confused, but somehow I didn't feel it was worth arguing over; I handed my phone over and settled in on the couch, wondering when we'd get to the fish. It was interesting to note that I could make out Nicole's old scent on it, but not so much her new scent; probably she was still working out how to get comfortable on furniture designed for people without tails. Was the difference between them what "human" smelled like…?

She went into the other room and shut the door; I heard her strike up a conversation with someone at the office, but I could only make out general speech cadence. She was acting so weird and suspicious; why was that? I wondered if I should be concerned, but I was distracted when one of the cats – a big black long-haired fellow with a handful of scars peppering his flank and under one eye – broke rank and moseyed over to the couch.

He took a moment to prepare and then heaved himself up onto the armrest next to me, settling in and giving me a look that quietly dared me to reclaim it. I was feeling too pleasantly hazy to get in a fight, however, so he settled for sitting there pointedly staring away from me and passively-aggressively flicking my arm with his tail. We were still at it when Nicole returned. "I see Rrrasputin's as frrriendly as everrr," she chuckled.

I cocked an eyebrow. "'Rasputin?'"

"He's taken birdshot a couple times, I think, and when I found him he'd been tied in a sack and tossed in the crrreek." She glowered darkly, ears pinned back and hackles raised. "And if I'd kniaown who did it," she added, with the most alarming growl, "they'dve ended up like the Rrromanovs."

Then she brightened again. "Plus, he's a fiend for trrreats," she said, sitting down next to me. It took her a moment to get her tail situated so that it wasn't kinked against the back of the couch, and she ended up sitting cross-legged, turned to one side and hunched forward slightly; she was definitely still getting used to this. "The big-dark-'n-prrrickly thing's a total frrront, don't let him fool you."

She got as comfy as she could and began tapping away at her phone; I watched, curious. She didn't seem to have any trouble with the touchscreen, but kept her palm and other fingers arched higher off the device than normal. I continued to stare in mild fascination, until she noticed. "Some of the gesturrres can get funky niaow," she explained.

I nodded, mulling it over; my brain was still fuzzy, but it didn't stop me from being curious. "Probably a, um, a capacitance thing. Are you, uh…?"

"Trrrying to find a rrrecipe," she said, the tip of her tail thumping against the couch cushions as she focused; one ear cocked towards me.

"For, uh, for what?" I asked, after a moment.

"Grrrilled tilapia in crrream sauce."

"Huh." That raised some question in the back of my mind, but I was too hazy to focus on it.

I watched her for a little while longer, but I was starting to get bored and a little irritated. Weren't we going to do, y'know, grooming and stuff? Honestly, I could kinda go for that; it wasn't like I needed anybody to care for me, but something in my head felt like if she wasn't going to do it, I should just go find someone else, and I did feel—

Nicole's whiskers twitched, and she sniffed the air before turning to me. I was still getting used to reading her strange new face – so clearly non-human, and yet somehow relatable – but she looked concerned. "This's gonnya sound a little weirrrd," she said, "but, uh, are your earrrs itchy?"

That did sound a little weird, but it was getting harder to listen to the little voice in the back of my mind that said so, and another part of me saw it as the lead-in to exactly what I was just wanting. And in point of fact, my ears did feel funny; not in a bad way, just a little pressure at the base and tips, and a light prickling across the skin… I nodded.

"I figurrred," she said, patting her thigh. I didn't need any further prompting, laying my head down in her lap despite the little voice's insistence that this should be weird and confusing on a couple of levels, and she reached down to scratch absent-mindedly at the base of my ears while she continued to browse on her phone.

The sensation was fascinating; she unsheathed her claws and worked with tiny, gentle motions in her fingertips, the pads anchoring them against my own skin. It felt a bit like those pin-screen toys you put your hand or face against, but it was weird to think that the "pins" were sharp objects designed for catching and maiming prey and it was only her careful control that kept me from getting pricked by them; had I been less fuzzy in the brain, I might've been more unnerved by that.

As it was, I found it surprisingly relaxing, and before long I was nuzzling my head into her hand, trying to help her hit the right spots at just the right angles. I wasn't sure why this felt so good to me, but right now I just couldn't bring myself to care. I felt that pleasant energy again, thrumming in my chest; but no sooner had I gotten really comfortable than she was getting up from the couch. "Mya, what…?" I murmured, mildly annoyed.

"Gotta get the grrrill on, nyakniaow," she said, taking something out of the fridge. She set it on the counter, and I saw that it was a couple of whole, entire dead fish, eyes and everything. I'd always been weirded out by this,^° but for some reason I found myself watching in rapt fascination. Even cold and uncooked, I could smell them…

^° (Let's be real: why do you want your food to be watching you while you prepare it?)

I heard Nicole chuckle and snapped to attention, realizing that I'd been spacing out…again. What is with me today…? I wondered, as I tried to get myself together and act normal; I wasn't very successful, because my attention kept wandering back to the fish, sitting there on the plate mouths agape, silently judging me.

"Mrr, I'm gonnya be a bit making the sauce," she mused, looking over the recipe on her phone. "Don't s'pose I can get you to tend to the coals, Kit?"

"They're starrring at me…" I muttered. The cats'd picked up the scent and were beginning to crowd around our feet now.

"You're staring at them," she laughed; but I noticed she was watching almost as intently, even drooling a little. "Instinct's a helluva drug, isn't it?" She glanced down at one of the cats, who was sizing up the counter for a potential leap; her ears flicked back and her tail puffed out slightly. "Don't you darrre, Gilligan."

I wasn't sure what she meant by that, but after a moment I finally tore myself away from the fish and went out to the little micro-patio. My thoughts kept returning to them as I fumbled my way through lighting her grill; how long were they gonna take to cook? What if we just—

I stopped, blinked, and shook my head, surprised at myself; I didn't even like normal sushi…

After a couple false starts and a little bit of tending, I managed to get the charcoal going pretty evenly. I watched, mesmerized, as waves of heat danced through the air above it; as, without any visible flame, it slowly turned from coal-black to ash-white to glowing red. So pretty…but even in my somewhat foggy state I knew not to touch, no matter how absorbing it was to look at.

Eventually, my attention wandered again. It was a beautiful pre-spring day; not too cool out, the sky clear and sunny, the air full of intriguing scents wafting in on the breeze. It was all so intense…even the sounds seemed clearer than I remembered. The neighborhood was quieter now than it'd been before the pandemic, but I could hear the muffled voices of a couple arguing in one of the townhouses downhill from our row, a shriek of laughter from children playing on the balcony in the apartment building across the street…

I was seized again by the urge to get up, go out, and find people; to be with someone, snuggle in, get them to scratch behind my still-prickling ears until we'd been close together for long enough that they wanted a turn themselves…I could do that, couldn't I? I was still full of that wonderful energy, and it seemed wrong to feel this good and not share it with everyone. I glanced at the rickety wooden fence that ringed the tiny backyard. Could I make the jump? Probably not, but it wouldn't be that hard to clamber over and—

My thoughts were interrupted when Nicole bustled out onto the patio with the platter of fish corpses. She gave me a look of mild concern, then glanced down at the grill and brightened, her ears perking straight up. "Oh, that's perrrfect," she said. "I'll take it from herrre, thanks."

I watched, curious, as she flicked out a claw^° and deftly sliced little gashes at strategic points along the flanks.^°° She had a little bowl with a blend of butter and herbs in it, and spent a moment trying to figure out how to dab it onto the fleshy pads of her fingertips without getting butter in her fur or fur in the butter; finally, she gave up and went back to the kitchen for a knife.

^° (For the record, this does not actually go SNIKT, but I never kept up with comic books enough to find out whether that ended up getting retconned in the wake of the pandemic, or some editor constructed an elaborate in-universe explanation for it.)
^°° (Do fish have flanks? I guess that's the right term, but it feels weird referring to them as such.)

I kept watching, bouncing on the balls of my feet, as she dabbed the mixture into the cuts and set the fish on the grill, atop a sheet of aluminum foil; it was strangely absorbing just watching her work, though I didn't really know why. She noticed and gave another trilling feline chuckle. "Mrr, something you need?"

"Mya?" I said, blinking in surprise. Was I spacing out^° again? "Uh, just superrrvising, I guess…"

^° (Is it still "spacing out" if you're actually focusing on something?)

I frowned, and got that weird feeling again like there should've been more of a reaction from my ears. What had I been thinking about before this? Oh, right, finding hum—finding people to be with, to be close to, to get attention from… It was normal to want that; I belonged with them, didn't I…? It was hard to stay focused on it when Nicole kept distracting me, but now she was busy. I could go over the fence, or even just scamper back through her apartment, and—

That was when it hit me. I'd felt overwhelmed by the scents around me earlier, but this was absolutely incomparable. Even under normal circumstances, the smell of cooking meat can set your mouth watering; whatever spell I was under that made everything come on so much stronger transformed it into something damn near akin to a religious experience. The scent of FISH browning filled my nostrils; the lightly acrid tinge it acquired as they crisped around the edges enthralled me; then she turned them and poured the cream sauce over the cooked side, and I was practically transported when it heated and began to caramelize.

I could think of almost nothing else, and I was just barely conscious enough to notice that she was nearly as caught up in the experience as I was. I stared, transfixed, as she tended them for the next few minutes. Some part of me felt an urge to snatch one right off the grill and dash off with it, despite the fact that I'd be getting some in any case; I managed to maintain control, barely, because that part of me was also completely absorbed in noticing how the scent changed as it cooked. How was it possible for something to smell this good!?

We watched in reverence as the metamorphosis progressed, and we beheld the tilapia in its true form. Nicole removed it from the grill and briefly considered taking it back into the apartment, but the cats were arrayed on the other side of the patio door, watching intently. Instead, she slipped back inside for utensils, carefully dodging and blocking them from escape, leaving me alone with the fish. Even cooked, some of the scales still glimmered, the sauce glistened, the whole thing smelled heavenly…

Some part of me knew it'd be bad manners to start without Nicole, but the haze in my brain made it hard to connect that with what I was actually doing; and so, as one possessed, I reached out my hand and cautiously pawed at one of the fish, testing whether it was hot enough to burn me. My fingers hovered above it, delicately prodded at the surface, felt the skin give just a little under their touch. Unknown instincts suddenly seized hold of me, and reverence gave way to Bacchanalian frenzy. I snatched it from the platter and tore into it like a damn Mænad, picking off bits and shoveling them into my mouth with total abandon, savoring the soft, flaky meat, the crispy skin, the rich, creamy sauce…

While I was lost in reverie, Nicole returned to the patio, gave a churr of surprise on seeing me, and then laughed outright; but that didn't properly register in my brain until a few minutes later, after I'd picked the thing as clean as I could manage, bolted the last little bits of meat and skin, and spent a long moment sitting there in a euphoric daze. Then, with a cold-water shock of realization, I found I was sprawled out on a folding chair, head lolling, shirt flecked with food matter and face smeared with gravy. "Mya!" I yelped, lurching up to a sitting position and trying to straighten myself out. My ears were prickling with more than just the itchiness from earlier; I'd gone and made a spectacle of myself.

To her credit, Nicole said nothing, but I could tell she was trying to suppress further laughter as she dug into her own fish. Cheeks burning, I licked the back of my hand and dabbed at my face; after a moment, when I was sure she wasn't watching, I allowed myself to lick the last bit of cream sauce off it. When she'd finished, she turned to me. "Here, gimme the bones," she said. "I'm gonnya make brrroth for a risotto later."

I handed her what I had left in hand and started gathering the bits I'd let fall by the wayside in my frenzy. It was embarrassing to look back on; I hadn't quite stripped it to the standard cartoon fish skeleton,^° but it was hard not to picture some sort of reverse piranha attack. I would've wondered what came over me, but the fact was that the lingering aromas of cooked fish and caramelized sauce were still tantalizing me even now. Why that sent me into Tasmanian Devil mode, I didn't know; but it was hard to focus on these things when I still felt so nice…

^° (ISO 3100-4, Method of preparation of a skeleton of fish for use in sequential art.)

We went back inside, and the cats crowded around us, loudly inquiring as to when the hell they could expect their share. I stumbled over to the couch; my sense of balance was a bit wonky, like there was something wrong with my inner ear. Nicole took a moment to stash the collected bones in the fridge, where the other members of her clowder couldn't get at them, and then joined me, letting me lie down with my head in her lap again. To my surprise, cat number four, a calico whose name I hadn't caught, leapt up onto the couch and curled up against my stomach; the others watched me warily from a distance.

The pleasant haze was beginning to crowd out rational thought again, but I felt a lot less urge to go do things now that I was caught in the middle of what might be reasonably described as a cuddle sandwich. The calico was nudging up into my stomach in that languid-yet-forceful way that cats do when they're too comfortable to get up but want more attention, my fingers were scritching idly at the base of his ears; Nicole was scritching idly at the base of my ears, I was nudging up into her—

—Um. I was nudging up into her stomach, almost on instinct, but the thing of it was that the divide between that and the bottom of her chest had shifted, and I found I was nuzzling the back of my head into her bottom pair of breasts, which sat near the base of her ribcage. Part of me felt like this should be weird and socially awkward, but if Nicole was bothered by it, she gave no indication; and it was swiftly drowned out by the part of me that felt so nice right now, and the part that was marveling in an abstract kinda way about how amazing a soft and fuzzy woman was, as a general concept. Why didn't they make 'em like this before? I wondered; was that weird? I couldn't tell.

Nicole was hunched forward on the couch; her tail jutted out the back of her skirt and curled around between the cushions, draping over my side and dangling into my field of view most intriguingly. Heheh, I thought, and batted lazily at it. She twitched it away, chuckling as my hand followed. "I kniaow what you're going thrrrough, mya kniaow," she said; her tone was warm, almost maternal. "There's a lotta nyew feelings to cope with, you don't kniaow what to expect, and you're too fuzzy in the head to rrrealize what's going on, but it feels so nice…"

I nodded, wondering how she knew that. The calico stretched, pressing against me, and my hand returned to petting him as if on auto-pilot. "'S, 's like 'm…Iunnyo," I murmured drowsily, "like wakin' up on a bus…like when nyew can't 'memberrr how y'got there or where y'r goin'…" There was that pleasant thrumming in my chest again, but this time it turned into a chorus, the same kind of sound, kind of feeling, at two different pitches, on either side of me…

Nicole laughed softly. "Isn't it? Wonderrring if you're supposed to be there, or if it's a mix-up or some kinda prrrank…" She smiled gently, and rubbed my head; I nudged into her hand. "Or a trrrain, maybe; it's not like mya can just turn arrround or get off. One way or anyotherrr, you're gonnya end up at the station before you can decide wherrre to go nyext."

I batted at her tail again. There was an odd sense of finality to her words that made me curious, but I was already fading; her scratching felt so good, the apartment was warm and cozy, the calico was snuggled up against me, and it'd been so long since I felt the comfort of simple human contact,^° however odd. It all felt so nice right now; the fog filled my brain completely and I drifted off into sleep hardly even noticing that I was doing it. One way or another…I could worry about that in the morning…

^° (Well, okay, not human in the strict sense.)

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