The latter half of Thursday went to modifying more of my outfits. Jen took the day off work, to try to teach me how to do it myself. ‘You’ll need to know how to do this for yourself, young lady,’ she had said with a smile.

By the time we were finished, I realized I needed a lot more practice. I’m lucky if I can reliably thread the needle, much less stitch a good seam on anything. Oh well. I have time to learn. Once we had the pile worked through (well, Jen worked through most of it, then went back and fixed my feeble attempts), I grabbed a pair of shorts and underwear and slipped away to shower.

Sure, most people would say… wait, what time is it? 6pm?! Wow we spent a long time fixing clothes and talking… and maybe we got distracted watching movies for a little while. Anyway, I'm sure most people would say 6pm is late for getting ready for the day. But I desperately needed to bathe and brush my teeth and just try to wash away the grossness of the morning in general.

Okay, so ‘ready for the day’ is a bit of an overstatement. I just shower and swap into fresh pyjamas. Oh, and I discovered that drying my tail is really hard when it just wants to get away from the water but I can’t convince it that that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with the towel and JUST HOLD STILL YOU STUPID--! I snag it and force the towel around it, up and down the length to dry it off despite its wriggling. By comparison my ears are much easier to dry off, though they do keep flicking sporadically for a few minutes afterwards. 

I was on my way back to the living room when my phone chimed in my pocket. Again, why do pyjamas have pockets when my normal pants don’t? 

 

[Cassie: Hey girl! Do u wanna have a sleepover 2night? My place or yours! LMK if ur game! Xo]

 

“Um. Jen… Can you translate this?” I asked, showing her Cassie’s text.

“Oh! Huh, she wants to have a sleepover? Cute. I’m okay with that. It’s up to you if you’re comfortable with her seeing your new… additions, hon.”

I stroked my tail, pondering if I was OK with Cassie seeing me like this. I’d already decided to keep going to school, so I guess they’re going to see me eventually, right? Right. Plus I know she’ll think it’s really cute. Okay, I’ve decided. “Sure!”

“Okay, do you want to go to her house or have her over here?”

“Here.” I might be ready for Cassie to see me like this, but not her family. I had no idea what they were like, after all.

“Alright, text her back and let her know she can come over whenever. Don’t forget to give her the address and condo number!” She grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote that information down so I could type it in more easily.

“Thanks, Jen… um, next question,” I began after sending the text, “What do people do at sleepovers?”

==========

“Oh my GOD, Kat!” Cassie was squealing and circling me. “You are SO FREAKING CUTE!”

My ears were pinned back from the loud noise, but it felt good to be praised and complimented.

“Th-thanks, Cassie.”

“And your HAIR, girl, you have to let me braid it.”

“Er, o-okay?” I felt my face heating. Nobody had really gushed about me like this before.

“We’re doing your nails tonight too, right? Look at them, they’re so cool! Did you shape them down to points like that, or are they naturally that way now?”

I looked down at the slightly rounded triangular points that were my fingernails, each sticking out slightly past my fingertips. I hadn’t really looked at them much with everything else going on. Now that I was inspecting them, they looked cute, and I really liked them. I flexed my fingers, and watched as they seemed to extend slightly further, before retracting back.

“I have… claws.”

“Shit, yeah you do girl… Do you think we can still paint them?”

“I don’t see why not,” Jen said as she returned with popcorn. “Anything else I can get you girls?”

“No thank you, Ms. Crowley!” Cassie beamed, “We’re just gonna watch movies, and I’m gonna give Kat a makeover.”

“Y-yay,” I said, trying to sound excited. I was anxious as heck. 

Thankfully, it was a lot like the time at the spa, but more personal and friendly. Cassie chatted away at a mile a minute about what was going on at school while I was gone, working on my hair and nails (claws?) while she talked. She settled on a really pretty pale pink color, which I actually liked.

Having my hair braided was an adventure. There was a lot of hard brushing (and squealing, and yelping on my part… stupid tangles!) and then the tugging as she wove my hair into some kind of fancy braid. When she showed me my reflection, it looked beautiful. I looked beautiful. The thought made me blush. 

“Okay, now do mine,” Cassie said with a smile, handing me the brush and hair tie package.

“What? No! I can’t, I don’t know how, I--”

“You’ll do fine! Having fun is the point anyway, not doing it perfectly!” she giggled, grinning like a fiend.

“O-okay, but I warned you…”

==========

I apologized profusely to Cassie again and again. I wasn’t even sure how it was possible to get a hair tie that tangled in someone’s hair. Thankfully, Jen had been able to extract it without cutting anything.

“It’s okay, really,” Cassie reassured me again, opening her overnight bag. “No harm no foul, right?” She pulled out a t-shirt that was clearly way too big for her, and started undressing.

My face went beet red and I looked away. “C-Cassie! You can’t just change without warning me!”

“Why not?” she asked, pulling her bra off.

Oh God, there’s a topless girl in my room… a very cute topless girl in my room! My tail lashed anxiously back and forth, my ears twitching madly.

“You’re so cute when you get nervous, Kat.” She pulled the oversized t-shirt on and tossed her other clothes from the day in her bag.

Keeping my eyes off her to let her change in private, I studied the sleeping arrangements. Only one bed. I could always sleep on the floor… part of me thought that’s what I deserved… but then again there was a perfectly comfy couch in the living room. I could just sleep there again, right?

“So, um, goodnight?” I grabbed one of the pillows off my bed, and walked towards the door to my room..

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“Well, I mean, you’re um, the guest. So you should get the bed, right? I can sleep on the couch.”

Cassie giggled, “We could just share the bed, you know? We’re both girls.”

Cassie and I sharing a bed? Her snuggled up with me? My face burned again, and that fuzzy warmth was spreading through me again. “U-u-umm… s-sure...”

Cassie smiled broadly, and hopped into bed. “Cool! I haven’t had a sleepover in years. Most other girls’ moms won’t let me spend the night.”

“Huh? Why not?” I switched off the light, then crawled in beside her.

Cassie shrugged. “Probably because I’m into girls.”

Wait. What?

==========

My alarm and Cassie’s were both shrieking, pulling me once again from sleep. I found myself wrapped up in Cassie’s arms. She was laying behind me, clearly taking advantage of her slightly greater height to cradle my body with hers. There really should be a convenient term for this that makes it easier to describe… maybe I’ll ask Cassie la--

“Morning, Kat,” Cassie said, squeezing me.

I let out a soft ‘eep’ of surprise, unable to bring myself to try and escape her grasp. 

“You make a great body pillow, by the way.”

“H-huh?” I was burning red already.

“Just teasing,” She laughed lightly, and hugged me again before disentangling herself from me.

I immediately missed her soft warmth against my back. The warm fuzziness in my tummy had begun to ramp up, and I whimpered into my pillow. I don’t know what this feeling is, but it feels really nice.

“Um, you okay, Kat?” Cassie asked, gathering up her school uniform and underclothes.

“Mrrrhrm…” I nodded into the pillow.

“Do you mind if I get a shower first?”

“Mrr-hrr.” I shook my head no.

“I’ll take that as a no. Okay, be back in a few!” she took a quick jaunt across the hall to the bathroom, humming.

Aaaaaaa this feeling is so embarrassing. It kind of reminds me of the times as a boy I had a bon-- wait a minute… is… is this feeling like what girls feel when they’re… like that? Oh my God. My face was on FIRE, and it wasn’t the only part. I couldn’t push away the thoughts of Cassie wrapped around me, hugging me closer, holding me, her hands… NO! No, Kat! Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! She is your friend! It’s not ok to think about her that way! You’ve only been friends for like, a day!

But she was the one that initiated cuddling…

No! That doesn’t mean anything, brain!

But she said she likes girls, and she keeps talking about how cute you are, and trying to make you even cuter, and then the cuddling, the evidence is there, girl…

No! Nope, I can’t think of that! If I change back, she won’t like me anymore! Besides, it’s creepy to think of someone you barely know doing… doing those things… Ugh, stop imagining them!

I squirmed in bed, clenching my thighs together, my tail swishing around frantically, ears pinning back as I squinched my eyes shut.

I needed a really, really cold shower.

==========

“You’re sure you want to do this, right?” Jen asks, fixing my tie.

“Yeah. Totally sure. Super sure. 100% sure.” I check my watch again.

‘Particle Saturation: 89%’

It went up again overnight. Thankfully, the only things that changed as far as I can tell are that my smile is even more, uh, feline, than it previously was. All my incisors are more cat than human now, but at least I still have mostly human molars. It’s still a weird sensation though. 

Some of the peanut butter from my breakfast toast got stuck to the roof of my mouth, and Jen nearly peed herself laughing at me trying to dislodge it with my tongue. Cassie was content to giggle and take video on her phone. I really hope they both forget this… and somehow fail to save that video. So embarrassing. At least my tongue is pretty good at getting stuff unstuck, though. The texture of it is definitely different. More like… well, uh, a cat’s tongue, obviously. Duh. 

Anyway, that all aside, I’m finally ready to start my day, and Jen has promised us a ride. Sitting in car seats with a tail is a different experience. Particularly bucket seats. I kind of have to sit a little sideways and shift my weight on one butt cheek and… yeah. It’s awkward. Especially since I’m wearing a skirt. I’m really, really glad nobody else can see me right now, and if I get out of the car fast enough at school, nobody will notice my skirt twisted up past my underwear on one side until I can fix it. Excellent. Good plan, Kat.

==========

“Hey there, new gi… woah. Is that some kind of cosplay or something?”

Bless you, Ben, for believing any kind of costume could so naturally wiggle about as my tail and ears do, especially with all the loud noises in this school setting me off. “Nope, they’re real.” Other kids are starting to notice and looking at me now. Crap… Maybe I shouldn’t have come back to school… My tail swooshes agitatedly at my side and I catch it, nervously petting it with shaking hands. 

Ah, that’s actually kind of relaxing…

“Good morning everyone, take your —” Mr. Keller trails off. He also stares at me. 

Pet pet pet pet. 

“Er… take your seats for roll call!” he finally concludes, moving to the podium at the head of the classroom.

I quickly scamper to my desk and sit down, feeling my face attempt to find new, never before seen shades of red. 

“Psst,” Ben leans over towards my desk. I look back at him, startled by his closeness, and whatever that good smell is. “You’re even cuter now, girl!.” he winks. Oh, well, that’s nice. That’s great. Is my face exploding yet? I feel like it is. Why the heck do I feel this way now? It’s not as bad as with Cassie this morning but… but I’m definitely feeling something! Stop it, me! He’s a guy! A lying, untrustworthy, despicable, tall, handsome, cute… No! I shake my head vigorously to dislodge the thoughts, my ears flapping slightly.

Ben can’t seem to suppress a soft chuckle and charming grin.

As soon as roll call and general announcements are done, the room descends into a state of chaos as a bunch of other students crowd around my desk, asking if they can touch my tail or ears.

I don’t know what to say. ‘No’ is probably good. But I’m practically paralyzed… ugh… catatonic ...I’m not even sorry for that joke. Okay, a little sorry.

EEP.

Someone starts scritching at the base of my right ear, her long fingernails working the soft fuzzy appendage. I can feel my whole body going a little jello-y.

Haaaaahhhhnnnn….. Oh no, I’m purring again…

“Hey, knock it off!” Cassie shouts. “You don’t just touch other people and act all creepy, do you? No? Then give the girl her space!”

Thank you so much Cassie, you wonderful wonderful girl, I love you. Do you want to pet me?

Er. Forget that last bit… Ahem. Finally after a few longing looks from other students, order is restored. The bell ringing and the noise in the halls is even worse with my new ears. Maybe I should get some ear plugs or earmuffs or something.

Maybe I could get Cassie to go shopping for cute earmuffs with me… that’s totally something girls do, right?