Selena’s POV

When I woke up, I noticed first and foremost that I was very, very much still in wolf mode. Worse, it was even later than I thought it was. How long had we slept?? My phone answered: 10:40, a full ten minutes past the start of my first class. I sank desperately into the bed. Fuck, my transformation had never lasted this long. I couldn’t just show up to class like this! What if this lasted all day? It was nearly noon.

Fortunately, my body once again decided to begin its un-transformation. As I went back to my room to shift back, and my anxieties returned, I noticed that I didn’t have as bad a reaction as yesterday. Even fully returned to normal, looking at my body, I didn’t mind? Whatever, time to get dressed. As I put on my baggy, smelly guy clothes, I glanced guiltily at the corner of the room with the bags and bags of clothes I had bought earlier. It wouldn’t hurt to use one of the new pairs of shorts, it was warm enough out, and it’d be a shame to waste them.

What would’ve been daisy dukes on me last night ended up being just regular jorts on me this morning. I had to wear a belt to keep them up, but I decided that beat my old clothes. That reminded me, I should really, really wake Nora up. I hoped she wouldn’t be too upset with me for causing us both to be late.

I shook her and spoke up as loud as I could muster, “Hey, it’s time to wake up.” I noticed my voice subtly cracking like a high schooler. Man, I hoped I wasn’t coming down with something, that would be extra sucky.

She rustled herself awake, and smiled. I then nervously said, “No, like, I mean we’ve both missed our first class.” Her eyes shot open nervously and she started cursing. Oh fuck, she was upset with me. As I started crying, she stared at me and gave me a big hug.

“Hey,” she reassured me, “it’s not your fault, my ringer was off and that meant my alarm didn’t go off. I missed a quiz but it’s not like I can’t handle the hit to my grade.”

I nodded nervously, squirming nervously, still. Sensing my tension, she began to pet my hair. I leaned into it, wishing that it could last forever. She was such a good friend.

All of a sudden, I flashed back to last night. I had asked her out??? AND SHE SAID YES??? I froze up a little bit. Well, I had asked her as Selena. Selena wasn’t me, obviously. Selena liked being a girl, and I just didn’t like being a guy. Big difference. We weren’t girlfriends, we were roommates, and she was just a really good friend. Yep, nothing suspicious here.

After a bit, she spoke up, “Hey, are you going to finish changing back soon so we can go to class, you think?”

I twitched my ears instinctively. “What do you mean, Nora? I’ve already changed back.”

She giggled and then calmed herself. “I don’t mean to alarm you, hon, but I was petting your ears just now.”

But I felt her petting the top of my head, not the side? That meant...I rushed to the mirror. In front of me was the normal ugly old reflection, except I still had Selena’s ears. They folded back nervously in the mirror, expressively. Fuck, I had to find a hoodie, now.

As I stepped out in my outfit, ready to walk to class, Selena stopped me. “It’s okay, you can wait a bit and I can drive you this time. I think you need a little more time to decompress anyways.”

I nodded and sat down on the couch, as she put a kettle on and then sat next to me. She glanced down and smiled, “Oh, when did you get new shorts? I love them! They suit you well! Didn’t know a guy could pull off jorts, but look at you!”

Fuck, she noticed my jeans. Should I try to play it off? It wasn’t like she’d believe I actually clothes shopped, much less went outside, any time other than last night. I felt so dirty admitting I was wearing women’s clothes. It just wasn’t right for someone like me.

After a lot of overthinking, I just opted to confess my sin. “I just used the shorts we got last night at the mall.”

She giggled and ruffled my hair, catching my ears in the process, I’m sure intentionally. “You sure do like those, huh?”

I muttered something to the effect of “wouldn’t want them to go to waste”, which only elicited further laughter on her part. What was so funny about this???

“Wear whatever you want, babe,” she said, noticing my nervousness about it.

We lounged around for a few more minutes before Nora finally signaled it was time to get up with a little pat on the back. As I put my backpack on and pulled my hoodie strings extra tight and walked out the door, I could’ve sworn I saw Nora staring at the top of my head and grinning. After she looked away, I made sure they weren’t showing. She couldn’t be smirking because she liked them, right???

After we arrived at the lot near the buildings our classes were in, she decided to take me to her favorite coffee shop, since we were still a bit early for class. The place was bustling with people I had never seen before, but then again, I didn’t exactly get out much. Being around Nora definitely helped bring my anxiety down, but it still wasn’t ideal.

Nora stepped up when it was time to order and asked me, “You know what you want?”

I thought. Decisions like this really shouldn’t be hard, but I got super indecisive, especially when already stressed. I meekly shook my head. Shrugging, she ordered both of us her favorite tea and chatted with the barista, before taking our drinks to our table.

Once at our table, I finally let my shoulders slump in relaxation. Safe from being perceived by anyone except Nora, at last. I could just blend in. Just then, of course, Nora waved to someone behind me. I turned to see a tall person with intensely silver long hair and thin rimmed glasses, in the most torn up jeans I’d ever seen.

“Hey Nora,” they greeted, “mind if I have a seat with you two?”

“Not at all!” Nora replied. Turning to me, she explained, “this is Jamie, she and I are both members of the GSA.”

“GSA?” I asked.

I could see Jamie tense up visibly at this question. Had I done something wrong? Nora gave me a sympathetic glance and turned to explain.

“The GSA stands for the ‘Gay Straight Alliance’, it’s like, a support group for LGBT people and their allies.”

“Oh!” I replied, “That makes sense, good on you all for making a space like that, that must be super important to LGBT people.”

Nora kind of cocked her head at me. Was my response still off-kilter? No matter, she seemed to brush it off and move the conversation on by introducing me in return. As the conversation moved on, I noticed Jamie giving me the side-eye, and it made me shrink back in my seat. What did she want? Did she see something? Were my ears showing?

I heard my name and my mind snapped back to the conversation. Jamie had asked something vaguely to the effect of how we knew each other.

“Oh,” Nora replied, “they’re my roommate.”

Jamie snorted and smirked, “The one who never leaves the apartment?”

Nora blushed and quietly replied, “Yes, that’s the one.”

I felt called out, but I didn’t exactly blame Nora for making that the gist of what she talked about with her friends when she was asked about me. I was kind of a couch potato, no matter how many excuses I made about it due to my condition.

Jamie continued by asking, “So is this, like, a date thing you two are on? Or something else?”

Nora and I both made jittery and unintelligible replies to that question. Why was this so hard??? She was dating Selena, not me, and yet whenever I thought about dating her, the concept wasn’t hard to foresee like it was with other people? It seemed like she was super nice and understanding and worthy of trust..and there came that fuzzy feeling from earlier again.

Jamie brushed the awkward replies off with laughter, “I’m kidding, I know Nora’s gay, you’re good.”

And the feeling was dead, replaced by a sinking in my gut. Right. She couldn’t date me, not when I was a man in a man’s body. She was lesbian, why was I so attached to her? Whatever it was, I had a feeling the transformation had something to do with it, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that either. My desires shouldn’t be changing so much just because of a change in body.

The conversation had moved on and it was time to go. As we waved goodbye, Jamie yelled back, “you both going to the party tonight?”

Oh no, the party. Crap, I was gonna be all alone. But Nora had mentioned the offer would still be open. Without thinking, I replied, “yeah, we’ll be there!”

Jamie smiled and replied, “Awesome! So great to meet you!”

As we walked away, Nora turned to look at me with an eyebrow raised. “You want to go, now?”

“Um, I guess I just don’t want to be alone tonight,” I replied.

Nora thought for a minute, as if collecting her words, then responded, “you do realize she’ll be expecting you, and not wolf-you, right?”

I froze. Crap, that was why I didn’t want to be alone tonight, wasn’t it? I wanted to be safe from whatever things I might get up to as my wolf self. Sure, I wasn’t exactly safe from bad behavior with Nora, but at least she could keep me in line. Who knows what I’d do without her.

“I guess,” I replied, “I don’t know, maybe human me can be ‘sick’ that night or something.”

Nora ruffled my head in response, causing me to make a whining noise. I...that wasn’t normal. But I was far too close to being late to care, and waving goodbye to Nora, I dashed off to my English class.

Coming out of class, I decided to give my doctor a call, just to be sure I didn’t miss my meds again. Shoot, I might even be able to not have to worry about tonight. That didn’t sit right with me though, popping pills again to avoid interacting with Nora. Sure I was a wolf, but she seemed fine with me, even happy around me. I decided it would be wrong to leave her after promising to go to the party as I rang the office.

After a half hour of waiting music, my doctor was able to emergency refill and a warning to call my pharmacy. When I did call the pharmacy, after even more waiting music (enthralling, I know), let me know that due to high Rx pickup volumes on Friday, my meds would not be ready until at least tomorrow. Great, so I didn’t even get a choice. I found myself feeling…something about that being taken out of my hands.

As I walked through the rest of my classes, I noticed a distraction growing at the back of my mind. Why did I choose such mediocre subjects? Here I was wading glumly through the slough of despond that is life, making it as boring as possible. Though I had missed a good amount of class already this week, I couldn’t find it in me to even attend my 1 o’clock lecture.

Walking home, I noticed the feeling at the back of my neck again. Crap, crap, crap. I checked my location, about a quarter of a mile from my apartment. Enough time to make it in the building, if I hurried. I felt fur race down my spine as I sprinted towards the door, a tail growing in my shorts as I raced up the stairs. All I could think of was how lucky I was to have skipped the lecture.

Jumping frantically into the apartment and letting the door slam behind me, I noticed Nora was already home. Perfect. I ran into my room and stripped my hoodie off, letting my ears free, sore as they were from a day of being compressed by the hood. Whatever was happening, it was barely past noon and I was already transforming on the day after the full moon. I really needed to sort this out, and soon.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I noticed more than ever how intensely at peace I felt when the transformation happened. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if this came sooner? I loved being a wolf, and also being a girl! And just like that, without even really processing it, I was done transforming. As soon as that happened, Nora happened to walk into my room, looking at her phone as she entered.

“Uh hey dude,” she started, “I bought the tickets and..” she trailed off as she saw me.

“Hi,” I growled seductively. Was that tone on purpose? Did I care?

Nora seemed to switch from concerned to flustered almost immediately. How adorable she was, looking all small and shy like that. I should’ve totally teased her for it at the cafe, and seeing it again was very, very cute. I noticed her glancing at my figure shyly and I decided to give her a hug.

The hug seemed to cause her to both relax and yet, there was an excitement to it. Both of us seemed very tense and pent up. Fortunately, I had just the solution. As we loosened our embrace, I looked deep into her tender eyes and kissed her, deeply and passionately. My girlfriend, my loveliest.

“Selena,” she said after the kiss ended, “why are you here so early?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” I replied, “I’ve noticed that my transformations are getting stronger and longer lasting.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you think it has to do with what we did, y’now, a few nights ago?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s it, like, the longest was this morning. I think it might be doing things that I want to in this body that makes it last longer.”

Nora withdrew for a minute, looking away to think, then replied, “Why would it do that? Like, you don’t want to be a girl in your other body, and I’ve read some stuff on lycanthropy, and it’s supposed to be affirming.”

“I’ve heard that,” I replied, “but I think I might just be the exception to that. I like the stuff I do in this body, but human me just doesn’t seem to be a fan.”

Nora shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense, though. I’ve seen you, you really aren’t that different between forms. You like different things, you act differently, but deep down, I can tell there’s the same common thread.”

For some reason, this began to upset me. How dare she tell me what I felt? Wouldn’t I know if I wanted to be a girl? What guys did want to be a girl? Did I even want to be a girl in this body, or was I just a girl, just like I was just a boy in my other body?

“I just am different,” I replied, “and I don’t have a good reason for that, but it’s what I understand right now.”

“That’s perfectly valid, Selena,” she sighed, “I just love you a lot and seeing you so conflicted like this really worries me.”

“Don’t worry about me, Nora. I can handle myself,” I replied, smiling weakly.

I found myself embraced in another hug. How had I prevented myself for so long from living this kind of life? She loved me, she really did, and I loved her. And I knew that right at that moment, the only thing I wanted was for her to never leave my life again.

Leviathan86

So, it looks like things are getting spicy. In fact, I know how it ends because I've already written up to the end of part 1. Gearing up for writing part 2, first chapter of that might be out on Patreon sooner than Friday, we shall see! (Of course, they'll be released in the same book here on Scribblehub, just so people following it can keep up)