Fairly quickly, the waiting period for fainting post-injection was finished, and he was on his (unmerry) way. They had actually put the first two weeks’ worth in his account after he’d gotten his shot. So, he knew where he was going to celebrate, especially if he was gonna transform! He looked on his phone for the map to King Lycanos’ and grinned. Shouldn’t be too far!

He unlocked his bike and started pedaling. He noticed how utterly energized he felt, and he was especially surprised at that, especially given that it was a hot summer night. Living in SoCal didn’t make it easier, no matter how much southerners would tell him ‘but it’s a dry heat!’ He pedaled on regardless, picking up speed as he left the more hilly areas.

Biking down the highway’s shoulder felt a bit less dorky, not much, but a little, and the Sunday evening drivers were much less likely to jeer than Saturday night ones, so it seemed. Eventually, the bar came into view, and he grinned. He didn’t know why he was so giddy, last night he had just thought it was…a way to make money. But, it certainly felt like as good an opportunity for a change in lifestyle as any!

He pulled up to the restaurant, and waved at Ernie, who raised an eyebrow at him. He locked his bike up and walked up to the door. Ernie sighed as rubbed his face.

“Look, kid, I know you and Laura had a good time chattin, but you can’t be comin’ here every night,” Ernie said.

Kade figured this might happen, so he dug into his shorts pockets and pulled out the proof of the injection. “It’s my first night,” he explained, “I’d like to be here when it happens.”

“Whatever, kid,” Ernie replied with a sigh as he waved him in, “enjoy your night, and don’t moon anyone when you transform. Might I suggest going to the bathrooms instead? We got a gender neutral one, just in case, if you feel like you might need it.”

“Why would I…”

“Have fun, kid,” Ernie said as he slapped Kade on the back, shoving him unceremoniously into the bar.

The clock measured a few minutes before six, and over at the bar, waited Laura, browsing her phone. She looked up, and then waved at him with a grin.

“Hi!” she said, “how’d you get let in by Ernie again?”

“Let’s just say,” he said as he handed the business card back to her, “I had the credentials.”

“Hey, look at you, welcome to the pack!” she said with a grin.

“Thank you, and I’d like to celebrate, if you don’t mind, with a quick shot of whiskey,” he said with a grin as he put his card down.

“None of the cheap stuff tonight, huh?”

“Gotta spend the paycheck somehow, I’m honestly not sure how I’ll spend it all,” he replied.

She poured him a shot of the warm-smelling ambrosia. He almost wanted to savor it, to let it drip on his tongue and taste every bit of it, but too many of those instincts from the months of cheap vodka, well, he finished it in one gulp. He felt a little funny as it filled his stomach and covered his throat, and more than in the usual way of just feeling warm, he almost felt burning.

“What’s the matter?” Laura asked, noticing the look on his face.

“I…I feel weird,” he replied.

“It might be the transformation, already. My first time was about this time of night,” she replied as she checked her watch.

“F..fuck!” he said as he ran to the bathroom, locking himself in a stall.

He felt his organs shrink and grow inside his body, and he was shortly very thankful for the toilet right under him, as he spun around and undrank the shot he’d just had. Thankfully, he hadn’t had much to eat yet. Was this what it was going to be like every night?

It wasn’t painful, just incredibly weird, like worms were crawling under his skin. He looked to his forearms, where the feeling was most prominent, and his eyes widened as he saw them fill with tawny fur, coarse and thinner than he’d expected. His arms themselves seemed leaner, almost as if his muscle had been eaten away. This only continued as his biceps deflated noticeably.

“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself as he felt his face get closer to the toilet seat. Weirdly enough, it wasn’t like he was leaning over. He quickly backed away, bumping into the stall door. He was just thankful no one was in here yet, honestly. He shuddered at his original idea in his mind’s eye, to transform at the barstool.

Somehow, his shorts were staying on, but that was…weird, since he knew his arms were a lot bulkier, and his height had dropped significantly. When he looked down, he almost yelped when he saw the development of plump thighs and slowly widening hips, though they would’ve already been wide had they stayed the same size relative to his now-minuscule proportions. He’d only ever seen hips like that on the women he’d admired from afar.

Wait…what was that Ernie had said about the gender neutral bathrooms? Hold on, could it be possible that… And just like that, he felt the vague discomfort of his external organs downstairs rearranging too. While he prayed consciously that he was just getting way bigger down there, he knew that wasn’t likely to be the case. He found himself…excited, though? Why was he excited? In like a year, he’d have to be a woman full-time! Good luck explaining that to dad.

His shirt was just about to fall off, when something caught it. He tried tugging it down, to speed up the process, being met by surprising sensitivity that caused him to yelp and curl up instinctively. He pulled the collar out and leveled his growing snout downwards, to see what had gone wrong/ As the fur grew on his chest, he noticed what had caught it: breasts. He almost poked one, but remembered…he was in the mens’ room.

He tried to remain as silent as possible as, he assumed, the changes finished up with a new tail slowly swishing behind him, and him feeling his ears creep up the sides of his head, until he could pivot them almost consciously. Thankfully, these new ears could tell if anyone was coming. He could even hear Ernie coughing outside!

What was he to do now? Well, he could always try standing up. He got to his feet, noticing he stood on the balls of them. Actually, he supposed, it would be more accurate to say she got to her paws. That felt…weird to say. When transforming was just something that happened in theory, she felt fine about it. She even vaguely remembered them mentioning something about this, a “possibility of a gender-affirming body” that “is no cause for alarm”.

The only reason she wasn’t alarmed was because she felt strangely at peace. Judging by the height of the stall, she was about a foot shorter than she used to be, making her a solid 5’4”, if she had to wager. She decided, this could wait for her move to the gender-neutral restroom, and she gathered her shorts up to her waist and ran over, hoping no one saw her.

As she looked in the mirror, she noticed a small wolf woman already in there, probably somewhere behind her, looking a bit frazzled. “Oh, sorry, I’ll be going,” she said, before noticing the woman mouthing the same things. She turned around to find…no one. The woman was her, she realized.

She looked at her rusty fur, her prominent mane around her neck, which helped outline what lay just below, covered by her enormously baggy shirt, almost perfectly. Well, covered would be an overstatement. They were very clearly outlined, and she couldn’t help but stare in curiosity. This was…how she looked. Her big triangle-shaped ears, her tongue gently poking out of her mouth in a ‘mlem’, her cute black nose, it was her, and soon, it would be her forever.

After deciding her shorts wouldn’t sag too much, and listening for more patrons, she walked out onto the floor. Patrons were on the other side of the bar, but they mostly consisted of people like him, looking for a drink more than a party. She walked over to the bar, hoping to catch Laura. Fortunately, she was there, stacking cups after she wiped the counter.

“Hi, I…”

“Bar’s closed, miss, I’m just about to switch shifts,” Laura said as she looked down at Kade’s chest, “though with cuties like you, I could always spare a drink.”

“H..hey, eyes up here!” Kade hissed nervously.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Laura replied, “say, do I know you from somewhere? The shirt looks familiar.”

“It’s me, the guy from the bar last night, Kade,” she answered indignantly, though a bit proud that she looked good enough to solicit a very different reaction.

“O..oh, right, the serum,” she muttered, “I, uh, look, do you wanna get out of here?”

“Why?”

“Well, for one, the end of my shift is in thirty seconds, for two, you clearly aren’t in the kind of clothes that would fit you, and three, I’d like to ask you on a date,” Laura replied, “though I’ll settle for helping you get new clothes, because I’m not gonna let you ride that dinky bike home in this city in that.”

“I thought you didn’t like guys at the bar?” Kade asked, confused.

“Good thing you’re clearly a woman,” Laura replied coolly as she handed Kade her card from earlier, “now come on, let’s go.”

“O..okay,” Kade replied nervously as Laura took her hand (paw? whatever) and led her out. Outside, Ernie raised his brow slightly at the new wolf, but then something seemed to click as he waved both of them off with a smug grin.

Laura asked for Kade’s bike lock combo, and hoisted it into the back of her sedan by herself. Kade climbed into the passenger seat, noticing that the seatbelt sat very differently, and almost annoyingly. She tried to finagle with it to get it out of the dreaded boob valley, but alas, no luck. She resigned herself to her fate.

Soon, Laura climbed in the driver’s side and turned the key in the ignition. Kade could barely believe that twenty-four hours ago, she was a depressed and jobless man with no dating prospects. Now, she seemed like she had at least a source of income, and was no longer a man. Plus, while she knew depression was more of a disposition than a feeling, she felt all of the fog and weight of it lifting. Oh, and not to mention Laura had asked her on a…date.