“Kyle, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on, but I don’t know where you are and there’s a giant fucking cat and —” Morgan’s panic was causing her to ramble nervously.

“I think I’m okay,” responded a surprisingly cute, girlish voice.

“Oh, shit, I’m hallucinating an anime dub,” Morgan complained as she fumbled for the matches once again. However, a loud humming sound permeated the apartment and the lights came back on, revealing the truth of the situation.

Morgan stood up and looked around. There was no sign of Kyle anywhere. Just a large pool of blood, his jeans, and… paw prints leading to the couch? The trail lead to a freakishly small young woman who was casually seated in the middle of the sofa. She peered back at Morgan curiously. Her shiny black hair was cut into a jaw-length bob with blunt-cut bangs and from the top of her head sprouted two large cat-like ears. Her eyes were proportionally large but not overly so, very green, and had slitted pupils. But perhaps the most concerning fact of all was that she was wearing Kyle’s bloody t-shirt as a makeshift dress, holding Morgan’s athame carefully in both hands.

“Okay. There’s a catgirl in my living room and my boyfriend has disappeared,” Morgan narrated to herself out loud. “The catgirl has my athame and my boyfriend’s t-shirt. Logic would dictate this catgirl has somehow replaced my boyfriend. But… that doesn’t make any sense at all!” she shouted at the end.

The catgirl’s ears flattened back against her head and she winced at the sudden loud noise. “What the hell, Morgan, nobody’s replaced me! I’m right here!” the catgirl replied, only now seeming to notice her own voice. She dropped the athame beside her on the couch and put both hands to her throat. “What’s wrong with my voice? Have I been sucking helium?” A long black tail escaped from the bottom of the t-shirt and began to sway agitatedly.

“Kyle, is that you?” Morgan asked, hesitantly approaching the sofa.

“Who else would it be? Santa Claus?” the catgirl replied sarcastically. She stood up to face Morgan… and became obviously stressed when her eyes were level with Morgan’s chin. She looked down at herself suddenly, her tail swishing with her anxiety. “Where the fuck’s the rest of me? And why do I have tits?”

Sure enough, her petite figure was more obvious while she was standing. It was a lithe, womanly shape, just scaled down to a somewhat smaller size. Her pupils dilated as she looked back up to Morgan for clarity. “When the creepy double-lady said I could never go back to the life I had before, I didn’t think she meant THIS!” Kyle said, the pitch of his voice rising with his panic.

“Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean ‘Creepy Double-Lady’?” Morgan asked of the catgirl. 

“I was lying on the floor with your athame sticking out of me when I heard this, like, pair of overlapped voices asking me if I wanted to live!” Kyle explained. “I said yes, and the voices told me to eat the offering from your ritual. Everything got really bright, then really dark, and the rest is as you’ve seen!” Kyle was starting to pace, a recognizable habit that reassured Morgan somewhat. 

“Overlapping voices… And the offering?” Morgan spun on one foot to face her altar. Sure enough, both of the statues from her altar were lying on the floor alongside Luna’s open urn. “Kyle, where are Luna’s ashes?

Kyle leaned over to inspect the area where he had fallen, but there was not a single speck of ashes anywhere. He tilted his head curiously and pouted. “I don’t know? I distinctly remember the urn falling on me and spilling…” His head darted back up to lock eyes with Morgan. “Wait, wait, am I?” He felt around on top of his head until he found his ears and then grasped the tail at his rear. “You’re serious? I’m a catgirl? I thought you were fucking with me!”

Morgan reached out and put her thumbs in Kyle’s mouth, pulling his cheeks out to either side. “Sweetie, there is no fucking with these teeth. You are definitely a catgirl.”

Annoyed, Kyle pushed Morgan’s hands out of his mouth and scowled… adorably. Morgan found herself giggling at how cute Kyle looked in the oversized t-shirt with a pouty face. 

“What are you laughing at?” Kyle asked. “How the hell am I supposed to go to work like this?” 

“We’ll worry about that later, right now we need to get this mess cleaned up. I am not losing our security deposit because you’ve never watched Forensic Files. Baking soda and white vinegar from the kitchen, chop chop!” Morgan commanded as she made for the linen closet.

A moment later, a very distressed voice echoed from the kitchen. “I can’t reach!” 

“Use the step-stool!” Morgan shouted in reply. There was a brief silence. 

“I AM!” came Kyle’s angry response.

Despite the craziness of the situation - or perhaps because of it - Morgan burst out laughing. It was so hard to imagine her Ent of a boyfriend struggling to reach something in a kitchen cupboard. She dropped the washcloths in the living room on her way to the kitchen to find Kyle perched on the countertop, straining to reach around the refrigerator to the pantry on the other side.

Morgan shook her head sadly. “It’s not so funny when the tables are turned, is it, Mr. I-Can-Reach-The-Top-Shelf?”

As Kyle continued to stretch, his tail lifted the back of the shirt revealing his very shapely bare bottom. Morgan gaped at the view before catching herself and walking across the kitchen to pull her boyfriend off the fridge. He was astonishingly lightweight - maybe just a bit over seventy pounds? “Look, you’ve already had one traumatizing incident tonight, let’s not make it a double,” she lectured as she placed Kyle on the floor.

“This is stupid! Why am I so little?” Kyle complained with a stomp of his foot. “How am I supposed to be a good boyfriend when I’m the size of a grade schooler? Nobody’s going to take me seriously at work like this!”

Morgan couldn’t help it. She reached out and patted Kyle gently on top of the head. “It’ll be okay, Ky, we’ll figure it out together, okay? It’s not just you in this relationship, y’know.” Before she knew it, she was scratching behind one of the giant kitty ears.

Kyle slowly closed his eyes as a content smile spread across his lips. After a moment or two, there was a loud purring sound.

“Uh.. Kyle? Are you purring?” Morgan inquired.

His eyes darted open in surprise. “Oh shit, I am. Wait. How do I turn this off?”

“Who says you have to? It’s kinda doing it for me,” Morgan said with a smirk.

“Sometimes I forget you’re bi,” Kyle admitted as he gestured toward the step-stool.

Morgan climbed up to the second step and retrieved the white vinegar and baking soda from the top of the pantry. “How can you honestly forget? We were both talking about our ridiculous crushes on Cate Blanchett as Hela in Thor: Ragnarok! And we literally met because your ex cheated on you with me!”

“Okay, but to be fair, it’s not like you really talk about it a lot or anything, y’know?” 

Morgan stepped down from the stool and looked squarely into Kyle’s huge green eyes. “Neither do you, but I still know you like girls.”

Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but Morgan placed a finger on his cute, pouty lips. “If you so much as DARE to try and say something about that being normal, so help me Sekhmet, I will sit you down and make you read every gay fanfic I’ve ever written.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle responded meekly.

“Anyway, let’s clean up this crime scene and figure out what we’re doing from here,” Morgan directed as they walked back to the living room.

Before they set about cleaning up the blood, they each gingerly lifted one of the two statues and wiped the blood off it. Kyle, holding the statue of Bastet, was studying the effigy more closely than he ever had before. It was carved really well! he thought. Someone actually took the time to carve all the individual hairs and the eyes looked incredibly life-like!

Morgan was wiping off Sekhmet, when a loud womanly voice rang out. “It’s about time you showed me some proper care and respect! I was beginning to think you were going to leave me on the floor all night!”

Startled, Morgan nearly dropped the statue in her hands. Instead she squinted to examine it more intently. “Sekhmet?”

“Yes, Morgan?” came that same husky voice in reply.

“Oh my goddess, I’m so sorry!” Morgan said as she hastily placed the statue in its proper place on the altar. 

Kyle’s eyes drifted back to the statue he held, which proceeded to wink at him in response. “Y’know what? Sure. I’ve been stabbed, nearly died, turned into a catgirl. Winking statues are totally normal,” he muttered, placing Bastet back in her corner of the altar.

“Thank you for taking care of my likeness, Kitten,” said a softer female voice.

“Bastet, I presume?” Kyle asked wryly.

“One and the same, little sister!” the voice replied cheerily. Oddly, the mouths of the statues didn’t move, but their eyes did seem capable of looking around. It was a little too eerie for Kyle’s tastes.

“Okay, for one? I’m a man, no matter what’s happened to my body. For another? I’m really happy you decided to save me, but I am REALLY freaking out about this!” Kyle exclaimed.

“You should be grateful!” Sekhmet’s voice rang out. “Your soul was destined for destruction!”

“I’m sorry, what?” Kyle replied blankly.

“Apologies, Kitten. What Sekhmet means is that as an agnostic involved in a Kemetic practice, your soul would be held to our standards of the afterlife. While I cannot say whether your heart is lighter than the feather of Ma’at, your lack of knowledge of our ways would likely result in your soul being fed to Ammit.” Bastet stated calmly.

Morgan, seeing the genuine fear in Kyle’s eyes, decided to interject. “Um, thank you for saving my boyfriend’s life, but, uh, can you maybe explain why you turned him into a cat girl?”

“Your feline companion, Luna, begged for us to intercede. As Morgan has shown such diligence in offering us prayers, we felt your household worthy of our blessing. In saving your life, Luna has bonded to you for eternity.” There was a somber tone in Bastet’s explanation.

Kyle’s ears drooped to the side and his eyes glistened with unshed tears. He hugged himself tightly as he looked to Morgan. “Luna’s gone, but she’s a part of me,” he said, his small voice cracking with emotion. 

Morgan stepped over to Kyle and pulled him into a tight hug, petting the back of his head with her fingertips. “Sssshhh, it’s okay, Ky.” Tears were welling up in her own eyes as she thought of their little black fur-baby.

“This is all very touching, but there’s a matter that remains,” Sekhmet stated. “The human Kyle is not one of our followers. An offering must be made to balance the blessing.” 

Withdrawing from Morgan’s embrace, Kyle leveled his gaze at the two statues on the altar. “You’re right about me not knowing much about your ways. But I do know a few things.” He retrieved the athame from the couch and placed it against his tiny, slender arm. “You were the Eye of Ra, sent to purge humanity. So a little blood should sate you, right?”

“You offer your blood to me?” Sekhmet asked curiously. “I accept. Lay down your blade.”

Kyle did as he was instructed and placed the athame on the altar. Morgan was secretly glad, as it was her athame, and if anyone was going to blood it, it would be her! Instead, they watched in amazement as the blood disappeared from the floor, drawing in upon itself as if evaporating into thin air. After a couple of moments, the blood was gone without a drop remaining.

“And for me, little sister?” Bastet inquired. “What gift or offering would you bestow upon me?”

With a playful smirk, Kyle chirped, “Be right back!” and darted off toward the bedroom. He returned a moment later, tail swishing happily, with a bottle of body spray. It was his favorite scent, one he borrowed so often from Morgan that she bought him his own bottle. Japanese Cherry Blossom. It wasn’t manly at all, but dammit he liked it and it made him feel calmer.

He spritzed it a few times in the air around Bastet.

“Mmmm, this scent is almost as sweet as you, Kitten!” Bastet purred. “I accept.”

Morgan was proud of her little muggle boyfriend. For all his seeming disinterest in her pagan practices, it seems Kyle was able to pick up a thing or two!

Both voices overlapped and said, “We take our leave this night. Call upon us again when you need.”

Kyle glanced at Morgan. Morgan glanced at Kyle. “Bed time?” Morgan asked.

“Bed time,” replied Kyle.

Morgan quickly changed into a nightgown. Kyle simply exchanged one oversized t-shirt for another, not bothering with undergarments that wouldn’t fit, anyway.

As they climbed under the covers, Morgan whispered, “I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened tonight. I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

Kyle had curled up next to Morgan’s side, his tail wrapped around his body. As he drifted off to sleep, he began purring. “Don’t worry, Mo. I’m fine.”