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Part 14 - Complications, Adorations, Introductions, and Accidents

I should’ve told myself that was a dumb question to offer up, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. He reacted with a slight delay. After appearing momentarily startled, he cleared his throat and asked, “Sorry?”

Then came the tricky part, as I had to mime my way to my ears and tail without pointing incorrectly. Hands on the side of my head pointing up and thumbs gesturing at my back were the best motions I could come up with at the time. Something about that made him smile, and I hoped it was for the right reasons.

He answered, “I’m not sure…May I ask how you uh…made them?”

I shrugged and replied, “It’s more like they appeared.”

Blinking carefully, he quietly asked, “They’re…real?” At this point, any normal person probably would’ve offered for him to touch and feel them as evidence. Since I couldn’t do that, I tried manipulating them a little and tensed my glutes in such a way that I hoped appeared more like a moving tail and less like I really needed to poop. It would have to be enough.

He watched me carefully with those unique eyebrows raised. His next question was, “How?”

I looked right into his eyes, even though they were hesitant to return the gesture. I thought back to how I was before my chance encounter with Gloria and her friend. I didn’t want to presume he was anything like what I was then. I couldn’t bring myself to think that. But it was so unusual to stand before a stranger with what I felt and say the things I did. ‘How?’ loomed so very large, with all that in mind.

Reflecting for a quiet moment, I answered, “Complicated. But I can tell you what I know…if you’re interested.” I watched his hands slide down, clutched together as he offered, “If that’s alright. I would…I mean. Yeah.”

I had to admit that some part of me wanted to glomp the shit out of him right there as a demonstration. Fortunately, I didn’t listen to that part. It would’ve been more comfortable if the bookstore still had the soft, deep mellow-brown couches which they used to scatter around. But the bench along the corner wall sufficed enough for me. I’d gotten used to navigating crowds over the last few weeks, so I didn’t accidentally graze anyone. They still kept far enough away from me anyway. The guy pulled up one of the flimsy café chairs to the wobbly café table and offered me a smile.

If I had to guess, I’d say he was probably a decade older than me, but that was a pure guess from his hair. He didn’t seem older than me to look at him. His waist was a little thick, but I was hardly one to talk there. His hands seemed young though, with their trim nails and long fingers, as did his smile.

My own hands were a little rough, but they felt strangely warm for no reason I could explain, like an air vent above me. I tucked them behind me and cleared my throat. “It began with an explosion.”

I liked that for an introduction. Steve and the other girls who were writers probably could’ve come up with something better, but it was enough to raise those accented eyebrows of his.

Naturally, we both had to backtrack into an introduction. I’d been so used to being called ‘Josh’ that I just gave that like usual and explained it was a nickname. That earned a careful chin stroke from the man across from me, who carefully unfurled his name as Mike then brought his arm out for the query of a handshake.

At this point, I had to twist on my grimace and explain, “I’m sorry, but my touch turns people into catgirls.” Only one random person at a nearby table gave me a brief, frowning look. Mike didn’t immediately put his arm down, but he did ask, “Could you tell me more?”

It wasn’t that long of a story, but Mike asked a lot of questions, almost as many as Ashley did. I figured most people guessed we were talking about some strange fantasy novel I’d read. The sun was setting but, by this time of year, it did that if you so much as turned away for a moment in the afternoon.

Tenting his fingers, he resolved, “It’s a remarkable story. And how you appear to me is evidence of it, but the clearest evidence would be to see you touch and change someone.”

I nodded back as he continued, “What’s strange to me is you say you’re just a man right now…despite how you appear…and you only appear this way to those you’ve touched so far.” To my regret, I left out Bethany for the sake of simplicity and just nodded again.

He quietly uttered, “Amazing” with a bubbling smile before adding, “I’m curious…how do you manage not to accidentally touch someone who doesn’t see you this way?”

I’d glossed over that. I rubbed my legs and kept them crossed because of how he saw me in a dress. Shaking my head, I said, “Well, I often keep to myself. I never really touch anyone else that often in my job or my daily life, so my routine hasn't really changed. I’m just careful and a few layers are enough if I might bump into someone on the bus.” The cold weather helped there, but I didn’t have a realistic plan for once spring rolled around.

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With a frown, he softly shook his head and said, “At least it’s not as strict about touch as with the King Midas myth, but it sounds really challenging.” I just gave him the same smile and assurances I usually gave.

As for proving the disconnect between what he and others saw, Mike asked over a barista he knew well enough to be sure they wouldn’t lie and inquired what they thought about his ‘friend’.

“Do you think he looks like Brendan Frasier?” He came up with that on his own.

The barista squinted at me and shook his head back and forth. He needed to be reminded who that was with a sampling of films before he muttered a quick “Oh!” and peered at me with a squinty look. After a minute, he gave a nod and said, “I can kinda see it, I guess. Kinda around the face and the hair a bit. Yeah.”

Mike waited until the barista had gone away to burst out in exuberance which seemed younger than his years. He focused on the girls and dove into questions about the tea club and all the other delightful and adorable things contained within. He pressed on queries about cat-like attributes. I’d noticed that most of the people who’d found me, one way or the other, had at least an interest in cats. Could’ve meant nothing or everything, but it was something to remember.

We talked long after waves of coffee drinkers had finished flipping through their books, and the holiday crowd had diminished to a slow trickle. He did have a presence like some professors I remembered years ago, but it was like I was teaching him. That felt, at best, unnerving. He proposed that those behind this self-proclaimed “experiment”, Gloria and her friend, might be some sort of inter-dimensional beings, or maybe they were catgirls from the future as part of some closed-time-like loop trying to assure my existence to orchestrate their own. I tried not to think too much about this prospect, but I enjoyed talking to Mike, even if there were times all I could offer in return was an “Aye” and a nod to something really extensive he’d theorized.

All the while, the heat in my hands felt more pronounced. It wasn’t a painful heat by any means, but it was hard to forget, like a persistent ache. And it mounted when I moved my hands to the table and closer to Mike. It didn’t take extensive theory-making to figure out that something inside me really wanted to touch him. I wondered if he was beginning to sense this, but I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to push him into a decision.

In a lull with our discussion, I got up and said I was going to buy one of those coffee biscuits to split. He scooted aside to let me pass between the tables. Truly, I was careful getting up. I looked where I was going. But still, my foot caught on the edge of the table, and I tumbled face-first to the floor. Before I could consciously parse the sequence of events, I realized Mike had bent over from the chair and caught me before I fell onto the hard tile.

I cursed quietly to myself and scurried away from his grasp. I had a good look at what happened next. He settled back into his chair and stared down at his arms.

The invisible manipulations of the change refined the edges of his hands and made each finger even longer than before. The subtle gloss of his nails sharpened while everything else softened away.

His hair remained as long, but its billowy gray shifted to a deep auburn with a rich texture, like the wooden tea table underneath the cloth the girls seemed to change every week. There was a slight tint of rusty red that brushed over his shoulder and past his back. With a long blink like he’d suddenly gotten something in his eye, one moment his eyes were green, and the next they were near in color to Nina’s sandy right eye and Bethany’s two yellow ones.

Her face didn’t lose the presence of her years, but the youth of her smiles dominated the rest of it. She still had her glasses as she quickly stood. From her waist, her weight settled lower on her hips and thighs. While I never paid much attention to behinds unless a tail came out of them, hers still managed to catch my attention with its overflowing shape. Before her jeans could split, the bright red of her Hawaiian shirt had spread all over her clothes. A breath later, she wore a medium-length Chinese dress (a qipao or cheongsam…Allison knew better than me, and the fact I remembered the names at all was a small miracle).

The dress fit her sleekly but not snuggly and was decorated in golden trim and accents with sakura blossoms all around. She was no Nina, but she had pretty decent breasts. However…that backside, especially once the dress made an allowance for her lengthening golden-orange and dark-brown banded tail. Her ears took on the same tones with a puff of white in the front. With the deeper tone of her hair, she looked the most out of everyone I’d touched like she was wearing a pair of cosplay ears and a tail (aside from the fact her tail moved like a cat’s).

It wasn’t long before gasps rippled out from the remaining book readers who’d managed to look up from their tomes in time. Those who didn’t were still treated to the appearance of a sudden catgirl…well, catlady was more fitting. I had to think fast. I bolted from the ground and held my hands out around Mike and uttered a bookstore-respectful, “Ta-da! Take a bow!”