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Part 6 - Desires, Visions, Fears, and Softer Ears

His head jerked towards me. Even though he seemed better able to look at me than the girls, his eyes avoided my hands. I assumed Allison had passed along that the transformation was a touch.

“Umm…’want’ is such a bold word. I’d be deeply honored. It would be unthinkable though. I mean…would I even be 'me' anymore?” It was something to consider. I relayed that my neighbor seemed much the same, before I gathered up the courage to say, “I’m not sure, but the first person I changed…I touched twice and they seemed to change a lot more…especially their personality.”

I could almost see him shiver at that. I felt a touch of kinship, especially when it came to feelings of catgirls. If I was reading him right and not just projecting. But there was a palpable energy from me when I was around him. It was a little like how I felt when I pursued the landlord. My fingers were stretching out, but I held them back with a couple slow breaths to contain my enthusiasm. It was hard to define, but I felt like if I stayed around this person much longer, then I would be leaping at them.

To my own shock, I admitted to this before cupping my mouth and quickly apologizing. His eyes widened immediately, and he stammered with a hand waving politely, “You don’t need to worry about me…” I stressed that it was more like an obsessive-compulsion at this point than some sort of gift of transformation, as he saw it.

Then, all three of them gasped. I looked between the hanging jaws and wide eyes without a clue of what they noticed, and I had missed. Allison was the first one to clue me in, “You…you changed too!”

“What?” Looking down, I half-expected to find the contours of a different body laid out before me. But I hadn’t felt anything change. All I could see was the same form I’d woken up with from my worn jeans to my gray sweater, because it was still chilly. Allison was persistent about my appearance though and began to describe it.

Wide eyes with a slit more like a cat’s. The color, she characterized it, was somewhere between blue and green before she settled on calling it "aquamarine". My hair, a fair blond with frosting at the edges lay messily but easily over my neck in broad locks. Jutting out from the top of my head, she saw arched ears with a nearly-sharp point to them. Not too different in my head than the girls I saw before me. I visualized a hoodie over my head but pressed down in the middle with the remaining pinnacles jutting out. It was a challenging visual, but one I got from my extensive catalogue of images.

Then, the rest was just wild. Apparently, the gray I was cloaked in against the cold had separated out into black and white with a flash of red. My shoes, torn up sneakers, had become little sandals and my pants had been replaced by stockings with just a little bit of see-through to their stark paleness. I had no idea if I was on the right track, but I was moving towards a particular image I’d saved which placed this visual in a misty forest and the catgirl upon a stone foundation with broken beams all around her.

I kept this memory to help me see what Allison described as a ‘frilly-white fringe’ around the bottom of the dress this catgirl vision of me was wearing. The black parts, aside from a line of red, went from there to my shoulders (I mimed the places where she saw them, to get a good impression). Frilly collar, puffy-white sleeves, and a black bow she could see when I turned around. A ribbon tied at my neck was the same shade of red and hung down and over what Allison described as my “very cute breasts”. My feet nearly curled in on themselves inside my shoes.

She also pointed out my hair-matching skinny tail looked a lot like hers. At least I had that to go on. However, I didn’t look any different to myself. I shivered suddenly when Allison mimed a hug around me, even though we were careful not to touch. I tried to think on whether I felt smaller or she loomed bigger around me as some sign I had changed and just didn’t know it yet, but I was too overwhelmed by the sweet, stinging smell of her so close to me that I couldn’t process much else until she moved back.

I turned towards the target she’d aimed me at in the first place. He trembled and muttered, “It is true…” He saw what the others did as well. Alexis nodded with all of Allison’s comments, so I figured she saw the same. Just I was left out of the mix, which was vaguely frustrating. If there was a new catgirl anywhere, I really wanted to see her, no matter what that meant for me.

I tried not to dwell on this as our new acquaintance had crept behind a fence to nervously peer over it. I could only imagine what he was seeing but at least I had two-thirds of the picture. I kept after him as he stammered for pitiful reasons why not to bother with him. I still wasn’t quite sure what it was but a curling pit of fire and feeling deep inside motivated me to do what I did next without thinking about it.

He was in the middle of searching for his next word when I took my pointer finger and pressed him right on the nose before he could retreat again. Just the slightest of gestures, less than even a little ‘beep’ or something cute like that. But that’s all it took. He changed just as quickly as the rest.

While she’d been of average height before, she declined even more. The magic, the weird science, or whatever came with this ability, cut away from her form, trimming the shape while leaving an outline I found perfectly pleasing. She looked in a nervous panic but not the kind which I’d seen the landlord go through. This was different. I had the feeling she was enjoying it despite the blush firmly on her full cheeks.

Dark hair of a midnight shade fell in long curtains behind her and around her shoulder, not stopping till it dangled sleekly. Her ears and tail were much like the others in shape and size. Phantom ribbons appeared on either side of her hair as invisible hands shaped smaller locks into twin tails that fell down to her chest. Wow, her chest…

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The hand of transformation had focused its efforts on making it clear that simple “cute” breasts wouldn’t be enough for this one. She had a figure and it was enough to make me blush.

Apparently, the choice of outfit for her was similar to what I couldn’t see on me. Only she was instead dressed in deep blue with little touches of black and red. Over-the-knee stockings in a matching, bluish color, and open-toed sandals completed the ensemble.

Then I couldn’t forget the most distinctive feature of all, her eyes. As she’d blinked with incredulity as her body and clothes changed, her brown eyes shifted colors. Her right took a light shade of sienna which veered closer to yellow than brown without looking unnaturally bright. At least, that’s how Allison pronounced it. I would’ve just called it “sandy”. As for the other one, it was baby blue, and we all agreed on that.

The new catgirl used Allison’s personal mirror to marvel at her new shape. She touched a hand to her face, then gawped at the unfamiliar hand she’d used with its narrow wrist, slight palm, and flowing fingers. She deeply sniffed the back of it and shivered.

At the edge of nervous and excited (and barely hiding either feeling), she asked me how long this “effect” lasted for. I admitted, as far as I knew, it was permanent.

Those two-toned eyes were never wider. I assured her there was nothing I could do. It didn’t seem like she was upset but more like she was concerned she had done something wrong and would get into trouble unless she made sure that everything was on the level. She was an odd one but quite cute as I watched her. Allison essentially took care of all the hugging and Alexis made friends with her as well. I could see it was all pretty overwhelming, but I also noticed the shy little flash of a smile on her face.

I kept myself close enough to the group that I didn’t appear as an outsider. I glared at every reflective surface we passed which showed only my normal visage. Allison proposed and took a group photo on her phone, but I still couldn’t see what everyone else saw of me. I parted from the others with as much congeniality as possible when they decided to head back to the new girl’s home. It still didn’t keep me from acquiring another number for my phone and the umpteenth, not-touching embrace from Allison.

When quiet settled in, I leaned against a fence. I felt like I’d just run through a marathon despite the chill of the day. I traced along my arms and my fingers. Same still feeling as always. I cupped my shadowed cheeks and dipped my hands down to my flat chest. No new curves or smoothness.

I didn’t go further than that but to assess the bony, rough contours of my legs. I even gave an eyebrow wiggle to see if something on top of my head might move and I flexed my rear with no idea how a tail might be controlled. I did this only as long as I could bear until cars started passing from the main street.

My eyes tracked every car. When I made it to the main street, I noticed a few other pedestrians on the opposite sidewalk. They were almost half my age and had their headphones in and their eyes down on their phones. I stood at the corner and looked at them. No reaction but not the best test.

I continued past a window-barred self-storage facility and a set of inner-city businesses. The cat…err…car repair place was too far back, and the furniture store had silvered windows. The liquor market had someone coming out of it but they had their head down and I could’ve been dressed as a garish clown and they probably wouldn't have noticed.

It wasn’t till I came to a small ice cream parlor at the next corner that I decided to pop inside and put this to the test. I was the only patron. I stood and stared at the bright images of frozen coffee drinks and bananas splashing into milkshakes. Before long, a tall guy wearing a blue cap with a matching apron emerged from the back with the business’s logo all over his clothes.

He gave me this long, quietly vacant look. Either this was a normal look for him, or he was at the end of a long shift. It was strange to notice him and wonder which it was. He sighed softly, cleared his throat like he was getting ready, and asked, “Welcome to our store. What can I get you?”

The words left his throat and landed weakly in front of him like he’d just coughed them up. Nothing about his reaction told me whether he saw me as a catgirl or not. But his eyes didn’t dart to my head or where my tail might have been behind me (if it actually existed). Still, I found myself conscious and curious about what was going on with him.

I let it go though and told him, “Just browsing.” He answered in well-worn words about their special deals, their flavors of the month, and whether I wanted a sample. I nodded and looked around the frosted glass with more of a smile than usual as he made his way back behind the curtain from which he’d appeared.

I had every opportunity to leave but I lingered. I could probably buy some ice cream. I could even buy some ice cream for Allison and the others and take it over to the new girl’s house as a surprise. Even though I had the address and everyone’s numbers, I quickly vetoed this idea and sighed. I checked out the most recent group photo Allison had immediately sent directly to my phone. Three-fourths adorable.

The bell on the door chimed and a new customer stepped through the doorway. I just gave them a look back with an increasing frown until I heard them suddenly say, “Oh wow…that’s some cosplay!”