Things are back to normal, I think. Simon hasn’t turned into anything since his experience in the woods. I think that scared him more than he will ever let on. The way he looked when he came out was frightening. He was so vulnerable. I could see in his eyes that he’d had an experience he was not easily going to come back from.
Not that he’s truly come back from it. His research is indicating that he’s several percentage points more wolf than he used to be. You don’t need a background in advanced genetic science to tell that, though. Everything about him is wilder. His hair is thicker and seems to grow faster, his body is broader and stronger, his voice is deeper. He’s even hotter, basically.
If anybody but him gets their hands on this technology, they’re going to market it as some kind of looks-maxing beauty treatment for men, I can guarantee it.
He comes to my apartment one evening about three days after I turned Veronica into a cat. Nobody has reported her missing yet,but I’m pretty sure they’re going to tomorrow because that will be her third day of not clocking in and the company will have to address it.
* * *
Simon
She looks guilty. She smells guilty. And she’s gotten a cat.
I register all three of these things within moments of entering her apartment. I’ve been trying to get her to come over and stay at mine for the past couple of days, but she has been uncharacteristically reticent about that.
So I’ve come to hers with a bag full of Chinese food and an ample curiosity. Sometimes I get too hung up in my work. I know that. I wonder if she thought I was ignoring her. Or if she’s just angrier at me for taking the substances than she’s letting on. Women can be that way sometimes. You turn into a wolf for the better part of a month just once and they get all weird about it.
“Hi,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I thought I’d drop in, bring something to eat. You’re probably hungry, right?”
“Right,” she grins. The smell of the food is doing a lot of heavy lifting right now. I think if I’d come empty-handed she might have tried to fob me off with an excuse. But I’m inside her house now, and she’s searching for some forks.
“Come and sit down,” she says graciously.
We settle in on the couch together and enjoy a succulent Chinese meal. The conversation is light and she starts to relax. I’m glad for that, though I do still want to know what had her so tense in the first place. She has been through a lot lately, and I’m now sure more than ever that she’s avoiding me because she starts yawning almost as soon as she’s finished her meal.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m just so tired.”
“Is Veronica working you hard?”
She blushes immediately and looks away from me and I know something is up.
“What’s that about?” I reach out gently and redirect her gaze to mine with my fingers on her chin.
“Nothing,” she says. “I’ve just been so busy and I think everything got on top of me before I realized, you know? Sometimes you get stressed but you don’t think you’re stressed until your body just shuts down. I think that’s what happened maybe. I just need some down time.”
It’s a good lie, but not good enough.
Just as she says those words, there’s an ungodly sound from the bathroom, like a wild animal is trying to escape from inside.
“What on earth do you have in there?”
“Cat,” she says. “I got it from the shelter. It is going to need some time to calm down. I’m just going to ignore it for the moment, let it get used to being here, all the sights and smells and things.”
“It sounds like it wants you dead,” I say as the creature yowls from the bathroom. I have heard annoyed cats before. Thisone sounds like it is ready and willing to take out her entire bloodline. “Why did you adopt an aggressive cat?”
“Well, I don’t have anybody to look after the apartment when I’m not here,” she smirks. “And, frankly, I felt sorry for the thing. It was older and hard to handle and the shelter said it might be at risk, so…”
“That was really nice of you,” I say, while my spidey senses tell me something is definitely up here. Something is going on with her and this cat.
“What shelter did you go to?” I ask the question casually.
“Oh. Um. Animal Lives,” she says.
“The shelter was called Animal Lives? That’s a weird name.” I put it in my phone, and nothing comes up. “Where are they based?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I might have gotten the name wrong.”
