This utterly adorable artwork comes courtesy of  embeo. Please favorite the original work here. And did I mention that she's open for commissions? Because she totally is.

---

The Tale of Cassie Fult

"Man, why don't any decent guys ever respond to me on here?" Cassie Fult, a perma-temp working for the Boulton-Paul Advertising Agency, should have been answering her last few emails of the day. Instead, she was looking through the latest reply list to her dating profile on CheckMayte.com.

Her co-worker and fellow perma-temp Betsy, who shared the same cube, looked over Cassie's shoulder, brushing a few stray strands of the latter's shoulder-length blonde hair out of her face. "Message one: 'shoe me ur nekkid cam pixx.' Message two: 'hei gurl i lost my # ken i haev urs?' Message three: 'Please Urgently Open Kind Sir, Message From Minister Ndugu Of Nigeria.'"

"I don't understand it," said Cassie. "I get dozens of hits a day from guys that look like they can string a few brain calls and a few muscle cells together. But they never send me a message, and they never write back when I poke them first."

"It's true, I think that profile picture alone drives a fair bit of business to your page," said Betsy, eyeing her friend with a smidgen of jealousy. From perfect hair to baby blues to skin with just the right dusting of light freckles to a body sculpted by long hours in her makeshift home gym, Cassie was the office pretty girl. And the dual diplomas on the wall attested her sharp wits, too--not that it made any difference in an economy in the toilet tank, but it was still a firmly checked box.

"So then why only idiots and spambots in my inbox?" Cassie leaned back and crossed her arms, blowing her bangs out of her face in frustration.

"I think I have an idea," said Betsy. She grabbed the mouse and hit the back button to Cassie's CheckMayte.com profile.

"What?" said Cassie, looking at her smiling face on the webpage.

"'Children: 1. My cat Smokey, who is my adorable eternal fuzz-child.'"

"What?" said Cassie. "It's true, you've heard me call Smokey that."

"Yes, but a lot of guys will look and see that one child and think you're a single mother," said Betsy. "Believe me, I know! And even if they read that it's a cat, you're still counting a cat as a child."

"They say to tell the truth and be yourself," said Cassie with a slightly pouty look. "That's all I'm doing."

"There's truth and then there's what sells." Betsy moved the mouse again. "Okay, then how about this: 'Political beliefs: Catocratic-Felinican.'"

"It's a joke."

"'Religion: Cat-tholic.'"

"You try and make a feline pun out of 'presbyterian.'"

"And what about this?" Betsy said, jabbing her hand at the screen. "'My darling babycat Smokey is first and foremost in my life, so if you can't stand being number two, we won't have much to talk about.' Are you serious?"

Cassie glanced over at the pictures pinned to her corkboard: Smokey at every stage of life from kitten to 10-year-old middle-age. "So you're saying that I have to give some random guy I meet on the internet priority over my kitty who's been with me since high school?"

"I'm saying that you're telling a guy that no matter what he will be number two," Betsy replied, exasperated. "Number two is another way of saying shit. You're telling a guy he will be shit compared to your cat. Even if it's true, you don't put it out there! Do you think we Boulton-Paul advertises the diarrhea you get from those low-far potato chips we shill for? You have got to drop the crazy cat lady vibe, or at least tone it back on your profile."

"Come on, Bets," Cassie said with a roll of her eyes. "That wasn't a code, it was just honesty. Are you saying I should lie?"

"Just minimize the cat. There's a field for pets. Then, when you've got Mr. Right reeled in from chiseled jaw to rockin' glutes, he'll be so into you--hopefully literally--that he won't mind having to clean the litterbox."

"I'm not minimizing my best friend," said Cassie, defensively. "Are you going to minimize your divorce?"

"Just bite the bullet and do it," snapped Betsy, a little miffed that the former Mr. Betsy had come up in conversation. "Or you'll be a crazy cat lady alone with your 'best friend' until those perky boobs sag down to the point you have to tuck them in."

"I'm done talking about it, okay?" said Cassie. She turned off her monitor. "I appreciate that you're trying to help, but my books can take care of themselves. Have a good weekend, okay?"

Betsy shrugged. "Okay. But as soon as you're ready to face facts, I can help you redo your profile. You coming out tonight? The perma-temps in accounting are going out to the Bar None for happy hour."

"Ah, that sounds nice, but I can't." Cassie stood up, retrieving her purse and pulling on a light jacket. "I think Smokey has a urinary tract infection. I have to pick him up at the vet. I'm expecting a package, too."

Betsy her own coat in hand, raised an eyebrow and gave Cassie a very meaningful, very sarcastic look. "A package? Really? Neither of those two things is a dealbreaker for going to where the single-and-available guys roam, Cass."

"You don't have cats, you have no idea how much of a production vet travel can be. And it's not just any package; it's experimental medicated cat food formulated especially to fight infections. I had to pull a lot of strings and special order it; Gwen in Sales handles the makers' accounts."

"Well, the fun will be there if you feel like joining it," said Betsy. "Have a good one, crazy cat lady."

In fact, Cassie had undersold the difficulty of getting Smokey back from the vet. In addition to enduring numerous tiny nips and scratches, and the usual caterwauling, it was pouring rain out. Both cat and owner were soaked by the time Cassie staggered back into her apartment.

"Inconclusive," Cassie groused, releasing Smokey from his carrier. "I bet they would have done better labwork if it was a human baby instead of a fuzzbaby.

In response, Smokey sauntered over to the food bowl and meowed loudly.

"Aw, is momma's big, strong, brave kitty hungry?" Cassie cooed. "Well I've got good news for you!"

She set the package that had been in the mailbox on her countertop and tore off the wrapping. Inside was a standard-looking can of wet cat food. The label was strangely generic--as one might expect from a formulation still in the prototype stage, Cassie assumed.

"Felinex Multi-Spectrum Immunity Booster," she read off the label. "Lot 272, no. 112. For general and specific infections. A product of Granholm-Seager Pharmaceuticals LLC in collaboration with GeneCom. Internal use only."

Smokey meowed again. Cassie bit her lip; as much as she hated the idea of animal experimentation, the thought that the canned food she had traded for an illicit 10% advertising discount might help her cat with the infection that had been running up vet bills and returning "inconclusive" results was tempting. They wouldn't have made any even for internal use if it harmed the cats in any way, would they?

The can opener whirred. Normally that was enough to get Smokey excited, but the malaise on display (aside from going to and from vets, naturally) was just a further symptom of how much the infection had taken out of the poor thing. Cassie schlepped the contents into Smokey's dish; the food certainly smelled palatable enough, especially compared to the pale grey gelatinous goo that was most medicated cat food.

"Go on, eat up. Mommy will be right back."

Cassie kicked off her shoes and peeled off her wet socks. She had an idea of how to riposte Betsy and her insistence that her Smokey-heavy CheckMayte.com profile was driving guys away.

"Here we go!" she said, pulling the slinky red New Year's dress out of her closet. It didn't see much use when a new year wasn't being rung in, but Cassie had an idea that a slinky new profile picture with the red dress and fixed-up hair would bring the good dudes running--and shut Betsy up for a bit.

Smokey continued to meow and moan slightly as Cassie changed into the dress and spent a little time in front of the mirror teasing her hair to the right natural-looking waterfall effect about her shoulders and ears. The cat was still making odd noises when she padded out a few minutes later. Smokey didn't seem to appreciate the mommy had smoked herself up; instead, it was all looking at the untouched pile of cat food and mewling.

"Oh, what's the matter?" Cassie said. "Decided to be a picky eater with the food that mommy had to spend the most time and most potentially-getting-her-butt-fired on?"

She scooted the cat to one side with her foot and knelt down, hoping that the act of coming between cat and food would be enough to awaken Smokey's natural predatory instincts. The uncertain yowling at the unfamiliar food continued all the same.

"Look, it's not that bad. See?" Cassie grabbed a spoon from the countertop and dug it into the food, taking a large bite. "Mmmm, yummy!" It actually didn't taste that bad; Cassie rolled her eyes a little at the thought of what Betsy might say and think were she there.

Smokey, though, was unconvinced. Cassie's example was not followed, and her cat continued to look at the dish with a wary and jaundiced eye.

"Fine, be that way! But you're not getting anything else to eat, so sooner or later you'll have to try it." And Betsy thought that Smokey was always getting spoiled! If only she'd been there to see that bit of tough love.

Walking into her apartment's living room, Cassie set her laptop down on the couch to get the camera ready to take her new CheckMayte.com profile photo. She inhaled sharply when pulling the site up, though. The profile had been altered; Cassie had apparently forgotten to sign out at work. Betsy had gone in and made a few unsubtle edits. She'd changed Cassie's "looking for" field to "tomcats," her astrological sign to "cattatarius," and her sex and sexual orientation to "kitten" and "catosexual," respectively.

"Oh, Betsy," Cassie said with a roll of her eyes. "Passive aggressive much?"

She silently promised herself that she'd undo the edits and then set the webcam up. Assuming her most sultry pose, with legs drawn up beneath her and torso thrust forward with her arms braced on the carpet, Cassie flashed her best megawatt smile as the camera snapped.

"Great! I'll put that up, and then…and then…ooh…"

Something didn't feel right; Cassie felt sick to her stomach and could hear an audible grumbling. A moment later, she heard audible snapping and looked back in a panic.

The proportions of her slim body, which had been hugged by the red dress were changing before her eyes, becoming thicker and less curvy. The fabric wasn't designed for any other shape, and had started to run like a nylon in a few places. That in and of itself would have been alarming enough, but it was what Cassie saw protruding out the back of her short skirt that alarmed her the most.

A short tail, covered in the same golden hair that Cassie had just arranged for the camera.

"Wha-" There wasn't time to say much else; with a snap in her spine Cassie suddenly felt herself thrust forward into a position that was more quadrupedal than anything. Her breasts pressed against the carpet, but they--like her arms, her legs, and everywhere else--were being overrun with blonde fuzz.

Cassie's ears, which had been mostly hidden by her hair, were suddenly exposed and huge--partly because they were growing, and partly because the hair atop her head seemed to be receding even as hair came up like weeds everywhere else. She twitched her face and jaw; they were both being altered in concert, becoming subtly longer even as her petite and slightly upturned nose decided it was time to be rough and wet. Cassie watched her fingers begin to grow stubbier and felt an incredibly odd sensation as her nails seemed to be absorbed by the skin. She could only feel it, but her feet were changing too: the toes stubbing out even as the foot itself became longer.

"What's…happening…?" Cassie's words were laborious and laden with consonants, coming out almost as a purr.

Her spine arched instinctively as the metamorphosis continued; the pain was so intense that Cassie's eyes slammed shut involuntarily. Her gritted teeth were becoming sharp canines as her face became longer and more feline to accommodate them. There was barely a residual fluff of her human hair atop her head, but no visible skin anywhere else. That tail, which had started so small, was now curled up over Cassie's back, fully half the length of her body.

The contortions and changes were the end of that New Year's dress; it shredded even though the problem of mass seemed to be resolving itself. Cassie, in addition to changing, was also shrinking.

Nails reappeared from finger and toe tips, but now as wickedly curved claws kneading reflexively at the air as the muscles and bones needed to make them fully retractable developed. Cassie's legs and arms altered their proportions still further as she settled to the ground, her human cries of surprise now given way to a catlike yowl. Her gracefully curvaceous legs reduced themselves in size even as her feet grew to take up the slack, while her hands dwindled to small paws.

There were a few more moments of intense discomfort and spastic rolling about, but the tempest that had consumed Cassie's body died down as quickly as it had sprung up. Looking back over herself, she was shocked to see the body of a medium-sized cat, a fancy breed. The fur was the same color her hair had been, as were her eyes. Betsy might have remarked that the cat reminded her of a friend, but would never in a million years have thought it was Cassie. Even sitting in her own living room amid the scraps of what had been her dress, Cassie was no longer recognizable as the Boulton-Paul perma-temp ad girl.

Her computer pinged as the picture of a human Cassie--now out of date--was uploaded. She tried to claw her way up the couch to the computer in hopes of summoning aid, but her new shape defeated her. Cassie slid back to the carpet with a mournful wail.

"Well, isn't this a change of pace?"

It was Smokey, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Witness to the entire sequence of events, the cat nonchalantly licked one paw.

"I told you that cat food was no good to eat, and you didn't listen to me. But then again you never listen, do you?"

"I…I'm sorry," Cassie said in what would have sounded like a series of meows to a human listener.

"Well, at least you can speak intelligently now," said Smokey. "Come on. I'm not feeling well, but let's get you cleaned up and maybe do something about this whole mess. You make an awful cat, Cassie, and I won't have my meal ticket taken off to the shelter."

As she had claimed in her profile, Smokey truly was the most important creature in Cassie's life...at least at that moment.