Synopsis: When a struggling man is offered the chance at fifty thousand dollars in exchange for trying to live a normal life as what we call a furry, he has the true nature of humanity revealed to him, as well as the better side of it in the end.

Author's Note: Not sure how I thought of this. The title is a reference to the Beatles song of the same name, though. It's a strange format for me, but, I think I pulled it off well. Although it will thoroughly entertain you all and will surprise you in the end. Enjoy and peace out.
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I have no honest clue as to the reason why I chose to do it. But, believe me; I didn’t do it because I just felt like it. At the time, my job wasn’t doing me so well. I was hardly making due and it was getting harder and harder to pay all my bills off. Last month I had to drop my cell phone, cable TV and the internet just so I could pay my mortgage, car payment, and insurance, not to forget buy food for the rest of the month.
As the end of the next month came, I knew I would have to sacrifice something else just so I could make end’s meet. But at this point there was hardly anything left to give up. I needed my house phone and I couldn’t lean down my grocery bill anymore. I was only eating five days a week, once a day as it was.
So, one day I was looking through the paper because I needed another job. My daytime employer was screwing me over because they shipped half of the building to India to make the CEO and all the other big wigs a little bit richer. What was left of the office building had to take pay cuts and they screwed us over on our benefits, too. It was terrible, but, what action could I possibly take against them?
While I was looking through the Sunday paper, hoping to find some well-paying second job or, hopefully, a different job entirely, I saw a strange advertisement. It read, ‘Healthy men and women wanted for medical experiments, massive reward’ and immediately I started weighing the benefits against the detriments. But, within moments of doing that, I simply swished both aside and started dialing the number that was in the ad.
A woman picked up and when I inquired as to what the advertisement was about, she explained in a calm, simple voice that all I had to do was undergo a small, and let me restate that, small procedure and then I was to live my normal life for a full week with the procedure complete. She told me that their company, named Omnitech, would pay me $50,000 and would consider me for any additional procedures or experimental drugs they were considering, which would also earn me similar rewards.
The number spun through my mind while the woman continued to explain, but, I barely heard a word she said. Fifty thousand dollars was way too much to pass up. It would be enough to make sure I could live a comfortable life for the rest of the year and then some. Before the woman could finish her spiel about the procedure, I simply demanded the address and the time to show up. She told me, said goodbye and hung up.
The next day I showed up to a gleaming building in the center of the city. Standing before it, it was exactly as I had expected it to be: a fifty-story, shimmering monstrosity of a building with huge letters in white neon written across the fifth floor windows. I shook my head, locked my car up and then proceeded inside.
A big man inside nodded at me and smiled when I came to the desk and when I informed him why I was here, he quickly pointed to the elevator and told me that I was to go to the eighth floor. There I would meet a man with white hair named Dr. Luscious Clay. He would take me in, explain to me exactly what this was all about, make me sign some papers, and I would receive my money just before they take me in to put me under for the surgery.
I didn’t like the sound of the word surgery, but, the number of zeroes following a five began to revolve around my head and I knew I couldn’t turn back now. Thanking the man, I turned and crossed the room to the elevator. Entering it, I pressed the number eight on the shiny, stainless steel wall and rode it all the way up to my destination.
The elevator dinged when the doors opened and I went out and looked up the hall in both directions. When I looked to my right, a man was walking briskly towards me, his arms up over his head and he was smiling. He was a balding man in his sixties and he had a large, gray beard that connected to what was left of his hair.
“You must be Paul!” He cried, laughing a bit. “Come here, come here, we’ve been waiting for you all day!”
I was surprised at how happy he seemed and how heartily he greeted me. But, I smiled and told him that I was well. He didn’t say too much more than that, but, simply shook my hand with an iron grip and then stepped to the side, raised an arm and told me that his office was at the end of the hallway.
We walked for a while down a hallway about as long as a normal, middle class house. The doors that lined the bare-white, office-like hall were all made with iced glass. Names etched into the glass all started with ‘Dr.’ and then followed with strange names the likes of which I had never heard before. A lot were German, others were Japanese, and the strangest one of all was in Russian. I didn’t even know how to pronounce it.
Entering the open door at the end of the corridor, the doctor quickly rushed forward and sat down behind his desk and clasped his hands together as if had been sitting there the entire time. Before I sat down in front of his desk, I looked around to things that hung on the wall of his office.
Paintings of animals, a framed ticket that looked like was from the seventies, and posters for concerts from a bygone era all decorated his office. The doctor seemed to see me looking over them and admired them himself as if he had barely seen them before in his life. He smiled as he looked over each one.
“That ticket is from Woodstock.” He said and chuckled. “Before I became a doctor, I was a bassist for the Mystery Band. We didn’t do too well, but I still had fun.”
“Did you paint all of those?” I asked, not wanting to talk about his musical past.
“Yes.” He replied. “Besides working with genetics and hereditary, I like to calm myself down with painting still life and animals. It helps me keep sane, you know. Anyways, why don’t you have a seat, Paul, and I’ll explain to you what this is all about.”
I sat down as he instructed me into a soft office chair and relaxed back into it. He did the same in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Although serious in his face, his body projected the feeling of relaxation and calm. It was a lovely combination, but, didn’t reassure me to what exactly was going to happen.
“I no doubt guess that you have come here today because of the money advertised in the paper.” Dr. Clay began. “Most people do. But when I explain to them exactly what this whole thing means, they usually refuse and leave. Just know that if you do not agree with what we are doing, you are absolutely free to leave and are in no way obligated to go through with this. Otherwise, once the procedure is done, it is very hard to go back, not to mention very painful.”
The word painful hit me in the stomach. But, I swallowed and nodded my head like an idiot. The doctor saw this and sighed and then leaned forward. Placing his hands back onto his desk, he looked at me with a seriousness that he did not have before. He mustn’t have been able to get much farther than this with his other clients.
“The project is as,” he sighed, “follows: We here at Omnitech are striving to make the human life better. But we also know that human life isn’t perfect. There are problems with our bodies and our minds that we, as humans, cannot overcome. But some of these body problems can be fixed with pieces and parts from the animal kingdom. Now, I do not mean that we are going to cut off your legs and replace them with cheetah legs to make you faster, it’s nothing like that.
“But what I do mean is that we are, and I mean are, going to change you. But, at the DNA level, not at the body level, that’s how we were here at Omnitech. What we plan to do is put you under and then go to your very DNA level to change you. Please stop me if you don’t understand something. We are going to change bits and pieces of your DNA structure to try to improve your life. Make you stronger, faster, tougher and much more durable.
“Understand that this is going to show on your body. If, say, we combined your DNA with the DNA from a common house cat, you would take on several traits from the animal. You would have fur, claws, pads, a muzzle, a tail and paws. But you would be still human like and retain most of your human characteristics. You would still be able to live a normal life, but, it would be very different of an experience.”
“Wait, you’re going to turn me into a werewolf?” I demanded.
The thoughts from such movies as the recent incarnation of the classic novel to the depiction of the werewolf in the older movie Van Helsing began to twist through my head. I would have thick fur, a wolf’s head, digitigrade legs and paws and a curly tail. Claws and pads would serve as palms and fingers. Gnarly teeth and large ears would be on my head.
“Well, close, but, not exactly.” The doctor proceeded. “You need to understand that you would not be that monster-like. Instead, you would be closer to a human being, but, resemble a werewolf in the classical sense. You would definitely retain your mind, I promise you that.”
I sat back in my chair, not realizing that I had leaped forward like that. The doctor then continued to speak to me. Most of what followed the explanation of the procedure was simply legal terms. Most of it was about liability and problems and insurance and notifying work, my insurance company and so on. I had to sign a lot of paperwork and say that I listened to the doctor explain everything to me.
“One more thing, Paul,” The doctor said as we neared the end of the hour and as he tucked away all the proper paperwork, “I would like you to do something for me. I want you to keep a journal of your experiences. About how your neighbors treat you, how your employer treats you and how you feel. If you experience any pain, pleasure, nightmares, illness and the like, I would like you to write it down. Write down anything that you would like me to know or that you notice or simply want to write down, I don’t really care.”
I nodded my head and he smiled. Both of us stood up at about the same time and he shook my hand. He told me how excited he was, because I was the first person to agree to go through everything. When he let go of my hand, he reached into his pocket and drew out a computer-printed check. When he handed it to me, my heart nearly exploded. The money was already ready to be given to me and had my name on it and everything. I smiled larger than he could ever have.
We turned and went out of Dr. Clay’s office. Going down the hall, we crossed nearly half the building, went up two flights of stairs, because, as Dr. Clay stated, ‘the elevator freaks me out, man’ and proceeded down another long hallway. We met another doctor, a man of Japanese origin with a name I don’t want to write down because, honestly, I don’t how to spell it.
He and Clay conversed for a little while about the whole procedure in the operating room, or some kind of room that I consider an operating room. They used a lot of big words that I couldn’t understand and a lot of medical terms in Greek and Latin that I, as well, couldn’t understand. Either way, we walked into an open set of double doors and then stopped at the center of a large, open room.
On one side was a huge window looking in on a large set of seats, like a viewing room in one of those old operating hospitals. But the seats were empty and nobody would be observing me today. In the very center of the room was a single table and at the foot end was a huge machine.
“Just lie down and we’ll have you out in a second.” The Japanese doctor said. “Don’t worry, we use the same anesthesia as a normal, everyday hospital and you will feel absolutely nothing. If you do, you get your money back.”
Clay laughed like an idiot, but, I didn’t think it was too funny. When the two of them stopped laughing, Clay helped me get up and lie down on the metal table. Then he walked to the side of the huge, gray machine and began pressing buttons and inputting codes and other strange things. A lot of it sounded like the stuff I had to tell him earlier like my age, height, weight and so on.
The Japanese doctor, meanwhile, wheeled over a canister on little wheels and then had me slip on a gas mask. The medical device felt strange covering my mouth and nose, but, I got used to it and stopped picking at it. As Clay continued to mess with the machine, the Japanese doctor gave me a book and flipped it open.
“Pick the animal you like the most inside.” He said in his most stereotypical voice.
Clay and he both commence laughing again and this time even I chuckled. Looking down to the book, I flipped through several pages of pictures and names. Finally, I pointed to one, the Japanese doctor looked to it and nodded and then took the book. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two lollipops. Then he twisted open the nozzle on the cylinder of anesthesia and then held the two lollipops up to me with two hands.
“Would you like lemon or cherry?”
I don’t remember too much of what happened after that, but, when I finally came to, I didn’t feel too hot. With Clay and the Japanese doctor standing on opposite sides of the table, I gasped for breath, ripped off the mask and sat up quickly, continuing to gasp. The two of them laughed, but, commenced checking my vitals.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It’s all over.” Clay told me. “The procedure was complete success. We’ll be going. There’s a mirror over next to the door if you want to make sure everything is in place before you leave.”
The two of then nodded their heads and were gone. I turned and watched them leave the room. As the door closed, the mirror turned towards me. Beside it was positioned a small table on top of which was a black-bound book with a pen tied to it: the journal that I am to keep. Swinging my legs over the table, I dropped my feet down to the ground.
The first thing I remembered feeling was the cold of the floor, but, I didn’t look down. Rising upwards, immediately finding a strange balance of my body, I stepped slowly towards the door and the mirror. Pacing until the mirror came fully into sight; I stopped and stood motionlessly a foot and half from its surface.
In the glass stood a six foot cheetah in a black t-shirt tucked tightly into long jeans. A long, rope tail dotted with black and colored yellow, capped by a white tuff, swung around behind it, beyond my control. No shoes covered two yellow, white and black paws and from what was exposed, I could see fur covering its entire body.
White socks reached down from the wrists and covered the hands. Black pads were revealed on its palms and fingers as I twisted the hands about. Sharp claws poked from the ends of each finger, but did not move like those of the large cat. But the most shocking part was the face that stared back at me.
A mangled cheetah face, white along the short muzzle, but ending in yellow and black, replaced where a nose, chin and mouth used to jut. A black nose moved around, almost unconsciously at the tip. Round, slightly pointed, black and yellow ears wheeled around like radar. The only things that seemed real were the two pools of blue and white of eyes which seemed to set on the looking glass itself rather than on the creature in it.
I had no words at the time and later I would understand why. I wasn’t sure why the Japanese doctor had me choose my favorite animal. It’s what I would be paired with. I thought it was just a strange question that they ask you, like a psychologist trying to get to know his patient. Either way, I had to live with my own, unknown choice.
Five minutes later a man stepped into the room, dressed as a security guard. A tall, round black man, he smiled at me happily and chuckled a little. But then he greeted me kindly and escorted me to my car. He told me it was to make sure I didn’t fall and hurt myself, ‘because of the paws, the doctor said’. I didn’t really mind it. I needed guiding to my car anyways, I was only half present.
The first week of the experiment doesn’t matter. The doctor called me, had a small chat, and asked me how I felt. Fine, I said. He told me work had been notified and the boss was paid off. That’s not what he said, but, it’s what I figure he meant. He told me not to do anything brash and to think before I act. I understand why he told me that now, but, at the time I just brushed it off.
My next door neighbors were the first one to witness the six foot tall were-cheetah walking to his Geo Prizm. Buddy and Holly, the ones to the right of my house, stood on the front porch of their house; slack jawed, and watched me go. The mailman walked into my mailbox when he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
The people in at work were no better. My boss wouldn’t talk to me. Jack, my best friend in the cubicle next to mine, went to the bathroom and didn’t come back. Diane, across the hall, didn’t make eye contact with me for four days and spilled her coffee on her favorite dress and didn’t notice, despite the steam coming off of it because of the heat.
It began to really depress me, especially when the cafeteria worker ran away screaming and nobody would sit near me. I helped myself to lunch and didn’t pay, which was the upside, but, it still didn’t compensate for the hateful, fearful and shocked stares that I got all day. I heard the manager from the floor above whisper ‘fucking freak’ across the room, which my feline ears picked up despite the distance.
When I came home, the entire neighborhood was empty. Shutters were closed, doors were locked and people rushed into their houses. Windows were dark all night, despite a few people driving by constantly, probably in hopes of getting a glance at the new freak on the block. The mailman dropped my mail at the end of my walk for the entire experiment.
I cashed my check and paid everything off, but, that didn’t help. In the bank, I ended up waiting four hours to cash the check until the manager, a black man going into his seventies, came out. He was the only one who would help me because he not only marched from Selma to Montgomery all three times, but on Washington D.C where he heard a man have a dream. He shook my hand and smiled when a kid took a picture.
The worst part was trying to explain everything to my girlfriend. I hadn’t run that by her before I did it, which was stupid, but she had to understand. On the fourth day of the experiment, and my third conversation with her about it, I suggested that we go to a bar for a drink. She agreed, but only if we went to the Lobo. It was a more upscale bar in the area and was known not only for its peace and security, but and its chicken wings as well. This is the most important part of the experiment.
On the Friday night following the experiment, about six days, I drove my car down to the bar. The parking lot was pretty empty, but despite this, I brought along a trench coat and hat anyways. I wasn’t too keen on going out to a really public place like this because I knew what could happen. When you live in the South, this is what happens to guys who stick out. I should have thought about that before I went through with the whole thing.
Slipping inside, I took a seat at the bar and waited. A band was playing up on stage, playing some strange music the likes of which I had never heard. They called it Indie, but, I think they should have called it garbage. When I sat down, I noticed some guys in the corner behind me begin to talk. But they got quiet after a few seconds, which was the strange part. The men at the bar scooted down away from me.
When the barmaid walked to me, I forgot about the whole thing. The barmaid, Billie according to her name tag, stood across the bar from me with a heavy mug in her hands. She wiped out the inside of it repeatedly, turning it over and over, while she looked to me. I watched her eyes squint and then get wide. Billie smiled and then put the mug down before leaning on the table.
“I know you.” She said, her fair voice rising over the music. “You’re that furry guy, aren’t you?”
I swallowed hard and nodded my head. She smiled and then stood up again. The first thing that I noticed was her t-shirt cling to her body as she stood. Her blonde pony tail swung around her head and her face gleamed against the lights hanging from the ceiling. She picked up another mug and began wiping it.
“So what are you doing here?” She asked me.
“I’m waiting on my girlfriend.” I told her, whispering.
“I’m surprised that you have a girlfriend.” She said, in a voice that suggested she was more playing that trying to be mean.
I looked away and she didn’t talk to me again, seeing that I wasn’t amused by it at all. I watched the time go by on the wall clock for nearly three hours. When ten o’clock rolled around, I began to see that my girlfriend ditched me. But the strange thing was that I wasn’t surprised, and still am not. She only liked me for the things I could buy her. When that went away and then I did what I did, I figured she would run.
Despite that, I stayed in the bar. The band gave up trying to impress the patrons, who hated their music, and left about an hour ago. The people at the bar did about the same. The men that were here for the food stayed, but, cracked jokes about me in the corner. They seemed to be about college age, too young or too rich to know better or care.
Finally, the door swung open behind me and in strolled three men. They seemed to be in their early thirty and, as I can distinctly remember, stunk like hell. One smelled of a meat packing plant, another of a lumberyard and the third of a cheap garage and a sewer main break. They came in telling racist and sexist jokes, which shut up the college kids.
They strolled past me and the one who worked at a meat packing plant stopped walking and got really quiet. The other two mimicked him and I knew what would happen next. With my tail swinging behind my back, the leader walked towards me, his boots thumping on the floor, and stood over my shoulder.
“Well, lookee here, fellas. Looks like we’s gots an outsider amongst us.” The man said, his accent made by missing several teeth, obviously from smoking and chewing.
“What are we gonna do about it, Butch?” The second one, the lumberjack, said with his grammar much better.
“I think we’s gonna have us a little fun, ain’t we boys?” Butch said. “Harry?”
“You betcha, Butch, we’s gonna have lots of fun.” The third one replied.
“Clyde, is we gonna have fun?” Butch continued.
“Umm-hmm, you bet we are, Butch.” The second one replied.
I lifted my eyes up to Billie, who stood by watching with her hands wrapped around a plate and a rag. Her body suggested that she didn’t care, but, her eyes darted back and forth, keenly aware of the happenings in her business. Immediately afterwards, I felt hands grab my shoulder and pull me backwards.
Digging my claws into the bar counter, I tried to fight being thrown on the ground, but it didn’t work too well. Butch pulled me with his labor-hardened arms and threw me over onto the ground. Before I could hit the ground, I flipped over and landed down on my hands. My hat flew onto the ground and then sort of levitated halfway across the room where it landed out in the middle of the barroom.
Lifting my head up, I looked to the nearest man and hissed without thinking. The man threw up his arms and laughed like an idiot, a lazy, dull huh-huh. The others put up their dukes and immediately came for me. They surrounded me and kicked me in the sides, the behind and in the head. I didn’t fight back at all. I couldn’t, I was terrified.
Through the entire beating, I heard them all laughing and calling me increasingly offensive names. The college kids in the corner did nothing to help me. They laughed and threw things themselves. Other patrons laughed, yelled or did nothing at all. I took what felt like hours of beating without attempting to fight back myself. And there were no policemen there to help me.
Suddenly there was a loud yell and the man standing behind me, Butch, hit the floor directly beside me. The entire bar went silent and the only thing that I could hear was my breathing, a sad, helpless gasp. Moments later I heard the clear cocking of a pump-action shotgun.
“Everybody get the fuck out!” Billie yelled, swinging the gun around. “That means all of you too, get the fuck out of my fucking bar! Drag him with you!”
Chairs scraped along the floor and boots stomped across them. I watched as the entire bar was vacated, except for me and Billie. When the door slammed shut for the last time, I heard nothing but the silence of the dark bar. Tears wetted my nose and I gasped for airs in between sobs. I don’t remember clearly how it went from me sitting on the bar to me having the hell beat out of me. But I clearly remember how it went from me having the hell beat out of me to me lying alone on the floor.
“Come on, it’s over. You can get up.” Billie said gently.
I took my hands from over my head and rolled onto my back. Staring up at the ceiling for but a second, I lifted my head and looked to her. But after a second of looking at her face, I immediately closed them and rolled my head to the side. I was ashamed of the position that I was in but could do nothing to reverse it.
“Why did you save me?” I asked her. “Why didn’t you let them kill me and be done with it?”
“Because they say that evil prevails when good men fail to act.” She replied with little thought. “I believe that to its fullest and I saw that there were no good men in here that wanted to act. Sometimes it takes a good woman to act when good men are too afraid to.”
I opened my eyes, wiped my face off with my sleeve and then looked at her. She lowered the shotgun to the bar counter and then slowly lifted herself onto it, slid across it and dropped down onto the floor. She took three steps beside me and then helped me up onto my paws, which were bare because I had no shoes that would fit.
When I was up, she put my arm around her head like I was a wounded soldier about to be walked off of the battlefield. She took me to a bar stool and then sat me down. When I was sitting, she wiped my nose and then tapped the bridge like I was a pet. Without thinking, I smiled and then lowered my head to look at her like a kitten.
She laughed and put her hands on opposite sides of my muzzle. Then she lifted my muzzle to meet her lips and we kissed, long and passionately. Thinking back on it, I hardly understand how it went from her saving my ass to me kissing her. But, at this point, I don’t really care anymore. We’ve been dating for nearly three weeks, now. And I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

How’s that for a journal?

Your friend,

Paul M. Blakely

P.S. Send me any more experimental stuff my way whenever you can get it.