I had the dream again.

I don’t know why it keeps coming back ... it’s always the same. Even when some of the details are different, it’s the same. I’ll wake up, and instead of being me, I’ll ... well...

I’ll be a cat.

And it’ll feel so right.

My name’s Kat. You’re probably thinking “Hey, that’s where the whole thing comes from,” but I really don’t think it is. My full name’s Kathryn, and the only person who really calls me Kat is my older brother, Duncan.

The weirdest part is always the first few minutes after I wake up ... one morning, I literally found myself getting out of bed on my hands and knees before I worked out what was wrong. It’s the strangest thing - it’s not something I want, and if I knew how to get rid of it I would.

It’s just something that ... yeah, something that feels right.

Like you know transgendered people? I’m not comparing my thing to that, of course, but ... well, let’s just say I have a newfound appreciation for them. I’m sure that if they could, they’d push a button and be comfortable with the junk they were born with.

It’s not that I want to be a cat. I just keep having these dreams where I am a cat, and after I do, I feel weird for the rest of the day.

Hell, I’ve never even owned a cat. Where the fuck do these urges come from?

Ugh. I’m obsessing again. Let’s talk about something else.

My name’s Kathryn, like I said. I’m 22 years old. Up until two years ago, I lived with my parents and my older brother - my parents died in a car accident, which obviously sucked, but I guess I’m starting to deal with it. My brother - Duncan - and I inherited the house, and not much else.

I study health sciences online, I read, I make damned good coffee, I like to paint ... oh, yeah - I’m a lesbian. I came out when I was sixteen, and everyone was super cool with it. My parents were really great about it - they were just pretty great generally, in fact. I miss them every day.

I work at a clothing shop - nothing fancy, but it pays the bills. When I graduate, I’m thinking of becoming a dietician - I haven’t really thought about it that much.

After the funeral, I went a bit crazy. Nothing dangerous - I just went out pretty much every night, found a different girl and went back to their place. My brother really worried about me for a while - he’d go weeks without seeing me, and I’d let my phone’s battery run out and be completely incommunicado.

I really didn’t care about anything - I distracted myself with sex, and had a pretty rough time of it. I burned through the small inheritance my parents left me, which I regret now of course, but I think I needed to do it.

Eventually I got through that, and fell into a bit of a funk. That’s why I went back to school - to get myself back into the “real world” as much as anything. It’s been good for me - I’ve made a bunch of friends, I’m learning heaps, and I’m keeping myself busy.

Duncan studies too - he’s doing a bachelor of psychology. I think he’s enjoying it - we don’t really talk about our studies much.

Anyway, the dreams.

They started about a month ago, maybe two. It’s hard to tell - the first one didn’t feel like the first one, if that makes sense. Dreams are weird things - Duncan could probably tell you more about them than me.

It wasn’t anything significant - I was in my house, as normal, but instead of walking around like a human, I was on all fours.

And yeah, I was a cat.

And in the dream, it wasn’t the first time I’d experienced it. In the dream, I’d always been a cat - it wasn’t a new thing, it was the status quo. I was a cat, with ears and a tail, eating cat food out of a bowl.

Like I said, when I woke up, it took me way longer than it should have to realize that hey - I’m a human. I have more to do than just lay around and sleep all day - tempting though that sounds.

I didn’t think too much of it, but then about three or four nights later, the dream came back.

It feels stupid, putting so much significance on dreams that were honestly not that interesting. It wasn’t like anything earth-shattering happened in these dreams - I’d just walk around the house, maybe have a snooze (dreaming about sleep - now that’s weird) and live out my normal, daily, cat life.

I’d just wake up, and walking on two legs would feel wrong.

The worst time, though, was when I went down and Duncan was in the kitchen.

“Good morning,” I went to say, but you know what came out?

...

“Meow.”

Duncan just stared at me, one eyebrow raised. I blushed - hell, I didn’t even know I could blush, and tried to pass it off as a joke.

“Ha ha,” he said, but he kept looking at me strangely all day.

After what I call my “dark time”, Duncan really took care of me. I had no money and no job at that point, and I hadn’t helped out with the funeral at all - Duncan really came through, and I’ll always be grateful to him. He made sure there was always food in the house, water in the pipes, and when he found out I was having trouble sleeping, he even went and got me one of those white noise machines.

Five or six months later, I asked if there was anything I could do to thank him for everything he’d done.

“Just look after yourself,” he said earnestly in response, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t mind taking care of you when you need it, but I sleep better knowing you’re okay.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile, and I never brought it up again. I’d find some way to pay him back, some day, if it was the last thing I did.

I haven’t mentioned Christie yet. Christie is ... well, I could say a friend, but that wouldn’t really be the whole story.

I met Christie during my bad period. Duncan doesn’t like her, I know - he’s never said anything, but I think she reminds him of not knowing where I was for days on end.

She’s a bit of a “free spirit”, I guess you could say. The only things she likes better than drinking is drugs, and the only thing she likes better than drugs is ... well, me.

Christie started as a one-night stand. We kept in touch after that - she’d sometimes convince me to go out with her, and I’d wake up at some stranger’s house ... one time I even woke up on a park bench, with Christie nowhere to be found. (Duncan came and got me, and it took forever to convince him that no, I wasn’t going back to who I was).

Lately though, we’ve been hanging out more and more. I don’t know how it happened - how do these things ever start? - but it’s been really good for both of us. Christie makes sure that I actually leave the house from time to time, and I make sure that she takes care of herself a bit better -

I like to think I center her - God knows she needs it. She doesn’t really have anyone else. She’s got no brothers or sisters, and her parents live on the other side of the country - they don’t talk much. She doesn’t even get along with her housemates particularly well. She probably sounds difficult from all that ... in truth, I think she’s just used to being alone.

In the last two months or so, you could even say we’ve gotten pretty serious. We haven’t declared our love for each other or anything like that, but she sometimes even comes ‘round and we don’t get drunk or go out, just chill and watch a movie.

I try not to let her stay the night, just ‘cos I know it makes Duncan uncomfortable seeing me with her, but if that wasn’t a factor, we’d probably be about a month away from a “moving in together” discussion.

So yeah. That’s me. Or at least ... that’s who I was.

My work was having a Halloween party. Costume, of course, and Christie had invited me to a big LGBT party straight after. I needed something that would be professional enough for my workmates, but sexy enough for to wear to one of Christie’s things.

She likes to show me off. I think it’s because I’m so tiny - I’m a bit under five foot. Black hair, which I keep pretty long, and I try to keep myself in shape. “Petite” would be the word, I guess - I’m small all over.

Christie’s not exactly a big girl or anything like that, but compared to me she’s tall. Compared to me, pretty much everyone is tall though - it doesn’t bother me much. It makes me a bit of an attraction, I guess - a lot of lesbians want to dominate me, and without going into too much detail, I’ll tell you that I don’t object too hard. I like to be held down ... and that’s all I’m saying on that topic!

Anyway, it hardly took me any time to work out the costume I wanted to wear - I wanted to be a cat. Totally suitable for work, and I could take off a few outer garments, and suddenly be wearing a sexy clubbing costume for wherever Christie wanted to take me.

The night was a blur, honestly - I have no idea why I didn’t go back to Christie’s, but I woke up the next morning in my own bed, still dressed as a cat ... and having had, by far, the most intense cat-dream I’d ever had.

This time, for the first time, I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see him, but I knew I had an Owner somewhere - I could hear him (and it was definitely a him) calling my name. I didn’t come - I was a cat, after all - but when I got hungry, I knew that Owner would provide for me. If I needed affection, I knew exactly where to go to get it.

I woke up with this strong feeling of belonging, of being ... and when I glanced over at the mirror and saw that my cat ears were still on, it felt so right that I literally couldn’t bring myself to take them off.