Chapter 5

I woke up feeling pretty nervous, today was the date with Shaun and Caitlyn. I was still not sure exactly what my feelings on the matter were. I didn't want to lead anybody on, so I resolved to make my mind up. I got up and got on with the business of prettifying myself. I had a quick shower then returned to the room, passing a sleepy looking Nat on the way. After dealing with my hair I went through my outfits. My mother's advice fresh in my mind, I resolved to dress to impress, picking a fairly racy outfit. I stopped short of outright club wear, not wanting to go overboard, but the top I selected was reasonably low cut, and the trousers, playfully tight.

I was just putting on some light make-up when Nat wandered back into the room, "Wow!" she said. "You look amazing."

"Thanks," I blushed a little at her praise.

She picked out her own outfit while I was working out what to do with my hair. I sat there fiddling about for quite a while until Nat held out her hand and said, "Here." She handed me a silver scrunchy. "It goes with your eyes."

I pulled my hair into a pony tail that kept it from getting in the way too much. Suitably attired I sat reading while Nat got herself ready. She went along similar lines as I had, but seemed to make a concerted effort to tone her charms down a little. She looked less like the drop dead gorgeous girl, more like the attractive girl next door. I guessed she was trying not to steal my thunder too much. We sat there waiting for a bit, till a short while later there was a knock on our door. It was Shaun and Caitlyn.

Shaun was dressed pretty much the way he was the last time I had seen him, in a rugby shirt and jeans. Caitlyn, on the other hand, had on a tight low cut top and a shortish just above knee length skirt. I felt my heart pound faster at the sight of them.

"Good morning, Ladies," said Shaun. "You both are looking lovely this morning. Shall we?"

We nodded and headed off. When we got out onto the street, Shaun took Nat's arm. Caitlyn slinked up next to me and tentatively took mine. Her tail wrapped itself around my additional arms, as if claiming me. I was a little uncomfortable with this at first but made myself relax. Eventually we got into the pedestrianised bits of town and walked four abreast, Shaun taking a grip on my other side.

As we made our way through the centre of town to a nearby coffee shop the four of us attracted quite a few stares.

Once inside Shaun took our orders and the three of us girls retired to the comfy sofas in the back of the coffee shop. Caitlyn sat next to me with Nat opposite her, leaving a space for Shaun opposite me. Caitlyn's tail kept tickling my behind, perhaps a more subconscious action than anything else, as she didn't make too much of a move on me. She was probably waiting for me to make it clear what I wanted now I was thinking more clearly, not addled by booze and a little fear from Mark's attack.

Shaun returned bearing coffee I took mine and sipped it in thought. Eventually Shaun prompted, "So now you've had time to think which of us did you prefer?"

I sat there, still not sure what to say. I could spend ages agonising and overanalysing what I felt, but I was pretty sure none of us would enjoy that option, so I went with my gut feeling. Which of these two would I prefer to wake up next to, "Caitlyn," I said, rather surprised at how sure I felt about that.

Caitlyn was beaming, her tail whipping about like nobody's business. "Time for me to claim my prize," she said excitedly and practically leapt on me, kissing me with more strength than I would have credited her small frame with.

"Don't I get a consolation prize?" asked an amused looking Shaun.

"Sure," said Nat, leaping in with a kiss of her own.

"Wow, I should lose contests like this more often," Shaun chuckled.

With that over, we relaxed a bit and Caitlyn snuggled a little closer to me while Nat moved in on Shaun.

"Your outfit is great," said Caitlyn, eyeing me approvingly, "Where did you get it?"

"Most is just from regular department and clothing shops in town, but the shirt is from this little place off down a side alley that specialises in MORFS adapted clothing."

"You'll have to give me the address, sweetie. Finding stuff to fit my tail isn't that hard, but this is some really good quality work rather than the usual hack jobs I end up with. The usual tail friendly outfits are just normal ones that someone's spent 5 minutes butchering with some scissors and a needle and thread. Then they have the gall to charge twice what it would cost me to buy the same thing that hadn't had a large hole cut in it!" Caitlyn ranted.

"Easy tiger," said Shaun chuckling.

Caitlyn stuck her tongue out at him. "You just don't know how hard it is to suddenly have a body that is even harder to find good clothes for than a normal one."

"Maybe he'll get MORFS and grow a tail of his own, or maybe another head, or maybe turn into a girl," I said.

"Well it might be a start," grinned Caitlyn.

"Help me," pleaded Shaun to Nat, "I've got militant MORFS girls ganging up on me."

"Oh I can't help you," said Nat leaning in closer, "You see, I'm one of them too."

"Oh no, I'm surrounded!" said Shaun.

"Yes, it's far too late for you to escape now," said Nat pulling him into a kiss. He didn't seem to be trying too hard to escape from what I could see.

After Nat had finished "subduing" Shaun, Caitlyn asked, "So you've been through MORFS too?"

"Yeah, I used to be a lanky fairly plain redhead. Then over the course of a week I became a sexy little blonde empath. After that I was much more popular at school, but it was a bit of a shock to my family, when despite that, I insisted on still being studious and going off to study engineering rather than the arts or some such."

"My parents took my becoming a hybrid hard," Caitlyn told us. "Made me move out. I lived with one of my aunts till I was old enough to go to uni. They still won't talk to me at all. One of my sisters even crossed the road not to have to walk past me. We used to be so close, too." There was the suggestion of tears in her eyes.

"That's horrible," I pulled her into a hug, stroking her head with my main hands and carefully wrapping my lower arms around her.

She relaxed in my arms and even began purring. I found I could manage to hold on to Caitlyn and drink my coffee at the same time with a little concentration.

"Your new girlfriend's very handy, Caitlyn," Shaun smirked. I used one of my hands to give him the finger while still holding Caitlyn and drinking my coffee. Maybe there were some good sides to being a six armed freak.

"Shut it, rugby boy!" Caitlyn replied, "Imagine the Chinese burns she could give you if she wanted. One set of arms for each of yours, and a spare in case she wants to really hurt you."

She shifted forward to get her coffee, so I let her go; she grabbed it, then lay back against me pulling my arms back around her, smiling up at me.

We sat there for a bit just drinking our coffee, talking about the weather, TV, and other idle chit chat. Pretty soon we were down to dregs.

"So ladies, what would you like to do now? Another coffee or maybe something else?" Shaun asked.

"Well, it's a nice day, how about a walk in the park?" suggested Nat.

"Sounds good," said Caitlyn.

We tidied our table and headed out, walking over to a nearby park, enjoying the sunshine.

When we got to the entrance, Nat pulled me aside to whisper, "Why don't you and Caitlyn spend some time without us two hangers on in the way?"

I nodded, thinking it would be a good idea to get to know her a bit, to see where our somewhat sudden relationship was going. Nat whispered in my ear again, "Just so you know, she's crazy about you."

She gave me a wink and grabbed Shaun's hand, "Come on you, let's go have a wander round the lake. See you two a bit later," she bounded off, Shaun in tow.

Caitlyn took my hand and led me in the opposite direction into a small walled garden. We sat down on a bench and took in the view. It was mostly spring flowers still, with the summer stuff not yet in bloom, but it was still quite pretty.

"So," as Caitlyn turned to me, she looked just a little unsure of herself, "I know this thing with you and me is a bit sudden. You're probably still a little disoriented from your change, and you're new to dating girls." She paused and looked at me very intently, "I like you a lot and want you to like me too. We can take things slow and get to know each other, see how things go. If you decide later on that I'm not the girl for you, then I hope we can still be friends."

As I smiled and took her hand, she leaned over and kissed me briefly on the lips.

"Disgusting!" said a woman's voice. I looked round and saw an older woman standing across from us. She was brandishing a walking stick, and looking at us with undisguised loathing.

"Can't you freaks read? It says no animals in the garden! I won't have you filthy beasts pawing each other in plain view. This is a park where children might be playing!" she spat.

Caitlyn looked at her eyes narrowed, "Fuck off, you crazy old bat! We have as much right to be here as anyone, now sod off"

"Well I never! You foul mouthed little beast I'll give you what for," she shouted and made to swing her stick at Caitlyn.

I moved without thinking about it, catching the incoming stick with two of my hands. The woman struggled for a bit, but I pulled the stick out of her grip. I snapped the thing in half and tossed the bits back at her.

She picked up the two bits of stick in a daze, staring at the broken ends for a few minutes before she hurried off.

"I probably shouldn't have done that," I said.

"Nonsense! You were protecting your girl. I think it's very sweet," said Caitlyn, giving me another kiss.

"Do you think we should leave?" I asked warily.

"No, I'm not going to let some crazy old lady force me to leave just because of her prejudices." She put her arm around me.

We sat there enjoying the pleasant weather and the flowers. The peace and quiet was lovely just sat there with Caitlyn feeling relaxed.

Unfortunately the peace and quiet didn't last, "Here they are officer! These are the two that attacked me," The woman had returned this time with a very flustered looking policeman in tow.

"Look what they did to my walking stick!" she said waving the thing in his face. "Arrest them immediately!"

"That's rubbish," said Caitlyn leaping to her feet, placing herself between me and the woman tail whipping about behind her indicating her agitation, "This woman came over and verbally abused us, then tried to hit me with her stick. My friend stopped her, inadvertently snapping her stick in the struggle."

"I see," said the police man. There was an odd look in his eyes I didn't like it.

"Don't listen to that beast!" screamed the woman, "I could have been killed when it set its pet freak on me!"

"Please Ma'am calm down. You two better come down to the police station for questioning. Attacking a member of the public is a serious matter," he said grimly, reaching for his radio.

"You can't be serious," said Caitlyn, "This crazy old bag attacked us."

"Don't make this any worse for yourself!" said the policeman. The woman looked at us smugly.

The officer pulled out some cuffs, and moved to put them on Caitlyn.

"There's no need for this," said an exasperated Caitlyn

"I don't want you two running off," He snapped the cuffs on her then pulled out a second set and made to snap them on me. He looked at my multiple sets of arms and snapped the cuffs on my top set.

He led the two of us and the woman to the park exit. On the way Nat and Shaun saw us and came running over.

"What's going on?" asked Nat.

"Step aside, Miss. Official police business," the officer said.

"I demand to know where you are taking my friends and why!" insisted Nat, hands on hips.

"I'm taking them to the local police station for assaulting this woman," he said.

"I want to see your warrant card."

"What! Why?"

"Because how do I know whether you are a real policeman unless I see that? You could be some thug in a costume, abducting my friends."

The office grumbled, but eventually produced his warrant card. Nat pulled out a pad and noted down the copper's name and number. She turned to me and Caitlyn, and said, "Don't worry I'll have you out of there in no time."

The cop continued to prod us out of the park and pulled us over to where a police car had turned up. Two other police officers got out, one man and one woman with pink hair.

"What's this about, Frank?" asked the woman.

"These two attacked this woman," he said, pushing us towards the car.

"No we didn't. That crazy old bigot attacked us," said an indignant Caitlyn.

"Quiet you! They'll be plenty of time for your ranting when you're safely behind bars," The policeman who'd arrested us said.

He shoved us into the back of the car, "Take them down to the station. I'll escort the victim in myself," he said and escorted the woman off who looked very pleased with herself.

The officers driving the car got back in and then drove off. I couldn't believe this was happening after the day had started off so well.

Once we were going, the wpc looked back at us and asked, "Did you really attack that woman?"

"No," I said. "She tried to hit Caitlyn with her stick, so I stopped it. I snapped the thing in half in the process, but that was all. I never touched her."

"Hmm," said the office, looking thoughtful. "Well if she's telling the truth, what is Frank thinking?"

"I don't know. That guy's trouble," said the other officer.

They drove us to the police station. When we got out the female officer uncuffed us making disapproving noises, then escorted us into the station.

Soon I was sitting in a cell on my own while they worked out what to do with us. It was a bit scary to be locked up like this. I had never been in trouble before, so this was the first time I had seen the inside of a cell. Eventually I was taken into an interrogation room with Officer Frank and another man.

"What's going on? Am I being charged with anything?" I asked.

"We are going to question you about the attack to determine your involvement," said Officer Frank.

"Which attack? The one where that old lady tried to hit Caitlyn with her stick?"

This seemed to fluster Officer Frank a bit, and the other man looked at him a little perturbed.

They went through this whole rigmarole I had seen on TV of turning on the recording devices, telling me my rights, and then they began to question me. They had got past some preliminaries of who I was etc when there was a knock on the door and another officer entered.

There was some animated discussion between the officers and then a few moments later a large man in a nice suit entered.

"I'd like a few minutes with my client, please," he said. As the officers left, Frank seemed to be grinding his teeth. I wondered if he was somehow hoping to force me to confess or some such.

"Hello, it's Emily, right?" said the suited man.

"Yes. Who are you, and what do you mean by I'm your client?"

"I'm Natalie's brother, Phil, I'm a lawyer so she called me to get this business sorted out. Now tell me what happened and we'll get you out of here as quickly as possible?"

I quickly related the events of the day to him and then he sat there for a moment in thought. "OK. Would you be willing to have a telepath verify your statement? You wouldn't be able to lie, so it's important that you are being completely truthful."

"I'm telling the truth. I don't like the idea of telepaths but if it's the easiest way of clearing this up, then I guess it's OK," I replied.

"OK, let me do all the talking unless I tell you otherwise."

He walked up to the door and knocked on it. The policemen re-entered, and everyone sat down again. They restarted the recorder and were about to begin the questioning again when Phil held up his hand.

"Before you ask anything further, we are requesting to have a telepath present to establish my client's innocence." Frank scowled at that and seemed about to argue, but the other man in the room nodded and went out of the room.

He returned a few moments later with the female officer from the car. She sat down in front of me and said, "Hi I'm, Officer Williams, a police officer and police telepath. I'm going to take a brief look in your head, OK?"

I nodded a little nervously, "Give me your hands," she requested.