Catherine Booker sighed. Dogsitting! There was so much she could be doing right now, but ZeZe had rightly pointed out that she owed her. The young Zimbabwean woman had three dogs, which was pretty unusual for someone who immigrated from Africa. There, Catherine assumed, dogs were more like cattle that were cute for a few years.
But ZeZe had vouched for her in a trade deal with a company in her home country. That woman had surprising connections. Catherine could only guess what had caused her to leave. Perhaps even the most powerful people in Zimbabwe were being held back by the financial collapse. In less than a year, their currency had printed 10 dollar notes, and 100 billion dollar notes, and they'd decided to drop 12 zeros from the end of every bill.
So the well-kept, stocky, middle-aged woman found herself in ZeZe's home for the weekend, while the woman was on a business trip of her own. The house was surprisingly modern, though she did find some tribal-looking decorations: masks, beads, ``statues'' warped into nearly unidentifiable shapes of onyx in connected embrace - the typical African feng sui that screamed either authentic or attention seeking. Catherine plopped down on the couch, too afraid to get out her laptop and work with the three big dogs excitedly swarming the house. Well, two.
ZeZe had a malamute named Rufaro who was very vocal, and two Rhodesian Ridgebacks, funny looking brown dogs with a stripe of hair going up their backs the opposite way. The male, Tendai, was just over two feet tall at the shoulder and looked about 80 pounds, while the female, Chipo, was smaller. They looked a lot like chocolate labs, with slightly dark faces, but they were a pain in the ass to pet with the backward hair on their backs. Rufaro was a lot bigger of course, only being just a year old. Their startling size wasn't the only reason Catherine made sure not to distract herself with work. She most assuredly hadn't meant to look, but like a Da Vinci painting, the large, heavy, dark brown balls of both males snatched her attention and followed her wherever she moved. The mandarin orange sized testicles hung carelessly between Rufaro and Tendai's hind legs, two halves of a Newton's cradle following their own rhythm. Catherine felt flushed and looked away, holding her knees to her chest for a few seconds. Don't they know you're supposed to get your dogs neutered?
"And you're in heat," she sighed, glancing over at Chipo, who was in a nearby kennel. ZeZe was looking to breed the Ridgebacks, but the time wasn't quite right. She'd breed them with supervision in three days, when she got back, so Catherine had quite a laundry list: take care of the dogs, feed and walk them, house sit, and make sure that the boys didn't get at her too early while ZeZe was gone. Especially Rufaro.
The males were naturally stir-crazy, bouncing around, eager, tails wagging like blunt weapons, and though Catherine had a report to write, she didn't dare put her precious laptop anywhere the dogs might leap, kick, or crash on, much less sink into her work and give the studs the chance to play Prison Break.
"Shut up!" she yelled at Rufaro, who kept wailing at Chipo. The tone came across, but she had to glance at the sheet to figure out how to say "No!" in Shona. The dogs had some grasp of emotion through the human tone, but they were only trained by ZeZe's first language, Shona, which made controlling them that much harder.
The best she could manage was to watch T.V. on ZeZe's big screen, waiting until it was the next time to walk the dogs. She had to walk them separately, of course. Thankfully, there were gates set up at every critical juncture of the house, so she could put the males behind a gate before letting Chipo out. They wouldn't last a concerted assault by the dogs, but they were more than enough to get her and Chipo out safely onto the street.
After a couple of hours, the time had come, yet again. Standing slowly, she walked into ZeZe's bedroom, and the males followed excitedly. All the blood in their lower head - rather, their rear head... Too stupid to realize the pattern. She darted back through the gate and latched it, leaving the boys whining, yelping and scratching. Catherine ran over to the kennel and let Chipo out, attaching a leash to her collar and racing the for the door. Thankfully, the gate held once again. She suspected the dogs stopped pushing at the gate and simply resorted to amorous howling once the target of their interest was gone.
"So fucking hot," Catherine groaned. There was a heat wave going on in San Francisco, which was unusual for the climate. Temps were in the 100s, but at least it was a dry heat. Add to that the steep hills and dodging trolley cars, and walking the dogs was quite a workout. Even worse when she had to control both males, especially since Rufaro liked to pull her along. The hundred-and-fifty-pound puppy was quite the handful.
Walking Chipo was much more leisurely, though the Ridgeback got quite a few looks from passing dogs. Catherine felt a little glow in pride and straightened her gait, smiling after she realized that she, too, was getting some looks from the dog-walkers. She looked pretty snappy in her business casual skirt and blouse. Thank God shoulder pads were out of fashion; they made her look like a block of cheese. She'd always wanted to get her weight below one-hundred-thirty pounds, but she looked pretty fine at 150. Some guys liked a little meat on her bones.
Not that she had time for men. Her job kept her pretty busy, and a boyfriend would just be a distraction. And not many men liked a girl who made more money than they did. She had to find a relaxed, Silicon Valley programmer or something, who had enough on their own plate to give her distance but made even more than she did.
"It's so much simpler for you," she quietly lamented to Chipo, who just wagged her tail, her droopy ears flopping back and forth.
Upon making her rounds and making her way back, she was as thirsty as hell, so Catherine paused in the kitchen with Chipo. She could hear the males baying and pounding at the gate, but with the other gate fencing off the kitchen, she didn't bother putting Chipo away quite yet. The horny bitch was scratching from her end, too, trying to get to the males.
Catherine opened the fridge, looking for something...anything to drink. She wasn't touching the lukewarm tap water, especially with all the lead problems in city water supplies. She didn't trust it. Apparently ZeZe felt differently (perhaps the water was even worse in Zimbabwe) as there were no drinks in the fridge - at least, none that could appropriately slake a dehydrated thirst - at all. Well, except one.
"Jackpot!" Catherine said, finding a little bottle of what looked like vitamin water. It didn't look like some of the overhyped, overrated and overpriced drivel personally extracted from some random mountain, but ...then again, she couldn't really recognize the brand at all. Opening the home-made cork, she sniffed it. Smelled strong, but not sweet. She didn't need the empty calories, and at this point she wanted any cold liquid she could pour down her throat. She gave it one more once over to make sure it wasn't some sort of Zimbabwean witch-doctor thing (thankfully, it was Polish, and the labelling, ironically, was polished) and took a big gulp.
"Ick," she said, scrunching her face and instantly popping the cork back in. It had a strange aftertaste, but perhaps that was because the selection of key, Polish organics. She went straight to the sink to pour a glass of tap water. A little lead was worth it to get the taste out of her mouth.
She never got that far.
She groaned when she tripped over Chipo, dropping the water tonic. The sealed bottle bounced off of Chipo's curled form, desperately trying to soothe her heat, before harmlessly settling on the kitchen floor. Catherine spared an apologetic, yet irritated glance at the Ridgeback, wondering why she had to do that in the middle of the floor, before focusing on her task. But when she started toward the sink again, her steps started to fail her.
The young woman's heart thundered like the lovestruck heroine in a contemporary romance novel. Her eyesight was narrowing, sending her into an even deeper panic. Hyperventilating, she clutched her breast. Jesus, is this what a heart attack feels like!? How was that possible? She ran the treadmill for thirty minutes every other day, like her doctor said. She stayed away from red meat!
No, that wasn't it. Despite the fear coursing through her, she didn't feel like she was dying. Maybe she was allergic to something in that health tonic? She fell to her knees, feeling woozy and...loose...like her whole body wasn't responding right. That's when she noticed the most concerning thing:
She was growing hair.
Not from her head, but along her arms, even the back of her hands...and fingers! And it wasn't her blonde hair, either, but a rich brown, kind of like... Chipo's fur! That...wasn't a coincidence. Catherine squealed in horror as her hands started to stretch and reform, her fingers curling inward into a tight fist before her nails grew, turning black and sharp.
Catherine was no idiot. Her hands were developing pads that looked just like Chipo's paws. She was, as ridiculous as it sounded, turning into a Rhodesian Ridgeback! That tonic wasn't a health potion at all - ZeZe was a witch!
The woman was in shock, but she realized her blouse was going to get very uncomfortable, very quick. While her arms could still bend and rotate in circles, she ripped the buttons and flung her blouse off, kicking off her shoes even as her feet started to elongate, and her thighs and calves began to shrink.
Well, I think I've just come across the most powerful weight loss drug in the world... she sarcastically joked, as she continued to shrink. The skirt was less of a problem, so she focused on removing her socks and her cherished necklace that her mother had given her. Was this some elaborate trick to get her here? Would ZeZe burst into the room, cackling about how she had another dog to call her own?
In no time, the transformation was complete, Catherine staring down her long, brown muzzle, standing in a pile of clothes. She was still wearing her pleated skirt, the elastic a little loose around her midsection, but aside from that, she was just a carbon copy of Chipo.
"Fuck," she said, simply, but it came out as a low whuff.
No sign of ZeZe, but Catherine heard a loud crash! as the first gate collapsed under the weight of the two ecstatic studs. Rufaro and Tendai burst into the living room, immediately dashing over to the kitchen gate to find not one, but two Chipos waiting for them.
"FUCK!" she barked again, realizing that there was no way that gate would last, and then they'd be in on Chipo.
And me, she realized. And if Chipo was in heat...
Am I?
