In one sense I didn’t have to wait long for Emily; it was only a couple of minutes between Alice leaving and her arriving. In another sense, I had been waiting a long, long time to meet her.

  I was attracted to men, had been for as long as I could remember, and I had been resolved to stay away from women ever since that fateful day in fifth grade when the teachers had split us into boys and girls and shown us a VHS tape on the bulky CRT television hanging from the corner of the cssroom. So much had changed since then, and, especially recently, I had begun to reconsider my position.

  All of that was to say that I, Sarah, liked women – I wanted to kiss them and have them kiss me, and, if I was so lucky, I would love to marry one. Men could be hot, really really hot, but women could be enthralling. I wanted to have sex with men and women about equally, but it was only with women that I wanted to just talk endlessly with, to gush and giggle and court.

  My retionships with men had been competitive and adversarial in a sense, with the two of us competing to assert our vision of what a proper retionship would be like. And while I had little experience with women at this point, I could already tell that things felt different. The moments I’d spent ughing with Melody, flirting with Alice, the easy companionship I shared with Luna – retionships between women were beautiful, and I craved more.

  There were a lot of things I could say about Emily. Even from across a dimly lit room, her body in motion towards me, dressed in jeans and a tank top, I could feel her energy. Her short hair was dyed a faded pale blue, almost grey, and her curls came to the bottom of her forehead, curving just out of the way of her dark eyes. As my eyes trailed past the self-assured smile on her face, they lingered on the pronounced colrbone below her long neck before trailing further down to her long legs. As I was realising how tall she was, a part of my mind couldn’t help but wish she’d been wearing a crop top.

  Only after she stood still for a moment and cleared her throat did I realise that I’d been staring at her torso for several beats, although I still hadn't taken a breath. I finally gasped for air, choking and coughing in the process before finally looking up and meeting her smile with a shy one of my own. “Hey, I’m Sarah.”

  Her grin widened, “I’m Emily Beaumont, but feel free to call me Em.” She pulled the chair Alice had been sitting in back, sat in it, and scooted towards me, the movement seeming entirely natural. “So, what do I need to know about what makes you tick?” she asked, her arm snaking behind the top of my chair but not quite touching me.

  I gnced at her arm and leaned back. “I think I’m just easy at this point…” I muttered, half to myself and half to her, “Shy, friendly, confident, older, younger – it seems like I just can’t get enough of women, which is strange because I didn’t even know I was into women until a week or two ago,” I compined.

  She ughed, fshing her charming smile once again, “Now that’s something I can rete to. I used to think I was a gay boy – look at me now.”

  I stared at her with wide eyes, wondering if she somehow knew how much we shared.

  Her smile dropped, “That’s not a problem, is it?”

  Quickly realising how my reaction could be taken, I shook my head and waved my arms in front of me, “No no no, I was thinking about something else – you reminded me of… someone I used to know.” And she did – even her st name seemed somewhat familiar.

  Her eyes narrowed, “I don’t think we’ve met before, I’m sure I’d remember you.” Her expression softened, “Just to be clear it’s not an issue for our work either, right?” She gestured to the room around us.

  “No, I’m–” I cut myself off from saying ‘I’m bisexual’, knowing that was definitely not the right thing to say. “I’m comfortable with… whatever,” I gestured vaguely, not knowing how to put it without being crude.

  She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “I mean– if you’ve had surgery then it doesn’t even make a difference, but I assumed you hadn’t and that’s why you were asking, in which case I’m okay with that, not that not being okay with that would be…” I scrambled, trying to expin myself.

  She rexed, pcing a hand on my knee, “It's okay, I understand,” she ughed, “Even if you are a bit flustered… it’s cute. Besides, I’m gd you said ‘you hadn’t’ rather than ‘you hadn’t yet’, it makes a big difference.”

  I gnced down shyly. “I'm not completely ignorant about trans people, even if I didn’t show it by putting my foot in my mouth several times in a row.”

  “Well sorry for testing you like that,” she said, shrugging, “I like to be more up front about my identity – makes it easier to weed out the weirdos and the creeps.”

  “No, that’s cool, admirable. I couldn’t imagine being that open about… It just seems so terrifying,” I let out, staring off into the distance. My gaze returned to her body, and I continued, “But I guess you have a lot to be confident about…”

  She eyed me curiously, “Are you…?”

  I cringed, suddenly wishing Mrs. Willow would return and end the conversation. “I’m… staying away from bels right now. I didn’t really mean to let that slip…”

  “Sorry, for being nosy,” she said, leaning away, the action only drawing attention to the fact that at some point, she’d leaned in. “I never asked about your pronouns, but if you’re questioning…?”

  My cringe upgraded to a grimace. “It’s not like that – I’m…” I struggled to find a way to say that if anything I was trans-feminine while still being believable. I thought back to the connection I’d felt with Emily when she’d first entered the room and my earlier resolution to be more honest.

  I stood, doing a quick spin so Emily could see around my body. She gave me a curious look but remained attentive, sitting upright in her chair. Then, after shutting my eyes for a brief moment, I let my features shift, bringing out my other set of ears and my tail, figuring it was as good of a demonstration as any.

  Emily gasped, and when I opened my eyes, I saw for the first time what her face looked like when she was flustered, pink dusting her high cheekbones and her sculpted jaw pulled tight.

  “You’re a… fox-girl?”

  I huffed a ugh. “I’m a shapeshifter, and I’ve been having a… gender crisis.” I sighed, sitting back down but keeping the form, liking the way Emily’s eyes stared above my head with wonder. “I don’t really want to get into it, but I might not be entirely cis, so…”

  “Huh…” she let out, slumping back in her chair with a look of absentminded wonder. “I’m so gd I hadn’t met you a couple of years ago, or I would’ve been so jealous… I mean I still am, but…”

  “I guess…,” I frowned, “No matter what my body looks like, I feel like I can never match the confidence of real women – you’ve just got this…”

  “Je ne sais quoi?”

  “Exactly, you can just pull out french pronunciation all hotly with confidence and it’s so…”

  “If you want to learn French you can just learn French, you know…” she smirked.

  I ughed, shaking my head. “You know that’s not the point. I just feel like I don’t belong sometimes, like I haven’t earned it or that I’m not putting in enough effort.”

  “It’s up to you how to express your gender, and since I forgot to say it – no matter what your identity is, never say you’re not a real woman like that. If you don’t want to be a woman, that’s fine, but don’t let it be because you think you aren’t good enough. Your journey might be a little unconventional…” she could help herself from gncing at my ears again, “but that doesn’t make you any less real than me.”

  We ended up leaning across our seats to hug, although I wasn’t sure who’d initiated it.

  I sighed, leaning against her shoulder with her arms around me. “Thanks, Emily… It’s just now hitting me that after all of that, we’re supposed to casually discuss having sex…” I broke out of the embrace to lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling with exasperation. “What a strange job…” I muttered.

  “How’d you end up here, if you don't mind me asking? It seems like you could’ve done other things with your… ability.”

  “Like what?! I tried thinking of things, but all I could figure out was this, going viral from showing off my powers, and bodybuilding.”

  “What about being a model?” She asked, confusion on her face.

  I stared at her for a moment, gears in my mind creaking and groaning. “Dammit,” I hissed.

  Emily ughed, making it hard for me to feel too bad, but unfortunately, the sweet sound was interrupted by the door opening and Mrs. Willow striding back into the room.

  “Sorry I’m te, I hope you two got a chance to get to know–” she froze, trailing off, when she saw me. “Those weren’t there earlier… right?”

  I sighed, menting my poor awareness. “No, Emily and I were wondering if I could do the shoot like this,” I suggested, gncing at Emily.

  She gred back, but there was mirth in her eyes. “Don’t drag me into your crazy ideas,” she compined, before taking a moment to think. “Wait, actually, I do kind of want to…” she trailed off, thinking about what she wanted to do while staring at my ears suggestively.

  Mrs. Willow sighed, moving to her seat on the other side of the table muttering, “Young people…”

  My tail rubbed against the back of my seat, doing its best to wag.

  Our boss continued, taking the situation in stride. “So, it appears you two have formed some kind of understanding about the scene you’ll be filming? What kind of setup will you need?” she asked, mostly addressing Emily.

  Emily tilted her head for a moment, thinking. “I think we can do the bare minimum – we’d be advertising this based on the foxyness, not whatever contrived plot we’d act out. Unless you have a different idea, Sarah?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know much about our audience, but unless we wanted to incorporate some kind of petpy angle, I’d imagine everything would be pretty vanil.”

  Emily’s eyebrows raised as she watched me speak. “Now that sounds like a good idea…” she gnced at Mrs. Willow. “For another day though. For now we should probably stick to the basics.”

  The stern woman nodded. “Sarah is still new, and I would prefer it if you didn’t drive her away with your… more eccentric tastes. Regardless, if neither of you have any objections I’ll schedule your shoot for Thursday afternoon. The set will include a bed and the usual camera angles, so unless you need anything specific for…” she trailed off, looking at me.

  I shook my head, “Unless you think we should pretend that my tail isn’t real and avoid shooting me from behind…”

  She pursed her lips. “That’s up to you. I’m perfectly fine with pretending like we have an advanced computer effects team, so unless you’re not comfortable showing yourself, feel free to use any angles.”

  I nodded, gncing at Emily to see if she had anything to say.

  “I think we’re good then?” she asked, gncing back and forth between us. “Feels nice when these meetings are short – just wait ‘till you see the higher production value ones…” she shivered, giving me a teasing look.

  I smiled back, happy with the implication that I’d be sticking around.

  I’m actually looking forward to going to work (having sex with Emily), how crazy…