Beasts Like Us

Chapter 1-5

Mateo had the uncanny feeling that someone was following him. As he walked down the hall, he couldn’t shake that strange scent from the drawing panel. He linked his fingers and stretched his arms in front of him as he walked to surreptitiously sniff himself. That wasn’t it. Nor was it exactly what he had smelled before. This was a more distinct scent, but it was neither the dog-like smell nor the prey-like smell. He was being preyed upon by another large cat, if he could trust his nose in this environment. The thought made the hair on his arms stand on end and his stomach turn. His hearing faded and his teeth itched, which only made his anxiety worse.

Before anything disastrous could happen, Mateo made a beeline for the nearest restroom. All three stalls were mercifully empty, and the only other occupant was drying his hands. Mateo ducked into the larger handicapped stall. When he heard the other person leave, he began frantically pulling off his clothes. His jaw was already thickening and his skin prickled as his hair thickened and spread into his dark sleek pelt. His hearing returned as his ears reformed further up his skull. As usual, he closed his eyes as he waited for the faint sensation of his bones and organs rearranging themselves to be over.

The bathroom smelled terrible. Mateo’s sense of smell was even stronger in his full jaguar form, and his short panting breaths swept the aroma of cleaning fluid and the piss stains it had missed over his tongue. He closed his mouth and shook his head. This was far from the safest idea, but when his jaguar side wanted to come out, there was little he could do to stop it. Fortunately he had never needed to take this form at the Con-fur-ence before, but now he felt threatened, and his jaguar spirit wasn’t about to take that lightly.

The bathroom door squeaked open. The noise hit Mateo’s ears like a low scream. Then came the smell, the same smell that had followed him all the way here. His heart pounded. Grateful for his soft paws, he silently slunk further into the back corner of the stall. His fur stood straight up. He hoped he wouldn’t have to intimidate this person. Maybe this was all a strange coincidence and nothing was going to happen…

Footsteps, followed by a pair of flat shoes appearing on the other side of the stall. Mateo prayed a face wouldn’t appear along with them, peeking at him through the gap. Worse, the person knocked and said, “I know you’re in there, and I know what you are.”

Every nerve in Mateo’s body was on edge. He had tried so hard to seem normal. No one was supposed to know about him. He thought of his family, and whether they were in danger. They weren’t freaks, but he knew that’s how they would be treated if they were discovered. Then again, this person smelled like them, though Mateo still didn’t know who it was or what they wanted.

A lump of gray fur flew under the stall door and thumped against Mateo’s front legs. His heart skipped, until he realized it was just a hat, one of the wolf-ear hoods they sold downstairs in the dealers’ hall. He sniffed at it. This was definitely his stalker, and it definitely belonged to another cat-person, but it didn’t smell like jaguar. The entire situation had Mateo’s mind reeling, trying to figure out what in the hell was happening.

“I’m coming in,” his stalker said. “Don’t be scared, and don’t eat me.”

A belt buckle jingled, fabric was drawn over skin, a shirt fell to the floor and was joined by jeans pooling around the pair of shoes, a pair of gray boxers still inside them. His stalker shuffled out of his shoes, leaving his pants behind as well. Then the face Mateo had dreaded appeared, along with arms and a torso as the naked man crawled under the door. Mateo couldn’t remember being this scared or confused, but under his fear there was fascination. The man had jet black hair long enough to brush the tops of his ears, smooth tanned skin, and dark smoldering eyes above a long straight nose.

Before Mateo could really get a look at this intruder, he began to change. The muscles in his arms and legs, which were already well-defined, grew thicker as fur the color of his skin sprouted all over his body, except for white fur that started under his nose and continued down his chest and belly. A tail almost as long as his torso extended from the end of his spine until it made Mateo’s tail look like a shriveled stump by comparison. His dark eyes became golden brown with a tinge of green, but unlike Mateo, he kept them open the whole time he changed, never taking his gaze off Mateo.

Where a man once crouched, a mountain lion now stood proud. He was nearly as large as Mateo, and together the two big cats took up most of the stall. Mateo pressed himself as far into the corner as he could go. He bore his fangs and gave the newcomer a warning hiss. The mountain lion blinked, and took two long strides closer. He sniffed at Mateo’s head, then gave him a firm lick between the ears.

Mateo wasn’t sure he was in the same reality anymore. This was too vivid to be a dream, but it was too bizarre to be anything else. The mountain lion licked him between the ears once more, then sat back on its hind legs. Mateo was reminded of his grandfather. When Mateo was a cub, his grandfather would give him two quick licks between the ears and then nudge him back towards his mother. There was nowhere else for Mateo to go now, though. He lifted one paw and bore his teeth again, showing he would fight if he had to.

The mountain lion sniffed Mateo’s clothes, nosing at his fuzzy slippers and shoulder bag. Everything he did was so casual, Mateo didn’t know how to respond. Mateo chuffed, which got his attention. He wasn’t threatening, Mateo decided, and he didn’t smell aggressive or fearful. Mateo leaned his head forward to sniff the other cat. His grandfather had taught him how to read smells. The stranger was male, healthy, relaxed, and his scent was oddly pleasing. Hesitantly, Mateo unbunched his muscles and stood alongside the mountain lion.

To Mateo’s surprise, the mountain lion was purring. Mateo didn’t think big cats could purr. He certainly couldn’t. When he tried, it came out like a soft growl instead of a purr, and only worked when he exhaled. Nevertheless, this other cat could purr, and he playfully butted his head against Mateo’s flank. Mateo tensed and hissed, but the mountain lion kept on purring.

The door to the bathroom opened again. That’s when Mateo caught a whiff of fear mingling in the mountain lion’s scent. The latest occupant of the bathroom was fully human, and he sighed with a huff. “Okay, you two, get a room. Not only do other people actually need that stall, remember that there are children at this convention.”

Mateo looked at the other cat, who bobbed his head in a sort of shrug. Both waited until the other guy left, and when Mateo noticed the mountain lion’s fur growing shorter and his muzzle flattening, he willed himself to change back as well. Mateo wanted to stay a jaguar to face this oddity, but at least as a human he could get more definitive answers. The jaguar and the mountain lion became two naked men. The stranger held out his hand.

“I’m Dazi,” he said, as though they were meeting in line for a panel instead of kneeling on a bathroom floor.

Bewildered beyond the point of questioning, Mateo accepted the handshake. “Mateo.” He couldn’t help himself. His eyes darted down to check out Dazi’s package. With a tail like that, Mateo had expected him to be much thicker, but he was average-sized—though marginally thicker than Mateo, nonetheless—and uncut. Mateo didn’t know many American men like that, but then again Dazi looked like he was from a local tribe, and Mateo didn’t know their policies on circumcision. If he wasn’t so confused, he might have been aroused pondering it.

Dazi snatched his clothes from the other side of the door and got dressed. As Mateo did the same, Dazi stared at him. “Your eyes didn’t change.”

“They shouldn’t, this is my natural eye color.”

That, Dazi seemed to accept, until he tilted his head to check out Mateo’s backside. “What about your tail?”

Mateo looked behind him as best he could. The skin on his lower back had light fuzz that gradually darkened into the fur along his tail. “I was born with that too,” Mateo said. He tucked it into the hemmed hole in his jeans. When he looked up, Dazi was still staring, but with even more bewilderment. “…What?”

“You were born with a tail?”

“Yeah, my kind have always had tails, and usually jaguar ears too, but my grandfather’s look more human than jaguar, and I was born without them at all. He says it’s because we’ve been breeding with humans too long.” He c****d his head to one side. “Is…is your…condition not genetic?”

Dazi’s eyes were wide and he furrowed his brow. “No. We’re not…born like this.”

“Then how—”

Mateo’s words were cut off by yet another person entering the bathroom. Both Mateo and Dazi remained absolutely silent until he had left. The minutes stretched on, weighed down by all the questions they had for each other. When the door closed, Mateo said, “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

“Is there anywhere private in this place?”

“Not here, but I rented a hotel room about four blocks away.”

“Four blocks?”

Mateo shrugged. “It’s where most of the Con-fur-ence attendees are staying. Because it’s such a big draw for Alabaster Spring’s tourism, the hotel made a deal with the Con-fur-ence to give people discounts if they rented rooms when they registered.”

Dazi didn’t have anything to say except, “I need to tell my friends where I’m going, or they’ll worry about me.”

“So you weren’t alone! I thought I smelled a dog and some kind of prey animal.”

For the first time, Dazi laughed. Mateo liked his laugh. “That’s Kesi and Kuhma, but I’ll tell you more about them later.”

Surreal as this all was, Mateo felt more at ease by the second. While he had yet to find out what Dazi wanted from him, he trusted his new acquaintance. Whether or not that was a wise decision, he got the notion he would find out soon.