SCIENTISTS SAY IT'S A CRUCIAL STEP TOWARDS CATGIRLS (2021)

[The baby, the cat, is crying.]

She was born into this world, ears twitching, just like the rest of us — but you couldn’t let something like that go out into the world, where the children are.

Litter runt, mewling at the sky, what do we do with you?

Her hands, human as ever, grasped feebly at the tail of her mother. Her eyes, weak to the light, couldn’t see the slack body she’d crawled from. She could feel the fur, the warmth. She could feel the film of undeniable Mother that coated her skin. Red, sticky, she whimpered at the vast expanse of world around her.

When Momhuman came home and screamed, no one came. No one was home, no one knew what had been done or how. Summoned by phone, Dadhuman drove back and picked the newborn up, wrapping her, (it, Dadhuman thought), in a paper towel pre-stained with food grease. One for baby, one for mom. “It’ll go out with the trash. We’ll never have to think about it again.”

[The cat deposits the fruit of its nightly venture.]

They did think about it again, because one of the older kittens brought it back in that evening, returning from a hunt. Kin for kin, he recognized her as his own. His brothers, her brothers, cleaned her of her encasing, forgiving her for the death of their mother. They licked at her human skin. It was a taste unfamiliar in family but close in experience. Her face was akin to their own; her smell proved the same. The resemblance ended there and began again at her fur-dusted skin and patchy tail. Ten human fingers, ten human toes, palms and soles fleshy and hot; fat arms and legs like that of a hospital-born child.

Childhuman, the youngest non-cat, found her fascinating. Childhuman cradled her in their hands as her pupils widened. “Stuart Little...” they smiled, toothily.

Childhuman’s parents watched them from the kitchen, pretending to wash the dishes, repeating circles without intention on the glassware.

“Let him have this. You know how he is?”

“Fucking weird?” Momhuman whispered.

“Don’t be like this. He’s my son.”

“So it’s your fault, your responsibility. I hope that thing dies soon.” She looked away, she put down the sponge.

She exhaled, feeling bile rise to her throat again. Cupping her hand over her mouth, closing her eyes, she grimaced. “I hope that thing dies really soon.”

[The human child is reading a book out loud.

Someone meows whenever they reach the end of a page.]

The cat, the human, the baby, lived, because she was willed to do so. Willed and willing. 

Dadhuman was weak to his youngest son. He thought if he loved him enough it would make up for the rest of the world. So he let the child keep the creature as a pet, figuring it wouldn’t last long, he’d move on. But she grew up so quickly he began to forget which one of them had been born first.

She couldn’t speak, or at least she didn’t speak to Dadhuman. But he never heard her, ear pressed to the grain of the closed bedroom door, speaking to his son, either. Their other kids didn’t even know she existed — they hadn’t visited in years. Momhuman liked to pretend the same. She wouldn’t acknowledge the presence of another body in the home. When pretending became too difficult, she moved in with her sister, bringing with her meticulously packed suitcases and half of her husband’s time.

Childhuman was a childish amount of years old and she was something else, but they were the best of friends. It was out of necessity and out of love. They needed to love each other, to be there. To dress and to sleep and to comfort. Childhuman saved half of their lunch for Stuart Little, who became Stu, who became S. To everyone else, she was just “it”, everyone else being Momhumananddadhuman, the collective unit. Dadhuman called her “her”, sometimes, but always looked like he’d slipped up, like he wanted to correct himself.

But they went to sleep together, childish hand on furry face, tail threaded through legs, feet against feet, all jumbled up in the morning.

Childhuman went to school because they had to. Dadhuman said he wouldn’t let S stay anymore if they didn’t go to school. So they had to go to school, even though it hurt and people were mean and expected too much all the time, and S stayed with her brothers in the corners of the home. Childhuman didn’t get people, not people who were fully people. But they figured they didn’t need to, because they had a best friend at home. And she was different because she had a cat face and a tail and wanted to touch them and didn’t call them weird names. They were just together and they were the same and things were okay.

[The bell rings.

The teacher is leaving the classroom.]

Preteenaged boys crowded around the desk next to Childhuman, snickering and shoving and touching each other. They were talking, too, a conversation centered around the device Olly held in his hand. Childhuman couldn’t catch the name of the game he was playing, but they didn’t have a smartphone yet, so it didn’t matter. At home, they liked scrolling through the old computer that hummed too loudly when it wasn’t even on with S. They watched videos on YouTube together. She liked the sounds the videos made when the people onscreen were cooking. The sounds made their head feel funny.

“I just unlocked this catgirl character.”

“Fuck, man, how’d you get her? I’ve been trying for weeks!”

“Catgirls?” someone else said, laughing. “What the hell is that, like, a girl cat? Or is it some furry shit?”

“Dude, what? It’s like, hmm. Okay. It’s just like a really hot chick, but she has cat ears and a tail. She says stuff like ‘Nya’, and stuff. Like a cat, but she’s a girl.”

“My sister’s a, a catgirl, you know.”

Childhuman didn’t realize they’d spoken aloud until they felt the eyes. It was an uncomfortable but not foreign sensation. They just usually weren’t the first to bite.

Catgirls were girls. It was in the name.

Childhuman assumed S must be, too, since that’s what she looked like. Sort of. It was normal, it was relieving. A sister.

“Yo, for real? That’s hot, dude. Like, she wears cat ears and stuff? Can I see?” The other boy tried to steal Childhuman’s phone, clammy hands fingerprinting the screen as if some lewd treasure in the eyes of a twelve-year-old would be excavated. He didn’t even know the password.

“Y-yeah, she has cat ears. She has a tail, too.”

“You think she’d let me fuck her?”

“Haha.                       What?”

He’d already turned around, telling the others in the group. “...just told me his sister likes to dress up in cat ears and a tail. Catgirl pussy, bro. She a virgin?”

Childhuman realized the last question was directed at them. “I. Um. I don’t, uh—” but he had turned back already, engaged in a new topic. They felt like a liar, even though they hadn’t said anything untrue. It was probably just the strange feeling of talking to someone about her. They’d never done that before. It was never the right time. It still didn’t feel like the right time. But it had to be, because it had already been done.

[The door closes tentatively.

A worn and weathered backpack lowers gently to the ground.]

“My, my friend wants to meet you, S.” Friend felt weird as they moved it around in their mouth. The word, the action of attributing it as one's own. “His name’s Olly.”

She stretched, yawning. They watched the glint of the light from the window on her teeth. She pushed her face into Childhuman’s hand, and they obliged, only then realizing their hands were unclean.

“I have to wash my hands. Hey, I have to, I have to wash my hands. They’re dirty.”

She showed an inconclusive flash of understanding, feeling the empty air against her cheek, opening her eyes. Her body contorted itself like those of her brothers as she flopped onto the comforter. Longer limbs, shorter claws. Childhuman knew they weren’t supposed to rub the stomachs of human girls. That’s something everyone knew, knows. Was it the same for catgirls? Were there rules? Now that they understood her place in the world a little better, it felt like an offense. It had some kind of meaning now.

Were there other real life catgirls?

Drying their hands on their shared towel, they thought about if that meant S needed a real life girl name.

They left the bathroom, picking discarded fur from their clean hands. “You’re Marie now, okay? You have to be Marie now.” Marie purred. “You smell really bad, Marie. Do you want to take a bath?” They couldn’t remember the last time they had seen Marie clean herself, and didn’t really want to think about it. She was a girl, so she needed to take a real bath.

[The tap turns on.

Water pools around the rusted drainplug.]

All of her brothers hated water, but Marie seemed to really like it. She sank into the tub, legs and tail splashing water at Childhuman’s feet.

“Stop that!” They were hastily trying to fold Marie’s clothes by the toilet, because even though they were dirty, neither of them had many to spare. Childhuman didn’t have any money yet, and no one else was buying clothes for Marie anymore. Not even their dad, even though he said he would, he said that he would take care of her, too. He had all that money and could make sure she ate okay, that she wouldn’t die in his home, but not that Marie hadn’t been wearing the same clothes for years. They slid into the bath across from Marie, whose eyes were slits, trained on a rubber duck floating in front of her.

Childhuman looked at their sister from across the tub. They had the same body, the human parts of it, at least. Mostly. Sort of. And if Marie was a girl even though she had parts that weren’t the same as regular girls, that meant Childhuman probably was, too. No one had ever called them a girl before. But it felt better than anything else, to be like Marie. Catgirls didn’t have to go to school, or do math homework, or go to their stepmom’s house on the weekends. Probably. Childhuman didn’t really know.

“Marie, you’re a catgirl. I’m a catgirl now, too. We’re sisters now, okay?” Marie had finally caught the rubber duck, preoccupied with its texture in her hands, against her teeth.

Childhuman grabbed the duck, blood coloring the water as Marie bit absentmindedly down on the replacement flesh. “Frick, Marie! Don’t do that!” Releasing the hand, she looked ashamed. Childhuman realized how much stronger than them she was now, even though they’d been born first. They should be stronger. They did P.E. every day.

They pulled out the drainplug and gave Marie the towel. “You wipe yourself off this time.” A bug crawled against the molding of the tub. They watched it pass. Watching Marie pounce, they yearned for something and they didn’t know what. They thought of Olly coming over and smiled.

[The stairs creak under the weight of classmates’ feet.

One child wears sneakers; the other leaves them by the door.]

“No, this, this isn’t.

Dude, what the fuck?

That’s, what the fuck?

What the fuck is that?”

“You, you said you wanted to meet her.”

Olly was shaking.

Childhuman had never seen that emotion on him before. It was their stepmom’s face when one of the cats, the cats cats, had just shit on the floor, or when she looked at Childhuman sometimes, when they were both alone.

“You’re a fucking weirdo. You’re both fucking freaks. Don’t hang around me anymore, you - ” he said, spitting out a word Childhuman had only really heard when they stayed up past bedtime with Marie, listening to old TV shows that Dadhuman liked to watch. She didn’t come out while Dadhuman was home. He had never tried to hurt her, but she was scared of him. They crept silently to the top of the stairs, wrapped in their blanket, as Childhuman tried to explain, whispering, what they thought might be happening on the screen they couldn’t see. 

“Please don’t call me that,” they mumbled. But he was already miles away, at the end of the driveway, typing something into the screen of his phone, calling someone, voice hoarse and rubbery.

[Someone is using the keypad of their phone to type.

It’s difficult to read, difficult to write, with tears dripping onto the screen.]

that’s not a fucking girl that’s not a fucking catgirl

Marie is. She’s a cat girl. Like you said in class. She’s a cat and she’s a girl.

it’s not a fucking girl, that’s all I know

don’t talk to me

ill kill you if you talk to me again

ill kill that thing you call your sister

that

that’s what it deserves

[Someone crouches on the sill of the open window, barely visible in the dark.]

“Marie. Let’s run away, Marie. I don’t have to go to school anymore. Nobody would care if we leave. They’d get over it, Dad would...he’d get over it. I don’t have to go to high school or college, or whatever. I can work now, I can get us all the food and clothes and skirts and smartphones and, and yarn or whatever, we want. We can live in the woods or under a car tunnel or something. No one will look at us weird anymore.” She gave a soft, throaty noise from the corner, unmoved, unsatisfied.

“Marie, I’m! I’m leaving, and you need me. You would die without me, you would’ve died without me. No one else will take care of you. No one else will be sisters together with you. N-No one else will be sisters together with me. I need you.”

They could hear her yawning, stretching. Marie touched their face, caressing it like Childhuman often did to her, had been doing for years. And they let themselves be pet, laying their head in her lap, wetting the hem of her stained skirt with snot and spit and other gross, childish fluids. 

And the the sun rose. And Childhuman went to school.