Tentatively, at first, she looked over the face. There were features in it that she recognised as her own, even the hazel shade of the eyes seemed the same, though of course their shape was different. Marianne wondered why she had been so startled by the image before as now it seemed welcoming. She flicked out her pink cat-like tongue and licked at the tortoiseshell fur. She had clearly picked that up from the mirror. Now she felt it was playful to appear like a cat. This was somehow a secret identity of hers. Cats were free to come and go as they pleased, unbounded by rules, by clothes. Reconciled to her appearance, Marianne stood up and looked down at herself. Now she realised that it was not just her face that was shown altered but her whole body. It was still the body of a woman, but one covered in down-soft tortoiseshell fur, the alternate light and dark grey-green with a white stretch down her belly. A long ringed tail curled between her legs. Her hands and feet were somewhere between human and feline having stubby claw-tipped fingers that could bunch together as a paw. Marianne enjoyed the sleekness of her body and the curiosity of having a tail. .....