The first thing you should know about falling in love with a werebeast? Don't do it.

Hey, don't give me that look. I told you you're asking the wrong guy for advice. I already made the first mistake. I met her at the Barking Dog Tavern. It's actually the Lone Wolf, but the sign painter was either stoned or drunk, or both, and the result looks more like a Three Mile Island cocker spaniel than a wolf. It was a few nights before spring break, so the place was packed. I studied late, so by the time I arrived there were only a few seats left. Just my luck, there was a vacant bar stool right next to a gorgeous redhead. I couldn't believe it.

All I can say is, those other guys must have had some instinct or sixth sense I lack. I sat down right next to her and smiled.

She smiled back. Perfect teeth, a pretty overbite showing when she bit her lower lip. Up close, she was even more devastatingly beautiful than from across a smoky room. She was exotic, with almond eyes of lime green like emeralds set in the golden and high-cheekbones that framed her face. Her build was elegant with just the slightest bulge of muscle hinting at athletic ability. Her outfit clung to her in ways that left nothing to my imagination. I didn't even care that she was at least a foot taller than me.

"I'm Anya," she said. I managed to stammer out some kind of greeting, and, well, it took off from there. Turns out she went to my school, but as a Fine Arts major while mine was Psychology. She was the captain of the women's lacrosse team and also competed in volleyball and swimming. We both loved British comedies, and we slung Blackadder and Red Dwarf quotes at each other for a half hour. Finally, I decided what the hell and invited her back to my dorm to watch videos. She agreed.

I'd like to say I saw an eerie predatory gleam in her eye, or something. Nope, I was completely oblivious. In fact, I was happier than a pig in shit. You know.

The dorm was deserted. Completely. I didn't even have to sneak Anya in. We settled down on the couch and popped in a Wallace & Gromit tape. To my surprise, she snuggled up to me, half in my lap. At that point, I didn't even know her last name.

Now, let me tell you, I am not the greatest catch in the world. I'm not Quasimodo, but I'm kind of short and scrawny, and my eyebrows look like they're drawn in with magic marker, and to be honest I should probably do my laundry more often. I drive a Dodge Omni with a fender that doesn't match, and I'm sure Anya saw all the porn when I opened the video cabinet. So why was she nibbling on my neck?

Far be it from me to protest when a few crumbs fall from the tables of the gods. Oh, a few doubts crossed my mind. This could be a set up. She could be diseased. Or crazy. All Psych students think everyone is crazy, at least everyone else. I remember wondering right then exactly why nymphomania was considered pathological, because this girl was obviously as crazed as a cat in heat.

Anya bent over my lap, and I felt her teeth tugging at my zipper. As she did, the light from the TV highlighted dark fuzz on the outer edge of her ear. Weird, but that was the least of my concerns. My appreciation for her was extremely obvious by that time, if you get my drift.

While she busied herself gnawing off my jeans, I helpfully reached into her shirt and tried to undo her bra. My fingers brushed something soft. At first I thought she wore some kind of undershirt. Then I realized the fuzz I felt was her skin. My ardor fizzled a bit. I don't really go for crunchy girls. But Anya didn't notice. She left my pants alone for a minute, arching her back and stretching. I slipped my hand under the cup of her bra and fondled her. She purred, and thrust her chest at me.

Her bra, already loosened, slipped off. And that's when I saw it.

My hand just about covered her firm little breast. A lot smaller than it looked from the outside. But it had a little help filling out the cup. Right below it was another, smaller breast. It was the same on the other side, for a total of four, and beneath each matched set was a large nipple.

I yelped and tried to scoot away. Okay, it was not a very cool way to react. But all I felt was the knee-jerk reaction to something unexpectedly monstrous.

The weird thing was, Anya didn't notice I how freaked I acted. She crouched over me, pinning me down. She kissed me, and something hard and sharp pricked my lip. I jerked away, and as she tilted her head slightly to come at me from a new angle, her eyes caught the light from the TV and glowed.

This time she didn't kiss. Instead, she licked the blood trickling from my mouth with a tongue that felt like a flexible rasp. As she drew back to lick her chops, the angles and planes of her face shifted under her velvety skin, the cheekbones thickened and the lower half of her face thrust forward as her forehead fell away so her suddenly large rounded ears seemed to sprout directly from the top of her head. The bridge of her nose mashed down, making her nostrils flare forwards. Her upper lip swelled, sprouting sharp white hairs. All the time, waves of dark and light fuzz swept her face and body, and brilliant white sideburns framed her face.

I tried to get away -- I really did -- but her arms and legs formed a steel cage around me. I mentioned she was taller than me. Now she seemed to be swelling, bones stretching and muscles bulking up before my eyes. On her hands and knees, she barely fit on the couch anymore. Even the thick fur cloaking her skin couldn't disguise the straining mass of muscles.

Screaming or struggling would have done no good. Anya was no longer human. She wasn't exactly a tiger, not the ordinary kind you'd see in a zoo or on Animal Planet, but she was more like a tiger than a woman. She could have chomped my head like it was a Tootise Pop^®. So I just lay there like a marionette with cut strings and watched the show, wondering when she would kill me.

Not anytime soon, it seemed. The hulking, fanged creature undulated against me, nearly squashing me beneath her hot, hairy bulk. The rumbling I thought was a bloodthirsty growl was actually just a basso profundo purr. Her shining eyes fluttered closed, and the striped tail thrashed.

I gingerly reached up and scratched the silken fuzz behind an ear. She gunned her motor, making the couch vibrate.

"Good girl," I whispered, licking my lips. "Good Anya."

Careful not to make any rapid movements, I squirmed from beneath her. My mind finally dragged itself out of the screaming pit of horror Anya's secret had tossed it into, and began looking for escape routes and weapons, but not much presented itself. There was a hockey stick and a couple of paint guns in the closet. I might as well smack her with the proverbial wet noodle. And I doubted the cheap dorm doors would hold back a raging beast any better than would wet cardboard. My best chance were the stairs, and hope that a tiger would have trouble getting down them.

Anya watched, eyes slitted, as I crept backwards towards the door. Her ears flickered as I murmured, "Good girl, pretty kitty, just stay there, that's a good girl, sweet girl."

She kneaded the couch. Her claws flashed out, each as long as my whole hand and polished to razor sharpness. I bumped into the doorknob, and tried to not to tense up too obviously. Still crooning, I reached behind me and turned the knob with agonizing slowness.

I whipped around to flee, but a hubcap sized paw slammed into the door, talons burying themselves into the wood. Turning back, I looked up into Anya's broad, furry, bewhiskered face. She was still purring like an outboard motor. A dewdrop of saliva clung to her lower lip.

She batted me to the floor and crouched overtop of me. I screamed and beat on her. My fists slammed against her well-padded ribs, and only made her purr harder. She ducked her head down, and I felt her spit-slick upper fangs graze my belly. She bit down on the front of my jeans and shook her head, shredding them like tissue paper. Certain that she wanted to eat the chewy parts first; I rolled over and tried to curl up. Anya grunted in annoyance and scooped me over again, her claws sheathed. I whimpered like a kicked poodle as Anya stretched out beside me, one tree trunk arm drawing me up against the snowy white fur of her chest and belly.

I mentioned before that even fully transformed, she was not constructed exactly like a tiger. Poking out from her chest fur were six breasts, perfectly human if you ignored the downy fuzz covering all but the dusky, protruding nipples the size of my thumb. She was decently built in human form, and now that she had grown to fifteen feet long from nose tip to tail tip, her breasts apparently developed in proportion. Each set was slightly smaller than the one above, but even the lowest two would put the most pneumatic porn queen to shame. Surprisingly, the fur didn't ruin them, just enhanced them like some kind of exotic fetish gear. I felt a familiar urgency and looked down. Despite the ivory fangs, the talons, the stripy fur, I had risen to the occasion.

Anya followed my glance and let out a little meow of delight -- and god help me, I was happy too. I wish I could say it was just joy that I no longer faced imminent death.

Somehow, we managed. She was built more like a girl than a cat, thank goodness. It didn't feel so much like beasties. She bore down on me, clamped down on me. Her lean, muscular torso was so long, I ended up with my face buried right between the lowest pair of breasts. Sometimes she got a little too enthusiastic and drew blood, and a couple of times I almost smothered in her fur, but we managed. I am not ashamed to say that it was the best sex I ever had.

When Anya came, there was no mistaking it. She threw back her head and roared. It sounded like the Apocalypse. Windows shook, and I swear someone's car alarm went off. I smiled proudly.

Sated, she pulled away and settled down to groom herself. My head was still ringing from her roar, and I felt like a limp dishrag. A shower would be nice, come to think of it. A fine coat of shed fur was glued to my skin by blood, sweat, semen, tiger spit and other fluids. I staggered down the hallway, holding the front of my pants together and knowing that I would walk funny for days afterward.

I stayed in the shower for almost twenty minutes, trying to sort out the whole thing in my head. I mean, it was insane from the word go -- not even a nice, normal sort of lunacy. There was nothing in the DSM-V about hallucinating your date turned into a horny tiger lady -- or about liking it so much.

When I came out, Anya was gone. I put the furniture back in place and flipped over the cushion so no one could see where she shredded it, but there wasn't much I could do about the gouges in the door or the rips and stains in the carpet. Bye-bye housing deposit.

The next day, my "John Thomas" felt like I'd caught it in a Jacuzzi drain. It swelled up twice the regular size, which wouldn't be so bad if it didn't also hurt like hell, but after that workout, I figured I was lucky it hadn't fallen off.

I didn't see Anya again before spring break. I went home, and the whole family thing seemed surreal and distant. Anya spoiled me for other girls, or for life. I couldn't get her out of my head. Every night I fell asleep imagining velvety, striped fur brushing over my bare skin, talons pricking my arm, hot, blood-scented breath blasting from between dagger fangs, and shaggy breasts the size of watermelons mashed into my face. One time, a special on Indian wildlife came on, and I had to forcibly wrench my hand away from my crotch. By the time I went back to campus, I was walking around in a continual daze of sexual frustration.

Despite that, another two weeks passed before I could track Anya down. Her roommates always answered the phone and never acknowledged she was home. I hung around the Fine Arts building but I only saw her surrounded by people and I couldn't just walk up and say, "Please turn into a tiger again and fuck me blind." Finally, I caught her at a lacrosse match. With her feline strength, speed, and agility, she was a natural athlete. I almost passed out watching her.

After the game, I cornered her outside the gym. "Anya, we have to talk."

"I don't have anything to talk about with you." She didn't want to look me in the eye.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm not mad at you. I won't come after you with a silver bullet or anything. I loved it. I love you."

She sighed. "I was afraid of that. Look, do you know anything about cats at all?"

"I know they're good in bed," I said, and tried to growl. It sounded pathetic.

"How often?"

That one stopped me. "How often what?"

"Have you ever heard of the mating season?"

Oh, god. She saw it in my face, and continued.

"Every time, I tell myself I'm not going to let this happen. I guess biology is destiny."

"Freud said that," I muttered miserably.

"It's nothing personal. You seem like a nice enough guy, I guess, but the fact is I'm not in heat. I'm don't really need you or any other guy. Look me up in a few months, if you're still interested."

She started to walk away. I grabbed her roughly. "Hey! You can't do this to me. Do you know what I've been through? You're all I think about. I'm going crazy!"

"You knew the risk."

"Risk? Of my date being a nympho weretiger? Don't even. You owe me, Anya."

She looked down at me, and I saw something cruel in her cold, glittering green gaze. A corner of her mouth lifted, exposing a sliver of sharpened ivory. I released her arm and stepped away. She sighed again, and patted me on the top of my head. I hate that.

"See you around," she said, and strode away.

I never saw her again. When I tried to contact her, they said she'd transferred to some school out in California, which is about as far away from here as you can get and still be in the United States of America. As much as I loathed her, it hurt. I was looking forward to the mating season.

Eventually, my feelings for her dimmed, although I still slept with the huge stuffed tiger I bought myself. I even started dating again. Megan was a nice girl, dark haired, dark eyed, and four inches shorter than me. You probably know who I'm talking about. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how you found out about me.

Come on. Don't play coy. I thought I could trust her. Now I know not to trust any woman.

She was a shy girl, and we hardly even kissed the first few weeks after we got serious. Then the mating season hit. At least, that's what it felt like. I couldn't keep my hands off of Megan. She acted offended, but I noticed that she wore her tightest, most revealing outfits despite the early chill. I rented my own apartment by then, and it didn't take too much effort to get her there alone one night.

We were still at the clumsy fumbling stage when Megan said, "Did you forget to shave?"

That should have been my first clue. She wasn't talking about my face. I pulled away from her just in time to see the stripes darkening on my skin.

I tried to get away, but the transformation hit me full force. It didn't hurt, not like you would think. I tried awkwardly to move as my arms and legs changed shape, and it was like struggling to wake up from a bad dream. A weird, heavy numbness shackled me to the floor.

Instead of screaming and running, which I would have expected, Megan appeared fascinated. She stroked my sprouting fur, sending a pleasant tingling sensation down my spine. Her face was rapt, her eyes huge and dilated.

There was a curiously painful flux of my body, like spasms in muscles I didn't know I had. Then, I was free! I sprang lightly onto all fours, and stood sniffing at the odors clogging the little room. A surge of raw power filled my frame with throbbing lust. My hungry eyes swept the room for female flesh.

I looked up.

Slowly, I reared back on my hind legs and stood upright, shaking. Even then, the tips of my pointed ears were about level with Megan's collarbone.

For a moment I couldn't understand what went wrong. Frantically, I examined my new self. Yes, I was covered in fur, but it was not sleek black and brilliant orange. Instead it was plush, pale marmalade with faint darker stripes. My pants had slipped off altogether, and my shirt hung off a slender, willowy frame, almost to my knees. I lifted it, and saw the furry pouch tucked between my oddly bent hind legs that concealed my bits and pieces. I concentrated, and extended a claw. It was delicate, translucent pearly pink, and about a half inch long. A puffy feather boa of a tail swept the floor behind me.

Panicky, I grabbed Megan's purse from the couch and rummaged through it. My paw-hands with their stubby fingers and soft pink palms did not grip very well, but I found one of her little make-up doodads, and flipped it open. The mirrored face staring wide-eyed back at me was not mine. Not a tiger's either.

It was a fluffy wedge of a face, sharp, flaring cheekbones narrowing to a pointed chin. The eyes were oversized, the same pale blue as my own, clearly showing the diamond-shaped pupil. The nose and lips were recognizable, but stretched over a blunt muzzle adorned with bristling whispers. Two oversized, triangular ears perched on top of my head.

I was no slavering monster. I wasn't scary or even really sexy. I was a "puddy tat."

"Oh my god!" Megan shrieked.

Here it comes, I thought. After this would come the silver bullets and villagers with torches. I cringed, cowering away from her.

"You're so cute!"

I uncurled a bit, peeking out at her. She squatted down, twiddling her fingers and making little kissy noises.

"Why didn't you tell me you could do this? Oh, just look at you. Wook at the widdle ears, and the eensy widdle paws, ooooooo."

I swear. That is exactly what she said.

So, what could I do? I obviously couldn't overpower her. Instead I mentally shrugged, then padded over and snuggled into her lap. You take what you can get, I guess -- and I was pretty darn cute.

I still don't understand exactly what happened. Obviously, I caught something from Anya. I don't know if I got a milder form of lycanthropy, or if it works different in men, or if it was some sort of snide comment on my beast within, but I overcame my initial disappointment and learned to relax and enjoy it. Let's just say, girls don't always go for the beefy, grunting musclemen. Some girls like a sweet, cuddly, playful, non-threatening guy. Having "big bwoo eyesies" and "a kyooooot fwuffy tail" doesn't hurt either.

Oh, it turns out there's another difference between Anya and me. She-cats go into season twice a year. But males are always in the mood. I spent roughly half my time as plain old me, and the other half looking like I'm auditioning for a Fancy Feast commercial. I ended up going to the pound and adopting a cat just so I could explain to my landlady why I bought all that litter and catnip. Catnip, let me tell you, is way better than Ecstasy or whatever the flavor of the month drug is. A pinch makes you sort of dreamy and happy and frivolous, and there's no hangover.

And don't look at me funny about the cat. Tyson is male, neutered, and strictly a roommate.

Thankfully, I'm not contagious, either. Megan stayed human, just like all the other girls I dated after her.

She and I had it pretty good for a while, but then we sort of drifted apart. The were-kitty thing had nothing to do with it, but a few days after we officially called it off. I started getting funny looks from girls in class -- and a lot of suggestive messages on my answering machine. Then someone sent me a gift box of catnip, the good, fresh kind with leaves and buds and no stems.

Seems Megan dear just couldn't keep my unique qualities to herself. Before I was kind of a lonely guy. Now I have to beat the girls off with a stick. That wouldn't be so bad, but it's not me they want. Not really.

Don't grin like that. I truly am searching for a mature relationship, but I guess it's hard to take someone who looks like this seriously. No one can see past the fur and baby blues to see the real, human guy within. I'm not a pet, and I'm not a toy! Why won't anyone see that?