Author's Note: This short story is one of the relatively few things I've written that is completely consensual. It's relatively light on bondage or other erotic themes too. It's more of a psychological exploration, I think.

1

"Good girl," Dr. Paul said as he gave Mariliu a loving pat on the top of her fur-covered head.

He pronounced her name like Merrilee-you, and she liked that. Not only was it pretty and exotic; it was also a good description of how she felt most of the time these days. She licked her lips, enjoying the slightly bitter taste of the fluid that was already drying at the corners of her mouth; then she stuck her head back in his lap and began to clean him off as well.

When she was finished he pat the top of her head again. "That's my beautiful girl," he said, rubbing the corner of her eyebrow, right where he knew she liked to be scratched.

"Hhhhmmmm," she purred, letting her breath out in a long satisfied sigh.

Scratching that spot was a lot harder for her, given that she didn't have any fingernails any more. All that remained of her hands were the flat spots at the first joint where her fingers used to be, before her body morph. Her palms (like the stumps at her knees) were covered with a thick, animal-like pad-which made walking on all fours much easier.

"Are you still hungry?" Dr. Paul asked, standing up with her leash in his hand. "Or should I take you for your walk first?"

The very thought of going for her walk made Mariliu all horny and wet, because it meant he'd be strapping on her chastity belt. But not before he implanted a buzzing little friend. Yes, she definitely enjoyed her long walks with her master-but even if he wasn't in the habit of putting the chastity belt on her before they left the house, she still would have loved her walks. Dr. Paul lived in a quiet sub-division with lots of friendly neighbors who liked to come out to say hello whenever he took her for her evening walks. She loved the way Dr. Paul beamed when the neighbors took notice of her. Having them oh and ah over her was even better than the quietly buzzing vibrator. For the first time in her life, she felt truly beautiful; and she loved to prance and show off for them.

They'd rub their hands along the fur that covered her sides, or scratch the fur on her head and neck. Anything without fur on it was out of bounds (at least without asking for permission first) so they never groped her breasts or tried to stick their fingers between her legs. The wide chastity belt would have prevented them from reaching anything intimate anyway; and besides, Dr. Paul was always willing to share Mariliu's mouth.

She took pride in wringing the sweetest moans from Dr. Paul's jealous friends. But it was the looks that came without such bribery that she truly savored. They really do find me a worthy puppy-girl. It was obvious, the way they looked at her with undisguised envy. Even beautiful, in my own way, she thought with awe.

That was what still surprised her most about her new life.

Everyone she met seemed to think she was absolutely beautiful.

It hadn't always been like that.

Mariliu could still remembered everything about her life before her bio-morph; she remembered sitting in the empty foyer, dangling her legs nervously from the chair as she waited impatiently for the nurse to come out and say, "Dr. Paul will see you now."

"I want you to fix me," she blurted out as soon as the nurse closed the door and they were alone in his office. She didn't want to wait, because if she waited she might not have the nerve to admit why she'd come.

Maybe it was because they were already slightly acquainted with each other from the local church they both irregularly attended, but Dr. Paul seemed to feel perfectly comfortable giving her a friendly smile and saying, "That's what everyone comes in here for, Mary Liu." Even back then, he pronounced her last name as if it were two words: lee-you; which she liked. No one else pronounced her name that way. "What specifically do you think is wrong with that..."

I'm ugly, doctor!" she said, cutting him off.

"No you're not," he said, giving her that pitying look that people always gave her when the topic of her looks came up. "You have an incredible body and..."

"Yeah, yeah," she interrupted him again. She'd heard all the consoling rhetoric before; she was even used to men whistle (or giving her an energetic cat call from behind, only to have them recoil in disgust when she turned around and they got a good look at her face. That, in fact, was exactly what had brought her in to Dr. Paul's office in such a tizzy. "But don't tell me you think I'm beautiful."

"Well, perhaps not beautiful," he began, "at least not everywhere... on the outside..."

"If you tell me I have a beautiful spirit, I swear to God, I'll..."

"Well, you're definitely not ugly, even on the outside. At worst, I'd say your a little plain."

"Plain," she wailed, lifting her arm to frame her face with the fingers of her hand. Her forehead was a normal size for a human, but her jaw came to a sharp point and the way it jutted out gave her a distinctly animalistic look. This was not minimized by the sharp and pointed shape of her teeth or the ape-like nose that sat atop her snout. If her mouth hadn't stuck out so far, the nose might have looked a lot like any other black woman's nose, with wide flaring nostrils-but when that characteristic was exaggerated by being pushed forward and up, it made her face look more like a dog's or a cats. "I swear, doctor," she almost cried, "I'd give up both of my tits just to be plain."

For a long moment, Dr. Paul didn't say anything-but Mary had a pretty good idea what he was thinking, as those words were now running through her own mind. Trading for your tits might be a self-defeating proposition, young lady, especially since your rather large breasts are one of your body's best features. It wasn't hard to guess that Dr. Paul was a breast man. Even now he couldn't help himself from glancing down for a moment and he did the same thing every time they meet at church. Of course, I have no way of knowing what he's looking at when we're not face to face.

"The problem with a cosmetic biomorph is that sometimes it's not the person who's getting the operation who's ugly," he said, giving her a meaningful look. "Women with anorexia (or other body dysmorphic disorders..."

"...You're saying you can't help me..."

"...like bulimia) often think they're fat, when they're not.

"...because it's all in my head? I'm not crazy, doctor. I see the way men react to me when they see my face."

"I'm not saying I can't perform a morph that would... improve the way your face looks. What I'm saying is that, because you seem to have an unrealistic self-image, performing the morph might not be enough to make you feel better about yourself. "


2

"I warned you this might happen," Dr. Paul said, with a frown. "Trust me, Mary Liu, your beautiful now. You're so incredibly beautiful. "

"No I'm not."

"You are!"

"I'm not! I'm still so ugly I couldn't even sell myself as a slave."

"Have you tried," Dr. Paul asked.

"Not recently," she admitted.

"You mean, not since the bio-morph?"

"It doesn't matter... I still look exactly the same. I mean seriously Doc," she said, making a gesture to her own reflection in the mirror. "Who would buy something like this?"

"Oh!" Dr. Paul said with a little too much sincerity. "I certainly would! I'd buy you in a heart beat!"

"Really," she said, looking at him skeptically. "Prove it?"

"Well," he said, backpedaling a bit, "I'm not sure it would be exactly ethical to..."

"That's what I thought," she said, "You're all talk and no action..."

"...That's not it, really!"

"...Because you don't really want me."

"I do, but you don't understand; I could loose my..." He stopped in mid-thought.

"What?" she prompted.

"I just thought of a way." He gave her a hard look, "I mean if you're really serious about selling yourself as a slave?"

"I'm serious," she said a bit defensively. "I mean, I am if I can get any money for it? How much would you be willing to pay?"

"Well now, that would depend on what the auction house says you're worth," he said, biting his lip thoughtfully. "If I want to avoid any hint of impropriety, I'll have to buy you for whatever they say you're worth." He went to one of his cabinets and opened the door, rummaging around. A moment later he returned with a business card. "It wouldn't hurt, either, if you had another bio-morph, before we call the auction house and ask them to place you for a private invitation only bidding."

"But I thought you were going to buy me," Mary said, feeling just a little concerned.

"I will," he replied, "that's why it will be private invitation only. You see, I'll be the only one that I invite to bid on you?"

"Oh," she said, nodding a little although she didn't think she understood all the legal subtitles of the situation. "And what's this for, she said lifting the business card he'd just given her."

"That, my little pet, is the card of a highly skilled bio-morphologist."

"Someone better than you?" She asked. "But I though you said I was already beautiful?"

"You are, but this isn't an ordinary morph. You see, my... sexual tastes run a little... How shall I say? Well, let's just say that my friend deals in... unusual body morphs."

"How unusual?" She asked, giving him an intrigued look.


3

...That had been a little more than six months ago.

The happiest six months of my life, Mariliu thought as she waited patiently by the door for Dr. Paul to put on his coat.

"I'm coming girl," he said as he closed the closet door and leaned over to clip the leash on her collar. She was obedient enough that he didn't really need it, but he said he thought it made her look more distinguished, as she pranced beside him, kicking her front legs up so high that she looked a bit like a show pony. She thought it probably had more to do with the community's leash laws, but she didn't mind the little white lie.

Everything about her life was good.

She was beautiful; she was loved.

The only possible dark cloud on the horizon was when she stopped to think about what would happen when her Term-of-Service was up. Would Dr. Paul want to keep her after the year written into her contract was over? After living as his pet, she wasn't sure she wanted to go back to being a normal person again-even though that eventuality was written into the contract. He'd paid for the morph to take her legs, and he would pay to have them given back to her.

But do I want them?

She sighed and put the thought out of her mind. Things like that didn't really bother her much any more. She knew that she was beautiful and that she was an excellent puppy-girl, which meant there would always be someone out there who wantdc her.

And who knows, maybe when the time comes I'll try something different. I could trade in my stumps for a pair of hooves, for instance. After all, I've already got the prancing down pat.