“There’s no way he’ll marry me.” The Princess’s tears ran freely, and she stared off into space.

Her cat-girl maid watched her with slightly furrowed brow. She slowly and deliberately pushed a cup off the table, it shattering on the floor, and the Princess started. She looked down, then up to see her maid, and smiled as she continued to cry. "Really now. Such a clumsy girl.”

The Princess pulled her maid into her lap, and started to pet her, causing her to purr softly, as the Princess cried more and buried her face in her hair.

“...Really!? That’s completely ahistoric!” Mika rolled her blue eyes, glancing over at me. “Are you seeing this shit? They didn’t have pets.”

Stephanie ran her fingers through Mika’s golden hair, and stroked her human pet’s back, her touch soft despite – or perhaps because of – her far superior strength.  One of Stephanie’s black ears sticking up out of her hair twitched– she was a dog-girl, another kind of chimera than the one on the screen.

“Chimeras didn’t even exist this early, either,” she scoffed, “I don’t mind a little ahistoricism, but why are they even setting this in the past?”

Sometimes it was hard to enjoy dumb movies with these two, they just tore apart everything… well, I could join in tearing it apart too

“...Their clothing isn’t even close to period-accurate, either.” I contributed. “The Princess’s dress is so last century. The maid uniform is a bit better, but there’s no way the skirts were that short at that time, and the thigh-high stockings…? It’s practically fetish wear, really.”

Regina – Stephanie’s human girlfriend, red hair, slightly hazy eyes – was more chill, merely giggling a little at our antics, and taking another pull on her pipe, then holding it out to me. I took it and passed it on to Stephanie without taking a hit. Like, I could get a little high, but the amount it took for that was enormous, and I didn’t want to put them out.

Stephanie took a long hit, and Mika reached for it, but Stephanie softly smacked her arm down a little. “Were you a good girl today, Mika?”

“Fuck that shit, I need to get high.”

“Drugs are for good girls, Mika.”

Mika growled, and wriggled out of Stephanie’s arms. Stephanie held on for a moment, and then let her go, letting her half fall off the couch, and run off to hide in another room.

I looked over to where she had left, and furrowed my brow a little. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with their new pet, but Stephanie and Regina had been my closest friends, both in terms of emotions and also being next door in the same apartment building for years.

“I feel bad when she asks me to help her escape,” I said quietly. “Kinda fucked up that you two are keeping her locked in here all the time.”

Stephanie laughed. “Isn’t it, though? Life is a fuck.”

I took a sip from my cup of water, unsure how to respond to that.

“Eh, without us she’d be in a much worse situation,” noted Regina. “She basically failed obedience training. She’s lucky she’s not locked up in a dark cell somewhere until she breaks. Maybe she’ll come around eventually? Maybe not.”

“...yeah.” I stared down at the blue cup of water, imagining it was an ocean for a moment as I tried to stabilize my feelings. “I wished she liked me, though.”

Regina shrugged. “Well, that’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Bring her some treats. Or if you just want to pet her or fingerfuck her or whatever, pin her down– she’s been conditioned to at least physically enjoy being groped and used, after all, and not to struggle too hard.”

I remembered my cup wasn’t, in fact, the ocean, and took another sip of fresh water.

“Mmm. I don’t really like forcing pets to do things.”

Stephanie grinned. “But I very much do.” Most chimeras voluntarily became pets, it was supposedly genetically programmed into them or something– but I think it also had something to do with the fact that most people assumed they’d become pets, and just wouldn’t hire them for work since they might be gone in a month or two, so they often had few to no viable options besides becoming pets? It was complicated, there was no real way to do a proper scientific study on it.

Stephanie kind of took it as a badge of honor that she had a pet and could push it around, though. Not that she was always cruel to Mika, she took good care of her in a lot of ways, but also she was kind of around to feed her ego. She was nice to other free people, though, like me. Bit of a people pleaser, usually.

Regina patted my shoulder, startling me out of my reverie. “Hey, don’t worry about it too much, okay? If you get too caught up in the inequities of our society, it gets real fucking depressing.”

“Yeah.” I hung around for a few more hours, chatting lightly and watching dumb TV shows on Regina’s laptop that had been set up on a table in front of the cushions we were all sitting on, and then called it a night, heading back home.

I lay in bed, staring up at the slight cracks in the ceiling– not the most well repaired place, but it was clean, at least in my room. I had made sure of that.

But despite how careful I had been with all my costs, I was running out of money. My current part-time job couldn’t even take care of food and housing, nor the surprise medical expenses that had come up... by which I mean a car had done a hit and run on me a few months back, and gotten away without being identified, meaning I had to foot the bill. Well, I had survived, at least. Was almost one hundred percent better now, thanks to the reconstructive surgery, and a bit of physical therapy.

I opened up the state lottery app. I had bet a dollar on the Superultramillions pot, and won a dollar. Better than some nights. I scrolled through the various lotto choices, and stopped on the Pet Power! Lottery.

I had been looking at it every night, recently. Draws were free– but some prizes were negative, meaning that you’d give up your freedom and become a pet. It had become pretty popular among desperate people– becoming a pet meant your debts were forgiven anyways, since you ceased to be a person, legally. Win/win, if the alternative was starvation or dying from an untreated medical condition.

One in a million chance of becoming a pet per draw, drawing at midnight. Average gain of seventy-five cents per ticket… if I drew a thousand tickets, seven hundred and fifty dollars would keep me solvent for the next month, and I’d only have a one in a thousand chance of being fucked.

I thought about Mika. I really should release her, if I wasn’t a coward. If I didn’t value friendship over you know, actual human rights. But even if I did… where would she go? Would living on the streets without an identity really result in her living anywhere better? Regardless… if I was going to pretend being a pet against your will really wasn’t that bad, logically speaking, I shouldn’t entirely avoid the chance myself.

I ratcheted the tickets up to a thousand, and pressed the large ‘Purchase’ button with it’s friendly rounded lettering. There. Financial issues solved.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

My eyes blinked opened, and I shook my head a little as I tried not to remember half-fading dreams of being bullied in high school, though this time I was wearing a cat ear headband....

My phone was buzzing, and there was an alert from the lottery app on the phone– they usually just did a little popup, had I won big!? I opened up the app eagerly, scrolled, and froze.

Congratulations! You are a “Winner”! You have been selected as a pet!

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. I scrolled through the terms and conditions, trembling… I had three months… well, ninety days... to put my affairs in order. Then I had to report to a certain facility for training, or call for a pickup. I could show up or call early, if I wanted – presumably for those in truly miserable financial situations – but after ninety-one days, things got bad.

Below that, the notification that I had won a total of 530 dollars on the same thing. Well. Enough to barely solve my solvency issue. If I squatted and refused to pay rent, they’d just catch me early– no one was going to offer me further credit, and any attempt to avoid my current bills, it’d be as bad as if I had waited ninety-one days.

As I thought about it, there was kind of a bigger issue. I had always been interested in getting hypnotized, but was reactively resistant to it– some part of me feared giving up control. I was rather likely to not be conditioned properly. I was rather likely to wind up like Mika, kept in a pound until some kind or cruel soul picked me up as a half-useless pet… or worse, just wasting away in the pound for the rest of my life.

I started crying. I was scheduled to work today, but I just couldn’t. I called my boss and explained through tears that I didn’t think I could hold together through this shift. He listened, and said fine, he’d cover me for today– but if I couldn’t work my shift tomorrow, I was fired.

I thanked him, hung up my phone, feeling empty. Three months of freedom, unless I tried to escape.

What other choice did I have?

A knock at the door, and Stephanie opened it with a friendly smile, until she saw my tear-streaked face. She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and guided me in, sat me down on some cushions, got me some tea.

Mika looked up from where she was lying on Stephanie’s bed, more with interest than sympathy– she had never thought of me as an ally.

Finally, Stephanie asked me what was wrong.

“I… the Pet Power lotto….”

“You actually pulled on that? What a fucking idiot!” Mika’s face was red as she glared at me, enraged, more mad than I had seen her.

“I… I was running out of money….” Mika rolled her eyes and turned her back on me.

Stephanie shook her head, pulled me closer. “You should’ve come to me.”

“...didn’t want to be a burden….” She sighed, stroking my hair.

“I live frugally so I can take care of people I care about, when I need to. You can quit your job and stay here for your last few months, if you want.”

“That’s… that’s really nice of you… I’m probably not going to make it as a pet.”

“Oh?”

“...I don’t condition easily.”

Stephanie made a thoughtful sound, and gave me a little squeeze.

I looked up into her eyes.

“...can you teach me how to be a pet? You know more about it than I do… if I have to be a pet, I don’t wanna get stuck in the pound for the rest of my life…”

“Oh, honey….” She pulled me close, and squeezed me against her hard… well, she was still holding back, I knew. “Sure, I’ll train you for three months. We’ll get you to be a good girl, okay?”

“Your goal is to become a good girl? What the fuck is wrong with you!? Did you lose that lotto on purpose?”

I started crying again, and Stephanie looked over to Mika and shook her head.

“Mika, I can stand you being disobedient, but you’re going to be polite to Phoebe today, got it?” Her voice was unusually firm.

Mika fell silent, and Stephanie petted my hair and stroked my back.

“It’ll be okay… I’m sure you have some submissive elements I can help you bring out… we’ll make you into a good pet. You’ll get into a good home and be loved. Okay? Things aren’t going to be that bad.” Already, her voice sounded a bit like she was talking to a pet. Perhaps I had already been demoted from a person in her eyes, but that she was being nice to me was enough for me to cling to her, and bury my face in her large, soft, chest as I continued to cry.