“OK, so, obviously these are sunflowers,” Sir mused, studying the bouquet I’d handed to him as I entered the living room. “But what are the white and purple ones? I’m sorry, I’m not an expert like you...”

Pausing in the middle of peeling off my work clothes and dumping them on the carpet, I sauntered back over to him and pointed to each of the flowers. “These,” I said matter-of-factly, “are white ones. And these... are purple ones.”

He nodded seriously. “Thanks, Rain. That clears that up.”

Snickering, I unclasped my bra. “No problem!”

He went to put the flowers in the kitchen sink, while I piled up my discarded clothes in the corner. It was the last day of the academic year - hence my floral gift, given to me by the parents of a particularly difficult child. The summer holidays were underway - hence, also, my haste to strip nude the second I got indoors. It had been a hot, sweaty day, especially in my poorly-ventilated classroom.

As I wandered towards the sofa, he called through from the kitchen, “Guessing you didn’t do a lot of teaching today, then...?”

“We did some crafting in the morning, just to give them something to do. Then we had a whole-school assembly last thing.”

“You didn’t put on a film?” Sir ambled back into the lounge. “I thought that was a time-honoured tradition for the last day...”

“Oh, I showed them bits of Wallace and Gromit during the day,” I replied, sprawling on the sofa with my head lolling back against the soft cushion behind me. “Just during breaktimes... The thing is, with these kids, if you put on a film all day, they’ll get bored and agitated and start bouncing off the walls. So I try to come up with things for them to do, to keep their minds occupied.”

“That makes sense,” he acknowledged, sitting in a nearby armchair. I spread out even more, taking advantage of having the long couch to myself, my arms and legs akimbo. “They are lucky to have such a wise and knowledgeable teacher.”

I smiled modestly. “Well, I dunno about that...”

“How do you spell ‘knowledgeable’, by the way?”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Why?”

“No, I don’t think it starts with a ‘y’,” he quipped.

I smirked and rolled my eyes. “Why are you asking?”

“Just testing your brain still works after such a long term.”

His voice, and his smile, were laced with mischief. I was already suspecting he had some trickery underway. I was about to call him out on his bullshit, when he fixed me with a piercing look and said, in a tone that brooked no argument, “Answer me, Rain. How do you spell ‘knowledgeable’?”

Shrinking under his stare, I felt the familiar irresistible compulsion to obey his will. I went to speak - but nothing came out. Because I had nothing to answer with. My brain was steadfastly refusing to give me anything. I gawped vacantly at him, poking around my head for the first letter of the word, finding nothing but an empty grey void.

“N,” I guessed eventually, and then blushed furiously as Sir’s derisive laugh left me under no illusions that I’d answered wrongly.

“Oh dear,” he tittered. “Not a good start...!”

“Well, it’s a long word,” I said defensively, pouting and folding my arms across my bare chest. “And I’m tired! Give me an easier one.”

“Alright, how about ‘clever’?”

“Clever,” I repeated softly to myself. “Clever...” I turned the word over and over in my mind, trying to get the measure of it. I could hear the sounds that made it up. I could enunciate them well enough, and separate them out - ‘cle-ver’... but I couldn’t figure out how to spell it for the life of me. I couldn’t make the connections between the sounds and the letters that represented them.

Chuckling, Sir said, “Let’s try an even easier one - what about ‘boob’?”

“Boob,” I murmured, frowning with concentration. “Boob. Boooob...” I stared intently into space as if hoping to see the answers floating there, absently scratching my underboob.

“Can you spell ‘yes’?”

“Yes?” I echoed faintly.

“Were you telling me you can, or just repeating the word?”

“Yes?”

He laughed, my diminishing intellect clearly entertaining him a great deal. “Well, your English skills clearly haven’t survived the year! Let’s try Maths instead...”

I sighed and smiled shamefacedly, already anticipating that this wasn’t going to go any better than the impromptu spelling test. And, of course, I was right about that - which was pretty much the last time I was right about anything that afternoon. Right from the first question, I was stumped.

“What’s half of a hundred?”

“Uh - a half... dred. A half-dred,” I mumbled, unable to meet his eyes.

“Two plus two?”

“Two... two... two-two? Two-two,” I said in a plaintive tone, as if begging him to tell me I was right, even though I was fairly sure I wasn’t.

“How many beans make five?”

I screwed up my face, fighting to get my brain to function. I was sure I should know this. This one should be doable.

“Beans,” I muttered eventually, and gave up. I couldn’t hope to give a correct answer while my brain was playing keep-away with my intelligence.

“Dear oh dear,” Sir sniggered, my face burning at his condescending tone. “Can’t spell simple words, can’t complete basic sums... So much for our wise, knowledgeable teacher, huh? I pity those poor kids...”

I made a strangled noise and wrapped my limbs around myself, as if to defend myself from his cutting taunts.

“You know, I’m starting to think this isn’t a case of you being worn out from work. I think you’re just stupid.”

“Nooooo,” I whimpered, mortified. Doubly mortified, in fact - by his degrading words, and by how wet they were making me.

“That’s right. Much too stupid to be a teacher. Much too stupid to even be a person, if you ask me.”

This was just bizarre enough to shake me out of my simmering humiliation. Unfurling from my upright foetal position, I gave him a look of bewilderment.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure your intelligence is well below human levels,” he mused, studying me with almost scientific interest. “More on the level of a monkey. Yes, that must be right. You’re not a person. You’re just a monkey, aren’t you?”

My stare turned indignant, even outraged. That really was too far. I opened my mouth to protest that no, I wasn’t a monkey, I was obviously a human being and I wasn’t going to let him talk down to me any more, no matter how much it turned me on.

“Ahhhk!”

Even as my eyes widened in shock, I began to breathe rapidly, exhaling in low, loud grunts. “Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo...” I gaped at Sir, taken aback by my own primal sounds.

Gripped by a sudden impulse, I hopped up from my seated position to stand on the chair in one agile movement, one hand braced on the armrest, my feet sinking into the cushion below. My posture was shifting into a more simian shape, hunched over, my knees bent, my hands clenched close to my chest, my head angled upwards to frown across the room at my dominant.

“Ooh-hoo-hoo!” I hooted, trying to convey my confusion as best I could with the bestial noises. I found myself instinctively beating my breast with my fist out of frustration.

In the face of this behaviour, my convictions were quickly crumbling. Up until now, I’d been so sure I was a human woman - but on the other hand, I’d been wrong about everything else tonight. And it seemed I’d just disproved my own case. So I guessed I really was just a big dumb ape, so stupid that I’d managed to delude myself into thinking I was a smart, civilised person.

And now I knew better, there was no sense keeping up the pretence.

Relinquishing what remained of my human mind and personality, I gave in to my monkey mannerisms completely. I started to explore my surroundings, clambering about on the couch as if it were a tree branch. I lay on my back and contorted my limbs inwards, studying my own body with my eyes and nose, sniffing my hair, my armpits and my feet. Nimbly rolling off the couch and landing on all fours, I peered around the room with witless curiosity, absently scratching my boobs and my bum. Ambling around aimlessly, I found my way to my discarded clothes and began rifling through them. I threw down my socks and stamping on them angrily after catching a whiff of their strong sweaty scent, and I poked my face into my knickers to examine them closely, before draping them over my head.

Noticing Sir still sitting nearby, I grunted and shrieked, “Ooh! Ooh! Aaagh!” I scampered over and scrambled up onto his armchair, my feet on either armrest and my hands on the back. He didn’t seem too bothered - probably because my bare crotch was directly in his line of sight - until I tried to vault over the chair, at which point he distracted me with the promise of a banana. (Not a euphemism. Sir doesn’t even have a banana, in that sense.)

As soon as he mentioned the word, it was all I could think about - soft, and yellow, and so so yummy. I licked my lips compulsively. I had to have one, and the nice man was promising me one. I was just smart enough to understand that I had to be a good monkey and not get in his way.

I jumped down from the chair and let him get to his feet, and then loped after him, unable to suppress my little excited hoots. I was walking on two feet, but that was where my resemblance to a person began and ended - I was still crouched down close to the carpet, my knees bent, my arms jostling about at my side with every bouncing step I took. More often than not I used my hands to propel myself along as well, so I was still toeing the line between biped and quadruped, as most monkeys do.

He led me into the kitchen, my palms and soles slapping the tiled floor, and fetched me a banana. Shrieking with delight, I clumsily peeled it, managing to break off a bit in the process. I popped the piece in my mouth, and as soon as the flavour hit my tongue I lost all self-control and shoved the rest into my face as well, mushing it around my lips and dropping bits on the floor in the process. I savoured every chew, even as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, which I proceeded to lick clean once I’d swallowed my snack.

Sir watched with a chuckle, his phone raised to take plenty of photos of my monkey business. As soon as I finished eating, he held out his hand, which I took tentatively. Wild and free-spirited as I was, I didn’t much like the idea of being physically pulled along by a person - but he had just given me a delicious banana, so he’d earned some trust.

“I’m not sure this is the right environment for you, Rainy,” he remarked, guiding me towards the back door. “You should be outdoors, where you belong.”

I gasped and whooped as he brought me out into the garden, my body humming with ecstasy as it was hit by the summer sun. I promptly let go of his hand and charged outside, loving the feeling of the grass and mud squishing against my soles.

I lolloped around the lawn, hooting and squawking and thumping my chest. I scurried over to sniff the fragrant flowers on the edge of the garden, and burst into a sneezing fit. I dropped to the ground, and dissolved into giggles as I felt a thousand blades of grass tickle my bum. I squirmed so much that I lost my balance and went arse-over-tit backwards, and then just kept rolling around on my back.

Sir observed from a distance as I wandered around, following whatever animal impulse took me from one moment to the next. It was actually a pretty great form of sensory play. I didn’t have any higher brain functions, or inhibitions. I lacked any capacity to feel self-conscious or embarrassed. I could just engage with all my senses and do what came naturally, responding to the stimuli provided by my surroundings, without any thoughts or worries to hold me back.

At last, after a stretch of time my chimp brain couldn’t measure, he called out, “Atten-tion!” And I sprang upright, standing stock still with the perfect posture of a disciplined soldier, staring glassily into space. In an instant, I’d gone from a lively, raucous animal to a military monument - a nude statue in the middle of the garden, covered in mud and grass stains, with tiny flecks of banana in the corners of my mouth.

“Quiiiick march!”

With my back straight and my chin up, I marched mechanically indoors, my arms swinging rigidly at my sides, following close behind my commanding officer. Sir led me to the bathroom and meticulously washed me clean in the shower, while I stood still and saluted for him like a good little toy soldier.

And when he finally gave me back my human brain - complete with all the intelligence it’d lacked earlier - I made sure to thank him profusely for taking it away in the first place, and letting me monkey around for a while. It was just what I needed.