Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 6

recognize ads for shifter groups. This one was called Changed for the Better. Members met once a week in changed form in the woods and socialized.
    That Thursday Jax and I drove past the meadow we usually changed in. We parked on the shoulder of a thin, gloomy road and headed into the woods, where we met the members of Changed for the Better.
    Quite the motley crew. There was a Weimaraner, two squirrels, a lynx named Leon, a goat, three house cats, a dwarf hamster, and a very bored looking iguana.
    The Weimaraner, Dixie, was the leader of the gang. She had long legs, short silver fur and pale amber eyes the color of a lion's.
    Dixie was a little crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. I hadn't spent too much time around other shifters, but I knew just as my horse senses made me amenable to shying at silly things, predator shifters sometimes experienced heightened aggression. The combination of a human brain inside a body that featured powerful muscles and sharp teeth could make self-control a bit difficult.
    Each week Changed discussed a new topic. How to make time to shift if you had a family or a committed relationship. How to keep your identity secret from loved ones. How to survive for extended periods in shifted form. The dangers of showing.
    It was good to talk to a group going through the same things we were, but the meetings became increasingly difficult to enjoy because of Dixie, who used them to promote segregation of shifters and nons. She believed in the necessity of shifters breeding with one another and never pursuing relationships with nons. She loved to describe the horrors that might befall shifter communities if the public at large had proof we existed.
    There were nons who did know about us— parents of shifters often knew, though they usually tried to deny or hide what their children were. There were shifters who posted videos online of themselves changing. In most cases non viewers assumed this was clever editing. But there were plenty of nons who'd heard shifter legends and believed them.
    I agreed with Dixie that we had to make every effort to limit the number of nons who knew about us. I just didn't care for the way she was always proposing tearing the limbs off any shifter who revealed himself or herself to a non.
    And her contempt for all shifters who showed.
    "We are not puppets," she said. "We are not clowns. We are not freaks. We do not exist to provide nons with entertainment. We are not pets."
    "What if we like being pets?" someone asked. It took me a minute to identify the speaker as the dwarf hamster, Gem.
    Dixie walked over to Gem, who was perched on a rock. She leaned forward, put her snout in front of Gem, and bared her teeth. "Then you are seriously sick."
    "Come on, Dix, lay off," one of the squirrels said.
    Dixie snapped, her teeth clicking together millimeters from the Gem's face. Gem rolled into a ball and quivered. Dixie turned and sauntered back to her spot in the circle.
    "I don't think the hamster's the sick one," Jax said later.
    "Weimaraners are always so cute on those calendars," I said. "Wearing suits and bonnets and whatnot."
    "I can't imagine Dixie in a bonnet."
    "You be careful around her," I warned.
    I mostly kept quiet during Dixie's worst tirades. But Jax never hesitated to argue with her.
    Sometimes I caught Dixie staring at Jax from across the circle when someone else was speaking, pale eyes glinting, lip curled.
    ****
    One afternoon in the meadow, Jax and I came across a young man and a young woman. We hadn't changed yet, but I pulled Jax behind a tree anyway. The couple was behaving oddly, enchanted by the clouds and the grass.
    "They're on something," Jax said.
    "They sure are. Acid or shrooms."
    "I have a plan," he said.
    Before I could stop him, Jax strode toward the couple. They saw him and waved. The man giggled.
    Just before he reached then, Jax changed. I'd never seen him change so fast, and with such energy. One minute he was a human; the next he was a horse. His clothes flew off in shreds.
    The man screamed, but the woman just stood there, hands over her mouth, and stared. Jax shook his head, dark mane flying. Then he changed again and walked, buck naked, behind some trees.
    I hurried after him, leaving the woman frozen and the man yelling, "Fucked up! Fucked up. Did you see that? Turned into a fuckin' horse. "
    I berated Jax as soon as I found him, but he laughed, insisting the couple would think it was a hallucination.
    I saw the woman two days later at a