How to Love a Homunculus Ch. 01

Catherine first came into my life when I was researching the various types of Homunculi. From the tiny Tinkers that aid our engineers and machinists with nimble fingers and keen eyes, to the enormous Goliaths, hauling space shuttles across the desert to launch sites and lifting many thousands of tons of metal to build great bridges.

Catherine is a Kathetic, a diminutive humanoid feline race of Homunculi. Catherine assisted me in my study of Kathetics, and I consider her an exemplary member of her kind. Kethetics in general stand at half the height of a human, though Catherine is slightly below average in height, a mere twenty nine inches, seventy three centimeters from head to paw.

When Catherine first came to assist me, she had just entered adulthood, at two years old. However, unlike humans and even some Homunculi species, Kathetics rapidly develop in their first three years. Even their pregnancy is rapidly accelerated, needing only three months to gestate the entire litter, which may vary between three and nine children. Catherine herself is one of six children. Her sisters, for all Kathetics are female, visited me during my stay in Olsewin, and were quite pleasant, if forward.

Kathetics vary in personality, each one an individual, but they do share many similarities. Kathetics of the same family share physical characteristics, typically these families resemble specific breeds of cats. Due to there being no male Kathetics, it is possible to determine an individual's entire linage by appearance. All Kathetics that resemble Maine Coons, for example, are related to one another as either sisters, cousins, grandparents and so on. This means that while all Maine Coon-like Kathetics are related, they are only tangibly related to Bengal-like Kathetics, sharing a common ancestor.

Catherine is a Maine Coon-type Kathetic. Her extremely long and thick hair, fluffy tail and large ears were clear indicators of her species. Kethetics possess fur on their bodies, but their primary and secondary sexual characteristics, as well as their faces, are covered in notably shorter fur. Catherine, at one point, had allowed me to measure her fur's length; the fur on her back and arms measure four inches in length, while the fur on her face was only a half inch long. Close observation revealed that this short fur is actually her undercoat, and is present along her entire body. Despite my initial observation, it is actually that her face and sexual organs lack the longer, thicker coat of fur rather than being completely distinct.

However, after talking to Catherine and sharing a home with her for some weeks, I learned that Kathetics, despite entirely lacking male children, are quite promiscuous. In fact, it could be said that they're the species most promiscuous, even more so than the Lagomorphs. This is because Kathetics are able to trigger the reproduction process with males of any species, regardless of their physical differences.

I was able to observe this in my weeks staying in Feurin. A neighbor of Catherine's had recently become a servant to a Draconian man, and had become pregnant in his service. While she never claimed the cold-blooded athlete was the father of her children (of which she had four), Catherine claimed the man was the only one her neighbor had been alone with.

I found this quite intriguing, as Kathetics are warm-blooded, and everything I knew of science told me that a cross-breeding should have been impossible between them and reptilian races. However, when the children had been born, I saw no evidence in their appearance linking them to the man. They were born healthy, if a little on the heavy side, with no defects of any kind. I was allowed to examine the infants and mother, and after testing their DNA and blood, I was astounded.

Based on what I found, Kathetics do not actually reproduce sexually in the way Humans do. While they do partake in coitus, and seem to hunger for it in fact, the act is not needed. It appeared that it was not the sperm of the partner that was needed, for I learned that Kathetics' produce a spermicide-like chemical in their bodily fluid, but rather the seminal fluid itself acted as a 'trigger' of some sort. When the female's body received this trigger, she would undergo a cell-division process within the uterus. This process effectively created fetuses that were clones of the mother with semi-varied genetics. These variances, I believe, are caused by the mother's hormonal state and emotions during the pregnancy and developmental stages.

However, I lacked the time, and the willing patients, to test this theory. However, I did observe that many older Kathetics had stories about being 'completely blissful' during their pregnancies in hopes of having stronger, more attractive children, while believing that an angry pregnancy would result in shorter, weaker daughters. I cannot determine if these were old wives' tales, however.

Despite my research, I managed to spend a great amount time with Catherine while not working. At first, I considered her as merely an assistant. She had not been the first assistant I had during my research into Homunculi, nor even the fifth. However, she was certainly the most unique.

I remember her watching me study her sisters and friends with wide eyes, hanging on intently to my every statement and observation as if I was speaking something profound. She was quite easily impressed, but I came to realize that was just the youthful idolization. She was overly eager to help, and had learned the names of my tools quite quickly, rushing about the space I made my lab to fetch me whatever I required.

Catherine was also quite the cook. I feel foolish to admit it, but I don't quite remember when I first started eating dinner with her on a nightly basis. Perhaps it was something she talked me into, or maybe it developed naturally. Either way, I came to look forward to eating with her, and she always seemed to have some story to share over dinner, either from her social life, or in a book she had been reading. Catherine was quite the bookworm, constantly with some new novel in her hands, even when helping me in the lab or cooking.

It was during one of these dinners that I found myself staring at her. She had such deep green eyes, an observation I had somehow missed in my two weeks working beside her. During this dinner, Catherine was wearing her casual clothes, as she had been out with friends earlier that afternoon. I remember seeing her blouse, dark against her lilac-colored fur, and wondering how precisely she managed to find something so form fitting. It should be noted, Catherine possessed an incredibly large bust for her diminutive height, a remarkable 20I. She looked quite beautiful in particular that night, though she had not done anything special to her appearance.

I'm embarrassed to admit that she most definitely caught me staring looking at her. However, despite spending a few moments to tease me about my inappropriate gaze, she relented with a smile, asking if I was "finally seeing her." I recall blushing quite a bit, as Catherine leaned across the table, her bust pushing her plate to the side, as she patted my hand and told me it was "about time."

What followed was a confusing and messy two days, as Catherine went about her duties and life as if nothing had happened between us. On the third day, it had rained fiercely, leaving us trapped in the house together. With no patients, I had little to distract myself from the Kathetic wandering about the home. Finally, unable to contain myself, I asked Catherine about that night.

She smiled, sitting on a stool with a book in her hands. She didn't answer me for a time, making me wait as she finished her chapter, then carefully marked the page and closed it in her lap. She stated, rather matter-of-factly, that despite my research into Kathetics, that I needed to do further research into people.

Questioning what she meant by that, Catherine rolled her eyes, and beckoned me to lean down. Since I towered over her, at over six feet in height, I knelt before her seat. With neither pomp nor circumstance, Catherine put her hand to my cheek and pressed her lips against mine, kissing me softly. Surprised, I froze stiff in response, eliciting a pout from the feline woman. Catherine then, as if explaining to a child, informed me that she was quite attracted to me, and had been from the very beginning. I noticed then the book in her hands, 'A thousand steps, by Seigrund Ots'. My book.

Catherine went on to say that she took the position as my assistant to get close to me. I was, in essence, her celebrity crush, though the celebrity part was something of a stretch when one considered how many copies of my previous book actually sold. I blushed as the straightforward woman pulled me forward again, putting her arms around my neck as she buried her face in my shoulder. Her fur was incredibly silky, and I found myself hugging her back.

We held each other for a while like that, until Catherine pulled away. She did not say anything as she got off her stool and started to walk away from me. I watched her go, and saw her shrug off her top, turning her head to look at me. She smiled, winking, as she undid the clasp to her bra before going into the bedroom... my bedroom.