# content
"I thought about making it some sort of grand romantic gesture," she said. "But it seemed like it might put a lot of pressure on your response if there were other people around."

Algrady, the doglike alien, set his tools aside and looked down from the raised platform he was standing on. There was only one other person in the room. He'd known Ashley, the Earth-being, for going on twenty years now, and he'd never known her to do something like this.

"Nice socks," he said.

"I don't have any shoes that fit. Forgot to get some." She chuckled nervously. "I'm just glad I remembered the clothes."

Algrady stepped off the platform to get a closer sniff. It smelled just like her. And it looked like her too - down to that weird human thing where they only had fur on top of their heads. But she didn't look human anymore. She looked... well, a lot like him.

"This must have been what Misam was here for?"

"Part of it."

"Did- did you do this just for me? I never would have wanted you to-"

"No, it's nothing like that." Ashley's tail wagged as it drooped behind her. "It's just... I needed to know if I could do this. You probably know I've never been done anything like this before."

"So it's not permanent."

"No. I really couldn't- I couldn't deal with my actual body changing." She looked down at the socks on her front paws. "I don't know how my daughter does it. She's got more fortitude than I do."

"Well, that's the paper Misam's writing, isn't it? 'The acclimation of uncomfortable individuals to new skeletal types.'"

"You remembered that?"

"In my language, it rhymes. I think he did it on purpose." Algrady looked into her eyes. They didn't look like his - they were no different than her human eyes - but in a canine's body, seeing so much of the white sclerae made her look awfully anxious... which, at this moment, she probably was.

Ashley glanced at the platform, paused, and looked at the open compartment Algrady had been working in. She put her snout up to the opening and took a whiff. "There's a lot of scents in there."

"Biological machinery," Algrady said. "I'm trying to find the mold. It doesn't smell bad, exactly."

"It's just weird, isn't it? Like a weed."

"Yeah, I don't mind it." He took a brief pause. "What do I smell like?"

"Oh, now you care?"

"You're a lot more sensitive when you've got a nose like mine. You never had that before. I'm worried about you."

Ashley walked in a half-circle around him. "You smell like clothes," she said. "What about me?"

"You're really anxious, for one thing," said Algrady. "But you also still smell like *you*. Are you sure this isn't your real body?"

Ashley shook her head. "They put it together with my DNA, Uma machine learning, and some weird Iroshan biotech. They've made a few - mostly for people who need to be a dog or a bug or something, for their job. I did request... a few conditions."

"Skin, hair, eyes..."

"Yeah. I need to be myself, still. Even if that means wearing two pairs of socks. Listen... I don't know if you ever felt interested in me, and I didn't think for a long time that it was even an option. Obviously you'd want to be with someone... dog-shaped."

"I'd never ask you to live like this, not when you're so uncomfortable in your skin."

"I know, and I wouldn't, but... if there was ever going to be something between us, I need to be able to live in your world. If I can't tolerate it for an afternoon, there's no need to even ask."

"On a date?"

"...Yeah."

"When's afternoon over? 3 hours from now? I'll be here."

"Don't you get off work in 30 minutes? Are you saying-"

"Ashley, it's just - I'm so touched that you would do something like this for me. I know how hard it is for you."

"Did you ever have feelings for me before?"

"Same as you. Never thought it was possible. I sure wasn't going to make myself all long and spindly like you. Even now I couldn't do it." Algrady sat on his hind legs. "What changed for you?"

Ashley sat as well, albeit in an awkward manner. "I don't really know. But I don't think I've ever been able to open myself up to more than one person at a time. First my dad, then Misam, then my daughter. Now that she's grown... I think I'm realizing how lonely I am."

"Lonely enough to turn yourself into a dog?" asked Algrady.

"An alien that looks like a dog, you mean."

"Still counts."