I work from home as a freelance graphic designer. I'm not an overly sociable type, but I get my people time in by volunteering at an animal shelter. I love animals, and I get to hang out with some generally altruistic people, so it scratches an itch on a hide that is otherwise utterly uninterested in people.
One day, everything suddenly became extraordinarily exciting at the shelter, and the actual military arrived, came inside and spoke to the shelter owner.
Black unmarked vehicles lined the sidewalk outside, and a battalion of Agent Smiths stood around outside, shades on, earpieces in and hands twitching.
The rest of us; a hippy type dude, a couple of bookish college girls and a kindly middle aged woman distractedly continued with our chores until the owner finally emerged, wearing the face of disbelief.
She took us all to one side, and, under the watchful eye of a couple of Agent Smiths, explained the impossible;
The Government had been experimenting with human-animal hybrids to fulfill certain societal tasks, mostly work related. The idea being to have creatures with humanlike dexterity and learning ability for manual labor and such but without the troublesome intelligence and such of proper humans.
However, the experiment had been an utter failure; the creatures were utterly useless compared to human workers, and in attempting to end the program, information had leaked to the media and was due to be announced that night.
Unable to cover this up and, as they put it; "liquidate their assets" footage had been caught by undercover reporters.
So, the government had decided to use animal shelters like ours as a publicity stunt, to "adopt" these hybrids.
So, the truck came to our rear door, and in were brought a series of containers, with bizarre noises coming from them. We were told that as volunteers, we would be shown these creatures first, and offered the chance to adopt if we so wished, with an undisclosed financial "incentive."
We were interviewed by one of the scientists; lifestyle, income, health, blah blah blah, and he determined that as a vaguely antisocial thirty-something guy in good physical health with a good work-from-home income I would be best suited to adopt the creature that required the most care.
They led me to its container.
Nothing prepared me for what I saw.
"Homo Porcine" the scientist said aloud as the container opened.
In the container on a bundle of bedding was an unholy combination of pig and human woman.
It looked up at me from its bedding and yawned, it's not-quite human eyes meeting mine, and I could tell I was looking into the eyes of something more animal than human.
It -sorry, I'll call her she- was petite, probably five-two-ish standing, and chubby-bodied. She was utterly naked, as they clearly didn't see her as human enough to require clothing.
She had long, unkempt blonde hair, blue eyes, but her face was as pig-like as it was human; humanlike lips, but a rounder face with a thick snout. Her ears were those of a pig, sitting atop her head, poking through her hair. At the base of her spine was a curly pig's tail.
The scientist spoke without my prompting; "this asset was intended for care work. Pigs are very tough, and also very caring animals, and female humans have the greatest empathy. This asset would have been trained to care for sick and elderly people.
It is a very clean creature, it is toilet trained, but we just couldn't balance its intelligence to make it capable of caring for others without having human autonomy.
So, what do you say?"
I gazed at this creature for a while, still struggling to process the sight of her, so utterly alien was she.
"So what do you say?" the scientist repeated after a beat.
I was shocked out of my reverie, and turned to the scientist.
"I don't know, man, this is a crazy big commitment."
The scientist took a chequebook from his coat and showed me a stupid number of zeroes.
"Take the next few months off work. Make the adjustments you need to, for yourself, and the asset. Treat yourself with the rest. I have no doubt in my mind that you are the right person to care for Homo Porcine.
You live alone, and will do so for the rest of your life, and you are happy for that to be the case. You can accommodate the asset, and she will provide you with what little domestic companionship you require. You rarely date and you never let them come to your house, breaking things off when things get too serious. You have a very stable ego, preferring to remain anonymous and low-profile online. You have zero desire for fame or attention of any kind."
"You guys really do know everything." I commented irritatedly.
"We thoroughly researched the volunteers here before we arrived. We had to choose our adopters carefully." the scientist chuckled.
The zeroes on the cheque swimming around my head, I turned to look back at the creature.
She arrived at my house the next day, myself being one of the "anonymous adopters whose identity must remain confidential" that the news had mentioned the previous night.
Delivered in a crate by a team of Agent Smiths disguised as a household appliance company, they let her out into my living room. She surprised me by crawling on all fours. It looked like she could barely walk on two feet.
I crouched next to her, and unsure of how else to interact with her, I petted her head as you would a dog. She immediately responded by ramming into me and nearly knocking me over. The poor thing was clearly starved of affection.
The Smiths left and the pigwoman and I were left alone.
I sat on the sofa and patted the spot beside me. I had no other frame of reference for this other than treating her as I would a dog, and I'd just calibrate from there.
She crawled over to the sofa and kind of stared at me for a time with her searching, puppy-like eyes.
They had explained that she was eighteen years old, and her pig DNA had accelerated her maturity forward to make her appear more toward her mid twenties.
Her fingers and toes were slightly shorter and not quite fully human shaped, probably retaining a little of the pig trotter shape, so her manual dexterity likely wasn't as great as the scientists would have wanted.
I patted the space beside me again, and she clumsily clambered onto the sofa beside me, sitting in an odd crouch, staring at me.
To put her at ease, I raised my hand and stroked her hair. She responded by snorting and shifting closer, chasing my hand whenever I moved it, as a cat or dog does when it wants affection.
I continued, and as she seemed to relax, she lowered her head to my lap, laying on her side as I stroked her hair.
I looked down, and it felt so awkward, her being naked. Apart from her head, she was hairless, with smooth human skin, though it felt slightly thicker and tougher like pig hide. She shifted and I saw she had a blonde triangle of pubic hair.
The scientists were so detached from their experiment that they clearly could not see any humanity in her whatsoever, but in my peripheral vision, this was a naked woman. It was only turning my head to regard her that her "piggyness" became obvious.
She was built like a petite, fat girl. Thick, broad hips, chunky, strong thighs, a chubby belly with the vestiges of four nipples, but they were barely noticeable, and for the first time, I allowed myself to notice her breasts, having been too in shock to notice this primary sex signifier before.
I have never seen a larger pair of breasts in my life. Huge, full, heavy breasts, utterly human in shape with thick pink nipples.
"Dear God" I muttered to myself, realizing my brain was utterly freaking out trying to figure out if this creature was human or animal. The weirdest erection I have ever had rose instantly in my pants and I cursed myself for being so primitive.
This was a dependent, a pet I reminded myself, yet I could not take my eyes off her breasts.
I stood and told her to stay, commanding her as if a dog, which felt so awkward, but she seemed to understand. I went to my room and to my t-shirt drawer, retrieving one of my baggier t-shirts that I usually use to lounge and sleep in.
I went back downstairs where she was still laying waiting for me on the sofa.
