I hear my wife getting ready for bed. Rubbing my tired eyes, I finish up the last work email, save the spreadsheets, and close the laptops. I go in search of Pudding. She isn't sleeping in her basket or draped over the radiator. "Honey. Have you seen the SUB?"

"She was sniffing around the trash in the kitchen earlier," my wife replies.

Great. I'm going to be tasting whatever she's found all night. I do indeed find her fuzzy ass wedged upside down in the trash can and lift her out by the scruff of the neck, a stinking fish head from last week firmly held in her jaws.

She yowls in complaint at having her prize taken from her; even more so as I plug the upload cable into the socket on the back of her neck. Although she barely has two brain cells to rub together, she's smart enough to to know getting socketed means she's in for a night being forced to think human thoughts, instead of dooming zoomies around the house at 2 am.

"You earn the right to complain when you start paying rent," I tell the dumb animal firmly, carrying her to the bedroom.

Pudding is a liminal Single Use Body, a sort of nocturnal work aid. My wife purchased her as a birthday present after I almost burnt out trying to get a writing career off the ground, while also working a day joy. Pudding is far from the smartest organism in the world with her streamlined, low-capacity brain built for non-taxing thoughts, but she can hold enough left-brain to write while leaving behind enough right-brain and the day's accumulation of dry, Excel-based data for my sleeping brain to process.

"You're still working on your novel?" my wife asks as she slips into a nightgown. "When was the last time you slept? I mean actually slept?"

"I've almost got to the conclusion. I just need to finish the fight scene between Aric Stormblade and Lord Vyle."

"I was hoping we might spend a little time together tonight?"

I'm already plugging the other end of the cable into my spine socket. "Well my body is right there," I offer generously.

"For the last time, I'm not sleeping with your body while you're not in it," she huffs. "You know, I'm starting to regret buying you that thing. This novel better be Pulitzer Prize winning."

I lie back on the bed. The transition is vague and fuzzy, hard to remember after the fact, like falling asleep. One moment my heavy eyelids are closing. The next I'm perched on my own gently rising and falling chest, paws perched over the laptop keys. My body drools vacantly in its sleep.

"Will you proofread in the morning?" I ask, the words poorly formed by the catlike lips.

"If you can remember wizard is spelled with one Z," she sighs, flicking off the light.

Pudding, compressed into a small partition of her brain, sulks inside her head as a chatter of intrusive thoughts. She makes a fine writing companion, growing impatient whenever a scene drags on too long without a fight scene, ensuring the narrative is fresh and exciting for any 40-second attention span. I settle down to write.

"aric wait!!!if u kill lord vyle ul be just as bad as lord vyle or sumething" scremed princess celestia.