Lester Thomburg clicked his ballpoint pen in and out impatiently. Another night of graveyard shifting at the Prairie View Motor Inn was shortening his lifespan, and he hadn't seen a customer in about a half an hour. He flicked another glance at the old TV monitor below the desk, but all he saw was an empty room. He was looking forward to at least a little amusement that night.

     The woman who had come in about a half hour earlier was a knock-out beauty, far too beautiful for tihs part of Iowa, that was for certain, let alone for someone who would be requesting a room by herself in some cheap motel off of Route 92 with a buzzing neon sign and no HBO. Lester gave her room 105, which he usually kept reserved for the young drunk couples who signed in under "John Smith", or maybe "Hugh G. Rection." She was all alone, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't amount to at least some entertainment that night. People did strange things in the sheltering anonymity of these motels. Lester didn't approve of all of them, but he took what he could get. Yeah, he thought, I'm 52, divorced, my kids never call, and I hold the exalted position of Manager at the Prairie View (more like Cow View) Motor Inn. I'd just like a little solace, a little guilty pleasure, thank you. And if you do anything really outrageous, I'll just cover up this here monitor with a sheet, I promise.

     Finally, the woman came from the bathroom with a towel around her, and sat down on the bed while she flipped through the channels. Fat chance finding something on at this hour, thought Lester. God damned reruns and infomercials with that spastic Lapre freak. Lester couldn't see the TV, the hidden camera (which he had bought for a pretty penny on the Internet) was inside a wall picture (some dilapidated barn, if Lester could remember correctly) mounted on the wall beside the TV, which faced the bed. After about three minutes of this, she turned it off and tossed the remote onto the dresser on which the TV sat (Hey, you broke it, you bought it, lady), and crawled to the center of the bed. She reached behind her back, (Finally, a little peek at least), and undid the towel, which she tossed onto the other bed. After throwing her long and gracefully wavy red hair behind her and doing a quick arched-back stretch (I think that's about all I may need for tonight, actually), she put her feet down flat on the bed and rose to a squatting position (Okay, that was much appreciated, too), placing her hands on the bed between her legs.

     Before Lester could think to himself how odd that position was (and how her arms were blocking his view), the woman wasn't there anymore. It happened fast enough for Lester to do a comical double take, but slow enough to leave no doubt that it had happened. She had simply started shrinking, and darkening in shade. Her thighs shrunk faster than the rest of her, but that was about the only detail Lester could take in about the transformation itself. The unbelievable fact was that there was now a small dog-like animal sitting on its haunches in the center of the bed. It did a quick head shake, then got up and started walking in tightening cirles around where the woman had been. The white-tipped bushy tail that was held more or less straight out behind the animal as it circled identified its bearer as a red fox. The fox finally curled up on the bed, its tail wrapping cozily around its sharp little muzzle.

     Lester put his fingers under his glasses and rubbed wearily at his eyes, and then looked again. The fox was still there, sleeping. Lester pulled the TV out slightly from its shelf, and checked the connections in the back, as if a bit of coaxial cable could account for this inexplicable vison. Probably could use some fresh air, he thought, and rose from his old ripped office chair with a grunt. He stepped outside for a second, took a deep breath, had a look at the stars, and came back in. The fox was still on the monitor. Lester took it as a cue to maybe fill the dead time with an issue of Field & Stream instead.

   An hour or two passed, and Lester checked in a tired middle-aged man, a young couple (the girl spent the entire time behind the guy with her arms clasped around his waist like some kind of parasite), and a hairy motorcycle guy, all between glances at the little TV under the desk to check on "Rachel Gibson, 105." The damned fox was still there, though. Most of the time she was sleeping (Lester had decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it a "she"), but she would lift her head about every ten to fifteen minutes, then lie back down, or turn around or switch positions, all the while making a mockery of the "No Pets" rule. Not that there was really anything that Lester could do about it. He would just have to keep the camera rolling, and capture the whole night on tape.

     The fox was getting up again, and she didn't seem to be doing any of her requisite turning. She was training her ears and eyes straight at the camera. Lester got a queasy feeling. Certainly she wasn't...on to him, was she? The fox (Rachel?) padded to the edge of the bed and tensed up for a second before springing onto the dresser. She first wandered to the left, towards the TV, so only her tail and hindquarters were visible on the fuzzy B&W monitor. She then went past the screen again, sniffing the air as she went. Maybe the guys next door have some sausages or something, Lester thought, but could she really smell that through the wall? Do foxes even eat sausage? Am I just going nuts? Lester rubbed his eyes again, and turned back to the monitor just as the fox was peering straight into the pinhole, looking for a moment like that damned "Yo quiero Taco Bell" dog. She then put a big furry ear up to the hole, plunging the monitor into darkness. After taking it off, the fox gave the camera what Lester could only classify as a contemptuous glare before hopping back off the dresser and disappearing from view in the direction of the room’s window.

     A pregnant pause of about thirty seconds passed where nothing happened, then Rachel the Woman stepped into view. She was still naked, and she stopped in front of the painting and smiled seductively at where she now doubtlessly knew the camera was located. The heat in Lester's loins did little to off-set the butterflies in his stomach. Rachel then grabbed the towel that was sitting on the floor beside the bed and did an awkward ad-libbed exotic-style dance with it before stretching it between her hands and placing it over the painting. There was some vague movement visible in the mostly darkened screen which suggested that Rachel was tucking the towel behind the frame. Soon, the towel lay still. Then all of the sudden, a hand whipped it up, and Rachel shot one more quizzical look at the camera before giving it the finger. The towel fell again leaving Lester with only a retinal after-image of Rachel's obscene gesture, which he could swear was topped with a black claw rather than a fingernail.

     Five minutes later, the "Sorry, We're Closed" sign hung on the door of the Prairie View Motor Inn lobby.