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"description": "Lily is twelve, a squirrel, and obsessed with death. Her own, specifically. But she's not your average goth or emo kid. When Lily dreams of herself lying still and peaceful in her coffin, a blush comes to her cheeks and her paw creeps to her panties.\n\nOn her favorite website are eight stories she has read countless times. Stories by an author named Thanophile. Erotic tales of blood and lust and kisses goodbye. Yet they are as gentle and loving as her own fantasies.\n\nOne day, she will get up the courage to leave a note on this site's message board. And she will receive a reply. A reply that will lead to the happiest moment of her life... \n\n\n[b]BTW, that link at the beginning is fake, just for effect. Don't go there, it's a dead domain.[/b]",
"description_bbcode_parsed": "Lily is twelve, a squirrel, and obsessed with death. Her own, specifically. But she's not your average goth or emo kid. When Lily dreams of herself lying still and peaceful in her coffin, a blush comes to her cheeks and her paw creeps to her panties.
On her favorite website are eight stories she has read countless times. Stories by an author named Thanophile. Erotic tales of blood and lust and kisses goodbye. Yet they are as gentle and loving as her own fantasies.
One day, she will get up the courage to leave a note on this site's message board. And she will receive a reply. A reply that will lead to the happiest moment of her life...
BTW, that link at the beginning is fake, just for effect. Don't go there, it's a dead domain.",
"writing": "Love Me 'Till My Heart Stops\na story by Alex Reynard\n\nThe French call orgasm 'la petite mort'. Literally; 'the little death'.\n\n\n **********\n\n\nPART ONE\n~~~~~\n\nLily's fingers were trembling as she typed the words, and not just because her bedroom was nearly freezing. Huddled close to her computer, face mere inches from the screen, she watched each letter appear. The room was dark except for the monitor's pearly glow. The only sounds were Lily's breath and the tiny taps from the keyboard. Her posture radiated secrecy, fear and shame.\n\nShe read what she'd written and decided it was too long. She cut out half. Then two sentences more. Then she re-wrote the beginning sentence. Then the ending one. Then she erased it all, sat back silent and shivering for a few moments, and typed everything out again.\n\nShe hit the 'send' button before she could stop herself.\n\n SnuffSkwrl:\n My name is Lily. I'm twelve. I'm a squirrel. I'm looking for someone\n to kill me.\n\nShe held her breath as she waited for a reply. Time ceased to exist.\n\nWhen she finally got up the courage to hit 'refresh', a new message had appeared.\n\n bludbathe:\n lol emo bitch\n\nLily burst into tears. She shut the computer off and ran to her bed.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nIt was three days before she could get up the courage to try again.\n\nHer features pinched in determination, she grabbed the seat of her chair and skootched herself closer to the computer. Damn, the room felt even colder today. She wished there was some way to wear mittens and still be able to type.\n\nShe pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and typed in the URL of her very favorite website. The one she didn't dare bookmark, just in case her parents ever checked the computer while she was at school.\n\n htttp://www.yourhost.net/charonsarchive\n\nIt took a few seconds to load. Then the familiar banner appeared: the pale-faced ferryman of the river Styx, holding his skeletal arm out towards a vault full of arcane tomes.\n\nIt was a website full of death. Art, stories, a message board, even some RP logs. But despite the trappings, it wasn't a horror site. This was a site for furs who found the concept of death... exciting.\n\nArousing.\n\nShivering from the cold and her own nervousness, Lily checked the stories section. Nothing new. The last update was a month ago. She grimaced in frustration. She knew that a fetish as small and reviled as hers simply didn't produce many decent artists or writers. Most of the members here were lurkers, like her. Most of the art was refrigerator-door level and most of the stories were without any semblance of correct grammar or spelling. But there was enough. Enough to let Lily know she wasn't an anomaly. Sure, she was weird and ashamed and alone. But not *entirely* alone.\n\nThe photo section *had* been updated, however. Someone had posted a few screenshots from a recent TV show where an actress was lying in a coffin, impeccably made up, dressed in blue, surrounded by flowers... Beautiful.\n\nLily's mouth was hanging open. Her paw had crept to her crotch.\n\nShe downloaded every image.\n\nShe closed her eyes for a second. She thought about her favorite fantasy. Her paw slipped past her pants elastic, into her panties and found her hot spot. She rubbed. She sunk her fingers in and twitched them faster and faster. She bit her lip. She fantasized. Her mouth was open but she kept completely silent. Her mom and dad were only two rooms away. If they *ever* caught her doing this...\n\nJust like that, her bubble was burst. Her fantasy was gone. Now all she could think about was what they'd say if they ever realized this was the kind of thing she looked at when she was alone.\n\nLily removed her paw from her panties. Now it was clenched in a fist.\n\nOnly one thing could make her feel better now. Even though the stories page had said in plain red text that there were no new uploads, Lily decided to check his page just in case. Just in case.\n\nNothing new. Just the same eight stories she'd read over and over and over again.\n\n\"Dang,\" she said softly.\n\nStill, while she was here...\n\nShe clicked on 'Red Flesh Rose' and scrolled down to page six. Her favorite part. Her paw went back in her panties again.\n\n ...The knife went in like silk. Her eyes opened suddenly and she let out\n a quick, gentle gasp. He pulled her closer, and with the same motion sunk\n the blade in deeper. He looked down into her eyes. There was fear, but\n also freedom. She didn't say a word. Warm, wet blood trickled down from\n her slit belly. Down to where their sexes joined. He gave the knife a\n twist. She cried out soundlessly, not wanting to spoil her happiest\n moment with a scream. She could hear the knife turn inside her, relishing\n the sound it made as it turned her flesh to meat. The blood was flowing\n faster now. Hot. Red. Leaving her. She wanted to let it go. Let it paint\n them both the color of love. He closed his eyes and nuzzled her cheek. She\n held him closer, feeling the hilt of the knife touch her stomach. They\n kissed. Her heart fluttered. Her world was ending like a dream. This was\n it. Her fantasy made real. She spoke his name, and thanked him. As she\n realized she was now only seconds from death, her last orgasm overtook\n her. As it ended, so did she. He felt her heart stop. Felt her last\n breath. He filled her with his seed. He had delivered his latest victim\n in the arms of ecstacy to the afterlife. His heart knew there would be\n more. Dozens more. Hundreds more...\n\nLily came in her panties.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nOnce her heart had stopped thumping so loud she was sure the whole neighborhood could hear it, Lily licked her fingers clean, wiped the rest on her shirt, and clicked on the link to the messageboard. This time she wasn't going to wuss out. Screw that jerk who'd called her a bitch last Friday. What the heck was he even doing on a site like this with an attitude like that?\n\nTo Lily's astonishment, her post had gotten quite a few replies over the weekend. She ignored the incredibly rude first one and scrolled down past it to the next.\n\n CutterZed:\n ill do it!!!!!\n\n'No way,' she thought. 'If you don't even know how to use an apostrophe, there's no way I'm gonna trust you with my life!'\n\n redlanceatsunset:\n Are you serious? I'll totally kill you if you want. I have my own dungeon.\n I'll make it reeeeeeeally painful. You'll love it.\n\nShe winced. 'I don't *want* it to be painful!' she thought, then paused in realization. 'Crap... I probably should have mentioned that.'\n\n cat'sbanana:\n you're only 12,girl! don't throw your life away! what are you even doing\n on a site like this? some of these guys are really sick and will takeyou\n seriously!!! if you just saidt hat as a prank, its not funny!!! kids\n really do get kidnapped by sick fucksand murdered evry day!!!\n\nLily scowled. \"I *know* someone will take me seriously. That's the whole *point*!\" she hissed under her breath. \"I know what I'm doing. I. Want. To. Be. DEAD! You think I just woke up this morning and decided that!?\"\n\nShe was miffed, but not so much that she'd actually write any of that down and post it. The last thing she wanted was to get in an argument with some goody-two-shoes angel who wanted to 'save' her.\n\n\"I can make my own decisions,\" she huffed.\n\nShe scrolled down half a page, and when her eyes saw the name, she froze.\n\nIt couldn't be. It was _him_! The author of all those stories! The mind behind the hottest stuff she'd ever read! The guy whose words had made her cum more times than she could count! He was actually replying to HER!!\n\n Thanophile:\n How would you like to die, sweetheart?\n\nThat one single sentence became Lily's entire world. 'How would you like to die?' 'How would YOU like to die?' 'How would you LIKE to die?' Not some overeager creepazoid or misguided dummy; he was asking her what *she* wanted. He was thinking of her first. It was exactly what she'd have expected from the guy who'd written \"Her Last Breath Smelled Like Toothpaste\". (That is, it's what she _would_ have expected if her wildest heart could have ever imagined that the best writer in the entire snuff fetish universe could ever take notice of a lowly little nothing like her.)\n\nFor a second, she debated whether she should reply or not.\n\nThis was a living god she was thinking of talking to. He was perfection. She was dirt. A fat, ugly little squirrel with ugly, stupid stripes in her fur and ugly, stupid glasses on her face.\n\nBut then again, it'd be really rude *not* to say anything back, right?\n\nBiting her lip, Lily typed up a reply, erased half of it, typed it again, erased even more, and kept on editing it and proofreading it for almost an hour. The last thing she wanted was to make a retarded spelling mistake in a reply to a real author like him.\n\n SnuffSkwrl:\n WOW!!! I can't believe you replied! I've read all your stories here.\n You're my favorite author ever! Your writing is so tender and gentle.\n My favorite is 'Red Flesh Rose'; I've probably read it ten times. *blush*\n It's really sexy!\n\nShe hoped he'd be impressed by her use of the semi-colon.\n\n As for how I'd like to die... I'm not sure. I just know that I want to be\n dead. My very favorite fantasy is imagining how I'd look at my funeral.\n I'd be perfectly still, lying in a gorgeous wooden coffin with pink satin\n inside, flowers everywhere. I'd be smiling. Happy to be a cute corpse.\n ^__^\n\n I'm sure any way you could think of to put me in that situation would be\n exciting and wonderful!\n\nJust then, her mom called her to supper. Which Lily was exceptionally grateful for. Not only was she sure she'd have to paw off again at writing something so mind-blowingly erotic (and equally embarrassing), but she knew all she had time to do now was click 'send', close the window, clear the history and dash off to the kitchen.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nWhen she got back after dinner, there was a new message waiting for her.\n\n Thanophile:\n *chuckles* Really? Seriously!? You like my stories THAT much!? I can't\n tell you how flattered I am! Considering the subject matter, I think a\n lot of furs who read my work are too afraid to publicly admit liking it.\n I know it's pretty extreme stuff. But I'm really glad you do like it and\n that you told me so. It makes me feel good to know I'm not just\n scribbling these things for only myself.\n\n How would I kill you...? Hmmm, that's a toughie. I'm going to guess that\n if Red Flesh Rose is your favorite, you probably don't want it to be\n painful. I could give you an injection first. You wouldn't feel a thing.\n Then I could slit your throat and cuddle you tight as you pass away. How\n does that sound?\n\nLily's paw was in her panties in a heartbeat. Her whole body went rigid. Her fingers became a jackhammer bit and within seconds she was overwhelmed by the most powerful orgasm she'd ever had in her life. It was like being hit by a tidal wave. It was like leaping off a cliff. It was like walking head-on into a rushing train.\n\nLily soaked her panties straight through to her jeans.\n\nBlushing furiously, she ran to the bathroom to clean up.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nShe read his reply thirty-seven times that night. At eleven o' clock, her mother had to scream at her to turn off the damn computer and go to bed.\n\nScowling, she reluctantly left her chair (after reading his message one more time) and crawled between her covers. She masturbated for half an hour before finally tiring herself out.\n\nShe dreamt that night of a handsome, murderous stranger chasing her through her abandoned school with a big silver butcher knife. Sometimes it changed into a noose. Sometimes he caught her.\n\nShe woke up with wet panties.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART TWO\n~~~~~\n\nOne week later, Lily was biting back tears as she slipped into her bedroom. She shut the door behind her as silently as she could. She sat down on her bed, then put her face in her paws.\n\nSchool had been as forgettably monotonous as it always was. The real trouble came when she got home. In her haste to check her email, she'd forgotten to take off her shoes.\n\nShe'd left a footprint on the carpet.\n\nMother saw.\n\nThe next hour was spent on her hands and knees as she scrubbed the carpet five times in a row. Each and every time she finished, her mother would start in again: 'I can still see dirt! What the hell's the matter with you! God, you can't even do the simplest things I ask!? I don't understand how your teachers yap on and on about how smart you are and when you get home you act like you were born with an empty skull!' Blah blah blah. Lily's paws ached by the time she was finished. The left from holding the scrub brush and the right from supporting her weight for so long. Mom hadn't even let her take her backpack off first.\n\nShe'd hoped to sneak off to the sanctuary of her room then, but Mommy wasn't done with her just yet. She decided that she and Lily needed to spend some 'bonding time' together. Lily hated those words. She'd scrub the whole carpet a hundred times over if it meant never having to hear that insufferable phrase again.\n\nLily's mother plopped her down in front of the TV set. Then they watched afternoon television together. Lily was stiff as a board, achingly uncomfortable. Every few seconds, Mom would chime in with another of her asinine opinions and just keep needling Lily until she finally gave in and agreed with them. Though she would never openly admit to it, Mom had a rule of parenting that she enforced with ruthless vigor: 'Lily only has the right to one opinion. Mine.'\n\nAfter almost two hours of humiliating psychological pain, Dad came home. Lily seized on the distraction and practically teleported out of the livingroom. She sped to her bedroom and listened at the door for any sign her mother might be coming down the hall to drag her back for more. She was lucky this time. All she heard was the usual 'how was your day' bullshit between them.\n\nShe crawled under the covers with her jeans and socks still on. She buried her face in the fur of Sprinkle, her stuffed fox. Sprinkle had fur the colors of vanilla ice cream and raspberry sherbert. She had a perfect squeezability factor. Lily was much too shattered now to go online. All she had the energy to do was hold Sprinkle tight and cry into her artificial fur.\n\nHalf an hour later, she'd just barely begun to fall asleep when she heard the angry cry of, \"FOOD! Get out here, lazy!!\"\n\nShe rose from the bed, moaning at a sudden sharp pain. She'd lain in a weird position for too long and now her lower back was pissed at her. She looked back at Sprinkle. \"I'd rather die than go out there and eat with those two,\" she whispered. Her voice was sad, but resigned to the permanence of her existence. \"...Literally.\" she added with a grim smirk.\n\nShe trudged down the hall in cower mode. Both her parents were silent as she entered. Lily sat down at the kitchen table without making eye contact or saying a word. That was best; the less she did, the less likely she'd give them anything to start a fight over.\n\nHer father gave her a look like she was some invertebrate parasite stuck to his leg, then started eating.\n\nMom poured a heaping portion of some steaming, stinking nightmare onto Lily's plate. To call Mom a bad cook would be like calling Hiroshima a big boom. The woman lived in new-age vegetarian cookbooks, always eager to try out the worst, most flavorless atrocities she could find. Lily thought she must have had taste buds from Mars, as she seemed to love every recipe more than she loved her own daughter. Lily didn't know about Dad though; he just shovelled the shit in night after night without a single facial expression.\n\nLily scooped up a forkful. It looked like it might have started with potatoes, but that was as far as she could guess. She put it in her mouth. Admittedly, the first mouthful didn't seem as bad as some of Mom's other creations. But by number five, Lily was in agony. It seemed to taste progressively worse with every bite. Bitter (as always), but also sour. Like mom had upended a bottle of vinegar into the pot. There were chewy things in it too. Things that felt like little squares of foam rubber in her mouth. Lily looked down at her plate and it seemed impossibly full. A mountain of food. She felt nauseous.\n\nWith all the strength of her will, she continued on. By the time she was a third of the way through, she glanced up and noticed her mother had stopped eating. She was just looking at Lily. Watching her.\n\n\"How do you like it?\" Mom asked.\n\nLily forced a painful fake smile onto her face. \"It's okay.\"\n\nMom looked as if someone had just slapped her with roadkill. \"How DARE you lie to me!!\"\n\nAnd so it began. Yet another tsunami of verbal abuse. Mom went for volume; throwing insult upon insult at her daughter like a cloud of poison darts. But Dad was worse. His arrows were carefully aimed to slip through her armor no matter how much she piled on. He could hurt her with a single sentence in ways a fist or a belt couldn't touch. Lily would have been _grateful_ for a good beating. At least if he knocked her lights out, she could have shown someone the resulting black eye and they'd believe her and DO something about it.\n\nThey kept at it for over an hour as the awful food sat on their plates growing colder and more congealed. They forced her to keep eating it, even as they kept on shooting their word-arrows into her heart. Lily did everything possible to keep from crying. Crying only made it worse. They took it as an insult somehow.\n\nShe'd known this was coming the second she sat down. It was The Dinner Game. Whenever Mommy made some new recipe, Lily was forced to play it. And the game only had two outcomes. Either she'd do her best to cram the foul shit down her throat as stone-faced as possible, and Mom would inevitably throw a tantrum about how if Lily didn't like her cooking she should just come out and say it instead of sitting there pretending to. Or Lily would give her honest opinion, as diplomatically-stated as possible, and Mom would inevitably throw a tantrum about how hard she'd worked on this meal and if Lily didn't have anything constructive to say she should just shut her mouth and eat it without saying a word.\n\n(Lily had once tried to point out the glaring insanity of giving her two sets of mutually-exclusive instructions like that. Mom had fiercely denied ever saying anything of the sort. Then she and Daddy put Lily through six straight hours of pure hell for daring to apply logic to their little family world.)\n\nLike all their fights, this one ran out of steam eventually as Mom and Dad used up their best insults and couldn't think of any more. Lily's plate had been clean for thirteen minutes before they finally let her go. Meekly, she offered to do the dishes to make up for 'starting' the fight. Mom just scowled at her and ordered her to her room, which somehow hurt worse than being forced to do the chore would have.\n\nNow that she was in her room, Lily was finally safe. She could finally cry. She did, although not as much as she used to when she was younger. She wasn't sure if this meant she was 'toughening up', or just gradually turning numb as concrete inside.\n\nAs an act of pure defiance, Lily knelt down on the floor beside her plastic-lined wastebasket, dug two fingers into her throat, and vomited up the meal Mom had slaved so fucking hard over.\n\nBad move. The stuff tasted even worse the second time around. And now her mouth felt all acid-y. She didn't dare risk a trip to the bathroom for a drink of water though. Weirdly enough, once she was in her room, Mom and Dad mostly left her alone. It was like an 'out of sight, out of mind' kinda thing. She knew if she stayed put and waited until they fell asleep, she could sneak back to the kitchen for a glass of water and scour the refrigerator for some real food. But if she set foot outside her room before then, it'd be the same as handing them a bullwhip and pulling up the back of her shirt.\n\nAt least she was away from them now. At least the taste in her mouth would go away. At least now she was free to lose herself online again.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nGetting the computer two years ago had been as unexpected as, say, a unicorn popping out of your asshole and singing 'Oklahoma'. That Christmas morning, Lily had sat under the tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and just stared in disbelief at the giant box. 'This has to be a trick,' her mind thought. And normally she'd be justified in thinking that. Mommy and Daddy set devious little brain-traps all the time for her to step into. But no, the computer was genuine. Just like all the other nice things they bought her for Christmas and her birthday. It was as if they believed these material things were proof of their love for her, and she was simply an ungrateful little pig to expect anything more from them. Things like emotional support, nurturing, hugs, compliments, even basic decency.\n\nNot all, but most of Lily's misery melted away when she saw that, yes, Thanophile had indeed written her a letter like he promised. She clicked on it eagerly.\n\n Hi, sweetheart!\n\nShe loved when he called her that!\n\n I hope this is the right email address. Last night's RP was the hottest\n thing ever! It's like a miracle for me, finding someone who thinks my\n weird, twisted fantasies are just as sexy as I do. You really can't know\n how much it means to me to be talking to someone like you. Thank you so\n much for your understanding.\n\nLily felt her heart melt. It had been a full week of constant communication and she STILL felt starstruck reading stuff like that and knowing it was about her. He thought _she_ was a miracle!\n\n Um... Before we go any further though, I really want to ask you\n something. I feel like it's mostly been me, me, me so far. Like we're\n indulging all MY fantasies and neglecting yours. Maybe I'm just\n worrying too much. I know I tend to do that.\n\nThis was inconceivable! He was indulging one of her greatest fantasies just by *acknowledging* her! And he was worried she might think he was being selfish!? Impossible! This guy was too perfect. Lily was nearly in tears again from how perfectly he was able to reach into her heart and find just the right band-aids for it.\n\n So, what I want is for you to tell me as much about what YOU want as\n possible. Tell me your deepest, darkest dreams. The kind of stuff you\n think no one would ever want to hear. I DO want to hear it. I want to\n know what makes you moist down there, so I can do an even better job\n of making it moistier. *chuckle* I know that's not a word, but I think\n you get my meaning.\n\nShe put both paws over her mouth to stifle a giggle.\n\n Write back soon! I love every word you type!\n Thanophile\n\nLily swooned in her seat. It was an eternity before she could compose herself enough to even begin a reply.\n\n I'm blushing so hard right now! I can't believe you wrote all those\n nice things and that you're actually worried I might think you're\n hogging all our time together. Nothing could be further from the truth!\n When I'm reading anything you've written to me, it's the happiest I've\n ever felt. Indulging your fantasies IS my fantasy!! ^__^\n\n But, if you really wanna know... *blushing even harder!* When I'm\n pawing off, I actually don't think much about HOW I died. I just like\n pretending I'm dead. It's the whole idea of my funeral that really turns\n me on. Almost every time I masturbate, I think about what it'd look like.\n I'd be perfectly stiff and still and quiet. I'd have a pretty smile on my\n face, dressed in a gorgeous white dress, maybe holding a little bouquet to\n my chest. My eyes are closed. I'm not wearing my glasses anymore. I like\n to think about my coffin. My ideal one would be bright shiny wood, dark\n caramel brown, not modern-looking. Rectangular, not like the cartoony\n ones where it tapers at the feet. It has gold handles on the sides.\n Inside, it's all pretty, puffy pink silk. I imagine it'd be the comfiest\n thing I've ever lied on. But of course I can't tell, 'cause I'm dead!\n *giggle*\n\n I usually don't think a lot about the rest of it. I would like there to\n be lots of beautiful flowers and some nice soft music. Not church organ\n music though; that stuff's boring. Maybe some classical piece with a lot\n of violins. The weird thing is, I never picture my family there or anyone\n else I know. It's just a bunch of anonymous people. They're always in\n shadow. I don't really care who they are, I just know they think I'm\n beautiful lying in my little comfy casket.\n\n (Biggest blush yet) Don't you DARE tell anyone else this EVER, but once in\n a while I'll even fantasize that all the people there line up and one by\n one they stand in front of my coffin and jerk off into it! They cum all\n over me. My face, my dress, the flowers I'm holding. I end up completely\n covered in cum. One time I even \n\nLily couldn't control herself anymore. Just *thinking* of telling him the dirtiest, nastiest fantasy she'd ever had was making her hotter than a jalapeno in July. She leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and stuffed both hands in her panties. She diddled furiously. She clawed at her burning hot cunny. In her mind, it wasn't just some anonymous figment anymore, it was _him_. *He* was standing over her gorgeous corpse, holding his cock in his hand and...\n\nHer orgasm hit in less than a minute. Followed by another one even stronger.\n\nShe was panting now, and her heart was beating so hard it felt like it was about to burst right out of her chest. Lily took deep breaths to calm herself down. After a few minutes, her horniness had passed enough to let her type again.\n\n One time I even imagined that they were peeing all over me instead of\n cumming! All that hot, dirty piss splashing on me and filling up the\n coffin! Then they take me out and bury me and that's it. Sometimes I like\n to picture my gravestone too.\n\n I won't lie; I just had a HUGE orgasm while I was writing this. That's\n because I wasn't just thinking about my fantasy, I was thinking about you\n being in it. ^__^\n\n I love you.\n Lily\n\nHer whole body was tingling with wonderful, happy energy now. She felt satisfied and sexy and brave. Just one short week ago, she never could have imagined telling anyone else on earth about her weirdo paw-off fantasies. But now she could. She knew that even if Thanophile wasn't as turned on as she was by her letter, at least he wouldn't make fun of her for it. He wouldn't tell her she belonged in a mental hospital. He wouldn't call her an 'emo bitch'.\n\nKnowing you had someone who would accept you no matter what secrets you told them was an incredible feeling.\n\nLily spellchecked her letter, then clicked 'send'. She didn't change a single sentence this time.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART THREE\n~~~~~\n\nOver the next month, Lily and her online paramour shared more and more of their souls with each other. The magic of the internet was that it was pure mind-to-mind communication, with no messy reality getting in the way. Thanophile didn't have to know how dull and ugly-looking she was on her side of the screen. When they talked, she was just his perpetually willing victim, and he was her dashing, romantic executioner.\n\nHe'd killed her dozens of times already. Whenever they were in a chatroom together, it was a virtual certainty they'd roleplay her happy death. It was a great way of testing each other's limits and finding one another's secret hot buttons. Lily discovered, much to her surprise, that she really enjoyed it when they'd be talking normally and he'd suddenly and swiftly dispatch her. They'd be discussing some movie one of them had seen that had a really great death in it, when out of nowhere he'd wrap his hands around her throat, or put a gun to her head, or force her to drink poison. The first time it had startled her. But it also made her honeypot tingle like crazy! She liked being startled. She liked being scared a little, and feeling helpless. She liked giving over control to him and letting him do whatever he wanted with her.\n\nBest of all, he was never cruel when he killed. Lily didn't like that kind of thing at all. She'd scoured the web for quite a while before discovering his stories, and was disgusted with how many of the snuff stories she came across were nothing but sexualized suffering. Angry, powerless little men creating characters to torture and murder because they lacked the balls to stand up to anyone in real life. Those kinds of stories made Lily sick. One she'd read was so bad she'd actually had to run to the bathroom and dry-heave for a few minutes.\n\nThanophile was the ultimate opposite. Even when he ambushed her, it was playful. He never wanted to hurt her, only help her attain her fantasy. She wanted to die and he wanted to slay; they were a perfect match. Before she'd read his gentle, loving, erotic tales, she'd been repulsed by almost everything else she saw of her fetish. Not surprisingly, it made her feel disgusted with herself, too. But now she knew better. She knew it wasn't the fetish that made her uncomfortable; it was the way most people chose to view it. She could enjoy it _her_ way, the softer, happier way, and there was nothing wrong with that. Thanophile had told her many, many times that she wasn't a bad girl for having these fantasies. In fact, he told her how much he admired her for having the courage to admit to them and accept them. He told her he'd been a lot older than she was when he finally decided to stop pretending his fetishes would just go away if he hated himself over them long enough.\n\nAt the moment, Thanophile had just snuffed out SnuffSkwrl's life yet again. They'd been discussing their tastes in music when SnuffSkwrl had mentioned that just talking to him made her panties wet. He responded by snatching them off her and expertly strangling her to death with them. She, of course, loved every second. Now she was just a lifeless squirrel corpse. Which meant he was free to do with her whatever he wished.\n\n Thanophile: *runs his paws all over your naked body. You are so still. You\n have no heartbeat.*\n SnuffSkwrl: *would shiver in pleasure if she could!*\n Thanophile: You're so beautiful when you're dead, sweetheart... *Caresses\n your little round titties*\n SnuffSkwrl: *blush* Thank you!\n Thanophile: Hey! Corpses can't talk!\n SnuffSkwrl: *giggle*\n SnuffSkwrl: Okay then, I'm a ghost\n Thanophile: Allright then.\n SnuffSkwrl: *my spirit rises out of my dead body. I am a wispy mist in\n the shape of a squirrel*\n Thanophile: How cute!!!\n Thanophile: Too bad I can't hug you now.\n SnuffSkwrl: You can try!\n Thanophile: *tries to hug the little girlghost, but his arms pass right\n through her\n Thanophile: Darn!\n SnuffSkwrl: That tickles!\n Thanophile: *tickles you some more*\n SnuffSkwrl: Hee hee hee! Stop it!! (:\n Thanophile: *Continues rubbing your little nude corpse all over as he\n gazes lovingly at your spirit form*\n Thanophile: *rubs your pretty paws*\n Thanophile: Can you feel that, little ghost?\n SnuffSkwrl: Yes I can! *wiggles in happiness. I have tickly feet!*\n Thanophile: Oh really? *tickle tickle tickle*\n SnuffSkwrl: Yay! *giggle giggle giggle*\n SnuffSkwrl: *wiggles toes*\n sent at 9:04 p.m.\n SnuffSkwrl: Thanophile?\n SnuffSkwrl: Hey? You tsill there?\n Thanophile: Oh, sorry.\n SnuffSkwrl: You got quiet all of a sudden. Did you go take a whiz?\n Thanophile: Ummmmm... Actually, I was thinking about something.\n SnuffSkwrl: Something what?\n Thanophile: I'm kinda afraid to say it because I don't want to rush\n things or do something that'll be like 'too much'.\n SnuffSkwrl: What? What!?\n SnuffSkwrl: *worried now*\n Thanophile: *hesitates* I was thinking that I'd really like to hear\n you giggle for real.\n sent at 9:07 p.m.\n Thanophile: Sweetheart?\n SnuffSkwrl: Sorry! I just had to paw off at the very thought!!\n Thanophile: LOL!\n SnuffSkwrl: So, does this mean you want us to meet somewhere?\n Thanophile: *BIG CARTOON EXCLAMATION POINT OVER HEAD*\n SnuffSkwrl: You don't want to meet!?\n Thanophile: No!\n Thanophile: I mean not yet! Oh shit, I'm sorry.\n Thanophile: Yes,I would absolutely love for us to meet someday, but\n that's in the future. It' only been a month. I was just going to ask\n if there was some way we could talk on the phone.\n SnuffSkwrl: OH! *big blush\n SnuffSkwrl: I'm sorry.\n Thanophile: It's okay. I gotta admit though, I'm really happy that's the\n first thing you thought of!\n SnuffSkwrl: Really? So why NOT meet now?\n Thanophile: I hate to remind you, but I AM a lot older and have been on\n the net longer. Trust me: you don't ever want to meet an online furson\n in RL until you are absolutely 100 percent certain of them first. Beyond\n ALL doubt.\n SnuffSkwrl: *sigh*\n SnuffSkwrl: I sort of understand\n Thanophile: I'm not saying I don't trust you, or that you shouldn't trust\n me. It's just standrad operating procedure.\n Thanophile: And talking on the phone is the next logical step.\n SnuffSkwrl: Okay, okay *still a little dsappointed*\n Thanophile: *pets your headfur*\n SnuffSkwrl: *happychitter*\n Thanophile: We have plenty of time, sweetheart. I'm sure we'll see each\n other one day.\n\n'I hope so,' Lily thought. 'I can't think of anything I've ever wanted more.'\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART FOUR\n~~~~~\n\nWorking out the logistics of a phone call had been a nightmare. Lily's parents kept her under such tight control, there was absolutely no need to ask them if she could call a friend and talk for a few hours. Especially a long distance call. They would have punished her just for *thinking* such a thing.\n\nSo, Lily got clever. Despite giving her a computer, a set of rollerblades and other expensive presents, one thing her parents absolutely refused to buy her was a cell phone. This meant Lily had to procure her own. She gathered her saved-up allowance, hauled most of her old CDs off to the used record store to sell (after ripping them all as mp3s, naturally), and even went on a few pop bottle hunts. In two weeks, she was able to purchase a surprisingly cheap little prepaid cell that was good for three hundred minutes. She was certain those would be drained dry within days.\n\nShe waited nervously for the day he'd promised to call. She worried a hundred times or more whether she'd typed her number out right or if there would be time zone problems. He assured her there wouldn't be. In fact, when he told her what state he was from, she nearly screamed in bliss. They were only a few hundred miles apart! Much closer than she'd ever imagined. Lily spent that night pawing furiously, dreaming of him pulling into the driveway some random midnight, sneaking into her room and snuffing her before she even had a chance to react. She came seven times and ended up getting only three hours of sleep.\n\nThat was two days ago. Now it was after school on *the* day. Like they'd planned, she called her parents from the payphone outside the cafeteria and told them with as few details as possible that she needed to stay a while to work on a project. To her exquisite relief, Mom didn't ask any questions.\n\nLily ran outside and made her way behind the school to the place where the old toolshed stood. It was perfectly isolated; no one would bother her here. She was a bit too plump to scale the fence, but not so much that she couldn't squeeze through the space between it and the building. Her tummy hurt a bit afterwards, but she didn't notice. She dashed behind the decrepid old shed and sat down on the damp concrete, hidden from view.\n\nShe checked her watch. He said he'd call at three-thirty.\n\nShe checked her watch again.\n\nShe stared at the orangey-red brick of the school wall.\n\nShe noticed her butt was getting moist from sitting here so long. It had probably rained sometime during classes. Just her luck. She-\n\nThe phone rang.\n\nSome annoying-as-hell electronic tune she hadn't been able to figure out how to get rid of blared out of it. She nearly dropped the phone trying to push the tiny buttons.\n\n\"Hello!?\" she gasped.\n\nA warm, bass chuckle on the other end. \"Is this Lily?\"\n\nThe little squirrel felt her whole body ripple with relief. \"Yes! It's me! And you're you! Oh, I'm so happy! I can't even tell you. Did you have any trouble calling?\"\n\n\"None at all. This isn't the best connection ever, but that's to be expected with a cell phone.\"\n\nShe giggled. \"Your voice!\"\n\n\"Um, what about it?\"\n\n\"It sounds a lot like I imagined it. Deep and rich. You sound like you could read audiobooks.\"\n\nHe actually gasped at the compliment. \"You think so? Seriously? I don't think anyone's ever said anything like that to me before.\"\n\n\"Well it's true! So, what do you think of my voice?\"\n\n\"Actually, it's nowhere near as high-pitched as I'd expected. I know you're twelve, but my mind kept hearing your voice as much younger, for whatever reason.\"\n\n\"So, how old are you?\"\n\nAn obvious, embarrassed hesitation. \"Uh... Thirty-two.\"\n\nLily shrugged. \"That's not that old. Younger than my parents.\"\n\n\"Well that's good. Maybe I could be your uncle then.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Yeah, the crazy uncle who wants to hunt me down and snuff me!\"\n\nHe laughed too. \"Certainly sounds like me!\"\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nDespite the temperature dipping drastically, Lily sat with her wet pants for nearly two and a half hours. Her fingertips were numb and her teeth were chattering so bad it was a little hard to speak clearly, but her body could have been millions of miles away. All that mattered right now was his warm, rich voice.\n\n\"C-can I ask you something?\" she said shyly.\n\n\"Of course. Absolutely anything.\"\n\n\"When you asked if you could call me, and I thought you meant we should meet... How long do you think we should wait before we really do?\"\n\nSilence for a few seconds.\n\n\"Sweetheart... I... don't know,\" he said finally.\n\n\"Well, do you want to?\"\n\nHis reply was immediate. \"Yes! Of course!\"\n\nThat made her heart feel warmer. \"I do too! I think about it all the time.\"\n\n\"The thing is... If we did decide to, I'd need about a month's advance warning.\"\n\nShe nearly dropped the phone. \"A *month*!?\"\n\n\"At _least_. To prepare, y'see. I have some ideas... for when we finally meet. Stuff that I couldn't set up with just a weekend's notice. Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Like, what?\"\n\nShe could very nearly hear his grin. \"I can't *tell* you!\"\n\n\"...Then it wouldn't be a surprise, right?\" She rolled her eyes.\n\n\"Exactly.\" He paused, then spoke with genuine tenderness. \"When we do meet each other, I want it to be perfect for you. And me, too. But mostly for you. Because, I mean... you know we'll only ever have the one chance.\"\n\nShe shivered. \"W-why?\"\n\n\"You know why,\" he said quietly. \"It's why we found each other. What we both want more than anything.\"\n\nHer heart sped up like a piston.\n\n\"When we meet, sweetheart, I _will_ kill you.\"\n\nA shudder ran through every inch of Lily's body, from her tailbase to her ears. Her heart wasn't just beating now, it was thudding powerfully. Intense emotions swallowed her: desire, lust, love, and yes, fear. The way he'd *said* it! 'I will kill you', with such emphasis on the WILL! Like it was _destined_ to happen! Like there was no way it could possibly be avoided! Like she was helpless to stop him, or to even think about stopping him!\n\n\"Lily?\"\n\n\"S-s-sorry. I...\" Her cheeks felt red as two little skillets. \"That was the hottest thing I've ever heard in my whole life! I'm kinda surprised I didn't cum right in my pants!\"\n\nA whoosh of breath made the tiny earphone crackle. \"Whew! I'm relieved then. I thought I might have gone too far.\"\n\n\"I *like* it when you go too far!\" she said, giggling.\n\n\"That's good to hear. And you know, I didn't mean that in any other way except I know it's your fantasy. I thought there was a good chance you'd react exactly the way you did. I only want to make you happy, Lily.\"\n\nShe felt a tear at the corner of her eye. \"I know...\"\n\nShe reached up to wipe her nose on her sleeve and caught a glance at her watch. \"JESUS!!\"\n\n\"What!? What!?\"\n\n\"Oh crap! I just noticed the time! I should have been home an hour ago! My mom's gonna kill me! ...And not in the sexy way!\"\n\n\"Ha ha ha. I'm sorry I kept you on so long then.\"\n\n\"No! Don't be sorry! Any punishment in the world is worth it! I'm freezing my toenails off and I still wish I could stay out here and talk to you some more!\"\n\n\"There's always tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Nope. I got a biology test to study for tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Soon, then.\"\n\n\"Soon,\" she agreed. \"We can still chat on the computer though, right?\"\n\n\"I'll be on after dinner, like usual.\"\n\n\"Okay, see you then.\"\n\n\"See you too. I love you, sweetheart. I really, really do.\"\n\nHer voice cracked for a second. It struck her out of the blue, and quite forcefully, that she literally could not remember if she'd ever heard the words 'I love you' from either of her parents.\n\nIn that moment, if he had told her his address, Lily would have walked a hundred miles through snow and cold to be with him.\n\n\"I love you too,\" she whispered.\n\nShe pressed a button. The phone beeped once and turned off.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART FIVE\n~~~~~\n\nThe worst Christmas of Lily's life came and went.\n\nFor the whole week leading up to the holiday, Lily's home life was quiet. Her parents didn't magically become new people and apologize for all the thousands of horrible, hurtful things they'd said to her over the years, but at least they seemed to mellow a bit. Mom and Dad only insulted her a few times during that week. Mostly the house was silent, which was as close to paradise as Lily could hope for.\n\nThen the morning of the 25th finally arrived. Lily emerged from her room in pajamas and the first thing she noticed was was a square of bright metallic red from down the hallway. As she drew closer, she realized it was an even bigger box than the computer had come in, all wrapped up in shiny paper and topped with an emerald bow. What could it possibly be? A TV? A video game system? Waiting on the couch for her parents to wake up was nail-bitingly torturous. Eventually, she turned on some cartoons to pass the time.\n\nWhen Mom and Dad finally made an entrance, Lily gave them her presents first. And while they 'Ooh'ed and 'Aah'ed over them quite a bit and seemed to really enjoy them (Lily always did her best to buy gifts she was sure they'd like), she noticed, just like every year, that they never said anything even close to 'thank you'.\n\nFinally Dad said, \"Why don't you open your present now?\"\n\nLily had been a coiled spring up until that moment. She lunged for the box and prepared to heft it into her lap and tear it open.\n\nBut to her astonishment, as soon as she got a good grip and lifted, the box flew up in the air. It was empty!\n\n'No, It can't be. They wouldn't be THAT mean...' she thought. It probably just meant the size of the box was meant to fool her and there was something small inside. Maybe jewelry? Lily tore off the wrapping and upended the box. A piece of paper wafted out. Lily picked it up and read it.\n\n\"Well?\" Mom asked eagerly. \"How do you like it?\"\n\nConfusion. Shock. Disbelief. What Lily was reading was a letter describing how her parents had made a $300 dollar donation to charity in her name. This couldn't be her present. It couldn't be.\n\nDad sat back, looking smug. \"This year, we thought you'd gotten a bit too old for traditional presents. We think you're mature enough to appreciate a gift like this. Instead of buying you silly toys or electronic gizmos, we gave the money we would have spent to fight poverty in Africa.\"\n\n\"Isn't that wonderful?\" Mom gushed.\n\nCrushed, Lily looked up into her parents' eyes. Hoping they were kidding. And if they weren't, hoping at least that they were sincere about this. To her horror, she saw The Glint. The little sparkle in their eyes they got when they were playing a mind game on her. They'd really done it. They'd really sent three hundred bucks to another continent. Not because they cared about poor people there, but to make their daughter squirm. She knew that if she dared complain in the slightest, they would harangue her for *hours* about how selfish she was and how she couldn't put aside her petty material wants to help others, or some other such bullshit. It felt like her brain was full of worms to realize that her parents would actually go This Far just to fuck with her. She'd never been more aware in her life of how truly crazy they were. She couldn't take her eyes off them. They were staring at her too, almost grinning in anticipation, waiting for her to say something about the gift.\n\n\"Uh... Wow. I'm blown away. That was really thoughtful of you. Thanks.\" She even managed to put on a fairly convincing fake smile.\n\nFrom their expressions, she could tell they were a little disappointed she hadn't taken the bait. But then they looked at each other, looked back at her, and smiled. Not a warm, familial smile; a cruel broken-glass grin that meant, 'You may have passed the first hurdle, but we know you'll never make it through the whole day.'\n\nAnd they tried. All day long, they tried to get her to crack. While an outside observer would have seen nothing more than a happy family engaging in traditional Christmasy activities, inside Lily's mind she was fighting a war. Her parents constantly reminded her of their 'gift'. Saying things like, \"We knew you really wanted that DVD, but you don't really *need* it, now do you?\" and \"We knew you'd be *so* much happier this way.\" and \"Isn't it *nice* how you don't have to worry about more things cluttering up your room?\" That last one nearly made Lily snap. They knew damn well her room was neat, tidy and downright barren compared to other kids her age. But she couldn't crack. She couldn't let down her plastered-on smile or do anything other than cheerfully agree with everything they said. If she disagreed even once, they would seize on it and claim she'd 'spoiled the mood of our perfect holiday'. But as the day wore on, she wondered if a fight would really be worse than holding in all this fury for so long. She felt like the stress was causing tiny little rips in her skin from the inside. She felt like she was going to have a heart attack if this went on for much longer.\n\nThe only halfway decent part of the day was dinner. Mom had foregone her usual weird new-age gunk and gone more traditional. Most of the food was edible, and the sweet potatoes were actually pretty good. Lily enjoyed some perverse glee in not saying a word about them. She'd be damned if she ever complimented her mom's food even once!\n\nAfter the meal, her parents seemed to gradually grow bored with their game. The three of them watched a holiday movie after the dishes were done and Mom and Dad only spoiled it a handful of times by making remarks about the gift. And most of those were ones they'd already tried earlier. Lily was lucky in one respect: her parents were cruel, but didn't have much stamina. If she could just manage to avoid their traps long enough, eventually they'd get tired of the whole business and forget about it. Of course, that only meant Lily had a day at best to rest up and prepare for the next assault.\n\nLily faked yawning enough times to convince them she really meant it when she said she couldn't finish the movie and wanted to go to bed early. They let her go, then snuggled up on the couch together.\n\n'Geez... I hope you two are real happy with yourselves,' Lily thought disgustedly.\n\nAs she walked to her room and shut the door, she realized that, now that she finally had time to really think about it, she *was* glad to know those African furs were three hundred bucks richer. That was probably a lot of money to them. So at least some good had come out of her parents' latest shenanigans. She honestly had no idea if either of them had thought at all about the people they were giving money to, or if they'd just chosen a charity at random. Or maybe they chose it simply to rub it in that they'd given Lily's Christmas present money to some kids half a world away she'd never meet.\n\nThere was even the possibility the paper had been a fake; that they just printed it up and pocketed the money for themselves. As depraved as the idea was, Lily knew her parents well enough to know it was perfectly plausible.\n\nShe had worn her pajamas all day and didn't see any need to change them now, since she was just going to bed anyway. She glanced at the computer, thought about going online, then decided against it. She realized she was simply in too crappy of a mood right now. If Thanophile was available to chat, she'd probably just snap at him and ruin his holiday too. 'Let him be happy,' she thought. 'That'll be my gift to him. Not bumming him down with all my problems.'\n\nCuddling Sprinkle in her arm, she reached out and turned off the light. The room was covered in a blanket of blue-tinged blackness. She felt better in the dark. She felt alone, in a good way.\n\nFor a long time, Lily laid still and let her mind be blank. The slight chill in the room was soothing.\n\nShe thought back to a few days ago when she'd finally gotten up the courage to tell Thanophile about how she'd first discovered her fetish for death and funerals and coffins and stuff like that.\n\nIt had started months before she even knew who he was, maybe even a year. Like many nights, she'd gone to her bed crying after a fight. She had begun to reluctantly paw off to make herself feel better. She couldn't get into it though. Not for the first time, she wondered if her parents' abuse wasn't really all in her head. Was she just too sensitive? Was she misinterpreting everything they did and just imagining they were playing these sick games on her? What if she were crazy?\n\n\"I hate myself,\" she'd whispered almost inaudibly to Sprinkle. \"I hate myself. I hate myself.\" She wanted it to stop. All the fights, all the stress, and especially not knowing whether she could trust her own perceptions. She wanted it all to end. \"I wish I was dead,\" she told her plushie.\n\nThose words sparked something in her. A strange feeling; equal parts revulsion and attraction.\n\nShe said it again. \"I wish I was dead.\"\n\nShe began to pump her fingers faster in her cunny.\n\n\"I *do*...\" she realized. \"I wish I'd just die. I wish I was a corpse and they'd put me in a coffin and bury me.\"\n\nShe had no idea why these words were suddenly getting her so hot, but they were. She started thinking about her own death. Picturing her body. What she'd look like in a casket. What she'd look like at her funeral. Her cheeks were flushed and it felt like she couldn't possibly paw off fast enough.\n\nWhen she'd told Thanophile about this, he'd asked at that point if she'd ever been to a funeral or had a traumatic experience regarding one. Lily had thought a bit. She said she had been to her Grandma's funeral, but it was mostly boring. She'd only met Grandma twice when she was alive and, while she was sorry the woman had died, she hadn't really felt much one way or another during the ceremony. But she did remember a movie she'd watched when she was little. It was a grown-up movie. She'd only been watching it because she was playing with Lego blocks on the floor when Mommy and Daddy came in and put the tape in. There was a vixen lady in the movie that Lily thought was very beautiful. She liked the character a lot. But near the end, the vixen lady died and the next scene showed her funeral. Lily was torn between feeling heartbroken and thinking that the vixen looked even prettier lying in the coffin in her beautiful white dress. Thanophile had said that her having a memory like that didn't surprise him in the least.\n\nNow, on Christmas, she thought about that night over a year ago. The first time she'd realized that wanting to be dead could be a positive thing. A sexy thing. She pictured herself finally meeting Thanophile. Holding him, hugging him. Cuddling and yiffing with him. Him touching her all over and not caring how she looked. She imagined him taking her life, turning her into a silent squirrel shell. Like a statue. She wouldn't be able to move or talk or stop him from doing anything he wanted with her.\n\nShe pictured him yiffing her lifeless corpse. Running his fingers through her hair. Kissing her passionately. Touching her flesh and getting no response. Her single paw wasn't enough anymore, so she brought in the other to finish the job. Her pajamas were getting soaked. She was crushing Sprinkle nearly flat from holding her so tight.\n\nShe imagined Thanophile doing all sorts of nasty, bad, exciting things to her body. Screwing her and then shooting his cream all over her face. Peeing on her. Maybe even doing taxidermy on her! Yes! That thought sent her pleasure through the roof! She could perfectly picture him cutting her open, taking out all her insides (Maybe even making stew out of them!), popping out her eyes, filling her with foam or stuffing or whatever it was they used. Then she'd be nothing but a doll. A big toy for him to use whenever he felt like. She'd spend forever lying perfectly motionless on his bed, waiting for him to come home and use her however he liked. Waiting for him to hold her, their fur rustling together, his cock dripping and hard, putting it inside her...\n\nLily's mouth came open in a silent moan. Her orgasm was so forceful her whole body spasmed several times, bucking like a flopping fish. Afterwards, she took in deep, long breaths through her mouth to try and slow her maddeningly fast-beating heart.\n\nThe images still swam in her mind: Him meeting her, snuffing her, then loving her forever...\n\nThe experience was so intense she fell asleep only a few minutes later, out of sheer exhaustion.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART SIX\n~~~~~\n\nLong bus rides, Lily discovered, were not as boring as she'd foreseen.\n\nEven on lengthy stretches of freeway, there was always something to look at. Strangely-shaped buildings, exotic cars, small patches of woods. It was an interesting feeling, seeing cities and houses she knew she'd never see again. Just one little glimpse, just for a second, and that was it for her whole life.\n\nNot that her life was going to last much longer, she knew.\n\nLily had finally grown tired of waiting. She had told Thanophile during their fourth phone conversation that if they didn't meet face to face soon, she was going to leap off a cliff. Not literally, of course. Lily wanted her death to be much nicer than just 'AhhhhhhhSPLAT'. But she made sure Thanophile understood her; she could not spend much longer in her parents' house and stay sane.\n\nFar from the resistance she expected, he agreed with her completely that they'd waited long enough. He told her how sorry he was he couldn't simply wave a wand and whisk her away from her monster mother and father right then and there. He said if she could just be patient for a few weeks more, he would do his best to get his surprise ready as quickly as possible. Lily agreed. They both said 'I love you' and hung up.\n\nThe young squirrel pestered him relentlessly from then on, whether in emails or chatrooms. It got to be a running gag between them. He'd even remind her to if she forgot. But eventually, three weeks and two days later, he said he was ready. Lily's heart soared to the stars.\n\nHe told her he had some very explicit instructions for how they should handle their meeting. He made Lily promise to do exactly what he said, exactly how he said it, and to take this 100% seriously. That was a little hard though, since all she could concentrate on were the things they were going to do once they were finally together.\n\nThanophile told her that the next day he was going to mail her a letter containing a one-way bus ticket to a neutral location equidistant between their homes. It would be a public place; a hamburger restaurant just outside the bus stop. That way, if she changed her mind, she could either melt into the crowd and back out quietly, or yell for help if she felt she had to.\n\nLily asked him why he thought they needed all these precautions. She knew she wasn't going to change her mind.\n\n\"You might,\" he typed back. \"Doing things in real life is a lot different than doing them online. You might realize at the last minute that this is all really happening and that you don't want to die for real. And if you do, I want you to know you can call it off at any time. I Want You To Feel Safe,\" he said, adding extra capitals for emphasis. \"My safety is absolutely second to yours. No, it's not even that important. It's maybe fifth down the list. Probably less. I'm a grown man and you're a young girl. If I didn't make it absolutely clear to you that YOU'RE the one in control here, I'd be no better than those slimeballs on the news who abduct and rape little kids.\"\n\nIt was almost impossible for Lily to process. That he would care enough about her to basically give control of his life to her. To hand her the ability to have him thrown in jail for the rest of his life.\n\n\"But I don't *want* to be in control!\" she wrote back fervently. \"I want to be a little scared, and feel helpless, and know you're gonna do all sortsa weird stuff to me.\"\n\nHe typed out a smiley face. \"Sweetheart, there's play control and then there's real control. When we're together, we both pretend I'm the one in control, but it's really you. That's how I want it, Lily. That's why they call it roleplay: we're only acting. For fun. For our mutual enjoyment. I like it when you pretend to be scared of me, but I like it much more knowing we really trust each other. Understand?\"\n\nCalmer now and thinking clearer, Lily replied: \"Yes.\"\n\nSo now she was on a big shiny silver bus, travelling farther away from her home than she'd ever been before. She'd left so early in the morning it was still dark out as she walked to the station. She'd been too excited to get much sleep, and had subsequently dozed through the first several miles of her journey. The last stop had been a little over an hour ago. There had been food at the bus stop, but she only bought a little pack of cheese crackers from a vending machine. She wanted to save her appetite for when she got to the burger place. She wanted to sit with Thanophile and eat a big meal and talk for a long time.\n\nTo keep Lily's parents from alerting the cops, the media and whoever else they could blab to about their daughter going missing, Thanophile had concocted another scheme. He said that a half-truth is usually a better deception than silence or a lie, since it made it harder to tell what part was made-up and what part was real. He'd instructed Lily to write out a typically-teenage angst letter about how she'd found a boyfriend and was going to run off and live with him forever. Lily caught on; if her parents thought she was canoodling with some boy, they'd focus on tracking down a kid in the neighborhood. A schoolmate. They'd be less likely to guess he was thirty-two and two states away.\n\nBefore she left, Thanophile also instructed her to erase her hard drive. He said the last thing he wanted was for the police to check her computer after she turned up dead and find any links to him. The thought of heavy boots kicking in his door and heavy clubs bouncing off his skull (not to mention prison rape), was a constant worry for him. Lily understood perfectly. Yet she just couldn't bring herself to erase all her data permanently. She had so much stuff she'd worked so hard to find and download in the two years she'd owned the computer. Plus there were a pawful of stories and poems she'd written that, while embarrassingly bad, she still didn't want to vanish completely. So, she compromised. The day before she left, she neatly backed up everything on a DVD-R (her downloading habits focused mostly on quality, not quantity, and most of the space went to mp3s), intending to hand the disc to Thanophile in furson. After she was done, she used a program he'd given her a link to that scrubbed her CPU clean and made every last trace of data unretrievable. The process actually turned Lily on a little. All her stories and downloads were being erased. Gone forever. It was like a funeral for her computer.\n\nLily checked her watch. Assuming they were on schedule, it would be only another hour or so before they reached her destination. By now the sun was up and shining bright enough to make her shield her eyes when she looked out the window. She couldn't believe what time it was. Even though she'd gotten up super-duper-early, it was amazing how quickly she'd crossed a hundred miles and how much of the day was left. She and Thanophile would be able to share a lengthy lunch and still have plenty of time together!\n\nThe last hour of her trip seemed to take twice as long as all the others combined. Lily peeked out the window every few seconds, trying to *will* the bus to go faster. They had left her home city behind, passed a few suburbs, gone through a long, flat area with nothing much beyond houses and little stores, and now the buildings were getting tall again. They were cruising through a bustling metropolitan area. Lily watched street signs carefully. Her stop wasn't one of the major ones, so she didn't know if the driver would even notice it or not. It was up to her to keep an eye out.\n\nAnd finally, there it was! All the street signs finally lined up. She could *see* the burger place down the street!\n\nShe hustled to the front of the bus. \"Mr. Driver? Mr. Driver? My stop's coming up!\"\n\nHe chucked at her nervousness. \"Hakuna matata, kid. I know. I'll be pickin' up two more there, so you can be sure I'll stop.\"\n\nLily nodded politely. She considered going back to her seat, but they were only a few blocks away now and it wasn't like she had any luggage she needed to go back for. All she was carrying was the DVD-R in her pocket.\n\nWith a 'psssssht' of air brakes, the big metal bullet came to a halt. Lily nearly smacked into the doors in her exuberance to get through them and finally meet her internet beau. She tossed a quick \"G'bye!\" to the driver and scooted out into the sunlight. She watched the bus roll away and thought about how good it felt to finally stand up after such a long time sitting. The air was crisp and her breath made icy flowers in it.\n\nWow! It felt so interesting to be in a completely new city! She didn't know anyone here and had no idea where she was. How exciting! She felt both apprehensive and free, like at any moment she might slip and fly right off into space like a balloon.\n\nLily went inside the burger place. Not surprisingly, it looked just like the ones back in her hometown. Same colors, same tile. They were probably all built from the same blueprints. She looked around at all the customers. Thanophile had told her what to look for: a guy sitting alone in a green jacket. He hadn't even told her his species (which he said was only because he wanted to remain as anonymous as possible online, just in case). Lily didn't see anyone in a green jacket, much less a guy sitting alone in one. She shrugged though. He'd also told her he might be late. Lily stood in line and tried to decide what to order. Considering he'd be taking care of her for the next few days, she thought it was only fair she should buy her own lunch.\n\nAfter getting some ketchup and napkins, Lily sat down with her bacon cheeseburger and fries in a booth that faced the entrance so he'd see her right away when he walked in. She slurped her cola. She decided to wait a few minutes on the food, hoping he'd show up soon and they could start eating together.\n\nLily glanced at her watch. She'd been here seven minutes so far.\n\nAfter ten minutes, she unwrapped her burger and took a bite. It was okay. Kinda bland. The fries were better.\n\nAt fifteen minutes, she was still unconcerned.\n\nAt twenty, she began to worry.\n\nIn one pocket was her backup disk, in the other was the letter he'd sent. In it she'd found not one, but two bus tickets. The note inside told her to wait in the restaurant exactly one hour. If he hadn't shown up by then, it meant something had gone very wrong, and that she should get out of there immediately and get back on the bus. The note didn't go into any more detail, but she understood why he was behaving so much like they were in a spy movie. She watched the news. She knew the cops were crawling all over the internet, waiting to snare pedophiles who tried to meet up with little girls. Much as she hated waiting, she knew they had to be careful about this so Thanophile wouldn't get caught and sent to jail.\n\nThirty minutes.\n\nReal fear was starting to set in. Fifteen minutes late was no big deal. But half an hour? That was another story. She hoped it was just a traffic jam.\n\nForty-five minutes. Her burger and fries were long gone now. She'd even licked some of the ketchup off her fingers. Her drink was also nothing but ice, so she got up to get a refill.\n\nFifty minutes. Thanophile had ten minutes to get his ass here or else he'd have one very pissed-off and scared-shitless little squirrel on his hands!\n\nAt fifty-five minutes, Lily gave up. There was no way he was gonna suddenly waltz in at the last second. Something _had_ gone wrong. Maybe the cops really had found out. Maybe Thanophile was cuffed in a cell right now, or being fingerprinted.\n\n'Or maybe he just stood you up,' a voice inside her head remarked snidely.\n\n'No!' she protested. 'He wouldn't! We've been talking together for months! He said he loves me. He wouldn't do that to me...'\n\nBut would he?\n\nShe watched the news. There were stories all the time about how meeting someone you met online was the worst idea ever. They said there was no way to know who was really on the other side of the screen. The furson you thought you knew could turn out to be someone playing a mean trick on you, or a con artist. Or a rapist.\n\n\"No...\" she said, quietly enough so that no one else in the busy restaurant heard her. No one noticed a little squirrel girl put her head down in her folded arms to hide that she was crying.\n\nShe looked at her watch. She'd been here for an hour and three minutes.\n\nLily hastily dried her tears. She got up and took her tray over to the garbage cans. She patted her pockets, making sure she still had the ticket, and headed outside. Back to the bus station.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\nPART SEVEN\n~~~~~\n\nA stranger walking by that particular bus stop on that particular afternoon would have seen this:\n\nA twelve-year-old squirrel with copper-brown fur and raspberry-colored hair so dark it was nearly black. She wore round wire-frame glasses, a turquoise T-shirt, navy blue sweatpants and a warm-grey fleece hoodie, open in the front. In each ear were two round gold stud earrings. Her tail was as bushy as one would expect a squirrel's to be, but with a narrow strip of dark brown running down the length of it. She also had two dark strips over her cheeks, and her fur lightened to pale greyish-brown on her muzzle, throat and tummy. A bit of which was peeking out from the hem of her untucked shirt, since the girl was a bit pudgy for her age. Short, too.\n\nAt first glance, she looked like a nerd. At second glance, she looked so far beyond heartbroken that the word was no longer sufficient to describe her.\n\nLily sat on the metal bench and felt hot tears rolling down her cold cheeks. It was almost freezing out here, but she hadn't zipped up her jacket when she left the restaurant. She didn't care that she was cold. She didn't care if she froze to death out here.\n\nA man with a newspaper walked up and sat down beside her. Lily didn't notice him at first. \"Hey little girl... why so sad?\"\n\nShe sniffled. \"I was sposto meet someone. But he didn't show up.\"\n\n\"Gosh, that's terrible,\" he said with genuine concern. \"I know if *I* had an appointment to kill a little girl as cute as you, I'd make sure I was on time.\"\n\nLily's heart skipped a beat.\n\nShe looked to the side: Green jacket sleeve.\n\nShe looked up: A big, warm, gentle smile pointed right at her.\n\nHe was nothing like she'd pictured him. She thought the author of such ghoulishly erotic tales would have black spiky hair, or wear clothes like a movie villain, or have a mysterious, sinister air about him. Instead, she was looking at a somewhat-handsome raccoon with a broad face, typical dark mask around his eyes, messy hair, tall, and a little bit fat, just like her.\n\nHe looked _normal_.\n\nBut in his eyes and his smile, she saw the soul she'd come to love so much in the past few months.\n\n\"...It's you.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"Sorry I made you wait so long, sweetheart.\"\n\nWithout a word more, she hugged him. She flung herself onto him so forcefully he dropped the newspaper and pages spilled out all over the frosted ground. Lily's smile was as bright and wide as the sun itself. She squeezed Thanophile tight, hearing their jacket fabric rub together, feeling his cheekfur rustling her hair. She had never been so happy in her entire life.\n\nAbruptly, she sat up and punched him in the forearm.\n\nHe chuckled and rubbed the spot. \"Heh heh. I guess I deserved that for scaring you so bad.\"\n\n\"WHYYY did you do that!?\" she growled.\n\nHe held up his paws in a gesture of surrender. \"Strictly ass-covering! I mean, privacy's pretty much impossible any more, especially on the internet. I _knew_ you weren't some sheriff posing as a little girl, but I figured just in case anyone was listening in our conversations, I'd better give myself a way out. I watched you while you were in the restaurant and I kept an eye out for anything that even *smelled* like cop. When you came back out without anyone walking up to you or trying to lead you away, I knew we were in the clear.\"\n\nLily got it now. \"Oh, so that's why you told me to wait an hour in the *letter* and not online.\"\n\n\"Yep,\" he said. \"I'm not eager to get arrested, y'know. In case you've forgotten, what we're doing right now is really, really, really illegal. I'm not even sure there's *words* for how illegal this is!\"\n\nShe giggled. \"Sure there's words! Kidnapping, statutory rape, murrrrrr-der...\" she said, drawing the word out flirtatiously.\n\n\"Cut that out!\" He slapped a paw over her mouth to comically shush her. She giggled some more. He leaned in close to nuzzle her ear. \"Although, that *is* exactly what I was planning...\" he purred.\n\nLily squealed gleefully.\n\nThanophile paused, then pulled back and took a few seconds just to look at her. \"You know something?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You're even more beautiful than I ever expected.\"\n\nA shudder ran through Lily's whole body. \"You can't really mean that...\"\n\n\"I do!\" he insisted immediately. \"You've got beautiful fur, and your glasses are adorably adorable!\"\n\nShe was blushing red as a fire engine. She looked down at the ground and, finally realizing her shirt had ridden up in front, hastily pulled it down over her belly.\n\nSeeing her embarrassment, Thanophile reached out to pat her round tummy. \"And I think a little bit of pudge just makes you cuter and more huggable. Really.\"\n\nLily opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't think of a single thing to say. So she hugged him again. She had never expected this. In her mind, she'd always envisioned that during their first meeting, he'd have to wince and make up stuff to get over how ugly she looked. But none of that had happened. As far as she could tell, he was being totally sincere.\n\nLily had wondered for a long time (but never allowed herself to really believe) if the only reason she thought she was so fat and ugly was because her mother and father constantly told her so. Now, for the first time, she'd just gotten solid evidence of that theory.\n\nTaking her paw in his, Thanophile stood up. \"C'mon, I parked my car just a few blocks from here. My apartment's about five minutes away.\"\n\nLily's head snapped up. She blinked in confusion. \"But... I thought you said you lived another hundred miles from here!\"\n\nHe gave her a boyish grin. \"Sorry; I lied again. Believe me, I've been planning for months how to keep the fuzz off my tail during our meeting.\"\n\n\"You're so tricky!\" she said with a laugh.\n\nHe nodded proudly. \"Besides, I thought it'd be a relief for you not to have to go on another excruciatingly long ride.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"That's for sure! My butt went numb after a while!\"\n\n\"Maybe I should spank it to wake it up?\" he suggested.\n\nGiggling freely, her heart as light as a feather, Lily followed Thanophile back to his car.\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\nTwo blocks away, a charming powder-blue two-door was parked in front of an office supply company. It had big, wide headlights like frog eyes that Lily liked immediately. The car looked like it had been bought in the nineties and well-loved ever since.\n\nThanophile unlocked her door first. \"Hop in. Let's get out of this cold.\" She did, then fastened her seatbelt without thinking. Which, she realized, was kind of odd considering the whole point of this trip was for her to die.\n\nThanophile got in and started the engine. \"No bags? I expected at least a backpack or a suitcase.\"\n\n\"I'm not really gonna need anything,\" Lily replied reasonably. \"I'll only be alive a few more days.\"\n\nHe chuckled, and fidgeted in his seat in such a way that implied his pants suddenly felt tighter. \"I love how you're so casual about it.\"\n\nLily beamed. She loved knowing she was making him excited!\n\nThanophile reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of thick-framed specs and put them on.\n\n\"You wear glasses too!?\" Lily gasped.\n\n\"Mm-hmm. Just for driving, mostly. My near vision's perfect but my far vision's crapola.\"\n\n\"I think you look _really_ handsome in them,\" Lily said. \"Very author-y.\"\n\nHe laughed out loud, grateful for such a unique compliment. \"Thanks!\" Thanophile pulled out into traffic. \"And getting back to luggage for a second, I at least expected you to bring your plushie fox, the one you told me so much about. Was it Sprinkle, or am I misremembering?\"\n\nAt that, Lily perked up and her smile widened considerably. \"Yes! Her name's Sprinkle, and I'm glad you reminded me of her!\"\n\n\"Why's that?\" He hung a left.\n\nLily grinned at the happy memory. \"Because I gave her a funeral last night!\"\n\nThanophile smiled. \"Really? Tell me all about it!\"\n\nThe squirlette was only too happy to. \"Okay. See, last night before bed, after I'd erased the hard drive... Oh, before I forget...\" She reached in her pocket for the DVD-R. \"Here. It's a backup I made. The hard drive's nuked just like you told me, but I wanted you to have a copy of all the stuff on it. Like, to remember me by.\"\n\nHe tussled her hair. \"That's sweet, and very thoughtful. But you'd better keep it until I'm finished driving. My hands are kinda busy.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" She blushed. \"Sorry!\"\n\n\"No prob. You were telling me about your fox, hm?\"\n\n\"Right! So, um, I was _really_ excited last night and I tried to fall asleep for a long time and it just wasn't working. I tried telling Sprinkle about it, but that just made me MORE excited. Then I thought of something; once I was gone, what would happen to her? I didn't want my parents to just throw her away. So I decided to give her a special send-off. I snuck downstairs to the basement and got a shoe box. I was hoping we'd have some pretty flowers or something like that, but all I could find was a bunch of Easter grass, y'know, the plastic stuff?\"\n\nThanophile nodded. \"The stuff that gets all over the house.\"\n\n\"Exactly! I took everything outside to the big lilac bush by the fence. The flowers were all dead by now, but I thought it'd be a nice place for her in Spring. She'd be surrounded by that nice smell. I put her in the box on top of the Easter grass. I used the garden spade to dig a hole, which took me a long time since the ground was so hard. I was sure my mom and dad were gonna find out somehow. Plus, I was freezing cold, so I wanted to get it over with as fast as possible anyway. I wished there were still some dandelions I could have put in the box with Sprinkle, something pretty at least. But all there was was snow.\n\n\"So, I gave her a last kiss and told her that she was a good plushie and she'd always be my favorite and that I'd always love her. Then I put the lid on the box, put her in her grave, and filled in the hole while I sang a lullaby to her.\"\n\nThanophile waited a few seconds until they were stopped at a light, then leaned over and patted her paw. \"That has to be the most adorable thing I've ever heard.\"\n\nLily grinned. \"Thanks!\"\n\n\"By the way, what was the cause of death?\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"You gave Sprinkle a funeral. What did she die of?\"\n\nLily froze for a second. \"...I never thought of that!\"\n\nThanophile pretended to be shocked. \"You mean you buried that poor little foxie alive?\"\n\nLily shrugged. \"Well, if she's anything like me, I'm sure she enjoyed it!\" They both chuckled. Lily thought a bit, then nodded. \"No, I'm _sure_ she was happy about it. I just felt it inside, in my heart. I miss her already, but I also feel really good knowing she's safe and cozy in her little box under the ground. Makes me kinda yiffy, too. I really hope my own funeral will be as nice.\"\n\nHe had to look back at the road when the light turned, but he still made her heart flutter when he said, \"I'll make sure of it, sweetheart.\"\n\n\n\n\n~~~~~\n\n\n\n\n",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "Love Me 'Till My Heart Stops
a story by Alex Reynard
The French call orgasm 'la petite mort'. Literally; 'the little death'.
**********
PART ONE
~~~~~
Lily's fingers were trembling as she typed the words, and not just because her bedroom was nearly freezing. Huddled close to her computer, face mere inches from the screen, she watched each letter appear. The room was dark except for the monitor's pearly glow. The only sounds were Lily's breath and the tiny taps from the keyboard. Her posture radiated secrecy, fear and shame.
She read what she'd written and decided it was too long. She cut out half. Then two sentences more. Then she re-wrote the beginning sentence. Then the ending one. Then she erased it all, sat back silent and shivering for a few moments, and typed everything out again.
She hit the 'send' button before she could stop herself.
SnuffSkwrl:
My name is Lily. I'm twelve. I'm a squirrel. I'm looking for someone
to kill me.
She held her breath as she waited for a reply. Time ceased to exist.
When she finally got up the courage to hit 'refresh', a new message had appeared.
bludbathe:
lol emo bitch
Lily burst into tears. She shut the computer off and ran to her bed.
~~~~~
It was three days before she could get up the courage to try again.
Her features pinched in determination, she grabbed the seat of her chair and skootched herself closer to the computer. Damn, the room felt even colder today. She wished there was some way to wear mittens and still be able to type.
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and typed in the URL of her very favorite website. The one she didn't dare bookmark, just in case her parents ever checked the computer while she was at school.
htttp://www.yourhost.net/charonsarchive
It took a few seconds to load. Then the familiar banner appeared: the pale-faced ferryman of the river Styx, holding his skeletal arm out towards a vault full of arcane tomes.
It was a website full of death. Art, stories, a message board, even some RP logs. But despite the trappings, it wasn't a horror site. This was a site for furs who found the concept of death... exciting.
Arousing.
Shivering from the cold and her own nervousness, Lily checked the stories section. Nothing new. The last update was a month ago. She grimaced in frustration. She knew that a fetish as small and reviled as hers simply didn't produce many decent artists or writers. Most of the members here were lurkers, like her. Most of the art was refrigerator-door level and most of the stories were without any semblance of correct grammar or spelling. But there was enough. Enough to let Lily know she wasn't an anomaly. Sure, she was weird and ashamed and alone. But not *entirely* alone.
The photo section *had* been updated, however. Someone had posted a few screenshots from a recent TV show where an actress was lying in a coffin, impeccably made up, dressed in blue, surrounded by flowers... Beautiful.
Lily's mouth was hanging open. Her paw had crept to her crotch.
She downloaded every image.
She closed her eyes for a second. She thought about her favorite fantasy. Her paw slipped past her pants elastic, into her panties and found her hot spot. She rubbed. She sunk her fingers in and twitched them faster and faster. She bit her lip. She fantasized. Her mouth was open but she kept completely silent. Her mom and dad were only two rooms away. If they *ever* caught her doing this...
Just like that, her bubble was burst. Her fantasy was gone. Now all she could think about was what they'd say if they ever realized this was the kind of thing she looked at when she was alone.
Lily removed her paw from her panties. Now it was clenched in a fist.
Only one thing could make her feel better now. Even though the stories page had said in plain red text that there were no new uploads, Lily decided to check his page just in case. Just in case.
Nothing new. Just the same eight stories she'd read over and over and over again.
"Dang," she said softly.
Still, while she was here...
She clicked on 'Red Flesh Rose' and scrolled down to page six. Her favorite part. Her paw went back in her panties again.
...The knife went in like silk. Her eyes opened suddenly and she let out
a quick, gentle gasp. He pulled her closer, and with the same motion sunk
the blade in deeper. He looked down into her eyes. There was fear, but
also freedom. She didn't say a word. Warm, wet blood trickled down from
her slit belly. Down to where their sexes joined. He gave the knife a
twist. She cried out soundlessly, not wanting to spoil her happiest
moment with a scream. She could hear the knife turn inside her, relishing
the sound it made as it turned her flesh to meat. The blood was flowing
faster now. Hot. Red. Leaving her. She wanted to let it go. Let it paint
them both the color of love. He closed his eyes and nuzzled her cheek. She
held him closer, feeling the hilt of the knife touch her stomach. They
kissed. Her heart fluttered. Her world was ending like a dream. This was
it. Her fantasy made real. She spoke his name, and thanked him. As she
realized she was now only seconds from death, her last orgasm overtook
her. As it ended, so did she. He felt her heart stop. Felt her last
breath. He filled her with his seed. He had delivered his latest victim
in the arms of ecstacy to the afterlife. His heart knew there would be
more. Dozens more. Hundreds more...
Lily came in her panties.
~~~~~
Once her heart had stopped thumping so loud she was sure the whole neighborhood could hear it, Lily licked her fingers clean, wiped the rest on her shirt, and clicked on the link to the messageboard. This time she wasn't going to wuss out. Screw that jerk who'd called her a bitch last Friday. What the heck was he even doing on a site like this with an attitude like that?
To Lily's astonishment, her post had gotten quite a few replies over the weekend. She ignored the incredibly rude first one and scrolled down past it to the next.
CutterZed:
ill do it!!!!!
'No way,' she thought. 'If you don't even know how to use an apostrophe, there's no way I'm gonna trust you with my life!'
redlanceatsunset:
Are you serious? I'll totally kill you if you want. I have my own dungeon.
I'll make it reeeeeeeally painful. You'll love it.
She winced. 'I don't *want* it to be painful!' she thought, then paused in realization. 'Crap... I probably should have mentioned that.'
cat'sbanana:
you're only 12,girl! don't throw your life away! what are you even doing
on a site like this? some of these guys are really sick and will takeyou
seriously!!! if you just saidt hat as a prank, its not funny!!! kids
really do get kidnapped by sick fucksand murdered evry day!!!
Lily scowled. "I *know* someone will take me seriously. That's the whole *point*!" she hissed under her breath. "I know what I'm doing. I. Want. To. Be. DEAD! You think I just woke up this morning and decided that!?"
She was miffed, but not so much that she'd actually write any of that down and post it. The last thing she wanted was to get in an argument with some goody-two-shoes angel who wanted to 'save' her.
"I can make my own decisions," she huffed.
She scrolled down half a page, and when her eyes saw the name, she froze.
It couldn't be. It was _him_! The author of all those stories! The mind behind the hottest stuff she'd ever read! The guy whose words had made her cum more times than she could count! He was actually replying to HER!!
Thanophile:
How would you like to die, sweetheart?
That one single sentence became Lily's entire world. 'How would you like to die?' 'How would YOU like to die?' 'How would you LIKE to die?' Not some overeager creepazoid or misguided dummy; he was asking her what *she* wanted. He was thinking of her first. It was exactly what she'd have expected from the guy who'd written "Her Last Breath Smelled Like Toothpaste". (That is, it's what she _would_ have expected if her wildest heart could have ever imagined that the best writer in the entire snuff fetish universe could ever take notice of a lowly little nothing like her.)
For a second, she debated whether she should reply or not.
This was a living god she was thinking of talking to. He was perfection. She was dirt. A fat, ugly little squirrel with ugly, stupid stripes in her fur and ugly, stupid glasses on her face.
But then again, it'd be really rude *not* to say anything back, right?
Biting her lip, Lily typed up a reply, erased half of it, typed it again, erased even more, and kept on editing it and proofreading it for almost an hour. The last thing she wanted was to make a retarded spelling mistake in a reply to a real author like him.
SnuffSkwrl:
WOW!!! I can't believe you replied! I've read all your stories here.
You're my favorite author ever! Your writing is so tender and gentle.
My favorite is 'Red Flesh Rose'; I've probably read it ten times. *blush*
It's really sexy!
She hoped he'd be impressed by her use of the semi-colon.
As for how I'd like to die... I'm not sure. I just know that I want to be
dead. My very favorite fantasy is imagining how I'd look at my funeral.
I'd be perfectly still, lying in a gorgeous wooden coffin with pink satin
inside, flowers everywhere. I'd be smiling. Happy to be a cute corpse.
^__^
I'm sure any way you could think of to put me in that situation would be
exciting and wonderful!
Just then, her mom called her to supper. Which Lily was exceptionally grateful for. Not only was she sure she'd have to paw off again at writing something so mind-blowingly erotic (and equally embarrassing), but she knew all she had time to do now was click 'send', close the window, clear the history and dash off to the kitchen.
~~~~~
When she got back after dinner, there was a new message waiting for her.
Thanophile:
*chuckles* Really? Seriously!? You like my stories THAT much!? I can't
tell you how flattered I am! Considering the subject matter, I think a
lot of furs who read my work are too afraid to publicly admit liking it.
I know it's pretty extreme stuff. But I'm really glad you do like it and
that you told me so. It makes me feel good to know I'm not just
scribbling these things for only myself.
How would I kill you...? Hmmm, that's a toughie. I'm going to guess that
if Red Flesh Rose is your favorite, you probably don't want it to be
painful. I could give you an injection first. You wouldn't feel a thing.
Then I could slit your throat and cuddle you tight as you pass away. How
does that sound?
Lily's paw was in her panties in a heartbeat. Her whole body went rigid. Her fingers became a jackhammer bit and within seconds she was overwhelmed by the most powerful orgasm she'd ever had in her life. It was like being hit by a tidal wave. It was like leaping off a cliff. It was like walking head-on into a rushing train.
Lily soaked her panties straight through to her jeans.
Blushing furiously, she ran to the bathroom to clean up.
~~~~~
She read his reply thirty-seven times that night. At eleven o' clock, her mother had to scream at her to turn off the damn computer and go to bed.
Scowling, she reluctantly left her chair (after reading his message one more time) and crawled between her covers. She masturbated for half an hour before finally tiring herself out.
She dreamt that night of a handsome, murderous stranger chasing her through her abandoned school with a big silver butcher knife. Sometimes it changed into a noose. Sometimes he caught her.
She woke up with wet panties.
~~~~~
PART TWO
~~~~~
One week later, Lily was biting back tears as she slipped into her bedroom. She shut the door behind her as silently as she could. She sat down on her bed, then put her face in her paws.
School had been as forgettably monotonous as it always was. The real trouble came when she got home. In her haste to check her email, she'd forgotten to take off her shoes.
She'd left a footprint on the carpet.
Mother saw.
The next hour was spent on her hands and knees as she scrubbed the carpet five times in a row. Each and every time she finished, her mother would start in again: 'I can still see dirt! What the hell's the matter with you! God, you can't even do the simplest things I ask!? I don't understand how your teachers yap on and on about how smart you are and when you get home you act like you were born with an empty skull!' Blah blah blah. Lily's paws ached by the time she was finished. The left from holding the scrub brush and the right from supporting her weight for so long. Mom hadn't even let her take her backpack off first.
She'd hoped to sneak off to the sanctuary of her room then, but Mommy wasn't done with her just yet. She decided that she and Lily needed to spend some 'bonding time' together. Lily hated those words. She'd scrub the whole carpet a hundred times over if it meant never having to hear that insufferable phrase again.
Lily's mother plopped her down in front of the TV set. Then they watched afternoon television together. Lily was stiff as a board, achingly uncomfortable. Every few seconds, Mom would chime in with another of her asinine opinions and just keep needling Lily until she finally gave in and agreed with them. Though she would never openly admit to it, Mom had a rule of parenting that she enforced with ruthless vigor: 'Lily only has the right to one opinion. Mine.'
After almost two hours of humiliating psychological pain, Dad came home. Lily seized on the distraction and practically teleported out of the livingroom. She sped to her bedroom and listened at the door for any sign her mother might be coming down the hall to drag her back for more. She was lucky this time. All she heard was the usual 'how was your day' bullshit between them.
She crawled under the covers with her jeans and socks still on. She buried her face in the fur of Sprinkle, her stuffed fox. Sprinkle had fur the colors of vanilla ice cream and raspberry sherbert. She had a perfect squeezability factor. Lily was much too shattered now to go online. All she had the energy to do was hold Sprinkle tight and cry into her artificial fur.
Half an hour later, she'd just barely begun to fall asleep when she heard the angry cry of, "FOOD! Get out here, lazy!!"
She rose from the bed, moaning at a sudden sharp pain. She'd lain in a weird position for too long and now her lower back was pissed at her. She looked back at Sprinkle. "I'd rather die than go out there and eat with those two," she whispered. Her voice was sad, but resigned to the permanence of her existence. "...Literally." she added with a grim smirk.
She trudged down the hall in cower mode. Both her parents were silent as she entered. Lily sat down at the kitchen table without making eye contact or saying a word. That was best; the less she did, the less likely she'd give them anything to start a fight over.
Her father gave her a look like she was some invertebrate parasite stuck to his leg, then started eating.
Mom poured a heaping portion of some steaming, stinking nightmare onto Lily's plate. To call Mom a bad cook would be like calling Hiroshima a big boom. The woman lived in new-age vegetarian cookbooks, always eager to try out the worst, most flavorless atrocities she could find. Lily thought she must have had taste buds from Mars, as she seemed to love every recipe more than she loved her own daughter. Lily didn't know about Dad though; he just shovelled the shit in night after night without a single facial expression.
Lily scooped up a forkful. It looked like it might have started with potatoes, but that was as far as she could guess. She put it in her mouth. Admittedly, the first mouthful didn't seem as bad as some of Mom's other creations. But by number five, Lily was in agony. It seemed to taste progressively worse with every bite. Bitter (as always), but also sour. Like mom had upended a bottle of vinegar into the pot. There were chewy things in it too. Things that felt like little squares of foam rubber in her mouth. Lily looked down at her plate and it seemed impossibly full. A mountain of food. She felt nauseous.
With all the strength of her will, she continued on. By the time she was a third of the way through, she glanced up and noticed her mother had stopped eating. She was just looking at Lily. Watching her.
"How do you like it?" Mom asked.
Lily forced a painful fake smile onto her face. "It's okay."
Mom looked as if someone had just slapped her with roadkill. "How DARE you lie to me!!"
And so it began. Yet another tsunami of verbal abuse. Mom went for volume; throwing insult upon insult at her daughter like a cloud of poison darts. But Dad was worse. His arrows were carefully aimed to slip through her armor no matter how much she piled on. He could hurt her with a single sentence in ways a fist or a belt couldn't touch. Lily would have been _grateful_ for a good beating. At least if he knocked her lights out, she could have shown someone the resulting black eye and they'd believe her and DO something about it.
They kept at it for over an hour as the awful food sat on their plates growing colder and more congealed. They forced her to keep eating it, even as they kept on shooting their word-arrows into her heart. Lily did everything possible to keep from crying. Crying only made it worse. They took it as an insult somehow.
She'd known this was coming the second she sat down. It was The Dinner Game. Whenever Mommy made some new recipe, Lily was forced to play it. And the game only had two outcomes. Either she'd do her best to cram the foul shit down her throat as stone-faced as possible, and Mom would inevitably throw a tantrum about how if Lily didn't like her cooking she should just come out and say it instead of sitting there pretending to. Or Lily would give her honest opinion, as diplomatically-stated as possible, and Mom would inevitably throw a tantrum about how hard she'd worked on this meal and if Lily didn't have anything constructive to say she should just shut her mouth and eat it without saying a word.
(Lily had once tried to point out the glaring insanity of giving her two sets of mutually-exclusive instructions like that. Mom had fiercely denied ever saying anything of the sort. Then she and Daddy put Lily through six straight hours of pure hell for daring to apply logic to their little family world.)
Like all their fights, this one ran out of steam eventually as Mom and Dad used up their best insults and couldn't think of any more. Lily's plate had been clean for thirteen minutes before they finally let her go. Meekly, she offered to do the dishes to make up for 'starting' the fight. Mom just scowled at her and ordered her to her room, which somehow hurt worse than being forced to do the chore would have.
Now that she was in her room, Lily was finally safe. She could finally cry. She did, although not as much as she used to when she was younger. She wasn't sure if this meant she was 'toughening up', or just gradually turning numb as concrete inside.
As an act of pure defiance, Lily knelt down on the floor beside her plastic-lined wastebasket, dug two fingers into her throat, and vomited up the meal Mom had slaved so fucking hard over.
Bad move. The stuff tasted even worse the second time around. And now her mouth felt all acid-y. She didn't dare risk a trip to the bathroom for a drink of water though. Weirdly enough, once she was in her room, Mom and Dad mostly left her alone. It was like an 'out of sight, out of mind' kinda thing. She knew if she stayed put and waited until they fell asleep, she could sneak back to the kitchen for a glass of water and scour the refrigerator for some real food. But if she set foot outside her room before then, it'd be the same as handing them a bullwhip and pulling up the back of her shirt.
At least she was away from them now. At least the taste in her mouth would go away. At least now she was free to lose herself online again.
~~~~~
Getting the computer two years ago had been as unexpected as, say, a unicorn popping out of your asshole and singing 'Oklahoma'. That Christmas morning, Lily had sat under the tree, surrounded by wrapping paper and just stared in disbelief at the giant box. 'This has to be a trick,' her mind thought. And normally she'd be justified in thinking that. Mommy and Daddy set devious little brain-traps all the time for her to step into. But no, the computer was genuine. Just like all the other nice things they bought her for Christmas and her birthday. It was as if they believed these material things were proof of their love for her, and she was simply an ungrateful little pig to expect anything more from them. Things like emotional support, nurturing, hugs, compliments, even basic decency.
Not all, but most of Lily's misery melted away when she saw that, yes, Thanophile had indeed written her a letter like he promised. She clicked on it eagerly.
Hi, sweetheart!
She loved when he called her that!
I hope this is the right email address. Last night's RP was the hottest
thing ever! It's like a miracle for me, finding someone who thinks my
weird, twisted fantasies are just as sexy as I do. You really can't know
how much it means to me to be talking to someone like you. Thank you so
much for your understanding.
Lily felt her heart melt. It had been a full week of constant communication and she STILL felt starstruck reading stuff like that and knowing it was about her. He thought _she_ was a miracle!
Um... Before we go any further though, I really want to ask you
something. I feel like it's mostly been me, me, me so far. Like we're
indulging all MY fantasies and neglecting yours. Maybe I'm just
worrying too much. I know I tend to do that.
This was inconceivable! He was indulging one of her greatest fantasies just by *acknowledging* her! And he was worried she might think he was being selfish!? Impossible! This guy was too perfect. Lily was nearly in tears again from how perfectly he was able to reach into her heart and find just the right band-aids for it.
So, what I want is for you to tell me as much about what YOU want as
possible. Tell me your deepest, darkest dreams. The kind of stuff you
think no one would ever want to hear. I DO want to hear it. I want to
know what makes you moist down there, so I can do an even better job
of making it moistier. *chuckle* I know that's not a word, but I think
you get my meaning.
She put both paws over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Write back soon! I love every word you type!
Thanophile
Lily swooned in her seat. It was an eternity before she could compose herself enough to even begin a reply.
I'm blushing so hard right now! I can't believe you wrote all those
nice things and that you're actually worried I might think you're
hogging all our time together. Nothing could be further from the truth!
When I'm reading anything you've written to me, it's the happiest I've
ever felt. Indulging your fantasies IS my fantasy!! ^__^
But, if you really wanna know... *blushing even harder!* When I'm
pawing off, I actually don't think much about HOW I died. I just like
pretending I'm dead. It's the whole idea of my funeral that really turns
me on. Almost every time I masturbate, I think about what it'd look like.
I'd be perfectly stiff and still and quiet. I'd have a pretty smile on my
face, dressed in a gorgeous white dress, maybe holding a little bouquet to
my chest. My eyes are closed. I'm not wearing my glasses anymore. I like
to think about my coffin. My ideal one would be bright shiny wood, dark
caramel brown, not modern-looking. Rectangular, not like the cartoony
ones where it tapers at the feet. It has gold handles on the sides.
Inside, it's all pretty, puffy pink silk. I imagine it'd be the comfiest
thing I've ever lied on. But of course I can't tell, 'cause I'm dead!
*giggle*
I usually don't think a lot about the rest of it. I would like there to
be lots of beautiful flowers and some nice soft music. Not church organ
music though; that stuff's boring. Maybe some classical piece with a lot
of violins. The weird thing is, I never picture my family there or anyone
else I know. It's just a bunch of anonymous people. They're always in
shadow. I don't really care who they are, I just know they think I'm
beautiful lying in my little comfy casket.
(Biggest blush yet) Don't you DARE tell anyone else this EVER, but once in
a while I'll even fantasize that all the people there line up and one by
one they stand in front of my coffin and jerk off into it! They cum all
over me. My face, my dress, the flowers I'm holding. I end up completely
covered in cum. One time I even
Lily couldn't control herself anymore. Just *thinking* of telling him the dirtiest, nastiest fantasy she'd ever had was making her hotter than a jalapeno in July. She leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and stuffed both hands in her panties. She diddled furiously. She clawed at her burning hot cunny. In her mind, it wasn't just some anonymous figment anymore, it was _him_. *He* was standing over her gorgeous corpse, holding his cock in his hand and...
Her orgasm hit in less than a minute. Followed by another one even stronger.
She was panting now, and her heart was beating so hard it felt like it was about to burst right out of her chest. Lily took deep breaths to calm herself down. After a few minutes, her horniness had passed enough to let her type again.
One time I even imagined that they were peeing all over me instead of
cumming! All that hot, dirty piss splashing on me and filling up the
coffin! Then they take me out and bury me and that's it. Sometimes I like
to picture my gravestone too.
I won't lie; I just had a HUGE orgasm while I was writing this. That's
because I wasn't just thinking about my fantasy, I was thinking about you
being in it. ^__^
I love you.
Lily
Her whole body was tingling with wonderful, happy energy now. She felt satisfied and sexy and brave. Just one short week ago, she never could have imagined telling anyone else on earth about her weirdo paw-off fantasies. But now she could. She knew that even if Thanophile wasn't as turned on as she was by her letter, at least he wouldn't make fun of her for it. He wouldn't tell her she belonged in a mental hospital. He wouldn't call her an 'emo bitch'.
Knowing you had someone who would accept you no matter what secrets you told them was an incredible feeling.
Lily spellchecked her letter, then clicked 'send'. She didn't change a single sentence this time.
~~~~~
PART THREE
~~~~~
Over the next month, Lily and her online paramour shared more and more of their souls with each other. The magic of the internet was that it was pure mind-to-mind communication, with no messy reality getting in the way. Thanophile didn't have to know how dull and ugly-looking she was on her side of the screen. When they talked, she was just his perpetually willing victim, and he was her dashing, romantic executioner.
He'd killed her dozens of times already. Whenever they were in a chatroom together, it was a virtual certainty they'd roleplay her happy death. It was a great way of testing each other's limits and finding one another's secret hot buttons. Lily discovered, much to her surprise, that she really enjoyed it when they'd be talking normally and he'd suddenly and swiftly dispatch her. They'd be discussing some movie one of them had seen that had a really great death in it, when out of nowhere he'd wrap his hands around her throat, or put a gun to her head, or force her to drink poison. The first time it had startled her. But it also made her honeypot tingle like crazy! She liked being startled. She liked being scared a little, and feeling helpless. She liked giving over control to him and letting him do whatever he wanted with her.
Best of all, he was never cruel when he killed. Lily didn't like that kind of thing at all. She'd scoured the web for quite a while before discovering his stories, and was disgusted with how many of the snuff stories she came across were nothing but sexualized suffering. Angry, powerless little men creating characters to torture and murder because they lacked the balls to stand up to anyone in real life. Those kinds of stories made Lily sick. One she'd read was so bad she'd actually had to run to the bathroom and dry-heave for a few minutes.
Thanophile was the ultimate opposite. Even when he ambushed her, it was playful. He never wanted to hurt her, only help her attain her fantasy. She wanted to die and he wanted to slay; they were a perfect match. Before she'd read his gentle, loving, erotic tales, she'd been repulsed by almost everything else she saw of her fetish. Not surprisingly, it made her feel disgusted with herself, too. But now she knew better. She knew it wasn't the fetish that made her uncomfortable; it was the way most people chose to view it. She could enjoy it _her_ way, the softer, happier way, and there was nothing wrong with that. Thanophile had told her many, many times that she wasn't a bad girl for having these fantasies. In fact, he told her how much he admired her for having the courage to admit to them and accept them. He told her he'd been a lot older than she was when he finally decided to stop pretending his fetishes would just go away if he hated himself over them long enough.
At the moment, Thanophile had just snuffed out SnuffSkwrl's life yet again. They'd been discussing their tastes in music when SnuffSkwrl had mentioned that just talking to him made her panties wet. He responded by snatching them off her and expertly strangling her to death with them. She, of course, loved every second. Now she was just a lifeless squirrel corpse. Which meant he was free to do with her whatever he wished.
Thanophile: *runs his paws all over your naked body. You are so still. You
have no heartbeat.*
SnuffSkwrl: *would shiver in pleasure if she could!*
Thanophile: You're so beautiful when you're dead, sweetheart... *Caresses
your little round titties*
SnuffSkwrl: *blush* Thank you!
Thanophile: Hey! Corpses can't talk!
SnuffSkwrl: *giggle*
SnuffSkwrl: Okay then, I'm a ghost
Thanophile: Allright then.
SnuffSkwrl: *my spirit rises out of my dead body. I am a wispy mist in
the shape of a squirrel*
Thanophile: How cute!!!
Thanophile: Too bad I can't hug you now.
SnuffSkwrl: You can try!
Thanophile: *tries to hug the little girlghost, but his arms pass right
through her
Thanophile: Darn!
SnuffSkwrl: That tickles!
Thanophile: *tickles you some more*
SnuffSkwrl: Hee hee hee! Stop it!! (:
Thanophile: *Continues rubbing your little nude corpse all over as he
gazes lovingly at your spirit form*
Thanophile: *rubs your pretty paws*
Thanophile: Can you feel that, little ghost?
SnuffSkwrl: Yes I can! *wiggles in happiness. I have tickly feet!*
Thanophile: Oh really? *tickle tickle tickle*
SnuffSkwrl: Yay! *giggle giggle giggle*
SnuffSkwrl: *wiggles toes*
sent at 9:04 p.m.
SnuffSkwrl: Thanophile?
SnuffSkwrl: Hey? You tsill there?
Thanophile: Oh, sorry.
SnuffSkwrl: You got quiet all of a sudden. Did you go take a whiz?
Thanophile: Ummmmm... Actually, I was thinking about something.
SnuffSkwrl: Something what?
Thanophile: I'm kinda afraid to say it because I don't want to rush
things or do something that'll be like 'too much'.
SnuffSkwrl: What? What!?
SnuffSkwrl: *worried now*
Thanophile: *hesitates* I was thinking that I'd really like to hear
you giggle for real.
sent at 9:07 p.m.
Thanophile: Sweetheart?
SnuffSkwrl: Sorry! I just had to paw off at the very thought!!
Thanophile: LOL!
SnuffSkwrl: So, does this mean you want us to meet somewhere?
Thanophile: *BIG CARTOON EXCLAMATION POINT OVER HEAD*
SnuffSkwrl: You don't want to meet!?
Thanophile: No!
Thanophile: I mean not yet! Oh shit, I'm sorry.
Thanophile: Yes,I would absolutely love for us to meet someday, but
that's in the future. It' only been a month. I was just going to ask
if there was some way we could talk on the phone.
SnuffSkwrl: OH! *big blush
SnuffSkwrl: I'm sorry.
Thanophile: It's okay. I gotta admit though, I'm really happy that's the
first thing you thought of!
SnuffSkwrl: Really? So why NOT meet now?
Thanophile: I hate to remind you, but I AM a lot older and have been on
the net longer. Trust me: you don't ever want to meet an online furson
in RL until you are absolutely 100 percent certain of them first. Beyond
ALL doubt.
SnuffSkwrl: *sigh*
SnuffSkwrl: I sort of understand
Thanophile: I'm not saying I don't trust you, or that you shouldn't trust
me. It's just standrad operating procedure.
Thanophile: And talking on the phone is the next logical step.
SnuffSkwrl: Okay, okay *still a little dsappointed*
Thanophile: *pets your headfur*
SnuffSkwrl: *happychitter*
Thanophile: We have plenty of time, sweetheart. I'm sure we'll see each
other one day.
'I hope so,' Lily thought. 'I can't think of anything I've ever wanted more.'
~~~~~
PART FOUR
~~~~~
Working out the logistics of a phone call had been a nightmare. Lily's parents kept her under such tight control, there was absolutely no need to ask them if she could call a friend and talk for a few hours. Especially a long distance call. They would have punished her just for *thinking* such a thing.
So, Lily got clever. Despite giving her a computer, a set of rollerblades and other expensive presents, one thing her parents absolutely refused to buy her was a cell phone. This meant Lily had to procure her own. She gathered her saved-up allowance, hauled most of her old CDs off to the used record store to sell (after ripping them all as mp3s, naturally), and even went on a few pop bottle hunts. In two weeks, she was able to purchase a surprisingly cheap little prepaid cell that was good for three hundred minutes. She was certain those would be drained dry within days.
She waited nervously for the day he'd promised to call. She worried a hundred times or more whether she'd typed her number out right or if there would be time zone problems. He assured her there wouldn't be. In fact, when he told her what state he was from, she nearly screamed in bliss. They were only a few hundred miles apart! Much closer than she'd ever imagined. Lily spent that night pawing furiously, dreaming of him pulling into the driveway some random midnight, sneaking into her room and snuffing her before she even had a chance to react. She came seven times and ended up getting only three hours of sleep.
That was two days ago. Now it was after school on *the* day. Like they'd planned, she called her parents from the payphone outside the cafeteria and told them with as few details as possible that she needed to stay a while to work on a project. To her exquisite relief, Mom didn't ask any questions.
Lily ran outside and made her way behind the school to the place where the old toolshed stood. It was perfectly isolated; no one would bother her here. She was a bit too plump to scale the fence, but not so much that she couldn't squeeze through the space between it and the building. Her tummy hurt a bit afterwards, but she didn't notice. She dashed behind the decrepid old shed and sat down on the damp concrete, hidden from view.
She checked her watch. He said he'd call at three-thirty.
She checked her watch again.
She stared at the orangey-red brick of the school wall.
She noticed her butt was getting moist from sitting here so long. It had probably rained sometime during classes. Just her luck. She-
The phone rang.
Some annoying-as-hell electronic tune she hadn't been able to figure out how to get rid of blared out of it. She nearly dropped the phone trying to push the tiny buttons.
"Hello!?" she gasped.
A warm, bass chuckle on the other end. "Is this Lily?"
The little squirrel felt her whole body ripple with relief. "Yes! It's me! And you're you! Oh, I'm so happy! I can't even tell you. Did you have any trouble calling?"
"None at all. This isn't the best connection ever, but that's to be expected with a cell phone."
She giggled. "Your voice!"
"Um, what about it?"
"It sounds a lot like I imagined it. Deep and rich. You sound like you could read audiobooks."
He actually gasped at the compliment. "You think so? Seriously? I don't think anyone's ever said anything like that to me before."
"Well it's true! So, what do you think of my voice?"
"Actually, it's nowhere near as high-pitched as I'd expected. I know you're twelve, but my mind kept hearing your voice as much younger, for whatever reason."
"So, how old are you?"
An obvious, embarrassed hesitation. "Uh... Thirty-two."
Lily shrugged. "That's not that old. Younger than my parents."
"Well that's good. Maybe I could be your uncle then."
She laughed. "Yeah, the crazy uncle who wants to hunt me down and snuff me!"
He laughed too. "Certainly sounds like me!"
~~~~~
Despite the temperature dipping drastically, Lily sat with her wet pants for nearly two and a half hours. Her fingertips were numb and her teeth were chattering so bad it was a little hard to speak clearly, but her body could have been millions of miles away. All that mattered right now was his warm, rich voice.
"C-can I ask you something?" she said shyly.
"Of course. Absolutely anything."
"When you asked if you could call me, and I thought you meant we should meet... How long do you think we should wait before we really do?"
Silence for a few seconds.
"Sweetheart... I... don't know," he said finally.
"Well, do you want to?"
His reply was immediate. "Yes! Of course!"
That made her heart feel warmer. "I do too! I think about it all the time."
"The thing is... If we did decide to, I'd need about a month's advance warning."
She nearly dropped the phone. "A *month*!?"
"At _least_. To prepare, y'see. I have some ideas... for when we finally meet. Stuff that I couldn't set up with just a weekend's notice. Do you understand?"
"Like, what?"
She could very nearly hear his grin. "I can't *tell* you!"
"...Then it wouldn't be a surprise, right?" She rolled her eyes.
"Exactly." He paused, then spoke with genuine tenderness. "When we do meet each other, I want it to be perfect for you. And me, too. But mostly for you. Because, I mean... you know we'll only ever have the one chance."
She shivered. "W-why?"
"You know why," he said quietly. "It's why we found each other. What we both want more than anything."
Her heart sped up like a piston.
"When we meet, sweetheart, I _will_ kill you."
A shudder ran through every inch of Lily's body, from her tailbase to her ears. Her heart wasn't just beating now, it was thudding powerfully. Intense emotions swallowed her: desire, lust, love, and yes, fear. The way he'd *said* it! 'I will kill you', with such emphasis on the WILL! Like it was _destined_ to happen! Like there was no way it could possibly be avoided! Like she was helpless to stop him, or to even think about stopping him!
"Lily?"
"S-s-sorry. I..." Her cheeks felt red as two little skillets. "That was the hottest thing I've ever heard in my whole life! I'm kinda surprised I didn't cum right in my pants!"
A whoosh of breath made the tiny earphone crackle. "Whew! I'm relieved then. I thought I might have gone too far."
"I *like* it when you go too far!" she said, giggling.
"That's good to hear. And you know, I didn't mean that in any other way except I know it's your fantasy. I thought there was a good chance you'd react exactly the way you did. I only want to make you happy, Lily."
She felt a tear at the corner of her eye. "I know..."
She reached up to wipe her nose on her sleeve and caught a glance at her watch. "JESUS!!"
"What!? What!?"
"Oh crap! I just noticed the time! I should have been home an hour ago! My mom's gonna kill me! ...And not in the sexy way!"
"Ha ha ha. I'm sorry I kept you on so long then."
"No! Don't be sorry! Any punishment in the world is worth it! I'm freezing my toenails off and I still wish I could stay out here and talk to you some more!"
"There's always tomorrow."
"Nope. I got a biology test to study for tomorrow."
"Soon, then."
"Soon," she agreed. "We can still chat on the computer though, right?"
"I'll be on after dinner, like usual."
"Okay, see you then."
"See you too. I love you, sweetheart. I really, really do."
Her voice cracked for a second. It struck her out of the blue, and quite forcefully, that she literally could not remember if she'd ever heard the words 'I love you' from either of her parents.
In that moment, if he had told her his address, Lily would have walked a hundred miles through snow and cold to be with him.
"I love you too," she whispered.
She pressed a button. The phone beeped once and turned off.
~~~~~
PART FIVE
~~~~~
The worst Christmas of Lily's life came and went.
For the whole week leading up to the holiday, Lily's home life was quiet. Her parents didn't magically become new people and apologize for all the thousands of horrible, hurtful things they'd said to her over the years, but at least they seemed to mellow a bit. Mom and Dad only insulted her a few times during that week. Mostly the house was silent, which was as close to paradise as Lily could hope for.
Then the morning of the 25th finally arrived. Lily emerged from her room in pajamas and the first thing she noticed was was a square of bright metallic red from down the hallway. As she drew closer, she realized it was an even bigger box than the computer had come in, all wrapped up in shiny paper and topped with an emerald bow. What could it possibly be? A TV? A video game system? Waiting on the couch for her parents to wake up was nail-bitingly torturous. Eventually, she turned on some cartoons to pass the time.
When Mom and Dad finally made an entrance, Lily gave them her presents first. And while they 'Ooh'ed and 'Aah'ed over them quite a bit and seemed to really enjoy them (Lily always did her best to buy gifts she was sure they'd like), she noticed, just like every year, that they never said anything even close to 'thank you'.
Finally Dad said, "Why don't you open your present now?"
Lily had been a coiled spring up until that moment. She lunged for the box and prepared to heft it into her lap and tear it open.
But to her astonishment, as soon as she got a good grip and lifted, the box flew up in the air. It was empty!
'No, It can't be. They wouldn't be THAT mean...' she thought. It probably just meant the size of the box was meant to fool her and there was something small inside. Maybe jewelry? Lily tore off the wrapping and upended the box. A piece of paper wafted out. Lily picked it up and read it.
"Well?" Mom asked eagerly. "How do you like it?"
Confusion. Shock. Disbelief. What Lily was reading was a letter describing how her parents had made a $300 dollar donation to charity in her name. This couldn't be her present. It couldn't be.
Dad sat back, looking smug. "This year, we thought you'd gotten a bit too old for traditional presents. We think you're mature enough to appreciate a gift like this. Instead of buying you silly toys or electronic gizmos, we gave the money we would have spent to fight poverty in Africa."
"Isn't that wonderful?" Mom gushed.
Crushed, Lily looked up into her parents' eyes. Hoping they were kidding. And if they weren't, hoping at least that they were sincere about this. To her horror, she saw The Glint. The little sparkle in their eyes they got when they were playing a mind game on her. They'd really done it. They'd really sent three hundred bucks to another continent. Not because they cared about poor people there, but to make their daughter squirm. She knew that if she dared complain in the slightest, they would harangue her for *hours* about how selfish she was and how she couldn't put aside her petty material wants to help others, or some other such bullshit. It felt like her brain was full of worms to realize that her parents would actually go This Far just to fuck with her. She'd never been more aware in her life of how truly crazy they were. She couldn't take her eyes off them. They were staring at her too, almost grinning in anticipation, waiting for her to say something about the gift.
"Uh... Wow. I'm blown away. That was really thoughtful of you. Thanks." She even managed to put on a fairly convincing fake smile.
From their expressions, she could tell they were a little disappointed she hadn't taken the bait. But then they looked at each other, looked back at her, and smiled. Not a warm, familial smile; a cruel broken-glass grin that meant, 'You may have passed the first hurdle, but we know you'll never make it through the whole day.'
And they tried. All day long, they tried to get her to crack. While an outside observer would have seen nothing more than a happy family engaging in traditional Christmasy activities, inside Lily's mind she was fighting a war. Her parents constantly reminded her of their 'gift'. Saying things like, "We knew you really wanted that DVD, but you don't really *need* it, now do you?" and "We knew you'd be *so* much happier this way." and "Isn't it *nice* how you don't have to worry about more things cluttering up your room?" That last one nearly made Lily snap. They knew damn well her room was neat, tidy and downright barren compared to other kids her age. But she couldn't crack. She couldn't let down her plastered-on smile or do anything other than cheerfully agree with everything they said. If she disagreed even once, they would seize on it and claim she'd 'spoiled the mood of our perfect holiday'. But as the day wore on, she wondered if a fight would really be worse than holding in all this fury for so long. She felt like the stress was causing tiny little rips in her skin from the inside. She felt like she was going to have a heart attack if this went on for much longer.
The only halfway decent part of the day was dinner. Mom had foregone her usual weird new-age gunk and gone more traditional. Most of the food was edible, and the sweet potatoes were actually pretty good. Lily enjoyed some perverse glee in not saying a word about them. She'd be damned if she ever complimented her mom's food even once!
After the meal, her parents seemed to gradually grow bored with their game. The three of them watched a holiday movie after the dishes were done and Mom and Dad only spoiled it a handful of times by making remarks about the gift. And most of those were ones they'd already tried earlier. Lily was lucky in one respect: her parents were cruel, but didn't have much stamina. If she could just manage to avoid their traps long enough, eventually they'd get tired of the whole business and forget about it. Of course, that only meant Lily had a day at best to rest up and prepare for the next assault.
Lily faked yawning enough times to convince them she really meant it when she said she couldn't finish the movie and wanted to go to bed early. They let her go, then snuggled up on the couch together.
'Geez... I hope you two are real happy with yourselves,' Lily thought disgustedly.
As she walked to her room and shut the door, she realized that, now that she finally had time to really think about it, she *was* glad to know those African furs were three hundred bucks richer. That was probably a lot of money to them. So at least some good had come out of her parents' latest shenanigans. She honestly had no idea if either of them had thought at all about the people they were giving money to, or if they'd just chosen a charity at random. Or maybe they chose it simply to rub it in that they'd given Lily's Christmas present money to some kids half a world away she'd never meet.
There was even the possibility the paper had been a fake; that they just printed it up and pocketed the money for themselves. As depraved as the idea was, Lily knew her parents well enough to know it was perfectly plausible.
She had worn her pajamas all day and didn't see any need to change them now, since she was just going to bed anyway. She glanced at the computer, thought about going online, then decided against it. She realized she was simply in too crappy of a mood right now. If Thanophile was available to chat, she'd probably just snap at him and ruin his holiday too. 'Let him be happy,' she thought. 'That'll be my gift to him. Not bumming him down with all my problems.'
Cuddling Sprinkle in her arm, she reached out and turned off the light. The room was covered in a blanket of blue-tinged blackness. She felt better in the dark. She felt alone, in a good way.
For a long time, Lily laid still and let her mind be blank. The slight chill in the room was soothing.
She thought back to a few days ago when she'd finally gotten up the courage to tell Thanophile about how she'd first discovered her fetish for death and funerals and coffins and stuff like that.
It had started months before she even knew who he was, maybe even a year. Like many nights, she'd gone to her bed crying after a fight. She had begun to reluctantly paw off to make herself feel better. She couldn't get into it though. Not for the first time, she wondered if her parents' abuse wasn't really all in her head. Was she just too sensitive? Was she misinterpreting everything they did and just imagining they were playing these sick games on her? What if she were crazy?
"I hate myself," she'd whispered almost inaudibly to Sprinkle. "I hate myself. I hate myself." She wanted it to stop. All the fights, all the stress, and especially not knowing whether she could trust her own perceptions. She wanted it all to end. "I wish I was dead," she told her plushie.
Those words sparked something in her. A strange feeling; equal parts revulsion and attraction.
She said it again. "I wish I was dead."
She began to pump her fingers faster in her cunny.
"I *do*..." she realized. "I wish I'd just die. I wish I was a corpse and they'd put me in a coffin and bury me."
She had no idea why these words were suddenly getting her so hot, but they were. She started thinking about her own death. Picturing her body. What she'd look like in a casket. What she'd look like at her funeral. Her cheeks were flushed and it felt like she couldn't possibly paw off fast enough.
When she'd told Thanophile about this, he'd asked at that point if she'd ever been to a funeral or had a traumatic experience regarding one. Lily had thought a bit. She said she had been to her Grandma's funeral, but it was mostly boring. She'd only met Grandma twice when she was alive and, while she was sorry the woman had died, she hadn't really felt much one way or another during the ceremony. But she did remember a movie she'd watched when she was little. It was a grown-up movie. She'd only been watching it because she was playing with Lego blocks on the floor when Mommy and Daddy came in and put the tape in. There was a vixen lady in the movie that Lily thought was very beautiful. She liked the character a lot. But near the end, the vixen lady died and the next scene showed her funeral. Lily was torn between feeling heartbroken and thinking that the vixen looked even prettier lying in the coffin in her beautiful white dress. Thanophile had said that her having a memory like that didn't surprise him in the least.
Now, on Christmas, she thought about that night over a year ago. The first time she'd realized that wanting to be dead could be a positive thing. A sexy thing. She pictured herself finally meeting Thanophile. Holding him, hugging him. Cuddling and yiffing with him. Him touching her all over and not caring how she looked. She imagined him taking her life, turning her into a silent squirrel shell. Like a statue. She wouldn't be able to move or talk or stop him from doing anything he wanted with her.
She pictured him yiffing her lifeless corpse. Running his fingers through her hair. Kissing her passionately. Touching her flesh and getting no response. Her single paw wasn't enough anymore, so she brought in the other to finish the job. Her pajamas were getting soaked. She was crushing Sprinkle nearly flat from holding her so tight.
She imagined Thanophile doing all sorts of nasty, bad, exciting things to her body. Screwing her and then shooting his cream all over her face. Peeing on her. Maybe even doing taxidermy on her! Yes! That thought sent her pleasure through the roof! She could perfectly picture him cutting her open, taking out all her insides (Maybe even making stew out of them!), popping out her eyes, filling her with foam or stuffing or whatever it was they used. Then she'd be nothing but a doll. A big toy for him to use whenever he felt like. She'd spend forever lying perfectly motionless on his bed, waiting for him to come home and use her however he liked. Waiting for him to hold her, their fur rustling together, his cock dripping and hard, putting it inside her...
Lily's mouth came open in a silent moan. Her orgasm was so forceful her whole body spasmed several times, bucking like a flopping fish. Afterwards, she took in deep, long breaths through her mouth to try and slow her maddeningly fast-beating heart.
The images still swam in her mind: Him meeting her, snuffing her, then loving her forever...
The experience was so intense she fell asleep only a few minutes later, out of sheer exhaustion.
~~~~~
PART SIX
~~~~~
Long bus rides, Lily discovered, were not as boring as she'd foreseen.
Even on lengthy stretches of freeway, there was always something to look at. Strangely-shaped buildings, exotic cars, small patches of woods. It was an interesting feeling, seeing cities and houses she knew she'd never see again. Just one little glimpse, just for a second, and that was it for her whole life.
Not that her life was going to last much longer, she knew.
Lily had finally grown tired of waiting. She had told Thanophile during their fourth phone conversation that if they didn't meet face to face soon, she was going to leap off a cliff. Not literally, of course. Lily wanted her death to be much nicer than just 'AhhhhhhhSPLAT'. But she made sure Thanophile understood her; she could not spend much longer in her parents' house and stay sane.
Far from the resistance she expected, he agreed with her completely that they'd waited long enough. He told her how sorry he was he couldn't simply wave a wand and whisk her away from her monster mother and father right then and there. He said if she could just be patient for a few weeks more, he would do his best to get his surprise ready as quickly as possible. Lily agreed. They both said 'I love you' and hung up.
The young squirrel pestered him relentlessly from then on, whether in emails or chatrooms. It got to be a running gag between them. He'd even remind her to if she forgot. But eventually, three weeks and two days later, he said he was ready. Lily's heart soared to the stars.
He told her he had some very explicit instructions for how they should handle their meeting. He made Lily promise to do exactly what he said, exactly how he said it, and to take this 100% seriously. That was a little hard though, since all she could concentrate on were the things they were going to do once they were finally together.
Thanophile told her that the next day he was going to mail her a letter containing a one-way bus ticket to a neutral location equidistant between their homes. It would be a public place; a hamburger restaurant just outside the bus stop. That way, if she changed her mind, she could either melt into the crowd and back out quietly, or yell for help if she felt she had to.
Lily asked him why he thought they needed all these precautions. She knew she wasn't going to change her mind.
"You might," he typed back. "Doing things in real life is a lot different than doing them online. You might realize at the last minute that this is all really happening and that you don't want to die for real. And if you do, I want you to know you can call it off at any time. I Want You To Feel Safe," he said, adding extra capitals for emphasis. "My safety is absolutely second to yours. No, it's not even that important. It's maybe fifth down the list. Probably less. I'm a grown man and you're a young girl. If I didn't make it absolutely clear to you that YOU'RE the one in control here, I'd be no better than those slimeballs on the news who abduct and rape little kids."
It was almost impossible for Lily to process. That he would care enough about her to basically give control of his life to her. To hand her the ability to have him thrown in jail for the rest of his life.
"But I don't *want* to be in control!" she wrote back fervently. "I want to be a little scared, and feel helpless, and know you're gonna do all sortsa weird stuff to me."
He typed out a smiley face. "Sweetheart, there's play control and then there's real control. When we're together, we both pretend I'm the one in control, but it's really you. That's how I want it, Lily. That's why they call it roleplay: we're only acting. For fun. For our mutual enjoyment. I like it when you pretend to be scared of me, but I like it much more knowing we really trust each other. Understand?"
Calmer now and thinking clearer, Lily replied: "Yes."
So now she was on a big shiny silver bus, travelling farther away from her home than she'd ever been before. She'd left so early in the morning it was still dark out as she walked to the station. She'd been too excited to get much sleep, and had subsequently dozed through the first several miles of her journey. The last stop had been a little over an hour ago. There had been food at the bus stop, but she only bought a little pack of cheese crackers from a vending machine. She wanted to save her appetite for when she got to the burger place. She wanted to sit with Thanophile and eat a big meal and talk for a long time.
To keep Lily's parents from alerting the cops, the media and whoever else they could blab to about their daughter going missing, Thanophile had concocted another scheme. He said that a half-truth is usually a better deception than silence or a lie, since it made it harder to tell what part was made-up and what part was real. He'd instructed Lily to write out a typically-teenage angst letter about how she'd found a boyfriend and was going to run off and live with him forever. Lily caught on; if her parents thought she was canoodling with some boy, they'd focus on tracking down a kid in the neighborhood. A schoolmate. They'd be less likely to guess he was thirty-two and two states away.
Before she left, Thanophile also instructed her to erase her hard drive. He said the last thing he wanted was for the police to check her computer after she turned up dead and find any links to him. The thought of heavy boots kicking in his door and heavy clubs bouncing off his skull (not to mention prison rape), was a constant worry for him. Lily understood perfectly. Yet she just couldn't bring herself to erase all her data permanently. She had so much stuff she'd worked so hard to find and download in the two years she'd owned the computer. Plus there were a pawful of stories and poems she'd written that, while embarrassingly bad, she still didn't want to vanish completely. So, she compromised. The day before she left, she neatly backed up everything on a DVD-R (her downloading habits focused mostly on quality, not quantity, and most of the space went to mp3s), intending to hand the disc to Thanophile in furson. After she was done, she used a program he'd given her a link to that scrubbed her CPU clean and made every last trace of data unretrievable. The process actually turned Lily on a little. All her stories and downloads were being erased. Gone forever. It was like a funeral for her computer.
Lily checked her watch. Assuming they were on schedule, it would be only another hour or so before they reached her destination. By now the sun was up and shining bright enough to make her shield her eyes when she looked out the window. She couldn't believe what time it was. Even though she'd gotten up super-duper-early, it was amazing how quickly she'd crossed a hundred miles and how much of the day was left. She and Thanophile would be able to share a lengthy lunch and still have plenty of time together!
The last hour of her trip seemed to take twice as long as all the others combined. Lily peeked out the window every few seconds, trying to *will* the bus to go faster. They had left her home city behind, passed a few suburbs, gone through a long, flat area with nothing much beyond houses and little stores, and now the buildings were getting tall again. They were cruising through a bustling metropolitan area. Lily watched street signs carefully. Her stop wasn't one of the major ones, so she didn't know if the driver would even notice it or not. It was up to her to keep an eye out.
And finally, there it was! All the street signs finally lined up. She could *see* the burger place down the street!
She hustled to the front of the bus. "Mr. Driver? Mr. Driver? My stop's coming up!"
He chucked at her nervousness. "Hakuna matata, kid. I know. I'll be pickin' up two more there, so you can be sure I'll stop."
Lily nodded politely. She considered going back to her seat, but they were only a few blocks away now and it wasn't like she had any luggage she needed to go back for. All she was carrying was the DVD-R in her pocket.
With a 'psssssht' of air brakes, the big metal bullet came to a halt. Lily nearly smacked into the doors in her exuberance to get through them and finally meet her internet beau. She tossed a quick "G'bye!" to the driver and scooted out into the sunlight. She watched the bus roll away and thought about how good it felt to finally stand up after such a long time sitting. The air was crisp and her breath made icy flowers in it.
Wow! It felt so interesting to be in a completely new city! She didn't know anyone here and had no idea where she was. How exciting! She felt both apprehensive and free, like at any moment she might slip and fly right off into space like a balloon.
Lily went inside the burger place. Not surprisingly, it looked just like the ones back in her hometown. Same colors, same tile. They were probably all built from the same blueprints. She looked around at all the customers. Thanophile had told her what to look for: a guy sitting alone in a green jacket. He hadn't even told her his species (which he said was only because he wanted to remain as anonymous as possible online, just in case). Lily didn't see anyone in a green jacket, much less a guy sitting alone in one. She shrugged though. He'd also told her he might be late. Lily stood in line and tried to decide what to order. Considering he'd be taking care of her for the next few days, she thought it was only fair she should buy her own lunch.
After getting some ketchup and napkins, Lily sat down with her bacon cheeseburger and fries in a booth that faced the entrance so he'd see her right away when he walked in. She slurped her cola. She decided to wait a few minutes on the food, hoping he'd show up soon and they could start eating together.
Lily glanced at her watch. She'd been here seven minutes so far.
After ten minutes, she unwrapped her burger and took a bite. It was okay. Kinda bland. The fries were better.
At fifteen minutes, she was still unconcerned.
At twenty, she began to worry.
In one pocket was her backup disk, in the other was the letter he'd sent. In it she'd found not one, but two bus tickets. The note inside told her to wait in the restaurant exactly one hour. If he hadn't shown up by then, it meant something had gone very wrong, and that she should get out of there immediately and get back on the bus. The note didn't go into any more detail, but she understood why he was behaving so much like they were in a spy movie. She watched the news. She knew the cops were crawling all over the internet, waiting to snare pedophiles who tried to meet up with little girls. Much as she hated waiting, she knew they had to be careful about this so Thanophile wouldn't get caught and sent to jail.
Thirty minutes.
Real fear was starting to set in. Fifteen minutes late was no big deal. But half an hour? That was another story. She hoped it was just a traffic jam.
Forty-five minutes. Her burger and fries were long gone now. She'd even licked some of the ketchup off her fingers. Her drink was also nothing but ice, so she got up to get a refill.
Fifty minutes. Thanophile had ten minutes to get his ass here or else he'd have one very pissed-off and scared-shitless little squirrel on his hands!
At fifty-five minutes, Lily gave up. There was no way he was gonna suddenly waltz in at the last second. Something _had_ gone wrong. Maybe the cops really had found out. Maybe Thanophile was cuffed in a cell right now, or being fingerprinted.
'Or maybe he just stood you up,' a voice inside her head remarked snidely.
'No!' she protested. 'He wouldn't! We've been talking together for months! He said he loves me. He wouldn't do that to me...'
But would he?
She watched the news. There were stories all the time about how meeting someone you met online was the worst idea ever. They said there was no way to know who was really on the other side of the screen. The furson you thought you knew could turn out to be someone playing a mean trick on you, or a con artist. Or a rapist.
"No..." she said, quietly enough so that no one else in the busy restaurant heard her. No one noticed a little squirrel girl put her head down in her folded arms to hide that she was crying.
She looked at her watch. She'd been here for an hour and three minutes.
Lily hastily dried her tears. She got up and took her tray over to the garbage cans. She patted her pockets, making sure she still had the ticket, and headed outside. Back to the bus station.
~~~~~
PART SEVEN
~~~~~
A stranger walking by that particular bus stop on that particular afternoon would have seen this:
A twelve-year-old squirrel with copper-brown fur and raspberry-colored hair so dark it was nearly black. She wore round wire-frame glasses, a turquoise T-shirt, navy blue sweatpants and a warm-grey fleece hoodie, open in the front. In each ear were two round gold stud earrings. Her tail was as bushy as one would expect a squirrel's to be, but with a narrow strip of dark brown running down the length of it. She also had two dark strips over her cheeks, and her fur lightened to pale greyish-brown on her muzzle, throat and tummy. A bit of which was peeking out from the hem of her untucked shirt, since the girl was a bit pudgy for her age. Short, too.
At first glance, she looked like a nerd. At second glance, she looked so far beyond heartbroken that the word was no longer sufficient to describe her.
Lily sat on the metal bench and felt hot tears rolling down her cold cheeks. It was almost freezing out here, but she hadn't zipped up her jacket when she left the restaurant. She didn't care that she was cold. She didn't care if she froze to death out here.
A man with a newspaper walked up and sat down beside her. Lily didn't notice him at first. "Hey little girl... why so sad?"
She sniffled. "I was sposto meet someone. But he didn't show up."
"Gosh, that's terrible," he said with genuine concern. "I know if *I* had an appointment to kill a little girl as cute as you, I'd make sure I was on time."
Lily's heart skipped a beat.
She looked to the side: Green jacket sleeve.
She looked up: A big, warm, gentle smile pointed right at her.
He was nothing like she'd pictured him. She thought the author of such ghoulishly erotic tales would have black spiky hair, or wear clothes like a movie villain, or have a mysterious, sinister air about him. Instead, she was looking at a somewhat-handsome raccoon with a broad face, typical dark mask around his eyes, messy hair, tall, and a little bit fat, just like her.
He looked _normal_.
But in his eyes and his smile, she saw the soul she'd come to love so much in the past few months.
"...It's you."
He nodded. "Sorry I made you wait so long, sweetheart."
Without a word more, she hugged him. She flung herself onto him so forcefully he dropped the newspaper and pages spilled out all over the frosted ground. Lily's smile was as bright and wide as the sun itself. She squeezed Thanophile tight, hearing their jacket fabric rub together, feeling his cheekfur rustling her hair. She had never been so happy in her entire life.
Abruptly, she sat up and punched him in the forearm.
He chuckled and rubbed the spot. "Heh heh. I guess I deserved that for scaring you so bad."
"WHYYY did you do that!?" she growled.
He held up his paws in a gesture of surrender. "Strictly ass-covering! I mean, privacy's pretty much impossible any more, especially on the internet. I _knew_ you weren't some sheriff posing as a little girl, but I figured just in case anyone was listening in our conversations, I'd better give myself a way out. I watched you while you were in the restaurant and I kept an eye out for anything that even *smelled* like cop. When you came back out without anyone walking up to you or trying to lead you away, I knew we were in the clear."
Lily got it now. "Oh, so that's why you told me to wait an hour in the *letter* and not online."
"Yep," he said. "I'm not eager to get arrested, y'know. In case you've forgotten, what we're doing right now is really, really, really illegal. I'm not even sure there's *words* for how illegal this is!"
She giggled. "Sure there's words! Kidnapping, statutory rape, murrrrrr-der..." she said, drawing the word out flirtatiously.
"Cut that out!" He slapped a paw over her mouth to comically shush her. She giggled some more. He leaned in close to nuzzle her ear. "Although, that *is* exactly what I was planning..." he purred.
Lily squealed gleefully.
Thanophile paused, then pulled back and took a few seconds just to look at her. "You know something?"
"What?"
"You're even more beautiful than I ever expected."
A shudder ran through Lily's whole body. "You can't really mean that..."
"I do!" he insisted immediately. "You've got beautiful fur, and your glasses are adorably adorable!"
She was blushing red as a fire engine. She looked down at the ground and, finally realizing her shirt had ridden up in front, hastily pulled it down over her belly.
Seeing her embarrassment, Thanophile reached out to pat her round tummy. "And I think a little bit of pudge just makes you cuter and more huggable. Really."
Lily opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't think of a single thing to say. So she hugged him again. She had never expected this. In her mind, she'd always envisioned that during their first meeting, he'd have to wince and make up stuff to get over how ugly she looked. But none of that had happened. As far as she could tell, he was being totally sincere.
Lily had wondered for a long time (but never allowed herself to really believe) if the only reason she thought she was so fat and ugly was because her mother and father constantly told her so. Now, for the first time, she'd just gotten solid evidence of that theory.
Taking her paw in his, Thanophile stood up. "C'mon, I parked my car just a few blocks from here. My apartment's about five minutes away."
Lily's head snapped up. She blinked in confusion. "But... I thought you said you lived another hundred miles from here!"
He gave her a boyish grin. "Sorry; I lied again. Believe me, I've been planning for months how to keep the fuzz off my tail during our meeting."
"You're so tricky!" she said with a laugh.
He nodded proudly. "Besides, I thought it'd be a relief for you not to have to go on another excruciatingly long ride."
She laughed. "That's for sure! My butt went numb after a while!"
"Maybe I should spank it to wake it up?" he suggested.
Giggling freely, her heart as light as a feather, Lily followed Thanophile back to his car.
~~~~~
Two blocks away, a charming powder-blue two-door was parked in front of an office supply company. It had big, wide headlights like frog eyes that Lily liked immediately. The car looked like it had been bought in the nineties and well-loved ever since.
Thanophile unlocked her door first. "Hop in. Let's get out of this cold." She did, then fastened her seatbelt without thinking. Which, she realized, was kind of odd considering the whole point of this trip was for her to die.
Thanophile got in and started the engine. "No bags? I expected at least a backpack or a suitcase."
"I'm not really gonna need anything," Lily replied reasonably. "I'll only be alive a few more days."
He chuckled, and fidgeted in his seat in such a way that implied his pants suddenly felt tighter. "I love how you're so casual about it."
Lily beamed. She loved knowing she was making him excited!
Thanophile reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of thick-framed specs and put them on.
"You wear glasses too!?" Lily gasped.
"Mm-hmm. Just for driving, mostly. My near vision's perfect but my far vision's crapola."
"I think you look _really_ handsome in them," Lily said. "Very author-y."
He laughed out loud, grateful for such a unique compliment. "Thanks!" Thanophile pulled out into traffic. "And getting back to luggage for a second, I at least expected you to bring your plushie fox, the one you told me so much about. Was it Sprinkle, or am I misremembering?"
At that, Lily perked up and her smile widened considerably. "Yes! Her name's Sprinkle, and I'm glad you reminded me of her!"
"Why's that?" He hung a left.
Lily grinned at the happy memory. "Because I gave her a funeral last night!"
Thanophile smiled. "Really? Tell me all about it!"
The squirlette was only too happy to. "Okay. See, last night before bed, after I'd erased the hard drive... Oh, before I forget..." She reached in her pocket for the DVD-R. "Here. It's a backup I made. The hard drive's nuked just like you told me, but I wanted you to have a copy of all the stuff on it. Like, to remember me by."
He tussled her hair. "That's sweet, and very thoughtful. But you'd better keep it until I'm finished driving. My hands are kinda busy."
"Oh!" She blushed. "Sorry!"
"No prob. You were telling me about your fox, hm?"
"Right! So, um, I was _really_ excited last night and I tried to fall asleep for a long time and it just wasn't working. I tried telling Sprinkle about it, but that just made me MORE excited. Then I thought of something; once I was gone, what would happen to her? I didn't want my parents to just throw her away. So I decided to give her a special send-off. I snuck downstairs to the basement and got a shoe box. I was hoping we'd have some pretty flowers or something like that, but all I could find was a bunch of Easter grass, y'know, the plastic stuff?"
Thanophile nodded. "The stuff that gets all over the house."
"Exactly! I took everything outside to the big lilac bush by the fence. The flowers were all dead by now, but I thought it'd be a nice place for her in Spring. She'd be surrounded by that nice smell. I put her in the box on top of the Easter grass. I used the garden spade to dig a hole, which took me a long time since the ground was so hard. I was sure my mom and dad were gonna find out somehow. Plus, I was freezing cold, so I wanted to get it over with as fast as possible anyway. I wished there were still some dandelions I could have put in the box with Sprinkle, something pretty at least. But all there was was snow.
"So, I gave her a last kiss and told her that she was a good plushie and she'd always be my favorite and that I'd always love her. Then I put the lid on the box, put her in her grave, and filled in the hole while I sang a lullaby to her."
Thanophile waited a few seconds until they were stopped at a light, then leaned over and patted her paw. "That has to be the most adorable thing I've ever heard."
Lily grinned. "Thanks!"
"By the way, what was the cause of death?"
"Huh?"
"You gave Sprinkle a funeral. What did she die of?"
Lily froze for a second. "...I never thought of that!"
Thanophile pretended to be shocked. "You mean you buried that poor little foxie alive?"
Lily shrugged. "Well, if she's anything like me, I'm sure she enjoyed it!" They both chuckled. Lily thought a bit, then nodded. "No, I'm _sure_ she was happy about it. I just felt it inside, in my heart. I miss her already, but I also feel really good knowing she's safe and cozy in her little box under the ground. Makes me kinda yiffy, too. I really hope my own funeral will be as nice."
He had to look back at the road when the light turned, but he still made her heart flutter when he said, "I'll make sure of it, sweetheart."
~~~~~
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