Blizzard (WiP)

	The triple-tone of an announcement brought Ren’s attention up from the art board he was sketching on. Such tones were not uncommon, heralding an announcement for the next stop, but those were usually a two tone warble, high then low. Not three equal tones at an unusually high volume. The passenger seated next to him also looked up, black ears twitching toward the speaker as bad news poured forth.
	“We’re sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but due to a weather related incident on the east-bound line, Jonesburgh is going to be our final westbound stop for the evening. After Jonesburgh we’re going to be switching to the eastbound track and returning to the city.” As the announcement played in a different language Renard heard the passenger next to him groan.
	“Ahh, fuck.” She muttered, ears going back and tail twitching where it rested along Ren’s side and leg.
	Mobile ears, you think, and a tail? So, let’s be clear. Ren’s seat mate wasn’t exactly human, despite looking the part. She stood on two legs, much as he did as a bog-standard normal human, and she had two arms just as he had. But that’s where the similarities really began to diverge. Where he had, for the most part, naked skin she had fur, black and white. He lacked a tail, but hers was a voluminous thing more than a meter long and half that wide, though almost entirely fur but for a slim core. Her face lacked the sharply defined nose and square chin, instead being an angular, chiseled taper replete with black fur, a host of very long whiskers, glistening black nose pad, and predatory teeth where his were square and unremarkable. Atop her head, higher than Ren wore his own, she had rounded ears that were very mobile and, at the moment, were folded flat back into the thick ruff of fur that one could call a facsimile for hair. It wasn’t, however, since it was the same type of fur that covered the rest of her.
	To condense that long winded paragraph down, the lady seated next to him was a skunk. A one hundred seventy two-ish centimeters tall discounting ears, bipedal, clothes-wearing, language speaking skunk. Yet she didn’t stink but that, you see, was only half of her problem.
	Only half, mind you, but we’ll get back to that a little bit later, when we slide into the flashback. Or backstory. Or simply dross, if you wish. But still important to the story.
	Of course there were plenty of humans around but she was not the only very-not-human humanoid in the metro cabin, mind you. There were more than a few; a brooding male brindled wolf sat across from them, staring up at the next station marquee scrolling along the info panel above. Further down was a deer, three canines of mixed types, and a horse at the very far end also muttering imprecations at the unexpected ruination of their evening.
	And, truth be told, the remainder of their entire week.
	But Ren did not know their names. He knew the skunk’s.
	And, as I warned you; flashback incoming.
	And here it is, arriving at its destination unlike the remaining stations on the metro rail.
	It had taken Ren over two weeks to pick up the courage to speak to her, the skunk, seated pretty much alone with an entire bench for herself and her voluminous tail. She was older than him, though he would not find out until much later that she would turn thirty before the storm that begets this story. Ren was just into his twenty sixth year. By unspoken agreement no one else dared sit next to her because, well, she was a skunk. They had that reputation.
	Ren didn’t care. He wasn’t anything to write home about, as far as females seemed to consider and males often didn’t care. He topped out at a paltry hundred sixty centimeters and just shy of seventy six kilos. No ripped biceps or sixpack abs, but no flab, either. His job didn’t lend to requiring, or establishing, a honed physique and he wasn’t about to put himself through such a regimen. He had enough mixed blood so he wasn’t pasty white in the winter, but his normal tan never darkened in summer. Where her fur was a strikingly handsome black and white his hair was lost somewhere in the middle of that awkward triumvirate of blond, brown, and ginger. Too dark to be strawberry blond, too light to be anything else. She didn’t seem to see anything more in him than most ladies, taking him in with a quick assessment and moving on. She acknowledged him by a glance at his presence each time he arrived, but that was the extent of it.
	No matter how crowded it got, she always had space. So he took to sitting there because, well, he wasn’t put off by the reputation of skunks. Since he hadn’t smelled her at all over the typical musks of dog, cat, horse, and any of a dozen other beastkin species, not to mention human body odor, on the metro she was hardly a problem for that. Only, she was a skunk; of any and all species the most shunned.
	So, for almost three weeks he settled himself in one of the unoccupied seats, careful to avoid actually sitting on her tail though he didn’t mind if it brushed his leg or shoulder. It was mostly black with two narrow bands of white along either side that faded before reaching the ebony end. She glanced up to acknowledge his presence but said nothing, returning to whatever book or work material she was perusing at the time.
	“Have you ever thought of modeling?” He asked after those many interminable weeks, choosing perhaps one of the worst come-on lines anyone could imagine being addressed to a skunk.
	She continued to stare at whatever she was engrossed in but the twitch of her ears and the momentary, rather monumental, bushing of her tail told him he had been heard. After a moment she reached up one hand to pull down the half-lens reading glasses perched on her tapered muzzle and turned her gaze on him.
	And laughed.
	It wasn’t a merry laugh, either. It was one of those ‘oh, fucking hell, what has been dumped in my lap now’ kind of laughs. As if someone, anyone, had the gall to use that line on her, a skunk!
	“What?” She asked, eyes so dark they seemed black but for that just-right trick of the light that revealed them to be the deepest of blues imaginable.
	“Modeling.” Ren continued doggedly. “Seriously, you’d be perfect.”
	Another oh-fuck-my-life laugh. “Modeling for what, mugger-be-gone or Lyson scent blocker?” She fairly growled. It was a higher pitch sound than a canine might make, but a little deeper than a feline’s, but unmistakably a growl nevertheless.
	Ren, chagrinned, shook his head. “No. For clothes. Not runway, the changes would play hell with your fur, but photo modeling clothes. Real clothes, not softcore porn masquerading as underwear. You fit your suits amazingly well.” And, of course, she did. They were pretty standard off the rack business womens’ attire, fashioned for the beastkin set of course. Usually a blouse and skirt with some sort of half-blazer that came just below her ribs that defined the curves of her breasts without thrusting them in the observer’s face. Seldom a coat unless it was raining or it got truly, utterly, miserably cold.
	With her fur it took a truly frigid snap to get her into winter clothing.
	“And you’re a photographer, then? Looking for an easy score, eh?” She quipped, nudging her reading glasses back into place and returning to her work. “I may be a lady, bud, and a skunk, but I’m not that shallow.”
	“No, no.” Ren shook his head again. “I’m not a photographer. At least, not any more. I work for a comic and graphic novel publisher these days. I was just saying; you could.”
	One rounded black ear flicked at him, the fur lining it white, but at least her tail relaxed from its prodigious bush. “I’m a skunk.” She groused without looking up. “Skunks don’t model.” She paused, raising her head slightly to glance at him out of one impossibly dark blue eye, the light not cooperating and keeping it black. “Not interested in what you’re trying to sell, bud.”
	“Ren.” He said, offering a hand. Her gaze dipped to it and back up, she did not return the offer. “Selling nothing.”
	“Charlie.” She looked back to her work.
	And so it went, for another month. He would show up, she was always on the train before him and there when he left, sit down and say, “G’morning Charlie.” or “Evening, Charlie.” Sometimes she would offer him a grunt without looking from her work, or the nothing she was fixated on at the time. Sometimes she’d offer a “Hey, Ren.” But nothing further. Sometimes she seemed even further withdrawn, not even acknowledging him as he stared at her hands or the tail held in her lap.
	But she always looked good. It went beyond the dress, which she carried off splendidly, it was her entire physique, something that few heavily furred species like skunks could do, or Akitas. Or, gods forbid, Pomeranians. They just had too damn much fur to do anything but make whatever they were wearing look like a sock pulled over an oversized lint ball. Charlie could, and it stymied him how. But it caught his eye, and it didn’t catch anyone else’s.
	One day when he got into his customary tram carriage and sat down in his customary spot beside her, bereft of the evening rush-hour crowd heading home, he saw that she was an emotional wreck somewhere between a violent outburst or hysterical tears. Sitting down he hazarded a dangerous move toward any female, anywhere; he reached out to lightly touch her shoulder.
	Oh, woah, red alert! Red alert, call the cops! A male touched a female, in public! Danger, Will Robinson, DANGER! Even if it was just the shoulder.
	“Hey, Charlie, you okay?” He asked as he leaned close, his hand resting ever so lightly on the squared shoulder of her blazer. He had to squeeze, just slightly, before her eyes unfocused from the middle distance to look at her hands clutching the crazy, fluffed ruin of her tail.
	“Yeah.” She managed to rasp, then coughed and choked back whatever was trying to boil up; roar of rage at his familiarity, a cry of anguish, or simply a generalized snarl at or about whatever had left her in such a state. “No.” Her head shook.
	“Charlie, hon, what happened?” He had asked earnestly.
	“Fucking associate called me a stinker.” Not unusual that, just one of those epithets thrown at more musky beastkin, even by other beastkin. Skunks, civets, mink, foxes; at some time or another all of them get tagged ‘stinker’ just because of their often potent musks. Some lineages had eliminated those odors, others had not. It all went back to how long their ancestors had ‘come from the wilds’; those being the closest to the primordial stock they manifested as (not ‘from’... long story).
	Aghast, Ren recoiled. “Oh, damn. Why? I mean, you don’t. Like, not at all.” Truth be told she did have a musk, and it was definitely skunkish, but it was so very faint it was more like a hint. That ‘there’s a skunk half a mile upwind’ sort of musk, just enough to tease the senses but nothing more… and that while sitting close enough to rub shoulders.
	“Fucking human.” She snarled toward her hands, not moving to dip her shoulder out from under his hand. “Said ‘yo, stinker, go get me a ream of number 20 paper stock!’ like I was some fucking office intern.” Slowly her head came up and she gave him a myopic glare. “And that wasn’t the worst of it. No-fucking-body called him on it. No one! Not even his floor boss who was standing in his office door not twenty feet away. Most of ‘em just laughed.”
	“Any witnesses you could call on, corroborate a complaint with employee resources?”
	She shook her head. “No one cares about the stinker in her corner.” She held up her phone, glared at the blank screen, and shook it once. “Not even the other fucking stinkers when they find out.”
	“I care.” Hazarding another ‘call the police moment, a male’s being consoling with touch!’ move he reached across, rested his hand on her off shoulder, and gently eased her closer. At first she resisted, then slumped against him, still staring at her blank phone. “Find out what? Someone called you a… a, well, something you’re not?”
	She snorted, shook her head ruefully, and sat up a little, putting some distance between them. He didn’t try to hold her in place, removing his arm to rest both elbows on his knees. “No. Dates. Other skunks. Hell fuck, males at all. Whoop, whoop, run away! One word and they ghost better than the gods after Awakening.” She pantomimed an explosion with her fingers. “Poof.”
	Confused, Ren could only frown. “I’m confused here. What word? Stinker?”
	“Nuh uh.” She shook her head slowly, looking up through her brows at those nearby but the crowd was too thick, and too loud, to hear their relatively quiet conversation. “Intersex.”
	Ren’s brows shot up, that was a new one on him. “Okay? What does that mean?” And here he was, a graphic novelist (i.e. comic book artist) who sees pretty much any and everything imaginable come across his desk in narrative, character dialogue, or art to proof.
	“Think about it, human.” She sighed, both hands cupping the phone but making no move to activate it.
	“Well, all I know is interspecies, or the like. Inter, latin; between, during, or to mix, having aspects of two or more species. A chimera.” He hazarded, swaying as the tram swept around a corner over that one bit of track everyone who rode the train daily knew to account for. Those who weren’t regulars stumbled or grabbed at rails to remain in their seats.
	“Exactly.” She nodded, still morose.
	“Okay.” The train was slowing for the first stop on the westbound express; Tathington. “How does that send… guys, I guess… running?”
	“Even other skunks.” She sighed and sat back, casting her dark eyes toward the roof of the carriage, ears back. “They see that one word in my profile, or I have to explain it, and poof, gone.” She turned her head to fix him with a dark eyed stare that, for the briefest moments as the sun glare reflected in through the smutty windows, flashed midnight blue. “Just like you will.”
	Ren blinked and shook his head, “Charlie, hon, you’ve lost me. How does that word have anything to do with what that asshole at work called you?”
	She chuffed, briefly closing her eyes with a long suffering sigh. “They’re not the same at all, Ren. The guy at work was one thing, an asshole I can’t do anything about. The word on my profile,” she held up the phone and waggeled it at him, “means my dates always crash and burn before even getting on the field.”
	By force of will Ren refrained from digging out his phone to figure out the word she was bemoaning. “One word?”
	“Just the one.”
	“Intersex.”
	“That’s the one.”
	“And it makes your dates flee.”
	“Every time, without fail.”
	“Why?”
	She half-laughed and shook her head. “You are some kind of dense, Ren, aren’t you. It means I’m not what you think I am.” Her hand brushed up toward her breasts and away, drawing his eyes down briefly before he raised them back up. Not that her breasts were anything to ignore, they were certainly pretty enough under blouse and blazer. A decent C, he would hazard; not too big, not too small; ‘just right’ as the intruder would say of the bears’ chairs.
	Then it dawned, or he thought it did. “Trans?” He had two in the office, both male-to-female. It sometimes made things awkward, because Alexis (once Peter) demanded everyone use the proper pronouns and name despite really not changing all that much. He still had his full beard and beefy arms, but the suits were replaced by dresses that ill suited his physique in any way. Stephanie was more subtle, he (she, now) could’ve passed easily for a female even before coming out and the office transition was relatively minor… except for her voice, which was still Steven’s.
	Luckily Ren only dealt with either of them during a new series storyboarding so it was easy to simply forget they existed save for the daily water cooler scuttlebutt.
	Charlie frowned, which pulled her long whiskers down, and shook her head. How odd it was that he could look at those whiskers and never question that their owner was female (well, the breasts and physique certainly helped) whereas Alexis’ facial shrubbery dashed all hope of proper pronoun association. “No, not trans.” She drew in a shaky breath as the metro slowed to a stop, opened the doors, and disgorged far more than trickled on. “Intersex. There are differences. Ever hear of fetal chimerism?”
	No, he had not. Another mouthful of words he would have to look up the moment he got off the train, before he even got to his vehicle. “No? I mean, clearly a prenatal condition. Something inherited or …” Like Down’s Syndrome or Spina Bifida he did not want to say, to avoid equating what she was beating around the bush about with birth defects.
	“Two fetuses, one womb. One absorbs the other. Like siamese twins, but… different.” She seemed to be collecting herself, climbing up out of whatever well she had fallen into in the discussion of at least some part of it. He could only nod, rapt, his attention fully focused now as the metro resumed its route. He only had two more stops to pry the story out and, hopefully, put her in better spirits. “The female half came out dominant, but did not fully absorb the second half, which is most common with fetal chimerism. Most often the twin is expressed as a difference in blood type from the genetic baseline, or some other minor internal alteration.”
	“But not with you?”
	She shook her head. “No.” Once more she swept a hand up her midriff, across her breasts, and away. “I got the upper half, he got the lower.”
	First one of his brows crept up, and then the other when he finally ‘got it’. “Oh.” He said flatly, then with more surprise as realization kicked in. “Oh!”
	“Yeah.” She said, watching his eyes as they darted about her face taking in ears, eyes, the white stripe along the bridge of her muzzle and across the ruffs of her cheeks, black nose pad, whiskers, throat, breasts, belly, waist, legs. “Yeah, he’s down there. It’s all ‘me,’ though.” She tapped one blunt black claw tip to her temple. “Aaaand, now you can see what happens when prospective dates read that far into my profile. Poof.” Another pantomimed explosion with her black furred, black clawed, black padded fingertips.
	“Ouch.” Ren managed, but not recoiling. He felt no urge to recoil at all. He found the subject rather interesting, if not downright fascinating. “Not hermaphroditic?”
	She chuffed an indrawn laugh through her nose. “No. Two sets of testes, tho.”
	He wondered if he was going to need a winch and anchor to bring his eyebrows back down to where they belonged. “Two?”
	“Yup. One pair where they normally are, the other where ovaries should’ve been.” She said blandly, tapping the side of one hand at her midriff just below one breast. “Yet another fascinating tidbit of freak-you-the-fuck-out trivia to send prospective dates running for the hills.”
	“No estrogen production, then? I mean, damn, you carry female better than most women I know.” His eyes briefly dipped and then came back up to meet her dark gaze. Blue again; catching the setting sun that was at just the right angle when the metro turned just so.
	“Plenty.” Another tap at her midriff. “And all the rest. I have to take testosterone blockers to keep from becoming just a rage monkey with tits.” The train was rattling to the next stop, listing ever so slightly. Luther Heights, such a wonderful section of town reflected in the dilapidated tram station with the tracks that had not laid level in the five years Ren had been riding. The doors whooshed open and more of the evening crowd rumbled out, stepping up to reach the lip of the platform due to the list. A few rough looking passengers stumbled on; four humans and a canine that looked to be more mange than mutt.
	And they all stank as bad as an unmodified feral skunk with a temper disorder. Both Ren and Charlie recoiled and she snarled, showing the distressingly sharp white teeth granted her species. One advantage of sitting next to a skunk, however, was that the stereotype kept the real stinkers at bay. None of them bothered to slur their shpiel for money to support their habits in wafting clouds of body odor and stale alcohol at them as they shambled through the carriage.
	Unfortunately their odious proximity on a much emptier carriage prevented them carrying on the conversation much beyond that. They sat in companionable, if tense, silence as the tram sped toward the next stop where he would get off. Once the train squealed to a stop he stood, gathering his bag, and leaned down to grasp her hand. Leaning close he smiled.
	“Interwhatever or not, you’re a woman as far as I’m concerned. A little anatomy won’t change that.” He said warmly, giving her hand a squeeze as the doors opened and he stepped out. He stood on the platform until the metro rail began moving again, watching as her head dipped to gaze at the black face of her phone again.
	What date had bailed because of that? Dates were no sure way to get to first base, much less round the plates to home. Why would someone be so concerned?
	And there, folks, is it. Two years of getting to know each other, of her more than he since it is his story we are experiencing. There is, of course, a great deal more to those two years but that is a much longer story and likely quite boring to tell. Two years of forty-minute interludes as they rode the train back and forth, but nothing greater. This was but a little backstory before we return to our present moment as the train carefully slowed as it approached the last westbound station for the week. The operator had to take extra precaution due to the very same weather that had somehow snarled the eastbound train causing the shutdown; a blizzard.
	A once-a-century blizzard, they said, despite having had three such in the years he had been riding the rail. None, however, had shut down the rails before. Something drastic had to have happened to result in that. The triple tone warbled again.
	“Ladies and gentlemen, as I stated before arrival, this will be our last westbound stop this evening. We will wait here for about ten minutes before progressing to the rail switch about half a mile west, then be returning eastbound for a two minute stop per the usual schedule.” He saw Charlie’s ears once more flatten back in a moue of consternation.
	“How many stops?” In the two years they had been sharing seats he had never thought to ask which stop she got off at, feeling that would be too intrusive. After watching her elation followed by crushing ennui each time a prospective suitor approached, realized her situation, and fled he knew to be careful of asking too much. In all that time he had never even dared ask her out on a date, himself, and he knew the situation.
	It didn’t stop him from wanting to, though.
	“Four. Allenvale.” Ren winced, the rail between Spartan and Allenvale was an eighteen kilometer stretch. Sure, the train covered it in eight minutes, but still quite a jaunt. He flicked his phone screen to activate the nav app and zoomed out until he saw the Allentown station highlighted. A tap brought up directions and he selected ground transport i.e. surface roadways.
	Most were already closed, such as the 413 interstate which was three lanes both ways for the next six kilometers before narrowing to two lanes each way. The entire stretch of two lane was the hashmarked red of a closed route. Most of the ancillary side roads were also hashmarked red. When he attempted to start the navigation all he got back was ‘no route to destination’.
	“No way to find a hotel or something.” He observed as they gathered up their things, Charlie a little slower than he as she tried to figure out what she was going to do. “They’re probably all booked solid.” Shouldering his bag he turned and offered his hand toward her. A few passengers, as distraught as the skunk, were digging through their phones or making calls to work something out while the homeless and destitute slumped in seats. They were going to make their way back into the center of the city where there were more shelters or nominally less frigid places to hole up. “C’mon.”
	She shouldered her own bag and took his hand with a look of askance. “Where?”
	“I’ve got spare rooms.” He said as they stepped out of the rail car and, despite the sheltering cover of the platform, into a shrieking gale of snow laden air that instantly tried to benumb his fingers and bit at his exposed face. Not even his heavy coat offered much protection; it was more like a sail trying to drag him down the platform as they released their hands and darted for the stairwell down. “My place!”
	She managed to keep up with him as they pulled themselves down against a gale of snow, sleet, and frigid wind howling up from the breezeway under the rail bed from below. “How far?” She managed, eyes squinted against the wind that bit through even hur fur, coating its ebon blackness with specks of white that quickly became splotches and streaks that added to her own white markings. Her tail stretched out behind her, fur drawn in and the wind making even that narrower like an aardvark’s tail.
	Luckily, once through the breezeway the gale was not being funneled and lessened considerably, though the snow was still being driven almost horizontally. “Five kilometers by road!” He said as he jogged across the bus loading area crowded with more buses than usual to take on the crowd. Luckily, he had found a spot relatively close to both the station and the lot exit that morning so they didn’t have to slog through wind and snow for long. His SUV chirped merrily as they neared, unlocking and letting them pile in from either side.
	“Oh, warm.” She exclaimed as she managed to get herself somewhat comfortably arranged in the passenger seat, turned half to one side so her tail could fit in the gap between the pillar and seat, spilling into the space behind. It looked awkward and he imagined it could not feel very comfortable but, then, his trim package was not beastkin ready.
	“Yeah.” He said, rubbing his hands briskly to chase away the numbing sting of wind blown ice before stabbing the start button. The engine rumbled immediately to life and leveled out in a steady purr. A big cat kind of purr, to be sure, but a purr all the same as opposed to a sports car’s growl. “Had it warm up start while I was on the downtown platform. Twice, since it only runs for ten minutes.” Drawing his seat belt he slipped his phone into its cradle, drew up the map to ‘security offices’ which is how he labeled his home address, and set the destination. Charlie fiddled with her belt but, seated with her back in the corner between pillar and seat because of her voluminous tail occupying the back seat, could not successfully get it latched.
	Good, the route was still blue with just a few stretches of yellow. He just hoped it would stay that way as he set his drivetrain to all-wheel and put it in gear. The line getting out of the station was not long, but everyone was driving slow, half blinded by driving white. He actually mounted the curb on one side and had to correct back onto pavement but, luckily, at less than five kilometers per hour it was a mere ‘oops’ and not damaging.
	The weather, however, was not so kind as the wind died slightly and a heavy veil of thick snow drifted down to flurry about, turning the road into a vague gray stripe ahead with only an occasional glimpse of yellow line or reflectors where car tires had exposed them. Instead of the usual fifteen minutes it took him the better part of fortyfive to navigate from the metro rail station to the side street where his home was located. He opened the garage as he turned into the drive and he coasted into its snow free expanse.
	There was no second car in the garage, though there was plenty of space for one even with the riding lawn mower with snowblower attachment currently occupying the clear side. “Home warm home.” He said as he shut the engine down, unfastened his seat belt, and stepped out onto the dry concrete. Charlie was already coming around the back of the SUV, having no seat belt to contend with. She followed him up the two steps and through the door into the kitchen as the garage door lowered.
	“Nice.” She opened as she glanced about the spacious kitchen. An island took up much of the open space, with the usual appliances arrayed under counters around the perimeter. A closed, locked, and heavily curtained door led out back through the mud room beyond and archways opened to either side. To the right a utility room with freezer and laundry machines and, to the left, the dining room and the rest of the house beyond. “Big, for a bachelor.”
	That had been learned early on in their chats; he had no wife, no siblings, and his parents were no longer around. They had wanted to retire beyond the eastern ranges, to the southeast where the weather was far calmer rather than between the mountain ranges that bordered the country. Those desires had become moot, however. To the southwest were the Taimaks which were tall, young peaks and to the east were the Concords. Together they funneled the wet, warm air from the southern seas northward across the country, bringing rains, longer warm seasons, and when that collided with the arctic chill from the north, savage weather.
	Such as now.
	And that was forecast to last at least three days unabated due to a weather condition a tad windy for explanation. Suffice to say, the snow clearing equipment would be primarily tasked with keeping the highways free. Secondary and service roads would be left to accumulate until they could be sure of keeping the interstate clear.
	Ren was fine with that, he had plenty of experience with the mid-country winters in his twenty six years. He had firewood stockpiled in the mud room on the back deck, and enough under the curing shed in the back yard to last the winter if it was necessary and he limited heating to essential areas of the house.
	What he did not have a full seasonal stock of, however, was food. Not that anyone would, with Select Superscale not much more than a kilometer away. Getting there could prove interesting, considering the forecasted meter or more of accumulation over the next few days.
	“You got any pets?” Ren asked as he took off his winter coat and hung it from a hook just inside the door. The keys he tossed into a drawer specifically lined to prevent outside tampering when his vehicle wasn’t parked in the garage.
	“Pets?” Charlie asked as she toured the kitchen, waiting for his divestment of extra clothing. “No, why?”
	“Because you might have to see if you could find someone to care for them until this blows over.” He waved a desultory hand toward the wall and, ostensibly, the wail of the wind outside. All of his windows were hidden behind extra heavy winter drapes so none of what was going beyond could be seen, merely heard.
	“Oh. Yeah, no.” She shook her head and followed him out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and to the living room beyond. “No pets.” She chuffed a rueful laugh, letting her tail draw down from its habitual shoulder touching upward curve to suspend its meter plus of black and white length behind her, the fur so long it almost brushed the floor. “Not even any plants.” She looked around the living room as Ren began rifling through the drawer of a small bureau near the entry. “No roomies? You live here alone?”
	“No, and yes. Was my parents’ house.”
	“You bought it from them?” She asked, settling onto the sofa where her tail could stretch out to one side.
	“Inherited, after Global 3131.”
	Charlie winced, ears and whiskers going back along head and muzzle respectively. Global Air 3131’s computer had decided it wanted to land during take-off some ten years past, resulting in the loss of all souls aboard. The news and lawsuits had lasted years. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
	Charlie shrugged, left shoulder and left eyebrow in his usual way. “It’s in the past. And paid well, after all was said and done. The lawyers, of course, got the sharks’ share, as usual. But the rest of us made out okay.” Not that the airframe’s manufacturers had, or the company that programmed their flight control systems. Both had settled, though only the manufacturer remained. The software company had been forced to sell just to pay the agreed settlements. Global Air remained, as well, having very little judged responsibility; their pilots had been highly trained. The bug had prevented disabling the software and overrode manual control input. “So I make due fine. House is paid off, utilities for one are minimal, and I can take a job that doesn’t pay great to do what I love doing.”
	“Drawing.” Charlie smiled, whiskers resuming their usual upward lift as her ears came back up.
	“Drawing, photography, sculpting.” He nodded as he fell back into the recliner near the couch and crossed his ankles, letting his arms lay along the arms of the chair. “Taking the ideas of others and turning them into visual stories as involved as any novel.”
	Charlie’s phone trilled and her ears twitched back as she frowned and dug into her purse to pull it out. After a couple of seconds reading whatever it said she quickly tapped out some reply and then dropped it back inside. “Well, duh.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
	“Someone harping about the weather?”
	“Yeah. Jaques, prospective ghost number forty three. We were supposed to meet at the coffee shop in my building after I got back from work.” She waved a hand at the unseen but all too audible weather outside. “Obviously that’s a bust.”
	“Prospective?”
	“Yeah, they’re all prospective ghosts until they become one. At least he didn’t run screaming after I told him to read my full profile. Seemed actually intrigued.” She set her purse aside and smoothed out her dress. “That does sometimes happen, until they get off and have to consider reciprocation.”
	Ren laughed warmly. “Oh? Pretty one sided, at first?”
	Charlie laughed. “Oh yes.” She sighed irritably. “Get them out of their pants and past their first nut before they have to consider what’s under my dress and, suddenly, they’ve got prior commitments. Story of my life.”
	“Get to first base and suddenly the game’s canceled?”
	Charlie groused a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Third base, though, really. First is holding hands, making out. Second is a bit steamier, handsy. Third is where the clothes come off, but not quite home plate, if you’re going to use that analogy.”
	“Seems right, yeah. So they see home plate and make straight for the exit.”
	“Pretty much. Like I said, story of my life.” She muttered with an aggrieved sigh. “At least he was a skunk, so I didn’t have that hurdle to leap.”
	“Your dating life sucks, hon.” Ren said with a shake of his head and levered himself up from his chair. “What do you like to eat? I’ve got fish, some hamburger patties, and enough beef franks to feed a small army. Asparagus?”
	Charlie nodded and shifted to stand from the couch, shaking out her dress and tugging it straight. “No asparagus, but the rest sounds fine.”
	He paused and glanced at her as she got her dress unwrinkled. “Oh, and I doubt you want to wear that until the weather breaks. I’ve got some sweats that should fit you.” He motioned toward the hallway. “Last room on the right, second drawer down on the left side.”
	Charlie looked down at her dress and, after a moment, nodded. “Yeah, these are dry clean only so, yeah, they’ll be pretty rank after a couple days and I can’t just toss them in your washing machine.”
	“That’s fine.” Ren gave her a smile and walked into the kitchen as she made her way down the hallway, finding the light switch as she went.
	He puttered about the kitchen, pulling out pans and knives and the other utensils he would need to cook. He had a big slab of mountain trout he had purchased a couple of days previous, along with a cart full of other food in preparation for the coming storm. Taking that out he laid it on a plastic cutting board to begin seasoning. Charlie returned while he was doing that from an assortment of varied containers.
	He glanced up to see that she had chosen only a pair of too large sweatpants but no shirt. She still wore her blouse but it did not come all the way down showing a hand wide swath of black and white fur above the elastic waistband of the sweats. His shirts probably would’ve tented pretty badly over her breasts where the blouse did not, giving her nicely defined curves.
	Fetching, he thought silently as he gave her a smile. “Trout?”
	“That’ll be nice, I like fish, though hamburgers would’ve done just as well, or franks. I’m not picky, skunks are pretty omnivorous overall.” She wandered over to gaze down at the fish covered in a layer of rubs and spices. “Anything I can help with?”
	Ren shook his head and waved a hand toward the small table set in a dining area of the kitchen flanked by two bay windows currently swathed in heavy winter drapes. “Not much, I guess. I can cook most anything on autopilot. Comes with the territory.”
	She chuckled softly, the lush plume of her tail a white slashed shadow swaying amiably behind her, half drawn into its typical curve. “Ah, the life of a bachelor.”
	“Or bachelorette.” He said with a nod. He knew her family, two younger brothers and a sister, and an older sister, lived several hours further east, somewhat into the mountains there. Only she and her older sister had gotten out of the house, thus far, and she was the furthest away, lured there by her firm due to her stellar college scores. “We can just chat, if you want, unless you’ve got work to finish.”
	“They told us to leave everything at the office today. Because of the weather they didn’t want anyone being stuck at their homes with material that might be needed once business got back on its feet after the blizzard.” Moving over to the small table she drew out a chair. Turning it around she sat astride it to give her tail its freedom. “And no, my cooking is for shit. I think, if I tried, I could even burn water. And, believe me, if you burn something while cooking the smell stays in your fur for days!”
	“Well, if you’re going to be in the kitchen while I’m cooking fish, won’t that get in your fur, too?”
	“Not unless you burn it to a crisp. Whatever clings to my fur won’t linger much, certainly not after a shower. Nothing like the way smoke does.” She crossed her arms atop the chair and rested her chin up on them. “So, we can chat. You’re about the only person I’ve been able to just chat with in years. Ever, really. Skunks are pretty isolated.”
	“Even good looking ones?”
	She grunted and her voluminous tail twitched. “Har har. Yes, as if there are any. All the fur kinda turns the curves you humans find ideal into a frizzy suggestion, and that’s before you put clothes on us.”
	Turning on the stove he set a large rectangular skillet over two of the induction elements and added a few dollops of oil to heat. “Take it from an artist, Charlie, hon. We know what looks good, and bad, and everything in between at a glance. You look plenty good.”
	“Right.” She drew the word out, dubious. “So you’ve said on more than one occasion.”
	Letting the meat rest while the skillet began to sizzle softly he turned and regarded her archly as he framed her between his greasy hands from across the kitchen. “You’re too hard on yourself, hon. Just take it for what it’s worth. I see you as what you are, not what you imagine yourself to be.”
	With a frown she leaned back to wave hands along her body. “A skunk, you mean? No illusions, there.” She groused. “I am what I am and there’s no escaping it.”
	Lifting up the fish he slid it into the skillet with a sharp hiss. “Mmmh, yes. A skunk, true. But a smart cookie, better than me or any of the guys at the publishing house. You’d account circles around our bookkeepers.” Since her job was just that, she was a corporate auditor; basically a forensic accountant. “And a good looking smart cookie skunk, at that.” He paused to chuckle. “Though I guess that last keeps the mooks from trying to strong-arm you into not paying close enough attention to the numbers, even if you don’t have the musk.”
	“Pretty few beastkin skunks do. It’s like one of the first things to go, usually second or third generation.”
	“Then why don’t foxes lose their musk? I’ve been around some that are positively pungent, and I know they’ve got to be tenth gen, at least.”
	Charlie shrugged. “No idea. Probably the biologic investment necessary. Fox musk is the same as canine or equine or even your own. Just a physiology thing. As far as I know, and that’s pretty little since I didn’t study biology, beastkin foxes and cats and canines don’t even have the anal glands that ferals do, and that’s the same thing in skunks but are much more specialized.”
	Ren condeeded the point as he watched the trout sizzle, looking for the opportune rippling along the edges that said it was ready to flip. “No need to sniff skat and puddles to learn about the neighbors for beastkin, I guess. And your noses are too far from the ground, anyway.”
	“There is that, yeah.”
	“But you still have a musk.” He turned to favor her with a wink. “It’s just really, really subtle. Just a hint.” An alluring hint, he thought but did not add. It was that nose teasing suggestion that plucked at the consciousness with ‘what is that?’ and urged his brain to go find it, or avoid it, even when he was sitting right next to it every day.
	“Har har.” Charlie flipped him a single black furred finger.
	Ren chuckled and flipped the fish before returning to the refrigerator to dig out a bag of frozen vegetables. He glanced at the ingredients; carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, corn. No asparagus. He tossed it into the microwave and set the timer to cook.
	Standing from her chair Charline began exploring his cupboards, quickly locating the placewear and glasses. As she reached up he almost dropped the plated fish for the elastic of the sweats was only barely snug enough. With her arms upraised, her tail dipping to counterbalance, the waistband was drawn down several inches revealing what she had told him about and, until that moment, had been merely academic to him.
	No longer.
	A sheath, the same white as the fur of her stomach but with a single narrow stripe of black up its front, standing starkly at the lower extreme of the white stripe defining her exposed midriff. At its apex the black stripe widened into an inverted teardrop of black flesh bounded by a slim band of black fur, stark against the white. It wasn’t long, not in the way of dogs, but it was certainly prominent. Considering she was lifting down tableware made of glass he choked down his surprise and crossed to the table. Setting down the fish he returned as the microwave began beeping. By the time he had turned around she had put the plates and glasses on the table and returned to the counter, looking at the many drawers. She would ask which one contained the flatware, next, he knew.
	Busying himself taking the vegetables from the microwave he cut the sachet open and poured them into a bowl before turning around. “Silverware?” She asked. He could not help himself, his eyes dropped from hers and he quirked one corner of his mouth. He nodded toward one of the drawers near her hip and flicked a finger toward it before sidling past before his eyes betrayed him even further.
	“My shirts didn’t fit?” He asked as he set the bowl of steaming vegetables on the table.
	“They did.” Her tail brushed, heavy and warm, against his hip as she turned to the drawer and pulled it open. “But yours, um… well, they weren’t women’s fashion and hung pretty bad OH MY GODS!” The silverware clattered as she jumped away, grasped the waistband of the sweats, and hauled them up almost as high as her breasts. “OhmygodsFUCK! Sorry!” She yelped, ears and whiskers flat, tail drawn in tight and tucked down against the back of her legs. He was not sure if she could curl it all the way forward as many species could.
	Ren chortled as he passed her again to retrieve the butter and a loaf of bread from near the stove. “For what? Prop failure?” He said with a shrug, still laughing softly. “Don’t worry about it, hon. Isn’t something I’ve never seen before, up close and personal like.”
	“Mine!?” She countered, still clutching the waistband of his sweats despite the thick root of her dipped tail trying to drag them back down. “Fucking hell. I’m so, so sorry.”
	“No, not yours. In general. I am an artist, hon. We see stuff like that on the regular. Even if we don’t outright draw it we’ve still got to know how to draw clothes suitably. Heroes and villains are not, after all, genderless. If we draw tits under tights we’ve still got to draw dudes with bulges.” He carried the bread and butter back to the table, offering her a reassuring smile as he passed.
	“Fuck, fuck, fucking hell.” She muttered shakily, finally releasing the overstretched waistband to brace her hands against the counter, head bowed, gulping rapid breaths. Owing to her tail’s need to keep down she was forced to clutch the waist back up again. “I -”
	And that’s when the blizzard’s presence, all but forgotten as a moaning wail in the background and susurrus of wind driven sleet beyond the windows, made itself felt anew.
	The power went out, plunging them into inky blackness. Somewhere the heater chugged petulantly into silence and the whirring of the ventilator spun to a begrudging stop. That made the noise from outside all the more present, as a hissing howl that made the heretofore unheard creaking of the house under its incessant strain audible. “Well.” Ren said into the darkness. “Solves your embarrassment quite nicely, hon. Stay there for a moment, let me find some light.”
	He, at least, knew where he kept his stash of emergency lights and candles were in the house. He kept some in every room because blackouts were not an unheard of problem, even when there was no storm to precipitate them.
	The rattle of flatware told him she was busying herself trying to identify what was in which slot in the drawer while he felt his way along the wall toward the door to the garage. There was a drawer there where the counter ended, where he kept the trash can. He found the can with his knee, thankfully, rather than the hard corner of the cabinets. It only took him a bit of fumbling to pull out a small flashlight.
	“Bright light.” He warned, closing one eye, and waited a moment before turning it on. With that light he was able to better dig into the cabinet above, where he kept the candles. Most were simple tea lights, a few votives, and a half dozen tapers beside various holders. Charlie was a shadow across the kitchen, her tail still tucked, plucking flatware from the drawer one handed before going to the table and hastily sitting down. She was careful to make sure the sweats were pulled up properly, not that it mattered while she was seated.
	She was a study in morose disgust at herself and Ren only shook his head. Her plight was certainly unfortunate, being a skunk, a species already shunned by society, and having the commingling of two bodies crammed into one. He had seen how those brought her down in their two years on the metro. But she was truly fetching, and she was as smart as he claimed, far more so than he. There was humor in there, usually self depreciatory, but he had sought to bring her out of that self imposed shell during their all too brief morning and evening commutes. Sometimes he was the only sun in her dreary day and she had told him that on occasion. It always lifted his heart to see that, to see her smile. Not frown and slouch as she was now.
	And, despite what he had just seen, there was no ‘he’ about her. She was fully and entirely female in mind and heart if not wholly in body. And, being female, quite firmly straight as such concepts went. There was not an iota of flexibility in that regard which, again, left her adrift in the cis world as well as the burgeoning non-cis movement.
	She felt she had no place in either world, though she tried. Oh, but she tried, going from one dating app to another hoping beyond what most would consider sanity to find a male for herself. One who would accept her as she was, entirely and wholly. And failed, time after time. It took her days, sometimes weeks, to come out of the funk engendered by her latest hopeful turned ghost because of a word, a truth they could not handle.
	Crossing to the table he set the candle holders down and squeezed the tapers into them before lighting each wick with the lighter secured from the same shelf. The four wan candle flames, once he turned off the flashlight, left the house in rapidly cooling gloom.
	When she didn’t move he reached over and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay, Charlie, hon. It didn’t freak me out nearly as much as it did you, and it’s just us. You, and me.” He released her shoulder and sank down into his seat. “And a nice candle-lit dinner for two, hmm?”
	“Yeah, but -” she started, only to be silenced by his tut-tut.
	“No buts, hon. You told me, baldly and no nonsense, two years ago about that. I didn’t ghost you then, I haven't since.” He leaned over to touch her near shoulder lightly. “And I shant simply because I got flashed, okay?” He smiled and sat back before parting the fish into quarters and sliding a portion onto her plate before serving up a portion of vegetables. “That’s just the you of you, understood long ago and accepted since. Shall we eat?”
	Initially she just poked at the fish, the glistening black pad of her nose twitching, whiskers rising and falling, angling forward before lying back as the savory scent wafted to her nose. Her ears, at least, finally came back up and stayed that way. She hazarded a small morsel, chewing it delicately for several seconds before swallowing.
	“Damn, that is good.” She admitted, her voice still a little unsure but regaining some of her normal timbre. She took another slightly larger morsel. “That’s very good.”
	“Ten years cooking for myself.” He winked as he savored his first bite. “Ah, damn. Water, milk, wine?” He asked as he stood and crossed the kitchen, pausing between the kitchen and the shelf of wines hidden behind a cabinet door.
	“What kind of wine?”
	“Hmm, many.” He opened the cabinet and perused the labels. “I’ve got a few reds, whites, and pink. Red’s pretty dry, white is sweet, pink is somewhere in between.”
	“Pinks?”
	“Combinations of red and white, often called ‘blush’ wines. I’ve also got sangria, which is dark but sweet. Not as dry as a red.”
	“Anything stronger?” She challenged, nibbling a broccoli floret.
	Ren chuckled. “Sure, in the liquor cabinet in the living room. A bit stout for dinner, though.”
	“Sangria, then. Maybe add a splash of white rum?”
	“Coming right up.” He took a bottle of sangria from the rack and set it on the table as he passed toward the living room to fetch the rum from the liquor cabinet. The bottle was still almost full, and he had to polish off the dust, but at least alcohol didn’t go bad if well sealed. He brought it back to the table. By then Charlie had prized the cork out of the sangria without the aid of a corkscrew.
	Those claws, even blunt as they were, had their uses he mused.
	Unscrewing the cap from the rum he poured a generous shot into each glass before she topped them off with wine while he resumed his seat. He picked up his glass and held it out. “Salut.”
	She offered a soft, almost timid smile and tapped the rim of her glass to his. “Cheers.” They both drank; her sipping, him draining half in a single go. He hissed at the added fortification of the rum and coughed softly as he set the glass down. That earned him a soft chuckle.
	They resumed eating in silence, listening to the moan of the wind and the hiss of sleet against the glass on two sides of the dining nook, for several minutes. She finished off her portion of fish and he added another, and the last to his own plate.
	“Isn’t this romantic.” She said, her voice hinting that it wasn’t particularly so. “Honest to god, the few dates I've been on have never been quiet and candle lit. Usually some sports bar or chain sit down full of noise and screens.”
	“This is a date?” Ren asked as he finished his vegetables, with only a few small bites of fish left, and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.
	She shrugged and finished off her fish before turning to the last of her vegetables. “Better than most, but not really. As if you’d date me, human.” She chuckled though there was no mirth in it.
	“Sheit.” He drawled as he set down his fork and rested his elbows on the edge of the table to steeple his hands against his chin. “I’d date you, sure.”
	“A skunk?”
	“You.” He flicked both of his index fingers toward her while his chin rested on his thumbs. “Why not?”
	“Why haven’t you?” She challenged, and he sensed a great deal more depth in the question than it seemed on the surface.
	“Simple. You never asked, always kept me just at arm’s length.”
	She eyed him dubiously, nibbling on the last of her carrots and cauliflower. “You never asked.” She countered, then paused and, after a moment, sighed. “And I was afraid it’d chase you away if I did.” She reached across to rest her fingers against his steepled hands, blunt claws cool where they touched his chin. “I liked chatting with you on the train. If… I mean… if I’d thought I could’ve asked and you wouldn’t end up freaking out and becoming another ghost, I would have.”
	Ren smiled, opening his hands slightly and catching hers between them. “Hon, you just flashed me and here we sit, having a nice candlelight dinner all the same.” He gave her fingers a peck and then released her hand to stand, gathering up his placeware. When he extended his free hand she gathered up her own and gave them to him.
	“As if the storm gives you any choice.” She countered as she turned to follow him with her gaze as he crossed to the sink. He began rinsing and nodded sagely.
	“Gives me plenty. I mean, my SUV could get you home. It’d take a while, but it could get through the snow just fine. I’ve also got two extra rooms to banish you to.” He set the rinsed placeware into the dishwasher to run later, whenever power returned.
	“Yeah, right. One’s a photography studio and the other’s an art studio. I saw the easel and sculptures.” She countered his argument as she crossed her arms to regard him across the dimly lit kitchen. “You’ve only got one bed in this entire house.”
	“And a sofa.” He pointed out as he closed the dishwasher and disposed of the napkins in the trash can by the garage door. He walked back and offered a hand which, after a moment, she took and let him pull her to her feet. “Which, by the by, I’ll be using, not you.” He said as he led her back into the living room, waving an arm at the sofa before dumping himself into it.
	With her hand in his she was, perforce, drawn down into the sofa as well. She flicked her tail off to one side, over the armrest, and reclined a body width away from him. “Well, at least it’ll be warm in here.” She nodded toward the unlit hearth dominating one wall. Oddly, the flat screen was not above it where one might expect but on its own stand in a nearby corner of the room. “I didn’t see a hearth in your room.”
	“Isn’t one, but you’ve got fur.” He smiled and waved a hand down at himself. “I don’t.”
	“Shit, even I get cold, fur and all.” She chuffed back at him. “And the way that storm’s going it’s going to get damned cold, even inside.”
	He rubbed at his upper arms and nodded because it had, indeed, gotten rather chill. Not a vapor-cloud breathing sort of cold but definitely noticeable. “Yeah, it will at that. I’ll have to close off most of the rooms to keep the heat in here, and hopefully enough to the master bedroom for you.”
	Her only response was to wave one hand toward the hearth. With a chuckle he levered himself out of the couch and went to kneel in front of it. He dug some old newsprint from a basket, small kindling from another, and a couple bits of pitchy root wood from yet another. Arranging them into a careful pile he adjusted the flue and lit them with the same lighter he had used for the candles.
	The paper and pitch wood caught eagerly, sending up a crackle and a waft of pleasant heat.
	“So, you’d date me?” She asked from the sofa as she watched his back bent toward the fire, coaxing it to life with more kindling.
	“Hmm?” He set another piece atop the growing blaze and glanced over his shoulder at her. “Sure, hell yeah, I would.” His eyes blinked as the roved and, due to her sprawl necessary to keep her tail from becoming cramped, he saw that she was once again a bit too revealing. “Uhm, hon, your sweats are betraying you again.”
	She huffed with her ears once more disappearing into the thick fur atop her head and her whiskers going back as she yanked them up again. “Sorry.” She whispered, once more aghast.
	“Nothing to be sorry for, it is what it is. My waistline is bigger than yours, even with your fur.” He turned back to tend the fire once more, adding a couple of larger pieces of split wood.
	Charlie fidgeted for a few moments as she attempted to get the sweat pants to remain in place but they refused, threatening to slip down again whenever she released her grip. “Gods dammit.” She muttered. “These were the only ones that actually didn’t just fall down.”
	Without turning, just in case her modesty was still compromised, Ren chuckled. “You tried on more than one pair?”
	Charlie snorted. “I tried on the whole drawer. These were at the bottom, so I guess your hips didn’t stretch them out as much.”
	Getting back to his feet Ren turned and put his hands on his hips, “Oh, so now you’re saying I’m fat?” He complained, though with a smile as he struck a pose, letting his gut out. Not that he was fat, which he certainly was not by typical standards, but he certainly did not have six pack abs. He was lean, middle of the road, and not the tallest specimen of humanity. Charlie was actually several centimeters taller, discounting her ears, when she wasn’t slouching.
	She shook her head. “No.” But she managed a wan smile in return. “I’m just saying these fit your hips, not mine.” Shifting carefully forward she stood, tail twitching and then lashing to settle the long drape of fur. She kept one hand on the waist of the sweat pants to keep the front, at least, hiked up properly. “And they’re not even beastkin friendly.” She turned to flick her tail up slightly, showing that the waist was rucked up beneath it.
	And, of course, give Ren a nice look at her rump which was pleasant to look at, despite her considerable fur softening the feminine curves. Not, of course, that there was overmuch to see with the voluminous drape of her monochromatic tail, and sweatpants, in the way. “Well, if you move your tail aside I could see what you’re complaining about better.” He quipped with a broad smile.
	Charlie simply scoffed and turned back around. “Stare at my ass, you mean.”
	Ren laughed. “Yes, of course! How could I not, it’s a pretty ass.”
	That only made her scoff even louder, though with some humor. “Most people seeing a skunk’s ass would be running in terror. Even from beastkin skunks that haven’t been able to spray for generations.”
	He shrugged. “Okay, so I’m a weird human, then. After a couple of years brushing shoulders on the same trains I think I’ve figured out you neither spray, nor stink.” Behind him the fire crackled softly, letting out an occasional pop as the fire began to take on the larger pieces of wood. “On that note, though, since we’re getting some heat I’m going to get changed out of my work clothes, too.”
	His job at the publishing house did not require semi-formal attire as her accounting firm did, he was able to dress casually. Today it was in heavy slacks and a long sleeve button up shirt. “Back in a sec.” He turned and made his way down the hallway toward the bedrooms, two of which were now studios rather than places to sleep. The candles and firelight reflected enough down the hall for him to see where he was going.
	In the master bedroom he doffed his slacks and outer shirt, keeping his undershirt, and dug a pair of sweats from the drawer. Despite her assertion that she had tried all of them on, he found them neatly folded away in the drawer again. Grabbing the top pair he drew them on, grinning as the elastic snugged securely about his waist.
	“What are these sculptures, anyway?” Charlie asked from down the hallway. He found her in his art ‘room’ cum studio with one of the tapers in hand, gazing at almost a dozen of his sculptures. Only a few were completed, in various stages of being painted, while the rest were in various stages of work. She was looking at one depicting a dragon upon a rocky pedestal, wings mantled, as it bowed its head to a fox who stood before it, within the wide cup of those wings. The fox was resting one hand against the side of the great beast’s jaw.
	“Oh. It’s a scene from Greater than Thou. Sort of a peasant-to-king fantasy, where a farm boy is taken by a dragon for lunch but ends up becoming its… friend. That scene, there, is from book one of the series. Commission from the author based on the cover art.”
	Charlie glanced aside at him. “Friend, with a weighty pause?”
	Ren laughed. “From what I gather from conversing with the author, apparently once the dragon masters shape shifting they become lovers and, by the end of the series, king and queen, I think. I don’t know the dragon’s gender.”
	Charlie laughed as well, pointing at another statue with her free hand. The other still held the taper by the glass base it was mounted in. Ren did not look toward her, and certainly not down. The indicated, mostly complete, sculpture was of a beastkin canine in a challenging pose, one hand up as if cupping something in its palm. “That’s Frost, from the series Children of the Rift that my publishing house is putting out. My creation. We’re up to issue seven, now, of an expected series run of one hundred issues. It’s getting a lot of good reviews and is selling well.” Charlie held up her hand, mimicking the sculpture's gesture.
	“And what’s she holding?”
	“He, and a flame. He’s a fire wielder.”
	She glanced aside at him. “Named Frost?”
	With a shrug Ren laughed. “It’s a long and rather convoluted story.” He pointed to several other sculptures, in the process of being painted or shaped. “You’ve got him, Rainbow,” he pointed at a sculpture of a lithe black human in a pose that was unmistakably gay, “Eyestrain,” a female human in pretty normal attire with a pair of collapsible buttons in an attack pose, “and George.” a very large, hulking human male.
	“George?” Charlie giggled. “Seriously? They’ve all got typical superhero names, and he’s just ‘George’?”
	“Yeah, well, all of the decent names for hulking bricks were already copyrighted. Couldn’t come up with anything better than George. You know, based on that cartoon character? ‘I’ll love you and pet you and keep you forever.’” He pantomimed the last in keeping with the character he was attempting to channel.
	“So, just a big dumb damage sponge?”
	“Not dumb, but yeah, I guess. The more damage he receives, the stronger he gets. Sooo, if they want to beat him they have to avoid damaging him.”
	“Easy way around that.” Charlie said as she wandered closer to the collection of sculptures and looked at his easel upon which was a page he was working on. It was all line work at the moment, in pencil for easy corrections. Once he was done he would digitize it for print coloring. “Just have his own team damage him.”
	“Ding ding, right answer.” Ren said with a warm smile. “Except for his one weakness; water. Spray him with water and all of his strength just trickles away.” Charlie oohhed appreciatively at the weakness he put into an otherwise almost unbeatable foe. She came to a stop near a set of sculptures under protective cloth.
	“And these?”
	“More characters, another commission, and some personal work for myself.” Ren offered without moving to reveal them; they were complete and painted, merely awaiting the final kiln curing to set them properly. Ren moved closer to one, reaching out to trace the curve of the fabric without touching it.
	“That’s a skunk’s tail.” She said, pointing at the shape. “I’d know that profile anywhere.”
	“Yes.” Ren admitted. “The Immortal, leader of the team. He’s a sorcerer not even from their world whose goal is to die.”
	Charlie shot him a raised eyebrow. “To die?”
	“Long story.” He said with a shrug. “A very long, and very convoluted, story.”
	“When did you create a skunk character for your comics?” Charlie asked with a wry grin and a lift of one brow, short rounded black ears pinning forward.
	“When I was… I think I was twelve. He’s one of my first and oldest characters.”
	“Uh huh, so not after plonking your wide ass on my metro bench?”
	No, that one was under another of the cloth drapes but he did not say that. He grinned and shook his head. “Nope. Watching you helped me flesh out some of his physical dimensions and movements, though, especially concerning his tail. They don’t move like canine tails. Until being around you I never realized just how much.” He paused, and then laughed heartily. “Oh, and he does stink, and does spray. That comes up a few times in the series. Usually masked by magic, until he doesn’t want it to be.”
	Charlie winced, tail tucking, yanking her sweats down again and she grabbed them back up hastily with a backing of her ears again. “Oh, ouch. He defeats the villain that way?”
	Ren didn’t let his eyes stray. “No. The first boss fight he wins with a refrigerator.”
	“A refrigerator?” Charlie burred a merry tenor laugh and he laughed along. “You’re going to have to tell me about it, now.”
	“Tell? I can show you. I’ve got storyboarding and proofs for the next fifteen issues. I can tell you the rest.” He paused and glanced about the room. “But not here, too much flammable stuff.”
	They retired back to the living room and the warmth of the fire which, by that point, had fully claimed the larger pieces of wood. While the studio had been cooling the living room was a haven of warmth. Ren added a couple more while Charlie arranged herself on the sofa. Briefly returning to his studio he brought out a handful of large, thick folios and a few printed copies of the first issues.
	Setting onto the couch he spread them out atop his thighs and Charlie scooted over to lean against his side to look down at them. He enjoyed that warm, soft warmth against his shoulder and side but refrained from commenting. Though they had sat shoulder to shoulder on the metro for years they had never sat in such companionable closeness.
	For the next few hours he wiled away the time talking about his creation, Children of the Rift, working through the first few printed issues with occasional forays into the folios for character portraits, bios, and other backstory. They only broke their comfortable tableau occasionally for visits to the chilly bathroom in the hallway, to replace the candles as they guttered, or to stoke the fire anew.
	The storm, unabated, continued its mournful counterpoint to the story he was telling. Neither bothered to check their cell phones for the time and the one clock he had in the house was in his bedroom, as bereft of power as everything else.
	Ren was talked dry mouthed long before he got much past the twelfth issue, where the heroes were just beginning to learn about their first target, a villain named ‘Cat 5’ who could summon hurricanes. Against his side, her recalcitrant sweats forgotten, remembered, and forgotten so often that they simply stopped acknowledging the problem. He didn’t mind that he would occasionally spy the narrow black stripe against her lower abdomen, even when pink glistened from its inverted teardrop of furless black flesh.
	After all, he’d seen similar enough before, and not just in his research.
	He hazarded it was sometime in the AM hours by the time their shared yawns broke their companionable close sprawl on the sofa. “Think maybe it’s time men and skunks figured out sleep.” He said after one such protracted cracking of his jaws. Charlie nodded, her head on his shoulder and probably more asleep than awake through his last hour of storytelling.
	“Mhh, yeah.” She yawned and stretched with the languid grace only a species with a spine like a willow branch could. That, of course, presented a rather pointed problem she solved by a bashful grasp for her sweats that had slipped down almost to mid thigh. “Sorry.” She sheepishly said, once more. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It’s been a long day.” Turning her head she twitched her ears toward the living room window behind its heavy drapes where the wind had picked up noisily. “And will be for some days yet.” She sighed and levered herself up from the sofa, her tail lashing from one side to the other and, for a brief moment, utterly engulfing Ren’s head.
	He snorted and laughed, batting at the voluminous curtain of warm, subtly musky fur despite enjoying both the brief caress of surprisingly soft warmth and that scent that teased at his nose. “S’okay.” He murmured as the tail was drawn away, both accepting her apology and the feather soft thwack of heavy tail. “It’s late.” He levered himself up and set aside the stack of folios and other material as Charlie disappeared into the shadowed darkness of the hallway.
	She returned a minute later brisky rubbing her hands against her upper arms. “Nope.” She chuffed, her fur a bush. “Just… nope. It’s an ice box in there.”
	“If you leave the door open the heat from the fire will warm it up.” Ren pointed out, snuffing one of the half burned candles on the end table.
	Charlie gave him a dubious look and shook her head. “And let the cold into the rest of the house? Chiefly, in here where you’re furless. Even with that fire going I don’t think it’s gonna warm up back there, just waste the heat it’s got in here."
	“You’ve got a point. Okay. Let’s go dig out the extra bedding and pitch it right here by the fire.” Ren picked up the remaining candle and walked down the hall to the linen closet next to the bathroom. Letting Charlie hold the candle he dug out all of the old spare winter bedding he no longer had beds for and carried it out to dump on the sofa. Another trip to his bedroom fetched the blanket and comforter from there as well. “Where would you prefer? Sofa or floor? With enough stuff it won’t seem quite so hard.”
	“Either’s fine.” She said, in the process of laying a blanket over a comforter folded lengthwise close up against the foot of the sofa, a good two meters from the fire. His hearth had a spark screen and a glass enclosure but he had not put up the glass since it did markedly reduce the heat. The screen was more than large enough. After adding three of the largest pieces of firewood he mounted the screen and secured it in place. By then Charlie had assembled a commendable looking nest before the sofa as well as spread a blanket and comforter, the ones from his bed, on the sofa.
	They made one more trip to secure pillows, again from the linen closet and bedroom.
	She let him clamber onto the sofa and make himself comfortable before stretching out on her side, her tail spilling across the floor toward the fire as she propped her head on a pillow. Ren blew out the last candle, leaving them with naught but the firelight to offer its flickering glow. There was no silence in their fading quietude, however, for the storm still blew outside. The shrill fury had passed, or at least ebbed for the moment, to a low hush of wind and the susurrus of ice against glass. Around them the house creaked softly against its power and the fire crackled, unperturbed.
	Long minutes passed as Ren lay on his side looking toward the fire, Charlie below and facing away from it, her nearer eye closed. “You’ve seen things like it, up close and personal, hmm?” She murmured curiously, almost quiet enough for him to miss if he’d been any closer to sleep. He pushed it back for a moment to shift his attention down toward her, but her visible eye was still closed.
	“Hmm?” He mumbled, keeping sleep at bay by sheer force of will. It was a losing battle, he was certain.
	“You said, in the kitchen. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before, up close and personal.” Now her eye was open, just a sliver of gleaming black in the deeper shadows of her black fur and lashes.
	“Mmmh, yeah.” He murmured and stifled a yawn poorly. “Yeah. Last year in highschool, then college, of course. Who doesn’t, yeah?”
	“Yeah. Same.” She yawned and the fur of her tail bushed momentarily before settling. “Yours is probably more pleasant, though.” She stretched again, burrowing deeper into the pillows under the comforter. Within moments, before Ren’s sleep sluggish brain could offer a reply, he sensed her breathing slowed into the rhythm of sleep.
	He soon followed.
	The cold awoke him some time later, though with heavy drapes on the window, the low growl of wind, and continued hiss of snow beyond the heavily curtained windows he could not tell if it was day or night.
	It was, however, very cold. He clenched his teeth, pulling the blanket and comforter more tightly around himself, and cracked an eye to peer at the fire. It was certainly later than it had been, since the fireplace was little more than a few glimmering motes of orange in the darkness, its heat all but expended. With the larger logs that would’ve taken several hours and he did not feel nearly as sleepy. A bit sleep muddled, still, meaning he had not gotten his usual eight hours yet.
	With a grumble he slowly eased himself from the fading warmth his body had put in his covers and cautiously leaned over to feel for the floor. He knew that Charlie’s bed was close to the foot of the sofa and he didn’t want to step on, or fall on, her trying to get up. A few questing touches of his fingers found soft warmth thin over muscle; an arm, he discovered after a moment.
	And soft. Damn was it soft, like satin. He could not recall ever a time he had felt fur that smooth. And, despite two years in close proximity for forty minutes at a time, he had never touched a single part of her that was bare fur except her cheek when they had hugged, but that was only once. Always a sleeve or shoulder. Pushing the marvel of her fur texture aside he shifted a leg down to probe lightly with his toes. They, at least, found hard floor under the comforter rumpled up against the foot of the sofa.
	Slowly he shifted upright and found the candle in its stand on an end table by the wan light of the hearth’s fading embers. A quick snick of the lighter all but blinded him and he had to touch flame to wick through narrowed eyelids. He found that Charlie had cast aside most of her covers, blouse rucked up on one side but not immodestly so, sweats akimbo about her thighs quite the opposite. He spared that immodest revelation barely a glance. The wan glow of the dying hearth and one candle was enough to see that the white of her belly was only about the width of two hands, tapering toward her groin and the black striped white ridge that made her life a complex hell, before continuing down her inner thighs and disappearing under the waist of the sweats. He saw that the stripe widened slightly nearer the base of that ridge before disappearing into the thick white ruff of fur at her groin and thighs.
	More eager to get some heat back into his flesh than to oggle her he carefully stepped over her and crossed to the fireplace. Quietly detaching the screen hooks he folded it back he took some small kindling and pitch wood to toss on the heap of gray ash. He poked gently at them until the pitch caught and the flames were coaxed back to life.
	Slowly he felt the warmth growing as he added more, thicker kindling until he had a pleasant blaze crackling in the hearth. Not enough to add full sized firewood too, quite yet, but enough to chase the immediate chill from nearest the hearth.
	“Ren, mmmh? Oh, it got cold.” He heard Charlie rustling behind him but he did not look back; she was probably making herself modest again. “It was real hot there, for a while, I guess.”
	“It’s gonna take some time to warm up.” He said toward the growing fire, carefully adding each new bit of thicker wood. “Sleep well?”
	“Enough.” She conceded softly and he heard a yawn behind him. “What time is it?”
	“No idea. Doesn’t matter, I guess, the storm's still going.” He sat back on his heels to watch the flame progress across the kindling, the heat dry and immediate against his front, utterly absent from his back.
	Then the cold at his back was diminished, replaced by a heavier warmth just enough to banish the chill. Charlie’s arms draped over his shoulders to rest against his chest as he propped her chin atop his head. He could feel the heat of her breasts pressed against his upper back, firm despite their individual layers of clothing and her own fur. From one side her tail swept around and piled half of its length into his lap. “Good point. If it wasn’t so chilly I’d just crawl back under the covers and sleep until the storm passed.”
	Ren leaned back slightly and dropped one hand to the great fluff of fur lying across his lap, burying his hand to the wrist in the surprisingly warm, soft fur. He reached up with his other hand to stroke one of the arms draped across his chest. “For three more days?” He asked with a laugh as she yawned atop his head. “And who knows how long before they get residential streets clear and power back on.”
	Charlie shifted her head and rested it on the arm draped over his shoulder, her incredibly long, plentiful whiskers tickling him from ear to chin. “And no hot water.”
	He turned his head slightly, leaning to one side and trying not to get poked in the eye with any of the shorter whiskers. “Hot water? Yeah, we do, why?”
	“You do?” Her brows, defined merely as slightly longer black swaths of fur upon her bow, shot up, whiskers angling upward and tickling most of his face. “For showers, silly. Or we’ll both be reeking.”
	Ren ahhed and chuckled, moving his head to bump his nose against hers. “My hot water heater is gas, and probably big enough to wet all of your fur before it runs out.” His chuckle became a deeper laugh. “You probably look hilarious after a thorough soaking.”
	“Oh, fuck yeah. I look like a bedraggled street cat. Which is why I never go swimming, or anywhere close enough to fall in. It takes hours just to stop feeling soaked without a forced air cycler, and even so I feel damp for days because it’s a pain in the ass drying all the way to the skin.” Her tail flicked against his arms. “And, my gods, my tail is horrible to dry.”
	Running his fingers into the incredibly deep, lush fur of the satin soft, warm tail draped across his lap Ren chuckled and smiled. “Feels fine for all of that effort, though. How often do you have to put it through the wash cycle?”
	The tail twitched in his grasp but she did not draw it away, leaning against his back with her chin on his shoulder and whiskers tickling the entire side of his face. “Once a month, at least. When I’m shedding I have to spend a small fortune on a salon once a week. I blow so much fur I could probably have it turned into yarn and make an entire wardrobe every year.”
	He raised a hand from the depths of her tail to stroke the forearm draped against his chest. “If this is how your fur feels I’d wear it. It’s fucking soft, hon. I mean, damn, really. I’ve never felt fur this silky smooth.”
	With a flash of sharp white teeth she smiled and nose bumped his cheek. “Thanks, hon. It takes a good gods damned lot of work to keep it that way.” He blinked in surprise when the nosebump became a flick of warmth as she drew the tip of her tongue against his cheek. “I’m glad you like it. You humans have a much finer sense of touch than we do, with our pads.” She turned one of her hands over and held it up so he could see the pads of her palm and along the inside of each finger, all black and fringed with black fur and a few smatterings of white. A gleaming black claw tipped each one, adding perhaps ten millimeters to each finger’s length. “Yeah, more sleep sounds nice, tho.” She said with a yawn that revealed those sharp teeth in the corner of his vision.
	Ren leaned back slightly into her weight and chuckled. “Damn hibernator.” He poked an elbow back lightly to give her a playful nudge in the ribs.
	“Skunks don’t hibernate, ignorant human.” She countered, turning her hands and giving him a return poke… with ten claws. He winced at the mildly ticklish sensation. “No beastkin do, not even bears.” Not that the publishing house had any bears on staff for him to know that tidbit.
	“So, then, three more days of non-stop snow to stay awake through.” He leaned forward and onto his knees to dig a couple of larger pieces of wood from the rack and carefully set them atop the crackling blaze. The room was finally beginning to warm to a comfortable temperature, though it was still chilly. “With no television or computer to burn the time with.”
	A hand grasped his shoulder once he had situated the logs and drew him back once more against Charlie’s front. “You could still tell stories. I like yours.” She paused and tickled the side of his face with her whiskers once more. “Even if I did fall asleep for the last bit. You’ll probably have to go over the material again.”
	Ren leaned back slightly, enjoying the close warmth against his back warding off the chill the light of the fire could not. “Comfy, though. Maybe I’ll just sit here for a while.” Blunt claws once more poked at his chest as she chuckled, her body vibrating lightly against his back. “Warm fire, warm company. Very pleasant.” He observed as he reached up to stroke those arms again, the tail had not returned to his lap.
	“I’m not holding you up if you fall asleep, silly man.” Charlie chided into his ear, close enough her breath was warm against his skin, whiskers tickling his jawline and cheek. He turned his head to look back at her over his shoulder, nose to nose, resting his chin on the arm draped over his near shoulder.
	“Why not, you saying I’m too heavy?” He joked, leaning in slightly to bump the black, cool pad of her nose with his own. Her dark eyes gleamed in the firelight, vague shimmers of deepest blue dancing across the dark irises with the motion of the flames.
	“Yep.” She said, smiling, and kissed him.
	Well, it wasn’t really a kiss so much as a feathery caress of short, soft yet stiff fur across his lips and he drew his head back, both eyebrows shooting up. Charlie blinked as if surprised at her own temerity and drew back as well, arms dropping from his shoulders as she slumped back to sit on her heels. Her tail twitched around to drape across her front and her eyes went wide as they gazed at each other for a long moment.
	“Char -” he started and her entire posture wilted. Ears went back and her whiskers drooped as she bowed her head in shame and clutched her tail.
	“Sorry!” She mumbled, shifting her balance back as if to rise. Ren turned awkwardly about and reached to catch one of her forearms, halting her in the unsteady motion between sitting and standing.
	“Don’t be!” He said quickly, not grabbing that arm hard, just enough to stay her a moment. “It’s fine, Charlie, it’s fine.” He smiled and released her arm to reach up and rest the tips of his fingers against the thick ruff along her cheek just below her ears. “You just surprised me, is all. I’m not upset, just… well, just flattered, really. Pleasantly shocked.”
	Charlie, expression still abashed, slowly settled back down onto her heels. She hazarded an upward glance through her lashes. “Flattered?” She asked softly, ears and whiskers still back in self-recrimination and doubt.
	Ren let out a soft huff of breath and turned about on his knees to sit back on his own heels facing her, dropping his hands to rest on his knees. “Yes, hon, flattered. I just got a kiss from the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen!” Charlie snorted derisively and shook her head.
	“I’m not pretty. I’m a skunk, and a freak.” She turned her head slightly away but did not move to retreat.
	“Bah.” He scoffed in return, waving one hand dismissively. “Charlie, hon, you’re pretty to me. Gorgeous. And you are no freak.” He stressed his words gently, but emphatically. Leaning forward, still not reaching out to unbalance her fragile state, he made an admission. “And I’ve wanted to kiss you since before we ever spoke.”
	That brought her gaze up, finally, ears trying to lift but merely twitching half way. “You have?” He nodded slowly. “I…” She paused, looking down and away. “I’ve… wanted to, too.” Her eyes came back to him. “And so, so much more but… but I didn’t want to damage what we had, like so many others. I didn’t want to destroy the friendship we had, that you offered me when no one else would.” Finally she reached out a hand and rested cool, coarse yet soft padded fingers against the back of his hand. She chuckled, it sounded almost like the edge of a sob. “Ren, hon, if I had the correct parts I would be soaked to my knees right now.” She admitted sheepishly, ears dropping back and all but disappearing in the lush fur of her head.
	Smiling like a fool, Ren turned his hand over and captured hers in a firm but gentle grasp. “You do have the correct parts, hon. For you, for the entirety of you. Perfectly correct.” Gently he pulled at her hand and she glanced down at their joined fingers for a moment until he pulled again, drawing her balance forward.
	Charlie’s weight shifted, bit by bit, though he did not pull with demanding strength, until they were once again nose to nose. His eyes, dark in shadow with the fire behind him, glimmered as he held her gaze. Leaning in slightly he brushed a light kiss to the tip of her nose pad earning a blink and frown before she tilted her head up just so and their lips met.
	She let out a soft, needy moan as the velvet touch of their first kiss became a heated pressure, her arms coming up, divesting herself of his grip, to embrace him in a desperate hug. His own hands settled on her hips as he let his lips press against hers, part, tongues meeting eagerly in the middle. Her teeth were sharp and he was careful, but her tongue was longer, if thinner. They twined and danced as they panted through their noses and each sought to consume the other through that dam breaking contact.
	Without relenting upon his lips Charlie moved her hands to his waist and pulled, dragging him back as she shuffled on her knees, the bushed length of her tail darting too and fro as she used it to guide her back toward the barrier of the sofa. Once back on the softer comfort of the bedding she pulled him closer still and turned, guiding him with her hands until he fairly fell onto his back with a whuff that finally broke their kiss.
	Panting, eyes wide and wild, Charlie raked blunt claws down the front of his shirt firmly enough to dimple the flesh beneath before finding the waist of his somewhat tented sweatpants. She grinned down at him with a brilliant flash of white teeth as she pulled them down revealing snug boxer briefs beneath that were straining to contain what she sought under their protective covering.
	“No.” Ren managed to gasp as he panted is well, reaching down to capture her wrists even as her claw tipped fingers delved under the tight elastic waist of his briefs. “Charlie, no.” He said again, a little more strongly, pulling her hands up and away. She looked up at him, aghast, still panting with her eagerness, nose all but running with the scent of him freshly revealed but only in suggestion once the sweats were drawn down. Her ears pinned forward, rotated back, lifted again, and then went flat.
	“You don’t…” She began, her voice strained, caught between uncontrolled hunger and soul crushing hurt. “You don’t want… me.” A statement, not a question.
	Shifting up Ren shook his head, “Charlie.” He said gently, still holding her wrists so she could not flee into some dark, cold corner of his house. “Charlie, hush now.” He continued as he sat up and drew her against his chest, feeling how her breaths heaved at the precipice of agonized emotional collapse. “Hush, my dear, hush.” Shifting out from under her, he drew her up until they were both on their knees, and then he stood, moving his hands to her waist to guide her unsteadily up with him. “I do. I so very, very much do. But not this way, not like all of your past dates that got what they wanted and fled.” Gently turning her he eased her back one step, then another, until the sofa fetched up against the back of her legs.
	“I… I don’t understand?” She valiantly tried to keep her sorrow at his refusal from breaking through. “I liked… like… I mean, that. I like that, they liked it.” At the continued pressure she could no longer back up so was, perforce, made to settle down onto the sofa slowly enough she could get her tail safely to one side.
	“That is not your worth to me, hon. You do not have to offer that to prove anything.” He said as he helped her sit but did not join her, settling onto his knees until they were again at eye level, relatively. Seated on the sofa she was looking down at him before her, his hands still at her waist. “They just used you. Maybe not intentionally, but in the end, when they had to consider what would follow, they broke. In the end, they all used you.”
	Jerkily she nodded, sensing his reassurance but hardly reassured by his refusal of her completely unabashed offer. If all the males she had known that way, and there had been many, he was the first one to have ever refused and it left her wallowing in confusion. That is, until he leaned forward, pressed his lips to hers, and slid his hands down to the waistband of the sweat pants he let her borrow and tugged. They were already rucked down several inches so she barely had to move to let them slide out from under her thighs as her eyes went wide.
	With a murf of startled surprise she broke away, drawing back, reaching down reflexively for the waistband now out of her reach. “Ren.” She choked, eyes wide, whiskers and ears back. He stopped, tilting his head slightly as he met her wild deer-in-headlights agog stare. All he did was smile and moved his hands to the front of her thighs just above her knees.
	“You don’t want this?” he asked softly, using her own earlier fear and offering it back with no fear in his voice at all, still smiling warmly.
	“I…” She stammered, holding his gaze, refusing to let the rising panic fluffing the fur above the neckline of her blouse and doubling the width of her tail, break loose. “I don’t… I don’t know, Ren. No one has ever…” She trailed off, not releasing his hands, her thighs clamped tight together though that did nothing to hide what he wasn’t looking at anyway.
	“No one?” He asked with mild reproof. “Really? Never?”
	She shook her head vehemently, making her short ears rustle in the thicker fur of her head where a dog might have been flopping wildly. “Never.” She rasped softly, breaths coming in short, fearful animal gasps. “Not even touched. They ran. They always run.” He knew what she feared, other than his unexpected proximity to her lack of womanhood.
	Ren shifted back down onto his knees, still not moving his hands further up nor down, resting still upon the satin fur of her thighs captured by her shaky grip. “Charlie, hon, I’m right here. I’m not running away.” He continued softly, one corner of his mouth quirking up. His hands flexed, lightly gripping the tops of her knees. “Hon, I’m running toward. I’ve been running towards you since the first day I saw you on the train staring out at the rain that morning.” His smile widened as he chuckled softly. “And, even after you threw your secret in my face I’ve never stopped running forward, toward you. It was all I could do not to fall on my face or say something stupid every time you found the perfect paramour on your apps while I sat right next to you. Or watch you lament them turning away and running, the cowards.”
	She gasped, half laugh half cry, and released his hands to grasp his face, pulling him up and forward until she could press her lips against his. Hot, fierce, and brief, without enough time for their tongues to dance. “Ren, hon, if I had known.” She rasped raggedly after breaking the kiss. “Gods, you know just how to give a girl a hardon.” Her gasping, ragged rasp became an equally rueful laugh that ended in hiccoughing gasps. “My fucking nips are so gods damn tight right now.”
	Ren leaned back slightly and glanced down at the stark ridge at the narrowest point of her belly stripe and, sure enough, it was considerably thicker than he had seen it before and a good five or six centimeters of glistening, dark pink flesh was standing forth. As he watched a short spurt of wetness leaped from the tip to spatter against and disappear into the white fur framing it. More dribbled out to leak down the lower curve, disappearing into the short, dense fur of her sheath.
	He raised his gaze and grinned fiendishly. “Ren, hon, can I ask you something?”
	“Please!” She rasped, releasing his hands spastically and clutching her own upper thighs as if that were the only safe place she felt she could put her hands.
	“Can I take care of that for you?” He asked, pointedly letting his gaze drop again, watching how her tumescent exposure flexed, thickened slightly, and sent another glistening spatter into the white fur. Slowly he drew his gaze back up, catching and holding hers. “And no, I won’t back off, so don’t ask. When you reach that precipice, hon, leap off. I’ll be here to catch you.”
	She grunted something between a laugh and a growl, her fingers bunching into the mixed black and white fur of her thighs, but said nothing as she just stared back at him, hunger writ in those eyes and every vibrating tension-taught nerve of her body. Sliding his hands inward he slipped them between her knees even as he leaned forward against them, bowing his head.
	The musk of her, now free and unmasked by perfume or garment, was heady. It was like nothing he had ever taken in through his nose before, warm and spicy, a soft yet alluring musk that made him think of a chai with heavy cream, perhaps some mocha. Not at all unpleasant and all he could think was: more. He wanted more, even if he had to bury his nose in her balls to experience it.
	Or just let her drag them all over his face like griefers did in video games.
	Those knees parted against the weight of his chest but he was already close enough to that glistening flesh that held no color in the shadow his body cast from the fire. A twitch and spurt grazed his chin, dashing across his cheek before he could get his drooling mouth open and, in a single smooth motion, took that entire exposed length into his mouth and crushed it upward against his palate with his tongue.
	Charlie let out a squeak that trailed off into a snarl as her hips bucked, drawing down briefly as her knees clamped against either side of his chest, and then surging upward to drive even further into his mouth. Initially she was relatively thin, a markedly narrow tip like a canine but without the abrupt flaring beyond the tip. In that regard she was more feline; a relatively gradual thickening toward the base, with noticeable ridges every three or four centimeters like stacked waffle cones, with a slight upward curve. That first plunge only brought a length of maybe six centimeters into his mouth and Ren savored them hungrily.
	The taste was far from what he had expected, knowing canines and a few other sheathed species. Most sheaths had a sharp, almost bitter tartness from the natural lubrication that had to be suffered through the first few seconds. Human women were very much the same, though far sharper to the taste, almost electric.
	Charlie was mellow and deep, rich with just an edge of nutty bitterness he would’ve expected. The scent and taste was unmistakably male, and extremely aroused male at that, forcing him to create a better seal as it twitched and throbbed sending rapid jets of thin, salty brine into his mouth. Strong legs wrapped about his midriff and drew him closer, plunging another three of our centimeters into his mouth and he huffed heavy breaths through his nose, gulping rapidly. She just got thicker, each ridge starkly defined, a half centimeter narrower behind but quickly thickening.
	“Oh fucking gods.” Charlie’s voice was a ragged, torn rasp as her hips shuddered, dipped, bucked up when he raised his head slightly, plunging what he had released back into the heat of his mouth. When his head dropped he took even more, burying his face and nose into the deep, thick, dampened white fur of her groin. There he bottomed out as her hips fell and jerked back up, slamming the last of her home as his jaw was spread wide around her widest girth. It was a goodly spread of his jaws but not uncomfortae. At that moment he didn’t give a damn about taking its measure, only enjoying the hell out of it. “Gods, Ren! Oh, gods!” She shuddered, her legs clamped tight against his back, and he felt the powerful throbbing pulse of her as he drew his head half way up and plunged back down; sometimes slow, sometimes fast.
	Charlie tried to keep sync with the rhythm of his eager, hungry suckling, the bobbing of his head, but she was utterly lost in the sensation. The heady musk increased but never became offensive, just more alluring to his senses. It as skunk-like, with a dry acridity wrapping about the deeper scents of musk and spice, but not even remotely offensive.
	Hands grasped his head, pulled, clutched his hair, released, never taking control but desperate to find some purchase. Blunt claws delved into his thin human pelt and raked against his scalp as the skunk before him writhed and bucked. “Ren! Oh, fuuuck…” Then she let out a sound that was not pleasure at all, it was not release.
	It was agony. “Oww, ow! Fuck, ow! Ren, stop! Ren!” He did, pulling his head up so swiftly her maleness slipped from his lips with a wet pop and he gazed up at her in panic.
	“Charl - ?”
	“Cramp! Awww, fuck, cramp!” Her legs released him and she leaned forward over his head, driving his face down against her cock as she reached past him to clutch her lower left leg and foot.
	Realizing it was not what he was doing that caused such sudden, immediate pain he sat back to catch her leg as she groped at her calf, one black furred foot curled painfully downward along its length. Grasping it in his hands he began rubbing firmly along the thickly padded sole. He found the tension almost immediately, a quiver along the major tendons running from heel pad to toe pads. He’d helped a few of the sportier members of his frat get through similar problems, chastely, when he was in college so it was not an unfamiliar task.
	He looked up at her pained expression as he worked along the tendon, letting her work the muscles of her calf. Her face was drawn into a fearful rictus, revealing almost all of her distressingly sharp predatory teeth. Her eyes were clamped shut against the pain, whiskers drawn as flat back as he had ever seen them and ears all but disappeared into the fur of her head.
	Firmly but gently he coaxed the twitching tendon into quiescence and felt Charlie’s body relax above him and, after a few minutes she stopped trying to rub her fingers all the way through her calf. “Fuck.” She moaned as she slumped back into the sofa. “Fuck, Ren. I was so close! Right there!” She sighed, holding up one shaking hand to hold thumb and inner finger a scarce half centimeter apart.
	He was ready to make some joke about coitus interruptus or, more accurately, fellatio interruptus, when that hand reached out, seized the top of his head, and drew him forward. He did not resist, letting her guide him once more into the satin soft V of her thighs, pressing his nose against her needy and surprisingly large sac. He inhaled deeply once, twice, huffing out into the short velvet softness of those orbs before snuffling upward to the rumpled heap of sheath skin at fur caught behind the widening at the base of her throbbing, now half deflated cock. As he brought his tongue out to lick slowly upward along its underside, feeling it twitch and pulse, thickening under the caress he looked up.
	Charlie was gazing down at him, the fire making her eyes sparkle, with an expression of both utter surprise that someone was treating her to such pleasure and in the rapture that pleasure sent through her entire body. He saw that her blouse was open, now, the curves of her breasts softened by fur, bisected down the center by a white swath of fur that painted their inner curves white. Black buds of furless flesh stood starkly from their pinnacles, ruddy shadows that glistened amidst the soft black of the fur surrounding them.
	Reaching up with one hand he hooked it under the base of her shaft as he reached the tip, standing it out from her groin as he circled the slender taper and, watching her as she gazed beatifically down, he consumed her again.
	Slowly.
	His tongue pressed and stroked against each subtle ridge and vein, causing her entire body to jerk and twitch, her hips striving up only to be frustrated as he lifted his head equally, denying the needy plunge into the promised heat. She groaned, a delightfully feminine sound, as her fingers flexed, driving claws against his scalp solidly but not painfully, and urged him down.
	The way she thickened so rapidly, the increasing tension he felt in those thighs pressed against his cheeks, and the tightening of her loins, told him all he needed to know about her desire for haste. He let her drive him down, drawing his gaze away to offer a more accessible angle, and felt her hips drive upward as her hand pressed down upon the back of his head and her cock throbbed.
	And then jerked. He felt the rush upward from the root against his tongue a heartbeat before it fountained against his palate in a hot surge. His mouth tightened, lips sealing about the thick root prizing his jaws open, and he gulped even as her cock relaxed, tensed, and jerked again. The first release had been a modest sampling, rich and musky and salty yet sweet at the same moment, the second a greater offering.
	The third, however, was an explosion that filled his mouth so swiftly he almost gagged trying to gulp it down before the fourth. She grunted deeply, letting out a rolling basso rumble that made her entire body vibrate each time her cock released its pent need into his mouth. He had to relax his mouth and throat simply to provide enough space for the next thick surge, gulping rapidly as he felt it ebb. Luckily the fifth was not so copious or, he felt, he would not have been able to keep up. He needed to breathe but he eagerly accepted the fifth, six, and seventh offering with some alarm, wondering just how much she had to give.
	By the eighth the flow had tapered enough for him to lift his head slightly and inhale a quick, needy breath around the girth filling his mouth causing her to hiss and groan as her flesh was flash-cooled and then flash-heated when he sealed about her again and continued to suckle thirstily. The ninth release as a desultory, slow burble that seemed as thick as treacle, sticking to his tongue and coating the inside of his mouth with its rich, almost creamy flavor, before her body finally slumped above him and she let out a throaty, full chested huff of breath.
	In his mouth Ren felt her continue to twitch and pulse but no more tense, throbbing jerks so he eased off the pressure of his tongue and, ever so slowly, raised his head. He let her from his mouth far more gently the second time. By then her cock was rapidly slimming, disappearing into her dampened sheath moments after his mouth relinquished it. Languidly he nuzzled into the damp fur of her sheath and groin, even down as far as her sac to get her scent all over him while he waited for her to regain her wits.
	Strong hands grasped his shoulders, shifting under his arms to draw him up, quivering a little as he shuffled forward to lean between her legs and raise his face only to be ensnared by a hungry kiss. Her tongue delved into his mouth, sharp teeth pressing hard against his lips as she sought to taste herself on him, consume him with fervent heat. He slipped his arms around her waist, under her rumpled, open blouse and delving his fingers deep into the lush fur.
	“Araumn’s blessed touch, Ren!” She gasped after their kiss parted minutes later. “That was… gods, that was better even than I could do! And I know how men like it!” She chuffed and tried to crush him with a shaky hug. She bowed her head to press her brow against his, whiskers angling up and forward to caress his cheeks. “I never had a clue you were gay!”
	Ren could only laugh warmly and run his fingers along her back and around the wrist-thick root of her tail though he did not delve beneath it. “I’m not, Charlie, hon. I prefer women, but I’ve never been averse to male company.” He turned his head to lip lightly at one of her rounded skunk ears. “You must’ve been pretty pent. Not even a canine has ever cum that hard for me.”
	She chuckled softly and murred at the teasing of his lips. “They don’t, they just cum forever. And, hon, you forget, I’ve got two sets of testes!” She leaned back to lift her head away from his teasing and touch his lips with a light kiss. “Now you know why I didn’t want asparagus.”
	“Huh?” He asked as, somewhere outside, a loud crack followed by a heavy rustling thump heralded some tree succumbing to the weight of the snow. He gauged it was somewhere out front, down by the street, but only in some distant corner of his brain. “Asparagus?”
	“For dinner?” She said with chiding humor. “Makes cum taste something horrid and make piss smell like absolute hell.”
	He leaned back to catch her gaze. “Does it? And you said no.” He quirked an eyebrow, curious. “So you expected this to happen?”
	She snorted and poked him with a claw tipped finger. “No, you silly naked ape.” She laughed with a shake of her head. “I expected you to be in my muzzle, not me to be in yours!”
	“Oh, did you, now?”
	She nodded slowly, suddenly sheepish, ears twitching back. “I was hoping, anyway. Kinda scared, though.”
	“Scared? That I’d freak and ghost you?” She nodded slowly. “Fuck, hon, after what you just did to me that is something you don -” He was cut off when her hands shifted to her shoulders and pushed, solidly. Seated on his heels he was already unsteady and the sudden force overbalanced him and he was sent sprawling before he could secure his grip. His legs kicked out awkwardly as he fell onto his back and was pounced from above, Charlie straddling him from hip to shoulder as she grinned down at him.
	“Good.” She all but purred as she lowered her head and bussed him softly before sitting up and pinning his hips down under her. With a quick roll of her shoulders she divested herself of the blouse and tossed it carelessly aside before leaning down again to kiss him once more, slowly, languidly. His hands roved her back, luxuriating in the satin soft depth of her fur as she ground her naked hips pointedly against his still-clad crotch. It was hardly a moment before he felt his briefs straining against his rapidly re-awakening erection. “Because I am going to return the favor. Right now.”
	There was no arguing with that vehemence, especially with all of those sharp white teeth behind it, as she leered down at him. Shuffling back she dipped her hands down beneath the hem of his shirt and, splaying them, slid them back up against his skin with blunt claws and coarse yet soft pads. Ren shivered at the delightful touch, his back arching as more and more of his shirt was rucked upward. Sitting up as she crossed his pecs he dropped his hand to her waist, then hips, finally back and down to stroke the deep, dense fur of her rump. The huge shadow of her tail rose up behind her like some white streaked serpent preparing to strike as she bodily dragged his shirt up. Only once it caught under his arms did his hands raise away from that grip, lifting until she drew the shirt off his arms and, like her blouse, cast it carelessly into the deeper shadows beyond the firelight.
	“You smell positively delicious.” She growled as she lowered herself back down over him, grinning that predatory grin. “You know, it was one of the bullies at my highschool that taught me the power I had in my muzzle.” She continued softly, the divergent track of action and words throwing Ren off a bit, letting his tumescent erection fade, though only slightly. “He found me in the forest one day when I was, I dunno, fifteen? Sixteen? I had just been out walking, as I did a lot when I just couldn’t take the chaos and crowd of home. It’s not like I could just go to the mall and hang out with friends.” She shrugged and bowed to draw her whiskers tantalizingly across his chest, making his skin twitch and his muscles jump.
	“We stumbled upon each other rather by accident. He was out doing his geology stuff, collecting rocks and the like. I found him pissing against a tree and we spotted each other at the same time.” Her whiskers slowly caressed side to side, her breath warm upon his skin as his fingers roved through the fur across the back of her shoulders and upper arms. Her pose was too close and too awkward for him to reach her breasts which he had not yet explored by touch or taste; yet, anyway. “I was just startled, and he flicked off the last drops and turned without bothering to pull up his pants. ‘Bet mine’s bigger than yours, skunk.’ He said with a laugh. He was one of my bullies, but never alone, he always attached himself to worse bullies. And he never called me ‘freak’, though everyone new.” Finding one of his nipples she fell silent for a few seconds as she teased it with a warm breath, a far warmer caress of her tongue, and then a nip of those deadly sharp teeth.
	Ren had little sensitivity in his nipples and she discovered that when his reaction was to flinch rather than gasp or writhe as he had under the stroke of her tongue, so she moved on. “‘Bet mine’s bigger than yours, skunk.’ He challenged, waving it at me. Dinky soft thing it was, hardly enough to fill his palm. Still surprised at coming around a tree to find him standing there with his junk out all I could do was laugh. ‘That dinky thing? You’re fucking crazy.’ I said, pointing at it.
	“‘It gets bigger!’ he claimed, defensive, at my derision. ‘Oh, does it? Show me.’ I’d never seen anyone else’s junk before and, well, being a girl I was naturally curious.” Charlie raised her head from his midriff to grin up at Ren’s curious regard as she continued her story, working southward with such slow pacing his erection had returned and was becoming downright uncomfortable. “‘I can’t.’ He said, crossing his arms and letting the little thing dangle on his nuts. ‘It needs some reason.’
	“‘What reason is that?’ I asked, walking right into it like an idiot. ‘Someone’s got to kiss it.’ He claimed with a shrug. ‘Bet yours is like a dog’s, skinny and hard all the time.’ I wasn’t about to show him, of course. He’d laugh louder than I did and spout about it in school for everyone to laugh at. ‘Bet you won’t kiss it, skunk.’” Ren gasped when her hot breath wafted across his confined erection, snuffing a breath out through her nose before inhaling and making a low, pleased growl. “Mmmh, you smell so good. And you’ve soaked right through these boxers.” He grunted and shifted when her nose pressed closer and inhaled again, loudly.
	“So I did. Right there, in the forest, to show him I wasn’t afraid of anything some naked monkey had, I went over, bent down, and kissed his pecker right on its tip. He jumped and cried out in surprise and I just watched his little manhood flop about, but it did respond when I kissed it, getting a little longer, a little bigger.” Her nose ground down hard against Ren’s groin, huffing intervals of hot and then cool as she shoved her angular, tapered muzzle between his thighs and against his restrained balls. “‘That’s it?’ I said, pointing.” It was strange a strange experience for Ren, he’d never had someone carry on a conversation with their face lifting his balls before.
	“‘That was just a kiss!’ He said, recovering from his shock. “'If you want to see it get bigger you gotta do more than kiss it.’” Ren let out a startled cry when he felt sharp, powerful teeth close over his constrained cock, her tongue teasing the pre-wet fabric with slow, powerful licks. The teeth did not hurt, they merely held his member while she enjoyed what had leaked through the fabric.
	“‘More? Like what?’ Stupid girl that I was, aware of males and females, of course, and what sex was in general, but I didn’t understand oral sex. ‘You gotta put it in you.’ He said, though I could tell his nerves were a bit frayed that I had the balls to even kiss it, much less do more. ‘Since you don’t have girl bits, you gotta use your mouth.’”
	“‘Put that? In my mouth? And do what with it? It’s too small to choke me.’”
	“‘Right now it is, but it gets bigger. And you gotta keep your teeth away! Just use your tongue. That’ll make it grow, right sure.’ But it was already growing as I watched, getting thicker and beginning to stand out from where it lay against his balls. It was really rather interesting to a girl who’d only ever seen her own, and her brothers’ when we were just kits.” Propping himself up on his elbows Ren looked down as Charlie worked over his groin without giving his erection freedom from its restraints, lust fogging his mind even as curiosity waited to hear the end of her story. She glanced up at him, gleams of moisture trickling down from her nose before she licked it away. “So, well, that’s what I did. I got down in front of him, kissed his junk, which smelled so good. Like you do. So good, so rich and ‘male’ that I didn’t even think after the kiss, I just opened my muzzle and let it slide right in across my tongue.” Catching the hem of his briefs Charlie gave them a downward tug and his cock sprang up like a freed rabbit, almost smacking her in the nose. With a fire-lit gleam in her eyes Charlie suited story to action.
	She took him, tip to root, in a single gulp and not a tooth could be felt. Ren let out a surprised grunt and his entire body tensed at the sudden all encompassing heat claimed his needy erection, almost busting instantly. She did something with her tongue, however, that no human woman, man, or even other ‘kin he’d been with, had ever done. She drew the back of her tongue away from his sensitive glans and frenulum, pressing only with the tip of her tongue near his base. He could feel the sides of her teeth, he was almost too girthy for her shapely, predatory muzzle, and the caress of canines near his base, but no edges. He drew in his breath with a hiss and dropped his head back, letting out a throaty rumble as she dipped down to grind the cool pad of her nose into the hair of his groin before drawing fully back up.
	She eased his cock out gently, slowly, before giving him a scrotum to tip lick that made his eyes roll. “He did get full hard, right quick, as he said. He wasn’t big, not nearly as big as this thing.” She caressed his sensitive head with her tongue teasingly. “It fit nicely, and it tasted good to me. I kept it there in my muzzle while he gasped and twitched like I was hurting him. When I thought to draw back, after several minutes, he rested a hand on my head, not pushing, and said ‘don’t stop, fuck, don’t stop’ so I didn’t. I was enjoying what I was making his body do just by having his cock in my muzzle.”
	Charlie dragged his briefs down as she continued to cocktease him with her story, helping him kick them off to be lost under the sofa. “And when he came, oh good gods I thought he was going to faint or collapse. This musky, hot, salty… flavor all over my tongue. And I liked how it tasted. I let him spend himself completely, wondering if there was more. There wasn’t, of course. That’s when I realized two things. One, I really liked having his dick in my muzzle and, later, any dick that was clean. Second, I could make boys silly by just emptying their nuts. He never bullied me after that day, and let me suck his cock whenever we were private and out of sight.”
	“Did…” Ren rasped between labored breaths. “Did he do anything more?”
	“Mmmh?” Charlie asked, drawing her muzzle up between his thighs, teasing his flesh with her whiskers as she delved her cool nose up against the underside of his balls and inhaled slowly, shivering. Her tail bushed and lashed, an animated serpent in the firelight like a charmed cobra. “No. No, he never did. Just let me blow him whenever. No one ever did what you just did, and only a handful have ever dared get under my tail.”
	Ren groaned as her inquisitive nose became a warm lick from his balls to his shaft, teasing just beneath his glans where she paused, giving the lightest of nibbles with those scary sharp teeth at the taut flesh at the apex of his shaft. “Oh, fuck me, Char -” The rest was lost as a gutteral groan was yanked from his chest when the heat of her muzzle engulfed his needy head. Her tongue all but crushed his girth into the hollow along the roof of her muzzle and stroked, hard, along his underside. “Oh, fuck!” He gasped on the inhale, her weight pinning his hips as they strove to rise, to press more of his needy length into her muzzle. “Charlie, dear, HON… oh, gods fuck… as romantic as, unnh, that back story was… you’re really good! And… good at…” He gasped for another breath as she ever so slowly slipped downward, tongue rippling along the underside of his shaft in ways that no human - male or female - ever could. “... Giving a boy blue… balls!” His voice scaled up, ending in a squeak, as her head descended and his hands fisted in the bedding, toes curling much as hers probably had been doing before she cramped.
	Charlie chuckled around his shaft, plunging her head down the last few centimeters and driving her nose into the hair of his groin as her tongue did things that made sparks flit across Ren’s vision. He grunted in surprise and pleasure as she clamped down firmly, yet without giving more than the merest hint of sharp tipped teeth, and drew her head back up. By the time only the head of his cock was held within her muzzle, being teased mercilessly by her amazingly skilled tongue, he was on the precipice of a monumental release.
	Then she drew up fully, letting his rampant erection slap down upon his dampened groin with a resounding, and orgasm banishing, slap. “Mhh, tasty monkey man, you make -” Convulsively reaching out Ren grasped her head and drew it back down to press against his almost painfully needy erection, halting her words when she opened her muzzle and captured him once more. The heat, pressure, and the stroke of her tongue as she followed the guidance of his shaking hands finally allowed him to reach the precipice of his arousal and bodily hurtle himself into the abyss of release.
	His cock seemed to slam against the roof of her muzzle and the force of his seed racing up its length was almost brutal in its urgency. The skunk whose muzzle was buried in his crotch let out a pleased murr around him, a throaty sound almost like a growl that vibrated into the very core of his loins. As his cock tensed and jerked, relaxed, tensed, jerked again with each release of his powerful orgasm she did not swallow, letting his release fill the hot muzzle sealed tightly around his girth. Ren’s back ached with the power of it, his heels digging into the bedding as he tried not to crush her head in his hands and let out a deep chested, rolling growl of his own.
	And, after several seconds of eternal bliss his body sagged abruptly, utterly spent. His hands relaxed their desperate grip and he numbly stroked the thick fur of cheek ruffs, ears, the fur between them as he panted raggedly. Slowly, gently, Charlie eased up his length and, once she had reached his very tip, swallowed his offering with a loud, lewd gulp. Despite the fogged afterglow that sound made Ren giggle, and then laugh. “Oh, by all the gods most holy, you’re beyond good.” He finally managed to choke out as she lightly caressed either side of his still solid erection with her muzzle and whiskers. “Best, dear. Absolutely, without a doubt, beyond the best ever. Holy damn.”
	Shakily he transitioned his hands from her head to her shoulders, pulling at her until she scooted up over him, her breasts dragging across his stomach and chest. She nibbled his shoulder, throat, jaw, and found his lips almost tentatively. When mouth met muzzle he was aware of the earthy, pungent salty musk of his own release upon her tongue and breath, but he had no qualms about that. Her own was upon his tongue as well, and he’d sucked enough dick in his day to have long ago become inured to the idea of tasting his own seed.
	Seed was seed, whether it was his or anyone else's, after all.
	Encircling her with his arms he pulled her full weight down upon him and ran his fingers deep into the fur of her back as they panted through their noses and danced tongues. She gave in almost immediately when he did not shy away from his own taste. The musk in the room was a presence all his own, profoundly stronger after the two had each been brought to climax. His own Ren found rather odious, striking his nose like a strong case of masculine ball sweat but hers was still as alluring as ever, powerful and spicy and rich.
	And yes, unmistakably skunk in its undertones.
	“Damn.” He muttered at length, as they lay sprawled together, skunk atop human, the huge plume of her tail swaying down above their intertwined legs. “What a waste.”
	Charlie murred softly and nuzzled his neck. “Waste? This was a waste?” She asked with a quiet purr of curiosity.
	“Hmm? This? Oh, fuck no. This was bliss, hon. No, the last two years. If I’d known that… well, that you were so much more than I was happy just to sit next to and talk with… I would’ve asked you for a date on the first day.”
	She chuckled softly and shook her head in the hollow of his throat. “Wouldn’t have worked out as well, love. We had to become friends for this, today, to have worked as anything better than all the other failures.” Her chuckle became a rueful laugh. “Would’ve saved me probably fifty failed dates, though.”
	He stroked gently at her back, from shoulders to tail and back. “Good point. I like having you as a friend, Charlie.”
	She raised her head until he could look down and catch the fire shimmering in her dark eyes. “Just a friend?” Pointedly she shifted her hips, grinding her weight down a bit more firmly, and the ridge of her unique nature slid against his own.
	He shook his head and gave the cool pad of her black skunk nose a peck. “More than, hon.” He smiled warmly, letting his hands settle below her lush tail and giving the fur softened curves of her rump a squeeze. “Girlfriend, and I’m not going to act like you’re not in front of anyone.”
	Charlie let out a sigh and let her head rest upon his upper chest and he detected a hitch in her breathing as she embraced him as much as she could from atop him. “Wow.” She murmured quietly, almost too softly to be heard against the low moan of the wind and snow outside. “I never thought I’d hear those words. From anyone. Ever.” After taking some moments to compose herself in which Ren said nothing, merely brushing the top of her head with his chin and gently stroking the lush, amazingly soft fur of her backside though never letting his fingers trail inward beneath that tail.
	Then she giggled and her tail tucked, pinning his hands with the feathery warmth of its fur and muscular girth. “You can explore, love.” She said as she gave his throat a light nip. “Everything under my tail is yours, and I expect you to use it.” Her nip became an actual, if gentle, bite that raked away before releasing. “Before the storm passes.” Alongside his semi-flaccid cock Ren felt her own stir within its furry scabbard, thickening slightly.
	He let out a warm huff of breath and nibbled lightly at one of those fuzzy, round tipped skunk ears. “Not immediately, I hope, hon. After what you just did I’ve got to reload the firing chamber.”
	She lifted her head to fix him with a gimlet stare. “As if you’ve got any room to talk, mister.” She chided humorously, long whiskers twitching and then folding back as she slowly licked her lips. “You did the same thing to me. It’ll take me a minute.”
	“Just a minute, no more.” Ren winked and gave her rump a firm squeeze which only made her grind her sheath against him again. He could feel her throb and twitch; it was a queer, but delightful, feeling. “But maybe food, first?”
	“Your stove was induction.” She pointed out, not moving. “So I guess it’ll be cold franks for breakfast?” Turning her head she glanced at one of the curtained windows. “If it’s even day, yet.”
	“Oh, we’ll have hot food, hon. Oatmeal, ramen, canned soup? I think I could whip up a good stew if we want to wait for it to simmer a few hours.” He squeezed her rump again and bumped his hips up slightly to press himself against her sheath. “Unless you want to give me a hot meal right now?”
	“Har har.” She laughed and just ground right back against him. Her erection was obvious against him, now, only half constrained by her sheath. “Refresh period, remember? Oatmeal sounds perfect. Maybe stew later.”
	“Mkay, love.” He said with mock resignation as he released her rump and gave her a nudge to one side. She obediently dismounted, sprawling on her side as he sat up and then laughed. “I’m covered with fur.”
	“Duh.” Was her only response as she flicked the tip of her tail at him. He shrugged, climbing unsteadily to his feet, and swayed drunkenly into the kitchen without bothering with his briefs or sweats, wherever they had ended up. She had certainly put a whammy on him, drawing his sense of balance right out through his cock.
	He returned some minutes later with a large cast iron pot and a round canister of oatmeal. He set them aside before carefully unsecuring the fire screen and propping it to one side of the hearth. From the upright tube holding the fireplace implements he drew out a long rod with a hook at one and and a socket at the other. The socket fit neatly over a bracket built into one side of the hearth, one of four, that had held up the screen. He swung the rod a couple of times to make sure it was secure before lifting the heavy pot to hang from the hook.
	“Oh, that’s ingenious.” Charlie observed from her sprawl against the foot of the sofa, the white of her frontal stripe made orange by the firelight.
	“It’s how they cooked before stoves were easily purchased.” Ren walked, more steadily, back into the kitchen and returned a bit later with a pitcher of water that he poured into the pot before swinging it over the fire. “And since old household stoves were pretty much cast iron and weighed half a ton it was easier, too. My grandad had these put in when he helped my dad remodel the house, when my parents were newlyweds.”
	“Forward thinking. Is he still around, your grandfather?”
	“Hmm, yes. He lives out east, beyond the mountains where it’s warm in winter and the weather is a lot less chaotic.” Letting the cauldron heat he moved to sit against the sofa with Charlie who levered herself upright to lean against his side. “I’m afraid he wouldn’t like you, though. He’s one of those old school purists, we never really got on all that well. We’re polite, but that’s about it. He thinks my art and such are so much fru fru flim flam, I should’ve been a mechanic, or a carpenter.” He chuffed a breath through his nose. “Or a corporate boardroom asshole hoarding money and calling it ‘trickle down economics’.” He turned and rubbed his cheek between her ears while one of her hands idly stroked his chest, stomach, and cock though not with any direct intent to arouse it but to satisfy herself that its owner was not going to flee. “What about your family?”
	“Oh, they’d get a giggle out of you. They let me be whatever. The doctors told them pretty quickly that I had two distinct, separate DNA profiles, that I was a fetal chimera. They didn’t know how it would manifest, nor did I or my parents until puberty set in, so they just let me… be me. Psychologically I expressed myself as a girl, so that’s how they treated me.” She grunted softly, staring at the fire. “Drove my sibs nuts, though, because I had this,” she dropped a hand to rub her fingers along the ridge of her sheath, “but I wanted to be a girl. So I got my own room and they had to share.”
	“Your family sounds pretty nice, laid back.”
	She nodded against his chest, “They are. Accepted my weirdness without missing a beat. I mean, sure, we had the same disagreements that most well functioning families had, but it seldom had to do with my issues. We all worked around it pretty well. Typically skunk families are… well… high stress because of the ostracization they, we, get. Makes them easy to anger, as individuals and as a whole.” She sighed softly, her weight pressing against him, one fur soft, warm breast heavy against his upper arm. “Yet another cause for people to distance themselves.”
	“Yeah.” Ren said with a nod, watching as steam began to rise from the water and whisk away up the chimney. “I’ve seen the news. But you know what I don’t see? Crime. I seldom see a skunk on screen committing the same crimes that many of us humans seem to excel at.”
	Charlie laughed and poked him in the stomach with a blunt claw tip. “Yeah, there’s a reason for that. A reason that most beastkin don’t get up to highly visible, physical crime. Too easy to identify on video. When there’s twenty skunks in a city of fifty thousand it’s not like the cops would have to look very hard. Two thousand wolves in the same pop? They’re more difficult to find.”
	“That the way it was where you grew up?”
	“No. In the parishes there are… what… almost three thousand? Pretty small, tight knit families and clans.” She laughed merrily. “But oh, the strife between families! Wow! Never got so bad it achieved murder status, more like very convoluted and long running pranks, but still… as messy as a spilled bowl of soup.”
	Seeing that the water had begun to boil, Ren extricated himself from her warm weight and shuffled forward to pour oatmeal into the water after pulling the pot a bit further out so it slowed to a simmer. He stirred it with a wooden spoon until he felt something soft and warm caress his naked ass. “Cute.” Charlie said with gentle humor as the back of one hand caressed those naked, furless curves.
	“Oh?” Ren looked back over his shoulder and swayed as he leaned forward slightly. “You think my ass is cute?”
	“There are advantages.” She winked at him as she turned her hand to trace one cool, blunt claw tip up the back of his scrotum, taint, and asshole. “No hairballs, for one.” She giggled and dropped her hand to grope his crotch. “Just hairy ones.” Edging forward she slid her hands around his hips and pulled herself up close behind him, resting her chin upon his shoulder as she pulled him back firmly. He let out a soft grunt when the hot, soft, firm ridge of her sheathed member ground against the cleft of his ass. “How long will the oatmeal take?”
	Turning his head to give the side of her whiskered muzzle a kiss he laughed and pressed back against the firm strength of her hips and that teasing ridge grinding against him. “Twenty minutes or so.”
	“Mhh, good.” Bright, sharp white teeth gleamed as she grinned lecherously. “I bet I could make you pop in ten.” Her hands slid around his waist to fondle his flaccid maleness.
	“Not if you actually want to eat, hon.” Ren advised with a breathy groan, trying to hold that balance between pushing back to sit up fully or leaning forward and giving her even more unfettered access to his ass. “Oatmeal; I have to stir it and, well, with your wonderful muzzle on me I wouldn’t be able to think, much less stir.”
	She chuckled and tilted her head slightly to nibble his earlobe lightly with sharp skunk teeth. “That good, mmmh? I used to get plenty of practice.”
	“No, not ‘that good’, hon. Better.” He affirmed as he tried to distract himself from the teasing of her thickening shaft between his cheeks and the light caresses of fur, pad, and claw upon his manhood. “You could teach classes! Well, if such classes existed.”
	“I’m sure that, somewhere, they do.” Her hand grasped his slowly awakening girth and squeezed gently, one thumb pad stroking lightly across the back of his glans. “I can’t say if you were good, but most certainly were better than I ever was, since you’re the first man who’s ever done that to me, for me.”
	Blinking, Ren raised an eyebrow as he looked back. “Excuse me? I don’t follow. How can I be better than you, doing that?”
	Laughing merrily Charlie pushed back, abruptly leaving him feeling sorely neglected as she moved back to the sofa and sat down. “Love, I’m a skunk! You’ve never heard the old adage about skunks? Or ferrets, weasels, any of that genus? ‘Slinkies in fur?’” At his still confused stare she bent smoothly, effortlessly, and kissed her own balls. Her tail stretched back and above her to counterbalance as she nuzzled and kissed her way up her own sheath which was markedly thicker than it had even felt when pressed against his rear. At his agog, slack-jawed gape she laughed and straightened up, leaving a few centimeters of glistening pink flesh exposed against the white fur of her groin. “I can blow myself if I’m really pent.”
	“Oh, wow. That’s fucking hot.” He gasped, lost between awe and laughter at seeing how easy it was for her. “If all men could do that we’d go extinct!”
	She winked and laughed as she sprawled back on the sofa, legs splayed to show off the white of her inner thighs. Her balls were fully black, dusted white, mostly within the depths of that fur while her mostly white sheath was starkly defined by that centimeter wide streak of ebony leading to the inverted black teardrop of flesh at its apex, the pink gleam of exposed flesh slowly sliding out of sight as it slimmed. “I’ve heard that before, and those of us who can aren’t extinct yet. Getting ourselves off with our own muzzles just doesn’t compare to someone else doing it.” She winked and raised a hand to languidly make a stirring motion with one down turned finger.
	Blushing, Ren hastily turned and resumed stirring the pot after drawing it away from the fire slightly. “I guess it doesn't. Just glorified masturbating, right?” The oats were beginning to thicken but it would be some minutes yet before they reached the right consistency.
	“Precisely.” Charlie murmured softly with a quiet, contented sigh. “Beyond time I figured that’s what I would ever have, after so many failures.” He felt her at his back again, warm hands resting on his hips as her breasts pressed against his back and long whiskers tickled his ear, then softly furred lips and the cool touch of a nose pad. “I cannot thank you enough just for that, love.” She crooned into his ear before nuzzling the side of his neck.
	He turned his head to press his lips against the side of her muzzle, bending her whiskers briefly akimbo. “Shush, hon. Don’t begin to think for a moment that was a one and done deal. No way in hell, you’re not getting away that easily.” He grinned at her trill of laughter.
	“Me get away? It’s always them getting away from me, not the other way around.” She chuffed a soft snort through her nose, resting her chin upon his shoulder. “Often while their taste is still on my tongue or before the ache has faded from under my tail.” Ruefully she shook her head, then drew up slightly to favor him with one dark eye. “And then, here comes this rando on the train who shows up again, and again, and again. Who doesn’t run. And, instead of a date, just says come on back to my place and let’s talk about comic books.” She laughed merrily with a shake of her head. “And then gives me a gift like that.” She pressed against his back and shifted her weight slightly, dragging warm fur and firm yet yielding breasts against his back. “And says he wants more.”
	Pulling the pot further out from the fire to let it cool a bit Ren turned a bit further to face her. One arm dropped and reached back, sliding through the fur of her hip and groin to find her sheath, then further down to warmly grope her balls. “And I will have it too, my pretty.” He cackled in a passable wicked witch laugh.
	Turning about fully Ren grasped her hips before she could retreat, holding her in place as he leaned closer, ducking his face under her chin and into the thick ruff at the base of her throat. Charlie leaned back, supple as a willow switch, we he nuzzled still further downward, burying his face in the even deeper fur of her cleavage. She let out a soft breath of pleasure that became a soft gasp and then moaned when he nuzzled to one side, following the curve of one breast, pushing aside the shorter fur with lips and nose until he found a nipple and greedily suckled it into his mouth. He was somewhat surprised to find that it was damp before his lips found it and the taste was far more than merely flesh; sweet and musky. Trilling a low growl of pleasure Charlie grasped his head with one hand and pulled him in firmly as his tongue flicked and suckled at the swiftly tightening nub, catching it between his teeth.
	She gave the side of his head a light swat after a moment of delightful torture and pushed him back. “Stop that, silly boy, or our breakfast will be well and truly cold before I let you back to it.” With a chuckle Ren gave the warm, firm nub a light nip, earning a gasp, and withdrew. He turned to check the oatmeal and was satisfied with the consistency.
	“Okay, princess, we’ll eat.” He stood and stretched and Charlie did the same, warmly fondling him before stepping past. Her voluminous, soft tail dragged against him as she did, from knee to crotch for most of its length before she slipped down the hallway toward the guest bathroom. Chuckling at his good - nay, stupendous - luck Ren went to the kitchen to retrieve an oven mitt and used that to move the hot kettle to the kitchenette table.
	Charlie returned while he was setting out the various items his mother had taught him were best with oatmeal; brown sugar, syrup, cinnamon and nutmeg, milk, and berries that were only a few days old. The kitchen, somewhat at a remove from the hearth, was considerably more chilly than the living room, but not unpleasantly so. “I’m not sure how you like your oatmeal, hon, so I got the usual.” He waved a hand to take in the selection
	“Looks like the same way you do; sweetened. One of my brothers likes it with just milk but I think it leaves it so bland.” She carefully perched at the edge of one chair to let her tail drape to one side and he served a ladle full into her bowl that steamed far more than usual due to the cooler air. He put some in his own bowl and, for a short time there was silence as they prepared the dishes to their personal preferences. Above them a slow shift became a brief rumble as accumulated snow sloughed off the roof, making the floor vibrate subtly
	Leaning back, Ren opened a gap in the curtains to peer out. It was gloomy and he could see nothing beyond the storm windows of the deck outside except gray and snow falling, it seemed, every direction except up. “Daylight, and it's still snowing.” He let the curtain fall back with a shrug, shivering at the momentary chill that slipped between the folds of the heavy drapes. “We could get a meter or two before this mess blows over.”
	Making a salacious show of licking her spoon Charlie flashed him with bright, sharp white teeth behind the short velvet black fur of her lips. “Good. The deeper it gets the longer it will take for them to rescue you.” She said slowly, whiskers flicking up and forward briefly. “Though I hope you’ve got enough firewood to last.”
	Ren nodded and motioned beyond the curtains. “I’ve got more on the deck out of the weather, enough for a month. And a couple winters’ worth in the shed further out back.” He nodded toward the pot with his own spoon, lacking the theatrical skill to return her pointedly salacious display. He simply lacked the tongue to do so. “We’ll run out of food before firewood.” At her arched brows he grinned and laughed. “Oh, I’m sure we could stretch it out a few days by rationing our blowjobs, though.”
	He groaned inwardly at himself after that. Despite enjoying the company of males through his college years he had never been wholly into that scene. It was fun, but his primary preference had been for the ladies, mostly human but not exclusively so. Yet, after just one hour of intimacy with Charlie he found himself yearning for more of her particular masculine attributes. The look of her had enticed him for years, as had the tantalizing ‘come hither’ scent of her particular musk, but the feel of her against him and the taste of her upon his tongue made him yearn for her as he never had any male before. The fact that she did not identify as male was of no consequence, to him; she identified as female and fulfilled that in heart and mind. He had never thought of her as anything else.
	Not even with her erection filling his mouth with the very masculine force of her climax had altered that in any way.
	And he loved it. Loved her.
	With a mouthful of adulterated oatmeal he gazed across the table her in her fur clad nakedness, the fur around one barely visible nipple still damp. At the chiseled angle of her very inhuman head, long whiskers lifting and falling as she ate and teased, bright white teeth and slender tongue visible. At the damp glisten of her nose pad and the rounded tips of her pricked, triangular ears. A single white stripe beginning a few centimeters above her nose, tracing a stark line of white on black between those dark sometimes blue eyes and widening across her brow. The fur of her inner ears was also white, trailing down into the thick fur of her cheek ruffs before continuing down the sides of her neck and merging at the hollow of her throat leaving muzzle, chin, and throat black.
	Warning, that stark contrast of colors screamed; do not get close. Warning, only calamity comes from this particular combination and pattern of white within black.
	And he realized, anew, that he truly did. He had fallen for her the moment he stepped onto the metro car and saw her sitting alone, ears back, eyes on the rain.
	She had told him her secret, baldly, to warn him away. That had failed; he had still fallen, even with that knowledge.
	And he had only fallen further each day since.
	What they had shared but an hour previous was nothing against that. What they shared going forward would be nothing against that but an affirmation of what he had known within himself for ever so long.
	“What are you thinking that is so profound?” She asked at length, ears teetering back in that reflexive gesture from far too many rejections. But he had not, would not, reject her. He realized that she had finished her bowl while his sat, forgotten, half empty.
	“Oh?” He asked, blinking as he recovered the present. “Just…” He drew in a steadying breath and set his spoon down into the remains within his bowl. “Just… how much I fell head over heels that first day seeing you on the train.” He admitted quietly, feeling abashed. “And how much the time since has only made what I felt then all the stronger.” Ren shrugged helplessly and retreated into the ritual of eating.
	One of her brows, black with just enough dusting of whitened tips to give them definition, raised up her brow a centimeter. Her ears rotated forward again. “Head over heels?”
	Ren nodded, gulping down another spoonful. “For you, yes. And I was too scared of myself to even say hello for weeks.”
	Charlie cocked her head slightly. “For a skunk.” Her voice was gently chiding, her incredulity tinged with humor. Ren drew in a soft grunt of rueful laughter.
	“Yep, for a skunk; you.” Emptying his spoon he turned it to point at her, cupped curve downward. “Even after you tried to shoot me down the first time I opened my fool mouth.” Flipping the spoon right side up he scraped another mouthful from the rapidly emptying bowl.
	Charlie just watched him for several long moments, her lips parted, the short, sharp teeth between her two centimeter long canines visible past the black fur and flesh. Ren slowly finished the bowl and, with delicate care set the spoon down in it before resting his forearms on the table, bowl between them, and laced his fingers together. “So,” she said after that lengthy pause, “What you’re saying is… you’re in love with me? Me? You love me?”
	Ren nodded. “Since day one. Hopelessly.”
	She shook her head slowly. “Infatuation. I’m exotic.”
	He grunted a laugh and shook his head slowly. “Unique, love.” He affirmed with a half smile at one corner of his mouth. “But, no. Infatuation doesn’t last two years. It ages, becomes stale, old. Infatuation leads you to move in, to enjoy the object of its investment, and then move on to the next infatuation forgetting the current.” Again he shook his head. “No. Love. The fear and the pain of wondering if I should act on it, or simply enjoy those two forty minute train rides together forever.”
	Charlie nodded slowly. “Hon, love, you don’t know me, not really. I could be like a lot of skunks, outcast and angry. I could be a fucking psycho.”
	He laughed and shook his head. “In two years I’ve only seen you hackles up mad one time, and it wasn’t at me. For two years I’ve asked questions to learn about you, to know you. And,” he leaned across the table to touch lightly at one of her temples below one soft edged ear, “in here I’ve fallen for as much as here.” He dropped his hand to touch between her breasts.
	“Oh, and not my body, mmmh?” It was said with humor but there was a seriousness beneath the question.
	“Well, that is what captured me first, love, I’ll admit. And it only got better from there.” Ren admitted as he settled back into his seat. The kitchen was getting cooler and he felt gooseflesh race up his arms and thighs, partially from exposing his inmost feelings and using that dangerous word with meaning, love, as much as the invading chill. Outside the temperature must be dropping, and quickly. Hopefully that meant the worst of the storm front was passing.
	Or another arctic blast was descending through the core of the country to slam into the heavy warm front pushing up from the south to make things worse.
	Charlie cocked her head slightly and favored him with a sly, rakish grin. “So, how often have you imagined me while you were working one off?” She asked playfully, resting her elbows on the table and propping her chin in her palms.
	“Working one off?”
	She laughed, freeing one hand and making a loose curve as if grasping something and pumping it a couple times. Ren blinked, then laughed and shook his head. “Never.”
	“Never? Really?”
	“Not once. Oh, you were in my mind plenty, but I didn’t want to sully what I thought of you like that.” He reached across to stroke her forearm lightly. “Not until I got to know the real thing.”
	Charlie smiled, a warm lift of long whiskers that drew her lips back to show the merest suggestion of teeth behind short black fur and thin animal lips. “You’re a good man, Ren. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t have been offended at all, flattered really but… you’re a good man.” She put one hand over his upon her forearm. “What was in your mind, then, if you didn’t actively do anything about it?”
	Retrieving his hand he used both to chafe his upper arm. The kitchen was becoming downright chilly. He felt heat rise in his cheeks as his eyes roved; to her ears, her cheek ruffs, throat, breasts and then back up. “Well,” he said, stammering, “well, what we just did.” He admitted at length. “What I just did.”
	“More?”
	He chuffed a soft, self conscious laugh. “Well, yeah, some. Sitting with you in Garland Park by the lake shore watching the sunset, too. Just… just being beside you in the quiet watching night fall.” He pushed back the chair and stood. “I’m for more fire, love.” He said as he picked up their bowls and delivered them to the sink. Charlie picked up the pot and brought it over as well. At least the water was still working and, so long as the gas lines didn’t freeze up as they had four years past, there would be hot water. He turned on the tap and waited for the icy chill to fade from the flow, a warm tail resting against his cold legs from rump to calf as Charlie stood beside him. While the water warmed up he leaned across the sink to part the curtains, letting a wash of icy air spill from the triple paned window and set the water steaming.
	His back yard was nothing more than white with a few overladen shrubs and fence posts sticking out to lend any sort of recognisable landmarks. In the far corner of the yard his utility shed was lost under a mountain of white. Luckily, like everything in the harsh weather prone Midlands, it was built solidly enough to support that much snow if it didn’t slough from the roof. Judging from the heaps hiding both sides of the building that had already happened several times. Likewise, judging from the mounds of snow almost reaching the sill of the kitchen window outside his own roof was similarly sloughing off accumulation.
	And the snow was still falling, now big fat flakes drifting almost straight down.
	“That’s going to be a bitch to get off the roads.” He observed, letting the curtains fall again. His feet were positively frigid, both from the floor and the spill of the cold air rolling from the window over the countertop. The sink was creating a dense fog as the water finally became decently hot.
	“We might be here a while.” Charlie said softly, a smile in her voice. Somewhere within the house a cell phone trilled an unfamiliar chime. “That’s mine.” She didn’t move, however, her tail lazily brushing up and down the back of his thighs. Ren busied himself washing the tableware and pot while she gave them a quick dry with a nearby towel before placing them in the dishwasher. The pot was set upside down on the stovetop before they retreated back to the relative warmth of the livingroom where Ren quickly added a quartet of logs on the dimming fire. Charlie dug her phone from her handbag and looked at it.
	“Message, or just another oh-so-obvious weather alert?” He asked as he nursed the fire to its new fuel.
	“My neighbor, asking if I’m all right. Oh, and it’s only ten thirty seven.” She turned the phone so he could see the time before turning it back around to compose a reply for her neighbor who, if Ren remembered correctly, was a vixen. He moved to sit on the arm of the sofa while she deftly rattled out a reply with facile ease using just the tips of her thumb claws. When she was finished she turned the phone so he could read it.
	“I’m fine, T. Went home with boyfriend. No power, but very romantic fireplace.” When he glanced up he saw that she was watching him and had not yet sent the message. With a tap she highlighted the word ‘boyfriend’ as if asking him if it was the right word. With a grin and a nod he tapped send with one finger. She smiled and moved to set the phone aside when it trilled again.
	“Boyfriend?” Asked the reply, with a surprised fox-face emoji and a couple of hearts. “Boyfriend boyfriend? Real deal?” With visually identifiable italic text followed a moment later.
	Charlie gave him a glance of askance and he nodded. Extending a hand for the phone she set it in his palm. His blunt human thumbs were hardly as facile at the tiny screen keys but he managed to compose a reply with only a few tries. “More than.” With a winking skunk-face emoji. He handed it back and Charlie glanced at what he had composed and grinned a sharp-toothed grin as she hit send. Another reply came almost immediately.
	“Okay, girl!” With thumbs up and more foxy smiling faces and hands-aloft-cheering foxes. “Who??”
	Charlie responded with just one word; “Train.”
	“The guy from the train? The human?” Aghast fox faces followed by floating question marks.
	“The human.” Charlie responded with a couple of winking skunk emojis and a few that were clearly skunk themed but he could not figure them out, then some sort of fruit or vegetable and a mouth-open-shocked face. He cast Charlie a glance at the enigmatic response. She grinned fiendishly and reached out to grope him while licking her lips seductively. Ren laughed when he realized what the fruit shape was supposed to represent.
	The vixen sent back several laughing emoji foxes and what he supposed was a tail in a lazy upward S curve followed by a fruit.
	To which Charlie replied with “Working on it…” And a face bisected by a finger in a ‘shh’ gesture before setting the phone aside and ignoring the trill that followed. Before he could ask more Charlie’s grope became a gentle tug as she slipped from the sofa down onto the, by now, very rumpled heap of bedding she had slept upon.
	And that they had recently shared other moments upon.
	Guided by that hand, a look of question on his face, Ren slid down to the floor as well. When they had both settled on their knees she cupped his chin with her free hand and lightly brushed his lips with her own. “She doesn't know.” The skunk said softly as her grope became a fondle, the soft pad of her thumb tracing along the underside of his soft, but quickly firming, length. “She thinks I’m all girl and she’s dropped some pretty heavy hints she wants to take neighbors to another level.” Her tongue teased lightly against his lips. He kept his hands low at her waist, letting her decide where she wanted to lead, this time. There would be time enough, later, for him to lead. “I think she’s sad because I only prefer this.” Her hand gently squeezed his firming length and he chuffed a soft, pleased breath. “And the real thing, at that. Fake is fun for practice and stroking one out in desperation, but I much prefer the real deal.” She paused and then laughed. “And fakes in the muzzle are pointless.”
	“Well,” Ren said as he leaned into her caress and kisses, “that’s yours to enjoy how and as much as you desire, love. So long as you let it recover now and then.”
	Charlie let out a soft hmm and dipped her head to his throat, nuzzling firmly as one hand came up to his chest and pushed. Releasing her waist Ren leaned back under her guidance until he was sprawled out on his back with her thick, warm, soft fur covering him from neck to knees. He saw her tail rise up and flit like a lazy cat’s though, with that much fur, it more waved like grass in a breeze. Her sharp teeth grazed his throat, plucking at his naked human flesh as she settled her hips lower, grinding her firm, furry ridge against his more than half aroused length heavily. “As much as mine is yours.”
	Ren grinned and groaned softly at the firm, fur softened ridge grinding heavily against his awakened flesh. Sliding his hands upward from her hips, feeling how the skin of her flanks twitched under his caress letting him know that she was ticklish, something he could work with later, he trailed his fingers up to cup her warm breasts. She gave out a soft, crooning trill when his thumbs brushed across the black flesh of her nipples. “Ohh, love, yes. That’s nice.” Her hips rocked slowly, grinding up and down against his groin, gliding his erection against fur and the firm heat of her sheath. Catching her nipples between thumb and the side of his index finger he rolled the firm buds gently eliciting another, louder, throatier trill of pleasure. The plume of her tail fluffed and twitched, drawing up against her back as her hips continued that torturous back and forward roll.
	Then it passed fully above his erection briefly before shifting slightly, hips adopting a different angle, that caught the blunt tip of his erection and forced it upward against the back of her balls, into a cleft of satin fur and warmth. It fetched up against the solid barrier at the root of her tail which tucked, the length stretching out down his legs, pressing him solidly into a furless vice of unexpected heat. His eyes sprang wide at the gentle, teasing twitch against his very tip. “You know I’m a woman, right?” She crooned down at him, bringing her hands up to his own and pressing them solidly against her breasts as she continued to rock in slight, slow movements that dragged his cock up and down that hot cleft, pressing against furless flesh with each downward shift.
	He pinched her nipples again, slightly more firmly, and was surprised to feel dampness upon his skin. She sucked in a slow breath and pressed his hands more solidly against her breasts, all but flattening them under his palms. “I never doubted, why?” As if the erection poking from the stark ridge against the white of her groin was some sort of counter-argument.
	“And what do women want?” She teased as she grinned toothily down at him, panting softly as she pressed down and ground his erection under the restrictive embrace of her lowered tail. At a loss he could only shake his head, that question had no winnable answer, usually. She leaned down slightly, forcing his arms to bend until his elbows were on the floor and her lips touched his nose. “To get fucked, silly human.” Giving his nose a lick she rose back up and settled back upon his upraised length, pressing it firmly against the twitching heat beneath her tail.
	“Dry?!” Ren squeaked as pressure built against the head of his cock. He could feel how the flesh dimpled inward against that pressure, the twitching heat kissing his blunt, broad tip with increasing intensity. He let out a grunt and a cry when that pressure yielded and heat embraced the head of his cock and a few centimeters more. And it was not, in any way, dry. It was a slick as any woman raised to arousal. Charlie threw back her head, back arching and tail springing upright as she let out a deep, rolling groan that was the sound of relief rather than discomfort or pain. Her hands clutched over the back of his as she rose, ever so slightly, shifting her hips and, perforce, his only slightly buried erection, side to side.
	“Ooohhhh, fuck that feels so good.” She moaned, head still back, fur of her throat drawn upright. All the while her anal ring grasped and tugged at him, her tail giving little vertical twitches as she accustomed herself to his presence. “So good.” Then, rising slightly, catching the rim of his glans with the unexpectedly slick inner curves of her ring, she seemed to relax and then settled her hips back and down.
	The sensation was mind blowing, that smooth heat slowly gliding down his length as slick as buttered silk, clenching and relaxing as he slid deeper beneath her upraised tail. His head and shoulders pressed back as he strove to drive his hips upward but her weight kept him firmly in place while she enjoyed the torturous slow introduction of his rod A to her entry B. Ren clenched his teeth and hissed breaths past them, trying to stave off his quickly rising peak. She had not taken even half of him yet and he was rising swiftly to escape velocity. “How?” He rasped, more a strained squeak than voice, trying to pull his mind away from the intense, smooth heat engulfing him centimeter by centimeter.
	Charlie paused in her descent, muscular ring clamping down with such force he feared he wouldn’t have been able to pop at that moment even if he had reached climax. Above that crushing grasp the inferno of her body slid and rippled, both pulling at him and trying to push him out at the same moment. “MMhhhh, big boy?” She asked in a rough, raspy churr, teeth gleaming as she gazed down at him with those dark eyes alight with fire-lit shimmers. “Why, skunk, silly.” She giggled, and the motion translated directly into his erection, making his eyes roll. “We may not be able to spray, and don’t produce thiols, but we’ve still got our vents and they’re plenty productive.” With that she rose, more like jerked, upward a few centimeters without easing up the steely embrace of her ring making him gasp at the wonderful, hot, slickened friction, relaxed those muscles slightly, and dropped down further.
	He found himself hilted in a single motion that was so intense that it left motes swimming in his vision but she clamped down again upon his very base, stifling the sudden swift rise toward release. With a loud roar his fingers clutched at her breasts before he realized it and managed to unclench when she tightened even further with a wince. “Unnh…. Sorry, love.” Again the soft chuckle that vibrated all the way down to that hot pressure enveloping him. Her hands relaxed their intense grip on his, moving them about on her breasts, rubbing her damp nipples solidly against his palms.
	She shifted slowly, subtly, lifting a few centimeters and down again. “S’okay, love.” She panted, lifting again, rocking her hips side to side slowly, front to back, shifting him about within her. “Very good. So, so good.” She relaxed and tightened, shifted and caressed him, his fevered balance at the edge of culminating release, but keept him at its edge with gentle but firm pressure. “So perfect. It’s been too long.” She licked her whiskers and, pulling one of his hands away from her breast raised it to stroke a long, hot lick across his palm. “You’re bigger than my toys.”
	A new scent intruded on his senses, or, rather the same scent but somehow deeper, richer and, oddly, potently sweet. There was no mistaking what it indicated for he was making a scent with a similar message; sex. His, however, was a solid musk that he had grown well aware of over the years while this new one was the same, but had its own distinct under and overtones. That his mind could focus solely on that because most of it, from conscious to limbic, was centered on his own arousal and how it was being teased, caressed, crushed and released in turns. Charlie bowed over him and her hips rose, tail stretching out behind her along his legs. As she watched him over his splayed fingers she slowly licked his palm and raised her tail. He could feel how the muscles along her lower spine tensed, thickening, pressing solidly along the underside of his shaft and grinding it against a firm curve along its upper side. Twitching her tail lazily side to side, those muscles shifting in opposing directions and shifting him about within the confines of her body, she settled back on him once again.
	Ren let out deep throated, growling grunt as the sensation overwhelmed him, the heat of her body searing into his almost painfully erect arousal, up through his loins, outward and through his being until all there was only that feeling. As abruptly as it had suffused outward it collapsed inward upon his loins and his grunt became a roar as his cock tensed within her. Charlie huffed a hot breath into his palm, ears disappearing into the fur of her head, fur of her tail bushing as her weight fell down upon him and she released that staying hold on his girth. His hands spasmed, threatened to cramp as the tension of his body poured into his erection and then outward, jetting into her with a mighty twitch that shook his entire frame from groin to toes to head. Again and again it relaxed, if only slightly, tensed again, and released warm fountain after fountain of his essence deep under her tail. She cried a soft gasp I into his hand each time, her body twitching in sympathetic synchrony as her back arched, tail pinned up tight behind her shoulders, and Ren felt her achieve climax even as his was reaching its peak.
	He felt hers in many different ways; first was the rapid, rhythmic clenching about his erection that only seemed to spur is own release to another peak. Then a hot splash across his stomach, a second slashing diagonally across his breast, the third dashing across his chin and cheek, spattering into his open mouth with the same rich, salty, musky sweetness he had tasted from her earlier. The forth also cascaded across his face and brow, more into his gaping mouth that he did not close in shock for he was still lost in his euphoric high. By the fifth the hot dashes of wetness had roused some small part of his brain and he raised his head slightly to look down.
	Charlie’s erection stood mostly free of her sheath, a deep dark hue that was made crimson by the light of the hearth fire. The dregs of its last cannon shot dribbled along its underside as he watched it dip toward his belly. He felt the fluttering clench upon him even as it sprang up and, dumbly, he watched the fountaining cascade of release rise up, glistening, from its tip to describe an arc that reached his chin, throat, and painted a musky line down his upper chest. The rest trickled from the narrow, tapered tip of her erection to dribble down its underside and join the copious pool gathering in the hairy hollow of his groin. When he raised his eyes he saw that the nipple peaking the breast not covered by his palm glistened with wetness, a line of damp fur below it hinting at how much it had leaked already.
	By then his orgasm was well spent, though his mind still swam in the euphoria of it, that intense dump of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocins turning his thoughts to mush. Rather than gasping out some compliment on just how world shaking it had been he could only find two inane, rather idiotic words; “You lactate?”
	Charlie slowly unbent and leaned forward to look down at him, her eyes glassy and unfocused for several seconds as Ren felt the twitching around his still rigid length fading. The grasp on his hand relaxed as she panted into the cup of his palm and her weight settled forward upon the hand supporting her, softened by the breast beneath it. She blinked, slowly, and then again a bit more swiftly, dark eyes shifting about the features of his face then down to his chest and further still to his stomach. Then she let out a rattling snort through her nose and burst out laughing, finally releasing his hand from her muzzle.
	Her body shook and Ren let out a gasping grunt of surprise when she clenched down on him with startling force with each body tightening laugh. Drawing his hand away from her breast she leaned down further, still laughing, and drew her tongue slowly across his chin and cheek. “Oh, my gods, Ren!” She said between dying giggles and long, firm licks. “I made such a mess all over you.” Still she snickered and licked, working up to his brow, then to one ear and his jawline, his throat, down to his upper chest. “And yes, silly.” She said into his lower stomach, bowing down well beyond what Ren could have done even with time to stretch himself limber. “Side effect of the hormone therapy.”
	And, throughout, she lever let up he hot, intense embrace upon his cock. It began to soften only to firm again as her laughter clutched and her calmer motions massaged him from root to tip. “The testosterone blockers, you know?” After satisfying herself that the worst of her release had been captured she sprawled out atop him. Her breath was powerful with the scent of her seed but he did not mind as she touched her lips to his, softly, lingering. Her body continued to hold him, though the posture drew some of his length from the hot embrace. “Not enough to feed a babe, though. Just enough to leak when I’m aroused.”
	Shifting up she slipped a hand behind his head and drew him up, forcing him to drop both arms and prop himself on his elbows when she brought his face to one of her breasts. He saw a bead of off-white glistening upon the black bud of the nipple and gave it a slow, firm, lingering lick. Charlie hissed softly of pleasure and her body clenched upon him again. She let out a soft sigh and her hand pulled his head closer. The taste was not milky, at least not the way milk from the market tasted; it was warm and rich in a subtly sweet, musky way but not at all unpleasant. He had tasted it earlier without realizing what he was tasting. Using his nose and lips he nuzzled through the short, soft, damp fur and guided that firm bud into his mouth to suckle gently, experimentally. Charlie let out a soft, pleased chuff and her fingers fisted into his hair as a trickle of warm wetness crossed his tongue.
	It was good. Not nearly a mouthful, not like her climax had been, it did not flood him to capacity in a single jerking surge. Pressing closer he sealed his lips around her areola and suckled again, more firmly. She gasped and leaned into him, her embrace clenching tight around his still erect length, and wetness surged across his tongue. “Oh, Ren.” She cooked in a shaky voice. “Yes, that’s so nice.” Unfisting from his hair her hand stroked lightly, occasionally digging those stout, blunt claws in to rake at his scalp, pulling him firmly to her breast. As he suckled she began to rock on him again, slow leisurely motions of her hips more forward and back than up and down, driving him quickly toward a third ascent in less than… what was it, one hour? Two? Ren, lost in the euphoria of the moment, closed his eyes and suckled slowly and savored the small trickles of flavor upon his tongue.
	He was lost, not only in the moment, but in her, a woman who was more than merely that. A woman who he had seen but one time and knew he was for, because she was not for him, he was for her.
	He truly hoped that they were for each other in equal measure.
	Why, though? Why had he, a human, with no distinct preference in romantic partners be they female or male, human or beastkin, simply fallen so hard so swiftly at just a look? Some claimed that such thunderstruck love-at-first-sight encounters were merely a response to pheromonal signaling, though humans lacked the organ to detect pheromones. That their body, in its constant search for sustenance, felt a balance with the scent of a prospective partner. But Ren had not, consciously at least, smelled her among the thick scents of human and ‘kin on the train that day. What if it had been someone else whose biologic signaling had triggered his body’s desire to find the balance of its ‘other half’?
	Not that it mattered except, perhaps, to the dry analysis of a scientist. He had seen her, he had felt his heart stumble and his jaw unhinge at what he perceived as perfection with a pulse. That she was a skunk had not mattered, or it had mattered most of all, he had no way of knowing. And here he was suckling upon her teat like a babe while she ever so slowly bore him to the peak of his third climax in a single day as if he was some randy teenager first discovering what an orgasm was.
	What she had said was true, the nipple under his tongue ceased providing after only a minute or two so he drew back, giving it a soft parting kiss that earned him another throaty sigh and a clench about his erection. He nuzzled slowly through the short, dense fur swathing her ever so perfect breast, into the hollow between them where the fur was considerably deeper, and to the neglected breast while her hand gently urged him. When he nuzzled the fur away from her nipple he found it weeping eagerly, the fur damp, and caught the firm bud between his teeth. She hissed softly and he felt her body tense slightly against him and clench firmly around him. More gentle then, lesson learned. Sealing his lips upon the warm, soft flesh and velvet fur he pressed her nipple to the roof his mouth with his tongue and suckled anew.
	Charlie did not moan or gasp, merely giving slow soft sighs of utter contentment and bliss as he suckled slowly, gently, upon the bud in his mouth. Bowing her head she kissed the top of his own, her body continuing that slow, rocking dance that was slowly, ever so slowly, building him toward crescendo. “Ren, oh, lovely man you.” She mumbled into his hair, slowly clenching down and moving the muscles within her body in ways both familiar and delightfully new. “I’m not going to last long.”
	He wasn’t sure if that meant her breast would soon run dry, for it already was, or of she, too, was approaching another release. As her nipple offered up its last drops he drew back with a slow lick and kiss upon it. “You said there wasn’t much.” He said as he nuzzled into the fur between her breasts despite how his elbows and upper arms were beginning to complain at the awkward position. Ren giggled and her body clenched, drawing a soft grunt from him unto that warm, subtly scented fur.
	“No, silly wonderful man.” She kissed the top of his head again and settled all the way back down and fluttered the muscles that embraced him with silken heat. “The same way you’re not going to last much longer, either. I can feel it, love, feel you, getting close.” She drew up slowly and settled again. Ren stifled a groan as he rose precipitously close and then faded back again; after two and approaching a third made him a lot less immediately needy, blunting that trigger.
	“If I were as flexible as you I could blow my load and you at the same time.” He joked earning a soft laugh in return, and another fluttering clench caused by that laughter.
	“I could you, though.” She said, bowing her head further and to one side to nibble at the rim of his ear, her whiskers teasing at his neck and jawline. “I will, if you want.”
	“Oh, I want it.” He admitted. The idea of this wonderful skunk inside him was beyond tantalizing, even if she lacked the accessory that made canine males so popular for both genders. Those subtle ridges of hers would probably be profound enough on their own.
	Ren rose up and passed as he felt the ridge of his glans catch against the tight constriction of her anal ring, her tail rising slowly and falling as she drew up the last inch, letting his needy erection slip lightly free and drop down across the back of her balls to settle on his saliva damp, recently cum soaked, groin. “Good, but not right now. Right now,” She shuffled back quickly as Ren tried to gather his thoughts scattered when his cock was drawn from furnace and into he chill bite of the living room air. “Right now I want to taste you.”
	“Charl-” He squeaked in alarm as her head dropped toward his groin. Considering where his cock had just been the thought of her putting it in her muzzle was horrific. Until, of course, she did just that in one smooth movement. From inferno to ice and back into a different heat left his mind reeling from the twin shocks of ‘she did that!’ after he had been buried under her tail and the pleasure of having her do it. She did it only for a moment, however, before drawing up and releasing him, one hand holding at the base of his cock.
	“Don’t worry, hon. I’m clean, there, and besides, skunks are incredibly antiseptic now we’ve lost our spray. Other chemicals were retained and some became far, far stronger.” She explained before bathing the underside of his length with a long, slow lick. “One is even used in medicine, once it’s been collected and separated. Olriumchal. Ever heard of it?”
	Most people had, of course. It was one of the few grades of drugs used to treat antibiotic resistance and certain viruses. From what little he knew it was frightfully expensive and difficult to source since it had not, yet, been successfully synthesized. “That’s from skunk’kin?”
	“Mhmm.” She said softly as she kissed her way along his shaft which was slowly losing its rigidity. “Almost twelve grand per thirty ml. It’d take me a few months to make that much but it is a good side income when I’m not slicking such a nice piece of dick with it.” And she added saliva to whatever her vents had lubricated him with, taking him into her muzzle with a long, slow dip of her head. Then she drew up and off of him once more, leaving him aching with want. “And why you can go from my tail to my muzzle without much concern.” She paused, then giggled. “When you don’t have traffic to contend with.”
	Traffic? Traffic, he had to ponder that, which was difficult with her torture making his thoughts turn to mud. It took him a few moments, during which her tongue and lips let him dumb, to figure it out. Traffic meant going in when other things wanted out. He had that displeasure once, in high school, with a human girl who really, really enjoyed anal. Luckily he had been wearing a condom but the sensation had been disconcerting.
	Falling back onto the hopelessly rumpled comforter he reached down, groping until he found her shoulder, then her arm. He twisted a little to reach further down, tugging gently at the fur of her flank. “C’mere, you.” He muttered as she murfled questioningly around his fully nested cock. Understanding his meaning she shuffled about, with his guidance, until he was able to get her turned about and one leg over his head. He found himself looking up at a pair of balls perhaps slightly larger than his own. How much of that added size was the short velveteen fur he did not know, nor care, as he grasped her hips and lifted his head to nuzzle firmly into them. Charlie muttered and gasped around his cock which was quickly returning to the state it had been in under her tail. A tail which was now plumed high in the air above his head, so high he could actually see the black, glistening flesh where his cock had been buried. Above and slightly to either side were narrow fleshy folds that leaked a clear fluid that smelled, when he noticed it around the earthy rich musk of her masculine scent, incredibly sweet.
	And that tantalizing musk that had teased his nose for years was manifestly present. No more half-mile warning that a skunk was present; it was there, on his face. There was the dry, acrid musk that was distinctly skunk but far less intense despite the proximity mingled with other scents, like heady spice, filling his nose and making him want to know more. So he sought more, nuzzling into the richer scents in the hollow between scrotum and thigh, along the taint behind them, until the sharp, sweet bouquet of her vents assailed his nose, like lemon oil, with its sharpness.
	Curious, Ren drew down upon her hips, pulling her weight down atop himself, and lifted his head a little further to drag his tongue across that glistening pucker of hot black flesh. His face was buried in fur, from the curves of her rump against his cheeks and the root of her fully upraised tail against his brow. The flavor that assailed him was as his nose had revealed; slick and powerful, staggeringly sweet in a biting, almost alkaline way. He blinked at the potency of it that lingered on his tongue and overwhelmed his sense of smell, turning all of her rich musky aromas to a cascade of mixed sweet smells. It was like shoving his face into a bowl of flowers and fruit.
	He licked again, a strong, slow stroke of his tongue that probed the twitching center of that dark ring and upward between the angled folds of her leaking vents. Charlie murfled around his cock, muzzle opening as if to take more of him, her back bowing, forcing his head down as her weight pushed back, all but sitting on his face as his tongue descended to flicker about her ring again, probing at its center. He caught hints of himself there, the subtle salty richness of his release made musky and treacle sweet.
	Charlie's weight fell back upon him, her muzzle leaving his cock as she sat upright, supporting most of her weight on her knees while the rest buried Ren’s face in the fur of her ass. His world became dark, musky, potently sweet, and hot. He felt her tail twitching against his brow, lifting and falling, flailing to one side and then the other. She ground her ass upon his face as his tongue teased, licked, and prodded the muscular, twitching ring in a manner he had never before in his life done with any other, male or female. Granted, there had been times with the girls when his aim was less than perfect, but that had never been more than a glancing touch before he adjusted his aim.
	Now, here he was, doing with a skunk’s ass - a skunk’s! - what he had done upon females’ sex, human and otherwise, in the past.
	After grinding upon his face for a few minutes, during which his erection had finally softened, Charlie leaned forward to resume her ministrations on that neglected member. Warm, thick fur brushed his cheeks and brow as she rolled her hips, bowing her spine, dragging her balls up across his nose and shifting back until his nose was pressed into the fur of her sheath piled up at the base of her exposed cock. Feeling a spatter of liquid warmth from clavicle to chest he remembered that he had other things in mind before giving a skunk’s ass cunnilignus.
	Wasting no further time he pulled her hips back slightly, caught his short, blunt tongue against the dripping tip of Charlie's erection, and drew it downward to wrap his lips about it. She let out a sharp cry of pleasure and lifted, or tried to, against his grip, the tail above his sight jerking high, and then plunged down with the eager drive of a canine in the throes of mating lust.
	Ren dug his fingers deep into the fur of her hips as they jerked down, firmly but without the jaw threatening force of a canine kin’s needful urgency. She consumed him in turn, but with slow strokes of her muzzle, pushing his sensitive underside up against the hollowed cup of her ridged, long palette. There was no worrying about bottoming out in that maw, of inciting an unpleasant gag reflex as sometimes happened with some of his human lovers. One, who had actually took careful measurements, had complained that twenty centimeters was simply too much after gagging repeatedly. Even though he had said she did not have to try taking it all she did try, repeatedly. Of his almost five centimeter girth she had never complained, though. Charlie, however, took him fully, the cool pad of her nose pressing against his balls before she drew up, shifted back, and thrust herself into his mouth.
	Lucky for him she had a graceful taper, but for the noticeable ridges around two thirds of her girth while the underside was smooth, for when she buried herself to rest her balls on his nose her tip just barely grazed the back of his throat and did not awaken his own gag reflex. He let her thrust unfettered once he understood that, enjoying the hot, rich flavor of her flesh and salty wetness of pre that teased his tongue at the apex of her thrusts. What spattered into his mouth at the depths of her thrusts he was able to gulp down before it choked him. The melange of her scents, cupped between balls, thighs, and rump was his entire world, casting across his nose with each breath.
	Despite the skill of her muzzle after the earlier coaxing of the heat beneath her tail he felt himself quick to stiffen but slow to reach full arousal. His mind, lust added, was more than desiring but his body was simply lagging after two such achievements in a similar span of hours. He felt her rise readily enough, thickening within his mouth, her thrusts becoming more fevered and chaotic. More pre came with each twitching pulse, thicker, the taste stronger and, due to the lingering aftertaste of her tight, hot, ever so wet entry, was sweet as well as salty.
	She moaned and huffed around him, her tongue suckling greedily as she took him entirely and kept him as she stopped bobbing her head to nurse hungrily. He watched her tail lift upward, further and further, until it was almost lying along her back giving him an even more clear view of the prizes beneath it. One hand cupped his balls, the other behind his thigh to anchor herself as her weight rested upon his stomach with only her hips held aloft. He could feel her thighs quaking with the effort to stay her weight from simply falling upon his face so he pulled down, gently but insistently, until she got the message.
	Charlie’s entire body slumped, plowing her erection into his mouth, and started to list to one side. Understanding her message he let her, following the slow roll until they were lying on their sides. He continued, slightly, shifting onto a shoulder to press his face fully into her loins, taking her fully when he felt the sudden tension in her length, thigh, and balls.
	When she cried out around him he was already close and, when she finally reached her peak, he was ready for the rich, potent taste that suffused his mouth in a rush. He let out a deep rumble of approbation as her cock jerked but did not instantly fill his mouth as it had earlier. He didn’t immediately swallow and let her hips move freely, twitching back slightly and then driving forward with her second spasm. Again it was a shade of its former quantity and the third much the same.
	The arousal of it, of having his love finding her passion, her release, in his mouth not once but twice in a day was enough to bring his slow approach to completion under the hot, greedy suckling of her muzzle. He grunted as she bucked and thrust against him again, his own hips shuddering as his cock began the rapid twitches of release as well. He huffed through his nose as Charlie’s erection slowly ceased its spastic twitching and let its offering slip down his throat. When he felt it begin slimming he let it slip directly from his mouth back into its furry home. Charlie suckled his softly for a few more moments before it, too, ceased its jerking and swiftly softened despite the heat of her muzzle.
	Together they just sagged, panting, for several long moments, heads on one another’s thigh, each face still close to the other’s satiated loins. The room was redolent with the heavy musk of their mutual sexual rise and release.
	After a few long moments Charlie let out a soft, sighing laugh and kissed Ren’s balls, then his flaccid cock. “My brother thanks you.” She breathed softly as she nuzzled and kissed, lightly, without any goal to make him rise a fourth time. It was a gentle, tender ministration that Ren copied after a few breaths to get his brain rebooted.
	“Your brother?” He asked as he brushed his cheek against the soft, damp fur of her sheath and the slim, firm ridge of its contents.
	“Mmhhm.” Charlie said as she stroked his side gently. Then, twisting sinuously she rose and turned until they were lying face to face. “For finally showing him the pleasure I have given others for years.”
	Ren gazed into her dark eyes, shadowed pools with the fire behind her. He slid his fingers into the fur of her hip, flank, then reached up to caress the black and white fur of her cheek ruffs. “He’s in there? Your brother?”
	She giggled and turned to nuzzle lightly at his wrist, whiskers tickling feather light across his palm. “No, silly. He’s down there. But has gone so long without me to give him release. By that I mean myself, hon. I’m not some multiple personality case. My brother is as much down there for me as some third party is down there, for you.” She clarified humorously, nuzzling his cheek, the pad of her nose cool and damp against his sex sweaty skin. Then she gave his cheek a slow lick. “Sorry for doing that all over your face, though.”
	Ren laughed in turn and pressed his lips to hers, nibbling lightly at her thin lower lip. “And stomach, and chest. But hon, Charlie, dear, if that’s what I get for being under that tail of yours I am not going to complain at all.” Flicking his tongue across her nose he laughed again. “You’ll just have to use that talented tongue of yours to clean it all up.” He winked and she snorted a laugh, nodding. “But not before work, though.” Ren added after several long, quiet, companionable minutes. “Too many keen noses.”
	Charlie smiled and laughed. “What, don’t want them to know you’ve been marked as having been with me?”
	“Oh, no, not that at all. I’ve just heard a few ribald comments at work from some of the better noses when someone got laid before work and still smelled of it. The foxes are the absolute worst, though it’s always in jest, one more way of pointing out how dead human noses are.”
	“Uh huh!” Charlie laughed merrily. “And I bet they’re absolutely nuts when some female is in season and not using their blockers!”
	Ren laughed heartily and nodded. “Yeah! The guys walk around drooling from their nose all day like someone with a bad cold. Office policy is; use blockers or stay at home. That sucks for the human women. Luckily ‘kin only hit season once or twice a year so it’s not so bad for them.”
	“You think? How do you think your human females would act if they were only fertile once a year, twice at most? Ever dealt with a ‘kin in heat?”
	“Yes. I think most guys have, even the strictly gay ones. Well, gay ‘kin, at least. They get nose fogged as much as the straight ones. Was a gazelle, in my third year. Girlfriend of a classmate. He begged me and a couple of his guy friends to come and stay at their apartment for a whole damned week. And she went through all of us. Repeatedly.” Luckily viability between humans and ‘kin, and ‘kin of differing species, was below one percent.
	“Wow.” Charlie shook her head ruefully and chuckled. “My sisters are much like that. And since they all cycle within days or weeks of each other it can get downright chaotic if they run out of, or forget, their blockers.” Letting out a grunt she stretched, her entire body undulating against him before she relaxed and nestled close, draping her voluminous tail across his legs. “Stinks though, enough that even humans can notice it sometimes.” Ren remembered that well. The apartment reeked of the doe’s needs and sex for weeks afterward.
	“You’re not affected?”
	“A little, but nothing like the boys. My balancers minimize that since they keep my male hormones under control.” Ren draped an arm across her, the other under the rumpled pillow under his head. They lay there, limbs and tail entwined, for what seemed like days, in that limbo between awake alertness and sleep and it wasn’t until the last crumbling embers collapsed into a heap did Ren decide it was time to renew the fading heat. Close against his front, with one leg over his and her tail covering them from hip to foot, the chill had been kept in abeyance.
	She murmured a curious inquiry when he drew back and levered himself to his feet. He saw that black and white fur clung to his naked flesh and chuckled, trying to brush it away. “Damn I’m sticky.” He said to her soft, curious gaze up at him. With a grin he flicked a finger to point at her. “Your fault.”
	Teeth flashed white against black as she grinned, tail flicking lazily across the floor behind her. “Guilty as charged, your honor.” She batted her eyes at him coquettishly. “What sentence are you handing down?”
	Waggling a finger at her he stepped around her recumbent, beautiful, monochromatic form. “I will need to consider the merits of the crime against the penitence of the accused.” Stepping into the hallway, which was downright chilly, he made for the guest bathroom. He yelped when he sat down on the icy seat of the toilet, shivering while he dealt with his body’s demands. He suffered the icy bite for several minutes more for other needs.
	Charlie was sitting up when he came back out, one of his folios in her paws, tail curled around to drape across her lap. She glanced up when he recovered a pair of sweat pants without concern whom had been wearing them previously and pulled them on. “I don’t think you need to worry about modesty, love.” She pointed out helpfully.
	“Gotta get more firewood.” He said as he took the last couple of logs from the rack and shuffled them into the glowing coals. “Which is out on the back deck.” Going into the kitchen he began pulling on his heavy winter clothes.
	“I could go out there.” Charlie said as she watched him dress. “I can handle the cold for a bit.”
	Ren chuckled. “Furclad?” He shook his head. “There might be folks out enjoying the snow, even in this blow.” Moving toward the door to the deck he paused to cup one furry cheek in his palm. “No, love, you’re mine to ogle, not the neighbors.”
	She blew a raspberry but tilted her head into his palm. “Ogle, hmm? That’s it?”
	“Heh, yeah. After wasting two years doing that I’ve got some catching up to do on enjoying what I saw.”
	“Beh. Freak.” She leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek before he braved the door out onto the deck. Despite the clothing and insulated boots the cold bit right into him the moment he opened the door. Beyond the screens and storm shutters the wind was a low hiss that swirled the small, fast falling flakes around his back yard. There was a little dust here and there that had managed to sneak past gaps in the shutters but nothing more. The screens were sheets of transparent ice. Ren had to kick the woodpile a couple of times to break the logs from one another before he could pick up an armload. Just inside the door Charlie took the load from him so he could go out for a second, then third. The rack was full and another similar stack next to it before they called the job done.
	Ren shucked the heavier outer garments and hung them by the door before returning to the living room and its waning warmth. Charlie was busy trying to brush bits of wood from her fur while he busied himself adding more wood to the sizable heap of coals. He would have to shovel them into a fire bucket for disposal in the snow out back after the new batch of wood burned down. “So, let me ask you something.”
	“More questions?” She chided humorously as she picked up the bits of cast off she could find, and no little bit of fur, before casting a handful into the fire.
	“Why are you so sweet under that lovely tail of yours?”
	She turned to give him a raised brow glance before laughing softly. “Because I’m just so sweet in general? It has to escape somewhere.” Ren laughed at that and shoulder checked her lightly before putting the spark screen back up. The new wood was already beginning to blacken, fire licking at the slivers left by splitting. “Seriously, I’m not sure. I don’t know if it’s a skunk thing or just a me thing. Maybe one of the properties of the changes we undergo losing our thiols but, honestly, I’ve never gotten under another skunk’s tail to see if they’re the same.” She paused and then laughed. “Surprised me when you went there, considering.”
	Ren chuckled in turn and sat, cross legged, on the bedding strewn on the floor to watch the growing fire. “Surprised me, too. I mean, sure, I’ve made a poorly aimed lick a time or two in the past but never dove right in like that. Was… eh, I dunno? Like lemon and sugar; really sweet with a bit of tangy sour.” Charlie burst out laughing and he shifted his attention to her, heat rising to his face as he blushed.
	“What?” She managed between fits of fur ruffling hilarity. “Seriously? I never would’ve expected anyone to compare my asshole to a glass of over sweet lemonade like some wine connoisseur comparing vintages.”
	Ren burst out laughing as well at the apt comparison of his observation. “Well, it’s a nice asshole.” He managed to get out between fits of laughter. “Sweet and tight and so very, very hot. Just like its owner.”
	“Yeah, well, yours probably tastes like shit.” She countered, poking him with a fist that sent them both falling in different directions in their fits of laughter.
	“It probably does, no matter how clean I keep it!” He was rolling with laughter by that point, the sheer strangeness of the argument sending him into fresh paroxysms of hilarity. “Tight, too!” Considering it had been a few years since the last time anyone had been back there that way, and that had been a rabbit, who were not terribly large to begin with. Energetic as hell, but not large.
	Charlie pounced upon him, stretching out in a sprawl against him as their laughter began to fade, bit by bit. “Oh, is that so?” She quipped as she pecked him on the nose. She tried to do it a second time but a tilt of his head brought their lips together. Rather than deepen the kiss she just pecked and drew her head back to grin toothily down at him, long white whiskers twitching. “I intend to find out, silly human.”
	Ren laughed through his nose and stuck his tongue out at her. “Find out what, how I taste or how tight I am?”
	“Tight.” Her weight pressed down on him, firm yet softly yielding breasts warm against his chest. The fur upon them made their touch softer still. “I am not diving in like you did, no sir. But you can shove your handsome face there as much as you like.” She giggled as she slowly licked her whiskers, drawing them back along her muzzle before they sprang back out when the pink of her tongue withdrew. “And other things. Nice, big, long, hot things.”
	Ren laughed and ruffled his fingers down along her back, stirring them through the deep soft warmth of her fur until they settled upon the curves of her rump to either side of her thick tail root. “Oh? Like a nice quarter pound all beef hotdog?”
	She laughed and shook her head. “Not under my tail, no. Between my teeth, most certainly.” Shifting her weight atop him she ground the weight of her hips down, the ridge of her sex bumping across his own through the sweats he still wore. “Or something else between my teeth that tastes oh so good, too. And it’s bigger than some hotdog.”
	Ren grunted and laughed, splaying his fingers across her rump to grope deep into that delightfully soft, lush, warm fur and curves beneath. “Putting my meat and your teeth in the same sentence is a little frightening, love.” He said warmly as he teased the velvety underside of her tail with the sides of his index fingers where the fur was shortest or altogether absent. She let out a soft trill of pleasure before shifting her weight back and sitting upright onto her knees, briefly trapping his fingers between the muscular root of her tail and furry rump.
	“Then you should try to make sure it’s a hot dog and not yours, hmmm?” She winked down at him. “Before I feed you mine.” She watched his eyes track down to the stark ridge of her sheath and wiggled her hips suggestively though no pink emerged, far too satiated to awaken quickly.
	He drew his hands away, reaching up to lightly caress those bared breasts, brushing thumbs across fur concealed nipples. “Won’t hear me complaining about that.” He admitted, waiting for her to move off of him so he could sit up.
	“Of course you won’t.” She shot back with a lecherous grin. “Your mouth will be full.” Offering a hand she provided a countering anchor as he shuffled to his feet, chuckling at the rejoinder. When he gained his feet she stepped and wrapped him in a crushing hug to rest her cheek against his own. “And thank you, Ren. Again. A thousand times, thank you.” He returned the abruptly sober embrace, nuzzling into the fur beneath one ear and inhaling the subtle musk of her fur. He could feel the vibration of emotions tamped down against his naked flesh, under the arms that enfolded her soft, furry warmth.
	“For what?” He asked, softly, into her fur. “Taking your brother’s virginity?”
	She nodded slightly and snuffled a breath. “That was no little thing, doing that, but… no.” She shook her head slowly, her own hands stroking his furless back, blunt claws tracing paths across his skin. “Treating me… well, as me. Accepting me as I am, so long ago and now.” One hand dropped to wave at the rumpled bedding on the floor liberally dusted with black fur. What white there was blended into the colors so well as to be invisible. “Making me feel worth knowing beyond a quick date and a blowjob from someone so freaky they won’t even take a look to prove their fears.”
	“Hon, you’re -” Ren began to protest but she pressed her lips to his to silence him, but only lightly.
	“Not a freak, yes, I know. To you, to me. But to them,” her arm waved toward the wall and the world beyond, “I am.”
	“I would’ve had you been fully male, or fully female. But as you are… oh, love, you’re so much better than both. And I’m glad to have discovered that.” His own arm waved toward the wall similarly. “They were too chickenshit to, so that’s their loss.”
	They stood there in the warming room for a few minutes like that, mutually nuzzling each other, claw tipped hands caressing flesh and blunt fingers exploring fur, before she spoke again. “I think my family will adore you.” She admitted softly, letting her hands slide to his hips to draw back enough to catch his eye. “About those hot dogs?”
	Ren dropped one hand to catch her own, lacing his fingers between hers, soft palm to coarse pads, and drew her with him. “Right this way, Madame monochrome. Let us see to easing our…” He paused, then grimaced with a blush, trying to find some word that would not be a blatant double entendre. Hunger? Appetites? Those they had satisfied, and would again. “Bellies.” He finished at last. He led her to the kitchen and had her sit at the small table. “What about your family?” He asked as he crossed to the refrigerator. The kitchen was cool, but the hearth had achieved a merry fire that was slowly bringing the temperature up.
	“They’ll adore you. Well, most of them anyway. My brother and dad are a bit species purist but everyone knows I can’t have kits, and have no interest in bedding a woman, myself, so they’ll accept. And they’ll be happy to know I’ve found someone who’s interested in more than the briefest of dalliances.” Ren was heartened to hear that and smiled as he fished a package of hot dogs out of the meats tray in the refrigerator. They were not small things, each easily twice the mass of a typical cheap dog. They came in packages of twelve, six to a packet. He took it over to the sink and divested them into the pot into which he dispensed enough water to cover them. He took that out to the fireplace and hung it just in front of the spark screen.
	“That’s good to hear. I really don’t want to get on your family’s bad side for seeing you. What about your mother, sisters?”
	“Just seeing, hmm?”
	Ren shrugged slightly, “Seeing, dating.”
	Charlie smiled, her tail fluffing slightly as it swayed lazily back and forth behind her. She crossed her arms on the back of the chair and set her chin atop them. “Oh, they’ll be tickled pink. Especially when I tell my younger sister, Lillian, what you did to me before I could to you.”
	Aghast, Ren turned from where he was digging condiments from the cupboard. “You’re going to tell her that?” He asked in surprise.
	Ren giggled and grinned at him, flashing that muzzle of distressingly sharp teeth. “Oh yes. In detail. She’ll be so jealous.”
	“How so?” After a moment of utter astonishment he haltingly resumed his digging for condiments, trying to find the mustard he knew was in there somewhere.
	“She’s been hot for a man a long time now, or a compatible female willing to share a man. But she is dead set averse to another skunk, much to my dad’s irritation.” Charlie shrugged and watched him, able to see the mustard on a shelf above where he was looking but not aware that was what he was after. “She’s set on a canine, maybe vulpine. Those are all she dated in high school and, now, in college. But she has the same problem I do… did, she’s a skunk.” She shook her head and sighed. “Speciest baggage, and all.”
	“Yeah. I’ve run into that a lot, even at the publishing house. Mostly from my fellow humans, but a few of the ‘kin, too. Never outright in your face jibes, but it’s there.” Ren agreed as he set the condiments on the table after puzzling as to why he had put the mustard on the middle shelf rather than the lower. “But it really comes out in the social scene, with human centric clubs or ‘kin centric. Illegal to just put up a sign barring entrance to the ‘other’ crowd, but it’s there all the same.”
	“Glad you’re not like that.” Charlie observed as she watched him go check the pot in front of the fire. Apparently it wasn’t hot enough so he returned empty handed and pulled a loaf of bread from another shelf. “If you’ve got barbeque skewers we can just cook them over the fire.”
	“I do, but I don’t think we’d be comfortable sitting that close with the heat coming out right in our face.” He set the bread on the table and sat down to rest his arms on it, one hand atop the other. Charlie turned her chair half way to sit on it sideways to face him. “And yeah, my parents had a bit of underlying purist attitudes but they kept it low key. I kept my dalliances with fur, and sure as hell guys, quiet when I was in high school, they were gone by the time I was in college so I got,” he paused to laugh, “I got a lot more free, there. Was a bit of a slut, looking back on it. A few regulars, a lot of brief stints or one nighters.”
	“What was your weirdest, or creepiest?” Charlie asked, a great deal more relaxed talking such topics with him than she had with anyone, even her older sister who had been her confidant, ever before. It felt good, it felt downright liberating.
	Ren chuckled and made a face. “A zebra. He was a skinny little twink of a thing, small enough that I wasn’t sent running the first time he dropped trou. He was… ehh, he was into watersports. Liked to get pissed on, and do likewise in turn.”
	“And you… ?” Charlie trailed off, one eyebrow cocked.
	“Just the once, in the gym locker room shower after hours. I’d been in doing some exercises late after class, thinking I was alone. And he just wanders in while I was getting ready to shower, made some comment about my junk. This lead to that and before I really knew it I was on my knees and he was adding to the shower.” Ren shuddered and shook his head. “Luckily it’s just water and washes off quick enough. Guy could suck a mean cock, though, and wasn’t bad when it came down to getting in my ass. None of that supercock dominance stuff trying to make an ass gape like a landed fish. Just a good fuck. And he was already on empty so no damn golden enema.” He leaned back into his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and gazing up at the ceiling. “Then there was the rabbit, he was the last guy, my senior year so that was… about four, maybe five years ago. Southwestern Jackrabbit. That dude went at me something like twenty times in a night of drunken stupidity. I was head to toe spunk washed and sloshing at both ends before he finally wound down and passed out.”
	Charlie laughed and shook her head at his antics. “And the ladies?”
	“Mmh, they were standard fare, really. Nothing outre, much. There were the ones into humans, or into pain games, bondage, and the like. Never really got into the subby humiliation stuff from them, and sure as hell wasn’t going to be that for them. Ladies were seldom more than one nighters or maybe a few weeks before they found a guy who was more into their kinks. How about you? I mean, you already told me about that bully who conned you into giving him head.”
	She chuckled again. “I wouldn’t say conned. I’d seen my older sister doing that to one of her boys, and they were both really into it, they never saw me. I heard her talking with her female friends about it, and other times, talking about how they liked it or disliked it. Sis really liked it, from all I heard. So I wanted to try and, well, he was the first one to give me the opportunity. I fell in love with it immediately. The taste, the… sense of self worth it gave me, I actually had a skill other than singing that people liked, even if it was just guys. And the power, of course, being able to make a guy melt after he gave me a muzzleful of cum.”
	“But not enough that they’d return the favor.” Ren lamented with a frown. “Always ended up with the full on straight guys, hmm?”
	“I guess, yeah, pretty much. Even if they knew I had the same junk, it was a ‘girl’ going down on them so it wasn’t ‘fag’, right?” She sketched air quotes around the gender preference.
	“Yeah. If you’d found some bi guys, like me, it might’ve turned out differently.”
	“I did find one.” She reached out to place her warm hand atop his own and smiled. “So I’m glad I didn’t, before. Even when I let them get my tail up, it was just a girl taking anal, to them, as long as they didn’t see balls I was fair game.”
	“No creepers or weirdos?”
	Charlie’s teeth flashed as she grinned. “A few. They learned real quick that I’ve got sharp teeth. Some of them probably never stuck their dick in a predator ‘kin muzzle again.”
	“Hey, now.” Ren chuckled. “Herbivore teeth aren’t anything to joke about, either. That gazelle I talked about had some frightfully sharp edges to her molars and wanted dick so badly she was a bit less than careful going down on us.”
	Charlie winced and nodded. “Yeah, I did have to learn just how to keep guys from brushing against my teeth. Had to convince them to go a bit slow and easy rather than trying to pound my skull down my spine because that would get them nicked.”
	He laughed, “I can attest you’ve gotten quite good at that.” And gave her a playful wink.
	“You’re no slouch, yourself.” She winked back and he chuckled as he got up to go check the dogs again. The water was just beginning to steam so he came back. “Just the right size to fit comfortably and short enough not to gag me, though long for a human.”
	“Oh, the compliments.” He laughed as he ruffled the nape of her neck in passing before sitting once again.
	“Hey, you’re bigger than any of my toys!” Charlie shot back. “I mean, sure, I’ve only got ‘medium’. I’m not brave enough for the large sizes, and there are even double extra large. Fucking horrifying things.” She shuddered, fur lifting and falling along her shoulders and spine, tail bushing as it flicked behind her. “So, yeah, you’re just right.”
	“And you’re thicker than I am.” Ren smiled and waggled his brows. “At least nearest the base, and probably as long as I am. It's a jaw stretch but, damn, so worth it.” He chuckled and winked. Charlie’s round tipped black ears and long whiskers backed in what he knew was the furred equivalent of a blush. While she recovered he went back to check on the hot dogs. The pot was just about at a boil, the side nearest the fire beginning to form bubbles along the inside. He lifted it from the hook and took it back into the kitchen to fetch the cooked dogs out with some tongs to put on a plate he brought back to the table.
	“Bon appetit.” He said as he slid the plate into the small table with a server’s flourish, managing not to scatter the dogs. Charlie picked one of the thick, twenty five centimeter long dogs up between two fingers, her pads completely unphased by the heat, an did things with it that left Ren’s jaw hanging. With a lecherous, leering grin she sucked it into her muzzle almost entirely but for the last two centimeters. The fact she could still breathe through her nose revealed that, even with a dog longer than Ren’s cock almost fully in her maw it had not bottomed out. She drew it back out slowly, letting it slide along her tongue curled half way around its circumference, nestled neatly between her prominent canine teeth.
	“Tease.” He grunted, shifting in his seat though his well used manhood only gave a bespoke stirring in his sweats, still not fully recovered from their earlier fun. He didn’t bother matching her display, knowing he’d be gagging at half of a dog’s length. Instead he cut one in half, laid it between a couple slices of bread, and lathered it with mustard and sauerkraut. She just giggled and gave a vicious bite, cleaving away a third of the dog in a way that made Ren wince and want to cross his legs. “And sadist.” He mumbled around a mouthful. Charlie merely laughed as she chewed, briefly in the manner those without grinding molars did, before swallowing.
	He’d seen that little show countless times before, utilizing everything from hot dogs to bananas to cucumbers done by both human and non showing off just how much cock they could handle before gagging or being unable to breathe around the intrusion. Humans always bottomed out first and some with longer muzzles never bottomed out at all, such as the aforementioned gazelle. One of the guys invited over had been an Oryx and, despite being twice as long but not quite as thick as Ren, had not been able to bottom out in her eager muzzle.
	“So, you think I’ll ever meet this sister of yours?” He asked after his second bite, only half way done with his dog while Charlie was doctoring up a second dog in a more dinner friendly way.
	“Mhh? Probably, if you ever go visit. Why?” She folded the bread around it; nothing more fancy than ‘kraut on hers.
	Ren leered across at her and winked. “Find out if sweet is just you, or skunks in general.”
	She gasped, laughed, and leaned over to punch his shoulder. “Oh, gods! And she would just so go for that test, the little minx, even if you don’t have a knot.”
	He shook his head, polishing off his first dog and going for a second. “Oh, I didn’t say she’d get that! And it’d be for science, after all. I mean, as an artist I’ve got to know a lot about the subjects I’m drawing, after all, right?”
	“Uh huh, science.” She giggled and shook her head as she nibbled sedately on her dog. “That what you tell all of your… study partners, human?”
	“I usually don’t tell them much.” He admitted with a smile and a shrug. “Because, as you said earlier, usually my mouth was busy or full once I got their pants down or skirts up.”
	She laughed merrily but her ears and whiskers revealed a blush. “I’ll make sure to keep her from getting you alone, then.”
	“Oh? Not willing to share, love?”
	“With my sister? Ugh, gag! No!” She made a tongue out retching noise, like a cat trying to hark up a hairball. Her dark eye gleamed with mischief as he licked her whiskers. “Elsewise… let’s just say I’m curious. I mean, you’ve far more experience than I which means I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
	He winked and took a bite from his second doctored dog sandwich. “Good. Now that I’ve discovered you, as much as I don’t want to share I’m also not so selfish as to deny you those experiences. And with a more experienced mentor at your side, too.”
	“Discovered?” She asked as she polished off her second dog. With a longer muzzle, and teeth that did not chew so much as chop, she could eat much faster by nature. “Not found?”
	He shook his head. “No. I found you years ago. I only discovered you today.” He said with a warm smile. “And, boy howdy, what a discovery. Might take me weeks to recover.”
	One black furred brow raised over a dark eye. “Weeks?”
	“Days.”
	“Days?” She challenged him with a smiling coo.
	“Hours?”
	“That’s better.” She gave the third dog a slow, languid lick up its length, curling her tongue against its length before swirling about the end of it suggestively before making it disappear into her muzzle again while she held his gaze. Ren merely stared and chuckled as he watched it disappear into her muzzle, the way her tongue would ripple beneath it, the very tip emerging from her muzzle to cup the slowly disappearing length. He could see it behind her sharp edged teeth when she lifted her lips in a playful growl, her tongue curled up along the visible side to protect it from those dangerous edges. When she closed her lips the corners of her muzzle would draw in slightly to form a neat seal though, with those thin lips, she could not create the sheer suction a human mouth could.
	It was delightfully erotic, even if he’d seen it before. “And you, then, hmm? Days, hours?”
	She drew the dog back out and laid it on a slice of bread. “I’m female, love. I recover like a female, even if it’s male down there.” She shrugged and piled ‘kraut on the dog before folding the bread around it. “Though I can’t say I’d be as… copious.”
	“Aww.” He lamented playfully as he nibbled on his dog. “It tastes so good, though. You do.”
	She blushed again and looked away. “And you, love.” She said softly while she managed to force her ears back up. “Better than most, even.”
	“Oh, damn, I’m glad of that! I know I smell pretty funk after a couple of days if I don’t get a shower. You, though, I’ve no comparison to make. Very much better than anyone, and a damn sight better than most.”
	“What was the worst?”
	“Cat. Cougar, to be precise. Even freshly cleaned his musk was just revolting and his flavor was rank. I’ve learned that’s just a cat thing, nothing he had any control over.”
	“No asparagus.” She said with a smile and he laughed with a nod.
	“Oh, yeah, you said. I’d noticed it before but didn’t think about it in the moment.” He nodded, then stopped, blinked, and raised an eyebrow at her. “You said no, why? Because you were expecting to get a taste?” His other eyebrow rose to join its twin. Back went the ears and whiskers again, her gaze dropping down and away.
	“Expecting? No. Hoping, maybe? Perhaps? Yeah, a little.” She hazarded a wary look toward him and he chuckled softly.
	“No need to be embarrassed, love. I was, too, but afraid to ask. Hell, I didn’t even know how to ask without seeming like a sexist, womanizing fuck.” He leaned over to rest his fingers upon the soft fur of her forearm. “So that unexpected kiss was a godsend.”
	“I don’t know why I did that.” She admitted, ears and whiskers still flat back, her tail low and curved against the legs of the chair from what little Ren could see of it.
	“You did, so who cares why. I don’t, I’m just pleased as hell that you did.” Leaning further from his chair he raised his hand to cup her chin gently and turn her head so he could give her a soft, slow kiss upon those velvet furred lips. “Over the moon happy you did.” The tongue that met his tasted of spiced meat, sauerkraut, and her. Slowly her tail drew back up, ears and whiskers relaxing as she melted into his kiss and touch. Grudgingly they separated after a couple of minutes when the shrill wail of sirens percolated through the house followed by the distant burr of small displacement engines.
	“What’s that?” She asked.
	“Probably snow rescue. Even with this weather people have emergencies.” They listened, Ren taking the moments of distraction to finish his last dog. “Snowmobiles and backboard sleds, usually.” The sound rose in volume until they could track it with just their ears passing outside the front of the house and moving away. It sounded like a small army of machines. “Just hope it’s not a house fire. They can’t get pump trucks through this mess.” Standing he crossed through the living room to draw back the drapes enough to look out the front window. Other than some flickering red reflecting from the fast falling, wind blown snow the vehicles could not be seen. He could see deep ruts in the snow where the road was, identifiable only due to the gap it made through the heavily laden trees to either side. One of those trees besmirched the broad white cut where it had fallen partially into the roadway.
	Charlie came up behind him and slipped her arms around him, her hands delving into the front of his sweats to lightly fondle his crotch. It was a gentle, relaxed sort of touch without the direct caress of intent. Her chin rested upon his shoulder and whiskers tickled his neck. “Looks like shit out there.”
	“Yeah, that it does. It’s going to take county services a while to get that cleared. There's a tree in the roadway, too.” He pointed at the piled heap of white with branches poking out of it. “Who knows how long before they can get power crews up here to restore electricity.” Somewhat down the road and opposite side they could see the bright, uniform glow of a well lit window. “Looks like some are smart enough to have working generators, as long as their fuel lasts.” Obscure forms were moving around in the blowing snow in front of that well lit house, their bright winter garb glaring against the white as they played in the snow.
	“You don’t?” Charlie’s fingers were slowly stroking his crotch, cupping gently, but not enough to actually bestir him with their gentle intimacy.
	“I did, but when I tried to do my pre-winter test last month all it did was belch black smoke and seize up. That’s when the demand skyrockets so I wasn’t able to find a repair shop or replacement, yet.” He dropped one hand to rest it atop hers, the sweats between them. “Need a trailer and engine hoist to move the damn thing, too, it weighs half as much as my car.” He let the drape fall back down. Charlie removed her hands, just resting one against his lower back as he turned and went back into the kitchen to begin cleaning up.
	The water in the pot was still scalding hot, sending up a plume of steam, so he set the one dish and the utensils they had used into it to soak. Charlie had returned to the couch, sitting with her legs folded close and her tail along its length. When he returned he picked up her tail to sit down and drape it across his lap then drew her against his side as they watched the fire.
	“What made you choose a skunk?” She asked after a long, companionable silence. One of his arms was around her, idly stroking the fur of her opposite him while the other stroked the tail across his lap.
	“Mmh?”
	“That character you had, under the drape in your studio. You said he was one of your first characters, from when you were twelve?”
	“Oh, yeah. There were no skunks in our school, I’d only seen a few here and there, always on the outside looking in. I didn’t want a human hero, there are plenty of those. Same with wolves and deer and horses, the like. I wanted a unique character, so I settled on skunk. He’s been with me ever since. Much evolved, of course, but overall much the same as he was when I came up with him. A commoner becomes a magician’s apprentice, then sorcerer over the years. He had the stink, though, and the spray that he’s had to mask with his magic. Lots of stories, highs, lows, traumas. Lost an eye, lost a fiance, gained another wife, lost her when he became immortal and she didn't. Then ended up in an entirely different reality, one without ‘kin.”
	“And all he wants to do is die?”
	“Overall, yes. He wants to do good and all, but he just wants to die so he could pass to the afterlife, which was a real thing in his home reality. To go where his wife was, his children and their children, down almost two thousand years.” He nuzzled the top of her head where it rested on his shoulder, muzzle in the hollow of his neck, whiskers teasing the underside of his chin. One ear flicked against his lips. “You remember the story of the peasant who drew the sword from the castle wall? He became king, but had that old mystery advisor?”
	“Matchic, yes. He had magic but never used it, much, that I recall.”
	“Yes. He refused to save when there was no other option. My skunk was like that, always working in the background. His rationale was that his pupils, the world he was in, needed to find their own way rather than using some shortcut like magic or mutant abilities. He set up an entire society of powerful meta-humans who enforced the laws, kept really powerful abilities in check. Like, for instance, using meta abilities for healing.”
	“Why not? I mean, it’d save a lot of lives, heal injury, disease? Seems like a fantastic ability.”
	Ren chuckled softly and nibbled the edge of that ear causing her to shudder slightly and sigh against him as she strove to keep it from flicking away. “They’d be used until they burned out or died, and the rich would monopolize them. And whatever they healed through their abilities was something that the non-powered would never develop the knowledge to treat… just take it to a meta-healer. It’s like us with our maps on our phones, you know? Could you get from here to your apartment without it?”
	“True. No, I couldn’t.”
	“Twenty years ago you could, with a printed map. Fifty years ago you’d ask for directions, rely on your ability to navigate. That’s why he made using meta abilities to bypass the limitations of knowledge illegal. And had no bones whatsoever about killing the most egregious violators outright.”
	“Ouch. Sounds like a bit of an asshole.” Charlie observed as she nuzzled and sidled in closer, giving the hollow of his throat a slow lick.
	Ren let her draw closer, though that was perilously close to being in his lap, enjoying the warm, soft fur and curves against his skin where he was not clothed. One of her breasts pressed in against his chest, the soft nub of her nipple warm where it touched his skin. “After more than a thousand years with suicidal ideation and clinical depression I would expect it of him, yeah?”
	“Yeah. I know those feelings rather well.” She murmured into his throat. “Yet another thing blunted by the wonders of modern pharmaceutical chemistry.”
	Ren winced inwardly. “Thoughts?”
	She chuffed ruefully. “Acts. When I was nine by drinking an entire quart of whiskey. At eleven with a gun I didn’t know was empty and nonfunctional beside. Then by taking all of my T-blockers all at once. All that did was make me retchingly ill for a week. Jumped into a frozen river in winter only to discover it was like a foot deep.” She shook her head and sighed softly. “They put me on meds after the gun incident but the first four only made it worse. Took them three years to find the right ones.”
	“Damn, love.” He didn’t know what to say, how to offer support. One of his classmates in highschool, a skinny kid who got bullied constantly, committed murder suicide by running down a couple of his tormenters and then driving his car into the side of a bridge abutment at nearly a hundred miles per hour. He barely knew any of them but it had still been shocking.
	Charlie nuzzled his throat and chin. “Yeah, it sucked being me as a kid. Hell, even now, but you know about the more recent shit. I was an easy mark for the bully crowd for a long time.” She drew back to glance up. “What I didn’t know was that the ones I thought were the worst, but who never laid hands on me, were actually shielding me from the real assholes. I didn’t discover that until I was out of college and ran into one at the mall. He was still a bit of a prick, and threw that little tidbit at me like it was some sort of attack. Like I was supposed to thank them all for treating me like shit for a decade.” She took a breath and curled one corner of her muzzle into a wry half-grin, lifting the whiskers along that side of her muzzle. “And, you know what really left me floored? After that little verbal pissing match, as he was turning to walk away, his voice dropped to something almost conversational and he said ‘I liked your singing.’ And then he left, walking away. I haven’t seen him since.”
	“Oh, I know what that was.” Ren said with a warm, soft laugh. “He liked you. Whether it was your singing or before that, he liked you probably a good bit as a school kid. But he couldn’t let that show, at all. Not even the least little hint or he’d be ostracized as bad as you were. So he turned it about and became an asshole.”
	“And you know this, how?” She cocked her head to look at him with curious regard.
	“Because I got bullied pretty bad in grade school, until I got to be as big or bigger than most of them and learned how to throw knuckles better than they could. I got left pretty much alone after that, though a couple of my grade school bullies became good friends in highschool. They had been jealous little shits when we were kids because they couldn’t draw like I could, or sculpt, or do anything creative. Most of them admitted as such, they liked my stuff but I was a skinny little dweeb that was easy to pick on, so… yeah. That.”
	“But you weren’t the ‘gender unspecified’ freak excluded from gym or swim class because you couldn't go in either locker room.”
	“No, that I was not, and I cannot begin to fathom what you went through. I just know where that one shitstain was coming from.” He tightened his arm and drew her close. “But now you’re with me, and I have damn good attorneys to scare people who dream of treating you poorly.”
	She giggled self consciously and leaned into him. “Attorneys? You don’t throw knuckles anymore?”
	He held up the hand from her tail, fingers splayed. “Oh, I can but the publishing house, and my insurance, would be highly displeased if I used these to shut someone up.” He bent his arm at the elbow and waggled his arm like a chicken wing. “So I’d just use my elbow. Or knee. Or foot. But they’d get the message, and then get a call from a dry, irritated sounding attorney.”
	“I could do that, myself.” She said with a yawn. “You saw me when that homeless guy got belligerent on the train.” Indeed, he had. That was the one time he saw her get hackle raised angry and imagined, had she been able, the guy would’ve smelled worse than he already had at the time. “I took martial arts, I know how to, as you say, throw knuckles, too. My dad insisted on it after one of the bully boys kicked me in the crotch.”
	“Ouch.” Ren winced.
	“Oh, yeah.” She nodded slowly. “Worse for him when my brothers caught him and returned the favor only after beating him senseless.”
	“You know you’re going to have to do something for me.” He said, letting the discussion switch to a different track.
	“More than I have?” She teased lightly, reaching down under the tail in his lap to stroke her fingertips across the crotch of his sweats and all that they concealed.
	“Well, not really the same. You’ll have to let me hear you sing.” He returned her teasing caress by brushing the back of one hand across the breast not currently pressing against his chest.
	Shifting herself upright, Charlie took a couple of breaths as she considered, then launched into an Acapella version of Who Wants to Live Forever. Her voice had more range than he would have ever suspected, perfectly capturing the normal baritone lows with a commendable base tenor and scaling up just shy of a full soprano though his ears could not tell the difference at that register. To reach the extremes of range she had to draw away from him to fill her lungs and did something he found truly amazing.
	Her fur… rippled and shifted with the music, rising and falling in small waves in a manner he had never seen before. Even her tail fluffed and relaxed, though far more slowly, with the deeper registers. She tapped the floor lightly with the claws of one foot as if keeping the meter but that only added to the overall sound.
	When she finished her ears came up and forward from where they had laid back into the fur of her head as she sang, pinning on him.
	“Holy damn.” He muttered, closing his mouth that had hung agape from the first bar. “I mean… wow. Holy hot damn. You should be on a label.”
	She snorted self consciously and poked him jokingly with a fist. “Not camera material. Sure, I’ve sung backup on recordings, but no one wanted a singing skunk actually on stage or camera. Sure as hell not as a lead singer. Not the right ‘optics’. No ‘kin really ever gets forward much in the music scene; everyone’s expecting howls and brays, not opera.”
	“I can see what that bully boy meant, though. That was fantastic! Ever compose your own songs?” She shook her head and he sensed her drawing back into her normal quiet self conscious shell so he leaned over and pulled her back down against him. “It’s okay, dear. You’re stellar, but if you want to keep it on the down low, it’s okay. And what you were doing with your fur I’ve never seen before.”
	She chuffed and relaxed back against him. “I don’t want to be out there in the public eye, under their hateful scrutiny, for what I am and my past. It's too easy for them to learn about everything and come at me like rabid dogs.” Her muzzle tucked under his chin and her arms slid around him. “And everyone’s fur does that when they sing, it’s just happening under clothes. Reaching particular notes flexes different muscles, makes our fur lift or lay, depending on the type of ‘kin and what we’re singing.”
	“Still kinda neat, though.” Ren admitted with a smile, brushing his chin against her brow gently. “If you ever get tired of rooting out tax cheats and book cookers you could always work in animation. They’re always on the lookout for talent and don’t care what that talent looks like. Heck, most of the time they never even see the talent, just do everything remotely.”
	She nodded, one hand idly stroking his chest, coarse pads gentle on his naked skin. Somewhere outside snow machines buzzed past down the road, though without sirens. “It’s an option, though I’m one of the top of my field.” She said with a slow, languid stretch that thrust out her chest and made her hips shimmy enticingly. In his lap her tail bushed, shuddered, and relaxed. “Chasing book cookers, as you call them, and tax dodgers is pretty rewarding. Especially when you watch them crash and burn. Most of my end is done in the office, but the clients and targets seldom ever see me. Most never do, I’m careful to lay out a dumbass copy as well as the detailed one so I’m seldom called to testify. The work speaks for itself.”
	“Ohh, feisty.” He ruffled the fur of her tail lightly, working his fingers around the tapered, muscular core. “You have to get all cloak and dagger like they do in movies?”
	She chuckled and lazily traced her claws across the skin of his chest and stomach, turning her head slightly and nipping at him with those sharp, intimidating teeth. “No. It’s as dry as the Ashmah desert. I’m just an auditor, they’d actually have to subpoena the firm to discover the identity of any auditors and, well, get through a Great Wall of Lawyers, first.”
	“And the other drones throw species epithets at you right out in the open.” He pointed out gently, his breath hitching slightly at the sharp caress of teeth along the side of his neck upward along the curve of his jaw. She chuffed softly and nibbled his earlobe, causing him to squirm and fist his fingers into her tail.
	“And no one’s called you a hairless ape or monkey at your work?” She whispered softly in his ear, whiskers tickling enticingly along the upper curve of his ear and the hollow below his jaw.
	“One fellow did, once. A tiger whose concept art was passed over for several others, including my own. He said it right in front of the owner and studio manager. They dressed him down right there on the art room floor at volumes that hurt the ears and then sacked him on the spot. No one’s used a species slur in the building since.”
	She pffed softly as her tongue traced lazily along the rim of is ear. “Too bad they won’t do that where I work. Bosses are pretty much all human so let a lot slide, particularly when it’s directed at me.”
	“Because of…” He trailed off as she returned to nibbling on his ear.
	“I’m a skunk, that’s enough. Only HR knows about the rest as a part of medical policy but they haven’t let anything slip or banned me from using the ladies’ room which would be a dead giveaway.”
	“Ahh, office politics.” He murmured halfheartedly, more distracted by her gentle, teasing ministrations than the topic of conversation.
	“Mmmh.” She agreed, shifting closer, her tail drawing away from his grasp as it slipped from his lap back behind her as one leg slid over his own. “Couch, or floor?”
	“Hmm?” He found himself half holding her with one arm, the other transitioning from tail to densely furred thigh.
	“You sleeping on the couch, or on the floor?” He oh’d, realizing that it had gotten late. Not that the drapes gave any indication if it was daylight or night outside. Evening had been settling when they looked out at the snow rescue and that had been hours ago.
	“Wherever you are.” He finally answered as she sat astride his thighs and smiled down at him. Both of his hands came to rest on her hips, fingers sinking deep into fur as their noses touched, cool black pad to warm pale skin.
	“Ohh, right answer, stud.” She grinned and shifted her head slightly to press velvet furred lips to his own. He drew her hips closer, her knees shuffling on the cushions as he felt the weight of her balls grind against his groin through the material of his sweats and her sheath pressed against his stomach. He had to cock his head back to return the kiss as she was forced closer and more upright. Cool nubs surrounded by warm fur over yielding curves pressed against his chest. Gentle hands with their plethora of tactile sensations; warm, coarse pads, short velvet fur, and cool blunt claws, cupped his face as her tongue slipped nimbly between his lips.
	“Oh, you call me the stud.” He chided after their tongues finished dancing enough for him to steal a breath. “You’ve got the recovery rate of a female and as much male as I’ve got, if not more. I’d say that qualifies as studdess more than I’m stud.”
	She giggled and ground her hips forward and pressed her breasts more solidly against him. “Is that so, mmmh, my silly human? This stud can service you then, hmm? Will you take my service like a good broodmare?”
	“If my lady stud wants to service her brood dude.” They both laughed at that and, due to his posture being angled up and back it was a simple shift of his hips that send him sliding off the couch. She squeaked, mid laugh, as he slithered down suddenly, plowing his face between her breasts as she grasped for the back of the couch lest she be pitched over backward. His face continued its rapid southward trek as her tail lashed about in alarm, until he fetched up with a faceful of firm, softly furred sheath ridge and weighty, velveteen balls. “He is eager to be serviced.” Tilting his head up slowly he placed a slow, firm kiss to the tip of that sheath and let his tongue invade its snug confines to find the tip nestled shallowly within.
	Charlie let out a chuttering gasp of surprised pleasure and her hips reflexively bucked, aided by the hands that had settled upon the furry curves beneath her tail, sliding her entire slim length from its scabbard to fill his mouth in a single smooth, urgent thrust. “Ohh, damn.” She grunted and drew back almost immediately. “Naw, brood dude.” She pulled further back, despite the firm grip upon her rump, until she slipped from his mouth. “I want to service you differently.” Pushing away from the back of the couch she took a step back and grinned down at him, sharp teeth gleaming. He gazed up at her, curious, and ignored the short spurt of watery, thin pre that spattered against his chin and lips. She motioned toward the rumpled tangle of bedding on the floor.
	Ren moved toward it, untangling and laying it back in some semblance of order as she stepped back to gaze down at him, the plume of her tail slightly raised and swaying side to side. She used her feet, substantial things that they were also tipped with two-plus centimeter claws on each toe, to help him straighten out the bedding. “Lie back, stud.” She ordered softly once he had made it a bit more comfortable to lay on. He did as she bade obligingly, letting her lead. Once he had stretched out on is back she stepped over him and crouched until her balls were brushing the front of his sweats. Only a couple centimeters of her glistening maleness stood exposed from its nest of satin black fur. “How long has it been, love?”
	He reached out to stroke the front of her knees and hips, understanding finally dawning. Lifting his hip he shoved his sweats down to his knees and she completed his effort with one foot, catching and shoving them down until they sloughed off his feet. “Oh… uhm, probably five years? Since I graduated college and moved away. Have been too busy for much socializing, since. Certainly not like this.” He let one hand trail inward from her hips to caress her sheath and cup her balls but avoided touching the exposed flesh that leaked a trickle of pre down into her fur. He smiled as he looked from her groin back up to her face. “And haven’t had any interest in looking since the day I saw you.”
	Shifting her weight down onto one knee she pressed the other between his knees which he quickly moved apart for her, wider still when she put the other there as well. “Oh, delightful.”
	“And you’ve never.” He pointed out with a smile as he shifted to a more comfortable pose, legs spread and knees upraised slightly to rest against her rump.
	Charlie shook her head and a pensive look crossed her muzzle, whiskers and ears drawing back but not fully. “You’ll tell me if I do anything wrong?”
	He nodded, letting his hands trail up her outer arms. “Just go easy and let yourself feel it. You’ll know what to do, no problem, love.” Shifting her knees she slowly stretched out over him, her weight settling down as her hips pressed between his thighs. “You’re not blunt, like I am, so don’t worry.” He felt the ridge of her sheath grind against his exposed, quickly stiffening length as she shuffled and shifted, her hands bracketing his shoulders. Reaching up he rested both hands against her cheek ruffs and drew her down for a kiss as he felt he nervous fumbling of her hips. “Relax, love. You’re tensing up.” He could feel that in the knees between his thighs, sense it in the sway of the tail he could glimpse only momentarily past her head.
	She sighed softly, her lips pressing gently against his as she focused her efforts on something she had never done before, and had never been offered to her. He guessed that the few times anyone had been under her tail had been from behind, never face to face. Shifting his feet up a bit he lifted his hips toward hers. One hand slid down between them to find her half exposed length. With a gentle downward push of his thumb he felt the tip brush across his balls, spattering them with a short, warm jet of pre. Charlie stilled and pushed herself up on her arms to let him guide her. “I know.” She said with a soft, sighing growl before glancing down between them, watching as his gentle touch made her exposed length disappear between his thighs. “It’s somewhat awkward, this way.”
	“A little.” He eased that leaking, slim tip past his balls to the cleft of his ass until it nestled neatly against his entry. “But this way I can see your face.” With a smile he withdrew his hand, reaching to her hip and giving a gentle pull. She bit her lower lip, whiskers flattening back along her muzzle as her eyes half closed and lost focus. With a slow, easy roll of her hips that tip pressed against him firmly and he forced his begrudging muscles to relax and accept.
	The tip of her shaft slid into him easily, the first several centimeters to the first ridge hardly more intrusive than a single finger. “Ohh.” She gasped as she faltered, pulling back until she slipped free and her tip bounced up to rest against the underside of his own balls. “Damn.” This time she rolled her hips and adjusted the angle of her erection until it slipped downward enough to catch the pre-lubricated center of his ring again.
	“That’s it, love. Right there.” His hand upon her hip urged her down and forward again. Once more the first few centimeters slipped past his resistance easily but, this time, she did not reflexively draw back. The first ridge slipped into him with a jarring, but not at all uncomfortable, sensation that ripped through him with the visceral impact of a strongman’s punch. His muscles clenched by reflex and fluttered around her as he tried to regain control. “Oh, that was nice. Give me more, love.”
	“It doesn’t hurt?” Charlie asked, pensive, holding there despite the tension he could feel in her hips to just thrust herself home.
	“No.” He shook his head and smiled reassuringly. “Not at all. It feels wonderful. You feel wonderful. I want more.” Reaching down with both hands he dug his fingers into the fur of her hips and urged her closer. He could feel his resisting anal muscles protest as the girth of the invader powering through but it was not uncomfortable. He swore he could feel every vein, every twitch, every throbbing pulse of her racing heart piercing him. The second ridge, around a circumference notably greater than before, slipped past his muscles with another concussion of delightful sensation. He knew that, beyond the second ridge, she would quickly become thicker than he was. Not quite as thick as the biggest males he had ever taken, such as a lustful canine’s engorged knot being powered into him before becoming firmly locked, but considerable all the same.
	And his ass had not taken anything in years.
	Charlie gasped and huffed, hips twitching back and dragging the second ridge back from him but, before drawing all the way back to the first her hips dipped and she thrust forward. That second ridge and the rapidly thickening girth drove into him forcing a grunt of mixed pleasure and discomfort from him but at her alarmed expression he hauled on her hips. “No!” He gasped as he felt her muscles preparing to withdraw completely. “All of you, love. I want all of you.”
	“But that hurt you, Ren.” She complained though her body shuddered with the desire to mate, to bury herself and thrust with lustful abandon. She was holding herself back from something that she had never before experienced, which should have robbed her of thought in that moment, but she was holding back for him. “I saw it in your face. That hurt.”
	He shook his head swiftly. “It will pass, love, it will pass and the pleasure will be… will be what I feel when I’m in you.” He stroked her hips, reaching down to her rump and drawing at her. “Just… let me have all of you and then just… just hold. Lay on me, let me feel you there, inside me.” At her questioning look he smiled and drew her head down to kiss her, deeply and with heat as he felt her move again; a slight rearward shift and slow inward thrust. She went oh-so-gods slow it was positively decadent, spearing him past the first ridge, the slow stretch and then abrupt release as the second eased into him. Though they were not particularly pronounced, half a centimeter across the top of her cock and entirely smooth along the bottom, it still felt like climbing a mountain and then sliding down the other side. He gritted his teeth and hissed through his nose as he felt the slow, irresistible stretching toward the third and most pronounced of her ridges. It was certainly no canine ‘kin knot but it was still considerable, and considerably uncomfortable.
	Ren groaned a strained breath against Charlie’s lips and he felt her hesitate again, her body as tensely wound as an overturned violin string. “Ren,” she murmured, panting, as she broke the kiss. He felt her withdraw and seized her rump.
	“No.” He gasped, hissing past clenched teeth as his muscles strove to evict the throbbing, hot invader that was spurting copious amounts of pre deep into the center of his being. “No, love. It is a good pain. It is pain I want, to have you fully, completely.” He pulled against her rump, striving his hips up toward her. He had taken her fully in his mouth, he would take her fully elsewhere, too. “I want this, and it is not harming me. Just… love, you’re thick. So delightfully thick.” He managed to get his watering eyes to focus. “Is it hurting you?”
	She grunted a soft negative, drew back slightly, and eased in once more. The pain receded but did not return with the same force as he was once more stretched, if only slightly. “Oh, gods no. It feels like… feels like…” She paused, drawing all the way back to that second fullness, catching the ridge upon the spastic clenching of his anal ring. “Nothing I’ve felt… before. Until you, your mouth.” She slid forward, sinking ever so slightly deeper. Pain flared momentarily, ebbed to a dull ache that could not compete with the intense pleasure of being so profoundly filled and that second ridge was just about grinding… thus. Another centimeter, no more than two, and it would be grinding solidly against his prostate. “And it is so very different from that pleasure.”
	“Take it, love.” He said with a grunting hiss as she drew back to the second ridge and then slid forward again, just a little further. Pain, like a flash, then an ache. Closer. So very close. “Take it all the way, Charlie. I want to feel you complete in me. All the way in me.”
	And then, with an abruptness that surprised him, she was. The third ridge slipped past his straining, protesting ring with an almost audible sound but that was probably his profound cry of completion and release as the discomfort of being so fully stretched ebbed almost to nothing but the sensation of her girth nested within him, of that second ridge grinding against him just so, deep within. “Oh, fuck.” He managed to gasp as his muscles clenched down in a spastic fit even as his inner muscles strove to evict her presence. “Oh, fucking gods, love.” His hands left her rump and crushed her down against him, damp spots of warmth pressing solidly against his chest as he buried his face into the thick fur of her throat.
	Charlie let her weight fall upon him, though caught much of it on her elbows, and shuddered at sensations the likes of which she had never felt before embraced her entire length, its entire girth, from root to tip. Ren felt her presence throb and pulse, thickening subtly and subsiding as she panted atop him. “I don’t think I can do much, love.” She murmured in his hair, nuzzling as she rested atop him. “You’re holding me too tight.”
	His arms relaxed, marginally, as did the twitching spastic muscles wrapped with savage, tight heat around the base of her cock eased, if only slightly. That only caused the muscles within him to embrace her length all the more firmly, seeming to push outward and pull inward simultaneously. “Then… let’s just enjoy this, for now.” He panted. The pain was gone, the ache still there but subsumed under the pleasure of that union. He was at the edge of his release and if she started moving much, to fuck in even the most desultory way, his cock pressed against the thick fur of her groin was going to explode.
	“So close.” She breathed, pushing herself up, leaving two spots of wetness upon his chest that slowly defined cooling trickles down to either side. “I am… so close.” Shifting her knees further apart, forcing his legs up the sharp angle of her thighs until they were wrapped around her hips, she gazed down at his newly freed erection. It bobbed and twitched in time with the throb of her own cock, impossibly buried completely in this man who had given himself over to her pleasure, even at the sufferance of his own pain. She just needed a tiny bit more, and was afraid to pull back lest the subtle thickening of her basal ridge cause him further pain.
	But one thing she knew was males. And another thing she knew was skunks, being one of course. Raising her gaze she met his and smiled. “You look delicious like this.” Before Ren’s pleasure fogged mind could make a comment she bowed her upper body, twisting her torso like a fur swathed snake, and plunged her head downward. Ren let out a whoop of surprise when her muzzle took him completely in a single hungry dip of her muzzle. His body tensed and she let out a sharp chuff through her nose, a growl from deep within her throat, when his body clenched down upon her. Her hips gave a firm, involuntary buck at the sudden increase in pleasure, slamming his groin against her nose before she fell back, catching the thickest girth of her cock against the impossibly tight clench of his anal ring.
	Strong hands fell to her shoulders and powerful hips strove upward as she felt his tension suddenly mount, the cock within her muzzle becoming profoundly more firm. And then his ass clenched and his cock jerked against the hot confines of her muzzle, pouring a jolt of his personal salty, musky sweetness across her tongue. Her own cock responded in kind, reacting to the sudden rhythmic clenching by tightening, thickening, and giving a solid jerk against the constraining embrace wrapped tightly around it. A surge of heat poured deep into the core of Ren’s sense of self, a liquid rush that churned and pulsed in time with the rapid, powerful twitches that joined himself to the skunk curled over him in a pose that looked incredibly awkward but she managed effortlessly.
	His own muscles clenched and relaxed as his own erection twitched and spattered his seed into the skunk’s hot, incredibly tight embrace about him. The teeth to either side, shielded from his flesh by her own tongue, was an unyielding cage along his length and her tongue was a rippling heat that juxtaposed that solidity. When she swallowed her jaw tightened down firmly, raising his slowly fading arousal in quick jumps as his orgasm peaked, ebbed, peaked, ebbed, and finally began to flag as what little his body had recovered finished pouring itself into her. Within him her own climax continued for several seconds longer before it too stilled. The liquid presence of her culmination was a warmth that seeped rapidly further into him and faded into his own body temperature. The heat of her pulsing girth did not fade as they both began to sag in the euphoria of their shared release.
	After another minute Charlie drew off of his erection and stretched out to sprawl upon him, her semen rich breath hot in his nose as she brushed a kiss across his lips. Undaunted by the smell of his release he brought a shaky hand up to the nape of her neck and drew her down into a more solid kiss, parting his lips to let her tongue, tasting strongly of himself, into his mouth. His fingers clutched feebly into the dense fur of her nape as his other hand stroked lightly at her lower back. Her erection did not flag nearly as swiftly as his own did, though he felt it slimming within him, allowing the liquid fullness to shift and flow about as her shift in posture made her cock move about, briefly thickening again.
	“Mmmh.” She mumbled after their kiss broke a minute later. Charlie shifted some of her weight onto her elbows, though only slightly. Despite her fur giving an impression of far greater mass she was considerably lighter than he was and her weight was hardly a burden. “So many firsts. That was… is,” her hips rolled slowly, pressing her length into him slightly before relaxing again, “amazing.”
	“You are.” Ren agreed as he felt the thinning shaft draw against him, the thickest ridge slipping slowly free while he kept himself clenched lest her copious gift make a mess of the bedding. He would certainly have to make a quick trip to the frigid bathroom once she was fully free.
	“You’re… okay? That was painful, I saw it in your face, love.” She asked with a great deal of fearful concern.
	He could only chuckle softly and kiss her velveteen lips again. “Did it hurt when I was under your tail, love?”
	She shook her head after returning the kiss. “No. Well, I mean, there’s always that first twinge but… no, it didn’t hurt. But it wasn’t just a twinge with you, love. It didn’t pass so quickly.”
	“Because you’re right thick, Charlie, love. But you’re amazing, right there like that.” He clenched down and bid his muscles push against the invading, though slimmer, girth. Her eyes rolled and lids fluttered as she half moaned, half hissed in pleasure. “I’ll be fine. And it’ll be a lot less uncomfortable next time. And less the time after that.”
	“As if you’d want that sort of pain again.” She scoffed softly, eyes going momentarily unfocused as the last of her slipped free. He tightened immediately and, thankfully, only felt a minor trickle of her seed seep from him.
	“Love, any time you want. As often as you want.” He grinned and hugged her down against him firmly. “I’ll be your brood dude anytime.”
	She snickered and he laughed back.
	“Gods that is so absolutely corny. Brood dude. Fucking hell.” She pecked him on the nose and then the lips.
	“Well, unless you’d rather just stick it in my mouth to shut -” He was silenced quite effectively when she pressed in for a deeper, more lingering kiss. They broke after a time to catch their breaths and he smiled. “I gotta hit the toilet, love. Your gift is being rather insistent about release.” When she shifted to one side to let him up he grinned down at her. “And you said you’d be a bit less copious.” He scoffed with a shake of his head. “Feels like a liter of you back there.”
	“Well, there’s also a good bit of pre and, well, it felt so good I think I came harder that time than I have in… well, since your mouth.” She caressed his leg, hip, flaccid maleness as he moved to stand. With a laugh Ren shuffled off to the restroom before he had containment failure and suffered the frigid toilet seat while still grinning like a fool. Only the slight heat making its way down the hallway from the fire had kept the water from freezing in the bowl. While it wasn’t nearly an actual liter of fluid sloshing about within his bowels it was certainly considerable if less than some of the canine ‘kin he had known. He knew he’d be aching for a while but it was one of those aches that was accepted after a good workout.
	And that she had certainly given him, for the ache was not confined to his sorely overworked ass. His shoulders and thighs reported disgruntled results of their exercise as well but he simply tuned it out after a momentary chuckle of acknowledgement. When he emerged back into the warmth of the living room he found Ren in the kitchen, long gloves on her hands, washing the pot. The plates and utensils were already washed and in the dishwasher to dry and he saw that the fur of her sheath was damp.
	“Probably warmer doing it that way.” He commented blandly and her tail gave a twitch. “Toilet’s like sitting on a block of ice.”
	“That’s because it is.” She chuckled as she finished rinsing the pot and set it, upside down, on the stovetop to dry. “With your naked skin that was probably quite pleasant, hmm?” Her warm smile and soft laugh as she stripped off the gloves and laid them over the sink divider made him smile in return.
	“Yeah, definitely.” He quipped with grinning sarcasm. “I’ll just have to ask you to warm it back up for me.”
	“Gladly.” She winked as she stepped over and slipped her arms around his waist and leaned in close for a kiss that was long and slow yet not as desperately hungry as their first had been. “If you don’t mind getting poked a little.”
	Ren settled his hands on her rump, lightly stroking the underside of her tail with the backs of his thumbs as he kneaded fur and warm curves. “A little? You? Heh, please do.”
	They made out for a few minutes in the kitchen, his hands roaming her rump and lower back while hers did the same, the lush warmth of her tail wapping about their legs. After an interminable time they ambled back to the living room, one arm around each waist and parted at the sofa. He refueled the fire with fresh wood while she rearranged the rumpled, fur spackled bedding on the floor a safe distance away. They settled down there, spooned together, with her behind due to her tail and him in front due to his lack of one. As promised, he received a few good natured pokes of slick, hot flesh along the cleft of his ass but nothing with intent. Both were asleep before the damp logs had stopped hissing and popping.
	Ren was awakened some time later by a racket from somewhere beyond the walls of the house; rumbling and buzzing interspersed with muffled cracks. Charlie’s form was curled up in front of him like a sleeping dog, tail over her face, hips shoved back into the cup of his body. One of his arms was draped over her, caught beneath one of her arms and fingers splayed across the warm curve of a breast. After a few minutes listening he figured it was probably someone taking apart the tree that had fallen, either for firewood or simply road crews removing an obstruction so brickers could get through.
	Gazing across the dimly lit, chilly room at the windows revealed nothing through the drapes since neither moonlight nor sunlight could pierce their heavy veil. It could be midnight or noon and he would not know but for the rhythms of his own body. But road crews would not likely be working in the dark in the storm, if the storm was still ongoing, so he figured it was probably daylight. His body was telling him it was time to get up for work, so it was probably still quite early.
	Loathe to disturb the warm, furry donut keeping his front warm and not quite willing to throw back the comforter and invite the chill under its protective shield he lay unmoving, simply basking in the simple pleasure of Charlie’s fur pressed soft against his naked flesh. Not even his cock awoke at the pleasant touch, so sated it was after their previous day’s marathon of discovery and pleasures.
	He was not sure how much time had passed as he rested his face against the nape of Charlie’s neck, the tip of her tail half covering him, and idly stroking his fingers through the short, dense, satin fur of one breast. Occasionally they would drift across the furless heat of her nipple but he tried not to be too familiar with that caress. He sensed Charlie awakening by a shift in her breathing. The slow, deep breaths gave over to shallower ones and he felt her body shifting subtly as she swam up from the depths of slumber. He attempted to withdraw his hand but felt it abruptly clasped and pressed back where it was, the nipple tightening as it slipped between two of his fingers. Her hips shifted back slightly, grinding warm fur against his groin and flaccid cock as her tail shifted, sweeping across him like a feather duster on the way down to rest across his legs.
	“Mmmh.” Charlie mumbled as she uncurled, languidly shifting back against him in a sinuous motion only the spine of a skunk, or a snake, allowed. Her hand remained over his, keeping it trapped against her breast. “That feels good. I could get used to waking up like this.” She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him with one dark eye, an ear twitching against his lips. “Or other ways.”
	Ren chuckled. “Oh? With my face buried in your crotch?” He rumbled, rasping a moment to clear the sleep from his throat.
	“That’d be one way, yes. Or mine in yours.” Her hips rolled back against him again, the muscular root of her tail pressing against his hip as it flicked up to one side exposing her rump though his cock was not immediately near enough to settle beneath it. He pinched her taut, pert nipple lightly and rolled it between his fingers as the rest tuzzled the fur over the soft curve. Charlie let out a soft hiss and her fingers tightened against the back of his hand, pushing it even more firmly against her breast. “But other morning issues demand more immediate attention.” Ren was aware of his own body’s demands but they were not immediately pressing so when she shifted blearily to her feet he did not join her.
	That abandonment, of course, took the warmth away and had also caused the comforter to fall away exposing him to the much more immediate presence of the room’s chill. There was still a bit of fire clinging doggedly to heaped coals but he would have to deal with that heap before refreshing the hearth. Retrieving the fire bucket and setting aside the kindling that had been stored in it he took the small shovel and began the smoky task of moving most of the ash. He was dutifully careful so what little soot that kicked up only powdered the stones immediately around the hearth and the pall of smoke was quickly sucked up the chimney.
	Charlie returned while he was filling the bucket, the sound of the toilet loud in the otherwise silent house. She slid her hands across his shoulders as she stood behind him. Setting aside the shovel and, before she could back away, turned and grasped her hips, burying his face in the warm softness of her groin against her sheath. She let out a surprised chirrup and her balance wavered as her tail lashed. When he nuzzled up the side of her sheath she touched her fingers lightly to his brow. “Ren, hon, I just -” He didn’t let her finish, her voice ending in a soft, rumbling groan when he pressed his lips to her sheath and, despite the touch of her fingers, dropped his head. Her shaft slid smoothly from its home into his mouth and he pressed his tongue firmly up along the underside. It was smooth there, as the angled ridges only encircled three quarters or so of her girth. Those pressed against the roof of his mouth as he stroked her firmly with his tongue a few times before drawing his head away.
	“No matter.” He said as he looked up at her slack jawed gape down at him. “Just wanted to kiss you.” He leaned back slightly and licked his lips. “If you’d turn around I’d kiss you elsewhere, too.”
	She made a face at him and rapped him lightly on the forehead with her knuckles. “Ugh, please don’t, love. At least not until I’ve expressed my vents. Right now I’m no better back there than you are, ventless human.” She laughed as he ruffled the fur of her hips as if preparing to turn her around himself.
	“Oh, yeah, in that case.” He winked and turned back to the smoldering heap remaining in the fireplace and shoveled more into the bucket. Before the last few coals could peter out entirely he tossed on some kindling and smaller bits of starter wood.
	“What are you going to do with that?” Charlie asked, pointing to the almost full, smoking bucket of coals.
	“Toss it outside in the snow. Once spring comes it’ll fertilize the lawn.” He stood and reached for the heavy gloves hanging from the rack of fireplace tools after replacing the shovel.
	“With no clothes on?” She smirked, swatting his naked ass playfully. “Let me. I can handle a few minutes of that cold with my fur.”
	“With no clothes on?” He joked back, throwing her argument back at her.
	“From what little I could see of your back yard no one can see. Not that anyone but an absolute masochist would be out in this weather.” She reached out and took the gloves from his grasp.
	“Hmm, true, I guess. Let me go open the back door real quick so you can get to the deck without smoking the house up too much.” He crossed through the kitchen and pulled open the door. Charlie picked up the bucket and scuttled behind him, the stout claws of her feet clicking on the vinyl faux hardwood. “Just pull open the outer door and toss it in a fan.” He said as she rushed past, her tail brushing against him. Crossing the frigid deck, managing to keep her feet on the slick rime of ice, she yanked open the door. A heap of snow collapsed in around her paws as she braced her shoulder against the door frame, grasped the bottom of the bucket, and swung it outward with the top facing the white landscape of his back hard. The coals sent up a plume of smoke as they exploded from the bucket in a broad fan, hissing furiously where they landed in snow.
	No snow was actually falling, now, though the sky was still a low, leaden gray. Heavy clouds scuttled northwestward at a swift clip and the wind whipped up snow from the tops of drifts and trees. A cloud swirled in through the open deck door before Charlie was able to push it shut against the heap that had tumbled in. Ren stood with the kitchen door open, goose flesh standing everywhere and his cock making a good attempt at shrinking back into his body. His toes were numb by the time Charlie staggered back toward him and, at a motion of one hand, set the bucket down before darting through the open door which he slammed shut behind her.
	“Ohhhfuckit’scold!” They both said at almost the same moment and then laughed as they both rushed back into the living room where the fire had made inroads on the small heap of starter wood. Ren added a couple of larger pieces and huffed against the cold, smiling up at Charlie when she draped one of the blankets over his shoulder.
	“Gonna take time to warm up, now. It had to be way below zero out there.” Crossing to the sofa she dug her phone out from her bag set on the floor at one end. “Ugh, yeah. Weather shows negative twenty seven degrees!” She frowned at her phone. “And I’m down to thirty percent. How’s your phone?” She handed that to him from one of the end tables.
	“Fifty two.” He reported after glancing at it. “I’ve got a portable jump starter in the back of my vehicle. We can use it to charge our phones. We should bring it in so it’ll warm up before we use it, though. They don’t like cold any more than we do.” He set the phone aside.
	“Where is it?”
	“In the back. There’s a crate full of winter stuff in there, in case I got stranded somewhere. It’ll be under that stuff.” At least he had thought to charge it a couple of months back so it should still be almost full. She turned and padded with clicking claws back toward the kitchen.
	“Is it unlocked?”
	“Yeah, but you’ll have to go in over the back seat. The hatch won’t open with the garage closed.”
	“No problem.” She disappeared through the door into the garage, closing it behind her.
	That, of course, was when her phone started ringing. Without thinking Ren picked it up and swiped to answer, expecting a voice call, without paying much heed to the caller ID. What he got, however, was a video call revealing the face of another skunk. They blinked at him and he blinked back, realizing he must look like a deranged madman with his hair tousled by three days without a shower and bits of fur undoubtedly peppering his face and the blanket around his shoulders.
	“Hello?” He said with an awkward smile.
	“Who are you?” The skunk asked, their eyes slightly wide, dark brows upraised, whiskers drooping as she frowned. “Where’s Charlie?” The voice was immediately recognisable as female.
	“Getting something to charge her phone out of the vehicle. She should be back shortly.”
	“Okay.” The woman’s voice was dubious. A male voice spoke in the background, sounding curious. “So who are you, then?”
	“Oh, sorry. I’m Ren, her boyfriend.” His smile was less awkward, more confident. The woman on the other end blinked in surprise, momentarily backed ears twitching up, as another skunk appeared behind her, looking down into the phone.
	“Her what?” He asked before the one holding the other phone could speak. His ears were not back, but were not alertly pricked, the downward angle of his whiskers indicating ill ease.
	“Hello, sir, ma’am. I’m her boyfriend, Ren. Well, Reynard really but I go by Ren. You’re Charlie’s parents?”
	“We are.” The male replied, brows beetling. “This is the first we’ve heard of a boyfriend, son.”
	“I’m Bethany.” The female skunk interjected at her husband's low growl. “And this is Samuel.” Her free hand raised to wave at the male standing at her shoulder. “Interesting way to meet you, Reynard. She hadn’t told us she had a boyfriend.”
	“Well, that’s because, up until two days ago, we were just friends. We rode the metro together.”
	The female blinked, ears pricking forward more alertly, whiskers lifting, and her muzzle opening in an ‘O’ of surprise revealing her own sharp, gleaming white teeth. “You’re the human she’s told us about?. That makes a bit more sense, but, how did you suddenly become her boyfriend? I mean…” She trailed off awkwardly.
	Ren chuckled and heard the door to the garage open and close with a hiss of weatherstripping, the click of claws crossing the kitchen. He shifted to turn the phone so that the view behind him was of the draped front windows rather than the rest of the house, very conscious that Charlie was wearing not a shred of clothing. “Oh, I know all about that, ma’am. I’ve known for a long time and accept it.”
	“And he’s got no problems with it, mom.” Charlie said as she sidled up behind him, wearing his winter coat zipped all the way up. “When the weather hit and knocked out the metro he brought me to his house.”
	Mom looked caught between caution and happiness but Dad looked dubious. “And suddenly you’re boyfriend and girlfriend? Just like that?” He wasn’t rude, asking in a curious tone, but still not buying it. “That’s why we called, when we saw the damage on the news this morning.”
	“Not suddenly, mom. We’ve been seeing each other twice a day, five days a week, forty five minutes at a time, for a couple of years. And none of the trains were involved, as I’m sure you saw in the news. The east/west line just got cut off with me on the wrong side.” She stroked Ren’s shoulders and brushed his cheek with her whiskers. “Ren invited me to ride out the storm at his house.”
	Charlie’s mother snickered, her whiskers twitching up as she favored them with a grin and then turned her head to look up at her husband. “Sam, look at him, hmm? Wearing a blanket salted with fur, and no shirt? I think we got that far after three months, dear. Two years is quite a lengthy time to get to know each other, don’t you think?” She turned her gaze back to the phone and snickered again. “Ride out the storm at his place, indeed.”
	Dad grumbled a bit and then gave a nod. “Yeah, guess so. But… a human, Charlie? Are there no skunks in that city other than you?”
	Ren felt Charlie tense a bit behind him, could imagine her ears going back. “There are plenty, dad. But they turn tail and run when they learn the truth. Ren didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t run, didn’t push me away in horror. He accepted. And I accept him, dad.”
	“I hope you will too, sir.” Ren said quietly as he leaned back a bit against the skunk behind him with a rustle of winter resistant fabric. “As I would like to ask your permission to court your daughter.”
	Charlie gave a soft, gasping grunt behind him while both skunks on the tiny phone screen blinked, ears rotating rearward in surprise and then forward again. “Excuse me, son?” Sam said with a half glower, half confused look. “Court? As in… seek to marry?”
	Ren bobbed his head with a smile. “Yes, sir, I wish to court your daughter with that intent.” He turned his head to glance up at Charlie’s shocked expression before looking back at the phone he studiously kept aimed up so nothing below his upper chest was visible. “I mean, sure, I’d marry her tomorrow but… I thought that at least I should seek the approval of her parents and follow the normal, formal process of courtship and such.” He paused, looking back up at Charlie once more. “That is, if she’s willing to accept such a relationship, or simply wants to remain friends.” She was looking back down at him, eyes wide, whiskers angled forward and short, round tipped ears pinned, jaw hanging slightly agape.
	“Charlie?” He heard her father say after a moment and brought his attention back to the phone.
	He felt her move behind him, a slight motion that brushed the fabric of his jacket against the blanket upon his shoulders. It was a motion of her head, he sensed, but whether it was a nod or a shake he did not know until she spoke.
	“Yes, father.” She rasped, her voice tight. “I say yes, if that is his decision it will be mine, as well.”
	The view from the other end wavered a bit as her mother put one hand to her muzzle, covering her mouth though her eyes smiled. Her father cocked a dubious eyebrow but nodded. “It is her choice to make, mister Reynard, and I will stand by it.” He paused, whiskers twitching as he fought down either a scowl or a grin Ren could not tell. “Even if you are a human.”
	Understanding the sometimes odious habit that humans with ‘kin partners sometimes displayed Ren shook his head. “I assure you, sir, if there’s a collar to be worn I’ll be the one wearing it, never you fear. I am not that sort of human and would never ask it of her. Ever. And, as I said, I accept her. All of her, wholly and without reservation.” He finished with as much warm firmness he could muster without seeming belligerent.
	Her father grunted grudging acceptance and nodded. “Well, it appears she’s in good hands. Certainly unexpected, all things considered, but acceptable. I expect you to visit before progressing to a more formal arrangement?”
	Ren nodded and grinned. “Most certainly, sir.” Charlie’s mother made a soft, tittering sound behind her hand, eyes glimmering with moisture, and the call abruptly ended.
	“Well, that was certainly unexpected. Probably a bit earlier than you wanted to tell -” Ren began as he turned to set the phone aside only to be forestalled by a crushing hug so intense it squeezed the breath from his lungs in a whoosh. Charlie all but picked him up off the floor as she plastered herself to him and tried to eat his face with the intensity of her kisses. The phone trilled and vibrated briefly in his hand as he swayed and almost fell over backwards due to the awkward position he had been captured in. He let Charlie’s effusive emotions play out, returning her fervent kisses as best he was able to keep up with them before her muzzle ended up pressed close to his ear, nose pad cool against its inner curve.
	“I want you to fuck me, Ren.” She breathed huskily, blunt claw tips pressing against his back as she writhed against him with a hiss of winter fabric and a grind of fur below. Other, much more firm touches about his midsection pressed against his groin. Firm, furless, damp, and thick touches. “Gods I need you.” She pushed herself back from him and scrabbled at the zipper of his coat. “Right. Now.” He reached up quickly to unzip it before her claws, even blunt as they were, shredded the material. She shrugged out of it in a blink and cast it carelessly behind her where it disappeared over the couch. He saw that the fur of her breasts was damp and, further down, her erection stood almost entirely free of its sheath leaking a steady trickle of pre that disappeared into the fur bunched about its base. She placed a hand in the center of his chest and pushed.
	Ren allowed himself to fall back and she moved over him, dropping to her knees to straddle his hips and lean down to press a brief kiss to his lips. Her tail, bushed wide, lashed animatedly behind her. “I can’t believe you said that!” She rasped, half laughing. One hand grasped his manhood that was only just beginning to realize it was needed. The caress of her pads was warm, subtly coarse, but gentle for the instance of its touch. “Court me? Really, Ren? You want me like that?” She shuffled forward slightly as she drew his awakening cock down past the taut weight of her balls and let it slip upward along her taint until it fetched up against the very wet, slick flesh beneath her upraised tail.
	“Yes, love. I do.” He said roughly as he stroked the fur of her waist, her hips, letting the fingers of one hand drift in and give her own rampant erection a light stroke. A spurt of pre lept from the tip to spatter across his stomach to his chest. “I’ve wanted to, for a long time. For so, so long.” He stroked the pad of his thumb lightly below her tapered tip as he wrapped his fingers around it.
	Rocking her hips slowly Charlie let his awakening erection slide against the short, velvet fur of her taint and balls, each time letting his broad glans brush against the twitching wetness beneath her tail. “So… I can delete all of those annoying ass dating apps? Finally?” She shifted back, pressing him firmly against the heat of her entry and, with a momentary lidding of her eyes, settled. Ren felt a monetary hot kiss to his tip and then an even hotter, slithering embrace that took a third of him in a single motion as she let out a soft, grunting sigh.
	“I -” He squeaked at the intense pressure and heat enveloping his girth, squeezing and stroking as she lifted slightly and settled again, further, her tail hitching high and swaying to one side in a way that made muscles grind against his cock and forced a groan from his chest. “I would… hope so.” He managed after a few moments. She lifted again, leaning forward and sliding her hands his chest, clawtips dimpling flesh as she drew up and then shifted back. The slick, slithering heat threatened to push even his well exercised arousal over the edge as she took a third, half, and then all of him in a slow, smooth roll of her hips. In his hand her cock twitched and throbbed and thickened, short spurts of pre spattering his stomach and soaking his hand. He felt each muscular twitch through her body as a grasp against him.
	“Good.” She breathed as she leaned lower, her whiskers caressing his face as she slowly rocked her hips, sliding several centimeters of him out of her and then back in. “Oh, so good.” Her lips brushed his own as her hands pressed down against the front of his shoulders. His hand was imprisoned by her cock and stomach pressing down upon it and the motion of her hips slid it torturously through his fingers.
	“Mmmhhh, you are.” He murmured between soft, lingering kisses. “One thing, though?”
	“Mmhhm, love?”
	“When you’re close to climax, I want you in my mouth, this time.” He was forced to hiss the words through gritted teeth as she clenched and relaxed, slid and shifted upon him in ways that were making his balls tighten rapidly. “Rather than all over my face.” He gave her erection a playful squeeze and pressed his thumb along the underside of the tip slowly upward. He felt her clench around his full length as the cock in his hand thickened perceptibly, ridges pressing against the entrapping fingers.
	She chuffed a soft, groaning laugh as her tail fell lengthwise along his legs, easing the pressure on his cock, then jumped upward along her back, tightening down with so much force he groaned at the sheer ecstasy of it. “I almost busted all over your back when you said those words, love.” She pushed up from his chest, arching her back and settling fully down upon him, her cock standing out between his fingers, a spurt of pre reaching as high as his chest. “Say them again, for me?” Arched back, head angled down so her chin almost touched the ruff of fur above her firm, leaking breasts. The pressure was absolutely mind blowing but so firm it kept him from releasing into her right then. She shifted her weight on her knees, lifted almost fully, and then back down solidly as her tail stretched and drew up again in a quick twitch.
	“That I wanted to court you?” He asked, voice strined, wondering if that’s what she wanted him to say. Her weight shifted forward, knees adjusting again. “Because I do, I want to -” What he meant to say was silenced when she shifted forward abruptly, his cock slipping free of her hot embrace with a slithering, wet pop as her hips strove forward over him. He managed to move his arm out of the way as her cock speared toward his face and he accepted it with only a slight tilt of his head, letting it plunge into his mouth with happy eagerness.
	She fell forward over him, her hips descending as her cock slipped fully into his mouth in a single needy plunge. The taste of her suffused his senses, the smell of her musk powerful as the fur of her groin, damp from her pre, pressed against his nose. His own cock slapped against his stomach upon its release and then stood from his groin like a fence post, the sudden chill chasing away some of its ardor. Pre filled his mouth around that powerful, thick taper that pressed deep and then withdrew almost entirely only to plunge down again in an urgent thrust. He cast his eyes up as she pressed into him, withdrew, thrust again, meeting her gaze as she watched herself quite literally rutting his eager mouth.
	Charlie’s dark eyes held his gaze as her thrusts became frenetic, short strokes that plowed his nose into the fur of her groin as she threatened to bottom out but never quite did. He pressed his tongue firmly along the smooth underside of that shaft as the ridges slid and bumped against his lips and the curve of his palette. “Oh, fuck, Ren.” She moaned breathlessly as she watched, her thrusts slowing to more measured, slow rolls of her hips. Then, with a short squeak that descended through the registers of her voice he felt her thicken, pressing solidly against the roof of his mouth, and her hips jerked back.
	When the first powerful throb of her orgasm struck he only had the first third of her cock in his mouth so the sudden surge of hot, slick seed did not have to contend with all of that girth. He gulped it down greedily, lifting his head to take half of her as the next climactic twitch sent a second gout of heat into his mouth to be quickly swallowed. The next, he knew, would be the true apex of her orgasm and it fountained in a single spasm that seemed to last a full second or more, quickly filling his mouth as he swallowed greedily. He managed to contain it within the seal of his lips but was forced to hold his breath longer as the fourth powerful font filled his mouth anew. As it faded her hips shifted back slightly and then dipped, plowing her full length into his face as her cock jumped. He could feel the rush of it through the thin membrane of her flesh as it surged up her length and poured, thick and rich and salty sweet, directly into his throat.
	He felt the powerful, throbbing twitches begin to subside as she panted over him, the heave of her breaths grinding the musky, pre-scented fur of her groin against his nose and filling his senses with her. When at last she drew back he let her slip from his mouth slowly, capturing her erect length with one hand. Gently he stroked his thumb along the underside as he gazed up at her glassy eyed stare and, as the gentle pressure of his thumb coaxed out the last gel-thick dollops from deep within her he slowly, lasciviously, licked it from her tip. Sharp carnivorous white teeth gleamed as she grinned stupidly down at him and shakily combed her fingers through the messy mop of his hair, claws raking back across his scalp.
	“Mmh, love, but that looks magnificent, you taking me like that. I never imagined how it looked from this end, of seeing someone do that to me rather than me doing it to them.” Ren grinned as he continued the slow, gentle strokes of his tongue as she watched him, her cock slimming in the manner of ‘kin with penile bones. When her sheath slipped back up he released her shaft and let his head rest back down on the pillow.
	“I haven’t looked up as often as down, I admit.” He said while she shifted her legs from astride his shoulders and stretched out beside him. “But I get the same thrill out being able to do that as you do, making someone melt with my tongue.” He raised his pre dampened hand, already clumped with bits of black and white fur, and waggled his fingers. “Or my fingers. I’ve made more than a few ladies pass out entirely a time or two.”
	Charlie stretched out on her front with feline grace, her tail plumeing up in the air like a pennant, slowly swaying side to side. “Braggart.” She said playfully as she reached out and wrapped gentle fingers around his cock which had relaxed enough to rest upon his stomach though was still quite aroused. Ren sucked in a pleased breath as he turned enough to nuzzle into the thick ruff of her cheek. “And you started something, my love, but didn’t complete it.”
	“And that was?” He tried to focus on her words despite the gentle pleasure of her finger pads and the satin fur between them teased his arousal into full erection.
	“I asked you to fuck me, and you were doing such a good job.” She released his cock and brought her fingers up to playfully lick pre from her fingers. “Until you decided to drain me so delightfully.” Her tail swayed like a lazy metronome as she smiled toothily at him, reaching back down to gave his quickly firming length a gentle squeeze.
	With a chuckle Ren shifted up to lean toward her. “Then I am remiss and leaving you wanting, love.” Shifting up onto his knees he nuzzled between her shoulder blades and then, catching that swaying tail, buried his face in its feathery soft depth of fur. It enveloped him completely as he used one hand to hold it against his face, inhaling the warm dustiness of fur and her personal, subtle skunkish musk. It was not as acrid as the wild kind but its source was unmistakable. Charlie made a soft growl as she turned her head to watch him drag his face along the length of her tail and then let out a short, trilling chirp when his face plunged beneath its root.
	The sharp sweet bite of her anal musk was almost offensive in its potency but it was not a reek. It was like too much lemon and sugar with too little water to dilute it. When he drew his tongue across the tight pucker of her ring he felt it flex and twitch and the taste of it made his face wrinkle at the sharp sour sweetness, like licking a sugared lemon. He pressed his lips tight to the furless ring, licking and prodding until his taste buds became inured to it, offering a subtle taste of flesh under its cutting strength. Beneath his ministrations Charlie writhed, tail hiked up high along her back and flagging to one side as he sidled closer, moving his legs to straddle her own.
	“You should -. Mmh, that’s nice, love. But you should be a bit cautious.” She warned in breathless chuffs, lifting her hips to press her rump into his salaciously taboo kisses. “It’s a powerful antiseptic, it won’t do any favors for the biotics in your mouth, or stomach.”
	Wriggling his tongue against the center of her wildly twitching ring he felt it part, just slightly, before his probing and then tightly clench, forcing his tongue back. He raised his head and nuzzled the furless line up the underside of her tail. “But doing this’ll make you cum again, too.” He said with a chuckle, but not diving back in, heeding her warning.
	“I want something else to make me cum again.” She rumbled as her hips lifted as if trying to get another kiss beneath the root of her upraised tail. Ren accepted, dropping his head to give that glistening black ring another kiss before sidling further up. Leaning over her he felt the thick muscular base of her tail against his hip when he nuzzled between her shoulder blades again, working upward as his hips lowered.
	“Something like this?” He asked playfully as his needful length pressed against the short, velvet fur of her balls and slid upward against her taint before coming to rest beneath her tail. He could feel the hot flesh, several degrees warmer than his own, twitching against his tip.
	“Yes.” She growled breathlessly, pressing back and down against that touch. Ren did not move his hips as he felt the pressure build against him, but his cock merely slid upward slightly, missing the mark and grinding into the hollow at the very root of her tail. Charlie growled petulantly and adjusted her hips. “Don’t tease.” She whined, tail pressing firmly against his hip and dragging down along his outer thigh, forcing his cock downward until it was once again pressing against her. He gave his hips a slow roll forward and felt her flesh dimple inwards, the blunt girth of his cock tip deforming as it pressed ever more firmly against the fluttering heat.
	And then slipped into it with smooth ease, half of him suddenly surrounded by the intense, slick heat of her rapidly clenching tightness. Ren let out a grunt into the fur of her nape and halted his precipitous plunge as Charlie let out a sharp, trilling snarl. “Ohhhh, fuck yes.” She hissed after several seconds as he simply held there, cock throbbing as it demanded more, pre burbling past the tight constriction at its middle to leak into her depths. Ren felt her hips shift, sidling slightly side to side, and then drive upward firmly. He was driven fully into the intense heat of her embrace with such force his knees almost slid out from under him. “Ohh, yes, even better.” Her inner walls squeezed and caressed, slick with his pre and her own natural lubricants, her ring clenched tight about his base.
	He held himself as her hips relaxed back down and, just as he sensed her muscles tightening, both externally between his thighs and internally along what little remained in her, he dropped his hips. She met his thrust with another upward drive that thumped, flesh against fur rather than the slick, meaty slap of flesh against flesh, and her tail shuddered madly. She moaned throatily and dropped her hips as he withdrew almost entirely. Only the tight grasp of her ring against his glans kept him from slipping completely free. Hips dropped and lifted in unison and he let out a growling grunt that she returned with a trilling almost purr in a higher register.
	Her tail lifted and fell with each driving impact of groin to rump, the sound of flesh sliding against flesh wet and sibilant joining their paired growls and groans. Her hands fisted into the rumpled, fur dusted bedding on the floor and the fire crackled, a single pop of escaping moisture accentuating the wet noise of his cock driving under her tail.
	Shifting his weight back, almost sliding free, Ren shifted his hands down to her hips an dragged her bodily up from the floor causing her ass to clench down so powerfully it felt as though she might pinch him off even as her weight sank back down onto him. It was slower than their brief, intense flurry of thrusts but far stronger as she fought to regain her balance, tail curving around behind his back as he drew her up onto him. Upright, he let her weight press back against his chest as he held her in place and thrust up and forward, lifting her onto her knees through their mutual union. Charlie gasped and moaned, grasping at his wrists as her body melted against him, rising and falling with each slow, ponderous, powerful thrust of his hips.
	Once she had regained her balance and the rhythm of his thrusts he shifted his hands from her hips to cup her breasts, rubbing his thumbs across the damp, solid points of nipples standing from short fur. “Oh, gods, Ren.” She crooned with panting breaths. “You. Really know how. To. Pound a girl.” Her words were made stuttering by her rapid panting and the upward impact against her descending rump. “Gods that’s wonderful.” The sheer force of it, and the tight, slithering heat around him, kept Ren’s incipient climax at bay for a long time but he could feel his balls churning, the tightness in his loins as each full thrust paused briefly before withdrawal. “Fill me, Ren, love.” The writhing ‘kin moaned throatily as her hands grasped at his own, using them to massage her breasts, wetting his fingers and palms with their dampness. “Fill me!”
	He acceded to her demands, burying his face against the side of her neck, biting at fur, feeling flesh caught beneath, and let out a snarl as he lifted her almost fully from her knees with a final, powerful thrust. She cried out sharply when she felt his cock jerk within her, at the liquid surge of his seed pumping into her depths. He, in turn, felt her clenching him eagerly as his balls emptied themselves of whatever they had recovered since she had drained them last, not even half a day before. Charlie sagged back against him as he growled and gave short, fierce thrusts of his hips with each throbbing tense and release of his cock. Her body shuddered with the strength of them, breasts pressing against his hands as he worried the fur swathed fold of flesh between his teeth. “Fuck yes, Ren. Oh, love, let me have all of you.” She said, voice quaking with each short slam of his hips, not that he could bury himself any deeper without removing the thick root of tail grinding against his hip and lashing the back of his legs.
	After several moments his climax faded, his thrusts losing strength even as his overworked thighs began to scream for mercy. Releasing his bite upon her neck he slumped back onto his heels, dragging her into his lap and simply holding her tight, luxuriating in that warm presence and the chaotic heat clenching about his spent erection. Carefully he worked his lower legs out from underneath himself and, dropping one hand from a breast to her crotch, finding her erection, thick and wet, as he held her against him and slowly toppled to one side. Charlie eased their sideward tumble with one arm, her body clenching tight around him, until they lay stretched out on their sides panting heavily.
	“You’re wonderful.” She crooned as she spooned up into the curl of his body, the grasp of her rectal depths easing up on him until it was smooth, slow, rippling strokes along his length which had not yet decided it wanted to give up or keep going quite yet. “The best.” She turned her upper body about with that boneless skunk flexibility to kiss him, hot yet tender, questing past his lips to caress his tongue and taste the last lingering traces of her own pleasure in his return kiss. When they parted she giggled. “Absolutely the best.” She slowly, purposely, tightened down upon him causing his momentary softening to reverse itself, if grudgingly. It was going to take him days to recover.
	“And the first.” He mumbled into the fur of her nape, nuzzling into the thick, warm softness.
	“Mmmhmm.” She nodded, pressing back into his nuzzling, against his chest, into the cup of his groin while still softly massaging his slowly flagging cock. One hand she still held to her breast and he had not raised his touch from her erection which he could feel slimming slowly, leaking against his palm. “So many of them. First real kiss, one that had meaning to it. First blowjob. My gods that was so amazing it almost makes me nut just remembering it.” She chuckled, rhythmically clenching upon him. “First - ever - kiss under my tail.” She shook her head slowly and let out a contented sigh. “First - ever - at my breasts, and that while I was in them.” She shifted to turn her head and look back at him. “First time for that, too! Ever.”
	“First time snowed in for a week, too.” He chuckled, half lidding his eyes as he felt himself slip free of her with a soft, slick, wet sound. Shifting back he pushed her shoulder and, after a moment of curious confusion she rolled over. Twisting about he brushed her tail aside with his cheek and dove back under her tail. The combination of his flavor leaking from her and the sharp sweetness of her own wetness was a strange, curious boquette like coffee cake; musky and sweet at the same time. She gasped softly and shifted her rump up a bit as his tongue stroked slowly, firmly, across her tight ring to clean away what little leaked free with his release. “And this is a first for me, too.” He admitted as he finished with a light kiss upon the tight dark circle. “Finding the dream was real.” With nudge he pushed her over onto her back and leaned down to clean her front, as well, dragging his tongue slowly along the half exposed length still standing from her sheath. “Magic.” He kissed the tip, then plunged down to take her into his mouth, pushing her sheath back.
	“Gods, Ren, you’re insatiable.” She laughed as her claws raked through his hair, hips rising to push herself fully into his mouth. “You want more, so soon?”
	With a chuckle he drew up, letting her sheath slip up to hide her away once more. “I doubt it’ll be reloaded so quickly.” He admitted as he stretched out against her and nuzzled the side of her angular, tapered muzzle. “I never thought I’d fall so hard for a ‘kin, much less a skunk’kin. Until I walked onto that train and saw you I figured I’d end up with a human, woman or man I hadn’t yet figured out.”
	She turned her had to brush his lips with her own, whiskers angling forward to tickle his cheeks. “But you saw me and…”
	“Bang. I knew it, in that moment; instantly. I don’t know why or how, I just did. I know that the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing is corny as fuck but… that’s what it was. Immediate and undeniable, for me.”
	She chuckled softly. “Not quite so for me, but I… well, after the first few months I was beginning to feel you could be more than a friend, too. I wasn’t sure how much more, I didn’t want to test it and find out otherwise, so I was afraid to be more. Especially after having so many bad falls. After a while you just don’t feel like getting up and trying again.”
	“Understandable. I guess mother nature decided otherwise.” He waved a hand toward the curtained windows. At some point the sounds of wood cutting had disappeared. Now all they could hear was a quiet wind and the distant, muffled sound of children playing in the snow. “Food?”
	“Hell yes.” She replied with a toothy grin, leaning in to nibble at his lower lip before dissolving into another round of kisses that almost left the idea of food forgotten. “I’d say ‘breakfast’ but you already broke yours.” She winked. “Maybe after food I’ll be recovered enough to give you dessert.”
	Ren grinned back as he levered himself, shakily, to his feet before reaching down to help her up. She was as unsteady as he was but was able to counter her poor balance with quick twitches of her tail and a hand on his shoulder. “Not where I want you, once you’ve recovered, love.” He shuffled toward the kitchen, using the back of the couch to keep himself steady. Without a tail it took him longer to find his balance.
	“Really? Aren’t you sore?”
	He shrugged. “A little, but not so much I don’t want more.” Somewhere outside the sound of some sort of heavy machinery filtered into the house and they both moved to peer out through the drapes. A huge orange machine with flashing yellow lights was slowly creeping up the road, a huge harvesting auger on the front chewing through the snow on the road. Another machine followed along behind, some sort of flat bed vehicle following the first machine in reverse. It was piled high with huge blocks of dirty ice and, as they watched, another block was extruded from the harvester. It slid along a conveyor and was deposited neatly atop many others already on the flatbed. “I guess they’ve gotten the major roads cleared.” The snow had stopped and, though the clouds remained low, they were not so dark. “Looks like the front has passed.”
	“Let me check the weather. Where’d you drop my phone?” Charlie turned back to the living room, tail brushing against him.
	Ren laughed and let the drapes fall back into place, “I have no idea. When you pounced me I sort of lost track of it.” Charlie laughed as she rooted through the heap of chaotically rumpled bedding. “You want oatmeal again, or something else? I’ve go lots of canned soups and such.”
	“Soup! Please, yes.” She didn’t look up as Ren padded into the chilly kitchen and rooted about in his pantry. “Ah, here it is. You shoved it under the sofa.”
	“I was otherwise distracted!” He called back with a laugh. “Don’t blame me.”
	“Guilty as charged. Oh, wow.” Ren stepped out of the pantry, two cans of soup in each hand, and glanced toward the living room. “Oh, dear, this is not good.” Charlie padded into the kitchen as he set the cans on the counter and began rummaging for his can opener. He glanced at the phone as she held it out.
	“Found out why your train stopped early.” It was a text from the vixen who was Charlie’s neighbor, with a link to a news article. The front page headline read: “Hightower Metro line shuts down due to damage.” What the image showed, however, was more like ‘devastation’ than damage. Several large concrete trucks and much of a building were sprawled across a downhill slope. Beneath the wreckage the photographer had framed the twin rails of the east/west metro line. The falling trucks had obliterated an entire span of the tracks.
	They paused to read the article. “In the late afternoon hours a broken twenty five centimeter water line undercut the hillside above the Hightower route rails. That led to a subsidence of the hillside above where a construction company maintained their vehicles. At about four thirty the hillside gave way, bringing with it more than a dozen pieces of heavy equipment and two buildings. That slid down and crashed through the earthworks of the railway, cutting a swath of destruction downward into Saranton Valley and destroying several hundred meters of the railway. Due to the inclement weather no employees were present, many of them having changed over to roadway maintenance to deal with the oncoming snow, and there were no residences in the path of the landslide. No casualties have been reported and the east-bound metro train was, at the time, in Parson Station. Loss of the rail continuity system, a safety system which proved its value, prevented the train from leaving the station.
	“Unfortunately, due to the extensive damage, which has not yet been fully assessed due to the weather, the Hightower Metro rail route will not be functional west of Jonesburgh Station, possibly for quite some time. Metro users are going to be forced to find alternate routes through Landsview Pass for the foreseeable future. Bus routes will be adjusted, increasing available transport between Parson and Jonesburgh stations during the outage.” The article went on to outline a few potential east-west routes through the pass which was a very small number. Only one was a major highway, only three lanes in either direction.
	“Ouch.” Ren winced, knowing just how bad traffic often got through the choke point of the pass, and that was when the rail was running. “The four-ten is going to be a nightmare until they get that fixed.”
	Charlie sighed and frowned. “Fuck yes it will. It’ll add an hour if I have to drive that just to reach your station, much less get all the way into town. The four-ten six-eighty-five exchange is bad enough on its own without adding that mess.” She flicked a finger at the article. “That’s why I started riding the rail in the first place.” She glanced up. “I’d just started doing that the day you sat down next to me, because I caught a flat tire so decided to ride the metro. I never realized it was so much easier, before then. It stopped just two blocks from my office tower and I never knew.”
	“Like I said.” Ren smiled as he began opening the cans; vegetable beef with barley. “Magic. The fates conspired to bring us together then. And now.” He motioned toward the outside world with the can opener.
	“You said it was a dream made real.” She countered, bringing over the pot they had used previously.
	“The dream was after I saw you. I kept it that way fearing, like you, that reality would not live up to it.” He poured the cans into the pot and leaned over to give her a peck on the nose. “It did.”
	“I’m glad. I can’t say I had the same dream, but I’m glad of it, myself.” She made an exaggerated sigh and let her tail drift around in front of her legs.
	Ren picked up the pot and carried it into the living room to hang it from the hook. “What do you think your parents are thinking about this sudden revelation out of the blue?” He laughed self consciously. “I can’t imagine I made a good first impression.” He ran his fingers through his hopelessly tousled hair and shook a few bits of stray fur off with a grin.
	“You said something no one ever has before.”
	“Oh?”
	“Yeah. ‘Boyfriend’. Not co-worker, date, classmate, roommate or anything else. Just boyfriend.” She leaned against his shoulder as they watched the fire, which was half way through its latest heap of wood. “As much as you surprised them, you stunned me stupid.” She rested her head on his shoulder as he put one arm around her and stroked through the fur of her far hip and lower back. “I never expected you to drop that bombshell on them, and then follow it up with asking to court me.” She nuzzled the side of his neck, her nose pad cool against his skin. “Ren, love, there isn’t any need for courting, I wouldn’t know how it works anyway.” Teeth grazed lightly where her nose had touched, followed by a light stroke of her slim, but quite skilled, tongue. “So I guess fucking me cross-eyed counts as courtship these days?”
	“It counts as a home run when first base was a ‘good date’.” He said with a wink, brushing her whiskers with his cheek. “We kind of jumped the whole dating scene build up, yeah. About as romantic as I ever got were flowers on Valentines.”
	Charlie leaned back. “That was you?” She gaped. “It had the office whispering behind their hands for days when that huge bouquet was set on my desk rather than someone else’s.”
	Ren snorted a laugh. “Do you know how hard it was keeping a straight face when you showed up on the train with it? I should’ve won an award for my acting, playing up how pleased I was that someone sent you flowers.”
	Lifting her muzzle she playfully nibbled his ear. “If you’d fessed up rather than some anonymous platitude about beauty I would’ve come home with you right then, love.” She purred into his ear before nibbling and nuzzling again. “I was positively dripping the rest of the day and when I got home I made a hell of a mess of my bed.” She held up one black furred hand, two fingers in a ‘V’. “Twice! And I didn’t even know who I was fantasizing about!”
	Ren shivered at the playful nibbling before reaching out to stir the pot, her hand trailing down his back lightly. “I almost did.” He confessed as he sat back. “Almost.” He held up a hand, thumb and finger a millimeter apart. “But we’d just lost half a print run due to a truck fire and I wasn’t in the right headspace because of the stress. I’ve ‘almost’ so many times, but always chickened out. Like the day after that one guy got your clothes off and went out of his mind when he saw you.” He dropped a hand to brush the back of his fingers along her sheath, grinning at how crusty the fur there felt, particularly around the inverted teardrop of black flesh at its tip. “That was a disaster and I wanted so hard to just…” He sighed and shook his head. “I chickened out.”
	“No you didn’t, love. You hugged me, remember? You have no idea how much that helped me get past that fiasco.”
	He did remember, and vividly. The weight of her against his chest, half a hitched breath from breaking down in tears on her way to work. How a few of the other passengers stared. Particularly the brindled wolfkin, Mr. Allen, who usually sat across the car. His stare was so coldly neutral it made him shudder. He wasn’t a bad sort, just cool and aloof, probably one of those who disapproved of mixed ‘kin relationships or, worse, human and ‘kin.
	“I’m glad it helped.” He hugged her again to his side as he waited for steam to begin rising from the pot. “Once they get the roads clear I’ll take you back to your apartment. I’m sure you’d just about kill for a shower.” He grinned and pantomimed smelling his own armpit. He was too conscious of his own redolent musk to brave actually taking a noseful directly.
	At least it smelled of sex rather than some other things, he figured.
	“I’ve got fur, hon, we don’t need to shower every day, or every week, unless we get dirty. That’s why you see more ‘kin in offices than doing work outside. Needing to bathe daily is absolute hell on fur.” She chuffed a surprised trill when he reached down to caress her sheath again, pointedly ruffling the matted fur where her pre, and his own saliva, had dried. “Yeah, okay, point taken but I’m not complaining at all.”
	“If I was a cat I’d bathe you myself.” He winked.
	“I’m glad you’re not.” She grinned back at him, her own hand delving to his crotch to fondle his flaccid manhood. “You’re much bigger than any cat I’ve had in my muzzle, and taste a damn sight better, too.” She tried to lean down, eyes cast at the prize in her grip, but he leaned forward to stir the pot so she wasn’t able to get close enough.
	“Tease.” He grunted in surprise of his own at bumping her head with his stomach. “He won’t be waking up for a while after being drained so well under that delightful tail of yours.” He sucked in his gut as she strove for it anyway, letting out a soft sigh of pleasure when her warm muzzle engulfed his flaccid flesh. He had to reach awkwardly to stir the pot with her muzzle in his lap slowly awakening his cock with the hot stroke of her tongue. When he sat back she lifted up, letting his semi hard length rest flop, exhausted, over his balls. “And it feels nice waking up in my mouth.” She winked, licking her whiskers. “Tastes all warm and sweet, and your musk is delicious.”
	“Cockhound.” He laughed, tapping her lightly on the nose with the wooden spoon. Her tongue flicked playfully across the black pad and she giggled.
	“Cock skunk.” She corrected, fondling him warmly.
	“That, too.” He fondled her in return, dipping his fingers down to cup her balls making her arch to press into his hand. “And just as tasty.” He grunted a laugh and grinned toothily. “If more people knew skunks were such a delicacy y’all would never get a moment's peace without someone’s face under your tail or in your crotch.”
	“Or both.” Her dark eyes flashed merrily as her tail whispered back and forth behind her and her fingers continued to tease lightly at his satiated manhood.
	“Or both.” He agreed with a chuckle as his own hand lightly brushed the soft fur, if somewhat grungy and crusty with the dried history of the past couple of days. “And you could stay here, you know, if you wanted.”
	She raised her gaze from his crotch to catch his eyes with a curious lift of her brows. “What?”
	“Since the metro from your side of town is out.” He explained as he left off the pleasant experience of idly stroking someone’s crotch without the expectation of anything happening. Well, not immediately anyway. “You could stay here, catch the train from Jonesburgh.”
	She leaned back slightly and cocked her head, ears twitching back before pinning forward. “I could?”
	Leaning forward in the momentary respite of her hand from his crotch Ren stirred the pot as steam began to slowly rise from it. “Charlie, hon, love. I did just ask your parents if I could court you. Of course you could. It wouldn't take much at all to convert the photo studio back into a proper room.” He sipped from the spoon but the soup wasn’t quite hot enough yet. The flavor was good, though, and his stomach rumbled for more than a taste. “I mean, during the week. My shower isn't ‘kin ready, so no drier closet or drain screens but… I’m sure we could make it work. Get you back to your apartment on weekends where you’ve a proper shower.”
	The focus of Charlie’s eyes shifted between his own, left to right and back several times as she pondered, ears and whiskers doing those little dances that indicated a ‘kin deep in thought. “Why… why would you need to take down your photo studio?”
	It was Ren’s turn to blink, “So you’d have somewhere to sleep? The sofa’s only good for short stints.”
	She chuffed a soft laugh. “Your bed looked big enough for two.” She pointed out quietly, one corner of her muzzle quirking up as the whiskers above it drew back. “Well, three, considering my tail.” Said appendage flitted around to brush Ren’s back softly.
	“Well… d’oh.” Ren laughed. Of course they’d be sharing a bed and he hadn’t even thought about it when he considered the logistics of someone else sharing his house. “It is, at that. More than big enough.”
	“More?” She asked with a sly grin as he checked the soup again which was beginning to roil on the side nearest the fire. He laughed.
	He shot her a look of curiosity, one eyebrow raised. “You wouldn’t share me with you sister, and want me to share?” He paused at her twitching whiskers before he shrugged with a rakish grin. “Perhaps.” He said slowly. “Perhaps, if you wanted to try that. You’re straight tho, so it’d have to be some other guy rather than your sister. For science, right?” He chuckled as he tugged on the oven mitt and lifted the pot from its hook. He carefully got to his feet with Charlie joining him.
	“You would?”
	“What, share you with another guy? I mean, if you wanted to explore, yeah. I’ve been there, but I can’t say I recommend it as a regular thing. Trying to satisfy two or more at the same time can be bloody exhausting. And leave you aching like fuck for days after.” He set the pot on a trivet while Charlie went to fetch bowls from the washing machine rack and spoons from the flatware basket. “Did you have anyone in mind?”
	She shook her head slowly as she set the bowls down, not meeting his gaze for a few moments, ears backed. “No. I -” She paused, faltering, tail low and sweeping slowly behind her. “Ren, you showed me a whole lot I was missing out on. You’re more experienced, more worldly, and a damn sight more accepting than I ever dreamed or deserve. Now I… I want to know what you’ve known, that you got to experience in college.” She said at length as she sat down in the chair she had used before which was still turned sideways for her tail.
	“You did deserve, love, and do. I’m just lucky that no one saw that before, which sounds fucking selfish as hell because that left you so alone for so long.” He sat down in his chair and reached across to clasp her hands up from her lap. “And if you want to explore now what you could not before, I will be there with you.” He paused and offered a rakish smile. “And I do know a few who might be interested.” He thought immediately of the gazelle’s fox boyfriend. Though she had moved on, hooking up with another gazelle, he and the fox were still close, relatively speaking. He lived almost two hours away to the south so they did not see each other as they once had, and had not been intimate in over four years.
	His career had kept him, heretofore, single so it was certainly an option.
	Charlie smiled softly and nodded. “It was just an idle fancy, love. If I have you, I have everything.” Ren smiled in return, releasing her hands, and ladled each of their bowls full.
	Despite being nothing more fancy than canned the soup was delicious and they emptied the pot in companionable silence, Charlie’s long tail slipping under the table to brush against Ren’s lower legs. They both shared the chore of cleaning up afterward, with Ren doing the washing and Charlie the drying and returning to the washing machine racks. By then the chill was creeping back into the house and they returned to recline comfortably on the heap of fur speckled bedding in front of the couch before the fire after Ren added a couple of more logs.
	Ren found it pleasant indeed to have her warm, soft fur and weight pressed back against his chest, the firm root of her tail angled up over his hip to stretch downward along the back of his legs, the tip twitching contentedly against his feet. With his head propped on a couple of pillows he was able to watch over her shoulder as Charlie accessed the dating apps on her phone. Bit by bit she cleared each of the five profiles of anything more than a photograph, deleting her contact and profile info and deleting the block of text describing her or, more accurately, her preferences which were relatively few and rather chaste.
	She truly was a fledgling in the matters of intimacy, he noticed in that list of likes and the longer list of dislikes. The only prominent notes were that she loved giving oral to males, species was of little regard though she selected out some of the larger ones such as elephants, hippos, giraffes, and horses. He had never encountered any of the first three directly, only seeing them on campus but never interacting with them, but he had some passing knowledge of equine ‘kin. In his case it had only been mares; he’d never approached, nor been approached by, stallions.
	Into the text description she simply put; In relationship. Closed.
	“There, it’s official.” She said at last, plugging her phone back into the battery block and returning it to the end table. She had to get up onto her knees and lean over him to do so, which pressed her belly and sheath against his face momentarily but he didn’t complain. He just gave the inverted black teardrop of naked flesh a playful kiss, which made her twitch an chuff a soft laugh before shifting back down onto her heels. “Not that I ever expected to do that. It feels great to do.”
	Ren grasped her hips, pulling her close so that she was forced to lean over him again, catching the front of the couch with one hand as one breast was brought down against his face. “It feels great to make that happen for you.” He said as he brushed the short fur aside with his lips to kiss at the softened bud of her nipple. “Among other great things to feel.” She let out a pleased, growling hiss when his teeth grazed against her nipple and he flicked playfully at it with the tip of his tongue.
	Charlie leaned down a bit, pressing her breast against his face, legs shifting to adjust her awkward balance as he continued to nibble gently upon the quickly firming nipple and flick it with his tongue. The taste of her flesh, warm and taut against his tongue and fur soft around his lips and cheeks, was quickly added to with a strange, musky, almost vanilla robustness as the nipple under his attentions leaked. It was not much, providing little even when he sealed his lips upon it and suckled, eliciting a slow, rolling sigh from above. The hormone blockers and balancers caused the lactation, but not enough to flow freely, and that only seemed to concentrate the flavor, making it richer and sweeter upon his tongue.
	He didn’t know much about transgenders, having never seen one pre or post transition without their clothes on, but he had understood that their breasts did not become productive even after they’d grown in under hormone therapy. He had, of course, never been so blunt as to ask the two who worked at the publishing company. Their mere presence was awkward enough when it came to general chatter at work. One had to be cautious with what they said, even when the two were not around, lest the wrong thing, said offhand, got back to them and raised an almighty furor at the, generally unintended, slight. And since neither of them had transitioned, he had no idea if they intended to or not, it had created quite the awkward situation concerning which restroom they were expected to use. That, thankfully, had been solved when one had been set aside specifically for their use. Of course it had been the most easily accessed from the studios and bullpen but concessions had to be made to prevent lawsuits.
	And now, here he was lying on his back, with a breast leaking into his mouth and a prominent sheath brushing against his hip, yet the owner of both was not transgender at all. What she was in some official legal accounting was unknown to him, but to Ren she was fully and wholly female, regardless of the fact she lacked the one thing most men would need to regard her as such.
	And, at long last, she was with him. Not ‘his’ in some possessive way, he could not envision that of her, or anyone, even if they did become an item. That he would be public about, no obfuscating their relationship. Of course, no one would know about her secret and he certainly wouldn't be telling anyone, so their only question would be ‘a skunk?’ rather than anything more obnoxious. That he could handle, and he would also handle anyone discovering more and making a situation of it. Charlie was Charlie and he would stand at her side.
	Charlie panted softly, crooning a gentle burr as she stroked his hair with one hand and slowly shifted herself down to lay alongside him, cupped around his upper body to offer him that breast. Each catch of his blunt, square human teeth elicited a sharper growl of pleasure and he could feel the affects of his suckling pressing against his hip. Because of the fur around her areolae he could not really form a good seal to suckle in earnest, his mouth far larger than a babe’s, but he did his best. Cool air rushed past the corners of his mouth and created a sharp juxtaposition against the heat of his tongue and the hardness of his teeth. When the first ceased offering its subtle, musky sweetness he nuzzled across to the other and caught it with firm pinch between his lips.
	Both twitched in surprise when the whole room was suddenly bathed in light and the refrigerator's compressor kicked on with a gurgling rattle. Ren had just enough presence of mind to open his mouth rather than clench as Charlie had, blunt claw tips digging briefly against his scalp as her entire body spasmed against him. The rumble of the furnace kicking in filled the air followed a moment later by the ventilation fans clattering to life.
	Ren drew away grudgingly, licking the wetness from his lips and peered, slit eyed, at the cock-blocking room lights in their LED brightness. “And life returns.” He groused with a chuckle only to have his head seized and returned to the nipple upon which he had alternately been suckling and nibbling.
	“Doesn’t mean stop, babe.” Charlie murmured as she ran blunt claws across his scalp and filled his mouth with her flavor. Ren pressed the firm nub against his palette and rolled his tongue against it eliciting a soft, growling chuff of pleasure. He felt her twitch against his hip, another point of dampness there, and wondered if she would be up to another sort of suckling. Or if she’d pop merely from having her breasts emptied of what little they offered and spray herself along his flank.
	With power there would be light enough and, eventually, heat to make the bathroom less of an icebox. As he wondered he felt the temperature in the room rapidly plummeting as the furnace greedily drew air through the return vents. He shivered and drew away to drag the blankets back around him. “Gonna get colder before the furnace catches up.” He said through gritted teeth as he huddled under the warm, rather soiled and fur speckled bedding.
	Charlie drew at the blankets, opening them against his protests to pull them around herself. Occupying them at the time meant he was dragged along as well until she was stretched out against him, her thick fur warm against his naked, chilled skin. “I’ll keep you warm, then.” She said before drawing her tongue slowly across his lips to taste herself on his mouth. “I guess all good things must come to an end eventually.”
	He pressed his lips to hers with a kiss before smiling. “What end? Merely a momentary pause, love, never you worry. I’m with you and intend to stay that way as long as you’ll tolerate me.”
	She chuckled ruefully, “Or you, me.” She countered but returned his kiss, slowly and passionately.
	“Once it warms up in here I’ll put some clothes on and see about clearing the driveway, then we’ll get you home.” He said after coming up for air. “I’m sure you probably want a shower.” He winked as he brushed the back of one finger against the fur just above her sheath where it had become somewhat crusty after the past few days of mutual exploration and enjoyment.
	“Gods do I.” She laughed, stomach tightening slightly as his fingers traveled downward, lightly caressing her sheath before sliding back around her and then cheekily sliding under her tail to tease her there, too. “Mmph, love. You keep up with that and I’ll need a shower all the more.”
	“You’re not alone in that.” He said after giving the naked flesh under her tail a few teasing caresses with his fingertips before bringing his hand up to ruffle his hopelessly touseled, sweat matted hair.
	Clearing the driveway was less of a chore than he would have expected after more than two whole days of constant snow. The wind had managed to sweep much of the accumulation away. There was quite a crust, though, almost four inches thick that his snow blower had problems chewing through but the snow beneath was little more than powder. After a couple of hours of laboriously slow grinding to break up the crust and discharge the under layers he had the driveway clear. The cube compacting roadway machines, colloquially known as ‘brickers’, had cleared almost down to pavement and de-icers had done the rest. The fallen tree was little more than a shattered stump sticking through the churned snow on the roadside, doubtlessly hauled away to become next winter’s firewood for someone.
	Charlie was, regrettably, dressed again in her business attire, looking tousled but otherwise as impeccable, and fetching, as she always did when he parked the lawn tractor back in the garage. He changed into more comfortable clothes under his winter garments and they piled back into his SUV. She sang, beautifully, while he drove and seemed to know every song he brought up, covering a surprising vocal range though both the deepest baritone and the highest registers of soprano were out of her reach.
	With the roads mostly clear and traffic not having returned to its usual crush they made the drive to her metro station in about forty minutes. On the way they passed where the metro rail had been destroyed but it was well below the highway level and screened by trees so they could not see the devastation. The news more than made up for it with their aerial and ground photographs, however, and it was still top news in the area.
	He pulled up to the metro parking lot and peered at the half cleared pavement, cars left behind little more than lumps of un-cleared snow that filled more of the lot than had been cleared. “Finding your car in tht mess is going to be a feat.” He pointed out as he watched a few people attempting to un-bury their vehicles.
	“Mine’s not in this lot, it’s parked over there.” She leaned forward to point past him at a large line of apartments. “I live in that block, over there.” The buildings were a deep, dusty blue color that made him think of storm clouds, with white painted faux shutters framing snowed in balconies. “It’s like a five minute walk from the lobby to the platform.” She guided him out of the station parking, back onto the main road, and around behind the apartment block which looked to be about four or five floors depending on the grade of the hill it had been built upon. “I’m on the second floor.” Her resident badge got them into the garage which was more than tall enough for even large vehicles to a parking spot next to her extended cabin two-seater compact. Luckily each apartment was assigned two spaces and her spare was not in use.
	From there it was a short walk through the bitterly cold garage to the second floor entryway opening into a wide hallway with a window at the far end. It was well maintained though hardly luxury and all of the LED fixtures lighting the hall worked. Not even a fire alarm chirped about faulty sensors as they always seemed to in apartment buildings. Charlie led him to a door painted a dark cobalt blue with the numbers 243 mounted in its center. A small security camera lens peered down at them from the door’s valence.
	“And this is home.” She said with a relieved sigh as she fished keys from her shoulder bag. Before she could get them into the lock Ren heard a door open behind him and turned. A bright red hued fox was looking back at him from the open door of apartment 242.
	“Charlie, welcome home!” The vixen burred merrily and stepped across the hall to embrace the skunk who had turned at the sound of her name. She returned the vixen’s hug warmly while Ren looked on. “Oh, phuwagh!” The fox shuffled after their hug separated, putting a hand over her long, narrow muzzle. “You two have been at it, haven't you?” She laughed behind her hand.
	“Hi, Tina.” Charlie replied with a sheepish backing of her ears and flattening of whiskers. “Yeah.”
	Ren laughed, full well realizing how they both smelled after several days of sex without showers. “Yeah.” He echoed, his face flushing. He extended a hand. “Ren.”
	The vixen, Tina, clasped his hand with her free one, still laughing behind her hand. “Hi, Ren.” Her eyes shifted to Charlie. “This is the train guy, hmm? Nice catch.” Her eyes roved Ren up and down though, with his thick winter clothing he was nothing more than a plump humanoid shape. Releasing Ren’s hand she stepped back toward her own apartment. “You two should get in there and shower, before the whole hall knows what’s what.” She winked and Charlie let out a tittering, self conscious laugh. “Gimme a call, later, ‘kay?”
	“Sure, T.” Charlie replied, posture still self conscious as the vixen retreated to her own apartment. “It’s good to be home.”
	“Nice to have you back, hon. Now, go.” She waved a shooing hand again before closing her door while Charlie opened her own and stepped through, Ren following along behind as her tail brushed his legs.
	“Most everyone in this building are ‘kin, it’s built to our needs.” She said as he closed the door. “So, yeah. Noses.” She tapped her own with a grin before setting her bag on a countertop along one side of the entry hall. Beyond that counter was a decent sized galley kitchen, with another counter along the side facing the apartment’s main room.
	“I think even a human could figure out ‘what’s what', considering how I smell all by myself.” Ren chuckled as Charlie opened a closet along the short entryway and pointed out a long rack of hooks, most of them unused. Taking the hint Ren began shedding his outer shell of winter clothes and hanging them on the hooks. Charlie moved deeper into the main room and began shedding her clothes, as well.
	She only had on two layers, however, her suit and a tight fitting undersleve that went from just below her breasts to just above her knees. That explained how she could fit her wardrobe so splendidly, Ren had realized when he saw her putting it on. It flattened much of the fur under her clothes, allowing the figure under it to be more defined than the usual bulky looking poof of fur under fabric. It zipped up the sides of the legs and the back, falling away smoothly once she unzipped it. Stepping out she shook herself vigorously.
	“Ohhhh, damn does this feel good.” She exclaimed as Ren watched, admiringly, the heavy fur of her rump sway and her voluminous tail lashed energetically. “Getting out of my clothes when someone’s watching.” She looked over her shoulder at him as he stood stupidly near the closet feeling a warm flush through his loins tho nothing more. “And not worrying they’ll freak out when I turn around.” She did as she spoke, turning to face him and Ren’s gaze dropped to her chest and then lower to the handsome black striped white sheath below.
	In the firelit dimness of his home Ren had not been able to fully admire her in the fur. Down her back, beginning just above the nape of her neck and down almost to her tail the broad white stripe of her species split into two lines, separated by a swath of black a hand wide between her shoulder blades and tapering gracefully to end just above her tail where the two lines of white joined to travel down much of its length. The underside was white as well, that much he knew well. Her front was similarly striped white, from her throat, between her breasts, all the way down to her crotch where it split to her inner thighs before fading to black just above her knees.
	All he could find was one word for it; gorgeous.
	“Damn, you look good.” He admitted with a rakish smile, feeling heat rise into his cheeks. Charlie churred softly and stepped up to slip her arms around his waist.
	“Crusty fur and all?” She asked coquettishly as she touched her lips to his and ground her groin against his. Ren’s hands slipped down to grasp her rump and pull her even more firmly against him.
	“I had no little bit in making it crusty, remember.” He flicked her cool leathery nose pad with the tip of his tongue, flexing his fingers into the deep fur of her shapely backside.
	“Oh, how well I do.” She chuckled as she brought her hands up and began plucking at the buttons of his shirt. “And now you’re going to have a big part in making it un-crusty, too.” Freeing the last button she slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, letting the shirt fall to the floor behind him before going for his belt. He fell out of his slacks the moment she drew the fly down, having not bothered with underclothes and she slid her hand into the opening to cup him with warm pads and soft fur. “At some point, anyway.” She chuckled fiendishly as her fingers wrapped around his flaccid length while he shuffled trying to let the last of his clothes slough off. It took him a few awkward moments during which her fingers squeezed gently, thumb pad stroking beneath the head of his cock and she brushed erect nipples against his chest.
	Backing up, leading him by that grip upon his half awakened shaft, she let him step out of his pants. They crossed the main room into a hallway toward the rear of the apartment. Through open doors he saw a study with a busy desk, the walls crammed with accounting ledgers and filing cabinets. Another was merely a utility room with laundry machines and various brick-a-brack. The last was the master bedroom and she drew him through it but not toward the queen sized bed. Vertical blinds hung before a sliding glass door, probably onto a balcony and the opposite wall was all closet doors. A large flat screen television hung from the wall across from the bed he was being led past toward another door.
	That opened into another room, easily as large as the two smaller rooms of his house. One entire wall was dominated by a huge walk-in shower and, beside it, another large chamber that he assumed was a forced air drier. The shower was a truly stunning device, with four rainfall type heads above, two wands, and four standing sprayers whose function defied his understanding. His own shower was truly primitive in comparison.
	“Wow.” He offered as he was drawn into the shower by the hand upon him. Charlie only released her hold to close the sliding glass door. “This is huge. ‘Kin need showers like this?”
	She laughed warmly and stepped up to slide her hands around him and grasp his fur-less butt, pulling him into her. “Oh yes. It takes a lot of water, and pressure, to get all the way down to skin. We can’t just run a loofa over ourselves for five minutes and call it done.” Blunt claws dimpled the cheeks of his rump as she brushed her whiskers against his cheek to nibble at the lobe of one ear. His own hands were exploring as well, gliding up and down the lush fur of her back and around the base of her tail. “You humans have it so easy.”
	Ren chuckled and gave the underside of her tailroot, and the hot ring of naked flesh hidden there, a light caress of his fingertips. “Yes, true enough. Point taken.”
	Shifting her hands to his hips Charlie grinned wickedly. “Not yet, it isn’t.” She cooed playfully as she suddenly turned him around, pulling his hands away from her rump as he let out a surprised huff. She pushed face forward against the wall of the shower and stepped in close behind him, her breasts pressing firm, furry, and warm against his back. Leaning in she nibbled his earlobe and tickled is neck with her whiskers. “But you’ll get the point soon enough.” Ren blinked as he turned his head to look back over her shoulder as he felt the firmness of her furry ridge grinding into the cleft of his ass, gliding up and down as she rolled her hips.
	Quickly the warm slide of matted, crusty fur gave way to a warmer, slicker touch that slid along the cleft of Ren’s ass and he chuckled. “Then you should make sure to drive the point home for me, love.” He rolled his hips slightly back toward her as he felt the slick, hot firmness of her slim shaft slip downward and then forward. It briefly nudged the back of his balls as Charlie leaned close, flattening her breasts against his back, head bowing beside his own as the tip of her nested into the twitching center of his muscular gate. And then, with a firm but gentle nudge, she speared into him. Only a few centimeters at first, just past the first of her ridges before drawing back slightly.
	Sharp teeth captured the muscle and flesh between his shoulder and neck, biting down firmly but not painfully, a soft growl vibrating the contact against his back and those teeth. Warm hands slid around his hips, holding him secure as she rolled her hips forward again, more firmly. One and then the second ridge slid into him easily before drawing back a bit and then forward again. The third and widest of her ridges slid into him easily, her shaft only a third or maybe half as thick as it would be when she was fully aroused. Ren let out a soft grunt, reaching one hand up to rest atop her head as he pushed back, solidly grinding himself against her, onto her, clenching his muscles as he felt the cock buried fully within him throbbing and thickening, forcing his tight anal ring wider with each beat of her heart.
	She did not thrust as she grew, merely held herself there, deep within him as, second by second, she grew both thicker and longer. The warm, spreading sensation of her pre surged into him with strong pulses of her thickening shaft. All the while her teeth held firm to his shoulder and her hands held his hips, blunt claws dimpling flesh as he held herself in place. As she thickened Ren felt the strain upon his anal ring, a steadily increasing pressure as it adjusted to the girth of her root, but it brought no discomfort.
	Even when she finally shuddered and drew back, briefly stretching him as the girth of her third and widest ridge drew out, there was no discomfort. She drew out almost entirely, each brief thickening of her ridges catching against his fluttering entry, before sliding home once more with a firm, easy thrust. Ren grunted a soft sigh of pleasure. “Oh, that’s it, love. Just so. Give yourself to me, don’t hold back.” He knew that he could probably handle her if she went into a full rut frenzy as some of his previous partners, ‘kin and human alike, sometimes would. But she did not, breath hissing through her nose as she tightened her grip upon his hips and thrust with solid, controlled force, making his entire body shudder with mounting pleasure rather than forceful blows of hips to rump. “Gods, Charlie, love.” He huffed as she drove against him, one of his hands digging into the fur between her ears, the other braced against the wall of the shower. “You’re fucking perfect.”
	His own cock had bestirred itself in the first couple of thrusts, slapping his stomach with each thrust, pre dribbling down its underside but was untouched by either human or skunk hand. Being behind him rather than in front her ridges did not grind against him, just so, within but the mere presence of that thick shaft sliding out and powering in shoved solidly against those inner triggers with each thrust and threatened to bring him to the precipice with no other stimulation. Turning his head, carefully due to the firm pressure of teeth dimpling his flesh, he pressed a kiss just below one of her ears, then above an eye. “Don’t hold back, love. I want you, all of you.” His words were forced out, accentuated by the firm shove of her cock into him as he pushed his hips back to meet her, rolling his hips against the restraint of her hands, altering the angle of her thrusts with his own body.
	He could feel her rising, her cock seeming to thicken even further, ridges flaring but causing not even discomfort as they were pulled past his clenching resistance and then driven home again. Her own pre leaked down the back of his balls and inner thighs as it escaped with slipping, wet noises as each ridge withdrew. “All!” He exclaimed in approbation as he felt her hips shuddering, the bucking of her thrusts becoming frantic, short and fierce, almost lifting him onto the balls of his feet as cheek was shoved against the wall of the shower. A growing, rolling churr-growl that seemed caught somewhere between feline, canine, and bird added to the cacophony of wet noises, his own panting, and the sound of claws digging against the drainage grates flooring the shower.
	With a final snarl and a tightening of teeth that threatened to pierce flesh he felt her reach the precipice of pleasure, plunging herself deep and holding as the cock within him throbbed and twitched. Heat surged into him, spreading outward rapidly through the center of his being. The first two were noticeable, akin to the flood of a human like himself unloading, but the third was an undeniable geyser he could feel viscerally. The sensation began at the girthy base of her cock, forcing itself up the passage along the underside of her length, and surged into him with the force of a hydrojet as she gave a mighty buck that plowed him against the shower wall and made him grunt. “That’s it, Charlie! Yes, that’s it! All of you, Charlie.” The fourth was much like the third, a visceral sensation.
	Then the teeth released him and she raised her head to press her lips against him. It was an awkward kiss, with his cheek pressed against the wall of the shower and his hips thrust back against her, but the flexibility of her species made it work. Their tongues danced as her orgasm peaked within him, leaving a surging sensation of wet fullness to join the feeling of her hot, hard length filling him. “You okay?” She asked softly, her weight resting against and within him, as her tongue lightly caressed his lips.
	“Fucking fabulous.” Ren replied with a grin, lipping at her tongue playfully as he tensed his muscles against the still throbbing girth spearing him.
	“Didn’t hurt, this time?” She asked, clarifying, concern writ in her eyes though they were still somewhat dazed with her climax. Ren snorted and saw her twitch when it translated through his muscles embracing her.
	“Didn’t ‘hurt’ the first time, love, it was just a bit of strain accepting this marvelous thing.” He clenched to indicate the thing he was talking about. “That’s why you went in before you were fully aroused, to spare me a bit of discomfort?”
	She murmured ascent and drew her hips back, dragging each ridge out with torturous, slow pressure that built and eased. As each slipped past his tight clenched ring he felt a wet heat cascade down the back of his balls and inner thighs, the soft wet sound of more on the grate of the floor. He chuckled, eliciting a pleased hiss from the skunk leaning against his back, her eyes fluttering and ears backed. “Yes.” She hissed and plunged back into him with a wet squelch that ground him against the wall again. “Easier on you, mmh?”
	“You certainly made your point.” Ren said with a sigh, feeling her slimming within him, liquid heat surging to occupy the newly freed space as she did. “Or, I should say, point taken. And damn well delivered.” Turning his upper body slightly he nuzzled against her cheek. “Damn well indeed, for a virgin.” He winked. Charlie let out a short gust of laughter as she fumbled at the water knobs to one side. The pipes gurgled but no water emerged from any of the numerous shower heads. He looked up at them as he felt her beginning to slip back, the much slimmer contours of her ridges slithering free without the same escape of fluids they had dragged out when fully flared.
	“Water down?” He asked when the pipes made odd rushing noises but produced no water.
	Charlie shook her head. “Cold water return. The valve won’t open until it’s heated enough.”
	“How long will -” He was cut off when the two wands sputtered and then sent water rushing across the shower to strike their hips and Charlie’s upper back. It was indeed quite warm, almost hot upon his skin but he knew her higher core temperature would necessitate hotter water than he needed. Finally free of his tight grasp Charlie stepped unsteadily back to pull one of the wands from its holder. She turned it directly on his backside.
	Ren reached for the other wand as he shimmied his butt at her playfully, feeling the wand directed down his legs which had probably shown quite the cascade of her copious offering. Drawing the wand from its cradle he turned it on her crotch which had been freshly dampened, as had the front of her thighs, by the same offering. “Hon, did I mention just how surprisingly fecund you are?”
	Charlie laughed and turned the wand upside down to spray hot water upward between his legs at his balls. “Fecund? Digging out the thesaurus already, are we?”
	Ren laughed as he played the spray of water down her legs, watching how much the fur flattened as it became wet, beginning to reveal the definition of her legs. “Well, I don’t know what other word to use. Copious, maybe?” He worked the water slowly upward after turning fully around to get a hot blast directly on his slowly softening cock. “Rather astounding, really.”
	She scoffed softly and twitched her ears. “Seen any stallions, lately? They cum buckets.”
	Ren shook his head, raising the wand to wet down her stomach. “I can’t say as I ever have. Canines are pretty productive, but nothing like you.”
	“Two -”
	“Sets, yeah.” He winked and swayed the wand side to side as he wet the fur of her breasts. Being considerably shorter on their curves, though much longer between, the wetting did not reduce their size very much though the cleavage became far more defined. A handsome C-cup, by his estimation, certainly not D but quite a bit more than B. The damp streaks along their lower curves disappeared under the cascade of water. “You told me.” He grinned and leaned forward to give one of her revealed nipples a kiss, then nibble. “And have proven damn well.” He switched over to give the other similar attention, the soft musky sweetness not yet banished under the water. “Repeatedly.”
	Charlie churred softly and stroked the claws of her free hand through his hair as he teased and nibbled but did not hold him when he drew back to aim the wand along the front of her body, flattening the thick fur under a stream of hot water. He was already soaked, a much easier task for her with his lack of fur. She slotted the wand back into its holder and turned slightly to a large bottle, far larger than any Ren had in his own shower, and depressed its plunger, chuckling when he played the wand about her groin. “Well, it’s not like they’ve ever been treated to such repeated draining.” She said with a pleased laugh, her hand coming up to land, palm down, atop his head. The copious dollop of liquid soap spread through his short, wet hair almost instantly. “Not even by me, and when I was younger I put them to work a lot.”
	Ren looked up through half closed eyes as she gently massaged the soap into his hair, blunt claws a delightful caress. “That before or after your discovery with that bully?”
	“After.” She admitted, working from his scalp to his neck and shoulders, the soap going quite a bit further than he would’ve expected. Reaching around he applied the wand to her upper back. Soaked through, her fur lay flat against her form displaying what it hid beneath. She was a lithe thing, surprisingly so for all of her strength. In a human it could have been considered emaciated, in the manner of a runway model, but he did not feel the hardness of bone under those slim contours. Her curves were soft in all the right places, firm in the others. That he chalked up to the nature of her species rather than diet. Her torso was longer than his, her hips slightly lower than his despite being taller than he by a few centimeters discounting her ears. “Once I discovered what my muzzle could do I wanted to learn about it for myself and, well, practiced.”
	Ren smiled as he drew her tail up and one side to direct the stream along it. It was like applying water to cotton candy, all of that fluff just melted as the fur collapsed along the muscular core. He had to lean back as her hands worked down to his chest, covered in a thick white lather. “You must’ve practiced a lot, then. You’re definitely one of the top ten, probably top five, that I’ve ever had.” He sucked in his gut and let out a soft grunt when she turned her hands and slid both of them between his legs around his flaccid cock. “And your teeth are a hell of a lot sharper than any of them.”
	“Even that cougar you talked about?” Her hands cupped his balls as she grinned, her muzzle far more angular with the fur wet, her whiskers drooping under the weight of it.
	“I wasn’t brave enough to try his muzzle.” Ren admitted as he slipped the shower head back into its holder and, collecting some of the thick lather from his chest and stomach, dropped his hands to her crotch making her twitch and grin toothily. “Not only are feline teeth as sharp as yours, their tongue is sandpaper.”
	“When they want it to be, hon.” She said softly as she sucked in her gut and let him work the lather into the short fur of her sheath and balls, coaxing her length from its home to ever-so-gently stroke it with his soapy hands. She rested one hand on his shoulder and leaned into his touch, shifting her stance a little wider as he worked between her thighs and up to rub his soapy fingers against the hot flesh under the sopping, sad looking mass of fur that was her tail. “From all I’ve been told they can flatten their tongue barbs if they want to.”
	“Not something I was willing to test at the time.” He admitted as he recovered the wand with one hand, holding her exposed length to rinse it with a few seconds of hot spray. “And I doubt I’ll be testing it in the future, either. I’ve pretty much been out of that scene since I graduated college and, now I’m with you, have no intention of looking elsewhere.” He slipped the wand back into its holder, its steady stream soaking her chest. “Though there is something I did want to test.”
	“Mhh?” She asked as her hands continued to caress his crotch well past the point of making them clean. “And what’s that?”
	“Your vaunted female refractory period.” His hands grasped her rump and dragged her hips close, pinning her hands between them for a moment before he folded his knees and slid downward. His face slid between her breasts as he held her gaze, watching her jaw hang open as she watched his swift descent as she tried to step back and make a bit of room between herself and the wall behind him. The hands upon her rump did not give her much room to move so that, when his face arrived at waist level it was pressed firmly against the side of her sheath. He nuzzled against the weight of her balls, finding that the fur there was so short getting wet had not made them any smaller. Indeed, since the fur of her inner thighs did flatten, they actually looked larger.
	Charlie’s hand came to rest upon the back of his head. “Ren, love, you’re spoiling me way too much.” She crooned as he nuzzled against her balls and the side of her wet sheath. He could feel the firmness within twitch against the touch of his nose and cheek as he worked slowly upward.
	“You deserve it and more, love. So much neglect needs to be remedied.” He smiled up at her and pressed his lips against the dark, upside down teardrop at the apex of her sheath, blunt tongue questing against it and finding the sharp, musky taste of her arousal just within. “And that falls on me, now.” Her dark eyes gleamed in the shadow of her downturned head against the brightness of the shower light above her. Her hand stroked the back of his head but did not drive him against her.
	That he did himself, pressing close, his hands stroking the wet curves of her rump through wet fur now little more concealing of her curves than a pair of tight pants. Pressing against the tip of her sheath he nuzzled downward, pushing fur and flesh gently until a few centimeters of dark pink flesh emerged into the light. Still holding her intense gaze he drew his head up, caught the tip of her exposed flesh, and let it slip between his lips. Her eyes rolled and her body shuddered as her hips pressed forward, sliding still more of her into his mouth. “Ren, you have no idea how fucking amazing it is, watching you do that.” She rasped, hips rolling forward and then drawing back. Her hand released his head to press against the shower wall, her head bowed to watch as her rapidly thickening arousal slid out of his mouth centimeter by centimeter, until only the tip rested between them. Reversing, her hips rolled slowly forward and she watched in fresh amazement as her girth disappeared behind his soft human lips. “G- gods.” She hissed.
	Ren slid his hands up and down the back of her thighs and her rump, down as her hips drew back, and then back up to her curves to urge them forward. Her tempo was not fast, though her erection awakened readily, spreading his mouth wide to accept the girth of her root each time her hips pressed against his face, shoving his head back against the wall of the shower. There was no escape, he was trapped between her and the wall of the shower, and his hands urged her to avail herself of his willing vulnerability.
	Instead of doing what he expected, of using his eager mouth as something to simply fuck with unrestrained abandon, she maintained that slow, measured pace. Reaching out to the container of liquid soap she filled her palms and, incongruoiusly, began lathering up her arms and shoulders.
	All the while her hips continued that measured pace, sometimes solidly, sometimes gently, but never stopping. Her cock twitched and pulsed, swift jets of thin, hot pre pouring into his mouth as he peered up and watched her… bathe. He swallowed and continued to stroke her legs and rump, drawing back slightly as her hips rolled back as if to release her from his mouth. She looked down sharply. “No, don’t stop.” She raspsed and jerked her hips, driving his head back and plunging into his mouth again. Thick lather slid down her front, or fell from the curve of her breasts, to course over his head. “Just… please, don’t stop.”
	Never before he been fucked, in the face or otherwise, by a paramour who was actively bathing themselves. Even the zebra with his watersports kink had focused on fucking rather than bathing while they were under the showers. At least Charlie wasn’t doing that, especially with her throbbing girth filling his mouth and flavoring herself with the thin salty sweetness of her pre. Each thrust drove his head back against the wall of the shower and, after a time he closed his eyes and simply submitted in full. The fact that thick lather was trying to invade them whenever he looked up made that as much a necessity as submission. He could feel how her body moved as she worked that lather into the fur of her upper body, briefly glimpsing her stroking her breasts, pert black flesh peeking through thick white lather before he had closed his eyes.
	He didn’t mind being used so simply, Charlie was not rough about it. She was steady, firm or gentle in turns, her shaft thickening or slimming, if only slightly, as her rutting and bathing stretched into minutes. Scrubbing down to her stomach and hips she gripped his head and rubbed her thumbs across his scalp as she held it securely and spent almost a minute giving his face a firm mating. It was not the lustfully rough haste of some he had known, but there was no mistaking just how aroused she had become watching herself plunge and withdraw from his mouth, the sensation of his release of control to her.
	Charlie had considerable experience being the one in Ren’s current position, her body given over to the rutting lust of someone else, where not even the talents of her considerable practice could hasten or lengthen the duration. Usually she had enjoyed the hell out of it, unless they became too forceful or drove too deep. She knew she had the power, despite the hands holding her head firmly in place and using her muzzle as a receptacle for their lust and, eventually, seed.
	Now, here she was, standing in her own shower, in her own home, watching as a male was in her normal position, letting his face be fucked without complaint or resistence. So desiring to offer her, her!, pleasure rather than take it from her that she could fuck his face and wash herself at the same time. Not that she had ever thought about bathing and sex in the same moment. She had seldom been fully naked with a male before so the concept of shower sex was a new, alien, and amazingly arousing situation. And Ren had given himself to her not once in the span of that shower but twice! Of his own desire!
	And without fear or revulsion of the maleness that made her so different but … she couldn’t say ‘because of it' but, rather, simply because it was there to pleasure. The concept of it left her mentally reeling. She had always thought of his acceptance of her truth simply that of ignorance or lack of acknowledging the truth of it but she had been wrong. So wrong. He had truly accepted and, when presented with a cock rather than vagina he had not been offended. He had simply adjusted what he had assumed to become what was known and did things she had thought she would never know.
	And he was here, now, with her, in her home, in her shower, letting her hold his head and rut his face the same way he had let her rut his ass only minutes before. While she had tried to distract herself by washing her fur and only partially succeeded. Until he had gotten down to her waist, to where his head was nested into the hollows of her crotch where no face or hand but her own had ever been before. And he wanted to be there.
	With a rumble of growing pleasure Charlie staggered back half a pace, only the human’s hands on her rump keeping her from escaping further than that. She held his lather covered head, letting the cascade from the shower head wash over them both, as she stared down at his beatific expression, at his mouth agape around her length. At the deep magenta flesh of her full arousal disappearing and reappearing from between his lips, flared ridges pulling or compressing them with each thrust. Shuddering, balance swaying, her sopping tail only dragging her one way or another as it tried to counter her shuddering legs, she drove against his face, shoving his nose into the sopping fur of her loins as she felt her balls tightening.
	“Ren,” She rasped as her thrusts became short and jerky, fingers digging blunt claws against his scalp, “Oh, oh gods, Ren. You lovely thing, you.” With a snarl her hips slammed forward and held. She felt his tongue shove upward firmly along the underside of her length and his blunt human fingers dig into the wet fur of her rump, holding her securely in place. Her fingers clenched against his head but she managed not to curl her fingertips to spare his thin human skin as her hips bucked back slightly, twitched, and jerked forward as her cock gave its first powerful jerk. She could feel her release as it raced up from the root of her cock along its length pressed firmly by his tongue before it surged into his mouth. Ren gulped noisily as her legs shuddered. She bucked again, a short, fierce jerk of her hips to send another gout of heat into his mouth. Then another, and another, each punctuated by short grinding twitches of her hips that ground his head against the wall of the shower.
	At length her orgasm subsided and she staggered in place, held up more by his strong hands upon her sopping rump than the balance of her suddenly rubbery legs. She drew back enough to look down at him after shaking water from her facial fur. Her hands slid down to either side of his head as she marveled at the sight of his face pressed into the sodden fur of her groin, not a millimeter of her own flesh visible from his mouth upon her. It was an amazing sight, Ren's eyes, half lidded against the cascade of water, gazing up at her as she felt his tongue gently massaging the underside of her shaft to milk out the last dregs of her most recent release.
	The feel of it, the sight of someone in a position she usually occupied, was almost enough to get another rise out of her erection but it was far too satiated. The last few days had been a marathon the likes of which she had only fantasized about, the other side of that having never been a particular species. Human was good enough, Ren was certainly more than good enough, and he favored her in a way no one else ever had. He saw her not as a simple one night romp that faltered in its first hours, but as a romantic partner, and an intimate partner despite her… flaws.
	Because he simply did not see them as flaws. He saw, accepted, and treated them as simply Her, nothing less and, if the ministrations of his mouth and, earlier, his body were any indication, perhaps quite a bit more.
	Wiping a bit of suds from his brow with a thumb she smiled down at him, rolled her hips back slowly and then forward, marveling as her own erection - her’s - slid half from his mouth only to disappear again upon the rippling, thick muscle of his tongue. “Ren, you are just… delightful.” She panted as she rolled her hips again, feeling her erection quickly slimming in his mouth. “Truly fabu-” She let out a soft churf of surprise when the hands grasping her rump shifted to her hips, grasped, and turned her about. Her wet tail smacked the side of his head before she thought to bend forward slightly. She let out a laugh and then a sharp growl of pleasure as his face plunged under her now upraised tail and his lips pressed firmly against the heat of her anal ring. “Ohh, even more fabulous.” She laughed softly and shifted her weight back against that kiss.
	With the wall directly behind him she did not have to shift far to pin his head and grind her ass against his face. The muscular ring under her tail tensed and fluttered at the firm poke of his tongue but she kept her reflexive clench upon her anal glands under control. Much of what they usually contained had been drained over the past few days but, under that sort of stimulation they could all too easily express far more than she knew he could handle without becoming ill, probably violently ill, if he ended up swallowing too much. Even in small doses the power of the antiseptic enzymes would wreak absolute havoc on his system.
	Oh, but it felt so good, so unexpectedly good, having his tongue circling and prodding while his lips kissed her with noisy, lascivious fervor. He claimed that she tasted ‘sweet’ and she had been close enough, when dealing with her needs personally, to know that it certainly smelled that way. But her nose was far more acute, able to separate all of the distinct molecular odors that, once prized apart, were not particularly sweet. Bitter, acidically potent, and metallically harsh would be words that she would have been more apt to use.
	Shifting her hips slightly side to side she ground his face under her tail, bending forward to roll against his face. She could see that his own erection stood at half mast between his legs on the floor. Playfully she bent down further, easily able to nuzzle his crotch while he was face down under her tail. Fur rinsed loose from her coated his legs with hunks of black and white and she had to spit out a few as she licked his erection from tip to balls. With all of the water his pleasant, rich male musk was much less potent and, after he had an opportunity to adequately bathe himself in more than the soap running from her pelt, his odor would be even less.
	Humans and their offense at natural aromas was a running joke among the ‘kin, but she had to admit that when left unbalanced by lack of hygiene any species would become rather unpleasantly rank. Yet, after three days unbathed, he had never smelled bad at all. Potent, yes, but not offensively so. She felt his well used cock awakening under her licks and the ass grinding her particular ‘sweet’ musk against his face and smiled before opening her muzzle and taking that delightful girth into her maw.
	She took him entire, until her nose was pressed against his soaked balls, the short hair - humans had hair there, not fur, she had to remind herself - tickling against her nose pad and filling her senses with his rich scent, even watered down as it was. She heard him groan, felt his face vibrate against her ass, as she took him.
	And then she stepped away, out of his grip before he could tighten it and haul her back. Without releasing his captured erection she stepped in a tight circle, rotating her muzzle around his cock as he shuddered and groaned. His hands slipped down her flanks, the outside of her arms, and then her shoulders before stroking her head and massaging delightfully under her ears. Slowly raising her muzzle from him she brought her face up level with his own, still bent double in front of him. “Ren, love, I already told you I want more than your kiss under my tail.” She taunted playfully, puffing water from the fur of her lips and pressing a kiss to his. There she tasted herself, the sharp acid metallic bite of her anal musk and did have to admit that, second hand, it was indeed ‘sweet’, somewhat. Certainly not something she would dive muzzle first into as he did, but not revolting… considering it had been her asshole he had been french kissing with abandon. Strangely, the idea of his tongue going straight from her exit to her muzzle did not turn her off. It was, somehow, oddly erotic; taboo.
	With a grin Ren’s hands slid from her head to her hips and raked through her sodden fur as he returned the kiss with the same fervent abandon he had under her tail. He pulled at her but she resisted, shaking her head slightly as she drew her head back. “No, as ‘kin, do, love.” She settled back on her knees as he peered at her in lust addled confusion. Shuffling back a bit she turned about and bent forward, lifting her sodden tail under the cascading water to let it flop gracelessly off to one side exposing her upraised rump toward him, swaying seductively as his hands reached out to rove over those curves. For a moment she was not sure if he would dive in, face first again, but he felt him moving, shifting up onto his knees behind her.
	Bowing deeper she shifted her hips, raising her rump as he stroked her curves with his fingers, thumbs stroking along the cleft of her ass with gentle, exploratory touches. Considering she had taken him twice face to face, he had never really gotten a look at her ass. The firelight had not offered much and, admittedly, his face had been buried under her tail rather than admiring. No, she had to admit to herself, there was nothing complimentary to see now with the water plastering her fur flat. She felt him lightly tracing his thumbs down and took her a moment to realize that he was drawing that fur away from the naked flesh that she wanted more than his tongue buried in. Considerate, that, as getting fur caught during that particular intimacy was more than just uncomfortable. She hissed softly as she felt his thumb slip against her and then, gently, delve shallowly into her body. He circled gently a few times, replacing what lubrication the shower and his own tongue had removed. Somehow he managed to avoid stimulating her vents, mostly as the pressure was downward, toward her balls and away from her glands along the roof of her passage.
	And then he shuffled closer, his knees pushing her lower legs to either side, both thumbs now stroking upward along the nearly naked underside of her tail root. Little did he know just how erogenous those zones were. She let out a shudder and a soft sigh as he massaged the underside of her tail, pushing it up just a little higher, sending hot surges of molten lust racing through her loins. She had other zones that were equally sensitive and he seemed to know them. She felt the hot weight of his erection come to rest between the curves of her ass and blunt fingers dug into the fur above the root of her tail. She let out an almost feline growl and her hips rolled upward, back bowing, breasts pressing against the grating of the shower floor. Oh yes, he knew just how to get a female ready and eager, his touch forcing her into a lordosis position. Of its own accord her tail flagged even further to one side and she felt her glands clench, vents releasing a sudden rush of slick warmth from her receptive entry.
	Easing forward, gently but not timidly, he slid the blunt girth of is arousal upward against her taint, along the cleft of her ass, until it touched her eager heat. He rested there for a couple of breaths, as if enjoying the twitching heat kissing his tip or to wait for her to ready herself. But she was more than ready and let him know with a short, firm rearward shift of her hips that pressed his tip solidly against her slick ring. That pressure only lasted a moment, dimpling her inward before her muscles relented and relaxed with a flutter of conflicting messages. No, no entry! Yes, must breed! No, yes, no, YES! And he was within her, stretching her ring quite abruptly wide and she let out a sharp, yowling snarl of pleasure.
	Never before had she been taken by such a blunt shaft, there was no gentle taper like her own or the short taper of a canine going in slim only to quickly thicken. No, humans went from nothing to everything in a couple of centimeters and the flare of heat and pleasure at that immediate presence made her rock forward and then shove back, impaling herself on that glorious solidity. She let out another howl of pleasure as his hands flexed upon the sensitive region above her tail root, her tail thrashing to one side and then lashing across to the other, slapping across his face as it did. The sodden weight of it made him wobble in place and he let out a grunt equal parts startled frustration and laughter. Charlie shifted forward again and then solidly rearward, plunging herself upon more of him as her entire tail quaked. Strong hands seized her flanks before she could pitch forward again, hauling her body back until her tail root ground solidly against his gut. He was fully in her, as fully as he could be, anyway, with the girth of her tail pressing against him. She knew she could take a few centimeters before if she faced him but instinct drove her to offer herself to him this way, where his grasp upon her flanks was the most arousing, where the design of nature constructed her body to awaken to all of his touches.
	His presence behind her, within her, atop her, the hands grasping her flanks as a feral male would a female in the forest, lit fires of complete lust within her and she bucked against his restraining hands, trying to drive more of herself back, to take more of him. She wanted him to thrust, to plow her like a proper male did a female, as those few who had ever gotten under her tail had. The best of those had been a canine, a mix of domestic lines with no pedigree but considerable eagerness to get under her tail despite balls being below. When he had knotted her she thought she was going to lose her mind, he hit her within all of the right places so powerfully she had nutted on the spot.
	All over his expensive satin bed sheets. That had put a rather abrupt end to that evening, and any thoughts of another.
	Ahh, but this man and his blunt thickness, larger than any of her toys but not so large as that canine’s knot had been, hit her in all the right places, too. Each time he let her balance shift forward and then dragged her back he angled his hips, just so, forcing his cock to enter at a downward angle. That subtle adjustment drove it across that sensitive place just within her, perhaps as far as two knuckles of her longest finger, that sent tsunamis of intense, pleasurable pressure shooting through her loins. So recently aroused to release, twice, her own cock still responded, thickening within her sheath and adding copious spurts of pre into the water coursing from her fur. “Oh, fuck, Ren.” She grunted as the impact of his trusts made her breasts shudder and her nipples hard. “Oh, fuck, yes, Ren. Gods, yes.” She pushed back even as he pulled, slamming herself onto his delightful, thick spear. It dragged at her innards as it withdrew, hard as cold rolled iron but still soft in just the right way.
	He leaned down over her, his thrusts easing as he tried to stave off the inevitable. “You love it, hmm, my beautiful skunk?” He whispered huskily into one of her backed ears, nibbling upon its edge. “Just… so?” He accentuated his inquiry with a firm thrust, in and downward, lighting sparks behind her eyes and making her clench around him.
	“Oh fucking gods, yes.” She snarled as he withdrew almost entirely, hovering, the rim of his glans caught by the rapid, fluttering clench of her anal ring. “Love it, love you.” She shoved back as he plunged forward, bodies meeting with a wet slap of water. His hands slid from her hips where their grip was only adding to her mounting pleasure, up to her waist and then down and forward, until they cupped her breasts. Pulling up as he shifted his weight, the motion causing his cock to press seemingly drive deeper and make her eyes roll, he lifted her upright onto her knees, until she was leaning back against his chest. “Ren?” She queried softly, confusion at the new position warring with the throbbing pleasure buried deeply, and unmoving but for its unmistakable pulse, under her tail.
	“Shh, love.” He whispered into her ear, nuzzling gently at it before giving the sensitive rim a nibble. “Don’t want to go too fast, you feel so good.” He did, at that, shifting about within her as he moved, strong hands firm yet gentle as they stroked the contours of her breasts that the water left fully bared in silhouette. Releasing her briefly she felt him lean, then the sound of the plunger of the soap dispenser. Then his hands returned, but lower, across her stomach, and splayed into her fur, stroking against it with his blunt fingers.
	Oh, damn him, she thought inwardly though his ministrations were only making her that much more aware of the presence within her, swelling and throbbing as he worked the soap into the fur of her stomach into a rich lather. He was doing to her what she had done while her cock was in his mouth… bathing! His hands massaged, tuzzled, circled across her smooth stomach, upward toward her breasts. Those became slick with soap as he teased and groped, working the lather deep into the shallow fur upon their curves and into the deeper fur between them. She bit her lower lip with a sharp, growling moan when he rolled her firm nipples between soap slippery fingers, pinching while he squeezed them slowly, massaging and pulling her back.
	His hips rolled and shifted as he worked, his face buried in the thick, wet fur of her neck, nosing beneath her ear. She felt her nipples leak, just a little, but that was whisked away by soap and cascading water instantly. Each shift drew him back, only perhaps half way, only to be returned with deliriously stimulating slowness so she could feel the pulsing veins, the subtle contours of the erectile tissue under his thin human skin, and the warmth that leaked from him with each twitch. His hands moved on from her breasts which now dripped thick lather rather than her miniscule offering of milk, up to her neck. To her throat, a tantalizing rush of instinctive prey fear as he caught the nape of her neck, seizing flesh with all of her thick fur waterlogged flat, and growled. He grunted when she reflexively clenched, lifting her chin and pressing her head back as his strong, nimble fingers worked lather into her throat and chin before working downward. Much as she had bitten him, he held her firm in his shallow, blunt-toothed grip as he worked lather into her arms, grabbing and pulling them back to give a sudden, jarring thrust that made her squeak and nearly swoon as it drove directly across her prostate with the force of a pneumatic hammer. Her own cock jumped and slapped her lathered stomach, spattering pre into the cascade of water, as the sudden stimulation shoved her closer to yet another climax.
	Slowly, leisurely, he lathered down her arms, sides, flanks, and inward but downward. He never touched her needy erection, driving his fingers between her thighs and stroking her overused, emptied balls. Having him lather her there, at the same time using his wrists and forearms to keep her hips close, was a surprising turn on and left her panting, her own cock sending short spatters of glistening moisture upward into the falling cascade each time his hips thumped her backside. He couldn’t work very far down her thighs, however, instead working up and inward.
	To her cock.
	Gentle soap slicked fingers stroked lightly along her naked flesh, tracing each ridge as he released his bite and raised his head to nuzzle her ear again. “Can you cum for me love?” He asked as he drew back, paused, slid back in with a swift jerk of his hips that made her entire body shudder and drew back just as swiftly only to ease forward into her again, slowly. It was almost too much to keep up with, force and gentle in chaotic patterns, the angle ‘just so’, grinding against the root of her cock from within. His fingers played along her erection with the skill of a flutist, tracing ridge and smooth underside, careful to keep his soapy touch from her tip. “Can you cum again?”
	“If you… keep… hitting me… like… that.” She huffed breathlessly as he drew, hovered, thrust, drew further and eased in. Gods but was he thick, or seemed so, his very presence dominating her every thought and sensation, but not painfully thick. Oh, hells no there was no pain in that lovely, smooth human cock filling her. “Oh, just… just so.” She rolled her hips slightly, as much as his embrace and gentle, insistent stroking of her cock would allow, arching her back so his next thrust - firm, this time, a long forward thrust that seemed to hit every nerve from tail to cocktip. “Just… just… oh, so.” So, so close, her unwashed tail shuddering to one side, a sopping length of mixed black and white unable to rise but for his hips holding it aloft. He drew back, adjusted his hips, wrapped his gentle fingers around her and caressed down the underside of her cock as he drove forward solidly.
	The world stuttered in her eyes like flash bulbs going off as she felt her loins clench. Ren let out a grunt and a gasping cry as she felt him swell within her, harden still further, judder back chaotically and slam forward. Her cock jerked and she felt her body clench upon him and a sudden rushing heat pour into the core of her being. “Ren!” She choked out a rasping cry as he drove against her, burying himself as deep as her tail would allow, and her orgasm poured hot seed - what little she had managed to recover since his ass and mouth had drained from her - into the falling water. Each time she clenched she felt him tense, the wonderful length of him within her jerking in synchrony, filling her with his essence, his seed.
	Had she been fully female in body, even despite the less than one percent odds, she would have happily carried this wonderful man’s kits.
	He filled her with delight, with pleasure, with wonder, with something she had never thought possible; validation. For that simple, profound acceptance she would be, was, his. Father’s foibles be damned.
	She felt herself giggle even as the last of her orgasm spent itself in a gelatinous burble that coursed down the back of his fingers. He had long since spent himself, but she could feel the wet, liquid movement within her about that invading solidity. He hummed in euphoric curiosity at her unexpected giggle. “I was just… thinking…” She panted softly as they slowly came down, bodies relaxing against each other though his erection did not immediately flag. “Dad has his reservations but… ohh… damn it’s gonna be funny when we visit and he catches a whiff of our cabin the next morning.” She turned her head slightly to nose his cheek, seeing how glassy eyed he was as his out-of-gear brain tried to apply the clutch and seat the transmission while sex-stoned. “He’ll know you’re the real deal, then.”
	He gave a short shove of his hips and she moaned softly at the shifting length within her, the liquid movement around it and further inside her. “I hope to prove it long before we offend his nose, love. What about your mother, siblings? I’d hate to clog their noses with my reek.” His hands tightened gently around her midsection and lifted as he leaned forward against her back. “We gotta stand up, love, the grating on this floor is murdering my knees.”
	Holding her securely, without withdrawing his still firm delight from her, he shifted one leg to get a foot planted and slowly eased her up. Bit by awkward bit they managed to get themselves upright, and still he did not slip free of her. Oh, but damn she could get used to that. “Mom will laugh, my brothers will grumble about ‘stinky human’, but it’ll be teasing, mostly. But my sister will be nose drooling; bad.” She dropped her hand to his forearm when he reached for one of the shower wands, pushing his hand back down to rest beside the other, both cupping her crotch ever so nicely though her cock had slipped out of sight again.
	Ren chuckled and nodded into the hollow of her neck and shoulder. “I bet she might be, at that. But I’m yours and, besides, no knot for her to enjoy.”
	Charlie giggled again and pushed back playfully as she reached for a toggle handle near the shower controls. “Doesn’t mean she won’t want a taste. She’s into giving head almost as much as I am.” She turned to kiss his cheek. “Might want to close your eyes, love.”
	“Humh?” She turned the handle and a momentary his made his eyes widen before he smartly closed him. The four upright pillars, one in each corner of the shower, suddenly jetted an intense stream of water against them, from above her head all the way to her paws. It was powerful enough to drive through her waterlogged fur and, moving carefully as she felt him swiftly softening within her, she guided him in a slow revolution as the four jets pummeled them.
	“This is how we ‘kin rinse off, love.” She said over the loud hissing spatter, lidding her eyes each time her face passed through one of the streams. At some point she felt him, regretfully, slip from her but he held her close as she turned about in his arms to face him. “Now we just have to wash my tail.” Facing her his hands dropped to her rump, sliding inward beneath said appendage to grope her rump and tease delicate touches across her delightfully aching ring. She kissed his nose and laughed. “Behave yourself. I don’t think either of us has much left to try for another round.”
	“Gods know I don’t.” He admitted though his fingers did not cease their playful, teasing caresses. “Wonder how I’d taste mixed with your sweetness, though.”
	Charlie laughed and toggled the lever off, the powerful water jets falling silent and the two wands resuming their mostly forgotten deluge. “Ugh, love.” She shook her head at his distinctly unexpected fixation. “Later, right now it’d taste like so much soap.” Turning around she took a step away from him, her tail swinging around to land a weighty, waterlogged smack against his side that made his unsteady balance falter. “Wash the root for me, love, and my butt, too, since you’ve made such an absolutely wonderful mess of it.” At the delighted gleam in his eyes she churred a bright laugh. “With your hands, Ren! And soap!” She drew the length of her tail around herself and filled her hands with a copious dollop of liquid soap.
	Dutifully Ren applied more soap and diligently, far too attentively, and squatting to do so, worked the fur of her rump and the lower third of her tail into a lathered, furry mess. He also lathered up her legs, balls (again, from behind), thighs, and paws as well. He did all that in less time than it took her to lather up the prodigious mass of her tail so he helped her there, too. It did go much easier with two, she found to her pleasure.
	Well, the pleasure came from who was helping her as much as the help given. Unexpected, unasked, unsought, and yet he had found her long before she realized it. She just hoped, that little kernel of fear hiding in the corner of her heart, that his romantic, and undeniable libido, lasted longer than this one week. Oh, but what a week it had been! Even if it didn’t last, she would cherish the memory for as long as she had memories.
	(spoiler: Of course it lasts! Wouldn’t be a decent lust - er, love - story if it didn’t!)
	For the next almost half an hour they worked lather into every inch of Charlie’s pelt, relatively chastely. Ren suffered two more blasts of the rinse cycle which was actually rather uncomfortable on his fur-less skin. After the first he took to standing against the wall between the direct streams while Charlie turned in slow circles to get herself fully rinsed. Then they spent another half hour wicking as much of the water from her fur as they could, relatively chastely, though Ren did manage to sneak a few very un-chaste kisses in here and there.
	“Now I’m for the drier.” She said, at last satisfied that most of the water had been shed. Good gods, Ren thought, if this is what it takes to shower a heavily furred ‘kin he understood why they did it once a week, at most, and avoided getting dirty as much as possible. “There are towels on the linen shelf, beside the door.” She shook off her paws like an offended cat and carefully stepped out onto the thick, absorbent floor mat outside the shower stall. “Once you’re dry and dressed, go knock on Tina’s door. I know she is just beside herself wondering about you, so invite her over. We can share dinner.” She paused at the door to the drier stall and grinned at him. “It’ll be good, finally, to dissuade her intentions on me. I swear that vixen doesn’t believe I’m straight hetero.”
	Ren laughed and grinned toothily. “As much as I’m not. I’ll get that through to her.”
	Toweling himself dry while the drier stall roared he stepped out to recover his discarded clothes, pulling them on. They still smelled of their previous few days, albeit in a somewhat distant way since the lingering musk was only from second hand exposure, but it was all he had brought with him. He should’ve thought ahead and brought fresh clothes. Ah well, live and learn.
	Stepping out into the hallway he crossed to the door the vixen had retreated to and knocked. It was answered a few moments later by a very curious, and barely dressed, vixen. She only had on a terry cloth robe that she was quickly cinching closed with the included belt. “Hey there, ahh, Ren, was it?”
	“Yes, Ren.” He smiled down at her. “Charlie asked if I’d invite you over for dinner. She’s getting dry right now.” He hooked a thumb at Charlie’s apartment door. “She’s going to be moving into my place for a while, at least during the work week, since the rail line’s pretty much destroyed.”
	“Yeah, that blows, and not in a good way.” She looked him up and down, grinning a very toothy vulpine grin. Oh, great, Ren thought, she was as much into him as Charlie. A woman after his own preferences, definitely. “Let me go get a bit more on than this.” She waved her hands down the robe suggestively, but didn’t open it in the hallway. Had they actually been in the apartment he was not sure she would’ve been so reserved. “Did she say when?”
	“Since I have no clue how long it’ll take her to dry off, I guess… soon, ish?”
	“Okay, I’ll knock in a bit.”
	Ren returned to the apartment and began perusing the kitchen, he could probably whip up something palatable while Charlie was making herself a bit more presentable. He was assembling a few ingredients he had found from the refrigerator and a few cabinets when he heard the muffled rumble of the air drier drift away into silence. He stepped into Charlie’s master bedroom as she was stepping out of the bathroom, her fur actually flat and passably groomed. Probably as a result of the strange grooming apparatus he had seen in the drier stall. “Tina said she’d be by in a bit. I’ll start cooking, take your time getting dressed.” He smiled warmly as her lush, now dry, tail flitted amiably behind her. “Or not, I kind of prefer you just like that.”
	“I’m sure Tina would make a play if she saw me like this.” She waved her hands down her front. “Probably pretty insistently once she understood things.” Charlie shrugged and stretched, a very fetching display. “If she’d been male I probably would’ve fallen for it, but… yeah, I am a no-cookie skunk.” She winked. Ren laughed and returned to the kitchen.
	Dinner was a commendably calm affair, thankfully. Tina was an absolute laugh riot, quick on the jokes with a nicely barbed wit. Ren had to make note of some of her commentary because he could just so see it for a couple of his female ‘anti-hero’ characters. Her suggestions, of course, were pretty bald but he and Charlie managed to brush them off with a ‘He’s spoke for’ and ‘she’s not into shes’, though gently. Tina got the hint and backed off with commendable grace despite having her desires quashed.
	They spent the night in Charlie’s apartment without delving any further into their newly discovered desires. After the marathon of the past few days it was far more comfortable to just relax together. Charlie was beside herself having a man in her bed, pressed up against her back with her tail over his legs, not running away at the sight of her masculine features. The fact that one hand came to rest upon her there was just icing on the cake.
	For Ren it was quiet comfort, having the female of his eye curled up against his front from chest to knees, warm fur soft against his skin. With all of her fur she naturally kept her apartment considerably cooler than he would but a blanket and that fur kept him more than pleasantly comfortable. He drifted off to a relaxed slumber with the scent of her in his nose and his hand resting lightly on her crotch.
	When he awoke to the blinding brilliance of sun reflecting off of snow through the blinds of her bedroom window it was to find his head resting on a breast, pert nipple poking his lips. Charlie was asleep facing him, his head upon her chest, the rush and thump of her heart just barely audible in one ear over the hubbub of the apartment building awakening. Someone’s music filtered through the walls, muffled conversation, the gurgle of water pipes. He was about to move when the hand he had not noticed at the nape of his neck tightened, holding his head in place as he sensed the pace of her breathing increase. She, too, was waking from sleep.
	“Not enough there for breakfast, love.” She murred sleepily as her nipple brushed his lips and he gave it a slow kiss and then a slower, firmer lick.
	“Enough for a nice taste.” He said, reaching back to tug the blanket up over his chilly shoulders. He opened his mouth to nibble delicately upon the naked bud of firm flesh, flicking it lightly with his tongue as she let out a long, contented sigh.
	“Mmmh, yes, there is. But if you go for a taste, well, we’re going to need another shower.” Her claw tips combed through his hair but made no move to push him away. He chuckled and let his free hand slide along the front of one satin soft, warm, furry thigh to her crotch. His fingers curled about her sizable balls and his thumb caressed the ridge of her sheath, feeling it thicken either with morning wood or his attentions. Probably a bit of both. His own had bestirred itself against the soft caress of the fur at her hip but gave up the effort pretty quickly, still spent from the last few days.
	“Probably true.” Reluctantly he raised his head and, leaning over, gave her neglected nipple a similar wake up kiss, nibble, and lick. “Let me answer nature’s demands and I’ll go see to getting some coffee on, then a proper breakfast.” He groped her sheath warmly before pushing himself up, fumbled for the edge of the unfamiliar bed to stand, and shambled toward the bathroom.
	“What’s a ‘proper’ breakfast?” She queried at his back and he laughed, looking back over his shoulder.
	“You, eating. Me, under the table enjoying an altogether different meal.” He winked and she burred laughter as he closed the door.
	Breakfast was not, in the end, spent under Charlie’s kitchen table. They relaxed in the apartment, Ren wrapped in one of her robes while she wore not a stitch. She seemed more at ease than he had ever seen her before, laughing easily and warmly. They packed a week’s worth of clothing and other necessities for her to use while she stayed with him, at least until the rail lines were repaired. That news was grim, they expected that clearing the wreckage would take a couple of weeks, then rebuilding the rail bed to take two years, or more, to ensure a properly stable foundation.
	Ren certainly didn’t mind, but Charlie was far from pleased. Commuting to her apartment just to bathe did not sit well with her, and it would be worse in spring when she would rid her winter pelt. Ren had seen a great many ‘kin go through shedding and knew her distress. On the upside there were very highly rated grooming salons on his side of town, and dry cleaners specializing in ‘kin clothing.
	After bidding farewell to Tina, who saw them moving bags and was understandably curious, they drove back to his house. They took both vehicles as there was plenty of room in his garage, once he moved the snow blower to the utility shed.
	Work resumed the following Monday, five days after the blizzard that effectively shut the entire city down and overworked municipal crews to exhaustion. They drove her car, since it was ‘kin friendly and, as such, much more comfortable for her. The weather was clear but bitingly cold, double digits below zero, icing over the white wonderland became a nightmare for many.
	The rail station, now the easternmost stop of the metro line, was sparsely occupied. Those displaced by the broken line had not yet begun to amass there, or they had chosen to brave the traffic choke points that would only become worse as a result. The train was already there so they hustled aboard their usual car, third from the front. The crowd was not thick, yet, and their usual bench was empty. They settled down, close enough for their legs to touch, Charlie’s tail lying along the back of the bench behind them.
	The brindled wolf, Mr. Allen, who normally sat across from them, ambled on a short time later. As he reached their bench he paused, nose twitching, before turning to face them, his blocky lupine muzzle inscrutable as they gazed up at him. His eyes shifted focus from human to skunk and back, his tall triangular ears twitching. One corner of his muzzle lifted, slightly, but that only pressaged a rather surprising reaction.
	He grinned. All white teeth, whiskers up and ears forward. “Well." He chuffed a heavy sigh of humor, rubbing his nose briefly between fingers and thumb. "It was about damn time, you two.” He chortled as he shook his head and sat down. “Damn pups.” He rubbed his nose, still chuckling, as man and skunk stared at him, slack jawed.
	Fin.