[center][u]Good Company[/u]
By Green[/center]

For the past couple of weeks, Vincent Linus had been feeling very, very down. It had started when he'd gotten into a terrible argument with a friend he'd had for a very long time, a guy named Martin. They hadn't spoken since, and Vinnie wasn't sure if they ever would again. He had mostly come to terms with this, though it still tainted his daily life; he'd see something, hear a phrase, even certain smells reminded him of better times with Martin, and made him sad. This served to lower Vinnie's normally high spirits. He'd actually cried himself to sleep once, something he couldn't believe in the morning. Last night had been better than that at least, but today had started off badly. His alarm radio woke him up with a song that brought back fond memories of trying to pick up girls in a nightclub, his old buddy acting as his wingman. So Vincent decided to take a day off from the world. Right now, he lay in his bed. Well, that isn't quite accurate. He wasn't [i]lying [/i]in the bed, he was sort of sitting in it. The Mokaji had effectively ‘turned off' every Change he'd made to his body, every alteration. Not just the colour of his fur and the shape of his jaw, he negated [i]everything[/i]. As a result, the thing sitting in Vincent Linus' bed could best be described as an egg-shaped blob of meat wrapped in grey, hairless skin. When Vinnie sulked, he retreated from everything in his life. He currently had no hands, no feet, no limbs of any kind. He had no tail, no fur, no claws. He didn't have a head, but even if he did, he wouldn't have a face; lacking eyes, nose, and a mouth. He wasn't even a ‘he' - Mokaji were technically hermaphroditic, having both sets of reproductive systems, with only one active at any one time. He usually explained it to people he let in on the secret as "toggling" his gender, which rendered the parts he wasn't currently using inert, so he didn't have to worry about, for example, having a menstrual cycle while male or getting ‘blue balls' from lack of attention to the male bits while ‘he' was female. Normally he simply absorbed whichever parts he wasn't using inside his body, but now, [i]both[/i] sets of genitals were hidden within the fleshy sack he'd become, and it was the equivalent of that toggle switch being held in the middle: both sets were dormant and for all intents and purposes, "it" had become asexual. Mokaji occasionally did this in their homeland, sometimes a mated pair would slither and slide all over each other like a meaty piece of modern art, forming loops and chains and rings as they expressed their love in a way that transcended language. Vinnie himself, though, hadn't been out of a humanoid shape in years, not since he'd been living Outside. The problem that filled his mind bothered him so much that he had literally retreated within himself and hidden away from the world.

There were only two features that marred the thing's smooth surface. One was a single nostril without a nose around it, a tiny hole that allowed Vinnie to keep breathing. The other was a human ear, sticking out the top of the blob at a randomly selected spot. The reason for this ear was simple; despite his self-imposed retreat into himself, Vinnie didn't want to [i]completely [/i]abandon his life. If that had been the case, he'd merely stop being "Vincent Winterwind Linus" altogether, and craft a new life, a new appearance somewhere far away. Failing that, he could always abandon the world altogether and go back Inside, live with the Mokaji. So he (literally) kept an ear out to listen for knocks at the door, a ringing phone, a beep from his instant messenger, anything that would indicate someone trying to contact him. As this thought passed through his blind and mute mind, he formed an eye and looked in the direction of his computer. A word processor was open, the document completely blank; the blinking cursor silently awaiting his commands. 
        [i]Nope. Still blank. [/i]
The nostril let out a sigh, and the eye absorbed back into the blob. He'd found himself totally unable to focus on his writing. Fortunately he'd just received this assignment; the article wasn't due for nearly a month, but if he didn't start feeling better soon... Well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd failed a college course. He sighed again, trying to fall asleep. He wasn't sure if he actually nodded off, he sure didn't dream if he had, but some time later he heard a knock on the door. Somebody wanted in. If he had a head, he would have shaken it.
        [i]I swear to God, if this is a sales pitch... ugh... give me [/i]strength.
The eye returned, and this time it was accompanied by a mouth in the side of the blob, complete with lips, teeth, and a bright green tongue - everything needed for clear pronunciation. Then the mouth extended away from the blob, on the end of a rapidly growing fleshy tentacle, over to the speaker grille on the wall. A second tentacle branched off of the first one, then flicked the connection on and stabbed at the ‘TALK' button. Despite the grotesque appearance of the thing he'd become, Vinnie's voice came out clear as day from the mouth, as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all. 
        "Who is it?"
        "Vincent? It's me. Can - can I come in?"
He couldn't place the voice. It sounded female and slightly upset.
        [i]Exactly what I needed today. [b]Fuck.
[/b][/i]Instead of saying that, though, he courteously asked,
        "I'm sorry, who is this?"
        "It's me... it's Michelle."
Vinnie spent exactly one second trying to place that name, and then it all came back with a rush of memory. He had only met Michelle one time, he didn't even know her last name, but it had been a [i]hell[/i] of a meeting. She was an arctic fox, the same species he'd chosen for Vincent Linus, and she had had a problem; one of the animal traits she'd Inherited was a reproductive estrus cycle, and she'd been very, very deeply in heat when they met. That night, he'd discovered first-hand just how shockingly powerful female pheromones could be. Despite being just barely more than strangers, they'd had hot, passionate sex for the entire night, far surpassing Vinnie's usual limits. She'd disappeared in the morning, and he hadn't seen her since, though she'd left a card saying she enjoyed herself and hoped to see him again. And now she was back. As he digested this information, she spoke again through the grille. 
        "Please, Vinnie? I-I really need to talk to someone."
There was worry in her voice, a pain that pierced Vinnie's shield of cranky depression and reached his inner Nice Guy. The blob on the bed began to shudder, tentacles exploding outward from five different spots, as the mouth sent one last message.
        "Okay, okay, just let me pull some pants on."

The tentacles that had just burst from the fleshy Mokaji-thing thickened quickly and formed themselves into two arms, two legs, and a tail, acting like living sculpture: first the vague features formed themselves, followed by increasing levels of detail. Meanwhile the blob itself shuddered and shook and formed itself into a torso to support the limbs, as the mouth-tentacle retracted towards its body, swelling up like a balloon as it reshaped itself into a head, pointed ears rising up from the back as the mouth stretched itself around the newly-reformed muzzle, the eye flowing along the body to its proper location in the head, quickly followed by the emergence of its twin. As his finger and toenails reappeared, his genitals made their quiet arrival, emerging shrunken and shrivelled from his flesh in their dormant state, colour quickly returning to swelling flesh as he became biologically male once more. Finally, when he looked like a shaved version of his usual self, hair started growing out of his head at the same time that fur exploded out of his skin: in seconds, he was completely covered. He stretched his limbs, getting satisfying cracks out of unused joints as he made the finishing touches. In this case, he arranged his hair, just as snow white as the rest of his fur, to look like it was cut short and combed straight back. Then, on a whim, he added a tuft of fur to the underside of his chin which pleasingly resembled the goatee style of beard he was fond of in humans. With that, he had once again become Vincent Winterwind Linus. He was back.

He took a moment to steady himself - while negating Changes and becoming the blob had had no effect on him, the adrenaline rush he got from such a massive Change, putting all those features back at once, made him slightly dizzy. Then he hurriedly donned a pair of boxers and pulled his jeans on, hoping she hadn't become impatient and left. He rushed to the front door, glancing into the mirror to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything - it would do him no good to realize too late that he'd left the human ear sticking out of him somewhere - and then opened the door, letting the cool air from the hallway in. 
        "Hi, Michelle."
        "Hello, Vincent."
Michelle. She was beautiful, just as he remembered. Well, not [i]just [/i]as he remembered. She was wearing her fiery red hair in a polite ponytail instead of draping it wildly over her shoulders, and something about her posture made her seem smaller than she was. Not to mention that she looked like she had been crying recently. She was also dressed a great deal more chastely, though that wasn't saying much since the only other thing he'd ever seen her in was a white bikini that matched the colour of her fur so well she looked nude when you squinted. Now she wore a dark brown long-sleeved shirt over a black skirt and similarly coloured stockings. Not exactly ‘festive'. She looked at him uncertainly. 
        "I'm sorry, did I wake you? Maybe I should go..."
        "No, it's okay, I'm up now, you should probably come in while you're here."
She nodded and followed him back inside the apartment, taking a seat at his small kitchen table. He closed and locked the door, then sat down opposite her, trying to look encouraging. She put down her purse and placed her elbows on the table, leaning against her clasped hands, looking slightly embarrassed. 
        "I'm sorry for this, it's just that all my friends are out of town and I really needed to talk to someone and you live right here in my building, so..."
        "It's okay. What's up?"
She looked down at her feet as if she was incredibly interested in her shoes. 
        "First, I wanted to apologize for my behaviour the first time we met. I, uh, I'm not usually such a... slut."
She said that last word with a wince, like it was a racial slur. Vinnie frowned.
        "Hey now, I never once thought of you as a slut for seducing me like that. It's not like you invited four or five other guys to come back with us."
She grinned at that, a good sign in Vinnie's opinion. 
        "And besides, you had a [i]hell[/i] of a good excuse for your behaviour if you ask me."
Her smile faltered just a little and she shook her head, blushing.
        "God, it's so embarrassing! You don't know what it's like having to live with an estrus cycle. My life will be going just fine until all of a sudden - BAM! - I wake up swimming in my own juices, hornier than hell, knowing that all I'll be able to think about for two or three weeks is getting laid." 
Suddenly remembering her audience, her blush deepened. 
        "Sorry for the personal information there."
        "Nah, it's okay. Wanna even the balance? I'll tell you something about me. Earlier this year, I started having wet dreams."
He laughed at her disbelieving look.
        "Yeah, I know, right? At my age. Seriously, I didn't even have them as a kid! But every once in a while right out of the blue, I'll wake up and find out I blew my load in my sleep and now I'm stuck to my underwear. That's not the weirdest thing, though. Every time it happens, and I mean [i]every [/i]time, I find cobwebs in my mouth when I wake up."
        "Cobwebs? Like, the kind you find in attics?"
        "The very same. I have no idea why it happens." 
She giggled, and he smiled.
        "There, you look much better happy."
        "Thank you. You know, I'm surprised you're so forgiving. A couple times in the past, I've been accused of using ‘mind control' on guys when I'm in my cycle. As if they really couldn't say no. One of them almost got the police involved." 
        "I'm sorry."
        "No, it's okay, that's all in the past now."
The conversation fell into a lull, and Vinnie took the opportunity to offer her some coffee, which she accepted. As he prepared the machine, he asked,
        "Hey, can I get your last name? You never told me last time."
        "Actually, I did, but that was pretty late into it, so I'm not surprised you don't remember. It's Baines."
He grinned.
        "I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Baines."
He'd been told he had an infectious smile. Whether that was the reason or not, she began to smile wider.
        "The feeling is mutual, Mr. Linus. I think I should get to the point, though."
Vinnie sat down while he waited for the machine to prepare the coffee, and nodded silently. Michelle took a deep breath.
        "Okay. Do you remember how I told you that you didn't need to wear a condom?"
        "Yeah, you said you were on the pill."
        "Well... I'm sorry, Vinnie, but I was lying."

His eyebrows rose and his eyes widened.
        "[i]What?[/i]" 
He said it with emphasis, but tried not to be too loud, not to upset her.
        "I... I have a special prescription for when I go into heat, the meds help to suppress the effects of the estrus cycle. I'm still really susceptible to getting pregnant, I'm still horny a lot of the time, and I'll still release a few pheromones, but it takes a [i]lot[/i] of the edge off; helps me cope with it. When we met... I found out too late that my prescription was empty, needed to be refilled. I'd been using the pills for years, I wasn't prepared for how strong the heat was last time. I was wet all the time. My pheromones were so strong they affected feral dogs I passed in the street. I needed to be fucked so bad it [i]hurt, [/i]Vinnie[i].[/i] Sex was the [i]only [/i]thing that mattered to me. I would have screwed you silly right in front of my parents without caring."
She looked totally ashamed of herself.
        "Hell, I might have tried to get in my own father's pants if I thought it would make the need go away!"
She looked up at him, pain obvious in her soulful blue eyes. While he felt for her, Vinnie was distracted by the belated realization that his own eyes had no colour to them, just black circles on a white background, like a cartoon character. When she looked away again, he took the opportunity to add green irises to his eyeballs so he could focus on her story again. 
        "It's okay, Michelle. I don't blame you for what happened. I'm glad to have helped. I even had a pretty good time."
        "Well so did I, but that's not the point! When I told you I was on birth control pills, that was a lie! I deliberately stopped taking them after I started the cycle! I - I... I thought that if I got pregnant, than the heat would have served its purpose and it would go away! When I was with you, I had no protection at all! I made you come inside me because I [i]wanted [/i]you to knock me up!"
Vinnie, aware of his true heritage, knew the answer before he asked, but he put a stunned, worried look on his face and played the role of the genuine arctic fox.
        "Wait, a-are you saying... Michelle, do you mean you're pregnant? W-with [i]my [/i]child?"
She had buried her face in her arms against the table, unable to look him in the eye. He didn't think she'd heard what he said, still absorbed in her own pain.
        "I - I didn't plan on keeping the baby, I would have... have aborted as soon as the heat went away. Oh God, that sounds so [i]awful[/i] when I think of it now! I can't believe I planned that out!"
She let out a sob and began to cry. Vinnie stood up and walked around the table, wordlessly ducking down and wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. She turned to him, returning the hug, laying her head on his shoulder and crying her pain out while Vincent rubbed her back and quietly spoke soothing words.
        "It's okay. I understand. You were in pain, you were suffering, you just wanted it to stop." 
She still hadn't actually confirmed that she wasn't pregnant, so he kept up the charade. 
        "D-did you already terminate? I promise you, I won't hate you if you did. And if you didn't, if you changed your mind, I... I'll help you and the baby any way I can."
She looked up to him, truly miserable. 
        "Th-that's the worst part, Vinnie, that's why I needed to talk to someone. I... I didn't [i]get[/i] pregnant. When the heat didn't go away I knew it hadn't worked, so I had a friend go to my doctor, get an emergency refill, and bring it to me."
She closed her eyes against humiliation as he helped her back to her seat.
        "I couldn't call the pharmacy myself because all their delivery workers are men, and I would have screwed [i]anyone [/i]if I thought it would stop the heat. No offense, I really did like you."
        "None taken. But you didn't get pregnant? Well, isn't that [i]good [/i]news?"
She shook her head and sniffled.
        "No! No it isn't! I'm supposed to be at my most receptive when I'm in heat! You're a healthy male and we're the same breed! It should have been guaranteed that I'd get knocked up! When I talked to my doctor about it, he ran some tests. Uhh, there was still a "sample" from you left on my bathing suit, so I put it in a jar for him. Sorry. He finally got back to me a couple of days ago, told me that there was nothing wrong with your sperm or my body. He said it must have just been a lucky break."
There was something odd about that, but Vinnie couldn't put his finger on it.
        "So what's wrong with that?"
        "I don't believe him! He's only been my doctor since I moved to this city, and I've been dealing with estrus since I was fourteen! We had unprotected sex a half dozen times, maybe more, and my heat was at maximum burn. There's only two ways we could possibly have avoided pregnancy there. One is if you were sterile, or had a vasectomy or something. But the doctor said there was nothing wrong with your sperm. That's pretty straightforward. The other way is if something was wrong with [i]me[/i], and that's a bit more complicated."
Vinnie frowned. Now he knew something was up. Anyone with medical training would have to be blind not to notice that Vinnie's sample wasn't normal arctic fox seed. 
        "What's this doctor's name?" 
She sank down in her chair, put her face in her hands, not really paying attention.
        "Lucas Johns."
That explained it. Vinnie shook his head in disbelief. He tried to avoid doctors and hospitals as much as possible, so that no one would discover his secret, but every now and then it would be unavoidable, like if he was in a major accident. On those occasions in this particular city, he went to see Dr. Johns. The man wasn't a Mokaji himself, but he was aware of their existence, being good friends with one of Vinnie's people. So he took it upon himself to quietly help injured Mokaji with their wounds while simultaneously avoiding too much attention. Johns would have recognized that the sperm Michelle had brought him was Mokaji, so he told her she just got lucky in order to avoid spilling the beans. Now, in Vinnie's apartment, Michelle whimpered quietly, bringing Vinnie back to reality.  
        "I tried not to think about it, but it's the only thing I can come up with! I mean, I didn't really [i]want[/i] to have a baby with you right then, but those were pretty ideal conditions, you know? If I can't have a baby when everything is perfect for it, maybe there really is something wrong with me!"
She looked up at him, tears forming in her eyes, and when she spoke, her quiet voice nearly broke his heart.
        "What if I can't have children, Vincent? What if I'm broken inside and I can't [i]ever[/i] have a baby?"

Vincent had lied many, many times over the years in order to keep his people a secret. He didn't think of it as evil, even a necessary evil. As far as he was concerned, it barely even counted as lying. He took pride in avoiding ever directly referring to his species, he'd never said, for example, "I am an arctic fox" when asked to specify his breed. Instead, he got clever and said things like "It looks like I'm a very handsome arctic fox." Thus, anything he did say wasn't so much a lie as it was being deliberately misleading. If someone proved themselves trustworthy as he got to know them, he could clue them in to the truth of his situation later. However, he wasn't feeling any pride in the successful subterfuge this time. This was the first time he'd ever specifically regretted not telling someone the truth. He made a decision right then and there, hoping he wouldn't regret it later. He reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder, encouraging look on his face.
        "It's okay. There's nothing wrong with you... I can explain. I'm gonna get us some coffee first, though."
She nodded, hope and worry flitting through her eyes in equal parts as Vinnie poured the drinks and got out the sweetener and the cream, letting her make it to her own liking. Once she'd taken a sip, he cleared his throat, praying that he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his entire life.
        "Michelle... We don't know each other very well, and I don't normally tell this to people unless I trust them absolutely. But you're miserable for no reason, and you deserve to know the truth." 
        "Wh-what is it?"
Instead of speaking, he took a deep breath and held his arms out in front of him, palms up and open. Michelle's eyes widened as blue circles appeared in the centre of his hands, out of nowhere. The circles grew wider and wider, stopping when they nearly encompassed his entire palms. Then, a single line extended out of each of them, travelling up his arms, dyeing the fur as they went, spiralling around his forearms.
        "How... how are you [i]doing[/i] that?"
        "It's called the Change. I control it with my mind. I... I'm not really an arctic fox. I just made myself look like one. I'm a shapeshifter." 
She shook her head, amazed. As the stripes made their way down his torso, the colour changed from blue to orange. He continued.  
        "My species is called the Mokaji, and we can all do this. We can Change the colour of our fur, the shape of our bodies, the way our voices sound, [i]everything.[/i] I could even grow some extra limbs if I wanted to. We don't really have a ‘default' appearance, so we mimic other species. I'm fond of mammals, especially dogs and foxes, my mother usually looks like an eagle, my father is almost always a reptile of some variety, and the last time I saw her, my sister was into mice and shrews." 
He neglected to mention that the Mokaji could also control their gender, or that his "father" greatly preferred being female. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure his younger sibling was still a ‘sister'. Michelle tore her eyes away from the impossible sight in his fur and looked him in the eye, clearly confused.
        "You don't even know me. Why are you telling me this?"
        "Like I said, you deserve to know the truth. And the truth is, it's almost impossible for a Mokaji to reproduce with a non-Mokaji. In fact, in order for there to be any chance at all, we have to actively [i]want[/i] it to happen."
        "That doesn't make any sense."
He held up his arm, which was now a candy cane pattern of blue and white.
        "Just now I wanted [i]this[/i] to happen, and it did. Why is that easier to believe? I'm sorry you were so worried, Michelle, but I only asked about the condom to make it seem like I was really an arctic fox." 
It was his turn to look away, feeling the heavy weight of his actions.
        "I'll understand if you hate me, or if you're afraid of me. But please, [i]please[/i]. No matter how you feel about me, don't tell anyone about what I can do, or about my people. If the world found out, either we'd be hunted down like animals, or they'd experiment on us to find out how we do what we do. I'm begging you, please don't let that happen." 
He turned back to her and was surprised to find that she was standing right next to him, a soft look in her eyes he couldn't quite identify.
        "Michelle?"
        "Y-you don't have to worry. Your secret is safe with me. Thank you so much for telling me."
She reached out and gingerly touched the blue fur on his shoulder, then, apparently finding it safe, laid her whole hand down on it, bending down until she was at his eye level. 
        "I can't believe you did that. You've only ever met me twice and you trusted me with a secret that could endanger your life, your whole species." 
He looked away from her again, this time from embarrassment. He hadn't expected this from her, this... admiration.
        "It's not that hard to believe. I mean, you thought you were [i]sterile[/i]. I couldn't let you suffer like that, knowing that I could make it go away with a single explanation. That's not who I am." 
She put a hand under his chin and gently turned his head to face her again. To his shock, she didn't say anything, she leaned forward, obviously intending to kiss him. He shook his head, trying to resist his attraction to her.
        "Michelle, wait... you're very emotional right now, we barely know each other."
        "No, I was very emotional the [i]first[/i] time we met; now I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. And I think I suddenly know you a lot better than most people do. I feel very close to you right now, Vinnie. Please, I want this..."
She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him snug against her as she sat down on his lap, and he thought about pushing her off... but she was so soft, and she smelled so good... it wasn't the mind-numbing worship the pheromones had instilled in him, he realized; he just wanted her. [i]Bad[/i]. He turned his face away, whimpering at his conflicting emotions, but she gently laid a hand on his cheek and turned him back to face her, whispering directly into his ear.
        "You're a gentleman, you know that, Vincent Linus? You're trying not to take advantage of me, aren't you? Please, Vinnie... I want you as much as you obviously want me..."

She leaned in and kissed him, and this time he made no move to stop her, relaxing in her embrace, closing his eyes and bringing his arms up and around her as their tongues made contact. There was none of the ferocious hunger of their first encounter; she seemed almost tentative, unsure of herself. Growing more comfortable with this situation, Vinnie moved his arms from limply draped across her shoulders to a more natural hug; one hand going to the small of her back, one gently resting on the back of her head.  Michelle let out a sigh, a lot of stress suddenly gone from her life, and snuggled slightly tighter against him. Meanwhile, Vinnie was surprised to find a passion burning up inside him. While he'd been feeling so low, sex was the last thing on his mind. But it wasn't the only thing he'd ignored. Bit by bit, piece by piece, he'd stopped talking to people, pushed them out of his life. He'd done his work, attended most of his classes, written a few short pieces. He'd done everything he was told, and so the university didn't care that he was suffering. Deep down he knew the argument with Martin that had started it all was his fault, and it ate at him. He'd fucked up so badly that the friendship may be over, just like that. Gradually he grew more and more obsessed with it, the thought consumed him, until all he could think about was how terrible a person he must be, how it had probably just been a matter of time, how he'd never understand the people from Outside. Michelle's problem had allowed him to forget all of that for a while, to focus on something else, to remember that he wasn't the sole imperfect being on Earth; other people in the world had problems. Something he didn't fully understand had happened just now when she looked into his eyes. After such a long period of looking at himself like utter scum, seeing her looking at him like her knight in shining armour, like he could do no wrong, it healed a part of him he hadn't been aware was injured. As he held her tight and kissed her, he felt the sex drive he'd completely ignored come back to life and he suddenly understood the way she felt.
        "God, Michelle... I - I need you so bad..."
She leaned back and gave him a look that said it all. They couldn't be together fast enough. With a feral growl, he stood up, swept her off her feet, and carried her into his bedroom, much to her delight and amusement. He laid her down on his bed and helped her pull her shirt over her head. Before she could get it off, he lay down next to her, bringing his head down and kissing her stomach, reaching around behind her and opening the clasp on her bra. 
        "Well how about that."
She looked down at him, smiling.
        "What?"
        "You're not in heat, but you're still beautiful. I guess you really [i]are[/i] gorgeous after all."
She laughed and shimmied out of her pants. 
        "If you're trying to flatter me, it's working." 
She pulled him back down and they kissed once more, slow and lingering and tender, shivering with anticipation as he slowly slid her underwear off. They stayed like that for a few minutes, caressing any part of the other they could reach, before Michelle broke off the kiss as Vincent gently pushed two of his fingers inside her.
        "Oh, Vinnie..."
His nose was pressed against her neck, and he inhaled deeply of her scent. There weren't any mind-altering pheromones in it this time, but it still drove him crazy. He wanted her so badly he could almost [i]taste[/i] it. He reached down and lined himself up with her, but she moved her hand down over his. He looked up, into her worried eyes.
        "A-are you sure you can't get me pregnant?"
        "Not unless both of us completely want it to happen."
        "I still don't get how that works... but I believe you."
She removed her hand and nuzzled against him, silently giving him permission for what they both wanted to happen. Without further ado he pushed inside her, lightly biting her shoulder in his lust, which of course only turned her on even more. He let out a quiet growl, letting his instincts take over as he began to thrust, while she moaned happily.
        "God, [i]yes![/i] It's been too long, too long..."
Vinnie barely heard her, away in his own little world as he thrust into her again and again, feeling the head of his manhood sliding against her slick walls, feeling her clench down on him from time to time, he really felt alive again for the first time in about a month. He hugged her tighter, running his hand through her crimson hair and shuddering. Shifting positions slightly, he leaned back to give himself enough room to bring his head to her nipples, licking them teasingly with the very tip of his tongue. He smiled slightly as she let out a quiet whimper and pulled his head closer to her chest. Vincent obliged and gave her breasts a much more thorough licking, bathing her soft flesh with his tongue until the short fur that covered her mounds was nice and damp. As he slid into her yet again, one of his hands dropped from her back to squeeze and knead at her tail, before slipping around her body, where it started tickling her engorged clitoris, eliciting yet another delicious moan from the over-stimulated vixen. She was already hugging him fairly tight, so lacking any other way of getting closer, she wrapped her legs around his, hooking her ankles around his shins. Michelle closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek against his.
        "God, Vinnie, you're so good for me. You're the only guy I've ever been with while I was in heat who didn't look at me like a mindless piece of ass the next time we met. You actually cared about my problem."
        "It's like I said earlier, that's who I am."
She leaned back and looked him in the eyes, her own filled with lust and mischief.
        "I think I could love a man like that."
That simple statement brought approximately eight thousand questions to mind, but before he could vocalize any of them, she kissed him again, just a little bit of the hunger he'd seen in her before showing through. The Mokaji kept playing with her clit as he kissed her, and after a moment, she broke off the kiss by gasping.
        "Oh Jesus, don't stop, Vinnie! I'm almost there!"
        "I - I'm right there with you, baby. Do you want me to pull out?"
        "No! Come inside me, please! I love that feeling!"
Vinnie's favourite way to come when he was having sex was to get the girl off just before him, so that her pussy clamping down on his tool was what set him off. In this case, however, he just couldn't hold on that long, groaning as he went off, his throbbing penis spurting his hot seed deep inside her, the movements of her love tunnel practically ‘milking' his erection. As he did so, all the colours he'd added to his fur during his little demonstration earlier were bleached away, absorbing back into the white until he looked like an ordinary arctic fox. Until he looked like her species. He wasn't paying attention to this Change, however, as he was too busy having a wonderful orgasm and feeling slightly bad that she hadn't come yet. Fortunately for Vinnie's gentlemanly side, it seemed Michelle wasn't exaggerating when she said she loved the sensation, as feeling him coming inside her was enough to tip [i]her [/i]over the edge, grabbing hold of his shoulders as if she'd fall off the world if she didn't, riding a powerful wave of pleasure that exploded outward from her groin and enveloped her entire body, feeling herself uncontrollably clamp down on Vinnie's twitching penis as she kissed him again, both of them shuddering, attacking each other's tongues as their orgasms dragged on and on. The pleasure lasted longer than Vinnie thought possible, wondering if his rod was going through dry spasms as his climax came to an end. He slowly turned onto his side, holding onto Michelle as he did so she turned with him; soon they were lying face-to-face, still connected. So many thoughts were rushing through his head that Vincent wasn't sure what to say. He felt fairly vulnerable, truth be told. There was one thing that encouraged him, however. There was peace in Michelle's eyes. She was no longer tormented by her inner worries. She was the one who broke the silence first, and she merely smiled and said,
        "Thank you, Vincent. For everything. Thank you so much."
Instead of replying, he pulled her tight against his chest and nuzzled against her cheek for a moment before kissing her, slowly and lazily exploring her mouth as their legs intertwined and the two foxes began to snuggle. 

A short while later, they lay on the bed in their fur, having become fairly comfortable with each other, while Michelle asked Vinnie the usual array of questions he received when he told someone the truth.
        "So you can really just up and Change every part of your body?"
        "Pretty much."
        "You can make yourself tall or short, or fat or skinny, or..."
        "Yep."
        "Do you have to be a person, or can you be other things?"
        "I make a pretty good easy chair, if I do say so myself." 
        "Wow. This... this whole thing blows my mind. Have you ever, like, made yourself into Brad Pitt and gotten free food from some restaurant?"
        "I'm not that good at mimicking specific people, but I knew a guy who could get it dead-on. It's a good thing his Calling Card is a birthmark on his forehead, or he could have gotten up to all kinds of shenanigans."
        "Calling Card?"
        "Oh, right. Haven't mentioned that part yet. All of us have one, it's the one thing about ourselves we [i]can't[/i] change, something that stays the same no matter what else we do. We're not really sure how it works, it takes a lot of different forms; I have a friend who can't make toenails on his left foot. This girl I had a crush on when I was little had a white streak through her hair no matter what colour it was. Surprise, surprise: she usually makes her hair white."
        "What's yours?"
He turned to her and grinned, sticking his green tongue out at her. 
        "Oh! I didn't even notice that!" 
        "Yeah, well you were a little distracted when we first met, and my tongue was fairly busy just now." 
Michelle's eyes narrowed and her grin grew wider.
        "That gives me an idea. How about we take a break from the Q&A and put that tongue to good use, hmm?"
She sat up and spread her legs as she turned to face him. Vincent blushed and tried not to show his embarrassment.
        "Now? Like right now? Before we've showered?"
        "Right this minute. Why, is something wrong?"
        "Well it's just that I sort of, ah, how do I put this-"
        "You don't want to eat me out while your come is still inside me. Honestly, for something that came out of your body, you boys are sure afraid of it. Tell you what..."
She took hold of him and pulled him closer, turning the confused fox around.
        "...If you eat me out, I'll suck you off. Deal?"

He found himself manipulated into the classic 69 position, staring down at her pussy. He hesitated, but she started teasing his member with the tip of her tongue, not giving him any real stimulation. He whined quietly and then his lust won out over his uncertainty.
        "Oh God, it's a deal!"
He lowered his muzzle to her crotch and began to lap at her labia, eliciting a satisfied response from his lover.
        "Mmmm, that's a good boy. Yes, that's exactly what I need."
Keeping her end of the bargain, she began to run her tongue along the entire length of his rapidly hardening shaft, while he began to work her clitoris. It was a strange and wonderful sensation; he'd never actually done this before, and he was enjoying himself immensely. It did feel odd, though, that the pleasure he was feeling had absolutely nothing to do with his own actions. He shrugged it off and very gently bit down on Michelle's throbbing clit, drawing a moan out of the vixen. Replacing his mouth with his fingers, he moved his tongue to her cleft once more, this time pushing deeper than the surface. Michelle stopped her tender ministrations for a moment to sigh happily. 
        "Yes, that's it, keep going, don't stop."
He shuddered silently as she wrapped her muzzle around his rock hard erection. Almost immediately afterward, he finally found what he'd been anticipating the whole time, as his tongue came into contact with his own still-warm seed. He was glad he was facing away from her, because he started blushing like a stop light, shivering at the incredibly naughty sensations as his tongue became coated in sperm, though he didn't stop, licking and pushing as deep as he could into Michelle's vagina, his fingers keeping up the surface work, teasing and tickling her aching clit and tracing her labia up and down. Vincent jumped slightly at the unexpected pleasure as she moaned around his penis, a surprisingly good feeling. He pulled back for a moment, blushing even harder (though he hadn't thought it possible) as he spoke, his mouth full of the taste of himself. 
        "Christ, Michelle, this is the best head I've had in [i]years[/i]."
He felt her pull his dick out of her mouth, the saliva-coated organ feeling cool in the air.
        "You're no slouch yourself, ‘Odo'."
Vincent drew a blank until he drew upon his vast collection of geeky knowledge and remembered that Odo was a shapeshifter from a popular science fiction series of the late nineties.
        [i]Oh my God, did she just make a Star Trek reference during sex? I [/i]gotta[i] get her number[/i].
He wasn't far off, and let out an involuntary moan as she reached up and began to massage his balls, so he redoubled his efforts to help her catch up, bathing her inner walls with his tongue, squeezing and stroking her love button. He knew he was successful when she moaned once more around her mouthful and began thrusting her hips into his face. Suddenly she began to increase her own efforts to bring him off, and he realized she was getting close herself. The race was on. He lightly bit down on her clitoris again, bringing forth a groan and a shifting of her legs. She squeezed and kneaded at his sensitive testicles, causing him to shudder, gritting his teeth with the effort necessary to not give in to his urges and thrust down her throat. He accompanied his tongue with a finger, reaching deeper and pushing harder. She countered by letting her teeth catch ever-so-lightly against the underside of his glans, scraping along the extremely sensitive skin as he fought the rapidly approaching orgasm. In the end, she won, though not by much. He gasped out her name as he climaxed, cheating slightly to bring her with him: he Changed his tongue to suddenly be much longer and thicker before plunging it into her unsuspecting body and stroking her G-spot with impressive intensity. Surprised into orgasm, she sucked and licked and massaged him, forcing him to spurt every last drop of his hot, wet come into her mouth, gulping the semen down so she could keep going without stopping. Meanwhile, by fucking her spasming pussy with his marvellous tongue and stroking her clit like it was a tiny erection, he got a similar reaction out of her, his facial fur absolutely [i]soaked[/i] with her juices, his larger-than-life tongue lapping up as much of it as he could. Both of them were simultaneously experiencing one of the best orgasms they'd had in years, and they twitched and shuddered and moaned until they couldn't stand the pleasure any longer, rolling to the side, shivering from the strength of their aftershocks as they tried to get their bodies back under control. The first thing Vinnie did when he'd calmed down somewhat was to retract his tongue back to a normal size. Obviously she'd guessed what he'd done since she hadn't freaked out, but he still doubted she wanted to see him with what was essentially a thick green tentacle sticking out of his face. 
        [i]She's been pretty cool with it so far, but there's no need to freak her out yet.
[/i]The second thing he did was to slowly drag himself around until they were lined up the same way again, and lean over to kiss her. Michelle had swallowed, but he could still taste his sperm on her lips and tongue. He didn't care, he wasn't kissing her for pure pleasure anymore, he was kissing her because he wanted to kiss this radiant beauty who'd decided to share his bed. He pulled her into his arms and cuddled against her, the pair of foxes kissing tenderly as they basked in afterglow together.

Vincent frowned. The last thing he could remember he'd just had a truly [i]awesome [/i]69 with Michelle in his apartment, yet here he was in the middle of a swamp somewhere, naked, being held in the air by the vines of what appeared to be a very large watermelon with strangely delighted eyes. It was holding him by the arms, legs, and tail, but that wasn't what he found most distressing. What he was focused on was the fact that the plant-thing was teasing his rear opening with the very tip of a warm, wet tendril. And that he was enjoying it. The more it teased and rubbed at him, the hornier he felt, but it wasn't going any further than that, as if it were waiting for something. He was determined not to beg it to take him, but he feared his resolve wouldn't last, especially as he doubted the watermelon had anything more important to do for the rest of the day. Suddenly the swamp around him and the watermelon-thing started to fade away into a blinding white brilliance. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, before realizing he was staring at the wall behind his bed, and that he was lying on his stomach, his painfully erect penis pressing against his belly. He didn't remember falling asleep, but it appeared the watermelon creature was just a dream. The only problem was, he could still feel it teasing his rear. At least until he started to stir, looking behind him. Michelle lay between his legs, one hand keeping his tail up high, and her muzzle had just been directly beneath it, answering his most pressing question.
        "Oh, Vinnie! You're finally awake!"
        "M-Michelle?"
        "It was so cute! You nodded off in my arms, so I let you sleep. You were pretty tuckered out."
        "How, uh, how long has it been?"
        "Oh, about an hour and a half."
        "Oh."
A moment of silence followed as the blush on Vinnie's cheek increased.
        "Michelle, were you..."
She finished the sentence for him.
        "Tossing your salad in your sleep? Sure was."
        "[i]Why?[/i]"
        "I'm a vixen. Mischief is in my DNA. And you certainly seemed to be enjoying it, if that hard-on is any indication." 
        "Yeah, actually, that was... nice. Really nice. I didn't know I'd like... [i]that...[/i] so much."
        "Well, if you play your cards right, maybe we can do a bit of further testing... Hey, could you put the goatee back? I thought it was cute."
Vincent smiled slightly at her infectious happiness, and winked as he returned the short tuft of fur to the underside of his chin. He glanced over at the clock on the wall and saw that they'd been having fun for most of the afternoon. 
        "Hey Michelle? It's kind of late -"
Her face fell.
        "Oh, I'm sorry, do you want me to leave?"
        "No, that's not it, I was just wondering - how about we clean ourselves up and then go out, get some dinner? That sound good to you?"
That beautiful smile returned to her face and she hugged him tight for a moment.
        "That sounds wonderful."
They stood up and stretched, feeling good all over. He wouldn't realize it for several hours, but for the first time in almost a month, Vinnie wasn't thinking about Martin. The healing process had begun, through him helping Michelle through a similarly important problem. Now, though, he draped his arm over Michelle and led her through the apartment to the bathroom. 
        "God, Michelle, you got me so worked up, think we could take care of that in the shower? But, uh... maybe that should be the last one for a while. I don't think my boys can take another round. Not yet anyway."
She laughed, the sound making Vincent smile even wider.
        "Sounds fair to me, babe. Say, Vinnie, when you're feeling up to it... wanna show me that thing you did with your tongue?"
        "Maybe if you show me the thing you did with [i]your [/i]tongue."
To punctuate his statement, he lightly spanked her curvy butt, eliciting another laugh as they stepped into the shower.
        "You know, Vinnie, I'm so glad I came to see you today."
He switched on the water before turning to face her.
        "Oh really?"
        "Absolutely. You're [i]very[/i] good company."
