# A Distance Place

* * * * *

"Great session, fellas!" The bespectacled raccoon beamed. He sat up from behind the cardboard screen protecting his side of the long folding table. "I'm sorry the combat ended up so crunchy at the end! So many gnolls to roll for."

"It's ok, Marty!" A young fox chirped as he tucked his character sheet into a carefully organized binder (and tucked *that* into an equally manicured backpack next to his chair). "I liked the voices you did for them! All growly and mean!"

The fox held up his little claws and grimaced his best approximation of an evil gnoll.

"Not as intimidating when you do it, nerd." A shaggy white sheepdog elbowed the fox next to him, giggling. The two of them couldn't have been older than ten. Amaeru recognized them as his classmates: Charlie and Matt.

"No name-calling at my table, boys." Marty chided and stood up to collect the painted miniatures they had been using to track the battle. He must have been in his forties (judging from the greying tips of his dirt-brown fur) and the weight of his gut made the table creak in protest.

"Ari's magic missile was perfectly timed! I'm so glad he won the initiative roll." A portly skunk craned back in his plastic chair with excitement. He was Marty's age, proudly wearing a faded old t-shirt from a music festival Amaeru didn't recognize.

The fox glowed at the praise from the older skunk across the table. "Moonlight was amazing, too! I didn't know a barbarian could do that much damage in one hit."

The skunk carried into a lengthy explanation of Moonlight's favored abilities. Amaeru was sitting next to him, quietly trying to act normal. He glanced between the other two kids at the table (they were packing their things). If the fox was Ari and the skunk was Moonlight ... then that must mean Charlie the sheephound was actually Renn the elk druid!

"Thanks for healing me at the end, Renn." Amaeru offered, the sting of those wounds still clear in his memory.

"Don't worry, Marty won't get to kill your kobold on my watch." Charlie slung his backpack over a shoulder. Standing, it was obvious he was the fittest of the bunch. His shoulders dwarfed the fox next to him.  "And neither will Ari."

"I wasn't *really* going to kill him!" Matt rolled his eyes, much like Ari would have. "No hard feelings, Amaeru! It's just roleplaying."

"Yeah, 'course!" Amaeru laughed nervously, pawing through the sheets in front of him. His character was Ruru, the tabaxi rogue. He had been cursed into the body of an evil kobold. It was all scribbled down right there in pencil with copious notes along the margin. His own handwriting.

Hiding his trembles, Amaeru stood and squeezed past the big skunk's shoulders. He scampered to the narrow trailer's bathroom, slapping the door shut behind him the instant he was inside.

* * * * *

Amaeru blinked into the crooked mirror leaning behind the sink. There he was: a panther boy again. He touched his ears; they were both so very soft and intact. His eyes were the emerald green he always wanted, reflecting happily through the speckled grime.

"Thank you." He whispered to himself. He must have pleased *Ji-Mugral* enough to be returned to this form. Nothing answered.

His body was slim, covered by a colorful patterned tank top that hugged his sides. It was only barely long enough to reach his board shorts. The synthetic fabrics felt new and tailored to his body. The kitten smiled confidently at all of it; it was easy to feel cute in this body. *His* body.
 
He almost yelped with excitement when he remembered to tug down the front of his shorts: he had boy bits again! But they were captured in a strange plastic device that wrapped tightly behind his coin purse balls. It was an opaque pink prison that squeezed his soft shaft downward to fit within the inch of space available. A meager slit at the bottom was the only means to relieve himself.

He prodded at the cage with curiosity and felt an electric rush when it moved. The whole mechanism hopped from his body's involuntary twitch. He tugged experimentally at the ring securing it: "owww!"

There was no obvious release or lock. Manipulating it even slightly only made him swell against its confines. The pink plastic looked fragile and feminine; its uncompromising walls had no business containing *him*.

"What the fuck do you *want* from me?" He fumed at his reflection.

Marty clearly never bothered to clean his toilet, but Amaeru didn't actually need to use it. He tucked everything back into place and flushed, hoping he'd taken a convincing amount of time before returning to gather his stuff from the table.

His schoolfriends had already gone and so had Marty. Only the skunk still sat there, idly flipping through one of the rulebooks. Moonlight. His body more resembled a pear than the barrel-chested barbarian Amaeru had lusted over (but the boy's caged prick throbbed all the same).

Amaeru pulled his backpack onto a chair and gathered his papers and books into it. He searched in vain for what to call the older skunk, landing awkwardly on: "I'll see you next game, mister!"

"What's the rush, kiddo?" The skunk's bushy tail swept across the floor between Amaeru and the trailer's front door. Its volume made it impossible to avoid. "Don't you wanna hang out for a smoke with your buddy Ry?"

"Uhm." Amaeru stammered in confusion. Ry. Ryland! That was it. His pulse quickened at the suggestion of smoking with the grown-ups. Was he afraid? No, not exactly. He was anxious.

He wanted Ryland to be happy with him, but moreso: he was anxious he might upset *Ji-Mugral*. This was Moonlight. This time, he wouldn't let his quarry out of his sight until he was *sure* his god was satisfied.

"Yeah! I just..." the kitten scuffed his paws together, "...forgot. Sorry, mister Ry."

The skunk cracked a happy grin and moved his tail to brush up against the shy panther. "Don't be nervous, little guy. Just have fun like you always do! Now come on, I think Marty's already out back packing the bowl."

* * * * *

The trailer butted up against the edge of the lot, its awning leaning toward the rusted chain-link fence marking the boundary. The fence was overgrown with hedges and weeds, the next lot over nothing more than a scrap yard.

Beneath the awning—amongst scraggly patches of wild grass—was a dilapidated couch. The upholstery was a deep brown; the sides were water-stained and the cushions had been darkened by regular use.

The round raccoon occupied the leftmost seat and craned over a small card table where he was grinding flower. A tall and narrow glass bong stood proudly on the far edge of the table. Ry was right: its bowl was already packed, smoldering from a hit the raccoon had already taken.

"Hey, scout!" Marty smiled at the gingerly approaching panther cub. The raccoon had stripped down to a ratty once-white V-neck and a disheveled pair of briefs. It was summer and the only mitigation to the setting sun's heat was a struggling box fan propped up against the side of the trailer. Marty's sweat radiated a misty aura in the artificial breeze.

Ry slumped onto the opposite end of the couch, hiking a leg onto the  center cushion and throwing an arm over the side. "Still shy about the bong, huh kiddo?"

Amaeru danced on his bare feet and nodded between his two grown-up friends. The colored glass device was nearly half his height and he didn't know the first thing about how it worked. Despite that, he desperately wanted a turn.

"That's ok!" Marty demonstrated how to light and draw, taking his next big lungful and passing it on. "Why don't ya get settled in while we warm it up for ya?" Smoke simmered from his lips as he relaxed against the creaking old couch. He pulled up his shirt, exposing the matted brown fur of his gut to the box fan's breeze.

Amaeru felt another strong twitch between his legs, twisting his hips at the discomfort the pink cage so regularly inflicted. The fabric of his shorts hung loose enough not to make a point of it, but it was torture all the same!

Ry held his own hit in, patting the center cushion invitingly before passing back to the raccoon. The kitten awkwardly climbed on, feeling the old foam sag under his knees. He kept his legs tucked under him and sat up, paws folded in his lap. Behind him, the skunk's thick leg and wide striped tail draped against the back of the couch.

"Ruru is such a cool concept for a character." Marty took another long rip, the smoke effortlessly bubbling up through the arcane device. The scent of smoke thankfully dominated the raccoon's unwashed odor. "I can't wait for the party to discover he's not actually a kobold!"

Amaeru's ears flicked up and he bit back his lip. Of course Marty would know about the curse! He was the dungeon master. The raccoon offered him the bong, but the kitten shook his nose nervously. He let the big skunk reach over him to take it, instead. The boy craned his nose up to brush along his buddy's briefly exposed pit, sneaking a huff of Ry's much sweeter musk.

"Do you know how to lift the curse keeping me—er, I mean *him* that way?" Amaeru asked hopefully. He rubbed at the hard nub in his shorts. It throbbed angrily at its predicament but—compared to not having bits at all—it was luxurious just to touch himself.

Marty let out a deep laugh, his eyes half-lidded as the drug took effect. He was the picture of relaxation: barely dressed and belching smoke. "It was *your* idea, little guy!"

Ry coughed loudly on his next hit and Amaeru was glad for the distraction. His black fur hid his embarrassment as he tried to imagine a more natural way to ask for details.

"I mean, of course I came up with the curse. He's my character, isn't he? But how do you think it'll play out?"

Was it all just made up? Why did it always feel this way: everything he thought he knew becoming a distant dream or a figment of his overactive imagination? He felt like a normal boy, here. He had friends at school. He could think for himself. Nothing yelled at him or tried to melt parts of his body away if he misstepped.

"A petulant tabaxi boy, cursed by an angry demon to live as an evil kobold until he convinces a good dragon to release him?" Marty winked at the boy, scratching at the greying brown fuzz along his navel. "You aren't exactly subtle about how you want that to play out, kid."

"Uh huh. You've been texting me fanfic about it for weeks." Ryland examined the bowl, judging that he had one more hit left before they'd need to pack it again. "But Ruru's gonna be thirsting after Moonlight for a few more levels, at least. I can't make it too easy on him! Where's the fun in that?"

It dawned on Amaeru that all of his suffering may have just been a private fiction. His rape at the hands of a pack of vicious gnolls wasn't part of the narrative they'd told at the table. His friends had been rolling dice to track the monsters, spending their hours hashing out a combat that only lasted a minute for the poor kobold being rescued.

All the while he had been imagining a filthy gnoll cock knotted so deep in his tail he could taste it. He'd probably been touching himself at the table. Big old Ry had probably been watching.

"I dunno." Amaeru watched the skunk finish off the bowl, still fiending for a turn but still too shy to ask. "Maybe Ruru doesn't *like* being a kobold?"

"Of course he doesn't. That's why it's called a *curse*, kitten." Ry laughed out the rest of the smoke, dragging the card table along the dirt so that he could repack the bowl himself. The air around them stank of weed, the haze gathering under the awning where the fan couldn't disperse it.

"Are you not having fun playing him?" Marty fiddled with a small portable speaker, eventually getting it to play a tinny rendition of a progressive rock album. "I think he's a sneaky badass, but we can always re-roll him if you want. Ari would probably love finishing him off!"

"N—no!" Amaeru stammered, a little too defensively. "I want him alive!"

Marty cocked his head in confusion. "You need to relax, kid. It's just a game. You're supposed to be having fun with it!"

"C'mere, lil' Ruru. Moonlight's got just the thing to help ya relax." Ryland had finished repacking the bowl. The skunk's tail thumped against the back of Amaeru's tense shoulders. The boy had been intent on his conversation with the dungeon master; the sudden weight toppled him off the cushion and onto the rounded shelf of the fat skunk's belly.

Amaeru's mind flashed to his old master Kei, who had kept him as his kobold supplicant. He remembered how small he felt when the great red dragon's tail would topple him over with a cruel flick. How many lifetimes ago was that? Did it even happen?

Ry balanced the boy over him and sucked in a fresh lungful of pungent smoke. Setting down the device, he curled forward to be nose-to-nose with the tiny kitten. Amaeru's paws clutched for balance at the skunk's stretched shirt, his knees propped up on each of Ry's thighs. He could smell the sweat permeating that fabric, the fresh smoke wisping from those big nostrils.

Amaeru remembered master Kei's huge maw opening to swallow him whole.

Before he realized what was happening, Ry was kissing him. The skunk's wide mouth locked wetly around his own, a broad tongue coaxing the kitten's lips apart to allow it access to explore.

"Whoa yeah, get it, big fella!" Marty cheered somewhere behind the boy.

Amaeru made a muffled squeak at the sudden attention. He didn't pull back, his tail lashing from the excitement of having his mouth propped open, possessed by the skunk's tongue. Ry's paws had started to enclose around his body, touching his nape and rump like they belonged there.

And then the smoke exhaled, pressure suddenly filling his cheeks and leaking into his lungs. Ry's lips left no room for compromise, forcing the boy full of his drug. 

A familiar burning tore through Amaeru's chest. His eyes watered and it was all his willpower not to struggle out of the grip surrounding him. He could feel the lump in his shorts sandwiched between him and the skunk's sweat-ridden body. He wondered briefly if Ry could feel it twitching before a warmth began to engulf his body. His slender legs splayed apart.

"That's it, good boy." He felt Ry's voice reverberate through the skunk's wiggly belly. He must have broken off the kiss at some point. "One more now. You love this stuff."

Amaeru exhaled, whimpering a weak protest and propping himself up on his paws again. The kitten wobbled and managed to giggle at himself. He hadn't realized how off balance he was already. More importantly, he hadn't realized how good Ry smelled. He just wanted a moment to explore for himself, to follow that scent all over this towering body.

But Ry locked him in another aggressive kiss, filling his lungs as promised. Amaeru tried to concentrate on this one, to perform like he was being watched. He kissed back, his mouth sucking and welcoming that sticky tongue back to play with his own. He held the burning vapor inside as long he could, his weight clumsily falling over his buddy's body in his effort.

*You are such an adventurous child, little avatar.*

Amaeru coughed and broke off the kiss, wiping his eyes in an arm to hide his surprise at the too-familiar voice echoing in his ears. Ry was preoccupied, groping along the boy's hips while he had been focused on kissing. The board shorts were intentionally easy to work off.

*You've no idea how far you've brought us, do you? Such a curious and distance place. So little magic.*

"Aw yeah, he's in his happy place now." Amaeru felt more than heard Ry's voice. His tail was pulled up, someone was feeling up between his legs. He didn't care; nothing mattered in that moment beyond the revelation that *Ji-Mugral* was still with him.

"Whoa, what's all this?" Marty chirped up behind him. He was tugging at the pink cage. Amaeru groaned and reared back in appreciation. He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him there, in this plane or the next. The plastic strained. "How'd you even find one of these in his size?"

"That's all him. He's full of little surprises! I told you he's not as shy as he looks." Ry laughed.

*These two will do. Beg for us.*

"Please." Amaeru obeyed, his nose dragging down Ry's shirt and sinking against the folds of the skunk's heat-moist cargo shorts. The sweet scent of the massive skunk was all around him, all he could fathom. He fumbled at the zipper and belt, wanting to bury his nose against the source.

"He's always like this. Just needs a little bump to get him going." Ry was stroking the panther cub's cheek and ear with affection.

"You sure he's not gonna mind me back here?" Marty had two fistfuls of panther rump held open between his thumbs.

"Only if you keep talking instead of fucking him."

"I don't have a rubber, you sure?"

"He's ten, what're you worried about? You think you can get him pregnant?"

"Naw, 'course not. But..."

"You think he doesn't want it?"

*We want it, child. Teach him to feed us.*

Amaeru braced and shoved his hips into the air, bumping against the weight of the hunched raccoon. Marty was much closer than he had realized! The kitten's tail snaked invitingly around the pillar of one of the raccoon's thighs. It caught on the stretched fabric of the dungeon master's briefs, already tugged halfway off in anticipation.

Ry batted the boy's clumsy paws away and undid his own belt and zipper, flaying the fabric apart and tugging the heavy black flesh of his dick free from the damp boxers underneath. He swatted it against the kitten's face. "Don't forget me, now."

How could he forget? His nose lit up when it brushed against the bare flesh in front of him. This was what he was after. He'd traveled entire planes to be here, to taste this. This fat old skunk didn't know just how special it was to have *him* like this. But he needed to know.

Amaeru pounced against the skunk's fast-swelling cock, his mouth diving over it to feel it expand against his cheeks. The salt of dried sweat filled his muzzle, licked clean with long, adoring strokes. He purred his appreciation, forgetting how long it had been since he had been allowed to worship like this. The suffering would all have been worth it, if he could just be left alone with this.

*Such a good boy. Feast for us.*

Marty was huffing over of him, the raccoon's unwashed rod slapping up against the kitten's cage and leaving smears of fluid. Amaeru reached under himself to grope his velvety fingers around what Marty had to offer. His mouth was too full to beg for it, but he contorted every spare inch of his body to grind against the horny old stoner.

Slipping through Amaeru's palm, Marty's stump of a cock was built like a molehill.  His head was broad and flat, with the shaft steadily growing in girth beneath it until it simply disappeared into the mass of the fat raccoon's body. Coarse clumps of fur curled against the kitten's fingers as he struggled to wrap them around the broad base.

A paw grabbed at one of his ears and tugged his attention back where it belonged. Ry's cock was drooling in the back of his throat, a fresh flavor mingling on the kitten's tongue. Amaeru bobbed against it, eager to map its most sensitive spots with his tongue.

He knew instinctively where to touch and lick, every swipe rewarded with a healthy surge from the skunk's shaft. The shape of it inside his muzzle felt familiar, like he had practiced this *many* times before. It stood taller than Marty's, easily prying the kitten's throat open if the boy wanted to bury his nose in the delicious musk of Ry's navel.

All the way down. Amaeru's eyes watered with the effort of housing the length. His lips felt the shaft widen in a threatening bulge at its center before tapering to allow a spot for his mouth to rest around the base. Struggling to hold his nose against the skunk's heavy odor, the kitten vibrated a hungry purr. He was welcoming Ryland to do whatever he wanted.

Marty spat loudly on the boy's hole, the warm goop collecting in the dimple before a digit joined to smear it around. His thumb jammed inside the kitten with no attempt at subtlety. Amaeru winced, his delicate tail tugged open while the adult's cock slapped at his cage. It was so much thicker than the knuckle that was wriggling inside him right now.

He knew it was going to hurt, but swimming in his mind like a hungry shadow was *Ji-Mugral*, who would not be denied. His god wanted to taste the boy's suffering as much as the corruption he was seeding in these otherwise harmless stoners. Amaeru knew his job was to inspire, and then invite, the darkest behavior imaginable.

Marty eagerly lined himself up, not a thought spared on the morality of what he was about to do. That was Amaeru's great skill: making his victims forget the rules. Being too perfect to turn down. Seconds later, Marty's spit-slick cock forced him open.

*Don't you dare cry! We must have him.*

Amaeru obediently stifled his yelp, thankful that his mouth was still plugged by the happily throbbing skunk. The raccoon slapped his way in, the couch cushions drooped under his weight. The black kitten boy was plastered helplessly between the two larger males and neither of them looked concerned about his ability to keep up.

He had taken bigger and rougher men in his time and he could remember each of them vividly: adventurers fucking him with the strength of swinging a broadsword! A far cry from the slouchy hammering of a wheezing raccoon on a hot summer day. He had swallowed draft horses in the stables that made the weight of Ry's cock seem routine.

But this body was less capable and less experienced. He felt around its memory...no, Marty was the biggest he'd ever tried. And right now, as the raccoon flexed his dick in and out of the slender panther, the boy was feeling every inch of stretch. His mewls were muffled as Ry—inspired by his friend's initiative—took hold of his head and began thrusting in earnest.

"That's a good kid. You love getting fucked in both ends, don't ya?" There was something about this skunk and the way he talked down to Amaeru. He knew he could have anything he wanted from this boy and he acted like it. Whatever he suggested, Amaeru desired immediately. The kitten's body arched and thrust against Marty, rumbling another purr of assent.

Ry slapped his weight against the panther's nose, cutting off that purr with a sloppy wet noise. The skunk's tip explored the tight confines of Amaeru's spasming throat, seeming confident about how long he could occupy it. Amaeru began to feel his heartbeat: his lungs burned for a fresh breath of air; his body shuddered to perform.

Marty came first. A snarl and a dig of claws against Amaeru's hips was all the warning provided before the wide pole of that dick buried itself and sputtered the beginnings of the panting raccoon's load. It poured into the tiny shivering feline in steadily healthier pulses. The heat of it stung inside Amaeru's tail, reminding him of the abuse it took to get here. A quavering moan from above rewarded him for his hard work.

*Yessss, good boy.* 

The insides of his ears flushed and Amaeru quickly realized he had given Marty something special, something forbidden. Whatever the rules of this world were, cumming in a ten year old panther cub was against them. Marty had never had a chance like this and Amaeru felt the satisfaction of making him happier than he had ever known. Even as the warm seed filled him, he could feel the invisible tendrils of his god snake their way inside his victim.

There was no taking it back, what he'd done and felt here. Marty would hunger for more.

And Ry came next. The skunk had been holding the boy down by the ears, edging himself by grinding carefully along the roof of the cub's mouth. The kitten sucked and pawed desperately, easily winning over the distractions surrounding them. The friction and the heat and the gyrations of a guitar solo whining from the speaker and the mingling grunts of two men learning how filthy they really were. The tremors of one's orgasm vibrated through their shared toy and rattled the second one out.

"Here it comes, kiddo!" The skunk pointed his cockhead down to pin the little feline's raspy tongue. He jetted sticky seed right where Amaeru could taste it. He knew exactly what the boy had been begging for. Amaeru tried to savor it, but soon found himself struggling to keep up with the productive skunk. Swallowing it down, he blurted in disappointment when it seeped out the corners of his mouth and ran down his neck instead.

"Aaaaah, fuck." The men traded expletives, congratulating one another.

*You've done so well.* Amaeru continued to swallow, silently pleading with his master to let him enjoy a few more seconds without lecture. To taste the reward bulging in his cheeks. *But you will need to find something stronger, if you intend to escape here.*

Marty slumped onto the kitten, smothering him against the wet cushion. He was sopping with the effort of what he'd done, his rank moisture soaking into the panther's ruined fur. Amaeru's caged cock struggled furiously, unreachable under the massive weight.

*Beware, there is too little magic to help you survive, here. We are eternal but you may be torn off and eaten. This is all the instruction you've earned with this little display. Find something stronger, something with true magic. Find us again.*

* * * * *

Amaeru gasped awake, bumping his head against the chin of the sleeping raccoon. His face was still buried in the damp musk of Ry's crotch. The skunk's limp cock warmed his cheek. The box fan still droned somewhere in the background. The speaker had died into silence some time ago. The sun had set.

From the occasional snorts and snores above him, both stoners had simply snoozed off after they had finished. And, lost in the daze of drugs and the overwhelming scents and tastes of sex, even Amaeru had lost track of time. But it was lifting now, leaving him prone and uncomfortable. His tail was still a hopeless mess and Marty's spent and smelly dick still hot-dogged against it.

He carefully tested his extremities, feeling more sober by the minute. He pried himself free of his older friends. Not that he had to be careful, they were out for the count.

Pulling up his shorts to hide the caked stains of his rump, Amaeru glanced around the darkened lot. Had any of the other trailers noticed them? His heart skipped at how late it was and how loud they had all been. Someone must have seen or heard!

He remembered his backpack was still inside and worried that he'd need to sneak home without his dad realizing he'd been gone this late. Or smelling what he had been up to. Wait.

His dad?

Home?

Amaeru's mind flashed to a moment atop a ziggurat, kneeling in reverence of his imagined father. No, that was not here. He feared and reviled his father, here. His father was dangerous and powerful.

The panther gulped, suddenly aware of the cum and sweat matting his face. He hoped he was as good at sneaking as his tabaxi counterpart.

He didn't need *Ji-Mugral*'s cryptic warnings to know he was not safe, here. What he needed, on the long trot home, was to learn something about where *here* even was. And whether he wanted to escape, at all.