FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

First Chapters:

Avvy's Steppin' Out

By

Dissident Love

Author's Note:

The 'incaps' were something I thought up a while ago but never really felt 'right' writing about. Some of you may know that I have a rather annoying tendency to try and ground my silly impossibilities in some semblance of reality, and the incaps were making that very difficult for me to write comfortably. Imagination is one thing... heck, maybe imagination is everything. But if I was going to try and share my creations with all of you, I needed to find a beginning to work with, maybe make mistakes with, and test out these waters.

Avvy volunteered, and was very clear that if I make any mistakes shi's going to track me down and make me pay. I want to stay on hir good side, so... here goes nothing!

Please tell hir I'm doing my best.

"Douchecanoe!" shi snarled, picking hirself up off the gleaming golden roads and reloading hir weapon. Two e-clips left, shi noted with dismay. Shi hadn't hit shit with that last assault. "Did ANYONE pick that fucker off?"

A chorus of negatives filled hir ears and shi sighed. "Of course. Figures. Back on Level Seven, heading up, someone PLEASE drop me some swag! I'm getting creamed out here!"

Corridors filled with bodies streamed past hir as shi sprinted, watching the energy bar in the corner of hir HUD fading from bright blue down to a somber, sickly brown. "Yeah, like I care. I do yoga," shi panted. "That's good enough!"

The signage indicated Level 8. Two whole levels, shi thought furiously. NO-ONE knocks me down two levels! I'm fragging your ANCESTORS!

Avoleiriciano Arrosasencionado, or 'Avvy' to pretty much everyone except hir parents and a few diplomatic pencil-pushers, burst out onto Level Nine of Niska Populi, a sprawling mega-complex currently overrun with escaped, self-replicating and self-upgrading cyborgs. It didn't help that they also tended towards the more homicidal side of the maniac continuum.

Shi scanned the map on the other side of hir HUD. The red dots were clustered to the northwest, but were too far to give hir a solid location. "Where is everyone? Bank vault?"

"Med lab, quarantine!" snapped a high-pitched male voice over hir comms. "Where you been?"

"I got shot in the face!"

"Bitch, bitch, bitch! We're already clearing out here!"

Avvy continued to sprint, zigzagging and scanning the destruction for e-clips, g-packs, anything shi could use. "Leave me anything?!"

"Loot is for the living!"

"ASS HATS!"

"YOU WISH!"

The med lab was quite a ways to the north, center of the city's vast bio-augmentation conglomerates. The bank vaults would have been easy pickings by comparison. "So you're a man down and you take on F-class zones? What twink crew you guys outfit with?"

"We were doing fine without you, Snowqueen!"

Avvy spared a glance for hir weapon, a tactical reverse entropic amplifier, terawatt-range. Shi called it the Frozen TREAT. "Oh, boo hoo, listen to me! I'm defending free will and liberty as long as people don't use their free will to make CHOICES! Suck it up, butternut!"

More chatter flowed back and forth, the rest of hir squad (hah, as if they thought they were hirs!) launching yo-yo strikes at the entrenched fortifications of the med lab, advancing and retreating, advancing and retreating. It wore down defenses, it was safe, it was reliable, and it was boring as fuck.

The city square flashed past.

The Galactic Archival Library loomed ahead, but shi hung a left and sped behind it, leaping over barbed wire fences.

"East wall is down!" someone crowed, a husky feminine voice. "Grenades, grenades, grenades! Shock 'em!"

"FUCKNUGGETS!"

"Hey, YOU signed up for Pitfalls On! Don't whine to us!"

The med lab loomed ahead, retro golden curves and domes seemingly bound, trapped by heavy steel beams. The whole monstrous structure resembled a work of art that had weapons and armor hastily bolted to the exterior. The front doors stood open, smoldering mutant corpses littering the broad cathedral steps leading up. The red dots on hir hud were directly ahead, pulsing with black waves to indicate they were below hir, somewhere in the mazelike depths of the sub-basements.

"I'm back!" Avvy panted, hastily freezing a still-standing cyborg to a golden column with a single round from hir weapon. Shi left it behind, not worrying about encountering it on the way out. Shi kicked hirself even as shi spoke the words, knowing that shi'd be just as dismissive if someone else dared say it. "Wait for me!"

Derisive laughter filled hir ears. Shi ground hir teeth, wondering if shi could somehow sneakily change hir settings to Free For All without the rest of hir 'team' noticing. Shi knew shi should have held out for a better mission, but shi'd been too eager, too pent up. Hir stomachs rumbled and shi was dimly aware that a commotion seemed to be following hir down into the depths of the lab, a distant overlap of voices that echoed eerily in time with the spinning red emergency lights.

Hir hud lit up white and shi burst through the double doors into the Vaults and was immediately assaulted by brilliant scintillations of laser fire. A p-frag detonated just to hir left, yellow energy fading to green and tossing hir sideways. Six-limbed mutants crawled along the walls and ceilings, at least one pair of arms glinting with blood-soaked metal. The room was a rough arc splitting off to either side, with escaped horrors crawling towards hir from the left; the ID markers of hir team were off to the right.

"WOO! Avvy's back, baby!" shi crowed, painting the advancing hordes with sheets of jagged ice, strafing and backing up to where hir team was hopefully holding down a fortified position. Some of the creatures burst free almost immediately, but the diamond-hard shards tore through other monsters, leaving glowing red injuries. "Fast as fast can be, you'll never catch me!"

The huge armored doors at the end of the chamber were nothing but a blackened, smoking ring of debris. Shi scurried through, already down half a clip, and found hirself in the low, cramped access tunnels leading to the Vaults. Doors sprouted regularly on both sides, with obscure combinations of numbers and confusing hieroglyphs on each. Shi'd only been here once before, and it hadn't been quite so... on fire the last time. Shi started down to the left, knowing where the best loot was stashed.

"Where-"

The door nearest hir exploded outwards, and Avvy had just enough time to scream, unloading hir weapon into the face of a Gnasher. Titanium tentacles wrapped around hir, blades loomed overhead, and the Gnasher's great jaws, metal beartrap mandibles studded with gleaming white demon teeth, closed on hir hud.

_ CONGRATULATIONS! _

_ You have died. _

"SMUT-FUCKING COCK-WOMBLES!" Avvy bellowed, whipping hir VR helmet off and spiking it on the linoleum tiles. Shi glared down at the very expensive technological gadgets, wires trailing off to hir portable GameKit, shaking with frustration. "Who even plays with Pitfalls on anymore, and WHO DOESN'T GO LEFT IN THE VAULTS?!"

The Ilsa Calamata Employee Commissary was normally full of animated conversation, laughter, and vast quantities of food rattling around on extra-large plates. Even in the middle of the night it was fairly well-occupied, but presently it was full to bursting for the breakfast meals. The noise had faded, though, with a great number of concerned glances aimed hir way. Fortunately, most of the expressions were confused rather than worried; it had been months since someone had called security on Avvy.

"Sorry," the binturong grumbled apologetically, bending low and grunting as shi struggled to reach the VR set. The ground seemed awfully far away this morning, and shi hadn't even eaten anything yet. Eventually shi gave up and managed to snag some of the cables with a forepaw, tugging the whole thing back onto hir trolley.

The shaggy but still glossy taur was posted up in one of the huge dining hall's corners. The lineups for the buffet that morning had been ridiculous and shi'd decided to get in a quick game of Overreach while shi waited for the throngs to disperse. Shi scanned the lines nearest hir and found that they seemed to be a great deal shorter than those on the other side of the commissary. "Hey, must be my lucky morning," shi smiled, thumbing the control on hir waist that scooted hir trolley forwards.

"Actually," the tall, sturdily-built reindeergrrl in front of hir chuckled over hir shoulder, "you scared some of this line off."

"What? How?"

"Cock-womble?" the majestic cervid repeated, doing hir best to sound innocent with those sounds coming out of hir mouth. "You have a bit of an... area of effect when you're in the throes of passion."

Avvy blushed, but only the tiniest bit. Shi knew shi tended to get a little... active, when shi was shooting the first persons, but that was hardly as bad as what some of the other folks at the Resort got up to, certainly. "I'll try to keep it down, next time."

"Next time," the grrl mused. "Gotcha. You could, you know... wait until you're_done_ breakfast to do whatever it was you were doing. Call of Heroes?"

"Overreach."

"Aahh. I heard of that one. Must be some setup you got there," the statuesque grrl noted, glancing at the little battery-powered components at the front of Avvy's trolley. This motion gave Avvy a better look at the person in front of hir, a thin pink t-shirt stretched awkwardly thin by a pair of clearly-enhanced breasts that must have been at least a little bit hyper to start with, bouncing and swaying heavily above a pair of cargo shorts that were clearly not designed for that much cargo.

"The best money can buy," the taur nodded, knowing the dollar amount of the hardware but still not having the best concept of the dollar value. "You play?"

The reindeer's broad shoulders flexed in an indifferent shrug. "Meh. Not my thing."

"Ah."

The line drifted forwards, Avvy whirring along with each little gesture from hir controls. A few late stragglers appeared behind hir, a rather 'normal' looking squirrel young man (normal for The Resort, at least) and a tall and presumably slender marten. Presumably, because Avvy could really only see the top of her head and most of her shapely calves, the rest of her front being taken up by three colossally stacked pairs of breasts. The green-and-gold sheath dress she wore fit like a second skin, or at least a second fur, and left nothing to the imagination.

"Wow," the squirrel breathed, wide-eyed, getting a good long look at Avvy.

"What? What is it?" the marten giggled, turning very slowly so she could see. Avvy was impressed by the girl's fullness, an indeed trim and toned body sinking into the back of those six tremendous swells, but the marten's eyes bulged out when she could see what her date's fuss was about. "Oh, wow! Avvy, right?"

Avvy nodded, scooting forwards to keep up with the line. Shi wasn't about to miss hir spot for breakfast! "Yeah, that's me. I'm sorry, I... don't know everyone's names here yet. You are?"

"Pirt!" she bounced proudly. "I SWEAR that's on my birth certificate. It means a spiritual journey of finding oneself. I heard about you, though!"

The binturong grimaced. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Binturongs were colloquially called 'bearcats' for a reason, even though they were most closely related to civets. Hir glossy black fur was full and shaggy, more resembling canine than ursine pelt. Hir muzzle was wide and sleek, whiskers twitching below small, crimson eyes, hir stubby little ears tufted and swishing back and forth as shi felt eyes on hir hind portions. Shi often felt eyes there, for various obvious reasons.

The taur wore a baggy sleeveless shirt that muffled, but could not entirely hide, hir full and plump bosom. Around the Resort shi would be considered on the flatter end of things, up front, but shi knew shi had hir own little secrets. Hir barrel was long and broad, powerfully-built, giving the impression of strength even when motionless. Further back hir tail was just as impressively girthy, and longer than hir forebody by several feet.

Hir four paws wiggled, clawed and padded toes drumming against hir taut, ruffled flesh. There were many shops in town that catered to clothing for taurs, and a few had even offered to make Avvy a custom outfit or two, but where possible shi preferred to trundle about au naturel. Shi was about five and a half feet tall (the last time shi was easily able to measure) and about nine feet long in the barrel, which caused most people to become briefly baffled by the enormity of hir maleness. Shi sat perched atop hir sheath, straddling it the way most bipeds would straddle a horse (if that was their thing), no longer able to reach the ground with hir paws. The cuff pushed past hir forelegs far enough that shi could usually balance hir lunch tray on it, and as far as shi cared to know this was as small as shi could get these days.

Further back, pushing the boundaries of what hir current trolley could hold, hir sac strained glossy-tight, proportionally larger even than a sheath like hirs should have required. They snuggled up tight enough to hir rump that hir tail had to start nearly vertical before drifting down again, oftentimes seen absentmindedly caressing hir own too-sensitive skin. The squirrel's nostrils flared, his own tail swishing erratically, when he realized those swollen orbs came up to his chest.

"You can blink, you know," Avvy chuckled, wiggling hir butt and sending hir sloshing swells quaking side to side.

"N-no, I'm good."

"Hey!" Pirt chirped, pouting cutely. Martens and minks and the like were uniquely well-equipped to put cutely. "I'm right here, you know!"

"Yes, dear, of course you are."

"HEY!"

Avvy snickered, pulling a tray from the stacks that shi'd finally managed to reach and resting it atop the front of hir sheath. "Don't you two start arguing over little old me," shi called back over hir shoulder, even though they'd apparently forgotten their little squabble and were busy making out. The squirrel's paws managed to be on more than half of hir breasts at once, by some miracle of desire.

Shi sighed again and inched hir trolley forwards, wondering just how much damage shi could do to hir Resort food card today...

. . . . .

The erstwhile Miss Arrosasencionado, who tended to claw and bite when hir last name was used within earshot, floated placidly around the Resort's Upper Palm Pool. A ring of inflatable pads were netted together to form a simple harness designed to gently cradle hir bulk, allowing hir paws access to the water. Shi might not be able to walk around on dry land, but shi was quite a good paddleboat should the occasion arise.

Hir one regret, soaking in luxuriant geothermally-warmed waters high atop Ilsa Calamata's secondary mountainous cone and surrounded by some of the happiest and most gorgeous people in the world, was that hir waterproof gaming rig was still stuck in development. The crowdsourcing campaign had been a wild success, bolstered by one incredibly generous donor (Avvy smirked, remembering the phone call shi'd received from hir mother's exasperated accountant) but the delivery date had been pushed back twice.

Hir four paws splish-splashed around, guiding hir away from the zero-edge waterfall. There was no possible physical way shi could go over, and it was only six feet down to the Lower Palm Pool, but it still unnerved hir. That, and shi didn't like the way shi seemed to attract whistles from below when hir sheath thumped up against the clear plexiglass. "Round and round and round and round I go," shi sing-songed, mostly in key.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong, or do I have to beat it out of you?" a voice said from just off to hir port side.

"Nothin," Avvy murmured, fiddling with hir shades. Hir swim top was more of a sports bra, offering far more coverage than some at the Resort preferred, but shi'd always felt a little awkward being naked. From the waist up, at least. The bare flanks of hir sheath glistened with moisture, hir sac bobbing merrily behind hir.

"Are you a terrible liar," Jerome snerked, splashing hir with a heavy, spadelike paw. The blockily-built longhorn looked like a used mop in the pool, chestnut fur straying in all directions and particularly in a single blond curtain down across his eyes, but he didn't care. Frankly if he cared about appearances he wouldn't be a full-time Porter at the Resort. "You've been down since Wednesday. I can tell. I know you. I'm in your mind."

"Shut up."

"In your mi-i-i-ind..." he intoned menacingly, waggling his fingers at hir.

Avvy glared at him, but in the face of his dopey grin, teeth gleaming against his sopping beard, shi couldn't possibly win. Shi drooped and paddled in little circles closer to hir Porter. Shi wasn't so incapacitated that shi needed full-time assistance, but hir membership did cover round the clock on-call service. Shi preferred the male Porters that shi wasn't in any immediate danger of flirting with, and of those shi preferred Jerome, but shi wasn't about to tell him that. "I don't know, exactly. I've just felt... I dunno. Off. This week."

Jerome leaned over until he was mostly floating on his back, a gigantic ruddy mat of fur with a bright green swatch of fabric across his own not-inconsiderable assets. "What's special about this week?"

"I dunno."

"You don't know much, do you."

"I will bop you, sir!" shi grunted defiantly, shaking a hefty fist weakly. "Just... come closer. I can't move very fast when I'm waterlogged."

The longhorn examined his charge, as he had examined hir on many such occasions. Being a Porter at the Resort wasn't nearly as glamorous or obviously sexual as being an Escort, but he found it very rewarding. There were hypers who needed help with everything, even if some of them would never admit it. Gals so busty they couldn't easily even get into their own custom closets. Grrls and guys so woefully endowed they needed assistance getting their reinforced and ultra-supportive undergarments on just so they could walk around. More urgently, there were rapturously enamored lovers who had perhaps chosen their locations poorly and had been fwoomped beyond a room's capacity, or sometimes worse. He remembered needing to get the jaws of life just to extract an Escort and hir weekend companion from the twisted remains of a limousine...

Avvy, though, didn't need much help like THAT. Hir trolley kept hir fairly mobile, anywhere on the island. Shi could reach things on the high shelves due to hir body being perched so prominently on hir own assets. Shi could make hir own coffee, call hir own taxis, and even dress hirself when the need arose. Shi had been there for three months, and shi hadn't even needed to call for Porter assistance with a lover, which he had a hard time believing; one look at hir endowments and he knew that it would have definitely made local news if shi'd gone all the way. Shi seemed to have no use for the Porters.

But shi called them every day, nonetheless, and more and more shi requested him. Usually they just grabbed a coffee, or went shopping and shi would find some excuse for him to carry hir purchases. Sometimes they went to the beach, but more often it was just the Resort pools, removed from the public.

"Bop away, miss," Jerome winked. "It would be an honor to be bopped by a woman of such bountiful beauty."

Avvy scowled. "You making fun of my junk?"

"If by 'making fun of' you mean 'making blatant romantic overtures at', then yes."

Shi scanned his expression, looking for the slightest hint of sarcasm that shi knew had to be there. "You said you didn't go for taurs," shi grumbled suspiciously.

"I say a lot of things you don't listen to. How was I supposed to know you'd listen to that one?" He pushed himself easily through the water, drifting closer until he was within scant inches of bumping against the cuff of hir sheath, staring up at hir grumpy muzzle. "I'm just trying to figure you out, miss. As a fully bonded and licensed Porter it would be wholly remiss of me to take you in a manly fashion, even though you are very pretty."

"Just keep thinking that."

He reached up, patting the fairly family-friendly expanse of hir tummy, safely between the dangerous territory of hir sheath and hir breasts. "Come on. You can tell your old pal Jerome anything. Mostly since you're currently paying for me to float around on my ass and drink expensive tropical drinks."

"They're not _that_expensive..."

"Yes yes, you're very rich. We get it."

"I'm not VERY rich! I'm... I'm..." Avvy's paws waved uncertainly. "I'm... from a wealthy family?"

Jerome scrutinized hir. He knew shi came from money. A lot of money. A LOT of money. The sort of money that made even respectable community college diplomas in social work and engineering have problems with the math. Right off the bat he'd suspected that was the source of hir strange ennui, hir stubborn refusal to find joy in hir life. Over the past few weeks, though, he'd come to see hir attitude towards money just as resentful as hir attitude towards romance. They seemed to be things that shi felt other people should care about more than hir.

"Well, thank goodness you didn't bring any of it with you."

"I can still pay you to get bopped, you know," shi threatened, but hir whiskers were twitching in amusement. "You're trying to shrink me, aren't you?"

Jerome glanced down, just once, at a sheath that absolutely outweighed his sizeable frame. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said with just the tiniest bit of fear.

"HEAD shrink me, dumbass," shi giggled, smacking him with a forepaw. "You're doing that couch thing psychiatrists do."

"You're too perceptive for me. I will have to have my minions up the levels of truth serum in your pancake syrup."

"Do you talk to everyone like this?!"

"Only if it works," he grinned, pulling his hair away from his eyes just enough to match hir gaze. "Small talk bounces off of you like coconuts off a kraken, miss. If there's one thing I've learned from watching you game, it's I need to-"

"Piss me off?"

"-treat you like you're not special," he finished.

Avvy's jaw opened, but hir retort died on hir lips.

Jerome took a deep breath, pleased that he currently hadn't been bopped by something more dangerous than a binturong's fist. "I take it from your unaccustomed silence that I'm close? I checked your gamer profile, AvvyLonRanger. Blurry selfie. Gender 'other'. Location 'Prefer not to say'. Nothing on there about you being a gorgeous, intelligent, sexy, rich, single and spectacularly hyper taur babe living in a tropical paradise. Unless that was hidden somewhere in your Auction page, but I didn't really check that hard. You don't want them knowing."

Avvy was paddling backwards now, but not very insistently. "Why should it make a difference? I don't want the dudebros on there spending the entire match hitting on me, trying to get my number."

"You just want them to play the game."

"Exactly!"

"Treat you like they'd treat anyone else."

"Damn straight! The only way to even get a decent round going."

"So why do you act like that here?" he queried, swinging his arm around to take in the majesty of the mahogany and chrome Resort buildings behind them, the verdant jungle-covered volcano in the distance, and of course the dozens of scantily-clad denizens of all possible shapes and genders swimming around and sunning themselves.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Avvy snapped, all four paws smacking against hir sheath and sending spray in all directions. "I... I just..."

More glances were aimed hir way, Escorts carefully treading water or ambling precariously around the edge of the pool suddenly wide-eyed with concern. The feisty binturong glared back, daring any of them to say something, anything.

"I thought it would be easier," shi whispered as the general din of the Resort returned. Shi plucked at the nozzles of some of hir floats, hir bulk sinking several more inches into the water as the air hissed out.

"What would?" Jerome asked, even though now he thought he knew.

"People. Just... I don't... talk... well. With people. I don't deal with them well."

"You deal well with me."

"That's different!"

"Why? Just because you're paying me?"

"Y-... well..."

Jerome reached out of the water, gripping hir forepaw gently. His knuckles rest against hir sheath, marvelling again at how FIRM it was, how clearly packed full with hidden improbable size shi must be, but he didn't notice or care, and he didn't think shi was too concerned with that casual contact. "Because I have to be here, right? If I _wanted_to be here, it would be different?"

"Pretty much," shi sighed.

"So if I were to tell you that I DO want to be here, would that make a difference?"

Avvy shook hir head, but hir muzzle twitched in a double-take. "You what?"

"I get paid whenever I'm on duty. I could be getting paid in the Commissary right now, or I could be getting paid to prybar some lucky old dude out of the sauna again. Long story, I'll have to tell you that one later. I could be getting paid to escort one of the very, very_expecting ladies here down to the hospital for an ultrasound. But I try to make my afternoons free because I _like hanging out with you. Even if you yell at me and threaten me with physical violence."

The buoyant bearcat fought to keep up hir glower, but it was just being overwhelmed by a vague bewilderment. "Well, I mean... yeah, sure. I like hanging out with you, too. That's why I... ask if you're free when I call the Porter's Office."

"So you like hanging out with me."

"Yeah."

"And I like hanging out with you."

"Ye-e-eah?"

"But it only works for you if you think there's money involved and I'm not allowed to leave."

Avvy drifted clockwise, ready to brave the zero-edge waterfall if it meant ending this conversation. "You can leave now then. Fine."

Jerome surged through the water, floaties and smaller hypers bobbing in his wake. He grabbed Avvy's forepaw and spun hir back around as though shi were no more than just another inflatable toy. Hir hackles rose, clear all along hir mane of bristly onyx fur, but Jerome's face was nothing but open, bovine honesty. "Do you have, like, goldfish memory, or something? I just said I LIKE hanging out with you, dummy!"

"Dummy?" shi echoed.

"You sure know to pick which words to focus on, don'tcha?"

The inexorable tug of the water's gentle currents eventually butted them both up against the plexiglass sheet holding back the Upper Palm Pool. Avvy seemed to sink a little lower, though he was pretty sure it was just hir shoulders. "Sorry."

"For?" he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

"For... shouting. And being a jerk. Like I said. I'm not good. With people."

"Or long sentences."

"Shut up!" Avvy smiled, turning hir muzzle away. "Why are you still here?"

"You paid me through until 5pm."

"Oh. Uhm." Hir shoulders slumped again. "I guess that's fair. You don't have to hang out much longer then."

"Not much longer."

"Hmmm."

"Good."

Avvy blinked, lips quivering. "Good?"

"Yeah. Because at 5pm, you're going to go down to the Commissary and get yourself a good meal. At 6pm, if you're actually done eating, you're going to head back upstairs and play a few rounds of whatever game has you swearing like a deckhand and you're going to get all that shooty-shooty blood-blood angst out of your system. At 7pm, you're going to trundle into your closet and find something sparkly to wear, because promptly at seven-thirty, you are going to be boarding the Beach City Shuttlebus with yours truly at the helm, and we are going to hang out again."

The binturong bobbed up and down thoughtfully, hir tail making long, languid swooshes above them. "You managed to make that entire invitation sound threatening."

"I know. I didn't mean to."

"No, no, it worked." Shi reached out a paw, very cautiously, and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm not good with people."

"I know," Jerome replied, giving hir sheath a little elbow-bump. "You don't need to be good with everyone. I just want to help you get good at a couple of them. You can practice on me."

Avvy's eyes widened. "Practice?" shi leered.

"Not like that! Not like that!"

. . . . . .

At 5pm, after getting Jerome's help towelling off, much to the delight of passers-by around the pool, Avvy did indeed head down to the Commissary where shi demolished several entrees and only two desserts. Due to hir rather bulky nature shi ate at the long, chairless tables positioned between the cashiers and the extra-wide exits. These prime locations were reserved for taurs and the more extreme hypers in order to limit just how much walking they needed to do through the crowds, and Avvy was actually grateful for that kind of preferential treatment.

As such, though, shi often found hirself the shortest person at a table full of giants. Tremendous taurs loomed around hir, some with six or more legs, some wielding multiple sheaths, some with tails weighed down by those wonderfully numerous hidden seed tanks. Taurs tended to sport more... unique hyper variations than their anthro relatives. Avvy wasn't especially 'special' in that regard, but hir relative proportions caused more than one taur to whistle appreciatively, even after all these months.

"If you keep feeding that thing, it's just going to keep growing," the tigertaur to hir left giggled, eyeing hir quite openly. The huge feline was quite over-abundantly plump in all the places that would normally make Avvy's eyes spin, overflowing her outfit in a dozen places and in danger of busting out of her shirt if she sneezed, but the binturong was too preoccupied to notice. For once, though, it wasn't about a video game.

"Yeah," shi nodded, idly stroking the cuff of hir distressingly full endowment. "We wouldn't want that."

The tigress coughed in mild disbelief, but nonetheless brought her thick and wonderfully fluffy tail around to give Avvy's sac a polite, by Resort standards, caress.

A little after 6pm shi was back in hir suite, a wraparound luxury unit very near the top of the main Resort tower. Shi didn't use most of the floor space, and indeed there was a lot of the original staging furniture still scattered around, but shi felt that should shi ever actually bring someone back to hir bed it would be to hir advantage to have A LOT of room available. As it was, shi had only ever been intimate with hirself and by hirself since moving in, and shi still had to be careful just how frisky shi got. Some of these walls were probably load-bearing.

"ICE QUEEN'S REVENGE IS BEST SERVED FROSTY!" shi squealed, hir entire body quivering as shi pushed the limits of Ilsa Calamata's high-speed satellite connection. Chainsaw-limbed mutants and half-demon cyborgs fell before hir in droves, and for the first time in weeks the somewhat less-popular ice-themed character's icon appeared on the server's leaderboards.

Shi would have loved to have pushed on; a couple hundred more kills and shi might actually get back into the Big Three.

But then shi thought of Jerome's stupid grinning face and his stupid swishy bangs and his stupid friendly personality, and shi navigated to the logoff screen. "We better have fun," shi grumped, but shi couldn't deny the flutter of anticipation in hir stomach, nor the twitching of hir muzzle that threatened to develop into a full-blown smile.

Around seven-fifteen, running late but fully blaming Jerome if he didn't expect that, shi wheeled into hir closet that was larger than some of the Resort's master bedrooms. Most taurs needed a lot of hanger space, after all. The sight of more than a hundred outfits daunted hir, dense tail drooping. Shi'd had such big plans to wear them all, strut hir stuff, turn some heads, maybe break a heart or two, but... but...

"But nothing," shi muttered to hirself, doing hir best to banish the negative thoughts. They never stayed banished for long, but at the moment they seemed to be taking the hint and dutifully fucked off. "Turn some heads, break some hearts. Now that's a mission statement."

Shi made three full circuits of hir closet before settling on a dress of eye-wrenching ultraviolet purple. It clung to hir torso magnificently, thinning almost to a spaghetti strap where it disappeared into the void between hir mane and hir neck. Shi inhaled, examining hirself critically in the huge wall mirror and rather enjoying the way hir all-natural breasts seemed to acquire that pumped-up silicone look, while hir newly (and expensively!) enhanced maleness jiggled and swayed beneath the flowing, scalloped edges of hir dress. The outfit couldn't cover all of hir, and indeed fully half of hir sheath and sac was exposed for all to see, but the attempt at modesty just made everything seem somehow... naughtier.

"I have got to do this more often," shi breathed, eyes wide as just the sight of hir own body set hir off slightly. A deep, gurgling rumble tickled the edges of hir hearing as shi rose another inch into the air, hir sheath filling out with contented, almost smug ease. "Easy, grrl. Down. For now, at least."

Promptly at seven-forty-seven, trolley buzzing in protest as shi pushed the throttle beyond the manufacturer's stated 'safe' limits for a grrl of hir weight, shi passed through the Resort's huge double doors and onto the half-mile of lush architectural promenade. Taxis, sports cars and limousines jockeyed with escorts and guests alike for position on the traffic circle, polished metal and brushed fur glowing fiercely in the light of the setting sun. Avvy briefly recoiled as, for a moment, all eyes seemed to be on hir, and most of those eyes bulged out...

... but then shi caught sight of a particular bovine's stupid swishy bangs and gasped when shi scanned down to take in the immaculate island tuxedo that the rest of him wore rather better than shi would have guessed.

"Right on time, my dear," he chuckled, leaning against the Beach City Shuttlebus. Fashions on Ilsa Calamata were by necessity somewhat altered in respect to the climate, but even a sleeveless tuxedo with shorts instead of trousers radiated formality. "Another two minutes and I was about to call security."

"I said I was coming, so I came. Shut up," shi replied, wheeling slowly over to him.

"I've heard those words so many times, but I have to say they sound somehow not sexy when you say them," Jerome winked, walking to the back of the bus. Anthros boarded at the front, while taurs had an access ramp at the back.

"What words-... oh!" Avvy gasped, smacking him on the shoulder. "Not like THAT!"

"Well, I figured," the big bovine just sighed theatrically. "Otherwise why bother going out at all?"

"Aren't you being presumptuous?"

"About you, perhaps, but certainly not about me. Remember, I don't like you like that," he grinned, watching hir trolley's little motors struggle to haul hir up the ramp.

"You're just a fucking bouquet of romance, aren't you?" shi retorted, staring at him. "If that's not... like, your PLAN or whatever, then what is it?"

Once shi was safely inside, Jerome locked the doors and hustled around to the front of the bus, leaping into the driver's seat. "I thought that was obvious!" he called back over the empty rows separating them. "Are you comfy back there?"

"I'm fine! WHAT was obvious?!"

The bus eased out of the loading zone, honking to ensure none of the more delightfully burdened locals were in his way, and started on the long and winding road down out of the hills and into the city. "I'm not your date, dingus! I'm your wingman!"