FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Secrets. At first glance they may seem to be essential to our very survival. But give them enough time, and they will begin to separate us from the world, the people around us, and finally from ourselves. It is a paradox of sorts. That by wishing to keep a part of our selves hidden from others, we will only make it more difficult to create the essential connections so necessary to life. And then there is the fact that the more secrets that we accumulate, the harder it becomes to keep others from discovering them.

Chapter Twenty Six : Beyond the breaking point

Complete with its own indoor waterfall, and boasting no less than seventeen stone lions standing guard at the entrance, the bathhouse at the Velvet Room looked to Kato as if had been transplanted directly from the pages of the Kama Sutra. From the way the carefully constructed stone lanterns were set into the walls, to the lotus blossoms that were drifting across the surface of the water, to the very air itself, everything seemed artfully calculated to inspire forbidden love affairs. "You know what the nice thing about having fur is." Said Midnight as she watched Kato strip off all of his clothes. Flicking his tail absentmindedly, he said. "It makes clothing completely unnecessary?" "Hmmm," Said Midnight as, pouring herself something to drink, she let her gaze linger admiringly on some of the soft contours of Kato's body. The thick stripes that covered his arms and chest were especially enticing. "You were able to answer just a little too quickly in my opinion. But I think that I can forgive you, that is, if you come over here and let me pet you." Sipping the liqueur, she let its smooth warmth flow throughout her entire body before adding. "Because I've always wanted to try my hand at teaching a savage tiger like you how to play nice." Ignoring the teasing tone in Midnight's voice as he lowered himself into the water, Kato began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. And it wasn't the fact that he was essentially naked in front of a strange woman that was bothering him. If anything, it was the seemingly impossible sensation of having just washed some of the wariness from his skin. The feeling of always being on guard, of being ready to counter any kind of attack. It settled in around me, giving me an edge. And now that I've stripped myself of that armor, a part of me feels as if I'll never be able to get it back. Damn, will it always be like this? Kato's train of thought was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a small wicker boat. The inside of which contained a small shot glass, a bottle of whatever it was that Midnight was drinking, and a tiny bowl that was filled with ice. "You looked tense." Said Midnight by way of explanation. "So I thought, why not give him something to drink, and maybe he'll relax a little." She smiled coyly as she sipped her own drink. "Who knows, he might even start to have a little fun." Taking hold of the boat before it could drift away Kato said. "I know how to have fun." Raising her own empty cup in toast, the look on Midnight's face said it all. Prove it. Not one to back down from a challenge, Kato grabbed the open bottle and began to pour himself a drink. Filling his cup to the brim with a liqueur that was a shade of brown somewhere between dark chocolate and coffee that had been laced with with cream, Kato experienced a slight twinge of fear twisting in his gut as he brought the cup to his lips. Should I trust it, can I trust it? What if . . . "Its not poisonous, if that's what you're worried about." Her gold eyes alight with mischief, Midnight's words had the profound effect of bringing him back to reality. "Sorry, its just, nothing." Kato just looked at the drink he held and said. "Its nothing." Downing the muddy concoction in one long swallow, Kato began to feel an unfamiliar warmth spreading throughout his entire body. Followed by a rush of energy and a sudden urge to bury his face in Midnight's fur, the effect that it had on him was somewhat electric. "Chyaah!" Struggling to keep the entire room from attempting to turn itself sideways, he stared into his empty cup and said. "What in the seven bloody hells is in this stuff!" "Catnip, cream and a whole lot of coffee liqueur." Said Midnight as she started to purr. His reaction alone had been worth the expense. "I make it myself, like it?" "I don't know." Said Kato. "Why don't you ask me again when the room decides to stop spinning." "Mmm, that sounds to me like you've never experienced the benefits of alcohol before." "Um, ya think?" Regretting it the instant he said it, Kato was quick to realize that he was now sitting across from a beautiful woman who was at once, naked and struggling not to laugh. Blushing beneath his fur Kato said. "I'd heard from my Sensei that chimeras lacked the necessary genes to resist alcohol properly, so, in the end we always ended up drinking tea. I guess, I guess I never really imagined that it would be able to hit me so badly." "No one ever does," Said Midnight, "That's why drinking is such an acquired taste." Staring into the depths of the bottle, Kato attempted to analyze the drink in his mind by breaking it down into its three main elements. The caffeine produces a rush of energy, the high alcohol content loosens the inhibitions, and the nepetalactone in the catnip induces a pleasant state of euphoria, by the gods what an unholy drink this is. Pouring himself a second shot Kato took the time to savor the flavor of the alcohol before actually swallowing. "Hmm. The taste is very smooth, unusually sweet. But it seems to me like you've put just a little too much catnip in it. It makes the second shot taste like crap. If you wanted to market this as a drink for chimeras, I'd recommend steaming the catnip first. As a tea it would blend better with the cream, and would help to remove some of the bitter aftertaste." Midnight blinked. He's right. Steam distillation would prevent impurities in the catnip from building up inside the bottle and help to improve the overall product. "Impressive." She said. "So tell me, who teaches a straight laced chimera like you how to mix drinks?" "Not drinks." Said Kato correcting her. "Poisons. The powders of inheritance. How to detect them, how to create them. Everything from their characteristics to their aftereffects. He had me learn them all. So that if I ever encountered them, I would be able to survive." Enjoying the look of mild discomfort on Midnight's face he added. "I told you that I was dangerous." What am I saying? What am I doing? Fighting to bring his thoughts back into line, he struggled to strike a balance between being on guard and being able to relax, a task that wasn't made any easier with the massive amount of stimulants that were having a field day messing with his brain. Hormones, instincts, and way too many strange desires that I don't know what to do with. Thought Kato with a sigh. I need to learn how to drink. Pointing to the bottle Kato still held Midnight said. "You might want to go a little easier on that stuff, that is, until you're confident that you can handle it properly. It tends to go to your head a lot faster than you think it does." "It does, doesn't it?" Putting the bottle back into the wicker boat and pushing it away he said. "Midnight, I'm sorry that I've been acting like such a je--" "You're still a virgin, aren't you?" Blown away by the sheer unexpectedness of the question, Kato had wanted to shout the words. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Only to remind himself that he still had to close his mouth, He said instead. "Is something like that really that obvious?" "Not as much as you might think. Although, since both of us are chimeras, it does begin to explain why you've been so reluctant to touch me." Turning around so that he couldn't see her face, Midnight held her tail above the water and stretched. "What a fool I've been, thinking that we'd already be making love to each other by now." She seemed sad, almost forlorn. Her tone alone seemed to make it sound as if she had been the one who had done something wrong. Unwilling or unable to look away from her lithe feline form, Kato could only stare at her and say. "What?" "I said I thought we'd be making love by now. You know how it goes don't you? After we shared a romantic toast, we would sprawl out on the floor, and start off by exploring each other's bodies. Touching, holding," Midnight looked at him over her shoulder. "Tasting. Of course, we could have even skipped all of that, and simply made love to each other while still in the water." As if Midnight had just imagined doing exactly that she started to shiver almost imperceptibly. "I've heard it said that tigers are the best kind of lover you can have, if you want to do something like that." "Something like that?" Kato couldn't help but repeat the words as something deep inside of him suddenly snapped. "I told you before. I didn't come here just to have sex!" "But even so, it was still offered to you." Becoming more and more defensive, Midnight added. "And rather than simply decline such an obviously generous and tempting offer," She flicked her tail at him. "And risk being seen as rude; you, in your infinite capacity for male wisdom, decided to simply go through the motions, all the while hoping you would be able to cover up your own inexperience, and get on with the real reason that you came here for." Slipping back into the water, she crossed her arms underneath her chest. "Hardly what I would call fair, to you or to me." Sending half a dozen lotus blossoms and one small wicker boat flying across the room as he slapped the surface of the water with his hand, Kato cursed himself for being nine times a fool. Midnight's posturing had been nothing more than an elaborate trap, and just like an amateur, he had walked straight into it. "You know, it's extremely disturbing that your able to do that. Laying my soul bare as if it were no trouble to you at all. You must not get a lot of repeat business with a bad habit like that." "Touched a nerve did I? Well, you should know that my 'habit' is part of the reason why Zane decided purchasing my contract was worth it in the first place." His tail lashing back and forth, Kato growled low in his throat. "It was a stress test wasn't it." He made it a statement and not a question. "Zane likes to know how his customers will react if provoked, so he uses you to get inside their heads before he does any business with them. Smart." Midnight nodded and said. "It does keep him from getting into a great deal of trouble." Sitting back down, Kato waited for the waves to settle before he said. "So, have I passed his little test?" "Maybe," Said Midnight. "But you still haven't passed mine." Finding herself interested in him despite every instinct she had telling her to run, she began to wonder if somewhere deep inside that carefully constructed mass of contradictions and artful deceptions, there was even a real person, or just another mask. "Kato. Why did you accept Zane's offer? No one would have thought any less of you if you hadn't." "I don't know," Staring at his own reflection in the water Kato said. "Its just, all my life I've always been told by others what to do. Stand here, stand there, do this, do that. Being a bodyguard and following orders. Its all that I've ever really known." "So, when Zane told you to sample the wares, you decided to take that for an order and just went along it." "Maybe." Surprised to find that Midnight was that much closer to him than she had been a moment ago, Kato said. "I mean it would certainly make things easy for me to think so." "But its not really the truth is it? There must have been dozens, if not hundreds of times when you had to make up your own mind." Without ever making a single wave, Midnight managed to seat herself next to him. "Tell me, haven't you ever wanted to do anything, be anything, other than what others have told you to be?" Reaching out to stroke his face she was surprised when he flinched away from being touched. "What does this have to do with gaining an audience with Zane?" "Maybe nothing, maybe everything." Even without touching him Midnight could feel the fury he was struggling to contain. "Is it going to kill you to answer the question?" I don't know, Thought Kato. I haven't answered it yet. Sighing he said. "Once, I wanted to be a scientist. More than anything I wanted . . . I wanted to create things that the world had never seen before, things that would be able to make peoples lives better. Sometimes . . . I would even think to myself, I wonder how that works, or how can I make something old into something new and better. After that, it was always a matter of trying to figure things out until it worked." "And now?" She asked him. "Now I know that it was just a childish dream. That the only ones who allow themselves to indulge in such fantasies, are the ones who don't know any better." Slapping him as hard as she could Midnight shouted the words. "Don't you ever say that again! Don't you ever look down on those who would dare to dream! Dreams are the only thing we have, the only thing that they can't take away from us." Pain, sharp and sudden shook him to his very core. "And what would a prostitute such as you know of dreams?" His own anger rising in response to hers, Kato's voice became little more than an indrawn hiss. "Tell me, how could a woman whose only reason for existence is to satisfy a man's desires possibly know how I feel!" All of it happened faster than she could blink. Using his superior strength and size, Kato positioned himself on top of her, so that even if she did start to struggle, anyone watching through the security cameras would only see two people having a bit of fun. "I was forced to watch," He said, "As a woman, an innocent woman, who was chosen only because she a prostitute, was raped in front of my very eyes." "So because I'm a prostitute, you're going to rape me as well. Just so you can see how it feels?" "No!" Shouted Kato. "No you don't understand! I wanted to save her! I tried, I tried and I failed. Even though I was able to help her escape. In the end, I wasn't able to stop them." Midnight's heart skipped a beat as something cold and wet slowly slid down her face. A . . . a tear? He's . . . crying? Her eyes darting quickly around the room she understood what he had attempted to do. It wasn't to pin me at all. He's simply shielding his face from the cameras! "Every night when I close my eyes I watch as history repeats itself." Kato shivered as the darkness that surrounded him loomed ever closer. "Because in my dreams, I watch myself fail over and over and over again. And because of that, I've begun to feel as if I'll never be able to forgive myself." So that's why he's been so antagonistic towards me. Thought Midnight as she reached out to stroke his face. Not because he hates what I am, but because when all you've seen in life is the twisted side, without even knowing it, you can become twisted as well. And he's been fighting so hard against becoming like that, that its tearing his heart in two. Kato went on, oblivious to everything else. "For the last two years I've spent every day in a simulator, training endlessly to fight against an enemy I know next to nothing about. An enemy who doesn't only want me dead, they want everyone I've ever known dead." Bereft of the only family he had ever known, betrayed by the brother he never knew he had, and now lost in a world he had barely begun to understand, Kato felt as if he were desperately trying to piece together the shattered fragments of his soul, only to find that every time he turned around, he had to start all over again. "And it was all so I could become stronger, so I would be able to protect myself if it should ever happen again." "Kato . . ." Said Midnight. Reaching out to offer comfort to a child who had lost his way. "I--" "Because that's the kind of world that I live in." He said with a kind of detached finality. "A world where you wake up everyday wondering; is today the day I'm going to die?"