FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This piece of writing is based upon the story universe created by Dark Sage and is not intended to be a plot developing story whatsoever, rather, a one-off piece set in that universe.

As this story is set in that universe, it contains extremely adult themes, including but not limited to violence manifest in the form of hard vore, sexual scenes and smoking (which apparently is taboo (tabacoo?) these days).

Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, as writing isn't something that I find easy.

****

Dwight Jules lacked razzmatazz, spark, style and charisma and, furthermore, he had a problem that was completely unrelated to his criminally deprived social graces. However, although he'd never light up a room or stand centre-stage at a top-notch party, he had a gritty determination that can only be honed through a lifetime of being extremely average at pretty much everything there is to be extremely average at. Dwight was so extremely average that he actually voided the fundamental paradox of the phrase 'extremely average' and made it as comfortable as his jacket which, typically, he'd had for ten or more years and had been a birthday gift and, importantly, nobody could remember him not having.

With his handpaws in the pockets of said jacket, fingering the ragged strands of fabric that, in the jacket's early years, held items in them instead of spilling them into the jacket's lining, he walked, shoulders hunched forwards, towards his workplace.

Dwight kicked a can listlessly, the rattle it made as it skidded across the empty, wet road unsurprisingly loud to his sensitive ears - regardless of his innate hearing ability, he worked a late, late shift and the street was deserted, save a few feral cats that stalked, stiff-legged, away from him as he approach, maintaining feline arrogance even in their cautious withdrawal. He checked his watch. 00.55. That still gave him five minutes before he'd be considered late and, since his job was almost entirely self-reliant (the position hadn't existed until Dwight had invented it for the company, fooling them into believing Dwight to be an inspired go-getting type of fox for all of a week) he didn't have to rush his cigarette at all. This was good, since it was only half-way smoked and, like anyone feeding a nicotine addiction that's just slightly out of their salary's means to pay for, Dwight made sure to smoke each coffin nail down to the very filter.

Just as he leaned up against the wall next to the unremarkable door that led to his workplace a car pulled up. A wolf and a...Dwight squinted...a red panda emerged.

"Hey Jules," said the wolf, taking the red panda by the hand and leading her towards the door. "Let us in?"

"Sure," Dwight replied, getting a good look at the red panda. "Taping tonight?"

"Mm," the wolf grunted as Dwight fiddled with his keys and found the one for the door, opening it. "Thanks."

"Later."

"Mm."

Dwight returned to his cigarette. It was three-quarters done now. A red panda, how about that? They were rare enough in the city and it was especially rare for them to find themselves in such a situation as to sign the contract for this sort of work. Still, he thought, takes all sorts or, he mentally added, he didn't hope.

The next puff on the smoke had a taste of filter about it, so Dwight flicked it hard against the wall and it burst into a mildly interesting firework for a second, then fell to the ground and hissed its last. Key still in his handpaw, Dwight let himself in.

****

They were definitely taping tonight. Dwight slipped through the active throng of cameramen, make-up artists and all those other sorts involved with professional-level cinematography without causing a fuss and responding to any mutters of greeting that seemed to come his way. He accidentally stepped under a light and could actually feel the heat coming off the thing right through his fur.

"Hey, Jules! Hold there a second, would you?"

Dwight looked around. One of the cameramen was waving at him. He shrugged and turned towards the camera. "Just setting up, right? I didn't sign any contracts."

The cameraman acknowledged this weak joke with an equally weak chuckle and eventually said, "That's it, thanks man. If we can keep your rug defined, we're sorted for the night."

"Glad to help. Enjoy the job."

"I will."

Dwight tipped him a perfunctory wave and stepped out of the light, somewhat relieved. It had happened before, that, and it was always a little unsettling to be in front of those cameras, given what they were going to be watching in just a few hours. But he had been blessed with an absolutely incredible coat of fur. It was genuinely head-turning, probably the only thing about Dwight that could spark such immediate interest; it was as if everything that he lacked in personality had been transferred into his fur. Thick, full and glossy were words that certainly wouldn't be amiss when describing it but to pin down the particular hue in language would be to commit a vile crime against the actual shimmering beauty that radiated out of his fur even in the slightest of lights. If you had to though, you'd probably end up murmuring about 'reddish, russet...coppery...sort of...scarlet...' and giving up in embarrassment as Dwight's coat of fur glared at you for committing said vile crime.

As such, the cameramen liked to make use of him to set up their cameras for good colour definition.

He reached his office and opened it. Five switches needed flicking and without even looking down, Dwight flicked them all on in order - the light, the television, the VCR/DVD player, the computer and the stereo. Dwight selected a dance CD and put it on with the volume turned up quite high. He was lucky enough to have a soundproofed office, more by chance than by design or, otherwise, especially with filming going on tonight, he'd have to go without music, if you could call the synthesised, repetitive beats that he was listening to 'music'. He found that, even though he never listened to this sort of music outside of work, whenever he was doing his job, they helped him concentrate so much more.

Dwight settled into his chair, which he had brought from home. It was a high-backed swivel chair, extremely comfortable and allowed him to slide around his office space easily without ever having to get up, which explained the developing Buddha-belly he had going on. It wasn't that he was fat or even portly or, for that matter, chubby; he was just soft around the gut, the sort of softness that comes from sitting down all day but not actually eating enough to put any significant weight on.

"Let's see, then," he muttered to himself and tore open the black bin-bag that had 'Jules' written on the tag.

It contained the usual fare. A lot of videos, a few CD boxes that surely contained DVDs and a surplus of empty envelopes. The night's work was about to begin for Dwight. He lifted out all the videos and stacked them up, then the DVDs and put them in a separate pile on his desk, then pushed both piles over to the player. He lifted out the envelopes and opened up a file on his computer, counting them quickly and printing out the document a matching number of times.

Dwight picked up the document and read through it quickly in case it had magically changed since last night. Naturally it hadn't, and still read:

"Dear Sir/Madam/Otherwise,

We do not accept amateur videos due to legal reasons. Please accept our apologies. Your tape is now considered the property of our company for your protection due to the content.

Do not send us any more recordings that you make.

Yours truly,

George Sherman."

There was no George Sherman. It was just a name that Dwight had made up on the spot. For the same legal reasons that the company didn't 'accept' amateur videos, they didn't make very good use of their actual names. George's letter went into each and every one of the envelopes that Dwight had and, sealing them with sellotape, he took his stamp and went about stamping all of them with "Please return to sender". This done, he put them to the side. That was the niggling little detail at the start of the night's work. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, his real work began.

****

When he had come to the company, he had been dismissed as paranoid and scolded for contacting the studio in the first place, let alone following his request for information up with a personal visit. It wasn't supposed to be a known entity and that Dwight had found out the address without any specialist equipment whatsoever was of concern to them. He had pointed out a few simple details that they had overlooked and significantly tightened up their security with the thoroughness of the truly unimaginative. That's when Dwight became their problem. He knew exactly who they were, what they did and where they were. He knew a lot.

Negotiations occurred, Dwight's apparently inspired idea about the amateur videos had come up and his name was swiftly added to the payroll.

So it was that Dwight Jules, holder of a 2.2 Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies, working full-time in a local bank's phone-based complaints centre and occasional binge-drinker, became employed as the reviewer of snuff videos recorded by amateur psychopaths, freak-shows and hoax-attempters.

He was the perfect fox for the job.

So they thought.

****

Dwight grinned at the screen. A mouse was being 'slaughtered' by a 'mad butcher' cat. He may have flunked his final exams at University, but his knowledge of filming techniques and special effects were unquestionable. It may have been enough to fool (or possibly repulse and terrify) the casual observer but Dwight had no problems in spotting that the lumps of flesh apparently falling from the mouse's still living body were supermarket bought steaks. The blood appeared to be a mix of milk and some kind of red dye, lending it a solidity that would have convinced, except that, rather than flowing from wounds, it kind of just dripped.

He had seen enough. Dwight hit 'eject', lifted the video cassette out of the machine and slowly ran a magnet over it, then tossed it into his oversized bin.

Next tape. This one was even worse. Dwight wondered if they even knew what the company did. Had they even seen a production recorded at the studio? If they had, he wagered, they certainly wouldn't have wasted their time sending a blurry, embarrassingly trite twenty-minute recording of overly-gothic vampirism.

Magnet. Bin.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

Next tape. This one was a little bit more convincing. Dwight watched carefully. This was all apparently genuine, but it was a pretext to the action. He sighed and slumped back as, when the conversation ended, the promise of a real show was ended when a papier-mâché head that, he had to admit, was extremely well made, was crushed in a vice, leaking what appeared to be strawberry jam. In fact, it was. Dwight flicked a few buttons around and zoomed in. Yes. It was definitely jam, because he could see the seeds and everything. This tape was almost worth keeping for the comedy value.

Almost.

Magnet. Bin.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

Coffee.

****

Recording was in progress, so Dwight had to take the long route to the coffee machine, where a cup of brown muck with all the likeness to coffee as Dwight's diet had to healthy would be his. He questioned the caffeine content of these plastic atrocities but, nevertheless, accepted that on some mental level, a cup of hot brown and water would perk him up a little. Also, a cigarette.

It wasn't every night that he had tapes to go through. Often, his nights were dedicated to going through recordings made at the studio with a fine-tooth comb and sending them back down to editing with a list of suggestions and pointers for the final version. On other nights, he just had to file paperwork. When he got a bag of videos, he was in his element, especially given his motivation for joining the company in the first place.

"Yo."

"Hey."

A technician had also slipped out for a smoke.

"How's things?"

"Fine, sure. You?"

"Yeah, same. Nothing much happening."

"Be busy later, though?"

"You know it. This is what the boss calls a 'speciality' sort of deal," said the tech. "Bet you'll have your work cut out with this tape. It's looking feature length and all."

Dwight nodded. "Bet your fur. I saw the client."

"Real classic, don't you think? I'd take her home."

"Haw, not that it's an issue."

"No," said the tech, flicking his cigarette away. "Well, going to get the live show. You want?"

"Too busy," said Dwight. He had very little interest in watching the action live anyway. He preferred watching through a screen.

"Suit yourself," said the tech and went back inside.

Dwight took a good, deep drag of his smoke, enjoying the subtle heaviness in his chest and exhaling slowly. He felt a little stabbing pain under his ribs. That's where I'll get it, he thought. That's where I'm going to get cancer. This thought didn't stop him from finishing his cigarette, though and, holding his coffee, he made his way back to his office.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

****

Even in his soundproof room, Dwight heard the screaming. He reached around and grabbed his headphones, turning the stereo up and plugging them in. Drowning his ears in a world of stereophonic sound, he put the next tape in.

Oh. Well, this was already different, he thought. The quality of the recording was crystal clear, depicting a fairly normal looking apartment. Dwight recognised it by proxy; it was very like his own apartment. Non-descript, functional, well-used and slightly-loved.

The camera must have been in a corner, because it was showing most of the room and the door. The door opened. A little arctic fox walked in, a vixen. She was teenaged, or so Dwight guessed. His interest was further piqued when another figure stepped into the room; it was a foxtaur, in the full of health and well built. He was wearing one of those throw-over deals that the tauren types generally work, not being built for wearing clothes at the best of times.

He turned his attention back to the vixen as the foxtaur vanished off camera, probably hanging up his basic clothing somewhere. She looked a little bit scrawny. A little bit grubby around the maw, too. That suggested homelessness, especially with the obsessive attention that arctic foxes give to their coats, and Dwight lifted himself out of his normal apathy. This video could be the real deal.

The foxtaur reappeared and pointed off camera again. The little vixen visibly perked up and nodded enthusiastically. He grinned and put his arm around her shoulders, leading her off camera. An extremely unprofessional cut occurred at this point and Dwight was suddenly treated to a view of the little vixen in the shower, rubbing her fur down flat. When she stretched her arms above her head, he could just make out her ribs. Realistically speaking, a pity case like her on the streets would make fairly decent money from begging, if indeed that's where the foxtaur had picked her up from. Dwight tutted at himself for allowing himself to make character judgements so quickly, but then, it was fun to make certain assumptions when your entire night was going to be spent watching these videos.

She soaped herself up and clearly enjoyed the opportunity to clean herself up, lifting her tail and washing her buttocks in a way that allowed a fantastic view of her little pink slit and almost ridiculously small tailhole - a real petite specimen, this one. She spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that her tail was spotless and, even when she'd finished rinsing herself off; she took her sweet time getting out of the shower.

That jarringly awful cut happened again and the scene returned to the living room. The vixen was wrapped in a dressing gown that looked several sizes too big for her and was eating a bowl of what appeared to be soup. Well, thought Dwight, it's soup, ice-cream and cereal generally don't steam like that. She was really throwing it down her throat and eventually even abandoned the spoon, just drinking straight from the bowl. She licked her chops and turned around, saying something to, Dwight assumed, the foxtaur, who hadn't appeared on screen. He was somewhat annoyed at the lack of sound.

The foxtaur reappeared then, handing the vixen a plate of food. Only half his body appeared in the frame, but he turned and his long tail brushed over the vixen's head. She appeared to giggle and then got down to the serious business of scoffing the food that had been provided. Then, just as Dwight was starting to lose interest, the foxtaur reappeared behind her and, before she could even look around (not that she would have, so intent on the meal as she was) he swung the frying pan he was holding and struck her hard on the back of the head with it. Dwight could almost imagine the cartoonish "Kloiiiinnnngggg" sound it would have made.

She started to fall forwards, but the foxtaur simply gripped the vixen under the arms and lifted her bodily, depositing her onto his back so that she looked as if she'd been riding him and had fallen asleep, turned, and left the screen again.

Another awful cut, but the sound started then and Dwight hurriedly pulled one of the double-jacks of his headphones out of the one currently supplying him with the dance music, just leaving the sound of the video. He turned the stereo off and leaned forwards, concentrating on this video.

The scene must have been the foxtaur's bedroom. Oddly enough, there was a bed. That wasn't very 'foxtaur', but the point soon became clear to Dwight. He'd been working for the company long enough to get the picture as it was shaping up. An oversized beanbag contraption in the corner must serve the foxtaur for his actual sleeping needs but the bed was there for show. The sheets were brand new and Dwight could guess that they wouldn't be in the foxtaur's possession for too long.

Ah, action! The foxtaur, still carrying the little vixen, came into frame and dumped her onto the bed. She bounced limply, still unconscious. Dwight's expert eye finally registered a notable fact to his brain and he scanned the scene, noticing that there were actually several cameras set up around the room. He guessed that, from the time-lapse, that they were the ones that had been in the bathroom and the living room before he'd knocked the vixen out cold. She had also been stripped and looked like a little drunken angel from the way she was sprawled out across his bed; legs wide open in a most unladylike manner, exposing her sex for the second time of the night.

Obviously unfamiliar with the concept of foreplay, the foxtaur hopped up onto the bed, his forepaws at the vixen's shoulders and his hind legs still on the ground, the little vixen all but vanishing underneath his long tauren body. His big tail swished from side to side as he rubbed his belly along her body. Her white tail could still be seen off to the side of his body. Bad angle, thought Dwight, and wondered if the foxtaur had thought to include the other recordings of this scene in the video. He hoped so, because he was obscuring most of the vixen right now, but the other cameras were in delightful positions.

As obviously as the foxtaur had ignored foreplay, he didn't wait on ceremony, and a thrust of his hips, combined with a shaking of the vixen's tail suggested that he was in her now. Assorting grunts and groans of pleasure came from the foxtaur as he subjected the unconscious vixen to a vicious reaming that she should be glad to have missed. Dwight turned from the screen a moment and retrieved his coffee. When he turned back, he was surprised to see the foxtaur dismounting the vixen. Her slit was now opened and a little stain of blood could be seen between her legs, accented by her white fur. The foxtaur briefly broke the fourth wall, checking where the cameras were and, still sporting a fairly massive erection, moved around to the side of the bed where there were no cameras. He was in full view, side-on, of the main camera and, by Dwight's calculations, would be in pretty good angles from the others. The vixen was still completely out of it, still sprawled face-up on the mattress.

No, wait, she wasn't. Dwight watched as she stirred slightly, one of her handpaws going down to her crotch and pressing into it. He smiled. That was a precious bit of recording right there. So far, he'd not detected anything at all spurious about this particular tape and if things carried on the way they were, all for the better. He'd be sorely disappointed if this suddenly turned out to be an elaborately made hoax tape.

The foxtaur had taken to licking the vixen, his long tongue curling around her muzzle, tickling her ears and running down her throat while she continued in her parody of masturbation. She must have been reacting to the pain in her crotch more than anything else, because she was showing no signs of actually waking up, even with the foxtaur's tongue now flicking over her nipples. Her hand fell away from her crotch, lying on the back of her thigh and for the first time Dwight heard her utter a little groan. It was a waking-up sort of sound, but one that didn't promise that she was about to get up and go anytime soon.

Dwight took a sip of his coffee, surprised to realise that it had gone lukewarm. This video must have gone on longer than he expected. The foxtaur was now down at her belly and Dwight felt the little flutter of excitement that a genuine amateur tape always gave him.

The foxtaur had chosen an excellent angle. The vixen was in full view and he wasn't obscuring any part of her body. With her legs splayed and her sex on full display to the camera, he had clearly thought this through (or done it before, thought Dwight, with a little churn of distaste running through his stomach). The lighting was good; the cameras were all set up in opportune positions and must have been pretty expensive, given the quality of the picture. The sound, although there wasn't much of it, was clear, with minimal fuzz. Background static; that was all.

He licked at her belly a little longer and then, curling his lips back to expose his long, sharp teeth, the foxtaur opened his jaws so that they slid along the vixen's flat belly and then bit down slowly, pulling a roll of fur and skin into his mouth, his teeth pushing into her flesh, his sedate pace giving it all a sense of elegance. She was still too out of it to do anything, but Dwight saw her trying to lift her head to see what was happening. The foxtaur placed his handpaws firmly on the vixen; one between her breasts and one on her crotch and, turning his head so that the roll of flesh in his teeth twisted a little, he pulled back. The soundlessness of the room was replaced by the vixen's hoarse, throaty scream and, even through it, the gristly sound of the vixen's muscles separating from her internal organs. The foxtaur pressed down, holding the ever-tightening skin between his teeth and, striking that dramatic pose of 'I could still let her go' for a moment, the tent of flesh straining the foxtaur's neck and shaking a little and then he pulled back, the skin tearing open, the vixen trying to thrash but the foxtaur's weight and strength holding her down, blood welling up and almost instantly flowing from the expanding rip along the vixen's belly until, finally, the foxtaur jerked his head back and tore the whole mess off, ending with the stricken vixen staring down in absolute horror at her bloody guts and the foxtaur grinning through the equally bloody flap of skin and muscle and fur hanging from his teeth.

And it was 100%.

The foxtaur rolled up the meat hanging from his jaws into his mouth and chewed the way foxes do, seeming to applaud with their mouths, a noisy, messy style of eating. The camera picked it all up, but Dwight was more fixated on the pulsing, glistening mess of the vixen's belly. All of her organs were perfectly intact; the foxtaur had removed her abdominal wall with the skill of a surgeon.

The vixen wasn't even attempting to scream. She was wide-eyed and clearly shocked beyond pain by what she was seeing. The foxtaur though, well, he moved quickly and lifted her by her arms and legs, balancing her so that nothing in her belly actually moved, everything staying inside her. He carefully lay back against the bed, so that his legs were up in the air and his whole torso was lost to the camera that Dwight was watching from, giving the impression of an oversized feral fox lying down to get a belly rub. For the vixen though, a dreadful sort of fate had been plotted by the foxtaur. He set her down on his belly, still face-up and, working her carefully, very, very carefully, he found her tailhole with his cock and, with the lack of ceremony that was becoming a characteristic in this one's penetrations, he took her, stretching the vixen obscenely around his girth in full view of the camera. He started to thrust hard into her rear and, as he did so, the vixen's guts started to get shaken right out of her body, ropes of intestines falling out of her and across the foxtaur's flanks. Her arms were held up high, fists clenched. Dwight couldn't even begin to imagine the pain she was in. Not knowing where to look - her bleeding, torn tailhole getting ruthlessly fucked by the foxtaur or the continued loss of her guts across her soon-to-be killer's long tauren belly, Dwight shook his head incredulously.

The foxtaur's hind legs crossed over and, with a few more brutal thrusts, he appeared to come, holding himself hilted within the vixen before finally pulling out, a long trail of bloody semen hanging on to the end of his cock from her ass and, before it could even break, he drove himself back up into her cunny. He was far too big for her and Dwight quirked an eyebrow as he thought he saw...no...wait...definitely saw her whole womb jump inside her body. The foxtaur's upper body reappeared as he reached down into the gaping wound that was the vixen's whole belly and gripped her womb, squeezing it, working his paw in perfect synchronisation with his cock, wringing it around his shaft as he pushed up far past her cervix, mashing the walls of her sex against his length in a bizarre masturbation. She screamed again and again and it was all that could be heard until he let out a high pitched yelp and, with the virility of a foxtaur, he came again, his large balls visibly contracting and, even in the very height of his second quick-fire orgasm, he tore the vixen's womb from around his cock, so that the bloody tapered tip was poking up from inside her, spurting semen freely. He squeezed the womb and threw it into his mouth, laying back and chewing as noisily as before.

"Fucking hell," muttered Dwight and rightly so. Finally pulling the vixen off of his belly, the foxtaur forced her to her knees, facing the camera, and wrapped his arms around her, one handpaw going back inside her eviscerated belly, where only a few organs hung. Blood had stained the whole of her legs and most of her chest and her head hung limply. Her chest heaved; her breathing heavy.

Opening his large jaws wide, the foxtaur placed them around the vixen's skull. She flinched weakly. Dwight frowned and listened closely. Sure enough, the sound of bone scraping on bone came to his ears as the foxtaur started to bite down. Dwight knew that his own jaws were easily strong enough to snap the average neck and that a foxtaur had a lot more bite power. The vixen's hands flew up to her head as it was squeezed by the foxtaur's jaws, trying to find his muzzle and pull him off of her, the survival instinct kicking in even now. It was too late though and, with a crack that sounded like a damp gunshot, her head suddenly changed shape, one eye bulging horribly from its socket and her whole face slanting off to one side, jaws dislocating and, the more the foxtaur bit down, the worse the distortion got until a fragmented plate of skull performed the bodily equivalent of tectonic movement and split through her skin, her head bursting. The foxtaur ripped the top half of her skull off and made a show of lapping the vixen's brains out of what was left of her head, his long tongue swirling around the mushy meat, nipping little delicate chunks of it into his mouth. Her remaining good eye stared blankly out at nothing at all.

Finally, he seemed to grow weary of this and he gripped her tail, lifting her up and dropping her in a swift movement, so that she landed face-down, head away from the camera. There was, of course, blood all over her thighs and the sheets but from his angle, the vixen was still mostly intact. Or she was, until the foxtaur descended upon her rump, teeth slicing through the tender flesh and ripping chunks off, leaving deep craters in the smooth curve of the vixen's rear, swallowing them with minimal chewing until her hipbones were showing through the ragged flesh. He turned his attention to her legs, tearing strips off the insides of them until, again, he reached bone. Then, one by one, he ate her fingers, crunching them merrily. Apparently though, he was getting excited again and, taking a moment to work out what he could still use, the foxtaur set about relieving himself by perching himself on top of her, facing downwards and chewing on her calf whilst he thrust in between the vixen's untouched breasts. When he came this time, he shot semen right into where her guts had once been seated and wasted no time in ripping the soft meat of her breasts off of her carcass which was, by now, barely recognisable.

The foxtaur took the vixen's arm and lifted her up, turning through a full three hundred and sixty degrees, showing her off from every conceivable angle and, as a finale; he tugged her tail a bit before tearing it right off at the base, the sound somewhere between a pop and a rip.

The scene cut and Dwight was surprised to see the vixen suddenly intact again. He realised then that, yes, the other cameras had been rolling and the foxtaur had indeed included the reels that they had taken. Excellent.

Dwight took the tape out and scribbled a note on it, which read, "Top quality. I can edit later if you like. You might want to look into this guy? D.J."

He put it in an envelope that he would drop off in the boss's 'IN' tray when he was leaving for the night. That was an absolute gem he had just found and could expect a major bonus in his next pay packet. The company could use these tapes sent in without much worry because they had covered their tracks in terms of legality but the individuals sending them in couldn't exactly complain about copyright, lest they end up in a court of law with irrefutable video evidence against them.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

Next tape.

Magnet. Bin.

****

Dwight locked the door of his office, left the tape in the boss's 'IN' tray and nodded to the cleaning crew that were working on preparing the main staging area for the next performance and recording. They always had to make sure that, as the boss usually said, 'not a trace remained'. Tough job, he thought.

He yawned. It was nearly 9am now. He could use some sleep. He put his handpaws in the pockets of his jacket and started his walk down the waking street, surrounded by suits and briefcases. He had been one of them not too long ago. Now he just spent his days sleeping and his nights endlessly searching for that one videotape that could give him the ending that he needed before he took on a new job.

Briefly stopping and squinting into the sun, he turned and bought a newspaper and a cup of coffee, this time tasting fresh, good and strong, just enough to get him home.

It would probably be a couple of nights before another bag of amateur videotapes landed in his office. He'd spend those nights editing the tape he'd starred and left for the boss to proof-watch, if it passed muster. Or maybe he'd end up sorting out a few technicalities on the recording that the studio had done. Dwight had very little interest in those jobs, but he did them well enough to be kept on. Reviewing the amateur tapes was all he was in the business for.

His father searched through newspaper articles for her. His mother drove from town to town at weekends, sometimes covering up to a thousand miles in a couple of days, checking bus terminals, airport booking records, motel guest books and interrogating youth hostel staff to try and find her. They thought Dwight didn't care. Dwight didn't mind. Dwight never minded.

He would just keep looking for his sister in his own way until someone found her. He deeply hoped that it wouldn't be him. When he had come across the unsigned and almost completely anonymous contract in her empty bedroom, he had folded it neatly up and slipped it into his pocket, done his own sleuthing, approached them. That it was unsigned, they said, that meant that she hadn't agreed, that they never took the unwilling. Besides, they'd said, his family was still struggling to get by, more so now that they were so lost in their searching. That proved it.

To Dwight, it only proved that she hadn't come through the official channels. In the first few weeks he had worked in the studio, he had gone through thousands of tapes that nobody had ever bothered to look at. He had worked until it hurt to blink and sleeping had brought terrible nightmares where he'd see himself in the tapes as the aggressor and his sister as his victim, replaying whatever scenes he'd seen on the tapes that day. Now though, he rarely had that problem. What had, at first, sent a rush of bile up his throat until he was gagging now just had him raise an eyebrow and look for a bonus. His great worry back then had been actually coming across her in a video. He wouldn't have been able to deal with it.

Dwight finished off his coffee and tossed the paper cup into a bin he was passing and lit a cigarette. When he woke up, he'd phone his parents and, without his asking, they'd tell him of any progress they'd made in their searching. He called once a week to share news, not that he ever shared any with them. If he found her, he'd tell them. If not, he'd keep looking. He'd go back to work over and over and over again.