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Open House: A Pink and Blue Diaperfur Identity Adventure!

Level One

kitncub

[[email protected]](%5C)

August 2010

Author's Note: This is an 18+ diaperfur story, and will involve furs in diapers who are not (chronologically) babies, and furs in dresses who are not (biologically) girls, doing things that may be of a sexual nature. It is part of the Pink and Blue series, which includes a lot of characters, so if you have not read any prior stories in the series, this is probably not the place to start!

We are now in Season Two!

If you are new, check out earlier entries in the series, split in two folders:

[Season One (Rian and Serafina)](%5C)

[Season Two (Baby Blue Boys)](%5C)

If you have been reading... welcome aboard for Part One of the finale saga! There'll be a number of plot twists along the way, so I hope you'll be surprised at least once. A warning: The final saga, although in the same spirit as the others in the Pink and Blue series, will touch on more serious (and at times darker) themes in parts. The characters' outside lives will begin, not to take over, but to matter some, especially in understanding their motivations.

Recruit characters in this story include many cameos. Thanks, everyfur, for your support and letting me use yours! Hope you enjoy the results!

Next installment coming: next week, same place!

Disabling ratings only because this one's not for newbies; if you're reading, it's because you've liked the rest of the series. Comments and all other forms of feedback, however, always welcome: Whether right here on the submission page, on the [user page](%5C), via PM, or via e-mail [[email protected]](%5C)

And now. . . .

Welcome to:

Open House

A Pink and Blue Diaperfur Identity Adventure!

Play through four levels as one of four Baby Blue heroes! Discover each character's hidden abilities. You will need them all to succeed in the final battle against your sissy opponents! Beware of NPC wild cards! Some will help and some will hinder you. Beware! Not everyone is what he or she first appears. Your ultimate goal is to help our heroes discover who they are -- and figure out what's important to them.

--> Level One: Playing!

Level Two: Scheming!

Level Three: Standing!

Level Four: The Message!

Character/Story Recap:

The Baby Blue boys:

Playable characters:

Roger: This good-hearted Labrador retriever is daddy to the Baby Blue boys and leader and founder of the group, in close consultation with his lupine sidekick, Rian. Roger specializes in water-based weapons and is a comics buff who owns a local comics and hobby store. His sister and neighbor, Calliope, is leader of the rival Pink Faction of sissy diaperfurs and headmistress of the feminizing Academy for Special Boys! Concerned by rumors of extreme discipline and aggressive recruiting by his sister and her chief aide, the protective sissy Newfoundland Cassandra, at their academy, Roger has been running around for weeks organizing . . . something! Roger's favorite fictional character: Bruce Wayne (Batman). Secrets: Roger is working on something big-and has been since he and Rian took a mysterious trip over spring break.

Rian: Roger's charming, extroverted, and goofy lupine sidekick, once shy and retiring, has come into his own as second-in-command of the boys' team and Baby Blue's social organizer. He also dates, and is deeply in love with, a high-ranking sissy team member, the princess fox Serafina, who recently landed a starring role in a city Shakespeare festival production. Rian loves his diapers and has gleefully gone 24/7! He turned his party into a surprise for his incontinent best friend, Dex, presenting the raccoon to the supportive boys assembled as a recreational wearer and his role model. Rian's favorite fictional character: Ben Tennyson (Ben Ten). Secrets: The goofy wolf harbors serious feelings about his family history that his best friend Dex and daddy Roger are the only team members privy to.

Twitchy : The nervous, goggle-wearing genius bunny, together with his companion, the pocket-sized mouse and gadget engineer, Squeak , makes up the Baby Blue tech team at Hideout #4. A little brother playmate to Rian, he is also a big brother playmate and boyfriend to the regression-prone Dex, who he has been dating since the raccoon rescued him from captivity by unscrupulous circus workers. Twitchy's favorite fictional character: Nate River, boy detective genius (Death Note). Secrets: The bunny knows that Dex, who is dating him, nurses a secret crush on Rian. For unclear reasons, he insists that he and Dex keep their relationship secret outside Baby Blue and avoid engaging in hanky panky until both are "ready."

Dex: This sensitive raccoon martial artist, Baby Blue's third-in-command and combat specialist, isn't in diapers by choice. Dex, a regional martial arts champion in high school, was left incontinent by a crippling tournament injury, and trained himself to regress to manage his anger. Roger and Rian found the depressed coon working in a coffee shop and offered him acceptance and a new lease on life. He's been dating Twitchy, one of his big brother playmates, since he rescued the bunny when Twitch ran afoul of criminal circus workers. Dex's favorite fictional character: Kenshin Himura (Rurouni Kenshin). Secrets: Dex feels more than gratitude toward his accepting best friend Rian, and regrets not speaking up about it before Rian began dating. Despite that, he helped Rian get his relationship with Serafina on solid ground by covering for him with the other boys when they began dating. Another secret: Dex, unbeknownst to the team, didn't rescue Twitchy alone; he was helped by the boys' bitter rival, the Pink Team's crack panda agent and disciplinarian Lin Lin, who also confided a personal secret in him. Out of respect for the panda, Dex went along with her cover story about being dragged along as a captive afterward.

NPC Allies:

Ex-Boy Scouts Jax , a sensitive tracking hound, and Ace , a tough trailblazing lynx,are high-ranking members of Dex's strike team and leaders of Baby Blue's wilderness patrol. They are also a couple. Pay attention to the Scouts! They can be relied on to keep you moving in the right direction as you progress through levels. Jax's favorite literary figure: Henry David Thoreau.

Other reliable allies include Kyle the Dalmatian, who assists Twitchy and can provide rations to restore your stamina, and Byron the malamute, your team's aquatic agent, who provides access to marine environments and can transport you across the river into enemy territory.

It is time to select your PC for Level One . . . .

You may choose from:

--> Rian

Twitchy

Dex

Roger

You have selected: Rian.

Good luck, wolfy! Happy howling!

Now . . . let's play!

Level One: Playing! (Rian)

4 episodes:

Episode 1: Prospects!

Episode 2: Unto the Beach!

Episode 3: Bonding!

Episode 4: Date Night!

Episode 1: Prospects!

When the vacationing cross fox Swifty lifted a tiara from the thrift store shelf, he found himself staring directly into the face of a short gray wolf on the other side, holding a finger up to his muzzle.

"Shhhhhhhh!" the wolf hushed, jerking his head over his shoulder, then whispered, "Do you know what they're talking about?"

A few yards away, amid the racks of dresses, the fox's equine caretaker was chatting with the wolf's date, a tall, bony sissy fox wearing a light blue satin dress with shoulder straps and a bow looped around one of her ears.

Swifty fidgeted and eyed the wolf nervously. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," the fox whispered back. "Speshly in a strange place."

"My name is Rian!" the wolf answered, flipping the brim of the blue baseball cap he was wearing up experimentally, adding, with a grin, "Now I'm not a stranger!"

The cross fox glanced back toward the dresses; Serry was holding up a particularly frilly, particularly small, short-skirted floral dress on a hanger and smiling as she gestured in Swifty's general direction with a free paw.

Swifty rubbed a brown-furred paw idly along the brown racing stripe that ran down his forehead across the bridge of his nose. "I dunno for sure," he answered with some hesitation, "but I think they're talking about making me pretty."

"Do you want to be pretty?" Rian asked, then added, sticking his tongue out, "It's kind of for girls. You could be handsome instead. I have a whole file on you, Swifty. I don't think you're really girly."

"I like playing dress up," the fox protested, his bushy tail twitching, emitting a slight crinkle.

"Girls are not the only ones who get to play dress up," the wolf said indignantly, and stood on his tiptoes to offer something, held in both paws, across the shelves. "There's a note inside this," the wolf urged, shaking a bright red firefighter's hat at the fox, and adding, "And I think it would look good on you."

**************************

"I've got it!" the giraffe called out and turned to give chase to the basketball skidding off the asphalt court. Just as he did, a raccoon in a yellow karate uniform blocked the careering ball with one foot and kicked it up into his arms. The impact sent the giraffe, suddenly confused and bashful at seeing the strange fur in his path, staggering backwards.

"Whoa!" the coon remarked, whirling to stand closer to him, catching him by the arm, and frowning. "Careful! You scare easy for such a big guy. I'm Dex."

The giraffe's mouth twisted into an unsure half-grin. "Sorry," he said uneasily, tucking the basketball under his arm, then added after a moment, "Steven. Umm, thank you . . . I, umm, should be getting back to the game. My friends will get antsy."

"Sure, sure, you have a fan club even," the raccoon remarked, and leaned in, then stood on his tiptoes, to whisper up into the giraffe's ear - well, as close to it as he could get, really more into his cheek, as he jerked his head back in the direction of the basketball court, where a small crowd had gathered on the sidelines. "Hey," he said, "look at the audience. What do you think that panda in the purple is talking to your Dalmatian friend about? And the lion? The three of them keep looking at you and whispering whenever you're out playing."

Steven stole an anxious glance over his shoulder at the court. "Ooh, I dunno," he said, momentarily puffing himself up. "Maybe she's trying to get my name because she likes tall guys?"

Dex raised an eyebrow and looked up at the giraffe. "Trust me," he said, shaking his head, "That's not it."

Steven frowned, chewing on his lip, and mused, "I'm sure if it's about me my friends will tell me all about it."

Dex clapped a paw on the giraffe's shoulder - well, as close to it as he could get, really more like his upper arm. "Let's hope so," the raccoon said gently, "right? What are you doing for lunch after this? It looks like everyone else is unpacking stuff for a barbecue. Hamburgers and hot dogs."

"Yeah," the giraffe said, "I brought mine, I really prefer to eat roots and things. I might get some looks, but . . ."

The vegetarian raccoon squeezed the giraffe's arm and smiled up at him, cutting him off, before he released the tall, spindly fur and pointed him back to the asphalt, and adding, "Not from me."

**************************

A Doberman in a baseball cap turned the toy set over in his paws to see the price. He sighed wistfully and put it back, looking up at the wall of wonders in front of him - an entire row of LEGO trucks, some with remote controls, robotic components, and motors.

"You look a little big to be playing with LEGOs," said a voice behind him, and the Doberman turned to see a white rabbit wearing cargo pants and a black tee-shirt, with a pair of safety goggles hanging loosely by their strap around his wrist, leaning on a stack of movie-themed playset boxes.

The tough dog opened his muzzle to start to say something, then, unsure of himself, closed it again.

"That's okay," Twitchy added, lowering his voice, "so am I! But I would have pegged you as a Power Wheels guy."

The canine mechanic answered, after a moment, "The problem with Power Wheels is..."

Twitchy cut in, half-jokingly, "They're not very roomy."

The two then said at the same time, "And their chargers are junk!"

"They're also kind of slow," Twitchy pointed out.

The dog looked around to make sure no one was watching, took a long breath, then answered, lowering his voice to a whisper and blushing a bit, "Well-you're not supposed to, but if you modify the batteries-the right models can go 12 or 15 miles an hour."

"I didn't know that!" Twitchy said. His eyes twinkled, and his foot began tapping. "Say, you might be the right fur to help me with something."

Across the toy store, a jackal-skunk cross was sitting cross-legged in front of a demo Easy-Bake oven. The black-and-gray big-eared fur was still swollen with pride because of how much the Newfoundland he'd run into outside the store had liked his knitting. She asked if his friends knew he was domestically gifted. She said it made him special. Was he?

Taking a quick look around, as though afraid someone he knew might be watching, he reached out and touched the Easy-Bake oven with one paw-and started, wetting the diaper he was wearing beneath his clothes on the spot, as a loud "Squeak!" rang into his large erect ears like an alarm bell.

He looked down to see a pocket-sized mouse wearing overalls, scampering up onto the top of the device, pointing at him, gesturing frantically, and then pointing up across the stack of Easy-Bake oven boxes.

"Oh, there mine is," said a Dalmatian as he rested his elbows on top of the stacked-up boxes and looked down over the demo model at the confused and trembling jackal hybrid. "Good get, Squeak. Are you Azzie?"

"I know someone who wants one!" the canid blurted out. "A little girl in the house I'm billeting in! Whose birthday is coming up soon! That's the only reason I'm here!"

"Well," the Dalmatian said, eying the device critically, "she won't be able to make very much, with that!" He extended a paw across the box of ovens, and continued, "I bet I can give you some better ideas. And I think you might be able to help me with something."

Across town in the thrift store, the cross fox looked furtively up from the crumpled, ransom-note paste-up style message in his paw back at the anxious wolf, still poised on his tiptoes on the side of the store shelves, just as his caretaker called out, "Swifty! Where have you run off to now?"

At a picnic table at a town park, Dex waved and teasingly saluted the familiar panda he felt glaring at him from across the pavement as he sat down, seiza- style on one side of a picnic table and the giraffe, still covered with sweat after his team's victory, sat down across from him.

In four different places, the cross fox, giraffe, Doberman, and jackal hybrid tilted their heads curiously and asked the same question - "Help you with what?"

In four different places, Rian, Dex, Twitchy, and Kyle offered the same answer - "Sending a message!"

On top of a stack of Easy-Bake oven boxes, "Squeak!" added the mouse, clapping his paws.

*****************************

"Come in!" the black Labrador called, his tail wagging. "Give me name, diaper preferences, and special skills!"

"This is Jason," said Jax, leading a nervous hedgehog wearing a sports tee-shirt and with a pair of large, bulky headphone around his neck. "Medium Attends. Usually with one baby diaper as a stuffer, a Pampers Cruiser-because those are the ones he'd really want if they were in adult size. Is that right?" He paused to look at the hedgehog, who nodded, looking at his feet, then Jax continued, "He wants to be a helicopter pilot, favorite game is mini golf, favorite place to be is on an empty beach, and he admires the photography of Ansel Adams."

"This is Kit Raccoon," said Jax's partner Ace, yanking a raccoon in a sports tee-shirt and a baggy pair of shorts into the tent by one paw, and adding, "Uh, Bambinos, I think." The raccoon leaned over his shoulder and whispered something into Ace's ear. The lynx, rolling his eyes, added, "The ones labeled 'Baby.' Always. Which is kind of stupid," Ace said through clenched teeth, looking at the raccoon out of the corner of his eyes until he blushed. Then the lynx relaxed and added, "But best skill answer so far today: he . . . has a car."

Roger sat cross-legged in the center of the large tent that had been designated a mobile command center, although it was in fact set up for the moment within reach of an extension cord from Hideout #1, a large changing and supply shed in the wooded area behind his comic book shop, which, unbeknownst even to many in the group, contained a hidden trap door with a tunnel leading to an underground conference room. That conference room was in fact underneath and part of his shop-but there was no entrance to it from inside the building. He clicked off two of the names on his list, and typed in the diaper-related information, eying the resulting totals at the bottom column of his spreadsheet thoughtfully.

Roger was no ordinary Labrador retriever with a diaper fetish and a retail business. He was also, in close consultation with his lupine sidekick and second-in-command Rian, the leader of Baby Blue, a fraternity of AB/DL boys dedicated to having adventures and creating safe spaces where the city's age-players could engage in all forms of boyish play. Roger had created Baby Blue to counter the machinations of his rival, sister, and neighbor Calliope, the headmistress of Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys - where the enemy pink faction plotted the sissification of the city's male age-players.

And Roger, concerned by rumors and messages his boys had intercepted about the Academy's upcoming Open House and his sister's increasingly aggressive recruiting, had declared a state of emergency.

The dog took a moment to scan the streaming updates from his other agents, and nodded approvingly. Throughout town recruits were being contacted, tested, and, if they passed muster with a high-ranking BB member, brought to him for evaluation and assignment.

"We're running ahead of schedule," he observed with satisfaction. "And no response yet. Callie definitely wasn't expecting us to snatch her recruiting list! I want everyone to be rested and alert when we go into all paws on deck operation mode, so if we keep up this pace for a little longer I'm going to call a break for the rest of the day."

Then he hopped to his feet and lowered the hood on his pale blue hoodie. "Welcome to the final round, tyros," Roger said, "Please consider your first few days of exercises pants-optional. Team members need to get used to paying attention to one another's diaper status." The hedgehog fidgeted, but by the time Roger finished speaking, the raccoon's pants had already hit the floor. "Did you bring them the long way?" Roger asked, and Ace and Jax, the two ex-Boy Scouts who led Baby Blue's wilderness patrols, nodded.

"Then first thing's first!" The leader of the group padded across the ground, kicking aside the raccoon's pants as he extended his arms to draw all four of the visitors into a group hug. "Help me get these boys changed. I'll risk letting them air out for a minute or two while we're chatting, then we'll tape them back up," he ordered, adding, with a smile, "No better way to do a job interview."

Next episode: Unto the Beach!

Episode 2: Unto the Beach!

"This touchy feely junk has been a disaster!" snapped the petite panda as she slammed the door shut behind her. "Breaking up the combat units so everyone can go out in the field to recruit individually? Talking to furs' friends about making them sissies? Team-building exercises? Holding paws and singing sing-along songs and picking out outfits for each other? This is your idea of a defensive operation?"

She fidgeted, looking down uncomfortably at the Tinkerbell leotard and tutu her students had picked out for her, then snapped her gaze back up and leveled an accusing finger at the hulking sissy Newfoundland sitting in the corner.

Then she fumed as she turned her attention to the leopardess who was also in the room, "Putting her in charge was a mistake! The boys are laughing in our faces! They're showing up everywhere we do before we do! They don't even care if we notice! That raccoon yanked a perfect candidate right out from under my nose! If I were running this operation, I would be pounding him, and pounding him, and-"

"Hello, Lin Lin," the leopardess seated behind her mahogany writing desk said sweetly, her eyes flickering up from behind her computer to take in the petite panda who had stormed into her office. "And congratulations on your transition. We're happy for you."

The leopardess, Empress Calliope, was Roger's sister-and sworn rival, as leader of the Pink team of sissy diaperfurs headquartered at her feminizing Academy for Special Boys.

The Newfoundland sitting across from as they discussed the upcoming Open House was her highest-ranking and most loyal aide, Princess Cassandra, a massive sissy canine and home economics teacher, who moved with the quiet confidence of a big dog despite wearing nothing at the moment besides a pink frock that stopped just short of concealing the bottom of her bulky, triple-extra-large diaper. She had a dog-eared, hardcover book that looked rather small clutched to her chest in one paw.

The panda, who had just been gathering steam, stopped in mid-tear, opening and closing her muzzle silently. Then she shook her head. "Don't change the subject!" she snapped. "That happened months ago! And I only told you two for tax reporting purposes because I'm legally changing everything anyway."

"Ah, but we're only happy for you now that we know you're one of the lucky ones," Calliope said gently, removing the dainty horn-rimmed reading glasses she'd begun wearing and clipping them to the front of her long Victorian dressing gown.

"Fully functional, I mean. It's not a choice we can make for people, but you know that it's against my policy ever to recommend the surgery. The risks are too great. And it's not the sort of thing furs will just accept, you know. Even here. I'm sorry I keep saying that to you, but it's true. You have to tread carefully. Ever fur you tell, for the rest of your life, is going to look at you differently - is going to expect a long explanation."

Lin Lin frowned and looked down at her feet. "Maybe not," she said, seemingly to herself, "every fur." Then she shook her head. "Anyway how do you two know that I'm, whatever you called it?" She eyed the leopardess suspiciously. "What do you have, cameras? Because that's not covered by our employment agreement."

"You were that loud," Cassie, the sissy Newfoundland, interrupted. "I was sleeping-or, trying to sleep-in the room under yours. Don't feel bad. I'm happy for you; I don't think you ever pawed as a boy, did you? Or hardly ever? And I get up in the middle of the night to check on any students in overnight punishments anyway."

The panda shook her head, "Okay," she said, raising a finger to point accusingly at the Newfoundland, "that was a nice try, but you can't distract me! If this is another one of your stupid bonding exercises, and you think I'm going to hug you and start crying, then you're so full of it you're going to need a change any minute. The boys are running roughshod over us and you are doing nothing. The academy is going to go under and it's all your fault! You had your chance, and it's time to switch back to my game plan before it's too late."

The large black dog only shrugged. "I told you not to worry, Lin Lin," she said soothingly. "Serry got me some business advice books for my birthday, since I've been helping with more of the administration around here. This one says to keep focused on your core goal without getting distracted by the ups and downs of the daily market. Honestly the most important thing right now is the Level 5 protocol. Once that's ready, it won't matter how many furs the boys bring when they attack."

The panda glowered at her. "I still want to see what you're doing to furs in Level 5 before I send anybody," she said cautiously.

Cassie nodded. "Oh, you will. I told you. We're working out some kinks for Open House night. Umm-and solving some problems, too. We're helping furs in deep denial understand what they really want. Even if we need to give them a shove to do it."

The panda squirmed as she felt the leopardess eyeing her over the rim of her open purple laptop appraisingly while the Newfoundland spoke. "Sounds stupid to me," Lin Lin snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of breaking those boys without any of your creepy mind tricks. I've had the toughest boy over there curtsy to me and I have the picture to prove it, thank you very much!"

The feline headmistress, who seemed to be barely paying attention to her quarreling subordinates, nodded and returned her eyes to her computer. "I liked that picture," she remarked idly as she resumed typing. "It looked like you were having fun."

Lin Lin shook her head. "You're both crazy," she said. "I don't care what kind of secret weapon you think you're working on to use a week from now. It's time you get your priorities in order and deal with what's happening right now! Give me -"

The Newfoundland lowered her knitting and rested one giant paw on Lin Lin's head, and, lifting and lowering it a few inches a few times, patted the top of her ears gently. "I said don't worry," Cassie said. "It's no secret who the boy's top recruiter is. All we need to do is throw him off his game; then the others won't be too hard to keep up with. We have someone working on it. In the meantime, reading these business books has called my attention to a serious oversight in our plan - one that I need you to start thinking about right away."

The panda narrowed her eyes. "You don't have any actual defense plan for when the boys throw all their new soldiers at us, do you?" she asked.

"Worse than that!" the Newfoundland said, opening her management book to a dog-eared page and holding it out to the panda, as she pointed at a bullet-pointed list with one large finger. "We don't have a mission statement!"

****************************

The trailblazing lynx in the safari outfit caught himself against a tree and let himself pant for a moment. "Okay!" he shouted in a gym teacher like voice, raising a paw to the furs behind him. "Break! Support station ahead!"

Behind him, a small troop of ten tired diapered boys in various states of undress, their shirts flecked with leaves, twigs, paintball splatters, or hanging on their fur wet, stumbled to a halt as they came to a small meadow in the woods, some dropping to their knees, one flopping onto his back and sucking his thumb, and others, including the new raccoon, clutching their knees in their paws and scrunching up their faces, assuming expressions of intense concentration as they focused on their bladders and bowels - some to prevent themselves from using their diapers for just a little longer, others wrestling with their own inhibitions about going in front of their new friends, and counting to themselves under their breath.

A white rabbit and a Dalmatian sat side by side in folding chairs behind a folding white table set up in the middle of the meadow. In front of Kyle, the Dalmatian, lay brown paper bags, all with suns and happy faces drawn on them in crayon, and some also labeled with cryptic initials. In front of Twitchy, the rabbit, lay squirt guns, larger water blasters, slingshots of varying sizes, retractable plastic lances, extra-bouncy rubber balls, and various other low-level BB armaments.

A small gray mouse in overalls scampered around on the table, busily inspecting the bundles each of them had assembled and squeaking his approval of each. Occasionally, he grabbed a plastic device that didn't seem up to snuff, and with both paws, rolled it off to the side.

"So," said Swifty the cross fox, resting one elbow on the table, and tilting down the brim of his firefighter's hat casually as he addressed the bunny, "you're Twitchy, right? Your hideout, the communications center, must be in the woods somewhere near here, then? Do you have some kind of map? I just want to glance at it to get oriented. Is this where Rian is meeting us? How come we haven't seen the Labrador again? Is he-"

The rabbit raised a finger and tapped Swifty's nose sternly. "Consider this Hideout #4 to go!" he said. "For now that's info enough for you newbies. K, Squeak, and I will be showing up when you need us as you run your practice missions. In the meantime, just listen to Ace, Jax, and Dex. They're your field commanders! If we like how you're performing in the woods, you'll earn upgrades to your gear and we'll tell you more as you need to know it. Focus on getting to know each other. And on keeping dry for as long as you can. That's gonna take most of your concentration!"

Kyle, meanwhile, was wagging his tail and offering paper bag lunches to each of the boys. Ace regarded both his bag and the water blaster presented to him suspiciously. "Who made these?" the lynx asked the small mouse, shaking the bag at him. "There are no peanut butter and pickle sandwiches in this batch, are there?"

"Squeak!" answered the mouse, and pointed up at Kyle. "Squeak!" The dog glanced over his shoulder and nodded, wagging his tail, then returned to handing out bags.

"And who prepped the weapons?" Ace asked next, shaking a water blaster as long as his forearm before strapping it to his shoulder. "Is this going to backfire and flood me worse than Rian in a sleeping bag when I try to fire it?"

"Squeak!" answered the mouse, and pointed at Twitchy. The rabbit, who was still talking with Swift and holding a paintball gun rigged to fire two balls with each shot, one spinning off slightly to the right of the other to making dodging difficult, glanced over his shoulder and flashed the lynx a quick smile, then returned to his demonstration.

"Good," the lynx confirmed, visibly relieved on both counts, and patted Squeak on the head. "That's the way it should be!"

"Special lunches!" Kyle said. "I have three! Steven - " The giraffe's head perked up - or down, rather - as Kyle hopped up to wave a paper bag lunch at him. "Dex! Peanut butter and organic banana on wheat, with the crust cut off-" The Dalmatian looked around when no fur came. "Byron?" he tried again.

Ace grabbed one bag from Kyle. "Both out in the field!" he said cheerily. "Word is we all get tonight off from recruiting if the team breaks quota today! I can give Dex his when he turns in his next batch for escort. But I didn't think Byron had any special-"

"Umm," the Dalmatian yanked the bag away with one paw and held it behind his back. "I'll see him - I mean, I think I might run into him later - I mean - cuz I go kind of by the beach to get to my dad's restaurant anyway - and - and, well Rian mentioned he's kind of had a rough patch and - I'll just give it to him."

Ace raised an eyebrow and looked at Twitch, who just shrugged, then turned back to the Doberman he was talking with. "No, no, the Escalades will work better!" the dog was protesting, holding up his drooping diaper by its waistband with one paw. "I can get them up to 24 volts, and they have radio fixtures already."

"I doooooon't need a change yet!" the new raccoon, who was shuffling around with his shorts around his ankles, crinkling loudly, protested as he found three other furs closing in on him. "I was just airing myself out. My pants are wet from the squirt guns! Don't take my diaper ooofffffff! I liiiiike my diiaaaaper like that!! Stooooop tickling me!"

The raccoon flopped onto his back under their assault, wriggling in his labeled Bambino diaper as a puddle spread out underneath him. "Kit's down!" shouted one of the boys crouching over him, pointing at his muzzle accusingly. "That's four times already! Baby's out of diapers!"

"All right," said Twitchy, with a sigh. "There's a stash in the cave under the jungle gym. K or I will take him back for a change and let him play from there." He traded Swifty's weapon for an upgraded paintball gun, then turned back to the boys crouched over the whimpering raccoon to finish explaining, "It's the nearest continue point."

****************************

"Take that! And that!" shouted the twenty-something white canine in the black mesh top as he hopped around on the warm, smooth dry sand, enjoying the feel of it between the pads of his footpaws as he brandished his foam sword wantonly in the air.

He froze in his tracks as a malamute wearing a lifeguard shirt and swimming trunks caught the blade of the sword in one paw and frowned down at him. "I'm going to have to ask you to stop that," Byron said, "Ryo."

"Why?" whined the slighter dog. "I'm just having fun. It's not against the rules! I'm not - hey," he shook his head suddenly, "how do you know my name?"

"This," the big dog explained, ignoring his question, and gesturing to the scene around them, of adults, teens, and cubs in various states of half-dress, "is a beach." He pried the foam sword loose from Ryo's paws and bopped his nose with the hilt of it, then handed it back to him, handle-first. "You're not having the right kind of fun. By definition, you will have more fun here," the dog pointed one finger across the sand to the gently lapping tide, "if you are wet."

Ryo lowered his ears and looked a bit uncertain. "I don't know if I'm supposed to go in the water," he said. "My date told me to wait for him while he talked to that Newfoundland. He said he might be getting something for me. But it's been like three hours!" After a moment, he added, "Or fifteen minutes maybe. Totally almost the same thing practically."

Byron's ears pricked up and he stood on his toes to scan the sand dunes behind his beach; he could just see the top of the big dog's head on the other side of it. "I see," the malamute said, nodding, then returned his attention to Ryo and tugged on his lifeguard shirt importantly. "I know that Newfoundland! Well I am the lifeguard here and I say, I better get you in the water fast," he said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper as he added, "while no one bigger than the two of us is watching."

The white dog grinned and turned to run toward the water, only to feel Byron's paw on his shoulder, turning him around and pointing toward the rest facilities near the edge of the woods. He looked up at the malamute, confused, and asked, "Now what?"

"I almost forgot," the black-and-white dog asserted, looking down at Ryo's trunks, then up again, "I do have a civic responsibility to prevent accidents in the water. And I have deemed your swimwear insufficiently protective."

A mile away, a young lion with a stubbly mane, a blue headband with a silver forehead protector hanging around his neck, sat at a bus stop, fiddling with his headband, when a tall, bony fox in a green dress sat down next to him, holding a sack of flour.

"Well, what a nice necklace," the apparent girl said sweetly. "I bet you're a strong, responsible young fur, aren't you? I have a really odd, but important errand that I need someone's help with."

The lion looked up curiously. "Like a mission?" he asked.

Serry smiled. "Exactly like that," she said gently, touching his arm with one paw. "I knew you would understand. See, I need to get this sack of flour to another village safely, and I can't carry it all the way myself. I'm not sure I could guarantee its safety. The world is full of things that will try to do harm to an innocent sack of flour. But I have a feeling a lion like you might have the right custodial instincts for this job."

The lion fidgeted and regarded her hesitantly. "Well," he said, with mild pride, "taking care of furs is part of my code. Where do you need to get him - I mean, it-to?"

In a few minutes the bus pulled away, the lion holding the sack of flour hesitantly in both paws as Serry led him along. A raccoon and a tracking hound watched it go from the other side of the street.

"Dex?" Jax said, tugging on his friend's arms. "What was that about? Come on, that guy was an easy mark. An obvious blue. And I find you just standing here? What's wrong with you? Why didn't you cut in?"

The raccoon shook his head and looked up from the ground. "No harm done. I'll catch him again another time."

"No harm done except wasted time," the tracking hound said, looking at his watch. "You can't get that back, you know. None of us can."

Dex shrugged. "I can wait. Besides, it's not like there's anything for the team to worry about; Rian's in top form, running way ahead of quota."

The coon bent over to pick a discarded glass bottle from the sidewalk, intending to carry it until he next came to a recycling bin, and said, with an uneasy smile, "I don't know if I've ever seen my buddy happier."

*******************************

As the crowd at the beach slowly made its way to the parking lot, Ryo ran off happily, his soggy swim trunks puffier than before, and, even though he had been swimming in fresh water, smelling a little bit salty.

He grasped a sealed blue envelope grasped in his paw and waved it eagerly at his perplexed partner. "It's a message!" he was exclaiming. "I don't have time to get tea and cookies with you two! I have to decode it! There are furs who need my help!"

Byron wiped both his paws and grinned in satisfaction as he headed back into the restroom complex, humming to himself as he pulled down his swimming trunks and stood over a urinal.

He heard a loud flush from one of the stalls that mostly covered the sound of tapes being fastened, and after a few moments the door creaked open. A wolf in a navy blue uniform with a pale blue ribbon tied around his neck stepped out, absorbed in tying the handles of a plastic bag firmly together. He carried it with both paws across the room and deposited it carefully in the trashcan. Byron frowned as he looked over his shoulder.

"Rian?" he said quizzically as he flushed. "The beach is closed. I just sent everyfur home. What are you doing here? You could have been locked in. I'm always the last fur in and out of these restrooms."

"I know," the wolf said, standing on his tiptoes and rocking on them as he looked up at the bigger dog. "I'm ahead of quota. On top of that,I bagged a really big fish - err, fox - today! We'll get even more furs tomorrow when the news breaks that he's in town and he's on our side. Practically nothing else for me to do! So I thought I'd check in on how everyone else is doing, starting here, seeing if I could help anyfur out! I, uh, heard you were feeling a little overwhelmed, By, for that whole time you were holding down three jobs, and school, and everything. I don't want you to forget the team's here for you. I mean, if one of us can cover for you at Rog's, or bring you class notes, I don't know, anything like that. You should not be afraid to ask for help with little things. It can make life a lot easier. Speaking of things you shouldn't be doing all by yourself - what are youdoing in here, exactly?"

"Going the," the malamute gulped and suddenly looked nervous, "bathroom?" he concluded cautiously.

Rian's eyes narrowed. "You are a lifeguard!" he exclaimed. "Somefur could drown every time you do that!"

"Umm, not really," the dog answered, fidgeting, and still standing in front of the urinal. He had flushed, but he left his swimming trunks pulled down and his paw holding them there, looking down at the bubbling water. "No one is swimming."

"Didn't we get you a big pack of dog-sized swim diapers?" the wolf asked sternly.

Byron didn't move. "I thought those were for my recruiting?" he asked. "I just gave a bunch of them to-"

"They were for safety!" the wolf exclaimed. "Would you run out of the water, all the way back here to these restrooms, if you needed to piddle, even if something was happening?" Rian asked. "Regardless of what was going on, on your beach?"

"No?" the dog answered hesitantly.

The wolf looked exasperated and sighed in mock frustration. "So you would piddle in the water," he said, shaking a paw at him. "I knew it."

Byron hung his head. He had a feeling there was no way he could win this argument. The little wolf stepped up behind him and leaned close, looking around him, to follow his gaze downward, past the urinal. "Somefur's shy all of a sudden. Why do you keep staring at your feet?" he asked. "Have you been working too much to practice your counting, and you don't want me to know?"

The malamute let go of his swim trunks, pulling them back up, and blushed. "Umm, no," he said. "There's sand in my shoes."

Rian got down on his kees and tugged at Byron's shoelaces, nodding decisively as though inspecting a complicated piece of equipment. He looked up at the malamute's chin from the ground and delivered his verdict. "It's because you're wearing sneakers, goof!"

"I just put those on!" the sled dog whined. "I'm going home!"

"Well I guess you can't take them off to empty them," Rian concluded, resting on his elbows on the linoleum floor. "Maybe they have components that are too complicated for someone who can barely count to three to operate."

"I can tie my shoes!" Byron retorted.

Rian shrugged. "Okay, so tell me how you do it," he said nonchalantly.

Byron scratched his head. "Well I don't know if I can explain it exactly," he said, sounding embarrassed.

"Baby," Rian muttered, rolling his eyes, then said patiently, "Maybe you can show me then?"

"Okay," the malamute bent over, eying Rian cautiously, and undid his own shoelaces by way of demonstration. "See?"

"Umm, that's un-tying, doof," Rian pronounced. "Tying's like the opposite. Let me see you lace them back up again. Better explain it to me while you do it-so we know you're doing the right thing this time."

"Okay," the big dog, still bent over, started saying, as he fumbled with the laces of his right sneaker, "First you put one of the laces under the other, like so and then you, ummm, loop one around? Yeah, kind of, and, heyyy!" The malamute whined as he felt Rian's cold, wet nose pressing right against his fore and footpaws. The wolf had scooted over closer to him so his face was almost up against the malamute's sneaker, and brushed against his paw as he tried to tie a knot. Rian was looking down at what Byron was doing with an expression of studied concentration. "That tickles!" the sled dog whined. "And you're distracting me!"

Rian raised an eyebrow. "I'm just trying to get a better view," he said innocently. "So you twist the laces around each other like this, to the left, and right, and left, and right, and then-"

"Yes, you,-" the sled dog broke off, starting to turn them like a twisty-tie, following the motion Rian was making with his fingers-right? no, it was Rian's right, so it was his left-no, that didn't make sense, you should say clockwise-or was it counterclockwise? or was it . . .- but wait, why was he twisting his shoelaces around each other at all!? That was stupid. Rian was totally showing him the wrong thing to do. Flustered, Byron exclaimed, "No! That's not what you do at all! You do this other thing!"

"You do what, exactly?" Rian asked as his teammate fiddled with the laces. The big dog was becoming increasingly confused. "Do you tie a slip knot? Or a bow knot?" The malamute's eyes glazed over as Rian launched into a singsong litany. "Or an overpaw knot? Or an underpaw knot? Or a butterfly knot? Or a lasso knot? Or a horseshoe knot? Or a billiard knot? Or a saddle knot? Or a . . ."

"I don't know!" Byron snapped. "I don't know how to describe it! Just - this! Just watch me do it and stop asking questions!" He managed to loop one of the laces into half of a bow knot.

"Okay, jeez," said Rian in mock impatience, rolling his eyes. "I didn't know it was so hard for you that you can't carry on a conversation at the same time."

Byron felt a surge in the front of his swimming trunks, and began fidgeting to hide it. He wasn't in a diaper, he chided himself. If Rian caught him doing things out of order- what silliness was he thinking? He just had to tie his shoes. He did it two or three times a day!

Now he was actually thinking about it, though. Now he couldn't do it without thinking about it! How did you do it? Did kits really learn step-by-step instructions? Did they help any?

He could hardly remember. He must have, right? If he thought really hard about it he could probably remember. Why was Rian asking him to explain it? Didn't he know he was bad at expressing these spatial things? But he had to be able to explain it if he could do it, right? It was really simple. Only a baby wouldn't know how to explain it. You'd just say: You make a loop, and thread one loop through the other, just like - something or other . . .

His brow was furrowed up in concentration when the wolf, without warning, bounced up on to his feet and gripped the bent over malamute in a hug from behind, tucking his head under the dog's arm to gaze down at his shoe-tying from on high. "Vrrroooom! Aerial view!" Rian exclaimed as he leaped up.

As he talked, the wolf's right paw reached toward Byron's swimming trunks. He rubbed it in several exploratory circles over the front of them, both confirming and exacerbating Byron's state of arousal. "This is less distracting right? Cuz now I'm looking down from waaay far away! So go ahead, cutie," he remarked, squeezing the front of the malamute's diaper tightly, then releasing it, "Finish up."

"Heeeeey!" the black-and-white dog whined. "You really better hope nofur comes in now! They'll see - they'll see - "

Rian chortled as he released the dog and pointed down at his sneaker, giggling and bouncing up and down gleefully on his footpaws, "They'll see what a baby you are! You just tied your fingers into your shoelace!"

Byron turned beet red and felt warm. He also felt the front of his swimming trunks surge as his eyes followed Rian's down. He had! With the wolf hopping all over him, he had tied two fingers of his right paw into his shoelaces without even realizing it. He hopped awkwardly, still bent over, trying to tug them out, but it didn't work. He reached over with his left paw, but Rian arrested it and shook his head chidingly.

"I'll do it for you, puppy pants," he said with feigned impatience as he increased the pace of his rubbing, then switched to stroking as the malamute's swimming trunks grew tighter, "as soon as I have a free paw. Wouldn't want you to lose a finger or anything. But fiiirst what's going on down in front, naughty puppy? You know you're not supposed to do this out of diapers. I didn't even think you could. I mean, you haven't been trained to do #3 out of your diapers yet. If anyone's tried it sure hasn't taken, has it? Everyone knows you need diapers for this as bad as ya do for the other two things."

"But I guess," whispered the wolf, leaning closer against the big dog's back and nuzzling at the base of his nearer ear, "you find the idea that you can't tie your own shoes pretty exciting, maybe? Exciting enough that it miiiight make puppy sticky outside of his diaper for, what, his very firstest time?" Rian shook his head as he continued pawing the larger canid. "Another reason why it's so dangerous for you to be running around in big boy undies. Cuz you get sooo excited whenever someone helps ya out with - ooh, you like that thought, don't you?"

The dog whined and whimpered, trying to shift his weight from one foot to the other as the pressure in his swimming trunks mounted. "Tell me something about yourself, Byron," Rian asked as he reached around the big dog with his other paw, and began stroking him from both sides at once. "Rog and I just updated every fur's dossier. Yours said you had trouble counting. So you had to do things in your diapers in a certain special order. I have a feeling we left something out though. Did we forget anything? That your teammates and the newbies should know? About you?"

"I'm a lifeguard," Byron whimpered, "and a - a - cashier at Rog's store- French major - and-aquatic - patrol-on combat-I helped you-set up a big date once-and at your party-"

"No," said Rian slowly, shaking his head. "I'm pretty sure all that was in there." He stopped stroking, abruptly, in mock distraction, and Byron, whose cock had just reached its maximum length, let out a long, pathetic whine.

"I wish I could remember what it was cuz it's bugging me now," Rian said musingly, starting, ever so slowly, to release the dog and stand up. "I'll have to think about this." The malamute tugged at his ensnared right paw, hoping he'd be able to right himself and stay pressed against Rian, but the laces only constricted around it tighter.

He felt his tail start to wag unbidden, and he knew he looked ridiculous, half bent over with Rian leaning over his back, one paw tied into his own shoelaces, the other just dangling, but all he could really think about was the mounting pressure in the front of his swimming trunks, and how close he felt to bursting, and how frustrating it would be if the wolf let him drop right there and walked away.

It seemed obvious what Rian wanted him to say-and what would happen if he did. That release would feel soooo good. He really wanted it. He really needed it. It had been a long day. He was right on the brink of it when Rian let go. Why did he do that? He just had to go along with Rian's game. Then he'd start stroking again, wouldn't he? The dog hoped so. It was a harder thing to do than he had ever thought. He couldn't explain it. Look how confusing it was! He thought he knew how to do it before. But suddenly it seemed like it would take him fifteen or twenty minutes every time! There was something he had to tell his wolfy friend. He was lucky to know a fur so accepting.

So he let out a long, pathetic, whimper-Rian leaned back into him and resumed stroking, eagerly, at twice his previous speed, right after the sled dog looked back at the wolf out of the corner of his eyes and whined, "I- I - I can't tie my own shooooes!"

"There there," the wolf soothed him. "I know. It's okay."

A few minutes after he said it, Rian was done; the inside of Byron's swimming trunks were splattered and the pressure on his cock finally beginning to relax. The malamute smiled as his entire body relaxed. The dog sunk down on to his knees, as the wolf, his arms held loosely around the bigger canid, crouched down behind him, snorted and muttered, "Baby."

Then he whispered reassuringly into Byron's ear, "I mean it's not worth getting all dramatic about." He gave the outside of the dog's quivering ear a long, gentle lick and said matter-of-factly, "You'll just have to ask your teammates for help with that from now on."

Next episode: Bonding!

Episode 3: Bonding!

"Well that lion is a super-stupid idea," Lin Lin declared, glaring up over her clipboard across the small conference table at Serafina. Both the fox and the panda had a stock of dossiers, and a single juice box, set in front of them on the table. "What exactly do you think you'll do with him?"

Serry smiled gently and smoothed out her pink silk blouse. "He's caretaking help. I think he can be coaxed into fighting to protect the girls once he feels protective about some of them. A boy caretaker who only fights to protect girly cubs. I could use a fur like that hanging around the building right now-I mean, we all could. Would take some of the stress off you."

The panda raised an eyebrow. "How thoughtful," she said acidly. "And your other big recruit that you were sooo excited about meeting with is already - "

"Already working," the fox said, smiling. "Trust me about that one."

Lin Lin rolled her eyes. "Right, just it's for the enemy," she muttered. "Great job, fox. Meanwhile I-"

"Great job, Serry!" the Newfoundland announced cheerily as she opened the door, bearing a plate of pink-frosted heart-shaped sugar cookies. "Why don't you take the rest of the night off? Check in with Rian before things get really crazy with Open House and the play."

Serry looked at her pink crystal Tinkerbell watch, then up at the huge black dog. "Are you sure?" she asked, gesturing toward the small stack of pink, glitter-coded folders she and Lin Lin were working through. "We still have a lot of prospects to-"

"One of the keys to success," the Newfoundland said, consulting the small management manual she was holding in one giant paw, "is work-life balance."

Lin Lin dropped her head on to her forepaws and stared down at the table, shaking it in quiet despair.

Cassandra snapped her book shut. "I think now is the time to check in with Rian. I mean, since it seems like the boys are planning something of their own, you're both about to get really busy. So why not do something special first?" The Newfoundland smiled. "Surprise him."

Serry fidgeted, her puffy purple diaper crinkling under her ruffles. "You know, he asked me something yesterday . . . There is something I really want to do with him before I disappear back into the play tomorrow night. I'd need to lead him through the woods here. Is that a breach or . . ."

Cassie patted the sissy fox gently on her head. "Sounds perfect," she said, smiling. "Just take some basic security precautions and we won't get in your way."

Serry got up and squeezed the huge dog's paw, leaning up to kiss her daintily on the nose. "Thanks, Cass," she said. "You're a natural at this. Best boss ever."

The panda shook her head. "I hate both of you," she muttered, just loudly enough to be audible. "Do I even need to say what's wrong with allowing that?"

"Oh, Lin Lin-" the sissy fox turned and took the folder she had been working on, grinning as she slid it across the table. "Can you cover the two couples I had for tonight? I think they're just perfect for you."

The panda raised an eyebrow and poked the folder with one paw as though making sure it wouldn't explode on contact. Then she opened it, peeked inside, and let out a long sigh. "Why do you people always give me these ones?" she asked. "They are so much extra work."

"Because," Serry said, winking at her, "you're so good with them! I talked with the first guy for a minute then went ahead and filled in his questionnaire. I'll owe you a soda for each answer I guessed wrong. How about that?"

"Just go away," snapped the panda, waving a paw at her. "You know what, sleep in. Yiff until noon. Keep Mr. 'Now let me show you the secret pawshake' tied up for half a day. It would be more useful than anything else you're doing."

Serry slipped behind the Newfoundland, looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at the panda, quickly, before ducking out the door. Lin Lin glared up from the table at the dog who remained in the room. "Seriously what was that?" she snapped. "Just because she's in some dumb festival play you let her do whatever she wants?"

The big dog smiled and wiped her paws together. "Work life balance is not just good for your employees, it's good for your organization," she said, shaking her book. "It makes furs more likely to do extra work for the company, of their own free will."

Lin Lin groaned. "I take back whatever I said about your knitting," she snapped. "If there was a Louvre or British Museum for knitting they would be calling to arrange a special exhibit of your patterns. You should do more of them. Again. Like now."

The Newfoundland shrugged. "Don't worry, Lin Lin," she said for at least the third time that day. "Serry is still on the clock for us tonight, whether she realizes it or not. She and Rian both saw each other recruiting today. If they go out tonight, well, it's only natural they'll talk about it." Cassie smiled, "And if she's the one who takes him out, I can imagine what the little romantic will be expecting to hear."

***************************

"I did too talk to Rian before the party and I told him not to do anything like that for Dex he should have understood cuz I was totally clear I mean how many times do you have to explain things to people," Twitchy was relating at breakneck speed, periodically throwing his arms wide, to the small mouse standing in front of him on the floor of Hideout #4.

They were in Hideout #4, Twitchy and Squeak's support center and the communications hub for the boys' team. Three computer monitors and CPUs connected to a single keyboard stared at them from Twitchy's worktable across the room. On the wall above the entrance hung a battered scoreboard sign with an electronic counter that read "BB Tech is always on call: No bathroom breaks in -5- hours."

"So, Squeak," the rabbit narrated, "I got there and he was like, 'Whee! Ultimate diaper attack! I have all the diapers, in the world! Look at me, I'm rolling around in diapers! Diapers diapers diapers! Crinkle crinkle crinkle! Have you noticed how I never run out of diaper money!' and then I came in and I was like," the bunny cleared his throat, assuming an exaggeratedly grown-up demeanor, "'Jeez, Rian, this is serious. We need to talk about Dex. You're sending him mixed messages. It's very bad. Especially with him,' and then he was all like, 'Oh, hi, Twitch! Did I ever tell you, that I'm an orphan? It just occurred to me to tell you at this moment. And Dex, my very bestest friend, why he's practically almost my only family, in the entire world. There's no fur I depend on more. Except maybe you, who I've done so much for. Remember how you had no friends in this town and were so insecure when I met you? Now, what were you about to tell me? And hey! Have you seen how many diapers I have?'"

Twitchy, breathless, leaned back and took a long swig of his canned carrot energy drink. "And that's what happened then," the bunny concluded, crossing his arms and nodding decisively.

The mouse on the floor furrowed his tiny brows. "Squeak!" he said, pointing accusingly at the rabbit's nose.

"Yes it is, that's totally what happened," Twitchy answered as he swallowed and set the now empty can down, at the end of a growing row of them spread across the hideout floor.

Squeak raised a tiny eyebrow. "Squeak squeak squeak," he pointed out.

"I do not exaggerate!" Twitchy shot back. "I can't believe you would say that."

"Squeak!" the mouse exclaimed and threw his paws wide apart.

The bunny narrowed his eyes and bit his lip poutily. "That doesn't count," he snapped.

Twitchy leapt to his feet as the trap door in the center of the hideout floor opened and the bells connected to it jangled, hopping into his computer chair and quickly assuming an at-work posture as his Dalmatian teammate hoisted himself through the hole in the floor, and, entering on all fours, crawled over to the mini-fridge on the opposite side of the small room.

"Hiya, Twitchy! Did you hear! Roger called a break for everyone for tonight 'cuz we're so ahead of the game! So guess who's back from naptime tuck-in detail and ready to clock out!" he exclaimed cheerily as he opened the fridge and Squeak scampered over to him. "Hey, Squeak! How's my little taste-tester?"

The Dalmatian frowned as he found the fridge packed with tall bright orange cans identical to the ones spread across the floor. He took one out and fell back, with a loud puff, onto his padded rear as he examined the label. "Carroty Energy. Improves energy and focus. Multiply like a rabbit on your next math test. Now with Hoppamine," he read aloud, turning it over, snorting, and shaking his head. "That can't be a real thing. Wow- I didn't think there were so many ways to process sugar. How many of these have you been drinking, Twitch? Are all those cans on the floor from today? I'm worried you'll burn right through your diapers next time you wet. Are you sleeping okay? Umm, let me rephrase that. Are you sleeping?"

"Finals are coming and I'm hoping to be a lab assistant next semester and I have a lot to do for the big recruiting operation and I have to look at Dex's homework because his financial aid stuff is still up in the air depending on his final grades and if I didn't mention, finals are coming, I have to keep my grades up for my scholarship," the rabbit snapped, his foot thumping against the wooden floorboards. "Not an eight-hours-a-night time of year."

"There's more to life than school, Twitch," the Dalmatian said, patting Squeak on the head and offering him a piece of a peanut butter cookie. As he did, one of the light bulbs on the ceiling blinked out. The mouse grabbed the cookie chunk in both small paws, then squeaked in annoyance and scampered off, into a small hole in the wall, to examine the wiring. Twitchy muttered to himself and with a pawful of keystrokes, saved the five items he was working on.

"How novel to hear that from someone in this group of overachievers," Twitchy snapped as his eyes darted between the three computer monitors on his desk and he began typing at rapidly. "I'm sorry if I don't want to end up working retail or fixing air conditioners. If I didn't mention I need to keep my grades up for a scholarship, not for bragging rights. There's nothing more important to me."

"I'll be sure not to tell Dex that," Kyle muttered, as he set a row of cold energy drinks on the floor in order to reach his pudding snacks, buried in the back of the fridge. He hummed to himself softly and sang, as he leaned back and peeled it open, "Humm humm humm, lemon oh pee, next time won't you sing with me."

Twitchy's ears flicked and he spun around in his chair to see what his hideout partner was up to. That's when he noticed for the first time that the Dalmatian was wearing a pair of bulky, pale blue sports shorts, and a black tee-shirt with white lettering that read, "I can sing my ABCs! If I drip, then change me please."

The rabbit's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?" he snapped. "And since when did you have that ridiculous shirt?"

"I have two of them for playtimes now!" Kyle said proudly, and Twitchy blinked as he realized the Dalmatian was licking his pudding directly from the cup, getting it all over his muzzle. "One is black on white, and one is white on black!" he said, then added, with a giggle, "They match me cuz I'm a Dalmatian!"

The rabbit shook his head. "Rian bought them for you," he stated, thumping the floor with his foot.

It wasn't a question, but Kyle, oblivious to Twitchy's tone, nodded contentedly, his eyes twinkling as he explained, "Yeah, he kind of took me aside the day after his 24/7 party to thank me for taking over in the kitchen and making the cake. He said I saved the day. Or, umm, night, I guess. Can you believe it? Me, saving something! He even said I could start a cookout station on one of the new hideout spots. We could have cowboy cookouts and stuff! Who knew no one else on the team can cook? I mean my family owns a restaurant so I just never thought of it as something special, we all had to help in the kitchen sometimes."

"Soooo anyway," the dog continued, "he came over to give me a rubber ducky as a reward, and he wanted me to make sure it worked right then, so that he could return it to the store if it didn't. Naturally that meant I had to take a bath while he was there, cuz there's no place else you can test a rubber ducky, and he sat in the bathroom to talk to me."

The dog nodded as though everything he was saying were perfectly logical. "Then, after my bath, he helped me into a diaper. That's when he showed me that I spelled his name wrong on my card, I spelled it with two N's. Well, that was pretty embarrassing! We obviously had to do something about it. He kept me kind of - umm - distracted so I couldn't stop him - and took away a backup of my playlist. I ended up watching sooort of helplessly while he overwrote all the music on my computer with versions of the alphabet song. He said I can't listen to anything else at all and get my other playlist back until I learn to spell gooder."

The dog's ears fell as though he were reliving the conversation, but perked up almost immediately as he added, "He let me pick ones that were reggae, or hip hop, or whatever style, though, as long as they were still the alphabet song. I whined a lot when he started. But he got me some neat stuff from Sesame Street and places and I felt better about it by the time he finally let me com-I mean, go. I'm kind of nervous now. He might pop quiz me anytime I see him. Spelling is hard."

The dog grinned up at Twitchy as the rabbit, looking flustered, grabbed a pack of cub wipes from the floor, slid across the room in his wheeled computer chair, and began cleaning his teammate's pudding-spattered muzzle. Kyle looked up at him gratefully and whimpered, then continued, to the best of his ability between wipes, "I've never had so much attention from Commander Rian before."

Twitchy crumpled up the used wipe in one paw and went at the abashed dog's face with another. "Enjoy it while it lasts," he muttered to himself, sliding back across the room to deposit them in the wastebasket under his desk.

Then Twitch rested his chin on his paws and spoke to the Dalmatian, paternally, "Well you didn't finish the song, puppy. The alphabet doesn't end with P. I'll give you a hint - what comes next sounds like 'cute.' Like you after you pee a little. Now can you think about that and come up with the rest? And use a spoon from now on, K, or ask for help. Can you do that for me?"

The dog nodded, silently. The lights above them flickered off and on and periodic squeaking echoed from inside the walls. After a moment, Twitchy tilted his head and asked, more seriously, "Hey, Kyle. If Rian offered you your own cookout place, why are you still here? Wouldn't that be more fun for you?"

The Dalmatian looked down at the floor. "I said I didn't want my own hideout yet. To be honest, I didn't want to leave you alone up here right now. I'm worried about you," he said. "Are you okay, Twitchy? You seem strung out lately."

The rabbit looked down at his large feet. "I'm fine. I'm tutoring some professor's hyperactive kid. Lives on campus and keeps jumping out at me at random times. That's all. But why do you care, K?" he asked, his ears drooping. "Honestly, I've been kind of a jerk to you, haven't I?"

The dog shook his head. "Oh, that's not true. I would never have stuck around on this team if not for you. You were the very first fur who treated me like I mattered and asked me to do something important. You even said 'I know you can do it.' I bet you don't remember. It was during the fight at the academy."

Twitchy frowned. "You're right," he said. "I don't remember that."

The Dalmatian leaned over and nosed at Twitchy's toes. "You probably weren't thinking. Well I know just how you are," he pronounced. "I had a better view of your moment of glory than anyfur, Twitch. You always forget how much smarter you are than most furs, so you have trouble explaining things, and then you think you have to solve all our problems by yourself. Then you get stressed into knots and you don't always know what you're saying or doing. But really you care about all of us as much as Commander Rian. He's your hero, right? Well, you're a lot like him. I bet you're more worried about your friends here than about your finals. Well, when it matters you'll come through for us."

He reached up and play punched the rabbit's arm, concluding his carefully thought out pep talk with a self-satisfied, "I know you will."

The rabbit sighed and turned back to his computer as the lights came back on and jubilant squeaking echoed through the walls. "Kyle, you," the rabbit said in the tone of a doctor delivering an unpleasant diagnosis, "are an idiot."

After a moment of silence, he looked back over his shoulder and added, "But I'm glad you're here. You can play with my LEGOs if you want. Don't worry if the sets get mixed together."

"See," said Kyle incredulously he crawled over to a toy box in the corner. "Now I know something's wrong."

Twitchy bit his lip and turned back to his computer and resumed typing purposefully, looking down at the open notebook on his desk. "Study sheet for Dex," he keyed in. "Unit 8."

"Jeez, Rian," the rabbit muttered to himself, gritting his teeth as Kyle dug through the toy box in the corner with a clatter. "You're everywhere. Why can't you leave Dex alone long enough for me to have a chance at this? I'm trying but I'm just not - I can't get ahead of you. Not all of us spend our entire lives rich and cool and confident, you know."

**************************

Six years ago.

Fifteen-year-old Rian staid as still as he could near the foot of the staircase, but his tight school uniform suddenly felt impossibly itchy. He felt squirmier and squirmier, and eventually he reached a paw as far as he could over his shoulder, hopping up and down as he tried to scritch the middle of his back.

A few yards away from him, voices carried through the not-quite shut door of his father's study.

"I can't believe this!" an adolescent wolf was saying excitedly. "It's my graduation party and I worked hard for it. You can't make me invite him."

"Be reasonable, Spence," said an older, measured voice. "He's your brother, we're having it at the house, and he's out of school. You can't not invite him."

"Stepbrother," the older boy answered huffily. "And I don't appreciate having to explain to everyone who'll ask that he's really yours and I'm not. Everyone assumes it's the other way around, you know."

"I don't want to hear more about this," the adult wolf answered without raising his voice. "It's a phony complaint. You're 'really' my son, Spence. I adopted you, didn't I? You're going to my old school next fall. Carrying on the family tradition. How many times have you come to work with me?"

"Fine," Spence answered, sounding miffed. "But please, please, please can you tell him that he can't bring anyone? You know what will happen otherwise. All my friends will be there and he'll drag in some weirdo he found hiding in the corner or behind a bookshelf somewhere. I know he will, just to spite me. Remember Thanksgiving? And New Year's Eve? I had a real date here both times, remember? It is not my fault that that kid can't make any normal friends. Don't let him tell you that it is."

"What is it with you boys? You only need to get along when you're both out of school at the same time," the older wolf cut him off, sounding impatient. "I thought I solved this problem already. But yes - I understand. I'll talk with him about it. These things need to be handled delicately, Spence. You can't just growl at people. Can you send him down here when you go upstairs?"

Rian's ears flicked and his eyes darted around in a panic as he moved to withdraw his paw from inside the back of his shirt, only to find his watch snagged on his collar. He hopped and squirmed trying to disentangle it for a moment and stumbled into the banister.

The shrimpy wolf caught himself against it with his opposite paw, only to find himself leaning backwards, both paws occupied, staring up into the glowering yellow eyes of his six-foot-one stepbrother, a lanky, silver-furred wolf almost invariably dressed in a pressed shirt and corduroy slacks.

"Adrian," Spence said icily. "You were eavesdropping. Cut out the cubby routine. It's never worked on me."

"Spence," the shorter wolf started to say, pushing himself off the railing and looking up at his older stepsibling with sorrowful, puppyish eyes. "I heard what you said you know."

"Good," growled the older wolf, and brushed by him without further comment, except to add, as he passed, "Then I don't have to talk to you. Dad's waiting."

Rian gulped and squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, as his stepbrother's footsteps receded, he freed his right paw from his shirt, counted to fifteen, and took a series of slow steps toward the cracked-open oak door of his father's study. He poked his nose through the gap and tapped at the front of the door softly.

"Oh, Adrian," said the broad-shouldered, business-suited wolf, sitting behind a wooden desk covered with files and open binders that took up about a third of the room. "Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable."

"Hi, Dad," Rian crept into the room and lowered himself into one of his father's leather-seated guest chairs. "Spence said you wanted to see me about his party," he began cautiously.

"Adrian," the older wolf said coolly, looking down at Rian over the bridge of his nose as the little wolf shrunk into his chair, "do you appreciate how lucky you are? A lot of furs in my position aren't as broadminded as I am." The large wolf rested his elbows on his desk and knitted his fingers together as he spoke. "Now I understand there are certain things you can't help. That are genetic. Like disabilities, for instance. I don't blame people for those. I mean, there are some people who train themselves to be normal anyway, of course. But they're exceptions. I don't expect you to be like that. I mean, look at how many years it took for you to stop wetting the bed after your mother passed away."

Rian fidgeted, tugging on his navy blue and white uniform jacket, and kept his eyes locked on his feet. He liked wearing his school uniform at home; it reminded him that he'd be leaving, as soon as school started again. "I don't think liking boys is a disabil-" he started to say.

"It's a disadvantage," the older wolf interrupted, his eyes flashing for just a moment before he resumed his level tone. Rian squirmed in his chair and fell silent as his father continued. "Professionally. That's a fact. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just lying to you. And personally. We've talked about this. I just want you to have the information, Adrian, so you know what you're getting into and can prepare yourself, or you know, rethink it. I mean I'm happy to pay to send you someplace for the summer - if you want me to. Look at those brochures, okay? On the other paw, if you keep going down this road - well, I just hope you'll be careful. If you're not, you could get diseases. Fatal ones. We've talked about this. I'm just saying it because I'm concerned. I'm not one to judge. I'm not like a lot of furs in my position, you know. You remember what we did when I saw those websites you were looking at?"

"Got rid of the Internet upstairs?" Rian asked. "And took away my laptop?"

"Don't talk smart with me, Adrian," his father said without raising his voice, and waved a paw dismissively. "We'd talked about that before and it was coming for your own good since you had to do better in school anyway. One thing was not the cause of the other. I am an open-minded fur. What I meant was, I talked to Spence and your stepmother about your problem so that you wouldn't have to do that - oh, whatever they call that telling thing - yourself. And when there was that little misunderstanding with some other boys at your school, even though I did tell you, Adrian - in the future, if you keep going down this road, you'll have to be prepared to deal with furs like that; you can't go around being so sensitive to what people say- still, I did tell the principal we wouldn't tolerate any discriminatory treatment just because of a condition that's not your fault. We can afford a very good lawyer. So I thought the book would be closed on this. I mean I have no objection, I'm certainly a tolerant fur myself. I just think you should try not to put things in other furs' faces in a way that might provoke them. I mean there's tolerance, and then there's pushing people. It's smarter just to let people like that talk. They're only blowing off steam."

Rian winced. "Yes. I remember. Thank you for tolerating me, Dad. I didn't know I was being so-I mean, I wasn't trying to annoy anyone. Please believe me. I was just trying to say that I don't think those words are insults. I- I only argued with them because there was somefur else there who I thought - well, it doesn't matter, I wasn't trying to start a fight or get them to hit me. I wasn't. I swear. And I wish you hadn't maybe talked to the principal quite like that. Right now no one from school will talk to-" he started to say, but his ears fell as his father flickered another, quick, momentarily angry gaze at him.

"See sometimes, I think, Adrian," the older wolf continued, lapsing back into an amiable tone, "that you don't appreciate how lucky you are. You're lucky I've done well in the last ten years. You're lucky to have your schooling paid for. You're lucky you don't have to work at the same time - I mean, let's be honest, it would be hard for you to keep up with that level of responsibility. You're lucky my father, your namesake, wasn't sitting here. You never could have told him. You don't know what kind of pressure he put people under. You really don't. But me, well in spite of all that I'm certainly the most open-minded member of the country club board." His voice softened momentarily, and he added, half to himself, "Probably because of your mother."

Then he shook his head and, looking at his watch, began speaking more quickly. "Please, Adrian, I want you to be able to come to Spence's party. I want to introduce you as a part of our family. So you can't bring anyone. Not until you've developed a little more judgment. I don't care if he has nowhere to go for the holidays and I certainly don't want to find out that you invited some kid into our home who spent the last few days in a psychiatric hospital. Those things just aren't our business to get involved in, and those furs aren't our business to talk to. Nothing good can come of it. See, Adrian, I'm not asking you to be a star, or to be like Spence, or to be anything you're not. I really only ask one simple thing of you-Don't make a spectacle of yourself. Maybe keep a low profile for a while. Just-"

The older wolf ticked off his next four words on his fingers, pausing after each one to let it sink in. "Do not embarrass me. Do you understand?"

"I understand." Rian nodded and took a deep breath as he looked down at the floor. He wanted to please his family, didn't he? He wanted to make the people around him happy.

What was he supposed to understand though? Was it okay for him to be gay or not? These long speeches just confused him and made him feel small. His father was trying to help, wasn't he? The words his father would never quite speak came to his mind unbidden: Spence was the son an alpha wolf like his father should have had. Rian should be grateful they put up with him. He was a runt. A mediocre student. A worse-than-mediocre athlete. A social failure who could only relate to the undesirable boys at his school. An all-around disappointment. Of course he was gay too. Why not? How much worse could it get? Poor Spence. He had never had a real dad worth speaking of. He wouldn't let Rian hug him though. Well, who could blame him? Why did Rian have to make everyone uncomfortable? Why did he have to make things so hard on them?

His father did know better than he did, the wolf told himself. If he just admitted the truth could they be happy together, like when he was little? The wolf let out a long, defeated sigh.

"You're right. Those boys both dropped out anyway. I thought if they had a friend - I don't know what I was thinking. I never did any good for anyone. I can't do anything. I'm an idiot and a bad friend and I probably made things worse. I'll apologize to Spence later. I know-umm, I mean, I can guess, what he said. You know since the first night he slept over the old house in elementary school - the one time we shared a bed - he's thought every accident or mistake of mine is just an underpawed way to make him feel unwelcome. I swear they're just accidents." He hung his head. "I don't hate him, Dad. Can you tell him I said that, maybe? I'm just a screw up."

His father glanced at his watch. "There there," he said, without looking at Rian. "We all make mistakes sometimes. The important thing is we don't keep repeating them. Why don't you spend some time reading one of your adventure books? That always makes you feel better."

After a moment of silence, Rian said, "Dad?"

His father, who had turned to a desktop computer and was scanning his e-mail, nodded. "Yes, Adrian?"

"Do you love me?" the little wolf asked querulously.

The adult lupine looked pained. "What a silly question. I loved your mother," he said in a level tone, "and you remind me of her, so of course I-"

He cut off as the phone on his desk rang and he tilted his head to look at the caller ID. He shook his head and held up one finger. "I'm sorry, Adrian," he said, "I have to take this call." He had lost his train of thought and didn't quite realize what he was saying, as he added, absently, "It's about something important."

******************************

Today.

Roger lay flat on his back in the park, his arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the clouds. He had just called a break for the team, and he and his second-in-command were finishing their debriefing about the larger operation. "Penny candy for your thoughts?" the Labrador asked. "What's on your mind, little buddy?"

"Nothing important," answered Rian, drawing his eyes back down to the ground, then added, playfully, "But now I'm thinking about you!" He flopped onto his back across the older dog with a soft whump, his head resting on the Labrador's chest. He took in a long breath of the spring air as he stared up at the puffy white clouds trailing across the sky.

"It's an elephant," Roger remarked, pointing at one.

"Uh uh," the shrimpy wolf contradicted, shaking his head.

"Well, what do you see, little buddy?" the dog asked his sidekick.

"A balloon elephant," Rian answered confidently. "Obviously. It's flying and everything."

Rian felt the older fur's chest move as Roger giggled beneath him and shook his head. "You've got me there," he conceded. "Your cubbiness quotient is climbing fast. I guess wearing full-time is working out."

"I'm not going back. It's hard sometimes, but it's the best thing I ever did," Rian answered, then, scrunching his face up, corrected himself, tugging at one of his mentor's paws as he continued, "I mean, the best_est_ thing. I feel like I can let myself go and just - belong to everyone at once. Like a cub can. To you, to the team, to Serry. I can be a boyfriend and a big brother and a baby and a best friend and a playmate and it's all wonderful. No growed-up picking favorites and pitting furs against each other and stuff. No one on our team is ever going to feel frozen out or unloved. Not ever. Everyone knows without a doubt that I care about them with all my heart. And I do. I really do. That's the best part of wearing all the time for me. It's like. . ." Rian took a deep breath as he switched into a more mature tone, a transition the second-in-command of Baby Blue had always been able to make easily. "It's like I've finally achieved a perfect expression of love."

Roger squeezed the wolf's smaller paw and leaned down to nuzzle the top of his head. "You're worrying me, little buddy," the dog said gently. "I know you want to look out for everyone, but the team just keeps getting bigger. You can't be in three places at once, you know. Eventually something's going to slip."

Rian shook his head. "I know exactly what you're worried about, Rog," the wolf insisted. "You're right. I wasn't paying enough attention to Dex when I started dating. But that's all better now. He's been more at ease with everyone since the party. Furs ask him for advice about planning diapered trips and how to deal with stuff like changing in restroom stalls all the time. He's like an expert on what to bring where. Why, he's been the biggest help to me, he's like my roadside assistance practically. And every time I see him, it's a big smile, just like before! Which I'm not being selfish, buuuut," he tugged on the Labrador's paws again, "why haven't you said anything about what I did at the party since it happened? I thought you'd be the second-most-happiest with my big surprise for Dex. It was a surprise for you, too."

The dog took a lazy lick at the back of one of Rian's ears. "Rian," he said carefully, "That was a very sweet thought. But maybe you shouldn't keep the surprise quite so close to your chest next time. I mean, someone else might have wanted to be in on planning your party."

"You're busy enough already, Rog. And I owed him fursonally," the wolf said, looking around shiftily and lowering his voice, "for special favors. So I had to do it myself. Besides, Dex is my very first baby brother. Everyone knows we're super tight."

"I know things used to be that way," Roger prodded. "But you're dating someone. And Dex is too."

Rian blinked. "Twitchy?" He giggled. "Aww, come on, Twitchy isn't some interloper. He's my little bro, too. We're totally cool. That he's the one with Dex means there's nothing to worry about. We can all stay just like before! I mean, Twitch has always been private, slipping into the other room when pawing stuff was going on between the rest of us, that sort of thing wasn't any different. He's still coming into his own I think. I got him super-capable before spring break. Why, one weekend, he had himself potty-trained by Friday night, just in time to be un-potty-trained by Sunday morning, and by Monday, re-potty-trained again."

Rian added, with a wicked grin, "Well, mostly re-potty-trained. Twitch and I even made a pact then that we'd always clean up after each other. He's just been super-busy at school. Most of the time I see him lately he has a lab project or something." Then he frowned. "It does seem like he's been working a lot. I guess I should make sure he's not under too much stress, huh? As soon as this counteroffensive stuff, and Project B & K, is over, I'll do something nice for the end of his semester." He pawed behind his supine head, upward at his mentor's muzzle. "I have everything totally under control. Don't worry about the boys on my watch."

"Actually, little buddy," the dog said, "I'm worried about you. I'm worried you're trying to do too much. Setting yourself up for disappointment. You can't keep everything perfect for everybody all the time."

Rian scrunched his face up and leaned his head back, looking into Roger's face upside down out of the tops of his eyes. "I don't know if you're one to talk about doing too much, Rog," he said. "You've been running around like a mad dog for weeks. Have you had any fun lately?"

The Labrador patted Rian's head and sighed. "You might be right. My little comics and gaming business hasn't had so many customers in years. All these high-school kids who want to know about the group, and all the younger members' dramas, eat up more and more of my time. I hate to just stop talking to furs, but it's such a drain on my energy sometimes. You are not going to help, thank you very much," the dog said, reaching down and squeezing Rian's muzzle shut with one paw just as the wolf opened it to speak. "Given the nature of your superpowers, we decided you steer clear of the teenage scene, remember? No minors in the main group. We can be flexible with a lot of rules, but not that one. I count on you veterans to look out for each other while I feel out the new kids and figure out what to tell them and when."

"Bu y'need a wealeath too, Wog," Rian squeezed out of his forcibly shut muzzle. He swiped at the Lab's diaper with one paw and whined. "I cudd hewp yoou. I don' care that you're a bit older 'n mosta us. I really doooooon't. Lemme lemme lemme. Ya nevva lemme paw you and I wanna show that I love ya and make ya feel like a -."

The dog shook Rian's muzzle. "Stop that! Just stop it! For the last time: I don't go further than changes and spanking with boys on the team. But, look, don't worry about me. Not all of my running around the last few weeks has been mission-related, you know. Daddy has special friends - outside the club. It's better that way. When you get older, I bet you'll feel the same."

Rian looked doubtful, but nodded slowly - or went along with Roger's motion for him to nod slowly, as the Lab moved his muzzle up and down several times before releasing his grip on it.

"I'm sorry you've been stressy. I just gotted you a Daddy's day gift, Rog," Rian said, then squirmed as he felt the Lab slide one paw down the back of his diaper, checking, and heard a tsk, as he withdrew it.

"I see," Roger said, and the wolf flushed beet red and started to protest as he suddenly noticed a tiny, squishy warm feeling in the rear of his innermost diaper.

The embarrassment led him to empty his bladder on the spot, and he felt liquid swell up around his leg gathers. "Dass not wha I -" he squeaked out cubbishly.

But Roger cut him off with a pat on the head as he gently whispered into his sidekick's ear, "I'll open it later."

Next episode: Date Night!

Episode 4: Date Night!

"All right," said the panda, putting her feet up on the desk and eying the cougar seated across from her, wearing a red sports shirt and a pair of jeans, coolly over her clipboard, "so you think we can help with your love life? That means there must be something wrong with it."

The cougar nodded a bit uncertainly. "Well," he said, "my boyfriend is sort of unruly," he shifted in his seat. "I mean he has a lot of energy. And he's submissive." He blushed as he added, "Like aggressively submissive. I think we're already pretty kinky."

Lin Lin stared blankly at the questionnaire and the answers Serry had already filled in in girly cursive script, probably after her conversation with the cougar had gotten about this far. "Give me some examples," the panda said cautiously, "of what you're already doing."

"Well, okay," the cougar took a long breath. "Of course there are the diapers. Whenever he's in those he has to call me-"

"Daddy," Lin Lin said. So much for the pet names section.

"Uh huh," the cougar continued, nodding. "Or when he's older, I'll swap his boy underwear for-"

"Panties," Lin Lin interrupted. That covered the feminization part.

"That's right again," the cougar said, looking impressed. "And we have discipline, I mean, the diapers and panties are a form of that, but when he's been really bad, sometimes I even-"

"Spank him," the panda said. Discipline.

The cougar nodded again. "You'd think that would be enough to keep him interested, right? But that's not all we do. He also has a collar, so sometimes I'll say, okay, for Saturday you're my - "

"Dog," said Lin Lin. And that was scenarios.

The customer nodded. "That's right! So I don't know why he's still so restless. I consider myself a very attentive top." He tilted his head and eyed Lin Lin curiously. "Why aren't you writing anything down?"

Serry owed her no sodas. The panda dropped her clipboard and flashed their client a large, phony smile. "Don't worry, I think I'll remember," she said politely, ripping the questionnaire off the clipboard in front of her and crumpling it up in her paw. "We'll need to screen your boyfriend too and see how he looks. Do you want to bring him in or should one of us do it?"

The cougar fidgeted. "He likes surprises. He's hard for me to surprise, though. He seems to already know whatever I'm going to do. Maybe it would be more fun for him if one of you did?"

The panda nodded. "I can arrange a scenario."

"How are we doing so far?" the cougar asked. "Like, what are you thinking? Can you come up with things we haven't tried yet? Keep him interested?" He looked a bit nervous as he added, "Maybe keep him at bay a little?"

"We can help you but it will take some work," she said with a fake smile as she threw the crumpled up questionnaire across the room and watched it bounce off the wall and rebound into a pink wastebasket. "Your playmate is lucky to have a master who's so creative."

**********************************

The mall was teeming with furs looking for an air-conditioned escape from the warm, early summer evening. Twitchy hopped up and down periodically trying to see over the crowd. The rabbit tapped his foot and looked at his cell phone anxiously.

Then he felt a warm breath on his ear and a familiar paw on his shoulder. "Yo, bunny," said the raccoon behind him. "So what are we doing on our night off from recruiting? What do you want to show me before the study session?"

"Dex!" Twitchy said, brightening and bouncing up and down as he turned to see the raccoon who had come out of the department store entrance behind him. "Zero points for creative pet names. Let's get a drink first. I could use some caffeine! And why are you carrying a bag? You didn't buy anything already, did you?"

The raccoon was wearing the backpack he wore almost everywhere, and carrying a sturdy shopping bag.

"No, I brought it to reuse it," Dex said as the bunny grabbed his free paw and dragged him through the crowd into the food court.

Twitchy shook his head as he scanned the menu of a tea shop. "That seems like more trouble than it's worth. Do you know how many times you would have to do that before it makes any statistical difference?" he remarked idly.

"Ten," Dex answered, setting it down to unzip his backpack with one paw, as Twitchy continued holding the other.

"It was a rhetorical question. But that sounds kind of inconvenient," the bunny observed as they moved up in line.

"So does living underwater," the raccoon said smugly.

Twitchy rolled his eyes as he reached the cashier. "I'll have an iced skim carrot latte with two extra shots of espresso, and he'll have a . . ."

"Green tea with honey," Dex said as he reached into his backpack and fumbled around for a moment with his free paw, the other still loosely held in Twitchy's.

Twitchy held up a paw as the cashier reached for cups. "Hold on," the bunny warned the cashier. "I think he's about to give you a thermos."

Dex smiled and the rabbit felt the raccoon's paw squeeze his, warmly. "You're getting the hang of this," Dex remarked.

The tiny squeeze sent a jolt through Twitchy that the rabbit didn't expect. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment to get out his Velcro wallet, and, not wanting to let go of his boyfriend's grip, proceeded, in an awkward series of one-thing-at-a-time maneuvers, to slide bills out of it with his thumb and fingers, pay, take his change, hand over Dex's thermos, then take his own cup, all single-pawed.

Dex was grinning as the bunny tugged him aside afterward to make way for the next, annoyed-looking fur in line, who muttered something inaudible as they departed.

"You said no public displays of affection," the raccoon observed as the rabbit started looking around for a table. "We're holding paws."

"There's a big crowd here and I know you don't come to the mall much, kitten. I just don't want you to get lost," the rabbit answered, bouncing as he saw an empty table. "There's one!" he said, pointing, and hopped toward it, dragging Dex along behind him.

The rabbit reluctantly released Dex's paw so the two of them could sit down.

"Did you look at my paper?" Dex asked, a little eagerly. "The update of the one from last semester my econ professor said I should go back to? I thought it might be a project we could do together."

Twitchy waved a paw. "I think I mixed it in with another student's stuff. I've been a bit scattered lately. Sorry, Dex. First things first. Keep focused on your statistics final. That's the grade you need to bring up most."

"Another student?" Dex's ears pricked, and he half-smiled. "Are you two-timing me?"

"Tutoring some professor's kid," Twitch answered rapidly. "Kind of a brat. It's a political thing, have to do it, just forget I mentioned it."

"Okay, it was just a joke," said Dex, touching one of the bunny's large feet under the table with one of his, and scritching the rabbit's ankle through his sneaker.

Twitchy's eyes darted around the surrounding tables and, not seeing any faces he recognized from school, he lowered his voice. "So, the new BB caretaking cheat sheet went around with everyone's codes updated," the bunny said, cautiously.

Dex nodded. "Just in time to give the new recruits so they can see everyone's likes and limits when they join," the raccoon noted. "Rog is so good at things like that."

"Did you look at the milestones?" Twitchy whispered.

Dex stared into his thermos gloomily. "Oh, I just looked at Rian's and yours, Mr. outstanding sophomore science student," he said, shaking his head. "I don't know if I could really keep up at your school, Twitch. My grades my first term were not great, I was still, umm, adjusting to life after, well, you know, life without bladder control, and it's not like I can say that. I understand why they're dragging their feet about giving me money. And look at you, winning awards and stuff. You're reading these books now that I don't even know what they're about, in the first place, never mind trying to understand them. Like, control engineering? What's that?"

Twitchy waved a paw and pouted. "I shouldn't have let Rog put that award in there. Sorry. Jeez, it's just something I was happy about, like a basketball trophy. But when you put in something academic everyone gets all weird about it like you're rubbing it in their faces. I meant the other milestone, Dex. The one that really matters!"

The raccoon fidgeted. "Oh," he said, "yeah, everyone was talking about it after naptime tuck-in for the newbies. You mean Rian and Serafina going steady and Rian's rules change. It's there in black and white. He'll paw other boys but we aren't supposed to reciprocate any more, none of us, that's sissy fox territory only now. It's sad if you ask me. Like the end of an era. Rian does such sweet and wonderful things for all of us, like for me at that party, and now we can't really pay him back. Just a change here and there, and a hug and a lick maybe. At least I know it's not just me now." The raccoon's thumb had been drifting up to his muzzle as he spoke. "That fox better be good to him," he remarked as he started sucking on it.

Twitchy gritted his teeth, took a long sip of his drink, and counted to three before swallowing. "I meant the update I put in for you, Dex," he said patiently. "After Ace KO'ed you in combat practice a couple times and nothing happened. For the first time it says your regression episodes are voluntary now."

Dex blushed. "I didn't see it," he admitted. "I guess I got moody and I didn't read the whole thing."

"Well it's what we're celebrating," said Twitchy, grabbing the raccoon's paw again, yanking it away from his mouth and pulling him up. "Come on!"

*************************

"What a cool surprise! On the other side of a long crawl space. Who'd have thought? I had no idea you could get back here!" Rian marveled, reaching a paw out gingerly. His white and blue-trimmed sailor suit was just slightly damp from the drops that splashed backward as the back of his paw touched the cascading water. An unfolded blindfold lay behind him on the cave's moist, lichen-covered floor.

"Most furs don't," his sissy fox girlfriend Serafina answered, sitting on a small rock ledge. "Back when I was on the boys' team, I found the way in here when I was making a map of swimming holes and paintball sniper posts for Roger. I kept this to myself, though. Sorry about the blindfold, but now the entrance is on academy property, in the Enchanted Forest. I thought someday I would take someone special here."

The wolf wagged his tail and giggled. The crash of water cascading hundreds of feet down echoed throughout the small rock grotto. He waved a paw above his head and shouted. "Hello, City Park! Hello, city furs!" A garbled version of his words rang off the walls, as though the water had washed out his consonants and left the stripped vowels bouncing off about the cool gray rock chamber.

"No one can hear us," Serry said, loosening a shoulder strap on her tight floral sundress. "No one can see us either. Trust me, I came up here when I was upset more than once back then and shouted until I was blue in the muzzle. We're too high up and the waterfall is too loud this time of year. We're looking down on one of the busiest places in the city, but we're practically invisible."

Rian's ears flicked suspiciously. "Heeey," he observed, lowering his voice, a realization flickering into his mind. "The other day I asked you about that where's the wildest place we've yiffed at meme. You said not to fill it out."

The wolf stumbled backwards as he felt Serry's paw rest on his shoulder and her breath, then her nose, warm on the back of his ear. "You can answer it tomorrow," she whispered.

*************************

The raccoon blinked, wide-eyed, at the racks of footed, animal-themed sleepers around him. "A whole store for pajamas?" he said, feeling overwhelmed by the world of felt and cotton fuzziness all around him. "With matching sleeping bags and bedding? Who knew?"

Twitchy bounced up and down. "It's brand new!" he said eagerly, holding up selections. "Pick out whatever you want! I know how much you love the one sleeper that you have. Almost as much as your karate uniform. Here's a cat costume one! I don't think your tail would fit, though. It must be for standard dog-types. Umm, yeah, it says D before the size. What do you think about rocket ships and planets? NASA is. . ."

"A massive waste of money that produces nothing except pollution?" Dex asked acidly as he turned back to a blue felt sleeper with white pads on the soles of the feet and turned it over to look at the back.

Twitchy pouted. "The best hope of advancing furry scientific knowledge about planetary environments and how to fix them, not to mention it has the coolest toys on the planet," he muttered, his ears flicking, but Dex didn't seem to be listening to him. "What are you looking at, Dex? Come on, that's just a classic, it looks exactly like the one you already have."

"Almost like," Dex said, shaking his head, as he let it fall back onto the hanger. "It's missing something."

He was remembering another weekend outing that he had never thought would feel so long ago, when he was sitting on the sofa of Roger's apartment. The couch was covered with a plastic slipcover, and Dex had been wearing nothing except a single thick, carefully pinned cloth diaper and a pair of red plastic pants, crossing his arms.

'See,' the Labrador said triumphantly, pointing at the couch. 'Now the cloth wearer crinkles!' He adjusted the posterboard chart on the wall with 'DEX' written across the top of it in childish stencil letters and with four penciled off rows labeled D1 and D2, in blue, with happy faces drawn in the D's, and beneath them, P1 and P2, in red and marked with a childish drawing of a closed toilet. There were three gold stars so far in the D1 row of Dex's chart.

'Roooog,' the incontinent raccoon whined, 'this is dumb.' It was his second extended cub play visit to the Labrador's apartment. The raccoon had come to trust his new friends. But Dex, who was then prone to regressive episodes whenever a defeat made him think of his crippling tournament loss, still wasn't entirely convinced that actually starting to feel comfortable in the diapers he had to wear the last time he played here hadn't been a one-time fluke.

Rian came out of the kitchen a moment later. 'Where were you?' Roger asked, rounding on him sternly. The wolf's ears fell flat and he suddenly looked very evasive.

'Nowhere,' Rian whimpered. 'Making this.' He held up an identical chart with his own name stenciled across the top.

Roger bit his lip. 'Do I need to go flush my toilet?' the dog asked sternly.

'I don't know,' the wolf said, fidgeting. The little wolf was wearing a pair of plastic disposables fastened extra snugly with packing tape under a loose-hanging white tee shirt. 'Maybe you forgotted to last time you used it.'

Roger glowered at him and used the thumbtack in his paw to tack up Rian's chart next to Dex's. Then he started for the kitchen. 'Don't go check,' the wolf whimpered. 'It doesn't count before I made the chart. Give me a breeeaaaak. Pleeeeease. I'm supposed to be the baby, me me me me, but he's kicking my butt already, Rog! Iss no fair.'

Dex eyed Rian suspiciously. 'I didn't know you were making a chart for yourself too,' the raccoon said.

Rian just crossed his arms. 'It's no fair,' he repeated. 'You're naturally advantaged.' He looked at his footpaws, then added, somewhat more seriously, 'You are gifted at regression, Dex. You are very special.'

The raccoon looked at his new friend skeptically. 'Advantaged? Gifted?' he shook his head. 'Handicapped more like. Pathetic. Broken. Defective. Something that should be returned to the raccoon shop for a refund. There's nothing special about me, Rian. Not in a good way, I mean.'

The wolf just stuck his tongue out at the raccoon. 'Stop talking big words,' he pouted. 'Tryin' to make it sound like this is fair for me.'

A flush echoed from the other side of the kitchen.

Dex was just opening his muzzle when Roger marched back into the room and hoisted Rian up under both arms, carrying him over to the charts hanging on the wall. 'Make your mark,' he commanded, holding the short wolf dangling there. Rian, looking at Dex out of the corner of his eyes, reached out with a hesitant paw and pressed it against his own chart, in the row labelled P1. He left a blue pawprint.

'His paws are inked?' Dex asked, confused.

'Rian insists he's the bigger baby here,' the Labrador barked, shaking his head. 'And as the baby he's not allowed into the cookie jar or anything like that. His paws are inked with water-soluble fingerpaint so I can see exactly what he's gotten into. We do that sometimes. So he can't do any little thing he's not supposed to without getting caught. It keeps the little sneak from flushing while we're asleep, for instance. If he washed the ink off his paws, well, of course we would notice that.' The Labrador shook his head and added, leaning over to the raccoon, in a confidential whisper. 'I'm starting to have doubts about his analysis of who's the bigger cub, though.' The dog shook his dangling protege firmly. 'Come on,' he urged, 'you know that doesn't cover everything you did, little buddy. Don't make me spank you. Maybe I'll have Dex spank you, now that he's doing karate again.'

Rian, reluctantly, hanging his head as though committing an act of great shame, pressed his paw against the P2 row, as well.

The raccoon eyed him cautiously. 'Why does he want to be the baby anyway? We're both in diapers. What difference does it make?'

The wolf, still dangling in Roger's grip, kicked his footpaws in the air. 'You didn't tell him about the prize?!' he squealed. 'And he's still kicking the snot out of me?'

The Labrador let his sidekick down onto the floor gently. 'Why don't you tell him?' he suggested.

Rian bounced on his heels and his eyes twinkled. 'The baby gets put to bed in something special tonight, cuddled up between both of us. And whoever's bigger is going to have to do chores while the kit relaxes including he'll have to, ermm, check on his little bro during the night, and inspect his diaper area. Several times. Obviously the more times, the more accidents he's had already! And change as necessary.'

Dex shifted and squirmed in his seat on the couch, crossing his legs and causing the slip cover to crinkle loudly. Rian looked crestfallen when he saw how wriggly the raccoon was.

'Is there something you need help with, Dex?' Roger asked the squirmy raccoon.

Dex nodded silently and looked from Rian up to the Labrador. 'Mmmhmm,' he said quietly and politely, then pointed at the chart. 'I need you to put a star in D2 please. You don't need to do anything else right away.'

Rian kicked one footpaw in the air in disappointment. 'I might as well just put him in it,' he pouted, getting on his knees. He marched off into the bedroom.

Dex tilted his head and looked up at the Labrador, blushing. 'You put a lot of thought into this, Rog,' he said, becoming increasingly embarrassed as he became more and more aware of an unaccustomed warmth not only in the rear, but also in the front, of his diaper. 'I don't know what to say exactly.'

Roger shrugged. 'Thank Rian,' the dog said. 'To be honest, Dex, all of this is his idea. He's been bouncing off the walls brainstorming and collecting things since I told him you kept your promise to us and tried out at the dojo, and then got hired there. Congratulations on getting your brown belt, by the way.' The Labrador put a large gold star sticker on Dex's chart in the D2 row and added, teasingly, 'Both of them.'

When the wolf came back into the bedroom, he made an awkward, waddling entrance. Dex looked up at him as Rian unfolded a pale blue, felt footed sleeper.

'Don't count me out yet just cuz I need ta work at this harder than he does,' the lupine said to Roger, his face scrunched up in intense concentration. 'I diden finish in the potty. I need a star in D1. And in D2, too!'

Roger shook his head. 'I don't know if you shudda done that, Rian,' he warned, as he put one on the chart. 'Only the baby's little enough to get changed tonight. You could end up in that until tomorrow. You'll wake up with a rash.'

'A rash?' Rian quivered and asked fearfully, 'I might just have a rash all day tomorrow then. And I'd still have to change this little cutie for the next 24 hours anyway? I didn't think of that.' Rian frowned at Dex and whimpered pathetically, 'And at the rate he's going, he might just need changes every hour. Then there'll be feedings. Oh, I hope they at least happen out here on the couch where there's a slipcover so he doesn't mess up the entire kitchen. I know you, Rog. I'd end up stuck cleaning it while you carried him off to play with toys and told him he was a sweet, adorable little angel. Then I'll end up trailing after him picking up the toys he throws away. I might not even have time to change out of my own messy diaper until the end of the day. Only the real baby can count on non-stop on-demand emergency changing service, after all.'

Then Rian perked up as he shook the sleeper and said, 'Well, tomorrow only goes that way if he's the one who goes to bed in this! The night is still young. And we're only getting younger, coonie! I bet even Roger will be like a teenager by the time we all get to bed.'

He stood on his toes to look over the shoulder of the sleeper at his usually depressed, incontinent friend, and asked, 'Buuut tell me one thing at this moment. Who would you really rather be right now-you poor, unlucky little coon kit? You, or me?'

Dex, who had been sinking further and further back into the couch as he listened, stared up at his friend and the sleeper with eyes almost as wide as the rings around them. 'Rian, I don't know what to say. If there's ever anything you want that I can-' the coon started to say, then did a double take as the wolf turned the sleeper around to hold it up in front of the raccoon as though confirming visually that it would fit Dex.

The raccoon blurted out, 'Why does it have a drop seat?'

The short wolf peeked out from behind the sleeper again. 'Obviously, it's gonna make it easier to check on you during the night, baby bro. Umm, I mean . . . if you're lucky enough to win our little contest, coonie.'

The raccoon crossed his legs and squirmed again as he chuckled uneasily. 'Of course,' he said. 'I knew that.'

"Dex! Dex!" The raccoon snapped his head up and out of his reverie as Twitchy tugged on his tail. "What's the matter with you? Stop sucking your paw! It's very bad! I said I like the green one. What do you think?"

Dex shook his head and took his paw out of his muzzle slowly. "Sorry, Twitch," he said, smiling softly, looking up to see the two the rabbit was holding. "My mind kind of wandered off for a minute. Umm, I dunno, maybe the green one would look good on me. You're the one who has to look at me in it. Do you like either of them?"

The rabbit narrowed his eyes. "Maybe we should come back with Rian and ask what he thinks," he snapped.

"Hey, I have a better idea," Dex suggested, brightening and unslinging his backpack from his shoulder. "I have my cell phone. We can send the fashion expert a picture."

Twitchy turned around and set both of the sleepers he was holding back on the racks decisively. "It was a bad idea to do this as a surprise," he said, looking at his watch. "Why don't you think about it and we'll come again another time. Let's go over your homework now."

***********************

The tracking hound's ear flicked as he registered a noise in the undergrowth behind him, but he didn't move, his eyes remaining fixed on the branches above, and his thumb resting on the mini-cassette deck in his paw. The lower half of the sky was golden - it was at the midpoint of a long, early summer sunset.

"How did you find me this time?" he whispered. "I know I covered my tracks."

Over Jax's shoulder, the leaves and twigs still massed on the forest floor crunched quietly beneath Ace's footpaw. "How do you think?" the lynx in the safari hat asked softly, leaning one arm against a tree as he looked down from behind at his canine boyfriend, sitting on his knees on the forest floor, scanning the treetops. "Everyone's left the woods except us. It's quiet enough out here to hear a crinkle now. You're it, by the way."

Jax inclined his head. "I think I heard something," the tracking hound explained quietly. "A whippoorwill."

"Oh?" The lynx tilted his head and walked over, keeping his weight on his toes to move through the brush as quietly as possible. "They aren't from around here, are they?"

Jax beamed and he reached up with his left paw to grip the lynx's arm loosely as he walked into reach. "That's right," he answered.

The lynx crouched carefully next to him, bending his knees and resting his rear in the air above his heels, until his head was only a couple inches above the dog's. "Do you feel ready for our tag team assault?" he asked. "Are you still up for it?"

Jax nodded. "I've been paying more attention to those two and something definitely doesn't smell right," he said, and reached over Ace's right arm, now looped around his left, to tap his nose with one finger. "I just don't know what yet."

"Basic basics," Ace suggested, shrugging. "They don't have enough in common."

The tracking hound shook his head. "No," he said. "I mean, maybe, but I think it's more than that."

"We'll worry about it tomorrow," Ace said, inching closer into Jax, his right paw resting on the front of the dog's puffy khaki shorts, and pressing down on them experimentally. "We've got other things to worry about tonight. Tomorrow these woods will be crowded with recruits again. We'll be entering full-blown operation mode. I wouldn't want to miss our chance to finally-"

The tracking hound suddenly sprung up onto his heels, clicked his tape recorder on and pointed up into the trees as a whooping call went through the leaves nearby, and another answered it. "Can you believe this?" the dog whispered, his tail breaking into a wag. "There's a whole family!" A third call sounded again, more distantly. "And they're on the move! I have to follow them. Maybe I can record them all!"

Ace's right paw fell limply onto the warm spot where Jax had been sitting. "To finally do that," he concluded with a sigh.

***********************

Pressed against the damp cave wall, Serry shivered as she felt herself discharge into her diapers, Rian's cock still snugly within her and only beginning to recede, his load still filling her with warmth. His left paw, inside her padding, had been stroking her, and her discharge spread out across its pawpads.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled at the wolf's contented face and closed eyes. "Sweetheart," she whispered, licking at his muzzle, "I've never been with anyfur who tries so hard to make us cum at the same time." It was true; and if she wasn't still panting and quivering a bit much, she would have gone on to say that Rian thrusted so slowly, and stroked so carefully, he sometimes seemed to be focused more on pawing her than on penetrating her.

Her rear clenched as Rian released a little more into her, and he rocked her in his arms, remaining locked inside her for the next fifteen minutes or so. Eventually he whimpered, and, after another small discharge, Serry felt some dribbling out from under her tail into her fur.

"Everything worked out perfect for us, Serry," he said dreamily, "You gave me the confidence to help the other boys; and they helped make me perfect for you."

It was still another ten minutes or so before the wolf withdrew and Serry dropped to her knees and forepaws, shaking as she continued her own orgasm in the damp, clinging front of the diaper under her sundress.

Rian opened his eyes. His back was still being sprayed by the roaring waterfall not ten feet away from them, and the top of his sailor suit, soaked in the back, clung to his fur. He smiled down at her as he raised his ministering paw, covered with the sissy boy's dribble, to his lip, and every so often licked at it gingerly, doing his best to overcome his distaste.

"Oh, don't do that, Rian," she whined when she eventually flopped over on to her back and looked up at him. "I'll clean everything up. That's what good girls do. Or bad girls. Depending on your point of view."

"Fine," the wolf pouted.

"Don't try to pretend you like it," she stuck her tongue out at him and giggled. "You aren't sissy material. Even I had to train and train to lose the gag reflex."

"I'll clean it up my own way." The wolf held the back of his semen-covered paw into the waterfall and let it be washed clean in the foamy spray. "Now every time I look at this waterfall," he said, smiling, "I'll see my Princess in it."

"Well, you've done it now," Serry teased. "Tainted the city water supply. Everyone who drinks it will be pining for frilly panties and princess ponies before long. Wait till your team finds out."

Rian fidgeted. "Hey, Serry," he said. "Speaking of the team, I wanted to know if we could do something for the start of the Shakespeare festival and the opening night of your play, some of us, or if it would interfere with anything the girls are doing. Take your time to think about it, but you're like, a princess all the time now, and Roger says I'm doing better so far than anyone else he knows who's gone 24/7, and Dex is, well I can't explain the details to you really, but practically a real recreational lifestyle fur now, which trust me, wasn't always the case. I thought we could do something for the three of us, to celebrate, like, unique life transitions, or something."

The fox looked up at him strangely. "Rian," she said after a long pause, recalling her last one-on-one conversation with the raccoon, when he had warned her against hurting his friend, "I don't think that's a good idea. I know he's your best friend, but I don't think Dex likes me. To be honest, I know he doesn't."

"Don't be silly," the wolf waved a forepaw, then his eyes twinkled. "I just know if you two actually talked to each other you'd really like each other. Oh, I know what you're seeing! Dex is just very into the game and all the boy stuff. He can act very serious about it. And you're on the opposite team. But when you lend a paw to the right side like you always do, and help us pull ahead and put an end to all this extreme discipline Level 5 nonsense once and for all by crashing the big party, trust me, he'll be all hugs and smiles. We'll practically be a family."

Serry fidgeted on the cave floor and slowly sat up, crossing her legs and resting her forepaws on her knees, her dress hanging limp and wet. "Umm, Rian," she said. "Callie's Open House is really important to the academy. And I need to set an example for my students. They all look up to me now that I've gone public. The Shakespeare festival, I mean that I'm one of the stars, as a girl, it's pretty exciting for the other Pink players. I know in the past my loyalties have been a bit flexible-I am a fox-but I owe this to my team. I won't be helping you and Roger this time."

The wolf's paw dropped to his side and hung there. "What?" he asked blankly.

"Look," she said after he just stood there, thunderstruck, "I've been kind of busy with the play - we're in rehearsals almost every day now - so I've missed a lot of meetings at the academy. I don't know exactly what's going on outside my classroom - or what you boys think is going on - but I've learned to trust Callie."

Rian shook his head. "Trust Callie?" he asked, dazed. "Are you crazy? Is this conversation really happening? I'd swear I was dreaming except that I would never fall asleep during a yifftime until I knew you had climaxed too, and that just happened seconds ago."

"I know you and she got off on the wrong paw," Serry said, sitting up, and wrapping her arms around her knees, "but Callie helped get us together, remember. She helped me trust you. Trust has never come naturally to me. When I think about it, I understand why she started putting me in chastity punishments so much as soon as she thought we might be serious about each other. I used to be so much more focused on my self than on any of my partners - I mean, with a couple big exceptions, the particular boy didn't really matter so much - but now, when I cum, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice. But when you do, when you have an orgasm, because of me, it's like -the spotlight comes on; I'm warm deep inside; I know I exist for a reason. I think I could stop pawing altogether, and just have you."

"Well don't," Rian snapped, looking glum. "I can't believe I'm hearing this! You're talking about taking away boys' pawing rights over there. Feminizing them for their," Rian shuddered as he said the next word, "masters! Subjugating people! Pawing is . . . well it's important for fursonal assertiveness. And your sexual health. Like brushing your teeth!"

Serry looked skeptical. "You paw off two to three times a day?" she asked.

"Like flossing," he corrected himself.

"Once a night?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Who flosses every night?" Rian exclaimed, throwing his paws in the air in frustration. "You're missing the point! It's about freedom! I don't like any of this restrictive stuff and telling people what to do! You're going to paw whenever you want and you're going to like it, darn it! It's important to me!"

"Well fine," the sissy fox said in mock resignation. "Then I have to do it. Can I ask you for something though? The girls really liked it that time you subbed for me at the academy. They still gossip about you. I thought you might come back after the Open House, regardless of what happens in the meantime, and we could try team-teaching something? I thought you might come in as a rebellious transfer student who keeps interrupting me. Maybe after a while I'd say something like, 'If you know sooo much about what boys like, baggy wolfy pants, why don't you try teaching the class?' and I might - lose control of things a bit. It could be for a lesson on power exchange."

"That sounds stupid," Rian snapped, crossing his arms and looking down at the lichen-covered rock. "And I'm upset with all of you academy people right now."

Serry shifted and flicked her tail, which was slightly less bushy after having endured the spray of the waterfall, against the cave floor. "I'm kind of hoping we can yiff in almost-public again, though," the sissy fox said slyly. "I bet Callie will clear it. Aaaaaaand, it would be really important to me."

"Well fine," Rian whined. "Then I have to do it." She smiled and wriggled her tail as the wolf kicked a loose rock off the cave floor and watched it fall into the waterfall.

"I'm still mad at you, though," Rian pouted.

********************

Lin Lin held her head in her paws and stared down at the blank sheet in front of her.

"Is that it?" she asked the two latest prospects. " 'Train him to wear girl clothes and diapers at home.,'" she read. "That's the entire statement of interests? There's a whole page of blank lines on the other side of this paper. If you wanted to write anything else. About other, you know, thoughts you might have." She held up the reverse side of the application form and shook it at them. "In case you thought the form was one-sided. This is your chance to get creative. Don't be afraid. This is an open-minded place. Our best students are the ones who come up with original ideas on their own. It keeps the give and take interesting for everyone here."

"Well, there is one more grown-up thing Daddy's little girl has always wanted to try," the new customer said, holding his charge by the paw. "Why don't you tell the nice panda, sweetheart?"

His ursine boyfriend, who was staring down at his shoes poutily, brightened as he looked up. "I don't know if they have any experience with it at this girly place, though," the cubbish fur said nervously. "It's kinda naughty."

"Look, kid, I do scenes every day. If there's one thing I don't like, it's for them to all be exactly the same," Lin Lin said icily. "So go ahead, please. Tell me something that I don't hear all the time."

The cub in the relationship giggled and blushed-and the panda dropped her head back into her paws in quiet frustration-as he suggested, "You can also put down, Curious about puppy play."

********************

Twitchy slammed the door to his dorm room shut and pointed at a wire basket. "Put your homework in there. I need to finish something but I'll look at it as soon as I can."

Dex did so, meekly, his ears flat, as Twitchy reached into his boyfriend's diaper with one paw and, shaking his head, yanked the front of the raccoon's shirt out from his pants.

"Stop tucking your shirt into your diapers!" he chided. "It's very bad! Put your shirt on before your pants from now on. That way you won't keep making that mistake."

"Yes Twith," said Dex, looking chastened, and sat down seiza-style on the floor. He pawed idly at a ball of yarn that had been left lying there. "Did I do something bad at the mall?" he asked apprehensively, then sighed. "I'm still not good enough to do anything for you, am I? I want to, but I'm so nervous about it. Is it that obvious? Do you think I'll hurt you? Bite or scratch or something? I won't. Do you think it's because of me that Rian doesn't want us to paw him back any more? Do you think I did something wrong the last time I tried to? Do you think I hurt him? Did he say anything about it?"

"Dex," Twitchy said in a mature, businesslike tone. "I don't blame you for anything. But there's not enough time right now. We both have homework to do. Keep practicing. Think about our playtime together, and what it will be like, just you and me. That's the most important thing you can do. We'll both know when you're ready. Trust me, it will be a big event. And when it happens it will feel like the most natural thing in the world to be with me, kitten." The bunny took some reading material from his desk and marched into the bathroom.

After about fifteen minutes, the coon heard a flush and Twitchy emerged with a book tucked under his arm. He sat down at his computer desk, then spun around in his chair and did a double take when he saw Dex. The raccoon had wriggled out of his shirt and backpack and his pants had slid down to his knees. But more importantly, he was entirely tangled up in the unraveled ball of yarn, purring as he rolled around in a futile, feline struggle.

Dex had begun purring louder and louder as he rolled into a nightstand and became increasingly entangled. His pants slipped off his footpaws and, eventually, the ensnared make-believe kitten realized he was whining and humping against the air, the front of his diaper taut. "Look Twith!" he said. "I mighta been bad at the mall. Iss scawy for pets. Bu' I'm pwacktin' summin' for you wight now. See! No paws!"

The rabbit shook his head. "You are so weird," he remarked. "You don't even do your fetishes the way other furs with those fetishes do them." Then he turned back to his computer screen. Dex stopped struggling and stared up at him from behind, waiting patiently.

In three different places, Serafina, Ace, and Dex each swiped a forepaw (or in Dex's case, footpaw) at his (or, in Serry's case, by some definitions, her) partner's arm.

Jax looked back over his shoulder and saw Ace standing right at his heels, panting from the short sprint and holding his safari hat down on his head with his other paw. "You don't have to come along with me, you know," the dog said to his boyfriend. "I know you don't really like birdwatching. And this might take a while."

The lynx raised a finger to his muzzle and smiled. "Quiet," he whispered. "You'll scare them away."

"So," Serry asked her boyfriend, "we're fighting?"

"We're fighting," Rian affirmed sadly.

The sissy fox wriggled on the ground. "I guess that means no yiffing for a while?" she said.

The wolf humphed. "Don't exaggerate," he said.

"Hey, Twitch," Dex, still tangled up in yarn and wearing nothing except socks, diaper, and plastic pants, said hopefully to his younger big brother bunny, who had been typing and squinting at school-related files for more than half an hour without so much as glancing back at him. "I like it how you pretend to ignore me sometimes."

When the rabbit continued typing, Dex added, "You know, to help me get into the cubby headspace. It's sweet."

"Huh?" Twitchy said. _ _

Level cleared!

Congratulations! You have successfully completed Level One: Playing (Rian)!

You have unlocked a Hidden Achievement: You're not quick. You're not strong. You're not especially smart, either. Sorry. I guess that leaves . . . Charisma. Well, what do you know? That's where all your attribute points went.

You made new friends! You may now summon: Baby Blue recruit teams.

Be careful! You have activated a Wild Card: One of your new recruits is asking a few too many questions . . . Did you notice who?** **

Select your PC for the next level . . .

Rian

--> Twitchy

Dex

Roger

You have selected: Twitchy! Good luck, bunny! Happy hopping!

Level Two Preview:

_Scheming!_Rian is thrown for a loop when one of the Pink players makes her move against the boys' team, and the Baby Blue offensive stumbles. Meanwhile, after Dex and Twitchy are ambushed, the rabbit decides that more than diapers need changing around here!