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It was an average lobby of an average office building, only a little more brutalist in design than was the downtown norm. It was nearly noon, so traffic in the lobby was mostly headed out, with only a slow trickle of employees headed in, consisting of those who had taken an early lunch break or those, like the skunk now wandering up to the front desk, whose work day started at an unusual mid-afternoon time slot but wanted to arrive a little early.

"Morning, Hugo," the skunk said as she approached.

The lion behind the security desk smiled at being remembered. "Morning, Kim. How was the commute today?" He set aside the book of suduko he had been doodling in.

The skunk nodded at the pleasantry and fished around in her pocket for her ID. "It was the subway: cramped and loud, as always."

"You never know, one of these days, you'll find that magic subway train that's peaceful and calm. Weirder things happen around here every day." He chuckled at his own joke.

Kim ignored the joke. They weren't supposed to be talking about those things out in public. The skunk fumbled in her handbag for her ID and then leaned over to ask in hushed tones, "Could you tell me where my department is located today?"

The guard gave a strained smile. He didn't need to tell anyone where their department was; he'd never had to do that before. But all the same, he looked it up. "Looks like Acquisitions is in D-wing today."

"Oh. Never been to D-wing before." The skunk, despite having ID in hand, did not move away. She leaned over and whispered even lower. "And if someone wanted to stop in at Records?"

"Records?" He blinked, now fully lost.

"Yes, say someone wanted to visit someone in Records before going to Acquisitions."

"Oh, a visit." He nodded in understanding and checked for her. "You're in luck. Records got moved to C-wing halfway through this morning."

"Thanks, Hugo," the skunk said before skipping over to the main turnstile. "You're the best!"

Kim joined the small group of drably-dressed office workers waiting to swipe their IDs and gain admittance. During the brief pause, the skunk's eyes wandered up to the icon that hung high over the lobby, a globe with a crisscrossing network of lines across its surface, and the letters BTA underneath it. Still sufficiently non-descript that those who wandered into the building by mistake assumed it was some international communication firm. If only they knew what the T in BTA really stood for.

The skunk was pulled out of her thoughts by a shift in the line. She quickly swiped her ID and left the lobby behind. On the other side, Kim was immediately confronted by the building map, which looked like a cross between a Piet Mondrian painting and a depiction of the Cretan labyrinth. "Blame the Others," she muttered under her breath.

The building was known by its workers as the Big Office, or just the Office, and it housed the Bureau for Tantric Allocation. The BTA was responsible for keeping the world safe from dangerous, runaway sexual fantasies, the kind that could start rewriting reality around them. The BTA was assisted -- and some would say managed -- by an extra-dimensional group called the Others. The Others were helpful, or at least tried to be, but quite often their help created its own headaches, and the Office's architecture was one example of that.

For one thing, the Office was, from the outside, one city block wide and four stories tall, while from the inside it spanned at least five city blocks and twenty stories. For another, the building could often shift its contents around. Only a few things about the Office stayed the same on a daily or even hourly basis. The security desk was always at the front door. The map was always in the hallway behind the desk. And the bathroom and changing rooms were just after that. So Kim went there first. Everything else could wait.

The skunk joined the trickle of people heading into the changing rooms. There, everyone was peeling off the plain, drab commuting outfits off and dressing in their official work uniforms. Kim shivered in anticipation. She commuted, as she always did, in a black dress and white blouse that even her very conservative mother would have thought was overdoing it a bit. It was stiflingly mundane... from the outside. Just like the Office itself, she thought.

There was one added feature revealed as she stripped down. She groaned as she peeled off her underwear and with them extracted the seven-inch long dildo that had been nestled deep inside her during the entire trip. The skunk gave it a quick clean before setting it inside her locker, only to jump as she noticed a bear -- already in her bright gray work uniform with its deep red stripe -- staring at her. "Hi, Renee," she said cautiously.

"Kimberly." The bear continued to stare.

"Something wrong?" Kim groped in the locker for her uniform, not taking her eyes off the bear. She was not naturally shy, but even she felt an urge to cover herself with her tail under the bear's gaze.

"Toys like that are not allowed during commute. You are supposed to be suppressing your tantric field levels at that time."

"Tell that to Janelle." The skunk said and tilted her head to the far end of the room, where a bat was pulling off a facemask to reveal that she had been deepthroating a dildo underneath. Her ears shot up at the mention of her name. "Besides," Kim went on, "I got special permission from Tonya. I'm providing local tantric field adjustments along my entire commute."

The bear lifted an eyebrow. "I will check on this permission of yours. Good day, Kimberly." She tromped out of the room in a blur of crimson.

Reds, Kim thought. Yeesh.

Kim shrugged at Janelle, who shrugged back, and both of them began to dress in their work uniform. Like the bear's it was mostly gray, but the splash of color on theirs was bright green. Theirs was also far more form-fitting with numerous "easy access points." Kim's pierced nipples were clearly visible through the tight fabric.

Janelle came up to the skunk and smiled. The bat was swallowing a few times, getting used to her throat being empty once more. "So D-wing today, huh?"

Kim smiled. "Yeah, but I have to make a detour, so I'll catch you there later." She bounced off quickly before the bat could ask what the detour was for.

It was still an unusual hour, and there were only a few other workers waiting to catch a guide into the deeper parts of the Office. You could try to find your way to your wing on your own, but with how the building reorganized itself -- sometimes while you were walking it -- it was far safer to be led to your destination. The guides were workers wearing a full sensory deprivation hood. For some reason, it gave them an intuitive sixth sense of the layout of the building and could take people quite quickly to their destination.

The skunk waited next to a cougar under a sign reading "C-wing." Kim rocked on her feet and idly ran her claws along her tail: the dildoed commute had left her with a hum of arousal in her mind. She took deeper breaths just to feel the suit sliding more forcefully over her sensitive nipples.

Her focus was broken by the arrival of the guide, so tightly bound that Kim couldn't tell the species underneath for certain other than that it appeared to be feline. She followed along behind as it led her and the waiting cougar deeper into the complex. They took a long straight hallway for a minute, then turned suddenly up a flight of stairs, waited on the landing between floors, went back down into a hallway that was now completely different, took three lefts, a right, a left, made a U-turn, then finally ended up in C-wing.

She waved goodbye to the guide even though it couldn't see. It never hurted to be a little nice.

At least within a wing, there was some amount of order: the exact placement of the rooms might vary, but the instructions were just clear arrows marked over doorways. In no time at all, the skunk slipped into the records office. A few friendly workers who recognized her waved as she passed, but she, at first, didn't see the one person she was hoping to. Thankfully people around here knew her reason for visiting and pointed her to one of the smaller side rooms, stocked with rows and rows of old library-style card catalogs as well as her boyfriend, Paul.

The wolf gave a sheepish smile as she approached, as he was there in the middle of the room with the front of his uniform open and his shaft buried deep in the muzzle of a vixen tied into a kneeling position on the floor. "Uh, hi, Kim."

Paul's obvious embarrassment was delicious. He even did that thing where his ears were both splayed down but his right one would keep trying to perk back up. "What are you doing, hun?" she asked with simpering sweetness.

"Oh, well, you see, management said we weren't tantrically balanced here in Records and needed some adjustments. So I'm supposed to, er..."

"Yes?" The skunk tip-toed in closer and rested a hand on the vixen's head. She was wearing a full latex mask with only her muzzle open. She might not have even known that anyone else was there if Kim didn't let her know through touch. She looked at the muzzle taking the wolf's shaft so deep her nose was in his fur and sighed with a touch of jealousy.

"I'm supposed to make use of her during my lunch break," he finished in a rush. "Oh, and I'm supposed to say some words."

"What words are those, dear?"

His ears flattened harder and he pulled out a little sheet of paper on which was typed -- typed, she noted, not printed -- a short list of instructions. He coughed, attempted to start speaking, coughed again, and then began to read. "Ahem. 'That's right. Take it, you bitch. Take it like the slut you are. Swallow my cock and choke on my seed.'" He spoke the lines flat, stilted and with no intonation. It was like watching a middle-schooler try to read a dirty Shakespeare soliloquy aloud.

But as soon as he finished saying the words, there was a change in the vixen. She surged forward, pulling the wolf's shaft deeper into her muzzle, sucking and slurping audibly. Paul's eyes rolled and despite the presence of his girlfriend beside him, he gripped the vixen's shoulders and thrust into her warm muzzle. He was suddenly a different person, audibly grunting and slamming his hips forward with wet slaps until, barely a few seconds later, he came with a grunt and snarl.

Then the moment passed. Paul panted, his chest heaving, and his tongue lolling from his mouth. His embarrassment was mollified by the intense pleasure of the afterglow washing over him. "Damn, those field shifts. I am not used to them. How do you work with them every day?"

"A lot of practice and a lot of openness." She patted his shoulder, and tried not to feel like she was patting the stripe of yellow on his outfit.

"Sorry about, um, all this."

She shushed him and with his hips still firmly attached to the vixen's face, pulled him into a kiss. "It's okay, hun. You're just doing your job. Just promise me you'll fuck me like that one day."

"If, uh, that's what you want..." He looked a little surprised and unsure.

The skunk grinned and swung a leg around so she was straddling the vixen's muzzle. She squeezed her thighs around her and shifted her balance forward to push the vixen tighter around Paul's shaft. "If I'd known you needed to do this, I'd have volunteered to be in her place."

The big wolf relaxed, just a little.

She kissed him once more and ran her hands over the front of his uniform. She could feel the slight shiver of his muscles as he continued to thrust slowly into the vixen.

"You're here early," he commented, as if just noticing. "How was your commute?"

They made small talk for a while, asking about her morning (up at ten with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and listening to a podcast) and his (up at five with a cup of tea and homemade waffles and solving a crossword). Kim stayed straddling the vixen's muzzle with her hands on his hips. Every few minutes, Paul had to recite the saying again, and every time he spent the next few moments ramming his shaft into her, his vigor renewed by the power of the tantric field.

The skunk was thinking about how it was getting time to get to her own job when the door to the side room slammed open and a stern face entered. "Kimberly! There you are."

Now it was the skunk's turn to be flustered. She hopped off the vixen and tried to smooth down her tail, which she suddenly felt was far too frizzy. "Uh, hi, Tonya."

The impatient squirrel gave a single nod to Paul, accompanied with the shortest "hello" Kim had ever heard. Then she took firm hold of Kim's wrist and almost dragged her out.

When they were finally out of records, Kim tore her hand out of the gazelle's grip. "There's no need to be that mean to him."

The squirrel stopped and looked at her with genuine confusion. "What part of that was mean?"

"We were just talking."

One ear flicked towards her. The squirrel crossed her arms. "Your relationships are none of my business, although you know what they say about greens and yellows."

Kim rolled her eyes. "I hear it all the time."

"Then I won't repeat it. My apologies for interrupting you, but you were late, and we have a crisis to attend to. Also, you received a message today."

"A message?" The squirrel had already started walking again and the skunk found herself having to almost run to keep up. "You don't mean..."

"Yes, from the Others."

"Well...?"

"The translation was worse than usual."

"Tonya!"

"As best we can tell, they said, 'Beware all spires! If unfortunate, you need no keys.'"

"That's uh..." The skunk was so bamboozled by the cryptic message that she found her pace slowing and only sped up when Tonya coughed. "That's worse than usual."

The squirrel's serious demeanor broke for just a moment as she let out a grunt of frustration. "I know. But as near as we can tell, the Others' language is time-dependent. Words change meaning by the hour, and we've almost never received communications from them at that time."

Kim nodded. "But that's not the crisis you were talking about, was it?"

"No. We got a yuko. A big one."

Technically, the official term was "Tantrically displaced object" but someone had jokingly referred to them as Unidentified Kink Objects, and the idea of UKOs or yukos stuck. Yukos were inanimate objects that had become the focus of a sexual fantasy so powerful they had developed their own tantric field and could start altering the nearby space to make the fantasy come true. Unfortunately, few powerful fantasies cared much for safety, consent, or even the rules of physics, and yukos were frequently dangerous.

Part of the BTA's job was dealing with yukos. Part of the BTA's job was keeping yukos a secret, lest they be weaponized.

"How big?" Kim asked.

"A dozen people in the hospital with advanced dehydration. A few more hours and we would have had a dozen bodies in the morgue."

"Fuck."

"You'll hear more about it at the briefing."

Kim fell into silence contemplating that and pondering the Others' cryptic message as they went from C-wing to D-wing via another guide.

The atmosphere was tense in Acquisitions when they arrived. Technically Kim was not part of Acquisitions, who spent most of their time outside the office, finding yukos in the wild, but rather part of the Testing team, who investigated whatever yukos were found by Acquisitions. Kim could see members of both teams, as well as a few members of Theory and a squad of Infra-reds, wearing full null-suits that anonymized them and made them look like extras in a sci-fi movie.

Kim's boss Mr. Burke nodded to the skunk and squirrel as they arrived and coughed once to get the attention of everyone. "Let's begin. We need everyone at their best today." The otter pointedly did not look at the newcomers as he said this. "We just received a yuko that we have had transported in maximum security. Here's the situation. Over the weekend, executives of Varner Capital went on a business retreat at an isolated resort: several upscale cabins in the woods surrounding a central meeting hall. From what we gather, there was supposed to be no one else present. However, the wife of one executive became concerned when he did not call her the first night -- let's see, that would have been Saturday night -- and called the company, who brushed her off. When he did not call her the next morning -- Sunday morning -- she became frantic and insisted they send someone out to investigate. They did. However, they received no report from their own agent by that evening, and became concerned enough to call the police, who called us.

"We arrived to find a substantial tantric field engulfing the entire central meeting hall. Participants were locked into an unending business meeting. Exact details are unclear, because we were not able to approach without shutting down the entire field, at which point the victims, who had been in the meeting continually without break for over a day, collapsed."

"I don't get it," muttered someone under their breath behind Kim. "What's supposed to be sexy about a business meeting?"

"Everything if there aren't enough seats," the skunk whispered over her shoulder.

"Huh?" The guy, with his bright yellow stripe on his shoulder, was confused by this for a moment before his eyes widened and he nodded.

At the front of the room, Mr. Burke continued unabated. "Unfortunately, we are going into this one blind, everyone. On top of that, we received a warning from the Others that we have not yet been able to fully decrypt. Likely they were warning us about this yuko, but we don't know how. Good luck to you all. You know what to do."

Everyone stood and prepped. Kim, along with the bat Janelle, and several others from Testing were briefed on what few technical specs they knew of the yuko. It was a presentation pointer, two buttons for moving between slides and one to activate a laser. Small, handheld, run by AAA batteries. It was a little scuffed in places: it had been well-used. Brand was generic Office Depot label.

What it did, or how it was activated was unknown.

And despite how much Kim had been looking forward to today, she was rapidly growing more concerned with each passing moment. It was hard to maintain her focus with the increasing anxiety, and even her normally high libido and anticipation was tempered by the unknown. Janelle could tell something was wrong and the bat kept close, lightly brushing her wing to Kim's shoulder for mutual comfort and support.

They changed, dressing in business casual, just as the unfortunate victims of the yuko had been. Kim's job was to be the one holding it, and likely to be at the focus of the yuko's power. She slipped into a dress, shirt, and jacket, which stood out to the skunk with how severely the shoulders were angled.

Then they were headed for the staging center, flanked by null-suited infra-reds. For maximum security, Testing had an isolated staging area, a small bunker inside a massive empty chamber large enough to hold multiple blimps with room to spare. They walked in a silent procession to the boardroom where the yuko went berserk, or rather a replica as accurate as they could make in a few hours. Kim was sure the real one was the sort of lavish space that could only be afforded by the ultra-rich, and theirs looked like a set from a low-budget TV series. Oh well.

The infra-reds set up a perimeter at a safe distance, accompanied by tantric field suppressors which looked like overly phallic turrets.

Then it was just Kim, Janelle, and a handful of other greens marching towards the set.

The yuko was already there, waiting on a small podium for Kim to pick it up.

Kim looked up at one of the cameras pointed at her from a corner of the ceiling. "So far situation normal. No tantric fields detected. Everyone check in."

One by one, her fellow greens said the same thing. "Checking in. Situation normal." A few sounded disappointed. They took seats around the massive conference table.

It was time. Kim kept reciting the Others message to her as she approached the yuko. Beware all spires. Beware all spires. She kept looking around for any sign of buildings. Was there a tower she was supposed to see?

She picked up the pointer.

The skunk spun on her heels, suddenly all smiles, a wide fake smile, a business smile. "And as you can see, profits are up, up, up!"

The words came from nowhere. They were the right words to say.

But as soon as she had said them and looked around the room, the impulse died away.

Kim looked at the cameras. "Kim reporting in. There was a partial activation, but then it died out. It looks like whatever the circumstances are for triggering it, we are close but not quite there yet."

"Roger that," came a voice through the speakers. "Was the line you said from the yuko?"

"Yeah."

"Try saying it some more, with different intonations."

So she did, to the exact same effect, and often even less. Whatever animating force had put those words in her mouth felt blocked. It kept revving up and then dying out suddenly. No matter how she varied her voice, or where she placed the emphasis, or how she juggled the rhythm of the words, nothing worked.

It was the most frustrating part of testing yukos. Sometimes even the most powerful yukos, with the most receptive audience, wouldn't activate unless a specific combination of triggers was activated. They were missing something on this one. After nearly half an hour of bringing herself nearly hoarse with speaking, she tried varying her position and posture. There was a slight spark when the people at the table tried shuffling their positions, but then nothing. Hours later and they were no closer to unlocking its secrets.

Kim headed off for a meal, feeling more anxious than ever: she couldn't shake the feeling that all their attempts at unsuccessfully unlocking the yuko were only angering it.

* * *

"And did you hear who they cast as Joven Pelgard?"

"Who?"

"Rumor is its Cameron Drake."

"No!" Kim's lunch was held, ignored, in her hand. She and Paul sat in an otherwise empty break room on the edge of C-wing, swapping gossip over the upcoming Scarworld movie. "But he can't act. He can stand in a corner and smolder and not much else."

"With Joven, smoldering is about 80% of what you need."

"Hey, don't you disrespect the Seeker like that." Kim pointed a burrito accusingly at the wolf.

Paul, who had already finished his salad, held up a fork defensively. "I hear really good things about this casting director. She wouldn't hire someone to play Joven Pelgard of all characters if she didn't believe he could pull it off."

Kim considered with another nibble on her burrito. "I suppose. And he can smolder really well."

"He can."

Beneath the table, their hands touched and held one another. They laughed and giggled and discussed what books Paul had been reading: he read every night regularly and Kim loved to hear his shortened renditions of epic fantasy battles or spaceship skirmishes at lunch. Then she would go back to work and he would head home to read some more. It was the best time they got to spend together with their offset work schedules.

Normally they would end the meal with a kiss and a proper plan for a date over the weekend, but this meal ended differently.

Just as Kim was stuffing the last of the burrito into her mouth, a warning light bathed the room in red light. High in the corner of the room, the silent alarm started to blare its crimson warning. There was a tantric field shift happening somewhere in the Office, a big one.

Kim swallowed, and was just about to ask Paul something, when the floor gave way beneath her feet. Kim staggered on ground that was now at a thirty degree angle and moving rapidly, as though the room were sliding downhill. Items from the nearby countertop fluttered through the air around her: a sheaf of printer paper danced through the air, pelted by coffee creamer pods and sugar packets. A stapler nearly clipped the skunk's ear and a three-hole punch skittered along the floor.

Paul's hand found hers again. "What's happening?" he shouted over the rumbling that made it impossible to hear anything.

"Office shift. Big one." Kim was struggling to stay upright. The room was moving faster now and shaking more than ever, so that it was hard to stay standing.

"Why?"

"No idea!"

The room kept accelerating. With a sickening feeling, Kim realized that meant they were going to stop very suddenly very soon.

Paul realized it as well. He tugged the skunk to his chest and wrapped both arms protectively around her just in time for the room to come to a crashing stop.

Cabinet doors ripped off their hinges from the blow. The break room refrigerator toppled over. Lightbulbs shattered in their fixtures. And Kim and Paul were thrown against the wall with enough force that they both lost consciousness.

* * *

Kim blinked and saw red. For a painful moment, she thought it was blood, but realized it was just the blaring red of the emergency lighting, the only lighting that still seemed to be working. It flickered on and off, leaving the room alternately crimson-hued and sealed in darkness.

"Paul?" she croaked out. "Paul?"

A groan beside her. The wolf struggled to stand. Office room shrapnel surrounded him, but outside of his Office uniform being beat up and his fur looking like it needed to be combed down, he seemed all right. Kim hugged him. "I've never heard of an office shift like that," he said as he got to his feet.

"I have. This is bad, Paul. This is really, really bad."

"We need to report in."

Kim agreed. She watched Paul make his way to a corner of the room where an Office intercom was set up. She waited until his back was turned to haul herself to her feet. She felt okay, but shaky, and didn't want him to see her like that.

The wolf hit the button. "Hello?"

No response.

"Hello? This is Paul Markowicz and Kimberly Griggs reporting in. Hello?"

After a moment an out-of-breath voice responded. "Markowicz and Griggs. We read you. Where are you?"

"No idea. We were caught in a building shift."

"Everyone was. Where were you when the shift started?"

"On the outskirts of C-wing."

"C-wing? But it's gone."

Paul and Kim exchanged a worried glance. "Gone?"

"It was taken over by the field when the new yuko went berserk."

So it was the yuko they had been testing. Kim groaned. But it had been in D-wing, and they had been on the far side of C-wing.

This just kept getting worse and worse.

The voice on the line continued. "You must have just been outside the field when it was made and the shift carried you safely out of range." A pause. "You are safe, aren't you?"

Paul glanced back to Kim who nodded. "Bruised, but otherwise okay."

"Good. Do you have food? Water?"

"There's a vending machine here and a sink. Why?"

"Because the field took out most of our staff. Most of the security infra-reds were in D-wing when it happened. We have no one to rescue you. We're having trouble even approaching the affected wings. Guides keep turning us away from it."

"Shit."

Kim's ears perked. She wasn't sure that Paul had ever swore around her before, and the break in his usual demeanor worried her.

"What should we do?" the wolf asked.

"Stay where you are. We have our hands full out here. I shouldn't even be talking to you right now. Just stay there and we'll get you when we can. I have no idea what they were doing testing that yuko, but it's left us in a complete mess," he muttered to himself.

Kim got an idea and stepped up to speak over Paul's shoulder. "How were they testing it?"

"What?"

"This is Kimberly Griggs, ID number 3556-7402. I received an untranslated message from the Others today. I need to know what they were testing."

"The Others?" There was a pause. "I'll see what I can find out."

Paul stared at Kim as the line went dead, then looked over her shoulder with a soft groan.

"What is it?"

Paul gestured to the beat-up vending machine that occupied the break room with them. "If we have to stay here a while, I hope you like Fun-Yuns."

Kim glanced over and boggled at the machine: it was almost two-thirds full of Fun-Yuns. "Who are those even for?"

Paul shrugged. "Blame the Others."

Kim shivered. She was used to Paul being the big presence in a room. He was imposingly tall, but kind, a gentle giant. Seeing him look so defeated made the whole world feel bleaker.

The speaker crackled back into life. "Kimberly Griggs, are you still there?"

"I'm here."

"Good, I -- yes, I am supposed to be on the comms. I am doing my job, now go do yours. -- Sorry about that. Anyway, it looks like they were testing the composition of the audience. First of all they were trying different seating arrangements. Then they started testing different clothing types: more versus less formal. Then they were trying species: all carnivores, all herbivores, canine, feline, ungulate. Our last report says they were about to start testing--"

"Gender," Kimberly cut in.

"Yeah, that's right."

"'Beware all spires,' the Others said. 'Spires' was supposed to be 'erections.' They were trying to warn us away from having a room full of men. That was the trigger for the yuko. When I first held it, it had me wrapped up and playing to its beat right until I turned around and saw women in the audience. I bet you anything it's a dominatrix fantasy in that thing: one woman in command of a boardroom full of men."

"Damn." They heard the sound of a pencil scribbling on paper. "I'll get that to the translation team right away. The rest of the message--"

"I know what the rest of the message means," Kim interrupted. "Griggs out." She reached over and flicked off the speaker.

"What was that for?" Paul asked as the skunk started searching the drawers and their strewn-about contents for any supplies they could use.

"If they figured out the message's meaning, they'd tell me not to do it."

"Do what?"

"Break into a vault."

"What!?"

His hand was suddenly on her shoulder. "You can't do that."

"I can, and I have to. 'If unfortunate, you need no keys.' That was the other half of the message. I'd say we've already been unfortunate with the yuko going off, and the only place around here that could really need keys is a vault. The Others wanted me to go there. Ah..." She smiled and picked out a box of paper-clips from the rubble on the floor. "Hopefully this will get me in."

"I'm going too," Paul said with a noticeable lack of confidence. "At least, into the vault. You haven't heard of a tenth of the things they keep locked up down here."

Kim smiled. It was true, but she suspected Paul wanted to stay close to her. "All right. Let's go."

Outside of the breakroom, the Office hadn't fared much better. There were fewer things to slide or break, so the damage was less, but most of the lights weren't working, and dim red light filled the space. Kim was thankful that the building seemed to show no desire to continue shifting around, but the internal logic of the building was no better than it usually was. Some hallways dead-ended in nothing. Stairways went straight into the ceiling. There was only one path forward.

Not long after entering the hallways, they came across a door that both of them skirted far away from. The heavy steel door was bowed slightly and bright lines were etched across it as the door was succeeding only barely in keeping some tantric field at bay. "Right," Kim said. "When we've found what we need in the vault, we come back here."

Paul nodded shakily and clutched even tighter to Kim's hand. His ears were perpetually held down now, and his tail was curling between his legs. "What can we even find in there that would help?"

"Sometimes you can fight one yuko with another: tantric fields tend not to directly interfere with one another. If we just went through that door with nothing, we'd get sucked into the tantric field. But we have to be careful: if we try and fight it too directly, it might lash out and overtake us anyways. We need something that will allow us to sneak up on it sideways."

Paul's jaw clenched and Kim had no doubt he was trying to figure out how you snuck up on a sexual fantasy run amok.

"Here we are."

A vault revealed itself as they rounded a corner. It was somewhat as its name implied, an old-timey safe, like they kind once found in banks, except far larger.

This one was also missing its hinges, which had been sheared off by a falling column of concrete that lay some feet away. "Guess I didn't need these," Kim muttered, tossing the box of paperclips aside.

Paul said nothing. He just reached up and got his claws under the edge of the door and pulled gently.

The vault door eased forward silently, and then fell to the ground with a thud so loud the skunk felt it jarring her bones. "No keys needed. Thanks, Others."

Inside the vault was a space far larger than the exterior would suggest, more like a block in a prison cell, which was exactly what it was, after a fashion.

"All right, Paul. Tell me what these all do and I'll see if they can help us."

The wolf cleared his throat and stepped up to the first cell in the vault, which contained, safely on the other side of thick glass... "UKO Toledo-15-C. Wooden door frame with nearby wires. Classification: bondage fantasy. Step into the door frame and those wires will wrap you to it."

The skunk frowned. "Not portable. Try another."

They moved on.

"UKO Muskegon-7-A. Whiteboard marker in black. Classification: identity alteration. When you pick it up you will be compelled to write down words on yourself which will become true, such as writing," he coughed, "'slut' and then becoming a slut."

"Any control over which words?"

"No."

"Too volatile. Try another."

They looked into the next cell and Paul grimaced at the grimy workshop sink it contained. "Not this one."

"What is it?"

"UKO Huntington-14-C. An almost unheard of combination of asphyxiation fantasy and denial fantasy."

"How does that work?"

"It makes you want to hold your head under the water's surface to prevent yourself from breathing, but the sink is leaky and can't hold enough water for that to ever work."

"Someone is a very kinky fucker."

"Agreed."

They moved on.

"UKO Sandusky-1-B. A Rubik's cube. Classification: denial fantasy. You can't get off until you solve it."

"Seems like it would be an active hindrance. No."

So they went through every item in the vault one at a time. They ran into a frustrating problem. Many really powerful yukos were too big to take with. Smaller yukos, like the sharpie imbued with an oral fantasy that made you want to suck on the cap, were often too weak to stand up to the tantric field they were going to fight. They were getting desperate by the time they reached the final cell.

"UKO Canton-5-B. A hairbrush. Classification: identity alteration for couples. If you brush someone's fur with it, they'll become more submissive to you and you more dominant."

"That's it!"

The wolf's eyebrows knit together and his ears splayed. "You want to fight a dominatrix fantasy with another dominatrix?"

"No, with a dominant. You should use the yuko to brush me."

"But..."

Kim held up a finger to his lips. "I can't use it. I'll be too similar to the fantasy already playing out and I'll just get overtaken by the field. But follow me on this: a dominatrix fantasy from a woman surrounded by powerful men. I bet she was feeling slighted and ignored and was fantasizing about flipping the tables on her bosses. If that's the case, our way in might be through her being respected by a man, someone who would treat her as an equal. Someone like you. You are quite literally the sweetest guy I know. If anyone can do this, you can."

Paul was especially cute when he was embarrassed, Kim thought. "But what if the yuko changes me too much?"

"I won't let it." She said, although in truth there was no way she could guarantee that. "Besides, the Others clearly thought we needed something here and this has been the only serious candidate."

"You're sure?"

She stood up on tip-toes, her usual signal for him to lean down a bit so they could kiss. They did. "I am," she said when the kiss finished.

"Okay then." He still sounded rather unsure, but he opened the door to the cell. (No lock as the one on the vault was assumed to be secure enough.) Kim followed him in.

The hairbrush sat there, on a small table, like it were an ordinary object.

Paul reached out but didn't quite touch it. And then, after bringing up his courage, took hold of it. He waited a moment and then said, "Nothing's happened."

"You have to trigger it by brushing me, remember?"

"Right." He looked at the skunk and tried to decide on whether to brush her head or her tail and settled on her head to start with.

Even Kim was feeling a little nervous as he approached, although she tried to pretend she wasn't. Today's events were really getting to her. Normally a chance to explore a new yuko like the hairbrush, especially one that was not that powerful, would be exciting. She took a deep calming breath and let it out as she felt the tines of the brush touch her.

Initially the stroke was hesitant across her head. The second was smoother, and by the third, it was as though there were nothing unusual happening at all. If Kim closed her eyes, she could imagine herself seated on Paul's couch during one of their weekend dates with Paul brushing down her fur. Paul had a hand on her cheek and was tilting her head for better access. No, not just tilting, holding. He was holding her where she should be.

Confident strokes of the brush moved from her forehead down to the nape of her neck, just where her suit started. Paul's now firm grasp started to tug the collar down bit by bit so that the brush could reach lower. Kim's hand moved up to undo the zipper, but Paul took hold of her hand and pulled it to her side. "All in good time," he said. His voice was deeper, throatier than usual. Something within it made Kim go weak at the knees. It was a voice that promised control.

The next few moments were exquisite torture for Kim. She knew what was coming next. She would be undressed and be naked before him as he stroked the fur of her back. But she wasn't allowed to hasten that moment. Paul was even humming a nameless tune as he straightened the fur over her head that was already perfectly aligned.

By the time he began to undo her zipper and pull it down, her nipples were so stiff that the touch of them to the cool air of the room made her gasp and bite her lip.

"Eager," he commented in a husky whisper.

He continued to brush her in one hand while rolling the suit turn by turn until it sat at her waist. He let her wriggle her arms out of the sleeves and she lifted them instinctually to her chest only for the brushing to suddenly stop. Se whined in her throat and lowered her arms to her sides before the brushing would start again.

The long strokes of the brush began teasing at her waistline just as they had teased her collar before. Slightly woozy, Kim swayed on her feet, imagining Paul pulling down her suit just a few inches further and sliding the hard handle of that brush deep into her sex. She was wet, she knew. She could feel the stickiness between her thighs.

A whine of frustration burbled up in her throat as Paul skipped right over her waist and ran along her tail. Kim gripped the edge of the table and her claws grated against it in frustration. But Paul hummed to himself and ignored it. He had one arm slung underneath her tail while he stroked along the top of it. Kim wriggled and writhed, sure that her tail was currently in better condition than it had been in months, and it was driving her mad that he wasn't doing anything else.

Kim was so distracted by her own need and the feeling of desire building to a glowing warmth between her legs that she hardly noticed when he stopped playing with her tail and wrapped an arm around her waist. She did finally notice when he cupped a breast in one hand, his fingers teasing over her piercing. "Fuck," she whimpered.

"Is there something you want, Kim?" Paul asked with a knowing smile.

"Fuck me."

"Speak properly," he instructed firmly.

"I want you to fuck me," she said through gritted teeth.

"And if I don't want to fuck you yet?"

She whimpered and groaned. "I can wait?"

The handle of the brush was traced in swirls over her hip, and then slid over the front of her still covered sex. The whimper rose to a whine of lust in Kim's throat. "Can you?"

"I can," she insisted.

"We have a job to do."

Distantly, Kim remembered the yuko they needed to investigate.

"Show me you can wait."

Kim's pulse raced as she felt Paul's hand fumble for the zipper again and tug it down to expose her sex. She gripped the table tighter and bit her lip hard to keep from crying out as Paul laid the tines of the brush against her dripping labia. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brushed.

"Siiiiiir," she wailed, the honorific slipping out of her unexpectedly.

The hand stopped. "Are you already on the edge?"

The skunk bobbed her head as softly as she could, worried that even the tiny movement would set her off.

He tutted gently. "Show me you can wait," he repeated and began to move the brush again. Stars exploded before Kim's vision as the tines dragged over her labia and clit with electric trails of pleasure. Her whole body quivered as she struggled not to cum and her knees snapped together, only to be forced apart by a firm wolf's hand a moment later. She tried thinking of the most unsexy things she could, but for some reason her mind kept drifting back to an image of Paul sitting on his couch, erect cock in hand.

She was panting and struggling for breath, but she belatedly realized that the brush was no longer dragging over her sex and she wasn't feeling the telltale signs of an orgasm running down her thighs. "Fuck."

Paul kissed her cheek. "You did well. Finish undressing for me."

Feeling stronger from the ordeal she had gone through, she shimmied out of her suit and left it discarded on the floor, standing naked before Paul, whose gaze ran over the nude skunk with satisfaction. He nodded and tucked the brush into a pocket. "Very good." He caressed over her chin, lifting it to look into her eyes. "Ready?"

She nodded, crooning softly at lingering touch.

Paul turned and walked out of the vault. Kim followed one step behind. All her senses felt overtuned after her edging, so even the dimly lit halls felt bright to her.

They returned to the door separating them from the dangerous tantric field beyond. Paul hesitated and Kim stepped close enough to press her naked breast against him. "You can do it, sir," she said.

He caressed down her back and stroked along her naked rump. "With you at my side. Come on."

He set a hand on the door. It seemed to pulse and ripple at his touch. The metal creaked from the strain of holding back the tantric field.

Gingerly, Paul turned the handle and opened it.

The field inside made a whooshing sound as it rushed past them. But it rushed past, not into. Kim took a shaky breath. She was still herself, still Paul's loyal girl.

Wait...

She had to remind herself that she was already under the influence of one yuko. Not that she minded this one. She would happily be Paul's submissive. It was probably the reason why it took so well this time.

Cautiously they stepped into the hallway. Here the lights were stronger, not the knocked-out emergency lighting they had before. There were no signs posted for directions and no guides, so they just proceeded down the corridor. At first it seemed like C-wing, if they were even in C-wing any more, was completely abandoned.

The first indication they found of anyone else present was the sound of a rhythmic tapping echoing down the halls. It kept getting louder as they approached until they could tell it wasn't a tapping, but instead a slapping. There, in a printer room off the main hall, was a vixen in a corset bringing down a riding crop on the ass of a confused-looking jackal still in his suit with its red stripe. The vixen looked up with a smile at Kim, but then her smile faded into a look of confusion as she realized Paul was the one in charge. Kim felt her fur stand out on end.

"Apologies for interrupting," Paul said with a flourishing bow.

Kim's fur stood down as the vixen relaxed a little.

"What can I do for--" the vixen started, and then she readjusted her tone to be sharp and discourteous. "What do you need?"

"My submissive and I were trying to get to D-wing. Do you know where we could find a guide?"

"A guide?" The vixen's arm automatically swung the crop against the jackal's rear end again, eliciting a yip from him. She looked down at him as if just noticing he were there. "Would he do?"

Paul smiled and dipped his muzzle as if this were a truly touching gesture. "We could not deprive you of your only plaything."

"Ha," the vixen laughed with a cruel edge to her voice. "He's barely any entertainment whatsoever. Men break so easily after all."

"Some men certainly do," Paul agreed while subtly changing the impression of her words. "But if you won't miss him..."

"Certainly not." She snapped her crop against his rear once again. The jackal winced. "Get up, you maggot," she hissed. "They need a guide and you should at least be able to do that."

The jackal got to his feet, swaying as if drunk. He even saluted awkwardly before leading Paul and Kim out of the room.

A few steps more down the hallway, the jackal turned. "I'm sorry," he said in a surprisingly quiet voice. "I think I may be a little sick."

"No," Paul held out a hand and steadied the jackal. "You got caught in the backwash of a very powerful tantric field."

"But I'm a red." The jackal's head tilted to one side. He was eyeing the stripe on his own uniform as if unsure if he really was a red or was misremembering.

"Very powerful tantric field," the wolf repeated. "We need you to serve as a guide. Can you do that?"

"Of course. Had all the training."

"Need the gear though." Together the three looked around for a storage closet. More accurately, Paul and Kim looked, while the jackal wandered with them, too dazed by the field to focus. Thankfully they found everything they needed nearby and soon were placing the soundproofed, blindfolded hood over the jackal's head. The gag was a tough fit. The jackal was clearly not fond of it and in his half-drunk state kept trying to push the gag out with his tongue. Finally, Paul ordered Kim to hold his mouth open and they got it in.

It wasn't the full set of guide gear, but it was enough. The jackal stiffened, the drunken effect disappearing, and he began to walk with purpose away from the wolf and skunk. They hurried after.

"How do we know he's going the right way?" Paul asked.

"We don't. We have to hope, sir."

The wolf flicked an ear back the way we had come. "Do you think everyone else will be like her?"

"Probably not. If the tantric field is this powerful and this big, those on the outskirts aren't getting the full fantasy. I'd bet she just got hit by a wave of 'be a dominatrix' and nothing else. What we saw was her ideal dominatrix self."

Paul nodded.

"You did well, sir."

He looked over his shoulder at her and smiled.

* * *

The jackal guide's route was slow but it was clear they were making progress, far clearer than it normally was in the Office. The tantric field had started to warp the very building itself. The walls began to change before their very eyes. From the cold, hard brutalist architecture of the Office as it normally stood, to warm underlighting, wood paneling, and soft drapes. Artwork on the walls went from minimalist paintings and portraits of the head of the Bureau to silhouettes of naked women standing over naked men.

Soon the only recognizable feature was the large sign welcoming the wanderers to C-wing. Paul cursed under his breath as he saw the sign pointing to Records, which had a new scrawl underneath it as if in red lipstick: "Records of Naughty Boys."

He began to dash off, even before the guide had come to a stop, and Kim struggled to keep up with the wolf's wide strides.

"Oh no," Paul moaned as he looked into what had been his department. It was almost unrecognizable. The layout was the same, but that was all. In the place of desks there were now spanking benches. Whiteboards had been replaced with crosses. Even the plants that were used as little artistic accents in the corners were gone, and in their place were storage racks of toys, mostly whips, crops, and switches.

But the change had taken a lot from the old room. The spanking benches had the same lacquered wood as the desks. The crosses the same white gloss finish as the whiteboards. The toys on the racks were all distinctly plant-like. The power of the tantric field out this far still wasn't able to completely rewrite reality. It had to repurpose.

The repurposing even extended to the people in the rooms. The usual gray Office uniforms (accompanied by a yellow stripe typical in Records) were transformed into a variety of outfits: a catsuit, a corset, a collar, thigh-high stockings, gloves, all with the same color pattern.

The other big change was that all the women in Records were strutting the floor, while the men were tied down to various devices or otherwise in bondage.

Paul stared open-mouthed as a coworker, a strikingly beautiful deer named Vivian, walked up to greet the newcomers. She completely ignored Kim and spread her arms wide for the wolf. "Paul! We've been missing you. Be a sweetheart and kneel for me."

Paul staggered, still staring open-mouthed, and Kim realized that the shock of seeing his department and coworkers like this had nearly jolted him out of the tantric field that was protecting him. She had to reinforce it now.

The skunk quickly darted between deer and wolf and pressed her naked form up against him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and moaned in the neediest way she could, while making sure to draw her hand across the brush in his pocket, hoping to draw some of its power into them both. "Sir," she mewled out, "I know you told me to wait, but I can't. Not anymore. I need you." She lowered her voice. "Right here." She lowered it further until it was the slightest whisper on the wind. "Right now."

She slipped her muzzle under his and tugged at his zipper with her teeth, pulling it down bit by bit as she sank down, until she was squatting on the floor with her head level with his navel. She wanted to tug that zipper the rest of the way down and ravish that wonderful cock. But it wasn't her place. "Please, sir," she begged. "Let me service you." Her hand trailed down lower to cup the wolf's shaft under his suit, and she was pleased to see that it was quite hard.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and she heard his voice, not as strong and assertive as it had been back in the vault, say, "Go on."

With relish she slid the zipper the rest of the way down and even giggled a little as his shaft sprung out of the suit to tap against her muzzle. She slid upwards slightly and squeezed her naked breasts along either side of his shaft, starting to stroke her soft fur over his shaft. She couldn't quite see what she was doing over the curve of her muzzle, but she didn't care. The skunk looked up at her love with admiration as she bounced a little to please him more.

Paul's hand moved to her head and there was a moment where he gripped her hair tightly, reminding her of her place, and letting her know that he was back in the correct tantric field. "I'm sorry, Vivian. You know how needy some subs can be."

The deer laughed. "Oh, don't I ever. Do you know how many times Adam has begged me for orgasm just in the last hour?"

"I can only imagine."

Kim tuned out the voices. They were no longer important. What was important was the lovely cock before her. She kept her breasts pressed against it, but had started to dip her muzzle down so she could flick her tongue over the head of that shaft each time it appeared from between her black-furred orbs. The boobjob was for him, but the licks were for her. She swirled her tongue quickly over the head of his shaft on each stroke, catching each drop of his pre and drawing it in to her mouth to swallow greedily.

"Are you sure I can't convince you to kneel for me?" the deer said with a playful pout in her voice.

"Oh it wouldn't be fair to Kim here." He patted her head and scritched behind her ears. "She really needs this. Or should I say, she really needs this!" The hand suddenly gripped her fur tight and shoved her forward. In a split second, his entire length was buried to the hilt in her muzzle. Her nose was tickled by the fur of his groin.

Kim's heart thudded in her chest. She couldn't believe Paul was doing this. On their dates, they had only ever engaged in some light petting or the most restrained of blowjobs. He was a yellow, after all, and as much as she wanted to jump right in to the kinkiest sex possible, she also wanted to go at a gentle pace, for his sake. And here he was, forcing her to deep-throat him.

And then he started speaking, giving a clipped version of the line he had been reciting as part of his duties earlier. "That's right. Take it. Take it like the slut you are. Swallow my cock and suck down my seed."

There was no tantric field shift this time. The hairbrush yuko was too powerful for that. But Kim didn't care. She moaned. No, she squealed in delight. Her tongue wriggled against that shaft in her mouth, and she had to clench her hands into fists lest she be tempted to bury a hand at her sex and jill herself to a mind-melting orgasm right there on the floor. He had commanded her to wait after all.

Even though he pulled her off his shaft with a wet pop, that did not stop the skunk, who lavished attention on the shaft that was held right beside her face.

"You see?" Paul said above her.

"Oh I do," Vivian said. She tutted once. "But don't give in to her too much. You need to keep a firm leash on your sub."

"I will take that under due consideration," the wolf said amicably. "By the way, we need to get to Acquisitions. It's in D-wing today. Do you know if there's a guide handy?"

"You don't need a guide for that. There was a shift about an hour ago and now we're practically neighbors. But all the same... Morris!" She clapped her hands. "Morris, heel, boy!"

Around the corner of the room came a coyote. His uniform had been adjusted into a bitchsuit, keeping his hands held to his shoulders and his ankles to his thighs, so that he crawled around on all fours. He left two trails behind him, one from the saliva dripping around his gag and the other from pre dripping from his caged shaft.

Paul whistled under his breath. He and Morris were good friends, Kim knew.

Vivian patted the coyote between the ears once. "Take Paul and Kim to D-Wing. Then hurry back. It's time for your next milking session."

The coyote crooned at the thought and began shuffling at quite a quick pace, leading the wolf and skunk out of Records.

Although D-wing was much closer, Kim was still glad the coyote knew how to get them there, or else they would have been wandering for quite some time. He dropped them off just outside of Acquisitions and then trotted happily back the way they had come, back towards his Mistress.

"I don't get it."

"Hm?" Kim had been slightly distracted watching the coyote go.

"Why does this part of the Office look normal?"

He was right. It did. Gone was the boudoir-esque make-over. There wasn't any sign that things were out of the ordinary at all, except that Acquisitions was a very busy department and there was no sign of anyone there. "Sometimes tantric fields can ripple like the surface of a pond, sir," she said. "They can be stronger or weaker in different places."

Paul grimaced.

"What?"

"If the ripple is this big, it must have been caused by a hell of a stone."

Kim was inclined to agree.

They stepped through the door into Acquisitions.

Nothing. There was no one here. And it didn't look any different at all. "Let's go to staging," Kim suggested. "Quick."

They hurried through the corridors, Paul ahead and Kim still following close behind. Despite the urgency of the situation, her mind still occasionally drifted to the memory of Paul forcing her to deep-throat his shaft, and she smiled.

Paul stopped suddenly and Kim walked straight into his shoulder. "That's new," he said.

Normally the doors to the staging area were big. But these were far, far bigger than normal. They towered close to three stories in the air.

"Can we even open them?"

"Have to try, sir," Kim said and waited patiently for him to step up and start pulling.

Thankfully the door slid open as if it were no heavier than normal. But what was beyond, left them both stunned.

"Is that...?"

"An office building... in the Office?"

The massive staging area had been enlarged even beyond its normal multi-blimp capacity. It was now an impossibly huge cavern surrounding a standard office building, about six stories high. Bright letters high on the front side declared that it was the headquarters of Varner Capital.

While there was no sign of life outside the building, inside Kim could see the silhouettes of people moving about.

Paul's hand reached down and took hold of Kim's, fingers interlacing. "Let's go," he said.

There was quite a trek from the door to the staging area to the front door of the office building -- whose name Kim had to think of with a lower-case o. They passed by the ring of tantric field suppressors. Paul wanted to stop and use them but Kim sadly shook her head. They wouldn't be strong enough for this.

The cavern was so large and the only sources of light were the entrance from Acquisitions and the building itself, so they were shrouded in deep darkness. Thankfully Varner Capital itself was so well-lit that after a long time stumbling and tripping over the dark floor, they could begin to see where they were going. In fact, the brightness of the building stung their eyes. When they finally stepped through the front door, they paused, blinking as they adjusted.

And when they could see, they noticed a lynx security guard, prostrating himself on the floor before Kim. He leaned forward and softly kissed her bare foot on top. Then shuffled a little to the side and kissed the other foot just as reverently.

The skunk looked up to Paul as though she had done something wrong. He just smiled. "It's okay," he said. "Just remember where your place is."

"Under you," she said with a devoted touch to her own voice.

"Good girl. Now, where do we need to go?"

"Probably the boardroom, sir."

"Right." He coughed to get the attention of the guard. "Excuse me, can you direct me to the boardroom?"

The lynx finally lifted his face from the floor and Kim was shocked to recognize him as a red working in the Testing division. He had been fully overtaken by the tantric field. He did not turn to look at Paul but addressed Kim instead. "The boardroom is on the top floor, Mistress."

Paul's hand closed tightly on the fur of Kim's tail, grounding her in their own tantric field. "Thank you," she said to him, and the lynx looked like that simple thanks was the greatest thing he had ever heard.

"Come on," Paul said, pulling her to the elevator. They waited, and waited, and waited. "Of course it's broken."

"The yuko managed to make a whole building. I'm surprised most of it is working," she said with a smile and shrug. "Stairs?" she suggested.

"Let's hope it has stairs."

It did. Kim had a feeling this building was based on the real Varner Capital building, so unlike the Office, every set of stairs served a functional purpose. They made their way up flight by flight. At least the stairs were quite pretty. They were sheathed in glass, so that at every level you could look out over the floor and also out into the darkness of the great cavern beyond. Paul and Kim stopped to gawk several times as they passed. Most of the floors were cubicle farms, but the dominatrix fantasy had spread here too. Everyone working in the offices were women, with the men serving them in a variety of ways, sometimes they served as chairs or footstools, or as coffeeboys getting drinks as needed, or as playthings in the aisle for any woman who wanted to relieve stress. The implication of the fantasy was unmistakable: this was a world where men existed to serve women. Kim was a little worried the hairbrush wouldn't be able to stand up to it, but she hadn't felt any shift in the field.

Kim also discovered why Acquisitions had been empty: everyone was here. All her coworkers in Acquisitions, Testing, even Research and Theory had been drafted by the yuko to serve as office workers. Poor Mr. Burke, her boss, was walking the halls naked with a tray of danishes for anyone who needed a snack.

By the time they reached the top, they were both out of breath and paused for a second to recover their strength. Kim did that by pressing in against Paul's body as tightly as she could, shivering at the feel of him in so close to her naked fur.

They stepped out of the stairwell into a small foyer area. Tonya was there, the squirrel seated behind a desk and staring out into the nothingness beyond the windows. She looked up suddenly when the wolf and skunk entered. "And you are?"

"Remember," Kim whispered under her breath, "be as respectful as you can, sir." She bit back her worries that the field had so altered Tonya she no longer recognized Paul.

He nodded briefly. "Paul Markowicz. I'm afraid I'm late to the meeting."

Tonya considered for a moment and nodded. She reached down and hit a buzzer on the intercom. "Janelle, we have a late arrival. They'll be in shortly."

Janelle? Oh no, Kim thought. Not her.

"You may go in," Tonya said and returned to staring out the window.

Paul stepped up to the boardroom with Kim right behind. His grip on her fur tightened further. They could feel the presence of the other yuko like a weight in the air surrounding them.

A quick glance through the glass door showed a tableful of men in immaculately fitted business suits, each of which was open at the hip to reveal a fully erect shaft pointing straight up in the air. None of them looked away from the presentation even as Paul opened the door and stepped in.

"You're late!"

Paul and Kim snapped their heads around to see Janelle at the front of the room, standing in front of a projected slide on the wall. She was wearing a dress that teased the edge of being appropriate for a standard office setting, tight enough to hint at the sensual bat underneath the fabric. She was staring at them both with an imperious look and in her hand was the presentation pointer yuko.

"Apologies, there were things I had to take care of on the way," he said with a gesture to Kim. "Don't restart the presentation on my account. I'll pick up from here."

Janelle nodded curtly and pointed to an empty seat at the far end of the table. "Sit there," she commanded.

Paul grunted and gave a strained smile. "Ah, well, I have to take care of Kim here. I'll stay in the corner and make sure she stays quiet."

The bat's eyes narrowed. "Fine."

Paul kept his grip tight on Kim's fur and practically dragged her and a chair into a corner so that he could sit down and pull her onto his lap facing him. His teeth were gritted as he was concentrating on something. Kim stared at him blankly as he fumbled with his own zipper and quickly yanked it down, revealing his shaft, which was, to Kim's surprise, already hard and throbbing.

Just like the cocks of everyone else in the room.

Kim understood: he was once again in danger of losing to the tantric field. She let him manipulate her as he chose and when he gripped her hips and yanked her down onto his shaft, her eyes rolled in pleasure. A strong hand over her muzzle kept her from crying out.

She'd always wanted to fuck Paul. This wasn't the circumstance she imagined for their first coupling, but she was not going to complain. He grunted once before he was able to control his desires. He placed the tip of his muzzle close to her ear. "Fuck me," he whispered. "Obey," he added, although it was completely unnecessary.

He was her sir. She was his girl. She would obey already.

She rolled her hips and shivered in delight. She'd never had Paul's cock inside her and was overjoyed with it now, so clearly a good fit for her sex. She had worried that he would be too big that he would simply fill her up with no room to spare, but there was just a little space as she held him inside her, and with that room she could clench and squeeze with many years of muscular practice. She relished in feeling the different way his shaft slid in and out of her when she tightened her grip or relaxed. It was like having two shafts for the price of one.

Her head rolled from side to side as she started to bounce gently in his lap.

"Eyes open. On me."

She obeyed. She saw Paul staring deeply into her, as if he could command her with a glance alone. Her tongue ran along her lips and she squeezed him once more.

She sank as deep as she could on that shaft and wriggled her hips from side to side. Then she clenched as tight as she could go while lifting up. Even the serious expression on Paul's face began to break under that sensual assault, and when, with only his tip still inside her, she reversed direction and slammed her hips down with a slap of hip against hip, his eyes slid shut as he relished in the pleasure.

She giggled a little to herself and nestled in against him, resting her head on his shoulder so she could focus on her hips. She was quietly amazed by the tantric field generated by the yuko. It was not as though she hadn't had sex before -- she'd lost her virginity long ago -- but she could not remember a time where she was able to focus on her sex with such single-mindedness. The rest of the world seemed to fall away and nothing but Paul mattered. And then even that started to dim in her mind as she concentrated in on their meeting hips, until she seemed able to feel each strand of fur from the wolf's hips against her clit when she pressed tight against him, and until she could feel the wonderful texture of that one particular vein along his shaft as it slid into and out of her.

Why oh why had they waited so long for this? Kim's sex felt like a bubble of pure sexual pleasure ready to burst.

There were words being spoken; she ignored them.

But then it was her sir speaking, and she snapped up to attention so suddenly she worried she tweaked something in her back.

"Listen," he commanded.

She obeyed and without turning to look, swiveled an ear to listen to Janelle.

"Profits are up!" the bat was declaring. "Sales are up! Stocks are up! Inventory is up! Residuals are up!"

"Residuals?" Paul muttered. His voice wasn't even a whisper, so as not to draw attention from anyone else in the room. "What does that even mean?"

Kim didn't want to care. She wanted to grind her hips against him, but sir had asked her a question. "Janelle doesn't know business. She's filling in with whatever she can think of."

"She's just repeating the same things over and over again. And look at them." He nodded to the men around the table. They were still in a trance, sitting in place, shafts twitching in the air.

No, they were twitching in time with Janelle's words. She started over. "Profits are up! Sales are up! Stocks are up!" Every time she said "up" the shafts twitched.

Kim gasped loudly.

Janelle whirled around, staring daggers at her.

"Apologies," Paul said, raising his voice a little. "She still needs more training." He delivered a quick slap to the skunk's exposed rump. "I'll impress upon her the necessity of being quiet."

"See that you do." The bat turned back to the slide. "Profits are up! Sales are up!" she continued.

"What?" Paul asked in hushed tones once more.

"The fantasy is unfinished," Kim whispered back, silently wishing that that hand would come down on her again. "It knows how to start but not how to conclude. That's why the yuko trapped people in a meeting when it was first activated. It can't end because it doesn't know how to end."

"So what do we do?"

"Try to give it an ending. If we can, the yuko should deactivate on its own."

He considered for a moment. "Girl?"

"Yes?" Kim smiled up at him warmly. She loved the way his voice sounded when he called her that.

"Can you whisper in my ear, as many things you can think of that dominatrixes would do with a man, while staying deeply submissive yourself?"

"I think so, sir. Hold me tight?"

He did. Oh how he held her. One hand gripped the scruff of her neck and the other held at the base of her tail. All of a sudden he was in full control of how she was bouncing in his lap, as it should be. Kim shuddered and began to whisper all the female-dominant fantasies she had ever had. She talked about stroking the cock of a male bound in a sleepsack, of having her legs wrapped around the head of a man to force him to sink his tongue deep inside her, of teaching a man to pleasure her breasts properly and giving his shaft a little slap whenever he displeased her, and on and on and on. She must have been at it for ten minutes or so. He ended the stream of ideas by wrapping a hand around her muzzle. "Thank you," he said. "I think I know what to do."

Paul cleared his throat loudly. Janelle whirled around with another glare. "What is it?"

"That's was a wonderfully... comprehensive report on this quarter's earnings." Paul, Kim thought, was much better at making up business jargon than Janelle was. "Can you tell us about next quarter as well?"

Janelle paused for a second and then with even more vigor declared. "Profits will go UP! Sales will go UP!"

The men arrayed around the table were now almost lifting their hips out of their seats, shafts quivering in the air with need.

"Yes, but what else?" He looked at her knowingly.

The bat's brow knitted and her ears laid flat. Kim's heart was thumping in her chest, worried at what might happen next, and only Paul's strong hand still on her tailbase kept her calm. "What else is there?" she asked cautiously.

Paul slapped his own forehead (nearly clipping Kim's ear in the process). "Oh no. I'm so sorry, Janelle. I must have sent all my data about the forecasts to the wrong email account."

Janelle stared at him sternly.

Paul coughed and scratched his cheek to hide a "come closer" finger crook. The bat left her place at the front of the room and leaned over the wolf and skunk.

"Let me tell you the highlights," Paul said, "so you can finish the presentation." He leaned closer and whispered to her while keeping one hand firmly on Kim.

Janelle nodded in understanding as Paul spoke to her and when he was done, she stepped one pace back and said, with a deep well of sarcasm within her, "Well, why don't you just give the end of the presentation then, if you're so knowledgeable?"

"I couldn't. It was my fault you didn't get the data, so I shouldn't get any credit for giving it now. Go on. They'll love to hear this. And besides, you're the better presenter anyways. I always get tongue-tied."

The stern demeanor of the bat broke just a tiny bit. At the corners of her cheek there was a hint of a smile.

Kim's heart leapt. Good work, Paul, she thought. That was exactly what she needed to hear: recognition for her own work and skill.

Janelle turned on the spot and headed up to the front of the room. Kim watched her go with a little amazement in her heart: she'd never known the bat could have such an assertive presence like that. Even the way she walked demanded attention. She was a natural dominatrix. Kim watched the events unfold with fascination.

"Now, gentlemen." The bat paused and glanced once at Kim. "Ladies and gentlemen. Let's turn our attention to next quarter. Although we are still expecting profits to go up..."

The men at the table strained a little more in their seats.

"We are not expecting a product release in the next quarter."

An audible whimper of need went around the room.

"I know, I know. We need another release, and we will be so close to one, right on the edge."

Cocks throbbed in acknowledgement.

"However, we have had setbacks. There have been some leaks of the technical specifications before we were ready."

A lion at the table shuddered as precum dribbled eagerly out of his shaft, dripping onto his pristine slacks.

"Nevertheless, we are on track for a release the following quarter, and we all know it will be worth the wait. Anticipation is building. The people need this new product. They crave a new release."

Every man at the table was panting now, groaning.

"Which is why, in the third quarter, we will have," she paused for dramatic effect, "the biggest release in the history of this company."

As one, every male at the table arched in their seats and ejaculated. Pent up tantric energy meant their seed splattered over the table in crisscrossing rows of white. Then, after collapsing, the men, still behaving as though in a dream, began to applaud. Janelle gave a small bow and then looked almost embarrassed as the men at the table, still with erect shafts standing proud, stood to continue their applause.

Then it was over.

The yuko fell from Janelle's hand and everyone in the room besides Kim and Paul collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

For a second, Kim held her breath, even forgetting about Paul's cock which was still throbbing within her. Then the people in the room began to stir, groaning and getting to their feet.

"What was that?" Janelle asked. Her voice was much more meek now, as it had usually been. "How strong was that..." The words died in her mouth as she looked out the window, suddenly realizing how intense the tantric field must have been. She whipped around to the skunk and wolf. "Is everyone okay?"

"There's been a lot of damage," Paul said formally. "The field hit most of C- and D-wings. Records is a mess right now. But so far as we can tell, no one got hurt. If you don't count the paddling several people seemed to be getting."

One of the men in the room was tucking his shaft away. "We should report in and get a quarantine team here on the double."

Janelle glanced between Kim and Paul, the bat eyeing them suspiciously. "And you two..."

Paul held up the hairbrush. "We fought your yuko with one of our own."

"We should put that away..."

Paul snatched it away and shoved it back in his pocket. "Soon. We aren't finished yet."

Kim shivered in his lap, feeling the way his shaft throbbed when he said that.

"Can you give us the room?"

"Sure." Janelle opened the door and ushered the still dazed men out, but before she snuck out, the bat winked at Kim in a way that meant she wanted to hear all the details later.

The skunk squirmed and looked up to the wolf.

"You were a very good girl today," he said.

She squirmed more at the praise. She knew there was more he wanted to say, so she stayed silent to hear it.

"But you haven't yet gotten off. Did you get close?"

She nodded, biting her lip. "I edged seven times in this room, sir."

He blinked. "Seven?" he said, sounded a touch unsure, as if that were impossible or at the very least unhealthy. He was a yellow at heart, after all.

"You told me to wait, sir."

"So I did. And you obeyed."

"Yes, sir."

"No more waiting. Bend over the table, ass up."

The skunk sprang out of his lap, shivering once as that tugged his shaft out of her quite suddenly. She bent over the edge of the table and lifted her tail high, wiggling her butt at him.

The wolf stood up behind her and positioned his cock at the entrance to her sex. He hesitated only a moment before slamming in.

Kim lost count of the number of times she orgasmed after that, but Paul assured her later that it was at least four.

* * *

The phone rang.

There was no one at the old wooden desk or in the stately room around the desk to answer the phone. So it rang again, louder and more insistently.

A rabbit entered.

She was naked except for a collar around her neck, a collar with no latch and no buckle. The Interpreter's job was permanent. She crossed the room and sat at the desk. But she did not pick it up.

The phone rang again, and this time, the long cord began to move. It lifted, waved once snake-like in the air before it approached the rabbit. Coils slipped around the rabbit's ankles and tightened until they were bound to each other. The cord slithered up her legs and wrapped around her hips once, pulling itself taut over her sex before continuing up to form a harness around her chest. It formed one last coil around her wrists to bind her again, before the ringing grew in intensity.

Now the rabbit reached out with her bound hands and picked up the receiver, holding it to her ear.

A cacophony of sounds came out of the phone: a chitter of birds, a minor chord on piano, the sloshing of water in a tub. It made no sense, but the rabbit heard and understood and obeyed.

"Yes," she said in monotone. "The worst of the crisis was averted. The yuko has been contained safely."

A book being closed. The squeak of a rusty wheel on a shopping cart. Applause from a crowd.

"They both performed exceptionally. Kimberly in particular has displayed the necessary characteristics, should a... substitute be required." A pause, a note of sadness in the monotone voice. "But why--"

A klaxon. A slammed door. The squeal of car breaks leading to a crash.

The collar tightened around the rabbit's throat, cutting off air for just a second. When it released, she said, "I will obey without question."

A knock on wood. The scribble of a pen on a page. The clatter of dishware in a sink.

"Yes, I will continue to monitor her closely and direct the appropriate agency to investigate the origin of this new yuko."

Silence. Then the snap of fingers.

The phone clattered from the rabbit's grasp as she woke, finding herself bound tight and insatiably horny. She ground her hips against the chair and the bit of phone cord positioned right against her sex. If she could just angle herself correctly, she could...

In another facet of the greater reality, to the sound of the rabbit's orgasmic moans, the Others hung up the phone.