Late one Night
Tenth story set in Savage the Tiger series, though once again Savage does not make an appearance.
*****
Late one night
By Strega
It started late Friday evening, as their meetings usually did. Matt up showed at the market where his girlfriend worked wearing his civilian clothes, which in his case meant he wasn't furry, bandit-masked and whiskered. No, he was plain old Matt, but he and Merisa linked arms and went smiling down the street. Soon enough he'd be furry, right enough. That was the way she liked it, but he did have a secret identity and it was safer for her not to be associated with a vigilante.
But they didn't quite make it Merisa's apartment. Ten thirty in the evening and there was a cop car parked outside her door, with the cop popping out the moment he saw them.
"Is there a problem, Officer?" Matt said politely. He dealt with cops on almost a daily basis in his second job, but he wasn't about to flash his hero registration ID unless necessary.
"Merisa Alvarez?" Merisa nodded and the cop gestured to the door. "Shall we talk inside?"
They didn't have to let him in without a warrant, but the only gear Matt had in her apartment was locked in a safe, along with the more legally questionable of her pictures and movies. Unless he got in there or rifled through her computer, which Matt made sure to safeguard against intrusion, they had nothing to hide.
The cop stopped in the living room to look around and sniff, which was odd. Seemingly satisfied, he pulled out an envelope.
"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am, but we had a complaint from your neighbor across the street. It seems he saw something through your window one night he thinks is illegal."
He pulled several photos out of the envelope and handed them over. Merisa went pale with anger at the sight of the top one. It was her on all fours, wearing only stockings. Arched over her back in a posture of enthusiastic coupling was a raccoon at least as large as herself.
"Someone took pictures through my window," she snapped. "Illegal my ass! It wasn't me breaking the law, it was this peeping Tom!"
"Ma'am," the cop began, but Matt put his hand on Merisa's arm. She was rifling through the pictures, which had her and the big raccoon in one intimate posture after another. In some cases parts of the goings-on were blocked by the window frame, but it was obvious that the large raccoon and Merisa were very, very good friends.
"It's all right, dear," Matt said, but Merisa wouldn't be mollified so easily.
"What am I being accused of?"
"The law in question involves animals and -"
Merisa sucked in a breath, but before she could say anything Matt interrupted. "Sir, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. I guess it's simplest just to show you."
His girlfriend turned with her mouth open, shocked, but what she expected to happen did not. Mark opened a closet door and pulled out a large plastic storage container, which he opened to pull out a stuffed animal.
Except it wasn't. He handed it to the cop, who turned it over in his hands. It was a raccoon head, hollow and sized to fit over a person's. A ringed tail and black plush gloves with blunt plastic claws lay atop the gray, furry contents of the container.
The cop was speechless. Matt stepped into the silence. "You see," he said as he held up the stack of pictures, "It's maybe a little weird but not illegal if we--"
"Never mind." The cop's hands moved with a will of their own, pushing the head into Matt's arms as he backed toward the door. "Forget it. I don't want to know."
Merisa giggled as the door shut behind him. "Well, that came in handy! Besides the usual uses, that is." Luckily they weren't that far apart in height, so it hadn't been obvious that the suit was sized for her, not him.
"Plausible deniability," Matt said as he shut the blinds. He went into the bedroom to do the same there. When he walked back out, Merisa was half raccoon...and so was he, except he didn't need a suit. He'd already taken off his shoes and socks and was taking off his shirt, and as he did the gray fur spread across his body like sprouting grass. The t-shirt flattened his cheek ruffs as he pulled it over a suddenly not at all human face. Whiskers, black bandit's mask and cup-shaped ears; from the neck up he was all raccoon. His hands and feet were black leather on the palms and gray fur on top, and he'd sprouted sharp little claws. He pulled down his pants to let his ringed tail grow out.
He was also six inches shorter than before. Where the mass went when he transformed he could not say; some Weres got bigger and heavier, he got smaller and smarter. He could even transform into a normal-looking raccoon, no bigger than a small dog. Recently he'd tuned that ability; his animal shape could take any size up to his human weight, now, and as he stripped off the last of his clothes his human form fell away too. Man went to raccoon-man and then just to raccoon; a chittering, whiskered bandit the size of a mastiff sniffed at her suit now, feeling the fur with its nimble hands.
They'd played the game several times since the suit arrived in the mail. Once she finished putting it on he'd pursue her around the room pretending to be as feral as he appeared. The suit was well-fit to her but she was never as agile as the raccoon wearing its own flesh, and he'd catch her, let her escape if she protested too much, then chase her down again. Eventually she wouldn't try to escape.
Thankfully the photos had not included one of two raccoons together. The suit only arrived a week ago, and whoever shot the pictures must not have been watching last Friday night.
He'd misjudged her mood for once. She didn't turn away to flee, but sat down half-suited and petted his head. She didn't react as his padded hands explored her curves, and soon he began to shift back. When he was a raccoon-man again he snuggled up next to her and returned the favor by stroking her long black hair.
"It spooked me too," he said, and kissed her ear.
"We could have shown him around, that there was no giant raccoon here. Or just said, 'Where would I get a raccoon that big?'" She hugged him, still shivering.
"I didn't want him thinking about where it came from. The first thing he'd think of is mutant animals, but shape-changers would be next...and I may not be the most famous hero, but I'm not unknown either." He patted her back. "Look, we're not breaking the law. Probably."
She grinned as she remembered the last time he'd used that word. "Do you remember why I got the suit?"
"I remember. We were drinking that night..."
*****
The fall air crept in through the open window as they kissed, that night three months ago. With his fur on he liked it cool. They'd only met two weeks before, but already she was accustomed to balancing the chill by snuggling up close to his furry body. He'd been working on changing the size of his raccoon form, but for now she cuddled up close to his were-form, which was an inch shorter than her standing up but, as the saying goes, the same height lying down.
"So, any old girlfriends for you, Tech?" Half a bottle of red wine was gone into them this evening, and both were a bit freer of tongue than usual.
"Not many. I didn't have a real date until I was in college. A couple of girlfriends there, but I didn't actually sleep with anyone until I was a junior. I was studying hard, total geek, and I worried that I'd lose control and turn into my were-form in the middle of it."
"They'll never know what they missed," she said, and nibbled his ear. They'd had sex with him in human and were-form, and she much preferred the latter. Not only did it arouse her interests - her less legal pictures and videos featured animals with women - but he was better endowed in that shape. His penis bone took some getting used to, though. It could jab painfully if he moved wrong. They'd spent the last couple of weeks learning how he could move right.
"Then after college a couple more, mostly from work. But I'm a supervisor now, and I can't date my subordinates. Before I met you it'd been a year...mostly I keep busy with the Four and don't think about it much."
"No kids, then?"
"No. Well, probably not."
"Probably?" She poked him in the chest and giggled. "Probably?"
"Ugh." He grimaced. "Pretend I didn't say that."
"No, no, no." She punctuated the words with more pokes. "I need to know how you 'probably' don't have any kids."
He sighed. "No one knows this...back in high school one time, the year after I was bitten and became a Were. My parents let me drive to the Ozarks with some friends because we were in chess club and they figured we wouldn't hop in bed. They were half right. Rachel and Jake jumped in bed first thing. Sarah, my girlfriend-without-benefits, was asleep in her tent. I was sitting out under the stars, lonely and horny, and these two raccoons came through the camp."
"Raccoons?" She tilted her head. "Were-raccoons?"
"No. Just raccoons. There was a small one and a bigger one, both full grown I guess. The big one is pawing and growling at the little one, and it keeps running away. They run around the camp a couple times, not even looking for food, and I feel really sorry for the little one. No one is awake in the whole camp, as far as I can tell, so go into my tent, strip and change. I come barreling out as a raccoon and chase the big one away. He tried to fight but he couldn't hurt me, no silver claws or teeth. Pretty soon he takes off and I look for the little one to make sure it's not hurt."
He was silent for a while. Eventually Merisa poked him and he grunted. "And then I smell it. The small one is a female and she's in heat. The big one wasn't trying to hurt her, he was trying to get her to stand still long enough to mate."
Merisa giggled helplessly. He covered his eyes with his palm and went on. "And she thought I was the greatest thing in the world for chasing off a male half again my size. Just her type. The smell of her did things to my head, pheromones I guess, and as a raccoon I knew exactly what to do. So a while later it gets noisy and Rachel looks out of her tent and sees two raccoons going at it hammer and tongs. She calls the other two and the three of them watch until it's over. Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me! Once I got going I couldn't stop until I was done. Instinct or something."
"So what did you tell them afterward?"
"The she-raccoon went on her way and I could tell she wasn't interested any more. I hid out of sight until the others zipped up their tents then snuck back into mine and changed back. I could hear Rachel and Jake going at it, I guess watching the raccoons hump sparked ideas. I think Sarah was masturbating, too. But at least I wasn't horny any more, and I went to sleep. Next morning I said I must have slept through the whole thing. Typical nerd Matt, they said, and laughed. But that raccoon came right to my tent the next night looking for me, and she found me too. I almost wanted to stay." He smiled ruefully, and she laughed.
"So somewhere out there may be a litter of little Matts? Will they be Weres?"
"I looked into that afterward," he said with a sigh. "Weres can only get pregnant, or make their mate pregnant if both are in the same form. So as a raccoon I can knock up a raccoon, as a man I could knock you up. As a hybrid I could only knock up another hybrid, which is why we don't need condoms when we have sex. Well, except that one time I was human.
"Now, when a Were knocks up an animal it's a special case. What you get is children - cubs - that carry the Were-virus but in which it isn't active...usually. Occasionally they become something like a half-were and can assume a hybrid form almost as smart as a man. That's where you get Bigfoot, Jersey Devil, Wendigo, Yeti...lots of that sort of thing going on. Otherwise they are just carriers, unusually long-lived and tough animals. That's what happened with the one that bit me, probably. His father was a Were in animal form."
"Why not his mother?"
"The literature says a female Were has to stay the same shape the whole pregnancy to carry the child or cubs to term. Now, once in a while a Were spends so much time in animal form they forget they are human, so it's not impossible, but it's rare."
Merisa smiled slyly. "Back to the relevant bit... as a full raccoon you're more feral? You act on instinct?"
"Somewhat, yeah."
"Matt, do you know what a fursuit is?"
*****
It hadn't been cheap, that suit. It cost two week's pay even for Matt, and Merisa would've spent most of her college savings to get it. It fitted her perfectly, smooth and comfortable, and it had velvet-lined openings in certain places.
When her pulse finally slowed down after the cop visit she put the fursuit head on. She was adorable, and as Matt shifted to full raccoon form he followed her tail as she waddled around on hands and knees. Intellectually he knew this was not a real raccoon, but he let his animal half guide his actions. Each time she paused to rest he pawed at her and she scuttled out from between his forepaws.
Eventually she didn't try to get away any more, and his forepaws hugged her tight as he mounted. He was wholly feral now, humping rhythmically then gripping her for a series of thrusts so fast it was almost a shiver. The suit protected her from his claws and the occasional nip, and the moans and growls merged together into one long note of animal love.
Back behind those dark raccoon eyes, though, a little part of Technocoon was thinking. He let his body do what it must, and enjoyed every second, but he also went through the photographs the cop showed them in his head. Some of them were enhanced, touched up, brightened. By the cop? A couple showed traces of being taken with a night vision camera, then color-shifted to appear normal.
Most damning of all, the angle they were shot from showed they were taken from the apartment just across the street and one to the right. An apartment he knew hadn't had a tenant since he met Merisa. He'd talked to the landlord there, thinking to move his civilian home there to be closer with her. Yet someone had been there to take the pictures, over many nights.
In the glow of a building orgasm the raccoon filed the information neatly away in his head. There would come a time, soon, when he would find out who watched him and his mate then tried to cause them problems. And then there would be consequences.