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You lost them!?" Controller Verrat's voice was loud, high and more shrill than a siren. It echoed off the crystal walls of the House of Protocol. Clearly, Miingle and Saarat's, blunder was not going to be quickly forgotten or forgiven. The Controller's gas filled buoyancy sacks expanded, causing him to float higher above his workstation. The two aliens he was reprimanding sank lower in response. Verrat had to extend his tentacles downward just to hold his blue, balloon-like body from floating to the ceiling.

Looking something like a round jellyfish with large squid-like eyes near the base of his body, he was typical in appearance for a Gharff. The one meter diameter, main gelatinous sphere of his form contained his nervous, digestive, respiratory, circulatory and other important bodily systems, which fortunately were hidden by his outer skin that shifted hue along a spectrum mainly comprised of blues, but sometimes included subtle traces of green and purple. Surrounding the base of this sphere were a dozen or so gas bladders that stored hydrogen that his body naturally extracted from the abundant water vapor of his planet's atmosphere.

In addition to oxygen and nitrogen, The Gharff's world had a high percentage of noble gases, primarily argon and xenon, that made it denser than earth's atmosphere, allowing these creature's light bodies to float about with ease. The aliens moved around their world by drawing in air at the front of their body through air intake valves and then using specialized muscles to force it out through nozzles that protruded at intervals around their circumference. Though somewhat telepathic, they preferred to speak by using their exhaust ports to produce a wide frequency band of whistling noises. A dozen rubbery tentacles hanging beneath the body and surrounding the creature's mouth were used to manipulate objects.

"How could you two idiots possibly lose the Empress' Stones of Authority?" Verrat's skin shifted from light to dark blue as his emotions oscillated between anger and despair. "This is the worst disaster of my career. Just two days until the coronation. Without those stones...well, it is just too horrible to think of the debacle the ceremony will be without them. Where did you lose them?"

Miingle floated forward, her fluorescent green skin shimmering beautifully in the electric blue light from the sun shining through the numerous windows of the domed ceiling above. She took a deep breath to explain, but the Controller waved his tentacles to silence her before she could utter a syllable.

"No! Don't say a word. I can't bear to hear how it happened. I swear that you two are driving me to complete deflation. Get out of my sight and find those stones! You have one rotation of the homeworld. If you fail to return them to me in that time, I will call in the sniffers. They will find them. If they find the stones before you do, then I will have you both deflated. Permanently!"

Miingle was physically blown backwards by the force of his shout. She picked up speed by rhythmically sucking in air and squeezing it from her jet exhaust ports. Saarat, with his purple skin, was hard pressed to catch up to her, but he put everything he had into the escape from their superior's office. The Controller's threats were never idle. Neither Miingle nor Saarat wanted to be in the room if Verrat changed his mind and decided to unleash the sniffers now.

"Where are we going, Miingle?" Saarat's purple gas chamber cover had become blotched with gray and black spots as he sank into despondency. "This is hopeless. The Stones were swept through a black hole, probably to another universe. They are lost. We can't keep that fact hidden forever." The outer glistening membrane of his spherical body expanded and contracted rapidly in the fashion of their kind that was the equivalent of a human crying. "We are going to be deflated!" As he cried, his exhaust ports made a horrible whistling sound that was irritating to other Gharffs.

Miingle tried to ignore her partner's whining prattle and distressing exhalations as the two drifted through the thick air of their home planet. "Well, it was Saarat's fault the stones were lost, so let him suffer thinking we are doomed," she thought to herself. He just had to take their ship too close to the mini black hole to get a closer look. A look at what? It was black, and the space around it was black. They couldn't see anything but the x-ray meter on their ship spiking into the danger zone. Though small, the gravitational forces near the event horizon tore pieces off their ship and took the stones with them. They barely escaped with their lives. The memory of that blunder made Miingle too angry with Saarat to talk to him.

She didn't hate him, though; she was just angry and distracted with her own efforts to save them from his blunder. Saarat was sweet and meant well, but he was a bit dense, and not just in the sense that he was stupid. He carried more mass per unit volume than a typical Gharff. This over-heaviness for his size caused him to float lower than normal with the result that his tentacles often dragged on the ground as they were doing now. It was embarrassing, and he was teased a lot for it. Miingle had never figured out what she had done to deserve being paired with him when she signed up to serve in the Controller's office. Her career has seemed so promising at first, but now it was on the edge of ruin. Only shame and disgrace would come to her family if she failed to find the stones. However, there was one slim possibility that gave her hope and drove her forward instead of into the kind of black and gray blotchy depression that was consuming her companion.

Halfway to her destination, Saarat's petulant, whiney insistence to know where they were going finally broke her resolve to keep silent with him. She arrested her forward motion and hovered half a tentacle's length above Saarat to show her dominance. "We are going to the House of Science, Saarat. Inquirer Balaath is the greatest expert on alternate universes and their study. If anyone can help us, it is he. Now be quiet and stay close behind me...and try to keep your tentacles off the ground." She rolled her large eyes in the inter-universal gesture of exasperation. "It is so embarrassing."

Sighing, she engaged her jet nozzles and sped rapidly to the House of Science. Buoyed by the notion that there was some hope after all, Saarat rose higher, and his outer covering reclaimed its metallic purple hue as the blotches of despair faded away.

Fai was too tired to register the sudden appearance of two oddly colored gemstones that magically materialized on her workbench alongside the pile of cheap rhinestones that were a grim reminder of how much work she still had to complete before her shift was done and she could go home to her family. Her function in this Thai shoe factory was to put fake diamonds onto the latest and hottest model of Loki brand running shoes. Her husband worked the opposite shift in the same factory, so she hardly ever saw him. It made her wonder how they had ever managed to have children. In addition to her long work hours, taking care of her kids and aged parents left her only a paltry few hours of sleep each night. The result was that she was bone tired all the time. Yet, despite the fatigue, the sand colored rabbit's slender fingers deftly snatched the matching pair of otherworldly stones off the bench and riveted them without conscious effort to the center of the toes of the pair of the latest in a never-ending succession of red and white sneakers. If she had only known the power and value of those gems, she could have taken them, left this miserable place and retired a wealthy woman. Such is the fate of side characters in a story: one measly paragraph and no resolution to their conflict.

Crisp Wolffen skipped alongside his mom as she walked briskly through the mall to the shoe store. The fourteen-year-old gray and white wolf was excited beyond his own youthful endurance. It was the afternoon of his birthday, and his mom had promised to buy him the latest pair of Loki running shoes. These weren't ordinary shoes, and Crisp did not have an ordinary fascination for the coverings he put on his feet. It was not an exaggeration to say that he had an erotic preoccupation with his hindpaw-wear. Unlike most boys his age who were content to own one or two pairs of high end sneakers, Crisp had a closet devoted to hindpaw-gear: sneakers, tennis shoes, running shoes, hiking shoes, dress shoes, boots, clogs, sandals and flip flops were all represented and lovingly displayed. There was even a dresser dedicated to nothing but socks in every possible style and fashion, but mostly the kind with horizontal stripes. Those were his favorites.

Even though the shoes were a gift, he didn't dare let his mom buy a pair without him trying them on first. His hindpaws were growing along with the rest of his body, and what fit a month ago wouldn't necessarily fit today. This need to confirm the size left him with a conundrum. He had to send his mom away whenever a new pair of shoes touched his hindpaws. Ever since he hit puberty around his last birthday, he found it almost impossible not to get an erection when putting on socks or shoes, especially new ones. Just thinking about it on the journey to the shoe store had made him halfway hard already. Fortunately, his mom did not question why he wanted to be alone, and she complied with his request for her to go into another shop.

The shoes he wanted were located in a prominent display in the front of the store. They were red and white leather sneakers with shiny, fake gems on the back and front in the pattern of the manufacturer's spiral logo. He grabbed a pair in his current shoe size and took them to the back of the store among the tall racks for some privacy. The pair he held were slightly different from all the others. Instead of a just another rhinestone in the center of the spiral on the toe, the two center gems on the toes of this pair had a unique opalescent coloration whose pattern seemed to shift as they were viewed from different angles. The facets of the stones reflected light with a sparkling intensity that rivaled a real diamond. Maybe it was a mistake or a defect. Maybe these shoes were deliberately made unique for some kind of promotion. Crisp didn't care either way. They were beautiful, and if they fit, they would be his.

Sitting on a padded bench at the end of an aisle, he removed his own shoes revealing his red and white striped socks that he had worn just for this occasion. He placed his sock covered hindpaws on the floor next to the objects of his affection and left them there for a moment as if introducing future lovers to each other. He felt the now familiar quickening in his loins as his cock rapidly came to full attention creating a prominent bulge in his pants. He looked about, but no one was around. Not only was getting a big boner when putting on shoes embarrassing, especially in public, it made leaning over to put the shoes on difficult. He was getting used to it, though. He just hoped he didn't start leaking pre into his briefs. A stain like that didn't go away as fast as an erection.

Bending over with his boner poking him in the stomach, he loosened the laces on the left shoe and slipped his hindpaw inside. It felt good, the shoe that is, although the rubbing sensation of his cock against the inside of his briefs was stimulating, too. He tied the laces so the sneaker was on nice and snug. It still felt heavenly, so he donned the second one with equal care and attention to detail.

He stood up and posed in front of a mirror. The runners looked and felt fabulous, and his erection was pretty impressive, too. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one to admire or notice it. He had been so engrossed with his new pawwear that he failed to see the little, eight year old lynx girl sneak up on him. She was no more than three feet away and was staring directly at his tented pants.

"What's in your pants?" she asked in a voice filled with innocent curiosity.

Crisp was mortified by his uncontrollable erection. He quickly covered it as best he could with his paws. "Uh, it's nothing. Go away."

"That's what my brother always says. Why won't he show me? What's the big secret?"

"Who are you talking to, Katie?" asked a woman's voice from around the corner, and fortunately out of sight.

"Just a boy with something in his..."

"Well, say goodbye. I need you here to try on these shoes."

"Okay, Mom. Goodbye, boy." The little girl skipped back around the corner out of sight.

Crisp let out the breath he had been holding. Relieved to have avoided being seen by the mom, and even more so by the fact that the girl had not completed her sentence, he thought about things besides shoes until his boner was gone. He then went to the checkout counter, paid for the shoes and wore them out into the mall to find his own mother.

It transpired that Inquirer Balaath was indeed the answer to Miingle's hopes. The research for which he was rightfully famous was well advanced; he already had prototype equipment assembled to attempt to begin the exploration of other universes. The scientist was elated by Miingle and Saarat's predicament, but not because he enjoyed other people's misery. The fact that they had managed to place a physical object, in particular the Stones of Authority, with their unique mental energy focusing characteristics, into another universe was the source of his elation. The properties of the stones allowed him to quickly locate them with his apparatus, and he announced he could help them retrieve the precious artefacts.

Miingle had never been so relieved at any point in her life. It looked like Balaath was going to save them after all. The downside was that she and Saarat had to listen to the scientist lecture on his theories concerning the nature of the skin between universes. She learned more than she ever wanted to know and couldn't comprehend far more than she would ever learn about quantum permeability, gravitational warpage of space-time, harmonic membrane distortion events and other concepts that were completely incomprehensible to her. Saarat, as usual, hovered low with his tentacles on the ground and an idiotic expression on his face during the entire lecture. Miingle slapped his gas chamber in disgust with a tentacle and motioned for him to rise up higher. He did his best, which of course, wasn't good enough. Miingle sighed and wondered again why she had to have the stupidest partner in the world.

So caught up was Miingle in her own self-pity and mental wanderings about the deficiencies of Saarat, she lost track of the Inquirer's speech. "...so the interface connection will allow you to not only manipulate physically whatever the stones touch; you will also be able to establish a telepathic connection with the aliens if their brains are capable of such a thing like ours are." He held out a clumsy looking harness made of a fine web-like material designed to drape over a Gharff's bulbous body. It had wires and boxes attached to it and goggles to cover the wearer's eyes.

"I have tested you both while we talked, and Saarat here has the higher empath potential. I suggest that he try the harness first, because he is most likely to be able to send a successful signal. We need to give it the best chance we can to succeed because this is all based on hypothetical work of mine. It has never been tested." He gave the harness to the purple Gharff, who took it eagerly like a small child getting a toy. "Put in on and operate it just like I explained in my instructions."

Miingle let Saarat try on the device. She was too embarrassed to object since she hadn't been paying attention to Balaath's instructions and had no idea how to use it. She worried, though about letting an idiot like Saarat work the gadget without supervision. Her fears were allayed when Balaath gave her a pair of goggles to wear that would allow her to see and experience what Saarat was experiencing. She always felt more comfortable when supervising her partner's work and giving him orders to prevent him from messing up.

Crisp awoke with a start; it was just past midnight. He was sure something in his room had made a sound. At first he was creeped out and pulled the covers over his head, but he was not a baby anymore. He knew there was no such thing as monsters under the bed or aliens in the closet. Kicking off the covers, he sat up and scanned the room. In the dim glow of the nightlight, he could see that he was alone, but something wasn't right. It took him a moment to realize the door to his shoe closet was open. Angry that someone, especially if that someone was one of his sisters, may have been messing with his pawwear, he hopped out of bed. His padded hindpaws didn't hit the hardwood floor as he expected, though. Instead he found he had slipped right into his new Loki running shoes. The two brightly colored stones in the center of each toe appeared to be glowing of their own accord, but Crisp reasoned that they must have somehow been reflecting the nightlight.

"How did you two get here?" The kit often talked to his shoes. He considered them more like friends that most of the other kids he knew. "I am sure that I put you away, but maybe I just like you too much to be parted from you." He couldn't be sure; his eyes were still a bit blurry from sleep, but it seemed that the shoe's laces tied themselves before his sleep addled eyes. Sitting back down on his bed and lifting one hindpaw up on his thigh, he confirmed that the lace was tied in a perfect bow. He was sure he had left them untied when put them away. He never took his shoes off without unlacing them first. Scratching his head behind his furry ears, he wondered if this was a dream.

"Well, you are still clean. I haven't walked outside with you yet except to and from the car, so I guess you can sleep with me." He climbed back under the covers and soon fell asleep comforted in knowing that he had the coolest shoes in town.

"What are you doing, you idiot!" Miingle's round body was expanding and contracting rapidly in her rage. "You were supposed to make the shoes walk to the rendezvous point. It isn't that far away. Now they are stuck on the monster's feet."

Saarat flinched, and gray and black spots began to appear on his skin. "I'm sorry, Miingle, but these controls are hard to use." The annoying whiney whistle was back in his voice. "Their universe has different physical laws from ours just like the Inquirer said. I'm doing my best, but I have no idea what is going to work and what isn't. This is all trial and error - mostly error I'm afraid."

"Everything you do is mostly error!" Miingle tried to calm her breathing. It wasn't going to help to yell at Saarat. That would only make him screw up worse. He was like a child that needed lots of encouragement to do well, and it was true that the equipment that Balaath had rigged up for them was highly experimental. The Inquirer had to rush to get it functional before leaving to lecture at an important symposium. Fortunately, he had promised to return soon to help them perfect its use. They were going to need it. "Hey. It's okay. You got the stones out of that room where he keeps his tentacle covers."

The purple alien's carapace glowed with her praise. "They don't look like tentacles to me, Miingle."

Saarat had an annoying tendency to state the obvious. "Well, whatever those things they use for moving around on are called."

"I think I getting the hang of movement, but now they are joined to the monster. I have no idea how to move the tentacle coverings and the monster."

"Balaath said you can use this machine to send telepathic messages. Try sending a message to the alien telling it where to take the stones. Maybe it will think it is an order from a superior and obey."

Saarat bobbed up and down in excitement at this suggestion. "You are so smart Miingle. I will try it now."

Miingle placed the special goggles over her eyes that allowed her to see into this weird universe of fur covered monsters. By plugging another cable into the set, the goggles were capable of sending the telepathic thoughts of the monster directly to her brain. She hooked it up to observe Saarat's attempt at communication.

His shoes were so cool, that he was on stage in the school auditorium on display for everyone to see. There were others present, trying to compete with him, but his shoes were clearly the best. When anyone else tried to show off their hindpaw-wear, they were booed and shouted down. A call would then arise from the crowd for him to come forward again and show off his fantastic new Loki runners.

It was a strange feeling being on stage. He was normally a shy individual who didn't like crowds of people staring at him. He felt a cold dread that something was going to go wrong. Of course, it subsequently did. He began to dance. He had no idea how to dance. He did not want to dance in public. The shoes were doing the dancing, and he was now their helpless victim being dragged along for the ride. This reminded him vaguely of a favorite old Warner Brother's cartoon where the Porky Pig had somehow gotten a pair of cursed green shoes that made him dance an Irish jig. Crisp had time to only briefly note the similarities between his situation and old Porky's before he returned his attention to the crown watching him with surprise. There was no way this could end well, he was certain that he was going to make a fool of himself.

Though his runners were clearly inappropriate for the task, he began to tap, and somehow it worked. He had never tapped before in his life, but the shoes seemed to have a will of their own and knew just what to do. It started slide-flap right, heel left, repeated twice more. It was followed by a shuffle right, heel left and stomp right. He executed it perfectly and could only flail his arms as his out of control legs and hindpaws ignored his brain's pleas to stop. The audience sat spellbound. He executed the same moves as a mirror image starting with the left hindpaw. That was followed by a front flap right, heel right, heel left, back flap right and heel right. Again he mirrored that with the left paw.

This wasn't as bad as he had feared it would be. Some magical properties of the shoes were allowing him to dance just like a professional, though he had no control over the action. He was beginning to think that he was going to enjoy this when another part of his body began to respond on its own, specifically his penis. He wasn't even thinking about shoes or socks or anything remotely sexual, but his boner was growing inside of his pants as if he was. Soon, he was fully erect, and it was only a matter of time before the audience began to point and laugh at the huge bulge in his trousers.

Crisp wanted to run away to hide his shame so no one could see it, but the shoes continued to dance to their own tune, literally. They executed as series of wings by starting on the balls of his feet, scraping both feet outwards and into the air. That was quickly followed by a spank, using both feet, where he swung his foot back hitting only the ball tap. He did it over and over in double time as his hardon shifted around in his pants until it was nearly sticking out beyond the waistband. Then he jumped forward on both feet for the finish, executed a perfect double syncopated pull back by jumping backward, and as his paws left the floor, doing a spank, then landing on the balls of his shoes. A step with the right foot forward, followed by the same with the left and a final dig with the right toe behind his left hindpaw put him in the perfect position to bow to an embarrassed mixture of applause and nervous laughter.

Crisp was grateful that in addition to his shoes, he had worn his best running suit to match. At least it concealed his penis from view and left only the bulge for the audience to witness. "Wait a minute," he thought to himself, before he looked down to admire his clothes. A dread certainty suddenly overcame him that he had forgotten to get dressed before coming to the fashion show.

A quick glance confirmed that he wore only a pair of bright red briefs, his beloved shoes and pair of matching white and red striped socks. This was insane. He didn't even own a pair of red briefs. Where had he acquired these? How had he gotten here dressed, or rather undressed, like this? Why had no one said anything, especially his parents, who were sitting in the front row? Even worse, all of his extended family was here, and of course, so were every single one of his friends. Everyone he knew in the whole world was watching, and somehow he knew that if he stayed on stage he would lose his briefs and show off his boner for everyone to see.

He tried to back away off the stage, but there was an unmoving wall of the other contestants in his way. How come there were so many? They were at least ten deep and he couldn't get through them. Panicking, he decided his only hope was to jump off the stage and run up the aisle out of the auditorium before things got worse. In his hurry to get away from where he was so prominently displayed, his shoelace on his right sneaker caught around a hook used to hang banners at the foot of the stage. He failed to notice this until he was committed to the leap. His left foot soared out into the air, but his right held him back. He fell straight down, hanging upside down against the stage with his head inches above the ground.

Instead of helping him escape the attention of the audience, his pratfall brought every eye in the house focused directly on him. Worse, he was helpless and trapped there on display. Gasps of surprise were now audible. Crisp groaned knowing that meant they were staring at the bulge in his underpants. He wanted to cover his erection with his paws, but his arms suddenly felt like lead, and he couldn't lift them from where they lay immobile on the floor beneath him.

He was grateful that his boner was confined to his briefs. The prominent straining tent was bad enough, but he really didn't want everyone to actually see his dick. Paws clutched at his legs, and he looked up to see that several of the other contestants were reaching down to try to help him back up on the stage. Focusing as best he could while hanging upside down, Crisp slowly realized that the two boys trying to help him were also dressed only in their underwear. They had been fully clothed before; Crisp was certain of that. Terry and Tomas were two tiger friends that always hung out together. The hapless wolf had secretly had a crush on them for nearly a year. Seeing them bent over in just their underwear with their own prominent bulging erections, while they pawed at his thighs trying to get a grip to pull him up on the stage, only made his cock harder, and he could feel the pre starting to soak through his shorts.

He was sweating from the embarrassment, and the blood flowing to his head was making him dizzy. Crisp could not imagine how this could get any worse until one of the tigers managed to grab the waistband of his briefs. In his attempt to pull Crisp up, two things happened that brought this whole mortifying affair to its humiliating conclusion. Crisp's underwear slid right up his thighs leaving his straining erection exposed for everyone to see, but worse than that, the tiger's paw had brushed along Crisp's shaft as his briefs came off. That short, and intimate contact was enough to make his already hypersensitive erection buck, unloading his balls all over his own chest, snout and the floor. Through the one eye that wasn't covered in his own creamy goo, he could see his parents staring in horror at his shameful display.

Abruptly sitting up in his bed, Crisp needed a moment to realize that he was in his own room and in his own bed. He sighed with relief; It had been a dream. None of it was real. Well, maybe some of it was. Feeling a familiar sticky wetness in his crotch, he switched on the lamp on his nightstand. A huge, wet stain surrounded the tent formed by his slowly fading erection. He had never cum that much before even when fantasizing about shoes and the two tiger boys. Lifting the sheets he saw the damage was even worse. His white briefs were still on and they were soaked. How was he going to get this stuff through the laundry without his mom knowing? God, what if she touched it while it was still sticky?

Miingle ripped the goggles off her eyes and threw them down in disgust. "That was the most revolting thing that I have ever experienced." She attempted to calm herself by slowly inhaling and exhaling to let her body convert the moisture in the air into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen was used to power her body, and the hydrogen filled her floatation sacs and gave her a calming rush of pleasure. "What did you do Saarat? That didn't help at all!"

"Sorry, Miingle. Please don't yell. This creature's mind is very alien. It doesn't' work like ours at all. I don't think they have any kind of telepathic ability like we do. They seem to only communicate by making sounds."

"It's not the sounds that disturb me, but the images and the emotions that come with them. These monsters are disgusting. I think you tapped into its sexual mental centers by mistake." Miingle reached out with her tentacles for the harness netting that Saarat wore. "Give me the controls and let me try. I can't do any worse than you, and we have less than half a rotation left to get the stones back."

Saarat clutched the controlling harness tightly to his body. "But Inquirer Balaath said I should wear it, because I have the higher empath potential. The harness is calibrating itself to me as I use it."

"I don't care. You are a bungler and a fool. I am certain that I can do better. Now, I am your superior, so you have to give it to me because I order you to."

The purple alien deflated noticeably. He could not defy a direct order from a superior. Miingle may have been only a minor level technician, but Saarat was the lowest grade of all. He barely ranked above the semi-intelligent cleaning floaters. Reluctantly, he removed the harness and turned it over to his superior.

She wrenched it from his grasp with a bit more tentacle force than was polite or necessary. Saarat pouted as he watched her don the harness and connect all the leads to her sensory organs.

"Now float back and let someone with some brains take control." She wiggled her tentacles in front of Saarat's eyes in the human equivalent of cracking her knuckles. "I am going to make this monster go exactly where we need him to go with no more fooling around."

It was Saturday morning, which was laundry day in the Wolffen house. Crisp gathered up the stained sheets and his thoroughly soaked briefs with the intent of sneaking down to the basement to throw them in the laundry machine and set it to soak. He would have to navigate past his mother and his two older sisters in order to get there from his upstairs bedroom, which unfortunately was at the far end of the hall from the stairs. His best opportunity would be when one or both of his sisters were in the bathroom. Once in there, they wouldn't be coming out again for half an hour.

Peeking out his bedroom door, he looked down the hall and saw the bathroom door was closed and the light was on. At least one sister was in there already. "Now is probably as good as time as any," he thought to himself. He was summoning the courage to leave his room, when he realized he was totally naked, and had failed to even put on clean underwear, let alone a shirt and pants. "God, it's the dream all over again." He tried to stop himself from leaving, but his shoes and his feet acted as if they had their own mind and walked him swiftly into the hall and towards the stairs.

Was he dreaming again, or were these shoes somehow possessed? He had no time to contemplate the metaphysical conundrum, for two terrible things happened next: he ran into his mother at the top of the stairs, and his oldest and most obnoxious sister's bedroom door opened behind him. Mrs. Wolffen was performing her ritual motherly morning duty of making sure everyone was getting up. She did not believe in letting her children sleep in late, even on the weekends. Yelling from the kitchen had never proven effective, so she climbed the stairs each morning to physically drag each of her three children from bed if necessary.

His oldest sister, a senior in high school, stepped out of her room and stared at Crisp's exposed tail end. "Nice butt, Crisp." He was holding the soiled sheets in front to hide his privates, but his tail and furry ass were exposed for all the world to see. He quickly tucked his tail between his legs and wrapped the sheets completely around his loins. She laughed in the way that older sisters have perfected since time began to torment their younger brothers. "What's the matter, baby? Did you pee yourself during the night?"

"No!" Though misleading, he was able to say that with conviction because it was the literal truth. Crisp fervently prayed that his sister would not guess what was really on his sheets. Unfortunately his mom did.

"Mandy, you hush. Crisp probably just had a wet dream. That happens to boys his age."

"Mom!" Crisp wailed in embarrassment and despair.

Mandy sniffed the air. "Ha! I think you're right. Smells like musk to me."

This was becoming a living hell for Crisp, caught between his mother and his oldest sister arguing about his nightly discharge habits. Could things get any worse?

Fortunately, the shoes decided it was time to move again, and his feet started hustling him past his mother. Crisp would not have pushed past his mother so brusquely on his own. "Excuse me, Mom. I have to get these sheets downstairs." His mom was no longer paying him anymore attention now that she had Mandy's carnal knowledge of such scents to raise her parental ire.

"And just how would you know that smell, young lady?"

"Mom! I am not a baby like Crisp."

"You are not a woman, either. What have you been up to?"

Their argument was lost to Crisp as his feet took him out the front door instead of to the basement. Having lost all control of everything below the waist to whatever was controlling him, he did his best to wrap the sheet around himself as a makeshift toga. His jizz soaked underwear fell behind in the middle of the lawn. He could only hope that no one else discovered them before he got back from wherever his feet were taking him. If he ever did.

It was a weird sensation to lose control of one's own hindpaws and legs. Crisp wondered if he should ask for help; this situation was simply not right. By the time he decided to call for assistance, though, it was too late. His autonomous legs turned off the street and down a path that led through the woods and across the bottom of the deep, wide gully that separated his residential neighborhood from the industrial part of town. It was not a path that he would normally take since it didn't lead to any place that he liked to frequent, and you never knew what kind of bullies and perverts might loiter in that no man's land.

His feet, though purposeful in their intent to cross this perilous landscape, were clumsier than usual, and he tripped over stones and tree roots several times, falling down to the dirty path. By the time he reached the bottom of the gully, his bed sheet toga was torn and stained beyond repair. His mom was going to go ballistic for sure.

A makeshift bridge made out several fallen logs provided a path over the creek that used this cleft in the landscape as its path towards the sea. Crisp dreaded his now clumsy hindpaws attempting that crossing. He mentally prepared himself for a dunk in the cold water, but he was momentarily spared that prospect when two punks from his middle school class stepped out from behind a large oak tree on the other side of the bridge.

"This bridge belongs to us. You have to pay a toll to cross." The speaker was a large, filthy rat named Billy Brucker. Literally, he was a rat from the poor side of town whose bathing habits were infrequent and inadequate. He was a creep who lived for picking on others and was always in some kind of trouble at school when he bothered to come to school at all. With him was his devoted little toady, AJ Roache. He wasn't a cockroach, or even an insect, though such a guise would have suited his personality. He was a rabbit with light blonde colored fur and a look of perpetual fear upon his face. His pensive expression was likely a result of hanging around the unpredictable, dirty, brown rat he had made his best friend and protector. It was an uneasy alliance, for the rat was as likely to pick on his friend as anyone else if the mood struck him. With Crisp present as a focus for Billy's wrath, AJ was momentarily safe.

The rat strode across the bridge and stood at the edge on Crisp's side, deliberately blocking the crossing. The rabbit hid in his shadow and peered from behind Billy's broad shoulders. "What the fuck are you dressed up for, sissy boy? It ain't Halloween, faggot, so why are you wearing that?"

AJ snickered from behind the bulk of his master and received a backward slap from the rat's paw as a reward. Billy's attention was on Crisp, so it was an idle and distracted assault. The blow didn't hurt, but it did accomplished its intent to make the rabbit shut up. "Well? I asked you a question punk!"

Crisp wracked his mind for some explanation, other than the real one, for why he was in the woods dressed in only a sheet and his cursed shoes. He was stumped to contrive a reason that made any sense. "I...Uh...I....I don't know."

It was the truth, which seemed to surprise the bully for a moment. Crisp wished that he could turn and run back up the trail. Billy was kind of fat, and wasn't known for his speed. The young wolf's feet continued to refuse to obey his will, though, and instead, tried to take him right past the foul smelling rat and across the bridge.

Billy grabbed Crisp from behind as the wolf tried to pass and pinned his arms to his sides. "I said you can't cross without paying a toll. You have to give us something or I throw you in the creek."

"He doesn't have anything but these red shoes, Billy."

"Yeah. I saw those. They look pretty cool to me and may be my size. Those will do. Take 'em off his feet, AJ."

The subservient rabbit did as instructed, untying the laces and taking the cursed shoes off Crisp's sockless hindpaws. The young wolf experienced a range of conflicting emotions as the two thugs stole his shoes. He was sad to lose such a beautiful pair of unique pawwear. The Loki runners were not only expensive, but they were his. He loved all of his shoes, and would miss this mischievous pair dearly. On the other paw, the shoes had embarrassed him in front of his mom and his sister. He would no doubt have to die a thousand deaths while hearing over and over in front of the whole family the story of how he jizzed up his sheets. Finally, he was feeling a little bit aroused again as the rabbit held his legs and feet and removed his shoes. He was grateful for the loose and bunched up sheet hiding his growing erection. He really didn't want these two creepy thugs seeing his boner. AJ wasn't bad looking, but Billy was a big smelly rat, and was just unpleasant.

Once his shoes were off, the rat dropped Crisp roughly on the bridge and forgot about him as he set about putting on the possessed sneakers. Despite his size, he did have somewhat small feet and was able to squeeze into the red and white runners.

"Oh no!"

"What's wrong, Miingle?" Saarat was watching the action with the special goggles, but he didn't understand why she was so upset.

"That bigger monster took the stones and is wearing them now."

"So?"

"So, dolt, now I have to recalibrate to this new monster's brain to try to control it." She waved her tentacles in the air in frustration. "I was doing so well, too."

"Uh. Actually, you weren't. I just checked the position locator. You took him in the opposite direction from the rendezvous point."

"What? Let me see that!" Miingle pushed Saarat aside to check the location. He was right. The stones were actually farther away from the extraction window that Balaath had said was the only nearby point where the Gharff could bring the stones back to their universe. "Liquid methane!" she exclaimed in her frustration. If Saarat was shocked by such an offensive use of their species digestive processes to curse her own performance, he was at least smart enough not to show it. "It would be so much easier to move the shoes if they weren't on the monsters. It's slower, but much less confusing than trying to override their primitive nervous system. Their thoughts are repulsive and distracting. The gray and white one keeps getting sexually aroused every time something happens to his shoes or the ends of his tentacles. I can't stand it. I give up! We are as good as deflated."

Saarat bobbed up and down in his excitement that he might have another chance to use the device. "Let me try again, Miingle, please. I don't mind the alien's thoughts at all. They are kind of interesting."

Miingle gazed skeptically at her partner, but handed him the controls anyway. She was glad to be out of the alien's mind. "Fine. You get one more chance, but you have to listen to my instructions and do as ordered. Got it?"

"Yes. Thank you Miingle. I won't let you down."

Miingle handed the harness to her partner, who took it with great eagerness. She worried about his mental state. Did he actually enjoy making psychic contact with the aliens? Was he getting some sick sexual thrill out of this? It was during Saarat's use of the machine that the monster had made the mess that was somehow associated with their mating behaviors. "Uh, Saarat? Are you sure you are okay with this? This isn't having any kind of negative effect on your psyche is it?"

Saarat feigned ignorance, which wasn't hard for him. "No. Not at all? Why do you ask?"

"It's just that they are alien minds, and we have to be careful to make sure the contact doesn't corrupt us in some way."

"You worry too much, Miingle. Let me get the stones back. Then we can forget all about this, okay?"

With the laces firmly tied, the bully rat admired his new, ill-gotten possessions. "Well, damn! These are some pretty sweet shoes don't you think, AJ?"

The sycophant rabbit was always eager to agree. "They sure are, Billy. Those are the coolest shoes ever!"

"Thanks for the runners, little wolf. Have fun at your toga party. Ha! Ha!" Of course, AJ laughed along with Billy as he was required to do according to the bully-toady code of behavior.

Their merriment was short lived, though, as Saarat began to try to turn the bully around to get him heading towards the extraction point on the other side of town. Billy wanted to go the other way towards his neighborhood in the industrial sector. The result of this conflict was the rat performing a strange dance as Billy and Saarat fought for control of the bully's hindpaws. Billy hopped in one direction then the other, and spun about like a lunatic.

AJ had never seen his friend act like this before. It was comical and bizarre, and he wasn't sure how to respond. Did he laugh or show concern? Every reaction he had to Billy's actions had to be carefully considered to feed the bully's fragile ego. Any mistake could result in a beating, which he was always eager to avoid. Such is the perilous life of a minion. Billy was not smiling as he performed his crazy pirouettes and idiotic capering. He genuinely seemed to be distressed. AJ decided to opt for concern and hoped he guessed right.

"What are you doing, Billy? Are you okay

"S...s....something's wrong with these shoes. I can't control my paws. They're making me do this."

Crisp couldn't help but giggle. He knew exactly what was happening to Billy and felt a smug satisfaction knowing the shoe was literally now on the other paw.

Hearing Crisp's giggles, Billy snapped at him. "You Goddamn little wolf! You did this to me on purpose. I'm gonna kill you for this!" Billy raged, but his threats were empty and only made Crisp laugh louder as he watched the ugly rat spin about more drunkenly as he tried to extract his vengeance on his victim. The harder Billy tried to make his hindpaws obey his will, the more absurd and ludicrous became his antics. His arms flailed about for balance as his paws went one way, then suddenly reversed and went the other. It was like watching the village idiot performing for pennies in the town square. There was nothing graceful about any of it.

Crisp would have enjoyed watching this dance go on for hours, but the stage was inadequate for Billy's performance. It was only two logs wide and uneven. The rat soon lost his footing and fell backwards into the creek.

The stream was shallow and muddy, so Billy was able to lie there on his back with his snout above water and his hindpaws sticking up in the air. Though not in contact with the ground, his legs and hindpaws were still performing their wild gyrations.

"Get these shoes off of me." The bully was crying now, which made him seem much less threatening to Crisp, who saw no reason to help the dirty creep. He was content to be amused watching him flounder in the muddy water.

AJ, of course, was duty bound to try to rescue his master. Wading into the water, he tried grabbing Billy's hindpaws to untie the shoes but was kicked backwards into the creek as a reward for his efforts.

Seeing both of his tormentors lying in the stream incited Crisp to laugh out loud. He was joined by two other voices laughing along with him. The laughter certainly had not come from the wet rabbit or the crying rat. Looking back the way he had come, Crisp saw the two tiger friends, Terry and Tomas, from his school and his dream last night. Standing at the edge of the creek, they were pointing at the two bullies and laughing hysterically. Both were wearing day packs on their backs as if they were going on a hike.

When they were done laughing at the two bullies struggling to remove the cursed shoes, they sat next to Crisp on the bridge. "Hey, Crisp," said Terry, the taller of otherwise nearly identical looking male cats. "Nice work taking down these jerks."

"Yeah," chimed in Tomas while putting his paw on Crisp's shoulder. "I didn't know you were such a brute. Always thought you were the pacifist type."

"It wasn't me. I mean I didn't push them in the creek. It was the shoes. Billy took my shoes and they made him fall off the bridge."

Tomas looked critically at AJ struggling to pull the right shoe off Billy's hindpaw as the rat's leg continued to move in his grip. "The shoes look too small for him."

"Yeah," agreed Terry, "but I think his problem is he's a spastic. You said those are your shoes, Crisp?"

The wolf nodded. Terry and Tomas looked in each other's eyes for a moment, and some silent agreement passed between them. They both untied and removed their own shoes revealing striped black and white socks. Crisp couldn't help but be aroused as he watched them pull the socks off and set them on their shoes. He was grateful that everyone's attention was on Billy because his boner was clearly tenting his bed sheet toga.

With their hindpaws bare and their pants rolled up, the two tigers jumped into the creek. Terry sat on Billy's chest and grabbed his legs in his strong arms pinning them together to reduce their ridiculous thrashing. Thomas shoved AJ aside and yanked both shoes off Billy's ratty hindpaws.

Terry let go of the rat's legs and spun around while still sitting on Billy's chest. "Don't ever bug Crisp again, Billy. He is our friend now. You mess with him and you are messing with us. You got it?"

Crisp was so stunned to hear Terry call him his friend, he forgot for a moment all about the cursed shoes and his bed sheet dress. Even more amazing was how contrite Billy became when openly confronted by the tiger. "Sure, Terry. I'll leave him alone, and he can have his shoes back. I never want to see those again." When Terry let the rat up, Billy was still so afraid of the shoes that he and AJ ran home without even recovering Billy's dirty sneakers.

Crisp told the tigers everything. If they really wanted to be his friends, then they deserved to know the truth. They were puzzled by the way Crisp was dressed and even more so by his explanation of how having cursed shoes led him to his current state. Despite their incredulity, they were more understanding than he dared hope.

"Cursed shoes. Cool." Tomas held the shoes up in front of his snout as he spoke. "They look pretty ordinary to me except for these fancy gems on the toes. Are you sure it's the shoes and not just some weird coincidences?"

"Yeah," agreed Terry. "Man, I've messed my sheets plenty of times, and sometimes I walk somewhere and can't even remember how I got there. I don't think I ever did both at once, though."

The tigers even shared with Crisp some extra clothes they had in their packs that Tomas had brought for a sleepover at Terry's house. Tomas and Crisp were about the same size, so Crisp had no trouble wearing Tomas' clothes, but he left his hindpaws bare. Tomas handed him a pair of blue and white striped socks. Crisp felt himself getting hard again at the thought of wearing the cute tiger boy's socks. Fortunately the borrowed pants were tight enough to help hide it for the moment. He squirmed as best he could to keep it down and hoped they didn't notice.

When Crisp refused the socks, Tomas asked, "What's the problem? We got your shoes back. Don't you wear socks with your shoes?

"I told you already. They are cursed. I'm not wearing them anymore."

Tomas looked at the shoes that he was holding again. "Well if you don't want them anymore, I'll take them. These are bitchin' shoes."

"No! Don't wear them, please. They make you do crazy things."

"Don't worry. I'll put them away for now." Tomas shoved the shoes in his pack and zipped it up. "There. They are gone, but you still need shoes. Take Billy's. They might stink, but I doubt they're any more cursed than that."

With Billy's slightly too large shoes and Tomas' socks on his hindpaws, Crisp followed the tigers up the opposite side of the ravine from which he had come as his new friends described the adventure they had planned to explore an old abandoned factory before their sleepover.

Miingle was apoplectic when the shoes were placed in the shorter, striped alien's pack. "It only gets worse! They are now taking the shoes even farther away, and the Stones of Authority are locked in that bag." She grabbed the harness trying to tear it away from Saarat, who was reluctant to give it up. He sensed in the alien called Crisp a trace of lust for the two striped aliens, who seemed to share that lust. The purple alien didn't want to lose the contact or the chance to experience what he had experienced during his first use of the device when the wolf alien was sleeping.

The two Gharffs wrestled with their tentacles. Miingle was too upset and enraged to remember she only had to order Saarat to give the harness up, and Saarat was too addicted to the alien creature's sexual emotions to want to relinquish the device. This was how Inquirer Balaath found them when he returned from his lecture.

"What are you two doing to my equipment?" Miingle and Saarat froze in place, both embarrassed by their actions. They quickly related everything to the Inquirer that had happened since they started using the device.

"Interesting." Balaath reviewed the recorder data that the machine had collected, documenting everything that had transpired. "You two are to be commended. There is a treasure trove of data here. We shall learn much from this, and I will get the Noble Gas Prize for sure for this research"

"But, Inquirer, the stones are now even farther away from the extraction point, and they are locked up. Even if we get them out of the bag, it is too far to walk the shoes there on their own in time. That method is too slow. We have to get them back on the alien's feet somehow, but even if we do, how do we control the alien? It's impossible to work with their alien minds. We have failed completely so far." The anguish in Miingle's voice was obvious, but Balaath seemed not to notice. Instead he continued to scan the data as though there was all the time in the world, and this was just an interesting research project. She began to hyperventilate so bad she was on the verge of popping a buoyancy sac, when the Inquirer finally spoke.

"I think that you are correct about control. That is not the way to solve our dilemma. We must coax and convince instead. I can make some adjustments to the harness based on the data that we have collected that will smooth out some of the synaptic irregularities that occur at the interface between our universes. I also think that I may be able to create a holographic projector that will allow us to project images of ourselves into their universe and allow us to communicate via auditory vibrations in the manner to which the aliens are accustomed."

Miingle floated higher with this good news. "Inquirer, that is great! How soon can you make the adjustments?"

"Maybe an hour or two. I can do it first thing in the morning."

"No! Do it now!" Miingle quickly poised her fore-tentacles in a posture of supplication for her impertinent command to the respected scholar. "I mean, please, Inquirer. It is important. Just think of the Noble Gas Prize that awaits."

The pompous gray gas bag puffed himself up at the mention of the Gharff's most coveted scientific prize. "Yes. Well. It is for science. Alright. Let's get to work."

Tomas, Terry and Crisp explored the old factory for hours, climbing catwalks, walking through dark passageways underground, climbing rusty ladders and playing with the controls of inactive machinery. When they got hungry, they found an old office and sat in office chairs around a wooden desk as they shared the food that Terry and Tomas had packed in their bags. The red Loki runners were placed on the floor and forgotten as the boys talked.

Saarat was also forgotten as Balaath worked on the programming to improve the functionality of the harness. Miingle was completely distracted with hovering over the scholar and urging him to work faster while rubbing her tentacles together nervously. Saarat slipped the harness back on and decided to try an experiment of his own. When the wolf kit's older sibling had smelled the musky smell of the kit's nightly discharge, he had noticed a certain level of arousal in her. Saarat wondered if he could recreate and intensify that smell to get the aliens to do some more of their intriguing and stimulating mating habits while Miingle and Balaath were preoccupied.

Some of the professor's improvements were already activated in the harness. Now instead of just forces, actual physical particles could be transmitted across the barrier between their universes. This was necessary to allow them to recapture the stones when they reached the extraction point. Saarat had always been a whiz at chemistry. He was sort of an idiot savant when it came to working with chemicals. He used the Inquirer's equipment to synthesize what he thought would be a more potent version of the wolf's musky smell and used the harness' new capabilities to transmit the gas to the shoes.

As the three boys continued eating their lunch, they were so engrossed in telling dirty jokes, off color stories and gossiping about other furs, that none of them noticed the light green gas that began to seep out of the red and white runners and permeate the air of the small office. Since the chemical that Saarat had synthesized was based on Crisp's DNA, it had less effect on him and caused the tigers to become immediately aroused instead. Terry and Tomas soon both began to squirm in their seats uncomfortably and cover their privates with their paws.

"What's the matter, guys?" Crisp noticed their fidgeting but was oblivious to the true nature of their plight. "Was it something you ate? Are you feeling okay?"

Terry and Tomas gazed into each other's eyes as they were wont to do when making a decision without discussing something out loud. They reached a mutual understanding and Terry confessed the cause of their distress. "I'm not sure what it is that caused it. Maybe it was all of those dirty jokes we told, but I have the biggest boner of my life and it just is not going down without some kind of help."

"Me, too," agreed Tomas.

"Oh. Ha. Ha. I get those all of the time, guys. When you were taking off your shoes and socks before jumping in the creek, I got really hard. It'll go away eventually."

Tomas and Terry exchanged knowing glances again and reached another silent decision. "So you like socks and shoes?" Terry deliberately put his feet up on the desk, and Tomas copied his movement. Their boners were quite apparent in their pants now that they weren't trying to hide them. "So, it might turn you on a bit if we were to slowly take our shoes off in front of you?"

As Terry spoke, both boys made a show of untying their shoes and removing them to reveal their matching black and white striped socks. Crisp felt his own dick begin to swell in his pants. This was truly a dream come true. He had fantasized about these two kits for nearly a year.

"Look, Tomas. He likes it."

"I see that, Terry."

The two tigers peeled each sock off one at a time with exaggerated slowness and placed them neatly on the desk in front of Crisp. Then they wheeled their office chairs around so each one was on the opposite side of the wolf.

Terry placed his snout against Crisp's ear and spoke in a low, husky voice. "How about if we take off your shoes and socks, Crisp? would you like that?"

The wolf kit was as hard as he could possibly get and trembling with excitement. "Yes," he croaked hoarsely.

The tiger boys each untied and removed one of Billy's old sneakers and tossed them aside. Then they slowly moved their paws from the tips of his hindclaws up the arch and heel of his hindpaws to his calves until they were just touching the elastic band at the top of his borrowed socks. Crisp could feel the pre leaking out of his cock and see the stain forming on the front of his pants. Terry and Tomas noticed it too and smiled.

With a suddenness that made Crisp gasp and nearly cream his pants, Terry and Tomas yanked his socks off his hindpaws in one swift motion. The musky smell from the other universe grew more intense as the small office air became completely saturated with the odor.

The two tigers both stood out of their chairs, unzipped their pants and let them fall to the floor revealing the prominent bulges in their black underwear. Terry was big enough that the tip of his cock protruded past the band of his undies, which were boy's briefs, but Tomas wore girl's panties that couldn't hold all of his less lengthy yet prominently erect male sex. With their cocks half exposed for Crisp's amusement, they then unzipped the wolf's pants and pulled them off as he remained seated in his chair.

Tomas inspected the dark wet stain on Crisp's briefs. "I think you can keep this pair, Crisp. They're marked as yours, but for now they are just in the way, aren't they?"

Each tiger slipped a claw under the elastic of the wolf's briefs and pulled them down as they watched his hardon snap to attention once it was freed from its cotton prison. The black undies were thrown on the desk with the socks.

Crisp wanted to paw himself off badly at the sight of two aroused tigers standing on either side of him, but Terry had a different plan. "Go ahead Crisp you can do the honors for us."

Both tigers stood still as Crisp pulled their briefs down to their ankles getting a snout full of cock and balls from each tiger. The tigers pulled their t-shirts over their heads so they were completely nude showing off their beautiful orange and black striped bodies with their white stomachs. Crisp let go of their cocks to remove his own shirt.

Terry then grabbed the base of Crisps' cock and Tomas cupped his balls. Crisp tentatively reached out and grasped each of the tiger boy's dicks again with a paw. As soon as he did, Terry started stroking up and down the wolf's shaft, and Crisp found himself returning the favor.

Terry was starting to breathe heavily. The alien manufactured aphrodisiac was making him and Tomas wild with carnal desire. "Have you ever done this with anyone else before, Crisp?" The wolf shook his head. "A virgin, eh? Nice. You try not to lose it too soon, okay? There is more to come. No pun intended."

As if that was a pre-arranged signal, Tomas lowered himself to his knees, forcing Crisp to lose his grasp on the shorter tiger's boner. Tomas then placed his snout over the tip of the wolf's dick and took it in his mouth. Terry continued to hold it for his friend for a while then moved his own erection to Crisps' mouth and placed his paw on the wolf boy's head between his pointed ears. The wolf took the cat's dick in his mouth and gently caressed it with his tongue trying desperately to forestall his own rising orgasm induced by the gentle caress of Tomas' tongue.

It was a hopeless exercise. In moments he found himself grunting to signal his pending ejaculation. Tomas diligently removed his mouth from Crisp's cock and held the wolf's rod as the wolf shot his seed high in the air to land on his own legs and the desk. Terry pulled his cock out of the wolf's mouth and lost his load onto the floor in a big, sticky white puddle. Without even touching himself, Tomas did the same, creating an equally large mess under Crisps' chair.

Miingle finally noticed that the purple alien was wearing the harness again even though Balaath was not yet done with the alterations to the equipment. "What are you doing over there, Saarat?"

Saarat quickly turned off the musk delivery system and wiped out any history of its use from the computer's memory. "I am just keeping an eye on the aliens to make sure nothing unexpected happens. They have not moved from their last location."

"Good. Keep watching them, but don't try to do anything until the adjustments are complete. We are just about done."

"Yes, Miingle." Saarat was more than happy to just watch now. His little experiment had worked better than he had hoped. The experience had been deeply satisfying, but he felt just a little guilty and ashamed. He had to make sure that the other Gharffs did not find out what he had done. They would think he was a pervert. While waiting for Balaath to finish tinkering with the device, he occupied himself by altering the data record so that it would show the boys talking instead of fondling and sucking each other off. It was a pity to lose the record, but Saarat was sure he would never forget it anyway.

After the injection of alien designed aphrodisiac gas was discontinued by Saarat, the air in the abandoned factory office slowly began to clear and return to normal. Tomas was amazed by the mess he had made on the floor. "That was incredible. I didn't even have to touch myself to shoot that much. I feel like I just got milked dry." The tiger ruffled the wolf's head fur with his claws. "You are all right Crisp. You can hang with us anytime."

"Yeah. Anytime," agreed Terry as his breathing returned to normal. "That was so intense, it was crazy."

The boys began to put their clothes back on. "Sorry Crisp," said Tomas. "This pair that you cum stained is the only extra pair of briefs I brought for the sleepover tonight. You either have to go commando or put these back on."

Crisp elected to leave the briefs off, thinking it would feel less uncomfortable without them then to have a sticky mess around his junk the rest of the day. He put his borrowed pants back on, being extra careful with the zipper. Putting Tomas's black and white striped socks on his feet, he felt no stirring in in his loins over the act for the first time in a while. Play time with the tiger boys had drained him more than he thought possible. What had caused them to do that anyway? The whole experience was inscrutable. He had never done anything like it before, and he wasn't sure Terry and Tomas had been planning that either.

As Crisp began to put Billy's dirty sneakers on, Terry held up the Loki runners. "Are you sure you don't want to wear these? They don't seem cursed to me; just a really cool pair of shoes going to waste."

Crisp was about to explain all over again why he wouldn't wear them, when the shoes began to vibrate in Terry's paws causing him to drop them to the floor and yelp in surprise. They landed on their soles and began a slow and deliberate march towards Crisp.

"They are cursed!" shouted Tomas as he jumped out of the way of the autonomous sneakers.

Crisp jumped up out of his chair and tried to escape the shoes. They were moving slowly, but deliberately changed course to follow the poor wolf kit.

"Shit, Crisp!" Terry grabbed the wolf with one paw while snatching his own pack off the desk with the other. "You weren't kidding. Those shoes are possessed. Let's get out of here." The three furs grabbed the rest of their gear and ran out the office door. The red sneakers plodded slowly after them.

"The aliens are too fast and the shoes are too slow." Though they both wore control harnesses now, Miingle was letting Saarat manipulate the shoes. She had to admit he was better at it than her, but once again, she could see they were heading to failure. They didn't have much time left before the Controller's deadline expired and they were deflated. The thought made her start to hyperventilate again. "We need to get the shoes on the non-striped one. The harness is calibrated to him, but he is getting away."

Balaath was also watching the action now through a set of special goggles. "I think it is time to try the projection function. Both of your harnesses are operative. Try projecting your images near the aliens and attempt to communicate with them. The language translator will need some time to adjust to the chaotic distortion effects across the universal membrane, so keep talking to allow the algorithm to make the adjustments. Don't worry about the location of the shoes. The holographic projector has a range of at least one hundred tentacle spans from the stones and can transmit your image through solid objects. You can project your image ahead of the stones so they are near the furry aliens."

"Good idea, Inquirer. Saarat, you keep quiet and let me do the talking."

The office had windows, but the corridor and stairs they were running down didn't. It was nearly pitch black in the center of the factory. Terry had to stop halfway down the stairs to retrieve his flashlight from his pack. "We'll break our fuckin' necks if we run down these old stairs in the dark."

When the beam came on, it illuminated a clear path to the door at the bottom. Unfortunately it also spotlighted two hideous, bulbous, ghost like creatures floating between them and their goal. They were a noisome purple and green color, respectively, and each had a dozen wiggling and flailing appendages. Giant, squid-like eyes reflected Terry's light, and their bodies moved in and out of the walls just as ghosts would be expected to do. Worse than their appearance was the wailing sound they made that sounded like the screams of the damned.

Tomas turned his flashlight on just seconds after Terry illuminated the horrors in front of them. Turning his own flashlight back up the stairs, he saw the shoes waiting for them. "We're trapped."

Terry was way less afraid of a pair of creepy shoes than two ghosts. "Go back!" He began shoving Crisp back up the stairs.

"But the shoes."

"Just jump over them or get out of my way. Spooks are worse than shoes."

Tomas silently agreed that the shoes were less horrendous that the floating blobs that were now drifting up the stairs. He climbed the steps three at a time with Crisp and Terry hot on his heels.

The red sneakers tried to jump on Crisp's feet as he stepped over them. Terry picked the wolf up by his armpits, and kicked the shoes down the stairs at the ghosts. Tomas opened a different office door from the one they had used for lunch, they went inside, and he slammed it shut.

"What good is shutting the door?" asked Crisp. "They're ghosts. They go right through stuff."

Terry put his paw over Crisps' mouth and one claw to his own lips to shush the wolf as the two tigers turned off their flashlights. They waited on either side of the door listening as the wailing moans of the ghosts drew closer, accompanied by the slow clop clop of the evil shoes.

None of them dared breathe as the sneakers and the ghosts approached their door and slowly moved on past to the office at the end of the hall where they had taken their lunch.

Terry counted slowly to ten, then flung the door open and ran back towards the stairs, this time with his flashlight on and with no intent of stopping for anything. Crisp and Tomas were right behind him.

Miingle kept speaking to the aliens as Balaath had instructed even as the ugly furred creatures showed how rude and unfriendly they were by running away. They even had the audacity to kick the precious stones down the strange passageway they used to climb from one elevation to another. "How odd it must be to need something like this instead of just altering one's buoyancy to move up and down," she thought. "Where did they go, Saarat? I don't see them."

"I don't know, Miingle This is where they ate their food. They must have gone somewhere else."

"Idiot! Stop restating the obvious. Of course they went somewhere else. We need to split up and find them. You take the shoes and search. You'll be stuck following the passageways. I'll drift up and down through the structure until one of us locates them."

The stairs ended at a long catwalk made of wood planks that ran the length of the factory about fifteen feet above the floor. They were in the middle of the huge, abandoned building, so Terry led them towards the exit in the direction that was closest to home. They made it about halfway to the end of the building before the hideous green ghost drifted up through the catwalk in front of them waving its disgusting appendages and screeching in its keening voice. Recognizable words were now interspersed within its loud wailing making the sounds even creepier.

Crisp thought maybe the words were beginning to make some kind of sense. "I think it's trying to talk to us."

Terry grabbed the wolf from behind by the scruff of the neck. "It's trying to curse us and make us into ghosts, too!"

The two tigers didn't even need a silent exchange to know what to do next. Crisp stumbled backwards for a few paces from Terry's strong yank before he turned with the tigers, and all three young furs ran back the other way. They didn't get far, though, before the shoes and the even uglier blotchy purple ghost came out from the stairwell blocking their path to the exit at the other side of the factory. There was only one escape and that was a side set of steps that led down to a large platform with huge circular holes where vats of brown, gooey liquid had once been stored.

They hit the platform hard in their haste, and the wooden flooring creaked ominously beneath their weight. Frantically, they searched for an exit. Crisp spotted a ladder at one edge, and they ran towards it. In relentless pursuit, the Loki runners were coming down from the catwalk accompanied by the purple ghost . The furs were ten feet from the ladder when the green ghost rose up out of the floor in front of them still screaming in its hideous voice. They were truly trapped this time.

Backing away from the two ghosts and the menacing pair of red shoes, they found themselves with their backs to a large vat that still had some leftover sticky liquid that had been stored there back when the plant was operational. The two ghosts drifted closer, and the shoes kept up their slow, steady, advancing pace.

Crisp was terrified. Even the usually brave tiger boys were trembling in fear. The green ghost continued its wailing, and words could be heard among the moans, whistles, and general clamor that was its voice. "...help us...the stones...time is short...must help...."

To the kits, it sounded like what you would expect a ghost to wail on about - a plea for help with some problem that died with the person who became the ghost. As the frightening apparitions and the demonic shoes drew closer, the boys stepped back just a little too far, and the unstable wooden platform tipped, sending them all falling backwards with their arms pinwheeling for balance into the vat. The contents weren't deep, but had the consistency of old Elmer's glue. They landed on their backs with a loud squelching sound.

It was difficult to move in the glue-like substance. Terry was the first to manage to get off his back and onto his paws and knees. He lost his shirt in the process. When he stood up, his pants stayed down. Grabbing Crisps' paw to help the wolf up resulted in a similar fate for the canid's clothing. Tomas was really stuck, and it took both Terry and Crisp to help him out of the glue. When he did break loose, all his clothes ripped off and stayed behind, and he popped up so suddenly, they all fell back down in the goo.

By the time they managed to get up again, they were all naked and stuck together front to back in a train with Crisp as the engine and Terry the caboose. The wolf noticed an access hatch just above the level of the glue and pointed it out to Tomas and Terry. Like some kind of six legged creature, they staggered towards the hatch. Each step was a monumental effort of physical strength and mutual coordination. No one wanted to fall back down in the syrup again; they were afraid they would be too exhausted to get back up.

The green ghost began to slowly descend towards them, giving them added incentive to move faster. Expending what little energy they had left, they lifted their hindpaws in unison and strode as one to the exit. Crisp grabbed the handle, the door sung outward and they fell through it onto the concrete factory floor in a heap, too tired to move any more.

To Crisp's horror, the shoes jumped through a hole in the platform down to the floor not ten feet in front of his snout. The purple ghost moved through the floor behind the shoes, and the green ghost passed through the wall of the vat. The shoes advanced deliberately towards Crisp. All three boys knew this was the end.

"The language translator is having problems with the quantum wave fluxes across the boundary." Balaath threw his tentacles up in frustration. "We need a better connection with the aliens' minds."

Miingle was too frustrated with her inability to communicate to offer a suggestion. Thus, it was simple Saarat who offered the solution. "Would it help if he was wearing the shoes?"

The Inquirer slowly lowered his tentacles. "Indeed it would. What a brilliant idea! Can you do it?"

"I'll try, sir."

"We're dead now," moaned Tomas.

"Yeah," agreed Terry. "They got us for sure."

The terrified furs watched with helpless fascination as the shoes began to step forward towards their position where they were stuck to the factory floor, first one then the other, as if there was some invisible person walking in them. The evil footwear stopped directly in front of Crisp right next to his hind paws. He tried to pull his paws away, but his legs were stuck to the floor as the gooey syrup began to dry.

Unable to prevent it, he watched as the shoes turned around and tipped up on their heels. Scooting backwards, the tops of the shoes came into contact with the bottom of Crisp's paws. The shoes then rose slowly in the air, and the tongues peeled towards the toes to ensure a nice, wide opening for his hindpaws. Crisp tried to wiggle his feet and toes to foil the shoes attempt to mount his paws but to no avail. They slid on, and the backs tucked under his heels. The two tigers and Crisp were mesmerized as the laces tightened and deftly tied themselves into perfect bows.

As though a poorly tuned radio was suddenly set to the correct frequency, the green ghost's haunted wailing resolved into perfectly understandable English. "...stones are on his paws. You did it Saarat! Is it working now? Can he understand me? You, the not striped alien! Do you understand me now?"

Crisp was not sure how to react to this sudden alteration in speech from the ghost. Being called an alien was also unsettling. At least he was pretty sure it was talking to him since he was the only fur present without stripes. "Uh...yes?"

The green ghost bobbed up and down and became even more luminescent. "It's working! It's working!"

Feeling a bit braver now that the ghosts were no longer chasing or screaming at them, Crisp became curious. "Who are you, and why did you possess my shoes?"

"Those pretty stones on your shoes are not part of your universe. They ended up in your reality by mistake. They belong to us and are very important. We need them back soon or something really bad will happen to us. We have been trying to return them to our world, but it has not been easy communicating with you. Please accept our apologies for any distress that we may have caused you. Will you help us by taking the stones to the extraction point?"

"Well, I guess so. I mean, sure. We would love to help you, but we are stuck to the floor now by this glue. We can't move."

The purple alien raised a tentacle. "Miingle?"

"Not now, Saarat. I have to figure out a way to get them unstuck." Miingle moved closer to Crisp to inspect the glue. "We have no physical presence in your universe other than the stones. They allow us to project our images and voices and to control things mentally, but we can't touch you to help you up."

"But, Miingle?"

"Oh, what is it Saarat?"

"I can synthesize a solvent that will break the molecular bonds of the glue. The same enhancements that Inquirer Balaath made to the controls to allow us to extract the stones can transmit the solvent to their universe through the stones."

There was a profound silence as Miingle tried to overcome the cognitive dissonance of hearing something so profound and intelligent resonate from the stupidest being that she had ever met. At last she found her voice. "Are you serious, Saarat?"

"Yes. I am delivering the substance now, with your permission, of course."

Speechless, Miingle could only wiggle her foremost tentacles in the gesture of agreement. A clear, yet odorless liquid sprayed out of the stones in a mist that covered the three boys. Within minutes, the glue and solvent combined to become nothing more than a puddle of water.

When he was free to stand again, Crisp gasped to see that both Tomas and Terry had boners again. The tigers shrugged. "Being stuck like that, front to back was kind of kinky," said Terry.

"I wouldn't mind being in the middle again with you guys sometime soon," agreed Tomas.

Miingle waived her tentacles in distress. "Please, for my sake, don't do any mating behaviors."

No one noticed Saarat's agitated behavior at the mention of sex and his obvious, at least it would have been obvious to Miingle if she had been looking, arousal over the tiger boy's erections.

"Instead, I need you to...I believe the word is 'run'...to the extraction point." Miingle pointed to the exit with her tentacles as she spoke.

"Where is it?" asked Terry.

"Back the way you came. We don't know the names of places, but we can lead you there. Now hurry, please."

Tomas looked at himself and the other two furs. "We have no more clothes. They are all torn and covered in glue in the vat."

Terry smiled in response and put a paw on both Crisp and Tomas' shoulders. "I guess we're going streaking then."

The dash across town was a thrilling experience. None of the boys had ever run in the nude in public before. They tried to avoid being seen, but the extraction point turned out to be in the middle of the town square. After zig zagging down back alleys, all the while listening to Miingle's constant whining about how they should hurry and run straight down the street, they were finally left with no choice but to jog in the open past hordes of onlookers.

There were giggles of surprise as the three nudists dodged past pedestrians and gasps at the sight of the brightly colored aliens. Several people whipped out their phones and recorded their passage. Crisp's mom was going to freak if she saw him on YouTube. There were a couple of near collisions between cars as the drivers stopped watching the road and focused instead on the bizarre troop.

When they reached the center of the square and stood under the statue of some war general mounted on a feral horse, Miingle yelled for them to stop. "This is it. Take the stones off the shoes, and throw them high in the air. We should be able to catch them with a gravitational wave net and bring them back to our universe.

Terry and Tomas each bent down and began prying off the stones with their claws. Crisp was left standing there nude, with a crowd of onlookers beginning to form around them and the two handsome tiger boys playing with his shoes. It brought that old feeling back to Crisp's loins. His exposed penis was starting to stiffen and poke out of its sheath. Seeing that on YouTube was definitely going to give his mother a fit.

When the stones popped off, the tiger boys stood up and looked at Crisp's boner. "Dude," said Terry. "You are insatiable. I hope your mom will let you have a sleepover with us after this."

The striped furs tossed the stones as high as they could. The stones reached the zenith of their parabola and fell back down to their paws.

Miingle's panicked wails caused the gathering crowd to step back in alarm. "It didn't work! You have to get them higher. Please hurry."

Terry and Tomas began climbing the pedestal upon which the statue was perched. Crisp followed. To get on top of the horse's back, the tigers had to lift Crisp up by his hindpaws. There was a little bit of unnecessary groping of his thighs and butt along the way, but they got him up on the horse's rump so he was behind the seated general.

From there it was an easy scramble to climb up onto the general's shoulders. Crisp made quite a sight from this position, nude, with his boner fully erect and proud for everyone in town, and possibly the world, to see. Using the statue's upraised arm and cavalry saber to steady himself, Crisp threw the stones straight up as high as he possibly could. This time they didn't fall back down. His emotions were mixed. On one paw, he felt like the triumphant hero for having helped these strange aliens retrieve their precious artifacts. On the other paw, embarrassment and humiliation from displaying his erection for all to see threatened to override his elation.

In either case, the entire town square was silent. No one was sure what to make of this outrageous spectacle. Miingle's voice was easily heard as her image slowly dissolved. "We have them! We are saved. Thank you, furry aliens. Thank you ever so much. We are your friends forever. We will never forget this kindness..."

Saarat was still there, and the crowd was trying to decide which was stranger, three nude boys or a purple ghost with tentacles. The alien drifted up to Crisp. "It has been a pleasure meeting you. I have enjoyed your...um....mating behaviors very much. In return for the favor you have done for us, I have two gifts for you that I hope you enjoy. The first gift is a pair of replacement stones. Look down."

Crisp looked down past his prominent erection, and saw that two new stones had replaced the old ones on his shoes. These had a similar liquid luminescence like an opal whose pattern shifted continuously.

"With these stones, you and I can communicate, and share some fun, okay? It is very important that you wear these shoes often if you want to talk to me. The stones will also help you dance better. You like dancing right?"

"Uh, sure. That would be cool," said Crisp trying to hide his boner from the crowd with his paws. What is the second gift?"

The alien laughed. "You don't have be the only one in your world with a big, embarrassing erection." The green, aphrodisiac gas poured out of Crisp's shoes again and spread quickly around the square. A rippling wave of boners, beginning with the tiger boys, spread out from around Crisp in an ever expanding circle. Not a single male, no matter the age or species, was immune. Even the mounted policeman's feral horse responded. Half the crowd became bent over double trying to hide the embarrassment in their pants, or in the case of Crisp, Terry and Tomas, their hardons sticking out for everyone to see.

Crisp was relieved that he was no longer the center of attention. Climbing off the statue with the help of the tigers, he grabbed Tomas and Terry by their paws, and they strode out of the square towards home. They had been forgotten by everyone except the purple alien. "Goodbye, friend Crisp. I'll be in touch." The alien's strange laughter faded as his image dissolved from view.

Terry and Tomas remained Crisps' good friends for many years. Crisp kept the Loki runners with their unique stones from another universe as a reminder of his weird adventure and because he really did dance better in them. Though he loved the shoes and wore them often, he came to suspect that Saarat had played a dirty trick on him. Every so often, and without warning, Crisp would find himself, when wearing those shoes, unconsciously clicking his heels together three times. The result was always the same - an instant boner. When this happened, he was certain he could hear the purple alien giggling inside his head.

[END OF STORY]