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A Renegade Reborn

Pt. 16 - Starting Something

By H. A. Kirsch

—

“I hope you’re not just doing this because I’m irresistible.”

Cara stopped what she was doing - which was digging around in some access bay for the station computer that was about as big as a small garden shed - and turned to look at me.

“I’m doing this because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I’m doing it in spite of the fact that I’m apparently in constant danger. Slavers? Pirates? A tiger who’s… what was it called, dispossessed? Look. Working for Jade was a combination of boring and surreal, because even though I’m obviously horny, he looked at so much porn, all the time, constantly, and the least weird of it was weirder than I’d ever seen. And as much as I don’t think I really want to be in space forever, this place is pretty crazy cool. There’s a desert. There’s a pirate cove - that cave place. There’s a reproduction of an Erexen horda.” I gave her a blank look when she said that. “It’s a traditional village based on the original Tark settlements on Erex. Anyway. What do you mean, irresistible?”

“You know. That thing I have.”

She cackled. “Yeah, sure, if I get close enough to you it feels like the most natural thing to do would be just to unzip your pants and see how long it takes to make you cum before you change your mind, but that doesn’t really make me do anything. It just makes me horny, or maybe a little bit… scared isn’t the word. Like when someone comes up to talk to you while you’re working and you’re really busy and don’t appreciate the interruption, but obviously needed a break.”

I let that entire statement slide right by. “I’m just a bit stuck on this whole arkanum thing, like I can’t experience it from other people, not really, except as this warm feeling that’s just- hey, wait a minute.”

“Look. I am actually busy. I need to get this upgrade module installed, or you don’t get scalable waste handling in your little brother’s pirate playground. Fifteen wolves? Just fifteen? Not a big deal, except oh, it’s a big deal when the waste system expects zero to one wolves.”

“You oughta… keep that a bit low, as in, don’t talk about that.” I got closer. “How can I threaten you effectively to actually be quiet about it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep this fuckin’ close to your heart. Is that threatening? It worked in mafia movies on Earth.”

“You’re the only one here at the moment. I can tell where everyone is. If anyone’s going to eavesdrop on us, it’s either me or Marece, and I’m sure he already knows. Wasn’t he on your ship when Xyrex attacked you?”

“Great, so it’s not just Marece following me around. Fine. I’ll go do something else.”

Something else was to go visit Mike. He had entirely moved out of the village apartment, and into the cyberpunk city. It needed a name - so did Buck’s place - so did the entire station, really. I felt dressed the part, at least, in my Mafia Wolf leathers.

If I was going to move into an empty cyberpunk-themed resort test area, I would have moved into a penthouse apartment with robot butlers or something. Instead, according to the team tracker that Cara and Marece had set up, he was in a garden-level unit that seemed to be a repurposed automotive garage. I went to press the doorbell button, but there was a handwritten sign warning me that it would hack into my augments. So I knocked on the door instead.

Tally answered it. “Hello Mister Wolf,” he said.

“Can Mikey come out to play?”

He looked at me for a moment, and then with an interesting twitch, cocked his head like a canine. “Michael is busy. May I assist you with anything?”

“Yeah, you can let me in. I wanna see his new place.”

He paused again, then looked around over his shoulder as if to see whether the fox was in view, and then opened the door fully and showed me in. “Certainly. You will have to wait for him. You may look around in this area.”

I want to point out that this was not an apartment in the normal sense, just like where he lived on Daleon was not an apartment in the normal sense. It certainly was a living room, or maybe more like a waiting room with really nice albeit completely mismatched furniture. Some of the furniture appeared to be made out of computer or industrial equipment with epoxy-sealed tabletops, the fanciest of which was a coffee table whose top was a massive electronic circuit board potted in clear glue. I’m not an electronics wizard but I know my way around my capacitors and transformers and I barely recognized anything present. There were some photos on the wall, and then next to a door at the back, there was a big window. It reminded me of the area we’d run into Strake at on Daleon, where we could see his ship.

I looked back over at Tally. That’s what’s weird; he’s wearing clothes. He had a leather vest, a bowtie, a pair of sleek white leather dress gloves, cream white riding breeches, and leather riding boots with english spur straps and rowel-less spurs. He looked a bit like a butler for someone into equestrian stuff.

When I looked at him, he walked up to me. “You are very handsome in this outfit, Mister Wolf,” he said, and then touched my chest.

This instantly surprised me, although it also instantly got me hard. “Oh yeah? You’ve seen it before. It’s just my usual mafia wolf self.”

“Mafia wolf. Organized crime. Are you a criminal?”

“Uhh, Tally, this isn’t like the other day back in the village…” I said, and he moved around behind me, and looked like he was going to straighten something up. The only reason the room was relatively uncluttered was that Mike had only occupied it for a few days; every time I’d seen his home back on Earth or his apartment on Daleon, it was full of haphazard stuff. “No, I’m not a criminal. I mean, maybe I’ve done some criminal things, probably, but no one seems interested in coming after me. I mean, the space police would be after Bran Horek if he was still alive, so I did them a favor.”

He reached around me and held me by the cock through my pants. Oh shit. “We are both alone in this room, which is indeed like the other day. You are not dressed as a cowboy, and neither am I, which is different.”

I thought about brain-texting Mike, and telling him that he needed to take Tally for more walks to meet other robots or something, and then decided against it. “Well, I like your outfit too, Tally. You make a good butler robot.”

“Would you like to sit down while you wait?” He let go of me and gestured to a couch.

I took him up on the offer and sat down. “I bet you’re gonna ask if you can join me.”

“Since you may need to wait some time, I would be honored to provide you with companionship, including pleasure.” When he spoke, he held his hand up to his chest, and subtly tilted forward with his other hand behind his lower back.

“Alright. Have a seat,” I said, and patted next to me. He stepped over, carefully adjusted his coat tails, and sat down. Instead of folding his hands in his lap, he reached over with his closest one and held onto my thigh. “You’re uh, kind of forward. Active. Not just standing and staring around, today.”

“Michael instructed me to be more interactive with my environment. According to him, and from my own observations, staring and watching people without moving is unsettling to humans. I also respond positively to reinforcement. You provided considerable positive reinforcement during our previous private time.” His arm was heavy, though he was gentle while touching my leg. He seemed to be stroking my pants leather for real, and even turned his head to look down at what he was doing. One thing I started noticing a long time ago is that even when you’re wearing lots of fetish gear and full enclosure gear and whatever, it’s still interesting to touch people and be touched. Maybe I was in the uncanny valley, but Tally seemed to be experiencing the same thing. Whatever finger sensors he had were obscured by glove leather, and nonetheless he petted my leg like a cat.

“Are you saying you like me?” I said, and put my arm around his shoulders. I dropped my other hand down and started toying with the fly for my pants. It unsnapped easily, and I reached in and flopped my half-hard cock out. By the time I had my balls out, I was a lot more than half hard. “Looks like my cock likes you.” I figured at the very worst, Mike would show up and be surprised to see me getting a handjob from his robot, which didn’t seem worst at all.

Instead of grasping my shaft with the closest hand, he moved to mirror what I was doing to him, and reached across to grasp me. I flinched, though my cock throbbed. He was gentle, teasingly so, carefully rolling my foreskin up and down, then moving his thumb over the edge of it as it exposed my glans.

“My apologies if I startled you,” he said.

I brushed my gloved knuckles over his coat. “You’re a special ops robot. I saw what you did to those mercenary cats.”

“Based on prior information from my trained models, they would have harmed or even killed you,” he said. “I would not allow that to happen.”

“Ooh, I feel protected,” I said, and squirmed slightly under his grip. I leaned closer and kissed him, just like the other day, and he responded by nuzzling back. “I just, you know, am surprised when you’re gentle.”

“My virtual intelligence models and extensive physical sensors allow me to anticipate your sense of pleasure,” he said. “I can demonstrate. Would you like me to tease you, or enthusiastically bring you to a climax?”

“I don’t really want to spend all day getting a lazy handjob, no offense, as I came here to see Mike. Mostly out of curiosity. Seems like he’s set this place up alright. So how about you get me off.”

“Certainly, Mister Wolf.”

At first, he didn’t stroke me any differently. I leaned back, sighed pleasantly, and put a boot up on the coffee table’s edge, trapping it between sole and heel. The table didn’t budge, and Tally made no attempt to stop me. It felt sturdy enough.

I really didn’t notice anything changing as such, except that after a few minutes, Tally was no longer teasing me and was giving me a firm pumping, and I was drooling precum. I thought about telling him about my balls, but on second thought, the whole situation felt weird and honestly kind of wrong, and part of that wrong was that it was excitingly wrong. So I just let him continue.

I looked over and he was watching me, looking between what he was doing, and up at my face. I leaned in for another kiss. “I oughta cum all over your face. Mark my territory. I could lick it off.” Oh, this wasn’t going to take long at all. “Hang on.”

I slid out from his grip and stood up, then put a boot up on the couch so I could get closer. I didn’t have to ask him to start stroking me again; he did that on his own. Soon, my balls were smacking against his white glove leather; I really kind of liked that contrast. White leather, black wolf cock. “Too bad you can’t smell me,” I said.

“I can sense chemicals and particulates in the air, however ‘smell’ in humans is an emotional reaction and I am not capable of human emotions. The other members of the ‘group’ associated with you have all made comments about your scent. I have difficulty understanding whether they are disgusted by it, or aroused by it.”

“Why not both?” I grinned, and some combination of his earnest attitude and the white-glove treatment I was getting, actually finished me off. I held onto his head carefully at the base of one of his ears, while I spurted all over his muzzle.

I dare say he looked satisfied after a fuckin’ facial. “Oh, what a mess,” I said, and leaned down to lick it back up. “Gimme your hand,” I said, and slurped around his fingers.

True to form, Mike flew in the door. “Hey is someone out here - oh! Hawk! I wasn’t expecting you!” He paused and looked between me and Tally. “Huh.”

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

“I do not understand the purpose of that expression. Mister Wolf clearly ejaculated on my face after I gave him a ‘handjob’ and has not yet put his cock away into his pants,” Tally said. “It would be difficult to interpret this situation in another context.”

Even when he was cheerful, Mike had a bit of a crazy look. It was the shock-red fur tipping his black pelt and his reddish eyes, I think, and also his relentless enthusiasm. “Wow! I guess you had fun the last time, and wanted more, huh?” He said to me.

“Well, I came by to see what you were up to - I mean, I figure you’re good for some sort of crazy interior space or newfound robot army or something. Tally told me you were busy, and offered to occupy my time.”

“Oh, I wasn’t busy. I had no idea you’d come by! I just heard kind of a loud grunting noise and realized someone could be out here.” Mike manipulated his ears through every configuration a fox normally used, and then cocked his head at Tally. “Why didn’t you come and tell me he was here? I really wasn’t busy.”

“Michael, I have several virtual intelligences loaded concurrently and one of them is for personal companionship.”

Mike put his eyebrows up. “I… I… okay, let’s just think about this situation later. Tally, you can go and… clean something that needs to be cleaned. That isn’t Hawk’s cock.”

“Yes, Sir,” he said, and walked away as if nothing had happened. Mike grimaced with worried wonderment. “Uhhhh, you know, this idea I had of making a swiss-army robot maybe isn’t such a good idea. I think his personalities get together and conspire.”

“Is that possible?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Well, so far, it only seems to have done stuff like this. He can’t do anything violent unless he’s directed to. I tested that really good. Anyway! Now that you’re randomly standing here with your cock dribbling onto my sofa, I have something totally not cock related I can show you and it’s super awesome!” Mike was wearing a latex teeshirt, latex pants, and latex riding boots. He looked very gothy, and also shiny.

I stuffed my cock into my pants and buttoned up. “Alright. We’ll just pretend your robot didn’t lie to both of us just so he could give me a handjob.” Mike squeaked when I said this, and I chuckled. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mike ushered me into the door he’d come out of, and we might as well have been in a different building. The room was large, dark, cluttered with ominous electronics, and there was an articulated ‘examination chair’ in the middle with very medical-looking equipment around it.

“Uhh. I thought this was a garage or somethin’. That was a waiting room out there.” I thumbed over my shoulder.

“It’s a garage for people! Cybernetic people. Also it’s not really actually that, it just looks like it. Did you know there’s robots around here that’ll help you move anything? They’re sort of but not really like Tally and they’re really helpful, but you can confuse them really easily if you talk too much.”

“You don’t say,” I said through my teeth.

“It’s a sex dungeon! My apartment’s upstairs. I wanted to replicate the ‘evil spaceship medical lab’ I had back at my house on Earth in the basement. This is a real anesthesia machine! I got it from one of the medical bays on the station that was decommissioned when it went idle.” He patted a piece of equipment that, indeed, had lots of corrugated hoses, several breathing masks, and two of those black breathing bags. “I’d only put nitrous in it. I mean, that’s the fun anesthetic. If you try to do anesthesia play with real stuff, you just knock someone out. I mean maybe that’s the point but then they just lie there, and if you’re unlucky, they get malignant hyperthermia and die.” He said all of this with his usual hyperactively informative tone and expression. “But we’re not anesthetizing anyone for sex today! This is just, we’re going out back, it’s a shortcut,” he said, and ushered me along.

“Mike, sometimes I wonder if I’m a bad person, like I want to do bad things and then I actually do bad things, but only a little bit. And then you take me into a room where you can tie someone up and chemically restrain them and you’re wagging your tail around like you’re having foxy play time,” I said, before he ushered me back into a hallway and then out into an alleyway. A few more connecting alleys, and we went back into an area labeled “Station Maintenance Only”.

It was a workshop with a roll-up garage door in back, and a bunch of actual vehicle maintenance tools and equipment. “Oh, I see, a real garage now. Do you have a car fetish?”

“No, this station’s not really set up for cars the way Daleon is. Those are the big cylindrical stations with the open-air stuff. Well, okay, hold on, I mean for resident car traffic. Obviously all those maintenance tunnels are for moving stuff around the station and getting around behind the scenes. And this is one of the places you can work on your transport cart or car or truck or…” There was something in the middle of the room, a lumpy something, maybe even a pair of lumpy somethings, covered by a big canvas thing. He grabbed it and heaved with a grunt and managed to pull it up and off dramatically. “Your skip bike!”

There were two things under the tarp and at first glance, they were motorcycles. At second and third glance, too. Both were black, angular, and strangely enough featured three-quarter wheel fairings front and back. They looked futuristic, though more like the infamous Honda DN-01 and not like the bike from “Akira”, although they were about a third longer than I remember most sport bikes. Each one had a pair of seriously large exhaust ports down low just at the bottom of the rear fairing, and the handlebars were curved forward and up like the speed grips on a mountain bike or racing bicycle, behind an aero fairing.

“Huh. Where’d you get these things?”

“Would you believe they were left here? Well, it doesn’t matter if you believe it, because they were. I think they might have been intended for law enforcement use, as they have spots for duty lights but they’ve been removed.”

“You had a sport bike back home, didn’t you? You don’t really seem like the biker type.”

“Me? Wear a neck to toe armored leather suit, full respirator helmet, and drive around at two hundred miles per hour on four cylinders and two wheels with exhausts under my ass cheeks? Never! I’d never do that!” He lashed his tail around. “Anyway, I’m going to show you something, and I’m going to do it on this!” He patted the seat of one of the bikes. “You get to ride with me.”

I laughed and put up my hands. “Whoa there.”

“Whoa what? You know how to ride a motorcycle. You even used to fix them, didn’t you?”

I scrunched up my face. “Okay, that’s a good point. I didn’t really do the fast thing, though, just the macho thing.”

“You had a V-Max.”

“Okay, fine. But not without riding gear, and I’m not doing it for the looks.”

He nodded. “The bikes probably won’t let you start up if you aren’t wearing approved stuff. Thankfully, there’s a whole room of suit gear. I’m serious, I think this was some sort of police depot. People got into it after it was decommissioned but they weren’t scrappers so they didn’t seem to steal anything.” He led me into an adjacent room, where one wall had several different black and gray riding suits. One of them looked about my size; one looked about Mike’s.

He took his boots off but didn’t bother removing his flashy latexwear, and suited up. I grabbed the one sized for a wolf and had a sniff around it. A bit musty, obviously synth leather as it hadn’t degraded over time. It fit tight in a few spots and loose in others, but seemed fine. The boots were interesting, like articulated ski boots, made out of some kind of composite armor. The helmets were on power stands and had additional electronics inside; maybe they were meant for people who didn’t always have augments.

As soon as I had my helmet on, Mike came over and smacked the side. “Can you hear me?” His voice came through actual speakers inside it, near my ears.

“Yep. You realize this is probably a stupid idea,” I said. “I’m five hundred years rusty on a bike.”

“They’re largely computer controlled. You can’t really control a skip bike manually except at low speed, as a human. You tell it what to do and when to do it, but I mean you can’t control all the stuff. You’ll see what I mean.” He walked one of the bikes over to the garage door and hit a button on the wall. The door opened with a muted rattle. He then took the bike out into the tunnelway.

I followed. This tunnel was like others I’d seen around the station, except long. It extended straight one way for what seemed like a quarter mile, and longer in the other direction.

Mike straddled his bike, and did something to start it up. Some indicator lights flicked on and the headlight switched on, but it didn’t seem to have an regular engine. Then, there was a hiss and a chatter and a loud turbine whistle, and a warning popped up in my augments that pointed to his turbine exhaust and said [CAUTION - JET BLAST].

I got onto ‘my’ bike and my augments told me what to do to start it up. The result was the same: lights, a whole pile of messages only I saw, and then the hiss whine and air roar of the turbines. “These things are fuckin’ jet powered?”

“The traction motor for when you’re on wheels is electric, and when you’re skipped up you have jet thrust. It’s serial hybrid, like a diesel-electric train back home. Okay, throttle’s on the right hand, brake’s on the right pull grip, skip altitude is kind of on the foot plates. Your feet lock onto them once you start moving, and there are cuffs that grab onto your knee. You’ll want to lean forward until you bump the fuel tank bulge so it can latch the suit harness.”

“The what?” I leaned forward and I felt something grab me by the navel area on the suit. When I moved backwards, I couldn’t. “Wait, this thing bolts me in?”

“You’ll see!” he repeated, and started rolling, turning to our right and quickly moving to a normal road speed. I took off after him, and despite the differences, it mostly felt like I was on a familiar motorcycle. He was right about my feet - instead of pegs, there were angled foot plates, and they latched my boots in. Moving them resulted in only a tiny bit of motion as well as an augment-screen warning me [INSUFFICIENT SPEED - SKIP LOCKOUT]

“I think Cara told me about these things. Something about ground effects? Isn’t that when you put lights under your car?” We approached the seeming end of the tunnel and Mike slowed, then turned around. Despite being bolted in like me, he came to a complete stop and didn’t fall over. Huh, must be a gyro. I did the same.

“No, this is ground effect lift. Okay, you’re going to freak out but just follow me, the computer won’t really let you crash. I mean if you really try there’s not much it can do, but just don’t really try. I’m gonna show you some cool stuff you’ve never seen before. You’re going to accelerate as hard as you can, just keep on it. You’re gonna feel like you’re going to hit maximum possible speed, just keep going. You’ll see ‘Skip Unlocked’ in your augments and in the helmet display and on the bike fairing display. You want to shove the balls of your feet into the plates like you’re standing on your toes, and then voila!”

That was the entire instruction he gave me. Mike was clearly screwing with me to some extent, and also apparently pretty trusting of technology. He took off hard and it just barely lifted the front wheel for a few feet. Well, when in Rome, I thought, and gave it the old death-grip twist.

The bike accelerated so hard I thought it was going to leave me behind. I could feel it bend my knees and yank on my gloved fingers. Sport bikes had always been a little bit much for me; you could blow past the top speed of a production road car and keep going to Indy Car speeds, on surface roads not designed for it. Here, we were in a tunnel and I cracked one fifty em pee ache in seconds. Then, as I watched, Mike’s wheel fairings jerked downwards, split into a V at the bottom and tilted flat outwards, then his bike jerked up off the ground. “Go go go!” he yelled gleefully into the helmet mic.

[SKIP UNLOCKED] appeared on my display and a whole new set of holographic aids appeared, like I was in a fighter jet. I did what he said, shoved my feet into the foot plates like I was trying to leap, and my stomach felt like it smacked my ribs as I jerked up about four feet into the air. “HOLY SHIT!”

Up ahead, we ran out of straight tunnel and it curved down and to the right. Mike swooped into the curve and I followed - he was right about the computer, as I barely had to make any input to gracefully follow. I had about four feet of height where I could bob up and down by moving my feet, and there was enough resistance that I couldn’t just crank it without trying extremely hard. The feeling was exhilarating; doing a slow weave had the bike banking, something that Mike seemed to enjoy doing up ahead as well, like someone doing a loose swerve at highway speeds. I goosed the throttle and shot up next to him. Despite the assistance, I felt like I had to pay close attention to where we were going, and yet I had no idea where we were going. The computer display helped me out by showing a marked path that took us from the swiss-cheese asteroid down into the mining infrastructure below it, though I still felt a twinge every time the tunnel jogged up ahead. At speed, the artificial gravity ground at me like I was being pelted by sand through my bones, and that made everything feel that much faster, although we’d actually dropped back to around sixty miles per hour.

“We could easily go twice, three times as fast, though you have to unlock the computer with some hacking shit and you really gotta focus hard,” Mike said.

“I’m not on the fuckin’ ground! This is insane!”

“Check it out! This is why they’re called skip bikes,” he said, and swerved towards a maintenance causeway that had jogged out from the side of the tunnel wall to provide access to all sorts of pipework and cabling. Seemingly at the last second, he bobbed upwards and easily cleared it, then swooped back down. “They were built for the Selnari Defense Force’s desert rangers, so they could go real fast across rocky desert terrain. You can’t do it on the ground since there’s too much stuff, and it’s too impractical to have a drone for when you need to go right into a village or tight area, and I guess people just like motorcycles. I’ve been in a racing pod - that’s like a drone you sit in, a quadcopter kind of thing - and it’s not at all the same as this. Maybe people like bikes because you’re straddling it like a horse. You like horses!”

“Despite the cowboy stuff, I hate riding horses! I love fucking them, though!” I felt like I had to yell into the helmet. There was a bunch of stuff along another side of the tunnel, and I tried my own skip maneuver. Not only did I bob up over it with that seasick air-time bob and weave of my stomach, but I felt like I was going to crash into the wall and banked off of it before swooping back towards the ground. “This is incredible! Cara’s really missing out.”

“Daleon had lots of open skip riding, that’s where you are in one of those cylindrical stations with all the open area and the weird-angled plazas. The artificial gravity fields get kind of wild in there, so people would skip right up off the road and fling themselves out into the open space. Not surprisingly, you’re not supposed to do that, not allowed to do that, can get in serious trouble doing that, it’s super crazy dangerous, and there have been some insane accidents. These bikes have way different maneuverability once you’re in open air. These aren’t wings, they’re just forcing air downwards into a cushion. Kind of like a hovercraft with wings instead of a skirt. In the open air, you kind of turn into a free-fall missile with a jet engine. So you either time everything right and scare the shit out of people trying to hooly their assholes for a fun time in the shadows, or you plow into a pylon and get splattered across fifty meters of pedestrians. And that’s not taking into account the gravity fields, which throw the bike computers for a loop.”

“Thanks for telling me that,” I grunted. “This station’s huge, where the fuck are we going?”

Mike seemed to have set up a path that covered as much territory as possible. We were in tunnels that ranged from ‘uncomfortably close’ to ‘surprisingly big but still white-knuckling as you skip to avoid things or have fun’. Then, and it wasn’t evident from the map, we shot out of a tunnel onto a causeway through a huge open area. “HERE!” He then skipped up and veered to the right, and landed on another causeway. The other option to landing would be ‘falling into a gigantic machine’. Emphasis on gigantic; I’d never seen a piece of industry this large in my entire life. I was reminded of train rides that went through steel towns, except I was above them on the tracks, and I wasn’t on a track. I had to do what he did, and that was terrifying, because just at the apex, I got [WARNING - SKIP ENVELOPE EXCEEDED] and the bike lurched me back down towards the causeway, and I felt like I bounced on air when joining up behind him.

“What the fuck was that!”

“Well you’re not really supposed to do stuff like that, but the computer handles it just fine. It isn’t really outside design parameters - if you actually get way out of bounds on one of these, it’ll shut down and pop a parachute kinda thing out. Just a little taste of why you should, or maybe shouldn’t, go open-skipping.”

We were still going fast, and since this area was so immense, we picked up speed close to the warned maximum, which was shockingly fast. Then, we slowed down and turned off, and Mike dropped his bike to wheels with a little puff of smoke. I did the same; it felt like a very hard jet plane landing, and then we pulled off into what seemed like an observation deck. As fast as I’d been going, just as quickly we were stopped and I climbed off. My legs felt wobbly; the bike ticked and radiated heat with warnings in my augments, and a loud fan blew obviously hot air through some radiator.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” Mike said, still helmeted, with a swooping arm gesture. “That’s a real thrill. Wanna fuck?”

“What?”

“I’m kidding,” he said, and pulled his helmet off. I did the same, and was shocked to find that there was almost no sound aside from our cooling bikes. Maybe a correction; there was some sound, though not nearly as much as a massive industrial machine-scape warranted. “This is what the station was built for! This is mineral and metal extraction equipment. All the way at one end-” He gestured, “Is the active materials processing stuff for the station. That’s where all your waste and garbage and discarded stuff goes to get recycled. That’s up at the base of the asteroid. It’s an insane, byzantine maze. All the way at the other end of this,” He pointed to where there was almost a vanishing point, “Is where the fusion plant for the station is located.”

I walked up to the edge railing. “This is insane. I guess I didn’t realize how big this place is.”

“The station’s twenty miles long from the reactor to the top of the asteroid shield! The asteroid’s about half of that. And that’s just in one direction. So anyway, you’re probably wondering why I had you come out here. I’m not going to just go ‘this is all yours someday, Simba’ about the factory stuff. It’s basically useless.” He gestured to the expanse. “It’d cost so much money to get it running, and we’d have to feed it with stuff, and we’re not a mining company so we don’t have either of those things.”

“You’re pretty excitable so I figured you were just excited, and I did wonder what the fuck you’ve been up to. At least you’re not like Varius. I don’t know where he’s gotten off to.” I walked around on the platform and was surprised that it was so large my boot clacks didn’t really echo.

“I am excited! I’m especially excited because I’m going to Daleon tomorrow to start my plan! I mean what am I really going to do with a cyberpunk ‘town’ right? I don’t like gambling, and there’s only so much sex dungeon you can do.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cuz I was gonna make this a sex dungeon station, among other things.” It felt ridiculous saying that out loud, with the massive industrial expanse before my eyes. All this junk for a sex dungeon?

“But mean it can’t be just all sex dungeons, there’s gotta be other stuff. And then I found the skip bikes! And I went for a ride and spent all of the last couple of days mapping out the maintenance tunnels and overlook causeways and stuff. There’s a huge amount of distance in these tunnels and maybe eighty percent of them aren’t used for anything. I mean even if you activated like a third of the test areas and stuff, you’d still have all the stuff in the mining area. This is just a tiny bit of it, remember, this is a three-dimensional space. There’s so much tunnelway that you could do stage rallies all day every day for like a year and not repeat yourself!”

I gave him a squint. “Stage rallies? What, like car racing?”

“Skip bike racing! It’s both a sanctioned sport and there’s tons of underground racing stuff, and there’s nothing out there like tooling around a huge space station like this. Especially not one where there’s resources like resorts and businesses and stuff. You could even run through the test areas that aren’t full of people! Or the ones that are - you know, like the Isle of Man TT or Monaco or Dubai GP back on Earth.”

I pondered this idea. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Well, so is taking over a space station run by a human trafficker who would be trafficking you if you weren’t so horny.”

I nod-frowned. “I’ll accept that. Also, you’re going to Daleon? Who’s taking you?”

Mike suddenly looked nervous. “Uh. Strake.”

“What’s he going to Daleon for?”

“Uhh, Strake business? He also kind of is gonna take you along, uhh, maybe I was supposed to ask you.”

“He can ask me himself.”

“He said you seemed busy.”

“Well, I guess I’m going on a fuckin’ trip then! Strake can do something illegal with running goods, you can go hire some bikers to come check this place out and fuck you when you try to join their gang and you lose your first race, and I’ll… I dunno. Maybe go see some foxy friends of mine.” I thought about actually doing what I just said, and felt a bit of a sour chill.

—

For the trip back to Daleon, it was just me, Strake, Mike, and Tally. It was also completely uneventful; the station wasn’t that far away, and Mike was doing some sort of planning. In fact, Strake was doing some kind of planning. I felt left out; I really didn’t have a good plan yet. It seemed like things were happening around me.

Tally was apparently going to be dressed as a butler indefinitely, and it was a good look. Instead of being a ‘naked’ android that people gawked at, he had a handsome outfit that people gawked at with a smile. He also matched Strake, who had reinvented his tuxedo - which he didn’t seem to like initially - as an all leather outfit. If both of them were sicced on someone, there wouldn’t be anything left.

The more I thought about it as we walked around, I was in my Mafia Wolf leather suit best and I had a tiger a head taller than me with at least one illegal projectile weapon on his person and a matching robot who could shoot a limb off and then reattach it just to make someone else’s point. “Look at us. We’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“We?” Strake growled.

“Yeah, I mean, I shot Xyrex in the face, and I tetanized that Ani guy right in the fuckin’ head.”

“Ani has recovered fully and has accepted your apology,” Tally added. “He hopes to be an asset to your team and not a hindrance.”

Strake lashed his tail and hit someone walking the other way, then flicked him off seamlessly without even looking. “We’ll see about that. Ani killed four people in his past, and three of them were on purpose.”

“How many people have you killed?” I asked.

“Here or back on Earth?”

As we walked, several people were going in the same general direction and all of them were staring and eavesdropping by this point.

“I dunno, both.”

“None of your business,” the tiger growled.

“Based on past behavioral analysis, it is likely Strake does not keep count of his transgressions,” Tally said.

Strake stopped walking, I bumped into him, and Tally kept going for several feet before stopping and turning. “Hey, what’d you just say, you bucket of bolts?”

“I am correctly assembled,” Tally responded. “It would be unwise to express your anger towards me. We are in a public facility and it would require significant cleanup.”

I put out my arms between the two. “Hold up. Tally, are you snapping back at Strake? I thought you just do what people tell you.”

“I have been instructed to be more personable. I have already told you about this the other morning when you came to visit Michael. You should not be surprised. Perhaps we should consider another topic, such as our destination.”

“That’s no-”

“Strake, you can’t just fuckin’ drag us into some random situation without telling us what it is. Again. You can’t do that again,” I laughed.

“It’s your favorite thing. A business meeting.”

—

As I figured, we ended up in the ‘bad part’ of Daleon for Strake’s ‘business meeting’. We went from looking sharp and attractive to sticking out like sore thumbs. We went down an access alleyway and walked up to a door that was guarded by two tigers who were just about as big as Strake. Unlike Strake, instead of open eyes, they had some sort of external augments that seemed built into their heads.

“Alright, rat chasers, let us through.”

“That is offensive,” one of them said, in about as flat a voice as Tally’s. Unlike Tally, they looked very normally biological, including breathing, and one drooled slightly because he had a snaggle-tooth canine fang.

“You’re the one doing guard duty for a fucking black market trader,” Strake cut back. The two tigers looked at each other and opened the door.

“I suggest that I will introduce us,” Tally said, as we stood in the foyer. We were about to enter a place that looked like a basement speakeasy, albeit a futuristic one.

“I already know this asshole,” Strake growled.

“If this is a business transaction, we should make a dignified entrance.”

“I said…” Strake’s unhappy cat face was met by one of Tally’s flat and yet somehow incredibly knowing looks. “Whatever.” Strake walked up to the bar and didn’t lean on it. He did bang on the bar with his white-gloved fist. “Hey. It’s Strake. We’re here to see Charlie.”

The bartender, a german shepherd, gave a small nod and a bob to the side towards a VIP door. When we walked up to it, a latch buzzed.

We went inside into a VIP room where another german shepherd sat on a couch. Unlike the one at the bar, who was dressed in some sort of swanky vest, this one wore… a denim jacket. And obnoxiously tight denim jeans. And snakeskin dress shoes. He also had sunglasses on, despite us being indoors.

“Greetings,” Tally said. “I am Tally, a companion robot acting as a bodyguard for my associates. This is Hawk, the owner of D8XS station, and this is his personal pilot and security officer, Strake.”

Strake, despite this being factual and probably something to be a little proud of, made a very rotten snarl-smile.

“I already know you,” ‘Charlie’ said, gesturing to Strake, “And I already know who you are,” the dog said to me. In an extremely Brooklyn accent. Unlike me and my deep, husky baritone, Charlie had an obnoxious nasal grind to his.

“Whoa, whoa, back up and say that again.”

“Say what? You’re all over the news,” he said, arms out, and then leaned back before giving a finger flick for us to sit down across from him. There was someone else in the room; a Tark who looked surprisingly demure. The dog did a few head flicks of his dark muzzle, and the dragon-ish person stood up and started pouring some drinks.

“Fuckin’ say anything, you sound like you’re from where I’m from.”

Charlie didn’t seem very professional - his outfit was too tight on him, or rather he’d gained weight and hadn’t refreshed his wardrobe. He looked like the sort of person who snorted cocaine off of toilet seats in between ‘business meetings’. “That’s because I am where you’re from. I’m a fuckin’ New York mutt just like you.”

“Do you know this guy,” Strake groaned.

“Nah, I’m from Brooklyn all the way until I joined up with that migration bullshit,” Charlie said, and took a drink when the Tark brought a tray over. “Don’t worry about him, he’s not a hooker whose tongue I cut out or somethin’, he just doesn’t know how to speak English very well.”

I grunted. “I’m from upstate since I was about ten years old. Jesus fucking christ. We’re doin’ business with some sleazy back-office police dog.”

“Oh, I’m no police dog,” Charlie grinned, and sipped from his drink. It looked and smelled like whiskey; I took one and repeated the gesture. “But I know what you mean. A good ol’ boy, huh. Here’s a question - do you know what kinda business we’re about to do?”

“The shady fuckin’ kind,” I said. “Otherwise, no, because Strake likes to torment me.”

“It’s not whatever bad stuff you’re expectin’, don’t worry. I’m sure you heard about the horse cum. I’m the guy who he organized that through. I deal with a lot of… luxury goods. Things that people want, not necessarily what they need. And you’re here because you’re a dumbass who just took over a subnet station that might as well have dark circles painted all over it, if you know what I fuckin’ mean.” He then downed the rest of his drink and leaned forward, and looked plainly at me. “You know what I fuckin’ mean, right? You’re not that much of a dumbass, or you wouldn’t have a dispossessed ratchaser and some fuckin’ franken-robot dressed up all pretty and hidin’ their sidearms. Go on, take ‘em out an’ put ‘em on the table. I said this isn’t that kinda business.” As if it would encourage us, he pulled a pistol out and set it on the table next to his empty glass.

Strake chuffed, then repeated with his own hidden weapon.

“I don’t have anything, and Tally’s probably classed as a weapon entirely - want him to wait outside?”

“Nah, that won’t be necessary. Like I said, I deal with luxury goods. Your station produces some. And you surely want to import some as well, since you’re not just gonna let those weirdo cattle ranchers be the only ones there. And I think it’d be a good idea for me to get involved on both sides. You could do all the dealing yourself, but y_ou_, Mister Wolf, don’t know shit about anything. And Strake just isn’t the big time wheeler and dealer.”

Strake grunted.

“What I’m saying is, I want to broker your deals for specialty items. And other stuff, I mean I can deal in any shit I want. Any shit you want.”

“And if I say no?”

Charlie laughed. “Then you’re a fuckin’ idiot.”

“You gonna threaten me with something if I don’t sign on with you, or sign you on with me, or what the fuck ever?” I leaned back and crossed my boot onto my knee.

“No, you’re just a fuckin’ idiot. Take a look at this.” He brought something up on a holo-projector on the table. It was an enormous list. “Sure, these are names, but you probably won’t recognize them. The stuff, though, that’s the stuff I can get you.”

I actually took a few moments to try and parse it. Clothing, food items, rare and interesting plants, artifacts and decorations, furniture, and an enormous amount of what I can only describe as ‘sex toys’ and enhancement supplements. “What do you think I need all this stuff for?”

“Because you’re gonna make good on that station’s weird-ass resort bullshit that’s sat idle for however many decades.”

“Says who?” I narrowed my eyes at him, and also kicked Strake with his boot heel.

“Says him,” he pointed rudely to Strake. “He said you’re gonna turn Datix into a den of debauchery for hire.”

I adjusted my lapels. “I wouldn’t say it that way…”

“You waltzed in here lookin’ like you own a garden-level brothel with your little butler faggot bodyguards. You are gonna turn that station into a fuckhole. And that’s good, the network needs a fuckhole, and it isn’t gonna get one, and it’s fuckin’ weird saying that with all these Selnari and Hener weirdos fucking up down left and right. So we’ll settle for the adjacent best thing, which is a fuckhole in the subnet. And fuckholes are full of clients who pay whatever’s asked for whatever they want, and that’s good for me, a person who deals with expensive things, and you, the person who fucking owns the place.”

I looked between Strake and Tally to judge their reaction. Tally’s reaction was to look interested in the conversation and yet inert. Strake looked like he had about thirty seconds before he got up and walked out, at best. “Sure.”

Charlie slapped his thighs. “Good.” A bunch more shit came up on the projector, which looked like an agreement. I read through it. It seemed okay. I’d never done any kind of business agreement in this sort of scenario, so I didn’t know what to base it on, and the cut he got from everything was more than fair.

We tidied up the transactional part, and then Tally and Strake and I were back outside. “Did I do that right? I didn’t just fuck something up, did I?”

Strake sighed. “I wouldn’t have pulled you into this if it was stupid. The topic came up when I was going to Charlie to see if he had more jobs for me, and he gave me the rundown. You’re gonna need this stuff for your little playtime station bullshit and I don’t mind the occasional contract to go do something.”

“Where’d you get your tuxedo shit from? I should have asked earlier,” I said, and cared enough to ask though I was really thinking about what I was going to do next on Daleon. I’d managed to weasel a contact for someone out of Mike, and was trying to decide if I should really go through with it.

“This bitchy cat on Datix. You told me about him. Telling him that seemed to make him madder, so I grabbed his gun and whacked him in the knee with it and told him I’d whack it until it came off if he didn’t stop being a bitch and just make me something.”

I winced. “I guess that’s one way to get what you want,” I groaned. “Hey. I’m gonna take care of some of my own business. Don’t do anything stupid to Tally.”

“You’re going to make me babysit this robot?” Strake looked surprised.

“I do not require continual attention. I will recharge and run maintenance routines.”

Strake rolled his eyes. “Ungh.”

—

I got directions to an apartment in a much nicer part of the station. I still had trouble understanding ‘nice’ versus ‘shitty’, because only the absolute worst of the shipping district in Daleon was actually bad in any meaningful way, and even then it was on par with plenty of big cities from back home in my ‘previous life’. The most obvious difference was that I was pretty sure this apartment was bigger than the one I’d had, as there were fewer doors in the hallway. I pressed the door chime, and a few moments later, a slightly bedraggled and just-awakened fox peeked out the door.

“Hmmm?” He saw me and immediately perked his eyes up. “Oh. What are you doing here?”

“I heard you’d been transferred on your contract from that… place, to the nicer place you’d mentioned when we first had a session together,” I said, and leaned on the door to be a bit more secretive and a lot more intimidating. “Oh, my apologies, do I gotta talk to some kind of pimp or a guy at a counter or pick you off a menu?”

He flipped his black ears back but smiled. “No, no, aside from being affiliated with an organization that helps with housing selections and stuff, I’m on my own now. Rich people like to go direct. Uhh, can you come in though? I’m not sure I want to do this through my front door.”

I pushed the door open and walked past him; he shut it while looking flustered. This was, of course, the fox from the dark interests brothel. The Dirty Fox. At the moment, he looked a combination of literally-just-awakened disheveled, and quite cleaned up; he’d clearly had a full fur trim. “Direct, huh?”

“Yeah. I do have to split off some to my contract holder, but it’s all done automatically. They pay for this place,” he gestured around, to a full dedicated living room with a kitchen. “Otherwise, it’s you pay, and I provide, and I generally provide a lot of things, so it’s a pretty big payment.” He made a hand gesture, and I could see what he offered in my augments.

“You remember me, right?” I said, and approached him. He stood his ground until I almost bumped him, then he tipped his ears back, curled his tail around his hip, and stepped back until he sat on the couch.

“Of course. You’re that wolf who had me help torment those other two foxes. And before that, you tied me up, and…” He wasn’t wearing any clothing at all, and his flaccid cock immediately swelled. He demurely covered it, especially when he saw me looking. “I’d like to point out that you do need to pay before services are rendered.”

“And? And what? I tied you up, and…?”

He wasn’t actually one hundred percent naked. He wore a leather collar, designed with four attachment rings that could either flip out or tuck back under little riveted-on flaps. It looked slightly masculine, definitely fashionable, and as we ‘talked’ he reached up and fingered at it and then under it while he swallowed. “That… that is definitely something that you can pay me for. As long as you don’t kill me. Or actually hurt me. No blood, no marks, although we can negotiate whipping.”

A menu of services wasn’t really important. I wasn’t going to pay him just for a handjob, a blowjob, or something like that. I was going to pay him to let me do whatever I wanted for the rest of the night. “I just happened to be back here on business. Maybe you watch the news. Maybe you know what I’ve been up to lately. I’m Mister Big Shot Earth-Wolf.”

“Oh, only Hener really call you that. They can be snotty sometimes.” He curled his tail around the other way.

I interacted with the menu and paid up for what I wanted, which was the highest tier, which was two thousand credits. I added some extra on top. “So, you know who I am, huh? You probably even know my name.”

He nodded. “H-”

I pressed ‘Send’. “You call me Mister Wolf. Just like before. As for you, you’re still Dirty Fox. Stop hiding your dick.”

He swallowed again and let go of his groin, and his cock curved up from his lap, head flared already under the foreskin.

“Good. Show me around your apartment. You have a nice bedroom? Or where else do you do it?”

He stood up and took me by the hand. “Well, there, or in here,” he said, and showed me to what I assumed would be a spare bedroom. He turned on the lights to a nicely appointed dungeon. It wasn’t exactly darkly themed inside. There was a plushly-appointed bed, a fuck sling sort of setup in the corner along with what I’d learned was called ‘positioning furniture’ blocks, a head and foot stock setup, and curtained racks that contained numerous sex toys. I walked in and inspected everything. “Is this all yours?”

“Most of it, M-mister Wolf,” he said, and the stammer didn’t seem like a put-on. I walked back up to him and grasped him by the front collar ring. “Some of it comes with the room. That is very popular,” he pointed to the sling. “Very useful.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I leaned my head down and sniffed. “You just woke up, didn’t you. You stink. You stink like two different kinda cats came on your chest and your own spunk’s all over your dick and balls. Dirty Fox.” I could feel him tug slightly at the collar by moving backwards. I let go of the ring and instead grabbed under the leather strap. “I just realized you never saw my whole face before. I had one of those Shadows sex masks on. I guess this’ll just be more personal this time.”

He immediately grabbed up at my wrist, though he didn’t try to pry it off. I’d upped the ante; he matched it.

“What’d you think of pretending to be Hener? I bet that’s offensive to people. I bet at least one of those other two foxes really didn’t like it. He acted like it and I don’t think he was fooling around just ‘cuz I paid him to act up. You think you can dress up like that again? I bet you will. I bet that’s a thing.” I had no idea if it was a thing. It was my thing, apparently, for sure, but I’m just a stupid smelly wolf from Earth. I let go of his collar.

Without answering verbally, he went over to a walk-in closet, nodded, and then closed the door. I could hear some things from inside, and realized that as well as clothing, the bathroom was probably through there. I walked over and leaned on it. “Don’t clean yourself off. Just get dressed for me. Make sure you put on a nice pair of boots. I really like that kind of thing.”

While he did whatever he was doing to fulfill my command, I went back to looking through his stuff. There wasn’t really anything too crazy as far as BSDM gear. Nothing outside of ordinary stuff, whether or not you think BDSM gear is ordinary. Gags, muzzles, collars, hoods, cuffs, arm binder sleeves, leg-spreader bars, hobbling chains, rope, straightjacket. I know that’s an intensive collection, though it’s not uncommon. People have been restraining themselves and others for fun as long as there’ve been people and things to restrain them with. Notably, everything was sized for him. I always kept not only my own extensive collection of stuff, but additional things sized up and down to accommodate other people if they didn’t have their own gear. Maybe that wasn’t a part of this kind of sex work. I got the feeling that showing up unannounced wasn’t the usual thing for this fox.

The hoods, though. Leather, black, with muzzle and eye holes, with muzzle sleeve and eye holes, with muzzle open and no eye holes, with muzzle sleeve and no eye holes, and then one that I would classify as a loose ‘bag hood’ made out of glove-soft leather that had a gusset at the neck and no discernible holes anywhere else. I made sure I knew where that one was.

He knocked twice from the inside of the dressing room door and then stepped out. He was indeed wearing an entire Hener Order outfit. To my surprise, it wasn’t just the bare minimum of pulling/bulldog/Spartan harness, jock pouch, riding boots, and elbow-length gloves. The harness was very fancy carved and tooled leather, and slightly asymmetrical, with a pauldron armor piece on the left shoulder. He also had a cape, black leather on the outside, black satin material on the inside. His gloves came up past his elbows, and his boots were cavalier style that rose a few inches above his knees, the shaft made of stiffer riding boot formed leather, with a decorative strap at the ankle and also at the knee.

I walked up and took hold of his chest harness. “What’s all this, huh? This is fancy.”

“This is… a promenade harness, Mister Wolf.” He swallowed again, and then adjusted his collar. He had it snug enough, unchanged from before, that it seemed to bother him. “It’s for special occasions.”

“Why do you have it?” He looked down at the floor. I tilted his muzzle back up. “Why do you have it?”

“One of my… repeat clients, has very involved fantasies.”

“Walk around, show off a little bit. I’ve never seen one of those up close. A fucking cape! That’s something else,” I said, and took the opportunity to move over towards the gear racks.

He paraded around the room, manipulating the cape so it didn’t get in the way, shirking it behind his shoulder, drawing it across the front to cloak himself. It wasn’t just ‘looking good in a cape’; there was something to it. I’d seen someone do it from afar before, when observing two Hener meeting each other. It seemed ‘important’.

I picked some things out, visibly. A pair of ankle cuffs on a black, stained and polished wood spreader bar, the cuffs padded with what looked like soft suede so they wouldn’t damage boots. A pair of wrist cuffs, similarly padded, though with no spreader. They had some kind of locking mechanism, and I could see keys nearby hanging from a peg. I took the keys and unlocked the cuffs from each other. Each cuff locked closed, and then the same key kept them affixed with just a couple of inches in between.

“I bet if I asked you, you’d tell me what that guy does with you. Or lady, I suppose. I don’t care. But I’m not hear to listen to other people’s sexual fantasies. I’m here to indulge my own.” I handed him the spreader. “Go over there, sit down on the bed, and put the leg cuffs on. I don’t care if you’re wearing a cape. That’s your own fucking choice.”

He didn’t even verbally respond, just balefully nodded and went to sit down on the edge of the bed, then scooted back with his cape bundled to the side, put his boots up, and affixed the cuffs to his ankles. They clicked and locked, and now any time he tried to move his feet, there was a bit of a clack and rattle from the metal hardware and the wood. He sat with his knees bent.

I walked up to the bed, and handed him the disconnected cuffs. “Now put these on. Don’t lock them together, just lock them onto your wrists.” He took them and made a show of being as lame about fixing them to his wrists as possible, and when he set the lock in each, he flinched. I say he made a show because his cock strained the leather outwards in his jock pouch, and I could see it throb when he flinched.

“See? That wasn’t so hard,” I said, leaned down, and got in his face. Then, I growled, and spat on his muzzle. “Lick it clean.”

He whimpered and snaked his tongue around, tilting his head side to side like he was tracking something as he just barely managed to clean up my wolf spit. I turned around, and took my cock out where he couldn’t see. I grabbed the no-holes bag hood, also where he couldn’t see, and maneuvered it so I could rub my sweaty shaft inside the closed muzzle portion. Then, I lifted it up and sniffed - whew, if I was going to tease him for being sexually filthy with spent male seed, I probably was one to talk. Although for me, it was just masturbating most recently.

Then, I turned around, holding the hood in my gloved hands, while my black shaft throbbed outwards between my legs. His ears swiveled and laid back as soon as he saw what I was up to. “What’s the matter, Dirty Fox?”

“M-mister wolf, that hood,” he said, and meekly lifted a hand to point.

“What about it?” I said, and tossed it at him. He caught it and flicked his head to the side like it was going to hit him in the face. “Pull it on.” I could feel my heart pound. “Pull it on, and tuck it under your collar. Then, put your cuffed hands behind your back and lock them together.”

His facial expression was one of sheer terror, like I’d told him to play Russian Roulette or something. He haltingly started to pull it onto his head and I could see and hear him gasp, then swallow as if gagging at the smell of my cock musk, and then his pretty red and black fur disappeared underneath the glove-soft black leather. He reached up and felt around his neck, gloved fingers trembling as they fumbled with the material, tucking it under his collar without even undoing it first.

I was about to speak up to make sure he did all of what I ordered him to do, but he grunted and sat forward, then put his hands behind his back, and his glove leather squeaked a little as he fitted the lock mechanism together with a metallic snap. He immediately flopped back and squirmed, chest lifted up, head turning. He exhaled and whimpered, the hood inflating outwards, only to suck up against his face when he inhaled. I could hear a little bit of air getting into it, either from his fur being wedged under it, or from the seams.

“Please, I can’t breathe like this,” he said, and started writhing at his restraints.

I climbed down onto the bed next to him, grabbed his cock through his jock, and he just about jumped up off the sheets. I put my head down next to his and grabbed him by the collar in front. “Why do you think I fucking put that on you?” I pulled the collar buckle open, then tugged it one notch tighter, and tucked the strap back in. “To make you suffer.”

I undid the jock pouch and his cock sprang out, slobbering precum all over its own head and then dribbling it immediately onto his harness and churning abdomen.

“Please, please, please! I don’t know what I did, please take it off!” he begged, all while breathing shallowly and twisting his head about. The leather sucked up against the end of his snout, against his nose-pad and against his lips, and he was trying to dislodge it to get at the scant amount of air left in the leather. He pulled at it by inhaling enough that I could see his nostrils and his teeth indent against the leather.

“Shut up,” I growled, and clasped around his muzzle, whereupon he squealed and twisted against my hand. He dug his heels into the bed, tried to buck his knees up, and I pinned the spreader down by hooking my instep over it and shoving my toe down into the sheets. His shoulders heaved and twisted and his attempts at breathing grew faster and harder and more ragged, urgent grunts and pleading yelps turning into desperate fox barking while he shook at my hand. I let go and he whipped his hooded head back and forth and let loose a barking, gasping peal of sound that might have been something like a bawling laugh. His cock bucked and started to jerk, seed erupting out so hard that it hit him in the hooded face with a hard slap.

I immediately yanked the collar buckle free and stuck my hand under the neck of the hood and he gasped with a huge sound, and then I pulled the leather off entirely. He looked like he’d been sobbing and his face was still desperate, even while his cock streaked his white fur and black leather harness with spunk. I grabbed my cock in my hand and didn’t even get one stroke out as I slathered his muzzle with even more, leaving strands smeared over his whiskers and hanging from the side of his lower jaw. He squeezed his eyes shut so I didn’t hit him in there, and whimpered like a caged animal.

He looked up at me, at my orgasmically snarled face, and had this profoundly hurt look… and then he licked his lips and took another big inhale and huffed out as he caught his breath. I pushed up and backed off, stood at the edge of the bed, and felt like a caged animal. I couldn’t move once I was standing.

Then he stretched and there was a metallic click, and he took his hands out from behind his back.

“What. The fuck.”

That pathetic look on his face instantly turned into a stupefied post-orgasm grin. “What, this?” He held up one hand and wiggled the metal locking cylinder. “Do you think I’m going to let people pay to fuck me and leave the keys over there?” He gestured across the room, to where they hung on the post. He then clicked the locks together in front of him, then tugged at it. “Please, Mister Wolf, let me go! I’m scared!” he said, and tensed up just about every upper-body muscle as he really, actually, truly fought with them. Then, click, he separated his hands like nothing. Two more clicks, and his boot cuffs were off from the spreader. He climbed out of bed and spread his arms out, and click - a lock cylinder I hadn’t noticed in the back of his collar let go and it fell forward onto his chest, picking up a cum smear in the process.

Immediately following my orgasm, as I’d frozen next to the bed, I had the thought that I am a bad wolf and I should feel bad and I’m going to hurt someone for real doing this stuff, and after his display of augment-controlled emergency lock release, I actually wrinkled my muzzle into a real snarl. “You little shit.”

“Even if I don’t do anything, they’ll all let go if I lose consciousness, have a heart arrhythmia, or my oxygen sat goes too low. I mean, come on, edge play is fun but it’s edge play, not let your client murder you play.” He then looked at my continuing expression and put his ears back again. “Uhh. Are you…”

“I’m fine,” I sighed, ending the snarl with a gruff. “I should have figured. You and your ‘I’m going to shave my wrists so it looks like I’ve been kept in shackles for weeks and pee on myself and cum on myself and be disgusting like I’m a filthy piece of shit’, and now you’re in a fancy apartment so fancy rich men can go for the same thing.”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d react-”

“I’m fine!” I swooped my arms out. “I mean, I’m actually fine. I fucking used to run a sex club. I’d do this thing where I’d have ‘stage shows’, I’d have guys pretend to do all sorts of stuff. Act out a real scene, like a fantasy you have, like getting kidnapped and stuff. It was real popular. Everyone liked it. I made sure they always almost went too far, but not actually too far. It’s just… do you even want to listen to me?”

“Sure, why not? Everyone always has something to say, and you paid enough money to do that to me until sun-up tomorrow.”

“We’re on a fucking space station. The sun doesn’t rise.”

“It doesn’t set, either.”

“I just want to hurt people and get off doing it, and it makes me feel bad, sometimes.”

“Does it make you feel good other times?”

“It makes me feel like a fucking animal other times.” I felt suddenly itchy under my leather coat, and took it off, then took off my vest. The fox - whose name I still had no idea of, I mean I’d seen it in the payment system but I’d ignored it - reached over and brushed my fur up and then down to settle it. “I think I oughta take a shower.”

“I can come with you.”

“I…” I squinted. “I mean, I can shower myself.”

“It’s very customary to mutually shower each other. I mean, for Selnari in general.”

I shrugged, then pulled my boots and pants off, and he stripped down and we headed into the shower. It was one of those ridiculous kinds that hotels on Earth used to have, with a bunch of different nozzles in addition to a rain showerhead and a hand sprayer. He just turned on the rain one and doused us like we were caught in a downpour. I leaned against the wall as he slowly scrubbed lather into my fur.

“I gotta admit, it’s nice,” I groaned. “I guess I was pretty tense. I had a business meeting earlier. The kind where you go make an agreement with a sleazy guy and hope you’re not getting screwed by some little clause you forgot to read. Also, he was a guy from the long way around, the migration,” I said.

“The what?” The fox replied, and continued soaping me up, lower and lower.

Oh shit, he probably doesn’ t know. “Unh. Whether or not you believe it, I’m from an alternate dimension version of Earth, five hundred years ago. So are some other people here. We’re all some kind of legacy Selnari that doesn’t have the same arkanic ability emotional telepathy stuff you have. The guy I was dealing with earlier is actually from the same place I was born, like the same city, though I’d never met him before. It keeps happening.”

“Mmm,” the fox said. He was no longer a dirty fox; even without soaping himself up, he was drenched wet from the shower. “That sounds familiar. I’d thought it was just Hener nonsense.”

“You’re ignoring my dick.”

“A lot of men are very sensitive after.”

“I’m not,” I said, and put my hands on my hips and pushed forward, proudly displaying my cock. It swung forward and bumped him just above the navel.

He smiled up at me, then started lathering me up. I leaned back against the wall of the shower and surrendered to arousal again. This time, I didn’t feel like I was some disgusting nightmare of a person. “Do you ever fuck in the shower?” he asked, as he gently cleaned under my foreskin. I wrinkled my lips up, but chest-growled; he seemed to tell the difference.

“It seems kinda slippery, but you have that seat there,” I pointed to the shelf seat.

“You could hold my back against the wall and do it that way. I like that. You’re bigger than me,” he said. I looked down; he was as hard as I was. “That fur lotion there, it’s great for anal. It’s completely safe and it stays put, and it makes your hole smell really nice.” He moved past me, picked it up, and squeezed a lewd creamy dollop out on top of the bottle and wafted it under my nose. No matter what it looked like, it smelled a bit like vanilla and chocolate.

He was smaller than me, and it wasn’t that hard to hold him up and push him against the shower wall with a splap of wet fur, nor was it hard to let my gingerly-lubed cock nudge him in the hole before he sank over it. He grasped around my back and leaned his head on my shoulder and let out a high groan of vulpine satisfaction. “You’re really big. I’m going to cum like this. Just keep going if I do. I won’t play weird, either, I mean it.”

I pushed one of my feet back so my heel shoved against the wall of the shower and my toes and forefoot stayed put on the floor, and even though it was a good, aggressive pounding, it was maybe the closest I’d been to ‘making love’ to someone in a while. He simply enjoyed it, and either clutched onto me, rubbed my back, dug his heels around just above my tail, or looked up at me with that face that says I’m having a prostate orgasm right now. I could feel him tighten up slowly and steadily, and I angled his cock to the side as he pinned his ears back and held up close, then fox-barked as his seed spurted out into the steaming rainshower. I wasn’t quite close enough, and he had been telling the truth before; despite having just orgasmed, he continued to groan and seemingly enjoy being fucked hard until I went again. When I pulled out, it ran down the inside of his thigh, like I had squirted him with that lubricant.

After we started drying off, he opened a drawer and gestured for me to sit. “Do you want me to make you smell nice?”

I burst out laughing and had to hold my muzzle. “Sorry, uh, what?”

He grinned in that way only a fox could, with his eyes nearly closed. “Your fur’s damp, so it’ll go in nicer.” He then leaned over and sniffed at me in various places, including right under my tail. “You wear leather all the time. Do you want to accentuate that smell, or compliment it?”

“Wait, this is a serious thing? Uhh, I guess accentuate it. I used to smoke cigars, and I liked how that went nicely with the leather. I dunno if you know what that smells like, no one seems to smoke much here.”

“It’s not good for you,” he said, and took out several small bottles. He mixed varying amounts of three of them into a fourth, sniffed at it several times, then took out a pegged fur brush and squirted it into a little port on the hard backside. “This, on the other hand, will make you smell nice. I don’t think you have much trouble attracting people, or attention, though.” He pushed and pulled to square me so I was facing away, and he started brushing me in a few places. I could smell what he was applying to me - it wasn’t as strong as I was expecting, and it had a dense, spiced aroma, maybe a bit like turkish tobacco mixed with a deep perfume musk.

“Hey, can I ask you a question? It’s kinda on that topic and it’s also probably just weird.”

“You can ask me whatever you want. I’ll listen if you want to tell me things. You paid a lot of money; you can cum on my face, you can smack me around, you can tie me up and fuck me, you can cuddle up in bed, you can laugh, you can cry, it’s all good.”

I felt strange inside, the same strange I’d felt when fooling around at that Front-Tail club with the Hener wolf who seemed to adore slimy cum and smelly sex. This was fun, and yet, it didn’t mean anything to me. Even less than when I’d done stuff on Earth, because I knew that Selnari supposedly felt all sorts of stuff and I didn’t get to join in. “Do I just… make you want to fuck?”

“Mmmm, well, I really wasn’t intending on having a client today, and that’s why I was so unkempt when I answered the door.”

“And you did anyway. What’s it feel like? I feel weird to you, don’t I.”

“I opened the door and I just had this immediate oh, that wolf, that wolf from a few weeks ago, he’s here again, I bet he’ll wreck me sort of feeling. And I generally like that kind of thing, so why not?” He seemed to focus on brushing certain parts of me - my neck, my shoulders, my upper chest, my groin, and my tail. Then, he switched to another brush, and worked the rest of me. The brushing made me feel less stupid, even if it made me feel more dumb.

“It’s not like you had to do anything, like you couldn’t stop yourself, was it?”

He shook his head. “No. It was just like what it feels like when someone is extremely turned on towards me.”

I sighed, in a good way.

“It’s strange, I admit, that’s the only feeling I get from you. If I didn’t know you were different, I’d feel… maybe a bit put off? We can’t really control how we feel outwards to others, except perhaps to feel different inside. Still, you can get really horny and then go stomp up to someone and they’ll lean back and either sniff you or wrinkle their nose and walk away. That’s rude. And that’s how you seem. Like you’re just out of your mind aroused.”

“So how do you know about me, I mean I know I said something earlier…”

“There’s been news articles about it, the ‘legacy Selnari’ thing. There’s always this bit of fear, I guess? That someone like that will show up and they can use it like a tool. Even though some emit other things, like anger, or this overwhelming sense of peace and love, even the anger ones, they just… intimidate people. And people can do that anyway. If a regular Selnari dressed like you and showed up at my door, giving me that look, I’d have let him in and let him do what he wanted, too. As long as he paid.”

“I only give people this look ‘cuz I had this illness when I was like twenty where my face got half paralyzed and it only went back maybe eighty percent. I normally smile all sweetly,” I said. The first part was true; the second part was not. I never smiled sweetly once in my life.

After the very nice brushing, I got dressed again and went on my way. I still never bothered to find out his name; and I think that was the right thing to do. Sitting on the tram back towards the ass end of the station, I had some time to think.

And instead of getting to use that time, Mike called me. (“Hey, are you back at the ship?”)

(“Nope. I was uh, doing some personal business. As opposed to station business.”)

(“Are you still doing it?”)

(“Do you need my help with something?”)

(“I think so. I mean, I’m trying to convince these skip bikers to come to our station, and, well, I just, I’d kind of like, uhh… can you just come help?”)

He wasn’t so serious that he was actually voice-chatting to me, and was just using the weird semi-brain interface that synthesized a voice. His stumbling made me think he was worried, though. (“Yeah, sure. You want me to get Strake?”)

(“Oh no! It’s not that kind of situation. I’m just… I just… I just want some help.”)

Hmm. I looked at where I needed to go, which was in the same direction I was already going, except on the other ‘side’ of the station, if a round thing has a ‘side’. I was worried about the area, as it seemed pretty rough when I got off the tram, however that quickly turned from ‘sketchy people who look at me like I don’t belong’ to ‘there isn’t anyone anywhere and I’m wandering around in the fish pier while all the boats are out’. Every time I’d go to a coastal city, I’d go to the fish pier. I don’t know why. I don’t even like fish that much.

Eventually, I found a warehouse where I could hear some commotion. When I walked in, there was Mike and about forty people. He was really with a group of six, and he was wearing his skip bike gear we’d used the other day, holding his helmet and looking absolutely out of his element.

Almost everyone looked at me when they realized someone had walked in. I approached Mike, and he wagged his tail at me, and they all visibly relaxed. “What is this, a warehouse party? Prepare to be disappointed, ‘cuz I couldn’t get the designer drugs, just the knockoff ones,” I said loudly, as I walked up.

“Hawk! This is Scaran. He’s kind of the leader of this whole thing,” Mike gestured to a hyena standing next to him. I hadn’t thought that the ‘left behind’ skip bike armor was particularly rough and tumble, but this Scaran guy looked fancy compared to Mike; fancy, and purple. The other riders? A complete melange of armor suits and other leather gear, and a few people who looked like they were wearing bondage gear. Not the Hener Hides either; rubber and polymer, straps and buckles and bracers, and one of them - another hyena - had done something so his natural mohawk was more punk and actively glowing, highlighting when he talked.

Scaran was, as I mentioned, wearing purple armor gear and holding a metal drink bottle. “Your foxy here says you have a big, empty space station full of lots of really cool places to run skip bikes. And that sounds completely ridiculous. So he showed me pictures, and a 3D map, and that still seems ridiculous but now I wanna see it.”

“He’s not my foxy. He’s just a foxy,” I grinned, and gave Mike a smack to the back that made him cough lightly. “And he says he’s working something out with you.”

“We want to see your station. If you let this whole crowd here hang out there for a couple of weeks, if everything’s cool enough, we’ll set up a race series and you’ll have people flocking there.”

“You let Mike convince you of that?” I decided to try teasing Mike; the fox looked pretty embarrassed, yet sheepishly grinned. “He’s pretty excitable.”

“Sure,” Scaran grinned, and then turned his muzzle up and made a loud whooping sound. Several other riders - all hyenas, including the bondo-punk fiberoptic-mohawk one - whooped back. “We went for a little qualifying ride. Me, those other cackleshits, and foxy here. And he came in second.”

Mike, who had seemed so worried when talking to me through my augments, was jittering gleeful. “And they weren’t pulling punches! I had to work! The bike they had me ride was real rough compared to that police issue one.”

“Who came in first? You?” While I talked, someone acting as a waiter came up and gave me a drink. It reminded me of rave club glow shots, in that it was in a clear cylinder and glowing. Unlike those, it was constantly changing colors, on its own. I held it up and gave the hyena a quizzical look past it.

“That’s just a fancy kind of hike.” He said it like hee-kay. When I continued looking: “You’re that Earth-Wolf as the Hener say, right? You’ve had some sort of iridescent purple drink?” I nodded. “That’s hike. You can add a few things to it that cause this reaction that goes back and forth in color for a few minutes.” He gestured over to the waiter, who was preparing another rack of them. It started out purple, though it glowed voraciously when he moved into some blacklight. Then, he dribbled in something else and it started the swirling color dance. “Is it good for you? Probably not. Alcohol’s not good for anyone. It’s fun though! We had a placement ride earlier today, before he showed up. The race season’s just about to start, so we’re having some fun. About half the guys here are our actual riders, the rest are just support team and some newbies who are coming up.”

“So is this like a bike gang or something?”

Scaran shrugged. “Maybe a little. More like we’re an unsanctioned racing club.”

“Skip bike racing is a big sport,” Mike nodded.

“And we take it seriously, but the sanctioned regulations are a pain. Look, safety’s a big deal, we don’t want to get hurt or die or cause damage, but you can waste a ton of time and money and we’re pretty sure it gets funneled into people who organize the big network-wide series. Oh, to answer your question, Baeic-” That was pronounced ‘beak’ like the thing on a bird, “-came in first. I’m alright. I just like to run shit.”

I sniffed at the glowing vial, then upended it with a big slurp. It was, in fact, the same ‘it tastes purple’ alcoholic drink I’d had several times before. “I just wanna make sure you’re not the kinda guy who would make sure he wins to make a point.”

“No way, if you get caught trying to fix stuff around here, we throw you out. What do you think about that? You like watching a fair race?” Suddenly, Scaran was extremely serious, and invading my space. Despite being a head shorter than me, I got the feeling that if he didn’t like my answer, I was going to find out why Mike had seemed so scared.

“I don’t wanna fix anything except the fact that my fucking space station’s empty and boring except for little weird pockets of… weird. You guys wanna race around it and hopefully not smash up too much shit? Go for it.”

Scaran noticeably eased up. Mike, I noticed, seemed almost smug about something. The hyena continued. “Good. Now look, we aren’t made of money. So here’s the deal; we get to check things out for a couple of weeks, see what kind of track setups we can do. You foot the bill for that. Then when we run the races, we’ll pay you back and then a thirty-percent cut of the first series. Then if people want to come back, we’ll work out another deal.”

“I dunno if that’s a good deal or not,” I shrugged. “Mike, you’re a dork, I bet you’ve already looked all this sort of stuff up.”

“It is a way better deal than if this was a sanctioned race. Those only make you money because all the spectators show up; you pay to host, every time.”

I looked between the two. “Sounds like a racket. Alright. Now look, uh, you said your name’s Scaran right?” Whew, that hike stuff was potent. Now I knew why Mike wasn’t panicking anymore; he was probably buzzed. “You’re gonna get your two weeks. If you fool around, we kick you off the station. It’s not gonna be like you’re at some fancy hotel, but it won’t be gross and weird, we’re still getting things worked out over there. It’s taking some time recovering from the station being squatted on by blackmailing slavers.”

Scaran held out an armored glove and made a fist, and I gave him a rough bump. “Got it.”

—

We headed back to Datix in the morning. The ship cargo area was packed with stuff, and not Strake’s stuff. Mike had taken the opportunity to get more of his belongings, which seemed split between even more fetish and costuming stuff, and crates of electronics that I assumed were robot parts.

“You gonna build your robo-puppy a friend?” Strake said, and kicked one of the crates with a thud.

“No, I just don’t know what I’m going to do with that stuff, it’s worth money and I’m not sure what projects I want to do versus just selling it off,” the fox said, as he lounged around as we awaited takeoff.

“What’s that shit you’re wearing?” Strake pointed. “That looks familiar. That’s not just sex stuff.”

“As if you don’t fuckin’ prance around in medieval Gorean slavemaster bullshit these days,” I snorted at him. He snarled right back.

“I don’t fucking prance anywhere. I stomp.”

“Or pounce! You pounced Bran so hard you blew the back of his head off. Well. The front. Because you shot him in the… anyway. This is a skip bike riding suit. Didn’t I tell you what I was doing here? We’re going to be hosting a skip bike racing series at the station. Well, hopefully we are. I can’t imagine Scaran won’t be-”

Strake went completely agog in that way only a cat can. “You’re going to what with who? Fucking skip bike races at Datix? Where? And you said Scaran? Like the fucking hyena guy who runs that shit on Daleon?”

“Where? Everywhere! Even if we get really industrious, there’s no way we’re using any more than like a tenth of that place for people living there or whatever after years! Even if Datix is kind of the smallest Class D station and kind of weird for the mining origin, it’s still twenty miles long.”

“You’re a fucking twerp, how did you get mixed up in something that’s actually awesome?” Strake chuffed, and then went back to the cabin.

Mike looked over at me, and we shrugged at each other. “What’ve you been up to?” he asked.

“Not much. Just torturing foxes and making trading agreements with sleazy Brooklyn dogs. This guy, Charlie, he runs some sort of black market trading ring and offered to make easy access to all sorts of luxurious bullshit that people will want if they come to Datix for a dirty vacation, in exchange for running the export of shit from the village. I figure the village people won’t mind some organization. Bran left them to fend for themselves with whatever pirate trader wanted to show up and take a break from killing people.”

“Can you back up to that first part?”

“What, the Brooklyn dog part? He’s from Brooklyn, like me, except he lived there his whole life before coming out here, not like-”

“No no no, the first part.”

“Oh, the fox part? I don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable.”

Mike looked like he had to pee and was holding himself. I didn’t need Selnari empathy bullshit to know he was trying to hide an erection. “It’s okay. I just want to make sure I won’t… you aren’t… doing too much bad stuff to foxes.”

“Nah, I just had this guy dress up in Hener stuff and then made him put on a leather hood and handcuff himself. The hood might not have had any air holes. It’s okay, he’s into that kind of stuff.”

Mike emitted a high fox whimper. “That’s dangerous. You could have hurt him.”

I squinted at him. “I’m not stupid, Mike. And I didn’t video it. He’s a prostitute, I didn’t pay extra for the privilege.”

“I d-didn’t anything about you videoing it, why would I say that!” He coughed, and quickly headed towards his room. As if to cause drama, Strake shut the cargo door and activated the launch warning, and Mike spun on a boot heel and came right back to the acceleration couch. “Nnnf. Did he… did he…”

“He begged for it,” I said, nonchalantly, as I strapped in. Fuck, now I was getting hard. If I tried to jerk off under acceleration, I’d just cum in my own face.