Chapter 1: Strictly Professional

Argos Arachnos had his own app; the title was “Holistic Counseling Services” with the similar domain name “Hole-istic” also directing to the same content. He was a handsome black spider with a bodybuilder’s physique apparent even under his sweater vest and long-sleeved shirt. His picture had two pairs of his hands in front of him with their fingers interlocked. On the app was listed different services: Body, Mind, Emotion, and when “Body” was tapped it led to options such as Health, Fitness, Sex (Basic), Sex (Nuanced), and Sex (Specialized Proclivities).

Tapping on the final option led to a very revealing video, where the spider was dressed in a form-accentuating white leather chest harness, white cuffs on each of his six wrists, and white hoop nipple rings hanging from his chest. Around his waist alternated a white thong holding an admirably robust prominence, or a round and voluminous white leather diaper cover with a gold belt.

He spoke of the “holiness” and the “purity” of sexual intimacy, how they did not use the word “kink” in his household, in his dungeon, but rather that “specialized proclivities” are the million variegated spices of sex and life at large.

“And as living beings,” he said with a smile, stopping his pacing so that his white pouch wiggled, “it is our duty and our charge and our joy to live.”

“Shoot,” said Henry, his palm growing sweaty with Dorian’s paw. He drove a manual transmission, and his hand had to hop from the gearshift, to his husband’s, and then to his husband’s “stick shift” as a joke. Dorian did not object. “I guess we’re really doing this, huh?”

The quetzal squirmed in his seat; he’d put on fresh underwear but already his bikini was crawling up the cleft of his buttocks as the front progressively lost more and more capacity. Again came moisture to the spire. “It’s like discovering a new restaurant, right? Just like the video said.”

“Yes, but the main course is your rear end,” said Henry with a sweaty palmsqueeze. Both of them possessed obviously tented laps, and they fretted about making it into the building. Repositioning their erections caused them to awkwardly spring up in another location, be it down a pant leg or rearing their flared heads from the waistband.

They found a stall in the parking garage and looked at each other. “Maybe we should, y’know, find release before we go in,” said Henry. “Instead of walking around like creeps in a porn store.”

Dorian was staring at his phone, replaying the video. There was one section in which the muscular Argos was pacing around with an unhidden protrusion thrust forward at a full seventy-five degrees. His bright white pouch left nothing to question. “Part of me thinks that Mister Arachnos would welcome it.”

Henry’s whole face was hot; his feathers fluffed and he swore he was smelling something delicious. “Well, it doesn’t look like these things are going away anytime soon,” he said, looking at the obvious appendages in their laps. “L-let’s go.”

The walk to the garage-side entrance felt like an entire kink parade. Henry and Dorian tightly held hands. The foldable pinion feathers of their wings cocked out at thirty-degree angles, readying them for flight, and their tents waved back and forth in time with their steps like a pair of drum major batons.

Henry’s heart jolted as a poly-couple came out the front door: one male and two females carrying designer paper shopping bags. The duck took the initiative and silently waved at them, smiling and keeping hold of his husband’s paw. The “throuple,” comprised of one reptile, one avian, one mammal, looked at the movement in a cascade, and it was one of the women—a sub, by the jingling collar around her neck—whose eyes went down first. She opened her mouth wide in a mock gasp and poorly covered it with her paw. The other hand wagged a finger back and forth.

Dorian’s legs went in and he bent down, free hand flying over his crotch as if he was having a bladder emergency. Henry caught his hand and straightened him upright, causing his protrusion to prominently stretch the front of his pants.

“H-hey!”

Henry winked. “Revenge for the restaurant.”

Dorian tried pulling their hands down together, but only succeeded in squirming and making his tent bounce. “N-no one saw that, though!”

Henry shrugged. “So it’s good enough for Mr. Arachnos, but not these fine people?” he asked, receiving a fist bump from the male as the two groups passed.

“You don’t just leap ass-first onto a butt plug.”

“Baby, do you want an apology?”

“I, um …” Dorian thought, twitching as every step roughly rubbed the head of his strained cotton calamity against the interior of his flagrant below-belt circus. “No, actually. That was quite the thrill.”

“Tell me about it,” Henry giggled, then cried out quite happily as Dorian reached out and twisted the head of his own protrusion.

The halls of the Eudaimonia complex were, at first, as agnostic as any other building, but Henry and Dorian felt like they should keep their nostrils a little more open as they strode down the carpeted center. Besetting them on either side were, as most good American hotels, plant arrangements, then posters, then sculptures; and repeat.

Henry squinted. The plants themselves were fresh, lending a pleasant scent through the tall and wide corridor. They alternated various flowers and woodier arrangements such as small trees. The posters were not as generic as IKEA-brand “modern art” but there was still a vagueness to them. Henry caught himself making a few double-takes, having sworn he’d seen something quite ribald in the splashing and curving imagery: in their color, they reminded him of the Argos video. There were distinct blacks and whites with a reddish or bluish background. The duck could almost make out one where it looked as if the muscular spider was bent over, offering his lower half to the salacious eye.

“You seeing this?” asked Henry, pointing at the walls.

Dorian looked at him. “It’s very nice art. Not something I’d spring for, per se, to put above our fireplace, but quite good nonetheless.”

“Does it seem a little raunchy to you?”

“Raunch? No,” said the quetzal. “I’m seeing rolling hills and motorbikes. Are you that, ehm, backed up, love?” he added with a purr.

“Ehhhgh,” Henry returned, trying to dodge the beam of piercing light shining from his husband’s grin. “Maybe! Art’s in the eye of the beholder, right? Or the leash holder, hmm?”

“Yeah! We gotta get me painted.”

“In, um?”

“Oh, that’s where that metaphor goes.”

There were a good number of other patrons milling up and down the corridor; most of them were decently dressed but there was the occasional exception. There were perhaps two haggard males in creepy trench coats, and at the other end of the spectrum they beheld a few males and females in very form-fitting clothing, the sort that leaves little to the imagination.

To wit, it was the sort of silhouette-hugging that mapped out their genital topography with stunning acuity. An emotional cologne hung in the air: Dorian calculated it as a combination of excited opportunism and shame.

“Doing all right?” Henry asked.

Dorian’s feathers were as prickled as his loins. “Humid.”

“Perfect!”

At the first crossroad was a charming lamppost with golden street signs. “The Fundamentals” went one direction, “Hotel and Gym,” went another as well as “Academy,” and “Enhancements” went the final way.

They followed the path and came rather quickly to a set of sliding stained glass doors. Henry let out a low whistle, enjoying the ostentation, and they entered into a lobby framed very much like a high-end purse shop. Five pedestals on each side held fetish implements, and lit cubbies in the wall held clothing items. Henry spotted a pair of bikini-cut leather briefs with a snap-away crotch and gloves with ribbed silicone palms. There was a chrome blue box for electrical stimulation, full-head hoods with removable muzzles, and a dark black rubber bag with a long tube and an inflated nozzle.

“Goodness,” remarked Dorian.

“Is essence,” answered a deep voice as smooth as velvet, and thick as warm honey.

The duck and quetzal scrambled as out of the darkness emerged a full-black spider wearing a white leather bikini-cut brief about his loins and a modernistic white harness that arced across his chest in parallel diagonal lines. He even sported one white shoulder pauldron.

“You are here for your one o’clock, Misters Van Clove?” he asked, turning the face of a white and gold watch toward them. The time said 12:55, with the brilliant hands catching the kink store’s restrained lighting.

“Oh! Doctor Arachnos; it’s an honor!” quacked Henry, shoving forward a sweaty green left paw. Honorably, he kept his husband’s paw squished in his.

“Dr. Morrigan, but really what’s in a name.”

Dorian, minding his manners when still his groin would not, cleared his throat and said, “If I may ask, what is your degree in?”

The bodybuilder spider, about twice as wide as the thinner males and seemingly just as tall, did not have eyelids or eyebrows, so his expressions had to be communicated through his mouth, which was framed by two chelicerae along his jaw like mutton chops. His grin seemed to reach his whole face. “You can imagine the office I keep by my instruments. Shall we get to our appointment?”

“I’m not quite sure what I booked,” said Henry, “It said basic package which you certainly don’t have … I mean do not seem you offer.” The duck corrected himself, feathers sweating as his eyes dropped to the portentous pouch between the spider’s carved thighs.

“Goodness,” the spider echoed, “is our mantra. Come! But not too quickly, yes?”

“What are we getting ourselves into,” whispered Dorian.

“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” said Argos, “but they do not specify through which entrance.”

“And you don’t charge doctor’s fees, do you?” asked Henry. Dorian pinched Henry’s side, feeling the question rude. “I didn’t say it bad, did I?” he whispered.

Argos’s six shoulders shrugged. “I’m training a few med students. You got lucky with the time slot.”

They followed his lead. The spider did not have a tail, as his abdomen was situated between his pelvis and clavicle. The two males watched a pair of excellent, firm buttocks move alternatingly in the low-cut white leather, but could not conceive it as an article of lust, the same way the average knight would see a full-sized dragon. The spider simply seemed to cast a shadow the size of a skyscraper.

“S-so others will be watching?” asked Dorian. This chilled his loins, but had the opposite effect on the canal housed in his hind end. The quetzal yearned for his husband’s touch, and felt himself quite susceptible and eager for Henry’s whims.

“And only watching.”

“You okay with this?” asked Henry, squeezing Dorian’s paw.

Dorian squeezed back. “Remember what we talked about. It does not matter what I want. You are the master; I am the pet. I enjoy my servitude; you enjoy me and my body. Common sense and safe words will protect us.”

“Gold star,” purred Argos.

The corridor they took imperceptibly rose another story, and soon they found themselves on a sky bridge crossing the street below: one that was concerningly full of cars, and while Dorian’s erection had calmed down, Henry was still precariously protruding, and Dr. Arachnos’s portentous package was plainly perceptible.

“Yikes! Henry?” Dorian asked, reaching over to cover Henry’s pointed pants.

“Let it ride!” protested Henry, trying to block Dorian’s paw. His palm stamped on the top of Henry’s hard tip as if it was an unusually tall button, and Henry let out an “oof!” as he crumpled inwards from the injury.

“You come into this kicking and screaming,” questioned Argos, raising a finger. “While it is natural to have butterflies before a skydive, I would ask that you trust your instructor.”

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said to both his husband and the spider, “but it is a very radical break. My husband and I are generally vanilla. We were looking for a few kinks.”

“Why?” Argos asked. He folded four of his arms and let the other two rest on the windowside railing. Even his bulge looked like a muscle.

“To explore,” said Henry, feeling like a star student. This got a smile from the good doctor. “To delve deeper, and you can only get as far as the pubis.”

Argos laughed and Dorian gasped. Then the quetzal caught himself and apologized. “I’m sorry; I’m not usually this fussy. Just to admit—”

“To admit your health?” the spider asked with a smile.

“I just get so frazzled; we went to one club in San Francisco and everyone—”

Argos stopped him with a paw. “Do you view pornography?”

“S-sometimes.”

“You do not have to be a seller and a buyer. Let the carpenter work his wood. Let your rump enjoy his chair. Now come; our time grows tardy,” he said. They heard the snap of his fingers, but they didn’t see which paw did it.

“So can they see?” Dorian asked, following Argos’s bulbous glutes.

“It’s a one-point-five mirror,” said Argos, knocking on the glass. “They can see all our wonderful shapes, even if we’re playing a frolicsome game of naked grab-ass in the hallway. But it is indeed fuzzy, in accordance with the edicts of the honorable Praetorians.”

“So why is the word ‘kink’ banned in your household?” asked Dorian.

“Ah, that,” said Argos. They exited the hallway and descended down a staircase into a wide room made of right angles. The carpet was red and the black walls were lit with a gradient of white and red lights. Around the atrium was a series of right-angled couches, on one of which was a male couple engaged directly in the erotic act of pleasure-making. A siamese cat in chest harness, jockstrap, and quite likely chastity cage had his ankles held skyward by his reptile partner, who was completely nude save for a full-face gimp mask adorned with a mohawk of white feathers.

As the three passed by, Argos snapped his fingers and gently rapped the reptile on his lower back. “Keep your strokes rhythmic; back straight. If you are to be a testament to joy-making, put on a good show.”

“I-I’m so close,” huffed the reptile.

Dorian leaned out to watch the hypnotic cycle of the cat’s slick ring clenching upon the lizard’s person. In and out went the aperture, and the cat’s buttocks jiggled with every thrust and muffled clap. The quetzal gulped as he felt his bikini tighten again, his manhood stiffening.

“Whose call is it?”

“Mine,” said the lizard, then swiftly hilted himself into the svelte cat as his thighs quaked and his internal testes began their noble duty of deployment.

“That is most good; do not forget the aftercare,” Argos said and they continued.

“To answer your question,” the spider continued, seeing with his two rearward eyes that both males were pleasantly erect, though in a bit of agony considering their civilian confines. All the better; it gave his own loins a good stir and the leather about them constricted. “Ah, what was it… the words ‘kink’ and ‘fetish’ have lost their value, same as the dollar anytime a senator breathes. We cannot build our house upon that sandy ground; results in quite the shaky erection. Kinks and fetishes are for plumbers and voodoo priests. What you embark on with your everpartner is an honest dedication to yourself and each other. As with all erections! It begins with exploration,” he said, grandiosely turning around. His leather brief was tented at a sturdy, steely downward thirty-degree angle; it sent cold sweat down Henry’s feathers and heady faintness to Dorian. “And then continues to construction and then consummation of a holy temple. This is our temple, my disciples; welcome to Eudaimonia.”

“I feel I should get on my knees to pray,” said Dorian, his eyes feeling a gravitational pull to Argos’s clothed cudgel. The quetzal put a paw on Henry’s chest. “Together we pray.”

Argos smiled. “Most acts done on one’s knees are an act of prayer. Come!”

“I’m about to; sheesh,” whispered Henry.