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Chapter 1, Orientation

“The privilege of beauty is that it confers the illusion of power.”

*Jean Cocteau*

You wince at the sunlight as it splits the skyline with its cheerfully harsh rays. The warm radiance filters through the taxi cab’s windows directly into your eyes, forcing you awake and making this first day at the office seem an even more displeasing prospect. The driver was another human, which did not surprise you. This city was predominantly anthro-dominated, so the few lower-rung positions tended to be staffed by humans instead.

You have never been a morning person. It has always taken you hours to wake up, no matter what time you go to or from bed. Still, you had woken earlier than usual to put on your most neutral, inoffensive office apparel, eaten a responsible breakfast as a functioning adult should, and waited for the taxi to collect you. You'd had a number of similar jobs before and you know what to expect from this one. Boring hours in front of endless spreadsheets.

The only reason you moved here was because the paycheque they offered was so good that even the higher rent was easily offset. That had seemed suspicious at first. You had sent out so many job applications that you could hardly recall them all, and the market for office jobs was poor even in the best of times. But all the paperwork was in order, the phone calls had confirmed everything and the start date was today. You had checked, of course. No one could expect you to remember every position you applied for, and you barely remembered applying to this law firm at all. You knew next to nothing about the *Law* with a capital “L” – it was the sort of thing that media skips over for being too dull or specialised. Because of that, you had spent a little time probing cautiously around the edges of the offer, checking websites, search engines, public records, and so forth. They were real, and fairly high-end, from what you could tell. Even the few words exchanged with the taxi driver suggested you were very lucky to have been hired. There was an implication of mild prestige.

You watch as the inner city closes in around you. The tall shards of glass and steel rise like artificial mountains as a concrete river cut through them, all stitched together by bridges of varied architectural styles. Anthros, it seems, do not build much differently than humans. You know this from passive learning – documentaries, articles, the background noise of modern life. Some can fly, but most cannot, so pavements are necessary. Pavements bring roads, roads bring shops, benches, and eventually the familiar chaos of human-like urban design.

The only real difference is colour choice, stemming from the fact that many anthros have different levels of colour-blindness. Humans like to call themselves the baseline, but their main advantages are endurance and colour perception. Maybe that explained why anthros have less of a television industry. Perhaps they simply didn’t enjoy the colours. They rarely appeared on human television shows (and who could tell over the radio).

Your head jerks forward as the taxi comes to a stop outside the main office building, snapping you out of your groggy thoughts. You could avoid walking entirely if you wished – one of the job’s perks is that the taxi service is included. They clearly wanted you here, despite your very average application. You didn’t own a car, it was too expensive before and inside a city it was even more so. You were prepared to walk the distance if it meant keeping the paycheque, you’d just buy a bike or something if it all worked out.

Stepping out onto the pavement, you take in the building’s façade: a sleek, unassuming rectangle of glass, with the law firm’s name etched in professional lettering over the doors. Anthros in suits, and their probable clients without, moved about with purpose. If this was an elaborate hiring scam, they would be sorely disappointed by your bank account, so you decide there is little to fret about and walk inside.

The receptionist spots you immediately, clearly expecting your arrival. Even as a fox, she is a stereotype. Everything about her screams ‘receptionist’ from the business dress and painted claws to the precise styling of her fur. She looks like she has been typecast straight out of a film. Before you even cross the threshold, she clicks on a small desk fan and angles it not towards herself or you, but somewhere weirdly in between. As you approach, you notice the beige name badge on her blazer: *Mrs. T. Silverton*. She smiles with just the right amount of fang showing. Right there, that look probably represented years of practice in the trenches of customer service.

‘Mr. Standen Standen?’ she asks. Aside from the taxi driver, you are the only human you have seen all morning; it would have been almost impossible to mistake you but pleasantries must be observed.

‘Yes, that’s me.’ You try to inflect the response with emotion in your groggy state, but whatever you manage is swept away by the fan’s steady breeze. She’s using it almost like a shield. But you hold your expression of mildly cheery charm. *Do not complain. Do not ruin the best-paying job you’ll ever get.* Perhaps it’s just a fox thing? Probably. Mercifully, she hands you a beige name badge and a plastic card on a lanyard. Good grief your photograph on it is dreadful.

‘Your orientation will be handled by your floor manager, Mr. Blackthorn,’ she says, ‘but Mr. Silverton wishes to greet you in his office first. Head on up to the large doors at the top.’

You smile and say your thanks, but under the surface you’re swearing and panicking. Were these names ones you should already know? *Mr. Silverton?* The committee of mini-mes inside your mind begins frantically rifling through filing cabinets of proper nouns, discarding useless ones from your hobbies as they go. One of them eventually locates the right folder: his name was on the front door logo along with a few others. He must be one of the partners. The rest of your mental committee immediately starts debating whether the receptionist is his daughter or granddaughter as the elevator doors close behind you, leaving you in merciful solitude. You use the brief quiet to process the fact that you’re about to meet, quite possibly, the most important person you’ll ever have a conversation with. Certainly the one with the most sway over your career.

You try to recall his face. Was he on the company posters? Was his face on the front of the building in one of those generic guy-in-suit-shaking-hands-with-other-guy-in-suit billboards? You draw a blank. You look down at your name badge: *Mr. V. Standen*. It sounds almost professional. You put on a professional demeanour to match it. Fake confidence works just as well as the real stuff.

The elevator stops early. A loose-jowled canine in an ill-fitting but expensive suit meets your eyes, mutters something about ‘Getting the other one going the other way,’ and closes the doors again a little too hastily. You can tell you’re both mildly embarrassed. At least anthros make social slip-ups too, you think to yourself.

Mr. Silverton’s office is freezing. All the windows are open as far as safety permits, the air conditioning hums quietly at full blast, and a desk fan sits between you and the elderly fox behind a very expansive, very expensive desk. Mr. Silverton has been shrunk by age; his chair is raised to its highest setting. You immediately realise that the receptionist can’t have been his wife or daughter. *Granddaughter* seems more plausible. His orange fur has faded to a dignified white at the edges, expertly groomed by what must be a very well-paid barber. He smiled in the way that only those who have the money to run an inner-city law firm and keep a bottle of expensive liqueur on the desk nearby could.

‘Please, Mr. Standen, take a seat. Unless you prefer just Vance?’ he asks.

‘Just Vance for now, please,’ you reply, hoping that nothing you say in the next five minutes gets you ejected from the building.

‘I can see you’ve got the first-day jitters, sport. Don’t worry! You wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want your talents.’ His tone is disarmingly genial, the practised warmth of a forgetful grandfather. No wonder he’s successful.

You mentally check your list of ‘talents’ to ensure none have escaped: spreadsheets, emails, telephone voice, basic IT. Yes, all present. Boring but practical – the sort of skills that strangled every creative career prospect years ago. The grey paste that you could always eat when times became lean.

‘I’m s-sure I’ll s-settle in,’ you manage through nearly chattering teeth. The room is almost icy. Mr. Silverton either hasn’t noticed or is too polite to mention it. ‘I’ve worked in a few offices before.’

‘But never one with anthros?’ he asks casually. He must have been able to tell immediately. Your shivering eludes any comment.

You admit that you haven’t. That’s normal enough, society here has long since separated along those lines. Like oil and water, the two groups can mix if stirred, but they always settled apart again. Mr. Silverton nods sagely, as if confirming a universal truth.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I looked over your files myself, and I know you’ll fit in perfectly. Go at your own pace. Your office should have your details by now. No doubt Mr. Blackthorn will poke his head in soon.’

The tone makes it clear the conversation is over. You incline your head and take your leave. Yet, as the door closes behind you, you are fairly certain you hear the faint but sharp click of the desk fan being turned off.

Your surprise at having your own office is immense…in that you have one at all. Not a cubicle, not a desk lost in an open-plan wasteland, but a single, modest room with your name on it. You know this isn’t the norm, having walked past the cubicle farms on the way in and made brief eye contact with others. But here, you could close the blinds and enjoy privacy. A fake potted plant sits in the corner, your computer hums quietly, and a sticky note on the monitor lists your login details. The fantasy falters slightly when you realise that, as always, IT administration never changes, regardless of species, and you still needed to handle tedious software setup work yourself. *Typical.*

Mr. Blackthorn, as you learn around 10 minutes later of settling in, is a horse. And it seemed that he took his name very seriously. He had a polished black hide, a tight black suit with a sharp black waistcoat. Heck, he even a black shirt which camouflaged a black tie. He easily stood taller than you, a little broader too. He clearly ate all his cereal each morning and went to the gym every evening. He looked like every waking moment he was “grinding”. High powered. Highly strung. Rich. Powerful. Successful. And, when he spoke, his voice was deep and probably sugar-glazed too for that glossy edge. Lawyers like him were probably poured from moulds at the “successful businessman factory” and purchased as a premium display model.

He was saying something, but you are too busy trying to see any part of his appearance that wasn’t some shade of sleek professional black. You found yourself incredible envious of the mirror he got dressed in front of every morning, which got to see everything (the lucky bastard).

‘I’ll need to speak to your IT staff.’ Wait, who gave your mouth authority to speak without your say so? What question were even were you responding to?

‘I’ll write their number down for you.’ He responds, with that great voice again. He could easily have made it as a voice actor for suave cartoon villains, that much was certain. His eyes flit away and searched for a pen. You do a full body scan of him now, because he needs to be studied in detail. He leans forward and you feel pity for his suit’s trousers as they valiantly struggle to contain his posterior. He must do squats. You reckon you could have bounced a coin off them.

The distance between you closes and you are suddenly made acutely aware of his breathing. Are his nostrils flaring more than they should? Your eyes suddenly snap to the number he wrote but in doing so you become convinced he wasn’t looking at it himself this whole time. Was he watching *you* this whole time? Get a grip on yourself, it’s just your first day in the office and now you have to speak to their IT department. Escape the room, reset, then come back in and be normal.

‘Thank you. I’ll get right on this, Mr. Blackthorn,’ you say. Blackthorn straightens himself and adjusted his waistcoat. Then he slowly turns and walks towards the door.

You look at the number, then suddenly back at Blackthorn because he has dropped your pen on the floor. You are uncertain if it is your mind is doing this, or if he really is doing it as slowly as it appears, because no-one picks up a pen *that slowly* and in *that way*. Legs straight, back at 90 degrees, but 100 percent of the cake on show. His tail is combed and tied into a tight bind and it does not cover a single inch of his ass.

Silence has filled the room and only the slight squeak of the fabric is present as it stretches over the globes therein. Then it is punctuated by the plastic sounds of him turning the blinds shut, isolating both of you from the outside world. His nose flairs again and you hear the deep inhalation very clearly this time. He’s rolling your pen between his equine fingers like an expensive cigar. It’s the only island of colour amongst the sea of black. With his other hand, eyes still on you, he clicks the door lock to *Do Not Disturb*.

You immediately consider your options.

*Number one: Yell.* While offices like this dampen sound by design, someone would still notice the muffled noise immediately. Of course, if you’re wrong about what you think is happening then this major embarrassment would end your career within the thirty minutes it took for it to start. Even if you had attended the gym every day, his height and reach alone means forcing your way past him is also not an option for a dignified exit.

*Number two: Feign confidence and/or ignorance.* Act like nothing is amiss and maybe you can control the situation or diffuse whatever is building in the mood of the room. You’re an adult, lie for pity’s sake! Ask for where the coffee machine was or something.

*Number three: Consider-

*‘You like what you see?’ Blackthorn asks, taking a step closer. The weight on his hoof means his whole flank rippled when it made contact with the cheap carpet tile. Your brief glance at it betrays the fact that you do. The equine had chiselled his whole body and wore very tight-fitting clothes and slacks. With option one out of the question, and nothing beyond option two formulated, you go with *Feign Confidence* as your only tactic.

‘I can see you put a lot of effort into it,’ you respond firmly. ‘Did you come in here to fish for compliments?’ Nice. Solid riposte, you think to yourself. Blackthorn takes another step, his long legs and the small office mean he’s closed the gap to the other side of the desk already. He’s looking down at you as you continue to sit in the swivel chair on the other side, and your head is now tilted too far back.

*Exposing too much of your throat! *yells a mental committee member unhelpfully from the backlines.

Blackthorn’s posture leans forward, both manicured hands on your desk. ‘I can see why they hired you,’ he sniffs again, breathing in something he is clearly savouring. You can smell his expensive cologne, subtly applied because it was probably very expensive and came in very small bottles. ‘Silverton really did-’

You stand up, pushing your chair back as you go. This had caused the distance between you two to expand just slightly and you watch in sudden bemusement as he overbalances trying to chase whatever smell he’s getting from you and then pretend he hadn’t done it. He was wrong-hooved for just a moment. Your hand shoots out like a striking snake and snatches his necktie from his craning neck in a flash. You’re amazed you didn’t fumble and miss, but you can now tell that whatever reaction speed advantage the horse had over you had been replaced by whatever he’s been scenting. You’re also amazed you even laid hands on him in the first place, but you’d seen it work in a movie once and your brain committee has already proven what calibre of thought it operates with, so it just sort of happened.

‘Mr. Silverton really did what?’ you ask, keeping his barely resisting head now lower than yours and keeping your tone steadier than you felt.

‘Did his research,’ Blackthorn answers, a little dreamily. ‘I can smell it on you, that…human smell.’ His face has change expressions now, from *Serious Businessman* to *Docile Drooling.*

‘Human smell? What…?’ you look at him again. This wasn’t an abuse of authority, because this individual could have easily pulled out of your grasp by now. He was acting like, well…relaxed…now you came to think about it. ‘You mean…?’

You had heard about this sort of thing before. The rare and elusive Human Domestication Gene, which science had largely been unable to figure out. It mostly showed itself as a slight increase in perceived charisma between animals and humans. Sometimes you saw people in documentaries that no matter where they were, even the wildest animals seemed to find their presence agreeable. Occasionally you’d see a human dating some celebrity anthro and wonder how they managed to score a catch like that and nearly every time the media would speculate it was HDG-driven.

The idea that it existed, let alone actually worked on anthros was utter nonsense. You had a few idle flights of fantasy to yourself. You didn’t think it was *actually* real.

You have but one life raft here, so you tighten your grip on Blackthorn’s tie and pull a little harder. His breath hitches. ‘How much research?’

‘Everything. Employment, medical, dating apps. Anything publicly available. He probably paid through the nose. He wanted a HDG carrier, who was willing to change jobs and who “liked” anthros.’

You are stunned. Amazed even. You had been hired to be walking universal catnip. HDG was considered to be the ultimate social lubricant, more so than booze and entirely without the drawbacks.

‘So that’s why he had every window open in his office?’

‘If you stay in a room too long, well…’ his eyes were half-lidded at this point. ‘Let’s just say normally admin officers don’t usually get their own personal desk space.’

It all made sense now. Outside the office, amongst the city, unless someone brushed right up against you, neither of you would ever know it.

The taxi driver had been a human for a reason, because otherwise you’d never be able to arrive to work at all. It wasn’t a perk, it was insurance. The receptionist probably hadn’t wanted to take any chances with you either. You wonder if the other staff members were fighting to get into the elevator you had stepped out of.

‘And what do *you* want, exactly?’ you ask the horse pulled against your desk. You can tell he’s fighting with himself to utter the phrase he’s about to say. Mister super lawyer here clearly wasn’t used to not being in charge.

‘I want you to…touch me.’ The sudden feeling of pure authority floods your veins like a high-octane fuel. You wrap the tie around your wrist to shorten the leash that you now perceive it as. To hell with it. You go all in.

‘Say *please*.’

There was a moment of hesitation from him, he wanted to think of his request as an order. To touch him, in his own mind, was a privilege he was granting you. But Silverton had indeed spared no expense finding you. Your preferences were exactly what this equine needed. His work was no doubt very demanding. Stressful, certainly. What he *really* wanted was someone else to be in charge, if only just for a few minutes.

You tighten your grip, bringing him closer still so that his muzzle now touched your own shirt. It probably smells of you entirely. ‘Please,’ he says. Quietly, but not too quietly.

‘Stay there,’ you tell him and stand up and walk around to him. Bent over your desk this way, his rump was level with your sternum. His eyes track you the whole way, but he doesn’t move for fear of missing out. From here, you can see how his mane of luscious black silken locks neatly ran from his head down into the collar of his shirt, fading into his upper back. He shifts his weight and his ass flexes in doing so.

‘Remove your blazer,’ the next order came. From this position, it is awkward, but he manages to do it without raising himself too much. Even through the shirt and waistcoat you can tell his back wouldn’t have looked out of place on a classical nude marble statue.

You slide a hand from his lower back to under the waistcoat and enjoy the expensive fabric of the shirt compress to your touch as it takes on the contours underneath. The heat he’s giving off is impressive too. Blackthorn was already hot and bothered. It wasn’t how you imagined your first hour of work going, but the opportunity to partake in such an expensive person was simply too enticing.

You press your fingers in, feeling the thick cords of muscles like a giant guitar you’re about to play. You move higher, the points of the shoulder blades quiver as you reach them. He’s too tall to stand directly behind and reach, so you’re standing off to his side slightly. You forcefully nudge his polished hooves with a foot to widen his stance, dropping his ass in line with your crotch.

Despite the muscles, he had this lithe, almost feminine, proportion about him from this angle. He was the low-fat option; you could tell that much as your hand returns to his waist to slide up and fully under his dress shirt this time. He gasps at the direct skin contact you now share. Human hands were amongst the more dexterous and precise manipulators in the animal kingdom and domestic and anthro alike enjoyed attention from them when petting was offered.

You allow your nails to work his spine. Blackthorn was already like putty in your hands. You can tell he’s trying to hide the fact he’s enjoying this from the partially stifled sounds he was making. His rich voice was rendering the sighs, hisses and hitches into very pleasing notes.

You enjoyed giving massages in the past and have seen enough anthro anatomy from various adult sources to also know where to apply the pressure. You couldn’t hope to achieve this level of muscularity without being an equine, it was a simple biological fact. But right now, it was yours to dig knuckles and thumbs into. He really was highly strung, but wherever your hands roam, he relaxes. Even your limited inter-species massage experience doesn’t seem to be a hinderance, because Blackthorn is leaning into every bit of it as the heat of his body spreads across his back. His job must be very stressful indeed.

Your hands withdraw from the heat building inside his shirt and slide down to appraise to his posterior. His legs would come next, that was a certainty. There is a single button at the top-rear of his trousers to remove and free his tail. With his shirt shoved up, you pop the button off tug his trousers down in a single jerk as far as his spread legs would allow. Even his goddamn underwear was black. They were fighting the good fight containing his backside, but the fact they did not have a single crease showed they were stretched to their limit. You could see through the expensive material at the subtly different shiny black hide underneath. You flex your fingers before grabbing a large handful and squeeze, both to feel the resistance and to give just a small amount of pain to remind him who was now in charge.

‘Aah,’ Blackthorn’s head thumps softly onto the table surface, forehead down to focus on the sensation. You squeeze and knead each cheek with both hands. He wanted touching? Fine by you. Let this mad moment continue.

You increase the pressure to see what responses you can elicit from your (alleged) future manager. One hand moves lower to the curve of his thigh and the more tender flesh there to be rewarded with a soft moan. He tries to shuffle backwards to grind against your groin, but you’re the one setting the pace here, so you give him a sharp smack across the rump, sending a ripple through the black boxer briefs and releasing a fresh tang of cologne into the air to an excited hiss and an exquisitely arching back.

His almost feminine legs and ass need a little something to complete their look, you think. You snake both hands up the leg holes of the underwear, fingers going against the grain of his fur, thumbs pushing the hems higher until they sink into the cleft and make it seem like he’s wearing a thong. Like a good mare should. You tell him as much. You can’t see his face or make out the response he gives you, but if he was human his flushed face would have stuck out like a freshly spanked ass.

You spank his now exposed ass cheeks again.

It was like manhandling two huge squeezy stress balls and you’re enjoying watching them a lot. Your continued massaging is complimented by him and he purposefully tenses his muscles to make them dance for you. In turn, his thong only becomes more pronounced and tighter, bringing the prize between his legs into view. You glide your hands into his inner thighs, further widening his stance and presenting his tightly contained nuts more. You are temporarily tempted to seize and squeeze, but opt instead to cup and feel their weight. They have a respectable heft to them and the heat from your palm is outmatched by their own. They longed for freedom, you can tell. Maybe if their owner behaves.

With Blackthorn clearly enjoying himself like a pillow princess, it's only fair you do just as much as him. Despite the fact your actual job here was significantly different from what you were expecting, you doubted your desk drawer would have any lube. That would have been a bit too on-the-nose. There needed to be just enough plausible deniability in case you hadn’t been carrying the gene strongly enough.

‘Forward,’ you grip his improvised thong and hoist him further along the desk, the fabric biting into his tender flesh as an incentive for obedience. As he pulls himself forward, you stride back around to his face, now perfectly level with your own waist.

The fake confidence you had started with had galvanized into the real stuff at this point. The button and zipper on your own trousers act like a hypnotists watch as you undo them, but the smell of your groin is truly irresistible to Blackthorn, who buries his nose into your crotch to inhale directly from the source. His arms reach out and pull your waist closer, tighter.

‘Suck it,’ Another order for him, it kicks aside any mental barrier the horse had against performing the act.

This is why you liked equines. Their longer muzzles meant they could always any length down the base with little effort, no matter their owner’s skill. However, Blackthorn’s technique could certainly use some work. His tongue was too hesitant in its licks and his teeth occasionally tickled your flesh, so you reach forward to pull his mane for a firm but needed correction.

‘You’re supposed to be enjoying this,’ he does seem to relax after that. ‘Good…’ You stroke the top of his head gently before gripping him by his mane again and slowly pulling your dick back out. ‘Now, try that again.’ He pulls away momentarily with a gasp, tongue hanging out from under the long muzzle to catch his breath.

His eyes are half lidded as he looks up at you, still clearly in a haze of pleasure just from having so much of the scent in his mouth and nose. You bring your cock back into position between those his almost protesting lips.

Had he never sucked a dick before? Anyone could tell he was attractive, surely, he must have had a boyfriend before? Unless…unless he didn’t normally swing this way? Was the hormone coming off of you so potent it would make any anthro disregard their preference entirely, just to get more of it? You wanted to find out.

‘Now be my good little mare,’ he moans softly and closes around your cock in agreement, swallowing as much of your length as he could manage. You draw back your hips against the suction, then slowly push forward again to fuck his mouth at your own pace.

His hands are still around you like a swimmer clinging to a life preserver and the wet noises he was making only added to the effect. Your hands are delicately stroking his ears, which seemed to twitch involuntarily at irregular intervals. That, it seemed, he genuinely enjoyed and had made no effort to shake you off. He also seemed to be enjoying the taste of your precum, because as soon as a drop formed your hole was assailed by his long tongue to prevent it escaping down his chin with the saliva. You feel your orgasm drawing close, which had been messaging you well in advance ever since he bent down for the pen. There was no point denying the fact he had a great ass, you just didn’t expect to ever be able to touch it.

‘Almost there,’ you encourage him, no way either of you are going to allow your cum anywhere but on his tongue.

You drive his nose into your pubes again, hot air washes over them, and fresh semen floods his mouth in return. You allow him to get every bit out of you, before drawing back to slide your dick across the entire length of his tongue and pop out of his velvet lips.

There is a moment of silence between the two of you. You’re partially astonished at yourself for just going along with this idea. Just beyond the door and blinds was the entire rest of the office and you are still not entirely sure what you just did was “road legal” for this business. Blackthorn has to peel himself off the desk, his pressed black clothes now slightly creased and his underwear now has a prominent darker patch where he very obviously came in them. His slowly fading erection easily outsizes yours, which is hardly surprising, but you can see every bit of it contained inside the fabric prison as he adjusts it and the associated material crammed into his cleft. Maybe next time you’ll have a better look, if you aren’t about to be fired.

‘Bottom drawer, pass me one?’ Blackthorn says, his voice becoming surer and smoother with each syllable. The hormone’s spell over him had broken with his own orgasm and you decide to oblige him, finding a box of tissues and just handing him the box instead.

You smirk to yourself. Very clever. Very clean. Plausible deniability and utility all in one. No one would question a fresh box inside your desk. To his credit, he makes wiping his veiny monster from his awkward position seem easy, almost as if the roles had been reversed all along.

You conclude at that point you probably weren’t about to be fired, at least not yet. But you did want a few more answers.

Chapter 2, Security

“Sex and power go together. Those who have the most power are often the least able to enjoy it.”

*Erica Jong*

Within a minute Blackthorn had reset himself, with everything neatly back where it should be. He can see by your expression you have a few choice words to say. ‘So, *Mister* Blackthorn, what was the plan if Mr. Silverton was wrong?’ You give him your best frown after likewise smartening yourself up.

‘Please, *Mister* Standen, we’re good colleagues, call me Theodore,’ he extended a hand which you find yourself shaking somehow. ‘But to give you an insight into things, let me put it like this: A human comes in, we tell him this office is just temporary for the day. He goes about his business and slowly but surely fades into the wider workforce as the token human hire. Then, this office returns to being a small conference room. He still gets to keep the taxi, however. It is such a small amount to pay extra that it is the most miniscule of rounding errors to the accounting teams. Then he gets conveniently ignored for promotions until he leaves, and we find a new HDG carrier.’

You knew about this sort of practice. He made it sound almost acceptable with his voice. It would have just sounded like a half-hearted threat coming from you. Businesses couldn’t just fire someone out of hand, but they could make people leave in other ways. And who would win a legal case against a building full of lawyers? There were enough power dynamics in play here you could use them to run a microwave.

You fire back at him, not wanting to let him or the business off the hook just yet. ‘And what if your prize refuses? Am I supposed to fuck on command?’ That idea doesn’t appeal to you at all. It would be like being a something akin to a lewd kitchen appliance.

Theodore Blackthorn smiles. It is a flash of perfect white in absolute contrast to the rest of him. ‘Vance, please. You are thinking of this in such *human* terms. Do you think just having some genetic trait is how it works? That we’re going to bottle your sweat and pass it around in a spray can? It doesn’t work like that.’ He glides himself into one of the chairs and crosses one curved leg over the other so that it can be used as a platform to steeple his fingers over. ‘It’s less about the gene, it’s the more the way you use it. Body language, confidence, words. Catalysts are needed which have to align. We can’t force it out of you, so it is in our interests to encourage you to…roam freely. You’ll find the reason IT hasn’t set up your account yet is because they’re waiting to see whether you’re going to be given the “light” workload or the “regular” one.’

Already being shown the smoke and mirrors behind the scenes felt weirdly abrupt, but the honesty had some merits. You drop into your seat on the other side of the desk. ‘Why give someone software they’re not going to use? Right…But I get the feeling you lot, that is to say, this law firm, seems to know a lot more about this gene than science officially does. Unless this is just a weirdly elaborate prank,’ your eyes flit around the room for hidden cameras, with post-nut clarity allowing slight panic in as you did so.

‘Oh yes. Every major business of this calibre has their own HDG carrier in one form or another. It’s good for business.’

The way the horse says it makes it sound like it’s an open secret. He licks his lip, getting a tiny quantity of you that managed to escape. It didn’t seem to re-intoxicate him as far as you could tell, but you’re still too amazed at the situation on the whole to be sure of anything.

‘What, its good for me to go around screwing random anthros? What if they’re not into it? What if, I don’t know, they’re *married* or something?’ you throw your arms up into the air at the notion. You can see it now, a very bashful man in your office and a very angry wife threatening who knows what.

‘Again, very human of you. See it from the lonely office worker’s point of view. He comes into work, sad and tired from a long week of whatever. But then, you confidently pass by. Everything smells just *so good* to him. He spends a day getting covered in prime HD gene, made potent by the correct catalysts. Every client he meets that day seems to get along with him just fantastically, they agree with everything he says and don’t even try to haggle. He then goes home to his wife and tells her of his success, who for the first time maybe in years leaps on him just like when they were teens.’ He smiles again with another brilliant white flash. He’s clearly thinking about what happens when he goes home today and gets to experience it all for himself. ‘You still need to actually do some work however; we can’t have you lounging about on the clock. You’ll just find it to be very easy to drop at any moment.’

‘So…I choose when and who?’

‘And pretty much wherever. Obviously, we can’t have you ploughing people on the front reception desk, but the cubicles provide enough cover and the others nearby will enjoy whatever they hear or smell. Just be reasonable.’

‘No fucking while on the phone,’ you nod your head along with the syllables.

‘No fucking while on the phone,’ he nods his own head in a teasing mimic. ‘Anything else?’

‘Won’t they get jealous of who I pick? I can’t fuck all of you, this building must contain hundreds of people.’ You recall the droopy dog from the lift and shudder slightly. Not your type.

‘No?’ the perfect look of suave intellect on Theodores face was briefly replaced with a quizzical look as if you had just asked why the sky sometimes turned white with pink polka dots. He didn’t seem to be elaborating further as if the answer was obvious. ‘Any other questions before I leave you to it?’

‘About the receptionist…’ you begin.

‘No, they’re not related.’

You call the IT department. The voice on the other end clearly had been primed for you, specifically. They essentially ask you which software you needed, full or basic. What would have been a straightforward question you now know is in fact a code for whether you’ll play ball or not. You say Basic. After all, you now have much more important tasks to attend to. At least until the wheels fell off the whole scenario.

You can hear a stifled noise on the other end and you suspect the other staff nearby were also listening in with rapt attention. Obviously, they were very pleased to know the company had acquired a carrier.

‘If you have any faults, or need…anything. Keyboards, monitors, other hardware, we’re on the second floor.’

The voice on the other end was trying to keep it together. You couldn’t tell what species they were, but they all sounded eager at least. And is that tittering in the background? Maybe you’d pay them a visit, those sorts of teams usually had their own private office space to handle equipment. IT staff are like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed bullshit. It would be like spelunking.

You need to wait for it to install, so you decide to get your bearings. You open the blinds and the light from the rest of the floor filters in. Anthros were mostly at their desks, some moving back and forth with paperwork in gaggles around some central figure like a prophet amongst acolytes. You step out into the main space and close your door behind you. A thought occurs to you and instead you fling it open as far as it will go, wedging the doorstop to keep it that way. A few minutes of built-up smell from there can just be dumped into the unprepared crowd beyond. How delightfully devilish, Vance.

You decide you want a mug of something hot and caffeinated.

You can tell you’re turning heads as you head towards a break room. You can see from the corners of your vision the spectrum of subtly; from those who don’t turn their heads and just have a subtle shift in the eyes, to those who are standing and craning their necks over the partitions to gawk.

You never got this much attention on dating apps, but then again, every day it was only bots who matched and messaged. There were so few anthros in the town where you worked previously that you supposed that any who would have sensed the HDG on you had never been in an enclosed space with you for long enough for it to be revealed.

It’s not like you sat down in restaurants to eat by yourself and when you were dating another human you had even less reason to do so. It was all such a missed opportunity. The attention you are receiving is already threatening intoxication; you can see it on the horizon. Your mind conjures an image of a drug dealer handing you a baggy labelled ‘POSITIVE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS’ and you just snorting it up like the devil’s nose candy.

*Pace yourself, Vance.*

You locate the break room. It is small, little more than a countertop with a few appliances and two vending machines on either end. You could tell this was a high-end corporate sort of gig by the way the machines spat out the exact same incredibly terrible tea and coffee assortment as their regular counterparts, except you didn’t have to pay for the privilege. The thin plastic cups also assisted in scalding your hands for the added bonus. Truly, a wonder of modern technology. However, all of this was blocked by the singular individual taking up the majority of the space.

He was built like a brick shithouse. Arms like sacks of beachballs, a body that didn’t have a 6-pack, but instead an entire beer keg. Theodore probably went to the gym for vanity. Whoever this was went to the gym went out of necessity. When you think of a strongman, you sometimes incorrectly think of bodybuilders with their sculpted bodies designed for looks but not actual functional work. But the sort of people who could actually lift you with one arm without a fuss looked like this. *Was* this.

When he turned around, you realised he was some kind of bull. As he turned around the dark grey shirt he was wearing had “SECURITY” in a no-nonsense thick white font scroll over your vision like the opening of a movie reel.

You believed it. He could stand in the doorframe and block anyone from passing by sheer virtue of filling it with muscle and bulk. His brown furred brow furrowed to look down at you. Like his long-furred fetlocks, his hair had a bit of a highland look to it. More impressive were his horns, which were uncharacteristically long and sharp. Polished too.

Most species with horns had them trimmed and rounded, lest they poke holes in their clothes every morning. There were even fashionable rubber caps you could get. A lot of places applied laws to their length and such much like there were laws about openly wielding knuckledusters. They were, after all, weapons. You never really considered the permits around this problem, but you were also trying to spot a name badge.

Your eyes manage to find it, comically small and nestled upon the mountainous peak of one pectoral akin to some intrepid explorer. ‘Excuse me, Mr. Harrisson? I just need to slip by.’ You say, simply. You still wanted that crappy cup of caffeine. The bovid makes a token gesture of vaguely leaning to one side. This place probably didn’t get robbed enough for him to have much to do all day, but his grumpy attitude still was a bit much. He already had something in his hand, which he sipped to make some kind of point. The mug in his grip looked comically tiny by comparison.

‘You’re Standen,’ he rumbles down at you. It isn’t a question, just a statement of fact. You guess he was told the new hire might be very valuable. He was probably told that about all the new high-end lawyers he encountered, and it has long since lost its novelty.

Your eyes flit down from his eyes to the big ‘SECURITY’ text on his chest, then continue their journey over his muscle-bound gut, past the dark jeans and down to his hooves, which were scuffed and unpolished. A practical soul, it seemed.

‘That’s right. That’s me,’ you lightly slap the name badge for some reason. Harrisson didn’t respond. Not much of a talker then. You prod a button on the vending machine. It gurgles, and the bull sips again from his mug. You think of something to say other than *you work in security, huh?* because you have a slight suspicion that would go down like a lead balloon. *How about that sportsball game last night?* also didn’t seem like a winning strategy because you didn’t watch any and didn’t know if any had been on last night to begin with. Mercifully, your drink dispenses. You have to turn so your back leans against the machine to face Harrisson in this close-quarters social combat. ‘So, who did they hire to do *your* security then?’ you ask, attempting humour.

‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ he rumbles back gruffly with each syllable being dumped out one after another. ‘No-one. It is just me.’ He finishes his drink and the mug is shoved unceremoniously to the corner. Brilliant really, he couldn’t have disarmed a budding conversation any more skilfully. You feel almost sad for him, if he wasn’t being so standoffish. You realise that in order for him to get out of this alcove the two of you would need to do a sort of Mexican dance routine.

Obviously, he should be attempting to do so and return to his empty patrol. However, what you also just realised is that you’re in a very cramped space and he no longer has his coffee shielding his nose from you. ‘Just you?’ You ask, wryly. ‘No-one else to protect the big guy at work?’ it sounds so corny coming from your own mouth, but you wanted to test what Blackthorn had said.

In response, Harrisson makes a dismissive *harrumph*. Which causes another unprotected breath in. How long would it take him? While Blackthorn had presence, this bull had *mass*. Everywhere. Would it take longer? He attempts to step out then, but you pretend to have mistaken it for your turn to leave, so neither of you end up leaving. His hip squishes against your hip Three Stooges–style in the doorframe and he quickly stops to avoid his bulk from mashing you flat. He rotates to the side uncomfortably, the growing bulge in his pants being the obvious reason for this awkward manoeuvre.

His imposing frame spreads wide as he tries to find a pose where he can adjust himself discretely in the rapidly shrinking room. You discard your own drink and step behind him as he faces away from you fumbling at his groin.

‘What’s the matter, big softy got a little hard-on?’ you ask over his broad shoulder. He ponderously turns around to face you with an indignant expression at the comment. One of his hands is covering the bulge, the other is trapped by the tight confines behind his back. You also have a hand on your cock, covering it in a bit of whatever was stuck to the inside of your underwear and a bit of the fresh stuff too. ‘You need to smile more.’ You say, smearing your hand over his nose and pressing the palm of your hand against his lips. He could have stopped your hand easily but it was the sheer audacity of it which gave him pause. You don’t need to look too far down to see he’s rapidly approaching full mast, stiff as a board. ‘Very tight in here, isn’t it?’

He nods, mouth quivering with the urge to lick your hand whilst also fighting his inhibitions. You can practically hear his heart thumping as you take your hand away and place them on the top button of his jeans. To his credit, he keeps his mouth shut in defiance of the overwhelming urge to taste, but it also prevents him from voicing protest. You pop the button open. Two more to go. You’re starting to feel the excitement too, now. You slowly reach back down into your own trousers and get a fresh bead of pre onto your fingertip. You can appreciate the big muscles just as much as the small ones.

The slick dot glistens in the bull’s eyes as you raise it up to his face. ‘For you.’ You smear it between his nostrils. He’s just letting it happen, mystified.

You watch as his tongue forces it way out and quickly, shamefully, gets the whole drop in one long pink swoop. Another one of his buttons pops open at your behest. ‘Just one more drop, for me?’ you ask, as if he’s doing you a favour. Harrisson closes his eyes tight, so he can’t see you getting your index finger coated in your own precum, and so when it touches his lips he is unable to stop you from invading and slowly finger-fucking his tongue.

It’s hot, soft and moist in there in a way that hits all the right buttons for you. His breath is washing over your digit like sea waves in a storm and needs a small bit of effort to fight the suction as he tries to stop it from leaving. Even so, you undo the last button with a pop like a champagne cork.

A tent of white fabric bursts forth from the break in the dam. It jumps in time with his heartbeat with the raging hard-on pressed firmly up inside it. In a pinch you think it could have worked as a coat hook with how stiff it was.

It seemed the bull took his sports seriously, because the jockstrap let you see everything. His huge uncut penis had only the head obscured by the stretched fabric. His fat nuts, each one the size of a plum, hung to one side underneath. The shaft was so girthy it would fill the palm of your hand entirely. And, in fact, as you touch it, it did. It jumped with a life of its own on the contact, and you watch as his testes clench upwards and drop with it. His happy trail which merged into the unkempt pubic mound gave it a lion’s mane.

‘I don’t d-do this, no-one has.’ he protests weakly. His voice is still deep, but the quavering edge gives it this meek undertone uniquely his own.

‘What, your wife never touched your junk before big guy?’ You exert a little pressure to point it downwards and then let it twang back up again. ‘Oh, I get it. You’ve always had to take the initiative? The big scary bull has to do all the work for others.’ You tease him with your tone of voice, somehow talking down at a guy who could have tossed you down the entire length corridor with a single hand.

‘No!’ he protests. It’s reflexive, a deflection with no bite to it.

‘Ah, I understand. You touch her tits, but she,’ you stroke a pec through his shirt to emphasise the point ‘doesn’t play with yours!’ you find the nipple, not yet brought out to join in the fun. You squeeze the pec like a woman’s breast. ‘That’s so unfair of her, I bet they look very good. And your shirt is very tight.’

‘My shirt…’ he trailed off. You move back slightly, nudging his trapped arm to help him put two together.

‘Wouldn’t want it to get coffee on it.’ You say, helpfully.

‘No…’ he reaches down and begins to lift it up. His rounded belly is a plush playground, a smooth expanse with sides of stacked muscles, and it is revealed from the bottom up like a fluffy sunrise. You observe with amusement and intrigue at the skilled technique of navigating a head of sharp horns as he bears his chest for you. You see his nipples, two pink islands amongst the brown fur.

‘I bet you start off slow, like this…’ you begin circling each one with a thumb. Harrisson buries his face in his hands to hide his expression. ‘But I think *she* likes it a little harder.’ He nods almost imperceptibly. The perky buds of his nipples have come out from your ministrations and you pinch gently at them between thumb and forefinger, rolling back and forth.

His cock is now thumping with his heartbeat much more prominently, but still not enough for your liking. A big guy like this needed to be guided through each new step. You grab a swath of pecs and do broad strokes with your thumb, bouncing them off his nipples with each sweep. ‘Then, you want to show her how good they look.’ You come in close; his height means that his chest is in line with your head. You breath in, then move your mouth as close as possible without touching and gently release a slow hot breath over one. His size meant little when put against that sensation, he shuddered at the unfamiliar pleasure, the heat rippling in from one tiny spot and blossoming out.

‘How do you show her, Harrison?’

His voice is little more than a whisper. ‘I…suck…them.’

‘I bet you’re very gentle, despite your size.’ You offer. He can’t utter another word for now, those last three probably felt herculean to force out. He nods again, head still in hands. You plant a kiss around the first one, and sensually coat it with your tongue around the bead-shaped flesh. Then, you gently apply pressure and pull your head back slowly, the skin follows your mouth as you suck. With a loud, lascivious *pop* it escapes your mouth.

‘But I know you’re a strong bull, you can take a bit more than her.’ You go in again and repeat, but sucking harder this time. You pull back, and the second and louder noise fills the confined space. The bull reacts as if he was just electrocuted and shakes from the feeling. You look down, his white jockstrap has a growing dark patch causing it to become see-through. The head of his dick is straining to get out like a swimmer about to breach the surface. Harrison’s shovel-like hand comes down to rest upon your head. Not to guide you, or force you, but to feel the comfort from your hair. The other hand is steadying him on the countertop. You make no comment or attempt to displace it.

‘And you make sure they both get equal attention.’ You travel across the expanse of his chest, his hand follows your head, cupping the back of it now, a single thumb stroking you. You give the second nipple what it needs. By the time you pull away a single bit of his precum has forced its way through the white fibres and begun rolling down the tented fabric.

‘Ego ipsos custodio.’ You say gently to him, hoping you had the grammar right. A person who knew Latin but rarely got to use it probably felt saddened in this place where it got used all the time and he could not. He had spoken gruffly at first, but he had softened so readily. It wasn’t the moment to be stern back. ‘I can see the depths within you. You fear them seeing more than just the muscle, but you’re safe here.’ It seemed the right thing to say.

That got more of a reaction out of him than anything physical you had done so far, he instinctively pulls you tight to his chest, pressing your head between the pillows of his pectorals. His heart thumps like a mortar battery against your ear, even through the fuzz of his fur. You let him recover for a bit, enjoying the warmth yourself. He would probably hold you there all day if he could, or at least for the hour or two it would take for lunch to arrive. There is a quiet but unmistakable dripping sound as his pre strikes the floor.

‘You love your wife’s ass,’ you tilt your head to look up at his, the fluorescent tube lamp above is obscured by his silhouette, giving him an unintended halo. He looks down at you then, eyes open and unobscured now. ‘That wasn’t a question,’ you say to him. ‘She wants to show it off, just for you,’ you give him a firm look. You extract yourself from fluffy heaven and expectantly make a motion with your finger for him to turn around.

Harrisson could have escape there, and a part of him probably still wanted to if only out of habit. But if getting out of the alcove was tricky before, it may as well have been an eye of a needle to him now. His eyes move over the exit as he turns, and then they continue on as his body comes about, powerless to stop himself.

‘You like it when she lowers them herself, slowly all the way to the floor.’ You put a bit of authority in the voice. You get the impression the bull has never been this sensual in his life, but he allows his jeans to slide over his ass and to the floor, then steps out of them without further prompting.

To him, a jockstrap was just a practical choice. Long tail, big package, lots of exercise to be done. To you though, the white straps only acted as a picture frame for the prize. It takes a lot of ass to hold up this much bovine. You gently lay an open palm over one, getting him used to the idea of being touched there. Even then, it came as an oddly pleasant surprise to him. Few people he encountered were soft with him, that much was clear.

Both your hands were upon him now. Softly, softly. Gently, gently. You play with the straps that almost vanish into his flanks. His round thighs yielded for his sizable nuts, cradled in their magnitude by the fabric which now was damp with the constant light discharge. ‘You want to show me, don’t you? The part of you no-one else sees.’ You guide an unresisting hand to a cheek. ‘Show me your soft side, big guy.’ You encourage him. The other hand joins in and the bovine begins to yield.

The brown fur lightens as more is shown, until you can see what you knew he was hiding all along. The tides part to reveal a fat, thick, puffy pink donut of perfectly unblemished flesh. There were porn actors who would have killed for this asset. He probably had no clue. This close, you let your breath play over it, to watch it flutter in response. Then the lightest touch with a finger, circling the hole slowly. You know he is beginning to suspect the inevitable as you make the circles ever smaller with each loop, spiralling ever closer towards the hole not even he has played with before.

Whilst you hadn’t been issued lube (yet), there was a much closer source at hand to work with anyway. You reach around his side, hand always in contact with his hide and raking the fur as it went. It caught in his happy trail, over the tangle at the base of his penis and down the length in one fluid motion. He was solid as a rock and covered in his own hot leavings that matted his fur. Your palm now finds itself against the head on the inside of his underwear and he pushes forward guiltily into it. You let him do it a few times, if only so that when you hand comes out from escaping where his dick cannot, it is covered in him.

You slather his hole with it, the slick sensation a contrast to the soft touching of your earlier ministrations. You’ve given him enough time to come to terms with what is coming next.

‘I’ve never…’ he trails off, not sure of which emotion he wants to convey. Fear? Shame? Excitement? Guilt? They all mix together then are replaced with surprise as you let your pinkie finger press in.

He fights instinctively at first, as all first timers do, the powerful ring of muscle working to keep you out. But you wait, let him relax, and move in further. You work him up in sequence, each finger progressively larger until your thumb intrudes. Each time one goes in, his nuts slap upwards with his tension, then release back down slowly as he relaxes. He’s stoic, that’s for sure, because at no point does he back down or ask you to stop.

You renew the lube on his hole, allowing him to fuck your hand some more in the process. You’d need both hands spread wide to cover the circumference, but just one was enough to stimulate the very tip. That really sent him, like a nervous twitch he stamps a hoof, causing every mug and cup on the countertop to jump in fright. At this point, his jockstrap is soaked through, it is dribbling down both legs and on the floor without pause now.

Two fingers now, enough to find the real prize. You probe the heat and slickness, but with testicles like these it does not take long to find the spot. You know you’ve found it, not just by feel, but by sound. Harrisson is groaning, his deep rumbling voice an instrument you can play on request and you keep going back for another act. His huge hands are white-knuckled spreading himself open for you and from the novel sensation. You go for the encore performance and this time press down hard on his prostate, rubbing it with both fingertips and smushing it back and forth with the sole intent of his intense pleasure.

Another hoof stomp and the crockery dances with him once more. Everything in him tenses, but you pull your fingers free before the climax can strike. A very heavy splat of precum hits the floor. He desperately wants to finish, but much like before you have his arms blocked, just in a different way now and he doesn’t want to move and lose this moment.

You ask him if his wife liked getting fingered.

Of course she did, he admits. The uncertainty is gone in that response.

You *tell* him she likes getting fucked too. You unzip your trousers. He heard the sound and bows his head to brace himself as you line yourself up.

You touch but don’t press in. Rather, you gently tug on an arm to let him know who gets to decide. It doesn’t take more than a moment for his hips to steadily spear himself upon you. His prostate stands no chance, it is taken and ridden like a cheap stolen car. His rhythm is terrible with his mind clouded this much and he was in an unfamiliar pose, but you both make it work. You make *him* work especially. Wet slaps fill the alcove, grunts and sighs mingle as one. His ass clenches around you, taking from you what he gives up in equal measure. Cum ruins his jockstrap, forces it way through the fabric and onto the floor without a single hand involved. His balls churn and empty themselves uselessly and each pulse only milks your own junk in turn.

All the strength leaves him with it, and a modern-day Samson falls before you, landing on his knees. Harrisson is panting, he forces an arm forward to finally let his dick free and it dribbles a little more semen onto the floor. He and every (mercifully wipeable) surface around him has not been spared. He didn’t care, too busy mentally resetting as his erection maintained full mast, finding still yet more reserves to bring to bear, if only a little. He isn’t panting, but he is having to control his breathing somewhat.

You put your hands on his broad shoulders and gently massage him in a sort of “good work champ” way. He was on a journey right now, travelled through his first trip through sub-space. He could probably smell sounds and taste light after all that fresh and new stimulation just now.

It’s a long minute before he finally rises upon his hooves, now just that little bit more scuffed. The bull looks around, as if finally seeing for the first time. He locates his shirt, navigates his head through it and smooths it down over his bulky frame. His breath hitches as the cloth brushes his sensitive pecs, but only the once. Facing you now, he drops his sticky jockstrap and steps out of it. It’ll need a very thorough rinsing in the bathroom sink before even the cheapest of escorts would consider putting them back on.

He looks at you differently now. The same expression a child gives to a treasured blanket, but hidden behind a thin veneer of shaggy fur and fat. He had found at last something to hold in case the day becomes too much.

‘You okay, Harrisson?’ you ask. He’s still nude from the waist down. Even flaccid he would embarrass a soup can.

‘Yeah,’ his voice is a bit distant still. He leans down and hugs you unexpectedly, rubbing his muzzle into the crook of your neck. His velvet ear provides a soft contrast to the flashing off-white of the flesh gouging potential from the horn right next to it. You hug him back, caught off guard. You could not hope to make your hands meet on the other side of him. You assume you’re being lifted off your feet, because you can’t see the floor and you feel closer to the ceiling lights. There’s a moment where you wonder if this guy was going to come down from his high and become grumpy again and whether you’re about to become a whole lot thinner. But the squeeze doesn’t come and instead you are ignobly dumped on the countertop like an unruly child.

‘You’re going to be in the way.’ Harrisson states, now having enough room to put himself into his jeans. ‘This place is a mess.’

It was, but that was what the roll of kitchen towel was for. You lean over and re-order the drink you originally intended to have from the machine. At this rate, by days end you’ll be dry as a prune if you’re not careful. You watch as the guy gets back down on his knees and begins to mop up his mess. You decide to not speak for this. Let the brief period of manual labour allow him to sort and file the encounter in his own way. When the last piece of paper is crumpled into the bin and the work surfaces given a quick spritz of disinfectant you are lifted and placed back on your feet, firmly on the ground.

‘You can call me Ghaid.’ The bull’s voice had returned to normal now. But he then quietly added ‘Like my wife does.’

Chapter 3, Creative Accounting

“Sex is kicking death in the ass while singing.”

*Charles Bukowski*

Hot liquid caffeine suspension in hand, you return to your office. As you approach a corner you spot one of the staff leaning against the wall a little too casually. She is a white long-furred cat in a business dress which forces her neck fur into something resembling an Elizabethan ruff. That was fairly typical, cats were like that, but the moment she caught sight of you she coughed conspicuously to someone out of sight and you hear the unmistakable sound of tens of people all hurrying back to their seats all at once. You slow your pace to give them a chance and smile in mock ignorance at her as you round the corner. It was just like you had left it, door wide open, activity going on just outside. The bin nearest your door stopped wobbling from whatever had disturbed it and came to a rest as the only indicator that the whole room hadn’t just been hotboxing itself on your scent moments before.

Humans were adaptable, you had already adapted to this new role within the first few minutes of entering the building. A bad job market does that to a person. You nod politely at whoever makes eye contact with you, many of them are finding their shirt collars a little tight and golly, wasn’t it hot in here? You remark about how chilly you found the boss’s office when you arrived and you’re sure he can spare you a desk fan.

You unwedge the door and allow it to click shut under its own power. Your chair had been moved, an image of a queue of anthros forming to press their noses into it comes to mind. But, it also seems that something had been left behind in your drawers when you investigate them. There was the usually expected paraphernalia; pens, paper, stapler, ammo for said stapler, and so on. The tissue box had been returned in another one, but was now accompanied by a bottle of ‘hand sanitizer’ which giving it a quick investigation revealed it to be unsurprisingly very lubricating for its supposed function, but again you had to consider appearances.

As you log into the computer, you wonder if despite what Theodore had said that the work would also be fake or even disguised as something else. Would there be just some poor schmuck being paid to produce nonsense that at a glance looked acceptable to the outside layman, just for you to process it and send it off to be discarded to keep you busy? Then you remember every other admin position you had ever done and have a quick chuckle. There wouldn’t be a lot of work on the first day anyway. The standard HR things perhaps, or *AR* in this case.

Your email inbox has some welcome package stuff, an internal memo asking if anyone owned the car keys in the reception, some labyrinthine organisational charts, that sort of thing. Blackthorn has sent you an email also, asking to respond once you’ve settled in. All manageable so far. However, as soon as you’ve sent back your response, the computer issues a little *ding* from the internal instant messenger software.

A friend request. Well, *friend* was a strong word. Colleague request more like. It isn’t from Blackthorn, or either of the two Silvertons. It’s from Ghaid Harrisson. That made sense, unlike the next three requests that fired off rapidly after that from people you definitely don’t know the name of. In the time it takes you to mute that part of the application, another four different requests have sprung up.

‘This is what it must feel like to be a model on a dating site,’ you mutter to yourself.

While it naturally had never happened to you, you’d seen enough short clips from the internet to know it was useless to even attempt to keep on top of it, it would be like trying to mop the sea up with a dish sponge. You just let the number increment and say to yourself that you won’t let it go to your head. It would get worse throughout the day, you know that much. The only thing that travels faster than light is gossip. It would spread through each floor like a virus, until even the dust mites in the basement could RSVP a letter from you.

You attend to the Human-Anthro-Resources packages, promising not lift cardboard boxes with your back and that you won’t stand in a burning building to find your phone. The training segments were almost a parody of themselves with an anthro doing each one instead of the humans you were used to. It wasn’t tailored to your species at all, but it was funny seeing the forced balance of herbivores to carnivores to reptiles to mammals and so on. It was a riot of colour blended with corporate double-speak. It still had that tedious tone to it and it still lasted for far longer than it should.

You look at the requests in their multitudes. Blessed be the bounty that which you reap. You almost immediately discard the idea of just trying to go through it before you consider instead not viewing it as a communication system, but instead a *catalogue*.

You have a look at some of the profile images that stand out. The entire building, from every walk of life and department, no matter how big or small, was represented here. Being a lawyer, or working in the multitude of ancillary roles needed to support them, did not discriminate on race, class or creed. Right now, the only thing that would set them apart was if they had a little checkmark next to your name on their computer monitor. “Friend Status” would be a badge of honour. From what you can tell, there is a sizable crop to be harvested from the potential applicants. Being in the friendzone, as it were, would become a byword as being part of an elite cadre.

Lunch was approaching. A quick message pinged back and forth across to Blackthorn told you the building had a canteen on the third floor, where he would meet you there.

Thankfully, despite the undercurrent of commotion, everyone in the building was an adult which meant that there wasn’t going to drama over the popular kid’s table. That is not to say there wasn’t one, but the power dynamic would be so imbalanced whilst you were in the room it was effectively rendered moot. Only Theodore Blackthorn, dressed in his light swallowing set of clothing worth more than a brand-new car, would be able to act normally around you anyway. Sure, the lunch room was like a café with corporate-flavour filling, but it was open air enough to disperse the effects of the gene on you to “safe” levels.

You slide into the plastic seat opposite him and bite into your pastry. You swallow, an unamused look on your face. ‘An apple, really?’

‘I do actually enjoy them. But I also enjoy the *aesthetic* it cultivates.’ The way he said it all felt out of place without the giant death laser in the background. ‘Who did you get to first?’

‘Word gets around fast then.’ You answer, as if your inbox didn’t hit triple digits within the first 10 minutes. ‘I bumped into the security guard inside the small break room.’

Theodore’s eyes make contact with the ceiling as he attempts to remember the bull’s name, his tongue pokes out from the corner of his mouth. ‘Harrisson?’ he says, tasting the word, having clearly rarely if ever having said it aloud before.

‘Did you know he spoke Latin?’

‘This is a law firm, Vance. You use it all the time. You end up picking up a phrase or two eventually. Did you *habeas* his *corpus*?’ he snickered at his own joke in the way that only a horse could. You gave him a withering frown back. ‘Just joking,” he apologised with sincerity. That one you did know, every piece of media with a courtroom scene in it used it. You think it was a little more than him parroting back the phrase, but decide not to pursue the topic. The two were worlds apart enough as it is. Ghaid, it seemed, probably had a reason to be gruff with coworkers.

Over the next hour Blackthorn attempted to give you a crash course in what you were doing in relation to his work. Proper work mentoring on the first day? That was the actual fantasy.

Being a lawyer, you end up thinking, wasn’t so different from playing a children’s collectible card game. Two sides face off, each clutching their own stack of overpriced letterheaded paper, having spent weeks shuffling it all in preparation. Then you meet up, dump your pile on the table, one side declares victory, and the rest of the day is spent arguing about it in front of a judge who will loathe to see them next week. When you offer the horse this observation, he throws back his head and slumps back in his seat with exasperation.

It had sounded like a lot of work however. ‘But at least you’re being paid more than me, how much do you make a year?’ you ask, curious just how easily Blackthorn could afford his lavish lifestyle.

‘Actually, you’ll earn more than me after your bonuses,’ came the response with an expression and tone that indicated he didn’t see that as a problem.

‘What bonuses? That wasn’t mentioned anywhere.’

‘*Mister* Standen,’ Blackthorn smirked ‘HDG carriers are worth more than their weight in gold and we certainly want to incentivise ours to stay and *work hard*. Your salary is competitive for an admin clerk, but when other businesses learn about you, well, they’ll want to snipe you out from under our hooves. Anyone who pulls our salary records will immediately see an over-paid human on the books. Instead, you’ll find there are a lot of “weekly bonuses” that you qualify for, that just so happen to match up with how many colleagues you get acquainted to.’

‘Is that tax legal?’

Black furred fingers steeple before the horse. ‘We’re lawyers, Vance. We make it legal.’

It was weird taking a lunch as long as this. For you, you were so used to having the pitiable amount most other businesses gave you that time seemed to have stretched strangely. Blackthorn on the other hand took a long lunch because how else would he cultivate his public image if he wasn’t constantly in public? You also supposed that being visible in public was also, in a way, now part of your job too. Across the room you could see fur, skin and scale discretely looking at you, but in a way you had never experienced previously. Every seat nearby you had been occupied. When they got used to you, they would probably simply end up treating you like some walking good luck charm or benevolent upper management. Blackthorn had a schedule to keep to, but you did not. Even so, you needed the bathroom.

There was quite the variety. Architecture could be averaged out, but individual biological functions could not. This fell by the wayside however because you also learned that anthros did not respect the traditional unspoken arrangement of men’s urinal spacing, midway through your own standing ovation.

‘Ey, ‘ey, ‘ey!’ came a voice straight out of The Street and probably from at least one alternative CD cover flogged from the back of a van. ‘Wassup, big V?’

Physics dictates that for every force there’s an equal and opposite force, and as part of some cosmic joke, it had made sure that principle held true in this building.

The spotted hyena embodied everything the workplace dress code explicitly forbade. He wore a T-shirt advertising a punk band no one had ever heard of, piercings glittered from his ears, nose, and lower lip. His hair, a shock of hyper-pink blending into lurid acid green, was cut at an aggressive and asymmetrical angle. Every piece of clothing was torn, some deliberately, some from use, save for the spiked leather collar tight around his thick neck. His eyes hid behind a pair of utterly superfluous pink-lensed glasses. The sheer concentration of colour radiating from him would likely have felled Blackthorn at ten paces.

You were still mid flow and didn’t want to move too much, but you couldn’t see a name tag on him from your furtive glances.

‘Already everyone knows me, but I didn’t catch your name?’ you venture. *Piss faster, man!

*‘’S Jake. Jake from graphics,’ he beamed. He pronounced graphics with a hard ‘F’ wedged in the middle. ‘You probs saw my stuff when you came in. ‘S mostly airbrushin’ most of the time, old farts wanna look nice on the front door, ya know?’ he giggled at his own remark. You watch his sharp canines as he does so. ‘Fryin’ some bacon on your own?’ he nods down at your junk, still in your hand and leans against the wall to face you side on.

You hadn’t been in here long enough to saturate the room nearly well enough for the gene to be doing this. You’re about to say something but the hyena’s tongue dances over his teeth again and he gives you the least subtle wink and nod of the head he could manage. You run out of piss to give. You’d already fucked a guy in the office so the toilets seemed a much lesser taboo.

You turn to face him, cock still out and you spread your palms in invitation like a deranged priest of your own penis. You could respect front and centre eagerness. Sometimes.

Jake’s knees hit the floor and his mouth engulfs your flaccid penis in one fell swoop. His tongue immediately rasps against your urethra to get the salty essence therein. There was no other way to say it, your brain council had reached a unanimous verdict instantly: Jake was *nasty*. He was also revealed to be a seasoned cock-sucker too, once he had cleaned you off first. Before you knew it, one paw was cupping your balls while the other worked the base of your shaft. 0 to 100 in mere moments.

True, he didn’t have a long muzzle to aid him in deepthroating you but as far as you could make out, he didn’t have a gag reflex at all. His whole head just moves back and forth, making a lot of wet noises as he goes. What noise does the hyena make? “*Schleck, schleck, schleck.”* Apparently.

He comes up for air and nods down to his shirt, which he didn’t seem to care that he was getting bodily fluids on. ‘Ever heard of ‘em?’ he asks while slapping your wet erection against the side of his muzzle.

You admit you hadn’t. You’d secretly wager only ten people had and he counted as two.

‘Seem ‘em live a few times. This one’s my fave,’ he dives down your length again and begins humming something like a tune. Sure, it was probably being distorted by the dick in his mouth, but you had to admit it was…*stimulating*. He’s also working everything outside of his mouth in tune to the beat too, pumping and fondling like he’s having the time of his life.

Well, he was. His tail was puffed out and curling up his back. Canines need to put a lot of mental effort into hiding their body language and Jake was turning out to be pretty expressive.

He comes up for air again. His tongue is pierced with a simple silver stud which he is using to great effect to stimulate the underside of your glans. ‘’Oo in ‘an ‘urry?’ he asks, slobbering on both you and himself. ‘If ‘oo wan’ I ‘an ‘ick up der ‘ace a ‘ittle?’

‘Don’t *you* have a job to get back to?’ you ask back, scratching the space between his ears where the dyed hair wasn’t to signal you could hang around for a bit.

‘’O,’ he gives the head a little smooch and winks at you. ‘I’ve been here long enough I can slack off sometimes. What do ya do? Lawyer?’

Wait, did he not know you were the corporate universal catnip gene carrier? Did he just hang around the men’s toilets and suck off anyone he could make eye contact with?

‘I do admin,’ you say as he does spiralling loops with his tongue around your penis again. The metal helped a lot. ‘I’m also the corporate HDG carrier.’

‘Wussat?’ he asks, idle curiosity in his voice. He switches up technique, planting sucking kisses over the head and slowly drawing back with wet loud pops.

Good grief, was this guy was just *like* this? *All the time?* No wonder his manager didn’t mind if he left the room, he was a menace to polite society and anyone with a remotely dry dick!

‘It’s like anthro’s think I smell good enough to hire,’ you offer, a tad lamely. You were going to say “It’s a medical condition.” But then he might have misunderstood and stopped the things he was doing with his mouth. It was a little tricky to be eloquent at the moment.

‘Ha-ha, dude, no way! That’s a thing?’

Holy shit. This guy literally is just sucking you off, during work hours, in the staff toilets, for the hell of it. When the gene catches up to him he’d suck the soul straight out of you. He’s already really giving it a solid attempt too, if you hadn’t already busted twice today already this would have been over much sooner. The hyena must have jaw muscles like piano wires, because he wasn’t slowing.

He runs his mouth up and down your shaft like a harmonica, allowing the tongue to prepare it so that when the tip meets the inside of his cheek it’s just one continuous slick slide. He constantly adjusting the angle and the pressure, getting closer to perfect. He makes eye contact with you, putting a lot of mischievous thoughts into the look you’re getting. With both hands free, he pulls the loose shirt collar down so that he can show you one of his many pierced nipples. It has a simple bar going through it.

Your junk pops free again. ‘Twist ‘em when you get close, suit,’ he says and licks his teeth again.

Well, it was only fair. Your hand disappears in and finds the metal bar. Jake goes in for the kill: sucking, slurping, licking, pumping, jerking and teasing with commendable aptitude. You can feel your nuts clenching in preparation not soon after. You twiddle the bar, the light pain only pleasure for the hyena. He shoves your length down his throat and swallows to milk it in place. You twist harder, involuntarily, but this pain only makes him double hand grope your nuts in response.

He really was a bit zesty. The spikey collar around his neck was tight, but the proportions of his neck meant that if he presented his Adam’s apple to you, it constricts the fit so that his throat becomes even more pleasantly tighter. He does so now, with a proficiency that speaks volumes all on its own.

You can feel the orgasm coming now, and he can too with your testes rising in his paws. He puffs his chest out so you have better leverage to punish his nipple as you pulse down his throat. Hyena? More like throat goat. Even when you’re finished he keeps you in there for a while longer, mostly to show off his ability to hold his breath.

You eventually pull out of him. He keeps his whole mouth open to show you through the strands of saliva that no semen escaped and makes an exaggerated swallow to dispel any possible doubt. The spiked leather around his neck creaks in response.

‘You taste good, suit,’ Jake gets off his knees so that he can get off into a urinal. He takes out his cock and starts working it towards completion.

‘Do you just hang out in the corridor to give out blowies to anyone who walks in?’ You ask, running a finger along the blunted spikes around his neck.

‘Pretty much, ain’t I a rascal?’ he flexes his wide neck so your hand slips onto the shaggy fur there. ‘Do you just walk around getting random blowjobs then?’ he retorts, jerking himself off and cumming as you scratch around his ears and tittering at his own humour again.

‘Well, this morning when I walked in, I thought it would be mostly spreadsheets. But this building has already sucked me dry three times so I am starting to suspect otherwise.’

‘Fuck, man, that’s wild,’ he shoves his dick into a set of very loud underwear and did up the broad belt around his waist. ‘Next time you’re in here don’t shake, I like a bit of salt.’ He produces his beige name badge from a pocket and pins it in place. The letters “Mr. J. Carter” are printed there, immediately surrounded by the splashes of colour which seemed to be ready to mug it for spare change.

You walk out together, you going one way, him going the other. You look over your shoulder before you take a turn and lose sight of him. His tail was still fully raised and fluffed out as far as it could go. You almost wonder if encouraging him like this was a bad idea…

You return to your office, this time the rest of the staff nearby had got their fix, so there wasn’t a mad scramble like before. The rest of the day involves actual work. The regular kind, with numbers and formatting errors. But a light load. For you, spreadsheets aren’t difficult and no matter where you work, all that the upper management truly wants is bright primary colours on bar graphs.

However, you receive an email from Blackthorn which before today you would have interpreted very differently. You shake your head, even his profile image was a studio staged photoshoot product of perfect lighting and angles.

‘Do you remember the names of the people you’ve had meetings today with?’

Oh yes, you certainly did. You wonder what they’re going to do with the list. It couldn’t be anything sinister, because anything you’d disapprove of would mean you’d stop. You weren’t some body language savant, but you’re fairly sure you’d be able to tell if they were all upset about something they couldn’t speak about.

You consult your internal committee, ever ready to provide answers (just not necessarily the correct ones). Inside your mind, at the infinitely long conference table manned by various versions of you, you all speculated wildly. The first stands up and proclaims that it could be just a simple and innocent question relating to your first day on the job. This was quickly shouted down by everyone else, because your first day so far had been entirely anything but innocent.

The second group stand up and has a whiteboard on standby. It was titled “Preference Analysis” in a red pen and circled the same. Sure, you have your preferred types. Personalities, shared interests, body types. Who doesn’t? In order to get you to hump more non-humans, the workforce could be instructed on your ideal tastes.

A thought comes unbidden to the fore. What if you only fucked fat people, would you come in next day to the sound of creaking chairs? The idea was dismissed. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. Hundreds of gossiping employees in one building? Not a chance. It would ruin the study instantly.

Group three offered the most likely scenario. They were going to be monitoring not you, but those you have encounters with. With a Human Domestication Gene carrier roaming the building, whose mere contact with spread happiness with the ease of breathing, what was the impact? Would lawyers win more cases? Security guards more likely to jump in front of bullets? Graphics designers…stop roaming the men’s stalls...?

Maybe. You’d only need a small analytical team to run numbers and compare notes.

Well, you think to yourself. Tomorrow you’ll help gather some more data.

Chapter 4, Office Politics

“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

*H. L. Mencken*

The work day ends, and you decide to do a little bit of shopping. Previously, clothing was something you bought for lounging around in. Or perhaps for some private couch-potato time or the occasional new white-collar shirt when you had turned the old one grey with wear. However, even without whatever the bonuses would end up being, your new job still paid nicely. You currently didn’t have the sort of funds that Blackthorn clearly had, but you hadn’t been living paycheque to paycheque. Your life was so unremarkable before this point you didn’t even have that as a talking point. Not poor, not rich.

As you stroll down the glass-roofed cathedral to commerce that was the large shopping centre, you ponder how the law firm would have snagged you if you were homeless and in rags. They’d probably contrive a method, to them money was just numbers on a screen. You could brute force many solutions when you viewed resources in that manner. It dehumanized things quickly.

You’re already viewing clothing outlets with a different perspective. Sure, an expensive suit was an expensive suit, but now it seemed, well, not *beneath* you but more of a “side-grade”. A uniform for customers to see you on the street with, no different from any other. Your clothing on the other hand needed to be comfortable in the same way you needed steel capped boots for a construction site. You probably couldn’t get away with whatever the hyena wore yet, but you didn’t need a shirt’s collar for a tie to go around, that was for sure. You select a few somethings, not going overboard with style or money just yet, still *just* in case this entire day *had* been an elaborate prank or something.

You turn the name badge over in your pocket, to remind yourself it was there. It was like a comforting talisman. A key to the most important gate of your life. If all else fails, at least you had some nice new clothes to go dating with.

The next thing to do was to visit some “other” stores. The ones staffed by either bored women in their early twenties or the most scandalous old ladies society can provide. You needed Things. Things made of silicone, rubber, faux-leather, or chromed steel. The sort of Things that airport security dreaded finding more than explosives or bottles of water. You briefly consider getting a few items that needed batteries; after all, you could get those from the office stationery cupboard…

*Again, Vance, pace yourself.* Play your cards right and you’d be filling the next thirty years with all this. Amongst other things.

Your taxi home is a nice sharp cutoff point from the day. The human driving the taxi is a different one who picked you up this morning. Ever the source of political wisdom, the driver rambles on about their opinions about the demographics of the individuals in the area. You nod along obligingly, omitting the fact you were going to get to know them a whole lot more tomorrow, while the driver was merely “Just asking questions.”

You return to your apartment. You had only just recently moved into it, so everything was presently clean and fresh still. With your paycheque you could easily hire a cleaner now and keep it that way indefinitely. Probably a bad idea, on brief reflection. What if one of them was an anthro? They wouldn’t steal your phone; they’d pilfer your pants. Better now to instead proceed as normal before devolving into a life of hedonistic debauchery. You make dinner, partake in your hobbies, and decide not to mention to any of the friends you chat to about your current medical situation.

The next day has a gloomy drizzling rain, but you hardly notice it. In one hand you have a briefcase, simple and assuming. It would not have looked out of place amongst all the others. You nod politely at Mrs. Silverton as you pass her on your way up to your office. Two anthros join you in the elevator.

‘Morning Mr. Standen,’ they say, almost in unison. One of them, a youngish woman, was snow leopard in a fairly nondescript attire. The other was a ram in a pinstripe suit with a flash of colour from a folded pocket square in his breast.

‘Morning both. Although I just started, I hope to be working here for a while.’ You grin back, patting the briefcase. You allow the contents to rattle slightly, to allow their imaginations to ponder what exactly made sounds like that.

The snow leopard makes eye contact with you and adjusts her blouse unnecessarily. The ram flexes a hand, before holding it with the other to steady himself. ‘Well, that’s great news. Always nice to have another specialist onboard,’ the leopard offers.

The lift began to ascend. You put your briefcase down next to you, allowing another small noise to bounce off the metal walls. ‘So, where do you both work?’ you ask, pretending as if you didn’t have a case full of tantalising mystery in your possession.

‘Actually, we both work in accounts-’ the ram begins.

You spread your arms out behind them both, and pull them closer with a hand on their sides like the good buddies you were about to become. Neither did, nor wanted, to resist.

‘I’ll have to stop by over my break,’ you allow your hands to travel down to their backsides.

‘Yes-’

‘Sure-’

‘Absolutely!’ they said over each other, voices tripping and tangling as your give their posteriors a light squeeze each.

The lift doors slid open on your floor, and you lifted the suitcase from the ground before stepping out. ‘Do excuse me, this is my floor,’ you said, watching them as you leave with foolish grins. For a moment, you almost envied them. Still, taking charge remained the greater reward.

A few others see you stepping out, but they also see the leopard and ram’s faces. Morning fatigue lifted from them in moments. You enter your office and boot up your computer. While that was going on, you begin filing the contents of your briefcase into your drawers. The pencils were pointless, the ink insignificant. The desk detritus was pushed to one side to allow the real tools of the trade to take their place.

A long shadow stepped through the door. Its hand closes the briefcase obscuring your view.

‘Theodore,’ you acknowledge Blackthorn politely. After all, he was still your manager and he was still dressed in all black. It was just a whole different three-piece-suit-combo that also happened to be black. He probably had one for each day of the week. ‘Why don’t you come around here and take a seat?’

He didn’t close the blinds. Why would he? It was good for morale. Instead, he puts his blazer on the hook on the reverse of the door and sauntered over. He’s looming over you now, a fiendish mastermind about to gloat to the protagonist about his scheme to take over the world with a doomsday device.

With dexterous ease he swings a slender but strong leg over your lap to straddle. Lithe arms reach over your head to hold the back of the chair for support. He’s mostly supporting his own weight with his own immaculate physique, but has enough weight on you to let you know he’s there. His curly hair cascades down from his shoulders to block out the light between the two of you as he looks down into your eyes.

‘Silverton informs me he’s quite pleased with your first day’s performance,’ his voice wasn’t honey. It was molasses: dark and deliberate, like everything about him it would seem, but soft at this close proximity.

‘Performances. Plural,’ you smugly reply. Sure, you hadn’t gone all day without pause, but you like to think that kept it special.

‘Very funny, Vance. I hope you’ll save some for these daily one-to-one’s.’ he grinds your thighs a little, teasingly. It’s working.

‘This is a bit better than yesterday,’ you remark and put your hands on his waist.

‘My boyfriend was very willing to teach me last night. More so than ever before,’ he traces a finger down your chest in a mock tease.

‘How nice that my manager is willing to learn new things for me,’ you continue guiding his waist back and forth. You had never paid for a lap dance and supposed that now you would never would need to. Besides, minimum wage truckers could pay for dancers, but you suspect very few people could afford Theodore Blackthorn.

He grinds some more, clearly hoping you’ll let him do something beyond this mere friction. You pull him closer, his curvy legs fully around your waist. You give him a playful nibble on his neck. He was very attractive, after all. His knees wobble. Not from the strain of the position, he could probably hold this for hours, but instead from the pleasure warming him through where your lips make contact.

‘There is also the matter of…ngh…the spreadsheets you submitted. You may find yourself promoted on your work merits, r-regardless of your innate abilities.’

You’re enjoying the cologne he has on today, it’s got a hint of wood shavings to it. Your mouth moves to a button on his shirt and you demonstrate your ability to open it hands free. You can see on the other side of the glass the occasional anthro try and casually sneak a glance into the world within. No doubt told by another of your arrival and thus having to see you for themselves. If they missed you yesterday, they didn’t want to today, just in case you were no more than an excited rumour.

‘Have our other colleagues ever seen you like this before?’ you ask, as you expose a tiny section his shiny manicured chest to your mouth and displacing his otherwise ruler-straight tie to one side.

‘Never. But I do enjoy it now-’ that “now” was stretched into a pleased sound as you allow your mouth to dance over the small spot of his chest. Confidence came easily in times like this. When everyone wants to be your friend, socialising is simple.

You stop and look up at him again. He’s maintaining his composure more than yesterday, but you can make his eye twitch just with some pressure on his hips with your hands. The serene intimacy offered by his hair draping over you is held for a little while longer before you jiggle your legs to signal him to dismount you. You preferred the blinds closed, it felt inappropriate otherwise.

‘I’m going to do a few things. Check on a few departments. I met two people from accounting on my way up,’ you say, as the horse untangled himself from you and the chair.

He gave you another award-winning smile. ‘I shall let you loose then, though do join me for lunch.’

It was a bit awkward that you didn’t exactly know where accounting was situated as such, but you had functionally unlimited time to figure it out. The building was a finite space so how hard could it be? You closed your office door because you didn’t want to spoil the surprises you had in your drawers.

You select the next floor up on the elevator. It was much like the one for your floor, except you didn’t recognise the abbreviations which separated the cubicle fiefdoms under their banner. You incline your head to people as you pass. It is easy to project confidence when acting confident was all that was needed. It was self-reinforcing.

You spot a gaggle of suits standing around something. It was your arch-nemesis, a large freestanding printer. Bane of offices everywhere, no creature could smell fear and resisted pleading better in the animal kingdom. You learned early to never showed weakness to a printer; they could tell when you were in a panicking. The collected pack that had formed around the device were bemoaning a lack of yellow ink, a most dire plight.

‘Morning all,’ you interject. ‘Shall I get this for you?’

The tides shift around you. You squeeze in between a rottweiler and a rat. The various anthros watch in awe as you look and read the error message, then follow its simple commands. You slide the spent yellow ink cartridge out and slot the new one in within moments. Internally, you’re sighing. Human, anthro, it didn’t matter. People didn’t read error messages. Outwardly, you put on your P.R face, for a gentleman is never rude on accident.* *

There was always a risk with being associated with “computer knowledge”, because then people would come to you for every little trivial problem. Here, however, with your HDG status, it was as if an angel had come down from the sky to solve the issue themselves. The PR boost would be worth it.

‘I’ll go downstairs and get a fresh cartridge,’ you say, as if it was no trouble. It wasn’t, but to their busy schedules, it appeared otherwise. Being occasionally nice was a superpower everyone had. You could get a lot done if you were. It’s how you sometimes were able to slack off in previous jobs.

But you needed to be social as well. Normally, associating with coworkers was low on your list of priorities. They rarely shared your hobbies or interests, among other many nameless little incompatibilities. Office jobs can very easily squash the soul out of someone and render each of you into anti-social globs, despite sitting next to each other all day. They could become adversarial, with delays and mistakes blamed on each other, reporting each other to HR and then fearing retribution in turn. Humans frequently hatched Machiavellian plots in these microcosms against each other.

Here, however, your presence would always be assumed to have the best of intentions. Even if those intentions were to do unspeakable acts to their posteriors. It wasn’t mind control, but it did disarm negative thoughts in such a way that it may as well have been. But also, your perspective on what made an anthro attractive was so outside what each sub-species considered to be the norm that there was simply a much larger pool of people to find attractive.

The elevator dinged and opened to a room with lower light levels. Screens illuminated faces of intense concentration. Great minds were gathered here to answer the even greater questions of ‘My PC won’t turn on,’ and ‘What is my password?’ and the ever popular ‘It’s not working,’ with no additional context supplied. It wasn’t the IT department, it was its much less fortunate cousin the helpdesk teams.

You select a face. It belonged to someone with a snout and glasses. ‘What’s a guy gotta do around here to get some fresh yellow ink?’ you ask.

The snout stuttered something, cleared its throat and tried again. ‘I need to ask my manager,’ the timid voice bemoaned. You’re adjusting to the darkness now and can see you’re speaking to rotund porcine fellow of the pig persuasion. The way he said it implied his manager wouldn’t be happy with this turn of events.

‘Well, let’s go see them, shall we? Come on,’ you say it with a jovial tone that implied he was never going to say no. And, let’s be honest, he wouldn’t have. Especially when you put an affirming hand on his shoulder.

The pig informed you his name was Borchi as his wrung his little hands together. He was a head shorter than you, but he no doubt weighed more.

Borchi’s manager, on the other hand, was a very stern-faced dog of a shorthaired type you couldn’t identify. The dynamic was obvious immediately. The ink-robber-baron of the helpdesk department world. A little power could go a long way in some people’s heads and inflate their ego like this pig’s waistline.

‘Little Borchi here says you have the replacement ink I need?’ you say with a voice as if you’re all good friends here, and that you couldn’t imagine a world without you giving it up. You had used this technique many times in the past for these sorts of departments. The introverted populace down here had no defence against extroverted-flavoured requests.

‘Did he now?’ came the response, with the tone that implied punishment as soon as you were out of line of sight. You have had this type of manager before; in an office they were practically inevitable. Like mould.

‘Please show me where you keep the spares,’ you insist, earnestly. ‘It’s my second day of the job, it’ll probably help if I know where they were,’ you locate a name tag. “Mr. P. Briggs” glowered back.

You could tell at a glance where they would be, in the small supply room to the back of this space. The *small*, *cramped*, supply room. Briggs stood up and began to walk towards it. He was about to tell Borchi to stay put, but you instead cut him off before he can start and ask him to follow before either could object.

The room had been made narrow by the various supplies on either side that have been stacked and shelved as space permitted. It was mostly stationery. A few laminators and paper guillotines rounded off the aesthetic. Briggs went in first, then Borchi, then you. The light clicked on and the door clicked shut behind you.

‘Just the one yellow, please, for one of the larger printers,’ you cheerfully nod towards a promising looking box. You just needed to keep them talking for a bit. They couldn’t get past you here. Borchi looked like he was going to fold up into himself as his manager grumbled and selected a fresh box.

‘Something the matter?’ you ask, leaning forward over the pig.

Briggs gave a dry little cough. ‘You know,’ he said, inspecting the label as if it might be contraband, ‘these are meant to be signed out properly. There’s a form for it. Wouldn’t do to have people thinking they can just *take things*.’

He’d fallen into your trap. You pick up something vaguely form-like from a shelf and wave it in front of you. ‘One of these, you mean?’

He turned around, the paper wafted air around the room. Briggs was having trouble focusing on it. ‘No? No,’ he grunted. He probably wanted to say something else, but you were standing behind the pig like some ancient temple guardian and the idea petered out.

‘I’m sure Borchi here would have issued me the right form.’

‘I’m *sure* he would have,’ the dog grumbled again.

Borchi gave out a little ‘Ah,’ as you touched him again. It amazes you to think how potent your gene must be to get that sound from him so easily. He was certainly heavier than Briggs (assuming mass had anything to do with it, you weren’t entirely sure), so they were probably both primed and ready...

Your voice switches from telephone friendly to drill sergeant. ‘Heel,’ you lace the word with the authority granted to you by virtue of him being a dog, and you being a human. Tens of thousands of years of shared history causes Briggs to freeze, expression like a teenager caught sneaking back in by his parents in the dead of the night. The box of ink briefly became stolen booze in his paws.

‘Drop it,’ the cardboard box with the ink cartridge is hastily put on the side. ‘Sit,’ his legs folded up under him without the permission or paperwork from his brain. You speak now, channelling a little of your own past grievances as you do so. ‘Don’t give me that look, Mr. Briggs. I’ve seen your kind before. You should look after your subordinates, not whip them at every perceived infraction.’

Borchi is slack jawed in amazement. His face shows even more bewilderment when you say that Briggs should apologise to him. Much more softly you say ‘Go on, Borchi. Tell him.’

‘S-say you’re sorry,’ he fumbles the words out, without any bite to it.

A sound mumbles from Briggs that only the most charitable of nuns would be inclined to suggest resembled the word “sorry”.

‘Bad dog,’ came the authoritative tone. Briggs flinched as if struck. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, meekly but clearly this time.

You snap your fingers and point to the ground in front of Borchi. ‘Here.’

Briggs shuffles over on his knees before the two of you. He has his hands closely flopped in front of his chest plaintively. Anything to avoid further scolding from the human.

You lift up one of the pig’s ears to softly speak into it, your voice sending goosebumps up his pink skin. ‘Now Borchi, I want you to order him to give you the best blowjob he can manage,’ this hadn’t come from nowhere, Borchi’s hadn’t been controlling his expression at all. There was a lot of suppressed emotions in this room.

You ask the pig again. Borchi still seemed uncertain if asking would actually work. Your reach down and cup his man boobs and fondle them, a little titillation for courage. ‘Do it. For me and yourself.’

‘Do it. Suck me off,’ he almost said it without his voice quavering.

‘You heard, Briggs.’ He wanted to abuse authority? Well, two can play at that game.

Briggs’ paws located the top of the pig’s jeans under his gut and undid the fly. Borchi really didn’t set himself up for success, those tighty-whiteys were supremely unfashionable. The dog’s lip trembled as his mouth received the command to open. Paws lowered the fabric and the tongue found itself approaching the appendage revealed there. It wasn’t big, fat maybe, but short. If the owner lost weight, it would probably would be a smidge above average.

You guide Borchi’s hands to the dog’s head. ‘Set the pace.’

The tongue begins working. ‘Lick my balls,’ those words hadn’t come from your mouth. Borchi was giving the whole authority idea a go himself.

Dogs notoriously had a good sense of smell. So, as the dog began to pop each of the pig’s nuts into his mouth and moisten them with his tongue, you wonder just how reluctant Briggs really had been if his nose was burying itself into each nook and cranny it could find.

‘Both. Both,’ Borchi’s voice was already shaky with the exhilaration.

The dog’s tongue snatches both of them up and pulls them inside, working every wrinkle flat with his tongue. You continue to explore the man boobs casually. The pig should have been a sow, then he would have produced an impressive pair. As it was now, they didn’t quite fill your hands. Watching this all unfold was far more fun anyway. You look down at the scene below. Briggs didn’t know what to do with his paws. Should he hold onto something? Balance himself? He soon found the answer when the pig’s dick was pressed against his face and was forced to steady himself against the action.

Briggs’ tongue pressed forward and out to work what you later would learn was called the *perineal raphe *, and beyond to the tight gap between the thighs. Drool ran down his chin with each ragged thrust. No style or rhythm with either of them, it seemed.

Borchi was running off instinct at this point, utterly careless of what his manager was experiencing. Each thrust and pull of the canine’s head was only for his own pleasure. Briggs’ nose was repeatedly squished into his pubic mound, leaving little wet marks in return. When they weren’t being attended to, his balls thwacked into the dog’s chin, sticking occasionally with the saliva dribbling down it.

Both of them had their eyes shut. You order them both to look at each other. A moment later, Borchi slows his pace as the two lock eyes. He doesn’t stop fucking Briggs muzzle as deep as he can go, but at least it has a bit more control.

‘Ask him where he wants it,’ you say down to Briggs, maintaining the authority over the room amongst the disjointed emotions.

‘Where do you want to cum?’ Briggs has no fight left in him; it’s all been replaced with someone else’s bodily fluids.

‘Open your mouth-’ the pig pulls back suddenly, grabbing his dick to aim. Briggs opens his mouth wide, expecting to catch what comes next, but Borchi has such a sex-addled aim that most of it strikes his face at random. You let go of the tits you were playing around with and pick up the cartridge box.

‘Now you two, kiss and make up. You better be good friends by the time I come back for the cyan.’

You only half meant it, but as you go to leave suddenly Briggs dives on top of Borchi and within moments they’re forcing their tongues into each other’s mouths with reckless abandon. They’re completely oblivious to you or anything else for that matter. They probably had a lot to sort out between the two of them, you suppose.

You yank the door open and two other staff members tumble in, hands down their pants with sheepish expressions. 

Chapter 5, Fitting In

“Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.”

*Oscar Wilde

*After dropping off the spare ink, you return to your office. That last encounter served as a good warm-up, but you feel you deserve something a little more substantial for doing such wonderful charity work to your erstwhile printerless colleagues. The number for the IT department sat on your desk, held in place by the phone like a paperweight.

The call answers immediately. Were you a priority number or something? The same voice from yesterday answers, which was probably not a stroke of luck. ‘Hello, are you the one who sorted the software update for me yesterday?’ you ask innocently.

‘Yessir, that was me! Do you need anything else?’ the voice was teetering between eagerness and concern they’d got something wrong.

‘I think you should come up here and make sure it’s all working properly. Come to my office. Tell your manager Mr. Standen asked for you if need be.’ You put the phone down before any objection could be raised.

It didn’t take long, you knew it wouldn’t. The voice on the other end matched your suspicions. Alligators, on the whole, did not tend to live in cities. Rural living suited them for many reasons, but occasionally ones such as this guy would go to the big city to escape country life and country thinking. “Traditionalism” was a popular ideology back home and skinny lads like this were anathema to their concept of manliness.

Pastel green skin on the tops faded to muted yellows on the bottoms. His white linen shirt didn’t do much to hide the colours or his flat belly. Not that it mattered to you. His thick tail, almost his entire length again, tapered to a point behind him defensively and showed off the colours again. His thin limbs fidgeted with themselves, giving a timid aura about his leanness. His overall build was bottom-heavy, needed to support the tail, and it didn’t add to his outward masculinity in the slightest. A net negative, if anything. No wonder he’d picked a job in a dimly lit IT room. It’s why you’d closed the blinds to your room, to provide some comfort and familiar territory.

You can imagine that he was allowing his own mind to run away with itself trying to guess what was going to happen next. He’s standing there, index fingers circling each other because he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

‘Come around and have a look,’ you gesture for him to stand on the other side of the desk. You have your computer on with nothing out of the ordinary showing. He’s looking at it intensely, still worried this was some sort of set up to show he had done incorrectly. ‘This is all fine, but what about this?’ you open one of the drawers. The items inside it clicked and jingled in a way that was almost, but not entirely, unlike standard office equipment. ‘Or don’t you have this stuff down there?’

There was an intake of breath and the alligator’s hands shot up to cover his mouth in mild shame for making the sound. ‘We don’t.’

You could have sworn he was looking at a chest full of gold coins by his expression. His eyes don’t lose contact with it as you gently pull him to sit on your lap. His tail rolls out; a pillar of cool flesh you find intriguing. You take in the pattern the scales make, how they get progressively narrower towards the end, the smooth yet knobbly texture, where the yellow and green borders one another sharply. It was a thing of delightful contrasts.

Your hand touches the tip, where it was the coldest, and begins to warm it up. He doesn’t move it away; he just glances back once and then back at the drawers in wonderment.

The hand comes off. He can hear you taking off your shirt, leaving your torso bare. This morning’s meeting with your manager and the walking around means you’re quite warm to the touch. You tell the alligator to do the same. You don’t even give him an excuse. It was just going to happen.

The scaled torso is now firmly in your clutches. His thin back is jagged with his scutes and while they could have stopped a number of weapons, they were no defence against a warm-blooded hug. It probably felt like liquid gold spreading through him. Pure comfort. You had always been good at hugs.

You keep him this way so he has plenty of time to see the contents of your desk before you stand up, taking him with you onto his small clawed feet. ‘You’re a little cold, buddy. Let’s get you warmed up.’

While his cheap nylon work trousers were buttoned over his tail, the bright red v-line mini briefs under them were not. Instead, they were raised as high as they would go, which given his pear-shaped proportions, they were only accentuated further. You drop your own trousers onto the floor, along with your underwear, leaving you with just your socks on and him in his skimpy briefs.

You recline your chair and pull him into you, front to front, chest to chest, belly to belly. Maximum surface contact. His coolness is rapidly overpowered by your body’s own heat. You trap one of his legs between both of yours and grip his ass cheeks under his underwear so your palms warm up those too. This reptilian femboy from IT had no chance of escape now.

‘I think you need some warmer clothes. Some thigh-high socks would be a good start for a girl like you,’ you croon into his ear. The alligator doesn’t use words, only satisfied throaty hisses and trying to get closer still. He nods with the idea and tries to nudge his head into the crook of your neck.

You spin the both of you on chair so you can reach into a drawer for the *suspiciously highly lubricating *hand-sanitizer. You squirt it onto your hands and rub them together to warm it up for him. He briefly snaps out of his revery. Clearly, he knows what the sound entailed with personal familiarity.

‘Be gentle, sir,’ he asks in a timid voice ‘I’ve never had a real one before.’

Small surprise then why he’d looked at the interesting selection of silicone you owned that way. He probably wished he had some at home. He probably had a single cheap piece he hid under his bed and was too timid to get something better.

So, you are gentle. For now. You oil up his backside completely. It glistens in the dim light. He shuffles around a bit for a moment, trying to remove his scandalous panties, but you prevent any attempt at that. Good girls had to earn it.

Not even the most diligent human could achieve the same smoothness as a scalie when it came to a hairless ass. Your hands encircle and massage, grope and re-grope. The finer texture on the cheeks means the stimulation you’re giving is much greater than usual. The base of the tail, a dense cluster of nerve endings, gets thorough attention from you too. One of his legs wobbles in the air from it all. The other is pinned between your own and unable to escape the all-encompassing hug. The lube increases the surface contact, forcing more heat onto him.

By this point, you were both hard. The thin red fabric was all that separated you both from full-on dick-to-dick contact. Whether from light frustration or a desire for more heat, his hips moved so that his rubbed against yours. You had thickness, he had length. You could tell he was trying to gyrate his member out of its confines, but you had such total control that no direction had quite enough distance to achieve it.

Your hands finish oiling his cheeks and get on with the main event. In they went and with hardly a fight. At last, a proper butt slut for you to enjoy. One finger goes in, back and forth, the liquid making some very interesting sounds.

‘Good girl,’ you praise him ‘want another?’

He nods, neck on your shoulder, trying to dig his face between your back and the chair. Two fingers go in, a little more resistance, but the fluttering flesh told you its owner had prepared for this exam. Still, even you had your limits to your dexterity. You hoist him up with him still hugging you, and set him down on his back on the desk. He’s looking up his long mouth at you as you lift his legs vertical to expose his hole again. But this time you have all the leverage and he had none. Two fingers go back in, probing.

‘Let’s find that button…’ you study the face, every little twitch acts like a radar ping as you home in on it. You find it very quickly; its owner had played with it a few times before. ‘Let’s see if turning it off and on again a few times helps.’

You massage his bitch-button, watching the yellow of the hide show signs of the pink flesh underneath in response as he blushes. You rub the tip of his penis through the red fabric with your other hand. ‘Do you want these to come off?’ you damn well knew he did.

He nods, arms covering his face to hide his expression.

‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘Yes. Please, sir,’ came the voice. He put on a little feminine tone in those words just then. The alligator was already getting into the spirit of it.

‘Good girl,’ you remove them as promised, leaving the reptile naked on your desk. ‘But something must replace it.’

You select a suitable piece of silicone from your desk. It’s a soft white piece. A tube whose internals are a forest of fun and titillating geometry. You give it a little squeeze like a stress ball so that he can hear the squidgy sound it makes.

‘I bet you’ve always wanted one of these,’ you pull one of his arms away to dispel any lingering doubts. ‘And I bet you want me to use it on you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

You don’t need to lubricate it; the alligator has already provided an ample supply of his own brand. You position it on his tip, and encourage him to thrust into it. Normally, with a tail like his, laying on his back this way was more trouble than it was worth. But, with you supporting his legs over the edge, his tail is free to lash and thump the floor like an irregular metronome and he and you work in tandem.

After long moment you take it away from him suddenly, the sudden lack of stimulation causes him to whine girlishly and thrust into the air fruitlessly.

‘Not before me,’ and you slide yourself into him without much fanfare.

As you begin to enjoy this smooth-bottomed twink, you come to realise this desk hadn’t budged an inch the whole time. Another subtlety that would have gone unnoticed if this had been an ordinary job. A desk like this had probably been commissioned to ensure even the entire heft of the security bull wouldn’t shake it. You privately speculate that the ceiling of this room probably had convenient places to install an entire sex swing assembly with all the accessories if you felt so inclined.

Another thought comes to your mind and you notice that being a reptile, this guy didn’t have any nipples. Just a smooth expanse over a weak chest. The poor guy would never get to experience getting them clamped, and he probably would have really enjoy that. Such a cruel world.

‘If you cum before I do, you will be punished.’

He nods eagerly, then his head goes back as your cock rubs his prostate again. Due to the tail for leverage and probably his private live, he’s able to arch his back for you like this to ensure you strike home with each thrust. His chances of not blowing his load were low already, but they became slim to none when you reintroduce the masturbator. He clenches hard on you as it slides back over him.

His tongue is out now, mouth wide open. He’s swiftly also panting in a desperate attempt to comply with your command. With his only experience being whatever toy he had at home, it is becoming all too much for him very, very rapidly.

Several shuddering spurts splatter his pale-yellow front with globs of fresh white. His hole clenches around you with each one. He looks up at you, perhaps expecting harsh words. You are not like that, but you did tell him he would still be punished. You told him what it would be and when you finished explaining, he could only agree it was what he deserved.

Lunch arrived and so too did Blackthorn. What he found inside your darkened office was a nude alligator bouncing on your lap. At the end of his long mouth, where his nostrils were, were a set of red skimpy underwear. They had been tied so that the scalie was forced to breathe in the smell and be unable to open his jaw. As strong as their downward strength was, it did not take much to keep them shut.

You were only missing your shirt at this point.

‘Who’s this?’ Theodore Blackthorn asks, amused by the sight.

‘You know, I don’t know his name? I hadn’t asked yet,’ you admit ‘tell Mr. Blackthorn here you name, girl.’

‘’Omash.’ Came the muffled reply.

‘Afternoon then, Thomas,’ Blackthorn answered, as if this was a regular everyday occurrence that wasn’t an impossibility in most polite societies. If Blackthorn was okay being seen, he was probably fine with seeing it all too. ‘Mr. Standen and I have a lunch appointment. So, I am afraid we’re going to have to let you get back to your desk.’

You nudge your knee a little harder to encourage Thomas onto his shaky clawed feet and let go of his hands, which you had pinned in place with your own. You slip the masturbator off him with a sticky sucking noise. ‘Clean this and bring it back after lunch,’ you say not unkindly.

Thomas nods, trying to avoid eye contact with the imposing form of your manager while freeing his nose from the fabric with his own scent on it.

‘As for this…’ you grip the metal base that was flush with his anus and slowly extract it. It takes a solid second for his hole to contract back to a reasonable diameter, during which some of your own cum dribbled out of it. ‘You can keep it, as a little treat.’

The expression on his face told you what you already knew, it was like his birthday had come early this year. The best gifts were the ones someone wanted, but wouldn’t buy for themselves. His time in your office was something he had also thoroughly enjoyed; a reward for a task well done, no matter how small it had been.

Blackthorn simply leant against the doorframe as Thomas scampered out of the room and you made yourself presentable once more. ‘He’s cute, reminds me of my boyfriend a little,’ he remarked casually once he was out of sight ‘he’s going to treasure that little lump of chrome.’

‘Confidence is in great supply with a lot of the lawyers, but it’s a tricky commodity to move about to everyone else,’ you say putting your shirt back on.

‘Don’t give out all your confidence, you still need some for yourself.’

‘I don’t think it *actually* works like that, from what I’ve seen so far. The gene just seems to find even the tiniest crack in people’s social armour.’

‘Like I said, it’s not mind control. Come on, let’s get an apple.’

The canteen still had the hustle and bustle of before, but fewer heads turned to see if you were real. The fact you had turned up for day two meant that everyone else was playing it cool in hopes of being selected. The sentiment seemed to be there was no need to ruin their only first impressions. Popularity on this scale was still an alien concept to you and it probably would take some time to fully sink in. Maybe it never would? Maybe you would just wake up each morning with terrible imposter syndrome as a cosmic balance to the sheer good fortune that had been dumped in your lap.

For now, Theodore was acting a bit like Jupiter to Earth, deflecting unwelcome attention asteroids from you and letting them fall into his own ego’s huge gravity well. You couldn’t deny it; he handled fame better than you. It seemed to empower him because the apple couldn’t be providing enough calories.

‘So, tell me,’ you begin, leaning back in your chair, ‘why law, of all things? Don’t tell me you were one of those prodigies who wanted to argue with teachers for a living.’ You wield the cereal bar in your hand like a cigar, swirling it around for added emphasis.

Blackthorn’s ears flicked. ‘Which do you think it is? Prestige, power or the thrill of shaping the world in one’s image?’

‘I see three coconut shells and the ball isn’t under any of them. So, I’d wager none of those are true.’

He gave a single resonant chuckled. ‘It would be true enough for polite company.’

You roll your eyes. ‘Humour me.’

He set the apple down. It rolled slightly, then stopped against the curve of his wrist. His vision becomes less focused as his sight looks inwards. ‘I remember the day one of my classmates shoved me in the playground. What annoyed me wasn’t that it happened, what annoyed me was how he lied about it immediately afterwards. My hooves were scuffed, his were not. To me, it seemed obvious who was at fault. But what angered me was how the teacher took his side and didn’t hear me out.’

You study him. His tone is steady, but the measured cadence of his speech has softened.

‘So,’ he continues, ‘I decided to make a life where truth couldn’t be taken away. Law seemed like the safest place to keep it. The rules are written, the words mean what they mean, and if you’re clever enough, the truth wins.’

‘You became a lawyer because you didn’t like being wrong?’

His eyes narrow, amused. ‘Because I was tired of being *told* I was wrong,’ he corrected quietly. ‘It’s not quite the same thing.’ The apple still sits between his hands, almost forgotten. He looks almost uncertain of what to do with it.

You snatch it up and take a bite out of it before he can object. In turn he pilfers it back from your grip easily and bites over where your lips had been, for that extra sweet taste.

He savours it and swallows. ‘You should come to the gym with me some time.’

‘Is that a veiled insult to my otherwise perfect self?’ you respond wryly.

‘More that with your condition, you may find it difficult to know if you have genuine friends amongst anthros, as opposed to gene-addled sycophants.’

That idea had been forming in the back of your mind. It would be strange to be the object of desire, but not love. A series of endless hookups, and no dates. Some would enjoy that forever, but not you.

‘And you think the gym is the best place for that?’

You had been to a gym, once or twice. You understood the general principles at play there. The weight goes down then you lifted it back up. Sometimes you rotated it and if you were feeling frisky you could also pull it back and forth. There was a certain irony you could enjoy also, such as driving ten miles to walk on a machine.

‘The gym is a nice social experience and, more importantly, *well ventilated*. Anything else is covered by the smell of sweat and feet. Even if you stood next to someone, they’d have to have their muzzle pressed into your armpit to know you carry the gene.’

You didn’t *need* the gym *per se*, you enjoyed sitting at the top of the bell curve for average body types. You briefly imagine your body as trim and immaculate as Blackthorn’s. You weren’t going to deny he and it was an attractive idea, but both were a lot of work. Even so, you could go once a week, break up your sedentary lifestyle and add a few more years to your life. More importantly, a few more years of good physique, which you’ll need if you intend to fuck your way through the Firm and perhaps beyond.

‘There is another thing to consider which you probably haven’t before,’ the horse’s velvety voice brought you back to the canteen ‘and that is networking. I saw your employment history, and you have never had the need to do it before. But you do now.’

You frowned. Networking was one of those words managers used before handing you more work for the same pay. It conjured images of insincere smiles and business cards. And you weren’t a lawyer anyway.

Blackthorn leaned back, folding his arms. ‘It’s not what you think. It isn’t just for lawyers, or the ambitious. Even an admin clerk benefits from being *known*. If people know your face, then you exist beyond your desk. When an opportunity floats by, or a crisis needs fixing, the people who remember you are the ones who decide whether your name comes up or not.’

You hadn’t thought much of it before. In the human world, you showed up, did the work, went home. The lie they all told each other was meritocracy. But it wasn’t, not really. Merit was silent; familiarity spoke louder.

‘And the gym?’ you asked.

‘The gym’s just an excuse,’ Blackthorn said. ‘It’s where people let their guard down. Sweat, grunt, curse – then talk. You’ll learn more about someone on a treadmill than you ever will in a meeting. And I enjoy going.’

In many respects, it made sense. While it was true for humans for a lesser extent, many of the anthros ultimately descended from herd animals. Be part of the herd, be accepted. Be accepted, be valued. You had a new life here. You could reinvent yourself right now.

You pause for a bit. Some fundamental part of you disliked the gym. It wasn’t the exercise, it was the idea that you had a fault that *could*, and thus *needed*, to be fixed. *You can always quit,* offered the committee. ‘*Quit in front of all our new colleagues?’ *you retort back at them.

Screw your doubts. Confidence had gotten you this far. ‘Fine, sure. I’ll go. It’s not like I can’t afford it now.’

‘You don’t sound all that keen?’

‘I don’t think I am used to people being this forward and direct. Even with the whole hidden HDG thing you lot had going on. It’s…strange.’

Blackthorn chuckled softly. ‘You humans are funny creatures. You think of yourselves as individuals, but you spend half your lives terrified of what the rest of you might think. One mistake, one bad impression, and you never forget it, nor let anyone else forget it. That’s your real herd instinct: grudges. You don’t forgive. You *catalogue*.’

You can only nod apologetically. Your two societies did have a number of reasons to live apart, after all.

‘We’ll go on Thursday. It’ll give you enough time to get some gym gear. I know you already know where the shops are.’

This time it was his turn to get up and leave before you could object. He’d given you an order, and somehow made it sound like a favour. The fiendish foal. He really was a good lawyer.

Your office beckoned, you answered the call. An actual job-related task had fallen into your inbox. The advantage with the sort of spreadsheets you come across is that unlike a specialised job, the request was something you could always puzzle out. This was your original method to earn money for a living before you even had the notion of the HDG. However, it was certainly more of a challenge than what you had seen before, and by quite a margin. The email chain that had accumulated under it also spoke of the troubles the others were having with it. Your suspicions around being given false and easy busy-work on the first day in the event you where an attractive dunce grew more concrete as you tried to parse the data. You had done one piece of work correctly and this was your reward. Harder work.

This was the world that wasn’t advertised or spoken about in human society. The secret life of anthros was still just a funny parody of the human one to you. The legal jargon and corporate lingo still existed, and was still as stupid as what you were used to. Both of the worlds still used the phrase ‘Barking up the wrong tree,’ unironically. It was hard to take it all seriously at times.

Easy work on day one, and now actual substantial work on day two? This was a test. It’s live fire training to see what the upper limits of your skill was. You give a single short bark of a laugh to yourself. Humans were merciless and the job market for cushy office jobs was the most competitive thing outside of the Olympics. You’d seen worse than this, and fixed them in less time.

This time however, you had no distractions. You had your own office, eaten lunch, and even had a solid fuck little more than an hour ago. No wonder they wanted a human around. You set to work. You pause only once, to allow the sheepish alligator to return with the toy, freshly cleaned from spunk. You give him your best “maybe next time I’ll let you keep it” look and return to your work.

After giving him a quick playful spank on the smooth backside on the way out, of course.

Chapter 6, Deskwork

“Show me a genuine case of platonic friendship, and I shall show you two old or homely faces.”

*Austin O'Malley

*You walk into your office the next day with a smug expression on your face. Having spent yesterday afternoon furiously typing, checking and rechecking, you had managed to submit the work back to the people in the email before you had left for the day. You aren’t amazing at mathematics, but then again you did not have to be, that’s what the computer and internet searches were for. The ability to trawl the web for solutions is a rarer skill than people think.

Right on cue, Blackthorn arrived on the scene. You swivel the screen around to face him and his nose is drawn to it like a moth. The emails you’d received this morning were part of the long chain from before, but now they were a mixture of relieved thanks and admiration for the speed it had been sent back. It all seemed like what you had submitted was the solution.

Blackthorn’s eyes scanned it all twice, his mouth moving slightly as he did so. ‘Mr. Standen here is more than just a pretty face it seems.’

‘I traded my chance at an artistic career to be good at spreadsheets. It’s about my one and only truly marketable skill.’

‘You have a lot of time to learn another. You would be amazed to learn what my clients learned behind bars.’ Blackthorn scooted around to your side of the desk, spinning the monitor and taking the other chair with him. He leans over and breathes in the smell of your hair unashamedly. ‘Better than coffee,’ he remarks and steals your keyboard out from under your hands. He begins typing an email, equine fingers make the keys click oddly as he goes. You’re about to object to this, but he types faster than your mind can come up with something to say.

You decide to let him finish. What he has produced is essentially an offer to attend the meeting to explain what you had done. It was written differently to how you would have done it, mentioning people by their department titles instead of their names. The act was outside your normal pay grade. There were a lot of acronyms in there you had never seen before, fictional or otherwise.

‘Before I send this Vance, you may decline. But…I think it would be a very important step for you. It normally means more work comes in, but I think given your circumstances that won’t be too much of a concern.’ Blackthorn had put on a serious mentoring tone. The meeting would be this afternoon, and it had clearly been advanced forward by a week.

‘Theodore, I couldn’t possibly begin to explain what half of these acronyms even mean. I just know how to put the numbers together and make them look pretty.’ It wasn’t a protest, but you didn’t feel like looking like an idiot either.

This only served for him to make a few minor edits. ‘There.’ A solid chunk of the fearsome capital letters had been escorted off the premises. ‘Just tell them the truth, you’re new and that you are unfamiliar with the acronyms. They probably won’t even ask about them. Go on. For me?’

He arched his back and wiggled his butt in his seat. It was like he could move his ego around with his centre of gravity and choose to make you look at his eyes or ass at will. It was too early to say no to either, especially since you had decided to not even bother dealing with your morning wood.

‘Send it,’ you command like a captain of a space ship.

Blackthorn presses the button. He flicks his cascading hair over one shoulder and reality gave him a slow-mo effect straight from a shampoo commercial to match.

‘I’m not sure if I deserve an award or if you deserve to be punished.’

Blackthorn puts on a sultry tone. ‘A good manager rewards hard work. And, some positive reinforcement,’ he gives you a half-lidded expression as he runs a finger across his body ‘will help you remember what’s important.’

You are willing to let this clear attempt at dominance slide.

‘Get under the desk. We have work to do.’

You had invented a fun game by the time someone else knocked on the door. There were few games that weren’t fun when a requirement was to have your pants around your ankles. You were preparing for the meeting by working through memorizing the definitions of the remaining acronyms. Blackthorn was helping, head between your thighs, pleasuring you as you recited them back. This time his tongue skill had been much improved.

‘You’ll have to get up, I don’t want to subject a stranger to…this,’ you pat Blackthorn’s nose gently.

He withdraws then only to simply say. ‘It’s fine, send him in. He’ll be fine.’ And then went back to it.

The door knocker was another dog, something chocolate labrador-ish.

‘Your email about the meeting with Mr. Blackthorn? Here’s the files you asked for me to drop off for you, Mr. Standen.’ He is holding a few freshly printed sheets of paper bearing the spreadsheets you had worked on.

Blackthorn made a noise through the cock in his mouth which tickled you nicely, something like a thank you. The horse was acting as if he was just treating himself to a morning protein shake.

‘Theodore is a little busy at the moment, mister…?’

‘Bewick, Luke Bewick. I’m his P.A.’ he extended a paw.

You lean forward to shake it. He can see your groin, and by extension, Blackthorn nose deep in it. They make eye contact. You guess Luke had been informed, but still didn’t quite grasp, the reality of the situation before now. The charming demeanour that all of his kind shared put up a good façade, but you can tell there’s something like awe behind it. He had probably never seen his boss this “compromised” before. The mental image had not matched reality.

Luke looked so chipper, you couldn’t resist a “Who’s a good boy?” and you beckon him to lean in. This sets his tail going. You then ruffle the fur on his head and scratch him behind the ears briefly. This causes him to function as a desk fan all by himself. ‘I have to get back to this. But if you’re his P.A, then I’m sure we’ll be working together again soon.’

It was probably pretty great to be Blackthorn’s personal assistant and also be a dog right now. For the past three days the horse had been hotboxing himself in your scent and then sitting next to him all day. Blackthorn certainly had a dominant personality, so it no doubt extended the gene’s reach even more. Maybe that was why you were working under him specifically?

One of Luke’s feet twitched and thumped the floor until you stopped petting him. Man’s best friend for sure. You had a friend like him when you were young, the sort of friend everyone liked because he liked everyone else. You had only known them for a year before they moved, too pure to exist in your drab world. You were too young at the time to know what unconditional love was, but you saw it for a brief moment in Luke’s eyes here and now. Sure, the adult world had taken the shine off it, but a little elbow grease and it would come back.

‘Theodore is helping me name fingers and point names.’

The horse came up for air. ‘Luke, if you like you can assist Vance here until the meeting starts. Once Vance is *satisfied* with my help, of course.’ He dove down again, head bobbing up and down. He was really getting the hang of it now.

‘If it’s no trouble,’ you offer, ‘and you feel comfortable with it.’ Many paws make light work.

You felt it was likely Luke had acclimated somewhat to your gene’s effects by his proximity to Blackthorn, because he wasn’t a drooling nincompoop like Briggs had rapidly turned into, though that was your only other dog-themed reference outside of Jake. But you doubted anyone was immune to the gene. If you had to guess, it might be much the same way it took a lot to dislike your favourite smell. But even then, you’d love it just as much tomorrow once it cleared. And Luke wasn’t about to turn down his new favourite scent. He took your other seat and flipped through the numbers on the papers front of him.

You, on the other hand, felt Blackthorn was becoming a little too big for his britches. You hold his head in place and then pin it by wrapping one leg behind the back of his head, trapping him in place like a set of medieval stocks. Up until now, the horse had been setting the pace. It would be good for his P.A to see him like this.

You flex your leg, causing the horse to be thrown off rhythm and you keep him that way for the next few moments as you press the head of your dick into every part of his mouth, ensuring no part of it was missed out. You’re not mean though, you still signal to him when you’re about to cum. And you ensure it strikes the whole length of his tongue for maximum mutual benefit. You had started drinking a bit of pineapple juice recently for everyone’s enjoyment. After all, you’d seen the memos about sexual health going around. Since you arrived, people had flocked to prove they were clean and fit. The only other thing that got that much participation were holiday raffles.

You gently stroke the horse’s long muzzle as he swallows and recovers. You can see he’s pleasantly surprised at the taste, because he gives the rest of your shaft a few extra licks to confirm the improved flavour. ‘Maybe I’ll spend a day or so drinking apple juice and give you a real surprise.’

It still impressive how Blackthorn could reset himself from these little trysts. Your leg had messed up his mane, his curly hair had been tussled about and he had spittle around his mouth from when you decided to take over. Yet, it all seemed to reset itself almost on its own. His hands would vaguely participate to keep up the illusion. He was like Teflon: shit just didn’t stick to him. Even his exit from the room was graceful, like you had just been in a play you had all rehearsed and now he simply *Exited: Stage Left.*

‘Has he ever worn anything other than black?’ you ask, zipping up your flies.

‘Not since I’ve worked here,’ Luke’s nose had a life of its own getting the scent in the room, ‘and that’s at least seven years.’

Like nearly everyone else who worked here, Luke Bewick had a two-piece suit. This one was a few shades of royal blue, though he had a tie with matching cufflinks with cartoonish bone motifs. You could never hope to have that much joy in your clothing, but the labrador would be missing a piece without it. You compliment him as such, and he grins widely in return.

‘You end up getting all sorts of them gifted to you. I’ve got one I break out over summer which is covered in pink hambone joints,’ he grins.

You could envy having the demeanour to do something like that. They say fashion is simply confidence, and you had a few types of confidence to draw from, but just not that type. You couldn’t win them all, let someone else have the whackiest tie in the office. You couldn’t pin a butterfly beneath glass and expect it to remain beautiful.

You watch his nose continue to explore the air as he starts to go over the upcoming meeting. You feel a tinge of guilt. ‘I’m sorry for the…smell,’ you find yourself apologising. ‘If it’s too much we can go somewhere more aired out.’ Luke had revealed that he wasn’t suave or mean, nor timid or reserved. It felt almost wrong to subject him to the HDG coming off you.

‘No, no! It’s fine. It’s quite nice, actually. Sorry, was I being rude?’ he asked.

Was *he* being rude? You’re looking at this wholesome bundle of help, heart purer than undriven snow, and *he* was asking *you* if he had been in the wrong? This was clearly divine retribution, punishment for the past few days of wicked, sinful, unmarried butt-fucking you had caused. Even the idea of holding hands with Luke felt like you’d taint him by association.

You can’t see any overt signs of the gene affecting him however. He didn’t look at you distantly through half-lidded bedroom eyes, or pant and drool over your crotch like the others had. There was a lot of eye contact though and his smile was infectious.

Body language. Words. Actions. Use them, Vance. Be at ease.

‘No, not at all. I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.’ You let some of his smile in, there was a lot of it going spare. ‘And I maybe should have asked before petting you. I feel that was rude of me.’

The smile on the dog’s mouth continued earnestly, but the cheer spread to his eyes as well now and somehow enriched them. You would have done anything if it meant it stayed there forever.

‘Actually, I found it very relaxing,’ he paused for a moment and continued ‘maybe don’t go straight for the weak spot next time?’

You find it relaxing too. Lots of humans enjoyed petting non-human things. A human would pack-bond with a cinderblock if you stuck googly eyes and fake fur on it.

You slowly extend a hand towards the underside of his chin, testing for permission. When he didn’t pull away or say anything, you gently give it a few moments of playful attention. Just a little to make up for it.

Luke allowed his head to rest on your palm, and continued to talk about the meeting at the strange angle. He seemed to have a knack for names, because the amount of them he references over the next hour seems endless.

He transitions slowly from sitting next to you, pointing at the screen and occasionally poking at the keyboard, to reclining with his head on your shoulder, eyes closed as he talks. He had such contentment about him. More so now you were cradling him this way.

It felt so nice to make him happy. The way he tilted his head to guide your hand, a small murmur of relaxation beneath his breath, made something inside you unclench. You found the rhythm of his breathing, steady and slow, until your own matched it without meaning to. His tail thudded lazily against your leg. Not in excitement, but in comfort. The sound was oddly domestic. He simply *enjoyed* being here, being useful, being near. He radiated warmth and faint peace, eventually turning your lap into a pillow as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

He had fallen asleep on you by the time lunch rolled around.

You watch as Blackthorn appears outside the window, his reflection sliding across the glass before the real figure followed. You pressed a finger to your lips and nodded towards the sleeping form beside you.

Blackthorn’s expression softened into a theatrical pout. He clasped his hands together in mock sentiment and mouthed, *‘Such a baby.’*

The door opened with barely a sound; he moved as though the air itself parted for him, his dark suit blending into its own shadow.

He crouched beside Luke, placing a large hand on the labrador’s shoulder and giving it the gentlest of nudges.

Luke stirred, eyes blinking open in slow confusion. It took him a moment to orient himself. His ears flicked once, twice, as if searching for context, and then he looked up at you. His expression cycled through a few modes. First with alarm, then dawning realisation. After which followed embarrassment and fondness all at once.

‘Did I-? Oh, I’m so sorry, I must’ve-’ He rubbed at his eyes, sitting upright. ‘I didn’t mean to…fall asleep.’

‘On the contrary,’ Blackthorn said softly, straightening to his full height. ‘It seems you found the most comfortable seat in the office.’

Lunch was a more sophisticated affair this time around. You are all eating something that will sustain you for the upcoming trials. Here you observe a small insight into why the anthro-human world would not come together by tomorrow.

The reason was the contents of Luke’s sandwich. Perfectly formed from the alchemy of modern science was a slice of ‽meat. Colloquially called *Bang Protein* it was 99% the same in all regards as regular meat from animals. The vast majority of humans would not surrender that last 1%. You had to shamefully admit that you could sense the absence too.

You struggle to articulate exactly what it lacked. The only word that seemed to fit was *sin.*

Would you give everything up just to taste that lost corruption again? Hopefully not.

Aside from that, the quick quizzing from the two of them suggested you had managed to absorb enough of the social side of things to get through the meeting hopefully unscathed. You haven’t revised this much since you were in cramming for exams in school. You force down the inevitable feelings that simmered inside you that you’ve made a mistake somewhere and are about to embarrass yourself in front of *The Important People*.

There are meetings to plan action, and meetings to document inaction. Luckily, this one was the former, for the latter marked you as the enemy. Standing on the shoulders of giants was a perilous prospect if they were intent on shaking you off.

Meetings, as a whole, are terrible writing material. They were dull affairs, full of dull people, talking about dull things. This is a shame because you wish someone would write about this one.

Your first easily identifiable face is spotted immediately, because of her spots. Ms. Bellini, a jaguar lady of advanced years, was sitting at the head of the table inside the conference room already. Fresh from the 1980’s, her already striking fur had been accentuated further by some high blue jeans and a salmon-hued blazer sporting some shoulder pads. She had a set of horned-rimmed spectacles on a thin beaded chain to complete the look.

There were others too, from the posters and marketing material as well, but they were situated at the back and those and hadn’t been classified as a threat. They were mostly milling about with the arcane seating arrangements that had rules as complex as a medieval monarchy’s succession laws. Since you had the numbers, you’d be situated at the head of the table with the computer, bypassing the byzantine process entirely. Next to Ms. Bellini.

She wasn’t disarmingly charming, or overtly hostile. She was a secret third option: Patronising.

‘Oh, so you’re the new one?’ she would say with a jovial tone that continued on into ‘when I was your age we didn’t faff around with computers!’, which in turn devolved into ‘are you sure you know how this all works?’

All of it had the same ‘you’re too young for this and you clearly know nothing’ edge that had probably sapped all morale around her for years. She had given up meat to hunt another prey known as ‘self-worth’.

The numbers acted a shield when they came on the big screen. The bright primary colours had the same effect on the upper management as it did on people aged 0 to 3. Blackthorn and Luke left, having other duties to attend to, and left you alone amongst your new acquaintances.

You try to follow along as best you can. You had a few meaningless phrases to act as ablative armour in times like this, such as the ever reliable ‘it’s all a matter of balance’ which could be inserted as a response to nearly anything in times like this. But eventually, the spotlight turned upon you fully.

In reality, the change you had made to the data was fairly simple. Too much had been attempted all in one go, things had got lost somewhere amongst it all and things which should have indicated green or yellow had turned orange or red and no-one knew what had gone wrong. You point to a major culprit on the screen.

Someone raised a paw. You didn’t recognise them immediately. It was another dog, a slab of a rottweiler. An impressive specimen of one too.

‘The way you’ve done all this means it doesn’t fit on the paper anymore,’ this was really shorthand for ‘we’ve always done it this way, why did you change it?’ he had a version which showed all your workings, which did look ugly, admittedly. You had prepared for this and slid him your copy across the table, in front of everyone. Aside from the correct numbers, it was indistinguishable from the original. Pretty colours all round.

This started the verbal fencing match for the next hour. At first, the rottweiler was grumpy and stubborn. But with each rebuttal the grouchy attitude was replaced with something you were failing to name. The questions became more technical as well, he was really trying to find a fault with it, and you’re spending more time on ripostes than you thought you’d need. He goes in for the coup de grâce, and you respond by making the numbers dance in front of you both before the live studio audience.

*Two samurai swing

Their blades are numbers flashing

A slain dog grins blood

*Was that…was he happy to be told he was wrong? The room had the air conditioning on and was pretty large, it can’t have been the human domestication effect on him making him subtly adjust his suit’s slacks.

The brief moment pushed all the others to sides; it was just you and him. He had this appeal to him, the same way a steep hill on a hike did. It wanted you to climb it, it wanted to be conquered. It wasn’t going to let it happen, but it wishes to see the result.

You can’t tell what he’s seeing in you, the one second you spend in this moment isn’t long enough to know. *Admiration?* suggested something inside you.

The rest of the meeting continued on as you sat back down. You are having to control your breathing, that duel had taken it out of you.

You nod along at the appropriate times, but your focus is on the rottweiler. You watch his broad shoulder roll when he leant forward to read the papers in front of him, the flash of brown amongst his black fur when he turned his paw over, or scratched his chin. He still had this outward frown, but now it had been tinted with that certain unknown something.

When the meeting broke and he rose with the others, what the table and the tailoring had concealed was suddenly revealed. The suit had done its best to disguise it, but his build was impossible to ignore once he moved.

He was a meaty hound. Arms, legs, thighs, waist, neck, everything, it was all built with substance. Not fat, but marbled, like the forbidden steaks from back home. The strength was streaked with softness, dense but unpretentious. It was the sort of strength that you normally associated with timber beams. The muscles didn’t strain against the bulk, they were bolstered by it, a weight they were comfortable living in. You hang back purely to watch his glutes work, which carried him without effort, down to his thighs which could shatter watermelons. There were triceps you could swing from. A belly with credentials. There was even a cute stubby tail to tie it all together.

It's too late to ask his name now, that was the price of this victory.

Chapter 7, Non-Compete Claws

“Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as far as meaningless experiences go it’s pretty damn good.”

*Woody Allen*

It would take time for the results of that meeting to filter through to the wider reaches of the firm. Things like that could be glacially slow if paperwork got involved. It was entirely possible that all the work you had did, with all the people involved, would amount to nothing tangible. It might be that the staff members wouldn’t recall the specifics, only that you had been there at the front of it all. A lot of logical processes like this got reduced down to what emotion it evoked when recalled a week later. Did I feel happy? Use it. Did I feel sad? Throw it out. Never ask how the sausage was made.

You are not about to go home yet, you had promised yourself you would get some gym clothes. If you bought them now, you would feel obliged to use them at least once.

This would have been an unremarkable walk to the shopping centre again, except for the past few minutes since you got into the elevator you had found yourself walking side-by-side next to the droopy-faced dog from your first day. You feel the tinge of second-hand embarrassment again remembering him recoiling back at your arrival and you are having to do your best to cram the feeling back down.

It has now become even more awkward because for the past two turns on the pavement you have made a polite wave to silently acknowledge a mutual goodbye, and he’s mumbled that he’s also going that way. It was something about gloves? It was hard to make him out over the usual hustle and bustle of an inner-city street.

You were so busy trying to politely split up from him without being obviously offensive that you haven’t noticed you’ve become flanked by four new individuals. Two behind you, one to side next to the road and another in front. All wolves.

City streets essentially came in three broad categories: Touristy, copy-paste residential, and grey utility. Where this was taking place was grim and grey, a path that avoided traffic for a direct path, which also is an excellent place to get mugged.

You had managed to go your whole life without this happening. In your mind you imagined a fantasy of superpowers or maybe a hidden weapon and a gritty speech fit for a noir movie. Of course, you had also accepted you enjoyed having your organs and blood inside you, and you could cancel your bank cards before any major damaged occurred. You’d hand it all over, then go to the bank, then head back to the office and explain it all to someone to fix everything else.

One of them pulled something out of a pocket. It was too chunky to be a knife, too small to be a gun. But it didn’t bode well. You also now notice all four of them are wearing the same dark clothes which had a certain discount tactical look to it. The chunky device sparked angerly. Ah, a taser. Years of internet videos had repeatedly informed you those hurt and you were not about to see if that was just a mass lie by Big Taser. As they closed in on you and your colleague, they also pulled air filters over their muzzles.

A part of you was impressed. It was only day three and you were already about to be kidnapped. Maybe it was the sex toys from yesterday that had tipped them off. You could yell, but the streets would swallow it and the city then disperse it. Reaching for your phone was out of the question.

‘Hands up,’ said one, voice partially muffled by the mask ‘and walk.’

He gestured with the taser towards another narrow alleyway. Droopy was encouraged to go as well. You decide to consider your options and consult The Committee.

Instead of your usual spot at the head of the table, your perspective found itself merely close to it instead. To one side, was the many versions of You, each frantically working at a solution. To the other were the only two metaphorical entities with more authority than the actual “you”.

At the head of the table, featureless and feral, was a part of you that had rarely seen action and you hardly recognised these days: Instinct. It was joined by its consort, who you had used most every day of your life, Intuition, who was hanging onto its arm with a casual languishing pose.

Instinct pushed three chequebooks across the table in front of you. Fight, flight and freeze. You can only ever pick one and each was priced extortionately high.

You couldn’t fight one wolf, let alone four. Your colleague did not have the physique of a secret agent and was actively quivering in his nylon spats. No help there. Fight was discarded.

Flight was also a no-starter. You were literally about to start going to a gym tomorrow supposedly. You’d get around ten steps at best and then get tased.

Well, you were hoping you weren’t a “freeze” sort of guy when you imagined these scenarios, but reality was often disappointing. You sign the cheque and slide it back.

Intuition’s delicate hand got to it before Instinct’s grubby mitts did and wrote something on the back a small curly font. “Smile.”

You find yourself smiling, with your back straight. Yes, sure. You got kidnapped all the time, well done everybody. What a nice black van that is, is that a rental? The masks are a nice touch, matching uniforms too? Very nice.

*Don’t panic.* Panic wasn’t an option Instinct had presented.

Two of them got in the front, the other two instructed you and the dog into the back. It was padded, which meant it was soundproof. At least you were being kidnapped comfortably. You wonder about the future. Your mind conjured the image of you chained up in some sleezy CEO’s basement straight out of a crime podcast. But you also could imagine worse so your brain changed the scenery around to be a foreign country where people disappeared, the places that appeared at the bottom of graphs for all the wrong reasons.

They put you and the dog in handcuffs and not the fun fluffy kind.

While Instinct and Intuition were at the wheel, the rest of the committee had been working hard. They all agreed on one thing. You had to get their masks off. You had one tool, one weapon, one superpower. The committee had found a something and replayed a clip from your first day.

“Body language, confidence, words.”

A simple cloth gag was tied tightly around your mouth. The door to the van was shut, trapping you in with the wolves and the unmasked but also gagged dog colleague. It probably wouldn’t have helped to have anyone else in here, to be fair.

You don’t resist; in fact, you turn your head to make it easier. This was routine, everyone knows you’re a HDG carrier, so what? You try to give the impression you that expected it. The van starts up and begins moving. You begin sweating because words were also starting to look like not an option with this gag on.

No actions, no words. All you had was restricted body language. You go for broke.

You fix one of the wolves with a stare. He’s not looking your way, professionally acting detached from the situation. Even so, he can feel your eyes drilling into him. You don’t move your head, instead you intensify the look in your eyes. You’re not going for anger, you’re going for disappointment. A parent catching their child with a hand in the cookie jar. The wolf’s eyes look at you, if only for a moment. You tilt your head. *Don’t make me count to three.* He looks at you again, and his eyes make full contact.

You aren’t seat belted down. Hard edges make escape possible and the padding was an unofficial addition to the internals. You maintain connection with the wolf, you cannot afford to lose it or look at the other one. The gag would stop articulate speech, but you just had to make it plain and simple. You stand up against the movement of the vehicle. The low ceiling means you have to tilt your head down but that only makes you look bigger. In the same disappointed parent tone your eyes had, you firmly speak as best you can do through the gag. ‘Take his mask off.’

The other wolf was reaching for something as you stood, probably his taser or maybe a walkie-talkie. You don’t break eye contact with the first wolf but quickly bark ‘Drop it.’

The second wolf hesitates, but only for a moment. With no eye contact or smell, only your body language and muffled words had any sway over him. The first wolf had a paw on the other’s mask and was now having a sort of slap fight over it. The mask didn’t come off, but it did break its seal for a moment.

‘Take off your masks.’ You command in a tone that defiance was unthinkable to you. They didn’t need to take them off entirely, once the seal broke again and they both took another sniff of the air, with your extra sweat on you, it was over. Your gag comes off moments later.

You look around behind you, the partition between the driver and the cargo had a hatch. No doubt to check on the prisoner if needed. This is where blind luck and Intuition hoped the other two didn’t have masks on. Driving down a street with them on would be suspicious and you can’t move quickly in rush hour traffic.

‘Open it,’ you bark the command, since you couldn’t have done it with the cuffs behind your back.

They both stumble to obey, the smell catching up with the other catalysts. Droopy was sitting there in stunned silence, utterly perplexed.

The hatch was unlocked and the air mingled.

Men are men, and thus fell to the same weaknesses. ‘Good boys like you deserve a little taste before the boss gets to keep me forever,’ you say in your best tempting seductress voices.

You don’t know where they pulled over, but at least you had stopped their progress. They quickly shut the doors again as they entered. So long as they were closed, the air would only thicken with the scent. The only other issue was, that as soon as one of them was “satisfied” the hold you had on them all would break. All this bought you was merely a little time, but you instantly decide that was an acceptable transaction.

‘Why don’t we all get a bit comfortable? Someone help me with these,’ you gesture with your arms behind your back.

‘Yeah, we’ll all get nice and cosy,’ said one. He lifts your shirt up and over your head, leaving it trapped between your cuffs and back. Shit. You knew that it wasn’t mind control but you were hoping for more than this.

The other wolves did the same, and removed their uniform jumpers and shirts. Grey, Light Black, Brown-with-a-Black-Streak, and Two-Tone. They all had roughly the same physique, slightly scrawny with puffed up chests.

Two-tone seemed to be in charge, because he was investigating you first. You straighten your back as much as possible and move your arms up to expose your armpits to him. ‘The boss should get the first taste,’ you say like a pirate handing out shares of plunder. The wolves nodded in agreement. One nudges another with a playful elbow in the universal language of ‘We’re gunna eat well tonight!’

Wolves, on the whole, are a lot bigger than dogs. It’s hard to really grasp it until you see the comparison for yourself in person. A large head is at chest level with you now. A single tongue-lick tastes the salt of your sweat running down one of your ribs.

You give the rest of them a disdainful look, ‘Real men don’t fuck with their pants on. Lose them. Rush hour won’t be over for a while, and I won’t tell your boss.’

They all look at each other. No-one wanted to be first, but no-one wanted to be last, either. You help them all by barking out ‘Now!’

Three pairs of pocket-heavy tactical trousers fall. Their leader, Two-Tone, cockily drops his last, undoing the metal belt buckle slowly in what he probably thought was an intimidating manner. It didn’t help he was just as hampered as you were by the low ceiling, so it lost much of its impact. Droopy continued to sit, fully clothed and gawking still.

You take off your shoes and kick them to the far end of the van. Two shoes, three wolves. You saw immediately you were going to need to buy a new pair if you got out of this. You give Two-Tone a look of *‘Well, we’re waiting?’* and bounced on your heels. He roughly removes your trousers and underwear and those are tossed to the side as well.

It's weird, sometimes you feel more naked with just socks on than you do entirely unclothed. The threatening wolves’ aura didn’t help much either. Size-wise, Grey had the advantage on the average selection of his comrades. You wouldn’t say that of course, you needed them all to like you. Sometimes being a top meant finding other things to compliment.

They weren’t going to take your cuffs off of you, but there was the next best thing. You motion your arms again. ‘Let’s move these around to the front so I can feel just how *jacked* you are.’

Two-tone snarled at his driver, Streaked, and the tiny key was produced from a discarded pocket, your wrists brought in front of you and re-locked, and the key put back in. At least you knew where your set was, it wasn’t a plan but it was a start. The real trick would be getting your pants back on.

Your comb your hands down the fluffy fur of Two-Tone’s neck and chest. You may as well enjoy yourself before being sold into slavery. Your fingers leave grooves as you rake. ‘Tense for me, I like a guy with a 6-pack.’

You would have said you liked the texture of dropped lasagna if you thought it would keep him from driving.

You allow your hands to go lower, past the chest and onto the belly. You slowly thump your fingers along the ridges and grooves of the muscle there. It wasn’t a physique from a gym routine, it was someone who didn’t eat enough and did an active job, but it still had some positive aesthetics.

He's already erect, and had been since the first taste of your sweat. It was a pure and undiluted drug to him. This close to him you don’t raise your voice. ‘You want the good stuff, don’t you? A little more meaty and salty? It would be really cool of you to tell the others to come over here, make them work me up, then you could get the prize at the end.’

You have never been in an orgy before. Occasionally the idea appealed, but unlike porn movies you typically were not interested in most of the people who went to orgies in real life. Here, well, you could make it work. Shame about the circumstances. They did have nice fluffy chests. Plus, you had to keep them all in balance. Any one of them could snap out of it if left unattended.

‘You three, stop fucking his fucking shoes and get over here,’ snarled Two-Tone.

It becomes very cramped all at once and you are bowled to the padded floor. You find yourself on your back, face to face with Two-Tone next to you. Big dicked Grey and Streaked were on either leg, faces towards your groin and Light Black at the far back immediately revealed himself to have a bit of a foot fetish. Not your thing, but not an issue.

‘Maybe we don’t take you to the boss, and we keep you instead, human,’ said Two-Tone, his hot breath washed over your face. It didn’t smell great.

You reach over his head with both arms for a rudimentary shoulder hug and ignore the breath. It’s amazing what you can ignore with two wolves lapping at your junk.

The cocky attitude the leader had meant it was very easy to see his face go strange momentarily when the hug landed. People like him had upbringings with very few of them.

‘Hmm, four big scary wolves to myself? Doesn’t sound so bad,’ you reply with fake coyness.

He runs a claw down your cheek and to your chin. ‘Yeah, we ain’t bad. But we know you’re worth a lot of money. I need more than a little belly rub to be convinced.’

‘I bet you want to know what your boss wants from me.’

‘He thinks it’s worth hiring us to steal you for it.’ His face is very close to your own. You pull his face closer with the hug. It’s a shame, under better circumstances you’d probably fuck each one of these guys back at the office. With a bit of food, a nice suit, and a better taste in underwear they’d polish up nicely.

Internally, you brace. You force your tongue into his mouth and you both do battle. He had the dexterity, but not the strength. At first, he dodges your own flesh, but your run your hands around the scruff of his neck to soften him up and they meet and duel. You don’t let him win at all, and you make him have to force his head away for air.

‘Oh yeah, I think the boss can wait.’

He straddling you now on his knees. Behind him the two wolves working on your junk are having a lot of fun.

You can’t see it, but you can feel it. They definitely had the hots for each other. Two somewhat attractive wolves in uniform? They probably sneaked glances at each other in the showers after work. They were both working your shaft, mouths on either side. But you can feel it when their lips meet and tongues come into contact with each other. At first it was tentative, a thinly veiled excuse of contact, but now it had evolved into its own microcosm. They were probably staring into each other’s eyes, now realising they both now had feelings for each other in this heterosexual dominated industry.

You were dangerously close to cumming with all this stimulation, plus the situation added a lot of thrill. You had to get them off your dick.

‘Tell those two to come up here. You’ll want to see this for yourself.’

There wasn’t enough space, so everyone had to shuffle around you, but it released the stimulation for a brief moment.

Foot guy continued to do his own thing, not quite confident enough yet to start whacking himself off before the boss.

Streaked and Grey knelt either side of you while you hauled yourself upright with your back against the wall.

You gesture with your handcuffs. ‘Closer boys.’

They shuffled closer.

‘Closer.’

They shuffled again. They could see where this was going but didn’t want to seem too eager at the prospect in front of their leader. Your hands are in *just* the right grip that their dicks would *just happen* to fit.

Oh, would you look at that? Both of our genitals appear to have accidently simultaneously ended up in the highly dexterous palms of this here human! Our mistake, boss! We’re very much not gay. Well, whilst we’re here, we may as well partake in the sins of the flesh.

You begin to work them both. Even with your wrists cuffed, you can still rotate them enough to make the two members touch at the tips and rub together. You had control over their pleasure. Their boss knew this too, which is why you ask him out of all of you who gets to cum first. Obviously, being the boss, it should be him.

When he agrees you immediately let go of your grip. Their members are pulsing pre out and have been edged delightfully. They both look at him with pleading eyes. You can see Two-Toned likes the idea of having this sort of power over people and you would be the key to getting it.

With them all distracted you make motions with your eyes to your colleague, who has mostly curled himself up in the corner to try and somehow fold himself out of the situation. The message was simple: Get near the door, make it look like your making room. Don’t get out. Wait.

Maybe you’d be able to convince the others to let him go and hope he’d do something to save you. Key and droopy. Two plans, it was a sort of progress.

You didn’t know a single thing about wolf-human foot fetishists. Light Black could be moments from cumming for all you knew. So, you put on an air of mystery. ‘Last wolf to cum gets something extra special from me.’

Even you didn’t know what that was going to be, but at least it sounded persuasive.

Droopy was reaching for the door. For fuck’s sake. You’d slap your forehead if your hands were free. All this scheming and planning and none of you would be climaxing before you got put in a cellar forever. He was fully dressed, so maybe it would work? You had a nickname for people like him: Foreskin. Because they tended to disappear when things got hard.

For safety, all vehicle doors like this unlock from the inside. The dog probably concluded that with all the others naked he’d get a good enough head start. He was surprisingly dexterous, despite his appearance, because he managed to pop the door open and then for some reason dove to one side and curled up again. HDG must have turned his brain to mush.

However, you immediately saw why he had done so. A vengeful mountain was parked out on the other side. Two large arms filled the van’s rear end and grabbed the two nearest wolves in each hand. With a single yank and a yelp both of them were heaved bodily from the van without much fanfare. You watch as the mountain held them aloft for a moment and then slammed both their heads together. It dropped them onto the pavement like sacks of potatoes.

Then the whole van groaned as the mountain stepped inside to get the remaining two. The wolves were certainly slowed by the gene, but even you couldn’t figure out what to do in this situation and sat there dumbfounded. The whole van dipped down under the sudden weight, creaking and groaning as if it had contracted terrible bowel problems. Two horns shredded the fabric padding on the ceiling like a knife through rice paper and insultation fell like snow as the arms reached for their next victims.

The weight and fur were removed from you with ease. The leader, Two-Tone, scrabbled at the arm holding him. Teeth bit at the huge fingers, feet clawed at the air and scraped the arm. All to no avail. In return, he was raised high into the air and then slammed bodily onto the pavement, where he bounced once from the impact.

You couldn’t see what he did next, you assume he tried to get up, but whatever it was it had clearly been the wrong choice. The mountain struck out and kicked him in the ribs, one of which snapped with a sound like a gunshot.

At least that had been relatively quick, long-schlong Grey was still flailing above the ground in the mountain’s other fist and could only watch it all happen. For the wolf, the next second probably stretched out towards infinity. You watched as the free arm was brought back as far as it would go. Then the hand formed into a fist-like cannonball before it slammed home into the wolf’s midriff. He was dropped painfully to his knees, where he promptly vomited from the pain and impact. A hoof to the backside sent him forward into his own lunch and he didn’t get back up, opting instead to lay on the floor groaning, foetal and trembling.

‘Are you decent in there?’ came a familiar rumbling voice.

‘Ghaid?’ you ask, scrabbling for the tactical pocket your key was in.

The bull waited a moment before extracting you, scooping you into his arms from the vehicle like a child. You didn’t resist, though it was not as if you could have.

You felt smaller in his grip than you did beneath the four wolves. Maybe he wanted to shield you from the source of smell of all the blood and vomit.

‘You can put me down now, Ghaid.’

There was a brief bit of reluctance, he was probably more worried than you were, but eventually he put you back on your feet and brought out your shoes for good measure. They were a bit chewed, but serviceable.

Two wolves were out cold, another one was wheezing like an old set of bellows and the final one resembled a living question mark.

‘And how are you holding up, Reginald?’

Oh, so that was his name.

‘I’m fine, I think. Mr. Standen did most of the work. Glad I saw you through the gap.’

‘You’re rather alert for someone who’s been breathing in HDG-laden sweat for the past few minutes, Reg.’ you remark. It was weird, he hadn’t stumbled in the van, or fallen under the command of your voice or anything really.

‘Oh, it’s nothing really. I’m asexual, I think it’s called.’

Chapter 8, Fashion Statement

“I want to undress you, vulgarize you a bit.”

*Henry Miller*

You thought you knew what authority felt like, but walking down a street with Ghaid Harrisson made you think again. Crowds parted around him like a sort of reverse gravity. People otherwise occupied with other things subconsciously moved rather than be in the way of him. Manual doors spontaneously became automatic in his presence.

‘How did you know where I was?’ you ask him, craning your neck comically to direct your voice towards him.

‘Vance, the Firm has done, and will do, a lot of things to keep you with it. It won’t surprise you to learn there is nearly always someone watching you.’

‘Clearly someone else had been too.’

‘Correct,’ he flexed and cracked his knuckles on the hand that had punched one of the wolves, each one sounded like a snapping log. ‘But they’ll stop now and try and find someone else to bother.’

You had to take his word on it, you supposed. When the wolves’ masters turn up and find their mercenary squad in the hospital later, word would get out. Being found naked on a back street with a broken van also probably did few favours for one’s own reputation.

You appreciate the bull being there with you. It was a rare thing for you to feel vulnerable in your largely risk-free life. Sure, there was rejection from potential dates, but that was a mere shadow compared to what had just happened.

‘Plus, I would feel devastated to have allowed anything to happen to you, especially after Monday night,’ he added.

‘Monday night? What happened-’ then you make the connection. ‘Oh, got lucky, did we?’

Ghaid rubbed his muzzle a little embarrassed, as if doing so he could coax the words back in from your ears. ‘Yes,’ he eventually said when it didn’t work, ‘Yes I did.’

You refrain from ribbing him. The tone of his voice had a giddy edge to it. You could see him gently turning the memory over in his mind like a delicate filigree bauble. He was admiring it, seeing new details with the introspection.

‘When I came home that day I sat down on the sofa. My wife, Cathy, she acted…differently. She came into the room and watched T.V with me. That quiz show was on, you know the one. I don’t remember the question, but I had told her the answer and she looked at me and said…’ he paused. Like you might pause to savour a drop of good wine. ‘She said that she loved that I knew little things like that. But then she asked me if I knew what her favourite snack was. “It’s those honey oat bites,” I told her. It seemed like such a simple question, but she came over to me and…’ Ghaid’s lips purse with the memory. He’s remembering the taste of her kiss like it was that drop of wine.

He stops in the middle of the street, the crowd slowly flows around you both like a summer stream, unable to approach the bull in his revery. His mind is inwards, reliving it, floating weightlessly in the warmth.

He snaps back to the present. He had cleared the words stuck in his throat. ‘…and it felt different. The rest of the night, it all felt…different.’ He started walking again, but with a lightness as if he could walk on clouds.

Unsurprisingly, Ghaid knew what was best to buy in a sports outlet. Plus, he could reach the top shelves. Very few races didn’t have tails, so the selection for humans was fairly limited when it came to gym shorts. Not many anthros bothered with shoes or trainers either, but that meant that they mostly catered to humans. So, it balanced out.

Whilst you were in there however, the bull did stop and covertly ask you which of the jockstraps you thought he would look better in. A guy like him, you whisper back, the more provocative the better. You point to one which would have turned the most heads in the changing rooms, which to your surprised pleasure he does get for himself.

It was true what they say, you live within your means. Your pay went up, and so did your expenses. Again, if this all fell apart, maybe you’d join a running group.

Ghaid offered to drive you home. While the taxi was probably safe, a small bit of you rebelled against it and wanted the extra safety. It felt a bit like failure, you had hoped you would casually shrug off the event in a burst of stoicism. You partially rationalise it as being polite to not refuse the offer, but the same small part also wanted the reassurance.

It did mean the windows had to be opened a bit, which made it a chilly ride on the way back home. He drove a 4x4, which was comically out of place in the city, but what else could have conveyed the bovid’s weight? It was probably surprisingly expensive to buy everything large and reinforced.

Outside the door to your block of flats, you nod at the plastic bag holding the bull’s new underwear. ‘Want to make sure those fit?’

He texted his wife and told her he was at my home. This, apparently, was fine. Blackthorn was right, anthros really did view it all differently from humans. To them, it wasn’t cheating. He loved her, this was simply something else, and they’d both be fine with it.

Your flat had yet to be fully unpacked, so it appeared clean when it otherwise probably wouldn’t. Half of it was still in cardboard boxes, stacked in corners behind doors. It was still a small miracle that the great bull could move about freely. Clearly, he was used to the size differences. He managed to effortlessly dodge the ceiling lampshade each time he passed it, despite his height.

Your place was nothing special, something you could afford on your originally expected lower pay grade. A bedroom, a bathroom, and a room for everything else. There was a balcony too, but it was little more than a defunct smoking spot, not even large enough to put out a deckchair.

Ghaid gave your sofa a perfunctory prod, then decided by years of experience that it would not hold his weight and sat in front of it. You kick your shoes off and take up an elevated seat behind him.

His shoulders were tense, but whether from the earlier violence or the thought of what was about to happen, you didn’t know. It didn’t seem right to ask him. From your vantage spot, you gently put your hands on him and began to uncoil the tension inside him.

You start with his neck, hands moving around to his throat and chin, tipping his head back into your lap.

‘Can I touch your horns?’ That seemed to you, out of all of him, the only part few people touched willingly. He clearly took great pride in them, more than his clothing at least. He had sharpened the ends, smoothed and polished the off-white surface and even put a coat of varnish on them so that they shined like deadly marble.

‘Please,’ he said invitingly. The idea tantalized him. You also could tell he was happy someone had noticed the work he had put into them. They were, in their own way, a sort of fashion statement all on their own. Look at me, they said, we serve as we should and proudly.

He kept stock still, only his eyes moved to watch your fingers slide over the surface. If a human’s finger found it smooth, then it was so . You inevitably test the points, which are dark needle-sharp tips. Woe betide anyone who got on the wrong side of those.

He was enjoying the scrutiny and the little expressions that made their way onto your face.

Your whole house smelled of you, and his head was in your hands. The tension in him was slowly melting out of him under your ministrations. Your hands work the spot around where his horns meet his skull, then they return to his chin before stroking the softness of his muzzle. His eyes close as he relaxes further.

A delicate kiss is planted on a passing finger, the smallness of the gesture incongruent to the sheer scale of its owner. A little sign that he has unwound himself enough.

He rises to his hooves again and begins to remove his shirt. In doing so, you can see he could have easily placed his palms flat against your ceiling. He tosses it down next to you, three of you could have fitted inside it. It smelled clean. He hadn’t even broken a sweat during the whole day.

He faces you now, his jeans come down without your intervention. It’s not control; it’s submission. He knows what you want, and he wants to show it off. Naked except for the black sports-brand jockstrap, he is a renaissance artist’s idea of a demigod. He could have hunched his shoulders and lifted the ceiling like Atlas and the heavens.

You are taking it all in, the power in all its myriad forms that he wields. He points to a chair tucked into your dinner table.

‘Take a seat.’

You oblige, setting it down and sitting in it. With one hand and exaggerated care, he lifts you and it off the ground until your head is just above his, inches from the ceiling. His arm does not tremble, holding the underside with such perfect surety. It’s a thespian pose to recite a grand soliloquy.

You’re laughing at this, it’s absurd. He’s smiling at your laugh in return.

He slowly pivots on the spot, causing you to orbit slowly around the room once before he sets you gently down again. He had wanted show you this, to experience his strength through a lens of his choosing. One that made others happy, for a change.

You stand from the chair and raise your arms above your head. He delicately removes your shirt. You save him the trouble of everything else however and he uses your momentary distraction to inhale deeply from the fabric. He goes to drop it next to his own when you’re finished, but you put it back in his hand. The bull could have as much as he liked. He takes another sniff then, burying his nose in the shirt with reckless abandon having been given permission to indulge himself.

You guide him onto his back onto the floor, tossing a sofa pillow for his head to rest on. It is a complicated operation to ensure he wouldn’t crash into anything in his new state, but you both manage.

Here, you could start low, exploring the contours of his legs without them under load. He isn’t flexible, that’s for sure. It’s like a mixture of spelunking and mountaineering as you place your hands upon it all. Up the shins, around the sensitive reverse of the knee, to the wide-open fields of the thigh and onwards toward the flank.

As you progress up him, raising a leg over your shoulder as you go, you expose him more and more. His genitals, within their cloth confines, are no longer shielded by his legs like this. They hang heavy, rendered smooth by the underwear that contrasts to the shaggy fur that surrounds it all.

His torso is a mattress, plush and warm. You lay upon it, as it rises and falls with his breathing. One arm is straight out to the side, holding onto the bottom of a table leg, anchoring him from throwing you off.

He's enjoying the used shirt, but you know what he would enjoy more. You gently extract the shirt from his grip, which temporarily fought against the injustice, but quickly accepted the substitute, your own underwear.

He tentatively holds it to his nose, not wanting to just admit straight out of hand he craved it. You push it against his muzzle; he still needed that little extra permission. His strength fled his body, and neither his mind or soul sought to remove you. He’s making little bass huffing noises, turning his head this way and that both trying to get away from your hand but also to dig in deeper to the very thickly cloying smell of you.

You look back. His cock has escaped. You scoot back and free his pendulous balls and thick meat, pushing the fabric so could watch from the sidelines. There was no measurement you could have beaten him at here. Girthy, weighty, and as hard as a diamond. There was enough semen was stored in those balls to father an entire stadium and the parking lot outside. You would make him waste it upon himself. To see it spent uselessly was what would please you most. To show him who was the stronger male.

You press the two members together and being to work them both. His greater size meant you could feel every bit of his pleasure as if it was your own, he couldn’t hide anything from you, from heartbeat to heartbeat.

His tail shifted back and forth between both your legs as you continued the act. The heat coming off of his member compared to yours was outstanding, the simple difference in scale meant it was more like a living sex toy to you. You used it as such, dominating it for your own whims. It is made to retreat, to feel small in comparison. Brought low and subjugated. Pressed flat against the owner and pinned. You made it clear his submission was inevitable.

Up and down your hand went, but always you kept you both in contact. He was enjoying it more than he thought he would have. Hot precum oozed from the tip, warmed by his own internal heat. It treacherously helped you both along. It dribbled past you in thick hot rivulets, past his smooth balls and caught at the base of his flicking tail. Each time you teased the most sensitive parts of him he’d tense, and his ass would clench, and draw in the lubrication.

That settled it. You’d have to fuck it now. It was doing all the work for you.

You reach over and pull both the large cushions off your sofa. Ghaid, not being used to doing this sort of thing, and was slow on the uptake. He’d been made slower by the raw HDG he had crammed his nose into as well.

He was ungainly like this, which made watching him mount the pillows under his ass endearing. His weight squashed them both severely, but they served their purpose well enough.

This pose suited him well too. You tell him as much. He looked good on his back with his huge ass in the air, balls in your grip, drooling cum onto himself. Each word you tease the bull with only makes it worse for him. For him, vulnerability was forbidden, and what was forbidden was erotic.

You’re slowly jerking him off now, double handed. All the way to the base, pulling everything back for show, all the way to the top to get it fully relubricated. Slowly and surely. Fluid cascades down his perineum and into his hole with each cycle.

But now you could see the pink donut on full display, his legs and thighs wide apart and in the air. Even on his back you have to practically stand as you guide him into receiving the mating press you bestow upon his rump.

He may be huge, but he’s still tight. You have your whole body and his legs for support, which is just enough to gain entry. Everything inside is hot and moist and it’s all clamping down on you from every angle. You probably should have fingered him a little, but then again, you’d miss out on this sensation.

Your hands are raking through the fur on his legs, leaving grooves in their wake. You turn his lower body into a zen garden of swirling patterns as you pound into him.

At first, what he is feeling is just enough for him to bare. He’s still taking drags of scent from your underwear like an inhaler and each time he does his back arches a little bit. But you want to see him twist more to your touch. You change angles, hitting bits of him he probably didn’t know existed. Fresh heat is found and his other hand grips harder on the table leg.

You give him a few playful spanks on his flank. It’s impossible to miss. They don’t have a chance of hurting him, you’re mostly doing it for your own amusement. You’re probably one of a very select few people who have struck him and would get away with it unscathed.

His ass is great. You compliment it and him again, reminding him how soft he is. You slow down and deepen your thrusts, changing the angle again to find his spot. His nuts are huge and his prostate is scaled up to match. You give it as much stimulation as you can with your cock, rubbing over it with deep, long movements of your hips.

Each stroke forces a fresh spurt from him when you reach the midpoint and squash his button the deepest.

‘Shit…shit, I’m close-’ Ghaid takes the fabric from his nose, attempting to prolong the experience. You slow your pace in response. Maybe he was a tad overstimulated.

‘Easy there big guy. Use your words.’

He’s looking around, assessing. ‘I’m going make a m-mess.’

How sweet, he didn’t want your combination living room looking like a ghost had slimed it up. You rapidly pick up the pace, full speed, full depth. With one hand you stimulate his cock head at the most sensitive spot under the head mercilessly.

‘You are going to make a mess. All over yourself.’ You tell him. It was going to happen. He didn’t have a choice. Oh, how you loved the touch of his prostate, it was like fucking on easy mode.

His back arches with the sudden onslaught, only to inadvertently give you even greater penetrating power. His orgasm arrives along with yours. You try to thrust in time with his ejaculations, ensuring the maximum about of semen is squeezed out of him as you guide it onto his front. It paints him, face to groin in several hearty bursts. His fur is immediately matted in a ragged line and he has to close one eye to keep it out.

You stay in him for a bit, that last sprint to the finish had got to your legs. His fat pink hole makes a wet sucking *pop* as you pull free from it. His pre and your cum dribble out and is caught by his rump fur.

You needed to sit down. You choose to do so on his chest. To him, you weighed nothing. His shirt had as much impact on his breathing as you now did. You let him recover for a bit before speaking again, watching his expression go cross-eyed at your groin.

‘One last job before you clock off. This needs cleaning.’ You gesture downwards to dispel any doubts.

‘I don’t know how.’

‘It’s just like sucking your thumb, big boy.’

He slowly rolls onto his knees and you slide off. Compressed like this under his own weight, his legs took on an even heftier look.

‘Nice and gentle now,’ you encourage him ‘I’m a little sensitive right now, so you won’t have to work hard. All you need to do is have a little reward, get the flavour from the source.’

He worked his jaw and opened his mouth. His head is massive; your legs have to open wider than usual to accommodate him and the horns. A broad muzzle and tongue begin a tentative investigation to the wonderful smell within.

You guide him with easy words and simple commands. This wasn’t a blowjob as such, more of a cleanup operation. But you had to let him know he wasn’t free until it was done. You grip both his horns to keep him in place. Well, you mostly used them to guide his head safely about. You had been wanting to hold them since you first met him, to control the power yourself. His neck alone could have thrown you off, but he turns this way and that at your behest regardless.

More gentle kisses met your flesh, mostly on the head of your dick, which combined with his hot breath caused some fresh essence to come forth. He wasn’t quite comfortable with putting your whole length in from a lack of experience, but he did have a wife and so long licks worked you instead.

If you wanted a man to like you, you needed to only give him what he wanted, but rarely received. Compliments. A good compliment could keep a guy going for years, a little spark to bring out when things got glum. There were people out there with more blowjobs to their name than sincere appreciative comments.

Ghaid no doubt got remarks about his strength daily and he had become numb to them. What kept his wood at full mast was you running your hand over his head and saying how soft his ears were, how you could see how much effort he put into his horns, the *surprising* amount of skill he had with his tongue.

You saved the best until last. ‘You’re so considerate, how you remember what other people like. The small details, so easily forgotten.’

That is what drove him to tongue bathe your groin until you could take no more a second time.

You released his horns and let him stand. He removes his shoved aside underwear and used it to dab up some of the more sticky zones of his body.

Your bathroom may not have been sized for a bovine of his stature, but he could still use the bath and a towel to get the ropes of jizz out of his fur and ass.

As he did that, you put your living room back into order, re-plumping the sofa pillows and sliding them back on. Shifting the table and chairs back to where they normally stood, that sort of thing.

He came out, naked but dignified. As he walked his genitals swayed freely before him. Lighter now, but still large and proud.

You have the newer, more sexual jockstrap in hand. You twirled it about your finger, then held it up to inspect it.

‘Oh yeah, this will work.’

You help him into it, not that he needed it, but it gave you another chance to touch him. You dress him like a squire to a knight. Your fingers run along the edges, threatening to return him to full strength.

The cut of the design was more flattering to his curves, and the bright colour could not be hidden by his fur. The irony was that sometimes things like this were also just more comfortable with how they supported the important bits.

You didn’t have a mirror he could see it in, so he made do with the dulled reflection in your television. The fabric’s colour still shone back at him.

‘It’s good. Real good. I’d fuck you in it.’ You say, admiring it all.

He gave a deep chuckle at this. ‘I got it in my wife’s favourite colour.’

Chapter 9, Minor Victories

“Stay away from any minute of joy that can bring you a lifetime of sorrow.”

*Dennis E. Adonis*

You wake up the next day, having slept surprisingly well. You had been concerned that you wouldn’t have been able to sleep and that the events of the day would come back to you in your nightmares. It hadn’t. Perhaps, at the back of your brain, Instinct had stood guard. Then again, maybe it would catch up to you when you least expected it, when your mind became too quiet in the white noise of the shower.

Maybe it was Blackthorn rubbing off on you, but you also pondered the impact it would have on your reputation. So far you had been faultless, as far as the public was concerned. But it had taken only three days before something derailed it. Would they know? Would you tell them? You could play it off casually like you had in front of the wolves. A craven part of you suggested milking it for sympathy, or even shift some of Ghaid’s glory onto yourself.

Such ideas repulsed you, the fact they came from you was more unsettling than the event itself. You discard them. You would only gain the reputation of a liar eventually. That was something fundamentally opposed to this new life.

You had told lies in the past, from the smallest to the biggest and would certainly tell more in the future. But if your colleagues found out, well, it would render your gift useless. It wasn’t mind control. But you’d wager that public perception almost certainly played a part. You would have to at least *appear* honest, so you might as well *be *honest (as if being naked in front of people wasn’t being honest enough).

On the topic of public perception, you shove your gym stuff into a backpack to take to work before you lost your nerve.

Your drive into work passes the narrow street the van had been parked on, but the view was only available for the briefest of moments. The van wasn’t there, neither was a pack of wolves. Ghaid must have done cross-country before, the distance from here to work was a fair distance so he might have ran the whole way.

Your mood was threatening to sour. You didn’t feel that a bit of light morning sex with anyone your heart desired was the answer. Mercifully, the elevator ride up is a solo mission. You spend it hyping yourself up. *Go find someone with plush fur and bother them all day if you have to,* you say to yourself.

You had barely turned your computer on before Blackthorn burst into your office and threw his arms around you. Your arms were pinned to your side and half of your face was flattened into his chest.

‘Thank goodness Harrisson found you, Vance!’ his voice was full of concern. The lack of composure absent from his body and voice was very noticeable. You feel your scalp being pressed about as his muzzle squished into it in a weirdly affectionate way.

It took the third attempt to prise him off you with repeated protests of ‘I’m fine, Theodore!’

‘When the security officer-’

‘Ghaid.’

‘When *Ghaid* told me this morning, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest!’

‘Yes, well, I’m fine now, stop fussing over me.’

You look into his eyes, they had that tell-tale wobbling sign of being on the verge of tears. Suddenly you feel awkward about pushing him off of you.

‘If you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for the wolves. They’re probably still in the hospital.’

The look on the horse’s face immediately revealed that Ghaid had skipped over the details.

‘Yes, you can ask for the details,’ you roll your eyes at this. He was reacting how you probably should have done. Blackthorn was probably so used to being in control that being abruptly reminded he couldn’t always be obviously didn’t sit well with him.

‘Hospital? What do you mean *hospital*?’ he looks you up and down, the emotion in his voice was unsure which direction it should take because he didn’t see any injury on you. ‘Ghaid said he intercepted a vehicle that was…detaining you. He said you were shaken, but not hurt.’

‘Some wolves cornered me and Reginald in an alleyway. They had a van,’ you decide to omit the fact it was padded for soundproofing ‘I managed to delay them before Ghaid turned up and beat the snot out of them. They didn’t hurt me – they were going to hand me over to their boss, I think.’

Blackthorn immediately seethed at this, angered by the injustice. ‘Probably some weird rich guy who has never had someone say ‘no’ to him! How did you delay them? Surely they had protection against the gene? They clearly knew you had it.’

‘They had masks on, but wolves are a lot like dogs. It was almost tolerable at one point.’

‘Vance, you shouldn’t minimize this! You need counselling, therapy-’

Ah, here would be the real source of trauma. Corporate sponsored therapy sessions. You cringe at the thought. Three hours of sitting on a computer course filled with soothing voices and muted pastel colours defining everything straight from the dictionary. *That* was actual torture. You’d willingly throw yourself into a dodgy dingy basement than go through that.

‘Theodore, it’s fine, really. I doubt anyone would be willing to try again in a hurry when they learn the last group to give it a go was left naked and battered next to a broken van.’

‘-then there’s the legal…did you say naked?’

‘Yes. If anyone needs to see a counsellor after this, it’s poor Reginald. He’s probably revolted having seen a bunch of naked people going at it up close.’

Blackthorn gives you a questioning look which has suddenly seized control over his unguarded face.

‘He wasn’t affected by my gene. I think he’s utterly asexual. He had to sit there the whole time and…listen.’

The tension drained out of Blackthorn, relief comingled with unexpected amusement filled the gap. ‘I’ll see if I can’t ask Mr. Silverton to give him a week off.’ He paused then, studying you. ‘But you’re sure you are okay?’ he was trying to see through a mask neither of you were sure existed.

‘I’ll bother you in your office if I need some company. Maybe this time I’ll invade your office at lunch time. Where are you located anyway?’

‘Same floor, around the corner, at the corner. It has my name on it. I get two walls of windows. But knock first in case I have a client.’

Lucky bastard. Your window, singular, didn’t even look out into the city, but instead internally at more office. You supposed you couldn’t just have people from the street or other buildings looking in. Maybe it was some nudity law. Those were strange for anthros.

‘There was something else,’ you begin, trying to act casual about it, ‘there was a rottweiler in the meeting yesterday, spent a lot of it grilling me over the numbers. What’s his name?’

Blackthorn snapped his fingers trying to remember. It made a dull parody of a clip-clop canter as he did so. ‘Scott Droving, that’s it. I recall him being a bit of a grouch. I forget what his job role is these days, Luke would know if you ask him.’

You thank Theodore for his time, and say you’ll swing over at lunch.

You prod the name into the keyboard and find him. He seemed to work in another admin department, or something like it. But it didn’t say where. Minimal information on his profile. Hardly uncommon for most workplaces.

You’d have to prowl the halls for him and catch him out. Or something. You aren’t sure yet, if you go looking what did that say about you? This was someone who liked being corrected, told they were wrong with a source. Walking up to him and smearing spunk on his face would be cheating.

This was going to require actual effort.

You saw him readjust his trousers, you knew he liked you. First point had gone to you. Now you needed to find where the second one would come from…

There was no work pending for you. It had all been rushed to you last minute before the meeting and now we were in the empty space beyond. Office jobs had droughts of work, it’s why you liked them. It came and went with the seasons. Time to malinger safely while collecting a paycheque in a somewhat comfy office. It beat manual labour and customer service every time.

You needed some stress relief, or at least something to work your way up to that. Clear your head, organise your thoughts.

You did have two loose ends to tie up. It was an easy plan to execute, to get you in the mind frame for better schemes.

Accounting departments and you historically never really got on very well. On the surface they were the same environment. People in office attire on computers fumbling numbers around. But the culture could not have been more different. It was a world of specialists versus the generalist. Things that had to stay the same versus the changing solutions. A proper education and certification compared to quick fix problem solving and novel solutions.

You could never get along in the human world. Here you could make them press the delete key with their tongue and destroy a quarter’s worth of work if you got them into your office. They’d do it with a raging boner too and ask to do it again tomorrow.

You find that snow leopard lady from a couple of days ago. She is pleasantly surprised by your unannounced visitation. She, like the others, had a small cubical space to herself. It had a few personal trappings: a small potted plant, pictures of her preference, a novelty mug referencing something you didn’t recognise. All of it little more than a lick of paint to soften the soulless walls.

You roll a chair in. ‘Neck, chin or behind the ears?’ you ask, without preamble.

‘Pardon?’ she had probably expected to hear something akin to small talk.

You put a hand on her head and begin to scratch at the fur. You ask the question again. Her whole head immediately squishes to the side you’re working on, eye twitching with the sensation.

‘Nrr, l-rr-er, l-lower.’ She managed the word on the third attempt.

‘I’ve had a bit of a tough morning, so I came down to hear the relaxing, nay, *dulcet*, tones of some purring,’ you say all this not really quite all there. The charm was on autopilot. You were still thinking about Scott the rottweiler. You needed something to do with your hands while you pondered.

She guided your hand lower purred lazily.

You oblige the request, scruffing her neck as you did so. She didn’t go limp, but it switched off a few lesser mental faculties briefly each time you did it. You allow your mind to wander just as hers is basically being forced to do so. The loud and regular purring she was making was helping you concentrate.

Never before had you seriously considered finding actual hard work to do, purely to show someone you could do it. You had done hard *hobby* stuff before, but you enjoyed that in all its aspects, it’s why you did it. But this would be boring.

No, maybe you would have seen it as boring before, because you didn’t see the payoff for yourself. Ideally, a worker should work their best. Reality meant you were rarely incentivised to do so. Your position was unique and two-fold. Every anthro who reported you’d given them attention would pay out, but now there was the one you were interested in too. Someone who had respected *you*, and not the gene.

‘Shirt off.’ It was almost an automatic request from yourself. Your hands needed more stuff to rub. The plan was starting to form. She in turn shakily threw it off, a waft of perfume sailed past your head in its wake.

You like breasts. A good set of boobs are universally liked. These weren’t massive, nor small, but they filled your hands, which was what you wanted right now. Fuzzy stress balls. Plus, it gave access to her plush front side.

Previously, when you had done some classic courtship, you had done the usual methods of impressing humans. Ability to cook, be clean, be presentable, have at least one friend, do social things, imply you had money without saying it. Those human things. Humans typically were not impressed by your hobbies, anthros were probably the same. Your job was never exciting, so you couldn’t get away with the “man in uniform” appeal.

But this was unfamiliar territory. No dating guide would have suggested aggressive spreadsheeting.

Your hands do long, deep raking strokes up and down the body. The leopard in your hands was unable to make coherent words because the mouth was busy making sounds like an outboard motor. It was good white noise, plus the vibrations were nice too.

The whole department could probably hear something going on. The only reason someone would make these sorts of noises was because you were on the prowl nearby. A sort of inverse-predator that hunted you to make you live a little.

‘Where does that ram sit? Just point.’

An unstable finger gesticulated. You reward her by biting into the scruff of her neck and groping her breasts in one combined motion. Higher brain functions in her shut off and restarted not soon after.

You stand up. ‘Thanks, I needed to sort my thoughts out.’

She’s slumped forwards, tongue lolling out a little. She gives you a weak thumbs up.

You feel a little bad for using her like that. She wouldn’t have known the interaction was more for your benefit today, rather than simply upholding a promise from a few days ago. You’re fairly sure if you had explained and asked, she would have agreed to it anyway, but then it might have tainted it. Better you feel to not unload your trauma on random colleagues. Blackthorn and Ghaid, perhaps, but not members of the public.

This time your arrival was expected. The ram must have put two and two together from the sounds vibrating on the air. He had styled the thicker fur on his chest so that it looked like he had a permanent white cravat poking out where a tie should be. Like before, the ram sported the same pinstripe suit on, but with a different flash of colour from the pocket square. Some men wanted to wear a different set of clothes on each day, but cruel society had given all the variety to women. Crueller still was in turn giving men all the pockets.

‘It’s, ah, good to see you again, Mr. Standen,’ the ram was attempting to play it cool, as he very definitely hadn’t been sitting cross-legged in an attempt to forestall his boner.

‘Do you mind if I have your seat briefly?’ you ask him.

‘Well, I, um, you see…’ his eyes flick down to his groin, then to yours, suddenly realising you had seen him do it. The white fur struggled to contain his blushing expression.

‘You wouldn’t want to leave me standing here, would you?’

He awkwardly stood, hand over his crotch in a poor display of casualness. ‘It’s been a while, you understand?’

‘Since what?’ People could have greased axels with the voice you adopted for those two words.

‘Since I…’ he looked around, not willing to say the words in public. He knew people would be listening. His hand twitched a little, trying to disguise the fact he was both simultaneously failing to resist the urge to touch himself and hide it before it came to full mast.

‘Hands by your sides, chest out. Why don’t you tell me about your colour choice for today?’ He puffed out his chest, but was still hiding the bulge. You gently, but firmly rebuke the notion, ‘I said *put your hands down*. Now, tell me about this splendid choice of colour for today?’

He wasn’t going to be able to get away with it, his hands balled into fists as he steeled himself. He was erect under his clothes, you already knew that. Pressed against his body to the side, you could see he was regular and average.

He had the look of an introvert being forced to do some public speaking. Was he concerned about his size? Maybe. Many men were. Too much porn, too little action. It had warped his sense of perspective. Size mattered not to the considerate top.

The space wasn’t at all confined, the HDG couldn’t effectively calm him down to relax properly. The cat-lady hadn’t really needed it, but your subsequent proximity had been plenty enough. He had probably been thinking about this moment since you first met him briefly in the elevator and you had swelled beyond reasonable proportions in his mind since then.

The ram turned his chest so the colourful fabric was centre stage. ‘I just chose something I liked, I have a few of them.’

‘I think it looks perfectly fine,’ you say, suggestively.

‘My handkerchief or my…?’ his eyes flicked down again against his better judgement.

‘Yes.’

That was a little mean, but how could you resist such an easy opening?

‘Would you like to take mine out for a comparison?’

‘If it’s not, um, too much of a trouble?’

You fall back onto the chair. ‘I think I left it under your desk. Could you get it for me, please?’

He blushed harder. It was cute watching him get down on his hands and knees, because it sent his tail into the air, a white buoy on the pinstripe sea.

As he turned around under the desk, you undid your trousers. The groping from earlier had dispelled a lot of the latent anxiety you had built up. It was time to do the same for this guy.

You grip his horns and press his nose into the fabric of your slacks. His horns were two simple backwards curves, now useless in the tight confines for any aggressive action, but perfectly aligned for your own benefit as handles.

‘Use your teeth, nice and gently.’

This time he didn’t need encouraging, he had been dying to know, to see how he measured up. His mouth worked the fabrics down to your lap, but you didn’t let him pull away too far. At the same time, you didn’t let him touch the goods, either. His tongue tentatively tried to make contact, but you manoeuvred his head an equal distance away to tease him.

‘Ah, ah, ah! Not yet. You keep your tongue inside until I give you permission.’

You gently move his head closer, until it rested as intimately as possible. Let him breath in the musk for a bit.

His nostrils flared slightly, taking in your scent. The ram's eyes fluttered closed as he savoured the intimate aroma.

‘If you can control yourself, you can have some. But good things come to those who wait. One hand on mine, one on yours. Then we’ll go from there.’

He was eager to obey, his goal was millimetres away from him now when before it no doubt seemed unreachable the day before. He fumbles at his belt, which clinked open along with everything else in the way of his hand.

You keep his head close, but never quite close enough to touch. He can see every detail, every angle. He could not avoid knowing every last bit of it. When he made contact, he became oblivious to his own, though he worked them both in unison.

‘Do to yours whatever you do to mine. Your pleasure is my pleasure, for now.’

The novelty of his different technique was the unique theme of this experience. He very clearly wants whatever you have coming for him and his hand tries a variety of methods to ensure it does.

The ram’s hand goes for the variety pack. Full length pumps. Rapid and tight stimulation to the head. One fingertip down the underside in teasing motions. A tight ring of thumb and forefinger from base to tip and back again. Pressing his palm to the slit at the top as it began to weep pre to slicken the experience. His arm didn’t tire, driven on by building lust.

You remove his hand gently; he was doing a good job with this motivation. You bring his head close again and tilt it to the side as a proper bead of pre formed at the top. He watches as it falls with viscous slowness down a strand and onto his waiting outstretched tongue. It was like nectar to him.

Another drip formed from the excitement brought on from the mutual pleasure and struck his tongue again. His own hips were bucking against own grip. That had to stop.

‘Both hands on me now, keep that mouth open.’

His own slickness joins your own now and you watch his dick desperately jump against the air trying to find friction on the insubstantial.

He now double-hands you with equally erotic variety. Some old skills were being dusted off, it seemed. His head was still at an angle, tongue still out catching anything that dropped from you. Eyes focused on your flesh.

‘Please..." he gasped out after a few more strokes, voice pleading. ‘I'll do anything... just let me have it...’

‘You've earned it,’ you gently murmur to him as you bring his head level and touching. Leaning back in the chair, you gave a simple order: ‘Lick.’

He extends his tongue like a landing strip. As soon as the muscle comes into contact, you pull his head in so you overshoot the runway and lands in his throat instead. It goes in easily, you knew it would with how he had begged. He breathes through his nose a bit unsteadily at first, but after a few pumps of his horns he gets the hang of it.

‘Touch yourself, cum when I do. *Only* when I do.’

He has one hand on your balls so he can feel it before you do. His eyes water a little bit, but he’s doing that mostly to himself.

A little kinkiness, just enough that you can see he’s reliving a youthful moment to himself.

‘See? You got yourself all worked up over this for nothing.’ You pause for a moment then, appreciating the irony in your words and chuckle at your own private joke. ‘There’s always someone out there willing to take care of you, little lamb.’

You’re mostly saying that for yourself at this point, but its genuine nevertheless. You slow your next few pumps. ‘Go out there after work today and make a few new friends. Now, I’m going to cum, and you’re going to keep your mouth open so I see it fill up.’

Obediently, the ram parted his lips in offering, sticking out his tongue to catch every bit. The first hot spurt landed directly on it and he moaned whorishly at the taste. Your diet had shifted to include a lot more fruit and veg this past few days. With regular exercise on the way, you’d maybe live to a hundred.

Not yet allowed to swallow, he drooled down himself for a bit. A look of debauched satisfaction on his face.

‘Swallow.’

His throat moves in one gulp. He re-opens his mouth to show off. With one finger, you close it for him and rub his little black nose and its soft dander.

You consider making him cum into his probably expensive silk pocket square, but decide against it. Sure, you more or less forced him under his own desk for your sexual pleasure but you’re not a monster. You hand him the box of tissues and watch him palm himself off to completion. It doesn’t take more than a few moments, secretly skilled at edging himself as well you suspect. A talent he probably hadn’t used for a while.

You save yourself a moment of fumbling conversation by seeing his name on a small fake-metal triangular wedge on his desk. Mr. Frederick Barnes, CPA. He had letters after his name, very fancy. You compliment him as such as you help him out from between your legs. The ram that came out was a lot more confident than the one who went in.

He stood there, erection fading, wiping it clean. Having felt both his and yours, perhaps that hang up he had about his own perceived manhood had been quelled a little bit.

You give his junk a friendly little squeeze. Unlike his face and nose, it’s a little mottled in colour. Maybe that was what had bothered him, maybe it was his size, who could say? You decide not to ask. But, this way he knew you had seen it and were not about to tease him for it. Both of you were gentlemen, after all. Humans had issues with skin colour, but almost never cared about skin texture. Maybe that was like some form of sheep racism? Your ignorance was probably a major relief to him. You now had marketable neutral-ness.

You now had a bit of post-nut clarity to work with as well. The ram no doubt did too. It was a good moment to instil some wisdom and have it enter the mind unfiltered. ‘Go and talk to that leopard lady. She’ll know who’s single. She’s in a good mood right now, I can assure you, and you both smell of me. You have a nice set of assets on you and I’m sure someone you like will want to touch it. Here…’

You pluck the pocket square from his pocket and rub it against your neck. This bit needed a lighter touch. To another human this would have been sacrilegious, but whatever anthros smelled in your gene meant it was probably better than any cologne.

It felt like a mentoring moment, right up until you realised you didn’t know how to fold the thing properly. The moment tripped over its own shoelaces in an instant. He rescued it deftly, refolding it with professional precision and slipping it back where it belonged. Probably for the best. He got the last word, or at least the last victory.

‘I’ll come back another time and you can teach me how to do that.’

Perhaps it was time to go and bother Blackthorn for once. For those outside the corporate world, what it meant to have two walls of windows in a high-end firm was, essentially, to be like a wizard in a tower. No-one gave them up willingly: it was either dead man’s boots or Machiavellian levels of manipulation. They were status symbols. There were only four corners, but functionally unlimited quantities of everything else.

It was unsurprising at this point that Theodore Blackthorn had one. The door had a fancy bronze embossed plaque, with a fancy matching handle, with the correct amount of frosted glass to tie it all together. You can even see he had his own personally selected carpet in there, a nice stately burgundy red. You just had generic grey office carpet tiles.

You can see through the non-frosted sections that Blackthorn has a client in, however. You were about to politely go back to your office before he catches your eye and beckons you in.

The committee selected a public-facing smile for you to wear, a few generic platitudes for small talk on standby, and a quick excuse to leave if needed as you step in.

You had started this job with the intention of brushing up on The Law, but after the initial ten minutes it had seemed suddenly unimportant, what with all the fucking and screwing and casual blowjobs. You knew nothing that could provide any legal help whatsoever. The committee once again helped, pointing at the mental whiteboard with the words “I must defer to my esteemed colleague here.” Encased in frantic red circles. Social armour at the ready.

Nature had been playing a cruel joke on avians for the better part of a thousand years at this point. Society had shifted so that they either clipped the feathers on their arms to fit in a suit, or they got to fly around half naked. It had made them a little bitter at times. The one across the desk from Blackthorn was an ironic mirror that only the most hackneyed writer would include as a foil. A black raven.

He had a style, that was for sure. A white high-collared shirt with a black bowtie, straight from the 1920’s. A set of classy silver-clipped suspenders that ran from thin shoulders to grey suit trousers. And a slender silver-topped cane which certainly served no purpose. Glossy black feathers, almost blue on the edges, completed the vintage monochrome look.

Blackthorn at least had whites around his eyes, the raven didn’t even have that. Instead, he sharply turned his whole head, razor sharp beak and all, to face towards the target of his speech. Snide malice mingled with smugness in his tone. The voice of someone who regularly said things like *‘I know better than you’* without irony.

Avians couldn’t sneer, but they could look down their beaks at you.

Blackthorn rose from his seat, a look of practiced jovialness ‘Mr. Chatham, please, this is Mr. Standen, one of my colleagues. Good thing you were passing by Vance, I was about to call for you.’

Your eyes suddenly pass over Luke, who gave you an actually cheerful grin as he sat in the corner with a laptop.

Thank fuck for that. You hated taking minutes.

You extend a hand, a taloned claw took it. There was no warmth in it. You have dealt with people like this in situations identical to this one countless times. You crack out old reliable. ‘It’s all a matter of balance, I’m sure,’ as if you knew already what they had been discussing. It was routine, like a well-worn chess opening move. The other side and you would go back and forth like this until the proper game began.

‘And what might this be? A clerk?’ Chatham says it like it’s a slur.

‘Got it in one, sir. I do everything except the finances,’ you respond.

‘Mr. Standen here has a knack for making things orderly, take this, for example,’ he spun his computer monitor around, it showed a spreadsheet.

Chatham’s talon made plastic clicks as he prodded a line on the screen. He tapped his cane sympathetically afterwards an equal number of times. ‘It is incorrect,’ the raven said simply, as if a single entry out of hundreds was enough context.

You have a moment, maybe two, to digest this and figure out what the issue was. Your eyes dart across the screen, reading anything and everything that might yield an answer. The committee had been on high alert as soon as you entered the room, so they had been prepared for this. Common consensus was that if a customer pointed at a number on your screen, it was nearly always too high. If it was on their screen, it was almost always too low.

You couldn’t just say anything, in case you countermanded whatever Blackthorn had been saying. Likewise, you couldn’t just say nothing, or make a noncommittal half-way remark, otherwise you would look like an idiot.

You can always buy more time with a bit of confusing verbiage.

‘Is there any particular element you understand to be less than entirely satisfactory in regards to the entries listed herein?’

After all, whatever this was, he clearly wanted it. Hopefully, you were about to learn what that would be.

‘Well, other firms are offering a much more competitive rate.’

Bingo. You avoid making it obvious, but your eyes flicker around the room, judging the size. Larger than your own, but enclosed. You simply needed to delay for a bit and keep the air in. ‘I must defer to my esteemed colleague here.’

Blackthorn slid back into the conversation like a stiletto into a ribcage. ‘Certainly,’ he says, ‘but it represents the adjustment you yourself requested two quarters ago. The retainer structure shifts accordingly.’

You are beginning to piece it together now. You had no idea if the Firm was good value for money, that wasn’t important. To you, it seemed, a customer had wanted a bespoke service and didn’t want to pay the increased cost. A tale as old as time.

You lean forward slightly, just enough to make the raven’s black eyes glance at you rather than the screen. ‘Of course, Mr. Chatham, what I think is most impressive is how clearly that line reflects your own standards.’

He blinks. You can almost hear the gears crunch together in his mind. The word “standards” was often preceded by either “high” or “low” and you had said neither. He was now trying to figure out which you had omitted.

You went on, ‘you’ve managed your own portfolio so precisely that even a fractional change stands out to you. Most clients would never notice that level of detail.’

Chatham straightens a little, feathers along his neck smoothing under the praise. ‘Attention to detail is everything in my business,’ he replies, trying not to sound pleased.

‘Exactly,’ you continue, ‘would you like a more premium option?’ There was *always* a more expensive version of something to make your own choice seem cheap. You could buy luxury plastic bottles of water. And even if there wasn’t, no business would turn down the ability to make one up on the spot.

Blackthorn’s mouth curves at the corner. ‘We do try to meet our clients’ expectations.’

Chatham tilts his head, studying the spreadsheet again. He had been caught in the classic dilemma: look cheap in front of people he thought himself greater than, or spend more money.

You wait just long enough for his thoughts to crystallise, but not escape his beak. ‘You can’t buy prestige, of course.’

‘Indeed,’ Chatham murmurs. His tone has softened, coming around to rationalising the whole affair as an indulgence rather than a bill. The cane had stopped tapping.

Blackthorn gave you a look whilst he was distracted. You couldn’t stay in the room too long. This whole thing needed finessing to not give the game away.

‘You seem like the sort of fellow who enjoys a cup of tea,’ you stand up with the motion of someone who wasn’t going to consider hearing the word “no”. ‘Milk, sugar?’

Luke Bewick, who had become accustomed to his boss’s motions, politely asked for one as well to encourage the raven to do the same.

You couldn’t refuse under that sort of social pressure. Thus, Mr. Chatham caved.

You returned a few minutes later with a fancy cup and saucer for the raven, and Luke’s personal work mug which had a classic dog bone shape on it. Of course, the real major distinction was the fact you had run your lips around the rim of the avian’s cup and then wiped the evidence away. A little taste of you, just to keep him pliant.

It was like watching him repeatedly poison himself with calming juice. His feathers unruffled themselves with each sip. He was nowhere near close to relaxed, but you had taken his edge off entirely.

You had missed whatever boring business matters were needed for these things to be concluded. You and Blackthorn politely wave goodbye to the raven as he was assisted out by Luke.

‘What did you do to the tea?’ Blackthorn asked when they were out of sight.

‘It’s a mystery, isn’t it?’ you reply, and run your tongue over your lip quickly.

‘I suppose anything else would have ruined the texture.’

‘I find that offensive, my diet has been very good this week.’

Chapter 10, Team Building Exercise

“My dick has led me to places I wouldn't go with a gun.”

*@MexArmstrung

*You hadn’t given it much thought, but as you walked down to the building’s car park it struck you as blindingly obvious that Blackthorn naturally had his own car. You were so used to not having one the concept rarely crossed your mind. It was, as you had predicted, black. It wasn’t a muscle car, or some high-end model worth a million and only available if you got on the waiting list, it was simply a respectable black car.

Oh yes, sure, it was still certainly *Blackthorn’s* car though. Black faux-leather upholstery, dark grey fabrics on the floors and ceiling, as much legal tinting a window could be given, and shiny dark enamel furniture for the centre console, trimmed with matt black edges. As you swung into the forward passenger seat, the black cardboard air freshener dangled from the reversing mirror on the periphery of your vision *(Scent of Darkness by* *Dáktylos)*.

‘Do you just melt during the summer?’ you ask him as you both climbed in.

‘Vance, if I can afford heated seats, I can certainly afford air-con,’ his voice had dropped some of professional veneer to allow some self-indulgence to take its place. He clicked it on. The HDG wouldn’t make him drunk, but it would possibly slow his reaction speeds and you both wanted to arrive to the gym in one piece. Fortunately, unlike the office, it didn’t have to be freezing cold for once to negate it.

The ride stirred something you hadn’t expected to feel again. Blackthorn’s car was built to his size, a little larger than normal, yet it made you feel much smaller by comparison. The interior had that newness particular to things that are carefully maintained. Clean air, faint polish, a touch of artificial scent and it carried a kind of domestic gravity you couldn’t quite place. Having another adult beside you, one who meant to look after you in his own way completed the effect. It was the same sensation you remembered from childhood: being driven somewhere you were told you would enjoy, staring out the window and wondering whether that was really true.

You watch the city roll past, but now lower to the ground than a taxi or bus. You were observing it more intimately, especially since there was only one other occupant and you were both behind tinted windows.

Humans had a tendency to bunch together and shut out everything beyond their immediate circle. Many cared little for events beyond their own borders and sometimes not even beyond the village green. Anthros, in contrast, simply lived their own lives *between* each other’s. It was simple fact that different species and sub-species typically conglomerated into their own microcosms. No-one was immune to racism, classism or any other form of ‘ism’ that could divide people up. They just chose to ignore rather than confront the problem.

You had learned a few snippets about Blackthorn’s boyfriend. He was a horse, like him, named Julian Holt. From what you can remember they had met each other from law school. While Blackthorn had “gone corporate” Julian had become a community advocate. You didn’t really understand what that entailed, but Blackthorn practically swooned each time he said the title.

*Community*, you understood from your time in work, translated to *underpaid* and its even worse cousin *over worked*. Being honest and charitable were rarely profitable. You (personally) couldn’t have afforded to help people.

The distance was short, but rush hour traffic gave time to talk. Blackthorn was better at that than you were, he was, dare you say, a social animal. Normally to get people to open up, you encourage (or let) them to talk about themselves. However, the horse next to you also knew this and got you monologuing.

Your hobbies are mostly ones you’d expect a computer-minded person to like. Games of the video persuasion, activities involving expensive cardboard, and pushing around masterfully painted pieces of plastic. You over represent the social aspect of it. You do – you did – have friends who you would visit and they would in turn to enjoy the hobbies with.

‘But not a lot of outdoors stuff?’ Blackthorn’s voice wasn’t condescending or teasing. To be so was to be less than perfect.

‘Well, I don’t mind a nice walk,’ that was mostly because you didn’t own a car and you had little alternative other than to enjoy it, ‘or visiting some museums or other touristy spots.’

The sudden idea of anthros stuffed haphazardly into classical human artwork was more amusing than it should be.

‘I’ve been to a few museums and art expos. The city has a few, you can imagine. They’re quite nice.’ The fact that he had mentioned the museums outside of anything else implied what you feared the most: Theodore Blackthorn liked *Sportsball*. ‘But I think Luke plays a few games like yours.’

Oh thank fuck.

‘But what do you do for fun? Sit in a high-backed swivel chair and practice dramatically turning it around?’

‘Very droll, Vance, but no. I go the gym a lot, but you can get a lot done there outside of getting in shape. Like social yoga. On nice days Julian and I do some rowing and sometimes we vegetate on the sofa watching bad T.V.’

He really had it all, and the bastard knew it. This was what having all your ducks in a row looked like.

‘I suppose by the end of this week I’ll be able to see what I can afford to do with those bonuses.’

Blackthorn’s response, when ran through the tint of his smooth voice, gave it more weight than it readily should have had. ‘You don’t have to conform, Vance. Don’t just spend your money to fill in the sudden gaps gained from freedom. In my job I have seen a lot of people come through my door because new-found wealth went to their heads.’

It was a relief to hear it. It had been itching at the back of your brain that you would have to be as intense as he was to thrive.

Were you thriving now? Things were certainly going in an upwards trajectory, so probably. But had you been at the bottom of the rut for too long that normal seemed…exciting? Such concepts were hard to articulate to yourself.

The gym came into view. A building that had probably once been for some dull but longstanding business. It still kept the fancy external façade but the new-age logo it wore over it didn’t fit nicely.

Blackthorn clearly had the premium option, because he had reserved parking. You then also learned his boyfriend did too, because it was a space directly adjacent to it.

Naturally, you had pondered the sort of person Julian had to be to catch Theodore’s eye. Everything you had seen so far about the horse had one singular theme.

However, the muted yellow car next to you had the same effect as whacking your funny bone did. Every bit of you suddenly went ‘That ain’t right.’

Julian Holt had arrived before you both, and was reading a small paperback in the driver’s seat. The vehicle was entirely nondescript; it blended in with the tens of others seamlessly. Julian could have been another face in the crowd himself. He had some distinguishing features, sure, a mostly brown hide with errant splashes of white like someone had thrown a paint can at him for example. The dirty-blonde eye-covering bangs gave him a hint of mystery, except they weren’t particularly styled enough to hide much. He wasn’t some skinny twink, or effeminately pear-shaped, or even a muscle-bound god. He was all just so…normal. His clothes were nice, probably on the higher end and clean.

You wore *inoffensive* clothes; Julian simply just wore clothes.

For you, another horse stepped out of a car, smiling at seeing you both as he did so. On the other hand, you could tell Blackthorn was perceiving an entirely reality from you.

You could almost hear it, *Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Love Theme*, would be playing in his mind. Julian would be moving in slow motion, hair caught in a localized breeze, the edges of his vision blurring and melting away. This wasn’t a car park, it was some flowery meadow perfect to run towards each other in. There would be cherubs holding silk somewhere.

You had known envy, that was a common companion at times. You were part of the Have Nots and wanted to Have things the Others Had. This novel return of *jealousy *was not scheduled for today. This job was really bringing out all of your emotions for a test ride, wasn’t it?

You stamp on jealousy’s fingers and kick it back down into the abyss. You knew Blackthorn had a boyfriend, you were only jealous because Julian seemed so incredibly obtainable you had immediately measured yourself against it and couldn’t figure out what you were missing.

*Vance, you dunce*. It’s been four days and they’ve known each other for years. You douse yourself in a healthy splash of perspective before opening your mouth and extending your hand to shake the newcomer’s own.

‘Vance! Theo’s said so much about you. Don’t worry, I know all about your,’ he gestured broadly at you trying to find the right word that didn’t imply you were infectious or deformed, ‘gift.’

Theodore nudged Julian in the ribs with an elbow. ‘A gift that keeps on giving, eh?’

‘Oh, quit it Theo,’ his expression meets yours again, double checking whether he should switch to a more PG age rating, ‘but it was a nice surprise.’

‘It’s fine, really.’ You realise that since the both of them are taller than you the next hour or so was going to strain your neck. ‘How much did Theodore tell you about it all?’

Julian leaned in conspiratorially, putting on a stage whisper. ‘Let’s just say before this week he never sucked *me* off with quite as much enthusiasm.’

You make eye contact with Blackthorn when you reply, matching the whisper ‘Poor guy needed a few lessons.’

Three chuckles danced around each other as you all walked in.

You had privately said to yourself that you wouldn’t perv on other gym goers. Or, at the very least, not openly goggle. Just because you didn’t attend didn’t mean you suddenly lost all your manners when you did.

It had to be said there was an odd lovableness to watching the two horses get changed in front of one another. They both politely averted their gaze while also snatching glances at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking. Sure, there were others in the room too, attractive or otherwise, but observing them was something else entirely.

Julian’s gear was like yours, minus the sports trainers, naturally. He did slide on some temporary rubber horse shoes, which made sense. Hooves, you knew, could deal some serious damage. They were white rubber ones, well worn.

You didn’t have to see what Blackthorn put on. For all intents and purposes the living silhouette simply changed shape around the edges.

They hadn’t been wrong. Every gym had the same overpowering smell of sweat, but this one had a layer of keratin shavings to replace the undertones of feet as compared to a human gym.

Most everything else was the same however. Such as shelves containing free-range weights, as opposed to their battery-farmed cousins trapped in the machines of bent metal. Everything was encased in rubber and foam. The only major difference was a sort of permanent ladder and selection of heavy horizontal bars for the mostly naked avians to get some safe flying in.

You suspected you might be disrupting a routine between the two equines, but couldn’t figure out if this was a pleasant distraction or just a regular distraction. They stood either side of you as you all selected a section of running machines. You walked places, sometimes you had to run for things. It had been an age since you ran in sports clothing. It was oddly liberating, you had become so accustom to the minute restrictions of everyday wear that the freedom you got from your basic shorts and plain shirt felt like cheating.

It was also easier to run when someone else was doing it with you in a friendly capacity. Sure, their stride was much longer, from height and physiology, but it wasn’t a competition. You all knew you’d be slower.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. You find a speed you can maintain. Thump-thump-thump-thump. Your feet get the rhythm under control.

The committee are quietening down, half of them are now dedicated to governing your internal engine for the first time in a long time. There’s talks about mixing some dopamine in later.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. Actually, you can see the benefits. You probably won’t enjoy the actual work you’re doing, but stilling the mind is good for now.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

A hot minute later the committee engineering team tapped a gauge with a finger. ‘Probably should have filled her up before we set out,’ was the report. A part of you wanted to stubbornly run until exhaustion, but self-mastery was never an instant thing. You click the machine to a slower setting.

Julian’s face was forward, focused on his own exercise, but he certainly heard the machine beep as you poked it into a lower gear. ‘Hey, that’s a pretty good start. Theo said you hadn’t been to a gym before.’

You draw in some air. ‘Only once or twice a long time ago,’ you had to recover some dignity.

‘I’m sure that human endurance will put us to shame after a month or two.’ He meant it sincerely; Blackthorn snickered at the obvious double entendre. ‘Be glad you’re over there, mister, otherwise I’d tan your hide!’

Blackthorn stuck out his tongue for a moment, a flash of pink like a firework in the night sky. ‘Don’t worry Vance,’ his tone was a reassuring velvet ‘exercise is done in sets. Plenty of rest stops for us all to recover with.’

At your reduced pace, you are able to take stock of the wildlife. Every body shape is on display here. Sure, what some of them are doing is erotic in your eyes, but it’s not *pornographic*. Even so, exercise keeps blood elsewhere as a safety measure.

You watch things flex and constrict on them all. Steam rolled off larger anthros into the ceiling. Much of the grunting was coming from unappealing faces of intense concentration attached to very appealing bodies. The positions people put themselves in was amusingly compromising. You are well aware that in a moment that would be you in those poses, no doubt even more ungainly in aspect, but you had to get your licks in while you could.

Blackthorn leant over and prodded a button on your machine a few times.

‘It’ll spare your knees.’

As the angle on the machine changes, so too did the pressure on you. You are unsure if it will, but at this point it was all a matter of trust.

Your eyes flick to either side, you could at least sneak peeks at the two horses without guilt or shame. Both moved with their own charms. Theodore Blackthorn’s backside was a study in fluidity. He ran effortless and floaty, hips moving in gentle sine waves.

Julian seemed simply adept at the exercise. However, when he reached forward and took a sip from his water bottle his arm and head didn’t spill a drop. This seemed easy at first glance. You considered attempting to replicate the action as you began to realise a quick sip would be nice, but instead swiftly discovered how much your body was just doing its own thing instead.

You decided to pause for a moment rather than awkwardly spill water down your front. It wasn’t like you were uncoordinated, you just never had attempted to drink water at a running pace before. The two actions had never needed to be done simultaneously in your world previously. You get back on, and pick up the pace again. You allow your mind to clear again and passively enjoy the two buttocks that are putting on a show.

It soon became apparent why Blackthorn liked the gym. As you adjusted the weights to something lighter than he or Julian had lifted, you came to the conclusion that it was very hard to lie here. You could either move the weight, or you could not. If you could, for how long or many? A boast could be tested instantly. Truth reigned supreme.

As the three of you rotated turns on the device, you had time enough to engage in some investigative conversation.

‘So how did you two actually meet?’ you ask, partly to fill the silence, partly because you're genuinely curious how the stars had aligned. ‘Law school…? Theodore mentioned, but that's not much of a story.’

Julian and Blackthorn exchange a look – the kind that says ‘you tell it’ ‘no you tell it’ in the span of a second.

‘We hated each other,’ Julian says cheerfully. He continued pumping the machine effortlessly.

‘That's not-’ Theodore starts.

‘We absolutely hated each other,’ Julian continues, grinning. ‘First year, we were in the same study group. Theo here thought he knew everything-’

‘I *did* know everything,’ Blackthorn protests, but he's smiling, white teeth sneaking out.

‘See? This is what I had to deal with. Except back then, he wasn't joking. I was also so mean back then, but I was right. Three weeks after I called him out in front of the lecture group, he comes up to me with this grumpy little face-’

Blackthorn buried his face in one hand dramatically at this.

‘But he came up to me and do you know what he said? He said I was right. Oh, how his face twisted but he admitted it. I was about to gloat, of course, I had beaten Theodore Blackthorn, who argued with the lecturer-’

‘He was wrong all the time!’

‘He was wrong *once*. But either way, suddenly I felt really bad. I had only called him out to embarrass him, but he came back and meant every last word from the bottom of his heart. I saw it then, behind the grumpy little face, that he valued the truth, like I did.’

The two switched places, Blackthorn took up control of the machine.

‘Vance here spent a solid afternoon on a hefty spreadsheet for me,’ Blackthorn began, also easily shifting the weight. ‘He likes finding the truth too.’

‘Oh, is that so?’

‘Well, it’s what I was hired to do,’ you begin to explain ‘aside, you know.’ They nodded sagely. Nothing stopped you from yelling about the gene, but only an idiot would do that. ‘I don’t search for the truth, I think I just stop it hiding. Sometimes people overcomplicate things-’

Did your eyes deceive you, or was that Scott Droving doing squats on the far side of the studio hall? The two horses follow your sightline; Blackthorn sees him too.

‘Oh look, it’s Droving. You mentioned him earlier, didn’t you, Vance?’

‘Yes, he grilled me in the meeting. Tested me, I mean. Best not bother him now.’

Then you made eye contact over the now weirdly vast distance across the room. It was him, he knew it was you. He gave a single polite nod in acknowledgement and then set his shoulders under a squat rack.

You can only nod back. To go over there was to perish instantly. It would cause all your social reputation juice to drain out of you and cause you to shrivel up like a socially inept raisin.

There is time only to see him do a single squat before the others would see you staring. You make it count.

It was like watching some highly oiled and gleaming steam locomotive pull out of a station. Slow, sure, but certain and steady. A mechanical confluence of practicality and strength that came together to form beauty. You watch him squat down and then slowly rise back up at the same pace. All of him in balance. You could see every mechanism work. Even the salacious ones.

‘I think he likes me,’ you say, turning your attention back to the horses.

‘Unlikely, Scott used to be called stone-face. But you never know.’

It was your turn on the machine. You broke line of sight with him at that point, and didn’t see him again when you got back up.

‘That’s the rottweiler from the meeting?’ Julian asks.

‘The one who tested him,’ Theodore confirms. There's something in his tone that smacks of amusement.

‘Ah,’ Julian nods again, in a way that suggests he understands something you don't.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ they both say in casual unison.

The allure you feel from what you cannot see about someone’s body is one of nature’s many tricks. You know what was under there, or at least had a good idea, but every time your brain suggested it could be a secret *new* thing. It’s what drove people to undress each other. Why food could smell better than it tasted. It was potential.

The frosted glass obscured the forms of those inside them so they become almost unpersoned. What was a thing for modesty also now functioned as a means of depravity. Coloured smears in the glass, the almost shapes of creatures touched themselves to rid their flesh of their filth, not knowing they were simply creating more to those outside.

It only stopped when you stepped into your own shower and ultimately joined with the whole.

You had sweated, you had ached, you now felt oddly invigorated. Before, you exercised in unplanned bursts, to catch a bus or to run to a shop. This had got to every part of you, but had done so equally. Your body delivered on its promise of dopamine, just a little to make you go back.

Normally you let your mind wander in the shower. But it had done that for the past hour and so was left unsure what to do with itself. The committee was not providing any input. Was this what a clear mind was like? What normal, boring people had access to all the time? You could get so much done in here! It was unreal.

You indulge in thinking about your slovenly hobbies. You felt you could do so guilt-free for this moment, having earned the right to do so. You scrub yourself clean, even giving the idea of imagining negativity to be scrubbed away with it a go. You didn’t feel like it was working, but then again maybe it needed a few attempts to dislodge it. You didn’t want to fill Blackthorn’s car with more HDG than necessary anyway.

You return to your locker, underwear and towel in tow. Blackthorn and Julian are likewise attired. They looked at each other, then at you, leaning against each other.

‘Wanna come back to ours?’ Julian asked, his eyebrow doing a lot of heavy lifting with that question.

‘I can give you a ride into work tomorrow?’ offered Blackthorn, flashing his teeth with the perfect smile.

You had suspected, and somewhat hoped, this would happen. You had passed Julian’s ‘vibe’ test, and without the gene’s direct help. It was hard to say no to when they both only had a fresh-out-of-the-shower look and a towel and were very clearly tensing their freshly flexed muscles.

There was no need to be coy about it. You agree.

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