The Cycle

Someone was parked in the apartment's assigned parking spot when Tricia came home. It wasn't her mother's car; her mother didn't own one, couldn't afford one. It was a fifty-fifty guess as to whether the car belonged to someone who just felt like parking there, or to one of her mother's boyfriends, but a quick glance at the apartment's windows showed all the lights were out. If someone was over, they'd already turned in for the night, but her mom had yet to give up her love of late nights, and it was only just after midnight. It was probably just some asshole.

She paused to inspect it, leaning in to peer through the windows in the pale, dim light of the only light bulb that worked on this side of the apartment building. Through the flickering illumination she caught sight of a few crushed beer cans in the footwell, some mangled fast-food wrappers. The back of the car had an old and dog-eared girlie mag wrinkled up on the floor, just barely peeking out from beneath the driver's side seat. All par for the course around here, which meant it probably was just one of the neighbors who didn't care about whose parking spot he stole. Besides, mom's boyfriends usually drove better cars. This one wasn't bad, but it was probably a decade old and clearly not status-conscious.

She shrugged it off. Not her problem; it'd be gone in a day or two. Or it wouldn't. It's not like she had a car to park there, herself--even if she could afford one, which she couldn't, it would be a few years before she could drive one. She hiked up the steps to the front door, fumbled her house key out of the pocket of her hoodie, and quietly let herself in.

She wasn't interrupting anything, it seemed. The apartment was dark and silent; she tilted her head, ears straining, as she delicately slid the door closed behind her. Nothing. She had better hearing than her mother, a fact which she'd learned to make effective use of in the last few months; it was one of the few good things about being a hybrid. She dumped her purse and shucked her hoodie off onto the ratty, faded couch and crept quietly toward the closed door to her mother's bedroom. She paused, leaned in closely with one ear lifted. Silence. She really was asleep, then. Or gone somewhere. Mom was... spontaneous.

Satisfied that she wasn't walking in on something awkward, Tricia headed to the kitchen. She didn't bother to turn on the lights; she could navigate the place by memory and smell, and for some reason it felt like flipping them on would be disruptive, as though it might snap her mother awake. She didn't feel like explaining why she was out so late; for someone who had a recurring habit of coming home just before the sun rose, her mother was weirdly nosy about Tricia's own activities.

She sniffed the air. The remnants of cheap take-out pizza wafted from the counter. Something vaguely fruity, too, with an odd edge that she didn't recognize. She wasn't particularly hungry, herself, but habit and curiosity prompted her to take a peek inside the fridge; in the bright white glow of the fridge light, the interior remained almost as bare as ever. Almost: a few unfamiliar bottles, half-empty, were racked up on the shelf, along with similarly drained jugs of fruit juices. She plucked one of the bottles and squinted down at the label. Vodka.

Mom had been drinking. She didn't really do it much when Tricia or her sister Sarah was around--mostly out at parties or bars. And she almost never actually kept any alcohol in the house, so this was a surprise. Come to think, this was probably the first bottle of alcohol Tricia had ever actually held in her hands. Curiously, she twisted the cork out and took a sniff.

Her nose winkled, whiskers twitching sharply. What a gross smell. Way too intense. And people drank this stuff? Even sniffing it was almost enough to make her cough. They had a program at school that was all about getting the students not to drink or smoke or whatever, and it was all boring, humdrum junk. Maybe if they just let loose a whiff of this in the air it would be more effective.

But still, she was curious. There had to be something to it. Alcohol was a big deal, right? Maybe it tasted better than it smelled. She bit at her lip, hesitating. Would anyone notice just a swallow? Nah, of course not. Mom might be pissed, but she was just going to taste a sip. She knew better, anyway. She could keep herself from going crazy, no matter what her teachers thought. She lifted the bottle to her lips and tilted it back just enough for a mouthful.

Even that was too much. She was coughing and shaking the moment the burning liquid touched her tongue; it was a sudden struggle not to spit it out all over the insides of the fridge, which mom would have absolutely found out about. She forced herself to swallow what she'd taken, narrowly avoided gagging, and spent the next several seconds coughing and sputtering and shaking her head in revulsion. It tasted like paint thinner smelled, and her mouth burned for long seconds after she'd forced it down her throat. Even that mouthful bled a small but noticeable fire through her esophagus and stomach.

"Ugh, nasty. How the heck."

"Kind of a novice to be taking it out of the bottle, aren't you?" It was a man's voice. Amused.

Tricia nearly dropped the bottle in surprise. Startled, she fumbled the cork back into the bottle and shoved it back into the fridge as though she could pretend she hadn't just gotten caught drinking from it, even as she turned to search over the top of the fridge's open door for whoever spoke. With the light shining from within the fridge, she could barely see him: leaning against the door to the kitchen, arms folded. He was like a shadow, blending in to the darkness of the kitchen and the living room beyond that even the light from the fridge barely managed to illuminate him, and the greatest part of him that could be seen were a pair of gleaming yellow eyes with slit pupils over a muzzle full of sharp white teeth.

A feline of some sort. A panther? She tensed unconsciously, and her tail twisted its way around her right leg the way it always did when she found herself facing down something unpleasant or fearful. She didn't... like... felines. And not just because she was part rat. Hell, her mother was a rat and she loved felines, which... probably explained why this man was standing in her kitchen wearing what looked like a wife-beater and a pair of boxer shorts. She couldn't tell his age in the darkness, but he was way, way taller than she was.

"Um--"

"I won't tell her," he assured her with a dismissive wave of one hand. "It's my bottle, anyway. I won't miss a swallow. Our little secret, eh?"

Her whiskers flicked back and forth, uncertainly. She stood there frozen in the pool of light spilling from the fridge. "Y-yeah. Sure. Um. Thanks. It, uh..." She broke her eyes away from his face to glance back down at the bottle sitting on the shelf. "It's not very good. I dunno how you can drink that."

The panther chuckled. "You were doing it wrong. I don't even drink it like that." He pushed himself straight upright and strolled across the kitchen; as he drew closer, the shadows coalesced into a trim, surprisingly muscular outline. A thin gold chain lay almost hidden amongst the black fur of his throat and neck, glinting furtively in the indirect light. "Here." He held out a hand over the fridge's door.

It took her a few seconds to realize what he was asking for. Without thinking, then, she handed him the bottle of vodka. "Grab the OJ and the pineapple juice, too." She mutely passed each of them to him in turn, which he set on the counter in a row. "You all right?"

She started, blinked. "Yeah, um, sorry. I just didn't expect... y'know." She could see his yellow eyes watching her in the corner of her vision. Something made her want to stare at them, but at the same time the very thought of doing so sent a chill down her spine. Normally she wasn't like this. Right? She was Tricia the social butterfly.

He smiled, and the whiteness of his teeth shone brilliantly against the backdrop of that ink-black fur. "Me? Yeah, it's all right. I'm the visitor in your home, after all. You're Tricia, right?"

The fact that he knew her name made a frown cross her snout, ever so briefly, but she nodded. "Yeah."

"Your mom told me about you and your sister."

Learning that her own mother had been gossiping about her was indignation enough that for a moment she forgot to put up a standoffish façade, and she folded her arms tightly across her breasts. "God, I hope not! What did she say?"

He laughed, quietly, and shook his head. "Not much, honestly. Said you were both good girls. She tries her best for you." He retrieved a pair of glasses from the sink, rinsed them, and set them on the counter in front of him.

"Yeah, she says that." After realizing that standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open actually felt kind of awkward, she closed it, but having nowhere else to particularly go, she lingered in place with her arms folded over her chest. Her tail remained wrapped around her leg.

"You don't believe her?" He flipped on the light above the sink without missing a beat.

"I dunno. Things are fine, I guess. I guess it's hard in her situation."

He nodded. "You have no idea. But she's good at figuring things out." He popped open the jugs of juice and poured an equal amount of each into the glasses. "All right. This is how you're supposed to do it." To that mixture he added a healthy spill of vodka, and spun them together with a fork he produced from a drawer. "You've gotta be pretty hardcore to take it straight from the bottle."

Tricia glanced at the pair of glasses, now filled almost to the brim with the mixed drinks. "I don't think mom would like it..."

"When was the last time that stopped you?" He flashed her a grin, and she flushed, looking aside. "Besides, I can't let you go without doing it the right way at least once. And it'll be our secret."

She didn't even know this guy--aside from the fact that he was apparently one of her mother's boyfriends--and here he was, five minutes after meeting her, offering her a mixed drink. It was exactly the kind of thing her teachers had gone on and on about. But she was curious. That mouthful of vodka that she'd tasted a few minutes ago had nearly made her throw up, and suddenly this was supposed to be something different? The panther seemed pretty confident about it.

She cast him a sidelong glance, arms still folded. He just lifted his brows. She huffed. He smiled. She unfurled her arms and he passed her one of the glasses. "Cheers."

He took a long, deep gulp, and showed not the first sign of discomfort from it. Tricia looked down at her own glass, nose wrinkled. She sniffed. Fruity, with an edge--the same kind of scent she'd caught ever so faintly on the air when she first walked into the kitchen. But it didn't smell even remotely like the raw vodka. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and drank a hesitant, exploratory sip.

It was... unexpectedly good. She blinked, and the panther's grin widened. "See?" She nodded, and took another, deeper draw. It didn't taste even remotely like what she'd had straight from the bottle. "Like magic."

"Huh. I guess you're right." She drank again, searching for the bitterness that she knew had to be somewhere in there. She thought she could taste it, ever so slightly, somewhere far in the back, but mostly it just tasted like fruit juice. "Wow. I guess this is how people can do it."

"You got it." He drained his glass and set it back on the counter, and to her own surprise, she followed suit not long after. It was thoroughly surprising to her to find herself looking down at the bottom of an empty glass; if she'd tried to drink as much as he'd poured in there straight, she'd be in the bathroom puking by now, she was sure of it.

"Well, I guess that's... all right, then. Huh." A subversive little thrill tingled in the pit of her stomach. She wasn't going to get crazy with it, of course, but successfully getting her hands on this suddenly gave her a feeling of accomplishment. She always did enjoy seeing just how much she could sneak past her elders, though she tried to keep it on the innocent side. Somehow, the knowledge that they would be going crazy to learn she'd sneaked herself some booze made it even sweeter for her.

He must have seen the light in her eyes, because he gathered up the bottles and carried them into the living room. "C'mon. No point in standing around." He set the ingredients down on the coffee table in front of the couch and kicked back on one end. After a moment of hesitation, Tricia switched off the kitchen light and followed. She took the opposite end of the couch; the room was dark but for thin, weak threads of porchlight filtering through the lone window in the living room.

With little light left to outline him, he had become a living shadow all over again. If she were to squint, he might disappear altogether. "Your dad was a rabbit?" He asked the question with practiced nonchalance as he set to mixing a new drink.

Tricia blinked in surprise at the abruptness of the question, but found herself nodding rather than frowning at him. "Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure. Why?"

"You can see it in your ears." He gestured at them with one hand. They were long, floppy, lop's ears, a far cry from what her own mother sported, and she found herself suddenly pawing at them self-consciously, as though their fur were out of place and needed to be combed down.

He noticed it, and shook his head with a smile. "Hey, they're good ears. Cute. I mean that in a positive way." He passed her a freshly-filled glass, and she took it without thinking; she was already sipping from it as he continued. "Your mom's polite enough not to talk about him, you know what I mean. She's circumspect. So I had to make a guess." She masked a sudden frown with the glass, and a mouthful of her drink. He meant that she was polite enough not to talk about one lover with another one. "You ever met him?"

"Nah." She was surprised to find herself answering the question honestly--but the realization hit her a moment later that much of her earlier standoffishness had melted away. This guy was pretty charismatic for a feline, at least. And he seemed all right. Relaxed and confident, not being creepy but not being a complete stone wall either. "I mean, not that I know. I guess I could have run into him?" She shrugged with a smile. "I never really thought about it."

"It ever bother you?"

Another shrug. "I don't think about it much. I guess it does, but... eh, y'know, I've got grades and... stuff to worry about."

"Pretty good attitude to take."

"I guess. I just wanna chill out and have some fun and stuff. I know lots of people at school without a dad, or a mom. Heck, at least I got one of them."

He smiled, teeth flashing in the dark. "You've got your mother's resilience."

She laughed before clamping her hand over her snout. She cast a furtive, worried glance over her shoulder and down the hallway to her mother's bedroom door. "I think you're fine," he said. "She was sleeping pretty soundly. Just don't shout and you won't have to explain anything." She laughed again, quietly this time, and despite herself--she really would never hear the end of it if her mom caught her doing this. The thought inspired less terror in her than she would have expected. It seemed almost funny, in fact, to think that she'd be doing this right under her mother's nose, in her own house.

"I hope not," she said. "She'd probably be mad at you, too." She lifted her glass to her lips and found it dry. When did that happen? She stared dumbly down at the empty glass, blinking slowly, before giggling and extending it across the couch toward the panther.

"Mad as hell," he agreed as he took it, fingers brushing hers. The contact sent a sliver of electricity up her arm, and she reflexively sucked in a breath. Her eyes followed his hand back to the coffee table, abruptly mesmerized by the sudden little thrill the contact sparked in her. He said something that she didn't pay any attention to.

"Hey." He clicked his tongue, and she snapped to, flushing. God, what was _that_all about? "You all right?"

"Oh, um, yeah, I'm cool. Sorry."

"Mhm. I think you've had enough to drink tonight. No need to go crazy."

"What?" She sat up, and the sudden motion brought with it a breezy euphoria that almost pulled a spontaneous giggle out of her. "I feel fine." She felt better than fine, actually. She hadn't felt this relaxed in... ever. "I'm not dumb; I'll let you know before it gets bad."

He pursed his lips. "I dunno..."

Impatience backed by confident determination filled her, and she was rising from her seat even as the panther was trailing off. "C'mon, I'm fine--" She meant to reach for the glass to pour herself another drink, but even as she rose from the couch a curious sense of sweeping, liquid motion filled her senses. What had begun in her mind as a swift and graceful act of self-determination ended with her stumbling forward, balance lost, straight into the panther's lap.

For one eternal second, time seemed to stop. He was warm; she could feel his body heat around him, around her, in the cool night air. He was at once solid and soft beneath her. One hand was on his leg, the other against his chest, and her breasts lay nestled against his thighs. She couldn't decide if this was hilarious or the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to her.

He was laughing, though, and before she could will her frozen limbs to respond, he was already hoisting her off his lap and back onto her own butt on the couch next to him. He was strong, wasn't he? Even still, he was a feline, and the feeling of being held by a feline, if even for a few seconds, shot tremors down her spine.

"Yes, you're fine," he said, eyes alight.

"No, I am!" She huffed. She was fine. "One trip and you think I'm dying. Come on. See. I'm fine." She sat upright as if to demonstrate her sobriety. She felt a little light-headed, but it wasn't stopping her from thinking, or speaking. She'd seen drunk people before--you couldn't help but see them, living around here. People staggering around blindly, lying on doorsteps, puking in the bushes. That was drunk. She wasn't drunk. She had plenty of room left.

"Uh huh. " He sounded skeptical. "You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Sure you're sure?"

"God!"

He flashed a grin. "Well, who am I to argue?" He leaned forward to mix another drink.

Tricia nodded sharply. That's right. She knew best, not some random guy who didn't know her at all. "Gimme."

He did, and she took the offered glass in both hands. Prize secured, she shifted her butt to scoot away from him on the couch, but he was half a second ahead of her: the moment she took the glass, he draped his arm over her shoulders and curled his fingers around her arm opposite him. A chill clutched at her limbs; she tried to mask it with a gulp of juice and vodka, but the sudden tension remained. She wasn't sure what to do. A second gulp followed.

"Hey, it's not going anywhere." His voice was quiet, soothing.

"R-right." Her fingers tightened around the glass as she fought the reflexive urge to take another drink. She was glad it was dark; her face and neck were hot enough that she imagined she must be glowing, even through her fur.

Scarcely two seconds passed, though it felt longer--those two seconds stretched out, her mind racing, her stomach tingling, and her mind too clouded to make any reasonable sense of her position. She felt like she ought to say something, do something, but she just sat there, stiff and still. He didn't move, either. His side was warm and solid against hers, and his light grip on her arm showed no hint of slipping away.

"Is it because I'm a cat?" There was nothing of uncertainty in his voice, just the same cool calm as before. He had cut straight to the heart of it, no beating around the bush. Was she really that transparent? She looked away, as if he could see the flicker of guilt crossing her face. Maybe he could. Could cats see in the dark?

A long moment passed before she answered, and all she gave was a single, tiny nod. She didn't really want to admit it, not out loud. Not at all. It wasn't his fault, and she wasn't supposed to be... prejudiced. Another two seconds went by in silence. Did he even realize she'd answered? She opened her mouth to speak, but the moment she did, his fingers tightened around her arm. "Shh. It's all right."

She closed her mouth. That answered that.

"Afraid I'm gonna eat you?"

She wrinkled her nose. "N-no. Don't be dumb."

"You're right, that is dumb. So why worry?"

It was a good question. Some part of it had to be simply due to her species--or, well, that of her parents, neither of which played well with felines. She'd always assumed as much--her reactions were so deep in her gut that she thought they had to come somewhere other than learned experience. But there was more to it, of course. But did she really want to tell this guy?

She took another drink. The silence stretched out, with the panther waiting patiently. His question notwithstanding, he wasn't pushing her at all; it may as well have been a rhetorical question. Something to make her think. But thinking was hard right now. There was too much going on in her head. She just wanted to let go for once.

"At, uh, school..." She hesitated, but he squeezed her arm in encouragement. Another drink provided her with the courage to proceed. "There's these girls, um... you know the kind, right? A few of them, this clique. They're..."

"Mm. Mean popular girls, right?"

She nodded once. "Yeah."

"And they're cats, are they?"

Another nod. "I mean, it's not like they're just... mean, and also just happen to be cats, it's like... they know I get nervous, and they make a big deal out of it." Her hand tightened around her glass; she took another drink. It was almost empty, but having gotten started, she was finding the words coming faster and freer, with less need for a gesture to fill the empty space. "Showing off their fangs and flexing their claws and all that kind of stupid crap, and they laugh about it. Laugh at the poor dumb rodent without a dad who gets freaked out by cats. All the time, bumping into me 'accidentally'..." In the dark, with only the thin slats of light filtering through the blinds, speaking to a quiet and attentive stranger, the living room had taken on the atmosphere of a confessional.

"Sounds familiar. There's always nasty people. Hell, I remember girls like that from when I was in school. Never really changes."

She tilted her head to glance sidelong at him. She couldn't see anything but a vague, shadowy outline. Her nose would normally tell her more, but tonight even that had been compromised: she could hardly smell anything but fruit juice and alcohol. "How old are you?" Her breath hitched in her throat the moment she asked. What would have possessed her to ask that?

He chuckled. "Old enough."

She leaned into his side and pushed a hand against his chest. "Come on. How long's it been since you were even in school?"

It was his turn to be quiet for a moment, watching her face thoughtfully. "You sure you wanna know?"

She wasn't actually sure. She nodded anyway.

"Mm-hm. All right. Thirty-four."

The answer brought a nervous thrill to her gut. She knew he was older, that much was obvious, but... geez, he was more than twice her age. It shaded the whole situation, and she realized with a pang of shame that she wasn't entirely sure that she didn't like that new context. "O-oh," was all she could manage, and once again she found herself seeking a moment's comfort in her glass. She drained the last of what was left. She was starting to feel really floaty, now. Maybe it was time to rein it in.

He didn't ask how old she was in return. He already knew, or didn't care; he just flashed his teeth at her response. "Yeah, I'm ancient, huh."

"N-no, that's not what I meant--"

He chuckled and squeezed her arm again. "Relax, I'm just messing with you." She tried to relax. Her rapidly advancing lightheadedness made that much easier, despite the feline's proximity. Her initial anxieties about the panther's species had receded dramatically. It's not that she suddenly _liked_cats. She just... didn't find herself caring quite so much right now. There were other things to care about. Too many things. She couldn't even concentrate on them all at once. "So, you want to know how to deal with mean girls like that? The nasty ones who get all superior about their species?"

That got her attention. She leaned forward. "How?"

He leaned in, too, drawing his muzzle close; she could see the faintest sheen of light flicker on his whiskers, this close to her. They shifted as he grinned. "Take their men."

Tricia blinked. "What?"

"Take their men," he repeated. "Their boyfriends, or even just their guy friends. You know." She furrowed her brow, and he continued on. "Show the guys that being with a lovely, nice girl like you is way better than being with a nasty bitch. What better revenge against a girl who hates rats--or rabbits--than making their men love 'em?"

More blinks--and a burst of heat in her cheeks and muzzle. "I, ah... that's... I don't know how I'd--"

"Easy." He interrupted her smoothly, and she didn't have the chance to talk back afterward. Her mouth was open to speak--and then his was touching it, a sudden push of warm lips, head tilted to match his muzzle to hers. They didn't, not really, not well, feline to rodent, but the dissimilarities plunged deep into the background behind the aggressive heat of his embrace.

Her limbs were electric, tingling; her stomach, turning over and over. Nostrils flared, whiskers shot out straight, and her breath stopped even as her heart began to race. She felt dizzy... or was that the alcohol? Body heat melted into her. She felt something over her lips, against her incisors--a tongue, raspy and invasive. Pressure on her hip, on her thigh, movement that she couldn't even discern the true nature of: her head was swimming, spinning. She was on her back. Weight above her. Deeper darkness, blotting out even the thin lights from outside the living room.

His mouth retreated, and she sucked in a ragged breath. "Guys aren't hard," he murmured close to her. She was only barely capable of even hearing him. "Especially around that age." One hand was on her hip. Another cradled the back of her head, his fingers laced through her mousey brown hair. She couldn't believe this was happening.

"Ah..." She struggled for something to say. Anything. Anything that wouldn't sound stupid, that wouldn't embarrass her. But her throat felt like it had closed up. Nothing came. The harder she tried, the more her mind blanked itself.

He said something--she couldn't even remember what--and began to rise up off her. Her hands tightened: one gripped his forearm, the other balled into a fist around the front of his shirt. She hadn't even realized her hands were on him until that moment. Sudden terror shot through her, that she was fucking something up, that she was going to ruin... something. She didn't know what. But she didn't want to ruin it. She didn't want him to think she was just some stupid girl choking on her own shock.

She thought she said something, but she didn't hear the words that came out of her own mouth. Whatever it was, it held him there, halfway off of her; there he paused, lingering, looking down at her with those barely illuminated yellow eyes. "You're sure?"

She nodded fervently. She wasn't sure what she was sure about. But it didn't matter. She couldn't be conquered by her fear. Wouldn't be. He paused but a moment more, then pushed his hand from her hip to her waist, where his fingers traced along the waistband of her jeans before tucking neatly beneath the hem of her t-shirt. The first touch of his pads against her bare fur brought an arch to her back and rolled a wave of nigh-delirium down her spine. She lost track of what happened afterward, and when, and how. His hands were moving, touching, and wherever his body met hers there he left a burning impression until her whole body felt like he was touching her everywhere all at once. His lips were on hers again, and she found herself glad for it, glad for the freedom from having to think of something smart to say. When he tried to pull back, she twisted a hand through his hair with careless ferocity and brought him back to her.

She hadn't thought twice--or even once--about the gesture, but whatever she'd done unearthed something new in him. He was moving sharply now, fervently, with precise and directed force. Her jeans loosened around her waist, and it wasn't until the rough denim began dragging against her fur that she realized he'd unzipped her, was undressing her. Her thighs closed together instinctively, but there was no stopping him. Two or three good yanks and her pants were around her ankles, bunched up against the worn old boots--hand-me-downs from her mother's youth--that she had not yet bothered to take off.

He pulled back from her, then, breaking contact with her lips and pushing through her renewed protestations. Up he rose, kneeling on the couch above her. A flourish of silhouettes fluttered in the darkness before her, and in her condition she didn't realize that he had pulled his own clothing off until he was already yanking at her boots. They were loose and ill-fitting, and came off easily, tumbling away into the darkness of the living room somewhere beyond her sight. A final pull took her jeans away from her, and they too disappeared into the shadows. He didn't bother with her socks.

He bent down, clutching her panties at each hip, in either hand; fresh thrills rolled through her gut, but with them came a sudden, foggy sense of realization. This was happening. It wasn't just a daydream, was it? He pulled, and found her hands curling around his wrists. "I-I'm... I dunno..."

His efforts redoubled, and she was helpless to stop him. The fabric peeled away from her loins with a lewd slurp; she realized with a sudden embarrassed flush that she was sodden between her legs. She twisted on the couch, as if her wetness were something shameful, to hide from him, but nothing stopped her panties from coming down her legs. He pulled them off one leg, leaving them to dangle twisted around the other ankle before a strong grip pried her legs apart. In moments she found him between them, above her.

A lump of fear rose up from her belly and into her throat. "I-I'm not--"

"Shh." He was close above her again, his voice cool and calm and authoritative. "Hush, baby. You're fine. You're perfect."

Was it stupid of her to feel such a glow when she heard that? She couldn't decide what she should feel. Her hands fumbled back and forth between pushing and pulling, but his never faltered. When he pushed up on her shirt, she squirmed beneath him with newfound anxiety. His fingers brushed her left breast, and she sucked in a sharp breath, hands ready to repel him even as he wormed beneath the bunched-up fabric to seek out the clasp beneath. He found it quickly, nestled between the cups; this garment, like most of hers, was a worn-out hand-me-down from her mother, and though no man had ever slipped his hands there before, she knew this was designed for... easy access.

But she didn't want him to see her breasts. Not because it was wrong, not because he was twice her age, not because she'd never found herself beneath a man and this first confusing, drink-soaked moment found a stranger groping beneath her shirt. A sudden shame filled her as his hands cupped about her modest curves. She had so little to offer him, especially compared to her mother, whose charms and grace she had not inherited. How could he be satisfied?

"We shouldn't--" she mumbled, shaking her head, even as he tucked a thumb between her breasts and teased out the catch. Interrupted, again, by his lips on hers; he pressed a kiss onto her for only so long as it took her to choke back her objections. Then cool air touched the fur of her chest as fabric peeled away, and then warmer air soon after as his mouth descended from her muzzle to her breast.

The first wet touch of his tongue on her nipple bent her back into a sharp arch, and she dug her hands against the back of his head. She wanted to apologize, apologize for not being good enough, for not measuring up, but even as damp muscle lapped in rings and crosses over her skin, she found herself unable to speak for sucking breath and whimpers. If he thought her insufficient, nothing in the ruthless efficiency of his tongue gave even the barest hint. In scarce seconds, she was lost, adrift, her head spinning, and she clutched herself to him as though he were a shard of driftwood keeping her afloat on a stormy sea.

He pressed on her knees, pried her legs apart; she wavered between resisting him and making herself into an accomplice to his lust, but the gentle and insistent pressure bent her by degrees toward the buried urge to submit herself to his touch. Even as her legs opened, first by his hands and at the end by her own shameful willfulness, she became aware of the ember of hunger stirring somewhere inside her. She wanted him to do this. Whoever he was. She didn't care. Cat or rat or anything else, she wanted him above her, atop her, hands on her, mouth on her. His own desire lit a sympathetic fire in her belly, warmed her to his invasion of her body. She wanted to be wanted. And for the first time in her life, she felt, someone was giving it to her.

And there he was, between her opened thighs, large, looming, visible as scarcely more than an outline against the feeble light from beyond the living room window. As he descended, a hand stroked along the inside of her thigh, up to the wet heat burning between her legs. The throb of embarrassment that pulsed through her as his padded fingers brushed over her labia, puffy with arousal, was chased away in moments by the electric tingle that captured her loins. She felt herself lifting her hips into his touch. He said something in that soothing, calm voice of his, whisper-quiet. She wasn't sure what--it sounded like a question.

She nodded enthusiastically.

For a moment more his fingers lingered there, tracing lines up and down the seam of her folds, and then he shifted again above her. A new, different heat touched her loins. She stiffened, clenched her eyes shut. God, was that his cock? Was it really going to happen? Perhaps a part of her had never really believed it from the outset; a part of her imagined this hazy fog of sensation to be just a particularly vivid dream. But the touch of hot, bare flesh, stiff and aroused and ready to conquer, gave clarity to the moment. Was it right? She shouldn't, but--

In. He was pushing. A sound escaped her, shock and alarm twisted with a jolt of raw physical pleasure. Then a hand was clamped to her muzzle, muffling her moaning against the back of her own throat. Her nostrils flared and she squirmed, but his grip about her muzzle only tightened. He held her there, sucking in breath through her nose, as his whole body rocked inward, upward, pushing, pushing. She felt resistance; instinct and fright and unfamiliarity clenched the walls of her pussy reflexively, but he refused to stop or retreat. The pressure grew intense, straining, and then a shock of pain recoiled through her loins. She yelped into his hand, the cry coming out as barely more than a muffled groan; his hand tightened further. She could scarcely breathe beneath his grip.

He pushed, hard and insistent. Her insides, where he was invading her, entering her, stung like an open wound. Her feet kicked into the open air to either side of him, her hands clutched at his shoulders, pushing and pulling in confused, equal measures. She fought through the dizzying fog, the insistent, powerful pressure of the man thrusting between her legs, the weight of his body, the ruthless grip of his hand about her muzzle.

She realized with a mixture of dawning horror and subversive thrill that the panther had just deflowered her, had snatched her virginity away from her just like that. All it took was a stroke of the hips, and her veil was torn, her loins opened. It was an act never to be undone, her once in a lifetime moment, and here it had come beneath this feline stranger upon an old and creaky couch in her mother's apartment.

And every inch that he pushed further sent stinging ripples through her. She was too small, too little for him, too tight, untested. It was only the thick wet sheen of her own arousal, slathering her insides, that made it even possible for him to despoil her so. Behind the stinging of her broken hymen, she felt the dull, aching throb of his cock forcing her tightened inner muscles apart. She twisted beneath him, trying to ease the ache, shifting her hips back and forth as if she could find a position where it hurt less. Her tail wound like a coiled spring about his thigh as she kicked at the couch cushions with her feet.

He gave her precious little room to move. She was pinned, all but helpless beneath the man twice her size. He never let up, pushing eagerly and without reprieve. The sensation of being filled grew more and more acute, until she began to fear that he was going to tear her thighs open, the resistance against her clenching walls having metamorphosed into an alarming inner pressure. But then something furry and heavy pressed against the exposed curve of her rear, and with it a ticklish brush of fur against her brutally-spread folds. He had hilted her, balls deep. And there, at least for a moment, he paused.

He leaned down, his muzzle close to her ear. "Shh. It'll get better. Just hold on." It was but a whisper, scarcely understood through the whirlwind enveloping her. Before she had any time to understand what he meant, he moved again--and this time, he pulled back.

What felt like a million burning points of light burst into reality within Tricia's loins. The moment the cat dragged his cock back, innumerable tiny, fleshy barbs flared and caught against her inner muscles. She yowled; the sound came out as nothing more than a squeak from behind the hand clenched around her muzzle. She jerked herself against him reflexively, squirming, pushing, kicking, but she had no leverage and her feet found no purchase. She was held fast to the cushions.

Her tail unwound from his thigh and lashed back and forth across the couch like a fleshy whip, as though its flailing could extricate her. As the thrusting began in earnest, her feet kicked up into the air blindly and without direction, toes splayed with each forward stroke of his hips and curled with each shuddering rake of his barbs.

Slowly, slowly, what began as a slow and laborious pace eased into an uptempo rhythm, her muscles forced--as much as they could be--into relaxation, though she still clung to that savage cock with such unconscious urgency that she could practically feel the veins along its length. The sting of her shattered hymen never quite went away, but as the shock wore off, it receded into the background, half-numbed by fresh new hums of pleasure beneath her skin. The barbs, though--the barbs never held back, and each stroke was a fresh jolt. Still, as the first few strokes became the first few dozen, her alarm faded and her muffled yowling had fallen away into quiet whimpers on the backstroke.

"Be a good girl and stay quiet," she heard him whisper into her ear, as if he were speaking to her from a great distance. With effort, she managed to apprehend what he was saying. She nodded against his hand, and after a moment more, his grip around her muzzle relaxed. She sucked in a deep breath. The air was dense with the scent of feline, of alcohol, of blood--her blood, she dimly recognized. She was going to get blood on her mother's couch. She mumbled something, squirmed, but her impromptu lover merely dipped his head and tucked his fangs against her neck; she stiffened, legs held high in the air, and choked back her protest. She wanted to be good.

There he fucked her, rough and urgent, the couch creaking in its own manner of protest at the rough handling. Aside from the rusty springs, the nearly inaudible huffs of the panther close to her ear, and the wet, rhythmic slap of flesh between her legs, the house was silent, still as she'd ever remembered it. It was as though the whole world had stopped for this moment, her mind and body unmoored from reality and spirited away to a tumbling, chaotic netherworld where she was to lose her innocence. Her mother, probably drunk and passed out, was just down the hall, a couple dozen feet and behind a thin door, but she might as well have been on the other side of the universe.

She had drunk too much. It had taken this long for her to realize it, but she had gone one glass too far, and now with the older panther rutting her like a whore on the living room couch, she could barely concentrate even on what was happening to her. She could only hold on tight--and so she fumbled for a grip, arms and legs twisting awkwardly around the cat while he had his way with her. She wished she could focus better on the warm sensations, the rippling tides of pleasure washing over her and leaving little pools of tingling delight in her limbs and in the base of her skull. She wanted to savor the moment, fix it in her mind, remember it and hold it close. He was making her into a woman, and all she could do was cling to him and whine into his shoulder.

She had no idea how long it lasted. Time spun out into meaninglessness, but when the panther's rough jostling picked up into a fervent, hyper-aggressive pace, some dim corner of her mind knew that the end was coming. She groaned, dug her fingertips into his back. Something itched at the back of her mind, but she couldn't focus on it. She couldn't focus on anything. There was just the dark and the cat and the fucking and the wet sloppy sounds, harder and faster and--

--a snarl against her neck, the unmistakable feeling of fangs digging against her skin, nearly breaking it. She yelped, only managing to bite it back halfway. The cat froze, hips driven up and into her, and for the space of a single heartbeat she wondered to herself, stupidly, whether time itself had stopped. Then she felt it, pulsing, flowing, thick wet splashing within her pussy, throb after throb of cream spilling into her. He was cumming right inside her. He didn't even try to pull out; balls deep, he drained them into her without hesitation. She could swear she felt every drop pour into her, spattering her walls, pooling heavily into the deepest depths of her loins.

Her stomach clenched. He was bareback. She hadn't even thought--hadn't even considered it. And now his cum was there, inside her, too late to do anything about it. Fuck! She should have stopped him, warned him, asked him, done something, but the idea hadn't even crawled into her bewildered little mind until it had happened. A wave of anxiety washed over her, albeit muted and distant. Perversely, she told herself that even if she were worried about it--fuck, was she--there was nothing she could do about it now anyway. Worrying wouldn't do anything. Right?

Somewhere in the midst of turning those thoughts over in her head, the panther had relaxed atop her. He was still, and the world again was quiet. She realized she was clinging to him like a barnacle, and made an embarrassed effort to pull her limbs away. She felt tense, sore, and not only between her legs. She didn't want him to see how nervous she suddenly was.

If he noticed, he said nothing about it. "Shh. Easy." He kissed her cheek and shifted to sit up; the last drag of his barbs as he slipped free of her pulled one last groan from her throat. She lay there, unwilling or unable to follow him into a seated position, her head flopped back against the armrest of the couch. She was afraid that she could collapse if she tried to sit up--or, God forbid, stand. She saw his silhouette run his hands over his head, then reach over to the table where their drinks had been sitting. He mixed half a glass as she watched.

"You all right?" he asked, as calm as he had been before he'd fucked her to pieces. She thought she saw the shadow of a smile in his muzzle. He was a champion compared to her.

She nodded weakly. "Y... yeah." Her throat felt dry. She swallowed. "S-sorry."

"For what?" He held the glass out toward her; it caught the light from outside, barely illuminating the liquid within.

The question having been posed, Tricia realized she wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. Not exactly. She fixed her eyes on the glass--it was hard to focus, as the image kept swimming in front of her--and did not reach out to take it right away. After a moment, she ventured, "I... um... I probably wasn't very good..." She tried to wet her lips, but her tongue felt too dry.

"Hush. You were wonderful." The glass remained patiently in his hand. She supposed half a glass couldn't fuck her up any more than she already was. It surely couldn't get crazier than this. She reached out slowly, until he helpfully drew her hands to the glass and held her fingers against it. She sat up just a few inches--the room was spinning--and brought the drink up with shaky hands. It was wonderfully wet and sweet, and was gone before she knew what was happening.

Then the glass was gone from her hands, and she was falling into the air, with strong arms hooked around her back and tucked behind her knees. He was lifting her from the couch. Despite everything, she giggled to herself as he carried her into her room, laid her out across the comfortable--if unimpressive--expanse of her bed. She was glad that Sarah was staying over at a friend's. She couldn't even begin to imagine how she'd explain this to her sister. Sarah already thought she was a slut.

She murmured her thanks, and the panther ran a hand through her hair before standing and walking off. She lay back against her pillow, eyes closed, head spinning in darkness. She just needed to take a breather. A moment to relax. A lot had happened. She could afford a few minutes to take stock, or... no, really, what she just needed to do was think about nothing. Right? Just relax and do nothing, think nothing.

A few minutes passed. She thought she heard someone talking, and cracked one eye open. The panther was standing at the other end of her bedroom, silhouetted in front of her window, his face dimly illuminated by the glow of something in his hand. She squinted. A phone? He was talking, but she couldn't make out the words. It lasted only a minute or so, she thought, before the light blinked out. He was there at her side again, bed creaking as he sat on its edge. He ran a hand across her stomach.

"How're you feeling?"

"Fucked." She giggled, deliriously amused by her own little joke; he smiled alongside her.

"I bet."

She fumbled for his hand, found it surprisingly difficult to make contact. After a couple of tries, she managed to bump her fingers against his wrist and curl them around. "I think I'm drunk," she mumbled.

"Told you."

She huffed, and her eyes drifted closed again. He had told her. But it was fine. She knew better now, and next time she could dial it back a bit. Obviously. Besides, this wasn't so bad. Everything was hot and fuzzy and crazy, but now that she was laying here in bed it was a homey, wonderful kind of crazy. She was fine.

A few more minutes passed in silence. She heard something outside; a car's engine. She opened her eyes to blurry slits just in time to see headlights flash across the window of her bedroom, then switch off. A door opened, then closed. The panther was gone. Fuck. Was Sarah home? She reached over to try to untangle her bedsheets, to cover herself in case her sister came into the bedroom, but after a few seconds of failing to get the sheets straight, she just gave up and slumped into a splayed mess once more. Fuck her sister. She could deal with it.

When the door to her bedroom opened, it wasn't her sister. It was a man. The panther? She tried to focus, flared her nostrils to try to smell. She couldn't make heads or tails of it. It had to be him, right? But there were two of him. Two? She blinked again, narrowed her eyes. She was seeing double. She tried to sit up, groaned at the debilitating flood of vertigo, and flopped back down again just as quickly.

She wasn't seeing double. There were two of them, at her bedside. The panther, and another man, silhouetted just the same, taller and broader in the shoulders than her mother's boyfriend. Her whiskers twitched. "Um..."

The panther pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh." She watched dumbly as he then nodded to the taller man and stepped back. Was this actually happening? Even as she stared, he shucked his clothing like a professional. She squirmed, tried to turn herself aside as he crawled above her, but her muscles refused to respond promptly to her demands. In seconds she was on her back once more, legs splayed, and the big stranger was atop her. He was a feline of some sort, she thought. She couldn't be sure. She thought she smelled feline.

Rough hands were on her, though he hardly needed to exert much effort to pin her in place. After a cursory struggle, she lolled her head to the side to stare at the panther, who stood watching off to the side. His hands were on his hips, his posture relaxed. Her ears flattened, but she... she didn't want to disappoint him. Did she? Even as she lay there, the man above her pulled his hips close to hers and entered her with a single, fierce thrust.

What she felt was a yelp just came out as a burbling, almost subvocal moan. This second man, this stranger whose face she hadn't even seen, simply began to fuck her without a word, plowing her hips into her own mattress like she were a doll laid out for his pleasure. The first backstroke confirmed her guess, as barbs raked her anew, but after the first few strokes she was too numbed to the sensation to protest. Once again her world was nothing but growls, brutal thrusts, a heavy and thickly muscled body rocking atop her, the bedsprings creaking beneath her.

Somewhere, halfway through, she made to wrap her limbs around him like she had the panther; he was bigger, harder to envelop, and he virtually ignored all her efforts. She dug her heels in against his thighs, but they neither slowed nor spurred his rutting--only time heightened the speed of his pounding, and soon enough he was driving himself up into her with such ferocity that she was afraid yet again that she'd break. She heard herself, as if from a great distance, cooing and gurgling and moaning, until her unknown partner's climax came and he buried himself for the final moment of glory.

She felt once more the heavy splash of cum inside her. Barebacked again. Two men's loads now swam in her belly. Twice wasn't going to fuck her up any more than once was, was it? In fact, she could free herself up to feel a little exhilarated by it, if she thought about it in a certain way. What's done was done, and so she could enjoy the rebellious thrill of being fucked raw the second time, since it wasn't going to do her any more harm.

She was barely cognizant of the man rising from her and turning aside without so much as a word. He did speak to the panther, briefly, with basso tones and words she couldn't decipher in her state. She saw the men exchange something--she wasn't sure what, and honestly didn't care--and then the second one left. She was too tired to think any more deeply about what happened, and barely even paid attention when the panther reappeared at her bedside to say something to her. She only remembered nodding and mumbling something, and then dozing off, legs splayed on her mattress with cum openly drooling from her twice-used pussy.

* * *

Weight. She tried moving, found that she couldn't, and gave up without putting her back into it. There was a rocking movement, hard and fast, something pushing, a jolt of sensation between her legs. She groaned, or thought she did, but her limbs weren't really responding to her and to be honest she couldn't be fucked to care if they did or not. She was tired, she just wanted to lay there. She didn't care what else was going on.

The rocking didn't stop, nor did the waves radiating out from her loins. With great effort, she willed her arms to lift, fumbled about above her until her fingers ran straight into a wall of muscle carpeted over with thick, shaggy fur. Someone was on top of her, but rather than find it alarming, she giggled and let her hands fall loose at her sides. Each rock brought fresh delight, a subtle and wonderful warmth spreading out to the tips of her fingers and toes, all the way down her tail, heating the insides of her ears. Each rock dragged rough fur over bared nipples, back and forth, back and forth, until the flesh was hardened into stiff points.

She didn't know how long it lasted. She didn't care. It went on and on until it didn't, and there was a final hot, wet splash inside her before one last thrum of sensation. She felt empty... disappointed, almost, but she didn't care about voicing her disappointment, either. It was fine. Everything was fine. Voices, maybe, in the distance--or maybe she was dreaming them. Maybe she was dreaming this, too, one weight followed by another, and another...

* * *

The headache, like a knife stabbed into the base of her skull, was the first indication Tricia had that anything was the matter. She felt it even before she felt the touch of sheets against her back or the glow of sunlight against her eyelids. She moaned, a pitiful sound that cut short the moment she tried to move.

The nausea momentarily made her forget about the headache. She nearly vomited right then and there. She held back a sob, and clutched at her temples with quaking fingers. Holy shit. Her head. Her body. She felt like she was going to die--or was already dying.

What the fuck happened? She tried to think, to the extent that thinking didn't make her headache worse. She had... come home. It was late. She met... oh, fuck. Oh, shit. She had gotten drunk. That guy, the panther, her mother's boyfriend or... or something. She tried to remember his name, found it escaping her. He had to have told her his name, right? Try as she might, she couldn't remember it. They'd fucked. She remembered that much. They fucked on the couch. And then... in her bed? She wasn't sure, but her bed certainly _smelled_like sex. Her mother's room smelled like that, sometimes.

She creaked an eye open into a slit, and regretted it. The sunlight, even through the closed curtains of her bedroom window, burned. She wanted to lay in bed forever, or at least until this went away, but a fresh wave of nausea hit her and she found herself suddenly afraid that she might make more of a mess in her bed than she already had.

It was a rough and precarious thing, stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom. She didn't even care if her mother saw her right now, staggering down the hallway. Once safely ensconced, she let the nausea run its course, and then rinsed her mouth and splashed cold water over her face and hands. She stood there slumped against the sink for several minutes before she felt well enough to stand up and look at herself in the mirror.

Her eyes were red and puffy and bloodshot, and her hair and fur was mussed beyond recovery. She wanted to take a shower, but was afraid she might not be able to stand up for as long as it would take to finish one. She looked as miserable as she felt. Fuck. She looked down at herself to find the rest of her was doing little better... and especially the fur between her legs and around her thighs, now matted with dried cum. Fuck's sake, her thighs hurt. She felt like she had been hit with a hammer down there.

She managed to make her way back to her bedroom without encountering anyone else. Sarah was still gone, it looked like, and her mother was probably still passed out and just as fucked up as she was--for once, she was glad for her mother's drinking habit. She crawled back into bed and dragged the sheets over her head before falling into a fitful and unpleasant doze.

* * *

When she awoke again, she was feeling better. Slightly. She could sit up without feeling sick, and the cacophony in her head had subsided into a dull roar. Somewhat less distracted, she tried to remember exactly what had happened the night before. She fucked a guy. She... she had lost her virginity--the realization sent a fresh chill down her spine, and she pulled back the sheets to find little spots of blood staining the linens here and there, along with the crusty dried remnants of the sex itself. Nostrils flared, whiskers twitched. It had to happen someday, right? With someone. She suddenly found herself wondering if her mother remembered her first time, who it was with, how it happened...

She turned her head as if she could stop looking at her own thoughts. She could hardly remember anything else that happened, anyway. She'd barebacked the guy. She hadn't even mentioned a condom. She was too caught up in what was happening to do what she was supposed to do, but... some of the girls said you couldn't get pregnant your first time, right? She licked her lips. She had to hope that was true. It had to be. Obviously. Or else there would be a LOT more pregnant girls at school. Right? Right.

As for what else happened... she had sex on the couch, and then that panther had carried her into her bed, and he'd fucked her there, too, except... that didn't feel quite right. She wrinkled her brow. Why didn't it? She had sex in her bed, she remembered that much, the feel of her cheek resting against the pillow while being fucked.

And then the bottom fell out of her stomach; she actually lifted her hands to clutch at it. She remembered. It... it wasn't him. It was some other guy. She didn't even know who that was. Or what he was. A confusing mix of fresh nausea and perverse thrill clutched at her heart. She'd had sex with two guys in one night. Just like that. Little mousey hybrid dumb squeaky poor Tricia. Was she really that... interesting? She stared down at herself; her badly creased and rumpled shirt lay draped over breasts that barely tented the fabric. And yet...

God, she was fucked up to think that was a good thing, wasn't she. And yet. And yet. She shook her head to try to dispel the thought, regretted the decision immediately, and turned her eyes back to her bedside table. There was something there that had caught her eye, a folded sheet of paper tucked underneath her alarm clock and lumpy with something.

She tugged it free and unfolded it only for a shower of loose bills to flutter into her lap. She blinked, stunned. What? On the inside of the paper was a short note, written in blocky and inelegant print.

You were great, Trish.

Here's your share.

Let me know if you're ever interested.

Beneath was a phone number she didn't recognize. There was really only one person who could have written that, right? But what did he mean about her share? Her eyes fell to the money scattered across her lap, and with a sudden sense of forboding mixed with excitement, she gathered it all up and counted. As the number rose, her heartbeat hastened.

It was a hundred dollars, all in fives. Holy shit. This was more money than she'd ever held at once in her entire life. And it was just... there. She sucked in a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. No. It wasn't just "there". She knew why it was there, didn't she? Why he gave it to her. She read the note again. Your share. A hundred bucks, just for fucking someone. Okay, two people. And... it wasn't that bad, even, hangover aside.

No. She knew better. She knew her mom had... visitors. Frequently. She saw what some of them did to her, how they treated her. How it made her mother feel, how it made her feel watching her mother. Could she do that herself? No, of course not. Besides, she was too young. She was still in school. There was no way. She ought to rip up the note and flush it down the toilet.

But the money... she found herself staring at it again, imagining what she was going to do with it. Imagining what she might be able to do with another fistful of it. And another. She wasn't signing a contract or anything, right? She frowned. Bad thinking. But she couldn't remember the last time she even had a five in her pocket, let alone twenty of them. This was beyond a windfall. This was life-changing.

She wet her lips, carefully tucked the hundred dollars back into the folded note, and--glancing about as if afraid someone would see where she was putting it--stuck it into her dresser's sock drawer. She didn't have a phone. Not yet. But she could afford one, now. And then... well, she'd worry about all that when she got to it, wouldn't she?