FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

--1

"You didn't have to come along. I really wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't."

Jamie smiled. She shoved Veronica's bicep with a fist. "What are friends for?"

Veronica sniggered humorlessly. "Yeah, some friend I am. Getting your wedding trashed like that."

"That wasn't your fault."

"It kinda was," Veronica said.

The jackal's sigh said I give up. She rested with her elbow between the door and the window, her chin propped up on her palm.

Veronica stopped at the gatehouse separating the sprawling gated community from the rabble of the rest of Los Angeles. The guard recognized her on sight and pulled his tired Great Dane jowls into an amicable smile. "Afternoon, Miss Ryan. I haven't seen you much," he said, putting in his combination on the keypad. The gate purred open.

A tight grin creased Veronica's face. She'd never learned his name. "Yeah, I know. And I don't think you will again."

Bleak circumstances notwithstanding, Jamie looked at the manors along the hilly land, eyes wide behind trendy square frames. "Gosh, these houses are all so pretty," she said with childlike wonder. "I bet it'd be nice to live--." She glanced suddenly at Veronica, wincing. "Oh, well, shit. Sorry, I forgot."

Veronica waved her off. "It's fine. Really." Her tone conveyed the opposite.

Following a short drive through the gated community, passing immaculate lawns, wrought iron gates and groundskeepers on golf carts, Veronica pulled into a stately driveway and idled up to the manor looming at the end. She circled the terminating roundabout, stopping beside a silver Lamborghini with a nasty dent in the driver side door, a buckle in the nose and a fender which looked like it been yanked away from the tire it obscured by a monstrous feat of strength.

Jamie scanned the Lambo carefully, her jowls pressed tightly together, vanishing into all but a thin black line. She tutted and shook her head. "What happened here?"

"Who cares?" Veronica barked. "Come on, let's not take any longer than we have to."

Jamie knocked. Veronica nudged her aside and thrust the door open. A small, slightly pudgy hyena skidded to a stop in the middle of the foyer. He grinned nervously and interlaced his fingers. "Hi, Veronica."

"Hi, Anthony," she said quietly. No animosity. "Is he here?"

The hyena blinked and pointed up the stairs. "I, um, thought you were only here for your stuff?"

So briefly that Jamie and Anthony didn't have time to wonder, the kangaroo considered following the finger. She snapped, "I don't wanna see him. I just wanted to see if I'd have to punch him again." She rubbed her scarred knuckles thoughtfully.

Veronica and Jamie took out the kangaroo's things. Anthony put in a token effort by holding the front door open for them.

After all of Veronica's possessions were loaded into the car (in which both the trunk and backseat were now full), the ladies wandered back inside, the jackal following the kangaroo's lead reluctantly.

Veronica gazed up at the balcony in the foyer. Kahnso leaned on the banister, backpedaling out of her view as soon as their eyes locked.

"So, you're, um," Anthony murmured, touching her arm, "really leaving?"

Veronica snatched her arm away from the hyena. Anthony flinched back and threw his paws up. "Yeah," she huffed. "Yeah. I don't wanna be here anymore."

Jamie wrapped her arm around Veronica's flank. She was smaller, more traditionally feminine - a brown-eyed girl with a beautiful figure. Quietly to Anthony, "Is he okay?"

The concern put a scowl on Veronica's face. She thrust Jamie away. "Don't be a pain in the ass. He treated me like shit, tried to rape you at your wedding, and you wanna know if he's fucking okay?" Veronica snarled every word, emphasizing every point with a jab into Jamie's chest.

As chipper and girlish as she tended to be at idle, Jamie looked unlike herself with a sour frown and narrow eyes. Of them all, Anthony easily had the most hurt expression, appearing with doe eyes and a quivering lip, paws clasped helplessly behind his back.

Veronica took in both faces and grunted, "I'm sorry," skulking out of the manor.

Jamie turned to Anthony and shook her head. The hyena forced a smile and shrugged. "He misses her," he whispered. "I think--, I'm kinda worried he's--."

"Jamie, hey! You coming or what?"

The small jackal winced. "I better get out of here. Bye, Anthony."

With the latch of the door, Kahnso moodily descended the stairs into the foyer. He threw a glance at Anthony, never stopping his stalk into the kitchen. His face was still red and puffy from corrective surgery.

Anthony followed sheepishly. "Um. Uh."

"Say something," Kahnso barked into the fridge. His voice was a little mushy and awkward. "Or just shut the fuck up with your--," he flapped a paw at Anthony, "just fuck you and your stammering bullshit, fucking social retard."

Anthony was despondent. He bit his lip, gathered his thoughts. He finally said, and quite articulately, "Jamie was asking how you were."

The singer looked over his shoulder, a little surprised, then went back to digging in the fridge. "Did she."

"Yeah. But Veronica--."

"Fuck that bitch, I'm gonna give her what she deserves when I'm off these painkillers," Kahnso groused, coming up empty-handed. "Order me something to eat!"

"Um! Chinese, Mexican, p-pizza?" the hyena mumbled, reaching into his pocket for his phone.

"Fuck it, fuck you, I'm not hungry anymore," the big fox lied, trudging out of the kitchen. "I can't believe you let that stupid whore back in here. To take the shit I bought for her."

"Well, she--," Anthony yapped, "she didn't take it all..."

Kahnso whipped around but immediately regretted it. He had learned, ever since the reconstructive surgery to fix his mangled snout, that his blood vessels were incredibly sensitive. What used to be a normal head rush had become an exercise in agony, and he held his muzzle gingerly. Anthony touched his arm. "Maybe you should sit down?"

It came as a surprise to Anthony that Kahnso assented. He sat on the stairs, the closest thing at hand. There he sat for most of a minute, pathetically clutching his head like a classic portrait of misery, daring not to put pressure on his muzzle. "What did she leave?" he timidly asked.

"The, um, uh, the dress. The red dress you bought her."

Kahnso blinked. "Did she take the gun? The laptop? Is that seriously the only thing she left?"

The hyena quietly answered, "Yes."

"I see," Kahnso quietly said. "Anthony."

"Yeah?" Fear and worry.

"Get rid of it, burn it or something. I don't give a shit."

"But--."

"Now!" Kahnso roared, leaping to his feet. The exertion put him in excruciating pain and he fell back onto the stairs with a bump and a pitiful groan. Anthony dashed into Veronica's former bedroom, once again the guest room, then bolted past Kahnso with the red dress flapping in his grip.

--2

Jamie slipped off her glasses and wiped her sweaty brow on the back of her arm. She looked at the boxes full of Veronica's things and frowned. "Do you want some help putting it all away?"

"It can stay like it is," Veronica simply said. "I'm selling it anyway. Just gotta put it up online."

"What, what, everything? All of it?" Jamie meekly asked, opening the nearest box up. She pawed through the folded clothes inside and found a decadent photograph of Kahnso leering in his stage attire, set in a gilded frame. In his pretty hand was the legend Forever and always, to my Veronica.

Veronica snatched it out of Jamie's paws, looked balefully at the image and thrust it face-down into the box. "This should sell for a couple grand on eBay. Some other bimbo named Veronica will snap it up, I'm sure."

"Maybe--, ah, I don't know," Jamie huffed. "You should be a little less angry."

"What? Why?" the kangaroo asked, her tone a genuinely confused one. She flopped onto her worn-out sofa and put her feet up on one of the boxes. "Who says I'm angry, anyway?"

Jamie shot her a withering look, paws on her hips. Veronica grumbled.

"Look, anyway, it's not your business. It was when he trashed your wedding, but now it's nobody's problem," Veronica said, doing her best to sound as if she were unaffected by it all.

In all the years Jamie had known Veronica, she had learned how to read the kangaroo. But Veronica was being so transparent that a total stranger could have called bullshit. Wearing now a small grin and kneeling on the couch just inches away from the big marsupial, she said, "I can tell you're upset over it. You want the full list or just the bullet points?"

"Shut up, dweeb." Veronica grinned.

"Bullet points it is! Your face, your eyes especially. That I'm-so-not-upset-right-now tone you get when you talk about him. The fact that you wanted to know where he was. And that you haven't deleted his phone number yet." She unconsciously bobbed her head from one side to the other with each point, as if following a piece of music with a very strange time signature.

Veronica's face played through a few emotions. She was both bemused and embarrassed when she asked, "You looked through my phone?"

Jamie smiled modestly. "Only because I'm worried about you."

"Yeah, and nosy. Besides, I just," she shrugged, "haven't had the time to delete him yet. Last thing on my mind, really."

"As if, girl," the nerdy jackal laughed. "Every time you get sick of someone, the first thing you do is delete them from your phone. You can't fool me."

Suddenly Veronica was incredibly sour-faced and threatening to cry. The change was so radical that Jamie, ordinarily one to stand her ground, flinched. "Let's look at some facts here, even if I still love him," the kangaroo grimly said. She counted them on her outstretched fingers. "He got shitfaced at your wedding to spite me. He fondled you and embarrassed you in front of your whole family. He," she chuckled ironically and shook her head, "smacked me, and then called me a cunt or something like that. Yeah, that's some awesome boyfriend material."

Jamie chewed on her lip and reoriented herself to sit properly. She held the edges of the cushions and considered her words, and Veronica sat back similarly. Jamie found herself thinking what a broken record Veronica was. They both looked up at the ceiling, adrift in thought. Jamie said finally, "I want you to be happy."

"Ugh, Jamie, don't pull this my-parents-divorced-each-other crap on me, please," Veronica groaned.

"That's not it!" Jamie whined. "All I wanted was for you to be with a guy who makes you happy and loves you, you deserve that. If he cleaned up and behaved himself..."

Veronica closed her eyes, resting her paws on her thighs. "I gave him every chance and he wouldn't do either. I'm done with him."

In the week to come, Veronica's possessions stayed in their boxes, save one. She put the framed photo of Kahnso face-down on her dresser, and every morning, she gave it one poker-faced look before putting it face-down again. She did very little that didn't involve Jamie or her brother - Jamie's new spouse - Aaron.

--3

Kahnso's face was back to normal. The pain was nearly gone, having receded into a tide which surged and ebbed, making his jaws throb now and then.

The singer came home one evening which was otherwise dull and smoggy on a new, red Kawasaki sport bike. The model, which he didn't know, having asked only for the fastest red one they had, was unnecessarily speedy. He stopped beside his wounded Lamborghini and beeped the horn. His black hair was tangled and messy down his back, loping cords of it hanging in front of his shoulders.

When Anthony saw the sport bike, his expression became one of utter dismay. "You're going to get hurt on that," he clucked.

"Oh, fuck you," Kahnso barked, revving up the engine. It screamed between his thighs suggestively. Its rear wheel barked on the concrete, leaving a narrow skid. "You want to go for a ride? Push your crotch up against me and hug me real close?"

Anthony started his nervous, yappy hyena laugh. "Um. No." He shook his head vigorously. "No, thanks."

"Suit yourself, pussy," he sneered, and he cranked the throttle again. Anthony's ears splayed at the screech of the bike. "I'm gonna go get laid."

Kahnso buzzed off before Anthony could get another look at the bike. He went inside and saw that his phone had a new text on it.

The bike's wail descended to a sustained whine, and then staccato rumbles as Kahnso let off its throttle. He drifted to a stop in traffic behind a bus, getting hemmed in from the back by a pickup truck. He heard on the sidewalk, over the sound of idling engines in which his was indistinct, "Nice bike, dude!"

He glanced at the admirer and nodded. "Let's see how long it stays that way." The light turned green. He weaved around the sluggish bus and vanished into a smokescreen of diesel exhaust.

Kahnso flew under a red light, cranking the throttle further with all the love of twisting the head off of a doll. Straight road lined by parked cars and street lights and staring pedestrians blurred indistinctly past him. A bar of angry blue and red lights caught his eye in the mirror. He heard the threatening double-tap of the siren but didn't heed it. The Kawasaki was moving too fast to stop now. A silly thought stuck in his mind, quick and fleeting in the madness of a hundred-and-ten miles per hour. It was of a dog running madly from a hornet, diving under thickets and over crumbly hollow logs, each leap and bound liable to be met with disaster far more grievous than a sting on the ass.

He kept accelerating, going through a green light; another green light; a green light making the dispassionate change to yellow. He hit traffic again, so he hunkered down on the bike and cut through the gap between the lanes. The engine was a banshee underneath him and a blue-white smolder raged in its twin pipes like demon eyes. The cop car was long lost in his wake, and the officers in it were putting out warnings to search for a red Kawasaki doing at least a buck-twenty-five.

The pavement raced by with such idiotic speed that the striped lines coalesced into a wobbling blur. He dared to look aside and saw scenery indistinct whipping past. It was impossible to turn the throttle anymore but he still tried. His long hair, matted and knotty, whipped behind him like a cape.

More traffic to juke through, and a single wrong tweak would be a death faster than a gunshot through the roof of the mouth. He didn't know where he was going, or why, but he knew he had to get there fast. His red eyes drifted ponderously to the speedometer - passing the tach, the needle of which wagged well past its redline - and saw his speed was somewhere around one-fifty. That was redlined too. He looked up through the plastic windshield, which rippled against painfully against the wind. A billboard sign on wheels mocked him: construction next mile - use detour.

Ripped-up pavement past orange traffic barrels promised death; Kahnso grabbed the brakes and squeezed. The wheels seized and started to scream in agony against the pavement, smoking and shuddering, making the bike buck under his not insignificant strength and weight. Now all eyes were on the rockstar and his little red bike as he wobbled one way, then the other, clinging to his bike even as his center of gravity betrayed him.

The Kawasaki tipped on its side and his naked elbow smashed into the pavement, shredding fur and opening a wound not so much by ripping flesh but grinding it off the bone. He screamed in pain and let go of the bike, feeling the instinctive desire to cradle his arm above all else when his nose, broken once already, hammered the unloving road. Fireworks erupted in his vision. A gout of blood was summoned from his nostrils and he lay motionless. The brand new bike, its engine still coming down from an earsplitting scream, skidded on its fairing with an ease Kahnso's fur and flesh did not afford him and caromed off of the traffic barrels.

Several bystanders called 911, some of them awkwardly ending their calls when they realized somebody else was already calling. A few more approached him. One of them, a fresh-faced tiger who firmly declared his medical training, shooed the others away and knelt by the singer. He had barely begun to peruse the damage when Kahnso started to get up. Some faces in the small crowd, growing larger every second, gasped as if a corpse had sat up on the slab.

"Are you all right, buddy? I see you're not wearing a helmet, are--?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Kahnso murmured, pushing off the pavement with his good arm. "No more brain damage than I had to fucking start with." Rocking back on his knees, he touched his bad arm, felt the ragged edges of the wound, visibly swooned.

The tiger jumped to his feet and tried to steady Kahnso. He urgently said, "Uh, you should just stay down. Wait for the ambulance. If you have any internal injuries, you might be aggravating them, trust me."

"I'm fine, thank you," the singer snapped, sounding more embarrassed than hurt. He gingerly clutched his arm all the way over to his bike, which lay idling and badly scraped - just like me, huh? He picked it up off the ground, straddled it again and took off. The only trace he left of himself was a smear of gore on the pavement.

--4

Kahnso idled to a stop, put the kickstand down, killed the engine. No worse for wear in spite of the scratches and dents on its fairing and chrome, it cut out smoothly and would start up just as smoothly later on.

A line stretched almost around the block. Busted Bangle was an extraordinarily popular club. Not because it was of exquisite quality (the drinks came in plastic Dixie cups) and not because of its stellar musical acts (tonight's headlining act was a local band known sometimes as Aggressive Afterbirth, but went by Unbroken Shit Cluster for more classy venues). It was popular for the same reason internet memes took off and, according to some, why life existed at all: pure, random chance. In another week it would be back to its slow performance, and that was just as well for the regulars, who worried that the place was getting to be too mainstream.

He strutted past the line, getting his wounded arm ogled. The brutality of it was striking enough to prevent most people from asking if he was that famous singer guy. Some got as far as hey, aren't you Ka-- oh, stopping when they saw his gruesome wound. The bouncers just took a stolid look at him and let him past. His was a fairly common face there.

His adrenaline high was wearing off. The gape on his arm was beginning to do a lot more than just sting. It seemed to screech at him, reminding him how badly he'd fucked up not just to the effect that he crashed his bike, but his life in general. You're a famous singer, huh? Platinum albums and a big mansion? And you can enjoy that mansion all by yourself. You and your assistant who, bless his heart, is pretty much married to you. He cupped the wound and hissed. Gelling blood oozed around his fingers.

He sat at the bar, taking a stool at the end without many people to bother him. It consequently took the bartender a while to get to him. When he did, Kahnso asked for tequila. He sullenly added, "And leave the bottle."

Drink in his fingers and the huge, red grin along his arm beginning to angrily throb, Kahnso descended into thoughts about... everything. How would the wedding have gone if he hadn't consumed most of the punch? Would he have danced with Jamie in her beautiful dress, given Aaron a firm, hearty shake, invited the new bride and groom to visit anytime then headed home to have a torrid night of lovemaking with Veronica? Or would he have just fucked it up later when they were alone? He raised the tequila to his lips and sniffed it. It was revolting. He gulped it down and immediately wished he hadn't. The abject pain of the wound was making his stomach tumble and flip.

"No mas," he uttered to himself, pushing away the bottle and the shot glass. He leaned on his forearms, tried to ignore the pain. Thinking of Veronica brought to mind all the insipid ballads he'd written about true love gone wrong. He rubbed his eyes and sighed heavily.

"Oh my god!" An eager set of paws touched his arm, the good one, tugging and pawing it. The paws were tiny, warm. Soft pads and short buffed claws. "Kahnso! Omigosh! Hi!"

Where do I know that voice from? Kahnso turned his head and wearily looked at the girl. Hers was a face from a few years ago. He almost didn't place it, and then he smiled. It was a genuine, big smile, his first in weeks. Tentatively: "Rrrika?"

The Pomeranian's eyes lit up. She laughed and clapped her palms together. "Oh, you remembered me, holy shit. Yeah, that's me!"

"Number one fan, right?" Kahnso asked with a wink.

Rika grinned, blushed. She cupped her tits in the halter she was wearing. "Didn't know I'd be seeing you. I totally would've painted them for you if I knew you'd be here."

Kahnso swiveled to face her, barking his elbow on the counter's edge. He yowled and clutched it and Rika got a good look at the gash, oozing blood around his fingers. "Oh, shit. What happened to you? Were you in a fight or something...?"

He enjoyed an ironic snigger, then said, "Yeah, I lost a fight with the pavement." He gestured at his face where dried blood made its home.

"Need to get that disinfected." She glanced at the bottle of tequila, started to reach for it, stopped herself and smiled. "You should go to the hospital for that, actually..."

"Maybe later," he shrugged, and scooted off the stool. "Come on, baby, let's catch up."

Happy as he was to see Rika, Kahnso was still moody. He took her to a booth in the very corner of the club, minimizing the possibility of being bugged. He ordered a platter of nachos for the two of them and wine coolers to go with.

Over their drinks and snacks, they bullshitted and chatted. Rika talked about work and life; Kahnso talked about the wedding and street racing in his Lambo. Kahnso complimented her pretty ribbon, a notable part of her new look; Rika complimented the surgeon's work on his face. She insisted that it was impossible to tell he'd ever had his nose broken.

Kahnso caught himself getting melancholy. He managed to make licking nacho cheese off his finger seem pensive. "I don't know," he murmured at nothing in particular. "But I miss her. Anything I do to try and get her back, she's just gonna push me away."

The little dog frowned, leaning across the table somewhat. She looked at Kahnso doe-eyed and frowning. "You must have really cared about her." She paused, smiled. "You still do! I can see it in your face."

"Of course I do," Kahnso said reproachfully, resting back in the seat.

Rika slid out of her side of the booth and scooted in next to him. She grabbed his good arm and made him wrap it around her, then pressed into his flank. "Have you seen her at all?"

He blinked and squeezed her. "Not since she came to get her shit out of the house. Maybe a week, uh, ten days ago."

"Mmh," Rika grunted. "I see." For lack of useful advice, she rested on Kahnso, put her ear to his chest, and indulgently listened to his heart beat. It was something she loved doing with larger partners. Being 4'11", larger and most were practically synonyms.

"Y'know," Kahnso chuckled, "maybe I don't need her."

"Well, that's a possibility. But maybe you shouldn't give up so easily."

He just waved off the idea. "What about you?"

The Pomeranian blinked and emitted a single, drawn-out syllable: "Ummmmm."

"You know. You and me. Get dinner together one of these nights, go catch a movie or something..."

"Kahnso."

"Or not? I have a home theater. We can make out without getting caught by a pimply usher."

Rika wiggled out of the one-armed embrace she'd invited and knelt on the seat. Kahnso turned to better face her, pulling his leg up sideways on the booth seat. "No, Kahnso," she quietly, but firmly said. Her paws were clasped at the ends of relaxed arms, as if she were cupping a firefly.

It worried her just how visibly hurt Kahnso was. She couldn't recall ever seeing such devastated eyes. "Wh--," he chuckled nervously, trying to shrug it off, "why not? Too famous for you? Not like we're in feudal times, honey, we can make class differences work."

She sighed, patiently shook her head, and touched his long snout with her little paws. She stroked his cheeks for a gentle moment, then took a pair of the thin napkins, dampened them with her wine cooler's sweat and started to mop the dried blood off his face. She thought strangely as she worked, his surgeon really did do a great job.

When he was more-or-less clean, Kahnso leaned close to her and she smooched his sore nose. "Listen to me, okay?"

"Yeah, all right." There was a slight edge in his voice. Rika had expected as much.

"I'm married, hon," she quietly said, wiggling her fingers. Her gold band was hard to see on her cream-hued finger, but it gleamed. Back to rubbing his muzzle, she affirmed, "And yes - I was already married back when we fooled around. He knows. It's what we like to do. Where that stops is romantic stuff. I have one husband already."

Kahnso looked desperately for some slack in her resolve, but her eyes were like diamonds; lovely, but hard. "Babe, come on."

"I can't and more important, I won't. I'm sorry."

"No you're not," Kahnso venomously hissed. He was starting to push her away when she grabbed his fangs and snared him with those diamonds of hers.

"No," she firmly said. She nipped his nose, then said with the tone she'd learned dealing with her little nephews and nieces, "none of that spiteful, poor-me stuff. Got it?"

He didn't answer, but he was obviously embarrassed. He avoided her eyes, doing nothing more to push her off. Good, she thought. The Momeranian bit works on everybody. "Kahnso, look. I don't know everything about you," the dog admitted, "and I'm sure you've done some bad things. I mean, if just half the stuff I've read is true, you're a real piece of work."

"Gosh, thank you."

Rika jostled him by his fangs. "I think there's something decent underneath that," she urged. "You deserve a shot to be happy with somebody, not--, not drinking and ripping your skin off or whatever the hell you did. You need to get that looked at."

She finally let go of his teeth. Kahnso drifted back a few inches, starting to smile timidly. "You weren't this tough when we met the first time."

Rika allowed herself a giggle. "You didn't need a kick in the dick back then." She pecked his lips. "You needed one tonight."

He picked up one of the spent wine coolers and sipped it, sucking out the warm foam at the bottom. As he set it down, he murmured, "I guess I'll head home. Get some sleep, think of something." He glanced down at Rika. Rika with her pretty, stern face and pouty boobs. He took mild comfort in knowing that the Kahnso he was just a few weeks ago would have been plastered on tequila and probably fucking her now whether she wanted it or not. He could visualize the struggle with worrisome clarity.

"Whatcha looking at me like that for?" Narrow eyes. A smile.

The big fox came out of his perturbation with a guilty smile. "Just thinking you look pretty, that's all. I love that ribbon," he said honestly, thumbing one of its loops. She giggled and needlessly straightened it. "Uh. You want a ride home? I'm cool to drive."

"I'm actually waiting on some friends here," she said, her smile taking on a sad quality. She scooted out of the booth to let Kahnso out. When he was on his feet, she threw her arms around his middle and squeezed for all she was worth. Although he didn't make a sound, he leaned forward, rubbed her back, made huge portions of her disappear. The size difference was so extreme that he looked like a regular adult being hugged by a toddler.

"Thanks for the talk tonight."

"Of course. I, um, I do hope things work," she chuckled, peeling herself off of him. She beamed as she met his gaze. "I saw those pics of you guys at Subway, you were cu-u-ute together."

Kahnso smiled back, wistfully. "Right before she beat up that photographer for me..." Rika laughed. He turned his head, looked at the doors, looked back at Rika. She stared up at him, her smile still sweet and now rosy-cheeked. Some of it was the two wine coolers she put away. "Whatever happens between me and Veronica, let's you and me hook up sometime." He tickled under her chin and winked. "We can still fuck, can't we?"

"Mmm, yes we ca-a-an," Rika crooned, rubbing Kahnso's abs in her tiny paws. Her fluffy tail wagged. "See you later, sweetie. And, please," she glanced at his arm and winced, "get that looked--."

"Yes," he sharply interrupted her. "I'll take care of it. Don't worry about me."

I wouldn't have to if you weren't obviously trying to kill yourself, Rika thought. Her face must have shown it, because Kahnso's expression softened. He knelt on one knee as if to propose and gave her a more proper squeeze which she happily let herself be pulled into. Her tail wagged madly. She nuzzled his chest. In spite of loving a good cuddle, however, the Pomeranian warily asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he answered.

Rika knew what a macho lie sounded like, but she also knew that dragging the truth out of him would've taken either a lot of liquor or waterboarding. She took it at face value - what else could she do for someone she'd met only once before and remembered mostly for being a good lay? She smooched his cheek, said goodbye, and sauntered away. She didn't look back at him. He watched her, still down on one knee, until she went out of sight. His wound throbbed angrily.

--5

"Welcome to Channel 7. You're watching News at 11, and I'm Alicia Simmons," the skunk on the TV said, looking proper but pretty, her only concession to vanity being a pair of small gold earrings. She peered over her glasses like a schoolteacher. "Earlier tonight, firefighters were called to the township of..."

"Dat's a pretty hot stripey-girl, eh?" Aaron asked, nudging Jamie softly in the ribs. She giggled and swatted his muzzle; he recoiled as if she'd slugged him in the cheek.

"I think you'd diddle anything you can get your paws on," the jackal said. Aaron, fully recovered from the knockout blow, smiled with a specter of guilt on his face.

Aaron looked around his wife at Veronica, sitting in the armchair, sullen like a recently-made widow. He didn't want to say it, not after getting a reminder just how hard she could punch at the wedding, but he thought she was wallowing in it. Black nostalgia washed over him. He was ten years old again, sitting on the worn-out futon couch in mom and dad's apartment. Not realizing it, he squeezed Jamie closer like a comfort doll.

Early in their lives, Aaron and Veronica learned what a functional addict was. Dad liked liquor and the occasional sniff of blow, but he was functional. He worked, tried to cook, and generally reared his children as best he could. Mom liked everything she could get her gaunt fingers on. Crack, smack, uppers, downers, fuck-you-ups and slow-you-downs. Smoke it, pop it, shoot it, snort it, smear it on the mucous membranes in her vagina; mom did whatever she could. The only thing she didn't do, ironically, was the simple and fairly innocuous sweet leaf that was marijuana.

The trigger for Aaron's bitter recall was his beloved sis. She was starting to look an awful lot to him like dad did toward the end. Still capable of getting up and going to work, but not without dragging his heels. There was always an air of gloom about his. Before he blew his brains out, he had been hopelessly depressed because of his alcoholism and his useless wife who fucked anybody who could get her high. Good old mom.

The thought that Veronica might follow dad's example made him chide himself, and not a moment too soon. He had never seen dad's wreckage, neither of them had, but he'd found a chunk of bone that their uncle missed and--

Aaron shook his head, huffed. Jamie asked him quietly what was wrong, but he didn't hear her. It was stupid, anyway. Veronica had nothing but disdain for the suicidal and that was a fact. But you've never seen her this depressed, either, some playfully sadistic part of Aaron informed him. She's still got that nice, pretty boomstick the rockstar bought for her, wanna bet she won't suck that blue-steel pecker and squeeze on the trigger? He bit his lip hard enough to raise a bead of blood on it.

Thoughts of his sister's possible demise kept barely in check, Aaron assured himself that his sister was upset for patently stupid reasons. There was no reason to feel bad about leaving Kahnso except for maybe losing access to those deep fucking pockets of his. Aaron was waiting for an opportunity to tell her you know he didn't really love you, right? I mean, shit, shorty - it was all about the pussy. Motherfucker like that don't know how to love anyone who ain't himself. But he had the feeling he'd get socked (or worse, maybe she won't just shoot herself!) if he tried to talk some sense into her.

It really pissed him off that Jamie was defending the bastard whenever his name came up. Not really sticking up for him - she wouldn't dare say he was an okay guy or that he hadn't done anything wrong - but she tried to downplay the shit he pulled at the wedding. What kind of piece of shit gets drunk at his girlfriend's wedding, tries to rape the bride? No motherfucker like that needed to be dating his sister, that was for sure. Thoughts like these kept Aaron focused on what was important: keeping Veronica safe.

But in spite of his biases against Kahnso, one thing Jamie said to him during an argument he and she had while Veronica was out doing odd jobs actually stuck with him and made him think. For the first time I've ever seen, she's been happy with somebody. Look, I know he's not a saint, and what he did isn't something I can make excuses for, she had said, getting red-faced, trying not to cry. That was how she always looked in the really rare occasions she was pissed off. She became so overcome with emotion that she couldn't feel anger or hatred without crying. But he made her happy when he was sober. There's a decent person under all that drinking and drug abuse.

Aaron shot back with an equally compelling argument: Yeah, so what, though? My mom and dad, dey was cool I guess, until dey started with dem fuckin' vices. Didn't ever quit 'til it quit dem, and you think a spoiled rockstar assfucker's ever gonna quit? Come on, shorty, you gotta get real.

The kangaroo squeezed Jamie closer and kissed between her ears. She cooed and nuzzled his hard chest, closing her eyes. It was late, almost bedtime. She'd already taken her glasses off.

Following a car dealership commercial with an obnoxiously animated and (if his low monthly rates were anything to go by) demonstrably insane proprietor, Alicia Simmons graced the screen again, stern-faced but still very pretty. "Reports of an accident have come in along the main drag in Los Angeles right before the road restoration project begins." She briskly scanned the papers in her fingers, hardly pausing her diction. "Witnesses at the scene described the victim as having been traveling well above the speed limit and tipping his sports bike while trying to stop before the construction site..."

"Heh, s'what you get for speedin', huh?" Aaron chuckled. "Good thing he didn't hurt nobody but hisself."

"Shush, shhh," Jamie hissed, pulling away from Aaron inattentively. She inclined, squinting to focus on the screen. She pawed at her glasses on the coffee table and put a thumbprint on one of the lenses in the process of getting them on.

"Why do you care about this, dweeb?" Veronica snapped. "Just some asshole on motorcycle."

"...described as having long black hair and prominent fangs, riding a red motorbike. Numerous witnesses said he resembled, and may very well have been the noted singer--."

"Oh my god," Veronica tonelessly said, inclining too. Her eyes were wide, beginning to moisten, and her lower jaw hung slightly slack. She was trying to reason with herself. There's got to be lots of guys who look like him right? You've never seen one but it's possible and besides that you don't even give a shit if he's bleeding to death right? Right. But she knew it was him. And she gave more of a shit than she wanted to admit to herself.

Alicia had more to say: "There have been no further developments. The victim mounted his bike and left before emergency services could arrive. However a civilian with medical training told Channel 7 reporters that he believed the victim might have had internal injuries."

Now a cut to the tiger, unflattered by the harsh white light of the camera crew. The prospect of being on television made him doe-eyed and inarticulate. The clip started in the middle of his gesticulation, indicating blood flowing from the nose. "...just gushing out of his nose and his mouth, I think? And you generally don't see that. See bleeding like that, I mean. Not unless there's some internal injuries, possibly a brain hemorrhage. I hope he's all right, you know?"

Cut to Alicia again. "We'll bring you more as it comes."

"Fuck!" Veronica snapped, lunging out of the chair, making it totter back like a seesaw before slamming onto all four feet again. She prowled towards the kitchen with an unsettling groan. She wasn't hungry or thirsty, but needed to move somewhere. Her legs were shaking, heart pounding, palms sweaty. She needed to walk. Sitting still felt wrong. He was bleeding to death. She knew it. "Fuck!!" she barked from the kitchen, making Aaron flinch.

Jamie took off her glasses again and rubbed her face miserably. Even Aaron had a look of shock. "Jeezus Christ," he sighed, rubbing Jamie's back slowly. "Dat fuckin' asshole... she needs to just forget about him."

Whether sympathy for the devil or just concern for Veronica's feelings (she wasn't sure where she stood at the moment), this new development left Jamie feeling numb. She knew it was him. Anthony had informed her thusly: Little, red, goes really fast. He's gonna hurt himself on it, I don't know what I can do to stop him. There was some absurdity in that, Jamie thought, listening to a hyena she barely knew sniveling on the phone, plainly desperate for somebody, anybody to talk to about Kahnso's behavior. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought them to be gay lovers.

She ran her paws over her head, smoothing down the short tan hair she'd grown out. It looked cute, she thought, made her look like a pop singer. More like a lesbian, Veronica had said. Considering how they'd experimented in the past, it was a label she took proudly.

"Babe, you ar'right?" Aaron quietly asked, putting an arm around her shoulders. Veronica could be heard crying and hissing obscenities in the kitchen.

"I--, um. I will be," the little jackal said. She turned to Aaron and forced a smile. As unconvincing as it was, Aaron was desperate enough to buy into it. Nobody in the apartment was more eager than he was to let Kahnso's accident fade into obscurity. "I'm gonna go out for a drive, clear my head. Can you--?" She jerked her head toward the kitchen.

Aaron nodded soberly. "She's my sis. I've taken care of her before, yeah?"

"Thank you," Jamie sighed, and smooched Aaron's lips. He smooched back and tried to deepen it into something lurid, but Jamie pulled away and Aaron didn't grope after her. He thought about Kahnso feeling up her fine curves as the wedding gown hugged them.

Jamie grabbed her keys off the hook by the door. Veronica, summoned by the noise, emerged from the kitchen like a monster in a horror movie. Her face was such an angry, miserable scowl that Jamie flinched away from her as though she were diseased. It was the same face she'd had on at the weeding.

"Where are you going?" Tight, angry syllables, fighting desperately to keep sniffles out of her voice. Tears left dark crescents on her cheeks. Her nose was wet and puffy and Jamie pretended not to notice the snot on her sleeve.

"Just a drive," the jackal said nonchalantly. "Maybe get a milkshake or something."

"I want to go with." Still gruff and unmarred by her crying, but she choked a couple of sobs out afterward and turned her head to face the wall. She was bunching and relaxing her fists, each time clenching until her fingers turned white.

The jackal touched her shoulder and gently said, "Honey, just stay--."

Veronica flung off Jamie's paw and interrupted in a voice which was shaky but passionate, "I said I want to fucking go with you! I need--," she sucked snot and wiped her eyes with the sides of her fists, "fuck! I need to get out of here and do something! Don't you get that? This is like when my dad--." She whimpered. "I just--, I can't fucking sit still. Please."

Jamie wheeled around to look at Aaron, not even for some backup but just a reassuring look. Yet he had gone off somewhere else, perhaps into the bathroom to hide.

She looked at Veronica with her grisly, implacable expression; with her trembling fists at her sides and that unbearable ambivalence in her stare. Jamie believed that if she suggested the kangaroo calm down or stay home just one more time, she would get her nose broken too. "All right," she whispered. "Do you--, um, wanna change, or--?"

The kangaroo brushed past Jamie in her sweatpants and faded AC/DC sweatshirt. "No. Let's just get out of here."

--6

Anthony whined. He was grinning to the point of grimacing, ears splayed downward and eyes fervent with nervousness. "You really should go to the hospital."

"It'd be fine if you just fucking cleaned it, like I said to," Kahnso snapped. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead on his good arm. The painkillers were making his head swim and he didn't care for the unfamiliar buzz they brought him. Coke was sharper and more thrilling, attacking like a bolt of lightning to the heart. He was used to it, loving how it sent him soaring. Painkillers were the antithesis of a good high. They made him feel drunk like he should be happy, without the slurring and the staggering and the horniness - and without those symptoms, what was the point of even being drunk? Irritably he mumbled, "Quit being such a goddamn pansy."

The little brown hyena gaped into Kahnso's wound, certain he saw the dull pale of bone under ragged meat. What he saw was nothing but a figment of imagination (how could you see bone anyway, it would be covered in, oh god, blood) but he still jerked away and gagged sharply. "I cuh--han't!" he cried over a near-retch.

"Oh, fine, y'pussy," Kahnso hissed, rolling his eyes all the way around their sockets. That alone made him mildly dizzy. "I'll go to the fucking hospital. Now I'll get to hear about this shit on TMZ for the next month." He pulled himself up out of his chair, lost his balance and backpedaled a few steps. Having already been harboring the idea, he now knew for sure that he shouldn't have taken eight Percocet at once.

Anthony watched Kahnso stumble and chewed his lower lip. There was no possible way he could catch Kahnso without getting crushed. When the rockstar righted himself, Anthony let out a sigh of relief. His temples, already throbbing from worry and stress, were centers of pure agony following the gagging. "I can drive you," he wearily said. "I don't think you'll fit in my Corolla, I'll have to get one of the SUVs, and--."

"And what, sit on a phone book? I can drive myself," the singer barked. "Because, you see, I'd like to get there sometime tonight, not next week. You drive like a..." He swatted at the air and huffed. "Like a pussy. Basically." As Anthony started a nervous, yappy laugh, Kahnso tied around his arm a length of bandage he'd already used. The white fabric looked bruised with huge garnet smears all over it. "I'll just take the Lambo."

The hyena practically lunged out of his chair. The nervous grin on his face was nearly a rictus now. "You already tried to kill yourself once tonight!"

"I did not!" Kahnso snapped, vicious and glaring and all too aware of how petulant and young he sounded. He hated Anthony just then, but he didn't maintain it for long. The Percocet had a halcyon effect on him, making it difficult to stay much more than vaguely aware of his situation. Emotions, good and bad, drifted away unanchored like black clouds. He tried to force himself to stay angry at Anthony's stupid, plaintive face. "It's not your business what I do," he said, sounding uninterested.

The hyena screwed his expression up and showed his teeth, but not aggressively. It was a look of total perplexity. "Yes it is. I'm not just your assistant, you know - I'm your handler too." The words came out patiently, like he was explaining the concept to a slow child. "It means I keep you from doing dumb things."

Kahnso smiled. "Dumb things, huh? So where were you when I was at the wedding?" And he started to laugh. It was a slow burn, at first just a chuckle so playful and genuine that Anthony started to nervously join in.

It was when Kahnso's laughter rose to hysteria and he slumped into the wall on his shoulder blades that the hyena's giggling tapered off into a dying yap. "Shit, Anthony, if you were there, maybe I wouldn't have gotten my nose broken," he said with staccato snatches of laughter. "Oh Christ, can you imagine? Veronica would still be here. But since she's not, you can put a ring on my finger, can't you?"

Anthony's cheeks flushed. He wrung his paws helplessly, grinning like a buffoon. "Umm. What do you mean by that? That's crazy, that--, that's ridiculous."

Kahnso was completely out of his mind with stupid laughter. Tears rolled down his cheeks when he looked at Anthony. To the hyena, for just one moment, the laughter sounded like braying and powerless sobbing.

"You can't tell me--," the singer started only to end up in another, shorter laughing fit, "you can't tell me you don't love me. I know you do."

An unreadable emotion was playing across Anthony's short muzzle. Kahnso couldn't tell if it was indignity or bashfulness or hate. Whatever it was, it was potent. He had it the entire time he skulked around the island counter, put his paws on the sink's edge and leaned over it to hide his face.

Kahnso watched him and slowly brought his laughter to heel. As it came to a welcome end, he wiped his tears off on his good arm and sat heavily on one of the kitchen chairs.

"So, am I right?"

Anthony understood being speechless from anxiety, but he felt a particularly vicious kind of it then and there, on par with being kicked out by dad for liking men. The hyena turned slowly, pressing his pudgy behind against the counter. He wrung his paws over his belly. With all the gravitas he could muster: "I kind of do. Yes."

Kahnso blinked, recoiling just enough for it to be noticeable. He chuckled, but it was a nervous sound which said oh, well, I was just teasing you, you know? He slid his fingers through his greasy hair. "Uh. So, does that mean you're happy? That she's gone?"

"Of course not," Anthony grunted. "You're a wreck."

The fox played with his hair, made nappy from sweat. "I'll get over it."

Moving closer, shaking and frowning but feeling certain, Anthony muttered, "No you won't. You--, you didn't really get over Aurenn. You won't get over Veronica." He froze in place within arm's reach, waiting for retaliation. Nobody brought up Aurenn without facing the wrath of Kahnso.

But retaliation never came. Kahnso kept playing with his hair. Anthony, in time, crept near again. "Once Veronica came by, I feel like she replaced Aurenn in your thoughts, I guess. Like you were, um," he sucked his lip, causing a wet smack far louder than he intended, "like you were happy again."

"Anthony, I fucked things over real good with Veronica," Kahnso said with a sigh, letting his dull stare meet the hyena's. "And I can't fix it. She's probably dating someone else by now."

This is just like being in the middle of my parents' divorce again, thought Anthony, squirming in place and chewing his jowl. Like embracing a sedated lion at the zoo, Anthony slid his arms around Kahnso. To his surprise and also pleasure, Kahnso returned the embrace. And then he began to weep.

The singer's hot tears soaked into Anthony's shirt, feeling strange and forbidden to the hyena. He held Kahnso tightly and protectively, nuzzling into the rockstar's bedraggled hair.

--7

Red light gleamed into the cab, muddying the details of Anthony's spots. He turned his head and looked at Kahnso, seated pensively and clutching a bloody rag to his arm. Judas Priest played Hell Bent for Leather on the radio, turned down so criminally low that Halford's vocals were little more than an occasional shriek in the background.

"We're--, you know. We're almost there," the hyena said with a minimum of stutter and a feigned smile. He wasn't sure why he bothered; Kahnso hadn't seemed anxious since he'd stopped crying. Kahnso hadn't seemed to be much of anything, actually. Anthony didn't like the stoicism as much as he thought he would during the first ten minutes of it. A total lack of emotion turned out to be more unsettling than an outpouring of them.

Green light washed out Anthony's pelt instead of red. He drove on toward the hospital. Los Angeles went by the windows, bleak but wide awake under the orange tint of street lights.

Kahnso yawned, smacked his lips, closed his eyes against the scroll of the city. "What time is it?"

"Ummm." Anthony plucked his phone out of his breast pocket and thumbed its screen. "Almost midnight." He saw he had a new text and surreptitiously checked it, replied ok good, and deleted both it and his reply. As casually as he could speak then: "He-e-ey, Kahnso?"

The fox opened his eyes to slits and glanced at the hyena. "Yeah?"

Anthony pulled up to another red light. He and Kahnso shared an impatient groan and the hyena let go of what he'd wanted to say. Kahnso had never been in the habit of asking Anthony to finish his half-baked thoughts. He didn't start then.

By the time Kahnso had had his arm disinfected, stitched closed and bandaged, it was almost four in the morning. He stepped out into the lobby guided by a young mare whom seemed happy both to help and to touch Kahnso. The girl admirably kept her enthusiasm to a minimum.

"Now, mister Kahnso, that was a pre-e-etty big dose of morphine. Will you need any help getting home? Need me to get a cab for you?" She asked with sweetness and sincerity, touching Kahnso's bicep in gentle fingers. It seemed dubious that other patients got the same attention.

Kahnso nodded aside at Anthony, snoozing in a plastic economy chair the eyeball-scorching hue of a canary. He was sprawled, legs apart and slack, paws on either unoccupied seat beside him. The mare looked at the spotted hyena doubtfully but smiled. "Got my assistant there. He'll get me home okay. And hey, real nice needlework, sugar." He winked and smiled; it came easily with the morphine in his veins. "I'll be sure to ask for you next time I lose a fight with the pavement."

The mare smiled modestly, beginning to flush. "I got to stitch the Kahnso's arm closed. High point of my career for sure." They shared a little laugh. Kahnso was barely even aware of the swelling and pain in his arm, which had worsened considerably in the recent hours.

"If you're happy about that, it's too bad you didn't get to fix my nose. My girl--, uh, y'know, ex-girlfriend gave me a little percussive rhinoplasty."

She clucked. "I'm sorry to hear that. But, we-e-ell." Her voice had become reluctant. It was the part where she would have pointedly looked at her wristwatch had she been wearing one. "If you'll just sign out over there," she indicated the desk behind which an unhappy-looking kangaroo with bags under her eyes sat, "you can leave whenever you like. Try not to get anymore road rash."

Kahnso signed his name for the tired and bored receptionist (here, here, here, and here, and initials here). With a thin and vacant smile on his face, he kicked Anthony's foot.

The hyena snorted in surprise and yapped sharply enough to make most of the dour souls in the waiting room look his way briefly in shock and annoyance. He launched into a straighter posture and pulled in his legs and arms. Looking around in a panic, then groggily taking in Kahnso, he let loose another, quieter yap. "Ah! A-are we all done?"

"Yeah." A commotion came up the hallway. Kahnso, Anthony and the other dozy infirms watched with morbid interest and thoughts of glad that ain't me as two orderlies, a doctor and a nurse rushed past with a crash cart. A male brown bear lay slack in it, appearing less than responsive. The nurse, an athletic young stoat, was straddling him and riding on the cart, performing vigorous chest compressions against the bear's stout blubber.

Kahnso looked down at Anthony, his small smile still present. "Guess my life could be worse. Let's get home. I need to sleep this shit off."

It was almost five in the morning when they passed the guardhouse into the sleeping gated community. Driving slowly along the tarmac, he glanced at Kahnso with his head against the window. Feebly Anthony said, "Hey, um, uh--, hey. We'll be home in a minute. Wake up."

"I am awake," Kahnso groused, his voice slurred enough to suggest that either he was lying or had been right on the verge of sleep when Anthony started talking. When his stomach began to gurgle, he moaned, "We should've stopped for some food. I'm starving."

"It's five o'clock in the morning," Anthony said as patiently as he could. "Nothing's--, um. Nothing is open anyway, you know? But I think there's some cold pizza in the fridge."

They crested a hill, and Kahnso's mansion loomed. Its pale siding appeared stark and ethereal in the yard's small but powerful spotlights. Kahnso had a sudden thought. It was accusing in its tone, alien in its voice: she's not there and she'll never be there again and it's YOUR FAULT for getting shitfaced at the wedding. He bit his lip and covered his eyes with one palm. The other he left in his lap, too sore at the end of his wounded arm to do much with.

Just as they were passing the gate, Anthony's phone chimed with a new text. He and Kahnso both looked down at it in the console. "Who the fuck's texting you at this hour?"

The hyena snapped up the phone and stuffed it into his pocket in the middle of its stock chime. "Um, I dunno. My friends, maybe?" Usually he idled up the driveway, but this time he gave the SUV a little gas and sped up the immaculate white cement on his way to the garage. As the door slid upward, the battered Lamborghini came into view, its xenon headlights bouncing back the SUV's yellowish glare with a blue tint. Anthony idled in beside it, killed the engine, hopped out.

Kahnso followed Anthony inside while the metal door rattled down and shut out the early morning. "You don't have friends," he said, surprisingly without malice.

"Yes I do, just--, forget about it," the hyena puffed, starting for his room. In the comfort of home, he promptly lost what little energy he had left. His footsteps slowed to a tired amble and he let his arms hang slack as though he were the walking dead. Aren't hyenas supposed to be nocturnal? he asked himself. He wondered if he wasn't misremembering some Discovery Channel factoid about his ancestors.

"Hold it, Anthony," Kahnso snapped, interrupting his trudge. Of course, Kahnso himself didn't appear much more energetic. Rubbing his arm and noting how swollen it was around the stitches, he said, "You never text anyone that isn't me." Bitterly, "The only other person you texted was Veronica."

The hyena's heart tightened in his chest as if being gripped by an invisible hand. He leaned on the end of the banister and looked uneasily at Kahnso. "I'm n-not--, I am not in contact with Ver--, her, with her," he said haltingly and honestly. He chased it with a scared, yappy cackle. "I mean it."

Kahnso frowned. He stepped close to Anthony, snatched a fistful of the hyena's shirt and yanked him up by it. There was a soft and deeply modulated rip as some of the stitching gave way in the collar. Anthony whined, instinctively showing teeth but splaying his ears. "If you're fucking talking to her..." He shuddered, rolling back his eyes and giving the hyena a hellish view of his sclera pocked with angry capillaries. "If you're in touch with that bitch for any reason, I'm gonna bash your fucking skull in." He jerked Anthony with the emphasis. The ripping sound came again, but the hyena didn't really notice it. "Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Yes," Anthony whimpered. "But I'm not, I-I promise, I really mean it! I'm not!" More yappy laughter, stopping with a squeak when Kahnso shook him a second time.

"Then who the fuck is it?" Tight, hissed words.

Too scared to stall or lie, Anthony blurted it out: "It's Jamie!"

Strange indignity washed over Kahnso's face like a slow, foamy tide. He verged on being too stoned to figure the situation out. Aloud he thought, "Jamie? What would you be doing talking to her?"

Anthony gripped Kahnso's wrist softly. He swallowed hard and his dry tongue felt like a lump of jerky in his mouth. "Please, just let go, juh--, just sit down and I'll tell you everything. Please don't hurt me. Please, Kahnso."

Kahnso made an ill at ease noise as he let Anthony go. He expected the hyena to bolt, and in that anticipation, he stood with paws akimbo and ready to wring his neck if it was necessary.

The brown hyena had begun to weep. The sight of it softened Kahnso's exterior in spite of how little he cared to admit to his empathy. "Sit down, right here," he grumbled, sounding more grumpy than angry now. He pointed at the stair steps.

Sitting side by side, their bodies together taking up almost all of the stairway's width, Anthony and Kahnso looked like they felt: tired and depressed and all wrung-out by life. The hyena wrung his paws and gnawed on his bottom lip.

"Well," the rockstar puffed, "go on. Start talking."

"Look," Anthony yapped sharply, gaining a frantic pattern of speech, "everything I've been doing has been because I'm worried about you and I care and I just--," he stammered on and on until Kahnso nudged his knee. "I'm sorry," he sheepishly murmured. "So... from the top."

"From the top."

"We got in touch around the time you started doing street races. She saw how messed-up the Lambo was, when she and Ver--, and her came to get her stuff from here. She figured if it looked like that, something had to be wrong and she, um, still cares about you. I guess. It's what she said."

Innocently cute bewilderment settled on Kahnso's face. "Jamie does? Like, the jackal?"

Anthony nodded vigorously. "Yeah! She said when you let her visit and gave her all that, uh, swag, that was how she remembered you. Being really sweet and polite. The stuff at the wedding, she said, wasn't really you. I mean... we discussed that. A lot." He nervously tittered, not quite a hyena cackle. "And we agreed that you're not, you know, completely innocent." Like a puppy, Anthony pulled away from Kahnso and winced. He waited a full three seconds before he even looked him in the eyes again.

The singer was just resting his elbow on his knee, his chin propped up on his palm. His eyes appeared dull and lifeless. Filthy with capillaries, his sclera looked like hellish road maps.

Bearing witness to the drowse in Kahnso's eyes saw Anthony yawn in sympathy. Kahnso joined him, and they shared a brief recursion of yawns.

"So-o-o," the hyena said, trying to find his mental bookmark. Yawning made his mind feel as tired as his exhausted body was. "She, y'know, Jamie, she feels like even though you were wrong to act the way you did, that maybe you deserve another chance."

"Well, who gives a shit?" Kahnso snapped. Anthony, offended and hurt, looked away and whined. "Jamie forgives me. Jamie wants to turn the other ass cheek like she's some bible thumper or whatever-the-fuck. Big deal. So what? I imagine that boyfriend of hers - Adam or Arnold or whatever the hell it was--."

"Aaron," Anthony helpfully said, keeping his cowed eyes off of Kahnso.

"Right, yeah. Aaron then. He wants to kill me, I'm pretty sure about that. And Veronica, she fucking hates me. I have some false teeth to prove that. So who gives half a bloodied tampon what Jamie thinks of me?"

Uttering a disgusted grunt, Anthony stood up. Kahnso, jowls pulling up to show teeth and gums alike, shot out a paw and gripped his thigh. The hyena shrieked and Kahnso barked, "We're not done yet!"

"I just want to go to be-e-ed," Anthony groaned, sounding like all the fear had been wrung out of him. "It's like--, it's quarter to six now. My schedule is gonna be all messed up from this. Just let me go."

Kahnso held onto Anthony. Seconds ticked past like minutes, the hyena waiting tiredly for the fox to let go or start breaking bones, feeling nothing but resignation to the possibility.

Kahnso squeezed harder, forcing Anthony to whine even in his apathetic state. He finally let go, the ridges his fingers dug into Anthony's shorts blending in with the rest. He put his head down and clutched his face as though he had a migraine. "What am I supposed to do?"

Do I tell him now? Will he just drunk-dial her? Will he even care? If he does care, will he admit it? Will he call her and say I knew you still loved me, you stupid bitch and fuck things up to the point that she'll never talk to him again? Anthony played with the knob at the end of the banister, sliding his palms all over the smooth mahogany. "Um, uh. Kahnso. Kahnso, look," Anthony sheepishly said, head down and ears splayed.

"What? What now, do you want to cuddle me or something?" the rockstar grunted, snapping his head up and digging his fingers into his kneecaps. His eyes were savage but wet. "You already told me you're a fag for me, do you wanna fuck now?"

Anthony looked at Kahnso and blushed and laughed a stupid hyena cackle. The answer was actually yes. He would have loved nothing more than to press against Kahnso's naked and sweaty body and mindlessly rake his claws down the stud's muscular back until blood wept from the ruts and their forms became one heaving mass. He had seen Kahnso's penis many times. He knew it would split open his untrained anus even without the knot, but he thought he could tolerate that pain just as long as he could run his fingers through Kahnso's hair and kiss him on his lips.

He was close to saying yes, but his expression turned dour, his blush fading slowly with it. "Veronica really misses you. That's what Jamie says, anyway, um... she talks about you a lot. She has a picture of you next to her bed, face-down, but, still." Like a child, he was playing with with his paws, steepling his fingers one moment and interlacing them the next.

Gaping silence, quiet enough to put the tired hyena in a half-sleeping trance. The only noise, low and common enough for their brains to ignore, was a soft whir from the air conditioner vents along the baseboards of the foyer.

Kahnso's voice jarred Anthony out of his drowse. "If she still cares about me, why isn't she here right now?"

Thinking about Kahnso in Veronica's arms, their bodies naked and warm and close as they slept, Anthony put a knee on the step and wrapped his arms loosely around the fox. Kahnso let himself be held. "Jamie and I talked about that. Isn't it obvious why?"

Kahnso grunted. "Not really."

Surprising Kahnso, surprising himself, Anthony kissed the singer's cheek. "Okay. I guess, umm. I guess I'll explain it, then," he said, and he found it in himself to chuckle. "It's because she's still hurt. Whether or not she loves you, y'sorta... I mean, I guess you embarrassed her. A lot."

"Uhn."

"So-o-o," Anthony looked gently into Kahnso's weary eyes, "even if she cares, she--, y'know, she still resents what you did, yeah?"

The fox wrapped his arms gently around Anthony, pulling him in closer. "Yeah. Mmm, I saw the cellphone videos of the wedding thing. I was gonna rape Jamie. I don't get how she's being so forgiving."

Anthony chanced another kiss on Kahnso's cheek and the fox squeezed him more snugly before letting go. The hyena eased off gracefully, sitting again. "Let's get some rest, Kahnso," he sighed. "You--, you need to sleep off all that morphine. Okay?"

Kahnso stood up, shakily at first, leaning heavily on the banister. Watching as Anthony trudged around the corner to the guest bedroom, he called after him: "Thanks, Anthony."

The hyena looked back, nodded, and disappeared into the guest bedroom.

Ruddy sunlight was beginning to glare through the windows, slowly overpowering the dimmed lights. Kahnso looked up the stairs, thinking of his bed and sleep and forgetting everything he was for a few hours. He slid his pads up and down the banister slowly, losing himself in thought.

The fox walked down the stairs. He passed through the hallway, going past the entrance to his personal gym. He went into the cavernous banquet and dance hall, a room he used exclusively for courting assholes in the music business.

Resting on the wall just beside the double doors, Kahnso looked at the ceiling. He watched the growing sunlight cast long shadows on the deep textures in the plaster. It had a faint sparkle. Along the left and right walls, hidden behind tasteful white grating, banks of speakers waited to play music again.

Maybe it was just the morphine telling him he was a genius, but Kahnso thought he had a pretty good idea just then. He slept on it and found it still had merit that afternoon.

--8

It sounded to Anthony like the kind of plan that was just going to make things worse. And even though Kahnso insisted that the point wasn't to get Veronica back, he had his reservations.

Jamie thought it was a peculiar idea herself. Forgiving as she was, she warily asked, "After he screwed up the first one so badly?"

Anthony gave a dumb, yappy laugh; all nerves and no humor. "Uh, well, the irony isn't lost on either of us. But he's serious about it. The banquet hall looks great. And it'll be dry."

The jackal leaned back, sighing. She put her feet up on the coffee table. "I'm willing to give it a shot. I think it would be nice to... redo things, you know? Bu-u-ut..."

"Mmm," Anthony murmured in the lull. "If you don't wanna bring it up to Aaron at all--."

"No, no, no," Jamie softly cut in, "I think he'd go for it just on the basis of, uh, wanting to take Kahnso for whatever he can. My concern is you-know-who."

"He says it doesn't have anything to do with her. I quote," even though he was paraphrasing, "she can come if she wants, but if she doesn't, then she doesn't." He self-consciously added, "um, unquote."

Jamie thoughtfully hummed. In the background and getting closer: "Ay shorty, who you talkin' to?"

"Just a friend," she sweetly said. Even though he thought it was a white lie, Anthony smiled and blushed. "Hey sweetie, can I get back to you later? I think Aaron wants to ravish me," she sordidly told Anthony as she batted her eyelashes at her husband.

"Ay, my woman knows me well," Aaron growled, grinning wide.

Cheeks still flushed and his smile turning into a shit-eating grin, Anthony politely let Jamie go. Just before he did, he asked gently if she'd prod Aaron about Kahnso's plan. She promised she would, and then she was off the phone.

Then and there, Aaron swooped in from the side. He scooped up her elevated legs in one arm, propped her shoulder blades against the other. She shrieked and cackled with laughter, clinging to his chiseled body. He was damp with sweat, smelling like he was just in from a workout. She earnestly nuzzled his neck, slurping away the dew in his fur. "Mmm, goddamn! You smell nice today, baby..."

"Tryna say I don't always smell like a fuckin' sex beast, shorty?" Aaron asked, voice low and smoldering sexuality like an invisible fire. "C'mon, gurl," he tutted, carrying Jamie off like a bride. "Let's get dem fuckin' clothes offa you, I need me some pussy."

As was his custom when rough lovin' was the flavor of the day, Aaron dropped Jamie on the bed. She squeaked and bounced on the pillow-top mattress, going stiff as a ramrod until she settled. Aaron descended on her before that point. He groped her hips and peeled down the lazy black sweat pants she wore around the apartment. Her panties came into view like the breathtaking pinkness at the very end of a sunset. He snickered, "Ni-i-ice, I fucking love the pink ones, baby."

Aaron yanked down her panties. He gave the delicate lips of her muff a firm slurp, causing them to part slightly. It wasn't just her pussy he licked, however; he started on the pucker of her asshole. Aaron liked to lick every part of his woman.

The pretty jackal was startled out of her thoughts, leaving them behind with a gasp and gripping the sheets in pleasure. "Gawd, Aaron," she puffed, heavy bust heaving.

"Yeah, babe. You just know," he smugly started, and took another slurp, "dat I always take good care of you."

Like always, Aaron was fantastic. He licked her so deep and hard and with such heat that she thought she'd felt his tongue tickling the back of her throat now and then. When she squeezed the sheets, whimpering that she was about to pop, she wasn't lying to him. Both her climaxes were real. The way she played with her full tits through her snug and faded university tee was more than just an indulgence for her husband. In spite of her earnest pleasure, she was mentally sidetracked.

Aaron was incredibly stubborn. It was a trait he shared with Veronica. The key difference was that you could whittle her down and make her agree to something if you were persistent enough. Aaron could be a real asshole; he just stood his ground, refusing to budge an inch.

But Jamie knew he was willing to listen if you had a good argument to make - and if he was in the right mood. The real problem was that Jamie didn't know where to start making a good case. She thought with a smile that she would have made a godawful lawyer.

Now he was over top of her, grinding, fucking. He smooched her neck; nibbled her jawline; licked her lips. His muscular body heaved and his tail lashed. Jamie groaned in real bliss, raking her claws down his back, making shallow ruts which seeped crimson at their deepest points. The stings made made Aaron hiss, galvanizing him into going harder and faster.

Jamie thought she couldn't cum a third time, feeling she was just too worn-out and distracted, but she surprised herself. Over Aaron's gruff grunting and panting, she mewled in pleasure. She closed her eyes behind her crazily askew glasses and bit her full, pretty lip, making its black flesh turn pallid.

One more push was all Jamie needed. Aaron grumbled something lurid but earnest to her and then he shot, his slop filling her fast. The sensation made Jamie's loins tingle. Her toes, nearly meeting over the small of Aaron's back, curled inward sharply. She orgasmed for a third and final time with a sharp cry and nuzzled Aaron's neck and snout. She desperately needed his scent.

"Mmmh, ye-e-eah, dat's d'stuff," the kangaroo cooed, exhaling hot breath across Jamie's cheek. "Fuck. Good for you, shorty?"

Jamie murmured her approval. Made sweaty by Aaron's brief, but hard work, she relaxed between his bulk and the bed. He always made her feel small in a particularly pleasant way.

Soon Aaron rolled onto his side but stayed close to Jamie. He crossed a strong leg over hers and held her firmly with his arm. "Somethin' on your mind, baby?"

She laughed self-consciously. It was only a couple of little hitches. "I was just, ah," she pushed her glasses up into her hair and wiped the sweat from around her eyes, "thinking that it's not as racy anymore now that I have a ring on my finger."

"Is that all? 'Cause shit, you can slip that rock off and we can make believe you's some jailbait slice again, sneakin' out of your mama's house so you can come get some big 'roo dick..."

"Nah," Jamie snickered. "This ring doesn't come off unless the whole finger does."

Aaron smiled, eyes looking dreamy in spite of himself. "A'ight, baby, can't argue wit' dat... you sure dat's all it was, though? You always get that, like," he fingered her nose and grinned, "dat little wrinkle in your nose when you're thinkin'. Keep tellin' you, ain't a girly's place to be havin' thoughts and shit."

Jamie nipped at Aaron's finger and briefly smirked. "Well. We're married," she murmured more to herself than to him, "so I can tell you anything. I should be able to at least."

He blinked. "Yeah, sure. Whassa problem, babe?"

"Well, you know how our wedding reception got screwed up?"

Aaron's eyes softened with nostalgia. He stared at some unseen horizon through the bedroom wall. "Yea-a-ah. When Veronica broke fuckface's nose," he chuckled.

The jackal winced. "He wants to give us a new one. At his place."

What schadenfreude had been on Aaron's face vanished, replaced by mistrust. "Uh huh? What's d'catch?"

She shrugged. "There isn't one. Not as far as I can tell. He knows he messed things up, he wants to make right by us, and..." She shrugged again. "Your call, though." She smooched his cheek.

Aaron automatically returned her smooch on the lips then rolled back, sprawling and sighing. Jamie set her smudged and sweaty glasses on the nightstand before draping herself over his breast.

As he wrapped his arms around her, the kangaroo said, "Guess I gotta say yeah. Even though it's pretty fuckin' obvious dis is just some excuse to get his dick back inside my sis."

Jamie decided not to mention what Anthony had relayed in that regard. "His assistant told me it'll be this weekend. He can move it to next weekend, if we need."

"Dis weekend's fine, I got no plans. You gonna tell Veronica?"

She puffed through her nostrils and closed her eyes. What she particularly wanted at that moment was to put her ear on Aaron's chest, listen to his heartbeat, and snooze. "I guess I will. She can make her own decision."

--9

"I can't believe you're gonna go through with this. Are you fucking kidding me?"

Jamie was hard-pressed not to break the sweet and innocent image she carefully maintained. She shrugged. "He offered and it seems genuine. All he wants is to make amends."

"All he wants is to get back into my panties. By the way, about that? Not a chance in hell. You can tell him that." She huffed and checked her phone again (it was an iPhone which Kahnso had bought for her), finding herself offended that Kahnso hadn't even tried to invite her. She looked at Jamie and snapped, "Your haircut makes you look like a lesbian, you know."

"So you love telling me," Jamie laconically replied. "Carpet-muncher hair aside, how do I look?" The jackal did a graceful little turn and faced Veronica again, presently lazing on the bed.

The kangaroo cracked a smile. "Pretty good. Hope he doesn't try to nail you again."

"He-e-ey, Veronica?"

She tilted her head a few degrees. "Mhm?"

Jamie lunged close and smacked her paws onto the bed. "Shut up."

Veronica recoiled, blinking. "Just being honest..."

"It's gonna be totally dry. Not even punch." They shared a look and a pause just after the word passed Jamie's lips, as though they'd regressed to ten years of age and she had just said a dirty word in an adult's earshot. "Some cake and dancing and music, Kahnso said he had a gift for us, and that'll be it. You can come if you want."

"Fucker didn't invite me, why would I come?"

"Good question, why would you?" Jamie smiled cryptically. "We'll be back later tonight. Be good for your babysitter."

Watching Jamie sashay off in her pretty cream-colored dress, Veronica sourly said, "Yeah, ha-ha, sofa-king funny. Get fucked."

Under normal circumstances, Jamie would unfailingly reply that's what I have your brother for, but not this time. The omission wasn't lost on Veronica.

The kangaroo rolled back in bed - Jamie and Aaron's bed - and thought about how often she was staying at their apartment.

(how much longer do you want to milk this depression thing exactly?)

Veronica didn't like the voice that was in her head. It had been talking to her a lot. It hadn't been there at all on the night she punched Kahnso's lights out. It wasn't even there when she was at the hospital a week later, getting the stitches taken out. She rubbed the scar tissue on her knuckles self-consciously.

The voice had started some time after that, when there had been nothing at all to remind her of him but the fact that he wasn't there - no, that he wasn't there with her.

(funny how waking up next to someone for just a couple months is all it takes for you to think that's normal like it's something you need)

But...

Wasn't he such an asshole? Trying to feel Jamie up. Which is exactly what he's going to do again, you'd better believe it. It's probably just an excuse to get her alone. Lure her away from the party, nail her in the storage closet - that one right off of the banquet hall, I know the one. Wouldn't that be just like Kahnso?

Veronica bit her lip and ground her fists into her eyes like a sleeper sloughing off the slumber. "Uuugh. Total bullshit," she scoffed, rolling out of bed. She turned off all but the corner light in the living room; grabbed her keys; locked the door; left for her own apartment a few blocks away.

It was Veronica's intention to order a small pizza, watch some TV, maybe browse the internet, and then go to bed. It was about time for her to start seeking work again.

(not just yet though)

It talked to her as she changed clothes, briefly leaving her tall and toned body naked. It was a body any man in their right mind would have died for.

(nope, not just yet. gotta hold onto that fantasy that you can get your sugar daddy back, right?)

She threw open the closet with a grimace on her face. The little crunch the wooden door made at the end of its swing was grimly satisfying (like when you broke his nose remember that that was a really good crunch) but she didn't linger on it. She flipped through her clothes, looking for something frumpy and lazy she could wear. What she wanted was the kind of outfit that made her look like a depressed, middle-aged housewife or perhaps something that evoked the latter-day spinster look.

Even though it was all the way on the right, behind every shirt she owned, Veronica still took a long and uncomprehending look at her little red dress. The one Kahnso had bought for her, and which he'd told her with innocent sincerity that she looked jaw-droppingly gorgeous in. It was still immaculate.

The problem was that she knew for a fact she'd left it at Kahnso's place. She had left it on the bed in what she had to admit to herself now - through no help of the voice - was an immature gesture of pettiness, but whatever the reason, she had left it there.

She took it out and looked at it on the orange plastic dollar store hanger it hung from. It softly sparkled even in the dull light of her reading lamp.

Veronica tried to imagine what circumstances could have brought it back to her. She had a mental image of Kahnso dressed like a ninja, sneaking in through the window to hide it in her closet, and she caught herself smirking.

Turning it over, Veronica saw a stiff white piece of card stock folded over and pinched on one of the breast cups. It actually made her heart race a little bit.

(it's from him isn't it? an apology. he wants you back. you're gonna go aren't you? go tell him fuck no I hate you right to his face?)

She reverently draped the dress over the bed and took the card. Written inside was a message in pretty cursive: If you decide to go, wear this. If you wanna thank anyone for it, thank Anthony. We both think you look really good in it. It was signed by Jamie, but there was no need. Veronica could have recognized the jackal's neat handwriting anywhere.

The kangaroo suckled on her lower lip and took a look at her naked self in the body mirror on the closet door, and then she looked down at the dress.

(you could pawn that for a whole bunch of money don't you think? lightly stained with drama! previously worn by middleweight female slugger!

Veronica slipped into the shower and let the hot water purify her sweaty body. She thought long and hard about what exactly it was that she wanted. The conclusion she came to didn't surprise her.

--10

A feedback whine cut through the hall, causing some winces. Kahnso's smooth voice followed it. "I'd like to welcome all of you into my home. As some of you might know, I caused a bit of a scene at the last wedding reception I was at. Do you like my false teeth?"

Some chuckles rose out of the small crowd. It consisted of relatives and friends of Jamie's, albeit a smaller turnout than the first reception. Kahnso counted roughly forty heads.

"I want to wish the best to the bride and the groom. I know Jamie at least, uh, somewhat well. I think she's a good woman, and Aaron's a fortunate guy. So," he gestured to the couple, purposefully put near the quadruple-layered cake toward the middle of the hall, "here's to Aaron and Jamie Ryan."

Using the applause that followed as his out, Kahnso put aside the mic and approached the jackal and kangaroo. Cued by Anthony in the control booth just off the banquet hall, music started. Kahnso had spent considerable time agonizing over the selection. His own songs would have been too tacky both in subject matter and self-aggrandizement, but the mix he settled on was appealing to the older relatives and the younger friends. To start with was the rich music of Electric Light Orchestra.

"Glad you decided to come," Kahnso said, looking dapper in his slate suit. It wasn't the same one he'd worn to the last reception - the blood made that one a total loss - but it could have been a carbon copy for as similar as it looked. Instead of a segmented ponytail, he had his black hair long and straight.

"Ay, well," Aaron said, wrapping an arm around Jamie's shoulders, making her dress rumple, "I figure if you wanna make things right, den I gotta meet ya' halfway, right?" He looked surprisingly sharp himself in a tuxedo with silver cuff links and a rich blue tie.

The fox smiled mildly. "I made a real asshole of myself, yeah. Best I can do is try to make things right." He had been talking to them both, but now he put his eyes exclusively on Jamie.

Briefly the jackal was threatened by his gaze. But instead of a grope or a kiss, he held out his paw to her. When she daintily set hers in his, he smooched the back of it. "You look beautiful. I love your dress."

"Thank you-u-u." She giggled, cheeks nearly glowing. Surprising Kahnso but not Aaron (not much, at least), she stood on her tip-toes, pulled him down by his tie and smooched his cheek. "This is all really nice of you. I, ummm. I dunno if she'll come, but--."

"If she doesn't, she doesn't," Kahnso blandly said, straightening first his back and then his tie. He smiled wistfully at the couple. "I don't have anybody to blame but myself."

Aaron shifted uncomfortably. "So, uh, ay," he chuckled, "how's about dis cake?" He nodded towards it, making his dreads flap against his shoulder.

"Oh?" Kahnso was bemused. "Oh, that, well, it's four layers. Uh, top to bottom, that's vanilla, chocolate, marbled, and then German chocolate. The frosting i-i-is whipped vanilla, and--."

"Nah, no, man," Aaron laughed. "I just mean, when can we have some? 'Cause dinner rocked, yeah, but Jamie's been buggin' me about dessert."

She huffed and jabbed his ribs with her elbow. "Don't try to pin this on me. You're the one with the sweet tooth."

Covering his muzzle modestly, Kahnso snickered. "I'll get the caterers on it. I get this really bad feeling I'll, uh," he gave the towering cake a once-over, "redecorate the floor with it if I try to cut it myself."

True to his word, Kahnso had someone cutting the cake before long, giving out slices to all who wanted one, which turned out to be most of the audience. By then the music shifted to something amusingly appropriate by Duran Duran.

As Jamie and Aaron sat at one of the small tables with their colossal slices of light, airy cake, Kahnso sat with them. He wasn't quite hungry for cake yet, he told them, although he did accept a proffered bite of chocolate cake from Jamie's fork.

"So this is a weird thing for me to do. Hopefully it doesn't come across as bootlicking." Kahnso earned a queer look from Aaron, but a more sympathetic one from Jamie. "See, I heard you guys are," he lowered his voice, leaned closer, "trying to conceive?"

The couple exchanged looks. Aaron said with a growing smile and eyes fixed on Jamie, "Didn't know we were, but it sounds about right, yeah." Jamie looked away with flushed cheeks and her lips drawn into an embarrassed smirk.

Kahnso smiled, feeling almost painfully mortified. "Sorry you had to find out like this," he said, much to Aaron's amusement. "But, hey, I have something for you. Or, for your kid. Or kids, or--, you know what, I guess you get the idea." The words trailed off into a mumble and he reached into the breast of his jacket. He pulled out a piece of parchment, handed it to Jamie, and said as she unfolded it, "It's a bond. I'll get you guys another if you have more than one child. It's for fifty thousand. College money, can't be broken until they turn eighteen. We can officialize it with their name and social once--, you know."

Aaron and Jamie did a double-take at the bond and then Kahnso himself. "That's, um--, wow," Jamie shakily said. "I don't know what to say. That's a lot of money."

"Maybe I was wrong about you, man," Aaron quietly said, and he stuck his paw out across the table. Kahnso reciprocated for a tight, masculine shake. "You sure about dis? Ain't like we're related or nothin'."

Like dispersing cigarette smoke, Kahnso waved at the air. "No big deal to me. Nobody was ever there to help me out when I was turning eighteen, so maybe that's my way of paying it forward. Or maybe I just feel bad and wanna throw money at you until you feel better about me. I can't say."

The jackal put down the parchment and slipped around the table. She suddenly squeezed Kahnso tight in her arms and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. This means a lot."

Kahnso looked at Aaron nervously, but the kangaroo nodded. He hugged Jamie back and returned the kiss, though his was shorter and softer. "It's the least I can do."

"Yeah, all right man," Aaron said, not necessarily sure how to sound grateful without laying it on too thick.

Jamie held Kahnso a moment longer. When she let off, he smiled and ground his palms together. "Time for dancing. What do you think?" With that, he murmured something into his lapel. He had a small microphone pinned there.

All the lights the banquet hall lowered to a moody luminescence, except for those aimed obliquely at the buffed and shiny hardwood of the dance floor. The first song of the dance selection was something groovy and sensual from INXS, and as chairs scooted out and guests made their way to the dance floor, Kahnso offered his palm to Jamie.

"May I?" he asked, speaking as much to Jamie as he did to Aaron.

"I ain't so good at dancin' anyway," Aaron chuckled. "Yeah, man, take good care of her though."

Aaron amused himself by hanging back with a few others who couldn't or wouldn't dance, among them Jamie's affable twin brother James. James was always fun to be around even with his new girlfriend, who was surprised and awed to be in the Kocaine Kahnso's home. Aaron was just starting to broach the subject of a threesome when James, wide-eyed, pointed over the kangaroo's shoulder and hissed, "Look."

Aaron whipped around. His dreads swatted his cheek like a cat-o-nine-tails and he winced. The pain stopped mattering as soon as he saw what was coming near: his sister, looking flawless in the little red dress from before. She turned her head, looked at her brother and James and his girlfriend, and nodded soberly at all of them. She continued on to the dance floor, never breaking stride.

"A-a-and dip," Kahnso said softly, letting Jamie hang low, holding her tiny body up with ease.

"Aw, you're a great dancer," she giggled, moving with the fox to the steady tune. "Maybe you can teach Aaron how to--, oh--, oh boy."

In the middle of a turn, Kahnso saw what had torqued Jamie's jaws. Veronica's presence put him completely off rhythm; he stumbled over the jackal and nearly dropped her. Dumb, childlike surprise left his expression adorable. "Uh. Hi. Hi, Veronica."

"Hello." She folded her arms, clutching one of her biceps. "Am I welcome here?"

Kahnso nodded vigorously, making his hair a little messy toward the bottom. "Would you--, y'know," he gestured at the other dancing couples and let the proposition hang.

Jamie looked at Veronica encouragingly. The kangaroo huffed: "I don't know how to dance."

Now Jamie looked at Kahnso with the same earnest expression. "I can teach you," he offered, his smile so nervous and fake it was nearly a rictus. "Please?"

(why did you come here? you know he did all of this just to piss you off)

Veronica crept closer to Kahnso, her little red dress sparkling just like her somber blue eyes in the spotlights. She put forward her paws. Kahnso took one, interlacing the fingers of his right with her left and holding her tentatively around the middle in his left arm. She flinched before she returned the embrace.

"Dancing is easy. The song's about to change, we'll start then, all right?"

"All right."

"I'm gonna go catch up with my brother. Good luck, Veronica," Jamie sweetly said.

"Thanks, Jamie."

The next song came as INXS faded out. It was, perhaps too appropriately, Dancing Queen by the Swedish group ABBA. Veronica had never heard the song very often, so she didn't roll her eyes like some of the other guests.

"Just move with me," Kahnso said, stealing little looks at her eyes. "Let me lead you." And lead he did, although Veronica stomped his foot and quietly apologized on more than one occasion. Each time he softly winced but kept going.

The more Veronica moved with Kahnso, the less she heard the doubting voice. She had natural grace, but she was clumsy as a dancer. Her inexperienced steps were made all the more glaring by the fabulous dress she was wearing, but nobody was judging her, not even when she and Kahnso ended up in the middle of the dance floor where the spotlights crossed and shaped a brilliant starburst.

"You're doing great now, most people can't pick it up this quickly," Kahnso softly said, close to Veronica's ear.

For the first time in a long time, Veronica actually smiled. Undecided affection swam in her eyes. "I'm surprised you know how to dance like this," she said, somewhat playfully.

"It's something I picked up," Kahnso noted with a wink. "Let's try a twirl."

For the second time came the refrain of the song as Kahnso, moving slower than he had with Jamie, twirled the pretty kangaroo and brought her back into his arms.

Shocked that it actually worked, she let out a laugh, pressing into him and kissing his lips. He smiled and kissed her back, but the moment died swiftly. Awful silence washed over them and she avoided his eyes.

Kahnso let a few seconds tick by, moving his body with hers, keeping time with the music and nothing more. Then he said with equal parts slyness and satisfaction: "I knotted this tie all by myself, you know."

The kangaroo smiled surreptitiously, only at the corners of her mouth. "I could tell, it looks like crap."

A pause in the conversation, but Veronica was still moving smoothly with Kahnso, matching him step for step. Quietly but miserably, he admitted: "I miss you, babe."

They were on the third and final repetition of the refrain, but instead of a flourish, Veronica thrust herself in close to Kahnso and inelegantly squeezed around his back. Her toned arms were trembling. As she nuzzled into his breast, she lamely whined, "I don't know if I should have come back."

Kahnso held her, caressing her through the delicate material of the dress. The next song to come on was, of all things, Sympathy for the Devil. Knowing full well that Anthony could hear everything they were saying, Kahnso made a mental note to abuse the hyena when he had the chance.

"Can we go talk somewhere?" the singer asked.

"I, um--," Veronica sniffed and huffed. She wiped her tears off on the back of her arm, leaving a dark stripe in her fur. "Yeah. Please. I don't want to be seen crying again." She forced a smile.

Aaron, Jamie and company watched Kahnso and Veronica amble out of the banquet hall.

"What d'you think, shorty?" Aaron asked.

Jamie sighed. "Honestly? I don't know. I really don't know."

--11

Veronica tossed away Kahnso's jacket and forced herself on him, and the fruit of her lustful aggression was a hard kiss. Kahnso had barely begun touching her when she thrust him onto on the bed. She clambered over him and restored the kiss, giving it more care and time. She licked across his palate; on his tongue; over his teeth. He shuddered and pulled the straps of the dress down.

She sat up and briskly tugged the dress up and off, distressing it in many places with no care whatsoever. Underneath it she wore no bra, but her panties were a matching red. She left them for the time being and draped herself over Kahnso again. Instead of one great, drawn-out kiss, they shared little smooches and suckles interspersed with words. "God. Gawd, I needed you so much," Kahnso puffed.

"Every part of me says I shouldn't be doing this, but--, but just god," Veronica whimpered. "I needed you too." She shoved down her panties, squirmed, and kicked them away when they hooked on her toes.

Although she never got off of him, Kahnso managed to get to his fly. He pushed down his slacks and his matte black boxers enough that his penis, by then throbbing powerfully, was made prone to her. It jutted from his loins in a way well-known to her.

The kangaroo impaled herself with a cry. Kahnso was damn near too big for her, just like he'd been before, but she loved the stretch and the warmth and how his size pulled her walls taut. She leaned low and smooched him hard. Her highlighted hair hung wildly over him, pooling on the bed.

"Uhn, gawd." Kahnso shuddered, bucking against the kangaroo. With only a gasp, she started bouncing. Every time she came down, she mashed her muff against his knot. It was a familiar sensation, missed but never forgotten.

Kahnso's paws found her breasts and fondled them. He played across her pert nipples and piercings with his thumbs, cupping the curves in his fingers.

She rolled back her eyes and bounced hard. She was kneeling on the bed, inefficiently using her mighty kangaroo legs, but it wasn't a job that required such strength. The combination of pent-up need and the familiarity of Kahnso's scent and body made her tender. She gripped his shoulders in stout fists and fucked herself.

With a bitten lower lip and long ears splayed down, Veronica looked downward at Kahnso's handsome face. His eyes were shut, his lips slightly twisted up in a pleasured, sleazy sneer. Pushing down hard, gyrating, trying to pop his knot in, she hissed, "I love you, Kahnso."

Kahnso popped open his eyes. His expression, although nearly simpering with pleasure, bore pleasantly surprised quality. He stroked up her strong arms and said gently, but with conviction: "I love you too."

All of Veronica's grinding paid off. She pushed down so hard that she defied the natural tightness of her body; Kahnso's knot entered her. It gouged her wide before settling into the more pliant and forgiving walls of her vagina. She hissed at the quick shot of pain, but fast on its tail was was a pleasurable groan. She clung to him and came almost modestly, squirting but not very hard or messily. She nuzzled his snout, her own reddened and hot.

Merely being gripped by Veronica and feeling all over her strong marsupial body was enough to help Kahnso the rest of the way. As her body clenched and writhed around the foreign bulb of his knot, subjecting him to wonderful pleasure, he shuddered and writhed. He kissed her neck and nibbled the base of her ear. From his lips came another, softer moan, and then he had his orgasm, shooting powerfully into the kangaroo. Veronica let loose a quiet coo as she was filled. The warmth was familiar. The admonishing voice was silent.

In the dark of the room, lit only by full moonlight through the windows, Veronica stayed close to Kahnso and listened to the beat of his heart, the drag of his lungs. She waited for that little voice to bother her in the repose, but it was gone. Her thoughts moved quickly to something else - something very important.

"You've never said that to me before," Veronica spoke. "Have you?"

"Said what now?" Kahnso asked, dopey in the wake of his orgasm. He petted Veronica's naked back fondly, making swirls in her fur with his fingertips.

She chuckled quietly. "That you love me. You have never once said to me."

"Ah." He smiled self-consciously. "I'm--, mmh. I'm not big on saying that. Not unless I really mean it."

The kangaroo slowly sat up. Straddling Kahnso and made ethereal by the cold moonlight, she looked beautiful. Kahnso was visibly admiring her full breasts when she coldly asked, "Was this whole thing just so you could get me back?"

He interlaced his fingers behind his head and shifted his gaze to the indistinct features of the ceiling. "You can call me a liar, but no, it wasn't. All I ever wanted was to make things right by Jamie and Aaron. I had sort of hoped you'd come by. If nothing else so I could get closure. I... I don't know. I guess I wasn't expecting things to go this way. Otherwise I would've worn those tear-away pants."

Veronica was caught off-guard and she cackled with laughter. Playfully annoyed by being made to laugh, she bopped his nose. "Well. Look, okay? Some things are gonna need to change. But I do love you, and I want to make this work."

"I'm clean now, if that's what you mean," he said, glancing at her. Her eyes were difficult to focus on in the wan light. "Maybe a sip of wine here and there, but the bar is cleaned out." He closed his eyes and huffed through his nostrils. "You're more important to me than being blitzed. Just maybe you make me want to enjoy life sober. Can you believe that?"

"I'd like to," she murmured. "And I guess I will. Things aren't gonna be better overnight, but--."

"I know, yeah. I know." He moved his paws again, interlacing them over his breast. Veronica doubled over top of him and kissed his lips. "Mmm. I have just one rule of my own."

"All right," Veronica warily said. "Name it."

Kahnso snickered. "Next time you're pissed at me, spank me instead. No more punching in the face."

She laughed. "Yeah, problem is you'd be acting up all the time if you knew I'd be spanking you, you perv... how about you just not get on my nerves?"

Kahnso was noncommittal. "I'll think about it." As he wrapped his arms around her again, they shared a kiss. It was shallow and soft, though she nibbled his bottom jowl. "Mmm. Should we head downstairs, you think?"

"Yeah." She didn't budge; she closed her eyes. "Soon. Real soon. Not just yet..."