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When Connell awoke, his sheets were damp again. He ignored the ringing of the bells from the campanile for now and sniffed at his sheets. There was the familiar earthy smell of himself. But there was something unfamiliar there, too-- a spicy redolence that registered as both himself and not himself, familiar but unfamiliar.

Peaking beneath the sheets, his curiosity was founded. He found himself, rigid and throbbing, with his warm, shaking hands. A shiny spot gleamed on his trousers, too, slick beneath his fingers. He smiled when the thrill of his trespass only forced more twitches and dribbling from himself, but the pleasure was fleeting, and soft curses escaped his breath. Connell hadn't spilled seed through the night since he was a boy, knowing it to be sin. He was supposed to be a man of few wild urges. Control came easy to him, or at least it had used to, before the last few days in his sleep. Men, Connell knew, were no strangers to the dictations of their bodies in the early hours of the morning. But release through the night that did not rouse them, nor give them any recollection of such lapses of tenacity? That was something else entirely at work than mere anatomy.

If such repeated circumstance resulted from a failure of piety or the spirit, Connell would not want his neighbors to know. He stripped as the sounds of trotting hooves and rickety wheels on the road outside muted the peeling sound of the damp cloth from his skin. This would be the third day in a row that he would have to wash his night clothes. But rather than begin that task too soon as to rouse suspicion, he folded his soiled clothes neatly into a pile beneath his bed.

Fog filled Connell's head when he tried to remember where his mind went in sleep the prior night. There was some memory of a voice, and some glint of shining gold, but nothing else. As he thought, he placed his palm on the muscle of his thigh. There was still a fresh slickness there. He would have to practice thorough ablution if he had any mind to attend service, but there was little time to draw and boil water from the spigot. His absence from services would be noticed, so he covered his scent with medicinal oils. He would smell strong, but at least he wouldn't reek of sex.

After service, the congregation poured out of the double doors. Connell, one of the first to leave, maneuvered the stone steps with brisk hastiness. Though he had caused noses to wrinkle during service, he had noticed more looks of sympathy than suspicion. Illness was not a stranger to their township, and seeing a doctor required a day's ride to Edinburgh, which both was costly and time consuming. Although Connell knew he wasn't lying overtly, he used methods of dishonesty to hide his condition, and he felt shame for it. He would prioritize solving his condition above all other things today.

But a gloved hand caught his sleeve. His cousin Madelyn flanked him with a fearful look in her eyes, widening beneath the rim of her bonnet. She whispered into the side of his ear. "I could smell the camphor on you through the entire service. You should know that you can call upon me if your sickness worsens. My brother works under a doctor in Edinburgh. I could have you there quick." Her timorous voice didn't skip a beat. Connell knew she had lost her child and her husband to sickness in the past. Guilford's passing had affected Connell significantly. He remembered that his cousin's husband was thin, but had clever hands, so he was helpful for chores and repairs in the home. Connell caught himself accidentally staring at the way he worked more than a few times, but Despite Guilford's mischievous spirit, he only flashed a friendly grin.

"No. That won't be needed Madelyn," said Connell, pulling away slightly and feeling a blush on his cheeks. "I am fine."

Madelyn looked as if a bright lamp had been flashed at her eyes. "I should say so. You don't sound like you have a cough at all."

Connell scratched the back of his neck and mussed his red hair. "Precaution of course. I wasn't feeling like myself."

"A pricy precaution," snapped Madelyn, looking elsewhere as if her thoughts weren't entirely in the present. "There's no reason in treating symptoms if you have none. My brother taught me that," she finished a little too quickly.

"I will just retrieve some bark from the forest and make more," said Connell a little absently. "I know the tree. Tis a trivial matter."

"Not so," said Madelyn, shaking her head. "You ought to be careful what you take out of the woods, at least when you are alone. You only have one set of eyes, and the woods has many. Tis not a Christian place. Causing offense or committing trespass could put you at the mercy of their domain."

His cousin's words planted new unease in his belly, but there was little he could do about that now. He still had his own problem to contend with. "Regardless... it is true that I am not entirely well. I'll bring my book of herbs and see what else I might find in the woods. If providence would have me find what I need, then it will be there."

Connell felt Madelyn place her hand on his shoulder, saw her lips purse and watched her nod. He stepped away, still holding eye contact. "I'll rap on your door three times tonight when I'm back. You needn't worry about me. I love the woods."

Madelyn nodded again. She left him in the street with her arms folded.

It had been several hours since Connell waded past the line of trees separating the fields of the township into the forest. Connell knew from the color of the sunbeams through the canopy that his pace was good and that the sun's golden hour was far from upon him. He flipped through his book of herbs as untamed grasses licked at his boots and trousers.

The camphor tree, though rare, was the easy find. Travelers from China had planted several along the causeway to Edinburgh where they grew unnaturally. In his book of herbs he found another thing to seek too: clove. He could treat it as a topical agent before sleep, numbing his length, preventing it from the swell and release that he suffered from. His only problem, however, was that he was no botanist. He had no idea of where to find such a plant, nor hints that it grew in the area. But if the search proved fruitless, and luck were on his side, he might find a traveling spice merchant on their way to Edinburgh. Hedging his bets on two possibilities didn't seem foolish.

Once Connell found the path that lead to the road, he sooner came upon one of the camphor trees that grew in the surrounding greenery. He pulled his dagger from the scabbard on his belt and cut blocky pieces of bark from the plant's skin. Bare patches from previous travelers scarred the skin of this tree. They made it appear scaly and mottled but these were not local trees anyway, and they grew at an unseemly rate.

"Bit of a butcher aren't you?" said the soft, low voice of another man behind him. Connell shouted and dropped the knife, as well as some of the square pegs of bark in his hand. He would have heard the footsteps of another person on the gravel of the causeway. Had this man been waiting? Turning around, Connell saw nobody there. He scrambled to pick up the pieces of bark scattered on the roots of the tree as well as his knife, then rounded on the location of the sound again.

There was a man there. He was tall, and slim, and wore a bright, emerald colored suit as a noble would. His brown--or were they gold? Connell couldn't make sure-- eyes shined as natural light from the forest reflected off of them. "I wasn't making a complaint, you know," said the man in a disarming voice. "That tree has no right to be here. You've made quick work of it."

"I don't wish to kill it," said Connell, sheathing his dagger. Some memory tickling at the back of his head made him feel like he had seen this man before, though there was nothing familiar about him in the least. "Travelers planted these for medicinal purposes. We need more bark to grow back so that we can harvest it without having to make a trip to a doctor in the city."

"I do," said the man a little more sternly. "It is not mine and does not belong here. But it is of little consequence. Time will take it, I suppose."

"Hopefully not too soon. We've need of it. But I might take more bark with that news." He was about to turn to take more bark from the tree, but the man began to speak again.

"Why scavenge from a rotting tree when you could ask me for something more potent?" The man smiled strangely, almost playfully. His gaze followed Connell, studying him from the top of his head to the base of his feet, slowly.

"Are you a medicine seller?" said Connell, cocking an eyebrow.

"I deal in trades. That is the essence of how money works anyway, isn't it?"

"A peculiar way to phrase that, but yes... I suppose."

"That way you speak, though, it sounds like you're looking for something in particular. Maybe something rarer."

"Not rare so much as inconvenient. Cloves." Connell let a forked tree separate them, but allowed eye contact.

The man reached into his coat pocket and Connell kept a distance. There could be a pistol in one of those pockets for all he knew. But he pulled something out. There was a glassy box full of brown, seed-like pods. "I can tell that you've been to this forest many times before, so I'm feeling generous. I'm not lacking in materials, but I am lacking in entertainment. Some spices for a game?"

Connell didn't like the sound of that. He had never seen this man before, so how would he know he had been in this forest before. Most likely it was a lie, but Connell didn't want to dismiss the possibility that a man with such fine clothes had informants. He might even own parts of the forest. Connell had heard about the cruel pranks nobles play on country folk for some paltry need, and this was looking more and more to be one of those traps. He would promise nothing.

"Perhaps, but that isn't a yes. I have a busy day ahead of me and don't have much time to lose."

"This will take very little time. I just want you to walk with me. Play with my foxes."

"A fox is a wild animal, not a pet." There was a flash of something else on the man's face for a split of a second but it disappeared. All Connell could feel was a sense of sudden anger... or perhaps amusement. It was difficult to tell. But there was rustling in the wood. Suddenly, an entire skulk of red foxes appeared from the undergrowth, running across the road in all directions and in between Connell's legs. They were distracted by their own games, yapping and pouncing, tangling tails together. Connell was almost certain at this point in time that he had disturbed some sort of fox hunt.

Oh yes, said a voice in his head. It sounded like a mix between a beckon and a snarl. He couldn't have imagined that. Madelyn's warning was well-founded. These woods did not seem like the world Connell was familiar with.

"You seem quite afraid," said the man in green, hiding a smile with his hand, eyes shining again. "They are merely foxes."

"What is it that you ask I do? For the cloves." He nodded at the glass box in the man's hand, picking his words carefully, trying not to offend the man.

"Just cross the road with them. Maybe chase a tail. Look excited." The man in green sighed. "They do want to have a good time. If you aren't going to be playful, then you may as well forget the whole thing."

The rules seemed simple enough, but Connell trusted nothing about this. He looked to both ends of the causeway that disappeared around bends of the forest. He expected a sudden trumpet, or the loud baying of hunting dogs. But those never came. He started to walk from one side of the road onto the other. All of the running foxes seemed to notice this, raising their heads to him and yapping playfully. Some of them slid by his leg, some of them started running faster, bouncing into one another. They looked rather stupid. Connell couldn't contain his amusement for long and snickered. He broke into a run, going from one side of the road to the other. The foxes followed him, and they started beating his pace. A sweat broke out on Connell as he tried to keep up with them, charmed by the flow of the noisy creatures that covered one side of the road and then another like walls of cotton.

"Fun costs so little," said the man in green, jogging beside him. Again, there was a familiarity in his voice. His hand reached Connell's, placing the glass box in it and closing his hand in the other. There was a peculiar roughness to the hands of the other man. "Perhaps that is not enough to charge." His tone changed into something more severe, like a bark, which made Connell stop running. The man in green didn't stop for him. All of the foxes followed, and without much longer, there was nobody in the road except for Connell. After waiting a moment, he called out to the man in green again. There wasn't an answer. Connell didn't want to wait for the man forever. The sun was too low in the sky by this point. Dark was coming, and he needed to get home quickly.

Once Connell had returned to the township, he stopped by Madelyn's cottage. There was a fire burning, and light from it was flooding out of her window screens. He opened the glass box of cloves, poured out half of the contents in his pocket, and left the rest in the box on her doorstep. Hastily, he scribbled out a note with charcoal and parchment from his coat pockets and left it there: Found cloves in the woods. When he left three raps on the door and heard stirring sounds echo inside, he went on his way back to his house. Now that it was dark, he could work on his laundry from the previous night without anybody seeing him do this for the third night in a row.

When the time for Connell was close to bed, he plucked the cloves he had saved from his pocket. They certainly smelled like cloves--spicy and earthlike. He ground the spices to a fine powder, then wettened it with oil, creating a strong-scented poultice that would be easy to slather.

Stripping off his clothing for the forest, Connell decided that he would sleep naked tonight. If the mixture worked, he would be cured of his embarrassing and blasphemous condition. If it didn't, it wouldn't look so unusual to clean his sheets anyway.

After Connell placed the clove and oil mixture on his bedside, he dipped a finger in the bowl, gathering a generous portion. Once he had enough, he began to apply it to his manhood. The initial contact of the cold and gritty mixture made his skin tingle, then, soon enough, he felt nothing. He said a quiet prayer to the Lord for his guidance and his mercy, and then closed his eyes.

#

The world as Connell saw it now was nothing but soft, purple light as he drifted in warm pools of violet water. Or was it earth? Connell could not really tell. His entire body seemed to float as if submerged in liquid, although nothing was there, and nothing occluded him from the nakedness of his body.

"You had fun, didn't you?" said the soft voice of a man who could not be seen. Connell recognized it as the voice of the man in green in the forest, but he recognized it as something else now: those feelings he had when lost in the forest; the quiet places of solitude that the causeway had not yet touched, overflowing with life, water, wilderness. Suddenly, he remembered he had also heard this voice in his sleep, all of those other previous nights. "You paid me with your fun. But I think it is not enough."

Connell could hear the sound of foxes running from behind him, but he could not see them yet. They were skipping over the strange liquid as if it were dirt, running towards him, hopping over him, brushing his face and neck and legs and chest with their tails. Small tongues licked at his neck and feet. But as they yapped and barked and tasted his body, their barks sounded less animal. Deep groans, short grunts, and harsh breaths filled the air. Connell tried to look and see to his left and his right, only to discover that he couldn't control his body.

"Who are they?" he said without speaking.

"You see them now as they truly are, but it doesn't matter," said the soft voice of the man. "They paid a price because they saw a good deal. Is this what you want too?" The sounds turned into panting. Little tongues turned into large ones as they coated Connell's sides with warm spit. A spicy smell was filling the air. Something like sweat. Something like Connell's bedsheets when he smelled them in the morning.

"I think I do," said Connell's voice, feeling his heart pulse in his neck and in his groin, somewhat alarmed by his words, which he knew to be the truth.

"They needed to let something out and this is what they are. This is what you are too."

"What do you mean this is what I am?" echoed Connell's voice again, speaking without speaking.

"A beast with needs... who could live forever." The face of the gold-eyed man appeared in front of him. His visage faded away, reappearing as something that was both man and both fox. It held the expressions of something knowing, something calculating still. It dipped in deep to sniff at Connell's neck and lapped sloppily with a warm tongue.

The warm, sticky residue on Connell's length seemed to be slipping off. He felt that familiar throbbing in his cock again, and felt himself swell and rise into the air. The scent of himself flooded the room, and the panting all around him rose in volume, beastly and deafening, but rhythmic like a drum beat. Something that felt like a coarse paw kneaded his bollocks, and many paws from different directions rubbed him. Touched him. Tugged at his nipples. Spray after spray of warmth from all directions covered him as a slim, narrow canine mouth dipped deeply onto his prick, swirling its tongue and sucking obscenely. A rush of pleasure seized Connell, he felt himself shout, and the mouth of the fox-like man removed itself from his prick. But his cock had changed.

He stared at his manhood, awake, as white ribbons pumped from his tip, splattering his chest. What he saw was still the long, thin pale cock he remembered. But the poultice had failed. Defeated, ashamed and alarmed, he sunk back into a dreamless sleep.

#

Three hard knocks on Connell's door roused him awake. He scrambled out of bed, pulling away the sheet that clung to the hairs on his thighs and blushed as he smelled his own thick aroma that lingered in the room.

He rushed to the door, still nude, still keeping the lock attached to his front door, as he turned the cold knob and peered out of the crack. There was no one there. A sack had been left on his front step, however. Hastily, he unlatched the lock on his door, sheepishly plucked the sack from the steps, and shut the door again, relocking it. He fumbled with the string binding the top of the sack together. He dumped its contents into his hand. There was the jar of cloves he gave Madelyn, and a small scrap of paper with a sloppily scribbled note.

These are not cloves. Meet me at Harvey's grave.

#

Harvey had not been buried near the church. Madelyn had insisted that her son be buried near her home instead, marked by a massive rock without an epitaph. It was the centerpiece of a modest garden where Madelyn grew mint and savory grasses. She sat on that rock like a weed growing from its cracks, her green-black dress rustling in the wind below her feet and her white bonnet looking much like the bell of a winter flower. But it was summer.

As Connell trudged up the grassy slope of the hilly garden, he made eye contact with her, and her gaze pierced him. "Twas not clove in that bottle. Did you know?"

Connell cocked an eyebrow at his cousin. "They looked and smelled and acted like cloves to me. I needed a numbing agent." The red of his cheeks flushed when he thought about it again. They worked initially at the very least. But they didn't last through the night.

"Pray, did it numb you cousin?" she said harshly.

"Not as well as I'd hoped," Connell admitted. He wasn't sure who to fear most now--his cousin revealing something incriminating to the town council or his new memories of the strange things in the night doing what they did to him.

"They were ordinary leaves. Not even the right texture to be spice. Just a grassy smell. But they were in a bottle you've never owned. You received something from the woods."

"From a salesman, yes." Beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck.

"And what did you pay this salesman?"

"Nothing."

She stared at him, eyes slit, nodding. "Nothing? Everything costs something in that wood. If you didn't use conventional currency you used something else. Perhaps a barter."

Connell pinched the bridge of his nose. "I had hoped to receive thanks for a gift and a reassurance of my safety as opposed to accusations of impropriety slung my way."

"Do not tell me I don't know these woods cousin! You have no idea what I lost. Harvey was taken by sickness but Guilford never died!"

The words struck Connell. "But you said you buried him?"

"I lied for him. I am reminded of that lie every day when I stare at this rock."

Connell felt a surge of sympathy well up in his heart, but his sentiments could still not override his fear for what she might reveal. He felt the inside of his mouth go dry and put up his hands.

"You did... everything that you could do to save Harvey."

"This is not about me or about Harvey, Connell." Her tone was alarmingly calm. "You have been acting dangerously. I know more than you think. You don't know what could have happened to me had I seen and smelled cloves in that jar instead of the true nature of the weeds that inhabited it. You made a trespass against that forest." She looked a little vexed. "But considering how much of your life you had spent there, it is surprising to me that this is the first time you have brought something back. Unless you have brought many things back, over time, that I cannot see."

"Tell no one of this," whispered Connell. The sound of his own voice had grown raspy with fear. "I could be banished. I could be burned."

"You have never listened to me before. You will not now." Madelyn stood, staring at him, tone growing venomous. "There are some ways out. You could tell them that I'm a witch. That I enchanted you."

"I wouldn't," said Connell. But she was frightening him so much.

"You could. But you'd be damned by such a lie." Her eyes flashed to him. "I truly believe you'd be forgiven rather than destroyed. You could lose much... but you'd still be able to live well here. I would protect you."

"Is that truly all there is for my future? Embarrassment and mistrust?" he said quietly, looking to the church at the opposite end of the street.

"We are all embarrassing... and not to be trusted," said Madelyn, making exasperated noises. She glided past him, head shaking. Before she entered her house, she turned to him looking back. "Repent if you want to remain with us. To do that, you must go back to the woods. Those cloves were meant to trick you. Return that glass box to the one who gave it to you. Do not eat anything he offers you, or you will never return to me."

"And what if I'm already lost?" Connell snapped, anger heating his blood. "I did not choose to be tricked or tempted. Wickedness comes to me in my sleep!"

She turned to face him, the shadow of her bonnet occluding her eyes. "So that's what you've been bringing back all these years." She brought her hand to her face and bit her finger. "What happens to you in your sleep is not a real choice. What happens to you when you are awake, is. If you do not return to me, I will know what you did. But it would hardly matter by then, would it?"

She turned the corner of her house and Connell heard the slow creaking of her door muffled by a rickety thump.

#

Grumbling, Connell shoved his way noisily past the trees and the dense grass that covered the forest floor. He didn't bother cleaning himself off from the morning, knowing he'd smell like the mud and the trees and the mosses of the woods with this trek anyway.

He didn't know that Madelyn would react in that way. He would return the bottle to appease her misgivings, but he was beginning to despair. The cloves hadn't worked at all. He would still do strange things in the night. Memories of panting and soft fur brushing against him filled his mind, clouding his senses and making it uncomfortable to walk. He had failed to solve his first problem and only managed to collect more. He even doubted that he'd find this old man again, knowing that the likelihood of finding a traveler on the road in a similar location a week later simply would not occur.

But as soon as Connell sat down, the strange man in green stepped into view from outside of the vision of a tree. Suddenly, Connell did not feel safe.

"I hope my gift was useful to you," said that man, eyes and teeth sparkling. Connell remembered those eyes not just from their previous meeting. He remembered staring down at them from a different angle. Warmth welled up in him.

"It worked exceptionally well... at least, at first." He gave the man an apologetic grin. "But I'm afraid it was of no use to me. It didn't work. I am here to return it to you."

The man tutted and shook his head. From behind the man's green coat tails, Connell could see something within it, curling back and forth as if it had a mind of its own. "Perhaps it worked. Just not in the way that you might think."

Connell shook his head. "It needed to numb my manhood throughout the night and did not. Either the cloves do not affect me potently enough, or I do not think it worked."

The man laughed, his voice sounding more like a high-pitched bark than a sound any human could make. "I am afraid I cannot take a gift back. Not unless you prove to me that it did not work. I would feel most foolish if that were the case. But I have quite the ego, you see, and I am confident that it worked." Suddenly, sounds of snapping root and scraping bark surrounded both of them. It looked as if the forest itself was growing and shifting, stretching into the sky and occluding the sunlight in a canopy of leaves. As if to add to Connell's terror, the gold-eyed man changed in front of him. In a fluid motion, the man's nose blackened as the rest of it grew and stretched with his chin into a thin, slender muzzle. His rounded ears grew pointed, stretching to the top of his head. Rust and cream-colored fur sprouted on his face, along with the black specs that marked the lineage of red foxes. What did not change was the hunger in his eyes and his scoundrel's grin that revealed bright teeth on one side of his snout. With his deeper, crisper voice, the fox-like man began speaking.

"Since this a matter of honesty, I felt I should be honest in all things. I am now bare before you, Connell." The spirit stretched his arms in front of himself magnanimously, walking toward him as he trembled. "If it truly did not work, then show me. I will admit my embarrassment."

"Well... ah, sure, but you see... I have to spread it on myself." Connell felt a terrible fear wrack his body. He had been tricked all along. Not by a noble, but by something far worse.

"As you do," said the fox creature, nodding patiently.

"I do not wish to be watched," said Connell, a little louder.

The fox gave him a mock frown. "And I do not wish to be cheated. If you see me for who I am, then I will see you for who you are. Otherwise, I will never accept the return of my gift."

"Fine!" growled Connell. The fox smirked at that. "But I will need tools."

"Like these?" said the fox with a small gesture of his paw-like hands, sounding a little bored. A pestle and mortar and a glass of oil appeared in front of him.

"I have my own oil," said Connell, suspicious of the jar. He only took the pestle and mortar, flipping it over to see if there were any contents in it.

"You're a suspicious one."

"Only because I have to be," said Connell, pouring the contents of the glass box into the pestle and mortar and grinding it. He did not smell anything other than the strong spice of clove. Illusion or no illusion, it was quite potent to him.

"The drawers are next I hope?" said the fox man.

"Very well," said Connell. He stared at the fox as he removed his pants. Connell focused on the details that lay before him, trying to see the beast as ugly. The animal eyes, the numerous teeth, the elongated tongue, the matted fur. But his eyes were gold. There was a warmth to them that Connell could not shake, and there was something too human in the heaving of his chest behind such fine clothing.

Connell shivered. He peeled his trousers off and felt the air lick at his bare back. His member shifted with his posture and his balls as he crouched to dip his finger in the spiced mixture. The fox man watched him carefully. Connell noticed the spirit was no longer smiling. He was scanning him. Studying him. Observing with an intense interest.

"Well?" said the fox, breaking the silence.

Connell nodded hastily, then groped himself. He closed his eyes, hearing the sticky, smacking noises as he covered himself up with the numbing agent, feeling his skin lose sensation, sighing with relief as the feelings left his cock.

"It works then," said the fox, cocking his eyebrow at Connell and smiling. "I see no means of illegitimacy here." The fox rose his head to the sky and yawned lazily, splaying his ears as a squeaky whine rumbled in his throat. Connell couldn't help but notice the length of his neck and how marvelously white it was. He felt a pressure in his chest and a sudden ache in his balls. The tingling sensation came back to him, but rather than a loss of feeling, it was as if the air itself was suddenly too sensitive for him.

Connell let out a note of surprise, and then a sudden, surprised whimper. The fox looked back at him, triumphant, but Connell's own irritation had returned. "I'm supposed to feel nothing."

"Ohh," the foxed crooned, watching Connell as the young man's cock stirred. "How curious. You see, as I said... my gift works. When you want to feel nothing, you certainly feel nothing. It is a gift of desire. You wanted to feel numb, so you did." The fox's eyes fixated on the man's prick again. He sniffed the air belligerently and licked his chops. "But now you want to feel desire, so you do."

"I absolutely do not!" said Connell, shouting. "You are nothing but a tempter and a demon."

The fox looked at him skeptically. "Very well. Make it go down and leave my woods."

The two of them stared awkwardly at one another for a few moments. "It's not working! You bewitched me."

"I have already explained the manner of my spell. Your will is your own. At least for now." He cackled spitefully at the human. "You've lied to yourself for so long that you think it is the truth."

The fox circled Connell, letting his tail brush against him. There were other sounds in the shrubbery now. Connell turned at the noises, his erection still at full mast, feeling the rush of his heart beat.

"If I wanted to lie... I already would have."

"Then leave my forest."

"Looking like this?!" Connell gestured to his stiff cock.

"If you truly want it to go down then it will go down. I tire of repeating myself. I think you would have left by now if you truly wanted to." The bushes were rustling louder now. Connell could hear the pattering of small paws and the quick pants of canid tongues. The fox man in front of him fussed with his own tie, loosening it. It fell to the forest floor. Soon, the embroidered green vest followed. The creature was stripped down to only his shirt and his trousers. His silk was tugged at too by the soft, black paws, until they crumpled to the ground.

"We're all watching you, Connell," continued the fox man, working on his trousers now. Connell swallowed. He was no longer just stiff. A slow but steady ooze of something thick pushed out of him, sitting at the tip of his length, gathering into a bead. When he whimpered, it dripped to the forest floor.

"Why resist it, Connell?" said the fox man, stepping closer. He pulled his shirt over his long torso. The mixed spicy scent of man, dog and sweat invaded his senses again. "We know you want it. You know you want it."

"I do," whispered Connell. This was the truth, and he was frightened of the truth. "But I'm not so impetuous as to lose everything...for a brief stint of pleasure..." Little cackles surrounded him, once light and squeaking turning deep and brusque. Green, blue, gold and silver eyes glowed from the thicket.

"You will be here longer with me than in a lifetime alone, Connell," said the fox man. His thighs shifted, snaking their way out of their trousers, revealing a plump white tube attached to his soft belly. Something conical and red tipped poked out the top of it. It was a shape Connell remembered from his dream. His recalled his own... when it spilled seed...

He shook his head, groaning. A sense of longing and craving filled him. Connell could no longer tell if his body was betraying his thoughts, or if his body had reached him, finally, allowing him to indulge in the things that he wanted. If this were his punishment for sinful thoughts, then the punishment seemed to be coming swiftly, inexorable as it was alluring. He stared at the pair of gold eyes coaxing him closer to his earned fate. Now he remembered seeing those eyes long before he took that clove, and long before those soft, black hands pushed on his shoulders as his bare knees buckled and hit the soft forest floor.

"All you have to do is taste it Connell." The memory of his sheets ensnaring him, and the eyes staring into him while his shaft emptied, filled his head, filled his cock, and made him whine.

"Taste what?" said Connell, his own voice drowned out by the noise of panting all around him.

"You know what, Connell." A pink, pointed tip rose from the white tube attached to the fox's groin. Memories of other men, in his same position, who weren't him, filled his mind. He watched what they did with their lord's unending need. What it did to their mouths. What they had to do after he had finished spilling out--the most important part.

It was against his lips now--pointed, wet and warm. The faint smell of sweat and piss lingered. Connell wondered if he would stop if he closed his eyes, or if it were truly himself in this position, about to shame himself in a way that he could never return from. Another glob of his own need escaped him. Do I... want this shame? he thought. He had to consider what the repercussions would be if he indulged, both spiritually and physically... and what the repercussions would be if he did not indulge, and he returned to his village with Madelyn and the pastor waiting for him.

"Connell. Serve." The fox lord's hand touched the back of his head... but it was by Connell's own volition that he opened his mouth. The immediate tang of sharp, bitter liquid shot into his gullet in thin squirts. He swallowed without question, sucking the slimy contents down and hearing yaps of approval in every direction. The hand pushed him down deeper until his lips bumped against something round and rigid with a strong masculine waft emanating from it. As more of the bitter liquid pumped into Connell's mouth, he soon found it impossible to swallow it all, and it spilled out the side of his cheeks, sticky and yellow-white.

"You swallowed, didn't you Connell?" growled the fox lord above him. Connell answered with a whine. High yaps were surrounding him now. Soft warm tongues licked at his body. Sharp teeth ripped at his shirt, removing the last of his clothing. As Connell whimpered, the fox above him made a shushing sound, holding one digit to his lips as his padded paw ran through the tufts of Connell's short, spiky hair, rubbing him.

"No harm will come to you now that you are mine. There is no sickness here. Human fragility will become but a strange memory to you in time... But I'm afraid it is time for me to have my fun, Connell." The fox man's rubbing had become a little harder now as he played with and tugged on Connell's hair. "If you are going to be a part of my realm forever, then you should look the part."

Connell answered again with a muffled groan. The events of the previous night's dream were repeating themselves. Connell looked to the left and to the right with a small panic. Fox men surrounded them, touching him on all parts of his body while their cocks slipped out of their sleeves, engorged and drooling, some already shooting, spraying Connell's back in white. The overwhelming scent of seed made the human moan, which just ended in a gurgle as more of the fox lord's seed filled his mouth.

"You will run with us." An itchiness spread through Connell's legs. Thick orange fur sprouted there, and he squeaked in a panic. "You will listen to me." He felt his ears stretch, increasing in weight. "You will not lie to your tastes." The intensity of the environment blossomed around Connell as his lord's musk and the needs of the foxes drowned him. He felt the rich, earthy splatters of fox seed paint his tongue as it stretched to scoop it up. Painlessly, he felt his nose and mouth elongate to catch his now oversized tongue. "You will be handled." He couldn't suck anymore as he let the seed spill from his mouth to the floor, crying out in ecstatic pleasure.

"There's so much," he whined as the bones and skin above his rear elongated, sprouting thick fur, becoming his new tail. A padded black digit hooked under his new snout and lifted his gaze to those familiar golden eyes.

"And you will know your own body best... even better than you know mine." That crooked smile came back. But for once, Connell was distracted by something else aside from his new Lord in front of him. He heard a husky pant in his ear, louder than ever. A soft underbelly nestled on his back, and he felt the full weight of another fox man on top of him. Ignoring this new presence for the moment, he looked forward again, expecting to see his Lord's cock once more, but the spirit had vanished. All around him, left to right, fox creatures piled on top of one another, pressing their shafts into one another, grunting and squirming and spilling seed. He turned around to look into the face of the one who mounted him. Although he saw the face of another fox man, the visage reminded of Madelyn's old husband.

"Guilford?" he whispered. The fox on top of him stopped panting. Instead, he nosed into Connell's neck, and bit softly.

The smaller fox man unclamped for a moment, just to whisper in his ears. "You never caught me staring back, Connell."

"I was afraid. It never felt right," said Connell, feeling his new tail shudder, smelling the come on his own breath as he spoke. Soft hips gently nudged his tail to the side of his new body.

"But does it feel right now?"

"Oh," gasped Connell as he felt a warm prod at his rear. There was a sudden pinch that made him cry out in pain, but it ended quickly. The lithe, muscular fox was scrambling against him, trying to push in, searching for the right angle, sending small jolts of pain and peculiar pleasure through Connell's body. Once the fox on top of him had the right position, he started grinding his hips. Involuntary whines escaped Connell. "Oh." There was a pressure building up inside of him that he had never known. He dug his hands, which were now clawed and padded, into the soft earth. His back arched upright and his arm muscles supported the entirety of himself and the other fox's upper body weight. The new and exciting feelings as another man entered him elicited a new kind of pleasure in Connell that he could feel deep inside: some blissful spasm of a muscle he did not know as it was prodded and poked. The thrusting of the fox above him stopped.

"There 'tis," he grunted. Guilford's bucks alternated with shorter thrusts and pulls, targeted, which forced a quicker flow of clear fluids out of Connell.

Dipping his head low beneath his body, Connell had to stare at what was happening to himself, knowing his cock felt strange. The loose skin around his shaft plumped up, and the wide head tapered into a thinner tip, reddening, sliding into his skin one last time before reemerging with the same proportions but a different shape. Just like the previous night, before I woke up spurting, Connell thought. He yipped when he felt Guilford's paw curl around the base of his cock, which formed a strange bump.

"Thankfully, you never quite get used to this," he said devilishly, squeezing Connell there. Connell yowled as rapid spurts of need escaped him. The experience held the same intensity as spilling over, but ended faster. Though this fluid was yellow-white as opposed to clear, he still knew physically, instinctually, that he was not done, and the need to mate had not left him. Guilford's thrusts had turned into wet, sloppy slams now and Connell knew that he was slowly filling with those steady lubricating spurts as that other bump pressed against him, frantically trying to fit that tight space of his spreading muscles.

"Did you want to be bound to me, Connell? Just like how we are bound to this place?"

Connell swallowed, feeling his ears splay. "Please."

"I always did too," he grunted. "We'll be stuck for a while." As the scent of sex surrounded him, and the thinner fox on top of him yowled, Connell felt the need to be filled. He pushed backwards, and his rear gave way to Guilford's throbbing bump, crowding him as warmth surged into his body. He bent over once again, seeing the mess he had made with his new cock, and how much of his desire puddled on the ground beneath him. But as Guilford squeezed him with one paw-like hand and stroked him with the other, pleasure wracked Connell's body. When the sticky shot of his own thick seed hit his face, Connell knew he wasn't going to wake up this time. Panting much like the gold-eyed man did when his need peaked, Connell's maw slipped open, partly a grimace, partly a randy curl, knowing that, on the whole, these new constraints fit him much better. As more fox men approached them, tails wagging, Connell opened his mouth, greedy, ready for more.

#

It was not violence that took Madelyn's township but time, as more men and women died to sickness or disappeared into the slowly expanding forest. When there was no one left for her there, she abandoned her crumbling home and paid her last visit to her son's garden. She felt no love for the wild world, and longed to study the medical sciences under her brother, within the modern walls of Edinburgh. Taking only her clothes and her Bible, a carriage taxied her through the woods. When she reached the forest's edge, three foxes watched the carriage bounce onward toward the city, but they did not follow.