FSE

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There's an old writer's adage; Write what you know. Sometimes what you know is really, really boring. But sometimes, the right soul makes it all worth it.

In this Moment

2020 by Zorha

Zorha drifted without form. Thoughts collessed and winked out of existence like Random Access Memories; electrical pulses flashing back and forth in some corporeal wetwear.

The arpeggiated chords of a cello in G major broke through her fluidic, disjointed universe without warning, jarring her from the gentle cocoon of slumber.

Time and space condensed. Zorha's sense of self formed around Bach's prelude to Suite No 1, written two centuries before this moment. It anchored her to the present in all its fleeting grandeur.

Her drowsy paw fumbled about her bed sheets, fishing for her cell phone's snooze button. Once retrieved and the alarm silenced, two bleary green eyes blinked from the warmth and safety of a haphazard pillow fortress. The coyote's sluggish mind fought to get its bearings in the cold reality of consciousness.

Work. Friday. Payday.

Weekend.

The coyote dumped the cell on a nightstand and turned away, the soft curves of her body squishing into the memory foam. Dawn crept through the nearby window, touching off a fire in her ruddy brown fur not entangled in black sheets. She ran a large paw down her breasts and back around to the soft fat of her ass, as if reassuring herself that every bit of her body was in fact, hers. Her bushy tail flopped once, satisfied for that ever so fleeting moment.

She dozed, letting the snooze timer expire, and getting precious five more minutes of inaction. Her by the numbers self however, was deciding what part of her morning routine she could shave off to make up for this slack. Maybe skip breakfast? Skip applying makeup? Take a later bus into downtown?

The snooze timer expired, and with an annoyed growl the coyote pulled herself from the mattress on the floor. Her paws fumbled blindly for her black glasses and phone on the black nightstand. She stumbled to the bathroom.

It was a relatively short trip; there were walk in closets bigger than her single window, single outlet bedroom. How she had managed to find a surge protector large enough to power all her electronic gadgets was a curious question. She gingerly stepped past small heaps of dirty clothes and angled herself through the narrow door to the equally cramped shared bathroom. She dumped her cell phone unceremoniously on the edge of the porcelain sink with a sharp clink. Once in front of the mirror, she squinted at the blurry feminine form reflecting back at her.

This was her ritual. Every morning.

She opened up the frames of her glasses and hooked them behind her large perked canid ears. Zorha slid the glasses up the long bridge of her muzzle. The naked geeky coyote girl in the mirror snapped into focus.

She stared at the delicate features of her face, the tiny effeminate nose, the high, slender cheekbones. The shape of her orbits framed her delicate emerald eyes in androgyny. But she also took in the strong jaw and prominent forehead. She chanced a look at her broad shoulders which supported natural and shapely C-cup breasts. Her waist narrowed slightly, the curves of her hips subtle but not overly prominent.

Her gaze drifted down between her legs to the small sheath there. She twisted her hips a bit, viewing it from different angles.

It didn't give her any dysphoria per say. It had always been there. Like most of the weird mix of feminine and masculine traits her body possessed.

There had been a rather irritating matter from Social Security that had plagued her since birth. They had listed her sex as female but gave her a male name. Her hormones, likewise, were equally non-nonsensical. Before surgeons removed her testes, her body put out normal amounts of estrogen for a pre-menopausal genetic female and normal amounts of testosterone for a genetic male. The endocrinologists running her lab work for potential Hormone Replacement Therapy weren't quite sure what to do at first.

Her paw tips dipped between her legs and felt the slight ridge of scar tissue from her orchiectomy. It was barely noticeable, and the coyote thanked the gods for the millionth time for the surgery. No more Spironolactone. No more endless thirst. No more pain where there shouldn't be.

She spent another five minutes on the general inspection, and once satisfied, slid into the nearby shower. The frigid porcelain tile made her hind feet prickle. She turned the controls and the shower head hissed, dowsing her with cool, then hot water. It was supposed to be quick in and out; just long enough to wash her long head fur and lather up her crotch and pits. She really didn't have much of a body odor anymore.

But instead as beads of hot water danced across her thin sensitive skin, she found herself slipping into hedonist reverie. Steam caressed her body. Drops of condensation pooled and slid down the shower walls. Entire sheets of water enveloped her, crept into every nook and crevice of her needy flesh. The siren of sensation beckoned, and Zorah lost herself to its call. Once again, her paws slid up and down the soft fat of her breasts and ass, rinsing, but also, reassuring.

Five years. Hundreds of dollars worth of testosterone blockers alone. Thousands of dollars in endocrine visits, not including surgery. But this was her body. And she enjoyed looking at it. Touching it. Savoring every second of it.

The coyote squeezed one of her slippery mounds, claws gently scraping the nipple there. She shuddered hard, one paw steadying against the shower wall. Fangs bit her lower lip, mulling over the temptress at the threshold. She braved stability and allowed both paws to cup her bosom, panting as they squeezed the fatty tissue. A single paw tip circled the pink hard nips under the shower spray.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore and allowed her right paw to slide down past her ass crack. The coyote teased her tight bud, sending shivers up and down her writhing body. One of her digits slipped inside, delighting in the tactile difference. She poked about her prostate and found herself still amazed how much it had shrunk.

Instead more digits found their way inside, exploring, teasing her quivering rectal walls. Mist curled into her flared nostrils, breathing raged now, eyelids clamped shut. Her other pawed squeezed hard on her breast as she felt her entire ass twitch in ecstasy. The tremor crept up to her insides, just below her belly button, before radiating in subtle waves out through her extremities.

The build up lasted only a few minutes. She could get herself off so easily now. How many times had she taken off her heels at work and rubbed the pads of her hind paws up and down the rippled office carpet, shuddering at the feeling quaking through her entire core?

Her green eyes flicked open. They barely registered the drops of water sliding down the porcelain right in front of them. How long had she allowed herself to get lost? She glanced over at the digital clock on the cell phone. Ten minutes.

Too long.

Zorha pulled a black towel off a nearby hook and dried herself almost absently, cursing. A quick brush of the fangs and the coyote turned to arguably the second most difficult decision of the day.

What to wear to work.

While patting her long head fur dry, she stepped back over the piles and past the small dresser they should have been put into the small, over the door rack. Only a few dresses hung on. Most were wrinkled. Frumpy. She mentally checked off which ones could not be worn to work today based on some obscure equation rivaling Standard Model Lagrangian.

In the end she selected a trendy but office conservative dress from Torrid she had been lucky enough to swipe at a quarter price. Her normal go to's were black and green, but this proved to her coworkers she was not in fact color blind or an aspiring serial killer. No this mixture of blue and white with black trim fit the non-nonsensical model of female work fashion perfectly.

Given the fact that a moth had flapped its wings in Moscow 30 years earlier anyway.

She sat down on her computer chair and started snapping on a well worn black bra, making opportune motions to wake up her desktop and netbook. She spared a moment to glance at where she had left each one. An incomplete XML on one. Download tarball on the other.

Zorha pulled up the terminal on her netbook distro and started compiling a newer version of GTK+ from source code. Assuming she had the dependencies met she'd come home to a newer, faster GUI. The coyote pulled on some black panties and her dress while watching the terminal window scroll with each new line of output. Improved multitasking was one of the things she had loved about her HRT firmware upgrade. Mary Janes installed. Corporate approved attire complete.

Ten minutes.

She stepped back into the bathroom to throw on some deodorant and snag her cell phone. Of course she was behind her abstract and purely arbitrary schedule. She always was. But she still took time to step into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee for when her partner in crime woke up. When that started to brew she dropped an english muffin into the toaster and fished out something from the cupboards for lunch.

Five minutes. The 11A to downtown left at 7:06 almost every day, no exceptions, no time off for good behavior. The next bus was a tardy risk, and one of the few things the coyote hated being above all else.

Late.

The toaster popped and the coyote whirled about, taking just enough time to butter up breakfast and place it in her fangs. She scooped up her purse, ID badge, and winter coat from her bedroom. With a quick scramble she stopped to a short skid next to the front door. Her head fur still wet and mussy, no makeup on, the coyote was the literal definition of Hot Mess.

But still she lingered, looking at the closed door to the other bedroom. Inside, her partner in crime slept next to her wife of a year. The coyote absently chewed at the breakfast hanging part way out of her muzzle. Maybe one day she'd stop being a lone coyote. Maybe one day she'd feel worthy enough to let someone in.

She stepped out and locked the front door behind her. The sun was just now peeking through the clouds on this blustery autumn day, and dry leaves twirled about her bare ankles. Zorha skittered to the bus stop just in time to see the 11C round the corner onto Lowery Ave. It pulled up with a creak of air brakes. The door slid open with a loud pneumatic hiss. She stepped on and tapped her corporate paid bus card on the reader with a hard beep. As always she took a spot on the back of the bus, putting in earbuds.

She zoned off in perfect transient zen.

* * * * *

The coyote listened to some Tron Legacy soundtrack while the hybrid electric bus slid through the outskirts of Minneapolis. She threw a quick glance around the bus and relished the fact that no one seemed to notice her. She was just another face in the crowd. Zorha let her mind drift to the synthesized chords from her cell phone as the bus turned south, following its pre-ordained path on the traffic grid.

The Grid. A Digital Frontier. I tried to picture to picture clusters of information as they passed through the computer.

The bus stopped at a stop light, following the orderly rules placed upon it. A few minutes later the light turned green and the bus took an overpass, cars and semi-tractors snarling the freeway below to a crawl. The line of vehicles stretched either way to the horizon.

What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I would never see ...

Moving over the Hennepin Ave bridge, Zorha glanced up from the dingy bus floor just in time to see the rays of the morning sun bounce off the mirrored buildings of downtown. The IDS Center. The Capella Tower. Campbell Mithun Tower. The mighty Mississippi churned just underneath her.

... And then ... one day ... I got in!

The overture of the piece kicked up suddenly, swelling up inside Zorha with sweeping grandeur. The metropolitan vista reminded the tech coyote that though she had grown up a country boy in the back sticks of Ohio, she eventually became a big city girl in the urban wilds of Minnesota.

She pulled the stop cord and got off the crowded bus by the Federal Reserve. The wind was sharp, but she waited patiently for her 7C transfer. The coyote took a moment to people watch. Most of them hurried about like worker ants, intent on their destination. A few seemed less determined, as if they were simply heading to one of the many coffee shops open early to enjoy their favorite morning blend.

The 7C turned onto First Street North and the coyote repeated the on boarding ritual. Several blocks later she got off, walked up a parking ramp, and entered the TractorWorks building. She filed up for the elevator like a good drone, checked out what the other females were wearing, and once inside, found herself caught off guard to be the tallest female there. At an even six foot, two hundred pounds, she wasn't all that hard to spot. To the perceptive eye her large paws often gave her previous life away. She got off on her floor and used her ID card on the glass security door, welcoming her with a reassuring beep.

15 minutes to spare.

The receptionist greeted her warmly as Zorha slipped off to find her cube. It didn't take long for her to dump off her coat on her office chair, grab her coffee cup, and soldier on to the coffee maker in the lounge. She nodded to a few of her co-workers in casual morning passing. After dropping off her cup she stole into the shower area and threw on some eyeliner and lipstick in front of the mirror. Minimum effort. Once done, she filled her cup, went back to her cube for what was guaranteed to be a mind numbing, soul sapping day of technical ineptitude.

She logged into the phone system, opened up her ticketing system, and glanced through the smattering of emails that had come in overnight. Nothing terribly critical. She pulled on her headset and sipped her morning brew. Let the games begin.

The moment she entered the queue a call came through.

"Thank you for calling support, my name is Zorha, may I please get your Site ID?"

There was a pause.

"My what?"

Zorha closed her eyes and took a breath, steadying herself. Too. Early. "Your Site Identifier. Three Letters followed by your State Code. Three zeros. And the number of sites your database houses."

"Well ... I don't know it. I'm with St Francis Health out in Missouri. I was wondering if you could help our database admin out."

The coyote tensed. "Um okay. With what exactly?"

"Well, he was trying to save some space ... and well, he truncated the entire user's table."

Zorha blinked. "What?"

"We were just wondering if you could, you know, log in and put him back into the database."

"Well, let me talk to Technical Services and see what we can do about that." She jabbed the mute button and slowly slumped forward with her forehead resting into the flat panel.

Too. Damn. Early.

Smoothing out her dress and locking her screen, she sundered over to the Technical Services department. The coyote knocked on a portly lion's cube. Looking up from his screen he moved one of his headphones and turned to her while bringing a mug up to his feline muzzle.

"What's up Zorha?"

"Hey Raul, I've got a DBA who pulled a WTF."

The lion sipped his coffee. "Yeah?"

"He truncated his entire user's table, and he wants us to go in with our backdoor account and add him back in."

Raul spat out his coffee, laughing out loud. The others around them looked over. "Our backdoor account was in the user's table ... LULZ."

"I figured as much. So ... services?"

"Services. We're going to have to crack their SYS account and start from scratch. " Zorha nodded and gave him thanks. She plodded back to her desk, unlocked her workstation, and immediately pulled up site SFHMO0001. She scanned through a list of tickets.

"Hi this is Zorha again. Is Frank still your DBA?"

"Yes Sir."

Zorha blinked. Her heart froze. She hated getting pinged every damn time on the line. Unless she had surgeons cut out her under-developed and imperceptible Adams apple, there just wasn't much she could do with over the phone support.

"Um yeah. I'm going to forward Frank's contact info to our technical services team to follow up. Your ticket # is 128221."

"This is very urgent. We're dead in the water over here."

"I can imagine." Zorha tried not to smile. "Technical Services will be following up shortly. Have a better day " She terminated the call.

The coyote leaned back and let out a soft sigh. Once she regained her composure she entered a work log and closed her part of the ticket after assigning it to the Technical Services team. One down. Twenty-Five more for daily quota. She put herself back into the queue and her headset chimed again. Today was going to be soul sapping. But at least she had something to look forward to after work.

A few more calls came through, mostly run of the mill site configuration change requests, physician mess up fixes, and the assorted privacy violations that made HIPPA Jesus want to cry. Sometime before lunch Zorha got a random SMS. She didn't recognize the number, so she opened it blindly.

She was greeted by a sheath pic for her efforts. Confused, she scrolled up through the previous chat history. It was some guy she had chatted with for 10 minutes ... six months ago. A call came through, ironically saving the digital princess from potential HR peril. She rolled her eyes and locked the phone screen

"Thank you for calling support, may I please start with your Site ID?"

"Bravo-Mike-Charley-Foxtrot-Lima-Zero-Zero-Zero-One." The voice was cool and collected, matter of fact but with definite purpose. Zorha pulled up BMCFL0001 and looked over the list of site contacts, looking for their Systems Engineer.

"Is this Cyndi?"

"Yes it is."

"What's going on today?"

"Well, our ADT feed seems to be down, but we seem to be having an issue bringing it back up."

"No problem. Just give me a second to check some of your server configurations." The coyote's paw tips danced about the keyboard in well rehearsed dance. She didnt see anything that really looked overly complicated from a potential networking choke point. VPN access into their Production Environment was pretty locked down.

"Hey Cyndi, do you mind if I hop in with you and take a look?"

"Please do." Zorha rattled off her support URL and with a quick port adjustment someone let the coyote's remote session slip in through the firewall.

"I've got our network engineer with us on the call." Cyndi explained. "If we need him."

Zorha cracked a smile. Well prepared. She started pulling up the Services MMC snap in on the Application server, then kicking over to dump the system information output while waiting for the MMC snap in to fully load. She snatched the NFO and attached it to the ticket she had opened as a matter of habit.

The coyote's forehead crinkled when she tried restarting the Inbound HL7 service. It simply timed out and dumped a fairly generic error code.

"Yeah that's the problem we were getting."

Zorha chewed her lip while simultaneously bringing up both the server installed components module and the system event viewer. Their .NET 4.6 framework wasn't tracing a fault and hadn't been updated since last month, but it was the NTFS errors logged by the OS that immediately drew the keen coyote's attention.

She flicked back and forth between the system output and her records. They both seemed to be in line with each other. The site sported a pair of PowerEdge R710. The coyote leaned back in her office chair for a moment with a soft creak, mulling over whether or not to access the server logs right in front of everyone.

Zorha risked it and pulled up OpenManage. She started clicking through the RAID heath as reported by its PERC H700 controller. The RAID 1 reported one drive failure and one predicted on the OS array.

Without saying anything Zorha pulled up the Service Tag for that server and checked the year of manufacture. She referenced it with the SAS drive OEM information. The System Engineer just remained stunned silent.

The coyote didn't say anything, but simply set up an RDP session to the sister Database Server and jumped through the logs there too. The ORADATA partition, RAID 5, reported one failed SAS, one predictive fail, and three OK.

"Can we get your Site Clinical Administrator on the conference call?"

"You think that's needed?" The network engineer chimed in. Zorha chewed on her lip, pulling up the RMAN export logs on the Database server.

"Sorry, protocol." Zorha breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that last night's database export completed without any bad blocks reported. The parity on the array was probably still in good shape. "Hey I didn't get your name by the way."

"Steve."

"Steve can you do us a solid and copy this 100GB BAK file from the E: partition off the DB server somewhere safe. You have space on a SAN?"

"Yeah ... I can do that."

"Good."

"So Zorha," Cyndi chimed in, "If you don't mind me asking, how did you know to check the Database server?"

"You bought and deployed both these Power Edge servers at the same time. That means their hard drives came from the same lot. SAS drives from the same lot tend to fail at the same time. My first server repair came from a PERC battery replacement in Mason City IA."

Zorha could feel the two on the other line smile. It was always nice to have a former field service technician on calls like these.

"I'm guessing the previous System Engineer didn't give over the password to the iDRAC when you took over their position, did they? And I can bet that all those ESM log alerts went to an email black hole once their Exchange account finally got purged."

"Yeah, the hand off was pretty spotty when Jeff retired." Cyndi bashfully admitted.

"Well, don't worry. I think we caught this in time. Steve, what's the ETA on that SAN transfer?"

"Looks like 4 hours at current throughput. We also have Claire the clinical director ready to join the call. Okay to pull her in?"

"Yeah." There was a soft click as the VOIP connection added another faceless persona.

"Hi this is Claire, Director of Clinical Administration for Bay Medical Center. I understand some of our systems aren't linking to our EHR?"

"Um. That's correct." Cyndi chimed in. We've narrowed it down to a down ADT feed. Vendor support has isolated the issue." Zorha just remained silent and let the System Engineer spin the good and bad news.

"And how long until the systems are restored?"

"Um support, what are we looking at for down time?"

"That depends, you have any hot spares?" Zorha leaned back in her chair, sipping her cooling coffee.

"We don't have any hot spares in the servers," Cyndi remarked. "But we could transfer some cold spares from a different site. Steve, how long would it take to get field services to pick them up and deliver them?

"I dunno. Three hours tops. We could throw them in the Application server and rebuild the OS array while we wait for the database backup to cross the SAN."

"What's wrong with the database?" The director's frown darkened the VOIP line.

"Nothing major ma'am." Zorha chimed in, taking the heat off Cyndi. "My name is Zorha and I'm with vendor support. We always want to include clinical administration in case of potential data loss. I think it's unlikely, and your Oracle backup is being transferred off server in case our technical team needs it to rebuild. As it stands though, I'm highly confident that your engineer can rebuild the data array without further support from us."

"Does everyone know their next steps then?" Claire asked tentatively. Zorha stepped in again.

"I think so. If I understand it, Steve will coordinate the drive replacements, Cyndi will rebuild the Application Server's operating system. Once that interface service is stabilized, we'll shut down the database after production hours for a while until the data is fully rebuilt. Steve will have the database backup ready for our technical services team if they need it. Ticket # is 128228. Call our second shift support team when you are ready. I'll touch base with Cyndi tomorrow to see how it all went.

There was a pause. Vendors didn't usually direct recovery efforts, but the sense of relief on the call was palatable. This job was the first time Zorha had even touched NT servers, but within a week she was bunny hopping around them, directing network engineers way above her pay grade to faulty switches using tracert outputs.

"Well, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I'm glad we got you on the call." The director beamed. "Well done."

Zorha allowed herself a small smile. They ended the conference call and dropped out of existence one at a time with a sharp double beep. The coyote updated her ticket and gave a rough summary across Teams chat, tagging the second shift techs so they were in the loop.

Only once everything was buttoned up to her impossibly high standards did the coyote lean back in her seat and relax. For a moment, she found herself lost in empty thought until her phone chimmed again.

She gave a distrustful glance to it before looking at the preview, half expecting it to start with "YOU WANT SUM FUK?" Instead her frown dissolved into an eager smile.

"You excited for tonight?" Her partner in crime had texted. The coyote couldn't snatch that phone and punch in her reply fast enough.

"Hell. Yeah."

* * * * *

The rest of the Friday workday zipped by in relativistic fashion. The curvy coyote made her favorite brand of spicy korean ramyeon for lunch. Between calls Zorha chatted with her bestie about her workday.

Sakura bitched about how the patching team had broken Apache with an update to RHEL. The Siamese cat went on to mention how they took 2 hours to put in a ticket to her, and she had the cratered process back up in 2 minutes. Zorha joked that Sakura should just put in a cron job to periodically check the process, and if CPU utilization > 90 auto log a ticket from the offshore team.

Zorha knew Sakura well enough to know she could just have the cron task start a script to check YUM and if there wasn't a dependency error, simply recycle the web service. But good system engineers don't automate their job.

They make sure someone reports a critical system down event and they come in and save the day with a failover if needed.

Before she knew it was 1500. The east coast hospitals and ASCs slowly shuttered up to scheduled appointments. Call volume died. That suited the coyote just fine. She fired off some updates to other teams, some clients, wrote a SQL query or three for some clinical QI staff, and so on. She even remotely worked on that XML on her desktop when a brief moment of insight popped into her canid skull.

She filled every single moment with activity, with purpose.

1600 rolled on by. The office turned into a ghost town. Zorha's direct manager waved goodbye on his way out the door for the weekend, letting her know he saw the message in Teams. The mink generally let the tech savvy coyote do her own thing, and their 1 on 1 meetings usually consisted of what new KB she was cooking up. Virtualization? SCCM? Even Raul said he had a tough time thinking of a question that would stump her during her initial interview.

Zorha killed the last hour looking at clear raincoats for the upcoming Spring. The revealing type that a Blade Runner might retire you for. 1700 hit, and the coyote couldn't shut down and lock up her laptop fast enough. She pretty much power walked back through the building, down the parking ramp, and back to the bus stop she had taken earlier this morning.

The chill of the early evening started to nip at the back of her exposed heels. The obscured sun cast a silhouetted red circle against the hazy clouds. Twilight was fast approaching.

And nighttime was the right time.

The trip back to her apartment in the Northeast Arts district was largely uneventful, aside from transit police hauling off some erratic greyhound dusted on who knows what. It gave Zorha an excuse to ignore the fuckboi who had texted earlier, looking for a desperate weekend hookup. Well worth the 30 minutes of idle bus time to avoid that dumpster fire, anyway.

Zorha got off at Lowery and Grand, her modest corporate approved attire beginning to irritate her in all the wrong ways. Her fur bristled in their confines as the late autumn turn over of the Mississippi crept into her nostrils. The hint of a full moon began to break out of the overcast sky above. Dry leaves continued to twirl about her Mary James, tickling her ankles as she half skipped down half a block to her apartment. This urban coyote's soul began to stir, no longer wilted by the stifling grind of wage slave life.

Past the front yard gate. Stop on the porch. Check the mail. Through the front door. Up the stairs. Zorha's short heels clicked on the old wood, ending her end of day ritual. She dropped off her shoes at the front door. Anything now past this was random, unexpected, and most of all savored. She opened the darkly stained, scratched up wooden door and entered with a sweeping, grand gesture, ecstatic.

"Honey! Immmmm Hoommmme!!!"

The lioness sitting in one of the gamer chairs in the common room swiveled around. A trendy pair of wireless headphones cupped her short feline ears. Her short muzzle wrinkled a bit as she chewed on a red licorice whip, the black frame of her square glasses moving up her square nose a little. The Destiny 2 shirt and denim shorts she wore hugged her subtle curves perfectly.

Sky sported some real nice hips to be sure. Zorha wasn't attracted to the feline per se but definitely felt an envious pang anytime Sky bent over to pick something off the floor. She had some cute breasts too, not as big as Zohra's but solid B's and definitely a good overall package that fit her frame. Hormone replacement therapy affected everyone differently, and it was often a crapshoot what body you ended up with after several years.

Sky's unimpressed and slightly irritated look at Zorha's entrance culminated by a gracious extension of her left arm, followed ever so slowly and deliberately with the middle claw. Zorha's grin widened. They mixed like oil and water, but at least these little moments kept things interesting between them.

"Where's that amazing wife of yours?" She beamed.

"In the bathroom, getting ready to go out tonight." Sky shot back before swiveling back to whatever combination of video games, videos, and discord memes kept her interest.

Zorha dropped off her lanyard and ID off in her room, pausing a moment to plop down into her own computer chair and wake up her desktops and netbook. She dropped in a few lines of XML, fully intending to test it out on Sunday, before saving the file and packing it in an archive.

The coyote changed to the netbook before running a few GPU metrics on the #!++ Openbox desktop manager. The integrated GPU might have just enough flops to give the TI-85 a run for its money, but Zorha was intent on squeezing every last bit of efficiency she could out of obsolete hardware and depreciated libraries.

"Yo Bish!" Sakura called from behind the closed doorway of their shared bathroom. Zorha looked up.

"What!?" She called out, acting like she was being disturbed from fundamental and essential work.

"Get. In. Here!" Sakura drummed her hind feet in mock impatience. The coyote grinned and got up from her seat, stripping off her dress and bra. She let them drop to the floor and strolled out of her bedroom wearing nothing but panties. Her boobs bounced a bit, free from the confines of clothing.

Sky didn't bother to even look up. There was very little modesty in this household. Everyone had seen each other naked. Hell, Sky even had sex with Sakura one time in the common room with Zorha's door open. That sorta thing happened, them being married and all.

Zorha made a roundabout way through the common area, to the kitchen, to the other bathroom door, She didn't bother to open the door from her bedroom. She knew where the cat would be, and there wasn't enough room by the toilet to swing her door open without wacking Sakura in the knees. The door from the kitchen to the bathroom was half open anyway. Again, no shame. Zorha slid in through the opening and again, started picking apart her appearance in the mirror the moment her reflection came into view.

She leaned in closer, claw picking at some mussed up patch of her on her cheek. Was that a blemish? Sakura shook her head and continued to watch her thinspo video. Her thin paws cupped the phone like the Holy Grail.

Sakura was skinny, even if she herself didn't see it. The cat was tall and had a heart shaped ass that just wouldn't quit. She generally didn't wear a bra, and her petite A cups pressed deliciously against her Ace of Spades Hand Cannon shirt Zorha had picked up for her last summer. The Siamese cat sported some real cute pink frame glasses that Mari Illustrious wore, and much like her favorite anime girl, Zorha was a sucker for smart, sexy, and somewhat unhinged girls.

"Get a room you two ... " She mocked flatly at the coyote's narcissism. Most people wouldn't catch the oh so subtle vibe of tender sarcasm. Zorha gave a short laugh.

"How long have you been on the porcelain throne your highness?" Zorha peeled off her panties, her bushy tail giving Sakura a cheeky sideways smack.

Both of them knew it was because of all the fiber supplements the cat downed. Either of those jabs, hinting at dark and unflattering aspects of their respective personalities, wouldn't have been tolerated from any other person. But they had been in each other's lives for five years now, and seen each other through things that would have broken up even the most iron clad couples.

Yeah, there was some history there, most would assume that their familiarity with each other's dirty laundry was because they were in a relationship. In truth, they had been, for a whopping 3 months, before Zorha realized she couldn't be Sakura's boyfriend anymore ...

"Slightly less than the time you've been my bitch." The cat mused, giving the coyote's bare naked ass a meaty slap as the canid slid into the shower for the second time that day. Sakura blew her flat nose into some TP and strained lightly, trying to force a BM. Again, familial. "What are you wearing tonight?"

"I dunno." Zorha mused as she turned on the tepid shower spray. "I can't decide between imposing or slutty."

Sakura dropped the TP into the toilet and flushed before getting up, tucking, pulling up her panties, then poked her head in through the shower curtain.

"You don't have to have balls to be imposing," Her fierce amber eyes locked with trembling green ones in a tense but ultimately one sided standoff. Shed exited the bathroom abruptly with faux disdain. "Get pretty Scrub, you've got three hours."

* * * * *

Three hours may seem like a long time. But as any feminine presenting person will tell you, it's not nearly long enough to look good enough. Compound that going to a nightclub with a hundred of strangers critiquing your look, and its enough to make even cis-gendered people break down into fits of soul crushing insecurity.

Zorha showered again, making sure to wash her head fur, skipping the shampoo this time and adding just the right amount of conditioner to prevent fritz. Blow dry on the lowest heat. Watch for splitting at the ends. AND FOR THE LOVE OF DOG DON'T BRUSH WET.

Many rules. Much upkeep.

Apply lotion to paw pads. Trim claws. Pluck eyebrows. Eliminate nose hairs with extreme prejudice. Brush fangs. Floss. Rinse with muzzle wash.

Now came the hard part. It took her two outfits to decide that slutty wasn't happening tonight. She just wasn't feeling the fishnets tonight, and it was getting a bit too nippy for way-too-short leather skirts. In the end she decided on stompy leather boots, way too tight faux leather pants, and her favorite leather motorcycle jacket. All in black.

Now came the harder part.

Cleanse facial fur. Toner. Exfoliant. Re-moisturize. Primer. Foundation. Bronzer. Blush. Eyeliner. Mascara. Muzzle lipstick. Fuck up Muzzle lipstick. Return to start. Do not Pass Go. Do not Collect $200.

Look at the phone and realize you just lost 2 hours in what felt like 2 minutes. Cry a little and fuck up your mascara. Die inside. Realize you are going to be putting on a mask anyway. Laugh at how shallow you are and how little anything means in the Grand Scheme of the Universe. If it had been up to this Universe, you'd be dead by now anyway.

That's the only way most trans persons can persist; living in this moment, and this moment only. The past is nothing but painful memories, a lifetime lost, and a future that may not come.

You are one frat boy's panicked realization away from getting fished out of a river.

In pieces.

Zorha shoved aside that dark thought as pointless and a bit nihilistic. She was about to go out with her partner in crime for a night of shaking her ass out on the dance floor, giving zero fucks. She shook out her head fur, wiped the black tear away gingerly, and went back to her bedroom to slap a dash of black claw polish on. The coyote did her best to occupy her mind with AMVs while blowing on her claws.

Sakura stepped unexpectedly into the open doorway and leaned against its frame. Zorha's breath caught, frozen.

The slinky cat had thrown on a tight black gothic top sporting the seal of Lilith. Zorha's eyes wandered down to Sakura's ripped black shorts and fishnets. Her naked thighs would send Zorha to Hell if she wasn't careful. The feline had only put on a small amount of eyeliner, but for some reason she made the entire presentation look flawless. Sakura cocked an eyebrow at Zorha's expression. She always enjoyed the way the coyote's jaw dropped a bit at the grand reveal.

"You ready or what? We've got fifteen minutes to get there. And I'm out of smokes."

"Yeah Yeah. I fucked up my makeup and lost track of time." Zorha got off her computer chair and dug through an uhaul box sitting by her dresser, fucking up her nails just as bad as her mascara. At least it was dark on the dance floor. The ruddy coyote pulled out a black snarling wolf mask and took off her glasses, throwing them to Sakura to stash in her purse.

They stepped back out to the common room where Sky was preparing for the weekly Friday night Leviathan raid. The two felines kissed briefly, reminders were given to call if the gamer girl needed anything. The club just wasn't her scene. The music was too loud, creepy guys sometimes got touchy if she went out in latex, and her fibromyalgia just didn't allow her body the type of dancing her wife liked.

And that's why Zoha called Sakura her partner in crime. If her best friend wanted someone to go out with, then Zorha was there. If she wanted to unwind, Zorha was ready and willing to buy Sakura's drinks, make sure no one put something in her Rum and Coke, and give her a sober ride home.

They exited out the back of the apartment to Sakura's Chevy Cruze. Who would have guessed an Aries to pick out a deep crimson sporty compact with turbo? They dropped into its leather bucket seats in well rehearsed synchronicity. They pulled out of the alley a bit faster than usual, trying to make up lost time. Generally the club didn't really get busy until midnight, but opening was the time to catch up with old friends if you wanted to actually hear what they were telling you.

Sakura spun the wheel with her left paw. The Cruz's tires squawked angrily on Lowery. She gunned the engine a bit, lamplights zipping past their tinted windows. With practiced grace, Sakura's right paw came to rest on Zorha's left leg, the feline claws making sharp dents in the coyote's leather leggings. Zorha reciprocated the small gesture, her rough paw pads teasing the fishnets and the exposed fur alike.

They turned right on University, and after a few blocks, stopped at a gas station. Sakura popped the shifter into park just as Zorha popped her seatbelt.

"Red Bull." Sakura said, not needing to look up from her phone to know the masked wolf next to her nodded silently and climbed out of the Cruz.

Zorha's world was fuzzy without her glasses, and the mask only added to the disconnect. Despite the gawks at the tight leather from normies, the gas station attendants were not all that concerned with the wolf mask. It just was typical Minneapolis weekend weirdos doing their thang. The black wolf picked up the energy drink and a pack of Marlboro Edge. She didn't even get carded.

Zorha changed when going out to the club. Her alter ego was all just a facade, a mask. But a comfortable one that fit, at least for the night. Not like the one she had tried to keep up for 30 some odd years. After the short walk back to the car with a couple of whistles and catcalls to kick off the evening, Zorha dropped back into the warm leather next to Sakura.

"Gracias" The feline purred, grabbing the caffeine and tobacco and stashing them in the console.

She backed the car out in one fluid motion before getting back on University and heading south. She ripped open the top of the cigarette pack as the car went over some small hills, the sudden lack of gravity tickling the bottom of Zorha's stomach. It didn't stop the stoic black wolf from grabbing a lighter from Sakura's purse and having the flame ready just as the filter touched her narrow muzzle lips. Zorha had the can opened by the time Sakura had blown the first billow of cigarette smoke out the crack of the driver's side window.

Well rehearsed synchronicity.

Zorha watched in numb disconnect as the buildings downtown got closer. This late at night their monolithic exteriors, dark glass, and twinkling aviation lights took on an edgy, almost cyberpunk like feel. Muted thrill crept through her limbs, eager to move, to get all the stress of the past week out of her bones. The call of urban nightlife thrummed through them both, silent as the Cruze turned on the crowded streets around 4th. They slid into a nearby parking lot. Sakura downed the last of her energy drink, flicked the cigarette out her cracked window.

"You ready to do this chica?"

The black wolf gave a short quiet nod.

* * * * *

The gargoyles of Ground Zero glowered at them as they trotted across 4th Street, timing their crossing with a break in the usual traffic. Zorha opened the door for her charge, and Sakura strutted down the long dark hallway leading to the bouncer. The white ferret in all black with SECURITY across his shirt adjusted his black military cap and let the two approach with their IDs.

He smirked and waved the two regulars on to the pay window. Zorha dropped a Jackson in through the window and made a V with her gloved fingers. The deep thumps of the heavy industrial music in the entrance way would have drowned out anything the wolf would have said anyway. The goat behind the plexiglass nodded and returned some Washingtons.

Next stop was the 1st bar. It was a simple affair, long wooden counter going down maybe 60 feet. An interesting motley of delinquents were picking up their first drink of the night, some in collars and assorted BDSM trappings, some in eccentric mabre dress. Sakura waited patiently while Zorha ordered her the first of many rum and cokes.

The mink in simple black pants and black tank top behind the bar slid to a practiced stop in front of the stoic black wolf. He half leaned in, half read her black muzzle lips for the usual order. He stepped to the side, left paw reaching for the rum, right paw reaching for a glass. By the time the bottom of the glass had hit the bar it was half full of rum. The right paw moved to the coke dispenser. The left paw set the rum bottle down with a lithe spin and then inserted a straw.

Three seconds tops. Zorha paid as Sakura scooped up her drink. The two headed over to the dance floor by their usual spot by the DJs. They had already spun up some stompy music. although most of the crowd had yet to show up.

The deep thumps of Gesaffelstein's 'Pursuit' boomed across the dance floor, the imagery from the music video projecting on a screen near the stage. The haunting green and violent biohazard symbols projected by the lighting above slipped and twirled about the hazy dance floor in pace with the chaos. A low hanging fog from the smoke machine added the creeping ambiance. A few club regulars came over to offer hugs to Sakura, and the feline made a V in front of her face before leaving with her troupe to head out to the patio for a social smoke break.

Zorha stood by herself, closing her eyes and feeling out the music. Her head bobbed in sync, the back of her eyelids lighting up anytime one of the spotlights washed over her. She opened her eyes just in time to see a pair of tourists point and walk up.

The two guys in blue jeans and pullover sweaters pointed to a camera they were holding, then at the mean looking black wolf. She nodded slowly, giving her permission, and they took her picture. The regulars hanging back at their tables grinned. Some of them sported biker gear. Some in dark Victorian fancy. The occasional cybergoth rounded out the eclectic regulars this particular night. Zorha's usual attire wasn't unusual at Ground Zero, but to those visiting the nightclub for the first time, her tight leather and dark, permanent snarl apparently made an impression.

The DJ's decided to snap things up a notch, and started playing a crowd favorite, Owl Vision's 'Holy Shit'. A few more regulars jumped onto the dance floor, the bass rattling the grim reapers and tombstones hanging above. Zorha's back paws jittered, her heavy black boots stomping in tandem to the beat. Her limbs swept around, body moving, bleeding out that pent up energy that had been building up on the drive here.

Time didn't seem to have meaning again, but in this moment, Zorha felt alive. Her blood pumping, her lungs burning, her limbs flailing about in chaos. A second, an hour? Zorha opened her eyes briefly and noticed Sakura had come back with one of the security guys she had been semi dating the past few weeks. They were standing in the alcove off to her side, paws exploring each other. Zorha grinned and kept dancing, enjoying the double show.

After some light petting the feline disentangled herself and made a drinking motion to her guardian wolf. Zorha nodded and made her way over to the second smaller bar over by the weekly Bondage-A-Go-Go event. It was a place where someone could pay tribute to the Mistress of the Evening and get their favorite form of pain, humiliation, or restraint dished upon them for semi-public display.

The gray wolf behind the second bar nodded to Zorha and asked if she wanted the usual. The back wolf nodded to the wolfess sporting a tasteful, if revealing red corset. She had been tending the bar as far back as Zorha could remember. It didn't take long before Sakura had the second drink of the evening in her paw.

The rest of the night pretty much went by in a blur. At some point Zorha and Sakura went to the restroom to touch up their makeup. They always went together. Despite Ground Zero being an accepting place for deviants of all types, the two had enough run-ins at other night clubs that they didn't want to leave it to chance. Sometimes Zorha stood next to Sakura as she drank and flirted out on the smoking patio. Other times the two danced in the throng of writhing bodies.

Limbs, lights, all blended seamlessly in an orgy of sensation.

Without warning the tempo changed. The music slowed, thumped somehow harder. Marylin Manson whispered somehow, singling out Zorha and Sakura in that moment. The two best (if not more) friends eyes locked on to each other from the unexpectedly insistent if not outright demanding lyrical remix to "I Put a Spell on You".

I put a spell on you, beeeecaaasseee ... youre mine.

Sakura moved closer, the crowd somehow seeming to grow distant. That totally committed, incontestable stare made Zorha's heart thunder. The two embraced, interlaced paws, and swayed to the vibe.

Was it the music? Was it the rum? Was it just the right moment that made the feline enter and claim the coyote's intimate space?

No ...I don't care if you don't want me 'Cause I'm yours, yours, yours anyhow ...

Sakura turned, her back and ass grinding salaciously into Zorha now. Everyone around them seemed to be watching this unexpected but playful display with voyeuristic delight. Zorha paws slid up and down the hot curves of her best friend, what was left of her loins tingling with feelings long thought forgot.

I am yours, yours, yours ...

The tension between the two somehow condensed like a black hole. Their lusty dance slowed, Zorha's large paws lingering longer on Sakura's breasts, fiery under her thin shirt. The coyote would give up the rest of her metered time just to be inside that ass one more night. Sakura moaned slightly as Zorha's nose and muzzle lips peppered kisses up her neckline.

The two swayed slowly as one again, intensity in the lyrics climbing to an unsustainable crescendo. Sakura turned around in Zorha's hawty embrace, deliberately, slowly removing the black wolf mask to look her best friend directly in the eyes.

I love you...I love you...I love you...

A gravity of need pulled them closer. They locked muzzle lips. Time slowed despite the chaos rampaging around them. They both grinned a little, muzzles pressing delically against each other, soft and feminine. They shared the strong taste of alcohol and little regret in this moment as their tongues scraped against each other.

It was good to be inside each other again, claiming each other, if only just for this night.

I love you!

Manson screeched, the words were barely intelligible, seared with zealous lust. Sakura was reluctant to break the kiss, but in her drunken haze, her forehead rested gently against Zorha's own. Both of them grinned from ear to ear, swayed to the rest of the song with no regards to what was going on around them.

Zorha sensed Sakura's body slump slightly ever more against her, hours of dance and a few strong drinks claiming the last of the feline's stamina. After the song was over Zorha made sure Sakura made her last rounds, saying goodbye to her club friends, getting some playful last gropes in while the coyote fetched the car and brought it around.

The feline dozed lightly as the two made their way over to some late night drive through. Between bites of burrito, Sakura's paw groped Zorha's leg, still burning with exhaustion.

"You know I've always loved you right?" The feline murmured with complete sincerity.

"I know ,,," The coyote squeezed the paw in her lap. It didn't matter if tonight would ever happen again, or if it happened next weekend. All that mattered was that, in this moment, it did happen.

Zorha brought Sakura safely back to the apartment. Her wife had just turned off her gaming rig for the night, and as the coyote watched the lioness help a somewhat still inebriated Sakura back to their bedroom, Zorha absently wondered, again, would she ever find another woman as amazing as her best friend, her soulmate?

Maybe one day she'd stop being a lone coyote. Maybe one day she'd feel worthy enough to let someone in.

Until then the weary coyote stumbled to her own bedroom. Between dirty piles of laundry, she flopped on the sparse mattress, eventually peeling herself out of leather that somehow got even tighter as the night wore on. The black mask back in its box for the time being, Zorha almost fell asleep with her boots on.

It was almost two in the morning. She was exhausted. The weekend, however, was just beginning.

The taste of her best friend still lingering on her muzzle lips, the corners pulled one last time into a smile. Her body eased, mind once against falling into that weightless, timeless void, She was never certain if she would awake the next morning ...

... but she made damned sure that she spent every moment like it was her last.

~ Fin ~