{"sf1_id":19656,"sf2_id":"XekVAA1g","title":"Open Invitation (Pt 3 of The Woods)","author":"Hawk","words":11962,"posted_at":"2007-02-26T02:52:00.000Z","tags":["Bondage","Dog","Drugs","Human","M/M","Plot Development","S\u0026M","Snow Leopard","Story Series","Wolf"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/19656-open-invitation-pt-3-of-the-woods","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/XekVAA1g","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=19656\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"#3 of The Woods","content":"\"Open Invitation\"  \nPart 3 of \"The Woods\"  \nby H. A. Kirsch (Hawk)  \nCopyright 2007  \n  \n  \n  \nThis is the continuation of my series, \"The Woods\", featuring the misadventures of a human named Adrian. Feedback is appreciated - leave a comment, vote, email to h a w k at g mail . com .  \n  \nA shout out to Siphedious for helping me edit this story, both for proof-reading and \"omfg this doesn't make sense\"-reading.  \n\n* * *\n  \nI don't think you can really understand the significance of looking under a door and seeing your  \nformer boss fucking a random fox hybrid.  \n  \nThe foul mouth-taste of watching someone have sex, the thrill of watching without them knowing, the  \ngut-rotting realization that you know them, then the screaming irony of the dominant being someone  \nyou feared so thoroughly that it made you aroused.  \n  \nDuring the week after the Leather Room Incident, I started going crazy. Any quiet moment quickly  \nbecame a recap of Sean's leather-clad violation of the fox named Arjen. Was his name even Arjen? I  \nswore I'd heard that. I felt tugged in two directions: rebirth of my old fears and anxieties  \ntowards the dog who used to write up my evaluations, and a growing morbid curiosity.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \n  \nFirst, the fear.  \n  \nWork was good for my fear, because work kept my mind occupied. Some people become distracted by  \ntheir own thoughts and can't work, but I always was the opposite - under the hawk glare of Sean  \nAshton, I would work myself until I was so tired I literally passed out.  \n  \nThe Woods was a much more pleasant environment, mostly because there was no one under me whose  \nduties I could absorb. I simply did what I was told. When I ran out of things to do, I could go home  \n- I was salaried so it didn't matter much. That left me with varying amounts of free time. The week  \nafter my big inspection project, the week after I saw Sean and The Apparently Dutch Fox Named Arjen,  \nI was idle a lot.  \n  \nWithout work, the folds of my brain were idle hands1. Each day I went home and immediately went to  \nsleep, only to wake up in the middle of the night. I would try to watch television while feeling  \nlike someone was looking over my shoulder, my heart would start to race even though I was sitting  \nstock-still, and the things that my mind's eye started to see... I guess it was good for my art,  \nthough.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \n  \nNow, the morbid curiosity.  \n  \nI had a lot of magazines. In fact, clay paper was the single most abundant thing I had in my  \napartment. Magazines are fucking heavy, and moving them was a huge pain that took an entire U-Haul  \ntruck.  \n  \nWhenever I needed to embark on a true project, I tried to glean inspiration from actual visual  \nimages. What better place to get images than magazines? The Internet doesn't count - I need to tack  \nthings up around what I'm working on. You can't tack the Internet up. 2  \n  \nGetting massive amounts of magazines wasn't very hard. All it took were a few choice online  \nclassifieds and I was rolling in them. Thanks to a few creepy friends from art school, there was a  \nsmall subset of completely whack periodicals. Goth culture mags, hardcore fetish mags, magazines  \nfor the wannabe-assassin, horror and sci-fi fan mags. By fetish, I meant magazines that weren't even  \npornographic, just weird.  \n  \nI didn't have a particular project in mind, except the mural - always the damn mural - but I  \ncompulsively flipped through magazines looking for leather. I snatched a three-ring binder from work  \nand started tearing out pages of anyone male and wearing leather, and when that binder was full, I  \ngot another, and another. The Leather Room Incident had been the previous Friday - by Wednesday, I  \nhad three binders full of pictures that collectively represented the image Sean portrayed from my  \nperspective.3  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; It was such an obvious thing to look at, all that polished hide. The absurdity of wearing animal  \nskin on top of animal skin, the metaphorical power that only leather commanded. I wasn't sure how I  \nfelt - I loved seeing it, but I wasn't sure if it aroused me.?4 The interest was beyond new, so new  \nthat I didn't know what I felt, maybe I didn't even feel anything except a lust for information.  \n  \nThat lust led me straight to the first and only friend I had made so far at The Woods. John didn't  \ncount - I'd known him for years.  \n  \n  \n  \n----  \n  \nRake was a slender rail of a wolf who worked for Grounds Maintenance. He was the landscape engineer  \nfor the entire complex, which sounded boring but was taken to surreal extremes in the inner garden5  \nthat lay just outside my apartment.  \n  \nHe was Finnish and gangly, apparently part Ethiopian Wolf or Cape Dog (he didn't know which), and  \nquick to tell everyone to call him \"Rock\" because he hated how his name sounded in English. He was  \nalso skittish and would start and end conversations so abruptly that I was convinced he was  \nautistic.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; My search didn't really lead me to him. Apparently he led himself to my Facilities cafeteria lunch,  \nswiping a forkful of macaroni and then ducking under the table. He rose until his ears peeked out.  \n  \n\"Rock, what the hell are you doing?\"  \n  \n\"I don't like it when people see me steal food.\"  \n  \n\"So don't steal food.\" I fiddled around with my pilfered lunch; I unexpectedly lost my appetite,  \nthanks to an unappreciated flash of Sean's dog-dick sliding out of the fox's throat.  \n  \n\"You look funny. You were just staring off into space. Do you see ghosts?\"  \n  \nI shrugged. \"Not ones that are dead.\"  \n  \n\"Now you're being weird to me! You have to tell me what you saw.\"  \n  \nI didn't want to, but I did. Rake had a demure little metal series of rings on a necklace. Sometimes  \nthey were an even pink, sometimes they were a pastel rainbow of painted metal, and today they were  \nblack-blue-red-blue-white-blue-black or some combination like that. I vaguely knew that was  \nsomething like BDSM pride. Oddly enough, I learned that in art school. What the rings said was that  \nRake wouldn't completely flip if I told him. \"Fine. I'll tell.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Well?\"  \n  \nI shrugged, played with my hair. \"I don't know how. I don't think words really work, capture the  \nreason why this has been bugging me.\"  \n  \nRake shrugged and proceeded to truly wolf down half of a sandwich. Hybrids apparently reserved their  \nfour animal skills for eating. \"You're an artist? So make an art?\"  \n  \nI snatched his napkin and fished out a pen. \"Don't say I didn't warn you. I saw this the other  \nnight, while sneaking around, investigating something I found at work. While I was inspecting.\"  \n  \nRake shrugged and looked away while I started sketching. He'd done it before, when I was writing  \nsomething. He said he couldn't stand watching someone write, draw, compose, create in any way. It  \nmade me wonder how he managed to get through design school.  \n  \nI don't like to render exactly. As a result, the sketch was a sketch taken to extremes, lines and  \ncurves and shading existing as disparate pieces whose spaces merged together to make up exactly what  \nI wanted. The Scene of Removal. The Kiss of the Hand. The Cloth Mugging. The Head-bang. Four panels  \nof a little comic hastily representing dog and fox in a very private and raw situation. I dashed off  \nthe last few lines and spun it around in front of the wolf - the napkin floated on a little cushion  \nof air and he slapped it flat.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Hmm.\"  \n  \n\"That was somewhere inside the Willow uh, wing, I guess. Private clubs and meeting space, my ass.  \nThat's not a meeting.\"  \n  \n\"I don't want to talk about this here, it's such a sacred place for food. Why don't you come by  \nafter work?\"  \n  \nMy ears turned red. \"Sacred place for- What? You asked what I saw! That's what I saw last week! It  \nwas crazy, I was hiding in this room and I looked under the door! That dog, he-\"  \n  \nRake pulled one of his little conversation-enders and got up, chucked his sandwich wrapper in the  \ntrash, and left.  \n  \n  \n  \nRake The Wolf lived as far away in the employee-riddled Ash wing from me as possible. I knocked on  \nhis door and he answered naked. \"I'm about to shower, come in, you can watch the telly or whatever.\"  \n  \nHe loped off down the hall, giving me plenty of time to look at his tail and ass. Nice ass, for a  \nscrawny mutt wolf. Dogs gave me hives, but I really sort of liked wolves. Canine purity?  \n  \nI sat down on the couch. I could have flicked on the TV, but I already watched enough at my own  \nplace. His living room was indistinct, minimalist Geek Chic. The coffee table was a piece of glass  \nresting on two gutted PC's, the sofa the reclining bench from some Econoline van, the end tables  \nsquat ancient minicomputers.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; On the glass was a pile of magazines. The top one was in Polish, some sort of architecture monthly.  \nBeing Polish, it looked typeset with the keyboard randomized. It was interesting for a few pages,  \nuntil I gave up looking at word soup and put it down6. It seemed to be some sort of architecture  \nmonthly, typeset with the keyboard randomized. The next one down was in Finnish - no surprise there.  \nI was just getting to something dark and weirdly foreboding in English when the hiss of the shower  \nstopped. In just a few seconds, out came Rake, wrapped in a towel. The room immediately smelled of  \nwet fur. Luckily, I actually sort of liked the smell.  \n  \n\"So I guess it's normal to walk around naked, huh? I'm a dumb-ass, I used to kind of avoid hybrids a  \nbit. Didn't want to have any stupid embarrassmen-\"  \n  \n\"Well, I feel like naked is fine, but I have on boxer shorts now. Besides, I don't think you really  \nwould mind me naked, after drawing those disgusting pictures,\" he unwound the towel and wound it up,  \nthen made it into a tight coil around an arm. He headed straight into what I assumed was some sort  \nof den. After he didn't come back out or say anything, I followed.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"How do you know that? Maybe I'm straight as an arrow. You asked me what I saw, so I drew it. I can  \ndraw all kinds of stuff.\"  \n  \n\"You're not straight as an arrow. You got a hard-on.\"  \n  \n\"What? If you tell me you could smell it, I'll fucking towel-whip your ass,\" I snorted. \"Were you  \nlooking or something?\"  \n  \n\"I could see it, I snuck a peek under the table.\" Rake busied himself at his computer, or I should  \nsay his plural computer. He had about nine of them, with three different screens. The room had a  \nsmall air conditioner sitting in the corner, vented somewhere, whirring away happily. It was still a  \nlittle warm.  \n  \n\"What the hell are you doing?\" I am a computer dunce.  \n  \n\"Checking my email. And a render, the system kept locking up and I need it done for a concept  \npresentation tomorrow.\"  \n  \n\"Fun. I had to go to one of those the other day. So, uh. Why am I here? You wanted to talk to me  \nabout what I saw? Are you some kind of shrink?\"  \n  \n\"I can tell you where you were, exactly. I should not be doing this, but frankly I don't care much  \nfor silly rules. You were here.\" He whipped up what looked like a pen, an old FM radio antenna whip  \nsliding out with a slap, and pointed to a map he had on the wall of the entire Woods complex. The  \nhead knob pointed to part of Willow, a room that said TLR1.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; That didn't sit well with me, and my stomach stirred. \"Okay. What's that?\"  \n  \n\"I can't tell you what TLR1 stands for, because I can't, or someone will get mad at me.\"  \n  \n\" This is just creepy.\" I started to think about what the abbreviation could stand for. The obvious  \nanswer couldn't be the real one.  \n  \n\"You were inside of The House of Stars, which is a private series of clubs, like everyone says. They  \nare clubs for people with a particular tendency, specifically the tendency towards you, and your  \ntendency towards me.\"  \n  \nI blinked.  \n  \n\"You do have a tendency towards hybrids? Am I mistaken?\"  \n  \nI'd told him about John after we first met. I had tried to be pretty general in the story, not just  \nsaying, 'I used to be dating this girl and now I'm getting fucked in the ass by a dog who embodies  \nmy worst fear.' \"I don't think one time counts as a 'tendency', Rock.\" I didn't need to tell Rake  \nabout the second meeting with John's dick.  \n  \n\"That's all I can say. I don't know who that dog was, or the fox.\"  \n  \n\"The dog was my ex-boss.\"  \n  \n\"Mmm,\" the wolf said, and just looked away. \"Now, do you like that kind of thing, what he was  \ndoing? Maybe what he was wearing?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I shrugged. \"It's kind of interesting. I guess I always liked that Gothic stuff, dark things,  \nwhatever.\"  \n  \n\"This is why you're here. Come on, let me show you something.\"  \n  \n  \n  \nWe ended up in Rake's bathroom, which looked quite nice and average, although it had two doors.  \n  \n\"It's supposed to be a dressing room, I think you call it, a walk in closet with two doors, but I  \nhave made it into my cramped little 'study'.\" Rake opened the door next to the towel rack, and I saw  \na wide room, almost as big as the bathroom itself. Each side was flanked by leather garments and  \ngear, not clothes but things like hoods, shoulder-length chemical gloves, gas masks, something  \nawfully similar to head screws7. Against one wall under some...riding harnesses?...was what looked  \nlike a small gymnastics horse. On the other wall was a rack. As in, to be put on the rack for  \ntorture. Either Rake made a lot more money than me - which wouldn't have been surprising - or he ate  \nramen noodles and peanut butter for food.  \n  \n\"Shit.\"  \n  \n\"It's not a lot, really.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I leaned up against the door frame. \"So, uh, you like this kind of thing?8\" Next to my foot was a  \nwood bar with eye-bolts in each end, and one sticking up from the middle. I lifted it up.  \n  \n\"Oh yes. Do you know what that is?\"  \n  \nI twirled the wood. \"A stick.\"  \n  \nRake took it and stuck it behind his neck. Then he held out his arms and draped his wrists over each  \nend. \"You clip it onto cuffs, and a collar, and then you can't move.\"  \n  \nI started feeling a pit growing inside of my stomach, the beginnings of a panic attack. All that  \nseemed to be growing on Rake was a serious bulge in his boxer shorts. \"Oh.\"  \n  \nRake led me through the miniature dungeon and closed the far door behind me. The new room was  \nobviously the bedroom, much less sexually disturbing and much more atmospherically interesting. The  \nwalls were flanked with some sort of black fabric with movie posters covering them. Almost all of  \nthem were in the explosion of consonants and broken-keyboard language of Polish, and they were true  \nworks of art. Imagine taking a movie you knew well, say, \"Jaws\" and making a poster without really  \nknowing what the movie was about. Classic unsettling Slavic art.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The bed was insane, the mattress a horrific array of red blood-spattered murder scene, the box  \nspring exposed in its shabby paisley-sided glory. The foot and headboard were parts of a  \nwrought-iron gate from somewhere, with ring attachments welded on. The posts went up to the ceiling  \nand made a kind of cage with black curtains drawn up tight against them, and rings welded down the  \nfour corner bars.  \n  \n\"Pinch me. I'm in the horror geek's lair.\" I found the whole thing amusing in a strange way. I may  \nhave even seen a photo of the room in some magazine I'd been clipping earlier in the week.  \n  \n\"Haha, it's the bed, the worst part hmm? It's a print, I had it made by a friend, quite clean. I  \njust did the linens.\" Rake stepped over and sat down on the bed, then reclined. \"I suppose it's nice  \nif you enjoy it rough and filthy, wouldn't really see the stain.\"  \n  \nAnother pang hit me, leaving me sweaty and hollow inside. I wandered over and sat on the opposite  \nedge, staring at the wall. \"I don't think I can take this. I feel weird. Kind of like something's  \ncrowding my head inside, a little dizzy.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Rake smiled and rolled onto his stomach, sprawling his arms out, black nails digging into the  \nsheets. He hiked his rump up a little, pulling his knees up and in under him. \"You don't have to  \ntake anything. Or really, you know, I don't understand that in English, you take someone by fucking  \nthem, but being fucked, you're taking it. I think I mean the second.\"  \n  \n\"You want me to fuck you?\"  \n  \nThe wolf shrugged. \"You don't have to, at least not now.\"  \n  \n\"I really can't.\" How could I fuck him? He probably wanted to be hurt and chained up. That was way  \nbeyond me. I stood up and wandered back to the dressing room dungeon. Something in the room didn't  \nquite belong - an odd contraption that looked like a two or three gallon water cooler jug with the  \nbottom cut off and a trumpet mouthpiece glued into the cap. I picked it up and looked it over.  \n  \nRake came up behind me. \"Oops, I left that there? I can't really put it anywhere else.\"  \n  \n\"A gravity bong, huh? Nice.\"  \n  \nHe grinned. \"I use it to get high sometimes, it makes me enjoy being dominated. Salvia, which is  \nhard to really do right. You have to make it very hot and hit a lot of it. Makes your skin crawl,  \nmakes me so hard, and I'm uh, helpless.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Hruh.\" I set the makeshift pipe down.\"Does that stuff really do anything? I tried it once. Just  \nfelt kind of dizzy.\"  \n  \n\"Hit it very hard, then go lie right down in the dark. Very interesting. Do you want some? I have  \nquite a lot.\" He was digging in his clothes hamper, and pulled out a gallon zip lock bag packed with  \ndark hashed leaves.  \n  \n\"Holy shit. Well, okay, sure.\"  \n  \nI paid Rake despite him not wanting to take any money The night ended with Rake probably having blue  \nballs and me sheepishly carrying a grocery bag back to my apartment, thirty dollars poorer.  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n----  \n  \nI almost got through Friday without noticing The Invitation. The day was rough - someone tripped a  \ngas detector in one of the hallways. He had to be carted away delirious after huffing propane.. It  \nwas a very strange sight, someone hauled out of his apartment like a rag doll, quickly shuffled  \noff. The entire scene quieted to nothing in less than five minutes.  \n  \nIt was rough because I had to preside over 'check in', which meant bringing the alarm system to  \nequilibrium and checking every single sensor through the five computer systems. Did I say I like  \ncomputers? Because I don't. Anyway, after a day of fiddling, I had totally forgotten about the  \ninvitation a strange cat had handed me during a very nice dinner with a friend. It was only when I  \nwas putting a shirt back into the closet that it fell off the top shelf.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I shrugged and tore it open. The card was small and plain white, and simply said, \"The House of Moon  \nand Stars.\" Inside: \"You are invited to Beginnings on Friday, September 14th, at 9 pm. RSVP before  \n7, text 458879. Clean or dirty welcome. Dress for a night under the stars.\"  \n  \nWhat a weird thing. I remembered the swanky young snow leopard coming over to my table as John took  \nhis leave, slipping me the invitation with a completely catty look on his face.  \n  \nI stepped out into the hallway and peered at the microwave: it was 6:45. I dug out my phone and  \nfired off a message to the number on the card. A few moments later, a message came back saying,  \n\"Reserved #25. Keep this msg \u0026 bring your phone!\"  \n  \nWhat's done is done. Was I scared? Sure I was scared. I had no idea what the hell was going on,  \nexcept that it involved the same general area that was privy to The Cock Removal. It was very  \npossible that Sean Ashton would be at whatever this Beginnings party was, it was very possible he  \nwould see me, it was very possible that he would know me by my god-damned \\_smell\\_ because every  \nlong-nose was...  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I had to wear something. \"Dress for a night under the stars.\" I certainly knew how to dress for the  \nnight, but stars? I ended up with: loose black dress shirt, black jeans, studded belt, and my, \"Oh I  \nbought these?\" black snake cowboy boots. I added a necklace just for the hell of it. I was thin  \nenough to leave the shirt undone part way and not look like an idiot.  \n  \nWhen the time came, I was fashionably late. I wasn't quite sure where to go, but at 9:20 I meandered  \ndown to where Willow started. Sure enough, there was just a simple door with someone standing next  \nto it - oddly enough, a human.  \n  \n\"Show your reservation.\"  \n  \nI got out my phone and held it up. The human nodded and opened the door. On my way through, he said,  \n\"The late one always has a good time.\"  \n  \nI was scared half to death. I wasn't sure if I was getting into some sort of hardcore bondage club,  \nor entering a brothel, or what exactly The House of Moon and Stars was.  \n  \nInside was a very pedestrian hallway with a coat check, then fire doors opening into a swank  \nnightclub. It certainly qualified for hidden gem status - globe arched ceilings in three areas, a  \nstainless steel bar with up-market stools, an immense liquor selection, a spread of tables, booths,  \ncouches and even beanbags off in some corners, and three doors at the far end. One door had the  \nfamiliar male bathroom pictogram, the other just had a picture of a door opening, and the third had  \nwhat looked like a little plate of steaming food and an 'Employees Only' sign under it. There  \nwasn't any sort of 'back room', unless that was beyond the Door door. No one was going in there.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The crowd was ample but not over-packed, perhaps because it seemed to be an invitation-only party.  \nThe crowd was also at least half human, if not more. There was a good spread of dress, from the club  \nboy end of things up to a few Armani suits, and an age spread of at least 18 to 50. The one thing  \nthat seemed constant is that everyone was wearing more expensive clothes than I was.  \n  \nThere was a digital clock on one wall, the top displaying the time, the bottom a countdown. It had  \neight minutes 'to go'. I thought that was unusual, shrugging it off as I made my way to the bar for  \na drink. The bartender wanted to see my reservation, then smiled. \"This one's on the house,\" he  \nsaid, fixing up my brandy stinger. The bartender was also human. Maybe Rake was right.  \n  \nI took the drink and made my way over to a couch, settling down for some people-watching. The party  \nhad to be a tourist affair, since the only humans to come to The Woods were... tourists. Rake's  \nwords kept hanging around. He'd said the whole thing was for humans who like hybrids. So was this a  \nsex party? Why didn't they hand out condoms and lube packets at the door? Pre-moistened towelettes?  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The countdown was approaching the thirty second mark, and the lights started to dim down, along with  \na swell of electronic sound. I could deal with that - very concert-like, and the darkness made me  \nfeel a bit more comfortable. As the room darkened, the hybrids seemed to thin out in number. I  \nspotted one of them who looked familiar, a leopard in club khakis and a silver shirt, making his way  \ntowards... somewhere. I really couldn't see; it was a dark blur.  \n  \nAt the ten second mark, the darkness was punctured by spots of light on the ceiling.  \n  \nStars.  \n  \nThe concept probably seems immensely stupid, but as the 'stars' brightened, mixed in with a couple  \nof shooting stars and the rising moon, it really lent a neat atmosphere. They were real planetarium  \nstar charts, at least the one for the area I was in. Each of the three room-areas had an arched  \nceiling, and each had a star field. There were a few oohs and ahhs, and the room started filling up  \nagain. At the drop of 9:30, heavy ambient trip-hop started up, courtesy of a slowly-lit DJ off at  \nthe far end from the doors.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; My inhibitions were broken; I was scared, but I didn't want to leave, too intrigued by all the  \neffort that'd gone into the party. That, and I really, really, really was hoping something dirty  \nwould happen. If I was going to be invited somewhere really messed up, I wanted to get my messed up.  \nI didn't want to go home empty-handed.  \n  \nSomething touched me on the shoulder and I whipped around. I heard a faint tink of nails against  \nglass, and someone shuffled behind me. \"Jumpy, huh? Sorry if I scared you.\" The voice was familiar.  \n  \n\"Sneaking up and touching someone, at some weird party? Naw, that's not scary.\" I craned around. It  \nwas the snow leopard, still in the silver shirt, but with sleek black pants on now. The pants were  \nspotted slightly, this faintly ghost-gray of inverse florets. The pants were almost shiny, in a  \ndifferent way than the shirt, an almost velour black. \"Hey, I know you. You gave me the invite. Uh.  \n\"  \n  \nHe didn't offer a hand, but he did start stroking my neck. Not so much with his finger pads, but  \nletting the soft fur on the backs of his fingers and hand glide on the skin. It was more than nice.  \n\"Yes, I'm Tad. And you're Adrian, right?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"I was when I woke up.\"  \n  \n\"I'm glad you came.\" He leaned over and licked me across the lips. Now, his tongue was rough, but  \nnot like a four cat's. A subtle sort of fine bump, like real dull sandpaper. \"You look a little  \nsick, like you're sulking.\" He leapt over the back of the couch and settled down next to me like  \nnothing had happened. He smelled like vanilla.  \n  \n\"I get that a lot. This is overwhelming. What is this place, and why am I here?\"  \n  \n\"That's life.\" Tad smiled, a sweet, knowing smile.  \n  \n\"What?\"  \n  \n\"That's life. Why are you here? That's what life's about. Finding out why. I can tell you sort of  \nwhy you're here. Someone 'recommended' you. I can't say who, because I don't know. Well, I can say  \nit wasn't that dog you were eating with. It could have been because you were eating with him. It  \ncould have been me, but I wouldn't say (even?) if it was.\"  \n  \nJohn didn't seem the type, considering his lazy approach to relationships, or the lack of. He was  \nnever the type to try to set me up with people. \"That makes me feel better. But now... who else? I  \ndon't really know anyone else.\" Oh, but I did.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Mmm. This doesn't usually happen. Most people who come here... know. So you get it, right? Look.\"  \nTad pointed around. Almost every human was paired up with a hybrid in some way, whether it be  \none-on-one, or some other combination. \"This party's for the newcomers here, to introduce them to  \nwhat we do.\"  \n  \n\"And what do you do?\"  \n  \n\"We please humans.\"  \n  \nI beamed a little, inside, for being right. I also felt like my intestines were dying. \"I see. \"  \nObviously Tad knew about John. John wouldn't have told anyone... unless I was wrong about him. Rake  \nknew, but didn't seem like he would tell anyone. On the other hand, he was candid about parts of The  \nWoods he wasn't supposed to talk about. I kept trying to sort out what happened, over and over- how  \nTad found out, whether it was a lucky guess because I was having dinner with John or, or, or, or or  \nor or or. I probably stared off into space or turned funny colors because Tad lightly stroked my  \nchin so I was facing him again.  \n  \n\"You seem like you need to relax a little, or at least have more fun. I bet you're a wallflower out  \non the floor, huh?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I shrugged. \"I go to clubs for the music, not to shake my scrawny ass, yeah.\"  \n  \nTad had this sort of knurled bullet-shaped object around his neck. He unscrewed it; the bottom was  \nhollow and rattled a little. \"Are you dirty already?\"  \n  \nSpike of fear. \"Dirty? No, I showered before-\"  \n  \nHe put a finger-pad to my lips. \"Dirty, as in, already rolling, flying, diving, crashing, burning,  \ntripping, in a hole...\"  \n  \n\"I had some pot when I came home, but it's gone now. What are-\"  \n  \nHe had two small things out of the end cap and put them in his mouth. \"Mmm. C'mere.\" I shrugged away  \nfrom him. \"No?\"  \n  \n\"Not yet. Uh, I'll take it though..\" I held out my hand, and he put the pill in it. I wasn't sure  \nwhat to do, so I pulled out my wallet and stuck it in the coin pocket, then put the billfold into my  \nfront pocket.  \n  \n  \n  \nTad snagged a waiter and ordered drinks, something fruity like a southern iced tea. Then he smiled  \nat me again.  \n  \n\"What if I'm a cop?\" I shifted in my seat.  \n  \n\"You're not a cop. You don't dress like one.\" He ran his fingers down my shirt, then slipped them  \ninside. The cat let his black nails (hybrids usually painted them) down my pecs, then right between  \nthem, towards my navel. It made me huff and squirm.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"I could be an undercover cop. I could be a vice cop.\"  \n  \n\"You look more like you'd be a dealer. Expensive boots, flashy white shirt, snug pants. Maybe a  \nhustler. Wouldn't that be ironic? Maybe that's why you don't want any drugs.\" He put his hand on my  \nbelt buckle, but distinctly not on my package. I was starting to wish he'd just grab good and hard.  \n  \n\"Are you a prostitute?Am I going to pay you for the pleasure of having sex with a hybrid? I can, uh,  \nget that for free so I'm not sure why I'd pay.\"  \n  \nThe drinks arrived, and Tad slurped off his. \"First time's free. Drinks tonight, any assistance we  \ncan give you.\" He tapped at the amulet, \"Any fun you have. It's just like getting hooked.\"  \n  \n\"I'm flattered. Do you really think I'm into this?\"  \n  \nHis furred hand went down onto my leg and I watched it, grasping and lightly tugging down my thigh.  \nGray fur against black cotton. I casually did the same, and found that his pants felt like velvet.  \nVery nice. He was quite muscular under them.  \n  \n\"You smell like it. I bet you hear that a lot. You don't smell scared, like you're going to leave. \"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"If I was 18, I'd be running out that door right now, and probably jerking off in the bathroom while  \nswearing under my breath.\" I didn't mean to say all that, and covered my mouth. I quickly swiped a  \ncouple gulps off the southern iced tea.  \n  \n\"I'm not wrong about you.\" Tad started stroking my neck, then my jaw. It made my spine want to  \nshimmy out of my back.  \n  \nI spread my legs apart, and Tad responded by dipping more into my inner thighs, stroking and  \nsqueezing. He leaned over/forward and licked at my neck, which almost hurt, then worked his way up  \nto my lips. I ended up feeling red-faced and absurd, tongue pushing out to meet his. I'm sure the  \nwhole room could have been staring, but I really didn't care. The thought just made me excited. The  \nwhole problem with this encounter was that Tad was really, really attractive. There couldn't be a  \nless harmless way to introduce a human to the pleasures of the, uh, fur. Canids can get shaggy, plus  \nyou know me and dogs, but cats were apparently a sort of uniform plush. He smelled so nice, looked  \nnice, and despite being immensely forward, I really didn't mind. Soon, he was straddled onto my lap.  \nI looked up at him. He responded by stroking my chin.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Hi. Isn't petting a cat on your lap supposed to relieve stress?\"9 Tad lightly took my hands as he  \nspoke and put them just at the edge of his shirt's waist cuff.  \n  \n\"Those kind of cats don't...\" I didn't really know what to say, so I fiddled with his shirt there.  \nUnder it, more fur, and the weird bump of familiar human muscle under it.  \n  \n\"If you don't want to do this here, we can go take a room. There are plenty of them back there.\"  \n  \nI knew what was back there already. I hoped it wouldn't be \\*that\\*10 room. \"Uh, do what?\"  \n  \n\"Whatever you'd like. If you just want to cuddle up next to a big cat, that's fine. You're very  \nattractive though. You shouldn't waste it.\"  \n  \nI usually waffle back and forth between acknowledging that I am attractive, and thinking that I look  \nsullen so people compliment me to make me feel better. At the moment, I wasn't sure which it was.  \n\"Well, I guess we could. I don't really want everyone out here watching.\"  \n  \nBy this time, there were quite a few animated conversations between couples, not to mention necking,  \nand even - I swear - a pair of ears poking up from someone's lap. Tad stood up and took my hand,  \nthen led me across the club to the Door door. In turn, it led to a series of hallways that looked  \nvery much like a hotel. They were fairly narrow, like they'd been squeezed in later.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; My fears of suddenly finding myself in \"The Leather Room\", or the room where Sean had violated that  \npoor fox, vanished when we entered a small duskily-lit hotel room of sorts. There was a sofa, a  \nchair, a very well-trimmed bed, dresser, several full-length mirrors, and even a bathroom. I kept  \nthinking to myself, 'I'll just go along with this cat and see what happens'.  \n  \n\"Well, here we are. If you want to freshen up, you can use the bathroom there...\" Tad pointed, as he  \ndraped himself onto the sofa.  \n  \nI went to take a peek. I actually had to piss, which was nice timing. There was a jacuzzi tub with a  \nshower, a sleek toilet, a sink. The shower had a strange tube-shaped contraption on the end of a  \nhose. I looked at it, trying to figure out why a hand-held shower head was so funny-shaped, when I  \nrealized what it was. To keep myself distracted from the thought of having my colon irrigated by a  \nsnow leopard, I fished out the pill and chewed it up. It tasted horrible - probably not chewable,  \nbut whatever. I downed a couple glasses of water to wash the taste out.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; When I came out, Tad was completely naked, drink in hand. He was also very, very erect, not to  \nmention wide-eyed like a cat ready to pounce. \"Hi again,\" he said, with a rumbling sound.  \n  \n\"What's with that? Aren't you rolling?\" I pointed to his crotch. It was eye-catching, not just  \nbecause an erection always is. He was jet black.  \n  \n\"Mmm, I took something else too. I'm so hard. So... since I haven't scared you off-\"  \n  \n\"Hey, maybe this is like Pretty Woman. Maybe I'm going to make a respectable cat out of you instead  \nof having sex.\"  \n  \nHe shook his head and smiled. \"Richard Gere got a nice blow-job from that street-walking tramp. So,  \nAdrian, have you ever been fucked?\"  \n  \nI sat down on the couch, not at the far end, but not smushed up against Tad either. \" Yeah.\"  \n  \n\"Ever given a guy a blow-job?\"  \n  \nI nodded again, and picked up my drink.  \n  \n\"Fucked a guy?\"  \n  \nI shook my head, having a few sips. I was still thinking that I'd just politely decline, maybe go  \nlie down in the bed, maybe go home, conjure up some stomach problems, mention that I had some kind  \nof disease-  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Tad swung himself over and right into my lap again, straddling like before. His cock poked at my  \nshirt and left a damp splotch. \"I bet you'd like to do something about that. You don't have to do  \nanything, you can just lean back against that nice, soft couch while I ride you.\"  \n  \nWell, if you put it that way... \"I, well.\" He was palming my crotch, lifting my belt buckle with a  \nclank, then unzipping my fly one tooth at a time.  \n  \n\"You didn't close the door while you were using the bathroom. You have such a nice cock. Just like  \nthe rest of you, I don't want it to go to waste.\"  \n  \nIt really happened so fast. I didn't even get naked, I just had my fly opened, my cock stroked  \nbetween finger pad and fur. Tad took my drink and set it aside, then kissed me. He was really  \ncareful, his tongue startlingly rough but delicate, teeth sort of 'chewing' at my lips. He took one  \nof my hands and guided it up behind my head, just below the back of the sofa. There was a little  \ncaddy there, and I grabbed something. It was a bottle of lube. \"Passion Oil\", it said.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Oh, that's stupid, that's like Thai pussy tightening cream,\" I said with a half-hearted chuckle. I  \nopened the cap and dribbled some down on the head of my shaft. The stuff really was oil, vaguely  \nsweet smelling. It felt warm.  \n  \n\"Mmmmm...\" Tad purred, or growled, or whatever it was that leopards did. He took the bottle and  \npuddled the stuff onto my cock, then quickly shifted forward, hovering over the length, letting it  \npoke at his asshole. Warm wasn't really the right word. Tingly? The stuff was more than \\*just\\* oil.  \nWithout any kind of foreplay, he just started letting his weight press down.  \n  \nI'd fucked someone in the ass before. Sandy. She liked it, especially while using a toy in her  \npussy. It was familiar- the impossible snugness, the 'pop' as the head fit inside, the crushing  \ngrip. Crushing in the best way. Tad arched his back and leaned away from me, grabbing onto my knees  \nas he sank down, cock rising out of his crotch.  \n  \nHe didn't ride hard, and he didn't have to. Tad was a constant fluid motion, sometimes urgently  \nflexing and thrusting forward as he pulled off, sometimes gradually moving down until I was so deep  \nthat it felt like I was hitting something. That point made the leopard flash his fangs each time.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I was so close the whole time, pressing back into the couch, shocked and overloaded by the surreal  \nwarmth around my cock, the hyper-sensation. And always the fur, hands brushing my shoulders, chest  \nbrushing chest as Tad leaned forward to work heavy and fast. I kept having moments where I wondered  \nwhat I was doing, why I was letting some almost literal stranger ride my cock in some back room, and  \na hybrid no less...  \n  \nTad stopped suddenly and took the bottle, squirting oil on his cock. He seemed surprised that he  \ndidn't have to tell me to grasp and start milking. What was I supposed to do, let him do all the  \nwork? There was something so viscerally good about tugging and stroking a nice, ample cock, and the  \ncolor - it was the blackest black, shined up by the oil. Tad started to arch and lean back again,  \nrump shoving - ramming - down against my lap, then let out this completely inhuman yowl. His cock  \njumped in my hand and showered my chest with seed. A really gross kind of wet rush, almost like he  \nwas pissing all over me. He milked my cock hard and when I came, it felt like I was being squeezed  \nup out of my head.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The squeeze ended with a sickening plunge back to reality. My chest was sticky, shirt spattered with  \nseed. Tad pulled off with a slick wet sound, leaving my cock glistening and thankfully clean. The  \ncat settled next to me and started licking my chest clean like I was a kitten.  \n  \n\"I uh, I should probably go.\"  \n  \nTad looked up with a hmm. He looked like a cat ready to pounce, eyes just black holes in his head.  \n\"Awwwr. I hope you aren't upset or anything.\"  \n  \n\"No, this is just not what I usually do. I can't just cut myself loose.\"  \n  \nTad fumbled around the room as I got up and pulled my pants up. The cat came back over and gave me a  \nfirm, lingering grab between the legs. He leaned in to kiss me. The same rough, wet tongue and pull  \nof lips, fur against skin. \"I hope you come back. I think you'll like it here. If you go out and  \nturn left, go all the way down to the exit sign, then just go out, you'll be back into the rest of  \nthe uh, resort.\"  \n  \n\"Thanks,\" I said, and ducked out.  \n  \nAs I was walking down the duskily-lit hall to the exit, I wondered if maybe I was giving Sean too  \nmuch credit. Seeing him at The Woods in such a compromising position was unexpected, but at the same  \ntime I was trespassing. Who knows what people do in their spare time? I sit around and paint shit on  \nthe walls of my apartment and get baked off my ass. John's a budding pastry chef in his spare time.  \nMy mom makes miniature carvings out of rocks in Alaska nowadays. Besides, my terrible phobia of  \ndogs kind of fizzled, although I still felt very creeped out around them.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; As soon as I was through the exit, I was back into the well-lit corridor of The Woods. It was night  \nand day, one world on one side and one on the other. In the light, I was in a place people lived in,  \nrelaxed in, got away from life in. In the dark, it was a world where humans satisfied their  \nquestionably-moral desperations for animal hybrids.  \n  \nI was lost. I had no idea where I was. My phone had a map, but the entire area that The House of  \nMoon And Stars took up was just one big empty space. I wasn't sure if I'd come out on the left,  \nright, back, or where. I was also feeling the effects of the pill. The light was solarized and extra  \nbright, the breeze from the ventilation tickling my skin. I could still feel the after-pang of  \nclimax between my legs.  \n  \nAfter ten minutes of wandering, I ended up close enough to home that I could scurry back and seclude  \nmyself in my apartment. I took a hot shower to wash the mess off my chest, and practically orgasmed  \njust from the water spraying against my head and back. Leftover Thai takeout was extra delicious,  \nbut all I wanted was to drink water.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Tossing my clothes in the laundry, I found the other item that Tad had hid in my pants. A plastic  \nbaggie with a whole bunch of brown stuff that looked very leaf-like, Closer inspection revealed the  \nbrown stuff as dried mushrooms. I'd done that sort of thing before. It wasn't something that'd be  \nsmart along with Ecstasy.  \n  \nI ended up drawing. I had an old lined notebook left over from school that I dug out and started  \ndoodling in. First I captured the entire experience with Tad, then I went on to expound on cats,  \nthen drugs, then random doodles, then fell asleep some hours later.  \n  \n  \n\n* * *\n  \nI woke up around 2 in the afternoon the next day. For about an hour, I lay in bed, until I had to  \ntake a piss so bad I was actually dripping as I stalked to the bathroom. Everything about the world  \nwas wrong. I looked in the mirror and I saw a ring-eyed sunken-cheeked pale goth loser. I fell  \nasleep in the shower. Food tasted like worthless crap. I had no idea what happened, but whatever it  \nwas was a total bummer.  \n  \nOne of every vitamin I had went down the chute, and I shuffled into the living room to look at the  \nmural-in-progress. Despite my condition, I found myself working on it. I was filling in some  \ncarnage, a scene of destruction and unfortunate terror. It involved foxes. At some point, I fell  \nasleep on the couch.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I woke up to someone licking my ear. \"Holy shit!\"  \n  \nJohn leapt back, though looked completely unsurprised. \"You really shouldn't leave your door  \nunlocked. Someone could come in and steal all of your stuff.\"  \n  \n\"Fuck, John, what the hell are you doing?\" Luckily he wasn't naked. Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt,  \nsandals, necklace. Typical weekend dog. \"I don't have any stuff that's worth anything.\"  \n  \nHe sat down on the couch like it was his own. \"Okay.\" He looked around. \"You have all those porn  \nmags, and that weird picture. Someone could come in and masturbate.\"  \n  \nI chuckled, just barely. \"So why'd you come in? Are you gonna masturbate?\"  \n  \n\"Actually, I knocked a whole lot and no one answered. I just happened to try the door, and it  \nopened. You look dreadful. Are you sick?\"  \n  \n\"Partied last night a little.\"  \n  \n\"Do tell,\" the dog grinned, reclining back, arm out roughly behind me as I sulked.  \n  \n\"Do you really want to hear the whole story?\" I got a nod. \"Fine. So I got this invitation to  \nsomething last week, while we were eating dinner. You stepped out and this cat came over and gave it  \nto me. Snow leopard.. those are the plush gray ones, right? He said not to open it until next  \nFriday. Well, yesterday was next Friday. It invited me to some kind of club party over in Willow. I  \nwent. It was this thing where humans go and meet up with hybrids for some hot fucking. The cat.. his  \nname's Tad.. we went off and, uh. He was really set on seducing me. I think he was paid for it. Not  \nby me, but by someone. Isn't that weird? So we ended up... \" Somehow, I just couldn't say it to  \nJohn.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; John just looked at me. Cocked his head a little. Slowly grinned.  \n  \n\"What? What? Is it funny?\"  \n  \n\"I never would have expected you to end up there. That place is a bloody whorehouse! I guess it's  \nnot so bad that you didn't pay anyone-\"  \n  \nI shrugged. \"A slut's a prostitute you don't have to pay.\" I felt my ears burn red as I thought  \nabout something, about the dog telling me he was going off to party with someone the last time I'd  \nseen him. I hoped I didn't let Tad ride my dick as some kind of revenge.  \n  \n\"Mmm.\"  \n  \n\"So what're you doing here? Do you want to fuck me again?\"  \n  \nJohn did the canine equivalent of pursing his lips. It looked like he was chewing. \"Well, yes I do.  \nBut that's not why I came over. Was just sort of bored, figured you might want to do something.\"  \n  \n\"Well, I do. I wanna piss.\" I got up and did my business. When I came out, John wasn't on the couch  \nany more. \"Hey, I really had to piss. I wasn't being a jerk.\"  \n  \nWhen I looked into the bedroom, John was sitting on the edge of the bed, naked. \"I think you ought  \nto come to bed. \"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Yeah. Are you sure you don't want to fuck?\"  \n  \n\"I really think you're obsessing about me fucking you. Are you going to be anti-phobic now? Lie  \ndown.\"  \n  \n\"So why are you naked?\"  \n  \n\"Well, I'm going to lie down in your bed . Preferably next to you.\"  \n  \nRed-faced, I took off my clothes and sulked in-between the sheets. John immediately embraced me from  \nbehind, and it was a welcome warm press of fur. I could feel his sheath prodding at me, but it  \nwasn't particularly hard. I imagined it hard, and sprouted my own erection. It just made me want to  \ncurl up and hide. \"So. Wait, you want to cuddle?\"  \n  \n\"Don't you ever want to lie down next to someone? You had Sandy. Girls are all cuddly.\"  \n  \n\"Well, I don't know. I guess.\"  \n  \n\"Stop talking and take a nap. You look like death.\"  \n  \nThere was a very long pause, and I thought John perhaps had fallen asleep. I gently moved a hand  \naround to touch him on the thigh, and he responded by moving a hand to my stomach. \"John? Did you go  \nfuck someone the other night?\"  \n  \nHe yawned and shifted a little. \"What? No... do you mean my little business party? That was getting  \nsome bloody old codger drunk. Ungh, I wouldn't have had sex with him even if I wanted it.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Oh.\" I felt stupid for assuming he'd gone off to have sex with some random client. Then I felt  \nstupid for going off and having sex with a random leopard. Then I felt a weird gnawing in my  \nstomach, as I realized that I'd gone along with the entire Tad situation without even thinking.  \nThen, I realized I'd gone along with John again without even thinking.  \n  \n\"It isn't like we're married,\" he said softly. \"But I really think you ought to just get some rest.  \nStop thinking so much.\"  \n  \nI mumbled a sound. I felt heavy, like some weight was lifted off me, and then I became the weight. I  \nfell into sleep like I was falling down a bottomless pit.  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \nI have a problem. I've had it since I was about 13 or 14. Sometimes, I don't remember going to  \nsleep, or I don't remember waking up. I used to think this was normal, but after talking to some  \nfriends in school, I found out it wasn't. Complete blackout. Nothing ever seems to happen that's out  \nof the ordinary, but I just forget I went to sleep. I'll wake up and not remember getting into bed,  \nor I'll be in the shower or eating some cereal and wonder how I got there.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I don't remember actually falling asleep that afternoon. I certainly don't remember John leaving -  \nhe did leave a very nice note saying that he couldn't wake me up and had to leave - and somehow, I  \nended up in the bathroom with my head hanging over the toilet.  \n  \nI had a headache that was so bad, I thought I would throw up. I'd had migraines before. Very  \noccasionally, usually related to... I don't know, a virus or something. This was a disorienting,  \ndizzying headache but not a migraine. I didn't throw up, but the headache never really left.  \n  \nWhile digging for the painkillers in my sock drawer, especially some possibly left-over Vicodin from  \nwhen I had my wisdom teeth removed eons ago, I found several bags. One was Tad's little illicit  \ngift. The other was the much larger gift of divining sage from Rake.  \n  \nI don't know exactly why, but I had the intense urge to trip on the Salvia and see what happened. It  \njust welled up inside.I took the bag out and set to work11.  \n  \n  \n  \nSmoking Salvia is like smoking pot, except you have to get the Salvia twice as hot. That means  \nholding a flame to it continually, so it glows nearly white-hot as you inhale. Thus, you have to  \nuse a water pipe or your lungs end up like those gross PSAs they show you in school. You know, \"this  \nis your lung on cigarettes,\" and hold up some charred liver or whatever.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I managed four straight bowls of the green plant of the gods or whatever it's supposed to be, before  \nI realized something was happening. Total time, one minute. Pot sneaks up on you, teasing you with a  \nlittle numbness until it whacks you with a pounding heart and vertigo. Salvia sneaks up on you like  \na truck with all its air-horns and light racks blaring. I managed not to spill the pipe before I  \nblundered around the room and fell into bed. I felt like I was being forced to lie down, like the  \nworld was rushing past me and I was that guy in the Memorex tape commercial, with a bong for a  \nlowball tipped over, John sitting on the floor with his tongue and ears blown back like a hound  \nsticking his head out of the car window. The image was so funny it made me laugh, a dull kind of  \nbark. It didn't sound like my voice at all.  \n  \nWithin two minutes, I had gone from looking through my sock drawer to spiraling away, a literal  \nspiraling sensation. My skin retracted, I felt it creeping like a change coming over me, like  \nsomething was happening. I felt like my sternum wanted to meet the ceiling, a profound rotation,  \nendless microopsic spin. I was moving towards something, towards a vision, a very particular vision.  \nIt was something I'd seen often before, something that was part of me at this point, the start of a  \ndream. I was dreaming while awake. I could think so clearly, yet I was so lost in whatever I saw. I  \nwas thinking and feeling at the same exact time, progressing into a room. Lit with windows, wood  \nfloor, expensive, like a mansion. Deja vu. I've been there before. I've been there. I've been there.  \nBut where? It wasn't anywhere. It wasn't my parents' place, it wasn't Uncle Mike's, it wasn't  \nanything. It was just the room, the room I'd dreamt about forever.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Someone was talking, and I couldn't quite understand what they were saying. I knew, and it made me  \nanxious, more and more anxious the longer they talked. In the room was a chair, a high-back black  \nleather chair, and I was slowly moving towards it. As I got closer and closer, the voice was more  \ndistinct, more obvious, more clear. I still couldn't understand it. It was muddled, the familiar  \nsort of hybrid muddled muzzle mumbling but it was no language and every language all at once.  \n  \nI crept up on the chair and was looking close at the leather, then down the side, down towards the  \narm. There was a hand there, gloved, black leather. Expensive, very very expensive, very fine.  \nItalian, lamb probably, fitted, custom, whatever. Absolutely gorgeous. Average sort of hand, kind of  \nthin, bony, actual shape distorted by the leather, smoothed and emphasized into a very caricature of  \na hand. I knew that hand, too. Oh, I knew that hand. Where did I know that hand from? Let's try to  \nfigure out. John? No, he never wore gloves really. Sean? No, Not12 Sean. Me? Not me either, mine  \nwere bigger.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I kept moving closer, closer and closer, this relentless march. I figured I'd soon be moving through  \nthe leather fibers, then some molecules, then atoms, then whatever atoms are made of, then quarks,  \nthen those weird little strings that supposedly vibrate and create entire universes. No. None of  \nthat. I saw claws. This hand had claws, black claws pricked out of the ends of the gloves. Drummed  \nslowly on the arm of the couch. No one had claws like that, not any hybrid, no human... I was  \nleaning down/in to kiss the hand, kiss the knuckles. It wasn't erotic like I expected, a very sort  \nof odd non-feeling. I felt it inside my chest somewhere, not on my lips.  \n  \nHead down, the chair turned. \"Stand up.\" I heard the voice. Wow, it was weird, smarmy and vaguely  \nBritish, not like John but like some sort of horrible joke, like a cartoon character, someone who  \nwould suddenly break out into a jaunty song at the drop of a hat.  \n  \nI stood up and I saw the occupant of the chair. No one. It was a gaping black hole. Not even black,  \njust nothing. Like a blind spot in the eye, like when you do that trick where you look at two dots  \non a piece of paper right and one of them disappears because there's a spot in your eye where all  \nthe nerves are and you can't see from that spot.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I woke up. I didn't know if my eyes had been closed, but now they were very open and I was very  \nlying on my bed, flat on my back, arms and legs just there, out, like I was making a snow angel,  \nmaking a sheets angel in my nice white sheets. I was lying in my bedroom, coming down off of a trip,  \na very short trip.  \n  \nI couldn't breathe. Or rather, I was breathing, but I couldn't do anything about it. I was  \nparalyzed, completely paralyzed. Move your arm, Adrian! Move it! Wiggle, toe! Wiggle! No, you can't  \ndo it! You can move if you need to, but you're not going to move! You're going to lie there like  \nwhen you were hypnotized that one time, thinking, \"Boy this is dumb, I can move whenever I want,\"  \nbut you're just not going to do it.  \n  \nSomeone started coming into the room. I know this, it's an alien! It's going to anal probe me! It's  \nJohn, the bastard, he just wants to get off! It's not John. First thing I saw coming through the  \ndoor, the hand. The gloved hand, with claws. Next thing, the arm, the rest of the glove, some sort  \nof coat, expensive, maybe a cloak, the glint of a top of a tall boot, more body. The body is  \nfollowed by a tail, a big bush of a tail! Silverish with a black splotch, oh no! It's a fox! Black  \nears, grayish everything else, that smudge of black on the end of a snout, a sort of grimace smirk,  \nfox fox fox! I don't know any foxes! I only know of that one who got fucked in the mouth by Sean and  \nthat's not this fox!  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Obviously, you don't remember me, Adrian. That's a shame.\" Like Sean, just not Suthun'. Talking  \ndown. Why do people talk down to me? \"You know me very well. You spent so much time with me, and  \nthen where did I go? Your little foxes out there on the wall-\" the fox pointed out of the bedroom.  \n\"Are what is left, burning in their terrible agony as you lie here a failure, forgetting your place,  \nwhere you should be. I'm here to remind you of your place, Adrian.\"  \n  \nThe fox was coming closer. I inexplicably had a hard-on, but it was so nonsexual. It was like having  \none in your sleep, your body simply does it, skin crawling. It was the drugs! The damn drugs! The  \nplant is poisoning me! The fox was going to touch my dick! No, he wasn't touching it. He felt my  \narm, and it was real, a real gloved hand, warm and dry and smooth moving up my skin, to my shoulder,  \nacross it, inside my shirt, and then my shirt wasn't really there, just threads, just little pieces,  \njust that black gloved hand moving to my chest, over my head, and then his hand was pushing into my  \nchest, pushing into my chest, into my heart, into my blood, INTO MY BLOOD-  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \n  \n  \n\n* * *\n  \n  \n  \nAllow me to introduce myself. My name is Aras. That would be ahrrrrras, if you like to have a  \npronunciation guide. Very Spanish, but yet so simultaneously British. I am from neither place.  \n  \nAdrian's apartment is terribly boring. Every apartment in this part of The Woods is the same as it,  \nthe same layout, practically the same furniture. All identical. He adds his little touches, like the  \nmural, the poorly made bed, the pile of magazine clippings. Does he show that to people who come by  \nfor tea, or to smoke the marijuana? It's unsettling. All those strange men, clipped out of context  \nso they're just leather-clad characters floating around a dadaist collage.  \n  \nNow his closet, his closet is very interesting. Adrian has a very telling closet. He has very  \naverage clothes. Polo shirts, khakis, a suit, ties, jeans, tee shirts, some Carhartt work gear for  \ntromping around in back rooms.  \n  \nHe also has very un-average clothes. A slate gray London Fog trench coat. Numerous 'club shirts'.  \nReverend's coat - I believe he was wearing that at the concert the night he found his asshole  \nviolated by a very fine piece of dog cock. New rock boots, over the calf. A bit too clunky, but a  \nstriking statement. Cowboy boots, fancy black snake-skin. Very Steven Segal.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I went through his closet, looking for something to wear. I wanted to assemble a nice outfit, in  \norder to accomplish my first order of business for the night. There wasn't much to work with. Black  \njeans, New Rocks, snug black shirt, the trench coat. Simple, effective.  \n  \nAdrian knows a wolf named Rake. That's pronounced Rah-kay, or something similar. Supposedly Finnish,  \nbut who really knows? Rake likes dirty things, like getting high, being trussed up, and all sorts  \nof other things that are hinted at by all the devices of lewd use he has. I decided that Rake was  \ngoing to show me what he likes.  \n  \nRake opened his door naked, like so many hybrids enjoy doing. \"Oh, hi there. Pardon, I was doing my  \nexercises-\"  \n  \nI pushed past him and went in. \"I think I should just tell you what I want.\" I stopped and turned  \naround. The wolf backed up, tail slapped against the back of his leg, and bumped the door shut. \"I'm  \nhere to torture you, fuck you, or both.\"  \n  \nThe wolf's ears melted downwards, until he had them flatted. \"Urr, I am sorry, I have to use the  \nbathroom.\" He quickly rushed past and into the bathroom. I expected vomiting, but instead there was  \njust a tremendous pour of urine and a groan. While he was solving his nervous bladder, I made my way  \nthrough his bedroom into his miniature dungeon. Dungeon Lite, perhaps.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Oh, the rack. I wanted that. The rack was going to be used. But first, gloves. I riffled through his  \ncollection of leather gear, selecting a nice pair of long-cuff, skin-tight gloves. They weren't  \nquite my size, barely fitting on my hands, taking a nice tug to get them on with a little squeak. As  \nI flexed my fingers under the glossy leather, I turned my head and saw him standing at the opening  \nto the dungeon, ears pinned back to his head.  \n  \n\"I thought-\" he started to say, then stopped as I balled my hand to a fist.  \n  \nI stepped into the center of the dungeon and whacked my head into something. \"What is this? Is this  \nfor hanging disorderly wolves?\" I reached up and fooled with the offending object, an enormous metal  \nspring-clip on a chain strong enough to hold a car. I clicked my newly-gloved finger into and out of  \nthe latch.  \n  \nWithout saying a word, Rake walked over to his rack of restraints and selected a hand-suspension  \nunit. It looked like a pair of two heavy leather mitts with open thumbs and a thick metal ring at  \nthe top of each. He slid his hands in, then held them out for me. I latched the cuffs closed, and  \nRake lifted his arms up, backing over to the chain. He whacked his hands backwards until the rings  \nbashed the latch open and trapped him. Then he nodded over towards where the chain came down through  \na ratchet pull on the wall.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"What did you do to deserve this?\" I asked, and pumped the ratchet until Rake's arms were taut.  \n  \n\"Nothing, Sir...\" he said meekly. I pumped the handle again, causing him to make a face. Then again,  \nuntil he was standing on his toes, muscles strained under his fur, lips pulled back. \"Please, please  \ndon't hang me up!\"  \n  \n\"Answer my question if you want to be spared. And I mean that only figuratively.\"  \n  \n\"I came all over myself while working out! Lying on my b-back makes me so hard!\" the wolf barked.  \nBlowing his load didn't seem to make him any less horny, his very non-lupine cock standing out. Rake  \nwas very impressive.  \n  \nI didn't stretch him any further - it seemed nice to have him barely touching the ground, not  \nswinging like a hung corpse. I reached over to his cock and felt along it. \"You played with this?  \nDid you do your crunches while giving yourself a blow-job?\" I gave the swollen, hooded head a hard  \nslap. Rake winced and woofed. I did it again, and found clear ooze all over my fingers. I shoved it  \nup against his nose, until he snorted. \"I think I just discovered what you like.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"No, please don't, please don't,\" he whimpered, ears pinned to his head, tail tucked in hard enough  \nthat it was brushing his own balls. I left him alone and went through his toys again. One drawer  \nseemed to be all floggers. Those rubber strand things, crops, a full bull whip, and a very heavy  \nleather paddle sort of thing. Long, narrow, and studded with rivet spikes on one side.  \n  \n\"Do you want to be muzzled? I'm sure you have that available in here.\" I came back over and tapped  \nhis balls with the spikes. Rake winced backwards, lost his footing and all the muscles bulged under  \nhis fur. I felt up over them, over his upper arms, chest. He was starting to quiver, the sensation  \nmuted by the snug leather on my hands. I twisted the flogger and started slapping his cock back and  \nforth, harder and harder until there was a rather loud, wet smack. Rake's expression changed to  \nhorror, lips curling back, eyes wide.  \n  \n\"Stop, stop, I'm going to come!\"  \n  \nI stopped mid-swat. His cock was bulging, the skin slowly rolling back from the head, pre dripping  \noff in a long strand. As I left him there, his cock jerked a few times, tensed up, then slowly  \nrelaxed, its owner breathing hard.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Interesting.\" I went through more of his toys, pulling out a metal bar with shackles at either end.  \nIt appeared to be screw-threaded at the middle, and when I twisted, it unscrewed and grew longer. I  \nshackled one of the cuffs to his ankle, then started telescoping it. It stopped at over twice the  \noriginal length, and I hooked up his other ankle. The spread made it so he was dangling now, the  \nwolf whimpering and hitting my face with his tail. I went over to the ratchet and released it, the  \nwolf slumping down to his knees, split apart. I ratcheted up until he was bent-kneed and shaking,  \nthen returned to his backside. \"Will I get the same reaction here?\" I slowly felt over the trimmed  \nfur, stroking up inside the cheeks, feeling the tense of muscle. I stroked deeper, probing his  \nasshole, fingering it. Then a switch of hands and a swift crack. He barked.  \n  \n\"It t-turns me on Sir, I can't help it! Please don't flog me!\"  \n  \n\"You begging sack of shit,\" I snorted, and started to plainly hit him with the flogger. It was very  \nsubstantial, there may have even been a strap of metal between the leather in the middle, but after  \na few swipes I was making it bend. The fur damped the sound, making it into a dull thud with a dry  \nswish of fur on leather.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; This act made the wolf so hard his cock stopped drooping down, his pre-cum running down the shaft  \nuntil it dripped off the fur of his balls. Really, I didn't expect anyone to be so messy. It made me  \nhard too, and I took it out. I felt like any touch would set me off, just carefully skinned my cock  \nback and forth while beating Rake's ass. I slowly started working up from his ass to his lower back,  \nthe wolf's grunts turning into yelps. He flinched and jerked, the shackles rattling at both ends,  \nwhispering and pleading in what I presumed to be Finnish.  \n  \nI went back to the ratchet and dropped it again, until the wolf's arms were down in front of his  \nhead, shoulders heaving as he breathed, or perhaps sobbed. I wasn't paying attention. I stood behind  \nhim and put a boot between his shoulders, pushing the poor wolf down until his chest was on the  \nground, arms stretched up over his head. He helpfully kept his ass up in the air.  \n  \n\"What's this? You need to be fucked?\" I probed a few fingers into his hole, finding that it was  \nsurprisingly wet inside. \"Did someone come in you before I came over?\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"I f-fucked myself while doing my squats,\" he mumbled.  \n  \nThat got him another hit from the nasty flogger, except I used it spikes down, and on the back of  \nhis head. He barked and spit on the floor.  \n  \nAdrian had a tendency to watch porn mostly out of curiosity, so I'd seen plenty of bare backing  \nvideos. I snorted a few times, then spit all over the head of my cock. It was awkward, crouching  \nlike that, but I managed to get on the level and forced myself into the wolf's hole. He was not  \ntight at all, snug but very accommodating. He groaned as I sunk in, mumbling again.  \n  \n\"Speak English, you dog,\" I said, and hit him again. He barked and tried to pull away from my cock.  \n  \n\"Why are you so mean? You aren't-\"  \n  \nFucking with my cock out my fly wasn't working so well, so I took off my belt. With the lack of  \nanything better to do with it, I strapped it around his muzzle, pulling upwards on both ends like  \nhandles, straining Rake's back. His asshole snugged up, tighter and tighter with each stroke in,  \nuntil it started to pump around my cock. The wolf shuddered and groaned, wet slaps of seed hitting  \nthe floor in front of him. It was distracting, knowing that he was shooting off, so much that I  \nwasn't even aware I lost my own load of seed until I pulled out and found it dripping from my  \nslicked cock.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Adrian's body was running out of steam.  \n  \nI took my belt back and put it on, no words exchanged between the wolf and I. Off came the  \nsuspension brace, Rake slumping down onto his hands, muzzle hanging low. He languidly undid the  \nspreader shackles, then simply slinked off into his bedroom.  \n  \nI took my leave. No reason to stick around after that sort of thing. Goodbye for now, Rake. Dream of  \nyour abuse.  \n  \nSleep. 13  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"The Woods","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/12671-something-new.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/30141-the-woods-pt-4-an-evening-at-the-estate.json"}}