Catnap
The question had been plaguing her for months. She'd watched him for that long, wondering if it would ever be a good time to say anything, to approach him in the front of the house when she went to check her mail, for whatever reason.
There were still so many questions, for so many people, about the new kinds of people that were appearing all over the country, all over the world now. The Awakened, they were called. They had their own President, though President Vorran wasn't really an elected leader and they didn't really have a country. Victoria Vorran was just the oldest of them.
It was hard to tell, really, how old any individual one was by looking, and it wasn't as though you could just go around demanding medical records or anything. The laws were still being tweaked and fine-tuned to deal with the emergence of the Awakened, but one of the very first things that had been decided, and pretty quickly, was that - superficial appearances aside - these were basically people, and like all people, they had the same guarantees of privacy and dignity that anyone else did... well, in so far as anyone else did in an age when Google and the lesser information monoliths knew more about you than you probably knew about yourself.
But the question that had made her stand at the window and watch him in his back patio area on a few lazy summer afternoons, the one that kept her awake and red-faced in bed next to Mike some nights, was one that had probably been determined already but which had simply not yet been made available online or anywhere else - how did it happen?
Was he born one way and changed into what he was? Or was he born this way, sort of half way between a man and a... then another, even less appropriate question crossed her mind. She didn't even know his name! She left the leases to Mike and if she wanted to know something about a tenant, she'd just go and strike up a conversation. What if she did find an opportunity to finally go over there and introduce herself, and what if... what if his name turned out to be Tom? Or, worse yet, Sylvester?
He was tallish, about six feet, but he was built like a linebacker. His face was hard for her to really describe in conventional terms. His eyes weren't large in comparison to the rest of his face like a normal feline's would appear to be. They were a luminous yellow, set in a sort of dark brown-ish auburn fur. His nose was what you'd expect to see on a housecat in shape. His jaw was more squared than a housecat's, of course, and his ears were smallish, pointed and closer to the top of his head than on a normal human.
Sylvester, she thought, and felt a small giggle escape her lips, then a wave of shame. This was the late 21st century, after all, and people were supposed to be beyond this kind of thing. Of course, nobody actually was, but everyone at least pretended to be, aspired to be. And then the Awakened had come, seemingly from out of nowhere overnight. That eased the tension between the various colors and creeds of normal humans somewhat, but... but, still. When your grandmother's Saturday morning cartoon has stepped out of the 2D and is giving you pointers on how to select the best meat at the deli counter, it isn't really cute and funny anymore. It's just... well, it's hard to put a finger on just what it is.
Then a shadow caught her eye. Her kitchen window faced the window of his back room. The two bedroom apartment was a mystery to her other than that one room, which had been bare, for the most part, since he'd moved in. Now he pulled something into the room, set it down and walked out again.
Her pulse quickened - had he seen her? What would he think if he had, that she was spying on him? But... wasn't she? Wasn't that exactly what she was doing? A flush crept up her cheeks and she looked down at the empty sink which, if it had been full of dishes, she could have pretended to wash while she stood there. But it was dry and empty. So... what, then? A gentle knocking rattled the kitchen door and she just about jumped out of her skin, a tiny squeak escaping from her.
She stood frozen for a moment, not sure of what to do - she could see the shadow of his head and shoulders cast onto the kitchen door's blinds by the summer evening sunlight. And there was no doubt who it was - one pointed ear high up twitched, then angled itself slightly.
She went slowly to the door and swung it open tentatively, looking out and up at him. "Can I help you?" She had to crane her neck slightly; although she was by no means what would be considered a short woman, at only five feet six inches tall, his six feet seemed to tower over her.
He smiled and shook his head slightly. "I saw you watching me through the window." he said, and if it had been any other words than those, it might have been a remark about the weather or something he'd seen on the news.
She instantly paled. "Oh, my God!" she took a step back. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"
He laughed, a low, throaty sound, and shook his head, then gesturing widely with a shrug that opened his arms out to his sides. "It's all right." he continued to chuckle just for a moment, and the sound reminded her of a very deep purr coming through in short bursts. "There are two ways a man like me comes to deal with his, ah..." he stroked the thick tuft of chocolate fur at his chin that resembled nothing more than it did a goatee. "My 'condition'. Either we become withdrawn from mundane people, or we develop a pretty good sense of humor. I like people - and humor. You're Mrs. Nowicki, aren't you? I'm Tom Running Bear."
She blinked. She stared. Then blinked again. "You're..."
"That's right. Tom." his eyes narrowed. "Would you like to know..." he said in a low, dangerous voice, "what my mother's name is? This... condition... manifests first in women, and then in their children." He took another step forward and she another timid step back. "My mother's name..." he practically loomed over her now, an imposing, shadowy, barely-human figure, "is Kitty."
She looked up at him, into those narrowed golden eyes, the faint smirk on his barely-visible lips, and there was only one thing she could do. She giggled. To her relief and astonishment, he laughed as well and swatted her lightly on the arm. "Had you goin' there for a second, didn't I? Oh..." he backed away. "I'm sorry. I didn't really mean to frighten you. I was only playing."
She smiled broadly. "Tell me you made that up. Your mom's name, I mean."
He shrugged. "I didn't, actually. My father's name is Jacob Running Bear. My mother's name is Katherine Running Bear, formerly Katherine Wexford. He's of the Shoshone tribe, she's first-generation American, from England." He said all of this as he leaned against the kitchen counter, peering through the window himself now into his mostly empty back room. "Workout room."
He said this last so quietly that she instinctively stepped forward to hear him better. "Sorry?" She could sense now just the very faintest scent, though she couldn't get her mind to focus on it for even a split instant. She simply knew that there was something in the air. It didn't bother her at all.
He raised a brawny, thickly corded forearm and pointed through the window. "That. It's going to be my workout room. Just moved a weight bench in there, as a matter of fact."
"That must have been what I saw y-" she stopped herself, blushing furiously.
He laughed. "I already knew you were watching. That's why I came over here. I figured you must have been curious." He shrugged, then. "Well, I'd better get back to it. Haven't had my workout yet today. It was nice to meet you." He straightened up and ambled back toward the kitchen door.
He closed the door behind him, and she felt a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding whoosh out of her. She felt an unstoppable trembling in her fingers, a thread of excitement course through her arms and legs. He knew she was watching. And yet, there he was, ambling back into his weight room.
And then he reached down with both hands and lifted his shirt, the white fabric lifting and rolling up over short, fine chocolate fur that only emphasized the deep definition of pectoral and abdominal muscles. His shoulders stood out in teardrop shape, cast into highlight and shadow by the afternoon sun. He turned slightly and the sunlight crawled across the ridges and canyons of muscle that covered his wide back.
He knew she was watching. The thought ran through her head again and again. He knew. And yet, he stretched lazily, the long, thick caps of his shoulders bunching and flexing under his short, thick coat of fur. He looked up, then jumped straight up, catching hold of something, probably handgrips installed into the ceiling, and began to perform slow pull-ups, one after another.
As his body rose, she gasped. She hadn't seen him do it, but apparently somewhere between his front door and the workout room, he'd slipped out of his blue jeans. He had a tail - he had a tail! She giggled, astonished mostly by the fact that this would astonish her. Of course he would have a tail - but where was it when he'd been standing in her kitchen? She hadn't noticed it. Maybe he hid it in the back of his shirt?
Then she turned several shades of crimson as she found her eyes, momentarily diverted by something she'd never seen before, drawn to something she'd only seen a weak and shabby imitation of decades earlier. Mike, her husband of nearly fifteen years, had been built almost as well as the specimen before her eyes, but that was back in high school when he had been a quarterback. Since then, age and a sedentary lifestyle had lulled him into a sort of flabby echo of his once-impressive self. But even at his prime, Mike wouldn't have outshone what she was looking at now.
"Whatcha lookin' at now, dear?" a voice from behind her startled her. It was Mike, standing in the kitchen doorway with an empty Budweiser Select bottle in his hand.
She reached up and closed the blinds. "Just daydreaming." she lied. "Remember when we first started going steady?" She turned and sauntered over to him with as much of the old seduction as she could remember. As usual, he either failed utterly to pick up on it, or - and she was beginning to suspect this more and more lately - simply had no interest in it.
"We had big plans." he nodded, then dropped the empty into the trash and ambled to the refrigerator to retrieve a full one. "We were gonna take on the world, weren't we?" his expression turned slightly wistful, then he set the edge of the unopened beer bottle's cap against the kitchen counter, flattened his palm and brought it down in a perfect arc on the cap, popping it free to go tumbling through the air and skitter out of sight somewhere across the faded linoleum.
"You know, I really wish you wouldn't do that, Michael." she scolded him.
"And I really wish you wouldn't get on me about doin' that." he returned evenly. "So I guess we're all set for wishes, huh?" He turned and lumbered back out into the living room, clearly uninterested in whatever road the conversation might've taken from there.
She sighed and set about getting something ready for dinner. By the time she remembered to take a peek through the shades again, their new neighbor had apparently already gone to bed.
He was out bright and early the next morning, though, jogging in the mild autumn chill in just track pants, as she took the recycling bin to the curb. "Morning!" he called out as he passed. Then he slowed. "I wanted to ask you something..." he seemed to be fishing for her name. "Mrs. Nowicki" would have done the job, but his pause prompted her for her given name...
"Sharon."
He grinned. "Sharon! Anyway, ah, last night..." he seemed to trail off for a moment, and in that moment, his eyes caught the morning sunlight as they roamed over her figure. "Well, I guess I forgot my shades were still up after I got home. I didn't mean to offend you or anything."
She shook her head, a wry look in her eyes and at the corners of her lips. "You did not." She put her hands on her hips and watched him, and it was then that she realized that she had worn an unseasonably tight, low-cut blouse and short shorts. She'd put them out the night before, just before crawling into bed - but why? At the time, no particular reason had occurred to her. But now, well...
"I didn't what?" He looked perplexed.
"You didn't offend me." she said with just a little more warmth in her voice than should have been there, for a married woman. "And you didn't forget, either."
He blinked, stunned. Then laughed and shook his head. "All right - busted. I didn't forget. But as long as you weren't offended, I guess I shouldn't feel too bad."
She stepped closer; even as she did, even as the words tumbled from her lips, her mind was whispering, What the hell are you doing?! "Ohhhh, yes, you should..." She reached up, still astonished at herself, and allowed her index finger to trace the short, thick fur of the line of separation that ran vertically between his pectoral muscles. "You are a very naughty boy."
She couldn't understand what it was about him that was making her act like this - or was it just that it had been months since Mike had so much as touched her? Whatever it was, there was no denying that standing close to Tom, the sensation of steel-hard muscle under velvety-soft fur, the indescribable mixture of power and grace and overpowering maleness he exuded, was making her respond in ways she had not since she was a girl in high school.
But now here they were again. The racing heart, the flushed skin. The dilation of her pupils, the small tickle of cold sweat down her spine, all brought the rush of adolescent hormones back to her, along with the giddiness, the faint but thrilling disorientation of her first time.
And yet, even her first time hadn't been this intense. Her teenage experience had been tentative, unskilled, the fervent yet blind fumblings of a teenaged girl with an awkward if enthusiastic teenaged boy. This magnificent creature cradling her in his arms now was as enthusiastic as she was, but the enthusiasm was an engine channeled through skill and talent.
His large, strong hands roamed over her smooth skin. She couldn't have remembered that she was still in fine shape herself -- her husband certainly never explored her that way anymore, and so it was that Tom's inquisitive hands surprised her with both the feeling of the thick pads that lined the entire length of each of his fingers, but no less surprising was that she could feel the contrasting sensation of her own skin under his touch, so smooth and soft in comparison to the suede sensation of his fingers.
Her mouth and his met in a spark of moist fire that kindled into an inferno as his hands slipped under her elbows. She could feel his forearms tense around her as his large, hard biceps tensed under her fingers. By an instinct that rose up in her from she had no idea where, she responded by jumping upward as his hands lifted, her thighs wrapping around his waist. She let her lips trace the line of his jaw as he walked with long, easy strides. She didn't see where they were heading, but she didn't have to see -- she knew, and she welcomed it.
In the warm, soft darkness of his embrace, she could feel the hard press of the head of his cock against her lips through the fabric that separated them. She mewled low in her throat as they moved, and felt rather than heard a low rumbling in his chest. Despite herself, despite the mood, she felt a giggle bubbling up from her chest to tumble from her lips. "Are you purring?"
The sensation didn't subside, but amplified as he laughed, too, despite himself it seemed. No other answer than that was necessary. She pressed in tighter against him to feel it, her firm breasts flattening slightly against his hard pectoral muscles. She seemed almost to be listening for the sound, and soon enough it grew to the point of being audible.
The shift of muscle, skin and silken fur under her own skin lifted a charge of electricity through her body. She was nearly as astonished to find herself purring as she had been to discover that he was doing it, despite the obviousness of that reaction from him. He grinned down at her. "So are you. It seems we have more in common than your science would have led you to believe."
She giggled. "Is that so?" Her own voice was lower than usual, the husky quality of it betraying her growing need as her fingers tugged and turned the drawstring at the waist of his track pants.
"Looking for something down there?" His fingers joined them, slipping the simple knot he'd tied. The track pants slipped down, exposing his heavily muscled ass and thighs and allowing his fully erect cock to spring free, the shaft pressing hard against her. If someone told her it was even a centimeter less than ten inches, she'd be stunned, but if they told her it was a full foot's worth of cock, she'd just nod.
"Found it..." he half breathed, half moaned before their mouths met again in a mutually devouring kiss. He stepped out of the track pants and took another step in the direction of the bedroom, but she gave him a squeeze with arms and thighs.
"What's wrong?" he asked, momentarily puzzled.
She tried to answer in words, but all that came out with a breathy moan. She tried again. "Fuck the bedroom..." she breathed and nipped at his shoulder.
He growled, and it turned into a chuckle. "Slut." This only made her clamp around him tighter, and he could feel the heat and the slick moisture of her pussy as she deliberately shifted herself on him to bring the head of his mammoth, aching cock to play over the hot slit. He stiffened all over, growling again, and if he'd intended to hold out on her and make her wait, the intention evaporated like warm water in a furnace.
He lowered her to the living room floor, and neither one of them noticed that the blinds were still open -- nor would they have given half a damn if they had.
Those rough-but-smooth fingers and palms traced the contours of her breasts for a moment as her eyes flared and seemed almost to try to pin his own. Instinctively, he knew what she wanted; knew, too, that she could not only stand up to it but was eager for it, practically begging. His left hand slid around to the back of her neck -- he spread his muscular fingers wide apart as his right hand went to her throat.
The fingers of his left hand slid up the back of her scalp, gathering her long, thick hair between them, then closed -- not bunching, not pulling the thick hair trapped in them, but merely closed tight, applying pressure throughout the back of her scalp as the fingers of his right hand closed around her throat. He growled again, and this time the sound was deep, reverberating and feral. Her back arched under his muscular frame and he wasn't entirely certain that she hadn't just climaxed merely from the position she was now in.
The head of his cock teased at her lips, but at the arching of her back, he pressed hard against her, feeling her slick lips part before it. She was tight; to his sheer length, especially, but with it having been so long since she'd taken in a stiff cock, and with her daily work around the house and workouts in the garage, she would have been tight to anyone. She cried out as he entered slowly and carefully. He was certain that in her fantasies she would simply have been ravaged -- but as much as he wanted to be hilt deep in her right this second, he knew that the damage that would cause, without her having been stretched to accommodate him, would have been disastrous for her.
She mewled her need, her nails finding his back. She felt at once that she was being taken by a large, muscular man and by a gigantic housecat; the feeling set her mind slightly off kilter. Part of her screamed that this was wrong, unnatural, never mind the fact that she was a married woman -- but the greater part reveled in the sensation of wrongness, a deeply hidden, dark and twisted part of her that had been so long starved of even fantasy that there was no way in hell she would even dream of backing away from this.
As he worked in her, slowly at first, her inner walls left his thick, heavily veined shaft slick with her juices, allowing him to drive in a little deeper with each thrust. He curled the fingers of his left hand slightly, increasing the pressure in her hair, and tightened the grip of his right hand just as slightly, closing her throat only a little.
That was all it took to bring her to, if not her second climax, absolutely her first. Her strained cries of lust filled the room despite his grip on her, her thighs tightened around his sides and a hot flood of cream washed over his cock, allowing him to slip even more deeply inside her clutching, spasming walls.
She leaned up and bit into his shoulder, a bite he could feel even through the thick, short fur there, and how he drove in deeper, harder, withdraw and finally plunged in to the hilt, his thick-furred scrotum bouncing off her firm ass. Her eyes rolled back in her head as her breathing seemed to seize, a second wave of hot cream gushing around him as he began to fairly jackhammer at her.
The sensation was mind-erasing. She lost track of where she was, who she was and even what she was, other than a particle at the center of a perfect storm of sensation which she could no longer even consciously classify. She had never in her life been so well filled, so perfectly stimulated. Her clit was a bright point of lightning that washed her entire consciousness in a blinding fury of bliss.
She continued to bathe his meat in hot floods of cum as his balls ached and tightened. His entire being seemed to compress into that sensation, and before he would have pulled out to avoid "complications", but even his first conquest had not been half as pleasurable as this seemingly mild-mannered housewife. Perhaps it was the sensations alone. Perhaps it was the forbidden nature of what they were doing. For whatever reason, his better judgment faded and then disappeared.
He felt the inferno of sensations build within him and finally ignite an explosion that started in his balls and arced up his spine to seize his entire body in a shaking, breathless climax that froze them both in place like statues of hot blood and shivering muscle as his cock blasted his seed deep into her again and again.
Finally, the tide of thoughtless lust ebbed enough for him to focus his vision. He looked down at her and thanked the gods that, at some point without realizing it, he'd released his grips on her and had placed both hands flat on the floor, probably to give himself better leverage. He also noticed, to his bemusement, that the two of them had scooted several feet at least across the floor as he'd fucked her toward the direction of his kitchen.
He still rested in her, slowly returning to a flaccid state. He rose up higher on his hands, preparing to pull away, but she wrapped her arms around his neck again. "Uh uh..." Instead, he lowered himself back to the floor and leaned to one side. Her arms still wrapped tightly around his neck, she rolled with him and they fell into a light, contented doze then and there.
It would be another nine months before she would have anything...unusual...to explain.