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THE INCENTIVE DEPARTMENT

Chapter Three

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Tammy and Leah went to college together for totally different majors. While they were in college, they danced at a strip club, and someone made a joke while there that Leah remembered, and Tammy inadvertently wrapped herself up in. Now, Tammy's job is to make that joke into a real thing in a new position.

By StripedKittyScribe

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T.Rinaldo: Hey boss, just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be compiling and running tests tomorrow. Could I get you to confirm that all of the stuff that I ordered is all in the office?

M.Roberts: The only one that's missing is a package with the tracking number ending in 23D53T.

T.Rinaldo: Second monitor, I can live without that for a few days.

M.Robers: Have to admit that you've got my people down here half upset that you're building your own rig and half curious to see what you got within your budget.

T.Rinaldo: Yeah I'm a little protective of my rigs. I guess I could film and put it up on the company page. =P

M.Roberts: Probably not a good idea. See you tomorrow.

In the morning, Tammy picked the small box of items up from next to her door of decorations. She felt slightly odd about it. Most of the things that she wanted as office decorations, she wanted to keep in her home office. Her apartment was a two bedroom unit, which meant that she had a bedroom, and an office. She'd been at the same address ever since she got out of college, and she liked it. It was stable.

This was her first "real" office though, and that in and of itself was odd to her. Not a cubicle, a real office. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. It was a huge ego boost, of course, but also felt like a huge responsibility.

Having An Office means that they expect Things from her. And while she was confident that she had the skills to be a good coder and she could build and debug and all the rest, she also didn't know what they'd ask of her in the future. Her parents were both military, and the idea was firmly ingrained in her. Officers had offices. Would they ask her to lead a team of people doing something else?

She drove to the CORE building, and clipped her badge onto her jacket. She was wearing a basic pant suit and blouse with a jacket. It was the first time that she'd really been to the office to work. She'd been in once or twice since her orientation, but it was for a presentation or meeting. This would be her first 'full' day. Putting her laptop bag over her shoulder and then picking up her box of personal belongings, she walked toward the building entrance.

She didn't see anyone that she recognized as she moved in through the lobby. The receptionist was in the middle of a call, and was wholly focused on his screen so she didn't try to distract him. Tapping her badge on the magnetic post, she went through and navigated her way through the halls toward the HR section.

Apparently there'd been a bit of a turf war between IT and HR about who would get her, though it was resolved with the compromise of her being in HR's department but reporting to IT's project manager for deployment. She shook her head. It didn't really make all that much difference to her, since it was still the same project.

She turned the corner into the HR section, and almost screamed as she saw the banners. "WELCOME TAMMY". No one else was here just yet, Tammy always made a point of being early. Unlike most IT people, she started early and finished early, and she liked it that way. Tucking her head down, she scurried across the small lobby until she got to the second door with a key card reader. Tap, and she was in.

Fifth door on the left, she brushed the handle down with her elbow and then backed in as she pushed it open. The box wasn't heavy, but it was bulky enough that she couldn't balance it just with the one hand, especially with her laptop bag. Setting both on the desk, she started with setting the laptop up on the back corner of the desk and logging in so that she could start the testing and compiling. It officially started her 'on the clock' period.

Once that was going she started pulling things out of the box and arranging them. Picture of her parents in uniform with her sitting between them would go up on the wall facing her desk. It was Daddy's retirement picture, both of them in their dress uniforms. She smiled as she set the picture frame up where she could see it from her chair. Daddy always looked so different when he was in the Dress Blues. It was a well known family teasing match. Who looked better in their 'dress blues', Mommy's Air Force Officer or Daddy's Marine Enlisted. If she didn't (now) know that they always ended up with 'everyone winning' when the uniforms came off, she'd have sided with Daddy. She always was a Daddy's girl, and she knew it. Still. He'd finally gotten that fourth rocker and she couldn't have been prouder.

Mom looked good too. This was the single shot that she'd begged them to 'take their faces off' for. If either was ever in any picture, in uniform, they were locked down tight. Military bearing. Stern. Full attention. Rigid spine. Any picture except for this one. Daddy with his brand new Master Guns stripes. Mommy with her silver Oak leaves. She probably wouldn't go any higher, and that was fine with Mom. You didn't 'get anywhere' in the Air Force flying cargo planes, even if the cargo planes were the ones that actually got shit done. She grinned even more, remembering her mother's call sign, and how it came to be. Any picture but this one. This one, they were both smiling. Beaming, even. She shook her head, getting back to work.

It was only once she looked at the desk to determine the sight line that she realized just how nice the desk and chair were. Not Executive Level, no Mahogany or antique, but a nice, heavy desk with plenty of niceties built in. If she hadn't known that it wasn't a custom job, she'd have thought that it was. The monitor arms were already attached and built into the desk frame. The overhead cabinets locked. There were places on the surface of the desk where extensions were built in to run from the wall. It probably wasn't technically a surge protector but it absolutely was a power strip. "Goddamn. It's good to be the queen," she murmured to herself. Shaking her head, she got the angle she needed, and then put a thumb tack on the wall where the picture would go, then put a sticky note under that to indicate which picture the tack marked.

The velum and a couple of other pictures and certifications got marked. The one trophy that she actually still kept from high school from her gymnastics team her senior year went up on top of her desk's cabinets. She didn't want to strip her home office bare and bring things all here. A few figures. A few pictures. Some essentials. But she'd have to start populating this if it was going to remain hers for longer than the two years her contract stated would be her minimum.

Once she'd indicated where all of the pictures would go, she pushed the box of her things onto the top of the desk, shrugged her jacket off, and set about assembling her new computer. Mitchell was right. The only reason that it didn't qualify as a gaming machine in most people's eyes was that it absolutely lacked any kind of external 'flash'. No RGB pulsing rainbows. Just a big plain black metal case, and carefully-sourced used parts.

This thing would be an absolute monster. Sure, she cheated. She'd brought her personal gaming PC's old graphics card(s) and used them in the build, then bought herself new ones. It would give her, as some online contacts would call it, 'fuck-you' amounts of power. A quick inventory set her mind at ease that she wasn't missing anything she needed, then tugged a ratcheting screwdriver out of her laptop bag, strapped a static-grounding anklet on, and got to work.

She'd finished seating the stand-off posts for the motherboard when she heard a knock at the door to her office, and Mitchell poked his head in. "Didn't think you'd be here this early," he said. Stepping in, he looked at the notes up on the otherwise-bare walls, and nodded his approval. After a moment, he shut the door. "Tammy, I need to prepare you for this. I didn't know until this morning, but either someone leaked something or someone hacked something, or something else, but Project Arrow is pretty much out. Hell, for all I know, it could have been Sir Harold."

She dropped her head and groaned, bracing her hands on the desk. "So, the secret is out, and everyone knows that I'm building C.U.P.I.D." She was impressed with herself that she managed not to spit the acronym out. 'CORE Unified Personals Identifying Database.' She'd been overridden, with the promise that until the project was made public within CORE the name wouldn't be released either, as that would make things far too easy to guess. But no one could really hide who was involved. Her.

Mitchell nodded. "Pretty much. So today we're going to run a "test" of the system. There's a couple of people who are both interested in each other, and we all know it. Hell, even they know it, they just have too much on their plates to set aside a time to see if things are going to work out for each other. Assuming you have everything programmed correctly, and assuming that we have the accurate data from their HR files, and assuming they actually do this before they leave today, we're going to run a very dry test. It should have been a simulation, but here we are with everyone in the company breathing down our neck. Sir Harold's been asked about it overnight and he's updated and altered the schedule after consulting with the HR and IT people on the other coast." He held his hands out to the side in a shrug. "It's... on the one hand it's hot off the presses. On the other hand all of our slack is gone."

Tammy tapped her fingers on the desk, then reached into the anti-static bag for her new motherboard and set it on the posts, screwing it down as she thought. "So we have four possibilities. Systemic failure, null result. Systemic failure, but the socially-correct result by wrong means. System works, but data is bad and therefore null result. System works, socially-correct result. Am I reading this right?"

Mitchell nodded. "And you're going to be getting a lot of visitors who will be far more interested in you now that they know what's going on. I don't know that you're going to be getting any out and out bribes, but I wouldn't be shocked if you had a half dozen cakes and batches of cookies to take home."

She put the last screw in, then popped the CPU shield up and searched around in the boxes for her new processor. Once she found it and dropped it in place, she snapped the shield back down and braced herself once more as she tried to think. "And let me guess, the banner for me outside of HR is all part of that?"

Mitchell, for the very first time, actually blushed. "Ah. No. That's... unrelated, and was just supposed to be a quick 'welcome to the team, now get back to work' sort of thing. Leah knew that she wasn't going to be here to welcome you in so she wanted you to have the proverbial soft landing. She's traveling to one of our satellite offices."

Tammy said 'ah', then crossed her arms, tapping her finger on her biceps. "Well, I'm guessing that we've got their HR data already in, based on their supervisor's input. Are they both working right now?"

He nodded.

Tammy bobbed her head, juggling possibilities in her mind, timetables, and other things. "Alright. Get them to report to their supervisors when they get close to finishing their shift. They've "been selected to alpha test something". We'll put them on a date with each other regardless, and whatever they do on that date is up to them. We get the data either way, as well as some blind UI/UX testing. Can we make sure that we've got that session logged so that we can see hesitation and all of that?"

Mitchell nodded, and then started to turn to leave before he paused, and backed up to peer down into the case. "Is that an Asteroid..."

She sighed. "Yes, it's an Asteroid Lake chipset, I cheated."

He let out a low whistle. "Okay then. I guess I'll leave you to it. If the compile fails just let me know and I'll take care of back-dooring the data. Once we get this first test done, we'll know better how to play it. Honestly I kind of hope it fails, no offense. Then we'd be able to say, 'see, we totally aren't ready for release, now get off my ass'."

She nodded. But she didn't really think that it would fail, not on any kind of 'real' scale. Oh, maybe a bug here or there, but there weren't enough truly independently weird things to account for to make for that many unpredictable bugs. Predictable bugs, who could say how many there were there? Those weren't the ones that added time to the project. The ones where you could see what happened with the input, see what happened with the output, and say 'oooh, that's wrong but I see what happened' were common enough and easy to fix.

The ones that would really create problems were the ones where you expected to get a return of either 1 or 0, and the computer said 'Chiyo-Hime > Kiss of the Damned Angel'. Which was both wrong, and... how?

*

The cooling block was in place, and she'd started to attach the cooling fans and reservoir in place when someone else knocked at the door. Tammy looked up to see Kelly, grinning at her.

Kelly slipped in, and gave a brief air-hug, knowing better than to touch someone who was handling delicate electronics in the open. "Hey girl. I know that you're busy, I'm not trying to butt in. But I do have most of today on light duty. If you need me to monitor your laptop and do stuff when a process ends, or let someone know, I can do that so that you can focus on getting this up and running."

Tammy smiled at the ocelot woman. "Thank you, that would be really helpful. I've got it cranking away back there, so it sh..." Tammy froze. "Is this some kind of IT test thing, where you say 'can I do a thing to your computer it's okay I'm IT' and then you drop a virus on there to teach me to never loan the computer out?"

Kelly giggled, and spun the desk phone around, punching a few numbers.

Someone on the other end clicked on, "Roberts."

Kelly said, "Mitch, it's Kelly. I'm taking over Tammy's laptop for the time being so that we can keep this ball rolling as fast as possible as far as possible. If anything happens to her laptop for the next few hours, it's on me, not her, even if it's her login."

The other end of the phone grunted while typing happened. "Got it. Spotted golden pelt on my wall rather than gray. Is that all?"

Kelly punched the button to hang up, winking at the rat girl. "There. Problem solved. Oh! And this," she said and clicked a thumb drive onto the edge of the desk. "Boot from this the first time, it'll set you up with the right kernel so that... Hey are those Freebooter..."

Tammy sighed and dropped her head, "Yes, they're Freebooter HiDroX GX7s, I cheated, they're used from my old rig at home and I sold them to the company for a dollar each and replaced my cards at home."

Kelly whistled. "Damn, and here I was thinking of putting you on the upgrade list ahead of me." She poked her muzzle further over the edge of the tower, eyes getting wider and wider. "That's a Terrabyte RZ989... that's four sticks of 32 gig ram at 4500 hertz... Fuck me, are you trying to hack the Septagon? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't want to know." She walked around behind Tammy and picked the laptop up. "I'll see you later tonight," the feline said as she slipped out of the office. "I'll get your office line from Mitchell if you're not in the system yet when things happen. Call you when this process finishes."

*

A knock came at her office door, and Tammy gritted her teeth. She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, then let it out. She had wanted to come here. She had been lonely without co-workers. She had decided to come here. It wasn't a requirement for work. This is a result of her own choice. "Come in," she sang as she tightened a connection into place. Liquid Cooling was a requirement for this machine, but even Tammy had her limits. Soft tubing was fine, no hard tubes or connections or bending. She looked up while her fingers flexed to screw the next-to-last fitting on.

A slender squirrel in a skirt fluttered fingers in a wave.

Tammy had been a stripper, and she'd done a few shows where there were guys in drag or cross dressing, and she'd never had the best record at picking out definitively where someone fell. Which, as it turned out, was the actual right answer, but a bunch of people didn't like that because it wasn't easy or convenient. Well, fuck 'em.

The squirrel slipped into the office, and extended a hand. "Hi, I'm Bailey."

Tammy tried to give a warm smile, though her face was also twisting up in concentration at a particularly tight connection. The last one. It would be alright once her hand was out of the way, but for the time being it was a pain in the ass. "Hi, Bailey, I'm Tammy. Sorry for not shaking your hand right now, can't get my hand out. Promise I'll do it in just a second."

Bailey gave a smile so radiant it almost knocked Tammy back into her chair. "It's alright, I can wait," she chirped, pulling her hand back and tucking it behind her back. "I wanted to apologize for the sign thing. I'm the receptionist." Bailey's hips shifted around in a girlish, adorable way. "None of us knew what would break on the company grapevine, and we'd planned on a little thing here. I got in before anyone could kick the door down, and I pulled down the decorations. No one's going to know where you are. I think they think you're over in IT." They grinned in a way that absolutely changed their face. Angel to imp in 0.5 seconds.

Tammy had to reconsider Bailey. She was a pretty, almost tiny squirrel 'girl'. Maybe not born that way, but that was a skirt, not a kilt, and Bailey's top was very much 'blouse' and not 'shirt'. If there were any 'real' breasts under there, they were slight. Girlish hips and backside rested under the loose skirt. A totally professional young lady, no matter what she was packing between her legs. For the most part, she had a perfectly angelic face, with red fur and tufted ears and round cheeks. Green eyes. Not just Green, but GREEN. The kind of green that almost made you wonder if those were contacts. "May I ask your pronouns," Tammy said between grunting as she tried to twist her hand almost completely around in order to get the last damn screw in place.

"They, them," Bailey said with a shrug and a tilt of their head, and Tammy forced herself to make that shift. "And thank you for asking. Like I said, I'm the receptionist, and I wanted to let you know that I appreciated you picking me, and that you didn't have to do that. I was going to take the sign down anyway as soon as I heard."

Tammy blinked, her fingers slipping off of the screw, which hadn't caught yet. It rattled down into the tower's case and would have to be retrieved later. She pulled her hand out, and extended it for a grip and shake with Bailey. "I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me. What?"

Bailey pointed at the tower she was building. "You're the one doing Project Arrow. You're doing an alpha test of it today. You picked me to do a profile."

Tammy looked over into the corner where her laptop most pointedly wasn't. Then at the tower that was still not completely built. "Bailey, when did you get that email or system message or whatever? I'm glad that it's you, and I appreciate that you've either thrown people off of my scent or kept them from mobbing me, but I haven't had my computer in here for..." She looked around for a clock. "Holy shit, it's already 11:30. I didn't realize it had been that long."

Tammy looked around at the parts, then at the squirrel, then held her finger up, "One second. Let me see if I can get a hold of someone. If you know Kelly's number, could you dial that for me? Kelly Morganson? I need to get this last screw in place and then everything will be stable, and then I can help you figure this out. That or if you want to thread this screw in here, I can call her?"

Bailey reached for the phone handset and picked it up, then poked at the controls for a few seconds.

Tammy spent that time fitting another screw into place, only this one threaded almost instantly and tightened down. Quick visual check of the area, a tilting of the tower to get the loose bit to slide where she could pick it up, and she was basically done.

Bailey finished dialing and handed the phone over, a slightly confused look in their eyes shifting to concern and embarrassment.

Tammy took the phone and braced it between her shoulder and ear while she screwed a pressure gauge onto the drainage line.

Kelly's voice came through, "Hey, what's up?"

Tammy started working the pump with both hands while she spoke. "Hey, I wanted to ask when those system messages went out about the alpha test and how many were sent out. I have Bailey here in front of me and they had some concerns. I do too, cause I thought that this wasn't supposed to happen just yet. You said you were going to call me when that processing finished up."

Kelly said, "Yeah, I sent out all of the alpha notices, not just part. I mean, Bailey's kinda right in that we pruned a list based on some criteria, but we didn't single them out. Also, damn they're fast, I literally just sent that out a couple of minutes ago and just hadn't gotten around to calling you. How's it going, by the way?"

Tammy could have kissed the ocelot for that phrasing. Technically true. "Okay. I mean, I've just now started the pressure test and haven't filled the coolant reservoir. I haven't had a chance to look at my inbox or anything. So I should tell Bailey to... what, just fill it out after lunch or something?"

Kelly's voice hesitated. "Yeah, that'd probably be fine. I mean there's going to be a lot to do and we're not going to be doing anything with a report before tomorrow morning anyway so as long as it's before COB. Just make sure they know there's no pressure and that the most important thing is that the data be accurate. If they just futz around and put random stuff in, we're not going to be able to accurately test if the models are working, and that's going to basically make the whole thing worthless."

Tammy was about to say something, when she saw Bailey's ear twitch, and the squirrel shift on their feet. She almost wanted to pull the phone away from her ear and look at it like in the movies. Damn, but Kelly could be sneaky. "I'll make sure they know," Tammy said and then hung up. "Okay, so did you hear any of that?"

Bailey nodded. "I did. And I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions." They looked down at the floor. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Tammy gave her best 'gentle smile'. "If you know of a place I could get some of those picture hooks, that'd be great. I think that I forgot those. You're welcome to stay here, as far as I'm concerned but I kinda bet you're supposed to be staying at the front desk. If you want, we can go to the cafeteria once I get this pressure test stabilized."

Bailey pointed out the door, "I know where they are in the supply closet. Be right back."

When Bailey returned, Tammy couldn't help but grin. "Aren't you going to ask me if this is a ThermaPoly QB890?"

Bailey shook their head slowly. "Why would I ask you that? Why would I even know what that is?"

*

Tammy checked the level on the tank one last time, then shut the panel on the side of the tower. The pump had been running for the whole of the afternoon after she'd gotten back from lunch with Bailey. She'd spent the rest of the time either 'bleeding' the system, or decorating her office, or retrieving her laptop from Kelly. If there were any more air pockets in the cooling system, they'd work their way out slowly. She'd be able to check on the tank daily at this point for the next week, and not have any real issues.

Now, her workstation was basically up and running, with a couple of minor exceptions. She'd gotten all of the various logins taken care of. Bailey had done their part, and whoever she was 'supposed' to be going out with had provided their information. A few others had been included as a smoke screen, and to further test what was going to happen and interfere with data, if anything would.

It was getting close to quitting time, and Tammy just knew that if she clicked that 'compile results' button, the results would show up before she was able to look away. And then she would be tempted to stay and fix all of the bugs. She'd finished hanging the pictures, and decided that it was good enough for today.

She left her laptop on the desk and positioned the mouse cursor for the giant desktop over the 'run program' button. She turned the screen off, then clicked the mouse to do it. There. Now she wouldn't see it.

When she returned in the morning, she logged back in after getting her morning cup of coffee. And she stared at the screen in shock. Not that it had worked. Not even that it had given them the expected results of Bailey and someone named Ashley. But that it had matched Bailey and Tanner. And Bailey and Jacob. And Bailey and Lois. And Ashley and Tanner... Every single person who had submitted data, had been matched with every other one, in every permutation.

T.Rinaldo: I know that no one else is here right now, and I hate having to start people's day off with the infamous 'we've got a problem' but we do. [SCREENSHOT ATTACHED]

She checked on the water level in her new tower, rocked and tilted it to see if that would dislodge anything, then started combing through the data. It wasn't quite her least favorite scenario, but it was one of the ones that made programming so challenging and so much fun. Everyone hates 'it's not working and I don't know why'. Everyone hates 'it's working and I don't know why' almost as much.

Most of the bugs were, as expected, pretty explainable and didn't take much time to fix. There were a few that took some puzzling. There were even a few that took some 'Doll Doctoring', requiring the assistance of her Semi-Kun figure as she read every line of the code to him and explained what it did, while he silently listened.

Before she left for the day, she did the same thing as the day before; shut the screen off and click 'run program'.

She almost put Semi-Kun in time out facing the corner for failing her. The same set of results awaited her in the morning. She flopped heavily back into her chair. "I wish Leah were here. Maybe it's not a code thing." Either way, the first date needed to go through.

*

Bailey was still blushing furiously. They'd been blushing the whole evening, and so had Ashley. Dinner had been almost totally silent. The movie had been almost totally silent, though at least that one had been understandable. The last 15 minutes of the film were the most intense, and the two had instinctively reached for the other during the dramatic chase through the forest.

Neither had really let go since that point.

Ashley was taller, and bigger in just about every way. The lion wasn't as large as some of the muscle-bound sorts that seemed to predominate the big cats, but there was little doubt that Ashley was fit and strong, and handsome, and kind, and gentle, and...

Bailey shook their head, trying to shake those thoughts clear.

Ashley squeezed their hand. "You okay? Cold?"

Bailey's ears flitted around as they looked down at the ground, then back up. "I'm fine, I just... I dunno."

Ashley squeezed Bailey's hand again, and started walking back to his truck, tugging the squirrel to head back with him. "Yeah. I know. Me to," he admitted. "I wonder if we kinda messed up."

Bailey looked up at him, curious.

Ashley shrugged this time. "I mean. This is almost one of those 'the emperor has no clothes' things. Everyone knows that we're in love with each other. But we've both been so focused on work and other stuff that we haven't really gone or done anything with each other." He tugged the door open and gave her a hand up into the massive vehicle.

Bailey could have clambered up on their own, but it was part of their dynamic. If one could do something to make the other one's task easier, they did it. They reached across to pull the handle of the driver's side door and pop it open, then sat back up as Ashley hopped up into the cab and turned the engine over.

Ashley gripped the steering wheel, making the leather wrap creak under his fingers. "You think we messed up? Like, is that the whole point of this? Self care?"

Bailey reached over to pat his thigh. "I dunno. Maybe?"

The lion rumbled, and leaned over to give his partner a one-armed hug. "How pissed would they be if we came back engaged?"

They both laughed.

Bailey nuzzled up into his mane. "We've been seeing each other when you're not on the road for a year now, and no one knows it. I come back from this with a ring on my finger and they're going to lose their minds." Bailey thought back over the course of the year. Protest rallies. Marches. Petition campaigns.

Neither of them were shy or subtle about their activism. The pair didn't agree on everything, on all points, priorities or solutions. But they would both throw themselves into the proverbial firing line at almost the drop of a hat.

Ashley drove them to his apartment, and helped Bailey out of the truck. The walk up the stairs was silent. When he opened the door for Ashley to walk in first, he sucked in a deep breath, and then let it out, closing his eyes and bracing for it.

The apartment was dark, and Bailey slipped their shoes off while reaching for the light switch. When their eyes adjusted, Bailey gasped and covered their muzzle with both hands.

The small living room was strewn with rose petals in a trail that ran all the way to the single bedroom. Ashley set both hands on his partner's shoulders, and squeezed them gently. "I was already up and rolling when the message hit the wires," he said, stepping in behind Bailey. "I was already thinking about doing this, and I know who your boss is. So I sent a message to her and she agreed that we'd get some time. So... maybe they won't lose their minds as much as you think."

Bailey turned to face him, eyes wide. They didn't really know what to say.

Ashley dropped down onto one knee, and took both of Bailey's hands in his. "You keep me in line, and you have shown me so many things. Will you be my partner, officially?"

Bailey pulled his muzzle up and kissed him once they'd recovered. It wasn't the first kiss they'd shared together, not by a long shot. But they had never had a kiss with the same implications. Once they pulled back, Bailey smiled. "Go to the bedroom and get undressed, handsome. I'll be there in a minute."

The lion stood and kissed Bailey again before going to his bedroom. He wasn't sure what to expect, but he knew that it would be one of a few things, so he started to get things ready.

Bailey pulled their phone out and sent a text message to Leah. "You are an absolute bitch for not telling me."

The reply came back within a minute. "I am. But he told me not to. Besides, how would I tell you? I'm across the country. ;) "

The squirrel rolled their eyes and tossed the phone onto the kitchen counter. Walking into the bedroom, they pulled their blouse over their head, and couldn't help but smile.

Ashley was kneeling by the bed, already naked. His tail was coiling and flexing, the tuft on the end drawing attention there. He looked up and winked. Then resumed his posture.

Bailey worked their skirt off, and stepped forward, trailing fingers through Ashley's mane. "I should punish you for being naughty. But I'm far too happy right now to even pretend. Up on the bed, on your belly."

The lion rose and complied, stretching his arms and legs out for the binding straps that he knew would come.

Once Bailey had secured him, they got ready themselves and climbed up onto the bed. Running delicate hands over tawny shoulders and back muscles. "You know, I genuinely almost want to just leave you like this to tease you. I can't believe you sent my boss asking for a favor like that." Bailey's hand slapped his ass cheek, hard. "I also am not going to tell you to apologize. Why am I not going to tell you to apologize?"

Ashley jerked once at the spank, but relaxed. "Because we never lie to each other."

Another spank, followed by a rough grope. "That's right," Bailey said, leaning over his larger frame. "We never lie to each other. Are you ready?"

Ashley nodded, and then grunted from a strike in reprimand. "I am," he promised.

Bailey settled against him, stradling the thighs and bracing both hands to spread him. "You really are mine now, aren't you," they whispered, starting to push forward, sinking the toy into the lion's body.

The both of them moaned, and the both of them pushed against each other, or at least as much as Ashley could restrained as he was. The both of them felt the resistance. Both of them felt the acceptance. Both of them fed on the pleasure and the tenderness.

Bailey drove forward, then withdrew, breath starting to come hard. "Do you need to cum, kitty?"

Ashley nodded. "Please."

Bailey's lips brushed over his ears as she pushed forward. "Not yet, kitty. Not just yet. You went behind my back. That means you don't get what you want just yet."

Ashley moaned louder, and the ropes creaked as he pulled harder against them with all of his limbs at once.

Bailey's hips clapped against the upturned cheeks, jaw clenched as they pushed faster and harder. "Not yet," they whispered, then nipped at his ear. "Me first because you were a bad boy." Both hands braced against his upper back, Bailey stopped teasing and started to rut the lion's upturned backside. The pace hit a strange sort of resonance, and a few seconds later, the headboard started to tap against the wall.

Ashley's tail slapped down into the mattress as he heaved on the ropes with his arms, trying to dampen the feedback loop.

Thankfully for him, and his neighbors, Bailey didn't last much longer, calling out a sharp single wordless sound with a final drive forward. Quivering, they sank down, hands braced on the mattress next to Ashley's chest.

The big cat hissed, gritting his teeth as he pushed back as much as he could, up and against the squirrel's hips, then sank down against the bonds as Bailey's shivering pushed him over the edge.

Bailey fumbled at the knots on his ankles, then his wrists, massaging the areas to make sure that Ashley was tended to and cared for. Corrections and discipline were one thing, but that was no excuse for being mean.

Ashley drew Bailey in against his front, pulling the smaller body in. He started licking Bailey's tufted ears. "You're a brat," he rumbled. They both laughed. "And I'm going to carry you into the office tomorrow, even if I have to throw you over my shoulder to do it."

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This story is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any characters, living, dead or imaginary is purely a coincidence. All characters are a product of the author's imagination and copyright to them, unless noted guest appearances of other copyrighted characters are listed in this notice. Comments may be left (and are encouraged!) on the author's FurAffinity or SoFurry page. If you liked this story, and wish to support the author, please visit their Patreon.

This story is a work of fiction. Any immoral acts included in this story are a fantasy and should not be taken as encouragement to perform or endorsement of these acts by the author. Specifically, because apparently it needs to be said; anything other than expressed consent for any sexual encounter by a legal unimpaired sentient adult is wrong, immoral, and evil. Unwilling subjugation of sentients who have committed no crime is wrong, immoral, and evil.