Found On Doorstep (first part)
(more on Wern and Allie- from the full story at http://www.jinxtigr.com)
Allie woke to a hand holding her tit.
This was disconcerting enough that she froze, and then when memory came sneaking back, the disconcerting stayed and grew. She was being cuddled by a sleeping criminal, and she'd somehow considered this a sensible move.
More of yesterday came back. Yes... on reflection, she could see why she'd turned to the guy. She really was in for it- there was no way she was going to be able to do what Jennis had done for the place.
Worse, she didn't dare go back and refuse the job. She hadn't told anybody, but when Elistary had 'rescued' her from her confinement in a perverted bondage-cell, in a compound off the notorious Tally Road, she'd seen through the Resten lady's charade. For some reason, Elistary wished to employ terrifying, brutal people but pretend to rescue girls from them. While wearing spandex and a cape, yet.
(note: this comes from the comics version, at http://www.tallyroad.com, which is canon and prologue to the novel version)
Allie considered to what extent her employer was entirely crazy. Firing Jennis didn't seem like a stable act- and the manner in which it was done was worse, it seemed quite petty. And then, promoting her, Allie, to a job she knew nothing about, seemed similarly unhinged...
Allie considered what prospects Elistary'd had with the other girls, and realized she had no reason to assume Elistary would have done better with anybody else. So many of them seemed twitchy from drugs, or were hollow-eyed, terrified wraiths with permanently tucked tails. If Elistary had been processing runaway girls through outside places that abused them and softened them up to be dominated, she was getting very much what she could expect from that- victims who could barely help themselves, much less her.
With a start, Allie realised she wasn't counting herself in that, somehow, even though she had every reason to.
Behind her, Wern stirred, roused slightly by her movement. He yawned without waking, he wriggled slightly against her bottom, he drew her a bit closer, his fingers falling to either side of her nipple, and then he was still again, breathing evenly.
Allie took a moment to consider. Why was it that she felt different from those other girls? For she did, and this was probably why Elistary favored her. They acted beaten, she was going around with tail high and alert ears, effortlessly taking customers from them. She was- or had been- in the same situation, so what distinguished her? It wasn't just that Jennis had befriended her. At least, Allie hoped not, because Jennis was gone now.
Was it her ability to think, and observe? That had often been a real burden. Allie suspected this ability of hers came as the bitter fruit of poisoned years. When things at home were seriously wrong, and nobody would admit it openly, you developed this terrible need to see beneath the surfaces of things. When your best days were spent rehearsing fake pleasure cries and your worst involved deciding if cries of rage, heard through a closed door, were meant for you or somebody else, you learned to sense the truth of matters.
Allie wondered at herself, that she was tolerating this Wern so well- that was putting things mildly for a wolf who had her half-erect nipple tucked between two furry fingers. She decided it was partly because he'd got her off so powerfully- that was rather hard to resist- and partly because he seemed obsessed with not dominating her in any way. He rather fawned over her. He was probably right, too- fawning over her was an improvement for him. One thing about it, she could be certain he didn't wish her tits were bigger.
She blinked, realizing that some of what he'd described, an adolescence of despairing self-hate over his apparently scrawny appearance, was outside her experience. About the only thing she found fault with herself over, was that- cupcake breasts. She imagined Wern as a teenager, and apart from the expected skulking and tail-tucking, she couldn't see how he'd be all that awful-looking, yet he described a desert of rejection. Why had she avoided the same problem?
It wasn't 'him', the term she used even in her mind for her dark secret. Or, thought Allie dispassionately, it wasn't just 'him'. His obsession, his praises and erect penis, didn't properly count- but somehow it did reinforce the opinion of others. Yes- it was Mrs. Menkte, from school, so long ago.
Allie relived that moment as she had so many times- that curious blend of terrible memory and accompanying meaning. Now that she thought of it- she could have been like Wern's little girl, but for Mrs. Menkte, and Allie felt oddly grateful in retrospect.
'He' had just started, being intrusive with fingers, distressing her and drawing her attention to her private parts that obviously weren't as private as she'd thought, and at school Allie was acting out. She had a new trick for expressing contempt for the other children when upset- rather than just cry, or hit them, she tried 'hitting' them with her feelings about what was happening to her, assuming it would give them the same feeling. In practice, this meant flashing them- pulling down her pants and mooning them. She reasoned that in cases of extreme displeasure she could also pee on them.
Mrs. Menkte spotted her doing this, and swept her off, not to the principal's office, but to her own teacher's office.
Allie had cried and felt guilty, and this alone would have rendered her afraid to try the trick again, but Mrs. Menkte had a great deal more to say, a great deal to explain in terrible dismay and earnestness. From the vantage point of an adult, Allie thought Mrs. Menkte must have been terribly prudish, but somehow making great efforts to not be simply repressive, for reasons she alone knew.
Mrs. Menkte explained that one must not show private parts, but went on to explain that they were very beautiful, in the proper way- and, growing more and more uncomfortable, explained that Allie had been born with a special, special thing, a kind of fur patterning that could make boys very excited, and that she must behave nicely from now on and some day she would be a grown-up and would be happy and able to make the boys crazy.
Little Allie had listened to this explanation more or less incomprehendingly, for she had no frame of reference to explain what 'excited' meant, or why boys and not girls- but the gist seemed to be that she was born pretty, more than anybody.
She filed this away in her little head- and the next time 'he' did things Allie didn't understand or like, Allie considered that it must be about 'him' going crazy because she was too pretty. And the next time, and the next...
Adult Allie considered how this experience had colored her life. She hadn't tried to date, because life had become far too complicated, and because she didn't feel she had anything to prove- Mrs. Menkte had explained she was pretty, and life had gone on to suggest that the boys would indeed go crazy over her, and she wanted the crazy to stop first and foremost.
And when she'd run away, when she confronted the reality that this sex stuff wasn't just a chore but a powerful, even overwhelming thing and refused to carry on any longer with 'him', she'd set out for Verss, blithely assuming she'd probably make some guys crazy in those familar ways and survive by that. She'd imagined walking streets at night, perhaps flashing some two-tone wolf tail for appreciative, slavering males brandishing fistfuls of money...
Ye gods, she was damned lucky to still be alive, even! Allie considered it in the light of things Jennis had told her. Yes- she wouldn't have lasted thirty minutes with that attitude.
Wern yawned again, grasping idly at her cupcake breast, probably close to waking up. Allie wondered whether he was going to be like lovemaking, confident Wern, or hunched, self-hating Wern, or something else entirely. It seemed like revealing his own dark secrets had caused him to become completely spineless, easily crushed by disapproval from her.
Allie thought that was odd, since he seemed to brazen it out with everybody else. Perhaps it was up to her how he'd be- she more than suspected that if she took to flashing wolf tail at him, he'd brighten up a lot.
All she had to do was figure out if she even wanted him to...
As if alerted by that thought, Wern stirred- and then kept breathing evenly, as if still asleep, but Allie soon realized what was different. Not just different, but immensely touching, and typically weird to boot.
Wern wasn't hung like a monster, but he was a big, strong guy, and his arm even in repose was quite heavy. While he slept, the weight of his arm squished her cozily against the bed, which hadn't displeased her at all.
Now that he was apparently awake, his arm was mysteriously lighter. He hadn't let go of her tit- perhaps he was cherishing every second of holding it- but he couldn't help himself, he was lifting his arm a bit to spare her the weight.
Allie couldn't imagine why anyone would think this necessary after she'd snuggled under that arm all night with no ill effects, but she understood instantly what it meant, and it melted her.
Her response was to place her hand over his, where it cupped her breast, and squeeze lovingly- that being the only thing she could think of which was as sweet and as foolish as his arm-hovering. He didn't respond right away, and then his fingers squeezed as well, and it was then that Allie saw the clock.
It was after eight, and Jennis frequented that cafe earlier in the morning. It might already be too late.
"Oh, no..." breathed Allie.
"Uh, what? I'll stop, I'll stop!"
"Don't be silly!" said Allie. "I wanted you to touch me! But don't you see what time it is?"
Wern shifted, raised himself on his elbow, peered over her at the clock. Allie was startled, again, at the bulk of him. "You say you were half as big when you were nineteen?"
"Pretty... nyuuhh... pretty close, yeah..."
"What happened?"
"Liftin.. weights... hyummnnh.. f'r lotta years..."
Allie wriggled around to look at him. He would've been handsomer if he'd gone to bed nude. He'd gone to bed in his clothes, and was now the most rumpled wolf in Verss.
"You don't wake up real good, do you?"
"Hrmm... too early. Get some more rest, I'll wakeup good forya... 's a guy thing..."
"Huh?" said Allie.
Wern sat up and rubbed his eyes, muscles shifting and bulging as he did. Allie was impressed. It was rather like he'd tried to fight his self-loathing by turning himself into a cartoon sexywolf- apart from the cozily mid-sized dick, Wern was like a parody of the ideal masculine Runge. There must have been an awful lot of time to kill in jail.
"You... not live with, wake up with... guys before?" yawned Wern.
"Actually, no, I never have." said Allie. "I had my room, and that was private. There were no guys."
"Wow... can't believe I was your first... wake up good later... 'sjust mornin' wood, too early for it, try me in an hour or two..." said Wern, and his ears were quirked to the side, and he swayed gently, eyes not focussed.
It had never occurred to Allie that her early rising was unusual. She'd always woken up to appreciate the morning hours before anyone else stirred. Sometimes that was very important. Now, confronted by her opposite, the young wolf lady cocked her head to the side, ears perked, considering the lovely dozing mountain before her, and gave him a kiss on the nose and coaxed him to slowly topple over, which he did with a bed-shaking thump.
Allie rose, and started digging suitable clothing out of the dresser- at least, the most suitable stuff she could find. She hadn't been able to get any clothes yet, so it was all fetishy stuff that came with the place. Possibly today she could do better, for she'd earned quite a bit yesterday.
Wern dozed- or drifted in that direction. Allie thought a couple times she saw his eye cracked open furtively, and found this to be, like so much else about the guy, cute and weird. Technically, he was spending some vast sum to be screwing her all night, and yet there he was acting like peeking at her was somehow naughty, and he hadn't touched her all night, apart from cuddling her tit. Allie was almost affronted, even though she appreciated it on a personal level- she was supposed to be irresistible, damn it!
Allie vowed to herself that she'd send him off with at least one more serious fucking for his pains. It was all very well his acting hangdog and guilty over his misdeeds of seventeen years ago, but she wasn't about to get filed into a 'forbidden fruit' category. If nothing else, she needed to pay for some decent clothes. In the clear light of morning, the creepy molester looked an awful lot like a neurotic kid with unhealthy tastes who'd taken one step in a bad direction and found it was a step into quicksand. For fuck's sake, 'he' out of her past had done things to her for years on end, with careful planning and the resources to support his habit, and had done his best to replace her very self with a moaning puppet for his pleasure, and he'd never angsted about it in the slightest.
This Wern character had acted on his sick fantasies just once, had fucked it all up, and appeared to be trying to transform himself into a superhero to make up for his crimes. Touching yet unmistakably pitiful at the same time...