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//: City of San Iadras. 'Uptown' district. "So July went into music production. Started as a go-for girl with the big name labels, very popular... you remember that song, 'Made-Up Girl', by Elandro Vasquez, the Columbian guy?" Troy twitched an ear slightly, glancing away to the side. The walls of the corridors here were a gentle white, he hadn't actually seen the outside of the building, been too busy listening to Jennifer in the cab when it'd pulled up in the underground lot. The white walls, tiled flooring, it was all vaguely spartan, clean. Without the faux chandelier ceiling lamps, it would almost have a somewhat institutional feel to it. "Ah, I don't really know music very well," he admitted. "The ad campaign for Wessex Electronics, with their AI assistant on the high end machines, Clara?" She asked, shoes clacking on the tiles as they walked. Strange shoes, too, high heels, complete with strapping, showing off sinuously curved feet in tawny, yellow-brown fur. Troy frowned slightly, passing his briefcase from hand to hand. He'd done that twice already. He wasn't sure if carrying it on the side closer to her would act as some kind of barrier, or if on the other side it might scuff against the wall, maybe chipping the paint, which seemed like a sin given the cleanliness. "Uhm, 'Pretty girl, fresh off the assembly line, made up in some genius's mind?' Something like that?" She nodded with a smile, fishing around in her purse. "Originally about July. There's another line about coffee machines she's always preferred... Anyway, she's with him, now." She pulled out a set of keys, adding quickly, "managing Vasquez's career, that is." Troy rubbed at the back of his head lightly. "That's great," he said, nodding. "I never really figured out how musicians make their money. Other than live concerts, of course." "Oh, it's all licensing now." She fingered through the keys dexterously, selecting a piece of plastic shaded green. She jammed her thumb into it, pressing it up against the reader beside a door. "Payview, interactives, movies, advertising. Neonostalgia types sometimes buy recordings, too." The door, cut timber with metallic insets at the joins, swung open noiselessly. "Recordings?" "Oh yeah. Physical media. You get these little doodads with lasers to read them for an audio device," she said, poking with one long finger at a raised panel on the doorway, like a laser striking. "Little flat things, so big," Jennifer added, holding her thumb and forefinger wide apart, before stepping through the door, holding it open, letting her handbag slide off her arm, straps grazing at her fur. Troy stepped through, holding the grip of his briefcase tightly in both hands. Her apartment was huge. The ceiling was high, the floor tiled in the same white as the corridor, but past the little kitchen nook and bar it was covered in a thick throw rug with some kind of amerindian pattern. The walls, other than the full length windows taking up one side of the room which led out to a small balcony, had paintings - not prints, Troy could tell immediately, because prints were produced to standard paper sizes, and the paintings were out of standard proportions. One was even a trapezoid shape, framed in heavy wood, with a heavily foliaged landscape. Of course there was a screen, though it too was framed in wood and set with another landscape image. Jennifer set her handbag down on a wickerwork end table, which had old glossy fashion printouts stacked on it. She glanced back, adding quickly, "watch the door, it bites." Troy spun around, glancing at the door. Sure enough it snicked shut, timer having decided he'd gotten clear and out of the way. Which would have been true if he was human. If he hadn't turned around, it'd have closed on the tip of his tail... "I can, uhm, recalibrate that for you," he offered. "Really?" She glanced up, sweeping some of her loose hair over a shoulder. "I never figured out where to get at the electronics. I was thinking about just replacing it with a real door, latch and all, but building regulations, you know?" He nodded, turning away from the door, pulling his briefcase up to his chest tightly. Jennifer leaned over the kitchen bar, pulling out a small inset control panel from the surface. She wasn't, Troy noticed, averting his eyes, wearing a bra. "Here's the environment controls," she said, walking over, head dipped to peer at the control panel, gesturing at it until menus lit up on the screen. "Lighting, temperature, all for the main room, you can also get the apartment's on the television on wireless interface four. Uhm," she bit at her lip lightly, looking up at him and offering it out. "Did you actually manage to eat anything at the function hall?" He shook his head wordlessly, putting down his briefcase to accept the control panel. "Me either," She nodded, turning back to the kitchen. She briefly reached up to settle one of the straps of her dress firmly over a shoulder as she bustled past the kitchen bar, tail swaying behind her from her walk, an almost sultry gait. "Sandwiches okay? Cheese, ham, peanut butter, uh," she read off the screen on the fridge, adding to the list. He dragged his thumb over the panel until it returned to the main menu, set it down. He didn't want to switch from her presets. "I like peanut butter," he replied, glancing after her. Jennifer smiled, a pretty curl at the side of her muzzle, pleased. "There's some wholewheat I can toast for you, if you like." And so in five minutes Troy was chewing on toast spread with peanut butter. Peanut butter. After he'd been released, it was the first piece of food anyone might call a treat he'd had in his life. Peanut butter sandwiches in a dingy little bar owned by someone sympathetic to furs when he was fourteen. She'd probably never realize how at home it made him felt. They traded small talk, while she leaned up against the counter, occasionally chewing on a slim piece of ham. She didn't seem to mind when he glanced up at her, stared off into the distance. So after a time, he stopped glancing away so often. "-It didn't really matter, of course, but we always ended out wondering why he did it," Jennifer continued, finishing her story with a shrug and a smile. She shook out her arm, shaking her wristwatch about to get a glance at the time. "Alaska." Troy shook his head slowly. "It's a far way to go," he concluded, sipping down the last of the water she'd given him after the snack. Trailing a hand on the counter, she stepped around, moving for the couch. She lifted a shoulder smoothly as she passed by him. "I certainly wouldn't want to live up there. Anyway," she said, bending over beside the couch, the folds of her dress tightening over her buttocks as she did. "That's life." she started running her fingers beneath the edge of the couch's base panel. "Oh!" Troy got up with a start as she started hauling, moving close beside her he reached down, running his fingers along the padded edge of the couch's panel, beside her own. "Let me, uh... let me help you with that." "Thank you," she breathed in his ear, suddenly closer than he'd realized. She gently put her hands over his, guiding his fingers over a latch. "It's pretty straightforward." The flesh beneath his fur tingled with her touch. His ear felt hot where she'd whispered to him. He nodded numbly, unlatching and pulling the couch open to reveal an unadorned blue mattress's surface. As she straightened, her hip brushed against his. Jennifer smoothed down the hem of her dress, running a hand along her thigh to do so, cocking a shoulder with a smile. "Well. I better go and get you some sheets. The, ah, bathroom's over there if you need it." Troy tugged at his dress shirt's collar and dry swallowed, still crouched down as she looked him over. "Ah, if you don't mind me using your shower, that'd be great." She nodded brightly, then. "Sure." She stepped back towards her bedroom, adding, "just be comfortable, Troy." How could he be comfortable, with that bulge in his pants? Jennifer's bathroom seemed large. Almost too large. The femme's apartment, come to think of it, seemed just a little too large and expensive for a secretary. Anxiety gnawed at him while he undressed, piling his clothes on the upturned lid of a laundry hamper, along with his small bottle of soap. She couldn't be single. He shouldn't think about her like this. But she was pretty, beautiful really. Sexy, too. Very sexy. As usual, Troy's train of thought was broken while he fiddled with his left hand. The prosthetic wasn't exactly waterproof. It soaked up water worse than a sponge, leaving the exterior cover bloated and prone to tear or shed fur. He grasped an empty towel rail with it, keeping his grip tight as he searched around in the back of his mind for the right command to give it. As usual, it was a sick feeling in the back of his throat. A kind of cold feeling along the bridge of circuitry, a sensation that didn't exist in his natural mind. His left hand went numb. He reached out with his right, picking at the line of skin and fur before folding it back. He found the catch switch, mounted into his prosthetic hand underneath its fake flesh. Switching it off, he pulled back. The hand remained in place on the towel rail, keeping its grip. The stump of his arm felt cold, with its scarred pink flesh and plastic-ceramic sockets left exposed. But those were waterproof. He entered the shower cubicle, naked, pausing to twitch his tail inside before closing the shower's glass door. The console lit up with the snick of the shower door. A custom model, he realized from the menu's options. Glancing around, he noted the covered vents of warm air blowers, for drying. There were a pair of shower heads, one on a flexible hose. Her shampoos were lined up on a shelf, and he set his own bottle beside them carefully. She kept combs and brushes in the shower. Not something he'd seen anyone do before. He selected the temperature and water pressure he wanted from the most familiar of the menu sections, and once again set to fumbling with his bottle of soap, clenching it between his teeth while popping open the cap, returning it to his mouth while he scrubbed up a lather in his fur. Then the usual routine set in, and his mind began to wander again, imagining Jennifer using this shower, what she looked like drenched, grooming the fur on her throat and stomach and breasts and- Knock Knock. "Uh?" The door opened, and through the drop speckled glass Troy saw Jennifer walk in, blurred, but plainly with a grey towel over her arm. "Thought you might want a towel," she said brightly, pausing beside the towel rack. She'd see his hand, was his first thought, shortly followed by the one that this glass, even if steamed up, was hardly blurry enough for his own modesty's sake. "Uh..." She paused a moment, glancing down while getting the towel over the bar. He could easily see the slow sway of her tail against the gray-blue of her dress as she worked. Don't be freaked out, he silently prayed. "Aaanyway," she drawled, turning to leave with no comment at the prosthetic hand hanging on her towel rack. Did she glance back at him? Through the water drops on the glass he couldn't tell, "Enjoy your shower," she teased, sashaying back through the door. "Uhm, thank you!" he called, suddenly gulping for breath. She giggled as she shut the door, a pleasant sound, one that made his heart beat faster, and he glanced down. He sucked in another breath, squeezing his eyes shut in embarrassment. Oh god. He cringed against one of the shower doors, lightly bumping the back of his head against the tiling for a few minutes. Enjoy yourself. Troy flattened his only hand across his face. Well, she probably probably hadn't missed the pink of his erect penis against his almost black fur, fogged up shower door or no fogged up shower door. Between the shower's hot air blowers and the towel she'd left, Troy found himself drier than he usually was after a shower. His fur was light and fluffy almost immediately, instead of waiting around for twenty minutes feeling like a, ha, drowned rat. Wearing a fresh pair of undershorts from his briefcase's meagre assortment of clothing and seated on the side of the fold-out bed, Troy swallowed nervously again, staring at the pieces of Jeane's phone he'd set out carefully on the white bedsheets. Intellectually, he knew he should be thinking about how to repair the phone. Practically, however, his mind was stuck on Jennifer. She'd made the bed for him, and he could smell her on the sheets. A dry, almost dusky odour that he couldn't describe to himself satisfactorily. She was in the shower now, and he could hear the faint roar of droplets pitter pattering against the shower door glass. Against her. It was silly. She couldn't be single, not with a place like this. All too soon her shower ended, and he heard the blowers start up. Not something humans generally needed, but for furs... God, it had been useful. He wished he could install one in his little apartment out by the university, but he didn't think the terms of his rent contract would allow it. Besides, it was expensive. And one didn't just get that kind of money for being a secretary of all things. The bathroom door clicked open, and Troy tried not to stare as Jennifer stepped out, fog pooling around her feet. Her feet were almost like paws, reshaped with bone and collagen implants like his own, but she seemed to take a natural gait that put most of her weight on her toes. She left damp patches from the pads of her soles on the tiles, then as she moved further along and onto the amerindian patterned rug. She looked up with a smile, adjusting the towel wedged up under her armpits. "Don't mind me," she offered, "I'm sure you want some sleep by now." Troy felt a thickness in his throat, and he nodded quickly. "Ah, yeah." Eyes dipped to the floor, her wet trail of prints, he added, "Ah, good night, Jennifer." Jennifer smiled even a little more brightly at that, nodding her head. "You too. And sweet dreams," she offered, slipping towards her bedroom door. She paused beside the wall console next to her door, glancing over her shoulder to ask, "You want the lights out?" Her damp hair was mostly in a folded towel on her head, flattening her ears, but a little curled down, framing her face, the line of her muzzle, the seductive darkness of her lips. Troy forced himself to look away. "Ahh, yeah. Thanks." He began picking up the pieces of cellphone. He'd deal with it tomorrow, maybe while she was out with her boyfriend... if there was one. She paused a long moment by the doorframe. "You sure there's nothing else I can do for you?" He shook his head. With the beep of a menu, he was suddenly in darkness. "Ah," he started, looking up before she'd quite gotten her bedroom door shut. "Jennifer?" "Mmm?" she glanced out from behind the door, pulling the towel off her head with one hand. "Are you single? I mean, this apartment is kinda..." "Oh, no," she shook her head. Something cold grabbed Troy's heart. "No, the apartment's a job perk, I work for the owners. And I'm not with anybody right now. I live alone." Troy's ears tensed, perking with tension. That had been a little frightening. He nodded again, rapidly, taking a relieved breath. Which caught in his breath as she asked, "You?" "Oh, uhm, yeah." He flapped a hand rapidly beside his face, scratching at the air as if it'd explain things for him. "I haven't really been able to, ah, hold down a relationship." The idiocy of what he was saying struck him. Why would she want to get involved with a guy who couldn't have a decent relationship with a woman? She tilted her head slowly. "Huh." A smile twisted at her lips. "I wouldn't have thought so. You're a nice guy, Troy. I like you." "Uh, thank you," he choked out, not believing his ears, which were hot with embarrassment. His heart hammered inside his chest. "I, uhm... think you're very beautiful, Jennifer." She smiled then, just a little crookedly, catching a finger between her teeth. "Well. Thank you, Troy." He looked up at her. The moment stretched, and he looked away nervously. "Uhm. Goodnight." Jennifer smiled a little wistfully. "I'll see you in the morning, then." She shut the door, and Troy took a heaving breath. Setting the bits and pieces of the cellular phone down on a coffee table, he forced himself to stop rubbing nervously at his neck in the darkness. He lay back on the bed, pulling open the blankets and ducking his legs underneath them. He rubbed at his prosthetic arm for a moment, before deciding on unclipping his wristwatch and setting it down amongst the cellphone detritus. He stared into the darkness, thinking. Not absolute darkness, though. A thin line of light sliced across the ceiling over his head. He glanced around, looking for the source. Jennifer's bedroom door, open ever so slightly. She probably didn't realize it, because he could hear her humming gently, see the slight shine of a mirror through the door. Her arm passed across the narrowly open door, carrying a towel. Something dark blocked out the light, and his breath caught in his throat again. It was a thin part of her silhouette, the inner curve of her leg as she just stood there. He saw her drag a brush over her leg, a flash of the shadow of her tail. He really shouldn't look, he told herself. Jennifer shifted posture, muscles of her side and thigh flexing as she drew the brush over another part of her body. She seemed to sway with with tune she hummed, and he heard a light slap as she clapped one of her hands against her bare buttock. Turning, in the shadow of her silhouette he saw, briefly, the tiger stripes crossing the tawny pattern of her fur across her backside. And then, thankfully, she turned away from the thin crack in the door, still humming. He almost didn't dare to take a breath, eyes wide. He shouldn't look, shouldn't invade her privacy like that. Then again, she had barged into the bathroom while he'd been showering. He forced himself to roll over, stare at the dark walls, but when he heard her humming again Troy couldn't resist just glancing back. He felt a guilty pleasure. The paler white of her stomach was visible, reflected in the mirror. The curve of her hip, a faint shadow cast by the side of her pelvis. She swayed again, side to side, and he could make her out bending over. She pulled up a white pair of panties, fingers hooked through the straps. She stepped side to side, pulling them up enough to outline the curve of her crotch. She turned away from the mirror then, humming away, her striped buttocks visible for a moment or two longer. She reached back, running her fingers underneath the waistband of her underwear, plucking it with a percussive snap against her fur as she hummed. He breathed a little easier when she turned off her light, but still he found himself staring at the darkness of her bedroom, beyond the door. This was insane. He barely knew her. It could only be lust. He'd only met her maybe three or four hours ago. But the way his heart beat when she'd given him that toast, the gentle calm she'd given him when she'd offered him an alternative to dealing with the hotel staff. That was something else. Maybe. Or maybe he was just trying to tell himself it was more than lust to get past the guilty thrill he'd had watching her. Confusion rolling in his head, Troy forced himself to roll over, twisting his arm so he could leave his prosthetic hand to lightly rest on the covers. It was so late the birds were singing outside. He'd had trouble staying asleep, waking up every so often with memories of his childhood. It never took long for him to remember where he was, who was in the next room over. What had she doing last night? Seducing him? At some guilty level, Troy hoped so. It was irrational. How much did he know about her? She was a secretary, she had a nice apartment, beautiful eyes, a voice that made him shudder when he thought of it gracing his ear. But how much could she know about him? He and his brothers had been reported on in the news when they'd been released, but that was fifteen years ago. Troy had been around ten years old at the time. His run had been one of the first of the fourth generation, so he was likely two or three years older than Jennifer and her sisters. Unlikely that she'd have been reading newsfeeds at eight. But she'd heard his speech. And, he realized, she said she'd known Monaco in college. Monaco. God. Thinking about him hurt. Monaco and Osaka. Troy lifted his hands to his face, pushing his fists against his forehead. A year ago, during the brothers' mutual birthday party. Monaco and Turin had come back to San Iadras to celebrate with Florence and Dallas. Not everyone had made it back, Troy had been busy sifting through research articles in German with the help of translation software. Then he'd gotten a call. Turin was in tears over the phone. Dallas couldn't speak. It'd taken him twenty minutes to get the story out of his brothers, finally getting the last of it out of Florence. It had turned out that, unannounced, Osaka had snuck into town to join in on the festivities. He and Monaco had started talking over dinner. Monaco was the history buff, Osaka studying genetics under a scholarship from Estian Incorporated. Monaco called it a betrayal, since it was Estian that had used them like... like lab rats in the first place. Osaka disagreed. There had apparently been one hell of a shouting match after the two of them had downed a few drinks. Enough of one to leave Dallas shaking for hours. That, Troy had hoped, would be the end of it. But two months later, Troy got another call. This time from Osaka's landlord, in Argentina. Osaka hadn't wanted to talk to anyone after the fight with Monaco, hadn't wanted to go outside. He'd just kept to himself, too hurt after his fight with Monaco to do anything but just sit in his conapt, alone, working gene sequencing simulations from his workstation. Doctors were scary. Osaka hadn't wanted to go to them for his lower back pain, the general malaise he'd felt. No. He'd just kept to himself, quietly passed into a coma and died two days later of something so mundane, so preventable as renal failure. Troy'd flown down, spent some time with the undergraduates Osaka'd had helping him with his research. They'd shown him the miserable conapt Osaka owned, the tiny bed he'd wedged underneath his workstation and crawled into to die in. Perfect place for a mouse to die, cramped and dark and dingy. Almost like underneath the floorboards. All the Salcedo brothers descended on San Iadras from the four corners of the earth for the funeral. Afterward, Monaco had gotten angry as all hell over the whole thing, unhappy with the funerary arrangements. Unhappy with how Osaka had died. He blamed everyone, for not looking in on Osaka enough, for not consulting with him over the funeral plans. Blaming everyone for everything, but most of all blaming himself, Troy thought. Troy, Orleans, Nagoya, Philadelphia, Denver and Sydney had been the pallbearers. It was Denver's first time, Troy's Seventh. He remembered each time all too clearly. Houston's coffin was shockingly light, he'd wasted away on some weird variation on Tuberculosis none of the doctors in Japan could deal with after the labs had been closed down. God, how Houston had loved physics. Those crazy general relativity paradoxes of his York... York had killed himself. Rat poison. Christ, he'd had a black sense of humour. Lagos died of loneliness. Or near as good as, miserable and alone, playing with Russian supercolliders almost obsessively. Pneumonia. It was immune to antibiotics. The medical staff had given them out like candy back in the lab, made every bug the brothers carried dangerously resistant. Paris was killed, but he died slow. Stabbed eight times by some fundamentalist crazy out in Texas. Troy'd given a piece of his liver, Turin and Nashville donated stem cells, everybody else gave blood. He'd died slow. But not slow enough to let him finish writing his book on the life of Nietzsche. Toledo got a cancer relapse - most of the brothers had suffered something cancerous at one time or another - and all the bone marrow donations the doctors allowed the brothers to make couldn't keep him alive. He just faded away, until he was just furless skin and bones. Nashville. Nashville just hadn't been looking both ways. He'd gotten run over in Dubai, a drunk driver. None of the medical facilities could handle his unique physiology. They'd even tried calling in a veterinarian. And then Osaka. Poor, poor Osaka. Troy had been pallbearer for all of his brothers, bar three. Springfield, Kiev, and Berlin. None of them had gotten funerals. Back in the lab, as children, they'd killed Springfield for spare organs to patch up Dallas, back when Dallas'd been sick. The rest of them, on ice, had variously saved the lives of Paris, Sydney and Troy. The other remains had been burned. Springfield didn't even struggle when they put him under for the dissection. With his last words, he'd asked if Dallas was going to be okay. They made York help. Forced York to help cut up Springfield and let him haemorrhage until he exsanguinated on the operating table. No wonder York eventually killed himself. Kiev hadn't done much better. The testbed cybernetics they used on him were badly installed, so they'd had to open him back up and rip the circuitry out of his spine. He ended up paralysed, and then they took him aside and starting using him to see just how much punishment one fur's nervous system could take. Thank god, the doctors hadn't wanted any of the brothers to 'assist', too interested in what damage they'd done to Kiev. Berlin died just a few months before they'd taken the brothers out of the lab. Leukaemia, the doctors had said. That time they'd made Troy help with the autopsy. With the stump of his wrist and his spine wired into the surgery interfaces. Maybe it was just running away, shunning the whole thing that'd made Troy give up on medicine and study chemistry. Radioactive metal alloys, thank god, didn't remind him about any of it. All the horrors of the labs. Just a couple of miles from this nice fold-out couch and the pretty femme in the next room. There'd been two-dozen mice to start out with. Now there were just fourteen. Maybe he'd be next, thought Troy. Follow York's example, maybe. Or end up with cancer. But then who would Florence call for advice when Dallas had another of his nightmares? Who'd help Turin book his plane tickets? Who'd Boston get to read the first drafts of his papers? He rolled over and tried to get a little more sleep. He only managed it when he put his mind off his brothers, and onto that pretty femme just a not-quite closed door away. Morning found him seated at Jennifer's kitchen bar, hunks of cellphone carefully held together with his watchstrap. He picked at the light blue T-shirt he'd pulled on after waking up again, though there was enough sunlight to make waiting out the morning easier than sleeping again. The interface display of the phone was a worrying green. One of the organic wafers was probably dying. That Iggy kid really had done a number on the phone. He'd traded data firmware between his phone and Jeane's last night, though, so he still had his interface software loaded in it. The vaguely incomprehensible sine waves of sensor thresholds flickered on the countertop display. Jennifer's bedroom door creaked as she pushed it open, glancing down while she tied a terry-cloth robe shut around her waist. "Good morning," she offered with a smile. Troy reached up to scratch at the side of his neck, glancing up at her while keeping his muzzle dipped towards the console screen and it's outputs. He watched as she reached up, ruffling her red hair and scrunching at it with her fingers, the way her shoulders moved so fluidly, her slender arms dropping back to her sides. She stepped up, head tilted. "What's all that?" she enquired, ears perked with interest. Troy dry swallowed, tearing his eyes from where the cloth of her robe brushed against his elbow and down to the display. "Ah, your door's sensor profile," he explained, running his finger along the sine curves. "That's the relative strength of input it wants before deciding someone's walked through, so it can shut, and here," he said, trailing a finger to where it flattened, "is where it knows to shut itself." He tapped the first half, adding, "if you graph these differently you'll get a kind of humanoid shape, head and shoulders." "Huh." She leaned forward a little, slender muzzle dipping as she peered at the display. "And I thought fixing copy-printers was technical." She glanced up at him, her eyes bright with the morning's light. "So you're teaching my door not to bite? I didn't really think you'd bother," she trailed off. Troy found his ears going all hot and flushed again. "Ah, yeah," he replied, twisting his gaze back to the display. He ran his fingers over the alternative settings file he'd put together, bringing it up. He pointed at a meaningless squiggle, explaining, "That'll make it keep an eye out for tails. It's, uhm." She tilted her head slightly, smiling. "Really kind of you," she supplied. Troy reached up nervously again, dragging his fingernails through the fur on his neck. He nodded mutely, then. "If you say so," he ventured, before pressing his lips together, hard, and glancing away. "Thank you," she said, leaning in. She buried her muzzle against the side of his face, a damp peck of her lips. Troy shut his eyes lightly as she drifted past, around behind the kitchen's bar. He tried to hang onto that moment. Then he heard her open the fridge. "Oh, uh," Troy stammered, pulling himself straight in his seat and carefully setting aside the damaged phone. "I was, uh... I was wondering what your plans for today were, since, uhm," he nervously watched her pause, a jug of milk in hand. "I rather hoped," he added with a nervous twitch of his head, a kind of half nod to a side, incomplete, "that I could buy you breakfast, somewhere." She seemed frozen, a doe in headlights, before she slowly set the jug back down in the fridge. "I'd like that." She glanced down as she straightened, her ears perked while she smoothed down the pale fur over her throat. She paused just a moment, before adding, "I've got a little shopping to do. A little busy tonight, but I'm really free otherwise." "Well, maybe I could help you with that, and." And? Troy scratched at the fur beside his jaw, "maybe we could find something to do afterwards." She nodded, rapidly. "Okay." She backed away from the fridge, slipping back towards her bedroom. She glanced down at her feet, suddenly, lightly biting her lip. "It's, it's been awhile since a guy took me out for the day. Kind of a nice surprise. Let me just go get dressed," she added, pointing back into her room, "And we can find somewhere for that breakfast." He nodded in turn. "Great." The door shut behind her, and almost immediately he nearly tripped over his own feet heading to his briefcase laying open on the bed. Hurriedly he closed the top on the document section and flipped it open, popping the laundry compartment's lid to reveal the meagre collection of clothes he'd allotted himself for his trip out here. Damnit, Damnit, Damnit! What had he been thinking when packing? Well, clearly not that he'd need to dress up for anything other than the function last night. He pulled his black dress shirt, wrinkled, on over his T-shirt, rolling up the sleeves and hurriedly cuffing them down, leaving it open and loose. He only had two pairs of pants, his trousers that matched his jacket and the slacks he'd worn flying in. The slacks'd be okay. Maybe. Hurriedly, Troy yanked on his slacks, taking a few moments more than necessary to deal with the buttoned flap for his tail. What was he thinking? Just asking a woman out for the day with no plans? At some level he felt ill. On the other, he'd already come this far, and she seemed nice. Yanking on a spare pair of socks, Troy wished he'd brought his other pair of shoes. Black leather didn't quite seem casual enough, but they were all he'd brought with him. He hurried through tying his shoelaces, finishing all too rapidly. Troy breathed hard, trying to think. He glanced up at her door, thankful he'd finished dressing in time. In time for what? Women don't just change clothes in an instant and burst out of their rooms expecting to leave right now. ... Did they? Troy dry swallowed, pulling his wallet from last night's trousers and stuffing them into a pocket and moving his lapel pin from his jacket to his shirt. He took his wristwatch from the cellphone and put it back on, took a deep breath, and went to brush his teeth. No reason to rush things. None at all. He fiddled with his short, almost fur-length hair in front of the mirror, wishing he had some kind of good scent to wear. He eventually settled for washing his face in the sink. When he came up for air after the scrubbing, she was standing there, a faint smile on her lips, wearing a pair of maroon shorts and a black halter top, leaving her back bare. "Oh, uh, hi." Troy smiled lamely. She held up a towel, patted at his chest where an errant splash of water had dampened it. She pressed her hand lightly against his chest after a moment, nose down as she leaned into his space. "Hey," she replied. "Uhm. I need to brush my teeth, and, bathroom stuff." Troy nodded slowly, watching her pad lightly with the towel. "Yeah." She sniffed at his chest lightly, before setting the towel down, and she grinned crookedly. "and with two people in here, it's just a little weird." Troy blinked, wide eyed, and he drew back from her. "Oh, uh, of course, sorry." He smiled tightly as he edged around her, back to the living room. She glanced back over a shoulder, the halter top showing her bare back down to where dark stripes began crossing her fur. "See you in a bit, huh?" "Yeah," Troy replied, rubbing his forehead sheepishly. A moment later he realized he didn't know where he was taking her, he'd just... offered. He picked up the cellphone, cradling it so it didn't fall apart without the strap, and dialled a familiar number. His own voice greeted him. "Hello?" "It's Troy. Florence?" "Hey, Troy. No, it's Dallas. Let me get him." "Thanks." A moment passed, and another voice took up the phone. "Troy?" "Hey Florence. Look, uh. I haven't been in town awhile. Where's a good place to take a girl for breakfast?" Florence chuckled. "Ooh, Troy. Didn't think I'd hear that from you. That nice little grey tabby girl from last night?" Troy swallowed. "No, uh. That was Dallas." A pause, just longer than a heartbeat. "Oh." Florence tried not to sound disappointed. Shocked, perhaps. "It's one of the Dixons, those canid women. She's letting me crash on her couch, and I wanted to do something nice, you know." "Oh, well," Florence paused, as if to gather his thoughts. "You remember that bar Fred used to manage, out near the furry district?" "Mm. Of course." "He owns the place now, you should drop in to see him," Florence continued, distractedly. "Uh, anyway. Up on the top floor of the canyon the bar's in, west side, that's nearer the river, there's a little garden on the rim, in the light of the mirrors. Next to that there's a coffee shop, it's just a Tyrel's, but it's nice outside in the mornings." Troy tried to fix it all in his mind, "Right. A Tyrel's. Tyrel's is good. Thanks Florence." A deep breath. "No problem, Troy. You might want to drop by, say hello to Fred. He's not so well lately." "Sure. Bye." "Bye. And really, see Fred." Troy hung up, by the very simple process of not quite accidently letting the cellular phone twist in his hand before he could get to the buttons, and enough pieces lost contact to shut it down. With a click of her sandals, Jennifer returned, a pair of sunglasses in her hair, with the slightly tight sides that'd hold against a fur's face, rather than try and deal with the oddities of the various furry genotype's ears. She pulled her purse onto her shoulder, tilting her head a little. "So where are we going?" "You like Tyrel's?" Troy ventured, packing the bits of cellphone into his pocket. Jennifer moved up beside him, looping her arm around his elbow. "I love Tyrel's," she replied.