The Way to a Man’s Heart by TheMightyKhan

The Way to a Man’s Heart

TheMightyKhan, Ass, Athletic, Big Boobs, Blowjob, Breast, Cock, College, Compassion, Cowgirl, Europe, European, Female, Growth, Handjob, Head, Human, Love, M/F, Missionary, Modern, Muscle, Muscles, Passion, Realistic, Red, Riding, Romance, Sex, Teen, Teenager, Teenagers, Tiger, Vanilla, Voluptuous, Young Love, Young Romance, affection, big, bodybuilder, clothed, clothes, east, eastern, fit, hair, hand, job, poland, polish, redhead, slavic, sports

#1 of The Way to a Man's Heart

A sweet piece about a college romance.

The Way to a Man's Heart

(It may be illegal for you to read this sexually explicit story, depending on your age and jurisdiction--it's your responsibility to find out what the situation is where you are. If you chose to continue to read after this, then I can't accept any responsibility for your actions. Furthermore, adult themes, foul language, violence, and other inappropriate material may be present throughout, so read at your own discretion. I will not be held responsible for a lack of responsibility on the reader's part.

No one is allowed to take credit for this work apart from me. If you want to use it somehow, I would appreciate it if you were to get in touch with me first.)

(This is going to basically be my take on romance and love. The story is relatively important, in my opinion, as that's what will make the sex scene so satisfying--but I bet most of you perverts are just reading this for the sex, which is cool.

I'm going to write this one mostly from a female perspective. This will be a new experience for me, and you'll have to let me know how it goes. Anyway, the sex won't be extreme, bizarre, or fetish material in any way. It will be vanilla, but (I hope) very compassionate and erotic indeed. There's nothing really dark or violent about this piece at all, except for one or two somewhat dramatic scenes.

As in Medicine, one horizontal rule can be thought of as a chapter delimiter, and two horizontal rules can be thought of as a part delimiter. Foreign words will be used in very limited circumstances, and you should be able to figure them out if not via context clues then via Google. Now, I think that's just about covered it... so, let's rock and roll.)

Suggested Music: Starchamber: Han Som Reiste; Gallhammer: Endless Nauseous Days; Korpiklaani: Vesilahden Verajilla; Sirenia: In Sumerian Haze, Sister Nightfall, Meridian (Acoustic Version); Evanescence: Bring Me to Life; Miriam Stockley: Perfect Day; Guano Apes: Kiss the Dawn; Madison Park: My Personal Moon

Suggested Drinks: Green tea, hot chocolate, protein shakes

Suggested Snacks: Protein bars and vanilla or mint ice cream

Suggested Smokes: Don't smoke! It's bad for you!

Liceum had not been particularly enjoyable for her.

Perhaps it was because she had never exactly been a popular girl, or perhaps it was simply because the awkwardness of late teenage years--when everyone expected her to be as responsible as an adult without letting her enjoy the privileges and pleasures of adulthood--had struck her hard.

Whatever it was that kept her from popularity also kept her from enjoying so many of the other activities she'd once found enjoyable. Her interest in sports had ceased and while it couldn't be said that she spent the last years of her secondary education in depression, it also couldn't be said that she emerged from the standard education system in a good mental, or physical state.

This wasn't to say that she was fat. No, she certainly wasn't fat. She was just... chubby. She could run and climb stairs and the range of motions available to her limbs wasn't hampered in the slightest, but whenever she looked in the mirror, she couldn't help but feel, well, embarrassed. Yet, she didn't have the will to lose weight, though she knew it might bring her some popularity--she rationalized what she knew, deep down, was a great personal weakness by telling herself that if she lost weight then she'd lose her morality, too, and go from partying to drinking to drugs and worse within a fortnight.

And so Kasia Jazinski entered the Warszawa University of Technology at a somewhat unflattering 100 kilograms. Although her 185 centimeter frame dispersed the weight well--and gave her more than substantial curves--there was no denying that she had a lot more of a tummy than she'd have liked.

As much as she had told herself to be content with who she was and what she looked like, the moment she entered university, she was immediately humbled by the sight of so many flat-bellied women... so many flat-bellied women with boys and boys and boys and boys chasing them every minute of every day.

No one chased her. And why would they, when there were so many exotic, beautiful women available: German vixens, Russian wolves, Ukrainian leopards? Kasia was just a Pole, and a human to boot. She wasn't beautiful or exotic in any way--so, the only time boys spoke to her was when they needed the assistance of her considerable intellect to understand a homework problem or study for an exam.

Even though she was an engineering student--even though she was a very rare female engineer--no boys seemed particularly interested in her. No girls seemed particularly interested in her, either, and so Kasia Jazinski entered her second semester at Warszawa University with many, many acquaintances, but not a single close friend.

And then, of course, she met him.

She had arrived early to class, as was her convention, so that she could review notes and material in order to be prepared for the lesson at hand. It was cold out that day, and so she had dressed warm: she wore boots that caused the tapered ends of her dyed jeans to bunch up at her calves, and a thick sweater over an undershirt to keep her upper body warm.

A scarf served to prevent heat from escaping her neck, though she had no intentions of wearing a hood--her hair was one of the few aspects of her body that she took great pride in. It was red, naturally, and such a rich, lively shade of red that many a jealous female had asked her what sort of dye she used. At the moment, Kasia's hair was cut short--it only reached down to her shoulders, and even then, just barely. She intended to grow it out in the future, believing that if she did, it would take attention away from her body and bring it to her face.

And she had a pretty face. Slavic features were obvious, but they were subdued and influenced--just slightly--by either distant Germanic or Scandinavian ancestry. And her fair, almost pale skin was soft and perfect and unmarred by scars or acne so that even on her worst days, Kasia never had to wear any makeup at all.

Unless, of course, she wanted to draw attention to her eyes. And she had lovely eyes. It was as if they were made to contrast with her hair, for her eyes were the deepest, shiniest of blues. They were the precise shade of her father's eyes, though the shimmering quality that largely defined her gaze was something that her mother had given to her. And when she used eyeshadow, she knew that her eyes were mesmerizing enough that boys managed to look past her less than ideal body just for a moment--just long enough to look at her and realize that underneath it all, she really was actually quite attractive indeed.

Still, none had expressed any interest in her whatsoever. And these years--when she was a woman with the body of a girl--were her most attractive. So, if she couldn't attract the interest of any boy, not even a single one... then, there was a very real possibility that she would live out the rest of her life even more alone than she always had been.

These were the grim thoughts that sluggishly flowed through Kasia's mind as she absently turned the pages of a textbook she'd already read cover to cover several weeks before. This was her saddest moment, though the darkness that now enveloped her wasn't exactly brutal--there was just a slow, melancholic acceptance about the way she accepted her lonely fate that would have stunned her if she wasn't so used to being alone.

She thought, for a moment, that it would only be some time before the right one for her entered her life. She thought this, and smiled, sadly, mentally laughing the thought off before it could make her pity herself more.

And then he entered the room.

The first thing about him that struck her was how attractive he was. He was breathtaking, literally, and not just by her standards: he was tall and lean and his facial features were so perfect that it was as if they had been chiseled out of stone by an artist.

It was a full ten seconds before Kasia was able to consider anything apart from the fact that he was simply beautiful. She was blushing, she knew, and staring--but she couldn't stop. It was only in the back of her mind that she realized the he was not a human; he was a tiger, albeit a tiger with the sort of face and bone structure that suggested more than just a breath of human influence.

His fur coloration was not quite normal;it was more than a little on the fair side of the normal rust-orange shade that most tigers wore. Perhaps one of his parents was a golden tabby--that would explain the way his seemingly pure black stripes would occasionally ripple with a reddishness that was difficult to mistake for just a simple trick of the light. Regardless, his coat was beautiful--it was thick and shiny and apparently very fluffy. And yet it clung to his form perfectly, doing nothing to hide his toned figure.

Kasia had thought, at first, that he was simply a toned feline, but as she looked on, she saw that this wasn't so. There was no doubt that he had very little fat on his frame, but he was far from being just skin and bones. He had the build of a lightweight martial artist: his muscles were not large, but they were tough and built for work rather than show. When he stood still, he looked normal, but when he moved it was easy to see the masses of lean flesh moving under his fur.

And, right then, he was moving directly toward Kasia Jazinski.

She realized this when he was just three meters from her, and tried to avert her gaze immediately. She succeeded, somewhat, turning her head so that it was facing forward and yet continuing to examine him through the corner of her eyes. He had dark hair, she realized--very dark hair. It wasn't quite black, but then, it wasn't quite brown, either. It was... an incredibly rich, dark shade of red so close to black that it obsessed her, then and there, for a full five seconds. The way it was neatly cut and flicked up in the front was so perfect that even his hair could have been featured in a magazine of some sort.

And then, when he sat down right next to her, he looked into her eyes and she looked into his--and then, she was obsessed by his chillingly gray visage. She had rarely seen gray eyes before, and she had never seen eyes such a cool, analytical shade of gray... she had never seen anyone with such intelligence and curiosity in his eyes ever before in her life.

They only locked eyes for a moment before Kasia was forced to look away again, this time blushing so furiously that she was sure that her cheeks were the same shade as her hair. This tiger--whoever he was--was simply too beautiful to be real, and far, far too beautiful to have looked at her. After all, he was attractive and lean and tall--she just realized that he was quite tall indeed. He had to be over two meters in height, and that meant that he might well be the tallest male that Kasia had ever seen in her life. He was taller than her father, she noted, and her father towered head and shoulders over every crowd he'd encountered in his life.

He dressed well, too, though his style was unlike anything else she'd ever seen in her life. Just then, he was wearing cargo pants--rather loose and tan in color--a thick, black cloth belt; and a gray tee shirt with some sort of graphic on it over a black long-sleeved thermal. He had pushed the sleeves of his thermal back so that they bunched up just below his elbows, and that meant that he had just been outside without anything to protect his forearms from the biting cold...

His coat must really have been quite thick and effective at its work, indeed. Kasia had lived in Polska all of her life that did not make her invulnerable to extreme cold... but the tiger, it seemed, was. Because although there were small flakes of snow in his fur, his hair, and in the slight amount of black fluff on his chin and cheeks that suggested that he hadn't bothered to shave in some days, he didn't seem chilled in the slightest.

He was moving, she realized, and this made her chance a glance at him again. But it was nothing--he was just taking out his books and his notes and a pen. And he was putting on a pair of glasses, too, that managed to make him look even more attractive than he already did--they made him look stable and wise and mature beyond his years, and Kasia perceived all this before she realized that he didn't have poor vision. He was just farsighted naturally, just like most predators.

How she wanted to talk to him. How she wanted to say hello and hear him say hello back to her, and how much she wanted to go from conversation to holding hands to kissing to so, so much more before the class even finished. She admitted it to herself the moment she realized it--she was infatuated with him.

She, a common human with less than average looks was attracted to a tall tiger with the beauty and the strong, silent sort of demeanor that could make the coldest of women swoon.

She would never have him. They would never be more than acquaintances, and there was doubt that they could even maintain that sort of a relationship. The idea that she could ever be with him--or any other being of such beauty--was so ridiculous that it was laughable.

And yet, Kasia couldn't accept her apparent fate. That she'd never be able to hold a man like him in her arms--so tall, so strong, so attractive and yet so studious and mature, even at the beginning of the semester--it saddened her before it empowered her. She did deserve to be happy, and she did deserve to be with someone like the tiger seated next to her: someone who was beautiful, smart, mature, quiet--someone like who she could be if she put herself to it.

"I'll... I'll lose weight," Kasia thought_. "I should have done it years ago, but now, I swear that I'll do it. I'll start tonight, and I'll become the smartest, most beautiful girl I can. And I'll be interesting--and kind, and polite, and gentle. I'll learn everything about him and I'll become the woman of his dreams, and when I do, he will look at me and he will be astonished by what he sees."_

Kasia was breathless, though she hadn't said a word. Her thoughts were focused in a way that they only ever were when she was doing school work--she could feel her life start to take direction. She would become the sort of woman that deserved a man like the tiger next to her--the sort of woman who deserved the tiger next to her specifically.

Though she didn't want to admit it, Kasia couldn't deny that she didn't just want to become a beautiful woman in order to catch the right man... she wanted to become a beautiful woman to catch him.

Kasia was already starting to become obsessed. But her obsession was not unhealthy, because it had focused her mind and her soul in a way nothing else she'd ever encountered in her life ever had. And although he would be on her mind in her sleep and in her dreams alike, she would not become jealous or hateful if it turned out that he already had a woman. She would just bide her time and slowly enter his life so that when things ended between him and the other one, she would be there for him.

And yet... they had been sitting together, side by side, for a full five minutes absolutely alone in the room. And this was a lecture class, so there was no way of setting herself up to join him in some sort of group for lab work or projects--so, if she wanted to learn something about him, anything--she had to act. Immediately.

And yet, just looking at him made her will falter and die before she could even open her mouth to ask a question. He was... so stern, and serious. She had been told that she looked rather foreboding and humorless when she studied, owing to her height and her quiet nature, but he had both of these qualities as well and exaggerated them greatly. Not only had he not said a word since entering the room, he had barely made a sound--perhaps it was because he was a predator, but Kasia didn't think this was so. She sensed that he was quiet because that was who he was, not because he was born into the large teeth and claws of a fair-furred tiger.

He was doing neither more nor less than looking over the textbook for that class and reviewing some notes he seemed to have already taken on it. Now and then, he would amend this or append that with his pen, but apart from that, he was motionless. He was motionless and stoic and utterly irreverent of the fact that there was another student in the room even as Kasia continued to stare at him, psyching herself up for when she would actually speak to him.

It was a full minute before she managed to clear her throat, softly, yet loudly enough that he looked up from what he was doing, blinked, and then made eye contact her again. When that happened, she almost froze up--but she smiled, a bit uncertainly, and spoke.

"Dzie _?__ dobry_," she said--and that was all. She tried to say more and she tried to think of something more to say, but when he was looking into her eyes like that with such intensity in his gaze that she felt that he was pinning her against a wall and examining every naked centimeter of her, she couldn't.

And so, a moment later, he replied to her two-word greeting in kind: "Dzie? dobry," he said... and that was all.

Then he looked away from her and got back to his notes.

There had been no conversation, and Kasia had found out almost nothing about him. No, that wasn't true--she could tell from his accent and his appearance and his apparent fluency in Polish that he was Slavic as well. Perhaps he was Ukrainian or Russian?... she wasn't sure, but she was fairly certain that he wasn't Polski. No, he certainly wasn't Polski--no people of the Polski race were tigers, and she had never heard an accent like his before in her life.

And so, again, Kasia psyched herself up to talk to him. This time it didn't take so long--after all, he hadn't laughed at her or ignored her the way she feared he might have. In fact, he didn't seem mean at all... just, perhaps, a little on the cold side.

"You don't sound Polski," Kasia said a moment later. He blinked and looked up at her again, and she smiled before continuing. "Where are you from? I have not seen you on campus before," she queried.

"I transferred here from Praha University," the tiger said. "And they have accepted me for this semester... if I do well enough, I'll be able to continue my studies here. Otherwise, I'll have to go back to ?eská republika... my home country."

After answering in a businesslike, almost curt tone, the tiger seemed to realize something. He suddenly smiled at Kasia, very briefly, but in a manner that drove the attractiveness she found in his features to new heights. She felt herself blush again, even as he held his paw out to her.

"My name is Alex Kralik," the tiger said, as Kasia shyly reached forward and allowed his paw to encompass her comparatively weak, slender, human hand. He could literally crush her appendage in his grasp, she realized--but she trusted him instinctively.

And her nervousness was unwarranted. As she introduced herself in turn, Alex only squeezed her hand very gently, and his paw was soft to boot. When their handshake finished, the tiger withdrew his furred appendage, though... and went back to his notes.

This hurt Kasia, a little bit, but she realized that he wasn't being intentionally unfriendly or rude to her. It was just his nature not to chat, and Kasia knew exactly what it was like to be the sort of person who didn't like to talk for the sake of talking.

There was nothing further to be gained by talking, at least for the moment. And Kasia knew that Alex Kralik's somewhat cold nature would keep other females interested at bay, so at least she wouldn't have to worry about competition.

With that in mind, Kasia turned back to her notes and drowned out the world around her by focusing on the equations and the concepts she was quickly beginning to memorize. Other students began to enter, and in time, the professor did as well, and even though Kasia paid much more attention to the lesson than most of her classmates, she was always thinking about the tall, quiet tiger at her side, and what she would do to someday make him hers.

Class finished, and Kasia was careful to put her things into her messenger bag as quickly as she possibly could. Even so, she was almost too slow to get up and leave the lecture hall around when Alex did--when he wanted to be quick, the tiger was almost frighteningly quick. He closed his books and put them in his backpack and pocketed his pen and zipped everything up and stood up and left almost quicker than blinking, leaving Kasia struggling to close her own bag for a full five seconds before she, too, could get up and go.

The two of them were, of course, the first to leave. Alex seemed to notice that Kasia was behind him--his ear flicked the slightest bit when they walked through the doorway leading into the hall--but he didn't say anything. Kasia allowed him to pull away from her and pretended to be interested in her cell phone for some reason in order to prevent him from thinking that she was following him, because that was exactly what she was doing.

It wasn't a minute before the two of them were out in a large courtyard that had connections to several important academic buildings. A number of classes had ended, just then, and that was good because the sudden pedestrian traffic in the area meant that Alex was extremely unlikely to notice her, following him at a distance and looking to see what he was doing and where he was going. But the sheer number of talking, texting, laughing university students meant that despite her height, Kasia had a hard time keeping track of where the tiger was, much less what he was doing and what he was doing.

She managed to do it, though, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Alex's room was in her building. She watched him make his way toward the entrance of the relatively modern dormitory and considered following him in, if just to sit down for a moment and enjoy the warmth of the common room before heading to the library to get some studying and homework done--but then she thought better of it.

Kasia watched the cuffed tip of the tiger's tail vanish from sight with a sense of longing that she couldn't deny. But she also couldn't deny that no matter how friendly and polite and kind and talkative she was around Alex, he would never feel the sort of affection she desired from him as long as she looked the way she did. Or, perhaps he would--she doubted it, but perhaps under his cold, silent exterior, he was a being more affectionate than she could easily conceive. But even if Alex fell in love with her the way she'd fallen in love with him, she would never feel as if she'd earned it unless she achieved a level of physical fitness that would let her look in the mirror without feeling embarrassment.

For that reason, Kasia was making her way off campus. She left campus often enough to buy groceries and other general supplies, but she almost never left campus to entertain herself in any manner. And in a sense, that day was no exception.

It took Kasia about a half hour of walking to get to one of the more fashionable clothing outlets in the city. She'd been there once or twice before with her family, and although that had been years and years before, she still remembered how expensive the clothes were, and how they seemed to be made only for people with perfect bodies. There were no vanity sizes and there were no plus sizes and even as she entered the store, Kasia felt completely out of place.

Even the customers there were perfect. Everywhere she looked, Kasia saw tall, muscular men with cleft chins and blonde-haired, blue-eyed women with slim frames and plenty of curves. It was intimidating, certainly, but Kasia did not let herself be frightened away. There was no doubt about it--she did not belong in that business as a customer. This sentiment was expressed to her dozens of times over--not verbally, but in the way the staff and the other patrons looked at her. They stared at her and snickered and made snide little comments to one another, but Kasia did not leave the store until she had purchased a full 900 z?worth of clothing, not one article of which could possibly fit her.

That is--not one article of the clothing she had just purchased could possibly fit her at her present physical state.

But as she walked back toward campus, Kasia knew that she didn't have to look the way she presently did forever. She wasn't bound to being 100 kgsfor the rest of her life--and she'd been slim for most of her life anyway! She had only got to being--she winced as she thought it--fat by being irresponsible with herself for years. If she worked hard--if she really applied herself to it, there was nothing stopping her from slimming down. There was also nothing stopping her from becoming--not built, like Alex was, but toned, at least.

Perhaps she was being overenthusiastic, for the moment. If she set goals that were unrealistic or years away from her grasp, she might well frighten herself into acceptance, which was the absolute last thing she wanted.

This was not to say, of course, that Kasia would go easy on herself. As she walked, she wrote down her objectives for the coming weeks and months in a notebook she used as both a diary and an agenda book. Some of them would be achieved gradually, but others she would do the moment she got home: she would throw away all of her junk food and she would visit the school gym that night before she lost an ounce of the raw, unadulterated will that dominated her thoughts right then.

Within a week, she would improve her cooking and her eating habits. She would adhere to a vegetarian diet five days out of the week, and when she ate meat, it would only be lean stuff--she would only eat it to bring her protein intake back to reasonable levels.

Within a month, she would find a pattern that would allow her to visit the gym every day.

And before another semester had passed, she would fit into every single article of clothing she'd bought earlier that day. And before her college years were over, she would make that tall, beautiful tiger who called himself Alex Kralik love her as much as she loved him.

Kasia had to hand it to herself--she was doing a lot better than she had thought. She'd already spent a full half hour on an elliptical, and although she was breathing hard and sweating, she knew that she had at least another fifteen minutes left in her. And that wasn't at all bad for someone who hadn't done any strenuous physical activity in months, or much, much longer than that indeed.

It had been somewhat difficult for her to find clothes suitable for exercise, but quickly enough Kasia had found a pair of athletic shorts that still fit as well as a tank top that didn't make her look too ridiculous--no, fat, she admitted to herself with another wince. After that, she had gone directly to the gym, simply inconsiderate of the fact that it was freezing cold outside and she was dressed like it was a hot summer day.

She was lucky--no one was in that gym right then. She didn't have to worry about what anyone looking at her and snickering as she spent a few moments figuring out how to get the seated bicycle to work and then spent a few more getting into the rhythm of pumping her legs, repeatedly, at high intensity and without rest.

After that, it was simply a contest between the machine's ability to exhaust her and her will to continue.

At first, it had been close--Kasia had been unsure of herself and didn't know how hard she could safely push herself. But then she had started to get used to what it was like to sweat and breathe hard again, and at that point, she had known that she could burn at least 500 calories that afternoon alone.

Too keep herself occupied, she had brought along a series of notes for her next class--scheduled for some hours later--that she had prepared well before the semester had even started. She had a number of questions about not just the minutiae of the subject, but some of the more basic concepts as well and that worried her. She planned to stay after class to talk to the professor if her confusion wasn't cleared up in class...

The door to the gym opened, and immediately Kasia felt her concentration and her dedication break. She had better just stop and leave immediately before someone saw her and started to make fun of her; she wouldn't be able to stand it if she was ostracized from her peers even more--

Though she only caught a glimpse of his eyes via their reflection on a polished school spirit display set up near the entrance of the gym, she recognized them immediately. She knew that they could only have one owner in the world: Alex Kralik.

Alex Kralik. Alex Kralik was in the gym with her. The idea itself almost shocked her--she froze up for a few seconds, and by the time she realized that she had to go before he saw her making a fool of herself, he had seen her.

For a terrible moment, the Pole stared at the tiger, and the tiger stared back at the Pole. She didn't know what she expected--she somehow knew from the moment she had seen Alex Kralik that he was a polite person, and considerate, but even he had to have his limits. And a fatty in the gym that he as good as owned by being in it in his shape certainly crossed more than a few lines.

And then he nodded to her and raised a paw in greeting.

For a second, Kasia was too surprised to react. But then, she shyly smiled at Alex and raised her hand to reciprocate his nonverbal "hello".

She turned back to her notes, then, but she wouldn't have been able to avoid keeping track of what Alex was doing through the corner of her eye if she'd tried. Unlike her, he was no stranger to the gym and it took him no time to figure out what to do or how to do it.

Watching Alex work out--even through the corner of her eye--was quite an experience for Kasia. It was as if he had been constructed to epitomize the nexus of deadly, liquid grace and raw, vicious power that defined felines: he was smooth and quick yet extremely powerful, and he had good stamina to boot. Kasia wasn't an expert by any standard, but it certainly looked like his regimen was not something that most people would ever be able to do, no matter how much they tried.

For a moment, that thought depressed her. How could she ever feel like she deserved Alex when it seemed impossible that she'd ever achieve his level of physical fitness? When Alex was able to benchpress a bar loaded up with she couldn't count how many weights several times in succession, how could she be anything but weak in comparison to him?

And then it occurred to Kasia that there had to be a time when Alex, too, was weak. Even if he had never been fat or out of shape, he had been a cub just a few years ago. He had to have worked up to the shape he was in, she realized--he wasn't born with that body, with those muscles, with the supporting subsystems that allowed him to go from squats to benchpresses to shadow boxing to ab rollers and more without rest.

He had earned his body, and when Kasia saw the strain on his face as he struggled to perform a final series of pull-ups, she saw that he had worked _hard_toearn it.

Maybe she would never get Alex's shoulders, or his abs, or his massive, muscle-bound arms. But as Alex made his way to his own elliptical machine, Kasia resolved that she would achieve her own physical perfection, no matter how hard she had to work t do it.

She didn't interact with Alex again that day. And she also didn't burn 500 calories on the elliptical.

She burned a thousand.

Kasia woke up in a good mood the next morning. Although she was bit sore from her workout the day before, she felt energetic in a way that was almost completely foreign to her. As she prepared for the day, she thought about Alex, of course, but she was not obsessed with him. She simply loved him and that was that.

For breakfast, Kasia used a hot plate to cook egg whites. She sprinkled some black pepper on them and ate them with a banana, a piece of toast, and that was all. She had done her homework the evening before and she had realized that although she was changing her diet, if she wasn't careful, she might literally starve herself. She was a tall girl and so she required a significantly larger intake of calories to safely lose weight than someone of smaller proportions would have.

It would be truly ironic, she thought to herself, if she ended up in worse health than she was by attempting to get back into shape.

Her class schedule that day was a bit heavy, but Kasia would have to find time for both a trip to the gym and her studies. After all, she didn't really have any other hobbies or responsibilities that ought to stop her from conducting her affairs much more efficiently than she had before she met Alex.

As usual, Kasia got to her first class of the day several minutes early. It wasn't an inconvenience to her, really, and it gave her the opportunity to refresh herself of the material to be covered that day and the chance to take a seat at the front of the room before other students began to pour in.

Usually, Kasia was the first person in class. Usually, she sat by herself for at least some time before other early birds began to trickle in.

But that day, Kasia was not alone even when she walked into the lecture hall. Alex was already sitting down and reading by the time she was even in the room.

He acknowledged her again in his own way--with a brief nod and the slightest of smiles. But although Kasia gave him a much longer, much warmer smile in response, he neither said a word nor looked at her for another moment.

And, in a way, that stung. She knew that he wasn't being rude, intentionally or otherwise, and there was no real reason she had to be upset that he wasn't so smitten with her that he wouldn't stare at her smiles. After all, it wasn't as if they were dating--for that matter, they weren't even friends.

Kasia sat down. She took the seat next to Alex's, of course, but he didn't look up when she did. She confirmed this by glancing at him, but that was more of an excuse to get a close look of his angular features than anything else.

After idly opening her bag and taking out her notes for the coming class, Kasia decided that she simply could not think of anything interesting to say to the tiger. And she couldn't just open up a conversation with some comment about the weather or something like that--neither she nor he were interested in or adept with deriving pleasure out of chit-chat.

Perhaps it was enough to simply be around him, then. Maybe if she became a regular part of his life, they would eventually become friends, and then, in time, perhaps they would become more than friends.

Kasia had hit the nail on the head. She didn't know it, of course, and she didn't have time to reflect on how things between her and Alex might progress in the coming days, weeks, months, and years--because just then and completely out of the blue, he began to talk to her.

"Kasia," he addressed her politely, "do you understand how these two concepts are related? The textbook explains it, but I'm not so certain..."

Immediately, the Pole tried to lean over in her seat to see what Alex was talking about, but that didn't work out. She moved to scoot her seat closer to his, but that didn't work out, either, so Alex simply knelt next to her and used a pen to indicate the passage that he was talking about.

It would have been excellent if Kasia was able to explain things to Alex, then, and it would have been ideal if she did so with a degree of certainty, clarity, and understandability that justified his admiration and respect. Unfortunately, she, too, was less than certain about that particular section of reading. It hadn't confused her, exactly, but she didn't have more than a rough idea of how the sections immediately before and after what Alex was talking about were related to one another.

"Well," she began uncertainly, "I'm not sure if they're related in terms of any equations or parameters. But physically," Kasia said, beginning to use her dainty, feminine hands to help her put her thoughts into words, "these two ideas are almost the same. It's just a matter of how you wish to look at the situation, and what sort of results you're interested in. Does that make sense...?"

For a moment, Alex simply stared at the page both of their books were open to. He seemed to have registered what Kasia had been doing with her hands, but he was so perfectly motionless for the next few moments that Kasia was sure that he'd had a seizure or something. And then, of course, things clicked in the tiger's mind so suddenly that she could practically hear it happening.

"You're right," he began, shortly. "They're related in that they can be applied in similar scenarios, and that's all. The equations that follow from these two concepts yield completely different sorts of results, so it seems to follow that... their applicability is a function of what you're trying to achieve."

By the time he was finished speaking, Alex was looking directly at Kasia. No, that wasn't quite right--he wasn't looking at her, he was looking into her with those piercing eyes of his. It was almost as if he was surprised by how smart she was, or how she made him realize how smart he was... or perhaps that wasn't it. Perhaps he was staring into the reflective blue depths of her eyes because it had struck him that, really, she wasn't all that bad looking at all.

For a moment, Alex simply stayed where he was: on his knee at Kasia's side. The two weren't close enough to touch, not quite, but they were close enough that Kasia could feel the ambient heat cast by each of their respective bodies play off of one another. She could also smell Alex in a way that she knew he could smell her from half a mile away--and that thought made her blush, heavily.

Then again, he didn't seem to be disgusted by her. If anything, he seemed to regard her highly; why else would he approach her with a question about their coursework? So, could it be that... he liked the way she smelled?

There was no way to be certain, because, eventually, Alex did return to his seat. He didn't share another word with Kasia for the remainder of their class, and he didn't look at her for more than a second, either.

But this time, when he got up to leave at the end of class, he did so not quite as quickly as she knew he could. He slowed down, just a little bit, so that the two of them could exit the lecture hall side by side.

By the second week of the semester, Kasia had gotten used to her schedule. Most days, it was pretty tough--she was in a program that would give her both a licencjat and a magister in four years--but she always made time to study and visit the gym.

This meant that she saw a lot of Alex, and that he saw a lot of her.

Through a happy twist of fate, they'd come to share many classes, and their workout schedules seemed to have been synchronized by some higher power as well. She was used to coming in to class and finding Alex already there, studying hard and reading until he registered her entry, at which point he'd raise his head and greet her with a word or simply a nod. And if that didn't happen, then she'd be able to sit down first and wait for him to come along a few minutes later, when she could greet him and perhaps coax a few words out of the sullen feline.

Sometimes, he asked her questions about their material, and sometimes, she reciprocated. Other times, the two of them would look up, open their mouths at the same time, and realize that they both had been confused by the same passage or concept--then, they'd smile at one another and nonverbally resolve to pay extra close attention during the lesson.

Unfortunately, though, that didn't always work. Kasia sometimes got the impression that their professors--or at least some of them--simply didn't care very much about teaching undergraduate classes. They skated over the lessons and let class out early and either didn't have office hours posted or didn't respect them. While most students didn't care about this at all, suspecting that a generous grading curve would give them Bs or Cs, Kasia wasn't satisfied with that. Furthermore, she wasn't satisfied with not understanding material that was likely to be prerequisite knowledge for future courses and her career.

And so, by the end of the second week of the semester, Kasia was looking at alternative options for understanding her coursework. She couldn't ask her parents to help her pay for a tutor, not when university alone was already so expensive, and she didn't know any upperclassmen or graduate students who would be willing to sit down for a few hours and help her understand several concepts that she simply couldn't.

It was that Friday night at the still-abandoned school gym that Kasia found her answer.

She had already been on an elliptical long enough to cause her to sweat profusely, and though she had not been exercising for long, she could already start to feel her body, her muscles, change on a fundamental level. She was stronger, now, with higher stamina and a much healthier cardiovascular system. She didn't look different, she admitted it, but she felt different. And that was enough of a morale boost to make her up her regimen and her hopes of eventually appealing to Alex alike.

This was the line of thought she was working through when Alex himself entered the gym.

Her workout clothes were improvised, especially compared to his. Kasia could only assume that he took his fitness very seriously, because he seemed to wear special sneakers, weightlifting gloves, and the sort of clothing that wicked away sweat without becoming damp or soggy. He carried a bottle and keys and that was all apart from a sense of intensity and focus that was very nearly a frightening thing for Kasia to behold, although it disappeared entirely whenever he greeted her with a smile or wave or word.

He really was beautiful, Kasia reflected. Even when he walked around or picked up weights or simply sat still after a difficult set and gave his body a moment to recover--even when he stretched or simply tilted his head back to drink some water. And when he actually worked out--when he used that fantastic body of his to move enormous amounts of solid metal--he was Godlike.

About an hour later, though, Kasia was rapidly approaching exhaustion and Alex was approaching the end of his workout. When they were finished, they would part ways. Kasia would go to shower and then simply sleep before the high calorie deficit she was running could take a toll on her determination, and Alex would presumably do something similar. And the next day, the two of them would struggle to figure out what their professors ought to have made sure was second nature to them--

Alex couldn't quite complete his last set of squats. With the barbell resting across his broad but defined shoulders, he'd squatted down, and down, and then he had struggled to stand back up for a full five seconds before giving up. The barbell had fallen the short distance to the safety bars and then struck with enough force to send a loud metallic ringing through the building and make Kasia jump in surprise and look over to see that he was alright.

But he was. He was tired, sweaty, and panting, but he stood up normally and when he saw that Kasia was concerned for him he raised a paw at her and gave her a shy smile, as if to say: "Well, I almost had it."

Alex spent a moment taking the weights off of the barbell and placing them back where they were supposed to be. After that, he did several unweighted squats and then he would have left if Kasia hadn't been there to stop him.

Although she'd just been exercising, in the brief moments that passed between the time she'd sensed that Alex was finishing up his workout and the time that he actually finished, she'd straightened herself up. Her hair, of course, was still neatly done in the ponytail she'd put it in before entering the gym, but her clothes would have been a little askew and she might well have been breathing too hard to speak properly if she hadn't taken just a few moments to rest.

As she was, though, Kasia looked surprisingly tough. Though extra kilos still took a lot away from how attractive she could be, she had just finished a workout that would have put her down for the count just two weeks before--she was making great progress, and that was more than what could be expected of her.

Alex seemed to notice this. Just for a few seconds, he seemed to look Kasia up and down, appraisingly, as if checking to make sure that she really had made the progress that she had. This gave the Pole the morale boost she needed to speak without stuttering or blushing.

"Alex, I was thinking... we're both having a hard time with our studies, right?... and our professors aren't much help," Kasia began. Alex seemed to agree, or at least he seemed to be somewhat interested in what she was saying because he nodded, slightly, and maintained eye contact with her. He didn't have to look as far down as he usually did when he was speaking to females when he was speaking to her.

"So, I was thinking," Kasia continued--and by now, she was starting to get nervous and her voice was starting to get shaky--but she continued anyway. "Maybe it would be good for both of us if we studied together. The library is usually empty over the weekends," she pointed out, "and besides... it might be nice to have some company, instead of staying in our dorms all alone..."

Kasia realized what she'd done a second after she'd done it. She'd assumed that Alex, like her, didn't have much of a social life and was planning to spend his weekend cooped up with a pile of books as his only companion. But, she realized, she really didn't know all that much about Alex--she knew that he was a quiet guy from Praha, and, of course, that he was quite tall, very good looking, and strong enough to have his way with her at any time, even if she didn't want it. She didn't know, though, if he was secretly a party animal on the weekends... or, for that matter, if he intended to spend the next two days in the arms of one of the many beautiful women on campus who would have him.

In fact, Kasia thought, she was assuming a lot by assuming that Alex was anything like her, because he was nothing like her. True, they were both tall and on the quiet side, but he was beautiful and strong and smart. She, on the other hand, was none of these things--she wasn't even worth the courtesy of his polite refusal. If he told her off, then and there, and avoided her for the rest of his life, he would be completely correct in doing so.

She had looked away from Alex, and, presumably, the expression on her face had taken a turn for the sad. Because when the tiger tilted his head and then sidestepped, somewhat, so that their eyes met again, he looked... not worried, really, and certainly not afraid. He wasn't the sort of person that could be afraid of anything. But, just then, he was concerned for Kasia, at least... and that meant that at least in the smallest way, he cared about her.

"That's a good idea, Kasia," Alex said in a somewhat uncertain voice, as if he thought he'd just offended or irritated Kasia--as if he cared about irritating or offending her. And before she could fully appreciate these revelations, let alone those that came with his acceptance of her offer, he one upped her.

"In fact, it's a very good idea. So, why wait for tomorrow? The night is still young," Alex said. "So... if it's alright... we'll meet in the library in two hours. I just need time," the tiger said, and before he was finished speaking, Kasia was nodding as if failing to nod enough would cause him to rescind both his acceptance of her offer and the extension of his own.

"That sounds good to me," the human replied, hardly believing her good luck. She was smiling radiantly--but she had to think of something entertaining to say. After all, he was smiling at her and she was smiling at him and there were so many good things going on right then that she would be a fool to waste the moment.

"So... why do you need two hours?" Kasia asked. "Do you enjoy long showers?"

"Well, that's part of it," Alex admitted. He ran a paw through the thick, protective fur on his face that formed his ruff--oh, how Kasia wished she could do that to him--as if to say that it took quite some time to maintain his thick, luxurious coat. "But," he continued, "I've not finished my workout. I have to do some running and then I should eat something, or else I might faint..."

He grinned, a little bit, when the look on Kasia's face told him how surprised she was by how serious he took his fitness. But after that, he simply walked past her and left the gym with a word of farewell. Almost immediately afterward, he started to run--fast.

Kasia tracked his motion for a few moments, but after that, the tiger passed beyond a building and vanished from her line of sight. It seemed that the gym didn't give him enough of a workout--to properly exhaust himself, he had to lift weights and then run.

She felt her respect and admiration for Alex grow. He must have worked very hard, over the years, to get to the shape she was in, and Kasia could see that he did not rest on his laurels. No matter that he had just moved to a new country and was being attacked by a whole slew of difficult coursework and unhelpful professors--he wasn't taking days off from the gym.

Kasia hoped her dedication to improving her own fitness would continue. Perhaps in time, she'd become a tenth as tough as Alex was. Perhaps then, when she could look in the mirror and see a different person, Alex would look at her and see a different person as well.

After leaving the gym, Kasia had showered and dressed. Then, she had eaten something--not much, just a can of tuna and some almonds--and made her way directly to the library.

She had put on a fairly nice set of clothes, for her. She was starting to feel somewhat secure about her lower body, after using cardio machines for a full two weeks, and so wearing fitted jeans no longer made her feel flabby and unhealthy. Still, her upper body was in sore need of toning and development, so she drew attention away from that and toward her face by wearing a loose hoody emblazoned with the name and logo of Warszawa University.

She had removed the constraining elastic band from her hair, instead allowing it to flow down the back of her head to graze at her shoulders. It was a practical length, and a feminine one--but did Alex like it? Kasia had no idea. For all she knew, he preferred girls with short, spiked hair--or perhaps she had to grow her hair out until it reached down to the middle of her back before he looked at her with interest in his eyes.

She would have to find out as soon as practical. For now, though, the last thing she had to worry about was her hair: she had to get into shape, or at least somewhat less chubby, before Alex would ever see her as anything apart from a somewhat helpful female acquaintance.

As it was late on a Friday evening, the library was next to empty. Here and there, a few dedicated students milled about, studying or doing homework. Some graduate students were doing research on the second floor, but on the ground floor--where Kasia was--she was next to alone in a sea of tables set aside for student use.

It was quiet. Quiet, and it would have been a little cold if Kasia hadn't dressed so warmly. For that reason, it was extremely easy for the red-haired Pole to ignore everything else and focus on her studies, on thinking and pondering and trying to make sense out of the several paragraphs and passages that had befuddled her for days.

"Good evening, Kasia."

His voice was pleasant, and though the ?eskárepublika was not far from Polska, Kasia still found his accent both exotic and intoxicating. Still, she hadn't expected to hear it, especially not from a location not thirty centimeters from the exposed, fleshy, vulnerable back of her neck--so she jumped, a little, and blushed furiously as Alex sat down beside her.

"He's a predator," Kasia thought to herself, before plastering a smile on her face and greeting Alex in kind. "It's natural for him to sneak around and surprise people. I'm lucky that he didn't jump on me and..."

She blushed again as her thoughts took a turn for the taboo. Still, she was able to regain her calm, pleasant demeanor by the time Alex had taken out his own notes and textbooks.

He really did seem to like his sense of fashion, Kasia reflected. Every time she saw him out of the gym, he was wearing cargo pants of some sort and graphic tee shirts. Occasionally, he wore a jacket, but that was only when it was freezing cold--his fur had to be as effective an insulator as it looked, or else he simply had a very high tolerance for the cold.

She'd have to ask him someday. For now, though, it was time to study and to wonder just what the steaming cup of liquid being pushed in front of her was, and why Alex was smiling at her in a way that was both unwonted for him and entirely welcome to her.

"I don't like coffee," the tiger said, "but I've always adored tea. I hope you're ready for a study marathon, Kasia," he paused and took a long sip from a steaming insulated cup of his own. "This will keep me wired for hours."

He placed the cup down, put on his reading glasses, and immediately began to examine some notes and re-write others. The way he worked--so intense and so efficient--it inspired Kasia, it truly did, but before she got back to her studying, she had to taste the aromatic contents of the cylinder Alex had given her.

And so she did. She lifted the Styrofoam cup to her lips and sipped, once.

And even though the tea was the same somewhat oversteeped, bitter liquid held in the dispenser at the front of the library for hours before, it was the best tea she had ever had in her life.

By midsemester, Alex and Kasia really were seeing a lot of one another. They spent at least one evening per weekend studying together, and they shared all classes except for a course in Polish history that Alex had to take in order to be considered as an applicant for a work visa in the future. When Alex had told Kasia this, her heart had taken to the air for a full minute--because it meant that Alex had long term plans involving Polska.

Still, apart from little tidbits of information like that, he remained almost unknown to Kasia. He never said anything about his family, his hobbies, and he didn't seem to have any friends. At least Kasia was fairly certain that he didn't have someone waiting for him back in Praha, as he never mentioned her, but she could even be sure of this.

For these reasons, Kasia's situation remained wholly uncertain. She had gotten to be close to Alex--at least, she thought--but she didn't know how to get closer to him or how to get him to say more than a few words to her in passing. She had a good idea of what his demeanor was like, but she couldn't honestly say she knew him very well, and it was this uncertainty about the one she was certain she loved that filled her thoughts with melancholy for days.

Midterm exams would start soon, she reflected, walking back toward her dorm building with Alex after a class. Perhaps that would give her a chance to get to know a bit more about him, or at least an idea of what to do to know a bit more about him.

The weather had warmed up and so the tiger no longer wore long-sleeved thermals under his shirts, though he didn't seem to have any desire to switch to shorts rather than cargo pants. For her part, Kasia hadn't put on a hoody for some days, though she still covered up her unflattering upper body with loose blouses or shirts. It saddened her that she would not be able to attract Alex in the upcoming spring and summer by showing skin--not a lot, but just enough to make him look at her as a girl rather than just a friend--and it frightened her that someone else might well be able to.

But she couldn't do anything about that. All she could do was to continue her workout regimen and continue to walk with Alex and talk to him and listen to him when he was in the mood to talk back.

At least she had a monopoly on his attention for one evening out of a week when they studied together. Now, if only she could think of a way to expand that brief period of time into day, or, better yet, day_s_ in the plural...

"Say, Kasia..." Alex's voice made Kasia look up immediately to see that the tall feline at her side seemed reflective. His head was hung and his shoulders were slumped, and although Kasia hadn't been around him long enough to accurately read his body language, she believed that the way he was walking betrayed not just reflection, but real concern.

"These midterm exams... I'm worried about them," the tiger said. "I've been studying very hard on my own time on weekdays, and... I'm just not sure that I'll be able to get the grades that I want. And you know how talking to the professors is useless," he sighed.

Finally, he looked up and faced her. He gave her one of those distinctive, shy smiles of his and continued.

"Whenever we study together, it's much easier for me to concentrate. So, I was wondering..." he hesitated, as if he was nervous about what he was about to say but that couldn't possibly be true. Why would he be nervous to say anything to Kasia?

"I was wondering," Alex continued, "if you would like to study together, every evening... two hours after the gym, and then, this weekend... we should probably spend much more time studying. All day, if possible--except, ahm, for some time for meals and the gym."

He paused, then, as if he had something more to say. Then, though, he simply smiled again and waited for Kasia to respond.

By then, they were almost but not quite at the doors of their dorm building. After just a few more steps, they would enter, and Kasia would climb the stairs to make her way to the girls' floor and Alex would simply continue on to his own room on the ground floor. That meant that Kasia had only a few more steps to clamp down on her emotions so that she didn't smile or blush too much when she said that yes, certainly, she would love to study a lot more with Alex.

In the end, though, she failed to say anything at all. She simply looked the tall tiger next to her in the eye, smiled, and nodded once. His response was likewise nonverbal: he looked back at her, smiled reciprocally, and then held the door to their building open so that she could enter before he did.

They said goodbye to one another without words as well. Kasia waved at Alex, and though he usually simply nodded or raised a paw at her to reciprocate her farewell, that day he honored her with another rare, shy smile, and gave her a sharp salute that made her giggle, involuntarily, before he vanished from her line of sight up the stairs.

For a moment, Kasia just listened to Alex climbing up to wherever his room was. She was blushing, she knew it, but she didn't mind. Alex was such a quiet, controlled person, usually... so to have him be funny around her, even in such an odd, offbeat sort of way--it meant a lot. It certainly meant a lot to Kasia.

After doing her workout in the gym--with Alex doing his not twenty meters from her at any given time--Kasia had gone back to her dorm to shower, eat, and dress. Her post-workout meal that day was a cup of yogurt with some toasted wheat germ, and eating it was certainly not a challenge. In contrast, dressing was.

Her jeans went on fine, but when Kasia went to put on a shirt, she found that she couldn't quite get it to fit right. No matter how she maneuvered it or adjusted it, it simply didn't stay against her flesh the way it was supposed to. Within a few moments, Kasia was frustrated and reduced to using a mirror to help her dress; it was as if her shirt was a size... too... big...

Kasia stopped dead when she had that thought. Then, she stared at herself--specifically, her torso--and proceeded to use her well-manicured hands to attempt to smooth out the loose folds of cloth that seemed to vanish and reappear no matter what she did. She then turned around, once, looking at herself constantly to see if her shirt had simply ripped from being forced around her body for too long--but that wasn't it.

There was no way to misinterpret it--Kasia had lost enough weight to have made one of her looser shirts too loose to wear... as anything other than a smock, really.

She hadn't kept track of her weight out of fear that she wouldn't see immediate progress and would simply give up after a few weeks of gym-going--she knew how those who started to exercise after years of a sedentary lifestyle lost fat and gained muscle so quickly that their weights remained stubbornly static for some time before the kilos, and the centimeters, really started to come off.

The only way Kasia gauged her performance was by constantly challenging herself in the gym and refusing to stop until she really was quite tired--but now, it seemed that she could confirm that she was making progress, because she had moved down a size in clothing.

For a moment, Kasia fantasized that she was fit enough to wear the clothing she'd bought at the designer outlet, just a few weeks ago. But no--she wasn't there yet, not by a long shot. And yet after she removed her shirt to look at her pale torso, the Pole saw that... well, she was still a bit chubby. She was still too chubby. But she had certainly slimmed down by a noticeable amount, and in all the right places.

Blushing to herself, as if she was worried about what her parents might think if they could see what she was doing, Kasia proceeded to take her breasts into her hands. She didn't touch herself, not really, but she did gauge the size of her endowment in a very physical way indeed. It was too bad that she only had herself to check how her breasts' size had changed due to her weight loss--if only Alex was there, behind her, breathing hotly onto her cheek and murmuring sweet nothings into her ear.

Kasia continued to feel the weight of her breasts in her hands for a moment before she simply sighed and searched for another shirt. There was no doubt about it--though she'd lost a fair amount of excess flesh from her midriff region, her chest remained both large and perky. She was genetically gifted in that way; now that she thought of it, her mother, aunts, and her grandmother all were beautiful women regardless of their respective ages.

Hopefully, once Kasia reached the level of beauty she knew she could, she would stay there indefinitely--not just so she could bring a smile to her face just by looking in a mirror, but so she could bring a smile to Alex's face by allowing him to look at her.

For now, though, she just put on her shirt and went to do her hair and--no, not quite. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and for a moment, she couldn't help but simply look at herself. Her hair was still damp from her shower, causing its sleek, red tresses to cascade just a bit farther than her shoulders down her back, and her face, as always, was as pretty and clear as ever.

After a moment, Kasia turned, slowly, and looked at herself again. In her new, somewhat smaller shirt, she looked... alright, at least. Perhaps she even looked passably attractive. And there was more than that--she felt stronger and smarter and more aware of herself and the world she lived in than ever before, and all these things gave her just an inkling of real, rational hope that she might someday be able to hold a man like Alex in her arms. As long as she continued to learn and exercise and grow and stay on time and--

She was late. She was late and she realized it just a moment before she would be really late. Already Alex was doubtlessly waiting at the library for her and there was no doubt that it was only a matter of time before some pretty blonde caught his eye and took him away from her forever.

Kasia almost panicked, but the focus and determination she'd learned in the past weeks took hold of her. She pulled on her socks, then her shoes, then scrambled to get her notes and books and pens into her bag before she half-sprinted out the door, pausing only to give herself a final once-over with the mirror.

After all, Alex deserved to be with her only in her most attractive of states. Even if it meant that he'd have to wait a few seconds to do so.

Alex greeted Kasia with a brief smile, a few words of welcome, another cup of tea--and that was about it. From then until it was after midnight, the two of them scarcely shared a word. They just studied, studied, studied until they were exhausted--and then then rested briefly and then they studied some more.

By the time they were finished, Kasia was astonished by how exhausted she was. She could barely sit up, and her eyelids were feeling dangerously heavy--but she was also pleased and proud of her and Alex's progress. It had taken them hours of painstaking research and problem solving, but they had both perfected their understanding of at least two of the concepts that had befuddled them for weeks.

It was somewhat consoling to see that although Alex still sat up straight and rigid, as if there was a steel pole affixed to his back, he was obviously tired as well. His eyelids didn't droop, but there was a certain sluggishness to his movement that made Kasia smile as she watched him.

By then, the two of them were alone in the library. There was no noise, save the extremely soft sounds of their breathing and of Alex's tail, constantly twitching and writhing through the air behind him as if it had a life of its own. And there was nothing to see, really, apart from the dozens of tables and chairs, disarrayed until they were rearranged in a few hours by some underpaid laborer from rural Polska, and the aisles and aisles of textbooks, and, of course, Alex Kralik, still sitting and still studying as if that was what he was made to do.

Kasia was resting her head on her arms, which, in turn, were resting on the table in front of her. Her hair was still sleek and straight, but now it didn't flow in any one direction. Some locks trailed off the table and others formed a brilliant, crimson next for her to rest on top of as she smiled and admired the tall, bespectacled feline next to her.

He really was beautiful, and not just physically. He was smart, and disciplined, and although he was too quiet and introverted to display it much, Kasia knew that he was a kind person at heart--and a funny one to boot. She looked forward to the time when he would be less quiet to her--when he would quietly whisper jokes to her and perhaps tell her just a little bit more about who he was and what had brought him to her.

For now, though, Kasia was content with where she was and what she was doing. There was something remarkably pleasant and peaceful about being half asleep next to Alex, watching him continue to flip pages with arms and paws so powerful that they could squeeze the life out of her if he wanted them to--maybe it was because she liked him, or more than liked him, but Kasia believed it wasn't even that. She could relax around Alex, though he was the only person around--and she could do that because she trusted him.

And, in a way, that bond was more important and more precious than any sort of friendship or other relationship.

Over the next several days, Kasia and Alex did study together at the library every evening. They didn't do so for hours, as they had that first evening, as doing so would have created an almost insurmountable amount of fatigue and stress in both of them that would making continued attendance of the gym and good performance on the midterm exams an impossibility.

Their progress continued--slowly, tortuously, and achieved only after hours of careful consideration and struggle. At the rate they were going, they would just finish forcing themselves to understand the minutiae of their courses by the weekend... when they could look forward to the real fun of studying for the exams themselves.

Thus were the lives of dedicated college students.

At least Kasia had a near-monopoly on Alex's attention. By then, she was sure that he didn't have a significant other or a group of close friends either in Polska or in the ?eskárepublika--he simply didn't have time to interact with them apart from brief comments on Facebook or text messages, and these weren't enough to maintain proper relationships. In many ways, Kasia was his only social life and he was her's--and, yet, he still remained almost stubbornly silent and mysterious.

Ah, well. Kasia had no reason to be unhappy--at least, about Alex. She had more than enough reason to be unhappy about the amount of studying the two of them had to get through over the weekend and the next week, when midterm exams took place and several large assignments were due.

The week continued, though, and in time it ended. Kasia visited the gym every day, but on Friday night it hit her that she really ought to take a break for a day--if not on Saturday, then on Sunday. If she didn't, she might exhaust herself too much to maintain a strict regimen, and besides--she needed to focus on her studies almost exclusively. She couldn't even spare more than a few moments on Alex if she was to maintain the 4.0 she'd managed to secure the semester before.

For that reason, Kasia's two "days off" out of the week were a maze of books, notes, tea, showers, and naps taken in-between sessions of binge-studying. She couldn't remember much about those two Hellish days, except that there were times when even the sight of Alex feverishly turning through pages and writing notes failed to raise her spirits--she was just so closed be being burned out that by the time Sunday evening came, she was actually able to turn away from her books without feeling guilt or fear.

Alex kept studying, though. Though Kasia tried to convince him that there was a time when too much was too much and that they would be best prepared by their first exam--ten hours' time in the future the very next morning--by sleeping, he didn't listen. He just kept studying, kept writing, kept turning the pages of his books so rapidly that Kasia was sure that he would give himself a paper cut.

And so, Kasia sighed and turned to leave him. She walked past him, and as she did, she let her fingers slide across his shoulders.

It was not a voluntary action. In fact, Kasia didn't realize that it had happened when it did--she just kept walking with her head half-hung over the sorrow she had felt when Alex did not recognize that she had his best interests at heart. She kept walking--and so she was almost out of the library by the time he caught up to her.

How he managed to pack his things up so quickly and so silently and how he managed to sneak up to a position not one meter removed from her, she would never know. All she knew was that one minute, Alex was sitting at their table, yards and yards behind her, and the next, he was right there, in front of her, holding the door open so that she could leave the library first.

Since he was so close to her, she could see what bad shape he was in. She was in bad shape--she hadn't had a great workout the day before, and even then, she felt so drained that she wasn't sure nine hours of sleep would give her enough rest for the exam the next day. But Alex had pushed himself much, much harder than she had, and for that reason, she could see the effects his efforts had had on his body with almost frightening accuracy.

Under the pale fur below his eyes, Kasia could see the unmistakable puffiness and inflammation that marked serious sleep deficit. Alex still stood relatively tall and strong, but the perfect posture he usually employed had... slipped, somewhat, leaving him almost slouched and unsteady on his feet. And he'd lost a little weight--just a little, as he didn't have much weight to lose--but the small amount of fat that had vanished from his frame left him looking not attractive, but almost if not outright unhealthy.

In fact, just getting up and moving so quickly and so silently seemed to exhaust Alex almost to the point that he fainted. For a moment, he seemed to sway on his feet and his pupils seemed to dilate--but then, he managed to face Kasia and give her a smile that she now saw not only shyness in--but a hint of very real, very palatable guilt.

"Maybe..." Alex almost rasped, "I'll take a day off from the gym today... and get some extra sleep. After all, who am I to refuse to listen to the advice of a genius...?"

He let the comment sink in for just a moment before smiling at her again, and then lightly ushering her out of the library with the most gentle of nudges. Within another minute, the two of them were talking side by side back to their dorm building.

For once on campus, it was quiet on a weekend evening. Even the most dedicated of partiers couldn't forget about exams, it seemed, and since they had put off studying so much more than Alex and Kasia had, it was likely that they would not spend so much time sleeping over the coming week.

Alex and Kasia, on the other hand, would be able to sleep, and go to the gym, because they had budgeted their time wisely, but it wasn't just that. Studying with Alex made it much, much easier for Kasia to focus, so much to the point that she knew her material cold. All that was left to do in the week was to spend some time between exams committing certain constants and equations to memory, and that was all.

They were almost at the doors to their building when Kasia laughed, quietly--a quiet, high-pitched, gentle sound that made Alex look up and ask her what was so funny.

"It's nothing," the Pole replied reflexively before she realized that Alex wanted to talk to her. He was curious about her--and so, rapidly, she pieced together a response.

"It's just... usually, I'm very nervous before exams," Kasia said. "But now, I feel... as if they can do their worst to me without making me blink. Alex, I think that you and I both will do very well on these exams." She said those words with such a conviction in her voice that she blinked, before pausing for only the briefest of moments.

Then, she continued.

"I don't think I'm being overconfident... but we've studied so hard, and we've learned things that haven't even been covered in class. I think we'll both do very well, Alex," Kasia repeated. "And I'm certain that no matter what happens in the second half of this semester, you'll be allowed to stay in Polska. I'm completely certain of that."

Even as she said these things, Kasia saw that Alex was not as confident as she was, and that confused her. How could he be uncertain about himself--he was a beautiful, powerful Czech tiger of great height and the sort of intellect that made her blink in surprise at times. Apart from that, he was studious and dedicated and capable of attacking problems in a way that simply would not occur to Kasia, so how could he possibly be less than 100% confident about himself and his abilities?

Or, perhaps, was this one of Alex's weaknesses? Could it be that despite everything, he did not have a very high opinion about himself?

If this was so, then it explained his quiet nature and his reluctance to offer his opinion or his ideas even unless Kasia positively dragged them out of him. Many times, she could see his hesitation--his lips would twitch and he would almost say something but then he would fall silent and Kasia would have to prompt him somehow. It had not occurred to her until then that Alex's nature could be explained by a lack of self-confidence.

Kasia walked the final few steps toward their dorm room in silence, and yet decidedly closer to Alex than she usually was. She wanted to hug him--not for her purposes, but for his, so that she could tell him and make him believe that he was more than capable of doing absolutely anything he set his mind to.

But she couldn't. She couldn't even stay close to Alex for more than a few seconds, because when he realized their proximity, he seemed to jump--and then take a step away as if he was frightened of her. Or disgusted by her.

Well. She couldn't blame him for that, she thought to herself as she made to enter their building. She opened the door and slipped inside, holding it open just long enough for the tall feline next to her and yet so far away to slip in, and then, with her head hung, began to make her way down the hall to her dorm room.

And then he stopped her with a word. For him, that was all it took to attract and hold Kasia's undivided attention.

"Kasia," Alex said--and, immediately, the red-haired human stopped, turned, and met his eyes for just a moment before they both looked away.

Then, however, he continued to speak.

"Thank you, Kasia," he said. "For everything. For studying with me, and for... saying what you just said. It's... very meaningful... to me."

His final words were spoken very haltingly, as if he was being very careful with what he said indeed. Was he afraid of something? Or was he just on the verge of really talking to her, at long last, and telling her about his life and his family and his desires and his dreams?

Kasia locked eyes with him for another moment, and though he looked away, she did not. Now, she examined him--the way he seemed to shy away from her gaze, the uncomfortable way he held the one strap of his backpack he'd slung over his shoulder, and the awkward, unbalanced way he seemed to stand--and she came up with... nothing. Nothing at all, other than that Alex was a complicated, introverted being who was far from perfect and who would take... quite some time indeed for her to understand.

There was no doubt that he was wary of being close to her, but now, Kasia also didn't doubt that she was as close to him as anyone was--even his own mother.

For that reason, it was with only a little bit of nervousness that she made her way forward--slowly, quietly, yet still more than loudly enough for Alex to hear her without trying. Indeed, the tiger looked up again as he got to within a few meters of her, and fidgeted--but she just kept walking until she was right in front of him, at which point he looked down, down, and down, until he saw her pale, feminine hand resting on the side of his arm.

She continued to touch him for just a moment--long enough that he was able to get used to the feeling of her fingers against his flesh, yet not long enough for him to feel too awkward and uncertain. And then, she withdrew her hand and waited until Alex looked up and locked eyes with her again.

"Thank you for studying with me, Alex," Kasia said quietly. "I'll look forward to studying with you, and working out with you, for the rest of the semester... and the rest of college, as well."

Commitment frightened men, Kasia had heard. But even if she had remembered that adage at that time, she wouldn't have cared--because Alex was not a normal man. He was himself, through and through, and so if she wanted to understand him, she had to try to understand him and him alone.

Still, asking him to commit to being her study partner for several years to come--that was a big deal. And so Kasia stood still, quietly, crossing her fingers for a full ten seconds until Alex came to a decision and began to speak.

"I will look forward to working out with you, Kasia," he said, slowly. "But... I cannot say that I will look forward to the studying."

Slowly, he began to smile. And so slowly, Kasia began to smile herself.

The two teenagers faced one another for a few more seconds, but then it occurred to them both how very late it was and how pointless it was for two people who would see so much of one another in the future--both immediate and distant--to stand around in the hall just to simply look at one another. So, wordlessly, they came to the decision that it really was time to get to sleep--and then they separated and went their respective ways. Kasia continued down the hall, whereas Alex began to climb the stairs to his floor. The sound sounds of his footfalls echoed around Kasia's cement and metal surroundings along with his voice.

"I would wish you good luck, Kasia," Alex called, "but it would be a waste. Good night."

He had such an odd sense of humor. But it was so clean and delivered so sincerely that Kasia couldn't help but smiling, even as she entered her dorm and then shut the door behind her.

She remained standing, for a moment, and resting against the door from the inside. It wasn't just that she was tired--she wanted Alex to turn around and to come back and to come in and hold her in his arms then and there, instead of just promising to keep studying and exercising with her until their college days were finished.

He didn't come that night, of course. And it was unlikely that he would come any night, ever; that he would ever see Kasia as more than a study partner and someone who worked out at the same time that he did. It was probable that the two of them would at most remain friends for the rest of their lives, but that miniscule chance, that distant hope that someday Alex would look into Kasia's eyes and see more than a friend put a tear in her eye.

"Good night, Alex," Kasia whispered. "And good luck."

Midterm exams that semester were difficult. Difficult, and time consuming, and remarkably stressful.

That is--they were for most students.

Kasia didn't admit it to Alex or herself until the end of the examination week, but she found the tests... not easy, exactly, but... certainly not the sort of challenge she'd struggled through the previous semester. She finished every single one of her tests in about half the time that she was allowed, and it only took her so long because finishing in a quarter of the time allotted made her feel certain that she had missed a page or five in the test--but it was never that. She was just an incredibly fast test taker, it seemed, so she resorted to checking and double checking her answers until she had to admit to herself that she wasn't accomplishing anything.

Kasia would hand in her test without meeting the proctor's eyes. She would then hurry off to her dorm room to either sleep or study or work out depending on the time and her priorities.

As fate would have it, she and Alex didn't share a single exam location. Although she had him in all of her lectures, the classes themselves were so big that they had to be split up into several sections for testing. And although "Kralik" was not far from (or in some cases, directly adjacent to) "Jazinski", they always managed to get split up.

There were only so many hours between exams, then, and so sleeping and eating schedules for all students collapsed. Kasia's workout schedule collapsed as well, though she did continue to visit the gym at least once in a given twenty four hour period, but she did not see Alex once in the gym. And as she didn't see him once during the exam periods, either, he might as well have vanished from the face of the planet all that week for all she knew.

After the last exam of the week finished late Friday evening, the campus was alive with activity. There were parties, parties, parties, more parties, and more parties still. Every dorm, apartment, fraternity house, sorority house, pub, bar, grill, and restaurant in the vicinity of Warszawa University was packed with students celebrating the end of their suffering by absolutely hemorrhaging money on food, drink, and pleasurable company.

Not Kasia, though. She was in the gym, pumping her legs and sweating and burning calories at a rate of 800 per hour while reading a textbook required for a course she planned on taking the next semester. It was a bit odd, in a way, for her to be able to use her mind to any significant effect while exerting herself physically, but she had perfected this ability only through practice: every time she went to the gym she brought something with her to read or review.

But something had been missing from the gym over the past few days, and Kasia knew what it was. She had her books, her notes, her improvised workout clothes, and her water bottle--but she had no company. No one else had visited the gym when she was there over the past week--not even Alex.

She didn't miss him, exactly, but she did wonder where he was and how he was doing. She was fond of his company, and simply looking to the rows of dumbbells and barbells and power cages not far from the cardio machines filled her with nostalgia: she could practically see a ghostly image of Alex overlay her vision. She envisioned him lifting weights and sweating and checking his heart rate and sometimes flexing at himself in the mirror, but more often, she just imagined him standing there and smiling at her. Or talking to her, motivating her to go faster, go harder, go longer, so that she would become a beauty who could be his girlfriend that much quicker.

But alas, he wasn't there. He hadn't been there for a week, and Kasia surmised that it might be another few days until she saw him again. He was a feline, after all, and so he couldn't possibly respond to high-stress, low-sleep situations very well at all. Even then, he was probably curled up in his bed, breathing quietly and dreaming about milk, bits of string, balls of yarn, and being petted.

Kasia smiled at herself when she had those thoughts. Alex was a fur, a person, and a tiger to boot--it was almost impossible to imagine him doing such silly things as playing with pieces of string or balls of yarn. But then again, he did like milk--he'd mentioned this to her once when she asked him what he drank to keep his energy levels high while working out--and he had to like being petted. He had to, because some day, Kasia would run her fingers through his fur and both hear and feel him purr in response.

She sighed to herself, even as she continued to run, and then turned back to her book. It was a bit boring, but it was straightforward and easy to understand, so Kasia's consolation was that she would do well in the course without having to overexert herself. Besides, if she got through it efficiently, perhaps she'd be able to stack another course on in the next semester--maybe she could even finish her curriculum early and get a second licencjat without stretching herself to the breaking point.

That would be nice. She'd impress her parents--and she'd really impress Alex. If she could truly work miracles academically, maybe he would come to appreciate her as a suitable life partner that much more quickly...

Kasia heard the door open. She looked up--and there he was, tall and strong and beautiful as always, walking into the gym with only a towel and a bottle of milk in his paws, dressed to move solid chunks of metal that often weighed more than he did. He was intense and focused--but even so, when he saw that Kasia was there, he smiled at her.

That was not uncommon, in fact. Sometimes, Alex saw Kasia immediately when he entered the gym and other times, it took a few minutes for him to acknowledge his Polish--dare she think it--friend. But what was uncommon was for the tiger to ignore his weights and approach her. That had never happened before.

And so, as a result, Kasia immediately grew nervous. It had been about a week since the two of them had interacted--what if things between them had changed? And apart from that, she was working out--she was fairly certain that apart from the sweat and heavy breathing, she looked presentable, but what was the social convention in this case? Should she stop working out? Or was it enough for her to simply turn her head to speak to Alex as she was currently doing?

"Good evening, Kasia," the tiger said politely, and he wasn't being insincere or joking in any way. He was just old fashioned in his greetings, at times, and this trait was just another aspect of Alex that she found so endearing.

"Hello, Alex," Kasia greeted in kind. She decided to keep working out--the tiger didn't seem offended; indeed, he got onto the elliptical next to her and simply canted his head so that they could speak without raising their voices.

There was silence, for a moment, before Kasia continued the conversation when Alex failed to. "So... how did your exams go?" she prompted, a bit uncertain of what else to talk about. She wanted to ask him how he himself had been over the past week, but it occurred to her that he might not want to think about the grim period of short nights and long sessions of cramming for at least some time.

Alex seemed to consider his answer before speaking. Or perhaps he was simply enjoying where he was, and what he was doing, like she was--after all, there was something vaguely therapeutic about the repeated metallic sounds their machines made, and the artificial ambience of the gym itself was enjoyable in an odd sort of way.

"They went well," the tiger responded, after a moment. He seemed to speak in a bit offhand manner, as if his mind wasn't entirely focused on the conversation--but then he faced Kasia more fully and gave her a brief smile.

"I think that studying with you was a very good thing for me... thank you, Kasia." He smiled at her again for a somewhat longer period of time to display his gratitude to her.

And she was flattered.

"It was good for me, too, Alex. I don't know how--I usually study alone--but it was definitely a good thing for me. If we do it again for the finals, they should be fairly straightforward, too..."

"Let's hope," the tiger replied, before falling silent.

For a long time, the two of them did not speak. Kasia wondered if they were simply enjoying their companionship in silence or if Alex had simply lost interest in her and in speaking to her in favor of working out, but she decided not to think about it too much and simply enjoy both the tiger's proximity and the still strange pleasure of exerting herself physically.

It didn't occur to her for a second that Alex might want to talk more and simply hadn't an idea of what to say to continue interacting with her.

"So..." he eventually began, "what are you planning for spring break, Kasia? Do you know...?"

In fact, Kasia hadn't even spared a thought to spring break the entire semester. Many students would stay in Warszawa and simply attempt to hit every single bar and club in the city in the week they had off, but others would go on vacations. Tourist hotspots like the south of Francja were, of course, quite popular, but some students would at least keep things remotely academic by seeing important cultural landmarks a few times while traveling.

Kasia, though, had no idea what she wanted to do.

"I'll probably stay around Warszawa," she said, after a moment. "I'll visit home--at least for a few days, maybe for the whole week. That will be nice," she smiled. "Even though my home is not far, it's such an inconvenience to get there; I haven't been home the whole semester. Last semester I used to go almost every other week... but now, I'm so busy with everything that I only talk to my parents on the phone every few days."

This saddened Kasia, somewhat. She knew that she wasn't a bad daughter by any standard, but she also knew that she could do so much better. Even a five minute call between classes would keep the close attachments she had with both parents strong, but, it seemed, those bonds weren't worth five minutes to her.

She would have to fix that, immediately. She glanced at a clock in the gym--it wasn't that late in the evening; when she finished working out she would call home and spend at least half an hour talking to her father, her mother, and her cute little brother.

Kasia felt nostalgic, for a moment; then she realized that she was still in the middle of a conversation. She smiled at Alex for just a second to show that she hadn't lost interest in talking to him, and didn't have to search for words for very long to continue interacting with the quiet feline.

"What about you, Alex? Are you going anywhere more interesting?" she asked.

"Well, not really," the tiger replied. "I'm going back to Praha. I would go anyway, but it seems that there's some trouble with my paperwork... the university wants to make sure that I am who I say I am, so..." He sighed and shook his head. "It's a big headache. But I have to deal with it properly; otherwise, they may send me back home for good no matter what my grades are."

The idea of being torn apart from Alex so suddenly almost shocked Kasia for a moment. She struggled to get her emotions under control, then, and only succeeded whens he forced herself to acknowledge that Alex was being of great determination and intellect. He wanted to go to Warszawa University, she knew, so he absolutely would go to Warszawa University somehow. She didn't have to worry about him making only a half-hearted attempt to achieve his goals.

"So, I'll probably take a train or a bus back to Praha next Friday, after class. It's not so difficult for me--there are a few direct connections, and my home is in the middle of the city. It's actually not a problem at all to get back home; it only takes some time. What about you, Kasia?... it seems like it's not easy for you to get home."

The Pole nodded. And as she saw an opportunity to open up to Alex--just a little bit--she took it.

"I'm from eastern Polska," Kasia said. "My home is in the middle of nowhere. It's a small village not far from_Bia_?oru?... I have to take a bus that runs at odd hours, and then my father or mother has to come and pick me up. It would be different if I had my bike on campus, but freshmen aren't allowed to have vehicles."

Alex tilted his head to the side in an inquisitive and quintessentially feline manner. He turned to look at Kasia fully, obviously either curious or confused.

"Your bike?" he asked.

Kasia nodded. "I have a bike at home," she said. "A Kawasaki Ninja. Actually, it's not 'my' bike only--my brother uses it a lot, but I don't mind it. It doesn't do anyone any good just sitting in the garage, tak?"

Alex seemed to be looking at Kasia oddly. She blushed furiously when she realized it--was there something uncouth or strange about her little joke? It seemed like a perfectly innocent comment, but Alex was of a different culture; perhaps she'd offended him somehow. She hung her head and prepared to apologize, when Alex smiled at her--and not just a little bit, like he usually did.

"That's amazing, Kasia. I never would have guessed..." He paused, then and stared at her hard--she could practically hear his mind attempting to fit her into the protective gear and helmet of a motorcyclist and then putting her on a machine racing down some distant country road at two hundred kilometers an hour.

Eventually, he must have failed, because he simply shook his head and grinned at her.

"You know, I'm very fortunate that the two of us have become friends," Alex said. "I doubt there are many students who are like you, Kasia... focused, clean, interesting, and frighteningly smart. I doubt there are many people like you at all."

It was more of a milestone than when her clothes had started to become loose on her when Alex referred to her as a friend for the first time. Alex thought of her as a friend--and as an interesting, focused, clean, smart friend. She was smiling widely, and indeed blushing as well, but prevented the tiger from noticing this by using her towel to wipe sweat that simply wasn't there from her face.

"I'm glad that you think about me like that, Alex," she wanted to say. But she couldn't--somehow, she knew that that was a little too personal and too intimate for him to want to hear. He didn't think of her as a close friend, yet... so, she still wasn't close enough to him to tell him things like that.

Still, a sincere smile and eye contact was enough for them both to communicate their feelings in this case. Neither of them liked wasting words, particularly when they each had at least a half hour left before they could leave the gym without guilt.

Over the next week, Alex and Kasia saw one another a lot, but not too much. And they did interact a little bit--a few words passed between them after class when each checked that the other either understood everything or had similar questions, and there were sometimes brief conversations in the gym. Apart from that, it was weeks until final exams and so there was no need to spend hours studying every day.

And then, when Friday night came, it would be almost ten days until they saw one another again.

There was also the fear that Alex would never be able to return to Warszawa University, but Kasia managed to avoid thinking about that too much. After all, there was nothing she could do about it.

As the week went on, though, she felt her fear increase. It wasn't fear, exactly, but a dull sense of sadness that she would be unable to see or speak to Alex for a non-negligible amount of time. And who knew what might happen over spring break when he was back in his home town? What if he met a nice _?eši_girl--what if an old friend of his had been biding her time and chose that particular week to strike? What if, when Alex was relaxing and happy, some ex-girlfriend attempted to rekindle a once-fiery relationship with him?

Kasia realized that she really had very little control of the situation at all. All she could control was herself--and that meant that she could not waste her spring break.

She'd go home, sure, and she'd certainly take a break from the books. She'd spend time with her brother and her parents, but she would run, ever day... at least five kilometers. No--that wasn't enough. She'd start at five kilometers, and work her way up to ten kilometers by the end of the week. And she'd introduce pushups and other exercises to her regimen--and she'd find a way to maintain a clean diet at home, although her mother's perogies were to die for...

Somehow, she'd transform in only ten days. She'd lose weight, she'd become less pathetic physically, and she would also become more interesting. Alex seemed impressed that she had a bike--then, she'd have her brother take a few videos of her doing stunts or something and put them on Youtube. She'd have a few pictures of herself taken, too--if Alex saw how she looked in a riding suit with her hair trailing down her back as she held her helmet at her side, he'd have to become somewhat more interested in her at least.

Kasia told herself, time and again, that the progress she'd make in the next ten days would impress Alex so much that even if he found a nice girl back in Praha, he'd have to call back and tell her that he needed time to decide, at least, because he'd met a truly interesting Polski girl.

But no matter what, when Alex left the gym on Friday night, waving at her in farewell, she could not stop a tear from coming to her eye. It was more than possible, after all, that he would never look at her again after that day.

When Kasia got back to her hometown, her parents weren't the only ones to look at her up and down in pleasant surprise and comment about how good she looked. Neighbors and distant relatives did, too, and the several boys her age that hadn't left the agricultural village for education or more interesting jobs in the city looked at her, she realized, with eyes that she'd never seen directed at her before.

She only had eyes for one boy at home, though, and that was her little brother.

For his part, Krystian Jazinski had changed since his big sister had seen him the last time. He, too, had always been tall, but it had taken him until the last few years to close to within a few centimeters of his sister. And now, it seemed certain that he would overtake her and her father as well very soon indeed. Perhaps he'd even become as tall as Alex was.

The two of them spent a lot of time together. It seemed that Krystian had found an interest in basketball, and for that reason, he was starting to get pretty fit. He didn't have the almost terrifying build that Alex did--lean and muscular and built to kill--he was mostly lithe with just a little muscle. Still, he was no stranger to exercise, and so when Kasia said that she'd like to run at least five kilometers every day, her brother volunteered to join her immediately.

The first day after coming home, Kasia had a cheater meal. She ate several potato and cheese perogies, but the evening was so enjoyable--all four of them were there and her father broke the house's general dry rule so that all of them could have just one shot of vodka apiece. After that, they all sat together and talked about what had happened in their lives and the world in the past few weeks, and then, Kasia had gone to sleep early.

She had woken up early as well. She had to--she might be on vacation, so to speak, but she was still a part of her family. Before anyone else was up, she had finished several chores that would normally take hours out of her mother's or brother's day, and she'd even started on breakfast by the time her mother staggered downstairs to brush her away from the kitchen.

After that, it was TV and studying until her brother and father woke up a clear half hour later. And then, of course, the four Jazinskis shared a meal together before going off to accomplish their daily objectives: Kasia's parents went to the land surrounding their home to work and Krystian went to school. Kasia was left to enjoy herself... all by herself at home.

She studied for a few hours. And then she went to join her parents with their work and absolutely insisted that she would be bored to tears if she was forced to go back inside.

Farming never had particularly interested Kasia, but she had to admit, she could see the lure. Her parents got to spend most of the whole day together, occasionally talking to one another or play-fighting over stupid things like they were still middle-schoolers in love, and perhaps that was why their marriage had been stable every day it had lasted.Apart from that, it was certainly peaceful--at least when the machines were off--to be in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by trees and mountains on all sides.

And when her brother came home and they went to run in the forests together, it really was very peaceful indeed.

Several days passed in this manner: Kasia got up, did some chores, studied, and then joined her parents to help them with their surprisingly lucrative profession. They occasionally toyed with the idea of buying more land and hiring some help in order to have more wealth, but this proposition was more frightening than it was enticing. Kasia wanted, or at least she wanted the option, to live in the city with luxuries, conveniences, and the ability to go anywhere in the world at the practical drop of a hat, but her parents knew that they preferred a much more simple life. For them, excess wealth could more of a curse than a blessing.

It was usually nearly dark by the time Krystian got back from school, and by the time he and Kasia were finished running, they just had time to shower and eat dinner. Somehow, Kasia found time to do pushups and other body weight exercises in between, and as she'd promised herself, she did keep a clean diet despite being on vacation.

Sometimes, she went into town to buy groceries and other things. But apart from that, the only time she left her family's property was when she went riding on her motorbike.

The roads around where Kasia lived were so abandoned it was a surprise that they showed up on any official map. Only infrequently did trucks of goods pass by, and it was a rare treat when Kasia saw other modern vehicles pass her by.

For the most part, then, she was free to go absolutely however fast she wanted to. And, usually, Kasia wanted to go fast. The feeling of liberation she sometimes achieved after over an hour in the gym was potent, but it wasn't nearly as strong as the feeling she got starting at around 160 kilometers per hour, when the trees turned to blurs around her. She sometimes spent hours on her bike, sometimes when it was dark and sometimes when it wasn't--and, invariably, whenever she got home she was so overflowing with energy that she had to get out there and run some more.

Sometimes, Kasia thought about Alex. Whenever this happened, she took some time off of what she was doing and went to the second-floor balcony of her home and simply looked up into the night sky. It was often so quiet and peaceful that for a time, at least, she could imagine that Alex was very possibly looking up at the same night sky that she was.

In time, the end of Kasia's spring break drew near. She accepted that--she would miss her parents and her brother, of course, but she looked forward to getting back to her studies and spending time with Alex again. And besides, she'd call more often, and maybe even set up a Skype account so that she and her family could see one another in real time at least once or twice a week.

She got her pictures, though. And her videos.Krystian had a fairly popular Youtube account and so he promised his sister that after doing some computer magic with the raw material, he'd put them up. He speculated that they'd get at least a few hundred hits immediately; after that, it was anyone's guess as to how popular videos of an attractive Polski redhead doing simple stunts on a nice motorcycle would become.

Kasia spent her last few days at home relaxing, mostly. Her parents prevented her from working with them forcibly, leaving Kasia to study and read and practice cooking and run, faster and farther than she ever had before in her life. Now, she simply couldn't just start to run when it started to get dark or else she'd get back after midnight--she had to start in the afternoon and she had to take longer routes which let her see parts of her family's land she'd never visited before.

By the last day of spring break, Kasia had more than achieved her goal of running ten kilometers at a stretch.Shecould run twenty, and in good time.

For this reason, when it was time for her to go back to school, Kasia felt an odd sense of confidence. Now, the clothes that once fitted her snuggly were starting to feel loose, and her hair was starting to become fairly long. She looked better, and she felt a lot better--smarter, more confident, and a lot more mature. Although her spring break had only lasted nine days in total, she felt almost like a different person going back to campus. She felt almost like a person who could, potentially, be with Alex Kralik.

The bus from near her hometown back to Warszawa had been late, and so Kasia had ended up slinking back to her dorm almost in the middle of the night. As it was the last day before classes started again, her classmates were partying pretty hard, and those who had finished drinking had only done so because they were busy with more... sexual things.

Kasia made her way past several dorm rooms that were practical orgies by the time she got back to hers. She told herself that she would never take part in those things because it was immoral to do so, but no matter what, there was always an element of curiosity... and of jealousy. Even if she wanted to participate in such a sexual event, there was no way she'd be allowed to, after all.

She was almost back in her dorm when a half-drunk group of her classmates made their way down the hall. Normally, they would have walked past her without any sort of reaction, but this time the men among the group stopped and seemed to take notice.

Kasia was taller than them all, to be sure, but the way they looked at her told her that they didn't all have a fetish for tall women. The way they looked at her... the way their eyes traveled up and down her body... it made her feel like a piece of meat.

"Well, hello there," one of them said. He was a blonde, and judging by his accent, he was Polski just like Kasia.

But the similarities between them ended there. Although Kasia still had a bit too much meat on her bones to be called thick, even, she was fit and the boy talking to her most certainly was not. His diet most obviously consisted of alcohol and the sorts of foods that were sure to give him diabetes before he hit his thirtieth birthday, and the only sort of exercise he engaged him was... Kasia flushed and turned away before he got too close to her.

"Where are you going, girl?" he asked, as the rest of his fellows gathered around him. They ribbed one another and joked but they all looked on to see if, maybe, the curvaceous redhead before them might join them for a night of drinking and debauchery.

Kasia didn't reply. Instead, she took out her key and moved toward her door--and then he caught her wrist with his hand.

Involuntarily, she gasped, and he must have taken that as a sign that he was doing something right. Because he moved closer to her, then, and Kasia had no idea what would happen next so she didn't think--she just reacted.

Her slap caught him across the face. It shocked her as much as it shocked him and his friends, and for a moment, Kasia very nearly apologized. But then she realized that he had set his hand on her without being bidden to. And the moment he had crossed that line, he had removed himself from the sector of society that Kasia treated reasonably.

"Don't," she said slowly, looking back and forth between the boy she'd just struck and his friends, "ever touch me again. Ever," she repeated. She held eye contact with the most dangerous-looking of them as she fumbled to use her key to get her door open.

A moment later, she succeeded. She then slipped into her room, rapidly, but held the door open and glared at the group outside for another moment.

"I am going to put my things away," she said in a dangerously cold voice. "And then I am going to check that you're gone. If you're not, I swear that I'll call the police and have them arrest you for assault."

"You hit me, bitch," the blonde boy said. He stepped forward--but stopped short when Kasia held her ground and glared at him, as if daring him to come at her. "And now you're saying that you're going to have the cops come for us when we're just standing here?"

Kasia nodded. She paused, then, and shrugged. "You can try your luck if you want. But I don't think you'll get very far... So, get lost right now," she said coolly, "unless you're feeling very lucky tonight."

Without waiting for things to get more heated, Kasia closed the door. She then locked it and latched it and moved her desk so that it acted as a brief buffer to forced entry, and then she held her cell phone in her hand and dialed 112. She put her finger on the call button but didn't press it--she just stood there for a full minute.

And then she collapsed onto her bed and almost started to cry.

She felt guilt, fear, and a sense of revulsion so strong that she wanted to throw up. Her body language ought to have made it clear--she was not interested in drinking or doing any of the other things her "peers" did at such odd hours. She certainly didn't want to go around with them, either, if they were the sort of people who put their hands on others without permission.

For a moment, Kasia was tempted to call her father just to have someone comforting to talk to. Or not even her father--Krystian. He might still be awake and if he hopped on their bike, he could be on campus in just a few hours with the hunting rifle she'd given to him on his birthday two years ago.

But then she realized she was overreacting. And if she called her brother or father, she'd cause many people a great deal of trouble that simply wasn't necessary--a brief, cautious peek through the eyehole in her door told Kasia that the blonde boy and his friends were long gone, though that scarcely made her feel safer.

She had no weapons in her dorm. And even if she had, she wouldn't have known how to use them. She could shoot reasonably well, of course, but firearms weren't allowed on campus and she doubted she could bring herself to shoot a person, anyway. Perhaps she'd get pepperspray--yes, that was a good idea, and she'd do that as soon as possible, maybe even the next day itself.

No matter what, though, it seemed clear that Kasia would have to spend the rest of the night in fear and by herself. She had no friends, after all, and no one on campus to just call and talk to when she simply had to talk to someone.

No, Kasia thought, she did have one friend. And if she was able to talk to him, right then, even for a few minutes, it would mean so much to her. But though she'd known him for half a semester and though they had been friends for nearly as long, she did not have Alex Kralik's cell number. She didn't even have his email address, either.

All at once, Kasia felt extremely tired. She didn't even have the energy to unpack her lone article of luggage and clean up her room or even change into her pajamas. She didn't even turn the lights off--she simply lay down in her bed, wrapped a blanket around her, curled up, and shut her eyes.

She barely slept a wink that night. She was exhausted but she was so sad and cold and alone that several times, she really did shed a few tears. Her only consolation was that she would see Alex again the next morning.At least... hopefully...

Kasia's first class was in the morning, and, as such, attendance was spotty at best. But as that day was directly after a weekend of drunkenness and partying, it seemed likely that so few students would attend that the whole thing might get cancelled.

Still, she got in the room a full fifteen minutes early. And, as always, she sat down and went over the notes she'd already written.

At least, she tried to. Her eyes scanned over the fine lines of her handwriting, but very rapidly they began to glaze over as the vision she received was replaced by another, more pleasing one: of Alex, smiling at her in that shy, strange way of his, after telling her what an interesting, brilliant girl she was. Sometimes, he was dressed in his normal apparel--cargo pants a size too big for him and a tee shirt--but other times, he was wearing his gym clothes--track pants and muscle shirts that showed off the size and lack of fat that defined not only his arms, but his body in general.

She sighed. She missed him a lot and she knew it, though they'd only been apart for a week. She truly did like Alex, and there was no point whatsoever in denying this to herself. Even if she tried to, she'd never be able to stop her interest in him--because in her view, he was the perfect man: disciplined, smart, sincere, witty (albeit in an offbeat way), and all of these characteristics were packaged in a tall, lean, feline body that any woman would be pleased to wrap her arms around.

Within a minute or so, Kasia gave up the pretense of studying and just sat at her desk, daydreaming about what it would be like when Alex was back on campus. It was spring, and the weather was starting to get nice at long last, so perhaps things would happen between them. She doubted that they'd start a relationship then--or ever--but it would be perfect if she could go on walks with him, or if they could go out to get lunch somewhere nice on a Saturday morning or something. Maybe--

"Dzie _?__ dobry_, Kasia," said a familiar voice not far from her. "How was your spring break?"

And there he was, exactly as he always was: in his signature apparel, wearing his backpack over only one shoulder, with his straight black hair neatly styled and flicked up in the front. He was all smiles, and that couldn't be simply because he'd had a fun week back in Praha... he was actually very happy to see her again.

Damn. She was staring and smiling and blushing--and not saying a word.

"Dzie _?__ dobry_, Alex," Kasia replied shyly. "I had a very nice week, back at home. How about...?"

Her words diminished into silence when she saw that Alex had stepped up to the desk next to her but wasn't sitting down. Instead, he was staring at her so intensely that she dared not move for fear of being cut to shreds by the practical laser beams cast by his eyes. She only blushed more and held her breath, praying that something wasn't horribly wrong with her.

"Wow," Alex said, a moment later. His intense gaze fell, slowly, though his ears remained perked up and focused on her. He began to smile again, too.

"Kasia, you look good. You must have been very busy this week... wow," he repeated.

A moment later, the tiger seemed to realize himself--then, he sat down, and gave her a more usual, shy smile, as opposed to the happy grin he'd used exclusively that morning until then. He got out his notes and his pen, but then, he simply turned back to Kasia and looked her up and down in a way that would have offended her if he was anyone but Alex Kralik.

"What did you do?" the tiger asked. "It must have been brutal, for you to have come so far so quickly, tak?"

"Not really," Kasia said. "I just... ran a lot, did pushups and things, and watched my diet. I don't think it's so impressive." She searched for words, briefly, which was rather hard to do when Alex Kralik was staring at her body. "It's just because... well, I'm really new to keeping fit and eating properly, so... it's going to be easy for me to get to a certain point. After that... well, maintaining shouldn't be so hard, but if I ever want to become like you, I'll really have to work for it."

Alex nodded, slowly, agreeing that this was a fair assessment of things. Still, it was clear that he was more than impressed by Kasia's progress in a week. He continued to look at her for a moment, before finally turning to his notes again.

"You know," Alex said, "I don't think I've ever met anyone else so dedicated to fitness, Kasia. You go to the gym every day--no one does that except for me, and I'm obsessed." He said these words not with a smile, but with his ears half-flattened as if he had just admitted an important secret to the red-haired human at his side.

"You're quite an inspiration," he said. "I mean... you've come so far so quickly, and from absolute square one. So, you know, if you ever... want to really get into fitness, like running a marathon, or doing powerlifting or proper bodybuilding... just let me know. I'll be happy to show you everything."

Alex smiled, then, as Kasia struggled not to be overwhelmed by what was going on. Not only was Alex impressed by her dedication, he looked at her as a source of inspiration. And he was offering to teach her, to train her, to help her become the pinnacle of strength and beauty that he was. Maybe becoming his girlfriend someday... was more than just an impossible dream. Maybe it might actually happen.

"Thanks, Alex," Kasia said in a very, very small voice. "But I think I want to continue what I'm doing for a while."

Alex nodded at her but said nothing. He wasn't being curt--he just respected her decision, greatly, and had nothing more to say about it. After all, the few students who weren't hung over and exhausted from the activities of the past two days were starting to enter the classroom.

Besides, they would see one another many more times that day--in class, between classes, and, of course, at the gym, where they would meet every evening for the rest of the semester.

Kasia could feel herself getting fitter. Every day, she looked in the mirror not only with less shame, but with an ever-increasing amount of pride. She could run harder and faster every day, though she almost always did so on the elliptical so as to spend an extra hour every day with Alex, but she was now doing high repetition sets of pushups, crunches, and weightless squats too.

She was still somewhat overweight, but now she couldn't think of herself as chubby or fat even at the worst of times. She was... thick. She was definitely thick, and in the best way. Certainly she still had a tummy, but now it was insignificant compared to her breasts, and her hips, from which she'd lost not an ounce of weight.

If that trend continued... by the time Kasia reached her target weight, she'd have the figure of a supermodel. She'd have a somewhat defined body, yet she'd still be extremely feminine in appearance, and if she managed to look like that... then maybe, Alex would finally look at her the way she wanted him to.

That, perhaps, was the one aspect of her life that still saddened Kasia. Her studies were going very well indeed, and she was keeping in touch with her family. Her improved appearance meant that she actually knew a few people by name and sight on campus, though she didn't exactly have many true friends, and she was making a name for herself even with her toughest, most cruel professors.

But no matter what, her relationship with Alex remained stubbornly static. They talked, sometimes, but it was almost always about school or fitness. Kasia occasionally shared things about herself with him, but he almost never mentioned anything about his life before college or his parents back in Praha.

Maybe he was holding her at arm's length, consciously or otherwise. Or, maybe, he was just worried about the final exams, which, because of his and Kasia's dedication to the gym and everyday studies, crept up on them so quickly that they barely remembered them a week before they were there.

It began as it had been when Alex and Kasia studied for midterms: the days were a maze of books, gym, and class, with hardly a moment in between to eat or sleep. Kasia tried to force Alex to get the amount of shut-eye he needed to perform when it did come time to take the tests by reminding him how hard he'd had it earlier that semester, but he didn't seem to take his advice to heart--he pushed himself too hard, but not by a great amount and for that reason, Kasia quickly left him alone. After all, she had her own welfare to worry about.

However, by the time Thursday and Friday rolled around, Kasia found herself feeling strangely confident about her material. She'd committed everything of note to memory, but it wasn't just that--she understood everything to the degree that even if she did forget some equation or concept, she'd be able to derive it within a few moments. Alex seemed to have achieved this academic Zen as well, though Kasia couldn't be sure of it--he talked with her so little those days that many times she forgot that he was even there.

It was Saturday morning, and, for such an early hour, the library was rather full. Other students shuffled around in zombie-like states, barely kept on their feet by copious amounts of energy drinks and coffee, but Alex and Kasia were both reasonably-rested and alert. They sat almost side by side--they had too many piles of paper around them to be directly adjacent to one another.

After greeting one another, they had studied in almost perfect silence for a full two hours. The only time either of them spoke was when there was some sort of question about the material, which wasn't often, or when some clever, offbeat joke could made about some line of text in their books. But apart from these rarities, neither Alex nor Kasia said a word.

For that reason, Kasia was taken a bit off-guard when Alex suddenly asked her what she was going to be doing for the summer. When that happened, she looked up--and admitted that she didn't have a clue.

"I may take classes for the first half of the summer semester," Kasia said uncertainly. "Just... some sociology and economics or something so that I can get them out of the way and have it easier next year. After that, I guess I'll go home... and maybe I'll go on a vacation. All four of us will probably spend some time travelling, probably just in Polska... maybe Krystian and I will go somewhere else."

"Krystian..." Alex said. A moment later, he looked up, and tilted his head at Kasia. "Is that your brother, or...?"

Kasia nodded. "My younger brother, tak."

"That's nice. I have a younger brother also," he said. He paused, for a moment, and then reached into his pocket to take out his cell phone. He manipulated it for a moment with paws that were rather well-cared for, for belonging to a male who used them to lift hundreds of kilos of solid metal, and then he handed it to Kasia.

"That's him," the tiger said. "Krištof Kralik. He looks a lot like me, right? Except, he has your hair..."

If Kasia hadn't been looking down at a picture of a tiger who, indeed, looked like a younger and somewhat less muscular version of Alex, perhaps she would have noticed him looking at her hair in a rather wistful, happy way. It was as if he'd just truly appreciated how marvelously red it was, and how beautiful and exotic it was on a Slavic woman. And the way his paw twitched, just a little, almost suggested that he wanted to reach out and stroke it, just for a moment.

"He's a lot like me," Alex said, a moment later. "We have the same hobbies, and we think about things the same way. He's a lot more talkative, though, and I used to get angry with him a lot because of that. But now we're inseparable," the tiger continued. "We chat almost every day, after working out, and we spent almost all spring break doing... you know. Brotherly things."

Kasia looked up at then, and couldn't help but smiling. Alex had a very fond look on his face as he alternated between looking at her and the picture still displayed on his cell phone screen.

"So, do you think you'll spend a lot of time with him this summer?" Kasia asked, and Alex nodded.

"Definitely," he said. "He's wanted to go to Russia for some time now, but Mama and Papa would never let him unless I go with him. So, I think I'll surprise him--it's his birthday the day after exams--I'll buy the train tickets online and give them to him or something like that. And then, probably, he'll insist on going to Moscow immediately, so... I suppose the first few days of my break won't be so restful."

"That's very sweet of you, Alex," Kasia said. "I had no idea... I knew that you were a nice guy, but I couldn't have guessed that you could be so affectionate."

The tiger's only response to her compliment was to smile, shyly, and make a few more marks on his paper before sitting back in his seat.

"I'll probably have to take extra classes this summer, though... about Polish history and culture, you know. I fixed everything with my paperwork, but they're not taking it easy on me," Alex sighed. "I may have to take almost a full semester's load of classes the second half of summer..."

The two of them seemed to realize at the same time that due to their opposing schedules, they would be unable to see one another once over the summer. Kasia was saddened, no doubt, but even Alex looked a little disappointed--if only for a moment.

She was still holding his phone when he reached over and navigated to his contacts folder. In the process, of course, his fingers flickered over hers, and that was as close as the two of them had come to holding hands since they had met one another for the first time. Kasia blushed so much, then that she almost missed what Alex said next.

"I just realized," Alex said, "I don't have your phone number. Or your email address. Please, enter them in... and, if you want, I'll do the same for you."

Breathlessly, Kasia nodded. She fished around in her bag for a moment before giving her cell phone her feline friend--just friend, she acknowledged, but now closer to being more than a friend than ever before.

The two of them spent a moment exchanging contact information. After that, they returned their cell phones and got back to studying.

This time, though, they sat a bit closer than they had been until then. And this time, each was just a little bit more aware of the other.

The final exams came and went, and, for certain, they were a lot more difficult than the midterm exams were. However, Kasia found herself finishing each test quite early regardless, giving her more than enough time to prepare for future tests and go to the gym in addition to getting a full night's sleep every evening. She and Alex didn't talk about their performance during the tests too much, but Kasia certainly got the impression that Alex was doing at least as well as she was.

By the time exams were finished, though, both of them were duly exhausted. And Kasia had a weekend of further studying and reading to look forward to before her summer courses began... but that was alright. She could read and study for hours at a stretch without feeling an iota of stress provided that there wasn't a large test to worry about.

Still, she would miss Alex a lot. Three months without seeing a whisker of him... it was a long time, no doubt, but Kasia promised herself that she would not waste her summer. She'd make a few--not friends, but a few acquaintances to study and chat with, and maybe even drag to the gym a few times. She would become smarter, and stronger, and more interesting, and... and, she promised to herself, the next time she saw Alex she would fit into the clothes she had bought for herself early in her second semester at college. Not only would she fit into them, she would make them look good on her, so good that Alex would absolutely have to comment on it and admit to himself, at least, that she really was a very good looking person indeed.

Even so. Three months... a lot could happen in that time. Alex was going to Russia, and who knew what might happen there? There were many, many beautiful females in Russian, many of whom were tigers or snow leopards--and who knew? Maybe Alex simply could never love a human girl the way he could love another feline.

Kasia was just preparing to go to the gym that Friday night, after her last test, when she realized how she might be able to keep herself on Alex's mind at least in the smallest way. It was an excellent idea--so excellent that Kasia stopped dressing halfway through and sat down at her computer wearing no more than shorts and a bra that fit her as well as it had when she had weighed 100 kilograms.

Her brother had emailed her the pictures he'd taken of her on her bike as well as links to his Youtube page weeks ago, but she'd never acted on them until then. Then, she quickly forwarded all pictures and videos to Alex's email address--and only after that did she allow herself to sit back in her chair for a moment.

She would not tell Alex to check his email when they met in the gym. He would find her message on his own, perhaps days later... and when he did, maybe, just maybe, he'd think twice before welcoming some exotic Russian girl into his arms.

That day, Kasia spent a full hour on the elliptical before doing enough pushups, crunches, and squats that by the time she was finished, she could barely move. Alex was with her the whole time, and he explained that he was doing a real workout that day in case he couldn't exercise for the next few days. She didn't explain the reason behind her own extreme dedication that day because she didn't like to lie, and she didn't want to tell Alex that she was really forcing herself so that he might be impressed with her.

By the time the two of them were finished working out, they were both exhausted. But after sitting down for only five minutes and panting, watching and feeling sweat run down their bodies, they each managed to stand up.

They left the gym together. They entered their dorm building together, and Kasia was still searching for the words for a proper goodbye when Alex suddenly and quite intentionally nudged Kasia's shoulder with his own. He smiled at her, then, and ushered her out of the path anyone else entering or exiting the building would take and into a quiet corner under the stairwell he used to get to his room.

"You know, Kasia, we spend so much time together that it will be odd," he said, "for me to not see you for almost three months. I think that I'll miss you, a lot. So..." he paused. "So... please, let's try to keep in contact. Maybe... just a text message or email every few days. I'm not good at talking on the phone, but... if you were to just tell me what you're up to every so often, it would mean a lot to me. And I'll be sure to tell you what how I'm doing, if you're interested."

It occurred to Kasia that the two of them were very close to one another indeed, and in such a secluded, dark part of the building that any onlookers would have thought that the two of them were kissing or much, much more. In fact, just looking at Alex while being so close to him--seeing the concern and, yes, the affection in his eyes--it was enough to make Kasia wish that the two of them were kissing or doing much, much more indeed.

Of course, he didn't set a paw on her. He didn't move toward her in any way, yet, when she reached forward and placed her hands on the paw he didn't habitually keep on the strap of his backpack, he didn't resist her. He didn't resist her and he didn't shy away from her and he gave no other signal that he didn't like what she was doing, but he gave no signal that he particularly liked what she was doing either.

So, she just kept her hands on his paw and gently caressed the furred, muscled appendage as best she could without going too far and making Alex feel uncomfortable. She wanted to do more--she wanted to do a lot more--but she did not go further, knowing that if she did, she could ruin things between her and Alex forever.

"I'll keep in touch, Alex," Kasia said. "Maybe not every day, but at least once a week, I promise. And can I expect the same from you?"

He was nodding before she was finished speaking. "Absolutely, Kasia. At least once a week... unless Krištof drags me somewhere where there's no internet or cell phone coverage. In that case, I'll send you a postcard." He paused, then, and smiled... and then he looked down at her hands, still cupped over his significantly larger, more muscular paw.

And then, at long last, Kasia let go. She stifled a sigh, and then simply smiled at Alex while stroking a few errant strands of hair out of her face. She smiled at Alex for another moment, and then, slowly, began to walk away.

"So... goodbye, Alex," Kasia said. "Text me when you get back home, alright?"

Alex nodded. He, too, left the darkened corner under the stairwell and began to make his way up to his room. "I will, Kasia. Please make sure to text me when you've finished your own exams... during the summer, they can be more dangerous than a little train ride to Praha."

She had to laugh at that, even as she entered her room and then closed the door behind her. Again, she was filled with nostalgia, and the desire to hear Alex stop in his tracks, race down to her, throw the door open and take her into his arms.

It didn't happen, of course, and it was unlikely that it ever would. But it was the hope that someday the two of them might be more than friends that made Kasia forget the soreness in her body, in her legs, and step into the shower to clean a body that was becoming closer and closer to worthy of being touched by Alex.

The next months would be difficult for her. But if she could impress Alex so much with the progress she'd made over her spring break, then she ought to be able to completely overwhelm him with where she could be by the beginning of the fall semester.

Kasia's summer classes kept her very busy. It wasn't that they were difficult, really, but she had to do so much reading and writing that she barely had time to work out each day.

For that reason, she did have to skimp out on one of her objectives for the summer. She'd intended to meet at least a few people on campus, but by the time classes were coming to a close, she'd only come to meet two others for studying in the library together. Both were Polish girls, like her, but Kasia had consciously selected them: both had boyfriends and both were, she hoped, not quite as attractive as she would become by the end of the summer.

Apart from that, both Celina and Sara were decent people, and smart enough to offer Kasia some help when she needed it. When fall semester came, Kasia had every intention of going back to studying with Alex alone, but perhaps if he saw her waving to people on campus from time to time his opinion of her would improve.

Still, the first half of Kasia's summer was... not boring, but forgettable. Days passed without anything of particular note happening: Kasia woke up, studied, went to class, exercised, and sometimes talked to Celina and Sara in between. Sometimes, the three of them would take walks around campus together, and less commonly Kasia would get one of them to join her in the gym for at least some time.

The most interesting times in those days were when she and Alex caught one another available to chat at the same time. It didn't happen often, but once, when Alex was stuck waiting for a train in Moscow, he and Kasia texted one another for almost two hours.

Of course, when they were finished, Kasia had to rush to finish the studying she'd assigned to herself for that day. But she didn't regret putting Alex before her books in the slightest, because she had to make it clear to him through her actions that he was important to her.

By the time Kasia's classes were ending, Alex had seen most of the major cities in European Russia. He emailed her one day detailing his brother's plans to haul him off to Siberia, where he was likely to be out of contact for the several days that remained before the two of them had to get back to studying, and that saddened Kasia. The one or two days where their schedules might have overlapped were now gone.

Kasia was tempted to hang around on campus just long enough to see Alex come back into school... but by the time she was halfway through her exams, she knew that was a no go. She'd had enough of being either bored or busy to the point of extreme stress on campus; she had to go home as soon as she possibly could.

And besides... the more time she and Alex spent apart--to a point--the nicer it would be when they saw one another again. Kasia knew her workouts were giving her great results; now, she couldn't fit into any of her old clothes without swimming around in them. And... now, the boys who remained on campus... well, they were starting to notice her.

It wasn't much. Usually, it wasn't much. But the days when boys only became interested in her when they were too drunk to walk straight were long gone--now, Kasia didn't have togo far before someone met her eye and waved. And almost every other day boys would simply say hello to her and smile and ask her how she was doing in passing--that was something that never happened before.

Usually, she wasn't hit on, explicitly. Usually, boys were just being kind to her, but since Kasia was so used to simply being looked through, it meant a lot. Despite the pressure she applied to herself, and despite how difficult her classes were, Kasia was relatively happy.

When her final exam finished, she went to the gym. She intended to go home as she usually did--by bus--but when she finished her workout, a tall, attractive male was waiting for her at the entrance to her dormitory.

Kasia stared at him for a moment. And then, she grinned, and walked forward rapidly until she was close enough to give him a brief hug. She even gave him a kiss, right on the cheek, not caring that they were in a relatively public area, and compliment him on how tall he'd gotten--now, he was eye to eye with her, or perhaps even more than that.

She had no reservations about inviting him into her room and even talking to him through the closed door to her bathroom as she showered. She also had no reservations about asking him rather personal questions about his love life and plans for the future, and she even went so far as to admonish him, once or twice, when his responses weren't to her liking.

And why wouldn't she? He may have increased his muscle mass significantly since they'd last seen one another, and he may have had the facial features and shooting abilities of a stone cold black ops soldier, but he was still Krystian Jazinski. He was still her sweet little brother.

Though he had driven there, Kasia drove back. He'd suspected that she'd want to, and for that reason, he brought not only an additional helmet but an additional riding suit, packed into the storage compartment on the back of the bike. Kasia put it on in record time and observed that she had to tighten the straps that regulated how it fit her--and then, it was onto the bike and onto the road.

Krystian had purchased a GPS some weeks before, mostly so that he could wander around the Polski back country that he and his parents called home without worrying about getting lost. It allowed him to find entire expanses of road he'd never seen before and mark out the particularly interesting ones so that he and his sister would be able to properly explore them when she was home again.

And, that evening, it allowed the two of them to find their own way home via a series of smaller roads that gave them the time to stop at several small towns for snacks, water, rest, and souvenirs. For the most part, it was Krystian who paid for things, as he had a job and Kasia only had a modest stipend from her school after her housing, books, and expenses were paid for, but he didn't mind--his own expenses were small to the point of negligibility.

They ended up getting home late, but their parents were awake anyway. And when they saw their daughter, they both insisted that she take off her riding jacket immediately, in front of them, so that they could see with their own eyes what the bulky protective garment didn't quite hide.

And so, blushing, Kasia had unzipped her jacket. Then, she had taken it off, and, rather uncertain of what else to do, she turned around on the spot, freeing her hair from its restrictive ponytail in the process. Her hair had gotten rather long in the past few months--now, it didn't barely graze her shoulders, as it once had. Now, as it was long enough to trickle rather nicely down her spine and to the top of her back, it could form a nice, glimmering red curtain as she turned.

By the time it came to rest to one side of her face, Kasia was facing her parents head on. And both of them were blatantly smiling and nodding their heads in approval.

It wasn't like them to tease her or make clever comments in any way. It was like them, however, to sincerely congratulate her on how beautiful she had always been, and how much more beautiful she had become in just a few months.

Kasia's father wasn't quite perceptive enough to guess why Kasia had suddenly become so motivated to keep herself fit, but as the four of them sat down together for the first time in weeks and began to talk, Kasia could tell that her mother was slowly starting to connect the distant glint that came to her eye whenever Alex was mentioned with the more obvious pride in her voice that came whenever her brother asked her how she got such incredible results in such an incredible time...

Kasia woke up early the next morning. She intended to make breakfast for her family before her mother could, but by the time she was downstairs, the other female in the house was already beginning to do some baking.

That brought back memories. Many times in her youth, Kasia had woken up not to an alarm clock or the threat that she would be late to school, but to the welcoming smell of baked goods: usually bread, but sometimes more delicious eatables that she absolutely had to help her mother prepare before racing off to catch the bus.

That morning, though, it was bread. Wheat bread, by the smell of it, probably with some oats sprinkled on top in order to give it extra texture and taste. It was an excellent recipe and one that had been in Kasia's family for several generations--one that she, someday soon, would use to make a family of her own very happy indeed.

As if entranced, Kasia made her way down the stairs. In the process, she did her hair into a ponytail, which was generally the hairstyle she preferred those days--it was practical, after all, and besides, she sometimes felt too attractive if she let her hair down. She would be happy to let her hair down for Alex, of course, but just walking around like that was too much.

"Dzie _?__ dobry_, Mama," Kasia said, as she made her way into the kitchen. "Let me help you make breakfast."

"Dzie _?__ dobry_, Kasia," the older Polski woman said. "That will be nice. Your father works too long for me to let him get up so early, and your brother... well, he lost his kitchen privileges when he almost burned the house down."

Kasia had to crack a smile at that. Then, she took her mother's side and began to cut up the various vegetables and meats that would feed the family for the coming day or two in silence. She wanted to say something, perhaps, but she didn't know what.

But that was alright. Because it wasn't long before Kasia's mother spoke, almost making Kasia lop off her finger in the process.

"So," she said pleasantly, "have you asked Alex out on a date yet?"

Kasia flinched, horribly, and sliced through the midsection of her thumb. There was blood, yes, and pain, but she was so shocked by what her mother said that she only vaguely registered these as she put her hurt digit into her mouth and stared at the still-calm, still-serene woman at her side.

"Don't be so surprised, Kasia," her mother sighed. "It's very obvious that you're crazy for him. Now, put on a bandage, please. None of us want any blood with our potatoes, tak?"

"Tak, Mama," Kasia sighed. She hung her head, halfway, and did as she was told. When she was finished, she gave her mother a shy, hopeful smile--one of the games the two of them played involved tests in apathy that were actually lost very quickly indeed. Kasia's mother only began to talk to her again after she saw that her daughter wasn't seriously hurt--the cut itself was barely deep enough to break through her skin.

"So... I assume you haven't done anything with him, then, besides studying and going to the gym?"

Sullenly, Kasia began to shake her head. Her cheeks began to turn red--she didn't like the way the conversation was going already.

"Well, I mean," she began to protest, "I have done other things with him, Mama. We... talk, sometimes. And we walk together too," she said, injecting a tone of pride into her voice. "I am making progress with him."

"Let me guess," Kasia's mother sighed, "you talk about studies and walk from class to the gym and the library, tak?" She turned to her daughter with a knowing smile, just in time to see the younger Polak turn away and reluctantly nod her head.

The two of them were silent for a few moments. Kasia was pretending to sulk, and her mother was pretending not to notice. And then, of course, a series of sidelong looks led to grins, then open smiles and all was forgiven.

"Is he why you've been exercising so much?" Kasia's mother asked, and this time, Kasia nodded without reluctance. Doing so made her blush, a little bit, but it was just a reflex. She could talk to her mother about anything.

"I'm glad I met him," Kasia said. "He's been such a good influence on me in so many ways. Even if we don't end up together, I'm... very grateful to be his friend."

"Don't think that way, Kasia," Kasia's mother said. "Don't settle for just being his friend. You've known him for a few months now, so this isn't just a crush, tak?" Kasia nodded, but there was no reason for her to do so. Her mother had known what her response would be before even asking the question.

"You really love him, don't you?"

For a moment, Kasia's breath caught in her throat. Then, she swallowed, uncomfortably... and nodded.

"I guess so, Mama. I mean... I've never felt this way about anyone before, and... it's actually kind of scary. I'm worried that... I may be obsessed with him, or that he'll never like me no matter what. What if that happens?" Kasia asked. She stopped what she was doing and turned to face her mother. "I try to talk to him, but he's so quiet; I barely know him. What if he's gay; what if he's asexual; I don't know what I'll do--"

"Well, Kasia, he showed you what you had to gain by losing weight, tak? If he's gay, then you'll have to show him how much he stands to gain by becoming straight. And it won't be so hard," she said, turning to face her daughter again. Briefly, her eyes flickered up and down the younger woman's form. "You've become very... what is the word... sexy."

That made Kasia flush, of course, and not just because it was the first time anyone had called her "sexy". It was because it was her own mother who was calling her sexy--probably to tease her, in a large part, but certainly with more than a grain of sincerity as well.

It meant a lot to her. It really did. And she showed this by stepping ever so closer to her mother and lightly touching shoulders with her.

Like Alex, Kasia wasn't always talkative. But, like Alex, she could sometimes surprise those close to her with how sweet she was.

Kasia did not waste her summer in any sense.

After spending time with her parents, grandparents, and some other relatives for about a week, she and Krystian toured Polska with a car, several bags of clothes, and a very restrictive budget. They both could have asked for money from their parents, of course, but by restricting themselves in such a manner they would learn discipline and economic wisdom then, painlessly, rather than later in a potentially painful manner.

Furthermore, Kasia and her brother simply didn't have the funds to eat unhealthily much. In that sense, it was even easier for Kasia to maintain her diet... though, she noticed, she was beginning to lose her taste for sweets and fatty foods. Soon enough, it would take no discipline at all to pass up pierogi for a plate of steamed vegetables and unseasoned chicken breast.

Unless, of course, it was her mother's pierogi. In that case, all bets were off.

Kasia was glad that she and Krystian were able to keep one another so busy. Even after they returned home, the two of them were always doing something together: riding their bike, running, playing one-on-one basketball (which was getting increasingly hard for her to do--now, Krystian had a centimeter of height on her and was nearly able to dunk), or killing one another in videogames on his PS3. In her spare time, Kasia studied, and shortly she was reading her books for the coming semester the second time and had notebooks filled with her observations on them.

Kasia was glad that she was never bored, because she was able to keep her mind off Alex. She was not paralyzed by his absence, of course, but she did occasionally find herself simply sitting and wishing that she could see him, could talk to him, could set her hands on his striped, furred paws.

At least he kept in contact, though. They texted one another every day and emailed one another almost as often--mostly, they talked about what they were doing, how Alex's studies were going, and how both of their studies for the coming semester would go, but sometimes they did chit-chat just a little bit. Sometimes, Kasia got the feeling that, in time, she and Alex would really talk.

Although Kasia had stopped being pudgy or chunky in any sense weeks before, she was still losing weight, rapidly. At the beginning of the summer, she could fairly have been called of average stature, but now, that simply wasn't so. She was starting to get slim, and toned, and in doing so, she was realizing a few interesting things about herself.

The last time Kasia had been thin was before liceum. In those days, she had been too young to be "curvy", so to speak, and so her figure had been rather banana-like. But now...

When she started to realize what was happening, Kasia was actually frightened. She sincerely did think that something was wrong with her, and why not? None of her old clothes fit her anymore, but her lingerie did--not just her brassieres, but her panties as well. She was only losing weight from her belly, and, to a lesser degree, her arms, legs, and neck as well.

The more feminine parts of her anatomy remained stubbornly large.

Or, perhaps, not so stubbornly. Perhaps having an hourglass figure and "TNA" that had been big for her at her peak weight was a good thing. After all, boys certainly seemed to like that; even when Kasia and her brother were walking side by side she saw their furtive glances look her up and down. It was lucky that the two of them were so tall, and, in his case, dangerous-looking--they could go around after dark without fear, though when Kasia got back to campus she would have to take her safety much more seriously.

After all, her first time was reserved for... she blushed whenever her thoughts went in that direction.

Summer ended, in time, and when it did, Kasia both lamented and relished it. She wouldn't be able to spend endless days with her brothers and parents, just relaxing and exercising and studying at her leisure, but she would be back to the excitement of campus life.

And she and Alex would be together again. They might not be together, but at least they would be together.

By the time Kasia got back to campus, it was obvious that the seasons were ready to change. It was still warm, but the harsh sunlight and humidity of midsummer was gone. Replacing it was constant wind and a more reasonable amount of sunlight, along with the vague, still slight sense of foreboding that Kasia had come to associate with the arrival of winter. Students still stubbornly wore shorts and sleeveless tees, but it was clear that they would only be able to do so for so much long before it simply grew too cold for anything less than pants and long sleeves to be enough.

For her part, Kasia covered up well. She wore jeans that were tight around her upper legs and nowhere else and a somewhat loose hoody that simply could not hide the sizeable curves of her chest. She wasn't carrying much--just her backpack and a suitcase that she used to ferry her clothes between her home and her dorm. It had been somewhat hard to get the latter back to school, mostly because she hadn't taken the bus back.

But now that she was back, it was, of course, no big deal at all for her to make her way through campus. Most students had come in days or more earlier, and some, like Alex, had never left.

Now that she was so close to him again, in fact... Kasia looked up the stairs that led from the all-girl ground floor to the co-ed second floor to the all-boys floor above that. She had never been to Alex's room before, and though he was probably studying hard even then--that, or catching a catnap before preparing for courses he'd not had time to prepare for in advance--she really did want to disturb him. She wanted to go up, slip into his place, and--

"There she is."

He surprised her so badly that she jumped, visibly, though she had no reason to do so. After all, he hadn't hidden from her--he had simply been standing there, in the middle of the hallway, patiently waiting for her for who knew how long.

He knew that she was coming, she realized. Of course--she had told him via text message some hours before, but he hadn't replied, so she'd thought that he was busy or asleep.

And he may well have been busy or asleep. In fact, he probably should have been studying or sleeping, right then, but he wasn't. He had interrupted his schedule to come down to greet her, despite the lateness of the hour and the fact that they were going to see one another soon anyway.

These were all minutiae in the back of Kasia's mind, though. Because the moment she saw Alex again, the first thing that struck her was how good he looked.

In contrast to the death-like state he'd been in at the end of the previous spring semester, Alex now had just enough fat on his frame to walk around without looking like he was going to snap in two. Despite this, she could still see his defined abdominal muscles beneath his shirt--and she could also see very easily indeed that he had gotten bigger in the months they'd been apart.

Not vertically, of course--or, well, maybe just a little--but most of Alex's growth had been muscular. He used to look like a martial artist, but now he looked like an actual bodybuilder. He maintained an overall slim frame, but now his arms, legs, and chest were bigger and sported powerful, vascular blood vessels that she could see under his fur.

And despite all this, he still had that liquid, feline grace and flexibility that she had associated with him ever since they'd met. Even by standing and looking at her, Alex showed a poise and perfection that was stunning to behold.

He'd grown out his hair, too. Not much, but just a little bit--enough that it framed the powerful, defined angles of his face and made them look even better. His clothes remained the same, though; he still had an apparent affinity for loose cargo pants and dark graphic tee shirts. Now, he seemed to have some sort of watch--a thick dark timepiece that barely seemed to fit around his wrist--and he had changed his glasses, too. Now, they were a bit sleeker and more modern and made him look more like a computer programmer or national security agent than an intellectual.

But after Kasia looked at Alex's glasses, she found that she was frozen where she stood. She was looking into Alex's eyes, and not with the happy surprise she'd hoped to feel upon seeing again--now, she felt a taste of very real fear. Because he was looking back at her in a way that she simply did not understand.

He stared at her for a full twenty seconds. Then, slowly, he stepped forward and began to circle her, but by this point, Kasia had forgotten her fear. She simply bowed her head and waited for him to finish doing whatever he was doing.

She saw him walk around her, not once, but twice, looking her up and down the entire time. The expression on his face was so intent that she almost felt fear again--but then, she stood straight and still and tall. She wasn't fat anymore, and, God damn it, she wasn't pathetic in any other way either. She had nothing to be ashamed of--in fact, she had a lot to be proud of, and all she had to do was to allow Alex to realize that.

And, in time, he did.

When he came back to face her directly, he was grinning widely. He continued to look her up and down anyway in a way that was not sexual (perhaps to her chagrin) and yet in a way that only he was entitled to.

"I am amazed," Alex said. "Kasia... you're stunning. I can't take my eyes off you; please forgive me." He paused, briefly, and then took a step closer to her and smiled at her in that shy way of his. Somehow, it was even more disarmingly handsome than it usually was.

"You must have been very strict with your training, and all summer long, too," Alex said. "I've only ever seen females like you in fitness magazines. But even they're not as good as you are, because they only look nice. You look nice--more than nice--and you're smart, too. As smart as me. Smarter than me," the tiger added, thoughtfully, as if he wasn't sure whether it was true or not himself.

For her part, Kasia did not think that she was particularly smarter than Alex. But this thought did not register to her--all that registered to her was the fact that Alex was complimenting her, over and over again, and staring at her with such passion in his eyes that she dared to think that the way his paws were raised, slightly, meant that he might finally take her into his arms.

For a moment, she really thought he was going to hug her. She really did. She thought that it would be a friendly hug, at least, or at least a brief, glancing embrace--but then, she saw something in Alex change.

Outwardly, his demeanor remained the same. He simply grinned, again, and then he placed his paw on her hand for the briefest of moments.And then he stopped touching her entirely.

Kasia would have had to bite back disappointment, then, if it hadn't been for what Alex said next. Because, after ushering her hand aside so that he could take her briefcase for her, he brushed against her, the slightest bit, and asked if she'd like to go to a nearby restaurant for a late-night dinner.

It really wasn't smart for them to be out so late the night before the first day of the new semester. It really, truly wasn't. Kasia could barely rationalize it by telling herself, repeatedly, that they would certainly have time to go home and get a full eight hours of sleep even if they spent two hours out and about; likewise, she could barely rationalize breaking her diet by telling herself that it was alright to have a cheater meal once in a blue moon.

What she was worried about, as she followed Alex to whatever their destination was, was that she wasn't quite dressed for the occasion. Her jeans were alright, she supposed, but her boots and hoody didn't flatter her, exactly, particularly when she was next to Alex: a tall, beautiful tiger with muscles that practically popped out of his shirt. Her hair was long, it was true, but she didn't quite want to let it out of its neat, practical ponytail: she rather wanted Alex to see the way it spilled down the back of her head all the way to the middle of her back and Alex alone.

And, so, she wasn't given many ways to look like she deserved being practically on the arm of the tiger at her side. She hadn't used makeup in months, but she would have if given just a few moments to. And she certainly would have changed--she had a few shirts that probably looked good on her, and then--and then... there were the clothes she'd bought at the beginning of the previous spring semester, at the designer outlet...

They fit her now. They absolutely fit her now. But Kasia couldn't exactly slip away from Alex to put them on and then return before he noticed it--because even though he only occasionally glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, she could tell that a great deal of his attention indeed was on her.

It was flattering, of course, but it still made Kasia nervous. There had to be _some_thing she could do to spice up her appearance just a little bit, just the tiny amount that would no doubt make her irresistible to Alex once and for all.

She blushed when it occurred to her: under her hoody, she wasn't wearing much. Just a bra, and over that, a tank top that left her shoulders and a few fingers of her lean, pale midriff bare.

She... would dress like that for Alex in a heartbeat. But she would dress like that only for Alex and no one else. And since they were going to a restaurant, there would be other people around... no, Kasia would keep all of her clothes on. Later--that evening or another time--she would show Alex some of her skin. And, she hoped, he would touch her just a little bit more than he already had.

Their destination, it seemed, was a fusion restaurant only a ten minutes' walk from campus. It was located just at the edge of a street known for its nightlife; even then, students and other young adults from Warszawa and the rest of Polska and more were busy starting to drink and flirt to get their night started. Few of them were interested in late dinners or even the sort of snacks that would sop up the alcohol in their systems and make it even more difficult and expensive to get drunk, and for that reason, the place had plenty of tables open when Alex and Kasia walked in.

Fortunately, most of the staff was male. There were some female waitresses, of course, but hopefully they would take one look at Kasia's pretty face and the fact that she towered head and shoulders over most of them and then they would decide not to try to take Alex from her. Apart from that, the place was rather busy, noisy, and all in all completely different from anything Kasia had ever experienced before.

She was nervous. And it either showed on her face or else Alex knew her a lot better than she thought he did, because as they were taken to their table to stood a little closer to her and spoke, quietly, so that only she could hear him.

"You're from the countryside, right, Kasia?" Alex asked. Then, without waiting for her to respond, he continued. "This must be a culture shock for you. Me... I'm a city boy, born and raised. Going to Russia, now that was a culture shock for me. You wouldn't believe the amount of space..."

He shook his head from side to side and came to a gradual halt so that their waiter could show them to a booth. It was some distance from the bar in the center of the restaurant--the one part of it that could be called truly chaotic--and so after sitting down across from Alex, Kasia felt somewhat more comfortable. Of course, Alex seemed like he was completely in his element: he seemed relaxed, calm, cool, as if he was born and bred to be that way despite the noise and activity all around him.

They were asked what they'd like to drink a moment later--both decided on water without a second's worth of thought--and then they were left alone, or, at least, as alone as they could be in such a busy establishment.

Alex didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off of her. And for that reason, Kasia felt nervous, again, and shied away from his piercing gaze by stroking her hair with a hand and looking at the rest of the people in the restaurant. He'd changed over the summer, it seemed--now, he was much less hesitant to look at her. Either that, or she had simply become so breathtaking that he was transcending his natural personality in order to experience her body--at least visually.

No matter what, though, he was still Alex. Even if he was marginally less shy, he was still the incredibly smart, fit, attractive being that she had known for... it felt like so much longer than just a few months. Despite all the awkwardness and silence between them, Alex was Kasia's best friend, and Kasia dared to believe that she was Alex's best friend.

Then again... he had invited her out for dinner. Could it be? Was he starting to see her as more than a friend?

She would have liked to ask this question--in fact, she would have liked to have the confidence to ask this question. Regardless, just a second after she looked up and faced the tiger again, he was the one who began to speak.

He asked her about her summer, and she told him. There was so much Kasia had done and learned that despite their constant contact via text messages, Alex had only a vague idea of how her days passed. For example, while he knew that she spent a lot of time with her brother, he couldn't have guessed that she played against him in basketball and either held her own or won. And while he did know that she had done a lot of travelling, he didn't know that she had done so with her brother, too.

He seemed to truly appreciate how close Kasia and Krystian were. Maybe it was because Alex hadn't had a good relationship with his own younger sibling until quite recently, or maybe it was because how sweet Kasia could be simply made him happy in a way that he couldn't explain. Whatever it was, by the time Kasia was finished explaining some of the finer points of what she and her brother had gotten up to over their weeks off, Alex was smiling. And not just for a few shy seconds, either.

At some point they must have ordered their food, because after a few moments they were both served with skewers of sizzling meat, vegetables, as well as salsa, grilled vegetables, and bread on the side. Such cuisine was beyond Kasia's conception--even as she looked at it she could barely believe that food existed in such forms.

Within seconds, though, she became worried that her provincial nature might be off-putting to Alex. He was, at least in comparison to her, more than endowed with a globalized outlook of the world and what it had to offer--for that reason, she slyly watched him to figure out how to eat what she found out, in moments, were called "kabobs".

It was all delicious, of course. Or perhaps it was only passable good, but it was so new and exciting to Kasia that she found herself unconsciously memorizing where they had gone and what dish, precisely, she had gotten.

Alex was apparently glad to see that she was enjoying herself. He didn't smile so much that it was unwonted, but it was clear that the tiger was more than content with himself at that time, and why not? Kasia reminded herself that she wasn't fat, anymore, and there was no doubt that the two of them had more than hit it off. Even after they were finished eating they sat and simply talked, for at least ten minutes, before they were finally served with their receipt.

Alex insisted on paying for everything, and though she didn't want to admit it, Kasia found that flattering. Despite how urban and globalized his worldview was, it seemed that Alex was--at least in the important ways--old fashioned.

Maybe that explained why he had never really touched her. Maybe that explained why on the way back to campus, though they walked side by side in silent enjoyment of one another's company, he did not hold her hand.

There was no doubt about it: they were getting closer.

Alex didn't take Kasia out to a restaurant again, but she was alright with that. Their classes that semester were hard; they each barely had time to get to the gym, let alone go out for enjoyment. There was no time for movies or other hobbies, but now and then, Alex and Kasia somehow made time. Sometimes, they simply strolled around campus together, and more rarely, they went exploring in Warszawa itself.

Occasionally, Kasia asked herself why she was studying so hard. The answer was, of course, so that she could get a good, high-paying job, but what was the point of that? She had simple desires and even more simple needs, and it looked like Alex was more or less the same. Their largest expenses were food and transportation; entertainment formed such a tiny part of their respective budgets that it was negligible.

They really did get along. They had similar interests, similar mindsets, and though the ways they had been raised were entirely different, Kasia and Alex often felt like two sides of the same coin. After all, they were both tall, fit, and very good looking indeed.

She could admit that even to herself now. After Alex had taken her to the restaurant in the city, the first thing Kasia had done when she had gotten back to her dorm was to shower and change... into the clothing she had bought just a few months ago, when she had been a different person.

And they had fit her perfectly. They showed off the slimness of her belly, the generous curves of her chest and hips, the paleness of her skin and somehow they did all that without taking anything away from her face and her hair. Just looking at herself in the mirror was almost breathtaking; Kasia knew immediately that she could not go out dressed like that in public. She would be proud to dress like that for Alex, but that could only happen if they were alone and together.

Yet, stubbornly, there seemed to be certain clear-cut lines between them.

Still, Alex rarely spoke about his life back at home, let alone his interests and his plans for the future. It wasn't that he was boring at all--he could SCUBA dive, she found out, and had achieved a black belt in jeetkune do several years before--but she had no idea where he saw himself after college, let alone when he was thirty.

At least she was sure that he didn't have a girlfriend, and that he wouldn't--not when she was there, available, open to him and friendly with him always. They had never argued or shared harsh words, and, after midterms, they finally had the breathing space to relax just a little bit.

Alex got back into swimming and martial arts, and Kasia joined him. To do so, she had purchased a bathing suit that barely covered her. And though the pool, like the gym, was always empty when she and Alex were there, she couldn't stop herself from blushing brightly and hugging her arms around her belly in an attempt to cover herself.

Then, of course, he had asked her why she was so nervous before leaping into the water and backstroking his way around the pool until, finally, she joined him.

They had had fun that day. They had had fun, and such intense cardio workouts that they both didn't go to the gym the next day and instead resolved to go for a walk in a park some kilometers away from campus.

After that, the rest of the semester passed easily. So many people were failing classes or threatening to drop out that the professors simply had to take it a little easier on the students, and for that reason, Alex and Kasia both expected 4.0s. This would give them both a reason to enjoy themselves over the winter, when both of them had no classes and were free like birds.

This, in fact, was what was really making Kasia nervous as the end of the semester approached. She wasn't worried about exams or even her overall academic performance, but she was worried about what might happen if she and Alex were apart for over a month.

One freezing night at the beginning of December, Kasia and Alex were studying together. Both were drinking tea--she'd picked up what had once been solely his habit--as they studied, idly, in preparation for an exam period that was projected to be easier than any of the others they'd experienced.

"Alex," Kasia said, after perhaps forty minutes of complete silence between them, "what do you have planned for this winter?" she asked. She then looked up from her books and gave a smile to the tiger sitting across the table from her.

A second or so later, Alex looked up from his own books and stretched, briefly, so that despite the thick sweatshirt he wore, she could see the muscles in his chest and arms. After that, he returned her smile--briefly, and then answered her question.

"I actually don't have anything in particular planned," the tiger admitted. "I'll probably just go home and spend some time with Krištof... then again, it might be fun to see a little bit of Polska. After all, it could very well be that I end up spending quite some time in this country, if not the rest of my life..."

Kasia's breath caught in her throat as she heard that. Alex, staying in Polska indefinitely? That would be perfect--after all, she certainly wasn't going to leave her homeland (well, unless he wanted her to) and if he stayed then she would have as much time as she needed to get him to reciprocate her love. And when he did reciprocate her love, he would be completely assimilated into Polski culture and they'd be able to raise a whole family of all-Polski tiger/humans together--she was getting ahead of herself.

Kasia took just a moment to roll up the sleeves of her hoody--that gave her time to think, and perfect the smile on her face so that when she faced Alex again, she looked as beautiful as she possibly could. And when he looked back to her, his steel-colored eyes roamed over her, just a little bit, so that she was allowed to dare dream that he did find her beautiful after all.

"That's a good idea, Alex," she affirmed. "But how are you going to get around? Public transport here outside of the cities is very bad, and big cities can't be so different from one another. Sure, there are different museums and things," she allowed, "but if you really want to understand a country, you must leave the city, tak?"

After just a moment of thought, Alex nodded in agreement.

"You're certainly right, Kasia," the tiger said. "Even though I've always told you I'm from Praha, the truth is that my family is from elsewhere in ?eskárepublika... my grandparents still live there, and when I want to feel really at home, that's where I go."

He paused, briefly, and ran a paw through the ruff that made his jawline meld into his neck.

"The problem is... if public transportation around Polska really is so bad, I'm not sure what to do. When Krystian and I were in Russia, we sometimes rented cars, and when I'm at home I can use my parents' car... but here, I don't have any kind of vehicle, and I don't want to rent one out for a whole month."

Kasia saw his thoughts, then, and they alarmed her. He was considering going back home to save money, and that was no good. If she wanted him to love her, they had to spend time together--that was the sort of person Alex was. Once he realized he loved her, she knew that he would never forget it, but until he realized that he loved her, she had to show her own feelings toward him every day. She was lucky to have made their summer apart a positive experience, and she had only been able to do that by making a great deal of extremely visible progress--and now that she was slim again, that sort of performance couldn't be replicated.

Unacceptable. She had to do something that would make the coming winter a positive one for her relationship with Alex somehow--and then, all at once, she knew what she could do. It was a drastic measure, but she had no choice, so before she could get cold feet Kasia spoke in what she hoped was a normal voice.

"Why don't the two of us travel around Polska together?" she suggested. "You could stay at my house for some time... and from there, we could... do some skiing, or ride snowmobiles... you could go hunting with Krystian and Papa, if you want. Of course, you must go home for Christmas first, but after that..."

Kasia's voice trailed off. Now that she thought of it, perhaps it wasn't entirely wise for her to tell Alex what he must and must not do. Then again, this was Christmas they were talking about--so, surely, even if Alex was agnostic he wouldn't mind being... strongly persuaded to spend time with his family.

Still, Kasia had to remind herself that she didn't know much about Alex. They had been able to get so close--in some senses--by not talking about politics or religion or other polarizing issues, but supposing he did come to love her and then they found out that they were incompatible in some way?

Maybe it would be for the best, then, if Alex showed that he was indifferent about Christmas then and there. Kasia knew that no matter what household she found herself in in the future, Christmas would be a time for family, even if distance and expense forced them to get together via webcam or something. If Alex couldn't accept that--

"You're right, Kasia. As always," the tiger said. "I absolutely have to go home for Christmas... even if it's just for a few days, or a week. But after that... I'll tentatively accept your offer. I'll ask my parents to be certain, but they're usually alright with things like this." He paused, briefly, then smiled at Kasia in that shy but sincere way only he could.

"Thanks a lot for offering, Kasia," Alex said. "I am truly glad that you did. And also... happy birthday," he added suddenly.

Kasia was shocked when he said that. What was the date--yes, it was her birthday, but how had he known? How could he have found out?

As if he'd read her mind, Alex answered the question that she had not voiced.

"I hacked into the school's computer system yesterday evening after working out and went through the personal documents of everyone I know," he said calmly. "I have memorized everything about you--you are 185 cm tall, you have red hair, blue eyes... ahm, your brother's name is Krystian..."

By then, Kasia realized that Alex was only joking. In addition to making her grin, this made her feel a significant sensation of relief.

"Thank you, Alex," she said, being sure to meet his eyes as she did so. "You're the first one to wish me--oh, Alex, you didn't have to..."

She was blushing--there was no doubt about it. Her ears were heating up, like her cheeks--but she had every reason to be happily surprised. After all, Alex, her greatest friend and the sort of man she desired to see herself sharing a relationship so much more intimate than friendship with had reached into his backpack and taken out a neatly wrapped parcel with her name written on it.

And he was handing it to her. He was handing it to her, in that shy way of his, as if he thought for a moment that she might be anything less than ecstatic to receive something from him.

Wordlessly, Kasia accepted his gift and began to open it. She did so somewhat slowly, ensuring that she didn't rip any of the tough brown paper that had been used to cover it in the process, so that she could both remember this event perfectly and have the evidence that it had happened in case things between her and Alex didn't work out--in case this was the first and the last gift he ever gave to her.

Within a few seconds, Kasia had removed the wrapping paper entirely and was looking at a simple, white cardboard box. She turned it over in her hands once--gasped--and then looked at Alex.

"Ray-Ban, Alex? This must have been really expensive; I can't accept this--"

"Please, Kasia, I insist," the tiger said. "I've already destroyed the receipt, and besides, I wanted to get this for you. So, please..." He motioned with his paw, subtly, and before Kasia could stop herself, she was opening the box itself.

Inside, there wasn't much--an owner's manual, a slip that certified authenticity, and, of course, a soft, almost velvety sunglasses pouch. And inside of that...

Kasia's pale fingers made their way into the dark pouch, and, within a second, fished out a sleek, gold-framed pair of aviator sunglasses. They were polarized for driving, she could tell, and although they were light she knew that they could take a lot more abuse than she would ever put them through. The lenses themselves were reflective, and when she seemed to take notice of that, Alex apologized.

"They don't make them with two-way lenses anymore," the tiger explained. "It's a real shame. Now, the rest of us won't be able to see your beautiful eyes when you're wearing these..."

He paused, the briefest moment, yet before Kasia could turn to him and ask him if he had really just said that she had beautiful eyes, he smiled at her and continued. "Go on, Kasia," he said. "Put them on."

And so, of course, she did. She carefully unfolded the sleek piece of eyewear and slid it around her face, adjusting it until it was securely in place. She blinked a few times--and then, slowly, she turned to face Alex.

He really was a good looking feline, she realized. Though she spent so much with him, she rarely looked at him full-on for more than a few seconds, simply because doing so overwhelmed her with desire and a sense of longing that she couldn't easily define. But now, she made an exception: she caressed every centimeter of his face with her eyes, from his nose--a dull shade of pink--to his hair--neat, straight, and such a dark shade of red that she had to remind herself that it wasn't black--to his fur--so sleek and perfect that she could practically feel how soft and fluffy it was--to his eyes--such a mesmerizing gray tone that they seemed themselves alive--to every defined, angled contour of the bone structure that built the foundation that allowed for the rest of his features to come together so perfectly.

Kasia was so enamored with Alex that she didn't realize that it was at least possible that he was looking at her in a similar way. By the time she finally blinked her way out of her reverie, Alex had as well. The two of them looked at one another for a few more moments before slowly, somewhat reluctantly, going back to their books.

"Thanks so much, Alex," Kasia said, carefully taking her glasses off and sliding them back into their protective pouch almost as an afterthought. She glanced at him for the briefest of moments, or at least attempted to, but no more than that. If she looked at him again, if she focused on him for too long, she would say things that she wasn't ready to say just yet. Things that she might never be ready to say.

"You're welcome, Kasia," the tiger replied, some seconds later. He smiled--she registered this thanks to her peripheral vision--and then fully immersed himself in his studies again.

The two of them sat there for quite a few more hours. In time, Alex got up to go the gym and invited Kasia to join him; she replied by saying that she'd be along in a few moments.

So, he left her. He walked out of the library and once Kasia was sure that he was far enough away, and placed her hand on the table where Alex's had once been.

Exams.

That one word defined the last week of the semester. Though neither Alex nor Kasia ought to have been concerned about their grades in any sense, they didn't slack off at all. They studied every day, stopping only to go to the gym and, a few times, walk around town together.

Their dedication paid off, of course. And now that they were both starting to get into the meat of their respective curriculums, it was becoming more and more important to develop relationships with professors. Kasia succeeded in this manner immediately; Alex was... well on his way to doing so. He was even more quiet than she was, after all, and he wasn't Polski either. The ways in which he could relate to his instructors were therefore limited, and so Kasia couldn't blame him for not making the most of the opportunities given to him in that sense.

Not that it would make much of a difference, anyway. The two of them aced their exams easily and then, just like that, it was the end of the week and the end of the semester. After their last class on Friday, Alex and Kasia were too drained to do anything of use in the gym, so, instead, they went on a walk.

There was a lake in a large park a ways off from campus that she had found out about some days before. The two of them had planned on seeing it several times before, but studies and gym and other things kept piling up, and, so, that day was the first time they had been there.

It was an extraordinarily beautiful place, especially for being on the periphery of a large city. On one side of the massive, tranquil water surface was a large hill and on the other was a rather thick, foreboding forest. There were a few people about, but, as it seemed was always the case whenever Kasia and Alex went anywhere, there were so few people around that the two of them might as well have been alone.

It was cold that day. In fact, it was so cold that Alex had worn a jacket, and he almost never did. It was so cold that the lake itself seemed to be freezing even as the two of them looked at it, and it was so cold that Kasia could get away with walking just a little bit closer to the tiger than she normally would have been able to.

She was dressed, to all appearances, rather plainly. She wore jeans, a nice pair of boots, and a thick zip-up sweater that kept her upper body and hands warm when she used its pockets. Her hair, of course, was done into its signature ponytail, and that was that.

However, under her sweatshirt, Kasia had worn one of the more risqué articles she'd bought... it felt like so much longer than almost a year before. It was so tight that it left practically nothing to the imagination, and the way the subtle designs etched into the white fabric collected at the fringes of the garment made the eye tend toward her skin itself. It left more than a few fingers of her belly bare, and, frankly, Kasia felt practically naked even though no one else could possibly have any idea she was wearing such a sexy article of clothing.

"It's hard to believe how fast time flies," Alex said softly. Kasia turned to him and said nothing--it was so rare that he initiated conversations, and when he did, it was usually because he had something interesting or profound to say.

"It's been a year since I've come to Polska," the tiger said. "I've been keeping so busy that sometimes weeks pass before I notice it. Sure, I take little vacations, now and then... but... still, everyone says that college years are the best part of life. And I... feel like I'm missing mine."

He certainly had a point. In fact, he had more than a point, and if Kasia didn't constantly challenge herself both in the gym and academically, she would have agreed with him. She never felt like the days were slipping by--but Alex did, and as far as her response was concerned, that was all that mattered.

"Maybe it's because you work too hard," Kasia suggested. "We spend so much time studying together, Alex... but you study on your own, too. I don't," she admitted. "I learned to take time off in liceum. I learned that if I don't... life becomes... not very enjoyable."

She paused, meaningfully, and then looked at Alex until he responded.

"That might work for you, Kasia, but you're a lot smarter than I am," he said. "I have to study as hard as I do, or--"

"No, you don't, Alex," Kasia cut him off. She smiled at him, briefly, and slowly inhaled so that the transient wisps of condensed moisture in the air before them vanished entirely.

"You're about as smart as I am, and all the additional studying you do... maybe it'll take you from getting a 98 on an assignment to a 99. What's the point?" Kasia asked. "You might as well relax a little bit... and enjoy life."

After she said that, Alex scoffed. Just weeks ago, Kasia might have been saddened by that, but now she was self-confident enough, even where he was concerned, to not immediately believe that she had said or done something stupid. So, she tilted her head at him--and blushed immediately when she realized what she was doing.

She spent so much time with him that she was starting to pick up decidedly feline mannerisms... what next? Would she start to lick her hands and meow? Then again, if he wanted her to do that...

Her thoughts trailed off when Alex finally looked at her, still grinning, and explained what he found so amusing.

"You sound like Krištof," the tiger said. "He always tells me to enjoy, too. But, you know... now I have two good friends telling me to do something. So... I'll do as you suggest, Kasia. Starting next semester... I'll make an effort to enjoy life a little more. Maybe I'll even spend money on things besides food and essentials."

He seemed to mean that as a joke, but a moment later, he winced almost an imperceptible amount, and Kasia knew why. He had realized that, really, he didn't spend money on anything apart from food and essentials. So, she laughed in a pleasant manner--with him, not at him--and rather purposefully bumped her arm against his.

He simply smiled in a thoughtful sort of way, though he didn't reply verbally. In fact, he didn't speak for the remainder of the walk through the park and the walk back home.

Kasia told herself that this was just the sort of person he was. It was true, of course, but she couldn't help but continually trying to read into Alex. She spent every moment walking back to campus trying to figure out what he was thinking--was this a good time to make a move on him? Or did he simply want to be left alone?

In the end, Kasia might as well have flipped a coin. She asked Alex--ever so innocently and sweetly--if he wanted to watch a movie in her room. After all, she quickly quantified, her computer had a large monitor, and a good speaker system; then again, movies in general weren't very exciting and it was getting late and they hadn't had dinner yet and--

"Krištof always used to force me to order out with him," Alex suddenly said, when Kasia mentioned that. "He had this way of whining... I can't imitate it, but it worked almost every time. Anyway, I was never the one to call and place the order, but I'm sure I can figure it out," the tiger said. "We can just get... sandwiches, or something simple like that."

He hadn't accepted. He hadn't explicitly accepted, and Kasia kept this in mind--though there was every implication that he had accepted, he hadn't, so she had to continue to be careful and innocent and sweet.

"S-so... that sounds good," Kasia said. By this point, they were entering campus and making their way toward their shared building. Toward what would be, at least for the next few hours, their shared room--maybe.

Anxiously, Kasia redid her ponytail, despite the fact that she would take her hair out of it entirely in just a moment or so. After all, they were just a minute's travel from the building now--that meant that she had to figure out what was going on for certain soon, or else she would embarrass herself.

But, as much as she tried, Kasia couldn't think of a way to get Alex to explicitly say that he wanted to watch a movie with her. They got closer and closer to the building, and Kasia screamed at herself more and more and more--but no clever phrase or prompt came to mind. So, eventually, she simply decided to make her way into her first-floor hall first--that way, if Alex followed her, she would know that he was coming in. And it would be easy for her to slip in front of him when they got to the building, because although they were walking more or less side by side, Alex had a habit of opening the door for her and letting her go before him.

And that day was no exception. As they came to within a few feet of the building, Alex quickly slipped forward, opened the door, and stood back for Kasia to pass before him. As always, she thanked him with a word and a smile--and then made her way into the building.

Her nerves were starting to act up, now. Now, Kasia was aware of everything about her--why on Earth had she retained her ponytail? She should have undone it completely instead of redoing it, that way, Alex would be able to see the way her hair flowed rather nicely all the way down to the middle of her back. And what about the way she walked--was it flattering? Did her gait do her broad, feminine hips justice? Or, alternatively, was the way she walked noticeably unattractive? She had never thought about it before, but now she could think of nothing else. What if Alex changed his mind based on how plain she looked right then? What if--hold on, why had he slipped in front of her again? Why was he opening the door to the hallway that led through the first floor and smiling down at her in the process?

"You know, I've just realized it," Alex said. "The two of us have been friends for some time now, but I've never been to your room, and you've never been to mine. Well... now that I'm going to your room, you must come to mine soon. Which means... I should probably buy a vacuum cleaner or two..."

He grinned at that little joke, and so did Kasia, albeit in an extremely nervous way. Rather than feeling relieved and happy that Alex was going to watch a movie with her, she felt even worse now that he had brought her thoughts in that direction. Her room--was it clean enough? She always kept it clean and she had spent an hour the day before cleaning it even more, but now that she thought of it, there was probably some dust left in there. And she could have done up her bed more nicely. And her closet--she could have organized it somewhat better. And now, they were directly in front of her room's door and that was a door that Alex could not open for her.

She could barely unlock it with a key; her fingers were almost trembling too much. And once her door was unlocked, she could barely push it open and walk forward--surely, Alex was just being polite to her out of pity and the moment he walked in he would make up an excuse to leave.

Kasia made her way to her computer, however, just in case the impossible was happening. And as she did, she heard the door click shut behind her... and then she heard Alex mention that she had done a lot in very little space.

He had a point, she had that even to herself. She had used every square foot in her dorm to have a bed, a couch, a computer desk, and a book shelf mounted on the wall that gave her just enough space to move around comfortably. And she did have a few nice things, here and there... her lamp was sleek and modern, and the chair that she was even then moving to the side so that the monitor could be seen from the sofa was pretty nice as well.

After that, of course, she started up her computer and set it to play the movie she'd selected without interruption.

Alex seemed to have busied himself by examining a photo of Kasia's family that she'd hung on a nearby wall, and so she didn't have to welcome him to sit down until he turned and saw that she was turning the lights down and closing the blinds. After that, he took his jacket off and neatly folded it in his arms as he sat down... right next to where she would be sitting.

Of course the two of them would be side to side, Kasia reminded herself. She played the movie and took the few brief steps that had separated her from the sofa and sat down not two centimeters from Alex's furred side. He smiled at her for a moment and then he back up, a little bit, as the movie began.

For her part, Kasia could only watch it with half a mind. She was constantly aware of the beautiful, striped feline at her side and just how comfortable it was to be next to him when he was so relaxed. It didn't matter that he wasn't saying a word to her--he was silent by nature, Kasia knew, and besides, there was a sort of intimacy about them when they were so close and so quiet, save for the white noise constantly pouring out of her speakers. It was as if the world ended at the boundaries of her room and nothing could enter or exit as long as she and Alex were so quiet and so close.

Eventually, Kasia realized that she hadn't taken her sweatshirt. And, so, slowly, she began to peel it off. Within a few seconds, she was naked from the waist up in front of Alex--or, at least, as good as. Her belly was bare and so were her arms, the upper part of her chest, and the deep valley between her breasts.

Though she had taken her sweatshirt off without a significant feeling of nervousness, she began to feel it within seconds. Her cheeks began to heat up, and she fidgeted where she sat, just a little bit. It wouldn't be long now before Alex glanced at her, and noticed just how uncovered she was...

And, in time, he did. She saw him quite clearly turn toward her and then blink in surprise when he noticed that she'd removed her sweatshirt. And thanks to how much taller than her he was, when he sat right next to her like that... he could easily see her cleavage, and perhaps more than that still. Either way, something about her was keeping his gaze pointedly on his body... for five, ten, fifteen seconds, and even longer than that.

Then, he looked her in the eye. He seemed as enamored by her pale, attractive countenance as he was by her curvaceous figure--he really did seem to find her attractive, or more than attractive, because he reached up and lightly rubbed the side of her face with a few fingers. Her skin--he seemed confused by it, or surprised, that it felt so soft and slick and pleasant to touch. But he liked it--he obviously liked it, before it wasn't long after that when he placed his arm around her shoulder and held her close.

When that happened, Kasia was able to rest the side of her head against his shoulder. And despite how much he worked out, and how tough she knew he was, his fur made that muscular joint soft and pleasant and warm to boot.

The movie ended at some point, but Kasia didn't realize it until several moments after the fact. When she did, she mentioned that she ought to get up and turn off the computer, but Alex simply replied that utilities were free in their building and although he didn't like to waste, generally, he didn't care if her computer stayed on for the rest of the night.

The two of them didn't leave the couch for the rest of the night, and though nothing sexual happened between them, Kasia got her wish to spend at least one night in her life in Alex's arms.

She was, of course, very grateful for that. But what made her even more grateful was the fact that now, though she and Alex weren't technically dating, they were as good as. He was coming to her place for the winter, and the next morning, immediately after they greeted one another Alex said that there was plenty to do in Praha in the summer--and so, in that manner, Kasia's plans for her next major vacation filled up like that.

Time passed: weeks, and months, and semesters, and even whole school years.

Kasia didn't lament the passage of time, though, because she enjoyed every minute of it. She was getting smarter and stronger and she and Alex were so close that it was hard to imagine that there was a time when she had felt that he was closed to her. Now, whenever the two of them discussed something serious, about finances or the future or the difficulties facing them, Alex didn't seem reluctant in the slightest to explicitly state that they could say anything to one another.

He visited her place and she visited his. He met her family and she met his, and they all got along. The two of them also took several brief vacations together, in addition to spending many endless weekends with one another--usually just talking, or walking, or sometimes going to movies or restaurants together. And though their college careers started to wane, they didn't lose their discipline--they continued to study hard and they both maintained perfect GPAs. This was despite the fact that Alex had, at the nth hour, decided to get a licencjat in business in addition to engineering and Kasia's own intimidating program kept her almost too busy to stay fit.

But, of course, they both stayed fit. They both stayed very fit--by the time they were nearing their twenty second birthdays, Alex could squat twice his bodyweight for reps and Kasia could squat him for reps--a fact that they had both found out just a few weeks into their final semester of education.

And, of course, their friendship remained. It remained, and it grew stronger, and though Alex would always be a quiet, almost shy guy, Kasia knew that if she ever wanted to know anything about him, she only needed to ask. She was sometimes curious about... where they stood, with regard to one another, because although they had spent numerous nights sleeping together--even in the same bed, on several different occasions--they had never kissed or even held hands for very long.

Was she his girlfriend? She wasn't sure, but everyone seemed to think that she was. No boys had hit on her for months, though she knew that many of them lusted after her--Alex told her that, after he had heard a somewhat uncouth conversation walking into class a bit late one day.

Did he look at her as his girlfriend?

Kasia was sure that the answer to that question was no, but it didn't upset her. Not anymore. Not really, anyway. For Alex, it seemed that there was just a clear, black and white line between friend and girlfriend and he wasn't willing to cross that with anyone--not even her.

Still, it was only a matter of time until he did. Their college careers were coming to a close, and Kasia knew that Alex, like her, was the sort of person who wanted order in life. He wanted to be in a stable marriage, have a home, and start a family before he was thirty, and she wanted the same, more or less. The two of them sometimes disagreed on whether it was better to raise a family in a big city or in a more rural setting (they had spoken on the matter, several times) but Kasia was sure that when the time came, they would be able to come to some sort of agreement.

She was making long term plans around him, and she had since their second year together. The silly infatuation she had had with him for the first day or so since they had met was gone, entirely, but there was no doubt whatsoever that she loved him as deeply as any woman could love a man. She loved him, she was kind to him, and she understood him in a way that no one else apart from his brother and parents ever could. She could tell him not what he wanted to hear, but what he needed to hear, and she could do it in a way that made him never doubt for a moment that she had his best interests at heart.

Her parents saw this. His family saw this. And they also saw that despite his quiet nature, he understood her, too. He could make her smile with his odd jokes and he was always there for her no matter what the reason, or the hour. Once or twice, Kasia had called him in the early hours of the morning and had him come down to her room simply because she wanted to talk--and he came and sat and listened and never complained once.

Maybe he wasn't her boyfriend, but Kasia knew that there were many women like her whose boyfriends would never treat them as good as Alex treated her.

At long, long, last, Alex and Kasia were finished college.

They had walked out of their last exam on pleasant Friday afternoon with equally powerful senses of relief and foreboding--college was finished and they were both in the upper 1% of their graduating class easily--but college was finished. From then on, there were no professors or administrators or counselors to guide them through life.

The freedom was almost overwhelming, and Alex and Kasia both knew that some of their classmates would be overwhelmed by it in the weekend that separated exams and the graduation ceremony on Monday. Already, the bars and clubs in town were becoming crazy, and it was almost certain that at least a few unfortunate souls would ruin their lives before their lives even really began.

On the other hand, Alex and Kasia decided to celebrate the end of their college years by going on a run.

They started out at campus, of course, but their path was kilometers long. It took them through the most and the least built up parts of the city, and then it took them outside of the city. It took them through endless silent neighborhoods and then, it took them outside of Warszawa altogether.

Eventually, Kasia and Alex ended up in a conserved forest not far from the fringes of sentient development. There were no paved paths there, but enough people walked and ran and biked through there that there were fairly defined trails through the hills and the trees.

The two of them had been there before on several occasions, but they had always taken a bus, a train, or Kasia's bike. She preferred the latter option because it gave her control of where they went and how they got there... and also because as she drove and Alex sat behind her, she was able to feel him holding her for however long the bike was in motion.

Now, though, the two of them were almost exhausted and kilometers from campus. But it was a beautiful day, and so rather than walking straight home, they came to the decision to simply wander around for a while without sharing more than five words.

They did not walk fast, largely because they didn't have anywhere to go, but that wasn't all. It seemed that if they did walk too fast, they would ruin the moment, every aspect of which was perfect.

Since it was so close to summer, the Sun would not set for hours yet, but it was low enough in the sky that when they walked to the west, they could see it floating beyond the trees--a massive, airborne ball of light and fire that hurt their eyes only if they looked at it for too long. Otherwise, it gave them the ability to slip on and off the trails as they wished while perceiving the forest in a manner that few others ever could.

It was almost ethereal, just then, though occasionally Kasia and Alex did come across other people. Everything about the moment was perfect--the trees, the soft dirt and grass beneath their feet, the Sun, the rolling hills they traversed over, and, of course, Alex.

Even now, whenever Kasia did more than glance at him, she couldn't help but react to how beautiful he was in some way. He was tall, and even if he wasn't half as built as he was, he would have been a truly stunning feline. From his hair to his eyes to his face to his stripes to the cuffed, incessantly twitching tip of his tail, everything about him was perfect.

And now, Kasia felt that she could honestly say the same thing about herself. Although she was quite strong, she was toned rather than muscular, and yet despite this, she was more curvy than woman much heavier than she ever had been. Her breasts were DD cups... or at least, they had been. Now, Kasia's bras were starting to feel almost uncomfortably tight, and she knew that her sleek, pale ass completed her hourglass figure.

Her hair easily reached to the middle of her back, now. And although her features had been almost girlish when she had started college, they had matured, now, to the point that her face alone was the picture of eastern European beauty.

A lot of who she was was simply because of that--who she was. But a lot of who she was was due to the influence of the tiger beside her--as attractive and silent and part of her life as always.

How lucky she was that he had entered her life. How lucky she was that he tolerated her, in the beginning, when she couldn't have blamed him for not even tolerating her presence--but he hadn't stopped there. He had become her friend, her good friend, and though they weren't technically dating... well, it was time for that to change.

For a moment, Kasia was almost overwhelmed by the idea of crossing that line with Alex. It had been her pie in the sky for so long--for so long, being with Alex in that sense was a goal so far removed from what was possible that it was _im_possible, but now... now, she was sure that she had a chance, at least, to get Alex to accept her as more than a friend. She had more than a chance--she had a good, solid, opportunity that she was not going to postpone any longer.

Kasia took a brief step closer to Alex. She allowed her smaller, feminine hand to slip into his powerful, masculine paw and then she interlocked her fingers with his digits and felt him do the same and then squeeze, very gently, so that the warmth and the protection his fur offered enveloped her appendage.

She enjoyed that, for a long moment. And she was glad that she had taken the initiative, some years ago, to tell Alex that the human equivalent of friendly snuggling was to hold hands. It wasn't a lie, exactly, and she knew that felines didn't snuggle with "just friends", either. Intimacy like snuggling or holding hands was reserved for family and very close friends only.

She had been very happy when he said that he welcomed the idea of holding hands with her, and so the two of them spent the rest of that day holding hands. And that night, Alex had shown her how, in his words, Praha boys could snuggle. The memory in itself made her smile.

"You know, Alex... we've been through a lot together," Kasia said, seemingly at random. Alex glanced at her, smiled, and waited for her to explain. And she did--after taking a step closer to him so that her side was almost touching his.

"We have gotten through college together... but, we have done other things together, too. You showed me Praha and your family, and I showed you Polska outside of Warszawa. I showed you how much fun riding a bike can be, and you showed me how much fun working out can be. We have laughed together, and we have shared... meals, holidays, the same bed, and even a few tears. And... I think I have affected who you are, and I know that you've affected who I am."

Kasia sucked in a deep breath as she prepared to admit what she'd not told Alex in four years. She tried to go on, briefly, but she couldn't--so she shut her eyes and all but forced the words to come out of her.

"I... lost weight for you, Alex. So that... I could look more attractive, and... not be someone who's... just smart. I want to be... respectable. I want to be someone who people can look up to and say, 'I wish I could be like that--I will be like that', because I have experienced how good that kind of admiration can be. Because... you're the one I look up to, Alex. I... am who I am, mostly, because of you."

Though Kasia's voice had started out shakily, by the time she was finished speaking, she was doing so in a confident, clear manner. And why not? She knew that everything she had just said was completely, entirely true, and Alex had a right to know it. Even though he was squirming in slight embarrassment even then, as she looked up at him with a face that she now knew was beautiful, he had to know how she felt about him.

She ushered Alex into a halt and simply stood at his side for a moment. Then, slowly, she walked around him until she was in front of him and held both of his paws in her hand, looking into his eyes.

It occurred to her, again, how tall he was. She didn't need to look up to man people, but she always would need to look up to him, and she didn't mind it. After all, when she stepped forward, her face was all but pressed against his broad, muscular, furred chest.

Slowly, Kasia wrapped his arms around her waist. She didn't press her form against his, but the space separating them was so insignificant that it might as well not exist. She could feel the warmth of his body, and he could feel hers, and if she listened, closely, she could even hear him breathing, quietly, as he looked down at her and felt her arms wrap around him.

"I'm... so glad that we met, Alex," Kasia said. She smiled, slowly, in a manner so sincere and compassionate that he had to know that their friendship didn't have to end even if a new relationship between them began. "You're... my best friend, and so much more. I would say that you're a brother to me, but that might make Krystian jealous."

She laughed at that joke, briefly, and so did he--until both of them realized, at the same time, that Kasia had even taken on Alex's sense of humor.

For a moment, she held him tightly. She pressed her face into his chest, and then she looked up at him so that the warm blueness of her eyes met the calm, quiet, subtle gray of his.

"So much more is possible between us, Alex," Kasia said. "We're... not going to be students anymore, starting on Monday. You know that I already have a job lined up here in_Warszawa_, but I can always change my mind or just hold it for a few months while we figure out what to do. We can figure something out."

Their eye contact continued for an almost impossibly long moment.Alex didn't move, and Kasia certainly didn't move--she couldn't even breathe. This moment was the moment she had been looking forward to for over three years--the moment when, finally, she'd tell Alex that she wanted to be with him as something even more than a very close friend. This was the moment when Alex would look back at all they had done and been through together and see that Kasia really was his greatest friend and that he, too, wanted their relationship to continue and grow.

He seemed to do that. For a moment, his expression shifted to one of quiet reflection--and then he looked back down at the Polski still holding him in her arms.

"Actually, Kasia, I think that I have already figured things out," Alex said.

He smiled down at her.

"I have gotten a few job offers here in Warszawa, too. If I were to accept any one of them, that would put me on the fast track to getting full Polski citizenship within a few years," the tiger mentioned. "In fact, it would make it much more easy for me to stay in Polska forever."

Kasia couldn't move when he said that. Alex, in Polska forever? That was superb; that meant that she could take her time to grow their relationship (which he still hadn't officially given his consent to) until he was ready to make things even more official and that meant that they could learn even more about one another and that even if he didn't want to live with her just yet, they would never be more than a few minutes' travel away from one another.

Alex seemed to think, for a moment, albeit in a much more leisurely manner than Kasia was. He ran his paws up and down her lower back a little bit--almost making her swoon in his embrace--before she was able to speak in a very soft, timid voice.

"So... which job are you accepting?" Kasia asked. "Where are you going to live?"

She was starting to smile, now. Her heart was starting to beat rapidly, now, as she prepared for him to tell her what she had wanted to hear for years: that he wanted to live wherever she wanted to live and that was all.

But then, Alex just smiled and looked away. He breathed out, slowly, and just like that, though Kasia was holding him, he seemed as distant and unreachable as he had been the day that the two of them had met.

"I'm going back to Praha," the tiger said, still without looking at Kasia. Slowly, his expression changed from neutrality to a sort of melancholy that Kasia recognized as his reaction to whenever he perceived that he was doing something that would make life hard or sad for him later. In the past, she had always been able to get Alex to either change his actions or his point of view, but now, she was too shocked--and saddened--to do anything more than let her arms fall to her sides and stare at him.

"It's not that I don't like Poland," he explained, "but... I'm twenty two years old, and I've never even had a girlfriend. I'm getting older, and... I've told you, Kasia," he said, facing her with a smile that, for the first time, she recognized as the sort of smile he gave to people who were friends--close friends, intimately close friends, even, but only friends.

"I want to get my life started soon," Alex said. "It doesn't sound like much, but it really is my dream to get married and have a nice family. Everything else... whatever happens in my career is not of great concern to me." He gave Kasia another one of his shy, almost guilty smiles. "As long as I can give happiness to my children, and my wife... as soon as I find her."

He sighed again. And, again, he turned away from Kasia so that when he smiled, she couldn't even appreciate how beautiful he looked when he did so.

"Anyway... there's an interview for a big position back at home that I think fits me perfectly. If I get it, I'll have a stable, respectable job... and, who knows, maybe even I will be able to attract a girl or two. If I'm really lucky, the one I'll spend the rest of my life with will be half as beautiful as you are."

He smiled when he said that. But Kasia simply looked at him without smiling back. She didn't know what to think, much less what to do or say. She could barely even accept what was going on--she didn't even register that Alex had tilted his head at her and was waving his paw back and forth in front of her face to see if he could get a reaction.

Eventually, Kasia blinked. When that happened, Alex's relief was visible to her, though the wetness in her eyes was apparently not visible to him.

Or perhaps it was. Certainly, something was making her look at her oddly, then, with his head tilted an unspoken question on his lips. He seemed to almost step toward her--he seemed to almost realize what he had just done--but then, he simply shook his head.

"I won't be able to come to graduation," he mentioned. "And I fully intend to keep myself very busy in the coming months and years... but I'll keep in contact--I promise, and... well, maybe someday, I'll return to Polska to see you."

He smiled at her. But still, she didn't react. Still, she looked up at him with an expression that he had never before seen on her face, and still, he didn't know what he had done.

For a moment, Alex looked at her awkwardly. He tried to smile, but he couldn't, and so he held out his paw to Kasia until, somehow, she gained the presence of mind to accept it so that he could shake it. And when he did that, he seemed to regain his odd sense of confidence and certainty about who he was and what he had to do.

"Thanks for being my greatest friend for so long," Alex said, as they shook. "And you know that I don't say that lightly. I'll... no matter what you need, if it's a place to stay for a week, or money, or advice, or anything... you have been my greatest friend for years, and I will always remember that."

He paused. And then, as he very, very, very rarely did, he stepped forward and initiated a warm, furry, and, yes, rather snuggly tiger hug with her.

Despite everything, Kasia could only hug him back as tightly as she could, because that might very well be the last time they ever hugged in their lives. That might very well be the last time they ever physically saw one another in their lives, and so Kasia enjoyed it as much as she could. She pressed her face against his powerful pectoral and shut her eyes and breathed in through his shirt and his fur--so clean and soft and pleasantly scented that she could simply lie in it and stroke it for hours if given the opportunity.

But she would never have that opportunity. And even her opportunity to hug Alex Kralik, the tall, beautiful tiger who had stolen her heart years ago, was coming to an end. He was letting go of her... and, so, reluctantly, she let go of him and allowed him to leave her vicinity for the last time.

He walked away from Kasia. He made his way through the trees, and thanks to his stripes it didn't matter that he was tall and muscular and so attractive that he practically shone--it wouldn't be long before he vanished from her existence.

Slowly, as if deliberately, he made his way out of her sight and out of her life, slowing only to speak to her over his shoulder.

"Goodbye, Kasia. I hope that you accomplish your objectives, and who knows? Maybe, if we're lucky, our paths will cross again."

He smiled and then he turned away again.

"What wishful thinking... Goodbye, Kasia."

"What wishful thinking."

"I wish our paths could cross again."

"I want to get my life started soon. I want to get married, and have a nice family and my career comes second to that."

These thoughts--paraphrases of what Alex's final words to her--replayed in Kasia's mind over and over and over again. Gradually, they increased in intensity until they blotted out anything else she may have heard otherwise--and then, all at once, they stopped, leaving her with nothing but a dull, echoing void that Alex's voice had once said and a similar, rapidly diminishing silhouette still making its way through the trees.

Alex was leaving. Kasia's chance to be with Alex was leaving. And all at once, Kasia was no longer in the forest with Alex, her friend who she wanted to be more than friends with--she was back in the classroom with a strange, quiet tiger, so distant that if she didn't take the lead with him then she would lose him forever.

She started to run. She started to run as fast as she could and since she was over a hundred kilograms she couldn't run fast, but she had to try. She had to do everything she possibly could to catch Alex because if she let him go, then she would regret it for the rest of her life. So, it didn't matter that she was panting and simply brushing by years of time and laughter and enjoyment and innumerable memories she'd made with him--she had to go faster because he was almost gone.

Eventually, she caught him. She got close enough to him to place a hand on his shoulder and that made him turn around and look down at her, surprised that she had gotten so close without alerting him to her presence. After all, he was a tiger and she was a fat, out-of-shape-human.

Or... perhaps not.

Slowly, reality began to return, and Kasia became aware of herself again. Simply by placing a hand on her belly and tracing it upward a bit, she confirmed that she was slim, again, and yet endowed with a bust that would make most swimsuit models jealous. She shook her head and felt long, sleek, shiny locks of crimson-red hair brush against the middle of her back, and she didn't need to glance into a mirror to see the warm blue of her eyes and the pale beauty of her face--she could see her reflection in Alex's eyes.

For a moment, she wanted to slap him. That moment was the closest the two of them had ever come to fighting in any sense--and that moment was the closest the two of them would ever come to fighting in any sense.

Kasia rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Streaks of wetness remained on her skin, but she smiled when she faced Alex and when she spoke, her voice didn't quaver too much.

"Alex, I want to get my life started soon, too."

She said that. She tried to say more--she tried to think of something more to say, but she couldn't and so she simply stepped forward and touched her lips to Alex's.

For a moment, she was so surprised by what she had done that she couldn't do it again. But Alex's shock was greater still than hers, so when Kasia recovered, she ignored her hesitation and nervousness and most of all the terrible, paralyzing fear that Alex would reject her more thoroughly--and then she kissed him again. She kissed him properly, this time, holding herself against him and moving her lips against his and taking his hands into hers and hoping and praying that he would eventually kiss her back.

But he didn't. He just stood there, numb, until she had kissed his motionless lips so much that tears were running down her eyes when she finally had to accept that he wasn't kissing her back. He wasn't even looking at her.

After a moment, Kasia's kisses stopped. She continually moved to kiss him more, for a moment, before she stopped that as well and simply remained where she was, resting her hands on Alex's chest and silently crying to herself. Eventually, she came to rest her head against Alex's shoulder for what would certainly be the last time.

That was that, it seemed. Alex did not like her as anything more than a friend and it was simply due to his good nature that he hadn't reacted to her advances badly. It seemed that... the two of them would never be together, and that it was only a matter of time before he pushed her away and left her forever.

Kasia had these thoughts for several moments. She had shut her eyes tightly and was waiting for the warm softness that she had come to associate with Alex's body to leave--when she became aware that he wasn't leaving her. In fact, the heat and comfort that she recognized as his was now surrounding her. He was... holding her again. He was holding her close.

Slowly, not daring to believe what was happening, Kasia looked up. Her eyes met Alex's, because he was looking down, directly at her, even as his arms stayed neatly wrapped around her lower back. Idly, his fingers ran up and down a few centimeters of the tip of a lock of hair that had just brushed up against his knuckles, and this seemed to distract him so much that it was a moment before he spoke.

"Kasia... I have called you beautiful many times, but... I've never looked at you like this before..."

Indeed, his eyes were boring into hers in a way they never had before. He seemed enamored by her, as she knew she so often was with him, and so it was a few moments before his paws removed themselves from her back and placed themselves on either side of her face.

For a moment, Alex simply held her face in his paws. His thumbs stroked over her sleek, soft cheeks before his fingers weaved themselves into her hair and stroked it, gently, tilting her head back with the vector of his motion. She continued to look up at him, breathing in a shallow, rapid manner that running ten miles couldn't make her, and for the first time her hands didn't just remain on his chest. They moved inward, outward, and all around, slowly exploring the contours of his body and the hard, resilient muscle under his fur.

How powerful he was. Kasia had only seen him without a shirt on when he was swimming, and out of respect for him she didn't stare, but now she would never be able to stop herself from staring at Alex whenever he took his shirt off next. The body he'd created through endless nights in the gym was rock-solid and lean--when her feminine appendages made their way to his belly, she could run her fingers through crevices between each of his abdominal muscles.

And he was still just stroking her hair. He was running his fingers through her flaming tresses from where they met her skull all the way down to where they ended at the middle of her back. Its texture, its length and its color all intermingled to create an experience that made him hold her closer, in time, until the two of them were almost nose to nose.

When that happened, Alex seemed to grow... not nervous. Not really. But he seemed... wary, at least, of taking the next step, of taking the lead in whatever would happen next. He wanted to kiss her--he desperately, completely did--but he simply could not do it. Though she was in his arms, wearing no more than a tight shirt and a short pair of athletic shorts, and though she had kissed him first, he didn't seem capable of believing that such a beautiful Slavic human would allow him to kiss her.

Kasia struggled to understand it, for a moment. She struggled to understand him, for a moment... and then, finally, after years of fruitlessly trying to figure out the tiger she had loved from the moment she had seen him, she succeeded. Alex really was a lot like her--tall, attractive, thoughtful, wise, future-oriented, smart, and desperately incapable of believing that he was worthy of even friendship with the one he loved.

She had to take the lead. And, so, after taking in a deep breath, Kasia placed her hand on the back of Alex's head and slowly drew him toward her.

And he did not resist. Their lips touch, pulsed against one another, and then locked so completely that Kasia didn't realize that Alex had lifted her off her feet and was even then taking her deeper into the forest.

It was lucky that though they were in a public park, there weren't too many people around. Alex and Kasia were no more than fifty yards away from a well-trodden path--far enough that they wouldn't be seen, but close enough that they had to keep quiet to keep their illicit actions from being noticed.

Kasia managed to register these thoughts despite the fact that she and Alex were no longer simply kissing in a nervous, almost hesitant manner. Now, they were really kissing, and not just with their lips. At some point, their tongues had come into play and they were each slowly learning to create a wet, hot, messy, and thoroughly exciting experience that was shared between them.

Kasia, certainly, could feel her desire for Alex growing. Although she was kissing him and although her body was pressed against his, that wasn't enough. Even though she was panting into his mouth and even though he was leaning over her and caressing her pale, curvaceous form in his muscular arms, she wanted so much more from him.

And, so, after a few more minutes of passionate kissing, Kasia slowly drew away from Alex. He left her breathing rapidly, powerful, so that her chest rose and fell visibly, and she left him in a similar state. The two of them were so impassioned with one another that when their eyes met again, neither could look away.

Eventually, however, Kasia withdrew her fingers from the soft, multicolored fur of Alex's ruff. He seemed reluctant that that contact was ending--he nuzzled into her sleek, fair hands even as she drew them away from him--and then his eyes widened as she took his paws into her feminine appendages... and set them on her breasts.

Just the sensation of having his strong, masculine hands resting on her chest made Kasia gasp sharply. She could feel herself blushing and there was nothing she could do to stop it--she had never done anything like what she was doing just them before. And the fact it wasn't just someone touching her--the fact that it was Alex's paws on her breasts made her involuntarily release a very low, very soft, and, to her partner, very audible moan.

This was nothing like kissing him. As amazing--as mind-boggling erotic it was to kiss Alex, it couldn't compare to the simple sensation of him touching her. With his paws, he made her body burn and squirm against him, needingly, as he stared at her chest as if he had never allowed himself to look at her in such a way--or even think about her in such a way.

Her own hands continued their travels up and down Alex's body. They couldn't stop--she could explore his form for hours, no matter that she couldn't see what particular toned muscle group she was feeling at a given moment. She worshiped his body with her hands, trying to communicate to him that she was more than excited by him, that he was beautiful and attractive and that she wanted him to touch her, too, instead of just resting his paws on her chest and staring.

Eventually, Kasia set her own hands on his pectorals and felt the strength in his chest that allowed him to take a barbell loaded with four weight plates on either end into his hands, bring it down until it touched his chest, and then press it up until his elbows were locked. Kasia massaged those massive muscles briefly, persuasively... and, finally, Alex really started to touch her.

His paws slowly started to move to the side of her breasts while his thumbs stroked over their soft, fleshy surfaces. Eventually, his palms came to rest directly where Kasia's nipples were, and when he gently manipulated those sensitive pink nubs of pleasure, she couldn't help but let out a soft, surprised gasp that made him look into her eyes and give her a brief, shy smile that made her smile back at him.

Slowly, he grew more adventurous--more curious--and more aroused by her body. Kasia hooked her hands behind his head so that she could lean back and give him better access to her chest, in the process allowing herself to covertly gauge his facial reactions to her body in the process. But she could only look at Alex for so long before his ministrations made her arch her back, pressing her chest into his paws and bite her lip to avoid moaning again.

In time, he was fondling and groping her chest. And although he was gentle in a way that he always was with her, he was so firm and aroused that even if she couldn't hear him breathing rapidly she would have been able to feel his masculine need for her quite acutely. He weighed her breasts in his paws, kneaded them and squeezed them ever so gently, so tenderly, that she could practically hear him screaming his desire to tear her shirt off and nestle his face in her chest until he had thoroughly smothered himself in her cleavage.

But, slowly, the raunchiness of Alex's motions died down. Eventually, he was simply caressing her breasts in his paws in a more calm, respectful manner, as if he required her verbal and not her physical permission to go further.

Or, perhaps he was just nervous and unsure of what to do next.

After Kasia placed her hands on his and attempted to get him to continue to touch her, he looked into her eyes and gave her one of those disarmingly shy smiles of his.

"I'm sorry, Kasia," the tiger managed to say, albeit in an aroused, bated breath. "I'm... I've never done this before. I don't know... what to do next... and there are people. We should go..."

The moment he said that, Kasia started to shake her head. She pulled his head down to share another long, passionate kiss with him, and felt his arms wrap around her again to hold her close. This gave her the opportunity to place her head next to his and rest her pale, fleshy cheek against his striped fur and speak into his ear.

"No, Alex... I've waited much too long for this, and I... if we stop now, I..."

Her voice broke off. She didn't have the words, or the confidence, to tell him that she was far too aroused to stop right then. She could feel her excitement spreading from the base of her belly to every centimeter of her body that was in contact with Alex or desired pleasure from him, and so the lust that was gripping her was far too great to resist. And besides--she loved Alex, she really did, and this was her greatest chance to display this in the most obvious of manners.

She didn't want to turn back. She wanted to go all the way with Alex--she accepted this with only a blush and not a hint of reluctance--and then she nuzzled her countenance into his fur.

"It's okay, Alex... just... lay down, and no one will see us. And don't worry, Alex," she murmured. "I'll show you what to do."

Slowly, Alex complied. After moving about a step away from her, he held her face in his paws again and kissed her on the tip of her sculptured, perfect nose, leaving her with a tingling sense of happiness that came from her realization of the possibility that he found her as beautiful as she found him. So, as he lay down on his back on the ground before her, she slowly followed him until she was straddling him and resting her hands on his broad, powerful chest. Her hair had fallen to either side of her face as this happened--he must have taken out her hairband when he was stroking her hair--and so it formed a glimmering, sleek, red curtain that kept them in and kept the rest of the world out.

She placed her hands on either side of his face and leaned down, slowly, to kiss him a few times, psyching herself up to do what she'd promised him she would. But, truth be told, Kasia was quite nervous. Alex had never done anything like this before, but neither had she, so she really wasn't any more qualified to take the lead than he was.

But she had promised him. And when he kissed her back, he increased her perception that she could please him and when she leaned up and simply stroked his chest with her hands and felt his paws not on her hips nor her lower back but gently, tentatively, on the feminine, voluptuous curves of her ass.

This made her smile, albeit in a very small, nervous fashion. Though he was doubtlessly interested in her--and though there was a hardness in his pants that she was almost but not quite sitting on--so much could still go wrong. And since Kasia was inexperienced, the odds that what would happen next would turn out badly were so high that for a moment, she was paralyzed by her nervousness.

It took her that long to force past her own mental blocks--the same obstacles that, for years, had stopped her from getting in shape and making friends and doing more with Alex than going out for a meal once every semester. She had to do what both of their bodies were telling her to do, and for that reason Kasia leaned down to kiss him again until her need for more than kissing and groping was too great for her nervousness to overcome.

And then she began to kiss her way down Alex's body. She started with his strong, cleft chin and quickly made her way to his chest, then his abdomen, then lower still. In just a matter of moments, she was planting a series of wet, worshipful kisses on the fur just above Alex's pants, leaving him panting and grinding his hips up against her, needingly, and at that point Kasia realized that... they really were going to become sexual. This really was going to happen.

With her face level with the belt to Alex's pants, she looked up at him. He was looking down at her with such an aroused, pleading expression on her face that she couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted to. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do next... and somehow, she knew that when Alex's hand hovered near her face, for a moment, before placing itself on his hip, it was a signal that he wanted to feel dominant in the most consensual, respectful of manners.

Kasia smiled up at him, even as she rested her chin against the buckle. She then took his paw into her hand and rested it on the back of her head, giving him permission to have the feeling of guiding her actions implicitly. She continued to smile at him in this process, even as she summoned the courage to do more than simply kiss at the soft fur that marked the boundary between his abdomen and his groin.

It took a moment, but soon, Kasia was able use her pale, slender fingers to toy with Alex's belt. She was trying to get it off, but her hands were shaking too much--they simply danced across the front of his pants several times before she could finally undo the thick, metal buckle that kept his pants securely in place.

After that, she pulled his belt free and for the first time, paid attention to the throbbing bulge that formed a tent in the cloth between his legs.

He was big. No, he was more than big--the tiger Kasia had loved unwaveringly for over three years was endowed with an erection that had to be... numbers failed her. She could barely think as she stared at Alex's clothed member, rigid and ready for her.

It would be hard enough to please him with her hands, let alone her mouth--and that was without taking into account the sheer logistics of taking him inside of her. In fact, if he was as big as he seemed...

Kasia decided not to think about it too much. She knew that when the time came, she would find a way to please both herself and Alex without doing anything that would make either of them uncomfortable... or, in her case, physically injured. For now, though, she simply had to make Alex feel for her at least a taste of the excitement and lust that she felt for him.

At first, she wasn't sure what to do. But, after simply stroking the surface of Alex's pants with her hands, for a moment, she decided to simply shut her eyes and do what came naturally to her.

Resting her pale countenance against his crotch, Kasia proceeded to kiss him, slowly, up and down the sizeable length still hidden to her. Certainly, he couldn't feel her lips against his flesh, but he could see the affection she had for him and he could feel it, too. So, she continued what she was doing and built on it, a little bit--and, quickly, she got into what she was doing.

She rested her hands on his hips, and then held him close and wetly raked her tongue from where his member met his groin to the tip, halfway down his thigh. Though she didn't realize it, she did it in almost a feline manner, and this served to calm Alex and arouse him on a subliminal, instinctive level that Kasia may not have been able to achieve if her actions had been strictly human. The sensation of her tongue grazing the tough surface of Alex's pants would have struck her as unpleasant if she had been doing what she was doing for anyone's pleasure but his.

But she was just teasing him--she realized this after a moment, and when she did, she blushed in surprise. She looked up at Alex to gauge his reaction, and, almost shockingly, he was looking down at her pleadingly and moaning.

Apparently... her sexual prowess was a lot more significant than she had thought. Maybe... this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it could even be a little fun...

Kasia's face almost took on a mischievous smirk--then, she realized that such an expression would have understandably intimidated Alex. So, she kept her expression pleasant, interested, and aroused, even as she undid Alex's zipper with her teeth. Quickly, her arousal spiked and so in a single, deft motion, she undid his button, too, and then tugged his pants down until they were at his knees.

Only a pair of cotton boxers remained covering Alex. And, really, they weren't doing a very good job. In fact, it was a wonder that they hadn't been shredded already.

He really was very big. And he was very virile--when Kasia pulled his pants down, Alex's member had sprung up immediately and stayed there, rocklike, even as she placed her hands at the furry base of his groin. He didn't sway a centimeter, and this was despite the fact that he wasn't just big--he was huge. Just looking at him made Kasia lean back and stare with her blue eyes opened wide to study the sheer size of his masculinity.

She started with the head of Alex's cock. It was smooth and sleek and about the size of her fist. From there, Alex's shaft began and quickly flared out, getting thicker and thicker and thicker still--and though Kasia hadn't had a soft drink in months, she was certain, just by looking at Alex's cock, that he was thicker than a Coke can easily. She watched her hand rest on the midsection of Alex's member, the thickest part, and gasped as her pale fingers completely failed to wrap around it. They could barely get three quarters of the way around.

Toward the base of Alex's member, he remained thick, and so clean and well-cared for that even if Kasia's mind wasn't buzzing with lust for him, she would have found him aesthetically pleasing. He shaved, she noted, and his member was devoid of discolorations or any other unsightly blemishes that would have taken away from its perfection.

Her eyes rested on his balls, then, and she couldn't help but breath in a little more rapidly though her nose. If possible, she blushed a brighter shade of red still and drew her face closer to his member to examine the tiger's heavy, full sack.

His balls were sized proportionally to his member, and for that reason, they were about the size of jumbo eggs. They, too, were neat and clean and shaved and even as she looked at them, Kasia could see them churning, slowly, producing a steady supply of doubtlessly potent, masculine, tiger seed... just for her.

He was hard... for her. He was aroused by her--he had kissed her and he had called her beautiful, and for years, he had been her closest friend. He had shown her more of his life than he had ever shown any other woman, and he had shared conversations with her that he would be reluctant to share with his own brother. He loved her, at least in his own way, and even though it might take her a few more moments to realize that, he was aroused by her then and there. And if she wanted to be his woman, she had to show him her love in the most intimate of manners.

Kasia had removed Alex's boxers by the time she arrived at this conclusion. Her hands were even then travelling up and down the sleek surface of his endowment, making him almost squirm in pleasure and nudge her head toward him, but then, she gently took his cock into her grasp and began to stroke him. With one pale hand above the other, Kasia slowly began to stroke Alex's member, and, slowly, she began to realize how to give him enough pleasure that he really did squirm in pleasure.

Her confidence--and her lust--began to grow. But, so did her curiosity. There had to be a way to make him feel ever better, and she was determined to find it. Apart from that, there was something incredibly exotic about watch her own two feminine hands travelling up and down the length of Alex's tigerish shaft, frequenting a range of motion that was still almost incredible to behold.

After a moment, Kasia began to twist her hands--just a little. She didn't aim to hurt Alex, of course, she was just trying to find out what motions in particular he liked--and he certainly seemed to like that. When she twisted her hands with each downward stroke, he ground up against her, needingly, and struggled to raise his head to look into her eyes as she continued to stroke him.

Friction was making things increasingly difficult for her, though. Soon, what she was doing might even become painful for Alex, so what they both needed was some sort of lubricant--and that came in two forms. Firstly, Kasia took her hands off of his member, one after the other, licked, then, and continued to stroke him. Secondly, he precame, then, and what he produced spilled down the girthy underside of his cock until Kasia's hands spread it over a greater portion of its veiny surface.

She was breathing hard just stroking him. And she didn't hide it--she was, after all, very excited indeed by stroking Alex with her hands, and her pleasure rose in time with his. She could do what she was doing for hours, she knew, and if the "approval" he had just given her was a good reflection of how he was feeling--and she thought it was--then she could probably milk out every last drop of cum churning in Alex's balls.

But this was their first time together. And Kasia wanted him to enjoy himself as much as she was enjoying herself. And, so, still lying between his legs, she scooted forward, a little bit, and brought her face closer to his member.

As she did so, she slowly stopped stroking him--at least with her left hand. Her right hand remained nearly static, then, halfway enclosed around the upper part of his shaft, just under his head, only stroking ever so gently, ever so slowly, so that the sheer eroticism of what she was doing no doubt drove Alex's arousal to higher levels. At the same time, her left hand made its way to stroke at his white underbelly and the fringes of his orange coat and black stripes, alternating between simply rubbing over his fur to running its fingers, softly, though it.

Perhaps he noticed neither of these things, though. Because, just then, Kasia's lips had come into direct contact with his cock for the first time.

She had shut her eyes beforehand so that when she softly touched her lips to the thick underside of his member, it was a surprise to her as it was to him. But what really surprised her, at least, was how good it felt to have her sweet, soft lips touching his hard, smooth, masculine flesh. It simply felt arousing and exciting in a way that Kasia couldn't quantify, so she did it again--again, she brought her head forward and touched her lips to the fat underside of Alex's cock--and again, she felt her own arousal spike.

For a moment, she tried to look at Alex--but she couldn't. Her face was too close to his thick cock--she could actually hide behind his member, if she wanted to, and that thought made her blush brightly as she set her face next to his member and spoke to the tiger she loved, even as she ran her hand up and down the upper part of his shaft.

She looked into his eyes--gray, subtle, and, just then, locked on her face, her hand, every part of her that he found so arousing. And so, mostly, they were locked onto her eyes--baby blue and focused on his with a sort of kindness and, yes, submission, that only she could show him. She felt his head run itself through her hair, again, moving it to one side so that they could see one another clearly, and so she shut her eyes, smiled, and lovingly kissed at the base of Alex's groin, several times, before speaking.

"Are you enjoying this, Alex?" she asked gently. She opened her eyes, then, and tried not to blush too much as she buried her nose and then the entirety of her countenance into his soft, sleek fur. She had only intended to nuzzle him for a moment--but when she felt him squirm under her and when she smelled the pleasant, subtle scent that she had come to associate with the cologne he wore, she couldn't help but tenderly nestling her face into his fur for another few seconds.

When she withdrew, then, Alex was sitting upright. His one paw was still resting in her hair, near the base of her skull, but his other furred appendage had affectionately placed itself on her upper back, when it stroked her, gently, in its own way of thanking her for what she had done... what she was doing...

"Kasia," Alex began--and it seemed like he was having a tough time speaking, judging from how rapidly he was breathing and the affection in his eyes, "this is amazing... I've been afraid of doing something like this for so long, but... you're making it feel so good. You're... ahhhn..."

His words broke off into moans and deep, feline purrs, as she resumed kissing him. Again her eyes were shut--she wanted to be able to concentrate on softly yet loudly planting a series of affectionate kisses around the upper part of Alex's member. He tasted good--like skin, mostly, but with a subtle, strong sort of addition that she couldn't describe--and she wanted to concentrate on that, too.

But he made it harder for her. His paw danced along her back, stroking the length of her spin until it found the fringes of her shirt and then travelled farther still. He had to lean over her, a little bit, so that the top of her head gently nudged against his powerful abdomen, but it was worth it for both of them, because it gave him the opportunity to place his hand on her ass and give it a single, affectionate grope.

After that, he seemed content to rest his paws either on her back or in her hair. She couldn't see him and she doubted that he could see more than the back of her head, covered by her flaming hair, as it moved. Slowly, she grew more adventurous and began to kiss other parts of his member. He was big enough that she had plenty to work with, and so, in a way, Kasia was playing a sort of sexual game by finding out where to kiss to get the greatest reaction from Alex.

Quickly, she found out that his weak points were centered almost exclusively at the head of his cock. In particular, where his head flared out and then drew in to meet his shaft--both times when she had kissed him there he had responded by gasping, audibly, and moaning in deep, masculine need. Apart from that, she somehow sensed that the lower she got on his member, the more intimate it was... so that by the time she was kissing at the base of his cock, she was actually being somewhat submissive.

This knowledge didn't stop her, though. In a way, Kasia wanted to be submissive to Alex, and it wasn't just because she knew that he would never abuse any sense of dominance she lent him. In a feral, instinctive sort of way, nothing aroused her more than her, a pale, slim human, being sexually dominated by a big strong tiger like Alex. It didn't matter that she was in control--she wanted to feel, in some way, that he was dominating her.

The way his body was almost curled over hers was good. The way his paws rested on top of her was better. But what really made the experience enjoyable for Kasia was that she was gently, humbly, planting a series of increasingly wet, hot kisses around the base of Alex's member. And she didn't just kiss his shaft, or his groin--after gathering her nerve, for a moment, she was able to successfully kiss over his balls at least two distinct times.

He really did seem to like that. So Kasia kissed him again, before letting her tongue slide out of her mouth and then run up the erect length of his cock until it slowly re-entered her mouth. Again, she noted to herself how good he tasted, and so as she begin to stroke him with her hands again, she made a show of looking up at him and licking her lips in a slow, sensual, lascivious manner, smiling the whole while.

She drew her head back toward his cock, though, after he stared down at her and wordlessly begged her for more--she was only too happy to please him when what she was doing was so exciting, and, in some way, pleasing to her as well. She enjoyed the knowledge that she could please Alex, that she could even handle him, and the fact that his member was pulsing and throbbing in her hands rhythmically, in time with his heartbeat, meant that... she was going to make him cum...

Immediately, Kasia blushed. But she didn't let her nervousness take control of her--she continued to stroke him with increasing rapidity, pumping him with both of her hands. Each hand's motion was out of sync with the other; her left hand stroked him near the base of his member and her right hand concentrated on the upper part of his shaft. Alex began to breathe with increasing rapidity, now, and sometimes Kasia could feel him grip at her hair or back or very nearly do the same.

She stared at his cock as she brought him closer and closer to a climax. Watching such a huge member being stroked to climax was fun, in a very dirty, sexual way, and yet the fact that it was Alex's members and that it was her hands that were half-wrapped around it made Kasia feel no guilt over what she was doing. It felt so good that it couldn't be wrong; there was nothing about what she was doing that was wrong or dirty or kinky or--

"Kasia," Alex suddenly moaned, "I'm going to finish soon. Please... will you swallow it?"

It was not an unreasonable request--this was Kasia's first reaction to what Alex said. And yet, it was just a little kinky... and, certainly, it was more than a little submissive. Apart from that, she really wasn't sure if she wanted to. The taste of Alex's member was more than agreeable to her, but the taste of his seed... she had no idea what to expect, and what if she didn't like it? It would be much better if she just let him cum into her hands, surely.

Alex ran his paw through her hair a few times, then, and increased the pressure of his paw on her back. That was the closest he could come to holding her given their positions, and the closest he could come to thanking her given the amount of pleasure she was giving him. And yet, he was challenging her, in a way, to make their first time together so wonderful that no matter what happened between them, he would never be able to forget the pleasure she had given him that day--even if he never wanted to see her again.

She didn't nod or signal her acquiescence to his request in any other explicit way. But Kasia did proceed to hold her tongue out and lick over the head of his cock, several times, before she decided that the shining, slick layer of precum coating it didn't taste too bad. So, she continued what she was doing and built up on it--quickly, she was stroking him and licking around the fist-sized head of his cock in lascivious, rapid, albeit unpracticed circles, always prepared to open her mouth for when he showed her how virile he really was.

It didn't take long. It was only a few moments in total from when she started to please him and when he climaxed, and it was for even a shorter period of time that he was able to enjoy the feeling of her sweet, feminine lips running up and down the length of his cock. Regardless, when Alex came, there was such a volume of his seed that Kasia's mouth overfilled.

When Alex started to shoot perfectly opaque white globs of seed from the head of his member, Kasia immediately wrapped her lips around him and closed her eyes, blushing heavily as she felt the repeated, thick dollops of seed enter her mouth. Quickly, there was enough of Alex's seed in her mouth that if he had stopped right there she would have been impressed, but then, he kept cumming--and then he came some more. Kasia tried to gulp, but she was too slow and so she drew her lips back until they barely made contact with his cockhead in an attempt to create more space in her mouth--but even that failed.

In the end, Kasia had to open her mouth to avoid coughing his seed out of her nose. This resulted in the loss of more cum than most men could ejaculate in a day--thick drops of Alex's seed ran down his shaft, trailing sticky, glistening paths down his skin as Kasia drew back and sat up with an unsure expression on her face.

She could feel him staring at her, and this made her blush even as she looked away to avoid meeting his eyes. Her mouth was still full of his seed--it was so thick that she could barely move her tongue around, and its heat and volume warmed up her mouth. But... he tasted rather "strong". It wasn't an unpleasant taste, exactly, but Kasia wasn't sure that she liked it. And there was so much, and it was so thick--she couldn't swallow it. She had to get rid of it discreetly, somehow, even though Alex was staring right at her and even then running his paws through her hair and caressing her head with his furry grasp.

Almost reluctantly, Kasia met his eyes, despite knowing that if she did she would be unable to disappoint him. Sure enough, when she finally looked at Alex, and saw the intent, expectant expression on his face, she suddenly felt the will to choke down his cum, somehow, no matter how "strong" and thick and hot it was. After all, if she spat it out, that would be impolite, at least, because as a male Alex would interpret that action as her rejection of his seed... and what his seed was intended to create...

Now that she thought of it, Alex's cum was strong--she could taste it. How thick, hot and opaque it was were all signs of its potency, and besides, it was a sign of his excitement for her. In that sense, it was as much of a gift as the way he caressed her head and body and back, even then, as she knelt on her knees between his legs with her mouth full of his seed.

Still, she couldn't help but blushing as she slowly swished his cum around in her mouth in an attempt to thin it out. Somehow, Kasia could taste that his cubs would be as strong, tall, smart, and beautiful as he was...

Slowly, she shut her eyes and began to swallow. At first, it wasn't difficult--but then Kasia nearly gagged and clutched at Alex's fur tightly. She winced and had to put a hand on her lips to force herself to keep swallowing... but after that, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't bad at all--in fact, it quickly became enjoyable, as Alex's seed took on a sweet, almost savory taste as it continue to spill down her throat.

So Kasia slowed down. She savored the final few gulps of Alex's cum, shutting her eyes and smiling in the process, and she even tilted her head back. True, when she realized that Alex was staring at her throat work to transport his seed into her belly, she blushed... but by then she had swallowed all of his cum. All that was left was a pleasant aftertaste and sense of warmth, and the overwhelming desire to lick around the inside of her mouth to collect any forgotten drops of seed--which Kasia shortly did.

And then, she looked away from Alex again. With an arm still hooked around his powerful chest, she licked her lips, too, and then rested her free hand on the head of Alex's hard, oversensitive cockhead. It was a moment before she looked at him again, and when she did, she was still breathing more rapidly than she did at a resting rate. She was still very much aroused, and despite her embarrassment, she couldn't help but find the strength to tell Alex how good he tasted.

Kasia stroked him twice, gently, before taking her hand off his member and holding him around his torso again. She brought herself a bit closer to him, wanting to kiss, though she knew he wasn't likely to do that after where her mouth had been--but then, it was he who closed the distance between them and brought his lips to hers.

Their kisses, then, were passionate--at least, that was how they began. Within moments, they were using their tongues to wetly expression their mutual affection and Kasia was again pressing herself against him. He held her with both arms and she held him with one so that she had a free hand to gingerly stroke his somewhat softened member until, rapidly, it was hard and erect again, just for her.

She made to kiss into Alex's ruff, then, but he turned her head to the side and kissed at her neck. He covered her pale flesh with affection, and though he was a predator and though she had no means of protecting herself from teeth not a centimeter from her jugular, she felt no fear. After all, Alex would never, ever hurt her... certainly not when she was showing him her submission by baring her neck to him.

Kasia tried to stroke him, briefly, but when he put his paws on her body again she had to hold him to avoid practically swooning in his embrace. He was holding her so close and kissing her so much while touching her breasts and pale, hourglass figure and thick yet toned ass that she couldn't help but grind against him needingly, almost begging him for much, much more.

Alex's affections, however, didn't last long. As quickly as he had grown adventurous with the body of the beautiful female in his arms, he grew shy, again, and simply stroked her back and her hair and held her. Kasia wasn't disappointed, though--she knew that she would have to take the lead again, and besides, Alex had excited her to the point that her own inhibitions did not register to her.

Briefly, she leaned back, giving her hair a subtle toss so that it glistened in the air before coming to rest on her back. She smiled at Alex--kissed him again--and then used her hands to gently nudge him onto his back again. His paws trailed off of her as he moved to recline, but she didn't let them remove themselves from her hips, or at least her thighs. Though she was taking the lead, he could give her so much more pleasure just by holding and touching her in that chaste manner... on top of the pleasure that he would give her in other ways...

Kasia looked down. Alex's member was hard and just between her legs, separated from her feminine entrance only by her own clothing. He was so long that the tip of his cock was level with her bellybutton, and he was so thick that doing more than rubbing his head against her might well be physically impossible. The sheer idea of taking him inside of her was, despite her arousal and her love for him, more than a little frightening.

But she had to do it. At least, she had to try, and she had to do so in such a manner that the tiger lying down and waiting for her to impale herself on him wasn't made to feel nervous, embarrassed, or awkward.

For that reason, Kasia kept her clothes on and let Alex see no more than a glance of the entrance to her body when she moved her shorts and her panties aside. She was sopping wet, but that wasn't likely to be nearly enough to ease his passage into her. She needed more than the lubrication her body naturally produced to let him in.

So, Kasia started to rub, gently, at the aroused mound of her femininity with several fingers. Alex's member pressed right up against her, causing her to envision him being inside her--and this caused her pleasure to spike, encouraging her to be more vigorous.

In moments, she had one, and then two fingers inside of her and was using her free hand to fondle at her still-clothed breast. She could feel Alex's eyes, and hands on her, and so she had to bite her lip rather hard to avoid moaning out loud even as she ground down against him, wordlessly pleading for his member inside of her immediately. Her own enthusiasm for his touch made him run his paws up and down her sides, her belly, her breasts, and when he begin to fondle her, she climaxed for the first time that day.

She was left breathing rapidly and moaning, and, even then, grinding down against Alex. His paws remained on her breasts, and she didn't even have to use her one free hand to guide him to feel her precisely the way she wanted to. She looked down at him, smiling shyly, yet sensually, and tilted her head down to give a few of his fingers a series of grateful kisses.

She was ready to take him into her. Or, at least, she was as ready as she'd ever be.

Kasia sat up, slowly, and with one hand planted on Alex's chest for stability, she used the other to hold Alex's member in place. As she rose, she rubbed herself against him, involuntarily, causing her pleasure to spike again. Looking down, she was able to see the fist-sized head of Alex's member right up against her, so close to her slick, female entrance--and for a moment, she was certain that he couldn't enter her. She was certain that she couldn't please him.

But she had to try.

After gently stroking him with her hand a few times, Kasia rubbed the head of Alex's cock against herself. He was so hard that he spread her, easily, allowing for the fat tip of his member to arouse her clit and almost causing her to climax again. She was breathing hard, she knew, and it was all she could do to stop from moaning like a slut due to simply rubbing his cock against herself--but for Alex, it seemed, the pleasure was too much to take.

He precame on her, so heavily that Kasia knew that she had just received more cum than a normal man could ejaculate. The thick beads of his white seed clung to her skin, or his, or else rolled down his shaft to form a sticky, opaque surface that glistened even as she looked down at him. The sight must have pleased Alex, because he moaned, then, and rubbed her breasts in a circular manner before allowing his paws to fall to her hips, and, gently, encourage her to take him inside.

And she did. At least, she did after teasing the tiger a bit more by gently tapping the heavy head of his cock against her and stroking him, a few more times, until her hand was as covered with his potent seed as his member was--after that, she placed the head of his endowment against herself... and, shutting her eyes, began to slowly, gently, but firmly press herself down.

Immediately, his cock split her. Kasia winced in pain that was almost severe enough to force her to stop, but not quite--now, she had the willpower to continue despite difficulty and limited progress, and so she continued to force herself downward despite the fact that just taking in a third of Alex's cockhead forced her slit to spread apart more than it was design to. She pushed herself, relaxing her legs more and more and more until gravity had enough power to lower her down and take the fist-sized ball that was Alex's cockhead into her.

Kasia paused, briefly, and looked down at herself. Alex's member stood strong just beneath her, pressed downward somewhat by the sheer force it took to force him to penetrate her, and its owner was panting as much as she was. He, too, was gasping for breath and looking at his partner in ecstasy and, the whole time, his facial expression asked her to do her best to give him more.

And so she did. It got more and more difficult as Alex's member grew thicker, but Kasia was so wet and Alex's member was so coated with precum and the product of her own wet kisses that she managed to get at least three centimeters of his shaft into her. She could feel herself stretch to accommodate him, and when she looked down she could see Alex biting his lip to concentrate hard enough to overcome the feral, masculine instinct that called on him to throw her to the ground and take her as roughly as he wanted to.

To be certain, there was a feral appeal to such an act. Kasia could see herself on all fours with Alex on top of her, groping at her swaying breasts and breathing hotly into her ear as he pounded her, and for a moment, she was tempted to tease Alex until he took her like that. She even brought herself upward, a little, until she smiled and gave her hair a toss.

"Another time," she breathed. "Another time..."

Then, she kept going down on him--lower, and lower, and lower still, until the massively thick midsection of Alex's member absolutely prevented her from taking him anymore. She had the head of his cock and the upper third of his shaft in her, but those combined eighteen centimeters were more than most females would ever be allowed to take in their entire lives.

Certainly, it was more than enough for her. He was so hard, and so thick that when Kasia moved herself the slightest amount she gasped and bit her lip hard--he had just made her cum. His massive cock had just made her cum, and she had only adjusted her position so that she could plant her hands on the ground next to his shoulders and look down at him as she rode him.

For a moment, Kasia searched for words. She tried to bite back a brief bout of panting and wordless, hot, rapid breathing to say something to Alex--to tell him how big he was, how she loved him, how much of a perfect male he was--but she could barely concentrate hard enough to sit upright thanks to the pleasure emanating from her loins. She ended up simply leaning down farther to kiss him a few times, but after that, she couldn't delay any more for her sake and his--she had to start riding him.

So, she began to, as slowly and over as small a range as she possibly could. She lifted herself upward, about a centimeter, and slowly lowered herself down. It still almost hurt to even hold him inside of her, so when she moved, the pain did increase--but so did the pleasure. And the pleasure increased so much that, after no more than a second of rest, Kasia was encouraged to repeat the same motion again.

She did--and this time, the pain was insignificant compared to the pleasure. The pleasure, in turn, was so significant that she couldn't help but moaning, quietly, and looking down at Alex as if she believed he might be experiencing the same ecstasy that she was. He wasn't--he couldn't be--but, at least, he too was moaning and allowing his paws to encouragingly rub at her thighs, her hips, and her tight, toned ass.

She continued to ride him. But she had to be careful--every time she tried to speed up or increase the proportion of Alex's cock that she was working with, she came to within a hairsbreadth of hurting herself. She had to stay slow, controlled, and desperately, totally lascivious.

And yet, despite all these things, Alex's fat cock had made Kasia cum again, twice over. Twice, he had made her bit down on her lip and grasp desperately at his chest and whisper his name simply by staying still and allowing her to please herself with his overly large member. And while it was clear that he, too was pleased by what she was doing, at that rate Kasia would climax herself into unconsciousness while Alex was still rock hard and waiting for her to earn his seed.

She had to change things however she could so that they were more pleasing for Alex. Leaning too far back didn't help--true, he seemed to like it when her ass very nearly danced against his loins, but the change in angle was even more pleasurable--however, sitting upright gave Kasia the ability to control his cock with one hand, stroking it so that his pleasure was increased and her own feminine nubs of ecstasy were stimulated less.

She started to ride him again. And this time, she did so a little faster.

Kasia's breathing was hard, then, and rapid, and so was Alex's. His eyes and paws traveled up and down her curvaceous form and her hands rhythmically squeezed against the taught bunches of muscle that defined his torso. Together, their passions rose, but still it was Kasia who was cumming, again and again and again, every time she felt the head of Alex's cock make its way deeper into her. And every time she felt him precum, she felt the thick, potent seed she had tasted just moments before swim into her, making its way to her womb.

Eventually, Kasia was able to ride Alex with longer strokes. She had to slow down to do so, but she was successfully able to get a stunning half of the tiger's massive member into her. She was able to rest her hands on his pecs, his abs, or his massive, muscular shoulders and ride him with a lusty dedication that no other woman ever could. She smiled at him and moaned for him and spoke his name in soft, rapid whispers, and sometimes, she even commented how marvelous his huge, fat cock felt when it was buried inside of her.

And then, for the first time, Alex ground upward. That was all--he simply rolled his hips, slightly, in a gentle maneuver that was almost incomparable to the raunchy, unpracticed sort of thrusting that most males used to please themselves and their partners. It should barely have made Kasia gasp, but the pleasure she got from that simple action made her cum so hard that she arched her head back--and all but passed out.

The next thing Kasia was aware of was that Alex was sitting up, holding her, gently shaking her and asking if she was alright. Though the concern in his eyes was obvious, when he spoke it was in a strange, hesitant tone, as if it was taking him an unusual amount of concentration to string words together.

Kasia tried to answer. But she was breathing too hard, and alternating between kissing Alex in between pants or else biting down to avoid moaning again--she couldn't speak. Her entire body was tingling with pleasure, and... something felt different. She felt... full, or satisfied, in a manner that she never had been before.

She began to look down. And it was then that Kasia saw that somehow, some way, she had managed to take the entirety of Alex's member into her, down to where his shaft met his groin. Her full body weight was resting against him; she was literally taking him balls-deep and the sheer size of the tiger's masculinity meant that Kasia could see a slight bulge under her skin that marked where exactly in her body he was. And he was so far into her that the head of his member had to have entered her cervix.

For a moment, Kasia had a hard time believing that she had taken Alex's massive cock into her. But there was no way to deny what she was seeing and feeling. Certainly it was Alex's striped, muscular, furred form in front of her, and certainly it was his extremely large member standing erect inside of her. Everything about him--what he looked like, the way he spoke, and even the pleasant yet masculine way he smelled made it impossible for Kasia to mistake him for anyone else.

Still, it took her a moment to get used to the feeling of such a huge tool being inside of her. And she didn't even succeed--she managed to tolerate him, barely, and yet doing so gave her so much pleasure that despite the fact that she was on the very extreme edge of hurting herself, Kasia managed to smile and share a few sudden, passionate kisses with the concerned feline still wrapping his arms around her.

"It's alright, Alex," she breathed. "I'm all right. You're almost too big... but I can take you." She shut her eyes as the pain within her threatened to rise and pressed her head into the space between his neck and his trapezius to nuzzle him affectionately. "I can... just... barely... take you."

She focused, for a moment, and forced herself to ignore the pain--or at least the worst of it. And after holding Alex for a few more seconds, she placed her hands on his chest to again nudge him until he was laying down. Smiling at him, she ran her fingers through his fur a few times, tracing his stripes just the way she knew he liked it and waited until he was fully reclined.

"Just... don't move, alright?" Kasia asked, almost as an afterthought. "I might get hurt, so... just let me do all the work, tak?"

She leaned forward, then, and kissed Alex once--and then, after a pause, she kissed him a few more times. For some reason, she suddenly felt terribly afraid, and alone, and it had everything to do with the fact that though she thought she knew the strong, silent, beautiful tiger she was making love to better than anyone else did, he still confused her at times.

And how close he had come to leaving her forever, just moments ago... it frightened her.

So, she kissed him as passionately as she possibly could, until, eventually, he began to kiss her back with an equal measure of passion. His paws left her hips and planted themselves on her face, and when their lips finally parted, he smiled up at her and kissed her on the forehead.

Then, he simply looked into her eyes and ran his paws through her hair until the few crimson strands that had fallen from their place on her back again neatly shimmered against her skin.

"Alright, Kasia," the tiger whispered. "I promise I won't move a muscle unless you let me. Just... please, don't make me wait too long. I'm..."

His voice diminished as he gave Kasia another a shy smile which she somehow read correctly: he was going to cum buckets into her, soon, and there was nothing he wanted more than to cum buckets into the beautiful red-haired Polak taking his cock deeper in her than any normal woman could. She, too, blushed when his desires were made obvious to her, but that didn't stop her from smiling and kissing him on the forehead in an almost maternal, or older sisterly fashion.

After that, Kasia sat back up and only bit her lip once to ignore the almost-but-not-quite-pain emanating from not just her loins, but her core. She used her hands to stroke her hair again in an almost businesslike manner, and then placed them on Alex's paws to guide them in their endless search of her body.

"Don't worry, Alex," she practically cooed. "I'll be as quick as I can."

She was tempted, briefly, to remove her shirt--but as much as she wanted to, it simply wasn't wise. How possible it was for them to be caught struck Kasia suddenly, making her blush--they were barely a few yards away from a popular trail, and it was actually rather surprising that no one had found them yet. In fact, it made a great deal of sense for them to stop--but she didn't want to stop. She couldn't stop--not until she felt the entirety of Alex's massive load inside of her.

Kasia reached down and used a lone hand to adjust her shorts, panties, and then her labia. Then, blushing and looking away self-consciously, she reached into her short shorts' pocket and withdrew a simple, black elastic band. Still looking away from Alex, she used it to do her hair into a neat, practical ponytail before leaning forward and preparing herself for what was going to happen next.

Idly, she wondered how he found her attractive enough, just then, to become so hard that his member didn't move an inch no matter the orientation of her body. He had seen her in her current outfit many times, after all.

It never occurred to Kasia that Alex had always found her attractive. It certainly never occurred to her that he had found her attractive even before she had lost weight and became the slim, fit, red-haired Polski beauty that she was.

Even when she began to ride him again, it took Kasia a few moments to really feel sexy again. She had felt sexy when she had stroked Alex with her hands and kissed him, and when she had started to make love to him, but even though Alex was moaning and exploring her curvy, fit form with his eyes as well as his hands, it took her a few moments to feel sexy again.

But when she did, she began to truly enjoy herself. Although Alex was huge enough that she could feel him practically splitting her apart, she could take him and please him, and these facts drove her own excitement to new heights. Breathing hotly down at him, she tried to kiss him on the lips, a few times, but mostly missed and ended up simply grazing his snout and nose with her lips.

She wanted to moan, very badly, but she kept her voice down--after all, there were people nearby--in fact, it was possible that even then they were being watched, and that idea made Kasia blush, terribly, before resting her body on Alex's and grinding up against him for a few moments. But then, she leaned back, gave her hair a toss, and began to ride him again, moaning very quietly indeed so that only he could hear it. She was willing to take the chance of being seen--his massive member, and the increasingly heavy dollops of precum entering her, felt so good that she didn't want to stop even if he really did split her apart.

In moments, Kasia wasn't the only one softly moaning, breathing rapidly, hotly, and whispering her partner's name. Soon, Alex was groping her breasts or her ass or stroke her hair or her sides in order to encourage her motions in a wordless request to be finished soon. Sometimes, he pulled her down to him to kiss, and more often he groaned in a soft yet masculine manner and just barely held himself back from thrusting upward with enough force to make Kasia cum even more than she already was--and hurt her so badly that she'd never be able to make love again.

By the time Kasia felt Alex approach his own climax--an easy feat; she only had to pay attention to how his member pulsed inside of her--she had climaxed at least five more times. She had successfully broke past the mental and physical barriers that prevented her from being the best woman he could ever have, allowing her to move herself up and down over almost the entirety of his hard, massive cock. He made her so hot that she was practically burning to his touch, and when she bit her lip and ground down against him a final few times, she felt herself clench down on him--and finally give him the final amount of pleasure that caused him to climax.

As Alex came into her, Kasia did not stop moving. Though she pressed herself down against him, she ground her hips from one side to the other and then she pressed her body against him so that she could moan into his fur, his shirt, and hold him so tightly that if his coat had been much thinner she would have cut his skin with her nails. Alex's paws in turn grabbed her hips and pulled her down against him firmly so that every final drop of his seed would go where it belonged: into her.

For a few moments, Kasia simply lay on top of Alex. With her head resting on his built chest, she could hear his heart beating rapidly, and she could feel him breathing as hard as he did after miles and miles of running. She smiled when she considered that, that she had given him a better workout than he could usually get in a few hours...

The peaceful intimacy continued, for a few moments, as Kasia kissed into Alex's fur and he simply held her, gently, snuggling her body against his. It wasn't long before Kasia became aware of a deep, powerful vibration that emanated from his chest--and then she realized that he was purring for the first time around her. He was so happy and content and satisfied by his release into her that he was actually purring for her.

His paws continued to roam her body with equal parts curiosity and affection. Kasia could have surmised from the way he touched her alone that he had never been with a woman before, and the fact that a woman as beautiful and curvy as her was his first gave him the opportunity to feel more curvaceous beauty than most males ever would. He was, of course, obsessed with her breasts and her ass, but he seemed every bit as curious and loving toward other parts of her feminine physique--her belly, her neck, her hair, her hands, her face, and her lovely eyes.

At some point, he must have ushered her into straddling him again so that he could look at her clearly. His member was still inside of her--and hard--but it wasn't as stonily rigid as it had been before Alex had unleashed repeated torrents of his potent seed into her. He smiled up at her, still purring, and alternated between caressing her face and running his fingers through her silky, long, red hair.

Within a few moments, however, the happy smile on Alex's face changed. He looked concerned, and that was because Kasia's own passion had died down just before, replacing the lust clouding her mind with some very real fear. She had tried to prevent Alex from realizing this, but when she caught his eye once and tried to look away, he placed a velvety paw on her cheek and turned her face until she was looking at him. Then, he simply looked at her, patiently waiting for her to explain what was wrong.

Kasia took in a deep breath. She blushed, shut her eyes for a second, and then looked past Alex and into the forest surrounding them all.

"You're not wearing a condom," Kasia said, "I don't use any kind of birth control... and..."

She said that final word in a very small, very soft voice. And after that, her words died down entirely. She didn't quite have it within herself to tell Alex that his cum really was very strong, and that it was more than possible that even then his seed was finding its way around her womb.

But he seemed confused. He tilted his head at her, and a moment later, explained why her words didn't make sense to him.

"You're not on birth control... Kasia, everyone's on birth control these days. Aren't they?" He added that final sentence almost as an afterthought, but Kasia nodded to him and sighed again.

"More or less everyone is, tak," Kasia replied, "but not me. I have no reason to use birth control, after all."

She blushed when she admitted that, and even though she looked away again, she could feel Alex's eyes traveling away from hers, down her body, to where their bodies joined. Though she was still clothed and though the most explicit view of their union was hidden from him, there was no doubt that he could see that _some_thing had died his neat, pale white fur a rapidly oxidizing shade of red.

When he saw that, he froze for a moment. And when he looked up at her again, his paws somehow became even more gentle as they caressed her face in their furry grasp. She tried to look away again, but when her bright blue eyes found their way to his, she found that she could not avoid him.

"Kasia, you... did you just... was this your first time?"

When he asked that, she looked away, briefly, and nodded. Then, again feeling embarrassed, she blushed and placed a pale hand on top of his paw so that she could hold it close against her face.

"I've just never found the right person," Kasia admitted. "At least... not until a few years ago..."

She shut her eyes, then, and waited for Alex to laugh. But he didn't--instead, a moment later, she found that he was sitting up and caressing her face in both paws again. Now, she could hear him purring in addition to feel those repeated, deep feline vibrations, and when he kissed her, he did so with such passion that she didn't even notice when he lay her back down on the forest floor and began to make love to her again.

This time, she was the one who was laying still and enjoying the affections of her partner. Though Kasia had to spread her legs wide apart to accept him, she did so without complaint because it allowed her to hook her ankles behind his lower back and hold him close as he began to gently thrust into her.

Watching him use his massive tool to please her was almost intimidating. Kasia was not a small woman by any standard; at over six feet tall she towered over most men--but Alex was almost a head taller than her, and so much more muscular. And when he supported himself on the ground with his paws, she could see every single one of his muscles bunch up, taught with power and energy and lust for her.

And yet, he was so gentle. He used short strokes always, so that the head of his member either repeatedly rubbed against an impossibly small nub of pleasure impossibly deep within her or was squeezed hard by her labia. The thickness of his cock was almost too much for her to take, at times, but whenever the pain threatened to overwhelm her she gripped at Alex's arms and he slowed down and kissed her until she was alright again.

She ran her fingers through his fur when she could, but mostly, she was too focused on accepting Alex's affections to reciprocate. Sometimes, she ground her hips downward against him and sometimes she lifted the lower part of her body off the ground so that he could make love to her at a different angle. Mostly, though, she was too busy looking away from Alex and biting her lip or her fingers to avoid moaning his name so loud that their luck finally ended and they were found.

His paws usually gripped her by the hips so that he could hold her still while he made love to her more deeply than any other man ever could. But as her pleasures--and his--came to a fever pitch, he wrapped his arms underneath her ass, lifted her off the ground and rubbed his loins against her so powerfully that Kasia had to hold onto the grass beneath her to avoid being pressed against it. His whole body arched over her and caressed her and so when he finally came into her again, Kasia had hit a string of climaxes so intense that her entire body was left buzzing with pleasure, satisfaction, and love for the tall tiger that had finally, finally shown her that her efforts toward him were not fruitless.

At some point, Alex must have lifted her shirt up to have access to her breasts. And though Kasia was still wearing her bra, that didn't stop the tiger from obsessing over them with his paws and his gaze alike. Now, he leaned down and began to gently, lovingly kiss and nuzzle at her perfect, pale chest, resting his face in the deep valley between her breasts and alternatively groping them with his paws or rubbing the smooth bluntness of his head against her.

Kasia rested her hand on his head, in his hair, and hugged him against her. His member was still inside of her--and still hard--but Alex seemed finished, and she certainly was. And if he kept his massive cock inside of her for much longer, she'd be sore for the rest of the day.

She could feel his seed inside of her. She could physically feel the cup or so of hot cum that Alex had given her inside of her, so thick and voluminous that it satisfied her in a physical and a psychological way. It would be a wonder, she mused, if she didn't have triplets--Alex's seed was so potent and she knew that she was so fertile that even then, she walked with an arm walked wrapped protectively around her belly.

Her other arm was at her side, so that she could hold Alex's paw and rest her head against his shoulder as they walked the remaining portion of the trail that separated them from the bus that would take them back to campus.

They had both taken the time to carefully straighten their clothes, of course. But from the way people looked at them with sly, congratulatory smiles, Kasia surmised that it was obvious that they were a couple. That there was a reason that they each smelled of the other.

Maybe that was why Alex was keeping so quiet.

It made Kasia almost nervous. He was holding hands with her but not saying a word, and though she occasionally tried to be affectionate with him by nudging her face against his shoulder in a human iteration of a nuzzle or by kissing his cheek, slyly, he did nothing to reciprocate. He only seemed interested, just then, in the colors the setting Sun painted the sky, the trees, the forest all around them.

Maybe he was just holding her hand and letting her be affectionate with him to be polite. Maybe he was going to leave her after all.

That thought made Kasia look away and lower her head. She gripped Alex's paw tightly--but he remained sullen and did nothing in response. He didn't even look at her when she whispered his name so softly that even his feline ears might not have heard it.

Again, Kasia was certain that she was spending her last moments with Alex. So, sadly, she tried to enjoy them as best she could, because now she had nothing left to give him. She had given him her friendship, her love, her affection, and her first kisses and her virginity, and it seemed that this was not enough to earn his love. All that was left was to walk to the bus and look at the last sights she would ever have of the only male, tiger or human, she would ever love.

They were almost at the bus when Kasia felt a change in the feline next to her, whose paw she was still desperately gripping. Somehow she sensed him blink, then, as if he'd just realized something--and his whole mood toward her changed.

He squeezed her hand. Then he let go of it so that he could drape his arm over her shoulders and hold her close and plant a soft, feline kiss on her forehead.

"I'm sorry, Kasia," Alex said quietly. He rubbed her shoulder, then, and leaned back so that she could see him smiling down at her. "I was thinking about a few things... and I was so distracted, I seem to have forgotten to be kind to my greatest friend in the world."

His words alone were a good sign. His motions were even better--but Kasia simply looked up at him almost skeptically. She couldn't make any more assumptions about Alex, the tiger she loved and yet had never, ever completely understood.

But he was still smiling at her. And though he could see her skepticism, he just held her closer and spoke so that only she could hear it.

"I'm still not sure if I will stay in Polska or go back to Praha. We will have to discuss it, the girl of my dreams and I," he said.

Kasia stopped in her tracks. But Alex kept walking, gently tugging her hand until, for once, she followed him to the next level of their relationship, confused and uncertain and yet vitally, impossibly happy the whole time.

He was still smiling at her, but his happiness wasn't the odd, unwonted sort of giddiness she'd seen on his furred countenance a moment before. Again, his smile was the one she was used to--sincere, meaningful, and, certainly, shy, as if he wasn't sure that she would follow him.

But she did. She gripped his paw and followed him for a few steps until the two of them were walking side by side again. Each was affectionate and open as the other, this time, and this time, Alex saw the love Kasia had for him and this time, Kasia actually understood the strange, shy, but incredibly affectionate and sincere tiger she had come to love almost four years before.

(And zat is zat. I guess this story didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to. About halfway through, I realized that I had to speed things up a lot or else it would be 200,000 words of more or less mundane actions. I then realized that just speeding it up wasn't quite enough, so I basically got to the climax--of the story--after feeling that I had said everything that needed to be said.

Apart from that, how did you like it? I admit that Kasia is sort of a weak main character as she's centered around her relationship with Alex--but then again, the story is centered around her relationship with Alex. I hope I was able to give a positive message, which is no more complex than one can do whatever he or she wants to, as long as he or she sets his or her mind to it and works hard.

At the very least, I hope the sex scene was enjoyable. It was a lot of fun for me to write about things from Kasia's point of view.

Please rate, review, comment, critique, fave and... fote?

Anyway, this is Sameera, the only tigress from beyond the eastern plains... see you next chapter.)

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