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_ Amber's 69 First Dates _

_ The Twin Paradox _

by Dissident Love

All Rights Reserved

February 2012

Dear Diary

Did you know Roofie is a taur?

I know, I was a little wierded out, too! It was like, hey,

look at you coming out from behind the counter for the

first time, and how about that, you're not wearing any

pants! Pants are for losers!

He's a lot of other things, too, but I suppose you already

know that, don't you? It was wierd. We hung out. We

talked. We ate Funyuns. I copped a feel, too, and for the

first time I didn't grow out of control and violate several

city by-laws for floor loads, so to speak. He even gave me

a ride home.

Of course, then I spent an hour in the shower and

blacked out mid-orgasm, but that's besides the point.

I slept like a log, and mom helped me clean up the

bathroom the next morning. That was nice of her.

But now, I'm going to leave all of that behind me.

I talked to Roofie, and we're going to hang out next

week, maybe go see a movie. It's cool to have a

friend I can talk to, without it leading to anything

sexual and fwoompy.

Everything else in my life seems to lead in that

direction.

Not that I mind all THAT much.

- - - - -

It was long weekend time, and the malls were thronged. Amber liked that word, 'thronged'. It even sounded crowded, busy, overpowering. School had let out about an hour before, and right now just about every teenager from Circe was scurrying from store to store, spending as fast and as hard as they possibly could while worried, frustrated and rapidly-impoverished parents tried valiantly to keep up.

This was, of course, why Amber's mother was holding onto her elbow with a vise-like grip.

"Mom, I can't feel my paw."

"You hush. We're going to TWO stores, and then home."

"But..."

"No buts!"

"Aww."

"And no double-entendre, either."

"Aww!"

She wasn't all that dismayed by the prospect of shopping with her mom, though, for two important reasons. One, her mom was paying, and two, she enjoyed watching the older feline tear through pushy salespeople like a hot cat through milk. It was time for their family's annual 'Quick, Try To Have Some Fun Before The Snow Flies' vacation, and they were finally going back to the Helios Hot Springs. She hadn't been there since she was a kitten, and she had such wonderful memories.

Unfortunately, going THIS year meant bathing suit shopping, something that was proving to be quite difficult.

"I still wish I could have just bought online like last year," she said, forcing their way through an extremely numerous family of lagomorphs who were all hopping with excitement. "But even Land's End said that girls like me would have to buy in-store."

Her mother smiled warmly back at her. "Hon, it's ok, really. We haven't gone clothes shopping in a while, and to be honest I'm a little curious myself as to what they sell that would fit you!"

Amber glanced down. She was wearing a pair of sleek red pants that, despite the kevlar restraints, were still bulging and straining to keep her anatomy down. "Well, whatever I buy, it has to cover the supports, so I think a bikini is out." She frowned and grumbled, "It's probably going to be one of those stupid one-pieces with the frilly little skirt. I hate those."

"It doesn't need to be big enough to cover the support," her mother said absently, still scanning the names of all the outlets. "Where the hell is a place that sells bathing suits?"

"If it doesn't, it's just going to look like I'm wearing underwear under my bathing suit! That may have been cool when you were a kid, but not these days! And Addition-Elle sells-"

"Well, why not just not wear the support? It's a vacation at a hot spring, you should relax. I thought Bermuda Triangle sold bathing suits, but I don't know where that is anymore."

"Bermuda Triangle closed last year, and what do you mean, 'don't wear it'? I thought you and Dad handed down official commands from on high that I had to wear it at all times?!"

"You haven't listened to us so far, we didn't think you'd start now. Really, it closed down? I used to buy tube tops there."

"You wear tube tops?! No, no, not now. Uhm... well, if you're cool with me not wearing the support while we're on vacation, Addition-Elle sells-"

"Dolphin Cove sounds like they sell bathing suits," her mother said, peering down the enormous and crowded corridor. "What do you think? Amber?"

She turned around to see her daughter standing stock still, head cocked, one enormous eyebrow arched and tapping her foot impatiently. "Are you doing this to torture me?"

"What? No! I just-"

"Addition-Elle. This way. Just... stop being a mom, ok?"

As soon as Amber's back was turned, her mother could no longer conceal her grin. She knew Addition-Elle sold hyper-wear, ever since the night of the fateful Fall Bazaar, but that didn't mean she couldn't give the hormonal teen a little more practice dealing with stress. It was educational.

"Really, it should be your father taking you shopping, he's got FAR more experience with extra-large bathing suits-"

"MOM!"

"Don't worry, I saw a store around here that sells brainbleach."

"I hope you mean whisky."

"AMBER!"

Julienne was not working today, which Amber was a little grateful for. She didn't think she could handle her mother working out of her the details of her LAST visit, or mentioning the little questions she had asked when Cindy hadn't been present. Due to the school rush, though, there were four other clerks and more than a dozen teens from Circe, in varying shapes and sizes, and several people Amber could not remember seeing before.

"Whoa," she said under her breath, watching a pandagirl with a truly staggering quantity of rump flipping through a rack of short skirts. It was as though Cindy's measurements had been reversed, and the kitteh didn't even think she could get her arms around those hips. She blinked, slowly and lazily, watching each swollen curve wriggle for position within the tight confines of her tightly-stretched-

"Amber?"

"PANTS!" She looked around, eyes wild, and saw her mother staring at her curiously. "Uhm. Nothing! I don't need pants. Bathing suits!"

"Right," her mother said cautiously, having easily figured out where her daughter had been looking. "Only bathing suits. No phone numbers."

Amber blushed. "I was just..."

"No problem, dear," the elder kitty said with a wink. "Hey, if I were ten years younger and she were ten years older..."

"MOM!"

"AMBER!"

They glared at eachother, fists clenched, aware that several people were staring at them, but it couldn't last forever. Amber started to giggle first, and once that dam had been broken her mother joined in. Half a dozen heads shook in wonderment as the obviously mentally-unstable pair threaded their way through the store, arm in arm.

"You live to make me crazy, don't you?"

"I'm your mother. My life needs MEANING!"

The hyper-compatible and customer-free bathing suit section at the back of the store sold tops and bottoms separately, since the myriad combinations of proportion made matched outfits nearly impossible. Fortunately the manufacturers seemed to have agreed on a fairly limited color palette, and they were able to piece together a few potentials fairly quickly.

"Wow, some of these actually seem... big enough," Amber said thoughtfully, holding up a red bikini bottom that seemed to have enough room to hold a basketball, rather making it resemble a grocery bag with three joined straps. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd be happier if real life had those little floating black rectangles, Amber. You're going to be X-rated in a poncho."

"MOM!"

"But it's a hot spring," she continued blithely, "and everyone's going to be wearing bathing suits, so if they can't handle a little hyperkitteh in their pool, well, they can go to hell. You have rights."

Amber blinked, jaw agape. "Uhm... yeah, totally. Power to me, and stuff. What do you think of blue?"

The one-piece bathing suits, although covering her body substantially more, gave her a very odd and somewhat pregnant look, which explained why they were all on 'clearance' in her sizes, so in the end Amber ended up purchasingone of those, and three new bikinis. "I still don't know why you bought silver, though," her mother was saying while the expensive items were charged to her credit card.

"Silver looks AWESOME! It's all shiny and stuff! Come on, you can't tell me it didn't look neat."

"It made you look like some sort of bionic porn star."

"MOM!"

"What? The second part is a compliment!"

"Porn st-... what? Wait, what's wrong with bionic?"

They were arguing loudly while they left the store, Amber holding the surprisingly tiny bag with her purchases. The other shoppers shook their heads again, grateful that although they might be unusually proportioned and difficult to shop for, they didn't have to put up with that sort of behaviour.

---

Dinner consisted of getting drive-thru on the highway out of town, with the sun rapidly setting over the distant hills. Several small bags of premanufactured and refried food were passed around the car, with Amber getting three whole bags to herself. As much as she tried to act nonchalant and hide the scraps, her parents had noticed that her food intake now rivaled that of most touring college football teams.

"Thmnks, mnm," she mumbled around one burger, already unwrapping a second. Her father, as he had explained in horrifying detail the night before, had gone through a phase like this when he was a teenager, and in fact had consumed so much food that they had been forced to get a doctor's recommendation for food stamps to cover the bills.

"Hypers," he rumbled from the front seat, making Amber try and squirm backwards into the upholstery, "require tremendous amounts of food in order to keep on top of their metabolisms."

"Ymmff, dmnd, mm... erff... one sec..." she swallowed, and tried again. "Yes, dad, we already went through this yesterday. And the day before, actually."

"Yes, but I understand that you might be feeling a little insecure about this."

"I'm not insecure about THIS, dad," she said, waving her fries menacingly. "I eat, like, twenty times a day and I've actually LOST an inch around my waist. This is fucking sweet."

"Amber!"

"Sorry, mom. This is fucking wonderful."

"AMBER!"

"No sense of humor," she said into a chicken nugget, "that's the problem here."

As the car took the exit at a sedate pace, slanting steadily upwards into the mountains, her father continued. "Your tissues, particularly connective tissues and glandular tissue connected to your endocrine system, are cannibalizing themselves in their haste to reproduce, even if they are merely reproducing in order to maintain their current cellular numbers."

"I know, dad, mitosis and... creatinine... and... uhm..."

"Creatine! This is why I need to go over this again. In hypers, particularly hyper-h-h-herms," he droned, stuttering only at her gender, "these levels can rapidly fluctuate, either in response to excessive USE or excessive sustenance, or sometimes in response to starvation, which is why-"

"Which is why I finished three Mega Value Meals before you were done your third sentence."

"Yes. Protein..."

She tried to tune him out as the trees around their car grew denser and denser, but he asked her questions now and then and she was compelled to reply. She liked learning more about her condition, and her father was a rather painfully astute source of information, but hearing her FATHER say words like 'erect' and 'swollen' and 'lust' made her want to crawl into the trunk and die.

Unseen by the young kitteh, though, he was gripping his wife's hand hard, seeking bravery from the tiny feline. He was not good at talking to people, mostly due to his rather daunting size and most other people's ingrained fear of anything with more teeth than a chainsaw, but he was particularly bad at talking to his little girl, especially when it has become clear that her condition had NOT been recessive and she was quickly on a route to rapidly outpace even his own incredible development.

His wife's paw traced slowly up his arm and started to brush across the extremely well-filled fronts of his own slacks, and his speech trailed off mid-sentence. It wasn't easy, but he managed to move her hand away before his own body responded, before the numbing cream was fought off by his body's natural defenses. She turned her head slightly and winked lewdly at him, and he grumbled in response.

"What was that, dad?"

"Nothing. You can get some sleep, we won't be there until after eight o'clock."

"Ok," she yawned, sleeping off her several dinners. "I can do that. You two be good, ok?"

She stretched, waited, and sighed.

"Ok?"

"YES, dear."

"Thank you."

---

It was late on Friday night, closer to nine o'clock due to a dense wave of fog that was rolling up from the high mountain lake, before the family car trundled through the heavy log archway and into the Helios Hot Springs. Two dozen little chalets stretched off in either direction, only three or four of them with vehicles parked out front and little drifts of late autumn snow piled up against their slatboard sides, and various quaintly hand-made and hand-painted signs directed guests to the winding footpaths that led to the various hot spring pools.

Amber blearily opened her eyes when the car turned sharply into the little driveway of Chalet Number Six.

"Hey-y-y, we're here," she yawned, unfolding in the back seat like a morning flower. "Are there any more fries?"

"No, hon," her mother laughed, pulling on a heavy winter coat before daring to open the door. "We've got groceries in the back. Let's get loaded into the chalet and go for a dip before bed, ok? I'm freezing."

"You're still in the car."

"I'm a cat! We're always freezing!"

"Really?" Amber wasn't an expert on ALL cats, but she'd found that her issue lay with excessive heat, not insufficient.

"Hyper metabolisms result in-" her father started to say, but Amber was already out of the car and dashing for the trunk.

The interior of the chalet was almost painstakingly decorated in what everyone expected a Swiss cottage to look like, right down to the rough tweed upholstery covering the overstuffed armchairs and the strange fascination with cuckoo clocks. "It's nice," she said, noticing that there was already a fire in the fireplace and a little note that read 'Welcome, O'Malleys!' prominently displayed on the mantle.

"Oh, thank you lord, a fire," her mother gasped, dropping her load of suitcases and scampering towards the flame, hands outstretched. "Gyah, I always hate everything BETWEEN the hot springs and a nice comfy bed."

"Thanks, mom, I'm out of bleach."

"Oh, that's not what I meant! Well, I suppose I sort of-"

"MOM!"

"Girls," her father growled, coming in through the door sideways and dragging with him the lion's share of the luggage. On his broad frame, even the larger suitcases seemed pitifully small. "No fighting until you're in the pool and I can ignore you."

"Liam!"

"Tut tut tut," he said, exiting the living room and dispersing the suitcases among the appropriate rooms, "we're not in the pool, so I can't ignore you yet."

They just shook their heads and shared a glance. Slightly more than three billion people in the world would have recognized the single unspoken meaning: 'men'.

Once she had confirmed that no fingers or toes or retractable claws had been lost to imminent frostbite, her mother started to unpack all of the food for the weekend. Thanks to Amber's recent rapacity, there was hardly enough room in the kitchen cupboards, and the fridge was crammed with so many cold cuts that there was barely space left over for the several jugs of milk.

"I'm sorry," she said with a chuckle, cramming box after box of caramel popcorn onto a high shelf. "I REALLY don't try to eat this much."

"Well, you sort of do, and we told you it's ok. It's only for a couple years, and you've been eating like a bird for so long we figure this evens everything out. Instant bacon?"

"Yay!"

"Still not ignoring you-u-u," the great doberman called from elsewhere in the chalet, and the girls giggled. "I'm going to the hot springs without you-u-u..."

"Over my dead body!"

"That would be quieter-r-r..."

"LIAM!"

Amber watched her mother race off, loving murder in her eyes, and ripped open the last box of caramel corn. "Mmmm, sweet saturated fats," she said around the mouthful of sugar, exploring the little chalet.

The living room, dining room and kitchen took up the entire main floor, with a little vanity in one corner and the circular stairs leading up to the second floor in the other corner. From upstairs she could hear the thumps and squeals of her mom 'being frisky', as she put it, and Amber tried to block those sounds out. She didn't want to barf up her caramel corn, after all.

She started up the stairs as soon as the noises had stopped, and was surprised to see that the layout was similar to back home, with her room on one side and their room on the other, with a bathroom in the middle. "Well, that's easy," she said, heading for the only door that was open and finding her suitcase already laid out on the bed.

The very small bed.

"Oh, subtle, dad," she sighed. "Like I had a chance of meeting a boy in the MOUNTAINS. In WINTER."

"Anything is possible with you," came his voice from behind the door at the far end of the hallway, and she had to remind herself that his hearing could be a little terrifying.

"So what happens when I DO meet a boy, then?"

"You tell him your father is a former Marine who has a very loose interpretation of Acceptable Force legislation."

"That's not helpful."

"It's not supposed to be. Get changed."

Ten minutes later, bundled in free Helios Hot Springs terrycloth robes (two, in the case of her mother), and with arms piled high with towels, the unlikely family left the warmth and comfort of the chalet to brave the biting, freezing air of the mountain night.

"Crap damn crap it to hell," her mother muttered, slipper-clad feet flapping wildly. "Come on, pick up the pace, I'm FREEZING here!"

"I find it very bracing," her father said slowly, and Amber just rolled her eyes. He would find a polar bear swim in liquid nitrogen 'bracing'. "It's good for you now and then, Sierra. You can't actually come to HARM from this temperature, not for at least an hour."

"I will chew your tail off while you sleep."

There was a considered pause. "Left."

The little path marker indicated the Eos Spring was directly ahead, but directly clearly meant 'several meandering pathways that seem to double back on eachother and cause your mother to start hurling salty epithets at the pine trees'. Amber was starting to feel the chill of the night by the time the forest around them opened up to reveal an enormous mist-shrouded pool of water in an eye-wrenching shade of unreal blue, ringed by a few small campfires and lit from within the pool itself by sodium lights. Rocky ridges wound their way through the pool, separating it into one large oval area and several smaller, semi-private little ponds.

"YAY!" Sierra squealed. Two robes flew into the air, a stack of towels seemed to hover at chest-height, but before any of them could reach the ground the older kitty had already dived head-first into the steaming waters. Amber stared down at the pile, while her father stared at the expanding circle of waves.

"I think she was cold."

"Really? Hadn't noticed."

Amber shrugged out of her own robe, the chilly air nibbling at her furred flesh but not finding a way in. Her blue bikini top nicely accented her breasts, large but not overly-so, while the bottoms stretched and strained but managed to keep all of her dark, canine nethers concealed. In the faint illumination from the pool, her cream-and-gold fur fairly glowed in the dark.

She was walking to the edge of the pool when she glanced back to see if her dad was coming, and her eyes widened. It had been a long time since she had seen him wearing anything other than a suit, or his traditional jeans-and-sweater, but she knew she had seen him a hundred times in a bathing suit. They had been to the hot springs two years before, and he had looked the same then, but somehow now he looked... better.

Amber was five-foot-one, her mother was about five-five, but her father was closer to six-foot-eight, well over three hundred pounds of fearsome doberman. He really wasn't that fierce, or even nearly as angry as he always seemed to appear, but Amber knew well what it was like to be at the mercy of your genetics and unable to control how the world saw you. His body rippled with muscle beneath his short-brushed fur, and she had to struggle not to glance down at his trunks.

She didn't succeed, but she reassured herself that at least it was a struggle. He was a hyper, that point had been made VERY clear to her over the last several months as the agonizing talks about the 'changes her body was experiencing' grew more and more frequent, as did heavily-edited anecdotes of his life in high school. He wasn't nearly as dramatically-sized as she was, especially compared to his broad frame, but it was plainly obvious to anyone seeing him now that he was far, far better-equipped than the average canine.

"Amber?"

She shook her head, trying to force the images of her father in tight, bulging swim trunks out of her mind and wishing she could scour her retinas with steel wool. "Sorry, cramp," she mumbled, turning and walking to the edge of the pool. The cold night air made it hard to believe that the pool water was not glacial, and she dipped a toe in just to confirm, as she did every time. The water was shockingly hot, steam washing over her ankles while her mother splashed and giggled not twenty feet away.

"Get in, you scaredy cat!"

"One second, I'm still getting used to FUCK!"

A huge paw pushed gently against her back. Her arms pinwheeled, she pivoted with feline grace but was unable to halt her momentum. She had just enough to see the mischievous grin on her father's face before she crashed into the pool, instantly enveloped in the near-scalding water.

By the time she surfaced, spitting water and seething viciously, her father was already swimming away, churning the water with slow, powerful strokes. "THAT WASN'T FUNNY!" she screamed.

"I'm ignoring you-u-u..."

She took a deep breath and prepared to try and rip a strip off of his hide, but her mother's kittenish giggling took the wind out of her sails. The water DID feel really nice, she had to admit. "Still doesn't mean he wasn't a jerk," she muttered to herself, bending her knees and slipping into the water up to her neck, paddling out towards the deep end.

"I heard tha-a-a-at..."

Amber slowly got the hang of the hot spring, norally far more comfortable in the shower than she was in a bath. There was a sharp, acrid smell that seemed mildly offensive at first, but after a few minutes her sensitive nose got used to it. The sulfuric compounds were apparently rejuvenating, if the brochures were to be believed, and there were other, cooler springs that were much sought after for their nutritional and healing benefits. She thought they both tasted like garbage water, but there was no accounting for some people.

Realizing that her parents were cuddling up against the far edge of the rocky pool, whispering things into eachother's ears and giggling in decidedly immature ways, Amber retreated in horror. She pushed her way slowly through the still waters, trying to leave their utterly disgusting behaviour behind. How could they ACT like that? They were PARENTS! It was unthinkable.

She rounded another mound of stone, and found blissful silence. A stroke with one hand and she rolled onto her back, blue-clad bulges surfacing briefly like a pod whale before sinking again. She inhaled, bobbing higher again, and giggled, closing her eyes. The gentle currents flowed over and around her, and all of her stresses from the past week started to fade away.

School wasn't so bad, she was realizing. Sure, she had a bit of a reputation, and there were some strange glances and whispered comments and the word 'fwoomp' was appearing more and more frequently on every imaginable surface, with extra points being awarded for using permanent marker. A very creative (and unfortunately suspended) student had managed to use turpentine to remove the word 'Art' from the Art Room sign, and replace it with something new. The Fwoomp Room sign, though, only lasted four hours before Mr Stachowski cut it out of the wall.

Curley had been hanging out with her more, and he could go minutes at a stretch without glancing at her skirts. Cindy had been more comforting, and Amber was now electronically corresponding with a low-grade hyper-herm second-cousin of hers. Mona lived several hours away, and was a full-blooded vixen herm, but so far her peak sizes had been in the range that Amber considered to be foreplay. Luis was out of the hospital and often walked her home, but was sadly under strict orders from his parents NOT to engage in anything physical. Unlike other kids her age who were rutting in the back seats of hatchbacks in between classes, it was VERY difficult to hide the fact that one had been physical with Amber, since medical attention and power tools were usually required in the aftermath. The kitteh had been true to her word, though, and the little goat had been the recipient of a great many thank-you blowjobs in the jogging park.

She continued to splash lazily backwards, drifting in and out of the carefully-placed obviously-random boulders, letting herself rise and fall in time with the strange, ineffable tides. Her large and quite-perky breasts swayed nicely, nearly bumping into her chin when she stroked, while the slowly-expanding mass of her nethers drifted along like a slick blue iceberg. She was definitely swelling from all the warmth and liquid caresses, but very slowly; she wasn't worried about making it back to the chalet without asking for help.

She pondered where the waves and currents came from. The hot spring water came out of the mountain nearly half a mile up, but in a generally inaccessible place. A couple lengths of pipe, and a steamy, smelly hole in the ground became a destination vacation spot.

She was almost positive there was a metaphor there.

Amber was closing in on the edge of the pool when she started to pick up the sounds of kissing again. She sighed and exhaled, slowly sinking like a diving submarine, trying to drown the sounds out. Her enormous ears refused to submerge completely, though, her natural feline instincts keeping most of her head above water. Grumbling she kicked until her feet found the gravelly bottom of the pool and stood up, surprised to find the water here only deep enough to cover her belly button.

"Come on, guys, can't you go FIVE MINUTES without making out like a bunch... of... kids..."

The couple that were cuddling up against the rocky outcropping looked at her in mild, amused surprise. Amber raised one paw to her mouth, trying to clamp it and prevent any more feet from getting in, her other hand drifting across her body when she realized she was standing in front of strangers while wearing a bikini that left very little to the imagination.

"Sorry," she squeaked.

The two boys just chuckled. Although the taller one was definitely a long, lean, lanky lover, his head was still below the towering jut of cemented rocks, which Amber figured was why she had thought the pool to be empty. The giraffe had both hands resting on the rocks, loosely pinning the shorter and hugely-grinning hyena. "It's ok," the hyena said with barely a hint of cackle, "I guess we have been at it for a while."

"I told you Dad was setting up Chalet Six, but no-o-o."

"I thought they were arriving tomorrow!"

"Yes. That's why he set the fire."

"Shut up."

"YOU shut up."

Amber's eyes widened further, if that was possible, when the boys seemed to completely forget about her and resumed their passionate make-out session. "Uh," she said, sinking a little lower into the water and inching her way backwards.

The hyena laughed against the giraffe's long muzzle, eventually turning his attentions back to her. "Relax, relax, it's ok. Here, come on closer! It's cool to get people our own age to hang out with. Usually it's just newlyweds, or old married couples getting away from the kids. You're not a newlywed, are you?"

She blinked. "Me? Gods, no, I'm in high school. Are... do you guys go to Circe?"

The giraffe shook his head. "Nope," he said in a remarkable baritone, "I graduated last year. My parents own the place, and Arjuna here lives in Field, other side of the mountain. He-"

"HE can talk for himself, and HE goes to Ardeus High, and HE likes to visit on the weekends, because HE has a car."

"And HE needs to know how to lighten up."

"Make me."

Amber chuckled. "Are you two going to start making out again?" She had drifted closer, trying hard to keep her bikini bottoms well below the surface of the water.

"Nah, we could use a break. Right, Zeke?" The giraffe just winked.

Arjuna and Zeke, as it turned out, both worked at the chalet, and Zeke's parents really did own it. "I don't remember seeing you here before," she said to them, leaning against the rocks an arms length away. The giraffe's shoulders were only slightly above the water but his long, graceful and surprisingly muscular neck towered at least a foot above hers. "We used to come here every year or two when I was younger."

High above, Zeke chuckled. "I'm sure I'd have remembered you," he rumbled.

Arjuna giggled again, slipping away from Zeke's arms and settling against the rock between them. "I started last year. The pay is ok, and most guests don't tip, but... something keeps me coming back. Over and over again."

Zeke thwapped him on the back of the head, but grinned. "You hush."

"What?"

"We've got a guest!"

Amber just scratched behind her ears. "Oh, don't mind me. I've heard worse." Probably done worse, she thought to herself. At least if they're gay, they won't be a threat! Or maybe I won't be a threat. One of us won't be a threat.

"Probably done worse," Zeke said with a knowing wink.

Amber tried to keep her face carefully neutral. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said with forced haughtiness, seeking refuge in audacity.

The giraffe just shrugged. "Or maybe not. A figured a sexy girl like you at a school like Circe would have the world at her feet, or whichever bodyparts she desired."

Please don't blush, she ordered her ears. "I neither confirm nor deny," she said with a nervous giggle.

"Going into politics, eh? You gotta work on your lying."

"You hush."

Arjuna was mostly silent for this exchange, except for the periodic giggling that was his hallmark. His teeth were terrifying, Amber thought, or at least they would be if they weren't being bared by such a rogueish grin. The boys were certainly friendly, she thought. "So you really don't mind me barging in on you two like this? If I had someone like... well, either of you, I probably wouldn't be too happy with intruders."

"We've got all winter," the hyena said. "School's out for the holidays, I'll be up here solid for a month. The tips are better then, everyone's all full of festive cheer and wine, and best of all there's mistletoe EVERYwhere."

The giraffe splashed him, but smiled as well. He was slowly sinking into the water until only half of his neck was visible, putting him mere inches above the hyena's head. "So, I guess from your first introduction, your parents are somewhere around here, doing... well, what we were doing?"

"If I'm lucky," she muttered. Her father was still a hyper-grower, though as an adult his hormones had calmed considerably, but now she couldn't hear any creaking sound in the house without wondering if it was something other than the wind, and right now she was trying to determine if the water level was rising. They wouldn't do anything in PUBLIC, surely, but their room at the chalet had seemed awful small and... STOP IT, BRAIN! "But yeah, something like that."

They nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, I hate it when people do this in front of other people," Arjuna said, rotating swiftly in the water and pressing himself up against Zeke, hungrily kissing the taller boy and grunting with the effort of trying to squeeze himself closer.

Amber's ears stopped listening and turned pink. She covered her mouth with her fluffy, sopping paw, but she was grinning at their display of affection. Oh, to feel that comfortable again, she thought, or at least to be that fully and completely committed to a physical relationship without having to worry about building codes.

"So you're saying I should make myself scarce," she said, edging backwards.

A spotted arm snaked through the water and gripped her tail. She squeaked and splashed, but laughed a moment later, feeling foolish. "Mnnrroroppp.... er, sorry. I was trying to say 'nope'," the giraffe said meaningfully, "but SOMEONE was eating my tongue."

"I thought it was bacon."

"You're terrible. My sister's dating a boar."

"Delicious!"

"You two sound married," Amber chuckled, scooting a little closer again when the boys disengaged.

"Jeez, we just meet and already she's into the insults."

"I meant it in a good way!"

The trio laughed, each of them finding a submerged and water-smoothed boulder to perch on. Other than making sure she kept her bulky endowments far enough below the surface that she was pretty sure they couldn't make them out within the brightly-lit and somewhat smokey pool, she found she could relax quite a lot. She slipped a little further down, letting the hot water wash over her breasts, her shoulders, her neck, and wiggled her toes. "Ahhhh, man, this feels good. I have had SUCH a long autumn, I definitely needed this."

The couple were leaning back to back, holding hands beneath the lapping waves. "Yeah, this pool is the best for relaxing. The Hyperion Pool is too damn hot, and the Selenian Pool is for old people who like their tea and their cereal at the same temperature. We spend all our time here, when we're not working."

"Is that hygienic?"

Arjuna smirked. "Well, ok, not ALL of our time..."

Zeke just sighed. "It's gotta be the blood," he murmured, eyes half-lidded beneath his little stubby horns. "I live in the mountains, we get snow a month before Circe, and all I want to do is be warm. Hot. The genes know, man. The genes know."

"I guess you're both from a pretty arid clime," she noted, trying to think back to her History lessons. She adopted her grandfather's familiar Irish brogue, and drawled "Ah, it does me old Irish heart good to see predator and prey getting along in such a fine manner. Uh... begorah."

"Irish, eh? I didn't know they had cats there."

"We were all turned into kilts."

"Oh, aye."

Feeling herself rising slowly through the water, she scrabbled for purchase on the rock, pushing her torso higher to force her hips lower. Zeke glanced at her curiously, then down at the water. "Are you ok?"

"Fine! Just... don't like being TOO deep." Hah, she said to herself, that's a lie.

"It's just the minerals in the water," Arjuna said tiredly. "They add buoyancy. You'll be fine."

"I don't want to be too buoyant, either."

"Well, aren't we Miss Hard To Please. Is there a particular reason?"

"Uhm... shillelagh?"

The giraffe laughed. "So you're Little Miss Secrets, too. Well, that's fine. I guess everyone has secrets."

Amber sighed. "Ain't that the truth. Mind if I just hang out here and swish around?"

"That a gay joke?"

"No!"

"Aww. I was hoping it was. It was pretty good. Yeah, swish around, whatever. It's a free pool."

She glanced at Arjuna, who had gone back to grinning, giggling and generally letting the taller boy speak. "It was nice to meet you. Both of you." She took a deep breath, something that usually had a very eye-catching effect on most boys. "I'm here all weekend, if you guys wanna hang out. Need a hand with stuff. I can't handle too much pool time, I get all pruney."

Both boys smiled, and glanced at eachother. Oh really now, she thought, what did THAT mean? "Yeah, totally. Chalet Six, right?"

"Yup."

"The Murder Chalet."

She grinned. "Right." Both boys just stared at her, eyes serious. "Right," she said again a little uncertainly, floating backwards. She was starting to lose feeling in her tail, a sure sign she was getting waterlogged. That and her bikini was really starting to grind into some snuggly crevices. "Well... right. See you tomorrow."

"Sleep tight!"

"Sweet dreams!"

She waved at them one last time, turned and started to swim awkwardly away. There was quite a lot of hydraulic drag created by a hyper-herm, she was discovering, and she was trying to avoid using the muscles that she knew she possessed. After a few moments her tail, wriggling behind her like a water snake, vanished around the rocky projection.

"She seemed nice," Arjuna said, leaning to the side and drifting around to the giraffe's lap. "Friendly."

"Mmm hmmm. She sexy?"

The hyena grinned. "Oh, yeah."

"You're lucky I'm not the jealous type. It's the boobs, right?"

"They're definitely nice, but... not just those."

"Big ears? You like big ears, too?"

The shorter boy laughed, pulling Zeke close. "I love all size of ears, hon, you know that."

"Well, what's she got that I don't, other than the obvious?"

"It's not what she has that you don't," he rumbled thoughtfully, leaning in to kiss the grinning giraffe, "it's what she DOES have that you've also got that's interesting me right now."

"What?"

"Shhhh. Later."

---

The mad dash from the pool BACK to the chalet sometime later was far less pleasant than the first one. For a few moments, wrapping her robe around her water-slicked body, she thought that it would be a piece of cake, all of that residual geothermal heat making her feel like a warm Pop-Tart. But as soon as she left the protective fog of the pool, the tiny droplets decorating her fur began to freeze, her tail started to accumulate frost, and it felt like the air was being squeezed out of her lungs.

"FASTER, I SAID! WHY IS NO-ONE LISTENING TO ME?!"

Hopping and whirling like a dervish, Amber skipped side to side, back and forth, very nearly running loops around her parents as they walked, slowly and sleepily, hand in hand. "Honey, relax," her father rumbled softly, his words coming out in little puffs of steam. "You're over-reacting, aren't you?"

"I AM HYPERTHERMIC!"

"I think you mean hypothermic, dear."

"WHATEVER, MOM! I'M A LITTLE HERM-SICLE HERE!"

"Oh, keep your voice down. Honestly, you think you'd never been cold before."

"NOT THIS COLD! Gyah, now I see why boys bitch about shrinkage. Gods, it's like they're trying to force their way back up into my hips."

"DEAR!"

"WALK FASTER AND YOU WON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME ANYMORE! And what the hell!? Weren't you all psychotically 'oh-my-gods-it's-cold' when we got here? What happened?!"

Her father just chuckled, not visibly bothered by the weather at all, while her mother clung to his side. She was shivering a little bit, but the grin on her face was giving Amber the creeps. "You two weren't doing anything... gross in the pool, were you?"

Her parents exchanged glances. "How would you describe it, Liam?" her mother asked innocently.

"Well, 'gross' lends itself to so many interpretations-"

"AUGH EW EW EW EW EW!"

When they finally got back to the chalet, Amber could hear the little tiny beads of ice clattering back and forth on her ears. "Why can't they just have, like, a heated tunnel from the pools back to the chalets? Or a waterslide! YES, that would be AWESOME! Hike UP to the pools, waterslide BACK. That would be AWESOME. But no-o-o-o-o, no-one listens to genius, no sir-ee, they just build the chalets way the fuck out here in the middle of the frozen arctic tundra forests so we have to hike like little eskimo gnomes just to get warm-"

"Are you going to do this all weekend, dear?"

"No, I plan to complain more next time. YAY FIRE!"

As soon as her father unlocked the front door, Amber darted between them, leaped over the couch, and sprawled herself out on the heavy rug in front of the crackling fireplace. Almost immediately she could feel her body soaking down again as the accumulated ice and frost melted back into her fur. "Gyyyaaahhh, that feels weird, there's icewater where there should not be any icewater, and... ooohhhh, yeah, there we go."

"Dear, if you sit that close, you're going to catch fire."

"Promise you won't put me out, ok?"

The enormous doberman and the diminutive calico just laughed under their breaths. "Do you want a bite to eat?"

"Hot sauce."

"Oh, Amber, it's going to be a long weekend if all you do is bitch."

"I'm half-bitch, technically."

Her father barked, heading into the kitchen. "She's got you there, dear."

"Don't encourage her. Amber, honey, you should try to have more fun. Next time bring more towels, or just try to enjoy the experience! Going from the hot water to the cold air is a wonderful experience! Did you know there's entire villages in Scandinavia that do this, and they attribute their longevity to-"

"Don't care. Thawing."

Sierra came around the far end of the couch and curled up at the other end of the rug as only a feline can, still wrapped in her enormous terrycloth robe. In moments, steam was rising from both of their fur. "Well, fine, next time just eat some godawful nachos, you'll have fire shooting out of every orifice the whole way back."

"Appealing visual, mother, thank you very much."

Amber's father thumped back out from the kitchen with a mouthful of sandwich, observed the two women in his life lurking dangerously close to open flames and decided it would be less dangerous if he simply left the room altogether. Remarkably gingerly for someone of his size, he turned and crept towards the stairs.

Her mother glanced over at her departing lover and sighed. "Amber, honey, do you-"

Amber rolled languidly onto her back, blue two-piece stretched tightly around her, and still somehow managing to keep her lower swells covered. "Mom, relax. Seriously. Look, I'm going to have fun this weekend! I met some boys in the pool, I think they work here. We're gonna hang out tomorrow. And before your eyebrows get any more maternally concerned, you don't need to worry about me doing anything naughty with them. Trust me."

"Well, of course I trust you, dear, but you and boys-"

"They're gay."

"Oh. Well. Uhm. Isn't that nice? They weren't-"

"Just kissing, I think."

"Oh. Good. Uhm."

"Go to bed, mom."

Amber wasn't used to seeing her mother flustered, and it was definitely worth it now. "Oh, fine. Goodnight, sweetie," the elder calico said, leaning over and planting a kiss on her daughter's forehead. "Don't stay up too late, though, ok? And remember to close the mesh on the fireplace before you come to bed, we don't want the chalet to burn down."

"No problem."

"And have a snack before bed, you're starting to look awfully thin."

"Will do."

"And hang up your bikini so it doesn't shrink."

"Oh, NO! We can't have THAT! That would be HORRIBLE!"

Her mother raised one eyebrow archly and shook her head. "Smartass. Goodnight. We love you."

"I love you guys, too."

She listened to her mother's retreating footsteps, almost imperceptible even to her own sensitive hearing. There was a tic-tac of claws on hardwood from the floor above, and then the creak of the BIG bed, and then, mercifully, silence. "Thank heavens for that, at least," she murmured, stretching out in all directions and enjoying the agonized creaking of her bikini bottoms. "I don't think I could handle it if they started being all... marital."

Time passed. When she had thoroughly dried out and reached maximum fluffiness she was forced to retreat from the fire, and even curled up on the couch she had resumed her semi-permanent state of excessive warmth. As soon as the last traces of frost had vanished from her various nooks and crannies she had felt the familiar tingle of her growth; within moments of her swimsuit hitting the rug she was visibly swelling, and it was, for being alone, a very satisfying feeling.

One of the cuckoo clocks chimed midnight, and the other five intermittently added their own interpretation of accurate time over the next several minutes. Amber lay sprawled on her side, one leg thrown over her modestly inflating sac, her thigh-thick sheath draped gracelessly over the edge of the cushion and nearly reaching the floor. With the crackling fire so close and the snow blowing outside, it was almost a ridiculously romantic moment, and she wished that she had someone to share it with.

Failing that, a skilled photographer would not have gone amiss, either. "I must look like a Playbunny spread," she giggled, glancing down at herself.

The fire slowly dimmed from a bright and chipper yellow to a sedate, moody crimson. Strangely, a different cuckoo clock chimed the first toll of one AM, and Amber blinked in confusion when she realized that she had drifted off.

"Better... snack... then bed..." she rumbled sleepily, swinging one leg off of the couch and then collapsing in a heap with an angry squawk. When she finally rolled on top of herself and got to her knees, she stared with a mixture of awe and dismay at her nethers, which had apparently enjoyed the soothing heat of the open fire far more than the rest of her had.

"Well... fuck."

Almost disbelievingly she stroked the enormous spheres of her sac, each heavy kittenmaker probably thirty inches across, and a quick hug proved that her sheath was now nearly the size of her long, slender torso. She gripped the couch with one paw, pushed against herself with the other, and rose unsteadily to her feet. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found that she still had a little bit of clearance between the underside of her balls and the rug.

"Ok, time to test the showers in this place," she purred, absently stroking the heavy weight of her sheath and shivering everytime that thin flesh bulged outwards. Before she had gone too far, though, she remembered her mother's advice, and made a quick detour to the kitchen prior to attempting the stairs. One arm cradling a jug of milk and the other a crinkly bag of chips, she waddled off to relieve herself of her body's desires.

The fire had almost burned itself out and only occasionally spat out a spark, the wind had faded until not even Amber's ears would have detected the whistling from the chimney, and just outside the tall, narrow window near the couch a small patch of breath-fogged frost was slowly fading away to nothing.

---

Luck shon on Amber that night as it turned out the chalet, despite it's olde worlde charme, came equipped with a four-person jacuzzi jet tub upstairs. Although she had filled three of those seats to capacity before even turning the water on, the state-of-the-art tub had been able to cope with her outpouring with only minimal splash damage to the rest of the well-appointed bathroom, quick work for someone as practiced as she was.

Her last thought when she managed to drag herself to bed, damp again and covered with with potato chip crumbs, was that she wanted that tub for Christmas.

Her first thought upon waking was that she wanted different parents.

"Come on!" her mother said brightly, shaking the young calico back and forth. "Dawn is the BEST time to go in the springs! The mountain air will wake you up, and the hot pools are so-o-o-o relaxing, honey, there's nothing like it. It's better than coffee!"

"is it too early to swear?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then please fudge the help off." Amber felt her pillow-buried head get swatted, but she didn't care. "Look, I had a long night, I just want to sleep in. This is a VACATION."

"Yes, dear, we heard you. Than you for cleaning up. You're not going to sulk in here all day, are you?"

"What? No, I told you, I met some boys who work here, we're going to hang out. But no-one's hanging anything anywhere until I get some sleep."

"So you're just going to keep them waiting?"

Amber reluctantly pushed her head out from it's cocoon of blankets. "Whuzza?"

"They've been downstairs for the almost five minutes," Sierra said evenly, the very picture of angelic innocence. "They're having coffee with your father."

Amber's mother watched proudly as her daughter demonstrated her exceptional ability to spring to full wakefulness and dress herself in record time. She fairly leaped into a pair of purple sweats and tugged a white knit sweater over her head, checking herself once in the mirror to make sure that she wasn't too indecent, a loaded term with her. "How do I look?"

"You look fine. I thought you said they were gay?"

"Well, yeah, but I don't want to scare them off with... anything."

Her mother glanced down at the stretched sweats. "You might be right up their alley..."

"MOM!"

Amber attempted the difficult task of sprinting casually, and very nearly slid into the small kitchen where Arjuna, Zeke and her father were sipping at their mugs. Zeke might have been exceptionally tall for his age but her father still loomed over the pair, and likely outweighed them together by at least double. They were both wearing matching Helios Hot Springs turtlenecks, Zeke's incorporating vastly more fabric, and were smiling comfortably. "Morning," Arjuna chirped.

"We were doing the morning walkway shoveling and saw your lights on," the giraffe said amiably, "figured we'd see if you were awake. Your dad gave the impression that you'd be upstairs for several more hours."

Amber glared at her implacable father, who sipped his coffee and didn't seem to notice her. "Yeah, well, I like to get up early. I guess introducing you guys would be a little bit of a waste?"

"Yeah, it turns out your dad knows my dad," Zeke said. "He's been coming up here for years and years. He's mentioned a cop friend of his, but I never knew who it was." Arjuna was seated on the other side of the table, and Amber couldn't see any little signs or telltales that they were together'. There should be signs, shouldn't there? It was obvious on television shows. And they didn't even seem gay or anything! The hyena might giggle a little girlishly, but didn't they all do that? Wait, which prejudice was that? Dammit!

"Cool," she said, moving to the cupboards. "I'll just grab some breakfast and then maybe I can give you guys a hand or something? When do you get off? Er... you know, to go to the pool."

"Well," Arjuna said, when Zeke seemed to be thinking about something, "we've got our schedule of jobs to do between certain times, but in between that we're free. We're manning the kitchens until nine for the breakfast crowd, but when we're off until eleven." He glanced over at his giraffe companion. "You don't need to hang out with us for ALL that time, you're up here on vacation."

She poured a bowl of sugar-encrusted cereal into a small mixing bowl big enough for her to fit her entire head into, and unscrewed the milk. "Meh, I don't have much else to do. If I spend all day in the pool I'll turn into a raisin-cat." Amber glanced over at Zeke. "You ok?"

For a long moment while she chewed, Zeke said nothing, though his eyes rolled crazily. She was starting to think he was having a mild epileptic seizure when she realized that the only place in the entire kitchen he was NOT staring at was her lap. She glanced down and, sure enough for her, decided she wasn't exceptionally large or well-resented this morning, but even at her resting bulk she was the largest in her school by a long shot. If Zeke had graduated before she even started going to Circe...

"He's fine," Arjuna said hastily, standing up and smiling radiantly at Liam. "Well, we better get going, those walks won't shovel themselves. Come on, Zekey boy, too much coffee and you'll start getting the jitters, you know that."

The tall, spotted boy shook himself. "Right. Shoveling coffee. I. Well. Ahem." And then, like a curtain being pulled, he slipped into an obviously well-rehearsed role. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr O'Malley, and I hope you and your family enjoy your stay. Amber. Mrs O'Malley."

Sierra was entering the kitchen just as Arjuna was leaving, with Zeke following closely behind, walking carefully backwards. Amber was surprised to discover that the hyena was scarcely taller than her, maybe only a couple inches more than five foot, while his boyfriend was pushing seven feet, longer in the legs than she would have guessed. His little horns bumped into the wooden beam that separated the kitchen and the living room, and he ducked reflexively. A few more mild pleasantries were exchanged while they donned their winter gear faster than Amber had donned her outfit, and then they were gone in a flurry of snowflakes.

"Well, they seemed nice," her mother said, heading for the coffee machine. "Liam, was that, Kalifa's son?"

"Mm hmm."

"He's sure grown! I haven't seen him in years. He was always so scrawny, even with the neck, and look at him now. "

"Mmm hmm."

"Amber, are you going to go help them?"

"Mmm hmm."

Amber and her father looked at eachother and laughed, and Sierra just rolled her eyes, pouring herself a steaming mug. "You two, I swear," she chuckled. "You're becoming more like your father every day."

The young feline's eyes widened. "Mom! That's completely uncalled for!"

Two more bowls of cereal later, requiring the opening of a second box, a heavily-bundled Amber hopped down the wooden stairs and beheld Helios Hot Springs in much better light. Chalet Six was at the end of a long, narrow road, piled high on both sides with snow. Five more chalets were scattered to her left, while the hill dropped off shockingly fast to the right offering a tremendous view of whatever valley this was. She could just barely make out the little wooden signs marking the trails that led to the pools.

"Hello?" she called, tucking her mittened hands into her pockets and shoving her heavy orange coat down further, trying to get the front of it to cover her overfilled lap. She was wearing her restraints as snug as she dared, but the weather was definitely working against her body's natural desire to grow and grow. Bloody hell it was cold! She glared out at the winter wonderland from underneath her pink toque. "Guys?"

It was nearly ten seconds before the last echoes of her shriek faded away. She rubbed her butt where the snowball had struck, staring daggers at the boys who lay, helpless and giggling, on top of one of the shoveled mounds of snow. "Good shot," she said frostily.

"Well, it would have been easier if you were facing us!" Arjuna hooted, laughing like, well, a hyena. Zeke smacked the barrel-chested youth upside the head, but it didn't hinder their mirth in the slightest.

Amber darkened beneath her fur, and suddenly the cold didn't seem so biting. "Is that the only reason you wanted me outside?"

The little spotted fur shook his head, getting back to his feet and sauntering over. "No no no no no, I'm just trying to fun with ya. Seriously, you could be twice as big, we don't mind. "

"That's good to know," she muttered under her breath, but his smile was infectious. Reluctantly, biting her lip to try and prevent it, she grinned and sighed. "Just keep your snowballs away from mine."

"I promise nothing."

Zeke jogged up, bare hooves clip-clopping. "Sorry 'bout that," he muttered, examining every snowflake in excruciating detail while avoiding looking directly at the chilly hyperherm.

"Oh, it's fine," she said, patting his arm and wiggling her hips. "I know they make a hell of a target."

"You know," Arjuna continued, "I have heard some rumors about a sexy kitteh making waves at Circe. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"I deny everything," she said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. Dammit, she thought, I can't go ANYWHERE. "If there were one there, I'd have heard of her."

Several glances were exchanged, ranging from nervous to challenging to mirthful, but the general mood had lightened. Amber fell into step with them when they started heading for the main lodge, where the offices, restaurant and lounge were located. "So we're past the jokes, right? No more lame puns."

"Sounds swell to me," Zeke said, finally loosening up.

"You're on notice, mister." She glanced up at him curiously. "Do I make you nervous or something?"

"No!"

"Boy, are you a terrible liar," Arjuna giggled. "Don't mind him, he's just nervous around grrls."

They passed Chalet One and started up the long, looping driveway to the lodge. She opened her already-huge eyes as wide as she could and made her lip wobble. "Don't you like us?" she asked, turning the full fury of her cuteness against him.

"No! I mean... yes! Just... I like you just fine, I just... "

She laughed and hugged his arm, which was as high as she could reach. "Oh, relax, I know what you mean. Trust me, I'm used to people acting like this. Just pretend I'm any other regular dull girl who's inexplicably stuffed a pumpkin down the front of her panties. Deal?"

"Bleat."

She eyed him archly. "You remind me of someone..."

Amber received a quick tour of the lodge and was introduced to some of the other employees, largely folks in their late teens or early twenties from the surrounding towns. She absorbed more than her fair share of querulous looks, and she could see a few people gesturing towards her pants and glancing meaningfully at Zeke and Arjuna. They just grinned and shrugged.

She took advantage of the free continental breakfast while the two boys worked some other menial tasks in parts of the lodge she wasn't allowed to enter. Really, she took advantage of several continents, but since the portions were so small she figured she wasn't costing them too much money. She was mopping up her tenth egg with a triangle of toast when they returned. "I think the chef lady over there is mad at me."

"She just thought that she only had to cook enough food for four chalets."

"Well, she should know better, shouldn't she?" She stood up, wiping the crumbs off of her hands and onto her lap, though fortunately her restraints kept her bulky endowments from jostling too much. "Well, I'll apologize tomorrow and bring her a nice tip, or something. You'd think she'd appreciate the compliment of one person eating all of her food!"

"If I hadn't just seen you eat breakfast at your chalet," the giggling hyena said as they walked out of the dining room, "I might almost believe you, but I think those eggs are all that's keeping you from chewing on the drywall."

"Drywall is terrible without mustard."

Amber was feeling some of her internal fire returning when they walked back outside, and already her snow pants seemed too constricting and her coat seemed too warm. She unzipped the fluffy jacket a little bit, exposing her low-cut sweater and not a small amount of cleavage, and almost gasped at the little stab of cold air. "Is it pool time yet?"

The giraffe shook his head, an action that took quite a long time. "We have to do morning prep on three other chalets, since people are going to be arriving tonight."

"Oh, cool, more guests! I... oh, wait, that means the pools are going to be busy, doesn't it?"

"Probably, yeah," Arjuna agreed.

"Ahhh, nuts. Uh, I mean, darn."

The boys flanking her looked confused. "What, you don't like people?"

She shrugged a little sheepishly. "Not a LOT of them. I mean, I'm self-conscious enough as it is, and I only went in the pool last night because it looked empty. Not that I'm not happy to have met you guys! You guys rock, but me in a bikini around a lot of strangers is a little much."

Arjuna glanced meaningfully at Zeke and raised his eyebrows. "Well," he said slowly, "maybe it'll be all old folks or something and they'll be done by nine. Besides, there's still not many people here now, and cleaning three chalets won't take much time. We can probably meet you in the Eos Spring in an hour, maybe less."

"Yeah, probably for the best," she agreed. "If I try to help clean I'll probably end up setting the kitchen on fire. You guys ok with me ditching on you?"

"We'll count the seconds, our hearts will languish in purgatory, and our whiskers will droop with the icicles of our tears... but otherwise, yeah, we'll be totally fine."

"Dick," Amber giggled, punching the hyena's shoulder.

"Hey, I thought we agreed no more jokes."

The three agreed to meet up later and parted ways. Amber leaned against a lamp post and watched them go, arms folded and trying to figure them out with her as-yet untapped psychic powers. When that failed, she just started talking to herself. "What is with them? Arjuna's friendly enough... what's up with Zeke? Is he bi, or just cock-crazy? They must have a lot of guests their age, why hang with me? Arj seems to know my reputation..."

Amber shrugged helplessly, stood up, stretched and started back down the road to her own chalet, wondering if she should give the silver bikini a whirl this time.

She hadn't picked up many more clues about them during the course of the day, at least not the sort she wanted. She did learn a lot about them, though, and they learned a lot about her. They had spent most of the morning paddling gently around the Eos Pool, talking about school, music, and which viral videos were the funniest, though when Amber wasn't looking they seemed to take great pleasure in sneaking a quick kiss.

At noon they had been forced to leave again, working the lunchtime kitchens and cleaning the lodge. Amber bid them a fond farewell, floating onto her back and waving. The tightly-stretched silver of her bikini bottoms glinted in the crisp mountain sunlight and both herbivore and carnivore stared at it with a mixture of amusement and terror. Her time in the pool had been exceedingly warm and comforting and she could tell that she had grown, but not enough to be cumbersome, thankfully, when she finally hauled her dripping body out of the water.

"N-not as bad as last night," she chattered, wrapping herself in two Xtra-large robes, both of which were long enough to pool around her feet, "b-but still f-f-fucking cold." Bundled within her fluffy armor she hurried back as fast as her oversized paws would take her, jealous of the guests she passed who seemed to not be bothered by the temperature whatsoever.

The door to the chalet banged open and was slammed shut again with such speed there seemed to only be one single noise. Amber awkwardly shuffled over to the gently-crackling fireplace and plunked herself down in front of it.

"Goodness me," came a feminine voice from the couch, "it seems an errant pile of wet laundry has wandered through our front door and settled itself by the fire!"

"I hate when that happens."

Amber turned her head enough to glare out from beneath the pair of hoods, and stuck out her tongue. "It's not my fault they only put hot springs where it's so cold you can snap your tail off and use it to stir your coffee."

"At least the coffee will thaw your butt out, if not your mood."

"My mood is perfectly fine, thank you very much."

Liam chuckled, wrapping his arm around his diminutive wife. "Are you actually having fun, sweetie?"

Amber heaved a sigh, the robes shifting slightly. The heat from the fire was finally starting to penetrate, and she started to, very slowly, peel herself out of them like some strange banana. "I am, actually, I really am. Zeke and Arj are cool, I got to meet a couple other people who work here, and the pools are awesome. We went in the Helios Pool for a little bit but I almost died of heatstroke, and they said later I can go see the little Employees Only pool they have."

The enormous canine glanced at Sierra curiously. "Really."

"Yeah, if there's too many guests in the regular pool. Tonight's Saturday, so it's supposed to be packed, and I don't want to be busting out of a bikini in a big crowd."

"Just in front of a small crowd."

"Not what I meant. I just mean there's LESS chance of it with a small crowd. I'm pretty sure I'm safe around these two, they haven't looked the slightest bit interested. If anything I think I weird Zeke out." The second layer of robe slumped to the carpet and Amber stretched out, silver bikini drawn so tight across her loins that the whitish fluff of her sac was visible around the edges, to say nothing of the fine burgundy fuzz of her sheath. She squeaked and sat up again, leaning forwards to hide her slight indecency from her parents. "Uhm... I don't think the silver one fits properly."

"Half of it fits fine..."

"MOM!"

---

They only managed to meet up a few more times throughout the day, and Amber ended up spending a goodly portion of the afternoon sitting in the Selenian Pool and reading a paperback that she had purchased at the lodge gift shop. Someone had actually managed to cram steampunk zombies into a magical world of romance and intrigue, and then wrapped the whole thing in a flimsy plot that seemed suspiciously similar to Gone With The Wind, but she found herself unable to stop reading.

Unable, that is, until a swarm of rather elderly folks of all shapes and sizes... well, generally of bent shapes and stooped sizes, but there was still some variance there, showed up at the Selenian Pool en masse, having just ravaged the Early Bird Buffet at the lodge. Amber remembered looking up and being alone except for a single equine at the far end of the pool playing with his coltish little son, looking down at an awkwardly-written love scene between the partially-clockwork zombie and the plague-infected heroine, and then looking back up at a steaming watery horizon studded with little grey icebergs.

It was difficult to glide past them, as the pool was not nearly as steamy, cloudy or deep as the other two, and there were several occasions where she had to stand and scurry past someone, black one-piece so heavily laden up front that she was congratulated by several old ladies, and asked when she was due.

She tried tracking down Zeke and Arjuna after dinner, which she enjoyed up at the lodge with her parents as much as a meal with one's parents can possibly be enjoyed. Amber was such a regular guest up at the buffet line that she managed to not only apologize to the chef, but discuss favorite recipes as well as the curse of hyper-metabolisms. The matronly old sow warmed quite quickly to her and gushed her jealousy at Amber's ability to maintain her figure, while Amber just giggled and said that there were certain parts of her anatomy that were not so lucky. The chef glanced down at Amber's lap, currently and barely hidden by a flowing red skirt, and just winked.

"Have you seen Zeke or Arjuna around anywhere?" she queried innocently on her third time through the dessert line.

Isabellio the chef shrugged. "No, miss. They helped me with the prepping before dinner, but then they disappeared." She handed the hungry hyper a plate of pie and ice cream, and said uncertainly "You know, those two always go off together. Do you think there's anything... funny about them?"

"Hilarious, Isabellio," Amber nodded. "Hilarious."

Finally feeling full and without being a drain on the food budget, Amber sauntered back to the chalet around seven, the distant horizon a thin line of purple separating twin jaws of inky blackness. She could just make out the orangish blotch of Circe in the distance, or at least she thought it was Circe. She knew the region was speckled with mid-sized towns, each one fiercely proud that they were not the other. Her skirts swished around her legs, gusts of frigid air blowing upwards as regular as her heartbeat and tickling her nethers. Her parents said they were going to get a drink at the lodge bistro, somewhere that Amber would not be allowed for another couple years, and would be home shortly to accompany her for a late-night dip.

"Yeah, fat chance," she groused. Further inquiring at the front desk had turned up nothing, and neither the hyena nor the giraffe had shown up for their mealtimes. The boys had ditched her, her parents had ditched her, and she had no desire to go have her baby-bumps fondled by the geriatric guests in the limpid pool. She still had ninety pages of partially-decomposing airship battles to plow through, and she intended to do so while soaking up as much heat from the fireplace as she could manage without spontaneously combusting.

That was her plan, at least, until she climbed the steps to the chalet and found a small envelope taped to the door, emblazoned with official Helios Hot Springs logos. It was addressed to her.

Oh no, she thought.

Standing on the porch, reading by the light of the little carriage lamp by the doorbell, breath puffing in the icy night air, she swore softly to herself.

Sorry we missed you this afternoon.

Had too many fogeys to prep for.

We'll be at the private pools.

There's a map on the back.

Sorry if the map sucks.

Arjuna made it.

See you then,

Arjuna &

Zeke

"Is that supposed to be a heart?" she asked aloud, staring at the hand-written note.

The inside of the chalet was blessedly warm, and she hurriedly crumpled up the note and tossed it on the fire. The sweet words vanished instantly, and she simply stood there, breathing far too heavy for her own liking. "There's no way," Amber hissed softly. "I mean, I was safe! They're gay! They're friendly! They're... GAY!"

The words of her mother drifted up from her memories. Honey, it is about time you learned that girls like you cast a spell over normal people. It's not really a matter of gay or straight when it comes to herms.

That was becoming apparent.

One claw tapped against her fangs, her other hand stroking and caressing her modestly-swollen sheath. To go or not to go. She was seeing a pattern in her life, particularly when it involved people leaving secret notes for her at night. She wanted to fight it, to rail against it and insist that it was not her lot in life, not her fate or destiny or whatever it was to let her baser carnal urges hold sway and her unstoppable physiology defy logic and building codes.

"Oh, what the hell, I'll do it," she grinned, shedding her warm clothing and scooting upstairs to find the appropriate swimwear.

---

"Do you think she'll do it?" Kissing.

"I don't know. My psychic powers are at their peak in August." Giggling.

"Oh, you hush." Splashing and more giggling. "It's a little... soon to be inviting her up here, isn't it?"

"Would you rather wait until she goes home and it's a little... late?" Kissing.

"Well, no, of course not, but she has every right to be offended, even insulted." Sighing.

"She could be insulted, or she could be honored." Giggling.

"But do you really think she'd... you know..." Kissing.

"It could be a dream come true, honey, for the both of us." Giggling and splashing.

"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" Kissing.

"Maybe, but aren't' you a little... behind?" Splashing.

"Not that little..." Chuckling.

"I can come back later." Polite coughing.

Zeke and Arjuna whirled around in the small rocky pool so rapidly they were briefly lost behind the steaming splashes. Amber giggled from her perch atop an enormous granite boulder the size of a small car, watching the momentary and hilarious panic. "You guys should know better than to invite a kitty somewhere private, and then act surprised when she sneaks up on you," she said, tugging her robe tighter around her body.

"Well, we were just... uh, you know..."

"Cuddling? Making out? Plotting my imminent gruesome demise?"

"Would you believe two out of three?"

She giggled again and slid down the rock to the small gravelly patch where the little-used trail seemed to meander directly into the water. "This thing is neat. Is it just a natural pool? The other ones all look man-made." There was one brilliant light under the water which created ghostly illuminated curls of steam and gave the entire little tree-lined grotto an unearthly appearance, but otherwise there was no sign of anything artificial. She wasn't sure where the water came from but she could hear it trickling away in the distance.

Zeke and Arjuna drifted together again near the center of the pool where it was deep enough for both of them to submerge up to their chins. "Yeah, this is one of the little natural ones. It's only about five gallons per hour so it's not fast enough to be useful for anyone else, but it makes a nice place to unwind after work," the little hyena explained, cuddling up to his much larger beau.

Amber extended a single foot from beneath her voluminous robes and dipped it into the pool. "Yeek! Well, it's warmer than the Eos Pool, that's for sure..."

"It's awesome once you get used to it. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks."

"Says the boy who thinks the Hyperion Pool isn't scalding."

"It's nice! Good for working the kinks out!"

"I like my kinks, thank you very much."

Zeke laughed, finally finding his voice again. "Then get those kinks into the pool!"

Amber started to shrug out of the robe but stopped when only her shoulders were exposed. "You guys aren't... up to anything, are you?"

She was greeted with four black, blinking, innocent eyes. "Whatever gave you that idea?" Arjuna asked airily.

"Me not being a moron."

"Ah. Good reason."

Amber grinned, or at least bared her teeth with the edges of her lips aimed upwards. "I don't mind if you ARE up to anything, I'm sort of used to that. I just want to know if anyone feels like being honest about it before it's too late."

The boys exchanged glances. Zeke's muzzle tensed and he seemed fearful, while Arjuna just grinned, his seemingly only defense against everything. "We like you," he said at length, "and we just thought we could... get to know eachother better." The giraffe nodded in agreement, little bits of ice shaking free of his horns.

"Better, eh?"

The rest of the robe dropped heavily to the gravel, and Amber started to walk slowly and carefully into the little natural spring. She shivered as the little waves lapped at her fur, slicking it down and driving her goosebumps away. Both Zeke and Arjuna made strangled croaking noises, though, hardly noticing her legs at all, which was a shame as Amber often thought they were some of her best features.

Her red bikini had been the most difficult one to purchase, as she had been forced to guess at her size, or rather at her eventual size. It was still ever so slightly loose, but as the lower slopes of her sac touched the water that last bit of slack was taken up by her relaxing orbs. The feisty feline had taken a few moments to coax herself larger before exiting the chalet, scurrying and hunched over to avoid being seen, but it was hard to rush when she was bloated to nearly triple what she considered her 'normal' size, each sphere notably larger than a watermelon. The red-clad bulges obscured everything from her knees to her navel, and the long, thick column of her sheath cleared nearly two-thirds of their great rondure.

"I hope I'm not too indecent," she purred as the fizzy waters closed over her bikini bottoms with a barely audible 'slurp'. "This is the only bathing suit I haven't worn yet this weekend, and the others haven't come out of the wash."

"Nope," Arjuna croaked. Zeke's jaw just hung open, and he made a sound that reminded Amber of wind whistling through a cave.

"My eyes are up here, boys."

They stopped staring at the waves that her advancing bulk was creating and glanced up to her eyes, taking in the smug, amused expression on her face. Arjuna's fear seemed to melt away, and he giggled. "You're messing with us right back, aren't you?"

"Only slightly." She allowed herself to fall forwards and began to swim, awkwardly and with considerable flailing of her legs, towards them. "Wow, this pool is nicer than the other one! Though it does sort of smell funny."

"You get used to it," Zeke croaked, then coughed. "Not too hot?"

"Nah, feels fine," she said, closing the distance. Even the walk over hadn't bothered her that much, and she was worried that she knew the reason why. The swirling currents in the pool seemed to tug at her nethers, massaging her far more thoroughly than she had ever managed on her own, and she had to chew her lip to keep everything under control. Mustn't grow too early, she thought, and spoil the surprise! "I think I'm getting used to the heat now."

Arjuna pushed away from Zeke, scooting backwards to rest up against a glossy black boulder and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Well, we're glad you could make it. You looked like you needed some time to yourself, or at least away from prying eyes." He didn't hide the fact that his own eyes were quite unabashedly examining the curvy herm. She was exceptionally buxom, far more than her mother and indeed most girls in her school and that fact was accentuated by the crimson spaghetti-strap bikini top, but still nowhere close to the disproportionate size of her maleness.

Amber swished around to a nearby submerged rock, and after awkwardly bumping her heavy swells against it she managed to perch her rump atop without much difficulty. Like a strange, fleshy iceberg, only a small portion of the straining swimsuit bobbed above the surface. "Yeah, it gets old pretty quick living your life on display."

"Gorgeous babe like you, though, you can't really help it... or blame us." Arjuna seemed to be the very picture of casual relaxation, floating onto his back and letting his toes splish around, while Zeke continued to awkwardly drift around in slow circles. "You must be popular at Circe."

"'Infamous' would be more like it," she groused, inching closer to the nervous giraffe. "Sort of like the really REALLY high roller coaster at the theme park."

The hyena glanced at the silent boy, as though waiting for him to take the opening, but then shrugged and said "What, everyone wants to ride it but they're too scared?"

Amber touched her nose meaningfully and laughed. "Bingo. I find carnival and circus metaphors work pretty good for me, particularly roller coaster and freak show."

"You're not a freak," Zeke said. Both other furs looking at him in surprise and wondering if they had misheard, but he continued, "You're just different, and there's only so much room in people's lives for different. Circe's not big enough for you."

Amber snorted. "You have no idea," she said under her breath, but then turned her attentions back to him. "Glad you finally found your voice, though. I was starting to wonder if I had to come over there and tickle you."

"Do it!"

"Don't listen to him," Zeke said quickly, dipping further down into the water. "No tickling."

"Awwwwww!"

The feline seemed to consider it, tapping her pouting muzzle with one hand and patting her gently heaving sac with her other. After a few moments she reached her decision, set her feet, wriggled her butt and pounced. It probably would have been far more impressive had she actually considered the hydrodynamic drag her current proportions created.

When she finally surfaced, sputtering and wiping hot water from her eyes, she grinned sheepishly and giggled. "That was supposed to have been way funnier," she said wryly.

Zeke and Arjuna were doubled over laughing, and they showed their swimming prowess by not actually drowning. "I don't think... that could have been... any funnier," the shorter boy said in between snorting fits. His companion was supporting himself against a boulder with one hand and valiantly holding on for dear life.

Paddling her hands slowly, tail dragging limply behind her, Amber made her way to where the two boys were regaining their composure. "Next time," she promised, slowly coming to rest against the boulder that they were sharing. It dominated one whole side of the pool, looming over them like a... well, boulder.

"This definitely beats canasta with my parents," Amber murred, rubbing her back against the boulder and trying to work the kinks out of her shoulders. Carrying so much weight against her hips played all sorts of hell with her posture, and she was finding that there were many advantages to a hot spring dip before bed. "Thanks, guys."

"You're so very welcome," Arjuna said, patting her shoulder. She felt a finger tap her shoulder and she turned to see what it was Zeke wanted to say, pleased that Zeke wanted to say anything at all, but she was instead greeted by a kiss that took her breath away.

She inhaled and placed both paws against his chest, prepared to push him away, to push herself away, briefly incensed that he really would try something, that THEY would be just like all the other boys who only wanted her for one thing... but that little voice in the back of her mind, the one that only spoke up whenever she wasn't sure which organ to listen to, was waving a sign back and forth that said 'TWO BOYS AT ONCE!'

It wasn't the most modern, feminist or sensible sign ever waved, but it did stay her hands for the moment.

Her eyes closed, her claws retracted, and she felt the first little dig of kevlar-reinforced strapping rubbing against the base of her tail as her bikini bottoms stretched tighter around her slowly-burgeoning sheath. Amber expected to feel the giraffe's long, strong arms encircle her, or perhaps feel his hands start exploring her more prominent attributes, but she gasped against his lips when Arjuna pressed up against her back, hugging her around the waist and nibbling lightly at her neck.

"Aren't... you two..." she breathed heavily when Zeke finally relented and she was left staring into his enormous dark eyes.

"Sort of," Arjuna murled throatily into her ear. "He is, more than me, but... let's just say we both think you're something else."

The hyena's hands squeezed her midriff and then inched higher, and she mewled softly when they hesitantly, gingerly began to explore her full, proud bosom. That mewl escalated into a full-blown yowl as Zeke hugged her close, sliding one leg out to encircle her tremendous girth. She could feel his shaft against her sheath, impressive by any standards except, perhaps, her own, and the pressure increased as her body redoubled it's efforts to expand.

"I... you should know... I..."

"Ssssshhhh, sh sh sh," Arjuna whispered into her ear, hands cupping her breasts now. "We know. You're Amber, the Terror of Circe."

Her eyes shot open. "The-"

"And we think," Zeke continued, squeezing her sac carefully with his legs, "that you're perfect."

Her eyes stayed shot open. "Perfect..."

They stayed cuddled up together, drifting slowly in the water, for a long moment. Arj and Zeke were letting Amber mull the situation over now that all the cards were on the table, and Amber was trying her hardest to keep from destroying her brand-new bathing suit. The tingling, surging pressure was almost maddening, and she could feel her sheath bulging thicker and longer with each heartbeat, her canine hermness begging for release.

"If you're sure-" she started to say, but two mouths closing in on her neck and two bodies pressing against her silenced her as surely as a bank vault. She gasped, hands outstretched, not sure WHERE to grab! Arjuna's stubby little legs tried to wrap around her own, while Zeke's considerably longer and more slender limbs were straddling her sac as though he were trying to ride a horse. Eventually she simply sagged limply between them, digging her left paw into the hyena's thigh and her right into the giraffe's rump, trying to pull them closer still.

Zeke started to pull away, and for a moment she thought she had finally scared them off, but when he took a deep breath, winked, and slowly sank below the surface of the water she wondered if perhaps she had drowned and was now in some sort of hot-spring heaven. "Zeke really, really likes... big," Arjuna growled low in his throat, nuzzling at her shoulders.

"And... oh, gods... and what... do you like?" she asked squeakily, trying to concentrate amidst the sensation of Zeke's hands and lips exploring the skin-tight and still-swelling red-clad endowments.

The hyena seemed to shrug, pressing his hips against her tail. "I like Zeke... and I guess I've always had a bit of a weak spot for a sexy kitty," he giggled.

Strong, slender hands tugged at her bikini bottoms and she moaned, wondering if she should tell him to stop, or even if she COULD tell him to stop. Fingers fumbled at the little ties at the side, and then there was blissful spreading heat as the overtaxed outfit was stripped away and she was allowed to float freely. A trail of underwater kisses traced a line from the cuff of her sheath to the base, up her belly and then between her breasts as Zeke surfaced like a strange submarine. He was gasping for air, but the smile on his face and delight in his eyes could not be disguised.

"You're... so... big," he gasped when he was able.

Amber just winked and kissed him, feeling her overproducing testes forcing her legs out wider. "Wait until you get me going," she purred.

His eyes rolled and he laughed nervously. "Can.. I mean, will you..."

Arjuna's head appeared alongside hers, giving the skittish giraffe boy a kiss. "Don't be afraid, love," he whispered. "She's come this far, after all..." Amber's ears twitched, already knowing where this was going but compelled to see if the sweet boy could ask.

Zeke nodded and swallowed audibly. When he spoke, it was with far more self-possession than she had expected. "Will you fuck me?"

He was practically sprawled out upon her still-stretching sheath, and the churning seed within her swollen sac was only starting to really build up, but for some reason just the asking was an incredible further turn-on for her. Her barely-contained member twitched and jumped between his legs, and she grinned, gripping his shoulders and pulling him closer. "I thought you'd never ask," she murred.

Desperate to proceed further before she grew any larger she grabbed Arjuna's hands from her breasts and slid them below the surface of the water, gripping the base of her sheath and squeezing. Amber threw back her head and cried out, whirling and echoing between the trees as those throbbing veins finally pumped her beyond the capacity of that thin, delicate flesh to contain, and seemingly all at once she unsheathed. Zeke found himself with his rump not bouncing gently against the maroon of her soft, concealed maleness but against the midnight-purple, steadily-hardening and undeniably-throbbing bulk of her canine shaft, slightly beyond three feet long even at this early stage.

"Oh fuck," he groaned, inching himself backwards with his toes, disbelieving hands tracing the curvature of those turgid blood vessels.

Arjuna could see little from his position, but he could see the vaguely menacing darkness beneath the water, and the look of shock and awe on his lover's face. "You always said you wanted big, baby," he said wonderingly, thinking that perhaps Zeke's lust for size had bitten off more than it could chew!

Amber shoved herself backwards slightly, pushing the amazed hyena with her, until her shaft was free of the giraffe's legs, and the obliging ungulate immediately turned around, removed his shorts with a single submerged acrobatic twist and pressed himself up against the face of the boulder. It was so hard to focus, she realized, with the water supporting her usually unbearable weight, as well as fondling and caressing her in ways that she had never experienced. Her semi-soft tip pressed up against his rump, which was partially exposed above the ripples of the pool. The feel of those slick cheeks against her oh-so-sensitive glans made her whimper, and she hardened almost instantly with such force that it shoved her back another foot.

Zeke cried out, bumping his hips against the rock. "Arj... can you..."

The little hyena continued to massage the very base of her shaft, but his body dipped down and his strong clawed feet dug into the rocky floor of the pool, helping to anchor her. "I don't know, baby, she's really big..."

"It'll fit," she gasped, coming back to Earth slowly. "Trust me. I've... been... bigger."

Thousands of years of evolution and genetic predilection reared it's head. She pressed against the powerful little boy behind her, feline feet joining canine, and she willed herself forwards before her swirling maelstrom of hormones could cause her to grow any further. Zeke's moan rose in volume until Amber couldn't be sure it was pleasure or pain, and the pressure against her shaft seemed to be trying to bend that column in half, but slowly and with great care she parted the barrier of his rump and drove more than a foot of steel-hard maleness home.

The giraffe was breathing through his teeth, hissing and groaning as Amber continued to half-step, half-swim, half-climb her way through the hot spring. Arjuna's eyes were huge with concern, and he longed to let go of the luscious herm and console him. "Zee? You all right?"

"Oh... my... gods..." came the strained reply. "She's... just so... big..."

"Are you all right?"

Amber was shocked a boy so slender could handle so much of her. Luis had been petite, but she'd been scarcely half this size when he had attempted it! She wasn't sure she would have stopped even if he HADN'T been ok, but when he replied "Better... than... ever...," all she could do was grin and press on.

"I don't think... anyone's ever been so tight for me... oooohhh, at least before I really get going."

Zeke could feel his body, feel the impossibility of what was going on, but he still had to open his eyes and see for himself. His hips were splayed out tremendously by a shaft that was very nearly as wide as his lean torso, and his belly protruded as though it were no more than a thin later of speckled orange-yellow skin around the remarkable definition of her shaft. It was close enough to his face that he could kiss it without having to duck his long, long neck, and with another push it rose up level with his muzzle. Another push, and it was up to his horns, and he could feel the worryingly-firm weight of her sac against the backs of his legs.

"Get... going?" Fearfully strong hands gripped his waist, and then he was slammed from behind so hard he thought that a boulder had fallen against him. His arms flailed for balance, but he was so firmly locked to her that there was no point. He gripped the full five-foot enormity of her shaft and the drum-tight flesh of his body wrapped around it.

"Mmmmhmmmm," she breathed with relief, sagging against the taller boy's back while Arjuna just looked on in wonderment from over her shoulder. "What, you didn't think a hyper herm like me would stop HERE, did you?"

As a pair, lover and victim shifted sideways and her giraffe-clad cock moved away from the boulder, slipping once again into the water. Even through his straining fur she could feel the chilly air replaced with piping hot water. She gripped his body tighter, moaning against the broad expanse of his shoulders and swelling another couple inches. "Oooo, that's better," she giggled, giving a little exploratory pump of her overladen hips. "This is way easier than on land! I might have to remember this..."

Zeke was hunched over, both of his hands rubbing slowly but firmly, back and forth, against her twitching maleness. His own hips felt as though they were going to pop, and he couldn't feel his hooves, and the fur of his belly was being pulled so thin that it was almost no protection against the mountain air, but he was nearly out of his mind with pleasure. "You get this big... every time?" he groaned.

"Once going up, and again going down," Amber nodded gleefully, shocked at her own bawdiness. Gods, she thought, I was never this forward with anyone else, was I? Well, I suppose the boys in the art room... oh no, does this secretly mean I'm a brazen hussy?

It was only when Zeke's strained laughter mingled with hers that Arjuna relaxed again. "Sweet mercies, Amber," he purred into her ear, remembering how big she had gotten in front of the fire. He had thought that had been her peak! "You just keep getting better and better, don't you?"

There was a commotion behind Amber, and she tried to see what it was, but soon the splashing faded and there was only Arjuna's grinning face. Those short but strong arms encircled her body again and his maw opened wide, closing gently but electrically against her neck. She gasped, overwhelmed by the luxury of being sandwiched between two lovers in such an exotic, romantic location. Her gasp was punctuated by Zeke's startled cry of ecstasy when her thumb-thick veins bunched, tensed and her entire shaft swelled nearly a full further foot within his body.

"Every time... you do that... HE'S gonna feel it," she panted, stroking Zeke's flanks reassuringly with her hands while her feet explored the inexorably-filling bulk of her sac beneath her.

"That's sort of what I'm hoping for," Arjuna said, pressing himself hard against her back and rolling his hips meaningfully. It was only then that Amber realized that he had divested himself of his own bathing suit, and that the little hyena was not so little anymore. "Me and Zeke might be in love," he continued, slipping further down her back, water lapping at his muzzle, "and we might be together forever, but he has sometimes said that he wished I were... bigger."

And then Arjuna was gone. The hyper-feline could feel that rough tongue tracing it's way down her spine, his strong sturdy hands sliding to her hips, then her thighs, anchoring himself beneath the steaming, churning waters. "You guys have great lung capacity," she chuckled, slumping against Zeke. Did Arjuna like girls enough to...?

Small teeth nibbled at the base of her tail, and then all of a sudden it seemed as though his entire muzzle slipped between her thighs, wedged firmly between her rump and the beanbag chair-like mound of her balls. Her body stiffened from toes to ears, and she had just enough time to clamp her teeth firmly onto her lower lip before she felt the hyena's remarkably dextrous tongue lap once, just once, against her pussy.

Amber was no stranger to her feminine parts, at least in private. She knew that she possessed the best attributes of both sexes, and she also knew that she was generally desired only for a specific and sizeable few. In the comfort of her bed she had explored those delicate folds and nearly driven herself into a hyper-swelling frenzy, but she had never dared to hope she might find someone willing to treat her as a, well, woman, at least not in high school.

But now with Zeke tightening around her like a python and the hyena's long, lapping tongue pushing further and further within her womanhood, her entire body quivered like a violin string. She was holding back with every ounce of strength but still ripples of water spread out from her giraffe-coated shaft as it swelled, inch by inch, moment by moment. Arjuna's jaw opened, or at least tried to given it's precarious position, and his tongue slid simultaneously against her burning hot opening and the creaking, filling expanse of her balls. Amber whimpered when he seemed to withdraw, rising again against her back, but when his gasping head emerged from the scalding waters she felt a new, and much larger, pressure between her thighs.

Zeke's hands continued to stroke his iron-hard flanks, wrist-thick veins now visible through his thinning skin. "I never thought I could hold this much," he wheezed.

"Then prepare," Amber mewled nervously, craning her head to the side and giving Arjuna's pleading expression a nod in response, "to be surprised."

The hyena was bigger than Luis had been, so much so that she wasn't sure she'd have even been able to get her small mouth around it were their positions different. She felt him grinding against her rump, his thick and excitingly bulbous shaft pressing further and further forwards. Amber arched her back, fighting the phenomenal weight of her sac and trying to position herself a little better, with Zeke pulled along for the ride. Oh my gods, this is it, she thought. He's really going to-

It was like lightning spearing through her body, and for a moment she felt a pang of sympathy for all the poor boys she had impaled. He was MUCH bigger than Luis, and she felt the familiar stretching feeling in entirely new and untouched places. Biting her lip was no defense, feeling his hips ramming against her rear, his jaw clamping firmly against her neck as he panted, those strong arms encircling her and squeezing her... she screamed, a long, loud, and wailing scream that seemed to take an eternity to fade.

Against sensations as intense as that, she was powerless to restrain herself. Each teste felt as though a bomb had gone off within them, swelling with such speed that her body was raised clear of the water now, rivulets cascading off of their slopes. Arjuna clung desperately to her as he was also raised up, her sac so enormous that there was ample room for him to sit as well.

Zeke, however, wasn't sure if he was going to survive or not. Amber's canine shaft tensed within him and then surged forwards so fast he could hear his skin creaking in protest. He wasn't sure how his legs were still attached, each of his little orange-and-brown spots stretched to the size of serving platters, the entire column wider than his entire body had once been. Seven feet long, eight feet, nine... he could only hazard a guess. He knew how long the pool was, and he knew that her far-too-sensitive tip was beaching itself in the distance, hidden by the swirling fog.

"That... was... holy fuck," Amber panted, her toes finally uncurling. "Zeke... Zeke, baby, are you all right?"

"Help..."

"Oh, you're fine," she giggled, giving him a loving, reassuring squeeze. "You'd be amazed what you boys can hold when you put your minds to it."

Arjuna's head hung over her shoulder, taking in the impossible new shape of his boyfriend. "Regretting your decision, lover?" he moaned, rocking his hips slowly, each little thrust making Amber whimper and coaxing her on to larger, heavier dimensions.

"I don't know," he yowled breathlessly. "Ask me... when she's done..."

Amber felt her trim belly bulging out slightly with every pump from the surprising little hyena. She looked down at the enormous pair of cream-and-gold spheres they sat upon, each one probably five feet across; were Amber standing, they would have rest behind her nearly as tall as the very tips of her ears! "You sure know how to show a girl a good time," she giggled, digging her toes into her bloated and still-filling flesh. "This might be a record for me!"

"Great," Zeke croaked.

Arjuna's shaft felt red-hot, rubbing against her roughly but not unpleasantly, far from it. She rolled her hips against his, urging him on, harder and deeper. Zeke's little moans soon fell into their rhythm. Pressed between their bodies Amber didn't feel the frigid night air any more; in fact, a lot of the steam surrounding them was being produced by herself, that fabled hyper-metabolism kicking into high gear.

Her balls were now becoming worryingly firm, and she could practically feel their churning in her teeth. The underside of her canine shaft bulged outwards, and Zeke cried out. Amber craned her neck to whisper into his ear, but it was still too far away so she had to settle for whispering at his ear, "Shhhh, sweetie, I'm not done yet... this is just me getting ready." Amber's urethra surrendered to the mounting pressure and soon overflowed, gallon upon gallon of humble pre pouring into the helpless boy. It made very little impact to his wildly distended outline, but the definition of her veins through his very sparse belly fur soon grew muted as her seed began to round him out.

The hyena's hands reached out from Amber's breasts to stroke Zeke's back reassuringly. "You're amazing, sweetie," Arjuna said, grunting with each thrust. "Just imagine... if that were me..."

Amber giggled. "Pretend I'm not here, eh?"

She opened her mouth to ask if Zeke was still holding on when she felt the bloom of liquid heat in her loins, and the unstoppable expansion of her knot within him elicited another moan of mixed joy and fear. His hips, already spread beyond what nature ever intended, bloated outwards with shocking speed, a dense mound that was in moments as large as one of her balls. Her sac tightened further, quivering beneath her, and she started to breathe faster as Arjuna redoubled his efforts, sensing that the hyperherm was on the verge of something special.

"Mmmff.... faster... faster..." she murred, a hint of pleading in her voice. She wasn't sure how long she could hold back, or even if she really was holding anything back. Her shaft, now undoubtedly canine in every detail and nearly spanning the entire little hot spring, was twitching and straining, still growing but only thicker now, preparing for her extremely definite climax.

Zeke's arms and legs were spread, trying to hug that gargantuan knot and willing himself to be stretchier, praying that he survived Amber's ardor. Arjuna reached around the gasping herm and gripped the giraffe's waist, or at least where his waist had been before Amber had rearranged his insides, while Amber leaned back against the hyena's chest, reaching back and digging her claws into his rump, trying to draw him even closer.

Her sac, though, pressing so hard against all their legs, signaled the beginning of the end. They seemed to shake themselves, soft sloshing flesh becoming as tight as a truck tire and swelling anew, hoisting all three higher. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, I can't stop," Amber growled, voice rising in a keening wail when Arjuna's teeth sank into her neck again, a dozen little points of electric delight.

"Don't stop-" Zeke just had time to say before her kitmakers tightened powerfully against her rump, expanding once more until Amber was afraid she was going to tear something. Had she been this big with Royston? She couldn't remember, that had been inside, while here in the hot spring she could barely see how big she had become due to the pervasive mists. Did it really matter? Royston had been so big and cuddly, he had stretched so easily, while poor Zeke had seemed on the verge of finding his limits from the beginning...

"You can... do it..." Amber mewled, trying to convince the two boys as much as herself. Arjuna wriggled as though he were about to pounce and then threw back his head, howling hoarsely into the night and slamming his hips against her rump one final time. Her eyes flew open and her claws reflexively sank into his skin a little further when she felt the deliciously new but so-familiar strain of his knot swelling within her, filling her more than she had ever dared fill herself, locking them together.

Like some sort of primal three-part chorus, the canine, feline and ungulate voices rose and mingled in the night. Arjuna spasmed, that knot growing one final time with such power that she could feel it against her lower belly, and then erupted within her. His entire shaft hardened and heaved once, twice, again and again, over and over, liquid white heat filling her up.

It was a miracle that she had held on that long, she marveled, but Arjuna's climax pushed her over the edge. The pink-hued patchwork of veins decorating her cream-and-gold sac tensed and flexed, her urethral passage resting against the sandy bottom of the hot spring doubled in size, tripled. Zeke was beyond words, his eyes rolling back in his head, and he was only dimly aware of it when Amber's first eruption tore through her shaft and into his belly.

Those normally-small giraffe spots bloomed like wildflowers, the outline of Amber's shaft obliterated by the ballooning flow of her seed. Every spurt from Arjuna seemed to increase her own ferocity, every thrust driving her deeper into Zeke, but now all three were simply holding on for their lives. Her shrieks of lust were followed by rubbery creaks of tortured flesh being pushed well beyond it's limits, and soon by the sounds of searing mountain spring water splashing against the shoreline, overflowing the natural gravelly rim and washing down the hill.

"I hope... we don't block... the spring," Arjuna giggled weakly, his non-hyper orgasm subsiding and leaving him in a mild stupor. He didn't entirely believe what he was seeing and feeling from Amber and Zeke; he couldn't be that big already, could he?

"Glurk," Zeke agreed, vowing never again to wonder what it would be like to be with someone bigger than his boyfriend.

Amber's shuddering dogcock geysered again and again, the giraffe's body quickly curving outwards in all directions and assuming a spherical shape. The little feline felt herself tilting backwards as Zeke's body grew, the individual follicles on his straining flesh becoming visibly distinct. His bloating belly pushed back against his arms, against his legs, his face; he felt as though he were being smothered by the world's biggest, warmest, sloshiest pillow.

Zeke could also feel the boulders of the secluded pool pressing against him, but the implacable stony remnants of the glaciers that had carved these mountains hardly stood a chance against the love of a good hyperherm. Rocks shifted and tumbled and splashed, pushed aside like so much new-fallen snow.

And then the little grotto was plunged into darkness. Too late, Amber remembered that the pool was lit by a single underwater light, and she had no doubts that it would be a long time before sweet Zeke had drained enough to recover it. The world around them was inky black, devoid even of the stars.

"Oh god," Zeke gurgled, "I've gone blind..."

"No... no! Look, there's the moon... and the stars..." It wasn't easy through the drifting mists, but the full white moon, always a good luck charm for the superstitious kitteh, was just barely visible, infrequent gaps in the fog revealed the twinkling stars above. "You're ok, Zeke, you're ok..."

"Mmmfff!"

"Just breathe... as much as you can..."

Amber reached up, stroking the worried giraffe's long, graceful, muscular neck and shocking herself at just how much it was sinking into his ever-filling belly. Maybe he was too skinny, she thought, he's going to overflow himself!

Hot water tickled at her toes and she realized that at long last her balls were draining enough to lower the rearmost pair back into the spring, or what was left of it. She looked up again and gasped in awe. "Wow, it's an eclipse!"

"No," Arjuna giggled, a manic edge to his voice, "that's Zeke. Oh, baby, you're amazing..."

Amber stroked one paw along her own tummy, filled, for her, far more than she had ever experienced. "He's not the only one," she purred, turning her head and nuzzling against the hyena's muzzle. "Zeke will be ok... in a little while."

"Bleat?!"

"Trust me."

In the waning minutes of her climax, Zeke jerked and squeaked with surprise and was answered by the sound of branches creaking and snapping in the distance. The moon had vanished beyond the horizon of his vast bulk, as had most of the stars. "How big would you say the pool is? Er... was?" Amber asked, stretching languidly, feeling all of her strength and verve draining out of her body to be replaced with the overpowering urge to cuddle and sleep.

"Maybe twenty feet? Twenty-five?"

Another crunch, another branch. "Yeah, that was my guess, too," she giggled. "I hope it doesn't take too long to for the spring to fill it back up again."

"Blurg," Zeke hiccuped. One side of his face was just barely visible in the faint light reflecting from the snowy patches around the pool, resting in a doughy valley of quivering, jiggling giraffe pelt. His arms and legs felt like they were being torqued backwards, but the soreness in his joints was utterly overwhelmed by the feeling of countless gallons of kitty seed flowing around within him.

Amber's feet touched solid ground again, and although her legs were still spread wide by the bulk of her balls, they were back to the size of mere watermelons. Arjuna loosened his grip around her midsection and flailed briefly before his own paws found secure footing. Her tail stiffened and she squeezed her eyes shut, gasping and flexing her claws into Zeke's rump one last time when she felt that tight pressure within her tug hard and pop free. Heat seemed to flow out of her, slicking her thighs, and she felt a slight twinge of dismay when her little belly bulge started to recede. The hyena withdrew slowly, his knot impressively large against her tail, and she exhaled with a giddy, breathy moan.

Arjuna nuzzled against her neck and licked her ear, whispering a quick "Thank you," to her before scooting around her and pressing himself up against his almost disturbingly-overfilled boyfriend.

They were standing ankle-deep in warm water, all that remained of the spring, or at least Amber and Arjuna were; Zeke's legs were forced back at a sharp angle, his little hooves wiggling uselessly. The post-coital hyper set her knees against his bulk, feeling the final five-gallon spurts of her love making him the tiniest bit larger, and pulled. Zeke's moan rose like a foghorn, but when Amber withdrew her knot with a mighty jerk it faded into a series of drunk-sounding giggles. Steam rose from where her cream struck the chilly night air, flowing down his bloated form with every foot of length she revealed.

The last few inches caught her by surprise and she tipped backwards, dropping into a little patch of snow with a thump and a cross, "Ow!" She rubbed her pert rear and started to stand, but then caught sight of the loving couple and simply stared in awe at what she had, at their insistence, wrought. "Holy..."

Zeke's slender torso, long delicate limbs and impressively arcing neck were shadowed in stark relief, sunk more than a foot into the gigantic boulder that was his seed-inflated belly. Every now and then he tried to shift his position, but against the phenomenal tension that his body was under, it just wasn't in the cards. Arjuna snuggled up to him, stroking his back and rump and murmuring into his ear, an almost vanishingly small figure against the house-sized orb.

Amber sat up, tracing her fingers along her own shaft as it slowly resheathed, her testes now back to the size of a pair of basketballs. Strangely, she realized, the night air didn't seem cold at all despite the water droplets crystallizing on her fur. The boys didn't seem cold, either, but she supposed the sheer amount of thermal energy contained within Zeke would probably keep them cozy and warm well into the next day.

She stood, looked around for her robe and sighed. "I don't suppose I could borrow a towel?"

"I think Zee's on top of them."

"Glunk," he chuckled in agreement.

Amber sauntered over, cuddling up near the giraffe's suspended body and caressing the base of his tail with her claws. The entire mass jiggled briefly, and Arjuna giggled. "Boy, aren't you just the plushiest boy EVER, now?"

She dragged one claw gently down his rump to where a thin stream of white was slowly leaking out of him, careful not to push too hard lest she pop the poor teen. "He'll be fine in a few days," she purred, giving him a little kiss. She moved over to Arjuna and hugged him from behind, much as he had done to her, and said "If you did set this up as a treat for him, I don't know if that makes you the best or worst boyfriend ever."

"Bglrst!"

Arjuna laughed, gesturing up to where Zeke's crazily grinning head towered over them all. "Well, there you go," the hyena chuckled, "can't argue with a review like that!"

A flash of color caught her eye, which turned out to be her bikini bottoms plastered against a rock a short distance from the former shoreline. "Hey, sweet," she said brightly, "I might be able to have a quick swim before going back home. Uhm... is there anything I can get you guys?"

Arjuna waved her offer away. "I actually packed an overnight bag, it's in... well, one of these trees. I'll find it in a bit." Zeke wriggled, one hand managing to reach back enough to bop the hyena on the head. Arj just laughed, and said "Well, I thought, if things DID end up a little out of hand, it would be good to be prepared! Boy Scouts, and all that."

Amber smiled, watching the two sweethearts in repose and sighing a little ruefully. For once, it wasn't all about her, which was a pleasant change, and this time she wasn't upset that there would likely be no relationship developing from this... she was an honored guest, after all. Even so, seeing them like this just reminded her that she still hadn't had much luck finding someone to call her own.

She grabbed Arjuna's head, pulled him close and kissed him hard on the lips, releasing him with a fuzzy 'pop'. "Just so you boys don't forget me," she said, winking at the startled expression.

"Fluhb," Zeke gurgled.

"I know you won't," she laughed. "Tell your kids about me, ok?"

"Kbbbds?!"

"No no no, not from ME, I mean, like... later in life."

Arjuna plastered himself against Zeke's side, rolling his hips against it. "Just imagine, Zee... this many babies." The giraffe shook his head back and forth so hard the entire mound jostled like Jell-O, and the less-inflated pair laughed. "Ok, maybe not."

"Goodnight, you two lovebirds," she said softly, picking up her frost-trimmed bikini and wrapping it around herself. It was briefly clammy, but soon warmed up against her fur. She gave them each another hug and promised to say goodbye before she and her family left the next day.

The walk back to the main pools was very meandering, as she had lost the note with the map on it and it was considerably darker out, but with the faint moonlight and her natural night vision she was able to pick her way through to the Hyperion Pool without too much trouble. There was a bit of a crowd but she managed to slip in on the far side by a rocky outcropping without too much trouble. The water fogged almost as soon as she entered as the musky mixture of fluids began to wash away, but a few strokes and she left the evidence behind.

Red bikini once again fitting as nature had intended, she paddled around idly for a few moments, admiring all of the couples young and old who were holding eachother close, or doing more than just holding. The hot springs were a popular retreat for those in love, a romantic and exotic getaway, but Amber found that she didn't mind being here alone. She rolled onto her back, laced her fingers behind her head, and smiled up at the starry sky, knowing that someday she would find herself looking up at those same stars with her true love.

Someday.