The Furry Sex Scandal
THE FURRY SEX SCANDAL
by Little Bill
(WARNING: The following story contains sexual activity between humans and sentient alien animals. Please do not read this if you are a minor or are offended by such material. But if neither is the case, enjoy.)
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following story was inspired by two sources: the March 2001 Vanity Fair magazine article "Pleasures of the Fur" by George Gurley, and the "Burned Fur Manifesto" by Squee Rat.)
It is not easy to determine where exactly to begin this story, dear reader, so I shall start by giving you a little background. My Earth name is Walter Fox-not my true name, of course, but we had to adopt names that you humans could speak with your mouths and record in your alphabetic system. As my name implies, I am a fox-person, or what you humans call an anthropomorphic fox, and my appearance corresponds with that of a lower animal red fox-bushy fur, pale orange on my back and sides, white lower face and abdomen, black ears and forelimbs, and green eyes. I work as a sociologist for the Planet Earth Research Center (PERC,) and of course I am a native of what you humans dub "The Animal Planet," whose population consists of different species of people of the mammalian, reptilian, and avian variety. There are fox-people, skunk-people, deer-people, lizard-people, raven-people, and many others, all corresponding to lower animal species on our world. Most of our lower animal species have their equivalent on Earth, though there are some types that exist in our world and not yours, and vice versa. Of note is the fact that no type of primate species exist on our world. Whether this has anything to do with the absence of any anthropomorphic species on Earth other than you humans (who are of course primate-based) is uncertain.
The nation I come from is roughly akin to the United States of America on Earth, so I am somewhat more used to the social mores and customs of this nation, unlike many of our approximately 200 colleagues what are stationed at PERC-actually a former military base in which you humans have billeted us. Hardly luxury quarters, but I am not complaining-you humans are not obligated to have us on your planet at all, just as the corresponding human research team on our planet is there strictly on our sufferance. And I am aware that there are many humans who understandably fear and resent our presence on Earth, and who think that we are secretly plotting the military conquest of this planet.
Not that this is feasible-it is only possible for the portal between our worlds to be opened for three hours for one day each year, when both our planets are aligned at just the right point in our corresponding solar systems, and as far as I know there is no reliable information to indicate otherwise. Like I said, I am a sociologist, not a physicist or astronomer, and I have no more understanding of how our worlds can "connect" than most people do. Nor do I really know if my home planet is in a different part of the same Universe that Earth is, or if it is a different dimension, or if my planet is some sort of alternate Earth as explained in quantum theory.
Perhaps, dear reader, you are laughingly thinking, "This person is an alien scientist and he is such an ignoramus?" But how much do you know about your own world? Do you know how your sun works? How the Earth travels around it? How your moon travels around your Earth? Do you know how plants grow, or how water flows, or how electricity makes lights glow and motors spin? Do you realize how little you truly know about the world around you?
Forgive me, dear reader, my outburst was ill-mannered and uncalled for, and I apologize. I admit I have the tendency to lose my temper fairly easily and behave boorishly, which is a legacy of my days in the military (yes, the unfortunate fact is that my own world is just as plagued with war and violence as Earth is, and I myself have been through war-something I do not care to talk about.) But as you can imagine, life on Earth is not easy for non-natives such as me, and the story I have to tell is of a quite unpleasant incident. While I am not entirely blameless for this event, it is due to the totally irresponsible and foolish behavior of one of my colleagues, as well as some naive and foolish humans. What will ultimately result from this incident I cannot determine, but at the very least it will prove to be a great embarrassment to both our people, and at worst...well, dear reader, war is highly unlikely, but what else could result I would not care to guess.
The incident actually begins when I was selected by the Director (whom we call "Shithead" behind our backs, with good reason) to visit a convention of "furries." By this I mean human beings who call themselves "furry," which is rather a sketchy description of a wide variety of people. This term includes people who simply enjoy entertainment which features fictional anthropomorphic animals (I am amazed at the fact that you humans have come up with the concept of people like us long before you ever knew of our existence,) but also a small portion of people who are into "the furry lifestyle," where they actually try to emulate us, even to the point of considering themselves to be animals in human form. (Sometimes I meet some very-ahem!-interesting people in my line of work!) There are people who dress up in animal costumes, who obsessively surround themselves with a large quantity of pictures and videos of animals, realistic or cartoon, or both, or of plush animal dolls, who take on animal names such as "Fox," "Raccoon," or "Wolf," and who even wish they could biologically modify themselves to look like animals. On top of that, these people, most of whom are males, like to "skritch" one another, the term referring to rubbing and hugging one another. (Yes, that is one detail in which they manage to emulate my people properly-we do rub and hug one another back on our home world, but of course this is only done between relatives or close friends. Many of the human "furries," on the other hand, seem willing to "skritch" anyone who wants it, even a complete stranger. Perhaps their inhibitions are lowered when they adopt "animal identities" which mask their true human identities.)
Before I continue, I must warn you that if you are a minor, or are easily offended or shocked, please stop reading this account right now, as the following sections contain material that will not be suitable for you. If you are neither of these, you may keep reading, but please keep in mind that this is about an incident which I wish never happened. But it did, and I wish to set the matter straight.
Well, back to the main story. A number of the aforementioned people who follow "the furry lifestyle" go so far as to have-ahem!-different sexual practices. They actually have sexual attractions to nonhumans, either animal-people such as us, or even lower animals. And there are those who follow through on...
Please, dear reader, do you think I like talking about this? I assure you that I find this just as embarrassing as any of you humans do! I am only talking about this because I have to. I warned you this would be shocking. If you do not want to read any further, fine with me. But if you want all the lurid details, read on.
All right, I shall blurt it out now. There are people known as "fursuiters" who like having sex while wearing animal costumes. And most of these people are males, so yes; it is mainly homosexual male/male sexual activity. Another one of their practices is to "gather into a furpile," meaning that they climb on top of one another in a pile and "skritch" one another, and inevitably they get far more intimate with each other. Worse yet, there are people who take stuffed plush animals and tear open a seam in the right place, and you can guess the rest. And even people who have such relationships with living lower animals...
I suppose, dear reader, you are wondering about sexual moral standards back on my home world. Well, it is quite common for us to have sex with people of different species-I admit to doing that enough times. There is a relative shortage of each of our species, so that is inevitable. For marriage and family-raising, however, obviously we go to our own species, though there are cases of people who marry and divorce, then someone of a different species can be the stepparent later on. Or adoptions, of course. And as you might have guessed, we are less inhibited about inbreeding than you humans are. My own parents were first cousins. As for homosexuality, if you think that homosexuals have a bad time on Earth, on my world it is far worse, and it is unheard of for two males or two females to openly have a romance. Not that homosexuality is nonexistent, but it is practiced far more secretly among my kind that it is among humans. And sexual activity between our kind and lower animals is definitely taboo-in fact; on my world it is a great insult to compare one of us to a lower animal version of ourselves. (If this surprises you, dear reader, tell me: if someone were to call you a monkey, would you consider that a compliment?)
But we sociologists have to keep an open mind, and we cannot antagonize people who are "different" if we want to study them. If we are disgusted by them, we have to keep it to ourselves. And in all honesty, in my military and sociological careers I have met some truly despicable people, both on my world and yours, for which the Universe could only benefit if they were dead. And while the humans I mention who follow "the furry lifestyle" may be weird, they are not necessarily evil. I would sooner be around two human males who like to dress up in animal costumes and engage in homosexual activity than many of the people I have met in prison, either on my world or Earth.
The irony of this whole story is that the furry convention I went to would have been the most enjoyable time I ever had on Earth, if this sniveling idiot colleague of mine who is now driving us back to our base had not ruined everything. How I wish I had never invited him to come along! But I did, and he and I and everyone at PERC and who knows who else are soon going to be facing the consequences. It will be another hour's drive before we reach our base, but it would be fine with me if we never made it back. Almost I wish the car we are in would crash and both of us would be killed.
No, that would be the coward's way out. I am not one to duck out of responsibility, and hopefully neither is my colleague. I look at him and see that he is concentrating fully on the road and traffic ahead, not deigning to look toward me-and in his position, I would not, either.
I realize that I have not yet identified this person. His Earth name is Sammy Skunk-a skunk-person, of course, black with a white stripe along his back. He is PERC's mathematician, and a genius with numbers, but not so smart when it comes to dealing with other people-in fact, I cannot imagine how he managed to pass the rigorous testing that allowed him to join our team. But somehow he did, or managed to bribe, blackmail, or cheat his way here, for he wanted more than anything else to visit Earth and go out among you humans, as he had repeatedly told the rest of us ever since he became part of PERC. We all agreed behind his back that his true purpose in wanting to associate with the people of Earth was because he had no friends among his own kind.
Of course, when we came to Earth, being space aliens, we could not simply roam around the planet at will. It was only through a considerable amount of time and negotiation that relations between our two worlds could reach a point where we would be allowed to send scientific teams to each other's planets, and as I have said, we are naturally regarded with fear and suspicion. Alternatively, we are condescendingly viewed as jumped-up lower animals or living incarnations of comical cartoon characters. Needless to say, this makes it impossible for us to simply go out and socialize among human society, so going out for a night on the town or a vacation is out of the question. Thus, we are restricted to our base except for essential prearranged outside travel, and many of us rarely or never leave the base. I, on the other hand, am a sociologist assigned to learn about human society, so of course I must go out and interact with humans quite often.
I have said that life on Earth is not easy for us non-natives, and as you can imagine, it is especially difficult for me to meet new humans. Many fear me and want nothing to do with me, some threaten me and try to attack me (but fortunately I am very well trained in self-defense,) others look down on me and regard me as a walking, talking version of a lower animal rather than a person like themselves. I have lost count of how many times people have patted me on the head. (You may giggle and think that this is cute, dear reader, but try having that happen to you and see how you like it.) I would not stand for such treatment from my own kind, but I am aware that it is natural instinct among you humans to want to rub my fur, and many of you feel that it is perfectly acceptable for you to touch me without even getting to know me first, and if I were to object you would be offended or hurt. In all honesty, I really do not mind if one of you humans wants to rub your fingers through my fur, but at least please show yourself to me before doing so, okay? I really hate being suddenly poked from behind.
Of course, there are plenty of humans who have been good to me, who were initially afraid of me but became friendly with me once I assured them that I was not some dangerous monster or savage beast, but a sentient person much like themselves. There are those who were intrigued with me because I am an animal-person, or a being from an alien planet, or both, who wanted so very much to meet with someone like myself. There were people who even look upon my kind as if we were gods, which I personally found embarrassing because we are just as unremarkable and ordinary as humans are. So as I write this, wondering what sort of fate will happen to me, Sammy, and the PERC team, I wish to thank all you humans who have done me well, and I will remember you fondly as long as I live. How long that will be is uncertain.
Ah, Sammy. He wanted to travel around Earth like I did, but his duties as a mathematician kept him restricted to base, and he made no secret of his disappointment over this. After each field trip I made, I would have numerical data for Sammy to process, and he would pester me with all sorts of questions of what the human world was like and how it was like to visit each place. I answered as patiently as I could, giving out only the information I could safely give publicly. He kept telling me how much he wished he could at least once in a while go out and see the human world for himself, and he tried to get the Director to allow him to leave the base, or assign him to me or one of the other field workers-all to no avail, of course, and he even came close to being put into the brig. I disliked Sammy and found him annoying, as did everyone else at PERC, but I was not unsympathetic to Sammy's frustration. Because of my sympathy, however, I did what turned out to be the most foolish thing I have ever done in my life-I arranged to have Sammy accompany me to the furry convention from which we are now driving.
I thought that no harm would come of it-we would both go out among the human convention goers and be treated like celebrities, get hugged and petted, talk a little bit about our planet, and generally have fun. I would still be working, of course-gathering data, interviewing people, and so forth, while for Sammy it would simply be a vacation day. I put the idea over to the Director, who was initially reluctant, but he ultimately agreed, hoping it would mute Sammy's complaints about being stuck at the base. Indeed, when I later met Sammy and told him about how I arranged to have him come to the convention with me, he was so overjoyed he cheered loudly and threw his arms around me (which in itself should have been a warning sign,) thanking me profusely. Fortunately, there was no one else in the room with us. Then he remembered himself and let go of me, looking embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," replied Sammy (we were conversing in one of the languages of our home world, of course,) "but this is the moment I've been dreaming about ever since we landed on Earth. No more being stuck twenty-four hours a day at this shitty base. I can go out among the humans and meet with them!"
"You may be in for a shock," I warned him. "Remember what I've told you about how humans view us? They see us for our fur and tails and snouts and mentally compare us to lower animal versions of ourselves, rather than to sentient beings like themselves. Animal-people like us may have been part of their literature for thousands of their years, but until our worlds met, few humans believed our kind actually existed in reality. The people of Earth are still unused to our existence, so don't expect the humans to view us as ordinary people like them. If you still want to go to the furry convention-"
"Of course I want to go!" Sammy interrupted vehemently.
"Then kindly don't interrupt me. I just want to say that when you're at the convention, people are going to treat you like a novelty. They're going to want to touch you and rub you and hug you and kiss you, and you can't object to any of it. Obviously you must fight back against anyone who's trying to do you harm, but if anybody patronizes or insults you, you must bear it with a smile. Don't get angry if people pat you on the head, pull your tail or ears, or boop your nose. If anybody wants you to touch or hug or kiss them, you have to willingly do it as many times as asked."
"Wow!" Sammy said eagerly. "You make the convention sound like paradise!"
I was taken aback as I realized that he truly meant it. "You must be a really lonely person, huh? Well, if you like the prospect of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of strange humans touching and fondling you in a public setting, then by all means come along with me. However, there will be certain types of humans at the convention you must definitely avoid..." And I described to him the human "furries" who practice the perverted sexual activities that I have already described to you. I felt better when Sammy looked shocked and embarrassed as I gave him all the sordid details. "Undoubtedly there will be such humans at the convention who will try to entice you into participating in such activities with them. Don't go near them!"
"Of course not!" Sammy said defensively.
"I mean it. If you see any humans in animal costumes 'gather into a furpile,' walk the other way. If anybody brings up the subject of sex in conversation, change it. Don't even go near the places where children aren't allowed. This is an important public relations event for our kind, and we can't afford even the hint of any sexual improprieties. You know the news media on this planet is just as bad as ours, and guess what they're going to do if there's even a rumor of one of us having sex with an Earth human? 'And in our special news report, we bring you the story of the sexually depraved animal-people!' I'm not kidding about this!"
"Relax, I know that. I won't be having sex with any of the humans at the furry convention, you can count on that." Sullenly, Sammy added, "I'm accustomed to having nobody to fuck."
I had long assumed he was a virgin, but I never asked him about it and this was no time to press the matter. "I haven't had sex with anyone either since I broke up with my wife two years ago and for the record, most of us at the base haven't brought our spouses or mates to Earth with us, so we're not doing any fucking either." Only a limited number of handpicked people from our world could come to Earth, of course, so families, friends, and lovers had to remain behind. There are several husband/wife scientific teams at PERC, and the Director has his wife along as well, though she has no apparent scientific skills and in fact is rarely seen by the rest of us. There may well be several PERC team members who are romantically involved with one another, but I have heard no rumors to that effect, and in any case the Director would do what he could to discourage that sort of thing. Needless to say, for one of us to seek romance out among the denizens of Earth is definitively off-limits; in fact, we all had to sign an agreement which forbade us from having any sort of sexual contact with anyone or anything on Earth. Not that anybody has to worry about my violating this agreement; my own personal interest in romance or sex has pretty much been quashed since my aforementioned divorce. I have less desire to talk about my former marriage than I do about my war experiences, and those were quite horrible. In fact, I joined PERC and came to Earth with the idea of getting away from some bad memories.
I do not sound like a happy person, do I, dear reader? Well, under the current circumstances I have plenty of reason to be unhappy, as you will understand once you hear the full story. And just like you humans, many of us animal-people have had plenty of unhappiness in our lives, too. I note that in your world's anthropomorphic animal art, the animal-people are often smiling and happy, in pleasant situations and performing enjoyable activities. Of course we have that in our world, but we have just as much drudgery and unhappiness as you do. We too have to go to boring jobs day after day, fight bureaucracy, worry about money and relationships, keep our homes clean, worry about crime, and so on. We have slums, filthy, polluting factories, and ruined wastelands. We have known tyranny, persecution, genocide, war, and social unrest. No, our world is not some Utopia where we spend our days walking through misty gardens and talking philosophy. Our world is not any happier or unhappier than yours. Just different.
Another note about your anthropomorphic animal art is that we animal-people are often depicted as having human-type bodies with fur (or feathers or scales) and animal heads. As anyone who has seen one of us knows, our bodies are more "lower-animal" shaped than that of a human. Without going into too much detail, the basic differences between our bodies and human bodies are that most of us are shorter on average than humans, our bodies are narrower and more tubular, our arms and legs are shorter, we may have four or five fingers on our hands (depending on species,) our feet are narrower and longer than human feet, but we walk plantigrade and not on our toes like lower animals, our hands and feet may end in claws or vestigial hooves (also depending on species,) our legs are shorter in relation to our bodies and are shaped more like those of lower animals rather than humans-tapered upper limbs and straight, narrow lower limbs. Also, the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet have paw pads like those of our corresponding lower animal species, but the fur on the surrounding areas is vestigial and very thin. I could go on, but I think that should suffice for generalities.
Furthermore, your anthropomorphic animal art typically depicts us as wearing human-style clothing and going barefoot. I suspect the reason for the latter is to ensure the viewer that he or she is looking at an animal-person and not a human wearing an animal head by showing off the furry clawed feet. Needless to say, the clothing we wear on our world is quite different, and no, we do not go barefoot. Oh, there are warm climates where people do not wear shoes, of course, just like on Earth. And yes, there is a small minority of people who go barefoot all the time in the technologically developed part of our world, just like on Earth. But most of us wear shoes just like you humans do, though we usually wear open sandals instead of enclosed shoes. After all, our feet need protection against cold, heat, injury, disease, and contamination too. As for our clothing, just like on Earth there are many different styles of it, but basically our clothing is thinner and looser-after all, many of us are already covered in fur or feathers, and we wear no underwear or socks save for a set of briefs which go over our genitals.
The standard clothing in our world looks much like the native clothing of many of the Asian cultures of Earth; an outfit consisting of a tunic and trousers that are loose in fit compared to Earth standard clothing, and sandals or enclosed shoes depending on weather and ground conditions. The outfit has large, flap-covered pockets and is fastened by snaps or buttons. Zippers are unheard of on clothing-not surprising when you learn how painful it is to get your fur caught in one. Unlike on Earth, where clothing for men and women are often quite different, the major difference between men's and women's clothes on our world is the way our outfits are colored. Men's outfits are typically multicolored with various patterns of dark lines; women's outfits have no patterns and are paler in color. Both items must match-it is "fashion suicide" in our world to wear unmatched items. (One wag has described our native clothing as "pajamas made from drapery material," which I suppose is as good a description as any.) Only utility and specialty clothing such as work uniforms are unmarked and in solid colors. On Earth, we still wear our native clothing, of course, as human clothing does not fit us properly.
Yes, I am digressing again, but I thought that those of you who have never seen pictures of us would want to have an idea of what we look like. Also, I confess that I am deliberately delaying in getting to the worst part of my story. I was not kidding when I warned you it would be shocking.
Excuse me, I had to stop writing for a minute, Sammy turned off the highway at the wrong exit, and now we have to waste an extra fifteen minutes backtracking. No surprise if he did it on purpose-I dread the moment when we get back to the base myself. But we cannot stall forever.
Anyway, earlier today-the first day of the convention, and we were honored guests, the Director having made the necessary arrangements-I got up early, had an early breakfast, caught up on my paperwork, washed and groomed myself thoroughly, and put on my favorite outfit of turquoise and tan with black spiral designs, and brown sandals. I wanted to look good for my public, after all. Evidently, so did Sammy, for he wore his favorite outfit of light blue and pink with crosshatch patterns, also with brown sandals. We met with the Director in his office at the appointed time, and he gave us exact directions on what to do at the convention. We were to drive straight there, making no stops between the convention center and our base, we were to meet with our security escort and follow them straight to the furry convention, we had to be as nice as possible to all the guests, no matter how we were treated, we had to let anyone and everyone touch fondle, hug, and kiss us as much as they wanted, but to stop short of anything sexual (the Director was emphatic about this of course,) we were to stay at the convention until the end of the day unless we got sick or hurt or otherwise had to return to base, we could not stray outside the areas where the convention was taking place, we could not leave the convention center building, we were to speak only in English, even to each other, and so on.
Finally the Director finished his briefing and we went to lunch. Sammy could barely eat, he was so excited, but I told him to finish up because we might not be able to have dinner until very late if at all, and the longer he stalled in the cafeteria, the less time we have to spend at the convention. So he gobbled his food down as fast as he could and we went to the base garage, got our car, and made the long drive to the convention center. I drove, of course, so Sammy could look around at the human world. He started to smile and wave at people until I told him in no uncertain terms to stop doing that. We were still on an alien planet whose natives are uncertain of us, I reminded him. But oh, he was like a child making his first visit to the zoo! (Yes, we have zoos for lower animals on our world, and we keep lower animals for pets, work animals, and yes, clothing and food. Many of our kind are carnivores; what did you expect, dear reader?) He was so happy to see the humans, I swear he would have smiled if an angry mob of them were to seize him and rub dung into his fur. Ironically, Sammy would eventually get into trouble not because of hostile humans, but rather overly friendly ones.
The rest of the ride was uneventful, once we reached the highway. It was quite a long drive, but fortunately traffic was light and we had no traffic jams. I got off at the exit which took us directly to the convention center building, and, as prearranged, I pulled into a parking space next to a panel van with the markings of the convention center on it. Two humans got out and looked inside to see it was us, and asked us for identification cards (as if it were not immediately obvious who we were-but procedures must be followed.) We produced them, they examined them, and we were told to enter the van, which we did, and I gave one of them the keys to our car. We sat in the van, out of sight to the world, as it took us inside the convention center building.
"One would think we were going to visit this nation's president, with all these security precautions," commented Sammy, who fortunately remembered to stick to the English language when we were around humans.
"For obvious reasons," I reminded him. "First of all, we're space aliens, and a lot of the natives are understandably fearful of us. This whole setup is meant to protect both us and them. Remember that technically, we have no rights on this planet. The Earthlings could round all of us up and vivisect us alive if they wanted to, and if they thought we were a danger to them, they just might do that. Second, we're going to be celebrities at this convention. We're going to be the first genuine animal-people they've ever encountered, and to many of them, meeting us will be the highlight of their lives. We can't just walk in the front entrance. We're going to be mobbed every moment we're in there. And remember that even friendly mobs can go crazy."
The van stopped and we were ordered out. We were escorted through a maze of doors, rooms, and hallways until we reached a large room, through which we could hear the sounds of the convention crowd. The leader of our escort asked us if we were ready to go inside, but I told him to wait for a moment. Then I turned to Sammy Skunk. "The furry convention is just outside these doors," I told him. "Do you still want to go in there?"
"Of course I do!" replied Sammy.
"Okay, but remember what I said. There's going to be a huge crowd of humans in there and they're going to go crazy over us, simply because we have fur and tails and they don't. They're going to shower you with hugs and kisses and keep petting you because it's the nature of humans to behave that way toward us. And you can't even show annoyance at any of that. If you think it's going to be too much for you to handle, stay here and I'll go in by myself. I'm quite used to this sort of treatment so it doesn't surprise or bother me at all. You, on the other hand, might find it overwhelming."
Sammy's response was tinged with a hint of impatience. "I've already heard you describe to me how the humans treat you, so I know what to expect. I'll be able to handle it, I swear!" He looked confident, but not overconfident, which I took as a sign that it was okay for him to go ahead. "Okay," I said. "If you're ready, then so am I. Let's go."
The doors were opened to the main convention room, where security had kept a small area clear for us. Sammy looked a bit nervous, but he kept pace with me as I walked inside. Uniformed security people surrounded us, deliberately blocking us from public view until we were ready to face the crowd, as prearranged. I told them to move aside after the doors closed behind us, and the security guards obeyed. Our entrance was announced over the intercom, and all the humans turned to look at us. I smiled and waved like a politician addressing his public (yes, our politicians behave very much like yours,) and Sammy, taking the cue, did the same. I noted that many, but not all the convention goers were dressed in a wide variety of animal costumes, and some wore regular street clothes but with artificial tails stuck to their posteriors.
"Hello, everybody," I shouted. "You all have the honor of being in the presence of two citizens of the planet of the animal-people. Now bow down before us!" There was an uncomfortable semi-silence among the humans before I laughed and added, "I'm just kidding, folks. We're nothing more than cute, cuddly fur balls and we'd really love it if you'd come and give us some hugs!"
I walked toward the crowd with my arms outstretched, and some of the bolder humans already ran up to Sammy and me and threw their arms around us. Then more came and I was buried in a mass of humans, all hugging me, rubbing me, and petting me, some even kissing me. I managed to look through the crowd to see how Sammy was doing, and was relieved to see he was actually enjoying getting the same treatment from the humans. To my surprise, I was enjoying it more than I anticipated. Slowly we walked around the big room, making sure everyone saw us and had the chance to embrace us. Sammy and I kept receiving hugs, kisses, pats, trying to return the favor as best we could. It was gratifying, but wearying and overwhelming, and when I sneaked glances at Sammy, he looked as if he was feeling the same way as I did. No animal-shaped plushie could possibly have been hugged so much and as intensely as we were that day. (In case you were wondering, dear reader, no, our world does not have "teddy bears" as such. Children are given special pillows and blankets to hug, but animal-shaped plushies to be taken to bed and slept with do not exist in our culture. We do have dolls to play with, of course, but those are for mainly for children when they want to play "house.")
It must have been an hour before, much to my relief, the humans stopped running up to me for hugs. Evidently I must have already hugged every human attending the convention by then, or else they were kind enough to realize that I can stand only so much. Then I noticed one man who was clearly not one of the convention goers but rather a manager beckoning to me. I went up to him, happy to approach a human who was not about to squish me, and Sammy, evidently feeling the same way, ran up right behind me. He told us that maybe we wanted to tell the people a bit about us and our world, and I agreed. Anything other than to continue being a squeeze toy.
So they announced that we were going to tell them about the world of the animal-people, and we did, giving mainly vague information and asking various questions. (I have already recorded this session on my pocket recorder, dear reader, so I shall not repeat myself. Of course I have already told you many details about us and our home world in this very account, so hopefully your curiosity will be satisfied. If not, sorry.)
I got tired of that as well, and somebody asked to have his picture taken with us. We readily agreed, of course, so a number of humans, with and without animal costumes, posed with us as others took pictures of us with them. This took quite a while too. By the time that slacked off, we heard the announcement that it was show time.
For once, we did not have to play a role. Performers in animal costumes played various songs and performed various acts, some quite amusing. The songs were mostly quite unlike the type of music we animal-people are accustomed to. (We are from another planet and our culture has evolved quite independently from yours, so what did you expect, dear reader?) But we politely tried to enjoy it.
Hours had passed since our arrival, and the manager from before told me and Sammy that food and drink had been prepared for us. So we were led to an enclosed area where we ate and drank and rested. We needed the relief, of course, but the day was far from over and we had to go back out. Not that I necessarily objected; despite all the strain I had been enjoying myself, and Sammy told me, "Wow! I wish I could have done this months ago!"
"You like all this? Really?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied. "Why? Don't you?"
"No, no, I'm enjoying this too. It's just so overwhelming, so much in a short time."
"You don't want to go back to PERC, do you?" Sammy asked worriedly.
If I had any inkling of what was going to happen later, I would have replied with a resounding yes, claiming that I had become ill, or using some other pretext. But I truly had been enjoying myself, dear reader, and wanted more. Besides, it beat going back to PERC and having to put up with Shithead. "No, I'm ready to go back out when you are."
To my shock, Sammy did not wait for my lead, but actually opened the door to the enclosure and went out on his own. He must really be enjoying this, I thought, and I followed him out. People I had not seen before were outside, and Sammy had already started hugging them, so of course I did the same. Not being overwhelmed like before, this time the hugs were more enjoyable. Some humans whom I knew I hugged before were coming back for more, but I hugged them anyway. That was what I was there for, after all. It was hard to remember that on our home world, we were just ordinary people.
Then there was the announcement that a dance floor had been set up. Of course we knew this ahead of time, so we were quite willing to dance with the humans, especially as it meant something new to do. So Sammy and I went to the dance floor, where some humans were grouped in a bunch. A dance tune played, and the humans moved around randomly, dancing but with no real pattern. Sammy and I did the same, but we felt ridiculous. While we made it a point to respect human customs, we simply disliked doing this sort of thing, and I decided to introduce to these humans a little more of our culture. We did not bring any of our native music to the convention, as we assumed that the humans would find it unpleasant and weird. But I figured we could reach a sort of cultural compromise, where we could show how we animal-people danced.
So after the song ended, I announced that what we wanted to do was to show how dancing was done on our world. The humans were happy to hear this, but I told them it was impossible to show our native dances without the proper music, as our dances had to synchronize with the beat of our songs. However, we could still show our dance moves and try to fit them with the beat of human songs. The humans liked that idea, this mixing of cultures, so I told everyone what to do.
I had them line up into two lines, I in the middle of one and Sammy in the middle of the other. We all joined hands and I demonstrated the various steps, stomps, skips, jumps, and how we would lean, bend, or raise or lower our joined hands at appropriate times in the music. Another move we performed was to face to one side or the other; hands still joined, and skip in a semicircle in the direction we faced. Since we could not follow the choreographed moves of our music, I would call out the moves as I felt were appropriate with the rhythms of whatever song was playing, making things up as I went along. I told them that this was not typical for dancing in our culture, that dances are usually previously learned and we were supposed to follow them to the letter. But, I reminded them, we were on Earth, this was our party, and our goal was to have fun and not to worry about rules. (I never anticipated that Sammy Skunk to take that idea to such an extreme later on!)
As I have said before, dear reader, it was a vacation day for Sammy but still a work day for me, so while I was having fun I also had to perform my duties as a sociologist as previously described. But I was in control of the dancing and how everyone would move. The next song played, and the dancers moved to my commands. I really enjoyed telling everybody what to do and have everyone gladly obey me. Rather like being in the military, but this was recreation, not war where people were maimed and killed! When the song finished, I said half-jokingly that the dancers might want to change their order so that new people would get the privilege of holding our hands. I was making fun of our celebrity status, but the humans took us seriously, and two new humans eagerly took my hands away from the two who had held them during the previous song. But after this song finished, they in turn had to surrender my hands to two other humans for the next dance.
This was my favorite part of the whole time, and when my voice was getting hoarse Sammy suggested that he might want to be the dance leader, and I agreed. To my shock, though, he took off his sandals and put them aside before he resumed dancing. I knew this was not abnormal among humans to do this when dancing, and I had been tempted to do this myself, but on our world, removing clothing in public, even your shoes, is considered bad manners, but I did not want to make a fuss and cause a scene. Also, Sammy was the sort of person who would not normally behave this way, but this was the human world, so I saw no point in complaining. Let Sammy lose some of his inhibitions, I told myself. I never anticipated he would lose so many of them...
We did more dances, and though energetic with excitement, the feelings of fatigue were creeping up on us, and someone asked if there were such things as couples' dances on our world. Before I could say anything, Sammy said yes and wanted to demonstrate. Again I did not want to fuss, but let Sammy do what he wanted. So we grouped into pairs and demonstrated the holding position, where we placed our hands beneath each other's armpits and touched the tips of our snouts to each other. Our snouts, of course, touched the snouts of the humans' costumes. We also demonstrated the more sedate steps of our couples' dances, and once this was done we performed some of these dances to soft romantic music, which was actually somewhat akin to the romantic pop music of our world. I felt odd dancing with other males-most of the dancers, and for that matter the humans at the furry convention, were males, and probably many of them were homosexual. But this was supposed to be recreation, not true romance.
Unfortunately, a couple of my partners tried to snuggle in closer-which was what we animal-people might do if we were developing close romantic feelings. Politely but firmly, I pushed them back to the proper position. These people looked disappointed but fortunately did not press the matter. I looked toward Sammy to see if he was having the same trouble-and to my shock he and a human in a wolf costume were actually hugging and snuggling closely with each other! If I had known what the two of them must have been thinking, I would have run up and grabbed Sammy and dragged him right out of the convention, no matter how much of a fuss it would have caused. I would have covered my act with the claim that we were summoned by PERC and had to go back to base because an emergency had cropped up and sorry we had to cut our visit short. But I assumed Sammy simply got carried away, so I temporarily broke with my partner and intervened between Sammy and the wolf-costumed human. One look at my face and the two of them backed away from each other looking embarrassed, and then resumed the proper position. Thinking that problem was taken care of, I rejoined my partner.
I did not care to do any more couples dancing anyway, especially in memory of my previously-described unhappy love life, so I announced that I wanted to go back to the earlier group dancing. Without demur, everyone did, and my discomfort over what happened between Sammy and the human in the wolf costume, who had left the dance floor anyway, went away. But some of the songs they played had a rhythm that made it awkward for us to synchronize our dancing to it, and we were really getting tired. Despite all the fun I was having, I was so sore and exhausted that after the last song, I shouted breathlessly that I was too exhausted to dance any more. In fact, I was about to collapse due to lack of energy, and the two humans who were hoping to hold my hands for the next dance ended up holding me up before I could fall to the floor. I asked them to carry me to the enclosure, too tired even to walk. I had been so busy having fun I had failed to realize how exhausted I was! I looked around, and to my amusement Sammy looked as exhausted as I was, and two humans were already carrying him toward the enclosure.
The humans took me to one door of the enclosure, which the manager, who was just inside, thoughtfully opened. The carried me in and lay me on a set of chairs linked together, and I was about to sit up and remove my sandals, this semi-private place a socially acceptable location to do so, but I found myself too weary even to sit up. As the manager was about to usher the others out, I told them about my problem, and the manager looked uncomfortable when the others volunteered to remove my sandals for me. I told them to go ahead, which they did, the manager looking rather upset as he watched us. Ah, it felt so good with my sandals off and my feet bare, and I flexed my toes. The humans stared at my feet as I did that, and I assumed them to be furry foot fetishists, but I was too exhausted to object if they were. In fact, I was even tempted to ask them for a foot massage, as I really wanted one and even if it sexually aroused these people I did not care, but one look at the manager told me that it would have been the height of folly on my part, so I thanked the humans, who told me they were willing to do anything for us animal-people. But the manager obviously wanted them out of the enclosure and I asked them to leave, which they did. The manager closed the door after them hurriedly and looked at me angrily before going off on some other matter.
I must have dozed off, because I felt myself being shaken, and I opened my eyes to see the manager, who asked me if I was feeling all right. I told him I was, and was even ready to come out among the crowd once more. I was still tired and sore, but not as badly as before, and even had the energy to sit up. Then the manager asked where Sammy was. I was surprised by the question, as I had automatically assumed he was in another section of the enclosure. But the manager said he was not, so I told him I would go find him. I put my sandals on and walked out.
There were some humans waiting outside for me, and one of them worriedly asked if I had fallen ill, so I gave them reassurances that I felt fine and let them hug me. Rather than start another hug session, I started to walk around and look for Sammy. When I could not spot him out in the open, I decided he was in one of the bathrooms, but I checked each one and he was not in any of them. I rechecked the entire enclosure but he was not there, either. I then decided to methodically search the whole section of the building where the furry convention was taking place, and I became annoyed and worried as I kept failing to find him. Where could Sammy have gone? I wondered. I assumed he would have not left the convention, but I was running out of places to look. I did not find the manager again, but it no longer mattered-I was worried of my own accord.
Occasionally there were people who wanted to hug me or have me photographed with them, and I obliged them each time, trying to hide my growing agitation. But when I could not locate Sammy on my own despite searching everywhere, I finally decided to ask the convention goers about him, trying to make my inquiries sound casual. Finally I met one human who introduced himself as "Frank" (I am of course omitting family names of the humans in this story,) and was wearing a minimal costume of fox ears and attached tail who wanted a hug and a photograph. Of course I obliged, but he somehow sensed my agitation, and looked concerned when I asked him about Sammy Skunk.
"He went out with Jim and his buddies earlier," Frank said.
"What?" I asked, not hiding my dismay.
"They left the convention through the front door some time ago," Frank continued, already realizing that something was wrong. "What's the matter?"
"Sammy wasn't supposed to leave here," I replied, deciding Frank was somebody I could trust. "He was supposed to have stayed at the convention until it was time for us to go back to PERC."
"I don't think Jim kidnapped him," Frank said quickly. "He probably took Sammy Skunk over to his apartment. It's not far away from here. I'll even take you there myself."
"Please do," I begged, too nervous and desperate to politely try to refuse as manners dictated. Frank wasted no time, but turned and walked toward the front entrance, and I followed close behind him. I was expecting security guards to be standing there waiting to accost me as I was about to walk through. But I saw nobody other than a bored-looking attendant behind a desk who was looking down, absorbed in some paperwork. We hesitated just for a moment before walking past. The attendant did not even glance up at us. So Sammy was able to just walk out of the convention, despite the tight security we had gone through to get in! I suppose Sammy and I were expected to voluntarily obey the rules; we were members of an elite scientific team and were expected to be totally responsible, but I could not believe that the humans would have such blind faith in us. Yet Frank and I were walking right out of the convention entrance, through a hallway and the lobby, through the front doors, and through a large parking lot toward where Frank's car was parked, and nobody said a word or tried to accost us, even though there were people who must have seen us. Certainly I could have not been mistaken for an animal-costumed human; our bodies are too different in shape, as I have described previously. Then again, I was already publicly known as a sociologist who routinely went out among human society, so nobody would see anything untoward in my openly walking through the convention center lobby. In Sammy Skunk's case, if he were walking surrounded by a crowd of humans, he probably would not have been seen by any witnesses, or those who did probably would have been unaware that Sammy was leaving the convention center without permission.
We reached a small sedan, which Frank unlocked. I climbed right into the passenger's seat, adjusting my tail so it would not be squashed too painfully. "I always wondered where you animal-people put your tails when you sit," Frank remarked.
"Our chairs have holes in the seat backs to accommodate them," I replied hurriedly. "But come on, let's get over to that apartment now, please!"
Frank sped out of the lot. We did not enter the highway, but instead went onto another road which took us to a neighboring town. In a surprisingly short time, we reached a street lined with apartment buildings, and Frank found a parking space and pulled in. We got out of the car, and Frank led me to one of the buildings, went into the vestibule, and pressed a doorbell button. We waited nervously, but nobody answered. Then I pressed the button. Frank and I alternated pressing the button until after what seemed an eternity, we finally got an answer. "Who is it?"
"Jim, it's me, Frank," Frank replied. "For God's sake, hurry up and let us in!"
A buzzer sounded, we pushed the inner door open, and we rushed up the stairs and down the hallway. Frank stopped at a door and knocked rapidly on it. Almost immediately it opened-and I was greeted by the sight of the same human in the same wolf costume who had been dancing too closely with Sammy Skunk earlier. Frank and I pushed our way inside and shut the door behind us.
Jim looked at me and gaped, whether at my unexpected presence in his apartment, or my obvious look of worry and anger, or both, but before he could react further I demanded, "Sammy Skunk, is he here in this apartment? You brought him here, didn't you?"
"Uh, yes I did." Jim replied, evidently realizing that there was trouble...serious trouble.
"Bring him to me this instant," I pressed on. "And I mean this very instant. I don't care if he's on the toilet, grab him and bring him over here now!"
Without demur, Jim headed to the rear of the apartment, where I could vaguely see a group of other humans wearing a variety of animal costumes. Frank and I waited in the parlor section of the apartment, which was filled with a large number of stuffed animals and other animal-related decorations...but what caught my eye was an all-too-familiar pile of light blue and pink fabric with crosshatch patterns, next to which was a pair of sandals.
Oh no, I thought as my worst fears were realized and an icy sensation of despair leached into my bowels. No, no, no, no, no!
Jim came back with Sammy, surrounded by the fursuited human guests. I paid them no heed as I looked at Sammy, completely naked and cowering with fear and guilt. What Sammy had been doing was as obvious as his ruffled fur, moistened in many places, the contrasting red of his half-erect, hook-shaped penis poking out between his legs, the milky-white fluid speckling his face and groin regions, as well as dripping out of his mouth...
The sight was just too much, especially in my already miserable state, and I burst out in a paroxysm of hysterical laughter. I thought I heard some of the humans feebly attempt to join in, but I was clearly not laughing out of happiness, and Sammy of course was aware of this, for when I finally managed to stop laughing and looked at him again, he was cowering and shivering as if expecting me to slug him. There was a long uneasy silence before I said the first thing that came to my mind, "Go and get yourselves cleaned up. Now!"
The humans looked confused, but Sammy immediately ran back towards the rear of the apartment, followed by Jim. The others looked after them, and then turned back toward me uncertainly. I was about to tell them to get themselves cleaned up as well, when I remembered that I was in no position to give them orders. Sammy Skunk's presence in the apartment was unauthorized-but so was mine. I had no legal authority to seize Sammy and remove him from the apartment; the humans could throw me out and tell me to go fuck myself if they wanted to. Upset as I was, I knew I had to be diplomatic with them.
"Uh, forgive me for barging in here like this," I began, but a raccoon-costumed man walked up toward me, extending his hand in greeting.
"Oh, that's okay," he said, "I'm Jack. You animal-people are welcome to see us anytime-"
He reached out to shake my hand, but I cut him short by raising my hands and holding them above my shoulders. "Please!" I said with an edge to my voice that made him step back. Just then, I heard the sound of the shower in the bathroom running. "I'm sorry, but this is not a social call. You see, I'm here because Sammy Skunk had turned up missing at the furry convention, and I had to locate him." I indicated Frank and continued, "Fortunately, this gentleman was kind enough to inform me that Sammy was brought to this apartment, and even more kindly gave me a lift here. I was hoping to find Sammy before he got into any serious trouble. Unfortunately, it seems that I was too late."
A man in a rabbit costume quickly spoke up. "I know what you're thinking," he babbled nervously. "But we didn't rape him. We all had sex with him, yes, but it was what he wanted, I swear to God!"
"Really, we didn't force the skunk, I mean the skunk-person, to do anything," piped in Jack. "We didn't strong-arm him or get him drunk or blackmail him or anything like that. Everything he did with us, he chose to do of his own free will. We never would have tried to have sex with him if he didn't want it!"
Actually, the idea did not even occur to me until they brought it up that Sammy Skunk might have been raped rather than a willing participant in whatever sexual activities had been going on in this apartment. I mulled over the possibility, but dismissed it soon afterward based on several observations. One, Sammy's clothes had been placed into a neat pile; there was no sign that they had been pulled off by force. Two, Sammy may have been a weak character, but in order to join the PERC team, he had to learn basic self-defense, and I knew for a fact that while he was only a passable fighter, he would have been capable of fighting off any unskilled attackers long enough to make his escape. None of the humans here struck me as being very strong, let alone trained fighters, and Sammy would have certainly been able to force his way out of the apartment. Three, common sense dictated that if Jim had intended to rape Sammy Skunk, or do any other harm to him, the last thing he would have done was let any unknown visitors into his apartment, let alone another animal-person who would hardly be pleased at one of his own kind being abused by a human. And when Jim first saw me, he looked surprised, but not hostile or fearful as he certainly would have if Sammy Skunk were indeed being harmed. And when I demanded Jim to bring Sammy over to my presence, he did so immediately, without the slightest hesitation or resistance, not even pausing to clean the obvious signs of sexual activity off of Sammy's body-hardly what a rapist would do. Most telling of all, however, was the fact that when Sammy came up to me, he looked frightened of me, not the humans. I was convinced that the humans were telling the truth and Sammy had not been forced to do anything against his will here. Nonetheless, my reply to them was, "When Sammy comes back, we'll see what he has to say, shall we?"
The sound of the water running stopped, and after a period of tense silence, presumably during which Sammy and Jim were toweling them off, I heard the whine of a hair dryer running, but decided that I had waited long enough, and walked over to the bathroom. Sure enough, I saw Jim, naked and freshly washed and dried, using the hair dryer on Sammy, who was also freshly bathed, and they looked up at me. "If you don't mind," I told them, "we really don't have time for that."
"Sorry," replied Jim, who shut off the hair dryer and put it away. Sammy looked at me nervously.
I decided to lay my cards on the table. "Technically, Jim, I am not here officially, and if you wish, you may throw me out of this apartment any time you like. In fact, I am supposed to be at the furry convention and I shouldn't be here at all." I indicated Sammy Skunk and added sardonically, "And the same goes for this particular skunk-person. Yet here he is. Perhaps you can explain how he happened to wind up here?"
"I, um..." Jim looked toward a bathrobe which was hanging on the wall.
"Why don't you put that on and we can talk in the parlor?" I suggested. "If you please."
Jim took the bathrobe and put it on, and the three of us went into the parlor, where the other humans were still waiting uneasily.
"I'm sorry to keep you all waiting," I told them airily. "But let's get down to business now. First off, there is the matter of the presence of Sammy Skunk in this apartment when he was never supposed to leave the premises of the convention center in the first place."
"We didn't kidnap him!" Jim blurted out. "We invited him to come to my apartment, and he agreed!"
"Yes, I gathered as much," I replied. "If I had thought he was taken from the convention by force, I would have notified the appropriate authorities instead of coming here on my own. This apartment building would have been surrounded by police, and possibly the National Guard as well. It would have been a very messy and unpleasant situation." I let that sink in before adding, "But in truth this is already a messy and unpleasant situation anyway. I have noticed some very strong evidence that Sammy Skunk has engaged in-ahem!-certain activities that a member of the Planet Earth Research Center is emphatically not supposed to perform. In fact, it was specifically spelled out in his contract that he signed when he joined our team."
"All right, all right!" Sammy spoke for the first time since I arrived. "I confess everything! I knowingly and deliberately violated PERC rules by leaving the furry convention and coming to this apartment without authorization. Furthermore, I committed the far worse violation of having sexual intercourse with each and every human in this apartment. Yes, everyone here has tasted my semen, and I have swallowed theirs. And I also had mutual anal intercourse with Jim. He even licked the rim of my anus!"
I never thought of myself as being squeamish, considering the weird things I have seen as a sociologist (even before I ever visited the planet Earth,) but the last part of the confession was too much for me, and I abruptly got nauseous. (My sincerest and deepest apologies for telling you that part, dear reader, but I had no choice.) I covered my mouth with my hand and staggered until I was leaning against a wall. Jim went up to me and put his hands on my arm. "Uh, let me lead you back to the bathroom," he said.
I shook my head, and straightened after I recovered from my nausea. I looked at Sammy, who cringed in deep embarrassment. "I was shocked he did that too," he squeaked.
"Indeed," I replied. "You must have made a much better sex toy than they ever would have imagined."
"Sex toy?" Sammy replied.
"Yes, sex toy." I glared at the humans. "That's all Sammy was to you, wasn't he? A nice ball of fur you could stick your penises into. You went up to him at the convention, flattered him and made him think you were his friends, somehow enticed him against his better judgment to go with you to this apartment, and with a little more flattery managed to seduce him. You profess to have the highest respect for our people, but that didn't stop you from taking advantage of one of us. You people make me sick!"
The humans looked back at me with such expressions of hurt at my words that despite the situation, my anger faded quickly and I felt vaguely guilty, as though I had severely punished a group of children who had no understanding of what they had done wrong. Did these humans really fail to comprehend the implications of what they had done? But before I could say or do anything further, Jim grabbed me by the front of my tunic, a look of wild desperation in his face. "No, that's not true, you're totally wrong!" he gabbled. "I know you think we brought Sammy here for sex, especially after the way we danced so close together at the convention, but that wasn't our intention at all, I swear it! I just wanted a real live animal-person to visit my apartment. I wanted to tell all my friends that I had hosted a real skunk-person, and we all had fun together-no, not that kind of fun, just talking, playing games, acting silly, that sort of thing." He produced a disposable camera and added, "I took a whole roll of pictures of us with Sammy Skunk, and I had hoped for everyone in the furry community to see them. But I guess that won't be the case now."
"And the sex just happened." I replied dryly.
"Yes, but I swear that I never expected that sort of thing to happen, honestly!" Sullenly, he continued, "Yes, I know it sounds hard to believe that I brought Sammy Skunk here with totally innocent intentions in mind and we wound up having a wild sex party, but that's exactly what did happen. And yes, I admit that I did subconsciously fantasize about having sex with him, as everyone else here undoubtedly did. What furry wouldn't? But never in my wildest dreams would I have anticipated that I'd be doing it for real-certainly not here and now.
"What happened was...well, how do I explain this? For an hour, we made small talk, played a few card games, and I showed him my collection of 'furry stuff,' pictures, artwork, plushies, stories, and all that. Then Sammy told us we'd better get back to the convention, so we all went up and hugged him goodbye. We were only going to hug him for a minute and let him go, but...it just felt so good hugging him. Not only because of all that nice, thick fluffy fur, but because we knew we might never be this close to him again, and we liked him and wished we could have him stay with us forever. I mean, we liked him as a person, not simply because he had fur and a tail and a cold, wet nose. And he seemed to be enjoying all our hugging. Eventually he did tell us to release him, and reluctantly we did. Then-and we couldn't believe this-he actually unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. Then he told us we could feel more of his fur that way. We were wondering if it was some sort of joke, but we went ahead and hugged him again. And he looked so happy when he had our arms around him and were running our fingers through his fur!"
I looked at Sammy and he replied quickly, "Everything he says is true, and no, I wasn't thinking about sex either. You yourself told me I was supposed to let the humans hug and cuddle me as much as they wanted."
"That didn't mean take your clothes off for them!" I shot back.
"I didn't see any harm in taking off my tunic, since I knew it was okay among human males to go topless. I wasn't expecting anyone to try to hit up upon me, even if they wanted to." He paused and added, "But somebody did stick his hand through the waistband of my trousers and started groping around my genitals. I should have objected then, but it felt so good I couldn't bring myself to complain."
Everyone turned and looked at Jack, who cringed. "You did that?" I asked.
"Yes," he squeaked back.
"Was that an appropriate way to behave towards a house guest?" I asked sardonically.
"No! I..." Jack blushed and cringed further. "I was rubbing his belly, and before I knew it, my hand was under his waistband, feeling his genitals. Honest, I didn't consciously intend to do it, it just happened. I know, my explanation sounds absolutely phony, but I swear to God I wasn't planning to get a cheap feel off him. In fact, when I realized my hand was there, my first thought was that oh no, now I ruined everything between us!"
"I wasn't expecting anybody to do that either," piped in Jim. "And when I saw Jack's hand in there, I was shocked, embarrassed, and outraged that one of my friends would have done that to one of you animal-people, especially one who was so kind about letting us hug him. I was ready to kick Jack out of my apartment and tell him that I never wanted to see him again!"
"He would have," added Sammy. "I knew he would have. But..." Now it was Sammy's turn to cringe. "I said no. I should have been offended and outraged, but instead...well, it actually felt wonderful having that hand in there, feeling my genitals. I couldn't believe it myself, but I just felt like it was what I wanted all my life. I told Jack to continue rubbing me. He just stood there, gaping at me as if he couldn't believe what I just said, and the other humans were looking at me the same way. Then I started to wonder what I was thinking, and I was about to grab my tunic and put it back on when Jack started to rub me again." Sammy paused, and then continued, "I knew even then that I wasn't supposed to be allowing that to happen, that I should have told Jack to stop that and let's get back to the convention without further ado, but I was just enjoying it too much to listen to the voice of reason. Then I decided to pull down my trousers and briefs so they wouldn't get messy when I ejaculated."
At that, dear reader, it was a wonder that my own trousers and briefs did not get messy, albeit in a different manner. Sammy must have been reading my mind, as he added quickly, "Yes, I knew even then that what I was doing was absolutely beyond all propriety, that it was madness, but I couldn't stop myself any more than I could stop an avalanche. All the humans were staring at my penis, and they were evidently all fascinated that it looked so different from their kind." (For the record, dear reader, we animal-people have genitals very similar to those of our lower-animal counterparts. For skunks and similar animals, the erect penis consists of a straight shaft with a hook on the end that curls underneath. It is uncertain what exact function the hook is supposed to serve, as the urethra output is located at the front of the penis.) "Jack held it and stared at it, and played with my hook. He didn't seem sure what to do, so I told him to just keep rubbing the whole thing, hook and all, which he did. I looked at these humans and their faces were all lit up with pleasure, and I was overcome with happiness too. I felt like I was in paradise! As Jack kept rubbing me, the others were staring at me in rapture. Then I suggested that maybe everyone else wants to have a feel too. Of course they did, and Jack moved his hand away, letting the others have their go.
"When the pre cum started to ooze out, everyone flicked a sample off my penis with their fingers and licked it off. And when I was about to actually cum, I told them that I wanted everyone to have a taste of it. They enthusiastically agreed, and Jim cupped his hands in front of my penis and caught my semen as the others stroked me off. When I stopped ejaculating, Jim knelt down and started to clean my penis with his tongue, and of course all the others took their turns doing the same. Oh, I can't describe how good it felt."
"And I can't describe how miserable this is making me feel," I replied.
"Don't knock it until you've tried it," broke in Jack, but I gave him a look which reminded him of the predicament we were all in, and he shut up. I turned back to Sammy. "Go on, you might as well tell me the rest of the story, and don't spare me any of the details."
Sammy began hesitantly. "Well, Jim somehow managed to keep the pool of semen cupped in his hands, and he held them out for everyone else to lick, and they all did, Jim warning them not to eat too much of it and deprive anyone of their share. When the humans finished, there was still a little bit left over, and I licked up the rest of it." When he saw my expression, Sammy added defensively, "Come on, how could I not do that after I told everyone else to do so? Besides, when I was an adolescent, I once tasted it myself out of curiosity. Haven't you ever done that?"
"No, certainly not!" I replied.
Sammy smiled mischievously at me. "You sure about that?"
I gave him a look. "I most definitely have never, ever tasted my own semen. Yes, I masturbated a lot when I hit puberty like everybody else, but I never had the desire to put any of it into my mouth. Once I came, all I wanted to do was clean up and get rid of the stuff." I looked back at the humans, who looked rather embarrassed. I told them, "I don't normally talk about my sex life like this, folks, but under the circumstances it seems silly not to. And by the way, I've never had gay sex in my entire life and I have no desire whatsoever to have any, so if you have any fantasies about banging me, you might as well forget them. Sorry."
"Excuse me," said a man dressed as a domestic cat, "but I've noticed that cats and dogs often suck themselves off, and, uh, they're not necessarily gay."
"I'm not a four-legged fox," I told him. "We're animal-people, not animals, and we make it a point not to act too much like our lower animal counterparts. I don't steal chickens out of henhouses, either." Under other circumstances, this might have been funny, but I was in no laughing mood.
"So tell me," I said to Sammy, abruptly bringing back the conversation to the original topic, "once all these humans ate up your semen, then what happened?"
"Oh! I was thinking, wow, what a way to lose my virginity!" Surprised looks appeared upon the humans' faces. "Yes, really, I never had sex with anyone until now. You are all my first ever sexual partners!" He glanced at me and realized that if he went on any further in this vein, these humans would be his last ever sexual partners. "Uh, I was also thinking of the fact that at PERC, I'm just a lowly number-cruncher whom nobody much likes, but here among these humans, I'm a celebrity. They worship and adore me. They all wanted to suck my penis, and considered it a great honor when I let them do so! I can't describe how wonderful that made me feel. Of course, I wanted to pay them back for all the joy they gave me. I wanted to pleasure them as they did me. I wanted to suck their penises and swallow their cum. I told these humans this and that I didn't want to be an idol to be put upon a pedestal and worshipped, I wanted to be their friend, to be regarded as one of them. Oh, how happy these humans were when I said this! They all threw themselves upon me and showered me with hugs and kisses. Eventually they let go of me and I knelt down and asked Jim to stand in front of me. He had already opened the fly of his wolf costume, and I saw his erect penis. I remembered what I studied previously about human anatomy, of course, and I remembered the illustrations and descriptions of human genitalia. But seeing an actual human penis right in front of me was a shock! Same color as the rest of his skin, no sheath covering of any sort, no bone inside like ours...I played with it in fascination, then he got harder and I rubbed it the way Jack originally rubbed me." Sammy smiled sheepishly. "He was more aroused then I realized, for it was almost immediately afterward that he ejaculated, and I got a squirt of his semen right in my face! Of course, I very quickly clamped my mouth over his penis, and the rest of his cum squirted into my mouth, and I swallowed every drop of it."
"How did it taste?" I could not resist asking, though I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth. Sammy seemed surprised but not offended at my question.
"It was not unpleasant," he replied as if I had asked him a routine question. "It tasted different from mine, of course. It was sweetish with an almost salty tang to it. It was also more liquid than I anticipated. I can't compare it to anything else I've ever tasted, food or medicine. The flavor was unique...and of course I wanted to try everyone else's. I turned around and saw the other humans jostling for position in front of me, so I told them to be patient and wait their turns, for I would definitely fellate each and every one of them. And I did. Needless to say, each human had his own distinct flavor of semen, which made the experience all the more pleasant. My stomach was feeling full once I finished, but it was a good kind of full."
"No, it wasn't," I replied.
Suddenly looking embarrassed, Sammy added, "Of course by then, I was completely lost in a world of my own and I had forgotten all about the furry convention and the fact that I wasn't supposed to be here and certainly not supposed to be doing any of this. All I could think about was that I wanted to have it up my anus as well. Though my genitals were sore, I felt that maybe I could manage one more ejaculation. I couldn't do everyone in the room, of course, but I could do one, and I already had one human in mind." Sammy turned and looked at Jim dreamily-and Jim looked back at him the same way. The other humans looked at them, some joyously, some sadly, and Jack looked envious.
"He became more than a sex friend to you, in other words," I replied sardonically.
"Yes, something just passed between us," Sammy said emotionally. "I mean, I-I..." Lost for words, Sammy went right up to Jim, and they embraced warmly. They were about to start kissing when I decided enough was enough and pulled them apart, Jack stepping in to help.
"So tell me," I continued, "did it hurt?"
"Oh, uh..." Sammy was momentarily confused before he realized what I meant. "Well, when I told Jim what I wanted to do, we all decided to move into the bedroom to make the task more comfortable. Once there, Jim went to a dresser and got a tube of lubricant, then squeezed some out and applied it to my penis. It felt cold at first, but when Jim rubbed it all over my penis it got warm pretty quickly. My genitals were aching slightly, and I wondered if I could manage another erection after all, but sure enough I did. Then Jim climbed onto the bed and went on his hands and knees, his buttocks facing me. As I went behind him, somebody asked if the hook part of my penis might get caught inside Jim's anus. Then I hesitated for a moment, thinking it might well be a danger, before Jim told me that he's taken much larger penises than mine in there-no offense intended toward me, of course-and that he was positive that my being caught in him would be very unlikely. So I decided to go ahead-if I did get caught after all, I was sure everyone else would assist in getting me unstuck.
"Then I knelt on the bed behind him, put one hand on his back to support myself, and used the other hand to direct my penis toward his anal hole. After a bit of maneuvering, I found my target and slowly pushed my way inside. Jim moaned, and I got anxious and asked him if the hook part of my penis was hurting him, but he replied that the hook was rubbing against his prostrate, and that it actually added to his pleasure in a way that the human penises which had previously entered him never did.
"I moved back and forth, thrilled by what I was doing. This was the first time I ever fucked anyone, and my partner wasn't some prostitute doing it for the money, but someone whom I knew liked and even loved me and considered my doing this to him to be a great honor. This knowledge excited me more than the actual sex ever could, and I didn't care that my first sexual experience was with a male rather than a female, with a human on an alien planet rather than with one of my own kind, that I didn't even know my partner's full name, let alone anything else about him, that it was the culmination of a sex romp with a group of humans I barely met, and who were watching what we were doing. I just wanted to keep pushing myself in and out of him, to shoot my cum into him, and pull out afterwards and have him do the same to me.
"And that's exactly what I did. After I ejaculated into him and pulled my penis out, he remained on his hands and knees, looking so happy. 'Thank you,' Jim said, and I told him, 'Hey, it's your turn to do me.'
"Jim got off the bed and I knelt down in his place. He asked me if I had done this sort of thing before and I told him no. Jim told me then that it might be very painful and uncomfortable to somebody who has never experienced it before. I said I didn't care how painful it would be, that I wanted to go through with it if it killed me." Oh dear reader, how I wish that it had!
"I assumed that he was just going to stick his penis up my anus, like I did with him. But no, I felt something soft and wet rubbing the rim of my anus. I asked him what was going on, and he said he was 'rimming' me, meaning he was licking the ring of my anal hole with his tongue!"
I winced again, though I managed not to become nauseous. Jim hastily interjected, "I don't normally do that sort of thing, but this was Sammy's first time, and I wanted to relax and please him as much as I possibly could. Besides, Sammy had become so special to me!" I thought to myself that if I ever had sex again, it would strictly be with ordinary partners.
After an awkward pause, Sammy continued, "I must admit I felt rather embarrassed that he was doing this to me, but I didn't want to object and hurt his feelings-and it felt so wonderful! I even had another erection, though I knew I wasn't going to be able to cum again. Not that it mattered. Eventually he stopped, and I expected him to then insert his penis-but instead he told me he was going to loosen me up by using his fingers first. So I felt one being slid into my anus and moved back and forth-he lubricated it first, of course-and though the sensation was initially uncomfortable and painful despite his having rimmed me, once he got underway the discomfort disappeared and I was starting to enjoy it. But then he pulled out and stuck two fingers inside-he told me this-and again it felt initially uncomfortable and then enjoyable. And afterward he did it with three fingers, and I was thinking that his penis couldn't possibly be that large!" Scattered laughter erupted from the humans in the room, and Jim gave Sammy a look. "But I wasn't going to spoil the moment by making objections. Like I said, I wanted him to fuck me in the anus and I didn't care how it felt as long as he did it. After all, I did that to him and he was able to stand it, so why couldn't I?
"Eventually he stopped, and finally I felt his penis touch my anal hole and start to go inside. It turned out his penis was that large after all!" The humans, this time including Jim, laughed again. "It also turned out to be more uncomfortable and painful than I anticipated, but I avoided crying out because I didn't want to scare Jim into backing off. It hurt and it seemed to take forever before he managed to penetrate all the way, but once he was there I began to relax. The sensation of Jim's penis up my anus felt strange and uncomfortable, but I was feeling happy at having gone ahead with it, and when he started pushing back and forth, the pain decreased as I felt the joy of the fact that I had thrown off the last inhibition and was actually being fucked, and fucked by Jim, the human male I had fallen in love with against all convention!
"He pumped back and forth until finally I felt his cum shoot into my anus. We waited until we had calmed down before he finally pulled out, and my anus felt sore, but I felt very happy and I thought, 'I did it! I really did it!'" Sammy suddenly became sullen. "And shortly afterward there was a knock on the door. At that moment the realization that I was supposed to be at the furry convention and that I wasn't supposed to be here and that I certainly wasn't supposed to have had sex with all these humans came rushing in like a tidal wave, and I desperately hoped it wasn't anyone looking for me. Jim ran to the bathroom to clean himself up and answered the door. When Jim came back and told me it was you, we all realized there was no concealing of what we had done, and the words 'I really did it!' took on a new meaning. When I heard you insist that you wanted to see me that very moment, I figured you knew already what was going on, so I didn't even bother to clean myself up."
"What if I hadn't arrived when I did?" I asked. "Did you hope that you could somehow sneak back into the furry convention without anybody knowing? Or that, if I had found out about your visit to this apartment, you could have kept secret the part about the sex party?"
"Yes, I was thinking that," Sammy admitted. "But that doesn't matter now. For all I know, you might have done some sampling of illicit pleasures yourself when you went out among the humans."
I stood there in stunned silence for a moment before laughing humorlessly. "This is a joke, right? Did you think I was kidding when I said earlier that as aliens to this planet, we have no rights and that the Earth natives could vivisect us alive if they so chose? Did you think the Director was kidding in his warnings to you before we went to the furry convention? I mean, you were chosen among a pool of dozens of candidates to be allowed to come to Earth, you learned what we knew of the language and culture of its inhabitants, you were told repeatedly that we were all going to an alien planet and that potentially, it might be a one-way trip and we could all be wiped out, that whatever we did could affect the entire future of both our worlds..." I paused to catch my breath, "And you, Sammy, by leaving the convention like you did and especially doing that with the natives...I mean, this is beyond stupidity, this is insanity! Why..." I broke off as a thought occurred to me. I turned to Jim and asked, "Were any alcohol or drugs served here?"
"No, certainly not!" Jim replied. "I don't drink and I definitely don't use drugs. I was alcoholic years ago, and since that time I don't even allow anyone to bring booze near me."
And before I could ask, Sammy said, "No, I haven't had anything to eat or drink, not even water, since the time the two of us had the meal at the convention." Sammy paused and continued, "And no, I haven't been using any drugs, either. Unless somebody somehow doped me with some sort of contact drug."
I looked around at the humans, but none of them showed any indication of guilt. Finally, a man dressed up as a beaver said, "Mister Fox, I'm a chemist at a major pharmaceutical company, and I have never heard of any sort of chemical or drug that could suddenly cause a person or animal to be suddenly overcome by sexual lust against his or her will. Oh, there are people who might lose their sexual inhibitions after getting high on drugs or alcohol of course, but as far as any sort of 'love potion' that could artificially cause somebody to fall in love with someone else, or make someone irrationally overcome with sexual desire-well, as far as I know, there's no such thing in real life."
I looked closely at Sammy, but found nothing in his eyes, face, or body movements to indicate that he was under the influence of drugs of any sort. "Well, Sammy's going to have to be tested for drugs anyway, but I'll take your word that he wasn't doped by you or anybody else," I told the humans. "But if you didn't dope Sammy Skunk, what did you people do? I mean, Sammy's not some dumb tourist; he's a highly-trained scientist who knows perfectly well that he's on a mission to an alien planet and that whatever he does has far-reaching consequences. And yet he..." I paused and continued, "What did you humans do to him? How could you convince a highly-trained scientist to just abandon all sense of responsibility just to engage in some illicit pleasure with you? How did you even talk him into leaving the furry convention in the first place, when he knew perfectly well he was supposed to stay there until he went with me back to the PERC base?" When the humans failed to realize that I was expecting them to answer my questions, I added, "Well?"
"Look," Jim began, "we had no idea that we would have caused so much trouble-"
"But Sammy did!" I shot back.
"All we did," Jim began awkwardly, "we all went up to Sammy when he was flopped down in a chair, exhausted from all the dancing earlier, and we were congratulating him, and we got to talking, and we asked him what he thought of Earth and us humans, and we were flattered when he said how nice the humans were to him, which was much better than he had expected, that he loved all the hugs and kisses and attention, something he never got much of back among his own kind, and he wanted to know about us, and when I told him about our being furries and about my furry collection, he expressed interest in seeing it, but he wasn't allowed to leave the convention, and I told him I lived close by, so he decided if we could sneak out he'd be happy to visit my place, that if he were caught the Director of PERC would get angry at him, but the Director is an asshole who's always angry at everybody anyway, that he was willing to make a quick visit, and warned us that if we had bad intentions and tried to do anything, he was well-trained to defend himself, but he saw no indication that we were bad people, so he said let's sneak out. And the guy at the front entrance didn't even look at us! So we got into my van and came here. Like I said before, we only intended it to be an innocent fun visit, but...well; you know the rest of the story."
I turned to Sammy, and he added, "Yes, I knew full well I was abusing my guest privileges and violating PERC regulations by leaving the convention with these humans, but I never anticipated that it would be anything more than a harmless visit to a human apartment and that I would likely not even be missed by you or anybody else while I was gone. Or if you did find out, the worst I'd face is being yelled at by the Director-as if he doesn't already find some pretext to yell at us whenever he feels like it! But really, all I wanted was to see a bit of the human world. I never even remotely dreamed that I would ever..." Sammy looked regretfully at the humans. "Please don't take this the wrong way, people, but I never should have come here with you. I should have stayed at the furry convention like I was supposed to. But I did the wrong thing in deliberately and willfully violating my contract and the trust of my colleagues by making this unauthorized trip to this apartment in the first place and furthermore by having had sex with all of you."
The humans cringed, but Sammy hastily added, "Oh, please don't get the idea that I'm ashamed of having had you as sex partners. Really, I'm not. If it weren't for the fact that doing so violated my contract, I wouldn't have regretted what we've done one iota, and I'd happily do it all with you again and again." Sammy smiled as the humans' heads perked back up, surprise and relief on their faces. Sammy did not look at my face, which was just as well. "I don't feel I've denigrated myself by having had sex with you, and even if I have, I don't care. It doesn't bother me that you're also males, or that you're an alien people to me. I'm not some sanctimonious sexual moralist who feels that being so intimate with you is beneath my dignity. We're all sentient beings who are all basically the same inside, even if we do come from different planets, and that's all that matters to me." The smile disappeared from Sammy's face. "But what also matters is the fact that what we've done will bring grief upon myself, you, my colleagues, and possibly both my planet and yours."
Jim ran up and grabbed both my wrist and Sammy's. To me he said, "I'm the one to blame for all this! I talked Sammy Skunk into coming here. I allowed him to get sexually aroused when I should have defused the situation. I encouraged the lot of us to have a wild sex party with him without thinking of the consequences. I failed to realize that he might get into serious trouble because of what we've done. Yes, I know, we were all very stupid. We thought with our hormones and not with our brains." Jim paused, and then added, "I know you thought that we were exploiting Sammy for our sexual desires, but that wasn't it. We wanted to make Sammy happy. We would have done anything he wanted to please him. But we never would have allowed him to have sex with us, no matter how much he wanted it, had we known it would bring such horrible consequences upon him!"
"No, Jim, the fault was mine," replied Sammy. "I could have refused to come with you, but I didn't. I wanted to see the inside of a human dwelling for myself. I wanted to be able to meet privately with humans on my own, without everyone at PERC breathing down my neck. I knew I could have been walking into danger, but I could have defended myself, and you people had given me every sign of having innocent intentions. I knew that I was violating PERC regulations, but I stupidly believed that no real harm would come of it. I figured it was probably going to be my first and last time out among the humans anyway, so why not?" Sammy paused and continued, "And I probably would have only received a reprimand for my unauthorized visit here if we hadn't had the sex party. And that wouldn't have occurred if I hadn't pulled down my pants and asked to be stroked off. You humans didn't know any better, and I did."
"Of course they didn't," I broke in, then I said to everybody else in the room, "No, you humans didn't know any better. I originally thought you were maliciously exploiting this skunk-person, but now I understand the truth, and I apologize for my earlier accusation." The humans looked much relieved. "But while Sammy Skunk is mostly to blame for being so irresponsible, I'm afraid that you humans are not without fault for this mess." I turned to Frank. "Except for you, who did not participate in this folly, and in fact voluntarily helped me find Sammy Skunk in the vain hope of locating him before he got into trouble. Unfortunately, we were too late, but all the same, I owe you my most heartfelt thanks."
I turned back to the others. "You humans call yourselves 'furries,' wear animal costumes, consider yourselves some type of animal underneath, perhaps wish you were really animal-people like myself. This is fine with me. In fact, in a way it's flattering to me for you humans to want to be like us. But let me ask you people something. Do you wear these animal costumes to work? To see the doctor? To go to the grocery store? Well, do you?"
"Uh, no," Jim replied.
"Of course not. Essentially you adopt these animal personas for recreation, right? You're wolves, foxes, rabbits, raccoons, or whatever during your spare time." I pointed to the beaver-costumed man who had spoken earlier and asked him, "Do you dress up like a beaver while you're working at your pharmaceutical company?"
"No," he answered sullenly. "I'd be laughed at and called a weirdo."
"Exactly!" Abruptly I grabbed Sammy Skunk by the ear and yanked it, deliberately causing him to yelp in pain and stumble. As the humans looked at me in shock, I continued, "But this is not a skunk costume, folks. This is Sammy's real ear."
"Yeah, and that hurt!" Sammy broke in angrily. "You're lucky you didn't cause me to spray!"
Abruptly I smiled and said, "Yes, folks, we animal-people do retain some of the characteristics of our lower animal counterparts." My smile vanished just as abruptly. "I realize what I just did to Sammy was not nice, but it was necessary to illustrate my point. You see, our fur and ears and tails are not costumes to be taken off when playtime is over. We're not cartoon characters or fantasy drawings that have wandered off the page. We're not projections of your furry fantasies. We're real. We are real scientists who are part of a real scientific research team from a real alien planet." I spoke a phrase in my native language, and was amused to see the shock on the humans' faces. "Sounds weird to you, doesn't it? But this is my native language, Earthlings. It's what I grew up and lived my life speaking every day. All I said was, 'Hello, my name is...'" I spoke my real name again. "That's my real name, folks. 'Walter Fox' is just a name I adopted that you humans can speak in your language. And Sammy Skunk's real name is..." I spoke his real name. "Weird, huh? Well, guess how your human languages sound to us." I indicated my clothes. "And this isn't a costume, this is everyday clothing. These are as ordinary to us as shirts and slacks are to you humans. And everything else about us is different. Our culture, our laws, our numeric system, our weights and measures, our calendar...everything you humans consider familiar is entirely new and exotic to us animal-people, and it wasn't easy for us to learn what we did. I know you humans have a difficult time thinking of us as an alien people and not as cartoon animals, but the truth is that we are the former and not the latter.
"And all these regulations that Sammy violated by coming here and having sex with all of you weren't silly little rules meant to prevent us from having fun. They were designed for the mutual protection of you Earthlings and us animal-people. When our planets first made interstellar contact, we didn't know what was going to happen next, and neither did you humans. Neither you nor we knew anything about the other's world. For all we knew, one planet could be carrying some sort of virulent disease that could wipe out all life on the other, and vice-versa. Consequently, we had to find out all we possibly could about your planet, as you had to do with ours, which is not easy when you have merely three hours per year to be able to travel from one planet to another.
"And this is what PERC, or Planet Earth Research Center, is all about. We're a scientific research team whose goal is to find out all that we possibly can about your planet: your geology, your weather, your life forms, your society, everything. Each and every one of us at PERC has had to go through a rigorous screening process to ensure that we can cope with going to an alien planet and survive physically and mentally. And I mean rigorous. For one thing, we had the idea drilled into our heads that by coming to this planet, there was the distinct possibility that we might never return home. Some sort of catastrophe might happen during our transition from one planet to another, or we might encounter some sort of disease or poison which would wipe us all out, or you humans might find some reason to become hostile and slaughter us.
"So far, we've been lucky in all these aspects. We haven't yet found a disease on your planet that could conceivably threaten our planet, and presumably we have nothing to threaten yours. We managed to use the portal between our planets safely, and none of us have suffered ill effects from going through it. And as far as how you Earthlings react to us, you think we're cute because we resemble the lower animals of your world and remind you of your childhood entertainment. This is nice in the sense that our kind does not provoke fear, hostility, or repulsion among you humans, but is undesirable in the sense that you tend to view us as if we were lower animals or cartoon characters. And, as I have pointed out to you earlier, we're not. We're ordinary, everyday people with ordinary, everyday lives, just like you. Of course, from our point of view, you humans are simply an exotic new species who don't have tails or fur or feathers or reptilian skin. Not necessarily better or worse than us, just different in form.
"But all the same, we animal-people are aliens to your planet, and you have completely disregarded this fact to your peril." I let that sink in before adding, "Yes, your peril. Just because nobody has found any readily communicable disease germs among the staff of PERC that could infect you humans, or for that matter any other forms of life on Earth, does not by definition mean that such germs do not exist. It's perfectly possible that we animal-people may be carrying germs that are harmful to life on Earth that have gone undetected, which happens to be the primary reason our movements on Earth are so strictly monitored and controlled. That way, if some mysterious disease does show up, they can compare the places where the disease first appeared to the places where any of us might have gone, to make sure we're not the guilty party."
I glared at Sammy as I added, "You might not be a 'sanctimonious sexual moralist,' as you put it, but the danger of spreading disease was the main reason for the regulation against our having sex with the Earth natives in the first place. When these humans swallowed your semen, they could have also swallowed some exotic germs that might be harmful or fatal to them. You may love Jim, but by inseminating him in the anus and having him lick your anal hole, you could have poisoned him with some alien infection that his body cannot withstand. Pretty rotten thing to do to someone you love, eh? And by swallowing all these humans' semen and being inseminated up the anus by Jim, you could have exposed yourself to some Earth disease which might be harmful or fatal to you. Maybe sexual moral standards exist for a reason; did you ever think of that?"
I looked at the entire group and continued, "I'm afraid that this is only going to be the beginning of your troubles. For you as well as us, this matter isn't going to end here. Because of the aforementioned possibility of the spread of disease, you can be sure that before long, the whole lot of you humans are going to be arrested and quarantined-and given some very thorough medical examinations! And I can tell you, since I've been through them-these medical examinations are not enjoyable! And don't bother trying to run and hide; they'll be sure to come and get hold of each and every one of you-and I'll do everything I can to help them!" I let that sink in, then added, "And why shouldn't I? If you have been infected by some sort of alien disease, I don't want to take the chance that you might spread it around! Who knows how many other sex partners any of you have besides Sammy Skunk? When I was in the military, I was warned along with everybody else that patronizing prostitutes was a bad idea because of the possibility of getting a disease, even though infectious diseases don't spread as easily among different species of us animal-people as they do among you humans. And I took the advice, though there were times when I was strongly tempted otherwise.
"Yes, back on my world I was a member of the military, specifically an artillery regiment, and I've even been through war-real war, folks, with bullets and shells and bombs and people getting maimed and killed, including close friends of mine. Have any of you watched that public television documentary a month ago where the different war veterans related their experiences? I did, and I went through the very same things they did. I've suffered like they did, getting wounded, having nightmares, wondering day to day if I were going to make it. I identify with these people, even if you humans can't help but think of me as being a cuddly hug toy."
I turned back to Sammy Skunk. "And as for you, Sammy, I never would have expected you to be guilty of such folly! This was meant to be a vacation day for you, but that certainly didn't mean you could go and do absolutely anything you wanted! Did you forget and think that Earth was some sort of big playground? It's not! It's a world which is much like ours in many ways, however alien it is. It's got war, disease, poverty, hatred, just like ours! Just because the humans at the furry convention were nice to you doesn't mean all humans react that way to us! I've had humans spurn me and attack me, too. There are plenty of humans out there who hate and fear us, even if you haven't met any of them like I have. I can't believe you just went and took leave of reality and common sense!"
I sighed and addressed the humans once more. "For the record, the original plan was that I was supposed to have gone alone to the furry convention in the first place, and that would have been fine with me-and with the Director of PERC. There was no purpose in Sammy Skunk or anyone else from PERC coming along with me, as I was already quite accustomed to being out among humans, so it was not as if I needed another animal-person to go with me for company. I was already expecting all the hugging and kissing and petting and being the center of attention, because I have long been aware that it is the nature of humans to treat us animal-people this way, and I have become quite accustomed to this sort of treatment. In fact, having another animal-person with me who was not accustomed like I was to this sort of treatment could only have been a potential liability.
"And the reason I brought Sammy Skunk along was to do him a favor. His duties as PERC's mathematician kept him restricted to PERC base, and he wanted to go out among you humans and couldn't. This made Sammy unhappy and frustrated, and I felt sorry for him, so I talked the Director into having him come with me to the furry convention so he could get his wish. I didn't have anything to gain by it; Sammy never did me any special favors and I didn't expect him to do anything for me in return. I had to struggle to convince the Director to let Sammy come with me; he had nothing to gain by having him go to the furry convention with me either." I looked scornfully at Sammy. "For once the Director does something nice for you, and you show your gratitude by telling these humans that he's an asshole. That's class!"
"I was just describing the way he behaves towards everyone at PERC!" Sammy replied hurriedly. "I mean, he yells at us over every little thing, he gets too nosy...well, you know that as well as I do. All right, all right, even so he did do me a big favor and it was petty of me to badmouth him behind his back, and I'm totally sorry about that!"
"That's the least of what you're going to be totally sorry for!" I shot back. "The Director trusted you to behave responsibly! I trusted you to behave responsibly! I assured the Director that you'd behave properly and you wouldn't do anything wrong! I personally vouched for your good behavior. What's he going to think of you after he finds out what you've done? What's he going to think of me?"
Sammy's ears folded down as he cringed guiltily, and I noted all the humans were cringing too. "You all thought Sammy's unauthorized visit to this apartment and the sex party was just naughty fun and that you weren't doing any real harm since it was all consensual, right?" I asked rhetorically. "Wrong! We animal-people are space aliens and we have no rights on this planet! You humans could imprison us or kill us or vivisect us if you wished, and no lawyer would be able to defend us! We're completely at your mercy!
"Sammy and I are both scientists who are part of a research team that you Earthlings allowed to live and work on your planet. We're here because you humans granted us special permission to be here. Our worlds managed to negotiate and sign a treaty which granted us the right to be on this planet, with the understanding that there would be many restrictions on our movements and activities. Everyone at PERC has held firmly to these restrictions, including myself who has traveled over much of Earth and met many humans..."
I abruptly jabbed a finger into Sammy's nose. "Until now, when you left the furry convention knowing perfectly well you weren't supposed to, not to mention everything else! Don't you realize what you've done to us? Don't you realize how scared shitless I am? This is worse than when I was on the battlefield, dodging enemy shells and bullets! Who knows what's going to happen to us and everyone else at PERC because of what you and these humans have done...and there's not a fucking thing we can do but wait and hope the consequences won't be too horrible! We'll be lucky-we'll be extremely lucky-if all that happens to us is that we wind up being quarantined and shipped back home in disgrace with our careers in ruins! And that's the best case scenario! It's not out of the question that we could wind up being imprisoned and vivisected after all. Did you think I was kidding when I repeatedly mentioned that that was a possibility?"
I turned toward the humans. "And as for you, you've all fucked a space alien! A creature not native to your planet, and one who resembles an Earth lower animal at that! What will your fellow humans say to that, eh? You probably won't wind up vivisected; they won't do that to you, because you've got rights. But you can expect to go through some pretty damn rough medical exams, and if you're lucky, this whole thing just might get hushed up and you won't end up being completely ostracized from the rest of humanity. And don't bother trying to run off to my planet to hide from the consequences-my own people aren't going to like you for this, either!"
I turned back to Sammy, who was cringing as much as he could and still stand up. "Even though I never much liked you, I still felt sorry for you because you hated being stuck at PERC, which is why I arranged to have you come with me to the furry convention. All you had to do was stay put at the convention and enjoy yourself until it was time to go back to PERC, and I had every reason to assume you would do exactly that.
"But you couldn't even show some basic responsibility, could you? You had to run off and get us all into this mess. I hope you really enjoyed your little orgy, because we're all going to pay a very high price for it. You, I, and all these humans are about to face some very rough medical examinations to make sure we haven't traded any deadly alien diseases. Your professional reputation is going to be ruined because you showed gross irresponsibility, and mine will be because I took responsibility for your good behavior. Everyone at PERC is going to be in trouble too because of this, especially the Director because he personally approved your coming to the convention with me. What are the humans going to think of us animal-people because of what you've done? We've violated our treaty with them. Can they be expected to trust us anymore? Will we all be thrown off Earth, or worse? Will the Earthlings decide to close down PERC, even if we offered to completely replace our staff? And what fate will these humans face for having had sex with you?
"The worst irony of all this is that before you vanished from the convention, when I saw how you were interacting so well among all the humans there and weren't behaving like the annoying whiner you always had been at PERC, I saw a side of you I never knew existed-and perhaps you didn't either. I was beginning to lose my distaste for you and to start to think that I might like you after all. I was happily anticipating going back to PERC in the evening and surprising the Director with the news of how you were oh so happy and friendly with the humans at the convention, and I would have loved to have seen the look on his face. This had been the happiest, most enjoyable day I ever had since I came to Earth! And you had to go ruin it!"
"I'm sorry!" Sammy Skunk sobbed. "I'm so sorry!" Sammy threw himself flat on the floor before me, his ears bent down, his eyes dripping tears. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..." Sammy kept repeating those words as he slithered on his belly toward my feet, then twisted his upper body so that his face was looking up toward me, clasping his hands together. This is of course the way we animal-people beg for forgiveness, and I had no doubt that Sammy's shame and remorse were sincere. But no amount of remorse could make up for the dire situation Sammy had brought us into, and I could hardly forgive him for what he had done, so I stepped back, ritually rejecting his pleading. This stung Sammy, and he slithered toward me and twisted around once more, this time amplifying his abasement by grabbing my foot and sticking out his tongue to lick the sole of my sandal. But before his tongue could touch me, I shook my foot from his grasp and kicked him hard in the snout, stepping back once more. Whether my kick was that painful, or whether it was because of my harsh rejection of his ultimate self-abasement, Sammy put his hands on his face and started weeping loudly and profusely.
"Do you think groveling is going to help us now?" I asked furiously. "You can lick through my sandals and it's not going to get us out of the mess you've made! So stop sniveling and get your clothes on, you caterpillar! We've already wasted enough time here! We're going to leave right now!"
Sammy started to stand up, but abruptly got overtaken by another fit of weeping and collapsed back onto the floor, sobbing. "Will you get the fuck up?" I got very angry and kicked him again. Sammy continued his sobbing, and I was about to deliver another kick to Sammy when Jim suddenly grabbed me and swung me around. "Jesus Christ, take it easy on the poor guy!" he said.
"Take it easy?" I shot back. "I am fucking taking it easy! It's all I can do not to break his fucking neck!" Or yours, I almost said. "Didn't I just explain to you what we're all about to face because of everything you've done?"
The response was dead silence, broken only by Sammy's weeping. After a moment, I said in a calm voice, "Sammy, stop crying and stand up. Please."
Sammy finally managed to control his weeping and stood up. Good. "Now go clean up your face," I ordered him, maintaining my calm voice.
I followed him to the bathroom, and he quickly rinsed and dried his face. Then we returned to the living room. "Get dressed," I told him.
Sammy picked up his briefs and pulled them over his legs, buttoning the strap which went above his tail. Then he pulled on his trousers, buttoning first his crotch fly, then his tail fly. (I call it that for lack of a better term.) Then he put on his tunic and buttoned it, then sat on a chair and put on his sandals. As he stood up, I grabbed his hand. "All right, let's go," I said, but to my dismay he shook off my grip, a momentary look of defiance on his face. Then he looked sadly at the humans.
"Before I go, I just want to let you humans know that I'm not angry at you for any of this," Sammy told them. "What I did, I did of my own free will, and I'll face whatever consequences happen to me. I'm sorry for whatever will happen to you or my colleagues at PERC, and I hope to take the brunt of the blame." Sammy smiled ruefully. "And as I have said earlier, I am ashamed for having violated my contract and getting us into trouble, but I feel no shame for having had sex with you. I only wish we could have done it legally."
Sammy then looked wistfully at Jim, and their eyes met. "Goodbye, Jim, my love!" Sammy wailed, and he threw himself against Jim, and they embraced tightly. Then they were giving each other a deep mouth kiss, but I had no intention of letting them go on any further, and I went to pull them apart. This time, not only Jack but Frank and several of the other humans helped me separate them. I then noted that most of the humans, including Jack, had been crying, and Jack no longer looked jealous like he did before. Fortunately, Frank remained dry-eyed. Even better, Sammy managed not to start crying again, but he still stared sadly at Jim.
"Whatever happens to me," Sammy said mournfully, "I will always love you, and my memory of you will carry me through whatever I have to face..." I cut him off by clapping my hand over his mouth.
"Will you shut the fuck up?" I snapped. "All you're doing is tormenting the poor bastard!"
I moved my hand away, and Sammy fell silent, glancing down at the floor. Then I turned him so that he faced the apartment door. The humans moved aside, though I noticed Jim still staring at Sammy, so deliberately I moved myself in between them, blocking his view. "Frank, please take us back to the convention center now," I asked him.
"Certainly," he replied, and opened the apartment door and stuck his head out. He pulled back in and said, "It's clear, let's go." He, I and Sammy hurried into the hallway, and then scuttled down the stairs into the building's vestibule. Then he poked his head out the building's front door, indicated us to go, and we rushed back to Frank's car and hurriedly piled in. Frank started the car and sped out of the space, not even bothering to put on his seat belt. None of us looked back.
It was getting dark as we reached the convention center. Frank pulled into the lot and headed toward the front entrance, where he and I had left previously. To his surprise, I indicated for him to stop before he got there, in a part of the lot where nobody else was.
"Frank, before we go," I said sullenly, "I just wanted to tell you that..." I broke off, suddenly feeling sadder than I had expected I would, and to his (and probably Sammy's) surprise, I put my hands on his upper arm. "I want to say that you've done me very well by taking me out to retrieve Sammy Skunk. I only wish we had found him much sooner."
"So do I," replied Frank meaningfully.
"But one last thing I wanted to mention was..." I took my hands away and cringed, feeling very guilty. "I know, Sammy knows, and your friends know that you didn't take part in the sex party at Jim's apartment. But people might assume that, simply based on the fact that you knew Jim and were there at his apartment after the sex party happened."
Frank smiled. "Oh, I don't think that's likely. Maybe most furries are gay, but I'm not. I happen to have a girlfriend, who's a furry too, and she would have been at the convention with me, but she got sick and couldn't go."
"Oh." I was surprised and wished I had met and talked to Frank earlier than I had. Then I realized that it was now irrelevant because my sociological career was already ruined. "But people will probably assume anyway..." I broke off as I tried to put together what I had to say. "What I mean is, remember what I said about Sammy and Jim and the other humans having to be taken for medical examination to make sure some disease wasn't passed from one to the other? Simply because you and I were there, they'll undoubtedly do me, and they'll probably do the same thing to you. Only because I got you involved in this!"
"But I was never sexually involved with Jim or anyone else in there," replied Frank. "I never had gay sex in my entire life!"
I smiled ruefully. "They won't know that, will they? And even if they did, they wouldn't want to take chances. I wouldn't, if I were in their position."
Frank paused for a moment, and then gave a resigned sigh. "Well, if they're going to do it to me, they're going to do it to me, but they'd just be wasting their time." He broke off and looked around, as did I. No people or vehicles had come around, fortunately, but our luck would not hold forever. "But speaking about wasting time, maybe we'd better get back to the convention now?"
"Well, yes, but..." I looked at Frank and suddenly felt as if I were about to cry. "It's just that once we get back to the convention, we'll be taken back to PERC right away, and once there..." I paused before adding, "I'm assuming PERC will probably go on as before once this mess is cleaned up, but as for us, Sammy and I are both finished on this planet. Like I said, the best we can possibly expect is that we'll be quarantined at PERC until the portal between our planets opens months from now, and then we'll be kicked off Earth for good, and who knows what'll happen to us after that. But besides that..."
What I said and did next must have shocked Sammy and Frank as much as it did me. "I'm a highly-trained scientist, and before that I was a hardened soldier who had survived a number of vicious battles, and who also endured a bad marriage and you must think me strange for admitting this, but..."
I suddenly leaned over and threw my arms around Frank. This was the first and last time I ever initiated a hug with a human; before that, the humans were always the ones who hugged me first. "When I first went out among you humans and everyone thought I was cute and kept hugging me and petting me and patting my head, I was irritated and embarrassed to be treated that way. But now that I've become accustomed to it, I realize that I'm going to miss it. Once I get back to PERC, I'm going to be a pariah and none of my colleagues will want to touch me or talk to me, and any humans I might see afterwards will undoubtedly regard me the same way. I don't know what sort of future I'll face back on my home planet, but even if I'm very lucky, there'll be nobody who will hug me and pet me and think I'm cute. I'll be back among my own people, and to them I'm just as ordinary and unremarkable as you are to your fellow humans. I know I sound like I've flipped, and perhaps I have, but..."
I broke off as Frank returned the hug. For a long time we sat in the front seat and embraced each other tightly, my wanting this moment to never end. I had only met Frank maybe an hour ago, but I felt as if I were saying a final goodbye to a very dear friend before marching off to the gallows-which was not too far off from the situation I was actually in. I hated to let him go, but I knew I had to, and finally we released. "Thank you," I said, fighting back tears. I turned to look at Sammy-and if he had been fighting back tears, he had lost the fight. "Oh, no, you're crying again!" I said in horror, and abruptly Sammy grabbed up a rag from the floor of the car and hurriedly wiped his face dry. Fortunately he managed to clean his face well enough so that the humans at the convention would be unlikely to notice that he had been crying, which I figured could only complicate our getting back to base. It was that consideration that stopped me from crying in Frank's car. "Goodbye, Frank," I said, and before I knew it I gave him a kiss-the kiss of an animal-person, where one licks the other's face twice with one's tongue. All of us reacted in shock, and then I said very quickly, "Uh, that was only a friendly kiss. It wasn't a sexual kiss, please don't get that idea. I'm not homosexual, either, and no matter how much I like you, I wouldn't want to have sex with you, even if we were allowed to do it and you were gay. The sexual kiss was already demonstrated by Sammy and Jim back at the apartment."
I did not look at Sammy after I said this, but I am sure he did not appreciate my joke at his expense. In any case, Frank laughed and kissed me on the nose. "That's how humans usually kiss their pets," he replied. "Oh, don't get the idea that..."
"I don't," I interrupted. "But now we'd better get to the convention and face the music."
Suddenly somber again, Frank drove us to the front entrance. I gave him one last sad look of goodbye, and he looked at me with equal sadness. I wanted to hug and kiss him again, but dared not, fearing I would lose control of my emotions and end up weeping like a child. I turned away and opened the car door, stepped out, and half-pulled Sammy Skunk out, not wanting to look too closely at him, for fear of triggering a quite different emotional reaction in me. Fortunately Sammy was evidently aware of this, and did not deign to look toward me.
Sammy and I rushed through the front doors, nervous about what sort of reception we would receive. I was half-expecting to be greeted by a heavily-armed SWAT team, but instead, several of the security personnel who had guided us from our car into the convention were there, shocked to see us run in through the front doors.
They accosted us the moment we went inside, angrily asking us where we were and what was going on. "I can't explain it now, but we've got to get back to PERC base immediately," I told them.
"You bet you do," one replied. "Nobody could find you, and when we contacted your people at PERC to ask what happened, they were asking what the fuck was going on. They told us that the moment you were found, you were to go back to them immediately."
"We will," I said. "Take us to our car, quickly!"
The security people began to hustle us along the wall back toward the door through which we first came into the convention center, but a number of convention goers had spotted us and were walking toward us. The security people were ordering them back, but some of them seemed inclined to disobey, and I knew that if there were trouble, the security people would be woefully ill-equipped to handle the resulting situation. I knew it was time for me to act.
"Excuse us, people," I shouted to the convention goers. The security people glared at me, but I ignored them. "We're sorry about leaving you like this, but there's an emergency situation back at PERC base and we have to get back there at once!"
Fortunately, this convinced all the convention goers to leave us alone, and the security personnel had an easier time getting us toward the doors. I was expecting us to be put into a police van and transported back to PERC that way, but they simply took us back to our car and told us to drive straight back to PERC. Even more surprisingly, we did not even receive any sort of escort-we were trusted to drive back there on our own. Presumably they were unaware of how serious the situation was. No matter-soon everyone will know.
Now we are on the access road to the PERC base, which is just as well because I have pretty much said everything there was to say-and I give you my word, dear reader, that I have told the complete and absolute truth. But who will read this account? Undoubtedly the Director of PERC, whom I admit I never liked, but I feel sorry for him now, and I dread facing him after everything that has happened. I will tell him all, of course. Even if I could conceal everything that has happened this day, I would not. I have my sense of honor, and my responsibilities as a member of PERC, and I will discharge them even if it kills me-the same credo I followed as a soldier. It was also my sense of honor that kept me trying to make my aforementioned marriage work, though that ultimately failed despite my best efforts.
This account was actually written for a human audience, but whether any humans will ever read this, only time will tell. Perhaps the Director will keep it to himself, perhaps he will be compelled to share it with Earth authorities, perhaps the general public of Earth will see it, or a highly edited version that will leave out the most sordid details. Perhaps my own world will see it too. For some reason I hope everyone on my world and Earth will be able to see it exactly as I have written it, preferably during my lifetime.
The gate is just ahead, and Sammy Skunk has stopped the car long before he reaches it. Has he lost his nerve? I can understand why. I too am terrified of what lies ahead.
Now, dear reader, I have just explained to Sammy Skunk what I have been writing on my laptop computer all along during the ride back. I let him know what I wrote, and he understands it will all come out anyway, every humiliating detail. At least he has some sense of honor as well, though not as good as it should have been, which is why we are all in such a predicament now. He is watching as I write my last, before we must finally approach the gate. We are both on the verge of weeping from sorrow, fear, and despair, but what holds us back is that it would look too ridiculous for us to drive into PERC and step out of the car, bawling our eyes out. Sammy Skunk tells me that he has truly fallen in love with Jim, and will miss him and his friends. I will miss my human friends too, and hope they will not remember me too poorly over this. I hope you do not think too harshly of me either, dear reader.
On a final note, I wish to mention that my use of the term "dear reader" in this account was not an attempt to be quaint and cutesy, but is standard practice in my native language when writing a letter to an unknown audience. Okay, so the term sounds quaint and cutesy anyway. Hey, we animal-people are supposed to be cute anyway, are we not?
Both of us have cracked up laughing at my last sentence-a good way to break up the somber mood. No matter, we are going to be very unhappy again soon anyway. Somebody at the gate has noticed our car, and now we must drive through and face the consequences. Goodbye, dear reader! :(
(Thanks to Dr. Werewolf for providing valuable information about skunk anatomy.)