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**Tales from the Cat House

Bad Things Come in Threes**

Kavah groaned, settling against a bench for a moment as he rested his feet.

It had been four- no, it had been five days since his ill-fated encounter with the twin siamese beastkin in the marketplace. Five days, and he was still trying to get over what they had put him through.

He groaned again, his angular ears twitched back as he absently rubbed his crotch. A passing tiger shot him a dirty look, but the fox ignored him. He had spent every last coin he had on a healing potion, but it hadn't fixed things up nearly as much as he might have liked.

After his encounter with the twins, his modestly sized nuts had been in poor shape, and after the lovely Cyrena had gotten her paws on them they were even worse. The pantheress had been incensed at his betrayal, and in a remarkably swift and painful interrogation, she had coaxed out all of the details of the fox's love-life.

"Well," he smirked a little to himself. "Maybe not ALL of them." If he had spilled on every last tryst or affair, then he would still be in the alleyway Cyrena had dragged him to. And he'd probably only be halfway through the list by now.

He winced now, forcing himself to slide his hand to his thigh instead of his nethers. Pawing at the wounded organs wasn't going to make them better any faster. In fact, it would probably do just the opposite.

Suffice to say, after Cyrena had finished working him over - and he stifled another groan at the memory - he had been left distinctly lopsided. Hard to say if that had happened when Mia or Tia had been kicking his nuggets about, or when the incensed pantheress had been doing her best to use them as stress balls, but somewhere along the line his right nut had gone a little too soft. It was still there, but it was... well, it hadn't been exactly as round as he remembered it.

The potion had fixed that, to an extent. He had downed the whole thing at once - a whole pint of the disgusting, frothy gunk - and he had been relieved to find that the next morning he had a much healthier looking pair. Still, there was no denying that every time he got an erection, or even thought about sex too hard, a searing pain would jolt up the right side of his loins. It really killed the mood.

He grunted, rubbing his forehead as he thought on that. He had tried to wait out the pain, even play through it, but just yesterday he had passed out while 'visiting' the comely young leopardess who worked near the docks. She had been soothing and understanding about the whole thing, but she was still unlikely to go down on him ever again.

Kavah grumbled, absently running his hand through the short-cropped fur atop his head. He almost considered going back to the apothecary to demand a refund, but that was probably a bad idea. Cyrena had leaned on the local guard to forbid him from setting foot back in the marketplace, under pain of imprisonment.

He sighed, now, pushing back up from the bench. No, he had already risked enough visiting the apothecary the first time, and that was supposedly the best apothecary in Ma'Karach. Heading back there to make a scene would just be asking for trouble. He had to look forward, and the fox grudgingly admitted that he should probably start focusing on scrounging up enough money to move on to the next city.

He could certainly try to travel alone - he had done it before, with varying degrees of success - but that was hazardous. Bandits, monsters, and scamming opportunists like - er, well, like him - were a few of the things he might run afoul of. Besides, even then, he would still need coin to purchase food and supplies for travel. He had traveled by caravan to Karash, so he had precious little equipment to fall back on.

"Ooooh, a dark cloud hangs over you-" Kavah glanced to the side as an elderly domestic addressed him. She was old and infirm, one eye a milky white, her muzzle slightly crooked as if broken and poorly set, and her mottled black and white fur distinctly mangy.

The fox snorted, brushing past the little makeshift counter the feline sat behind, but she reached out to grasp at his pant leg with her gnarled fingers.

"Someone recently tried to take something from you," she mused, her blind eye fixed on the fox. Her lips curled, her ratty ears twitching with studious concentration. "Something valuable, and you are struggling to keep it safe."

Kavah curled his own lip into a sneer, brushing the fortune-teller's paw from his leg. "You've been eavesdropping," he snarled. He was familiar with the scam, and the clumsy execution left him unimpressed.

She scowled, her grizzled face twisting up into something from a nightmare. Okay, the fox had to admit that the expression was both frightening and impressive. "Bad things come in threes, oh Fox-Man from the North!"

He frowned in turn, his gaze averted. She was a little frightening, yes, but ugly too. The last thing he wanted to do was start throwing up again. "Yeh? The hell s'that mean?"

"Two trials you have faced," she mused, her hands waving vaguely over an assortment of cheap crystal prisms that were laid out on the plywood board on her lap. Kavah imagined that she probably thought it looked mystical, but to him it just looked kind of dumb.

What DID catch his interest, though, was the small bowl at the edge of the makeshift counter. It held a few coins. There weren't many, just a handful of coppers, a few silvers, and a single bent gold coin. Still, it was enough to hold his attention.

"And you will soon face another, more trying than-"

The fox snorted, his ears twitching forward. "So, what, you just make a bunch'a wild guesses until somethin' sticks?"

Her scowl deepened now, and for a second Kavah thought the old catkin's one good eye might pop right out of her head. "You are rude and arrogant, and you will soon meet a stranger who will brook none of your tongue-wagging."

Kavah rolled his eyes at that, but he reached deep into one of his pockets and produced a copper coin. He made a show of placing it into the old woman's tip tray, made a rude gesture at her, and then swiftly padded away.

It was only after he had been gone for a moment, the rest of the old gypsy's coins now in his pocket, that she realized what he had done. He slipped down an alley and out of sight, even as her hoarse cries of rage echoed in the street behind him.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Five blocks distant, Kavah finally slowed his pace. He was fairly certain that the old catkin had lost him after the first block, since she had barely been able to keep up to begin with, but he had jumped a few walls and ducked down a few more alleys just to be certain. You never could tell with those fortune-teller types.

He grinned, feeling pretty good about himself for the first time in the past few days. Well, okay, he had felt pretty good when he was being sucked off by that leopardess, but that had been thoroughly cancelled out by the disappointment that had followed. This, though... well, there was no down side.

The fox emptied his pocket, to tally up his take. It was meager, enough for a few nights in a tavern or a single night on the town, but it was better than what he had started with. He gleefully dropped the coins into his purse, relishing the sound of the clinking coins. It was almost better than sex. Almost. Now, if he could just turn this into a streak he could make some decent headway toward leaving this thrice-cursed city behind him.

Kavah paused, emerging from the alley and onto a mostly abandoned stretch of road. He had drifted into the less reputable part of Karash, now. It was unfamiliar to him, but from the looks of it he guessed that he wasn't far from the docks. The buildings lining the mostly empty street looked to be warehouses and offices - perhaps he could find one worth breaking into?

He spied a lone beastkin, struggling to carry a beam of wood that was far too heavy for them. Ah, no, there was an easier mark.

The fox closed in, the soft padding of his bare feet almost completely silent as he quietly took stock of his prey. It was a feline, no doubt a local - a cheetah from the looks of him. Or no, wait, he was a little surprised to see that it was actually a her. Her face was obscured by a workman's cap, the hat hiding any sign of feminine hair or features from his current angle.

Yes, now that he was taking a closer look he could definitely tell that much, at least. Although her curves were modest, and her muscles a bit more defined than he generally liked in his femmes, her long legs were distinctly shapely and her hips very well developed. It was just a shame that she seemed intent on hiding them beneath a baggy, shapeless set of loose pants.

His eyes inevitably drifted higher as he tried to get a good look at her chest - but her back was to him, so that took some tricky maneuvering if he didn't want to be seen. Trailing behind her along the road, he finally got a good look in the reflection of a nearby window. Eh, he had seen better. Again, her choice of shirts was rather unflattering, but it didn't look like it was covering up much anyway.

That thought cemented the decision in his mind. He had briefly entertained trying to seduce the cheetah, but she wasn't really his type. She looked both tough and spunky, possibly a soldier or off-duty guard, and he had very recently resolved to never again date a girl who could beat him up. No, he was just going to have to rob this one instead. Or, uh, pick her pocket, anyway. Robbery was a messy business.

He moved in closer, his pace quickened as the feline struggled once more to heft the long, cloth-wrapped piece of lumber she was carting beneath one arm. His eyes flicked down to her waist, tracing the lines of her belt until - ah, that's just what he was looking for. Her coin purse hung on her left side, just beneath the beam she was carrying, so he angled in from that side.

Kavah drifted ever closer, taking two steps to her every one. Within seconds he was close enough to be her fox-shaped shadow, and his hand slipped outward, his fingertips setting to the cheetah's purse with a featherlight touch. Just a twitch of his wrist, and he could flip it open, then there was just the simple matter of lifting a few coins and making good his escape.

He frowned, carefully keeping pace with the feline as she continued on, blissfully unaware of her stalker. Her coin purse was laced shut! Honestly, it was sad when beastkin felt they had to take such measures. Honestly, was it too much to ask to see one kin putting some trust in their fellow beasts?

The hypocrisy of that thought was entirely lost on the fox.

He produced a small blade with his other hand, and leaned in close, deftly slicing the purse free from the cheetah's belt instead. It was riskier, because the heavier movements or loss of weight against her hip might cause her to notice the lift, but-

The cheetah stopped abruptly, and Kavah was forced to slow lest he should plow right into his mark. Even then, he nearly tripped over the beam of wood in her grasp, and he skipped halfway over it to avoid running into it. He froze, his gaze flicking back over his shoulder as he tried to pick the most efficient retreat in case she noticed him.

She grunted, shifting her grip against the beam. Something was muttered under her breath, and the fox didn't catch it, but he breathed a sigh of relief. It sounded like she was just grumbling about work, or the beam, or perhaps lamenting her decision not to bring a cart. Kavah smiled, the blade disappearing back into his sleeve as he lifted her money pouch away, his fingers cradling it carefully to prevent the coins within from jangling.

The cheetah seemed oblivious. She finished adjusting her grip on the wooden beam, sighed as the heavy piece of lumber sagged against her side until it was almost past her hip, and then firmly jerked it back upward to get a more comfortable hold upon it.

Kavah uttered a stifled yelp as one end of the thick plank rammed up between his legs, like an awkward club. Honestly, on a good day the blow might have hardly phased him - it was done without malice, even if it WAS still unpleasant and forceful enough to lift him onto his toes. Given the current state of his balls, though, the blow swiftly reignited that increasingly familiar searing pain in his right nut.

He choked off a groan, the freshly liberated coin purse falling from numb fingers, and slumped forward against the startled feline. Both teetered alarmingly, the lumber thankfully falling away from his crotch as the cheetah lost her grip on it entirely, and the fox threw an arm about her to keep himself from instead tumbling to the ground atop her.

The cheetah was startled, to say the least, but she swiftly caught herself before she could fall. Her legs were strong and her balance keen, so she straightened up, and her mind was almost as quick as it swiftly evaluated her situation. A small part of her was cursing vocally - she was normally keenly aware of her surroundings, but she had been so busy grumbling about her current task that she had somehow run right into something.

Something pressed to her chest, and she frowned. A downward glance confirmed that a hand and part of an arm had suddenly curled about her torso, awkwardly squeezing her modest bust to her chest. That didn't seem right at all. So, she hadn't run into something, but rather someone, and that someone had actually run into her?

In a split second, her brain cycled through possibilities. The arm was clad to the wrist in a long sleeve, the hand bare with orange fur and blunted black nails. Was it that tiger who fancied her? No, there were no black markings against that fur, and even if there had been, it was the wrong shade of orange.

Then she noticed the short blade concealed beneath the sleeve, and her train of thought ran a little darker. That knife was far too short for practical use as a weapon, so more likely it was a tool, although... it might still see use by an assassin. But why would an assassin grab her, instead of simply slitting her throat from behind?

It took her only three brief seconds to come to this conclusion, from the moment this intruder had bumped into her and the moment she had decided what to do about it. Even if it WAS someone she knew, they should know better than to sneak up on her. She had a justifiable reputation as a gal who punched first and asked questions later. It came with having a body that reacted at a hundred miles per hour, and a mind that topped out at about eighty.

Whoever the intruder was, though, it had been five seconds now and they still weren't doing anything. She frowned a little, her gaze flicking downward. She could see a foot - bare, red-furred - a canine? A fox? She didn't know any foxes, let alone any that she would permit to grope her, so that meant...

Her arm wrapped over the fox's, pinning it firmly to her chest - and in effect, the male to her back. Then, just as quickly, her foot came down atop her attacker's, the heavy steel reinforcing her heel crunching into Kavah's toes.

Suddenly snapped from his stunned state, the hapless fox practically howled as his foot was crushed against the cobblestone street. Her boot came back up just as quickly, and the wounded vulpine jerked his foot clear, wincing as he felt what had to be the ache of at least one broken bone.

And that was what the cheetah had been waiting for. Her eyes narrowed slightly, her gaze flicked to the vulpine's arm now. She could guess at his height, gauging from the angle of his arm and leg, and the motion of his foot allowed her to guess where his crotch was. Honestly, that was all she needed to know. No sooner had the reinforced heel of her boot clinked against the street, then it was set in motion once more.

Kavah was stunned, to say the least. He reflexively tried to pull away, but his arm was stuck fast, and his injured foot refused to grant him enough leverage to break free. He grunted, trying to come up with a different escape plan - maybe he could grab her about the throat with his other-?

*Clink!*

He grunted, his eyes widened a little as he felt himself bouncing a good half-pace off the ground, and a split second later a sensation of pure pain exploded in his loins. It rapidly blossomed into his gut, and within a second tears were welling up in his eyes, his breath catching in his throat as his lungs struggled to hold air.

"Oh no," he managed to whimper.

"Rmf," the cheetah grunted in return. "Too late for THAT."

And she kicked backward with her right leg again, with the same booted foot. The first blow had given her the proper range, and she was quite familiar with the sound of steel impacting the bone of a hapless target's pelvis, so if anything her second strike was even more accurate than the first. There was no ring of metal on bone this time, though, as the blow was muffled by much softer targets that were squarely in the way.

*Crnch!*

Kavah gagged hard, abruptly folded forward against the cheetah's back as her heel hammered up between his thighs. He bounced again, landing unsteadily on his feet, and his free arm curled about the female by reflex alone to prevent him from spilling to the street.

With a smirk, the aggressor grabbed hold of that limb as well. Now there truly was no escape for the unfortunate pickpocket.

She waited for a few seconds, though, feeling the male - and she was absolutely certain it was a male now - moaning against her back. He was slumped heavily against her, his muzzle pressed to her shoulder blade and his arms curled beneath her own to circle her torso. From the sound of it-

Well, suffice to say, she was absolutely certain he was a fox as well. The breathless whimpers were a dead giveaway. With canines, foxes included, the yelping and whimpering was always very distinctive. In her experience, the catkin tended to mewl instead, although... well, she had to admit that anyone would mewl if you kicked them in the nuts enough.

The fox coughed now, his eyes squinched shut as he was given a moment for the pain to properly set in. His toes curled tightly, blunted claws grinding against the unyielding street, and his fingers clutching in turn at the vicious cheetah's chest. Oh, gods, he had thought that the twins were hard on him, but... what was this bitch wearing? Iron boots?

And he moaned now, the sound wavering halfway into a pitiable soprano whimper, his body shuddering as lightning cracked through every nerve along the right side of his body. Yes, he was absolutely sure of it, his right nut must have been crushed to a pulp by that last kick. Maybe his left one, too, but definitely his right. There was no other way to possibly rationalize the sickening amount of pain coming from it.

The cheetah sniffed faintly, her expression one of faint amusement, but it quickly settled back to a cool neutral. This wasn't fun time, even if she WAS enjoying the chance to teach the thief a lesson. This was business. She needed to finish the job quickly, so she could get back to doing something that she'd actually get paid for.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and her keen eyes caught the movement as the sickened fox finally found the presence of mind to try squeezing his legs tightly together. She snorted, and her other heel came down now, stomping hard on the vulpine's good foot. He yelped anew, the tiny bones crunching beneath her boot, and he desperately pulled it away.

With his legs set wide again, she didn't squander the opening. She took a quick step forward to put a little room between her and the fox, and this time her left foot scraped against the street. Her powerful thigh tensed and her hips swiveled as she put the utmost power into the motion, the metal-reinforced heel of her boot crushing into the crux of the vulpine's manhood with a satisfying *thump!* of impact and an equally satisfying *crnch!* of mutilated nutflesh.

This time, Kavah uttered an almost plaintive and wavering moan, simply too winded to yelp with any significant volume. His legs were rubber, wobbling and then giving out entirely as he collapsed against the cheetah's body. Luckily this blow hadn't been as solid as the last one, since the feline was being forced to support more and more of his weight with each passing second. The fox certainly didn't FEEL lucky, though. No, he felt like hell.

He coughed weakly, and uttered a sickly mewling sound as his eyes rolled back in his head. His mind was dulled, his brain saturated thoroughly with the impossible agony in whatever was left of his genitals, and some small part of him couldn't help but wonder if his pelvis was shattered now. Nausea had firmly set up shop in his stomach, contested only by the pain of tensed and cramping muscles, and the male abruptly surrendered his lunch.

The feline twitched an ear, her own eyes widening as she felt the sick splattering down her back. That... that wasn't a sensation she had been hoping to feel, no. Not ever. She growled low, somehow assigning the entirety of the blame onto the fox at her back despite her own involvement in his current state. The incensed cheetah shifted her grip against his arms once more.

In the blink of an eye, the fox was up and over her as she braced and then flipped him. She released in mid-throw, and the male - surprisingly scrawny now that she had a good look of him - went tumbling several paces along the street before collapsing into a heap.

The cheetah muttered, though, not sparing a glance toward the fallen fox. Not with the keepsake he had left running down her back. Instead, she turned halfway about, as if worried that he might somehow see her and be able to enjoy the show, and she swiftly peeled her now-filthy shirt from her body. She briefly considered trying to have it cleaned, but... no... so instead she grumbled and tossed the soiled garment to the ground.

Honestly, of all the days to skip wearing anything under her shir-

"Uh..."

The Cheetah started, her ears bolt upright as she rubbernecked about. Her eyes swiftly settled on a new arrival on the mostly empty street. It was a sand cat, short and a little stout, with a look of absolute shock on his muzzle. He was, unsurprisingly, staring right at the topless female.

She curled her lip, snarling so hard that she practically spit the words. "Get out of here, or you'll get the same thing he got!"

The flabbergasted sand cat glanced to the cheetah's face, then to the huddled fox that was moaning pathetically against the street. Uttering a soft squeak of his own, the newcomer's ears skewed and his hands flew to his crotch defensively. "S-... sorry! Leaving!"

And he scampered off as quickly as his squat legs would take him, in such a rush that he careened through one, two, and then three trashcans on his way to safety. The sound of the crashing cans and spilled trash echoed off the adjacent buildings, but within seconds the street was deserted once more.

The cheetah exhaled sharply, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. Maybe she had over-reacted? The sand cat had been an innocent bystander, but... well... it's not like she actually WOULD have kicked him. Well, not unless he had kept staring, anyway. She sighed, shoved her bangs back beneath her cap, and turned her attention back to the fox.

Some primitive sense of self-preservation had goaded the vulpine back into action, and to this end Kavah had managed to painstakingly crawl several paces along the road. He was nowhere near to actually escaping, and probably wouldn't be until he had been crawling for another several minutes, but it was an admirable effort. Especially considering that his eyes were hopelessly crossed, his legs limp like freshly cooked noodles, and his entire body wracked with vicious pulses of suffering set to the tempo of his heartbeat.

"Oh, I don't think so," the cheetah snorted. He thought he could accost her, and just blithely wander off like nothing had happened? She was going to make sure he-

She blinked, her eyes catching something. The feline looked to the ground, not far from where the board she had been carrying rested, and spied a coin purse. HER coin purse! Brows arched, she looked to her belt, swiftly confirming that hers was, in fact, missing.

The cheetah frowned a little, her eyes narrowed almost to slits. She leaned down to snap the purse up off the ground, stuffed it into one of her hip pockets, and then set her sights back on the fox. Oh, he would pay for that. She was just sorry that she was going to have to make it quick. There was no telling if that wandering catkin was off fetching the guards even now.

She took a few quick steps after the fleeing vulpine, closing the distance between the two in an instant, and reached down to tightly grasp his bushy tail. With a firm wrench, she jerked on the limp appendage to drag the male's rear high into the air. He tried to resist, of course, his fingers scrabbling against the cobblestones, but he was weak and sickly now and she was pissed off.

"Oh gods!" he squeaked, his muzzle suddenly planted against the ground as his tail felt like it was being pulled from the socket. "N-... not again! Please, ng... n-... no more!"

The feline almost sneered at that, her fingers tight against his tail until she was certain he would stay in place. She backed away a few steps, the metal clink of steel heels and steel toes setting up an odd and staccato rythm of metal-on-stone as she walked. It was almost like the hoofbeats of a horse, in a way.

Kavah coughed, drool pooling against the stone beneath his cheek. Was she leaving? Oh, please say she was leaving. If she had hit him even one more time, he was absolutely certain that he would di-

And the footsteps increased in tempo, but this time they were rapidly growing closer. Very rapidly. In fact, almost impossibly fast. His heart froze, then lept into his throat as if trying to escape from his body before the inevitable could happen.

In six long strides, the cheetah had once again closed the distance between herself and her prey. She had backed to almost twenty paces away, but she was a cheetah. That distance was, to be honest, nothing to her. She just needed the momentum.

This time she struck with the toe of her boot, her foot swinging forward so swiftly and striking with such ferocity that it almost invented a new sport. Had any aspiring athletes been standing nearby, the ball-kicking display might have inspired the creation of football or soccer, or perhaps a variation thereof involving the brutal unmanning of ones opponent. The toe of the cheetah's boot was reinforced with steel, much like her heel had been, and the stricken fox's testicles were decidedly less resilient.

He was struck with such violence that his hips lifted right off the ground, followed by his legs, and then his entire body as he flipped up, over, and onto his back. His eyes were wide, his pupils shrunk to the size of a pinprick from the shock, and his world devolved into nothing but pain. A single grotesque image, that of a cracked egg, was the only thing to enter his mind - and it stayed there with crystal clarity.

"Nnh..." the fox uttered a soft whimper, then a faint mewl of agony, and he passed out.

The cheetah panted, her chest heaving from the exertion of her assault. From start to finish the decidedly one-sided fight had only taken perhaps two minutes, but she was still exhausted. She glanced down to the fox, a vague sense of accomplishment welling in her breast, and she paused to spit on her fallen opponent.

She snorted. Well, maybe not much of an opponent, but still an annoyance.

Her eyes were drawn to the male's own coin pouch, and she dropped to one knee. She was going to need a new shirt, so it was only fair that he should be the one to pay for it.

A faint smirk once again graced her lips as she ripped the pouch from his belt and upended it into her hand. "Sorry, pal. You try to empty my pouch, then I get to empty yours. Rf... in fact..."

She stuffed the pawful of coins into her pocket, then moved to take an entirely different pawful. Her fingers curled against the male's crotch, roughly probing and grasping over his genitals until she managed to press her palm to his balls. Or, well... his ball. No surprise, given the fury of her attacks, but she was far from sympathetic.

"Rmf, you're just lucky I don't have time to empty this pouch, too." and a pause as she studied the unconscious vulpine's face. Now that she thought about it, could this be the same fox that Cyrena had been telling her about? The one that her friend had just broken up with?

The cheetah chuckled, her fingers flexing as she trapped the male's nut and what little remained of its twin in her grip, giving him a quick and brutal squeeze. She couldn't be certain it was the same one, but honestly, how many foxkin could there be in Karash? Well, she would have to tell Cyrena about this later, just to make certain.

Kavah stirred ever so slightly, uttering a gurgling whine as he shifted against her paw. He didn't, however, wake up. No, he was most certainly down for the count, and wouldn't be waking up any time soon. Or having sex. Or walking. It was going to be a rough month for the fox.

She gave his pouch another firm squeeze, then rose. It was time to make her own escape, although... hrm. No, she couldn't just go walking through the city topless. She planted the sole of her boot against the male's increasingly less-male crotch, braced herself, and used her clawed fingers to tear a wide swatch of fabric from his shirt.

Straightening back up, the cheetah stretched the strip of cloth taut and tied it about her torso. It wasn't exactly modest, but then again she didn't really have enough curves to worry about modesty anyway. It would do for now.

She grinned a little, clinking her way back over to the fallen lumber. Hefting it up, she balanced it beneath one arm before once again setting off for her destination. Really, she wasn't sure why she had been so upset about this job. All told, it wasn't so bad, and it was an absolutely beautiful day today.

She smiled, ears perked as she plodded off, her lips pursed as she whistled cheerfully. 'If only', she thought, 'every day could be as nice as this one'.