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Sure, on the surface it had been just another date night: two young professionals carving out an evening in their busy lives to celebrate their growing love. This time, though, it had been less about the present, the dinner at the nice upscale restaurant and the art walk through downtown, than about their future. Over dinner, two topics surrounding it had been the source of most of their conversation: in a few weeks, the upcoming one-year anniversary of their relationship, and after that, the steps they were taking to make it more formal. Denny, admittedly, was a hopeless and sometimes even overwrought sort of romantic, but not in that annoyingly crass and dominant way that thought surprise, intrusive gestures were the way to a woman's heart. So, there would be no unilateral move, no suddenly putting her on the spot with a question. Lauren was glad of it - she'd had more than enough of that sort of thing from her exes. The engagement, instead, was being carefully discussed and planned by the both of them - Denny would be allowed to pursue the specifics of making it a truly romantic evening, but they would go into it together, with the actual answer to the question having long been decided. They would be engaged, and married thereafter, and so the night would be celebratory rather than filled with the tension of unresolved decision, culminating with a modern and mutual exchange of modest rings, and a night that would surely be one to remember.

Not that the present evening wouldn't be one to remember fondly. Denny's taste in restaurants was excellent, and the food had been superb, as had the wine; the walk had been just enough to let it settle into a comfortable buzz between Lauren's ears by the time they got back to the apartment. There wasn't even a question as to what would happen next - as soon as the door had closed, they'd been in each other's arms, and his hands gently caressing her back and sides, his muzzle trailing a series of kisses along the fur of her neck and bare shoulder, had left her quickly eager for more. She'd loosened his tie, giving him another lingering kiss before excusing herself to change into something more... well, she'd said comfortable, but it was clear enough what she'd meant by it.

A part of that, she knew, came from the practical side of her mind - no sense in getting a nice, formal dress mussed - but it was also because of what she knew a good ensemble could do. Denny was no wolf, not one of those guys that did everything they could to scream "alpha male," just a kind and caring dalmatian-patterned guy set in the perfect mold of the "new" modern gentleman, and while in most aspects of her life it was exactly what she needed, in the bedroom it wasn't, at least not quite. Not that she would ever complain; his deft, indefatigable tongue and unceasing patience with it were heavenly, and his sexual technique had a comfortable rhythm, thoroughly gentle and respectful without a hint of force or pain, even if it was usually just a little too sedate to be absolutely, one hundred percent fulfilling. When she took the time, though, dressing up in something silky and slinky that emphasized every one of her curves, she could usually stoke a fire in him, and while things were still resolutely gentle, they were countered by an energetic eagerness and added a certain rapid desperation to his style. When she could evoke that, though, when it felt like he didn't just want her, but needed her in that moment, it was just about as good, with him, as it could get.

She decided to keep it sexy but simple - it made sense to leave the truly sensational for the real landmark events that would be coming up ever so soon. After a moment of contemplation hovering over her dresser, she picked out a nice complement to her reddish-brown fur: a matching set of silver-grey bra and high-cut panties, the seams and lace edging done up in metallic silver thread, and a light negligee with a hem that teased along her upper thighs, just sheer enough to reveal the alluring curves and colors underneath. She'd ordered it custom-notched in the back so that it fell cleanly down along either side of her white tipped tail, one of her favorite attributes - somehow managing to be both cutely fluffy and alluringly sleek at once.

Quickly shrugging out of her dress, she pulled the other ensemble on, enjoying the feeling of the lingerie hugging her hips and gracefully pushing her bust into prominence, loving how sexy it made her feel and the way it further stoked the comfortable sensation of arousal as it thrummed within her chest. The negligee was the perfect touch, the subtle, silky sense of the fabric just right as it rustled against her curves, and she knew, as she heard Denny's footsteps coming up the stairs, that the evening promised just the right sort of excitement.

She leaned alluringly in the doorway, giving Denny a sultry grin as he stepped onto the landing in front of her. Shirt and tie had been left somewhere downstairs, leaving him beautifully bare-chested. She stepped forward happily into his arms, burying her muzzle in the soft fur just below his neck, sighing as she felt his embrace enfold her.

He was in no hurry, as was his usual way, although Lauren knew that once the negligee came off, it would be a different story. For the moment, though, she was content to revel in his warmth, his touch, kissing and caressing in a soundless slow dance as they ever so gradually walked their way towards the bed.

Their embrace released for a moment, and Lauren leaned over and climbed onto the bed, a practiced motion that she knew would give Denny a quick, alluring flash of her panties before she rolled over casually onto her side. He quickly joined her, jumping more than climbing, and landed close to her, and the both grinned as the bed bounced lightly beneath them.

Denny reached over, running a hand along the fabric of the negligee as it trailed down her side. She felt it slip below the hem, gently tracing through the fur on her outer thigh, before starting to slide tantalizingly inward...

As he did, though, there was a soft, unusual sound from somewhere off to the side - almost like a child coughing, or a metallic clank, but not really like either. It was faint enough that even with her keen hearing, she would have relegated it to some inconsequential background noise and concentrated back on Denny's touch, but it was suddenly no longer there. She glanced up to see his hand swat up against his neck, like something had bit him. For a moment, she thought it was just another damn mosquito - the things kept finding ways to slip inside somehow - but when his fingers pulled back, she could see that they were holding something glintingly metallic in them. She watched as he looked at it in puzzlement, trying to figure out why the tiniest little dart had been embedded in his neck, but it quickly tumbled from his fingers as they went limp. He made a slow, oddly uncoordinated pass at it with his other hand, a movement that seemed to fade halfway through as his entire body sagged, his eyes rolling eerily back as his head thunked down limply against the pillow.

"D-denny?" Lauren said, shock and confusion quickly replacing the anticipation of before. She leaned over him, desperately feeling for a pulse, and thankfully it was there - a little slow, but strong. In fact, he was still breathing, his chest gradually rising and falling, but there was no response when she shook his shoulder and called out his name loudly in his ear - he was suddenly dead to the world. The dart, then, had been some sort of drug - and, belatedly as her mind quickly shifted gears, surely delivered by someone who was still in the room.

She hadn't heard the closet door open, but when she looked up, there was clearly a man striding forward confidently from its direction. He was dressed all in black: turtleneck shirt, cotton pants, some sort of vest festooned with tactical gear that he casually shrugged off and set on the nightstand. Even the fur that poked through the holes in his dark ski mask was black as coal.

For a moment, Lauren just goggled at him, frozen to the spot. This couldn't be happening! They lived in a nice neighborhood, safe, patrolled by private security even - the only crime she could even recall was a kid skateboarding destructively through the potted plants in front of the complex across the street. And yet, here was this strange man, whistling to himself in an oddly familiar way, as he nonchalantly pulled a packet of thick, black zip ties from one of the vest pockets and using them to secure Denny's wrists and ankles behind him, before pulling both back enough that several more linked ties could secure them together.

"Oh, don't worry," the man said, glancing over at her. "This cute little pup will be right as rain in just a few minutes. Just gotta get him... properly set up, you know?"

As the man pulled a folded-down muzzle from one of the larger pockets, complete with an uncomfortable-looking bit to keep it in place, Lauren felt her breath catch in her throat. She knew, suddenly, why the whistling had seemed so familiar to her. The way that he moved, the sound of his voice... it had to be him.

It took her a moment to find her voice, a million thoughts bursting through her head as the man secured the bit behind Denny's back teeth, pushed his limp jaws back into place around it before hooking the muzzle into place and tightening down the strap that ran around its circumference, nodding satisfactorily before looking back up. "So... it's coming back to you, I hope?"

"Julian... w-what, what do you think-"

"Ah! You do remember!" he replied, reaching up to doff the ski mask and chuck it over towards the door, fingers meticulously smoothing his headfur back down into place from where the mask had disturbed it.

Julian had always been an odd duck of sorts, proudly a mutt through and through: a bit of doberman here, a little german shepherd there, even claiming a touch of presa canario and, improbably, some sort of mustelid ancestry. Somehow, though, they'd all come together quite nicely, with a sleek, if short, muzzle and a face with lines that were cleanly masculine without looking brutish or harsh. It was a face that had always seemed to sport a grin of some sort, and eyes with a spark of determination and undeniable intelligence, the face that some years ago she'd given a second glance, and then a third - and those glances had improbably blossomed into a relationship that had made it almost all the way to two years before she'd seen enough of the personality that had truly lay beyond his deep, captivating gaze. It had been the kind of breakup that had cost her a phone number, and changing her social media accounts from a name to an alias, but his protestations had petered out after a month, and it had been years since then without a single call or text or letter. And now, suddenly, here he was standing in her bedroom, looking like he was pretending to act out a special-forces movie he'd just seen, grinning at her like he expected her to be proud of him or something. Only he wasn't playing - Denny was well and truly trussed on the bed next to her, and he certainly wasn't there just to watch Denny squirm.

She scooted back on the bed, flailing around beside her on the nightstand for the phone, surprised that he didn't move at all in response, simply watching as she brought it to her ear. It was soon clear, though, why he didn't seem to care - when she pressed the call button, all it did was click once and then go silent - no dial tone, no nothing. Her cell phone, of course, was still on the dresser behind him - or it was, as she watched him pick it up, pry the back cover open and pop out the battery, before tossing both parts underhand onto the landing. Denny's phone, retrieved from his pocket, quickly followed, and Julian closed the door behind them, taking a moment to drag a heavy chest of drawers just far enough in front to keep them firmly shut.

"Yes... I'm sure you'd agree that for a date such as this, privacy is an important prerequisite, so I took the liberty of turning off a few of the major distractions. That way, we can have a nice romantic evening of catching up, just the two of us." He paused, bringing a hand down to lightly stroke Denny's cheek. "Well, the three of us, if you want to be technical about it, but I'm sure you know that the presence of your delightful, loyal little lapdog is, well... not particularly important in this context. After all, I don't know his name, so he can't possibly be important to me. And you... perhaps you've fooled yourself into believing that you can actually love him in the way that you loved me, but now that I'm here, I'm sure we both know that the truth will win out..."

His grin, which had been subtly shading towards malevolence, suddenly lightened. "Oh, jeez!" he said, actually laughing a little. "Wow, I didn't realize how ominous that sounded until it came out of my mouth. Man, listening to that, you'd think I was a deranged stalker or something! I mean really, no offense, random guy whose name I didn't bother trying to find out, I'm sure you're relevant and important to someone out there, and I promise I'll apologize for that when you wake up. Really, though... you know what? Let's start over."

He walked around to the other side of the bed, sitting down lightly at the foot and stretching his back down along the bed before tilting his head back to regard Lauren with a contented grin. "Ahhh... I can't tell you how much I've missed this! All those times we just decided not to get up, lazed around in bed while the rest of the world spun all its gears for someone else to be involved with, but not us. Just lying here, daydreaming, shooting the breeze, exchanging casual intimacies, talking about things of great weight or no import at all... just perfect."

Lauren just glared back at him, the battle in her expression between fear and anger showing rage quickly winning out. In return, he simply raised a quizzical eyebrow. "It does work better, though, if I don't have to do all the talking for the both of us. So... how has your day been so far? I heard you had quite the lovely dinner..."

The shock of the situation was no longer enough to hold Lauren's tongue. "Have you gone completely, one hundred percent insane? You shot, literally shot my boyfriend full of drugs, hogtied him, are basically holding me captive, and you just want to, what, talk about your fucking day? What kind of a day do you think someone could possibly have while being kidnapped by their crazy ex?"

If Julian looked hurt by her words, he wasn't showing it. "Well, for one, it's not like I'm taking you anywhere, so it's not kidnapping. Plus, I think you're a little confused. I didn't tie up your boyfriend. I'm your boyfriend, right? And you and I are both here, generally unrestrained. Yes, I did, perhaps, secure a current gentleman that happened to be just a little too conspicuously in the way at the moment, but I hardly think that's so unreasonable. Really, is it so wrong for two people in a relationship to simply be together?"

"Julian, we're not in a relationship! We haven't been for years! I don't know how many times I told you that after we broke up!"

"Yes, I know, you've been trying to convince yourself of that. We haven't, in fact, broken up though."

"What! Of course we have!"

"Right, you said some words to the effect that you were breaking up with me, but I never broke up with you. Therefore, while we have been physically apart for longer than was sensible, I have kept our relationship kindled within my heart. In fact, to that extent, you really are something special - you are the one woman I've never broken up with. That's a commitment you're not gonna get from most guys, you know. Well, maybe your little pet over there - he just gives off that sense of being so cluelessly, blindly loyal that he'd follow you into an active volcano if you asked him to. But someone who'll give you that commitment with both eyes open, not something you see every day, right?"

Lauren ground her teeth, trying to figure out how to respond. Prudence dictated that, with a dangerous ex-boyfriend lying next to her with as=yet unknown motives, she shouldn't do anything to get him actually pissed off. At the same time, though, after this stunt she was just about ready to try and strangle him with her bare hands, if that was even possible.

"Julian... I'm going to say this one more time. We. Are. NOT in a relationship! It's over! This isn't some casual conversation between two lovers. You broke into my house. You are committing a CRIME. If you think you're going to get anything more than hate out of me, if you think I'm going to want to do anything with you ever again, you are sadly mistaken."

"You know, you're not fooling anyone fronting like that. We both know that when you left, there were still things, still feelings, that were unresolved between us. Feelings that won't ever be resolved as long as we're apart. And on a day like today, well... I know my entrance was a little dramatic, to be sure, but it was a day when we needed to be together. One simply can't ignore such a momentous occasion. And really, there's no reason to hide those feelings right now. After all, your puppy over there is... oh, actually, I stand corrected."

"Mmph!" It wasn't very loud at all, just a faint little almost-growl choked mostly off by the combination of bit and muzzle, but it was a clear enough sign that Denny had found his way back into consciousness. Lauren looked over, and thankfully his eyes had rolled back into place. She had almost hoped that Denny's face would display the same vengeful anger as her own, but instead all she could see was fear in his panicked, wavering eyes and flattened-down ears. Of course, if she'd been in a similar situation, perhaps she'd feel the same way - especially if she hadn't known Julian the way she did. Julian, for all his faults, had never been one to use particularly overt violence, at least not when she'd been with him...

"Ah, he awakes! See, I told you he'd be right as rain. Nice and lively, not a scratch on him. Fear not, though - I'm quite certain his participation in all this, however marginal it might be, will be entirely passive. I'm nothing if not thorough, as you well know. That little rig he's got on, I tested it on some jerk of a bouncer who wouldn't let me into that hot new club downtown. Not well-dressed enough? Really? Since when is a full suit and waistcoat, complete with a blue velvet bow tie, not the absolute pinnacle of style? Yeah, what a jerk, right? It took a few of those darts to get him down after they closed, and man was it a bitch to drag three hundred pounds of muscle back into that alley, but once he came to, that rig was a champ - tugged on it for hours, and had nothing to show for it. Boy, was he steamed when he noticed I was watching him struggle with it! I had to leave before the sun came up, of course, and I guess he might have snapped the plastic or had someone find him after that, but I have the utmost confidence that your boy here might as well not even bother with struggling. It's kind of distracting, you know - not really the atmosphere I'm trying to conjure up here. I don't really want to put him out again - not exactly sure how many repeat doses you can actually give someone safely - but given how he seems, I can't imagine him being anything but well-behaved."

Julian suddenly sat upright, smacking a fist into his palm. "The atmosphere! Gah... serves me right for getting swept up in the moment, I guess. A silent, brightly lit room... quite the opposite of romantic, especially if we're going to make a proper night out of it. I even had all of the stuff ready to prep, too, but you got home just a bit earlier than I'd planned. I certainly can't go forward with that unresolved, though! Just sit tight, and I'll get it all into place before you know it. Now, I could have sworn this room had a dimmer switch..."

He walked off towards the doorway, whistling to himself, and a moment later the lights dimmed considerably, although still bright enough to see him saunter over to the closet and fiddle with the outline of what looked like a duffel bag amidst the gloom. For the moment, at least, he was distracted, which meant that for a very brief moment, she had a chance - but for what?

She glanced over at Denny, meeting his gaze. Free him, maybe? She knew there were scissors in the bathroom - but that was across the landing, behind the closed door, which Julian would surely hear her open. Trying to chew through would probably take too long, and canine claws weren't exactly made for cutting. Or, could she take down Julian... but again, with what? The heaviest, hardest thing nearby was the hardcover book on her nightstand, probably not enough to do more than stun him - and she would have only one shot before he could retaliate.

Denny, though, seemed to have another idea - even through his fear, he was nosing with his muzzle, his eyes glancing pointedly in a particular direction. Lauren followed his gaze, and saw that he was trying to gesture towards the window - a window that wasn't all that large, but large enough for her to climb through, and one that led out onto a rickety but mostly stable fire escape. And from there to the street, then to a neighbor, and a phone call to the authorities that would resolve this nightmare. She didn't know what Julian might do to Denny if she were to flee like that, and something in Denny's eyes seemed to indicate he was contemplating the same, but he kept gesturing nonetheless - if it meant that she would be safe, he'd be willing to take that risk.

There wasn't much time to think beyond that, though, only enough to act - Julian would be turning around soon enough. "I love you," she mouthed at Denny, hoping he caught the meaning, before swinging her legs over the side of the bed, landing as quietly as she could, and padding over to the window. It made some noise going up, but hopefully there would still be enough time to get away before Julian noticed.

She carefully unhooked the latch, dug her fingers in against the handles, and tugged up with all her might. In response, the window creaked a little, shuddered slightly in its frame... and went absolutely nowhere.

What was wrong with it? She hastily checked the latch again, verified that it was all the way clear, and yanked up again and again, and still the window was going nowhere. She glanced back behind her, trying to figure out how much time she had - and noticed Julian standing a few steps away, looking at her without the slightest concern on his face, before he struck a match and set about carefully lighting the series of votive candles he'd arranged on top of her dresser.

Dammit! She paused, looking more carefully around the edges of the window - and noticed several dozen points along the bottom of it, finishing nails from the looks of it, pounded through the wooden edging on the window and into its frame. Of course the bastard had thought of everything, even this. Nevertheless, she wasn't about to give up without a fight, scrabbling at the nails with her claws and yanking again and again at the window in a desperate, frustrated bid to free it. It was all for naught, though, uselessly eating up the few minutes that Julian had spent lighting candles, strewing rose petals along the bed, floor, and discomfited Denny, and hanging a photo of Julian and Lauren on a coastal vacation prominently on the wall. As she gave one more desperate tug on the window, she could feel his presence behind her, and them more directly as he put a hand on her shoulder and spoke softly with his muzzle hovering close to her ear.

"Now that's much better, isn't it? So much more romantic, at least on short notice. I thought about a nice bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice to finish it, but alcohol just... blurs things too much, you know? Making memories is so much easier when your mind is sharp and clear, able to experience emotions at the full volume that it's capable of."

He slid his hand deftly down her shoulder and along her arm, the palm of his hand coming to rest on the back of hers, still tugging futilely at one of the well-hammered nails. "I had a feeling that you'd go to somewhat greater lengths to appear to deny your feelings now that your pup has awakened, but I should applaud you for such a display of apparent verisimilitude. I'd almost have believed it myself, if I didn't know better. Still, I did anticipate it somewhat, but it seemed far too risky - if you'd taken it too far, on such a dangerous and slippery balcony, our romantic evening could have ended in tragedy, and I don't think my heart could have borne such pain. So, naturally, I took precautions."

He pulled his hand back a little, fingers tracing slow circles through the fur on the back of her hand, and she tried to ignore the incongruously gentle sensation, especially knowing who it was coming from. Julian, though, still didn't seem to notice her coldness.

"After all, though, it wasn't as though you were going to pull off some great escape dressed like that. I mean, remember that time I tried to convince you to do something in public? Nothing much, just a blowjob, with you fully clothed, and both of us behind a hedge with no one about, and still it was too much. So I can't imagine you prancing around the street dressed in that sexy little number. Ah, well... not like it would have worked out. In a few minutes you'll be gushing like a faucet anyway, and I really doubt many women are capable of getting very far in that condition... oh, wait! That's right, I do have to give it to you first before we can even think of anything like that. Jeez, for all that planning, I really am kind of scatter-brained tonight. I suppose that's what love will do to you, though. Anyway, um... here you go, I guess?"

She felt his other arm moving rapidly against her, and a moment later a sharp point of pain jabbed in painfully against her thigh. She glanced to see a long, narrow syringe sticking out of it, the plunger already descending smoothly as it pressed a rapidly diminishing reservoir of clear fluid into her. There wasn't even any time to really flinch away from it before the plunger finished its descent and the needle automatically snapped back, Julian tossing the spent disposable aside as she whirled around on him, grabbing two fistfuls of shirt and hauling his face close to hers as she snarled at him.

"What the fuck was that? What the fuck did you just give me? You're just going to drug me all the way out, too?"

"That? Oh, nothing like that at all, I assure you. Just... think of it as your get-out-of-guilt-free card, I suppose. If you're wondering about what's in it, though... what did he call it? Vesicant, Vascular, one of those medical-y terms or something - I do love words, to be sure, but even I can't begin to decode that particular brand of arcane nonsense. In a nutshell, though, as it was described to me, it makes it so that once you get aroused, you stay aroused, at least until it wears off - nothing bad to it, just takes that natural process and enhances it a little. And since you're partway there, and as I'm quite certain my hands know the rest of the way, what it means is that when it comes time for that, there's no need to even try and hide your emotions or your responses to save face with your cute little puppy over there. You simply won't be able to help getting off, so you won't have to make a show of pretending otherwise."

"And what makes you think you're getting anything from me? Wait, is that what this is all about? You're so smitten with me that you're going to what, try and rape me into getting back together with you?"

She saw Julian's face fall a little, to her satisfaction. "Really? You just had to use that word, didn't you? So tawdry, so base, so... uncomplex, lacking entirely in nuance. I know you think more of me than that! I'm not the sort of person who accosts people and drags them into the bushes... I mean, except for that one guy, but I can assure you there was nothing sexual about that at all. I know that I am, perhaps, just the slightest smidgeon of bisexual, but I can assure you, that guy... definitely not my type. Ah, but I digress. That's not even, really, what this evening is all about, but simply a necessary part of the celebration - after all, what sort of anniversary doesn't end in a consummation between the parties celebrating it?"

"Anniversary? What the hell are you even talking about?"

"You really don't remember, do you?" Oddly enough, his face didn't fall further with the revelation. "I suppose that's only to be expected, though. You never were quite as nostalgic, or meticulous, at handling such things. For me, though, so much of my personality is based on the depth of memory, the acceptance of the past as the meandering path that can nonetheless guide us towards the future. So, of course, I could remember. And how could I forget? That brilliant night, crisp and clear and full of stars, the full moon shining down as I walked up to the door of that fateful tavern. Sitting there on the stool, black leather, supple and slightly cracked from years of well-intentioned use, looking over through the faint haze of smoke and neon-tinted light towards a radiance that eclipsed all else. Confident enough, and yet so delightfully coy, how you'd pull away from what your friends were saying, sneaking furtive glances my way as though you didn't want them to know, and I was so curious to see if you'd do it, to see if you'd actually sidle up to the bar, and when you did, your beauty close enough to touch... even then, at that initial moment, I knew it was meant to be. A moment seared forever in my mind, and every year I wanted to celebrate it again with you. The first was pure bliss, the second pure agony in your recent absence, and the years since... there was the occasional shrine, and the occasional other girl to see if that void could be filled, but none could compare to your presence. And then I realized that it was coming up on seven years now... lucky number seven, and I knew it simply couldn't be celebrated without you. So, here I am!"

He paused, an eyebrow going up again as he noticed his speech hadn't managed to do much to change her expression. "You could smile, you know. After all, we are celebrating an important milestone here. Hmm, but you're right... something's still missing. Music, maybe? I know it's ludicrously out of style, but I managed to track down a good looking boombox at a yard sale and put together a mixtape that I think will set the mood perfectly..."

He didn't leave just yet, though, placing a hand against her shoulder and pressing gently but steadily back until she released him, then gestured over to the bed. "Why don't you get settled in there while I set it up? If you keep standing there, encouraging things to flow downward, I imagine you'll be far less comfortable than you would otherwise..."

The truly infuriating part was, he was right. There hadn't been a whole lot of time with Denny, but it had been more than enough to get her engine revving, and that meant that certain part of her were definitely ready. Women certainly weren't the same as men in that regard. Guys, she knew, could get an erection in a matter of moments - and have it recede in just about the same amount of time if the circumstances called for it, and sometimes when they didn't. Women, though, while they took a while longer to warm up, took even more time to cool back down, and she was certainly no exception. Once she was wet, she couldn't simply will it to go away, as much as she might have wanted to - and even if it had been possible, in time, the injection he had given her would certainly have curtailed that. At least it wasn't actually leaking out - she wasn't nearly hot and bothered enough for that, and even then it wasn't all that common for her, no matter how much some guys liked seeing a wet spot on her panties before taking them off. If it got to the point where Julian spread her lips apart, though, it would be more than obvious - and, troublingly, he seemed to be heading more and more in that direction.

Her train of thought was interrupted, though, when a sudden blast of sound came from somewhere near the floor, distorting on worn-out speakers before toning down to a more reasonable volume. It was a mixtape, for sure, the music just out of date enough, the kind of fare that would sure enough be playing in some jukebox in a dive that hadn't changed in the last couple of decades. Given Julian's apparent monomaniacal obsession with the day they'd met, it wouldn't have surprised her if he'd gone back to whatever no-name bar she'd been in and actually written down all the songs off the list just so he could go and record them onto an actual cassette tape. The music was slow rock of some sort, not exactly romantic - but then again, whatever romance there had been in the evening had fled quite some time ago.

Julian, however, seemed to appreciate it, actually dancing around borderline-incompetently to it in the middle of the floor, occasionally glancing over at Denny's trussed form whenever the dance called for a good shake of his hips. When he noticed Lauren watching him, though, he cut it out, instead bounding back over to her and setting a hand against the small of her back, his fingers playing with the silky fabric even as the palm of his hand guided her towards the bed. "C'mon, now - I know you well enough to know that you're no fan of against-the-wall or on-the-floor sorts of activities. We're gonna end up on the bed anyway, so you might as well get comfortably nestled in now, right? Yeah, I know, a little awkward with the pup over there, but really, he's all the way over at the other end of the... what is that, a king-sized bed at least, it's got to be. Plenty of room to settle in without him interfering..."

"And if I don't do that?" she asked defiantly.

"Well, I guess we could dance... hey, remember that time we came back after that music festival? Man, we were so buzzed, maybe more, I don't think I could have gotten it up if I tried... but we were still so full of energy, we just kicked on the stereo, stripped down to our skivvies and danced like crazy! I think it was just about until the sun came up, and we just collapsed, I can kinda remember the rays of sunlight streaming in beneath the edge of the blinds right as my eyelids got just a little too heavy to keep open... oh yeah, and then we woke up, what was it, Saturday afternoon, scarfed down cold leftover chinese for lunch or dinner or whatever, and then we just rolled over onto the couch, stripped off whatever was left, and went at it, watching the sun going down and the sunset lighting up the clouds in orange and purple. Just pure, pristine beauty, with your warmth throbbing contentedly around me and those soft, light moans, the ones that come between breaths as your climax subsides and your body relaxes to conform perfectly into my embrace, sounding in my ears like the richest chorus. Oh, how I miss that, the way that you could make even the most mundane of days almost unbearably romantic..."

He trailed off, his grin looking almost blissful. "So... do you want to dance? It really would be a nice prelude to what the evening has in store for us... if you don't mind the mess, that is."

Lauren growled, angry that he saw the need to remind her of what he'd done. The area where he'd injected her felt distinctly warm, and she thought she could feel that warmth spreading upward, lingering somehow between her hips as it froze that part of her in a state of readiness. She was done thinking about that, though. However her body might have felt, all it took was one look over at Denny, trussed and helpless and suffering, to remind her of how fucked up this all was. Of how fucked up Julian was. She glared back at him, willing her eyes to flash her hatred hot and loud enough that it might sink in through however many veils of delusion Julian had managed to cloak himself it.

"No, I don't want to dance! I don't want to do anything with you!"

"Sure you do. Okay, yeah, we can skip the dancing. You know, just take it slow. Hop on the bed, cuddle for a bit, get nice and warmed up before-"

"NO."

"All right, then you suggest something. Just... something romantic, okay?"

"Dammit, how many different ways do I have to find to say this? You don't care that you're here, invading my privacy, invading my person, literally sticking a needle in me, tying up my just-about-fiancee and holding us both hostage to your twisted delusions. Well, care about this: I don't like you anymore. In fact, right about now, I actually hate you. The only thing I want from you, the only thing, is for you to go, to get out of here, to get out of my life entirely and leave us both the fuck alone. The fact that you can't see how crazy this is, that you actually think this is okay... all I can say is that you somehow managed to become even worse than the person I thought you were by the time we broke up. I'm not playing. I'm not pretending. This is me, these are my real words and my real feelings. I fucking hate you. But if you take off, if you leave right the fuck now, in return I'll do one more slightly nice thing for you: I won't call the cops and have you locked in a box for the rest of your miserable life, which is exactly where they put people that pull stuff like this. Got it?"

For a moment, for one brief moment, the mask seemed to slip, and the smile dropped straight off of Julian's face, replaced by an expression that wasn't angry, or sad, or anything at all, just disturbingly, oddly blank. His hand dropped away from her back, dropping down to his side, and he just stood there, the tension evident in his body. Despite what she knew about him, Lauren actually wondered if he was going to lash out at her, but whatever it was that Julian was feeling, it didn't seem to last. He seemed to pass it off with a casual shrug, his body relaxing back down, and while his grin had more of a wry, even guilty edge to it, it made its inevitable return.

"All right, all right, I get where you're coming from. Look, I'm not totally naive here. I know it's not normal to tie up the guy your girl happens to be with, and the whole injection thing was probably over the line, and yeah, maybe the whole thing isn't exactly in line with the normal notions of a romantic evening. Love isn't always an easy thing. Sometimes it's rough. Sometimes it's dirty, but even if it is, you can't just give up on it."

He gave her a long look, then panned over towards Denny before returning to her, grimacing ever so slightly in that way she knew indicated he was wrestling internally with something, even though it was hard to hear it in his tone. "Okay, so it's clear you're not feeling the romantic stuff. You want to have a more direct, honest, meaningful conversation, the kind of stuff relationships are really made of. I can do that. You want a heart-to-heart? No problem. So... cards on the table, then. Maybe this day doesn't have a lot of meaning to you. Maybe that's not the part of our relationship that mattered. It matters a lot to me, though, and it matters even more that on this day, that I get to be here with you, in the way that a man tends to be with a woman. I mean, you remember the way we celebrated important things, right? Always that exact same thing, that most intimate of intimacies, those times when I held out a condom and you just shook your head, said being on the pill was more than enough. How we shared warmth in every way possible, in ways that lingered so beautifully. And that's what I want... no, not just want, need. Tonight, especially, this night so imbued with meaning, this one night meant solely for us."

He thought for a second, then turned his head to the side. "Uh, no offense, bro... but you know how it is, right? One romantic to another, or at least that's what I'm assuming. Hey, hey, no need to glare at me like that! I mean, if I was in your position, I'd at least want to think I'd be understanding of the other person's feelings..."

He turned back slightly, looking meaningfully at the bed for a moment before regarding her again. "I'm not gonna lie to you. There is something I absolutely need from you tonight, and even if your mind can't see a way through to give it to me, your body... well, I think we both know that's another story entirely. And I apologize if this sounds, well, crass, but I just don't really have a better way to put it. There's only one way I'm leaving this apartment tonight, and that's going to be after seeing the culmination of our love blossoming out from that most beautiful part of you. I know, I know, sounds kinda... not so nice when you say it out loud, but when you're in the moment, well... as a guy, it's just one of those things that sends you over the moon. I'm sure your little pup knows all about that, right?" He paused, looking in closer at her. "Or don't you let him go that far yet? You'd think if you're getting engaged, you'd have at least given him the pleasure. I'd say I was thrilled that you were saving that honor for an encounter such as this, but... right, no more pretending."

He backed away from her slowly, edging around the bed until he was standing right behind Denny, reaching down to absent-mindedly pet the fur on his neck, hardly even noticing the man cringing and trying to squirm away from his touch, bound muscles tensing and straining futilely. "I'm sure you know me too well, though. Even if I were the kind of guy that could force a woman down, with you, there's just no way that could ever happen. At the same time, though... this really is important for me, and I just don't think I can leave until we celebrate this the way it needs to be celebrated. So... you really want to press the issue on this, you really want to fight me, yeah, I'll back off for a time. But you do know, by now, that persistence is one of my strongest assets. We can take it slow, nice and slow, and you can let your mind fight your body all night if you want, but... the longer you sit there trying to fight your feelings, the longer this poor little boy has to sit in that not-so-comfortable position. I know what I'm doing, of course, so his circulation isn't going to get cut off unless he struggles a lot harder, but if he stays nice and quiet like he has, he'll basically be fine. The longer it goes, though, the more his fur's gonna chafe, the more strained his muscles, the stiffer his back and neck are going to be. I'm sure I don't need to fill in the dots here. Besides, we both know that no matter how mad you get, you're going to cave eventually. That's just how you work, right? Plus, there's that shot, so..." he inclined his head back towards the empty spot on the bed. "We can still make a decent night out of it, even after all this - I'm willing to let it slide if you are. But if you want to stay... prickly, I think it's just gonna be frustrating for all of us, with the same ultimate outcome."

He walked back over to her, watching as she seethed inwardly, swearing silently to herself. He really was going to press the issue, wasn't he? It really was going to come down to that - regardless of what he wanted to call it, or how he was going to go about it, he'd basically just stated his intention to rape her. And yet... all the ways out were blocked, and Julian was heavier and stronger, able to shrug off whatever she could contemplate trying against him. Her options were narrowing down to a single inevitability, and more than anything it made her want to scream in impotent rage. Instead, though, she just gave him the iciest glare she possibly could, even though she doubted it would do any good, and unsurprisingly it didn't seem to faze him in the least.

"So... here we are, then," he said, still sounding oddly... content with the situation. "Just two people baring out hearts to each other. Well... not quite, I guess. I put my cards on the table, though, and I've heard your thoughts, so I think it's only fair to see what your body has to say about all this..."

His hand darted over to her shoulder, and she felt a light tug of fabric against it before she felt it seem to unravel against her fur. Belatedly, she remembered that the negligee was only really held into place by a single pair of spaghetti straps, and each of those were held together with a cute little bow that could be untied with one quick pull. By the time she realized what he was up to, he'd already undone the second bow, and the garment was beginning to fall. She slapped her hands down to hold it in place, but not quite in time, her fingers brushing against the declining hem of the fabric before pressing into the fur on her midriff instead. One moment more, and the loose garment was nothing more than a small, tangled pile of fabric at her feet, and suddenly the only bits of clothing between her and Julian were underwear that was designed to flaunt and enhance rather than conceal.

The effect certainly wasn't lost on Julian - or on Denny, for that matter. Looking over, she could see that, despite his situation, Denny's eyes still went wide in response. Julian, for his part, appeared to have taken a step back, and was looking her up and down, clearly admiring what he saw. His gaze lingered lower, though, seeming to dwell excessively in the region of her hips, and Lauren could guess easily enough what he was looking for.

"Ah, well... I have to say, there's a part of me that had hoped to see an undeniable indication of your enthusiasm. If I recall, though, you never were one to be... demonstrative of your desire in that particular fashion. No matter, though. I'm quite certain that desire is there, welling within you, and it's just a matter of coaxing it back to the surface. That never was a problem for us, was it? Other things, perhaps, but that passion was always there, unavoidable, and no matter what, the mood would always find us eventually..."

He sat down on the side of the bed, brushing down his shirt and tucking his hands under the bottom edge, looking for a moment like he was going to pull it off, but instead his hands settled down and her stared at her, almost past her, as he continued.

"I have to say, that was one of the things I really loved about you, one of those things that set you apart from any other woman I've ever met - that spark of desire that was always alive within you, just waiting to be let out. Some women, they run hot and cold, but that cold is absolute - they say that painful word of negation, and it stays at 'no,' no matter what you do. With you, though, that phrase was always so tentative, so indefinite, so successfully parried by just the right sort of determination. A kiss, a caress in the right place, and that wall of negation started to crumble, bit by bit, every push back or attempt to bat my hands aside coming with less and less resolve, and by the time I found my way down to massage your most intimate parts, we both knew that what came next was all but inevitable. In fact, I can't recall a single time when I was in the mood that I didn't eventually get you to join me, and join with me. A woman who can do that is a true treasure, and it captivated my heart for sure, among other things..."

Of course he would like that, she thought. Liked the fact that he'd been able to pressure and cajole and browbeat her into sex, and completely clueless that it was one of the things she'd hated about him, one of the reasons she'd kicked him to the curb all those years ago. It had always been like that with him - no real respect for her personal space. A touch here, a grope there, a hand curling in tightly against her breast or her butt, always pestering, looking for some weakness, some way to get her to give in. And she'd hated herself for liking it at first, for mistaking the attention for love - and later on, even after it had soured, for succumbing to it anyway, for letting her body get away with finding arousal from it, from inevitably betraying her indifference with a gasp or moan or whimper that only proved he was succeeding and should redouble his efforts. And there had been those nights he'd spoken of, where they'd been on the couch or the bed, and she'd fobbed him off with tales of headache or disinterest, but his hands didn't stop. They never stopped, not when he wanted something from her, pleading and cajoling with touch, not even if it took hours. Eventually, inevitably, his hands had done their work, and stimulated her to the point of being ready enough - and then he'd been on her, never rough, but quick enough to get her bent over or roll between her thighs. When he got inside her, it was always in a position where he had most or all of the leverage, and at that point there just wasn't any resistance left to give. He always got what he wanted, and maybe it was never quite rape, but it had left her feeling used, abused, without a say or voice against his lust. And so, one day, things built up enough for that voice to come out in full force, and she'd left his apartment for the last time and never looked back, not even to retrieve the things she'd left there. But here he was, all over again, and she hated the fact that he might still be right about her - that even without whatever he'd given her, that some part of her body, hate aside, would still respond to his presence. So far, she was sure, whatever she was feeling was only what she'd felt with Denny before, and kept artificially in place... but once Julian actually got his hands on her, she had no idea how she would actually respond.

He seemed to focus back in on her after a moment, patting the spot on the bed beside him, looking like he'd just thought of something. "Hey, I know! Oh man, I still remember that time so well... you remember it to, right? That time when something had gone wrong with your day, you were all down, and I just couldn't coax a smile out of you, until... until that crazy song came on during that commercial, some ultra-cheesy disco or something like that, and I just got into it and did that ludicrous, exaggerated striptease like I had no shame whatsoever... man, you were cracking up for like a could of minutes straight, but right after that, bam! Pounced on me, and we were off like a rocket. So, tell you what - why don't you just hop on the bed already, and I'll do the same, nice and slow, give you a chance to let those feelings bleed through." He looked up at her, a certain uncomfortable glint in his eye. "Or maybe I'm misreading it. Maybe you're standing there waiting for that one thing... you know, when you're standing right there, chopping up something for dinner or washing dishes, but you're really waiting with that unspoken desire, waiting for me to come up behind you, waiting to get close in that particular way when it feels like there's nothing at all that could come between you, clothes or otherwise. Now, though, I suppose that would be even more literal than it usually is..."

While it was said in his wistful, rambling way, the underlying message was clear enough - if she stayed there, she'd end up with his hands on her even sooner, and she'd get to enjoy an unobstructed view of Denny futilely watching as Julian grabbed her from behind and slowly worked at pawing her into submission. She shot Julian another look, but padded over to the bed and climbed slowly on top of it. As she did so, though, she tried to tilt her body in such a way that Julian couldn't get a good look at anything interesting, and once she got into place, she had no intention of showing off in whatever pose he'd expected. Instead, she propped herself up against the headboard and curled up, her arms crossed atop her knees and her tail flicked around in front of her thighs to deny him any more fleeting glances at her panties. Despite her posture, though, he had gotten her to move on her own, and evidently he considered it a victory, his chest puffed out with renewed confidence as he got up, fast-forwarding the mixtape to what he seemed to think was an appropriate track before returning to stand at the foot of the bed in front of her.

It was no surprise that Julian's supposed striptease was equal parts incompetent and inspiring, mostly consisting of him tugging "sexily" at the bottom hem of his shirt or grabbing his belt and shifting his pants around slightly on his hips as he undid the buckle. Before, back when she'd still loved him, she might have found the whole routine cheezily endearing, but now it was just an annoying prelude for the coming nastiness. Worse than the striptease itself, though, were the occasions when he'd actually get the shirt up enough to flash some of his sleek black fur, and the abdomen underneath that was even more well-defined now, and as much as she didn't want to, she still felt something in response.

But then again, that had never been the problem between them. Physical attractiveness, desire, the sex itself... those had always been there, always been great, or at the very minimum at least good enough. That had probably been the reason, really, that she'd inevitably given in to all his hectoring those times when she hadn't really been in the mood - somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that it would be satisfying if she did. When it had come to such things, for better or worse, Julian had always been singleminded in his pursuit, and she'd never had to wonder if his mind was wandering or dwelling on something else when he was with her - his focus had always been truly, unwaveringly, only on her. Cocky, maybe, but never complacent, and while it probably came naturally to him, always made sure she came before he did. Still, though, ultimately it had always been about what he wanted. If he wanted to be inside her, he eventually, inevitably was, and if he wanted her to cum for him, she would, even if she didn't want to, even if she struggled against it, even if he had to use his knowledge of her body to force it out of her. And if he wanted to make her cum again and again, to the point where it hurt, to the point where it brought out tears, just to stroke his own ego and satisfy his sense of sexual prowess... as much as it had always ostensibly been about her, about her pleasure, ultimately it was always about him, her needs subordinated to his own. As much as she'd liked some parts of him, as much as she still occasionally had dreams about the times they were together, ultimately that control, that selfishness, had been too much for her to stand. She wasn't his prize, or his toy, and he'd never seemed to quite understand that, not even now, cluelessly loosening his pants and wobbling them around his hips like he was trying to incompetently mime using a hula hoop. He just didn't get it, and apparently never would - which probably would have been fine if he'd been anywhere else, instead of here in her bedroom, cluelessly getting ready to rape her.

Eventually, he let the pants fall to the floor, and underneath he was only wearing a pair of pouched sports briefs, black like the rest of his pointlessly stealthy ensemble. Tight as they were, though, they did little to hide or constrain the burgeoning erection pushing the pouch visibly outward in front of him. As much as a part of her had hoped he'd suffered without her, that he'd become a bloated, fur-mussed mess, he was still as fit as he'd been before, probably more so, not a bodybuilder but slim and toned, with more definition in the contours of the muscles on his arms and thighs visible beneath his short, lustrous black fur. True, she was probably fitter as well, sticking to the habit of staying in shape to perfect her form that she'd started up while getting back into the dating scene. She hated that he'd done the same, though, if only for the reason that the last thing she wanted him to be at that moment was attractive. And yet, as much as she hated the person who Julian was at that moment, her body wasn't willing to argue with what her eyes were seeing.

He didn't, however, make any move to strip off that last bit of underwear. Instead, he bounced forward suddenly, and she felt the bed rock as he landed on top of it, crouched forward as he propped his hands down a foot or so in front of her, grinning up at her hopefully.

"So... that did something for you, right? C'mon... how could that not have put a smile on your face?"

Lauren just grimaced back at him. "You know why."

"Okay. Right. I'm not gonna get any nice words out of you tonight. I get that. But there's still gonna be some romance here, you know. Maybe your mind won't say it, maybe your mouth won't, but I know that I'm still in there somewhere, in your heart, in your soul, in your body. And even if I'm not gonna get your mind to play nice, at the very least I'm gonna show your body what it's been missing. What that pup can't have been providing in my stead."

He looked at her more closely, his grin again shifting dangerously. "Speaking of striptease, though... I doubt I'm going to convince you to do the same, but after what I did, I do think it's your turn, don't you?"

Lauren obviously didn't, but Julian apparently wasn't waiting for a response. He'd always been quick, with his hands and his reflexes, and by the time she registered his hands darting out, they were already at her hips, tucking under the waistband of her panties in a firm grip that tugged them upward. By the time she got her own hands down to tug back on them, they were already up around her knees, and she could feel the sheets rustling against the bare fur of her backside. She tried to tug them back down, but Julian's grip was firm, and they were now more likely to rip asunder than they were to go back anywhere useful. After a glaring moment, then, she relented, allowing him to pull them the rest of the way down her legs and off, leaving one leg opening hooked around her ankle - for some reason, he'd always liked that. All the more reason, then, to give the thing a little kick and send it flying off, just one more way to tweak him, one more way to protest. The problem was, the movement meant that the leg was no longer locked in place with muscles tensed to keep it there, and Julian knew that too - he ignored the flying undergarment, but at the apex of the kick his hand wrapped around her ankle and gave it a tug, not hard or painful, but enough to use the moment of weakness to continue the motion towards a full stretch instead of allowing her muscles a chance to reverse course and snap back. As quickly and easily as that, only one leg was still tucked close, and the other was flat against the bed at a slight angle - enough of one that she knew her nethers were no longer hidden, but exposed well enough to Julian's gaze.

Julian wasn't done yet, though. As soon as the leg was down, his hand darted out again, and she tensed her other leg tighter even as she prepared to bring the other one back up. His hand went past her ankle, though, past her knee, his fingers tucking in against one particular patch of fur on her side - an area that he must have remembered was especially ticklish. The touch wasn't much, barely there, but that was exactly the sort of thing that made it the most susceptible. She yelped a little in surprise, squirming and shivering at the touch. It wasn't much, but it was enough to cause her guard to drop just enough, and bam! All of a sudden, her right leg was down flat against the bed just like her left, not splayed horribly apart but enough to give Julian what he wanted.

"See... that feels a lot better, doesn't it?"

More glaring, more defiance, but even as she tried to standoffishly convey her loathing, one particular aspect of the situation was beginning to sink in. This wasn't going to be anything close to some stranger climbing into her bed and pinning her down, some thudding awfulness between her legs to grit her teeth and bear out. Julian knew her body inside and out, knew every sensitive place, every reaction, every erotic tell to betray her feelings as she moved through arousal and climax, how she could be taken to every one of her limits and just how much she could be pushed beyond them. He wasn't just going to rape her - he was going to try and make love to her, to make sure that she enjoyed it, that she came as hard as he did, and knowing him, and how she reacted to him, he could probably pull it off. And that, she knew, would make it all that much worse.

As the depressing thought settled in, though, she could already feel Julian reaching around behind her, effortlessly unhooking her bra with practiced hands, her breasts spilling out of the retreating fabric and the shoulder loops slackening and falling off down her shoulders. She crossed her hands in front of her chest, trying to hold the garment in place, but again it was all but inevitable - if she tried to pull it back into place, Julian would surely thwart her. So she relented, holding her arms out and letting Julian slide the bra off of them, before returning them flatly to her sides. What she should have done, though, was brace them behind her, as Julian's hand was quickly on her shoulder, pressing back and down - and with nothing behind her to prop her up, and no knees to hold onto like before, there simply wasn't enough leverage to properly resist even the gentle pressure, and after a moment of wavering and belated attempt to block him with her arms, she was flat on her back against the sheets, her head sinking into her pillow, and her tail splayed off to the side under her.

She tilted her head up to see Julian returning for a moment to his crouch, his eyes clearly playing over her body, admiring her naked form. "Ah... your beauty truly hasn't diminished one iota. Absolutely perfect. I've missed this so much: how you look, how you smell... how you feel..."

He came out of his crouch, settling down on the other side of her, for a moment falling out of view - and then his hands settled in against her hip and shoulder, giving nothing more than a quick, gentle shove, just enough to tip her up and roll her over onto her side.

She had been so focused on dealing with Julian that she'd all but forgotten Denny's predicament for the moment, but all of a sudden, there he was, right in her field of view, a few scant feet away, muzzle still tightly cinched down, eyes still wide, expression that even now was more fearful than angry. Seeing her naked, though, coaxed out a whimper that was barely audible through the muzzle, and a few moments of renewed struggle against his bonds before he sank back futilely into stillness.

She could barely even imagine what Denny was going through, what thoughts were flooding through his mind. In a vacuum, one could say that he was better off than she was - he was just tied up and a little uncomfortable, but she was the one about to have her body actually violated. At the same time, though, she knew all too well that for a guy, part of a relationship was about keeping your girlfriend safe, fighting for the person you love. To be stuck there, trapped and helpless while someone hurt her, she knew it had to be crushing. And if Julian did what she thought he was going to do, and if she reacted the way she thought she would, it would be even worse. Just being there naked in front of him, there was a certain sense of... guilt, probably, guilt that she wasn't even making up a better show of resisting, but there wasn't much time to think about that as she felt Julian spoon up against her.

She wanted it to be alien, horrible, but the feeling of him against her was just... warm, and even after all those years, oh so familiar. He snuggled in against her curves, and she could feel their fur intermingling, and the heat of him beneath, feeling his hand sliding sensually along her tail as he coaxed it out of the way in a practiced motion, and how it curled up and around his side to settle against the small of his back on its own accord. She felt his arms wrap around her sides, his legs sliding close to entangle with hers. And then, unmistakably, she felt him against her, the cotton fabric straining taut over his tip nudging up against the edge of her mound. Then he shifted, his hips humping slightly against her as they adjusted, and she felt the tip slide inward, tucking between her outer lips and sinking just enough into her folds that she could sense them easing effortlessly apart in response, yielding and conforming to wrap around the soft fabric nestling in far too intimately against them. She tried to squirm her hips away, but Julian knew her too well - his own hips followed her motion, not pushing in any harder or more insistently, but keeping himself nestled in just enough against her, not actually invading or penetrating, but just enough to ensure that she was keenly aware of him against her, at the verge of her entrance, forcing her mind to stay focused on just how close he was.

His hands, though, were more interested in other things, sliding lazily up through the fur on her abdomen before cupping comfortably around the bottom of each of her breasts, nudging them up to rest full and round high on her chest, giving each one a little squeeze in turn as his voice sounded from where he'd nuzzled in against her neck.

"You know, I really do feel bad for the guy over there. The things he's had to go through, the things you've put him through. How you've tried to make the most of him, how you've probably tried as hard as you possibly could to convince him that he satisfied you, and even more than that, convince yourself that you're satisfied with him. Trying so desperately to keep that lie alive, even when deep down, you know he's only a placeholder, a shallow reflection of the kind of partner you truly need, whether or not you're willing to admit it. And now, having to go through something like this... it's not what he deserves, that's true. He deserves better. And I'm not naive - I know this sort of liaison can't be something beyond what's reserved for special occasions, and when I'm not around, that placeholder will have to take care of your needs, inadequate as his ability to deal with them might be. Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to see him like this, I can't let him up - not yet, anyway. Not until our evening is concluded. And for that, I am sorry, dude. But don't worry - I'm not gonna leave you entirely high and dry. Because I just know that there's some stuff about this wonderful woman that she has to be holding back from you - probably out of politeness more than anything else, out of a certain sense of propriety that means a woman can't always admit to certain desires that aren't politic, even if, deep down, some part of her aches for them in ways that you can't even fathom. I'm going to show you a secret side of her, the part that you need to know if you're truly going to be here for her in my stead. Heck, you two are getting engaged - good luck with that, by the way - but if you're gonna keep her, I'd encourage you to watch closely - I'm not really one for narrating the play-by-play while I'm going at it, so you'll have to learn from what I say, not what I do, and you'd best be quick about picking it up. Even if our being together full-time is no longer possible, I still want her to be happy, and if that means she has to settle for whatever ministrations you can provide, I'm at least going to make sure you know how to treat her right."

She felt his hands slide up, fingers grasping at her nipples, and she saw Denny's eyes go wide as he watched Julian caress them for a moment. Lauren knew, though, that it wasn't where Julian was going to end with it, especially after what he'd just said. He was as clueless as ever, couldn't even see how devastating his haughty words were by the way Denny's face had responded to them, but her worst fears were confirmed - Julian really was going to use every bit of what he knew against her. Including the one thing that a woman would never want to admit, not unless it was to someone she absolutely trusted, and even then not when the abuse of that trust had never really healed: that maybe, just maybe, the things that made her body respond the most urgently, the most passionately, were things that were less than gentlemanlike.

It was no surprise, then, when Julian's fingers slid back, grabbed two big handfuls of her breast with her nipples nestled into the palms of his hand, and gave them both a rough, savage squeeze, hard enough for them to bulge out between his fingers, hard enough to probably leave a mark clearly visible had it not been for the coat of fur that covered them. It was also no surprise that her body reacted to it by sending a shock of tension and anticipation shooting across her chest, electric and raw, seeming to hover there for a moment before the crackling intensity darted down to dissipate through her abdomen, leaving behind traces of warmth that lingered and settled in between her hips. Another grasp, this time rolling her nipples around and rubbing them intensely against the pads of his palms, and this time she gasped audibly, the electric sensation this time darting almost straight down, and she felt something flip-flop in her belly, and then throb noticeably further down, emanating out enough that she could actually feel her folds twitch, subtly but palpably, against his imposing tip.

He wasn't done, though, pulling his hands back just enough to grab her nipples again between his fingers and thumb, tugging outward on them before mashing his fingers against the sensitive flesh, and then rolling them around between them in a tight, intense circle. It hurt at first, like it always did, and she growled at the way the pain stabbed at her, but he just rolled them a little more in response, and the growl quickly faded into a moan that went on for several seconds before she could choke it off. Instead of pain, the sensation seemed to flip over into little more than pure intensity, leaving her squirming and shivering and throbbing, feeling an arousal that had never faded stoked into burgeoning, unquestionable readiness, that sensation of heaviness and warmth swelling invitingly between her legs, along with an even greater sense of inevitability. Even if her mind hated the notion of it, her body knew that he would be inside her soon, and it no longer had even the slightest desire to resist that anticipated presence, as much as her mind screamed otherwise.

Even when he pulled back, his hands releasing her for a moment, she could still feel her hips squirming a little, and didn't even protest at all when he nudged her over onto her back. As much as she hated to say it, she just couldn't look at Denny any more at that point, couldn't look into his eyes and know that he was seeing everything, seeing the looks that had surely come over her face as Julian's hands had worked - looks that a rapist, even a crazy ex-boyfriend rapist, shouldn't be eliciting. She tried to tell herself that it was just the drugs, whatever damned injection he had given her, but she knew that it wasn't just that. Julian had done exactly what he said, played her body perfectly, and suddenly it was right back to how it had been with him: rough, intense, and almost instinctual, digging into some primordial part of her body and bringing it to life, a part that threatened to override everything else.

At least he was off her now, for some reason standing back up at the foot of the bed, glancing down at his own package, which was aroused enough now that it was actually stretching the seams of his underwear away from his body. No striptease this time, though - just hands grabbing at the fabric and pulling it hastily off from around what it was constraining.

At least there was one part of his body that hadn't grown or improved in the intervening years. Like everything else about him, Julian's cock was kind of a mutt, a strange mix of ancestries that somehow came together decently. He wasn't exactly big, for the most part: Denny had at least a couple inches on him, and probably a little more normal girth to boot. Julian also didn't have the normal canine sheath, and the head was less flared, the tip less pointed than you'd expect in a canine guy. The really major difference, though, was the knot, which she'd never figured out the ancestry for. It wasn't spherical, like usual, but shorter and wider, more like a torus wrapped around the base of his cock. It was odd, for sure, but she knew all too well that it worked - or, at least, Julian made it work.

"Oh yeah, there's a part of me you've been missing for sure - I can see that in your eyes, no question. While I suppose there are other guys out there that would rather you miss them for their scintillating personality or side-splitting sense of humor, you know what? I'll take it." He flashed her a quick, confident grin before apparently thinking better of it and glancing over at Denny. "Yeah, bro, I know what you're thinking, but sometimes it's just genetics - sometimes you just can't measure up. Don't worry, though. I'm sure you get things done with what you've got. You are canine, after all, so I know you can fill her up at least. If she'd been with a, a damn jaguar or something, I don't know what I'd do, but you've at least got something real to work with."

"Ah, but shop talk between guys... yeah, not exactly romantic. Again, no offense, but there's someone else here far more deserving of my focus. Remember, though - watch and learn."

He turned back to her, cock standing at attention, with a look spreading over his face that she knew all too well. "Although, come to think of it... romance is a little overrated, am I right? And we're already through foreplay, so... but it is today, though. An anniversary of importance. I mean, if it were a normal day, we wouldn't even be talking at this point - I'd be inside you, and you'd be moaning and doing those things with your body that you do so, so well. Still, for tonight, I'll let you choose. Taking everything into consideration... how shall we proceed? More kissing, more touching, more fondling and fingering and fooling around... or should we just get down to it, and let our bodies say what needs to be said?"

"F-fuck you." The right words, but anyone could tell that her heart wasn't in them. Dammit, why did she still have to feel something from him? But after what he'd done, the sight of him, the smell, all of it... her mind didn't want to admit it. Couldn't admit it. Had to blame it on the drugs, something, anything. But her body... her body felt like it was right back where it was seven years ago, ready to accept him, ready to go just like that... Maybe if the choice was for him to go, to remove himself from the equation, it might have worked, but if it was inevitable, it wouldn't help to prolong it.

"Hmmm... really? Are you sure you don't mean, 'fuck me?' Although, we're not simply going to fuck. Fucking is done by some drunk idiot putting it to an even drunker lady. What we're going to do requires a much higher degree of skill and tenacity. I am going to satisfy you, in the way that you most need, and my question is simple: are you ready?"

She hated herself for it, but at that moment her resolve finally faltered completely, and she found her head nodding in both acceptance and resignation. And for someone as eager to jump the gun as Julian was, that was it - before her head had come back to its normal angle, he was already bounding forward, and just like that he was on top of her, between her legs, his tip hot and hard as it drove home, pushed past her inner lips as it roughly splayed them to drag along his girth, plunging as deep inside as his limited length and the knot would let him. She started at the sensation of him spearing into her, feeling at once awfully impaled and phenomenally strange, like something was missing - she'd been with Denny long enough that she was used to feeling his tip delving into her depths, not bottoming out somewhere in the undefined middle. There also wasn't the same deeply stretching, stroking sensation, as the ridge of his cockhead was, comparatively, barely there. Then he was moving, though, and it was quickly hard to think about any of it as Julian brought his other attributes to bear.

Julian, when they'd been together, had always bragged that when it came to sex, he only had two speeds: fast, and hard. And if he had changed in various ways, one thing that had remained resolutely the same was his rhythm. There wasn't much in the way of subtlety, or variation, or really anything approaching what could be considered a technique, no graceful undulations of his hips or lovingly angled strokes searching for that perfectly sensitive spot somewhere inside. It started off as it always had, with a series of hard, slamming thrusts, the kind that mashed the hot, barely-curved edge of his strange knot down against her splayed lips and mashing them into the surrounding flesh, the kind that thudded impacts into her hips and sent rocking reverberations through her entire body. Then, once they had bucked in hard enough to get a shocked little whine out of her each time they bottomed out, he shifted gears, barely moving his hips back before grinding rapidly against her with a supercharged sort of canine fervor, digging the front edge of the knot into the flesh surrounding her hood and coopting it to nudge in against her clit and transmit enough of the rapid, close stimulation to set her hips squirming beyond her control. As soon as they did, though, as soon as he could feel her giving into it, he pulled back, teasing for just a second, and then his hips were slamming hers back down into the bed, not fast, but hard, rough, merciless, paired with a muzzle clamping down on one breast and then the other, teeth digging into nipples as he started grinding again, not quite enough to really hurt, not quite enough to draw blood, just an intense, pulling gnaw that sent shockwaves throbbing through her chest to mingle their intensity with the raw, electric tremors of her knot-hammered mound. It went on between the two, back and forth, back and forth, grinding and hammering until there was nothing left to feel beyond the reverberations thudding through her and the primal desire for them to continue.

It had to happen eventually, though, and the tremors ended for a moment with the disc of the knot thudding in against her outer lips. Only now, though, there wasn't grinding, but a peculiar action unique only to him: tilting and rolling his hips around between her thighs in a tight, slow, canted circle. It was a feeling, though, that made her chest tense, because she knew all too well what it meant. With his knot the way it was, flat and wide and strange, it could never go into someone just by humping it forward like a normal canine would. Instead, he just angled the edge of the knot in and rolled it around, digging in against her outer and inner lips in turn, tugging and pulling and waiting for that moment where some part would catch, and stretch, just enough for the edge of it to push past and dip down inside. And then he'd grind and stretch against that purchase, and things would stretch and give, more and more, sliding along its edge, until it all but corkscrewed its way inside. And sure enough, it only took a few moments before she felt the edge dig in against one of her inner lips, stretching it roughly aside, and that was all it took - a few more quick turns pushing in hard, her flesh splaying and stretching and pulling into impossible positions in that awful, familiar way, and then it was inside her.

It was the furthest thing from Denny's knot, the kind her body was really used to, the kind that just comfortably swelled and filled and settled into place. Julian's knot, though, didn't just settle, but impose itself, tugging her body into a state defined not by her nature but by its shape, mashing itself deep into her flesh. As the top of it rocked home, she felt the same disconcerting thing she always did, that impossibly urgent need to urinate, that weird tension like she was just about to burst - something that was literally impossible, though, as with the way the knot was wedged in, it pushed that particular part up enough that the flow was effectively blocked. It strained at every part of her surrounding insides, pushing them up or out or forward, grinding in hard against the buried base of her clit even as it forced the nub outward past her bulging mons, past the hood splayed along with her lips to shove forward, exposed, and bury itself in the short, downy fur that lined his pelvis. She started at the raw, tingling overstimulation, but the knot didn't stay still. No sooner was it in than he was humping it inside her, but because it was in so tightly, there really wasn't anywhere for it to travel. Instead it tilted, back and forth, up and down, digging in hard against the strained flesh that surrounded it. On each upstroke, though, the edge caught against the base of her clit and stroked hard along it, even as it drove the tip into tickling, stimulating softness. It was intense, horrible and powerful in equal measure, overstimulation grinding her feelings down into a raw, arcing nub of trembling agony. But then, just like that, the pain was gone, detonating hard in her pelvis, sending a hard, spasming climax rocking through her, and she could feel her back arch and her fingers curl and rake unbidden down Julian's back as the intensity exploded between her ears and set her body into its tremulous, rhythmic response, her inner walls bearing down around him and throbbing with the sort of powerful intensity she hadn't felt in years. Hadn't felt with anyone but him.

If it had been a normal time with him, that probably would have been it - he would have let her take him over the edge, pulsed heat inside her, and held her breathlessly close until the intensity, and then his knot, subsided. This time, though, he made a point of holding himself back, no longer grinding but completely still against her, his muzzle puffing heat against her chest as her body shuddered and throbbed over and over again around him. He wasn't about to let it subside, though - even as the pulsations of her climax began to wane, even as her body began to slip back towards her conscious control, one of his hands was sliding down along her abdomen, dipping lower, brushing fingers playing along the bulged-out edge of her mound until they found the swollen, exposed nub of her clit and dug into the flesh on either side of it, rocking back and forth almost vibratingly fast as they bounced it rapidly from side to side between them. It was intense, beyond intense, and it took barely a second before her voice rang out unbidden - not a moan or a whimper, but a pained, howling scream. By the time the sensation was consciously realized, though, it had already flashed past pain into something else, into that base, primal thing that seized hold of her body and wouldn't let go, and just like that, her mind's screaming protest blanked away as her body bore down again around him. In a matter of minutes, he had completely shattered her physical and mental resistance, blown away her hatred and refusal, placed her in thrall to the instinctive, uncontrollable beast inside her that he knew how to awaken all too well. He was rough within her, stretching, straining, sending overstimulation of her most sensitive parts into utter agony - but in that state, the pain didn't matter, only the intensity, and all she could do was feel her body rock and shudder and react as he forced climax after climax to slam through her. There were no bursts of ecstasy, though, no floating away on a calm, blissful sea, just the electricity of climax catching her breath, and the hard, pulsing, enervating throbbing within her, no time to relax or enjoy it before another shock of it spasmed through her. Somewhere in the midst of it all, in the background, she thought she could feel him release, feel his heat pulsing and filling inside her in the spaces between the hard, contracting throbs, but even after he was done his fingers returned, grabbing her clit and mashing it hard into the surrounding flesh, and even her scream was cut off into a staccato groan as her back slammed hard into another tensed arch beneath him, and she could suddenly feel his weight on top of her, all of it, pressing down, dominating her inside and out, for a split second before she crested over the edge and further into that throbbing, primal state from which there seemed no escape.

Finally, after one more wordless, horrible, pained climax, it was over - no matter his additional efforts, he had coaxed everything out of her that he possibly could. It was a fact that he was certainly inordinately proud of, his smug, contented expression beaming down as his body rested just barely above her. The tie, at least, was loosening, and she could feel him gradually receding inside her, the thickness of his knot shrinking back from where she had been impossibly stretched around it, feeling things settling back around it and at least heading towards their normal state. When he started to pull it gradually out, though, it was still thick enough that her inner lips hugged it, and she could feel them stretching out and tugging along it before they finally released, allowing him to pop out with a humiliating squelch.

There she was, in a phase of being with him that she knew all too well: lying there in the aftermath of what he'd done to her, weak, enervated, and all used up, everything between her legs feeling completely distorted and out of sorts. Parts of her that should have been touching, twinned and parallel, were so stretched away from their usual configuration that she couldn't feel them making contact at all, just sitting there, limp and open and wet as warmth oozed out from between them. It took an effort just to lift her head up, trying to rise back up to the surface from the primal depths he'd forced her into, trying to shake off that deep, permeating daze - only to see Julian crouched in front of her, his receding cock glistening with her slick juices and dotted with globs of his own copious cum. Even with the buzz of the weak, barely-there afterglow settling in, it was the part that she'd grown to like the least, and even more so now - she just felt weak and gross, humiliated by the way her own body had given in, disgusted by the stuff dripping out of her. With the way his knot had always imposed so much within her, it had been hard not to feel violated sometimes when they'd been together. Now, though, the feeling was undeniable, especially with the gloating, triumphant look on his face, a look that she'd loved to have wiped off somehow, but she didn't have nearly enough energy to do much of anything at all at the moment.

"Yes... yes, that's precisely what I wanted to see!" Julian said, eyeing her naked, splayed form before turning to look over at Denny. Lauren didn't follow his gaze, though - there was no way she could face her lover, not looking like that.

"You see, that's how you know you're successful," Julian continued, talking over at Denny, barely even acknowledging her now that he'd finished with her. "Now, you probably think that a woman's supposed to look another way - all blissful and energetic, pawing at you, praising your performance, nuzzling lovingly at your chest. But you know, if she's all over you, if she's still fired up enough to do all that, you really shouldn't believe it. It's done for your benefit, to stroke your ego, to try and convince the both of you that it was satisfying enough, even if it really wasn't. It's why those pleas always seem to end with them begging for another go, right? Actually do your job in the first place, though, and you don't even have to wonder. You see, that, right there, is the way a woman is supposed to look: completely sated and spent, in that state where she can't even form coherent words for the next several minutes, where she doesn't even care that her legs are splayed open, and couldn't find the motivation to try and conceal that pristine beauty even if she did. The kind of satisfaction that only comes when her body's felt every bit of you, and when you can look down at her and tell, right there, just how undeniably true it is, the way the petals aren't just curled back into place like you were never there, but spread open in all their glory like a soft pink flower, the center unobstructed and glistening with nectar, and with your own copious gifts bubbling up from within... ah, there's truly nothing like it. Although I suppose you can't really see it from your vantage point, so you'll have to take my word for it - you really have to get in close to fully appreciate its beauty, after all. Oh! Speaking of that, I'll need to get it closer if I'm going to capture that most important part for posterity..."

He hopped off the bed, bending over and hastily pulling his underwear back into place before heading towards the closet. Lauren craned her head a little further, following his motion - and her heart sank as she realized what she could see. In the dim light, it was impossible to make anything out all that clearly, but with everything going on she'd missed seeing it the first time: a faint red point of light, blinking slowly but steadily in the darkness, then suddenly moving as Julian latched onto it.

Once it caught the light, her fears were confirmed: it was a compact digital camcorder, one that Julian had probably set up as part of his preparations, and now he was panning it over her naked and abused body, the optics of it zooming in and out as he lowered it down onto the sheets between her legs, capturing the mess there on film. The entire thing, in fact, was certainly on there: her complete humiliation, being stripped, molested, fucked rough and forced to climax around his sadistic knot, subdued and raped effortlessly without any real fight on her part, her progressively dwindling words of protest so easily and pathetically muted. And to make matters worse, all she could do was form a low growl and try to pull her legs back together, something at which she only succeeded after several seconds of continued filming. She knew she would recover quickly enough, probably in only a few minutes more, but it was already too late.

Julian just grinned, though, did another pan with the camera, and set it back down on the bedside table next to his gear, before removing another camera and setting it down next to the first - apparently filming behind an unseen opening in the bag. Then he walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled another, tinier one from where he'd apparently hidden it beneath the upper molding on the side of the dresser: a narrow board connected with a thin ribbon cable to a separate camera lens barely larger than a pencil eraser.

"So, yeah, I know you're probably not a fan of this part, either of you, but it's simply one of those necessities, you know? When I made the decision to be with you like this, as much as I so wanted to give in to my optimism about us, I had to tempter it with the consideration that it would probably all come down to a gamble, and potentially an irreversible one at that. Since it was you, though, since it was literally the most important person to me in one very special way, it really did seem like a gamble worth taking: that I could convince your body without question, and if your body was convinced your mind would follow, and you'd see the light, bid your placeholder farewell, and return our relationship to the way it's supposed to be. I knew, though, that there was still a chance that your mind wouldn't go along, and even now, after what you've felt, to see that look on your face, the way you look at me now... I know, to my chagrin, that it's a gamble I can't hope to win, not in the conventional sense. And I knew that if it failed, the tactics that it required might poison your mind in such a way that a normal relationship would simply be untenable. Still, for another chance at love, sometimes you have to make a desperate gamble like that, a crazy leap of faith, and you do it even knowing you might not stick the landing. Which, I suppose, is why I decided to hedge my bets - well, one of the reasons, at least, for the cameras. Even if I failed, even if the night had to end in me leaving you again for a time, I knew that absence could still make my heart grow fonder - but for other parts of me, though, I wanted to make sure that if we only had the chance for one more memory together, that I would always have that memory to cherish, and to do that, I had to make sure there were enough angles to capture every aspect of it so that the memory would always be crystal clear from at least one.

"Ah... but I suppose we have to discuss the other reason too, just to make sure this resolves in the way I think we all need it to. As... crass and uncouth as it is to say it, yes, there is another reason for such copious amounts of video. As much as I had high hopes for this evening, I am willing to acknowledge the reality of the situation, and how it would seem to play out to an outside observer or arbiter. Despite the fact that this is something private between the three of us, there are nevertheless certain inconvenient things: you know my face, my name, most everything about me, and if we're really going to be technical about it, there's all sorts of other things, DNA, fingerprints, who knows what else, that I didn't exactly bother to disguise. If someone really wanted to, there's probably a laundry list of societal rules that I've broken in order to get my love across, and while I think there are certain universal principles of rightness that back up my position, those in the legal sorts of fields might not agree. The thing is, though, what you said before was right: I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time inside of a small grey box, and as much as I treasure these private memories, if I was faced with the potentiality of such a fate, I just might have to share those memories quite a bit wider. True, doing so would absolutely guarantee that fate, but they're also like a pandora's box: once opened, they can never go back inside, even more so once they reach a computer server and begin to disseminate worldwide. If you could stand that, if you were willing to face that reality whenever anyone looked at you, you could certainly call my bluff, and seal my fate... but given the way I know you, I feel certain that you can see the propriety of keeping the events of the evening just between us. Oh, although, to preclude any other concerns that might otherwise necessitate such a communication..." He retrieved a sheet of paper from the bag, placing it down on the corner of the bed. "A full STD panel from me, showing a clean bill of health - of course, there's not a chance in the world I would have risked passing anything like that onto you. And knowing how diligent you are with birth control, I can assume that there will be no lasting consequences from our encounter - at least, not unless you are determined for there to be..."

He glanced pointedly at the cameras once more, before packing them up and placing them back inside the bag. Then he walked back in front of the bed, doing one exaggerated turn of his near-naked body in front of her before tracking down his clothes and pulling them back on.

"Regrettably, I must take my leave - now that we've properly consummated the evening, I do have to say, the tied-up gentleman over there really is doing something to suck the remaining magic out of it all. I envy him, admittedly, the way he will take up the place intended for me, for most nights at least - much as I would like to stay, I'm afraid our encounters will be reserved for similar landmarks from now on. Unless, of course, you have need of me again in a more... normalized context, in which case I am of course only a phone call away, and forever at your service."

He paused for a moment, a characteristically sly smile coming over his face as he continued. "Oh, and I suppose there is one more thing to mention. As much as I wanted to mitigate that guilt, to make it easier... I just can't leave without making one more attempt to convince you of that truth, the one that I have to make sure you know. Your mind may not love me, maybe not even your heart... but that desire still lives somewhere within you, that flame that burns only for me. I mean, you had to know I was bullshitting about that vascula-whatever stuff, right? I don't have any doctor friends, just an animal-control guy who doesn't bother to lock his truck up all the way, and who's gullible enough to think that raccoons stole his dart gun. Can you believe that? I swear, some people... oh, but anyway, the only other liquid I grabbed from his truck was a bottle of sterile saline, and the syringe came from some chump pharmacist who gave me a bunch of empty syringes after I convinced him I was a desperate diabetic, despite not showing even one credible symptom - go figure. Not sure what I'm gonna do with all that insulin he gave me too, but I'm sure there's some use for it somewhere. Jeez, though, listen to me go again... probably don't care about any of that, right? The point is this, though: it wasn't just some stupid drugs that made you feel that way. You still have that need, and if I could be the one to fill it, well, I'd be the happiest man in the world. But circumstances conspire, right?"

He walked back around towards Denny, patting him lightly on the head before hoisting his gear over his shoulder. "So, like it or not, I guess I've got to leave her in your hands, woefully unprepared and unequipped though they might be. Just remember, though, it's all up to you now to make sure she's happy until I can return, probably at some point far in the future. And like I said, when it comes to her satisfaction, don't just take her word for it. You've got to see it in her eyes, in her face, in her... you know. Ah, but you don't need any more advice, right? Not when you've seen how it's done - no better way to learn than that. Anyway, I suppose I'll leave you to it, then - shame I can't untie you myself and shake your hand for being such a trooper through all this, but speaking of not being naive, somehow I just think having a head start here is a good idea. And just to make sure that cooler heads prevail, I think I'll... borrow your cellphone batteries for a bit. If you need a phone, though, it's just a matter of finding where I tucked the phone cord and plugging it back into the jack. Simple enough, right?" He paused, sighing happily. "Well, not... exactly everything I wanted, but a lovely evening nonetheless."

He walked towards the door, shoving things out of the way and opening it back up - but before he walked through, he paused and turned in the doorway, his form easily silhouetted by the light, only his eyes glinting in a shape of otherwise unified darkness.

"Lauren... whatever you think of me, whatever you feel, know that I will always love you. And while there will surely be others out of necessity, as there will be for you, know that we are tied together by a thread of destiny that no one, not even the two of us, can unwind. So farewell, and happy anniversary - to many more, both apart, and, when appropriate, together again..."

He shot her one more smile, blew a kiss, and then he was quickly gone, vanishing from view as his footfalls receded down the steps into silence.

Lauren groaned, just as thankful that he was finally gone as she was to feel the strength swiftly returning to her limbs, and she hauled herself upright even as the gravity of the situation bore down on her. She could still feel her stretched nether lips hanging down, and the remnants of what Julian had left dripping down their inner edges, a lingering reminder of it all. It was the last thing she wanted to feel, and for Denny to see, so despite his predicament, her first move was to quickly retrieve a pair of panties and a loose undershirt, pulling them on before stumbling over to the bathroom as quickly as she could to track down a pair of scissors.

It took a few moments of sawing through the tough plastic of the zip ties before Denny was freed, desperately flexing his hands and feet to restore their proper circulation before reaching up and undoing the muzzle, spitting the bit out violently onto the carpet.

"Denny... Denny, are you-"

"I'm going to kill him," he said, snarling, his body tensed and his back fur standing on edge for a moment - but then his shoulders sagged, and he slumped back down on the bed. "Oh, who am I kidding? I've never even hit a person in my entire life, and..." he trailed off, seeming to abruptly notice her in front of him, and his expression quickly shifted. "What am I even saying? Here I am, being such a... guy, when you, when he... what he did to you... I'm so sorry! I don't... I don't even really know how to help, or what to say, but... how badly are you hurt? Do you need medical attention? I, I think I'm not so messed up that I can't drive, so I can get you to the hospital..."

"I'm... I'll live. I'll probably be sore for a while, but nothing I'll need a doctor for. Not for my body at least. And really... I'm the one who should be apologizing. I am so, so sorry you had to see that, you had to go through that, I'm so sorry I didn't... I wasn't able to..."

"Hey, hey! You have nothing, and I mean nothing, to be sorry about." He propped himself up, wincing a little, but not enough to keep him from moving over, from wrapping a hand around her shoulder and coaxing her in towards him, his touch gentle, reassuring. "The only thing that happened to me was getting tied up, and yeah, it sucks, but I can live with it. What happened to you, though... I can't even imagine what you've just been through, and I'm not going to pretend like I understand, but... I'm here for you, and I'll do whatever I can to help you get through this."

"I..." She leaned in towards his chest, tears welling up unbidden. "I am sorry, though! I just... it happened, and I let it, I wasn't strong enough, I didn't fight... I should have known I wasn't drugged, should have known it was more of his stupid mind games, should have fought it anyway, but I just... gave in, let it happen, let you see me like that, allowed him to make me react that way, make me feel that way-"

She stopped as Denny softly held a finger to the end of her muzzle. "No. That's not how it is. I know he must have made you feel horrible, but if you're holding guilt, for me, you have to let it go. You did nothing wrong. That guy was a deranged, deluded psycho, and if you really had fought back, who knows what he would have done to you? You did what you needed to do to survive, and there's no shame in that. Even if, if you felt something... it doesn't matter. Well... I know that's hard for me to say, but it... it's not gonna matter, at least. But there really is no shame in it. I... read a study once, and it said that women get aroused when they're placed in any situation where there's a likelihood of sex, even if it's imminent rape, even if it's nothing they'd actually want. And maybe it feels wrong, but it's not that at all, just an unconscious survival instinct that keeps things inside from being damaged if it does happen. Just because you're forced to experience a sensation doesn't mean that it's what you actually feel, deep down - all it means is it's just something that happened to you, something you got through and made it out the other end. And I know I can't change how you feel, but here's how I feel about it: what you endured was incredibly brave, and it probably saved both our lives. It doesn't diminish you in my eyes, and it doesn't diminish my love for you, not one bit. I know it's gonna take some time to recover, but... whatever you need. If you need space, I'll give you space, if you need me close, I swear I won't leave your side. Anything, anything at all..."

For a moment, she just pulled close against him, sobbing as the feelings seemed to pour out of her, the anger and frustration and depressing humiliation, all of it. And even as she felt his arms wrap around her, even as she felt his caring attempts to comfort her, she felt disgusted, weak, unworthy of being in his arms, unworthy of his love after she had let Julian defile it in front of him, betraying her strength by failing to force back the primal drive inside her, betraying his embrace with the taint of Julian's seed still dwelling within. Whatever he thought, whatever he believed, whatever feelings he was keeping inside for her sake... she couldn't stand to be there with him, not like that, not as a lie. As crazy and reckless as it sounded, she knew what she needed to do, what she had to do to make things feel right again.

"Denny... when you said anything... did you truly mean that?"

"Of course... anything I can do to help."

"Then... I need you to do something for me. I know it's a lot, maybe too much to ask right now, but..."

"Seriously, anything."

"I need you to... to make love to me. Right here, right now. No foreplay, just... I need you inside me. I need to feel that, that connection, not with someone I hate, but with someone I love. Everything feels so wrong right now, and I need it to go back to normal, to make it feel right again, and the only way to do that is with you. I want you like that, right now, because I... I want to erase him. I want to erase everything that happened with him, and start over with you. I want things to be the way they were supposed to be tonight, but after what happened... I know it's not as romantic, but I need you like that right now, to feel you inside stroking away every last vestige of him, and replacing it with the love, the warmth, that's supposed to be there. I want to show you, right now, that I'm yours, and you're mine, and that... that piece of trash who isn't worthy of even having a name can just rot, because it's us, here, together, and that's all that matters."

"Are... Are you-"

It was her turn to place a finger to his muzzle. "Please... don't talk. Don't hesitate. We... I need this."

She reached down, sliding off her panties, tucking her legs around to get them off easier. They still had Julian's... stuff spread all over the crotch, so she tossed them aside, straddling Denny as she undid his fly. Whatever he was feeling, it wasn't enough to interfere with that part of him, thankfully.

She hugged herself to him, then started to roll over, coaxing him along with her until she was on her back, and Denny holding steady just above her. She knew things were still a mess down there, still not pulled in all the way back to normal, still used and contaminated... but that couldn't matter. Not now. She drew her legs apart, pulling them up to wrap around him, to keep him close, as though worried he might drift away. He wouldn't, he was too caring and too loyal for that, but all of a sudden trusting was harder than it had ever been. Her own body, her own betrayal, she had to forget...

"Love me," she said, bringing her muzzle to join with his own, and he needed no further encouragement.

It wasn't the kind of sex that drove her wild, that kept her interest and passion focused like a laser on sensation and anticipation and desire. It wasn't the kind of sex that stoked a fire within her, or that brought her to the brink and sent her crashing over the edge into unfathomable bliss. It wasn't even the slightly uncontrolled enthusiastic romp that she could expect from him. He hadn't paid heed to anything Julian had said, or was consciously resisting it to prove that he wasn't like him in that way - every move, every stroke, every caress was calm and gentle and warm, as close to an expression of love and caring as such an act could be. She didn't cum, didn't even come close, but the act was exactly what it needed to be, each stroke of him within her wanted, needed, feeling the head massaging against her, deeper than Julian could ever go, pulling the taint of him out, and even the feeling of that horrid slime sliding down below her mound was a relief. And then, soon enough, it was complete, and she welcomed Denny's warmth as it splashed inside her, as she felt him writhe and whine and finally growl, as something surged inside to make him buck and knot and finally reclaim her.

And yet... for all that she hugged him, and moaned in his ear, and tried to coax her stretched inner walls into a throbbing, convincing rhythm, as much as she tried to convince herself how happy she was, there was still a part of Julian that all the love and tenderness in the world couldn't quite wash away. There was still a part of her, deep down, that he'd satisfied beyond measure, and that Denny, for all his strengths, would likely never be quite able to touch. And as much as she hated it, loathed that her body was even capable of keeping hold of such feelings, she knew just as well that it was a part of her that she could never wish away. A part that would always nag at her, that every so often would tug at the corner of her subconscious, pulling her back towards that horrid, wrong desire. Maybe, maybe there was some way that Denny could do it for her, but it was the most awful feeling in the world, hugging him close, holding onto his warmth and his unquestioning, undoubting love like her most crucial lifeline, and at the same time feeling nothing like the way she knew, deep down, a man was supposed to make her feel.

"Was... was that all right?" she heard him say above her, panting from his lengthy exertion. "Was that what you wanted?" She paused, and she could feel the need in his voice when he continued. "Did I do good? I, I know I shouldn't, know it's wrong of me to ask, but... do I... do I measure up to... to him?"

Lying there, looking up into his eyes, she couldn't bear to tell him no...